Chapters:

1. "Abridged"

Syd was up first, and no wonder. Her bathroom rituals would stretch for days if she didn't have to work in between. She completely ignored him the first time she passed, and the second. The third time she was actually dressed, and she gave him a funny look on her way to the mess, but she didn't say anything.

Bridge wandered by next. He gave Sky a funny look, paused in the hallway, and considered the situation. Then he surprised Sky by coming out with the obvious question.

"Hey, Sky," he said. "What are you doing standing in the hall outside Jack's room?"

Sky glanced at him without moving. "Waiting to talk to Jack."

"Oh, yeah," Bridge said, nodding once. "That makes sense."

He wandered off toward the mess too, apparently satisfied with the obvious answer. Bridge wasn't at his best first thing in the morning. Or really any other time.

Z walked by third, fourth, fifth, and sixth. Her first self looked startled and vaguely suspicious to see him standing there. Her other selves came by at intervals after that, each time from the same direction, checking up on him every five minutes or so.

The fourth Z asked why he was waiting to talk to Jack, which he assumed meant she and Bridge were eating breakfast together. He thought about telling her to ask Bridge to bring him some orange juice, but she didn't look like she was in the mood to do him any favors. So he told her it was none of her business instead.

It was almost eight o'clock when Syd hurried past again, looking worried.

By now thoroughly bored, Sky remarked, "You're going the wrong way."

"I need my lucky barrette!" she called back, disappearing into the room she shared with Z. He frowned, wondering what she could have heard at breakfast that would call for the pink kitty barrette.

"What's going on?" he demanded when she emerged again.

"There." She was clipping the barrette into her curls, and she stopped in front of him just long enough to pose. "How do I look?"

He opened his mouth to ask again, and she waved her hand dismissively. "Oh, you're a guy; what do you know. Z!"

Yet another Z poked her head out of their room, and Syd put her hands on her hips. "How's my hair?" she wanted to know. "Is the barrette too much?"

"Princess," Z said dryly, "it's not the barrette."

Syd turned around and flounced off, but she didn't ignore Sky again when he called after her, "Syd! What's going on?"

"Kat's wearing nail polish!" Her voice drifted back to him as she turned the corner, and he frowned. That was serious. The only good thing about nail polish was that it meant they probably weren't the ones in trouble.

"That supposed to mean something?" Z asked, studying him.

He spared her a quick glance. "The commander can't stand the smell of nail polish. He can scent it two floors away. Kat never wears it, not unless she's pissed at him for something."

"Huh." Z kept staring at him. "So you gonna let Jack make you late or what?"

Sky snorted. "Not likely."

"Likely," she countered. "You know he's still in bed."

He eyed her. "Jack's been up early before." Which was the only reason he'd been standing here so long: Jack made unpredictability a habit.

She lifted her left wrist, giving it a pointed look despite the fact there was no watch there. Yes, he could see that today wasn't one of those days. "Don't you have somewhere to be?" he asked testily.

Z shot him a skeptical look. "Don't you?"

She vanished into thin air before he could answer.

Four minutes before eight o'clock and a noise behind the door alerted him just in time. With a quick wave of his hand, he shoved the edge of his field flush against Jack's door and held it there. It shimmered blue a second later as a non-corporeal body walked straight into it, and he heard Jack curse.

"Sky!" Jack's voice shouted from inside the room. "Cut it out!"

He smirked. He deserved some reward for standing out here all morning. "Make me," he taunted, just as the door slid open.

Jacket in one hand, the other braced against the doorframe, Jack glared at him from inside the room. Then his gaze dropped, a frankly assessing look that took in all of Sky before returning to his face. "Damn," he said. "Are you still on night watch?"

"I want to talk to you," Sky said stiffly. Nothing about that was funny, so he was going to ignore it in its entirety.

Jack put out a tentative hand, but the space in front of his door was normal again and he withdrew the hand to cover his mouth when he yawned. "Well," he said, stepping out into the hallway, "it's Monday morning. We're all going to the same place."

"Before we get there," Sky clarified, shortening his stride as he fell in beside Jack. "I think the commander's making a mistake."

"Oh, do you now." Jack stifled another yawn.

"We should go after A Squad," Sky insisted. "They sent a distress call. They're in trouble and we can help."

Jack was already shaking his head. "If the commander thought we could help, he would have sent us already."

"Maybe he's just waiting for us to prove ourselves by asking," Sky said, giving him a sideways glance as they waited for the lift. Everyone knew Jack had had to ask--not once, but twice--before he was given the Red morpher.

"So ask," Jack retorted.

Sky folded his arms, frowning at the closed doors. "I did."

"What?" Jack turned to glare at him. "You asked Cruger to send us after A Squad?"

Sky shrugged. "They need help."

"You don't even like A Squad." Jack sounded very sure of that for someone who'd only known him a few weeks, and he'd be lying if he said the certainty didn't rankle.

"I don't like Charlie," he snapped. "I don't have a problem with A Squad as a whole. And anyway, that's not the point."

"No," Jack agreed, idly waving him into the lift first when the doors opened. "The point is that you went behind my back with Cruger, and when he told you no, you decided to get me in trouble by convincing me to harass him for you."

"I did not--"

"Command," Jack told the lift. "Sky, just out of curiosity, when was the last time you slept?"

Sky stared at him, baffled. "Who said that was any of your business?"

"Take the day off," Jack told him. "Night watch is making you harder to live with than usual. And frankly, I didn't think that was possible."

"I can't take the day off!" Just the thought was horrifying. He would never hear the end of it.

"So take the afternoon off. You have, what, squad training and the interpreter seminar after patrol?" Jack didn't wait for an answer. "You're dismissed from training, and we're all going to the seminar. Syd'll take notes for you. Get some sleep or something."

"This isn't about--"

Jack interrupted him again. "I'm not kidding, Sky."

"--sleep, or time off; if I wanted time off, believe me, I'd tell you..."

"You're no good to us if you can't focus." Jack didn't even try to cut him off, just kept talking over top of him. "And this is not you focused, this is you wired from lack of sleep and obsessed with whatever's in your head, so let it go and for once just do what I tell you!"

The lift chimed, signaling its presence outside of Command, and they had a second to exchange glances before the doors opened. Even if everyone was already inside, the commander would have been able to hear them arguing as the lift arrived. That was a lecture neither of them needed to hear again.

Jack poked his head out first when the doors opened, and they looked up and down the hall. Empty. "I don't need the afternoon off," Sky muttered under his breath, right behind him as they headed for Command.

"Tough," Jack whispered back.

The digital display on the console beside the door said 07:59:36 when they walked in, and Cruger didn't say a word. Sky felt something brush against his wrist as he and Jack lined up beside their teammates. His hand closed around the bottle of orange juice Bridge passed him, hiding it behind his back, and he definitely hadn't been getting enough sleep because he was struck by the insane urge to smile.

That urge was long gone by the time Cruger told them that A Squad was officially MIA. Before he could say anything, though, Jack spoke up. "Send us," he said, not looking at Sky. "We'll find them, sir."

