Gaby, Gunn, Kane, Klezmi, and Silva are mine.
This is part of a trilogy, which is a sequel to A Year of Time, based on the Time Force series, and takes place a year or more later.
It should be considered AU, some details are different from the series. (The future Rangers are from two hundred years in the future, Trip and Katie are mutants, etc.) Conwing is so different from the series, he might as well be an OC.
The trilogy consists of The Other Side, The Second Time, and this story. This one is complete in itself, but if you haven't read The Second Time, you may be a little lost at first.
This is the last part of the trilogy, loose ends are tied up, changes are made...
These stories are meant for non-fans as well as fans and also intended to be able to stand alone, therefore there is an annoying amount of recapping and description in early chapters -- sorry.
Please review, authors live for feedback. Constructive criticism is welcome.
Rated PG-13 : sexuality; harsh language, strong violence.
Year: 2202
"Wes..."
Jen woke with a start, her eyes opening to darkness. She lay still for a few moments, then sat up and turned on her bedside lamp. Pressing her hands to her face, she pushed her shoulder length brown hair back. Her hands were trembling. She could still feel his presence, as if he had been in the bed with her until a moment before. She could almost feel his warmth and the texture of his skin, almost hear his voice saying her name. But this wasn't his bedroom, in his house, where they had been together. That had been over a year ago, and two hundred years ago.
The dream had come back. It had been with her for weeks now, always basically the same. Wes, talking to her. Angry with her. An argument. Alex, watching her, angry sometimes, concern in his eyes. Then all of them -- even Trip and Katie -- in a timeship, a rough and terrifying ride. A fight, against nameless, faceless men dressed in black. Wes again, the two of them together again. This time it had ended before the part she dreaded; saying goodbye to Wes on the beach, like some dreadful replay of the first time, but even worse since some part of her knew what would happen to him soon.
With a sigh, she wondered how long it would take this time for her to get back to sleep. She had given up on the dream, on understanding it or figuring out what part of her it had come from. Maybe she already knew. She had said goodbye to Wes, over a year ago, had never seen him again, and knew she never would. The dream must be a fantasy of meeting him again, being with him again.
But then, why dream that they argued? And why dream about Alex, and Trip and Katie? After they had returned, she rarely saw Alex, mostly by choice. Maybe that was just part of the fantasy, her wish that things could have somehow been better, that he could have been the Alex she had once loved. And of course she wanted to see Trip and Katie again, and work with them again, and knew it was unlikely to happen outside of a dream.
Drawing up her knees, she wrapped her arms around her legs and rested her chin on them. Her glance went around the small bedroom. It wasn't much, but it was all a mid-level Time Force officer rated in this world. She closed her eyes, the image of Wes coming back with aching intensity. If only.
'In 2003, there was another mutant attack in Silver Hills, focusing on Bio-Lab. After suffering the loss of several important members of its leadership, Bio-Lab and its Silver Guardians, under the direction of a new CEO, began to take an increasingly militant role in combating the mutants. The Silver Guardians developed a branch exclusively dedicated to the control of mutants, which eventually became the Time Force Police.
With the support of a grateful public, the Time Force Police quickly became the most powerful law enforcement agency in the world, with sweeping powers to protect the human citizenry by detecting, preventing, and punishing the crimes of mutants and other lawbreakers. The current leader of Time Force, Director Klezmi, continues and advances this tradition of the protection of Earth's humans through control of the mutant element and unwavering enforcement of the law. In recent years Time Force has also started to take its rightful place as a dominant power in world government.'
Jen looked up at the sound of a knock on her office door. "Come in," she called, already looking back at her computer display. When Alex stepped in, she straightened and with a quick click switched away from the document she had been reading. She watched him stand just inside the door. He looked older than the last time she had seen him, and tired. That face she had once loved -- the face that was almost identical to Wes's, except for slightly darker hair and eyes -- was carefully blank, but she caught a hint of unease.
"Hello, Jen. It's been a while."
"Yes, it has. How have you been?"
"Fine." He looked at her searchingly, his expression serious, before closing the door behind him and sitting on the one extra chair she had been provided.
"I'm sure you didn't come just to say hello," she said, a touch of sharpness in her voice.
"No." His steady gaze on her face was making her uneasy. "You've been looking up historical records. Silver Hills in 2003, to be exact. Why?"
"I didn't realize you were watching me so closely." She regretted the words almost instantly, as his eyes narrowed in suspicion. Someone was always watching. She should have expected this.
"I like to be aware of what my people are doing. Answer the question."
She turned back to the screen. "I lived there for a year. I'm curious about what happened to the people I knew."
"Jen. They're in the past. All of them are long dead. You have to forget about them."
