Title: "Present: Tense"

Rating: T

Genre: Friendship, Drama

Character(s): Leo, Adam, and Donald play the bigger roles, but the family and the Elite Force peeps are also here

Pairing(s): mentions of Donald/Tasha, but that's it

Summary: Months have passed after the time-traveling accident, and Leo's starting to feel a change somewhere within him. It's something permanent, unlike the invisibility that just came in and went out. He tells his family and his team not to worry—but they soon find out that their fears have not been baseless. Sequel to For Future Reference.

Notes: Yep. Should've known better than to pick an open-ending ending to a one-shot because while I was editing, ideas for a sequel started coming together. Honestly, though, I'm surprised For Future Reference piqued interest! Thank you, guys! Your enthusiasm greenlighted this whole thing. It's much appreciated. :)

Just wanted to let everyone know that although you'll see Mighty Med characters here, it won't be filed under the crossover section for the reason that this whole story will be happening after Elite Force has formed. Since that's happening in the LR 'verse, we'll stay in the LR archives.

Before we start, just a short disclaimer/shout-out: AlienGhostWizard14 gave me the idea for the last part of this chapter. Full details later so as not to spoil anything. ;) (Thanks, AGW!)

Please enjoy this three-shot!

I.

Today is not a good day.

Though, if he's to be completely honest, lately, he's had lots of not good days.

It's not that he's in a bad mood or anything. He just hasn't been feeling stellar physically. He doesn't think it's because of the Academy. Although the trainings can be exhausting, he does truly enjoy what he does. Plus, it's not like he handles much of the physical training. Ever since Chase left, his father has given him the academic classes to teach, so not much strain there. It can be mentally draining at times, yes, especially since he has to handle both being a teacher and a college student, but his stepfather and step-uncle had been gracious enough to help him out whenever he nears the burnout stage so he can have a break.

So, this is not burnout either.

He hasn't told his family yet because he knows they have the tendency to panic at little things, but for the past week, he's been very fatigued and almost too sensitive to touch. It's weird. There's something going on inside him that he can't put his finger on. It makes him queasy and irritable. He feels hollow and weak, and that, in turn, has caused him to be a little sluggish.

He suspected once that the time travel accident aftereffect is coming back, but he didn't hold onto that theory for long. It's been nearly three months since then, and the invisibility that came with the short wave of sickness has proven flaky. He only had the ability for three days at best, before his stepfather and his step-uncle could fully study it. After that, he was back to his usual abilities.

That was disappointing, to say the least. He really had plans for that accidental ability.

With that hunch out of the way, he's left clueless as to his odd illness. This has been going on for too long, and quite honestly he's sick of being sick. His family and his friends have been sensing that something is wrong, and several times they've asked him if he's okay, but all he's done is assure them that they don't need to worry about him – because they don't. He even joked that he's just getting old.

Today, though, he doesn't know how that reasoning will be received. He's barely able to move, and his skin feels prickly. His bones burn, and his heart, at every half hour, pounds heavily. Surely, someone will notice it, and he's not too sure he wants so many people to know he's feeling under the weather.

He doesn't want to call attention to himself either. It's Adam's graduation party, and the last thing he wants is to steal the spotlight from his older brother. Adam's worked so hard for this. This is his day. Everything should be happy and great.

So, he takes in a deep breath, releases it slowly, and then resumes his work of decorating the house for the party.

"Donald, honey, do you think we have enough food?" his mother asks worriedly.

"I don't know," his stepfather says pensively as he looks over the array lining the counter. Turning around, he says, "Adam! These are good, right? How many people did you invite?"

"Not very many," Adam says as he comes over to check, a roll of tape on his hand. "It's just us, Bob, five of my friends, and then Chase and Bree and their friends, so that should be…fifteen." He shrugs. "Chase and Bree may not even come, so that brings that down to ten."

"Aw, don't say that, sweetheart," his stepmother says.

"Yeah. You never know," his father assures him. "It's a special occasion. They'll probably come and visit."

"Oh. Can we save some cake for Douglas? He'll probably like that since he has to stay in the island with the rest of the students so we can have the party," Adam says.

He disregarded what they said on purpose, their parents know, but they choose not to address that. "Of course," his stepmother says with a smile. "I was going to cut the cake, but if you want, you can do it later so you can decide how much to give everybody."

"Okay. Sounds good to me," Adam says with a grin.

Leo descends the short ladder he's been standing on as his mother discusses a few other things they have left to finish. As he reaches the last step, a wave of dizziness hit him, causing him to miss and stumble loudly backwards.