The answer he got was no different from the one Sky had been given several times already: B Squad was needed on Earth. And fine, maybe it was irresponsible to send the planet's second line of defense the way of its first. But he couldn't help thinking that someday it was going to be him out there on the front lines, without base or backup. If his radio went dead, who would come to find out why?

2. "Idol"

It wasn't that it was strange to see Sky laugh. He laughed at them all the time. Laughing at himself was new, but after watching him with Dru it didn't seem as weird as it might have a few days ago.

That was the strange part, Jack decided. Sky had really liked Dru. He'd liked him enough to bring him back to the base without so much as a security check. Enough to vouch for him, sight unseen, during an intruder alert. Enough to be wandering the halls with him in the middle of the night, to lean against him in the lounge, and to want Dru's bracelet back even after everything that had happened.

Now, with a bandage around his wrist where his own bracelet had been and Dru in high-security confinement, Sky was laughing at himself. Okay, maybe his punishment for breaking regulations was ridiculous. And maybe Sky was human after all: he'd shown a side of himself with Dru that proved being the best wasn't all he cared about.

This wasn't just laughter, though. This was giggling that bordered on hysteria. He couldn't seem to stop. Every time he got himself under control, he would start snickering again. It was funny for a few minutes, but...

Okay, it was funny period. Sky giggling was hysterical on every level. And hey, they all dealt with stress in their own ways. Who was to say this wasn't just as effective as hitting a punching bag or snapping at lower ranked cadets? If it came down to it, Jack preferred the giggling to Sky's usual forms of stress relief.

Sky had settled down a little by the time they'd worked their way around to opposite sides of the entrance an hour later. He still seemed off somehow, in some indefinable but recognizable way, as illustrated by the fact that Z tried to slink up beside Jack without drawing any more attention to herself than she had to. Of course Sky chose that moment to laugh--not looking at them, just shaking his head and laughing quietly to himself--and her expression went from confused to suspicious.

"Brother," Z muttered, eying him over Jack's shoulder. "What's wrong with him?"

Jack was careful not to follow her gaze. "You mean the fact that Cruger chewed him out six ways to Sunday, or the fact that he's supposed to scrub all the cement areas on the base with a toothbrush?

"Oh," he added, like he'd just remembered. "Or the fact that his former best friend turns out to be lying mercenary scum sent to assassinate his commanding officer. Really, take your pick."

"Uh, Jack?" She was watching him scrub distractedly at the cement, doing nowhere near as thorough a job as Sky was. Or as Sky would be doing under normal circumstances. Who knew what he was doing now.

Z had narrowed her eyes at him. "Where did you get that toothbrush you're using?" she wanted to know.

Oops. He gave her his most charming grin. "Well, see, here's the thing," he began. She was definitely not buying the grin, so he pointed at Sky and asked hopefully, "Recognize that?"

She gave Sky a dismissive glance, then a frown. "Is that your toothbrush?"

Jack shrugged. "Turns out he's still a little mad about the whole confronting Dru thing. Who'd have thought Sky would hold a grudge, right?"

"So you gave him your toothbrush?" Z sounded incredulous.

"Oh, come on," Jack scoffed. "What am I, mental? He stole it! Only, the thing is..." He cleared his throat. "I thought it might have been you, at first."

Z rolled her eyes. "What would I want with your toothbrush?"

"I've asked myself the same question about a lot of things over the years," he reminded her. "My jacket, my sunglasses, that beret you still wear--"

"Doing you a favor," she interrupted. "Trust me, Jack, you were never meant to wear a beret."

"Is this some kind of twisted dental hygiene party?" Syd's voice wanted to know.

Z jumped, immediately becoming two people as she spun to face her roommate. Each with one hand behind her back, her free hand waving in cheerful greeting. "Hi Syd!" they said in unison.

Syd stared at her. "Okay," she said at last. "I've got an idea. Why don't you try to look less guilty about whatever you're up to now, and I'll go talk to Mr. Rational over there, hmm?"

"Oh yeah," Jack mumbled as she turned away. At least Sky wasn't laughing at the moment. "Good luck with that."

Then he put a hand on each of the Zs and shoved them from behind. "You stole her toothbrush, didn't you," he gloated, just quietly enough that no one else would hear.

"I thought she took mine!" Z protested. Each of her selves held up a bright pink toothbrush, copied identically from hand to hand.

"And what would Syd want with your toothbrush?" Jack teased.

"I still haven't figured out what you wanted with it!" Z hissed.

"Revenge," he said, rolling his eyes at her. "Obviously! I was making what I thought at the time was a tactical retaliatory strike. How was I supposed to know we're not the only ones on base who can walk through locked doors?"

"Well, actually Jack," Bridge remarked, "I'm sure I've told you on several occasions that locks pose very little problem for me."

"Hi Bridge," Z's first self said with a smile. Her second self waved.

"Hi," he said, replying with a smile and a wave. "Have you come to help Sky with his community service project?"

Jack snorted. "This isn't community service. This is a seriously ridiculous way of making a point."

"Well, it will go faster if we all help," Bridge said placidly. "Next time you should call us right away instead of, you know, waiting until Z notices you're missing." He held up a handful of toothbrushes with obvious intent.

"Guys," Jack began. "You don't have to get involved--"

"Yeah, and neither did you," Z pointed out. "But here you are, so. Here we are."

"Me and Syd have helped Sky out before," Bridge added. "He gets in trouble a lot."

Jack had to grin. "Yeah, I noticed that. Didn't really expect it, though. Why's he so uptight about rules and regulations if he's just going to break them every time he turns around?"

"Dunno," Bridge said with a shrug. He held up his collection of toothbrushes, fanning them out like a deck of cards. "Which one of these should I start with, do you think? Color is important to an auspicious beginning."

"Where did you get those?" Z wanted to know.

"The supply slot in the lounge," Bridge answered. "Where did you get yours?"

Z's first self exchanged glances with Jack while her second self looked down at the toothbrush she was holding. "Actually," she said, one of them handing off her toothbrush to the other, "I'm just going to go put these back where I found them."

The Z holding the toothbrushes turned and headed back inside, while the remaining Z smiled sweetly at Bridge. "Do you think I could use one of yours?"

Jack rolled his eyes again, but Bridge looked pleased by the request. "You can have first pick," he told her, holding them out.

"I think I'll work over here," Jack told them. He moved his soap a little further down the pavement, glancing across the entrance at Sky as he did so.

Syd was sitting next to him now, perched on the edge of a cement step and talking animatedly while Sky scrubbed. She had a toothbrush too, Jack noticed, but it must be dry because she was waving it around while she gestured. Sky didn't seem to be paying any attention to her, but he was letting her talk and Jack was pretty sure that was more than he would have done for anyone else.

Jack couldn't make out what she was saying over the conversation Z and Bridge were having a few feet away. The two of them were funnier than Syd anyway, so he didn't try to move again. He let their chatter entertain him, really only half-listening until Z's voice dropped and suddenly he was all ears.

"What's with the bracelet?" Z was saying quietly. "I thought Sky's broke."