"I know. But it isn't easy."
"Why so curious now?"
She looked at him again and shrugged. "I don't know. Just… started thinking about it again."
The hint of a smile lightened his face. "You always think too much. One of the things I always… liked about you."
She smiled back softly. Sometimes, just for a moment, he seemed like the old Alex, before his near-death at the hands of Ransik and their year of separation had somehow changed him.
"Is it wrong for me to be looking at this? It's part of my job to monitor the timestream, be aware of past events."
"You're not assigned to investigate this particular part of history. Considering the sensitivity of that time, Command doesn't like anyone looking at it too closely. It's suspicious." He held her eyes, frowning slightly. "I'm telling you this for your own good. I don't want you to attract the wrong kind of attention."
"Wouldn't look good for you, would it?" At his sigh, she smiled slightly. "Sorry. You're just trying to do your job."
"Yes, I am. And you should be doing your job. And nothing else."
"Yes, sir."
He stood. "Jen…" She looked up to see a strange expression on his face, as if he wanted to say more. It disappeared, leaving him looking bleak. "I'll see you." He turned and left the office.
Jen turned back to the screen and finished reading the document. She had already known most of what it contained, but it still felt like a knife in her heart. Wes Collins had died, murdered under mysterious circumstances, in the spring of 2003, along with his father, Alan Collins, and Eric Myers. Their deaths, and the resulting change in leadership of Bio-Lab and the Silver Guardians, had inevitably lead to the evolution of the Guardians into Time Force, the organization she worked for, as it existed today.
She closed her eyes, remembering Wes the way she had known him, smiling, good-natured, full of life. He had never had the chance to grow old, or to fulfill what should have been his destiny as a leader of the Silver Guardians... Her thoughts included Mr. Collins, who had been so generous to all of them, and would certainly have taken Bio-Lab in a better direction if he had lived longer. Last, she thought of Eric, their uneasy former ally. He also would have kept the Guardians from going down the path they had taken. She only hoped that lonely and troubled man had found some kind of happiness before his death.
Jen paused in the doorway, looking at him. Lucas had changed. He was still tall, still handsome, even by the standards of their genetically improved time. But since they had returned from the past he had lost weight, and his face had settled into unfamiliar lines of tension and unhappiness. She knew the same thing had happened to her. Sometimes she hardly recognized her own image in the mirror, the softness gone, leaving only an inflexible determination to survive.
He looked up and saw her, a smile lightening his face. "Jen! Nice to see you. Come on in."
She smiled back and walked in. He raised a brow when she closed the door behind her. She pulled a chair closer to his desk and sat down.
"It's great to see you, too. How long has it been?"
"A couple of months, I guess. Sorry I haven't come around. I've been busy."
"Me too."
"How have you been?"
"Okay. As well as I can expect, I guess. You?"
"About the same." He looked at her, his face serious again. "I get the feeling this isn't just a casual visit."
She dropped her eyes for a moment, then looked at his face again. "Lucas... I need to talk to you about something."
"Sure." He leaned forward.
"I've been having a dream..." She stopped for a moment. He was looking at her, a strange expression on his face.
"Go on."
"In the dream, we're all together again. You and me, and Trip and Katie. Wes. And Alex, believe it or not. Wes is upset about something. We have an argument. Then we're all on a timeship, going through a timehole. We have a big battle in a big dark building. Then we say goodbye again."
Lucas stared at her, looking almost frightened. "There was another fight first. Men dressed in black. We brought Wes to our time."
"Then we went back to the past. I was with Wes again, for a while..."
They looked at each other for a long moment. "What's happening to us?" Jen asked quietly.
They had decided to have dinner together. It might look suspicious to spend too long talking in Lucas's office, especially with the door closed. There were always eyes watching. But there shouldn't be anything unusual about two old friends and teammates having dinner. At worst, whoever noticed might think they were lovers.
They settled on Jen's quarters. Before Lucas was due to arrive she swept the rooms with a detection device, one of the instruments she often used at work. In the world they lived in, privacy was hard to come by; eyes were watching and ears listening more often than not. All the Time Force officers regularly checked their homes and offices for electronic bugs.
Lucas was right on time. Jen checked with her door's viewing device before letting him in.
"Hi. Everything okay?" he greeted her.
"Yes. I swept the rooms. Nothing."
"Good. I like not being noticed."
Jen smiled. "I remember when you lived to be noticed. You used to spend half your time looking in the mirror."
"Yeah, the good old days." He smiled and sat on the small sofa in her living room.
She sat in the one comfortable chair. "Lucas… Have you thought about the dreams?"
"Can't think about anything else."