"Whoa there."

Looking up at his stepfather after the world around him settles, Leo sees that all three of them are looking at him, alarmed. He forces a grin. "Sorry. Just being clumsy," he excuses.

"Well, be careful, baby. I don't want you to break anything," his mother says.

"Yeah, dude. It's just decoration. It's not that serious," Adam says with a good-natured laugh.

"Right," he mumbles with a smile. He turns away to clean up his workspace so they won't see how terrible he's really starting to feel.

When he comes back after putting away the ladder, the front door opens. "Hey! We heard there's a party over here!"

"Bree!" Donald rushes over when he sees his daughter and his son come in, Oliver, Kaz, and Skylar in their tow. He hugs her tightly and says, "You guys made it."

Bree narrows her eyes, chuckling. "Yes, we did," she says. After her father disengages and moves on to hugging his son, she asks, "Did you miss us, Mr. Davenport?"

Chase groans when his father hugs him tightly. "I'm guessing yes," he says.

"Of course I did. You're my kids?" Donald tells them both.

"I can smell food. When can we start eating?" Kaz asks as Tasha comes over to give her children hugs.

Skylar swats him on the arm. "Kaz! Don't be so rude," she chides. With a smile to their hosts, she says, "Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Davenport. It's good to see you."

"Hello, Skylar," Donald says with a smile.

"Come in, you guys," Tasha waves them in. "We're just waiting for another half an hour for Adam's friends to arrive. After that, we can get started."

"Speaking of Adam, hey! Congrats!" Bree tells her older brother as she hands him her gift then gives him a hug.

"Yeah. We didn't think this day would come," Chase teases as he deposits his gift on the counter beside Adam.

"Ha ha. Funny," Adam says.

"How'd that happen anyways? I thought you're done with school?" Chase asks.

Adam exchanges glances with Leo from across the room. He shrugs. "Well, I guess I wasn't," he says.

"Hey, Leo," Oliver waves with a smile. "How's it going?"

"It's going," Leo responds with a light grin despite the awful sensation building up in him.

Chase's brows knit. "Why are you standing way over there?" he asks.

"Yeah," Bree agrees. "Don't you want to come over and give us all a hug?"

"Uh, no. I'm – I'm fine over here."

Chase chuckles. "What, did you become a recluse while we were away?" he kids.

"No, I'm just—"

"Come on, Leo. Don't be shy. It's okay," Bree assures him. "We're not gonna bite."

"Well, maybe all of us except Kaz," Oliver comments, eliciting a laugh from their team.

Leo shakes his head, the joke lost on him and Adam. "No, really. I'm okay here right now," he says.

When the team begins lightly protesting, Adam says, "Guys, just leave him be. Leo's not feeling very well."

Leo's heart pounds—and it's not because his older brother figured out what's happening.

"You're sick?", "Oh. Sorry to hear that," and "You wanna take a seat or something?" come all at once.

"No, see, that's why he needs a hug. Come here, man," Kaz insists, striding over with open arms to where Leo stands.

"Kaz, no."

Leo backs away as he gets closer, holding his hands up. "No, I don't think this is a good—"

"Ow!" Kaz yelps immediately, backing away, feeling as if he'd been electrocuted after he embraced him.

"Kaz, are you okay?" Oliver asks his best friend when he sees him grimacing in pain.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Kaz says, rubbing his chest with a wince.

"Leo, what did you do?" Chase asks as he, Bree, and Oliver check on their teammate.

Leo looks at the four of them apologetically. He didn't feel what Kaz felt, so he doesn't know what to say. All he felt was a blast wave of energy. Everything still hurts, but now it seems like something's shifting in him. He's lightheaded. His body's starting to feel numb. "I'm sorry. I…" he shakes his head. "I don't know what happened. I didn't…"

Everybody's looking.

He glances around the room and sees his family watching. Save for Chase, Bree, and Oliver, who are helping Kaz into the sectional, everyone's regarding him worriedly.

This is what he's been afraid of.

"I'm sorry, Adam," he tells his older brother. "I…I think I just need to rest."

He leaves the room embarrassed and guilt-ridden. He's positive whatever happened wasn't his fault; he didn't do anything on purpose. Still, someone got hurt—and all that person wanted to do was help.

He lies down on his bed after coming to his room, eager to find some alleviation from his weird pains. He also hopes to find peace of mind. Snuggling closer to his pillows, he breathes a sigh of relief. He closes his eyes then imagines he's floating somewhere else.