"Oh, that's Dru's," Bridge said with a certainty that made Jack glance at Sky and Syd again. Sure enough, Sky was wearing the metal coil on his unbandaged wrist.

It was just practical, Jack thought. He probably didn't want to set it down out here and risk forgetting it. He'd probably just put it on his wrist until he could throw it away, or... store it in his room or something. Not like they didn't have pockets, though.

"Jack picked it up for him," Bridge continued, and Jack looked up at the sound of his name. He waved when Z caught his eye, and she smiled a little.

"Why is he still wearing it?" Z wondered. "Why'd he want to keep a friendship bracelet from a guy like Dru, anyway?"

"It's not so much a friendship bracelet as it is a lovers' knot," Bridge said casually, and Jack turned to stare at them again. Bridge was frowning. "Only, maybe you shouldn't tell him I said that, because he might have said specifically not to mention it. I can't really remember."

"Wow." Z sounded skeptical. "Sky was actually involved with someone? That's kind of hard to imagine."

"He was a good guy," Bridge said. "Dru, I mean. Or at least, we all thought so. Obviously not so much, now anyway, but back then. Sky was totally into him. They were..."

He trailed off, and Jack heard Z whisper, "Is he okay?"

Jack backed up, giving up any pretense of not participating in their conversation, and followed her gaze as he did so. Sky was kneeling on the concrete now, shoulders shaking, and Jack shook his head. "He can't stop laughing," he murmured. "I don't know why. I've never seen him like this before."

He saw the Green Ranger shake his head out of the corner of his eye. "He's not laughing," Bridge said quietly.

Syd had gotten down on the ground next to him, which was pretty shocking for the girl who didn't like to get her nails dirty, let alone her clothes. Sky shrugged off the hand she put on his shoulder, so she caught his elbow instead and didn't let go. Jack was torn between going over to help, which was what he wanted to do, and pretending they hadn't seen anything, which he knew full well was what Sky would want them to do.

"Hey, Z," Bridge said in a normal tone of voice. "Can you help me with this?"

"Uh--sure." Z turned away as Syd poked and prodded Sky to his feet, so Jack was the only one who saw the look she sent their way.

Don't follow us, Syd's expression said.

Question answered, Jack thought with a sigh. "Here," he added, leaning around Z to knock her toothbrush out of the way. "You missed a spot."

"Jack Landors," she retorted. "World champion of cleaning pavement with a toothbrush."

"Do they have championships for that?" Bridge wanted to know. "Cause, no offense, but your technique isn't really what I'd expect from someone who'd been in competition."

Jack pretended to pout, Z laughed at him, and they managed to fill another half hour with friendly banter before Cruger found them. Bridge noticed him first, which was still strange to Jack, since there were three of Z at that point and he was used to her winning hands down on the observation front.

"Psst," Bridge muttered. "Commander at four o'clock."

"Damn," Jack whispered. "Quick, cover story: where's Sky?"

"Bathroom," Bridge said instantly.

"Sulking," Z murmured.

Jack pushed her as unobtrusively as possible.

"Cadets," Cruger said, coming to a halt directly in front of them. Two of Z's selves vanished, leaving the one next to Bridge to snap to attention along with him and Jack. "I seem to recall assigning this task to Cadet Tate."

"Yes, sir," Jack replied. "However, we knew the rules as well as Sky, and although we reminded him of them, we didn't enforce them any more than he did. Therefore, we feel we were partly to blame for the security breach that led to your... injury.

"By the way," he added, still staring straight ahead, "looking much better, sir."

"Indeed," the commander said slowly. "And where is Cadet Tate now?"

Jack didn't bat an eye. "Bathroom, sir."

Cruger looked up and down their short line, and when no other response was forthcoming he said, "I see. In that case, inform him upon his return that I want all of B Squad in Command in ten minutes."

He was either testing them or waiting for their questions, because he didn't move. Jack took the opening he was given and asked why. Only after Cruger told him did he realize that he had been intended to ask all along. It wouldn't look good to have Earth's primary Rangers showing up uninformed, after all.

"Okay," he said after Cruger had left. "We need to find Sky and Syd. Bridge?"

Bridge took off one of his gloves and led them on a fairly direct route back to B Wing--so much so that if he hadn't detoured into a quiet alcove on the other side of the doors, he could just as easily have been guessing. The detour obviously convinced Z, though, because she asked, "Can you really track us just by following our auras?"

"No," Bridge answered absently, folding his arms and tucking his hands in while they waited for a lift. "Sky's easy 'cause his is so strong. Yours too, except it's always going in so many different directions at once that I can't follow you at all. Jack either. His aura is like nothing. Syd's is kind of in between."

"My aura is like nothing?" Jack repeated. He lifted his hands like maybe he could see it himself if he squinted hard enough. "What does that mean?"

"That's kind of an interesting question, actually." Bridge stepped out of the way of a cadet leaving the lift, then led the way in. "Up," he told the lift.

Jack raised his eyebrows when the lift hummed to life, but he didn't say anything. He hadn't known they would move without a specific destination. Bridge was standing in front of the door, holding his hand out without actually touching the metal as they rose.

"The way I figure it," he was saying, "you and Sky both use a fundamental universal force, the electroweak force. Only you use it in opposing ways, see. Sky makes it stronger, so the space around him becomes essentially impermeable.

"His aura goes crazy when he does that," Bridge added as an aside. "Totally blinding. Everything is just, so dark after that.

"But you do the opposite," he continued. "You make it weaker, dissolving the binding force that holds your atoms together to the point where you can pass through solid objects. So your aura's always sort of... you know.

"Stop," Bridge said quickly, and Jack exchanged glances with Z as the lift glided to a halt.

Electroweak? he mouthed behind Bridge's back.

She just shrugged, smirking at his expression.

"B Wing," Bridge said in response to the lift's error message, which informed him that they were currently between two levels. "That's where he got off, anyway."

When the doors opened, though, he put his glove back on and shook his head. "We're here too much," he said. "I can't follow any of us on this level. Unless you were, I dunno, right in front of me or something. Or if Sky was using his power."

"Check your rooms," Jack told them. "They could be in either one of them. I'll get the lounge. Meet back here if you don't find them."

He didn't really expect Sky to be in the lounge. So of course he was, sitting with his elbows braced on his knees and his head in his hands, alone. Jack stopped in the doorway, suddenly struck by the only part of Bridge's explanation that he'd understood: the space around him becomes essentially impermeable.

He leaned in and knocked on the wall carefully. Sky didn't move, but he proved he knew who it was by saying, "I really don't feel like talking right now, Jack."

"Well, the commander wants to talk to us," Jack said. "The Aquitian Rangers are checking in on their way back from the Helix Nebula."

That made Sky lift his head, and there was nothing on his face that wasn't usually there. "They want to meet the rookies?"

"They want to report to us," Jack corrected. "They won't talk to Cruger until we're there too."

Sky frowned. "Why not?"

Jack shrugged. "As far as they're concerned, the A Squad Rangers are our teammates. They won't report on the search to anyone else."

"Huh." Sky seemed genuinely baffled by this, but after a moment he pushed himself to his feet. "Let's go then."