"I can understand dreaming about the past. But why dream about things that never happened?"
"Wishful thinking, maybe."
"Both of us, the same dream?"
"There must be differences."
"I don't know. Let's go over it, tell each other exactly what we remember. Try to figure it out. You start, part of your dream seems to take place before mine begins."
He sighed. "Okay. First, Trip and I were on the beach outside Silver Hills again. We were looking for something. Then I remember talking to Wes. I think we were in his house. We flew over the countryside, then we were someplace big, underground I think. There was a fight. We were fighting the Quantum Ranger, but it wasn't Eric. Then we were outside, and Wes and Eric were there -- Eric was hurt. He died. I remember that part clearly, him lying on the ground.
"Then we were in the timeship again, and then back home -- our time, but it was different somehow. Wes was with us. I remember being in a flyer, with him, and Trip and Katie. There was another fight."
Jen interrupted him. "Wes and I argued. Then all of us were in someone's office, a captain, but not Alex. He was telling us about something."
"I remember that! That was before we were in the flyer."
"Alex and I were in another flyer. We fought with the Quantum Ranger. He was in the TF Eagle."
"Trip and I were fighting him too. Our flyer crashed."
"And we saw you go down, and chased him away…"
"Then we had a meeting in Captain Logan's office..."
"Logan! I remember him!"
"Then we were all in another timeship, going to the past again…"
"It was an incredibly rough trip… the timestream was badly disrupted…"
"We almost crashed on the beach…"
"Then we met Wes and Eric… He was alive again, somehow…"
"There was another fight, in a big building like a warehouse…"
They stared at each other. "Jen…" Lucas said very softly. "This wasn't a dream. It must have really happened."
"But how can that be?"
"Beats me."
Jen got up and walked restlessly to her window. She looked out on the same scene she saw every day, a scattering of the smaller Time Force buildings, and the towers of Silver City rising beyond them. The city looked the same as ever, but somehow there was something wrong about it.
"Remember, Lucas? When we first came home?"
"We all hated it. Hated being back."
"Poor Trip and Katie…" Jen leaned her head against the window. They had all been a team, once. They had all gone on the same mission, to save their world. The leader of the mutant underground, Ransik, had escaped from custody, stolen a timeship and gone back to the year 2001, intending to change history and prevent the Silver Guardians from eventually becoming Time Force. He had succeeded. But Jen, Lucas, Trip, and Katie had followed him, and managed to reverse the changes he had made.
In one of the alternate realities they had prevented, there had been a long and catastrophic war between mutants and humans, finally resulting in the deaths of most of the people on Earth. In another, there had been war with less destruction, ending in the execution or imprisonment of all mutants. In their own reality, the one they had returned to, Jen privately thought the situation wasn't much better.
In the world they had restored, the mutant underground had conducted a war of terrorism again human society, which had lasted for decades and was still going on in a quiet way. There had been much less destruction, much less killing, than in the realities they had prevented. But all mutants were second-class citizens, required to live in specially segregated areas, and needing official passes to enter human territory. Trip and Katie lived in a camp outside the city. Jen hadn't seen either one of them for months. It was difficult to have contact with a mutant without an official reason.
She wrapped the fingers of her right hand around her left wrist. That was another thing they had lost. Time Force command had taken their morphers soon after they had returned. After the completion of their mission, they had been 'allowed' to retire from the Power Rangers project.
"Jen… we never saw Wes or Eric again, after we came back, over a year ago. Why dream about them now? And Alex… why is he so different in the dream?"
"I think you're right. It really happened." She turned back to him. "You know what that means."
"You think we're remembering something that happened in another reality. But our dream takes place after we came home from 2001."
"Yes. I think we're remembering bits and pieces of another reality. I think there was another shift in the timestream, after we returned from our mission."
Lucas's face was thoughtful. "If we were in the past when the shift happened, we should remember the original version. But if we were here, our memories should have been altered too."
"We seem to be somewhere in-between. Only remembering in our dreams. But how could that happen?"
"Both of us have been involved in major alterations to the timestream. That's never happened to anyone before, as far as I know. Maybe this is a side effect." He shrugged. "We're not even close to knowing everything about how time works."
"If reality has changed again -- who changed it?"
Lucas stood and came closer to her. He lowered his voice. "Who would have benefited? Who's in a good position in this world? Who's got all the power?"
Jen dropped her voice also. "I know you don't approve of Klezmi. I don't like him either, never have. But are you suggesting he's behind this? He's a politician, not a -- supercriminal."
Lucas laughed unexpectedly. "Some people might say there's no difference. But you're right. There's no real reason to think he interfered with history. We have no proof anyone did."
She smiled. "Just dreams."