A soft knock on the door brings him back before he can drift off. Adam comes in, the grin on his face earlier gone. "Hey," he says as his younger brother sits up. "Are you okay? I had a feeling you're sick, but I didn't know you were that sick."

"I'm—"

"And don't say you're okay just so I'd go away," Adam adds adamantly.

Leo smiles. "I'm not feeling very good, but I think a short nap would help," he says honestly.

Adam stares at him suspiciously for a moment. "Alright," he finally says.

"Don't worry about me, Adam. Worry about your party," Leo diverts. "You should be out there. Everybody's here because of you. Don't mind me. I'll be out there after I sleep for a bit."

Adam nods albeit hesitantly. "Okay," he says. He starts to leave but then, he stops. "Leo? What did happen out there?"

Leo sighs. "I don't know. But, one thing I can promise you is that tonight, I'll tell Big D about this," he says, both to his brother and to himself. He smiles up at him. "I'm serious about what I said, Adam. You should be out there. You have cake to eat and presents to open. It's your day today."

"Okay."

Before Adam leaves, Leo asks, "Oh, uh, can you please tell Kaz I'm sorry? I didn't know what that was about, but I didn't mean for it to happen."

Adam gives him a consolatory smile. "Sure."

"Thanks," Leo says as he lies back down on his bed and Adam vanishes into the hall outside. Barely a minute has passed when his phone buzzes. With a frustrated groan, he turns over, sits up, and says, "Can't I just get some sleep?" Checking the screen, he sees it's a mission alert. Containment, Rescue Mission. Factory with highly explosive materials. Circuitry in a storage area is faulty, presents hazard. Most workers are in the process of evacuation, but some are still unaccounted.

Leo gets up. He doesn't want to leave because he's promised Adam he'll be there for him, but people can get seriously hurt if he stays. With a heavy heart, he dials Taylor's and Logan's numbers to inform them of their mission. I'm sorry, he tells his family as he discreetly exits his room.

. . .

Nothing is working. He's tried different combination of codes on the control panel, but nothing is working.

As it turns out, the faulty wiring is not isolated in that one storage area. Because the building is old and the wirings had been left unmaintained, the danger zone had become the entire warehouse. While Taylor and Logan are combing through the building for any workers who haven't escaped to safety yet, he's trying to shut down the power in the entire facility to prevent the whole place from blowing up.

He's succeeded for the most part, but as circumstances would have it, he can't turn off the electricity in the riskiest areas because of the back-up generators.

"Leo!" Taylor calls to him from twenty feet below. "Logan and I have cleared out the building! No one's here anymore!"

"Well, you know, besides the three of us," he manages to hear Logan mumble to Taylor despite the loud whirring surrounding him.

"That's great," he says loudly as he frowns on the monitor showing the storage areas.

"So what's next?" Taylor asks.

"We have to figure out a way to turn off the generators. It's still keeping the power going," he says.

"Where is it? Maybe Taylor and I can shut it down," Logan offers.

Good idea, he thinks, but it's too dangerous. He's about to turn around to tell them so when, in one of the surveillance videos, he sees an electrical wire swing down. It jerks wildly on the ground for two seconds, and then whips towards the barrel of explosive chemicals. When static suddenly blurs that video, he yells down, "Run! Get out of here!"

Understanding what has happened, Taylor and Logan turn around and rush toward the wide open gate ahead. Leo runs through the remaining stretch of platform he's standing on and then, without thinking about it, dives forward.

However, instead of crashing ungracefully or landing on his feet, he glides through the air smoothly and quickly. He grabs Taylor and Logan before what's happening registers to him then soars out into the open. The three of them are propelled forward by the loud blast that follows, causing them to awkwardly slam and roll into the nearby field sitting by the facility.

Deactivating the force field that has softened their fall, Logan allows his arms to fall into the ground as he, like his sister and his friend, lies down on the ground, staring at the sky in shock.

Breathlessly, Taylor comments, "That was close."

"Yeah," Logan agrees with a nod. After recalling everything that has taken place, he frowns then looks at their mission leader. "Wait. Did you just fly?"

Leo's mind and heart race. All he remembers is his desperation for the three of them to make it out alive.

He also remembers jumping from the walkway then leaping to the ground.

No. Not to the ground – into the air. He glided into it.

He flew.

He flew.

Something's wrong with me, he thinks as a sigh escapes from him, his body feeling both heavy with bruises and scratches and weightless with a newfound power.

to be continued.