Z appeared behind Jack just then, poking him gently in the shoulder. "Both our rooms are empty. See you found Sky, at least."

"Yeah..." Jack glanced out into the hallway and saw Bridge coming toward the lounge with one of Z's other selves. He could hear the other Z telling Bridge that Sky was with him. "Hey, Sky, where'd Syd go?"

"How should I know?" Sky sounded like his old irritable self again, and Jack shook his head when he realized he kind of missed the giggling.

Pulling out his delta morpher, he said, "Syd, come in."

Syd's voice came back immediately. "Jack, where are you guys?"

"We were just about to ask you the same thing," Jack said, as the Z beside him disappeared and the Z with Bridge took her place. "We're in B Wing, looking for you. Commander wants to see us in five minutes."

"Four," Z muttered.

"I'm in the courtyard looking for you!" Syd exclaimed. "Where are we going?"

"Command," Jack told her. "We've got Sky; we'll meet you there, okay?"

"Right," she answered.

At the same time, Z offered, "I'll fill her in." She tilted her head, then added, "We're on our way back inside now."

"Thanks," Jack said.

"If it's so urgent, why didn't you use the radio in the first place?" Sky demanded.

Jack rolled his eyes and headed down the hallway toward the lift. "Never mind," he said over his shoulder. "Let's just go, okay?"

"No," Z replied.

It was so unexpected that Jack stopped in his tracks, turning around to find Z blocking Sky's path. The Blue Ranger had to have a good six inches on her, if she cared to notice. Which she didn't.

"You know why we didn't just call and tell you when and where to be?" she demanded, staring up at Sky. "Because we wanted to know if you were all right first. Because friends don't just snap orders at each other. And because, in case it hasn't occurred to you, we covered your butt out there in the courtyard when Cruger came by and it might have looked a little suspicious if we had to turn around and track you down by radio!"

Sky looked stricken. "The commander was outside?" He caught Jack's eye over her shoulder, and Jack nodded once.

"Hello!" Z waved her hand in his face. "What did I just say?"

"Look," Sky snapped. Then he caught his breath, closed his eyes, and paused for several seconds. Without opening his eyes, he said tightly, "Thank you."

"Uh-huh." Z's tone made it clear she'd taken that exactly the way he meant it.

"Guys," Jack warned. "We need to go."

"Hey, Z," Bridge said, "Are you and Syd in the lift yet? Maybe we could, uh, catch it as it goes by. That would be cool. That would be the best timing ever."

Z spared him a smile. "We'll hold the lift when it gets to this level."

Sky took advantage of her distraction to step around her, ignoring her huff when she realized what he'd done. "Hey," he said, looking down at his hands when Jack just stood there. "I changed my mind."

Not his hands, Jack realized. His wrist.

"I don't want this," Sky said, and he'd pulled the bracelet off and was holding it out to Jack. "Thanks for..." He swallowed, maybe the first real break in his composure since they'd found him. "But I don't want it," he repeated.

Jack wanted to ask what he was supposed to do with it: give it back to Dru? Throw it away himself? But he couldn't ask, because this was probably the closest Sky would ever come to apologizing and he wasn't going to ruin it.

"Okay," Jack said simply.

"Hey!" Z's voice echoed down the hall from the direction of the lift. "Let's go!"

The nearest Z just smiled at the reproachful look Jack gave her. "Ride's here," she said sweetly. "Race ya!"

If she won by virtue of the fact that she was already there, then Jack only complained all the way to Command. Z, unfortunately, could shout him down with sheer numbers, and Bridge and Syd were no help. Sky didn't waste time yelling at them to act more professional, though, so that was a bonus.

When they arrived in Command--on time, give or take--the Aquitians' solemnity dampened their spirits a little, but their respectful greeting made Jack stand up straighter. Real Rangers, a voice in his head whispered. Real Rangers, here on base, returning from the search for the real Rangers of SPD Earth.

Reporting to B Squad.

It was odd, Jack decided, but he'd never felt as much like a team in training as he did that day.

3. "Abandoned"

"Sky, you want dinner?"

The words were shouted as Jack flew by the door of his room, and Sky had a moment to frown at the strangeness of it before the Red Ranger doubled back, catching the door frame and leaning in to look at him expectantly. "Well? Come on, put on some real clothes and let's go."

He let his book tip backwards so he could stare at the other Ranger. "It's ten o'clock. Dinner was hours ago."

"Brilliant observation, mastermind," Jack said. "Let's go again."

Sky didn't move. "Why would I want to do that?"

"Because you're hungry," Jack told him. "Because I invited you. Because you're bored with your book; how should I know? We're going to pick up Boom at the airport and I thought you might want to come."

"And why are 'we' picking him up?" Sky asked, lifting his book again. He was going to bed at ten-thirty. It wasn't his job to pick up SPD staff at all hours of the day and night.

"Because Kat doesn't want Cruger to know when he's getting in," Jack said, leaning on the door frame like he wasn't planning to go anywhere for a while. "So she can't send a driver, and she can't go herself because she's in the middle of some big experiment.

"She asked Bridge," he continued, "and of course, being Bridge, he said yes. When Z found out he was going she volunteered to keep him company, and Syd was bored out of her mind so she offered to buy them dinner if they let her tag along.

"When I found out Syd was paying," he added with a grin, "I told them to wait for me. Came back here to change. We're meeting in the garage in a few minutes."

"Have fun," Sky told his book.

He could see Jack shrug without looking up. "Suit yourself."

The room was suddenly empty again, and he frowned at the page he wasn't reading. He actually was kind of hungry. But there was a synthesizer almost within arms' reach, and if he didn't get some sleep he might not be on top of his game tomorrow morning. It wasn't like they could afford to let their guard down.

On the other hand, Syd did pick the best restaurants.

He was wearing civvies by the time Jack darted by again, obviously in a hurry but not moving fast enough to miss the fact that Sky had changed. His face lit up, an honest grin that made Sky wonder, not for the first time, how old Jack actually was. His denim jacket looked too big on him.

"Coming?" Jack asked hopefully.

"No, Jack," he said, rolling his eyes. "These are my pajamas."

"Yeah, right." Jack smirked at him. "I know you sleep in your SPD uniform."

"That's just practical," Sky said, following him down the hallway. "Emergencies can happen at any hour, and it saves a lot of time to roll out of bed already dressed. You should try it."

"Sky!" Jack exclaimed. "I was kidding!"

Sky raised his eyebrows at him as they rounded the corner. "I wasn't."

There was a van idling by the entrance to the garage when they got down there, Bridge in the driver's seat and Z riding shotgun. "Sky!" Syd exclaimed, as he slid into the seat next to her. "You came!"

"What'd you bribe him with, Jack?" Z asked, craning her neck around the back of her seat as Jack piled in behind him. "Extra training? Another run through the mud swamp?"

"The pleasure of our company," Jack replied, and Z wasn't the only one who laughed. "Really!" he protested. "I'm not kidding; he came all on his own!"

Bridge caught his eye in the mirror, and Sky shrugged. "I heard Syd was picking the restaurant," he said.

"Oh, Sky," Syd said, patting his knee. "Was that a compliment? I think that was a compliment. What do you guys think?"

"I think that was a dig at Piggy's," Jack put in, hanging on the back of Z's seat as the van turned down the street.

Z slapped his hand. "Jack, sit down!" she scolded. "There is a seatbelt law, you know."

He reached back and pulled down the armrest beside Sky, perching on the edge of it while he braced himself against the front seats. "I'm sitting," he teased. "Happy now?"

Sky gave him a disgusted look that Jack utterly failed to notice. "Move."

"I got it." Syd fumbled with her handbag, pulling out her morpher and flipping it open. She leaned around him to aim it at Jack. "Jack Landors, needlessly endangering himself by breaking one of our most basic traffic laws. Guilty or innocent?"

"Aw, come on," he protested, scowling at her judgement scanner.

The bright red "X" lit up, and Syd was practically in Sky's lap as she thrust the verdict in Jack's face. "Gee, what do you know? Guilty!"

"Fine," Jack grumbled, retreating to the seat behind her. There was an audible hiss and a click as his seatbelt locked in place.

"Thank you," Sky told Syd.

"No problem," she said lightly, slipping her morpher back into her bag. "Just doing my job."

"Hey, do you think the freeway's faster?" Bridge asked from up front. "I mean, it should be pretty clear this late, right? On the other hand, we'll get better gas mileage if we stick to the slower roads, and we really should do our part to minimize air pollution. I don't want to be accused of trading convenience for sustainability."

"The freeway's faster," Z agreed, unfazed, "but going through the plaza is prettier."

"Wait, why are we going through the plaza to get to the airport?" Sky asked, frowning.

"He's not flying into the jetport," Syd explained. "His flight's coming into New Tech Regional."

Sky stared at her. New Tech Regional wasn't even in the city. "Why?"

She shrugged, but Z reminded them, "This is Boom we're talking about. His original flight was cancelled, and he probably got confused when they put him on standby."

"Guys," Jack said urgently. "Shh."

Sky looked over the back of the seat, and this time they could all hear Jack's morpher say, "Landors, acknowledge."

He gave them all a warning look as he answered, "Go for Jack."

"Cadet, where is your team?" Cruger's voice demanded.

"Team-building exercise, sir," Jack replied smoothly. "Off base."

"Why wasn't I informed of this?" the commander wanted to know. Sky exchanged glances with Syd, who rolled her eyes and made a blah, blah, blah gesture with her hand. He felt his mouth quirk up at the corner.

"With respect, sir, it was a spur of the moment thing," Jack was saying. "Since we're all off duty this evening, I didn't see a problem."

There was a brief pause. "Very well," Cruger allowed at last. "Just make sure your team is in Command an hour early tomorrow morning. The Mirinoan Rangers want to brief you on the search for A Squad before they return home."

"We'll be there," Jack told his morpher.

"Did he say Mirinoi?" Z hissed from the passenger seat. "Isn't that the colony?" Bridge must have nodded, because she said, "I didn't even know they had Rangers."

"This is kind of surreal," Jack remarked, closing his morpher.

"Extraplanetary Rangers wanting to talk to us?" Sky said. "No kidding."

"No," Jack said, surprising him. "The fact that extraplanetary Rangers are still searching. SPD gave up more than a month ago."

"The local teams set up a rotation when SPD called off the search," Bridge offered, glancing back at them in the mirror. "They spend roughly two weeks in the Helix Nebula while their neighbors cover their home turf, then they bounce through SPD Earth on their way home. The next team goes out as soon as they get back. It's really very efficient, when you think about it."

Silence settled over the van after this explanation, until finally Z said, "Wow."

"Rangers don't give up," Sky told them. "And they don't abandon their own."

"Do you think--" Syd hesitated. "I mean, do you think we should be out there with them?"

"We can't," Jack reminded her. "Grumm's at our doorstep. Alandia's gone and we're next on the list. Earth needs us."

"I know, but..." She still looked torn. "Earth needs A Squad too, right? And we have the Shadow Ranger now. He can take on all of us at once and win. Couldn't he defend Earth if we went looking for them?"

"If Cruger thought we could find them," Jack began.

"Cruger's been wrong before," Z interrupted. "He wouldn't even send us after Kat when she was kidnapped."

"Because he was going after her himself," Sky pointed out. "Jack's right. There's no reason to think we can do what A Squad couldn't. The commander has more information about the situation than we do and we're just going to have trust his decision."

"And the other Rangers," Jack added. He didn't bat an eye at Sky's support of an idea he himself had challenged a month ago. "We should trust them too. They're obviously not going to give up until they find our team. Let's just make sure A Squad still has a planet to come back to when they do."

Sky snorted at that. "Inspiring speech, Jack."

Jack grinned, leaning forward to rest his arms on the back of their seat. "I do what I can. Hey," he added, squinting out the front. "Is that construction?"

"Night paving," Bridge confirmed. "This may slow us down a little."

"Well," Syd said with a sigh, "it's not like Boom is going anywhere."

"We should call him and let him know we're on our way," Z suggested.

"On it." Jack apparently hadn't put his morpher away after Cruger called, since it was still in his hand where he'd folded his arms against the back of the seat. It caught on his rolled-up sleeves and he grabbed for it before it could fall down between Sky and Syd.

He missed.

Sky shook his head, picking it up and flipping it open before Jack could protest. "Boom, this is Sky," he told the device. "Kat sent us to pick you up. We should be there by eleven-thirty. Don't take anything apart while you're waiting."

He closed it, cutting off the connection, and handed it back to Jack.

"Real nice, Sky," Syd told him. "Didn't anyone ever teach you how to use a phone?"

"He can't possibly be off the plane yet," Sky pointed out. "He can't use his phone anyway. The message I left was perfectly acceptable."

"You just wanted to use the Red morpher," Jack teased.

"Oh, get over yourself," Sky retorted.

Jack smirked back at him. "When you do."

4. "Recognition"

He had almost stopped being surprised when Cruger told him the Triforian Rangers wanted to brief B Squad on the status of the search. Jack wondered what these Rangers would say if he told them that he had never met A Squad, that he hadn't even known their names until Kat gave him a file and told him and Z to learn them. He wondered if Bridge and Syd felt their loss any more keenly.

He was pretty sure Sky didn't miss them. Not personally, at least. Sky seemed to take their disappearance harder on a professional level, as though he couldn't quite reconcile himself to the fact that an entire team of Power Rangers could simply... fail. Fall. Vanish, never to be heard from again. It must do terrible things to his worldview.

Jack didn't know, not for certain. He was going to find out tonight. It was just one of many things he meant to learn about his teammates, which was why he'd told them to cancel their evening off and meet him in the B Wing lounge at eight o'clock sharp. Syd was the only one who protested--she and Z had planned go out--but Z took one look at his expression and said they could do it another night.

When she found out why, she and Syd ended up going out anyway, a brief run into town between dinner and the meeting, and Jack just shrugged it off. He'd gotten alcohol into the cadet levels; presumably they could do it too. He knew perfectly well how good Z was at smuggling things around.

They were back by the time he strode into the lounge. Bridge was there too, watching Z and Syd play an idle game of "War" with holographic cards. He and Sky were still in their SPD uniforms, but Sky had his feet up on the table and he nodded to Jack when he came in. His eyes went almost immediately to the bottle in Jack's hand, so Jack set it down before he pulled up a chair.

"Look," he said, not waiting for anything else. "We almost killed Sky today."

Just like that, Jack had everyone's attention.

"Sky almost killed Sky today," he continued. "To keep us safe. To protect the city. All very noble, no one's saying it wasn't, but what it comes down to is that we let him down. Big time."

Sky didn't say anything, and his quiet was more damning than words.

"What went down today can never happen again," Jack told them. "I don't care how clever the criminals are, how many tricks they have up their sleeve, whatever. I care about us and the fact that we don't even know each other well enough to recognize an imposter when we hold a fucking conversation with him."

Syd shifted uncomfortably on the couch, but she didn't speak either.

"So this is what we're going to do about it," Jack said. "We're going to get to know each other. Commander Cruger has authorized a lockdown of B Wing: starting now, no one gets in or out before six tomorrow morning for anything except emergencies."

Z and Syd exchanged glances. He hadn't mentioned that part of the plan when he'd been talking to them earlier. But it was important to him that they all feel safe, that no one was worrying about who might walk in, and that no one else on base could request their presence unless it was really necessary.

"What constitutes an emergency?" Bridge wondered aloud.

"Fire," Jack told him. "Flood. Grumm attacking."

"What about a plague of locusts?" Bridge asked.

Jack couldn't help smiling. "Yeah, okay. If locusts invade, we can leave."

"What's with the alcohol?" Sky wanted to know. He made it sound like Jack had brought a camera or something.

"Ah," Jack said, reaching back to retrieve the bottle and hold it up so everyone could see: "Tequila. It comes with rules."

Sky eyed him skeptically. "I can't believe the commander approved anything involving hard liquor."

Jack shrugged. "He approved an overnight lock-in for the purposes of team building. I was a little vague with the details."

Sky snorted, leaving his feet on the table while he folded his arms. "I don't drink tequila."

"Oh, good," Z said, insincerely bright. Leaning over the side of the couch, she picked up a bottle off the floor and set it on the table beside his feet. "You can share the whiskey, then."

Sky stared at her. "How did you get that stuff in here?" he demanded. "Even the officers aren't allowed to have alcohol on base."

"Yeah," Z said, rolling her eyes. "I'm sure it's totally dry."

"Rules," Jack reminded them. "Girls do two shots by midnight, guys do three. No more than one an hour. The point isn't to get drunk," he added, mostly for Sky's benefit.

"What is the point?" Sky demanded suspiciously.

"The point is to talk. Some of us seem to have trouble with that." Jack made a drinking motion in Z's general direction, and she rummaged around behind the couch until she came up with five shot glasses. "If you don't like shots, you can mix them with anything the synthesizer makes. Just drink, okay?"

"I'd rather not," Sky informed him.

"Yeah, well, there's a shock," Syd said, arranging the glasses Z had set out in a little circle. "One drink isn't going to make you say anything you don't want to, Sky."

"Three might," he said darkly.

"Well," Bridge offered, "we do have four hours until midnight. Hypothetically speaking, someone with your build could probably spread out three one-ounce shots over four hours in such a way that their blood alcohol content never got above .02."

"Which is more than enough to impair judgement and coordination," Sky snapped. "What if something happens? What if we get a call? What if night watch needs backup, or Grumm decides that tonight is the night Earth is going to fall?"

"I think he should have to do four shots," Syd told Z.

"You said it," Z agreed. "Sky, come on. We're allowed to take a night off. And it's not like there's no point. This is about making the team more effective, not less."

"Through irresponsible intoxication?" Sky countered. "I don't think so."

"You're not going to get drunk!" Jack exclaimed. "Geez, Sky, anyone would think you'd never--" He blinked as the thought occurred to him. "You do drink, don't you? I mean, you have? At some point?"

Sky scoffed. "Of course."

"I haven't," Bridge remarked. "Things tend to get a little strange when I consume alcohol. You should probably cut me off if I start to accidentally read your minds or something."

This prompted a moment of silence, and then Z said, "Maybe Bridge should be exempt from the three-shot rule."

"Yeah," Syd said quickly. "I think that's a good idea."

"This is ridiculous," Sky informed them.

"No." Jack glared at him. "What's ridiculous is the fact that a criminal in your body walked into Syd's room uninvited, talked to her, and walked out again. You and Syd have been training together for two years, and the destroyer of planets sounds like you to her! That's ridiculous, Sky!"

"I spent the day in the body of an alien criminal with a broken translator!" Sky shouted. "I had no way of communicating, I was shot on sight, and I had to fight myself! There's nothing about that that drinking is going to change!"

Jack didn't look away. "We screwed up," he said evenly. "All of us. It's not going to happen again, Sky. But you gotta meet us halfway."

Sky got up, got a soda from the synthesizer, and sat down again without a word to any of them. Fair enough, Jack thought with a sigh. If he really didn't want to drink, he didn't have to. It was too bad, though. Out of all of them, Sky was the one who most needed to loosen up.

He poured the soda into the shot glass. Only half full. Jack raised an eyebrow as he did the same thing to a second glass. Then Sky held out his hand expectantly, and Jack just stared at him.

"Well?" Sky demanded. He made a "come on" gesture with his hand.

Blinking, Jack handed over the tequila.

Sky splashed tequila into both of the glasses, leaving enough room at the top that it didn't spill when he shoved one of them in Jack's direction. Covering the other one with his right hand, he lifted the glass a little and banged it down on the table. Carbonation spilled over the side as he raised it to his mouth and downed the whole thing in one gulp.

He pulled a terrible face, but he didn't choke on it.

"Happy?" Sky demanded, dropping the glass on the table again. There was no mistaking the challenging look he gave Jack.

"Vaguely impressed," Jack admitted.

"I'm going to make something more civilized," Syd announced, standing up. "Does anyone else want juice?"

"I'll have some orange juice," Bridge said.

"I'll have some water," Z added. "Lots of water."

"You don't have to get that from the synthesizer," Syd pointed out, stepping around her on her way across the room.

Jack was trying to figure out how to seal his shot glass with his hand and still curl his fingers around it tightly enough to lift it. "How do you keep it from spilling?" he wanted to know.

"You don't," Sky told him. "The more you spill, the less you have to drink."

"You really do have bad associations with alcohol, don't you." Jack decided to go for it, slamming the glass down on the table and watching in fascination as it fizzed over the sides. By the time he realized he was supposed to drink it before that happened, rather than after, it was too late.

"Syd, could you get the boys a couple of towels?" Z called.

"Yes," Sky said, while Jack was choking down his shot. Half shot. Whatever.

"Yes, what?" he managed. He could feel the sting from the soda, of all things, right up into his nose.

"Yes," Sky repeated, "I have bad associations with alcohol."

Oh. He pressed his fingers to either side of his nose, wincing as the taste made itself known. The sting warred with the burn, and he shook his head. Seriously, worst way to drink tequila ever.

"You okay?" Sky sounded amused, and it was totally typical that this was what it took to get that tone from him.

"That has to be the worst way to drink tequila ever," Jack informed him, unable to keep the opinion to himself any longer. "That's awful."

Sky actually laughed, and that was when Syd dropped a hand towel in his lap, tossing another one at Sky on the couch. "You're such a sadist, Sky," she scolded. "Why can't you just make margaritas like everyone else?"

"Keep your girly drinks to yourself," he countered, leaning forward to wipe off the table with the towel she'd thrown at him. "If you're going to drink, you might as well get it over with."

"What kind of bad associations?" Jack asked, drying his hand on his own towel while he watched Sky not look at anyone.

Sky shrugged. He wiped off the outside of his empty shot glass, pushed it back toward the middle of the table, and reached for Jack's. "People do stupid things when they're drunk," he said. "They say stuff they shouldn't. I've seen a lot of perfectly good things ruined just because someone didn't know how to keep their mouth shut."

"You've seen it?" Jack repeated. Sky was setting his glass down, just out of reach. Maybe on purpose. "Or you've done it?"

"What do you care?" Sky snapped, glaring at him. As soon as their eyes met, though, Sky looked away. Like he'd remembered that the whole point of this evening was that they did care.

"Done it," he said under his breath.

Jack glanced across the table at the girls, who were using the remaining shot glasses to sample fruit juice mixes. "The color is as important as the taste," Bridge was telling them, as Syd handed him something that was at least superficially green.

He tried it, then said solemnly, "The taste is much more important than the color."

Jack got up and retrieved a couple of glasses from behind the counter. "Z, you get your water?" he called, as he filled them both from the tap.

"I'll get it in a minute," she answered, distracted. He got her a glass anyway, carrying the triangle of waters over to the table and setting them down to distribute them. One for Z, one for Sky, and he kept the last one for himself as he sat back down.

Z was arguing with Syd over what whiskey could or couldn't be mixed with, and she didn't seem to notice the water. The conversation was admittedly hilarious, but Jack was more interested in Sky's reaction when he realized one of the glasses was for him. He raised an eyebrow, then reached for the glass and lifted it in a mock-toast before drinking the entire thing at once.

Sky didn't do anything halfway, Jack thought, amused.

Without a word, he got up, refilled Sky's water glass, and brought it back. This time Sky just watched. Didn't say anything, didn't reach for the glass, just leaned back against the couch and stared at Jack like he was trying to figure him out.

"Done what?" Jack asked at last, sitting down again.

Sky glanced over at the door with a sigh. He rubbed his wrist absently. Nervous habit, maybe... except that Sky didn't have any. Unless becoming stiff as a board and half as charming counted. And that was his right wrist he was rubbing.

When their eyes met again, Jack dropped his gaze to Sky's wrist deliberately. Looking back up at his face, he nodded, and Sky sighed again. "He did this," Sky said quietly. "Once."

Jack frowned. "Did what?"

"Snuck alcohol onto the base," Sky told the door. Then he glanced back at Jack, staring at him for a long moment before he added, "Tequila."

Oops. Jack winced apologetically. "Sorry."

Sky shrugged, and Syd exclaimed, "You can't mix lime and pineapple! That's so wrong!"

Z was laughing at her. "What do you know; you can't even make a sunrise!"

"I didn't say that!" Syd jumped up, pointing at Z. "I'll make you a tequila sunrise if you'll drink it, missy!"

"Hey, hey," Jack interrupted, waving them down. "Not a competition, guys. One drink an hour, remember?"

"They haven't actually had anything to drink yet," Bridge remarked. "Except the various juices we've been combining. They're completely alcohol free."

"They're like this naturally," Sky muttered. "What a pleasant thought."

"Hey, Jack, did you raise Sky's limit?" Z demanded. "I don't think three's going to be enough."

Jack rolled his eyes. "Drink your fruit juice," he told her.

"I bet we could make our own smoothies," Bridge mused, considering the table. "I wonder if we have a blender. Or if the synthesizer does puree. If it doesn't, I might be able to fix it so it does."

"Keep the lime far away from the pineapple," Syd said.

Z leaned forward, taking the tequila and setting it down next to the orange juice. "Put something in that that makes a sunrise," she told Syd, "and I'll drink it."

Syd beamed. "You're on!" she declared, dancing around the table toward the synthesizer yet again. "If this thing can make cheesecake, I can make you a tequila sunrise."

Jack raised his eyebrows, and he caught Sky's eye almost by accident. Shaking his head, Jack picked up his water and moved over to join him on the couch. Flopping down next to him, shoulder to shoulder, he asked, "You worried yet?"

"I was worried when you showed up with that bottle," Sky pointed out.

Jack considered that, watching Bridge line up their juices in order of color. Z went to put the whiskey bottle back behind the couch, then paused and held it up questioningly. Bridge shook his head.

"What happened?" Jack asked at last. He kept his voice low, casual, maybe drowned out by Syd's report that the synthesizer did puree when asked. This brought Bridge to his feet, bounding around his chair to join her, and Z rolled her eyes in Jack's direction but she got up to follow them anyway.

"I had too much to drink," Sky said, like it didn't matter. Except that he answered even more quietly than Jack had asked. "He probably did too; I don't know. I couldn't tell."

Jack really wanted to ask who Dru had been when Sky knew him, before he sold out. Older than Sky, or younger? Higher-ranked or lower? Nice guy, tough guy, the good soldier, the rebel?

The one who made the first move, or the one Sky had picked out of a crowd?

"I said I loved him," Sky said softly, almost inaudible beneath the animated argument taking place around the synthesizer. He shrugged, leaning forward to grab his water from the table. Settling back against the couch, he added, "The next day he was gone."

Jack blinked. It was so far from what he'd expected that the words almost didn't register. "Gone?" he repeated.

"Pilot," Sky said shortly. "It happens. Went up on patrol, never came back."

Oh. Disappeared, Sky meant. "Shot down?"

"No one knew." Sky hadn't touched his water since he picked it up. "Kind of wish it had stayed that way, now."

Jack shook his head, torn between sympathy and surprise and sure Sky wouldn't accept either one. "Better to know," he said.

"Yeah," Sky muttered, finally sipping his water and swallowing harder than those few drops could possibly require. "So much better."

"Sky, Bridge is making you a smoothie," Syd called. "Is it possible to die of vitamin B poisoning? Because if he puts in any more blueberries you'll have to eat it with a spoon."

"It's perfectly healthy," Bridge protested mildly. "Jack? You like strawberries better than cherries, right?"

Jack looked at Sky, but he was pointing at Bridge. "How does he know that?"

"A better question," Sky remarked, hiding behind his water again, "is who makes a cherry smoothie."

Z confirmed that they were loud enough to be overheard by replying, "Hey, Syd's going to make me a tequila sunrise out of orange juice and cheesecake strawberry sauce. Cherry smoothies? Not really that weird."

"Was that a diss?" Syd sounded indignant. "I think you just dissed my drink mixing."

"I think I agreed to try it," Z retorted. "And for someone who doesn't take drinks she didn't pour herself, that's more of a compliment than you know!"

"Oh." Syd took that in stride. "Okay then. Let's see if it even works in a juice glass, because I don't know how much you'll be able to see."

Jack glanced at Sky, but he seemed happy to watch Syd's attempt at professional drink mixing with improvised ingredients and tools. Or maybe he was just happy to stop talking. Probably both.

"Jack," Bridge said, wandering over with a glass in each hand. He held out the dark pink smoothie to Jack. "Strawberries and grape juice," he explained.

Sky got the deep purple drink, and Bridge said, "Blueberries and pear juice. The red pears," he added calmly. "Bartlett, I think. Not the green ones."

Sky paused, staring at the glass, and Jack blinked at Bridge. The Green Ranger was already turning away, though, heading for the synthesizer and the counter beside it, where he'd left a green-tinted mix and a lighter pink one. Jack looked at Sky and found him looking back.

Waving in Bridge's direction, Jack opened his mouth, then hesitated. "Should I go there?" he asked at last.

"No," Sky said, setting his smoothie down without tasting it.

He'd sort of agreed until Sky said "no" without thinking about it. For some reason, that made him call, "Hey, Bridge!"

Sky's eyes narrowed, and something about the expression made Jack grin. "What color were the grapes?" he asked. "You know, in my smoothie."

"Well, they're called purple grapes," Bridge replied over his shoulder. "But they're really a sort of deep blue color. They go well with the strawberries, don't you think?"

"You should know," Sky muttered, "that if you answer that question it's entirely possible I'll never speak to you again."

"Spoilsport," Jack told him. The color connections that Rangers seemed to take for granted were funny at the most random times. Raising his voice, he answered, "I'll let you know, Bridge."

Bridge had his hands full carrying the other glasses over to the table, but he nodded in Jack's direction with a sort of absent smile that fooled no one. Bridge was more attuned to colors than any of them. He attributed it to the auras he saw: said he couldn't think of a person without thinking of the colors that swirled around them, like it was part of their appearance or personality or something. And something about their morphers had apparently tinted all of their auras for him, so that Bridge associated them with their Ranger colors even more than they did.

Spontaneous clapping from Z announced the completion of her drink, and even if Syd wasn't pleased with the result Z protested that she could see the color change and that was all that mattered. She then dumped a shot glass full of tequila into Syd's smoothie, smiled innocently, and asked Bridge where hers was. Jack didn't miss Sky's look of alarm.

"Hey, Bridge," Jack said casually, rescuing him from his apology to Z--she already had a drink, after all, and if Syd was doing the color thing on purpose then she was being kind of territorial--and hopefully reassuring Sky at the same time. "There's no alcohol in these, is there?"

Bridge gave him an odd look, then took one look at Sky and shook his head. "No, just fruit juice and, you know, mashed up fruit. Except for Syd's."

"Cheers," Syd agreed, lifting her smoothie to toast the room.

Z immediately lifted her juice glass, and they clinked the rims together solemnly. Jack held up his smoothie, and across the table Bridge lifted his in return. Z moved her glass to tap Bridge's, and when Syd leaned toward Jack he sat forward on the couch and did the same. They all ended up toasting each other in the middle of the table, except for Sky, who just watched until Jack turned and solemnly clinked the water glass he was holding.

Sighing, Sky sat up and held out his glass over the table. This prompted another round of "cheers," and "thanks" to Bridge, and "hey, it's still getting darker" from Z. Her orange juice was completely pink now, and Jack figured the moment Syd looked around at all their glasses was the moment she realized what she'd done.

Not on purpose, then, he decided. But watching her try to make up for it was almost as funny as Z totally not getting it. The first thing Syd did was get a new juice glass, fill it with straight pineapple juice, and set it in front of Z. "So that you have something yellow," she said, as though this was perfectly normal.

A moment later she was at the synthesizer again, and this time she came back with a lime. An actual lime, which she placed carefully on the table next to the pineapple juice. "Just in case you want it," she explained, when Z gave her a baffled look.

Jack grinned when Z transferred the expression to the glass she was holding. "This is my first one, right?" she asked the room at large. "I thought drinking would make you make more sense, not less."

Bridge, on the other hand, lifted his smoothie in silent acknowledgment. Syd held up hers in reply, beaming when he smiled at her. Jack glanced at Sky just in time to catch the eye roll that indicated he'd followed the entire exchange.

"First crush," Jack said aloud, partly because the color-coded drinks were going to get old fast and partly because he wanted to know. "If we're going to get to know each other, I want to know who everyone's first crush was."

"Oh, do we all get to pick a question?" Syd asked, stirring her smoothie with the bendy straw Bridge had put in it.

At the same time, Z said, "Even if it means you have to tell us yours, Jack?"

He made a face at her, because of course Z knew who his first crush was and she was going to get to laugh at him all over again. Still. "If it keeps me from being successfully impersonated by alien criminals," he said, "I'm willing to tell you guys just about anything."

Then he nodded at Syd. "And yeah, everyone should get at least one question."

"Preferably something you could ask in front of an interrogation squad," Sky said.

"If what happened today happens again," Syd pointed out, "I think we're going to have bigger problems than being embarrassed."

"Yeah, but what if it doesn't happen?" Z asked. "What if we just suspect it's happened? Or if someone else suspects one of us, and we have to prove we're who we say we are? It should definitely be something we wouldn't mind other people finding out."

"In an emergency," Jack added. "Nothing we say tonight leaves this room unless someone's life is on the line."

"What happens in B Wing stays in B Wing," Syd agreed.

"So who was your first crush, Jack?" Z teased.

He glared at her good-naturedly. "Z," he said. "Z was my first crush, okay?"

She laughed, as expected, and she wasn't the only one. "Really?" Syd squeaked, giggling. "That's so perfect! How old were you?"

"Well, she was fourteen," Jack said. "So take however old you think I am now and subtract eight years."

"Who was your first crush, Z?" Bridge wanted to know.

"Not Jack," she said with a grin. "If that's what you're asking."

"Yeah, yeah." Jack shook his head, poking at his smoothie with his straw. "Z was so much more mature."

"Hey," Z declared, "Mr. Knight was a good guy. And he had a great name."

"Sixth grade science teacher," Jack told them. "She still talks about him."

"He was funny!" Z protested. "He had something to say about everything!"

"Sort of like you," Syd observed.

Z gave her a gentle nudge before leaning forward on her elbows and resting her drink on her knees. "What about you, princess? Did you have a real knight? With a horse and a sword and everything?"

"Well, it really depends on who you consider my first crush," Syd began. "I mean, the first boy I ever thought was handsome? Or the first one I kissed? The first one I danced with, or dated, or what?"

"Did all of them have horses?" Z asked, trying to keep a straight face.

"Um..." The fact that Syd actually thought about it made Z crack up, and Jack couldn't help grinning when Syd frowned at her in confusion. "Just two of them, I think. Why?"

"Pick whichever one you want," Jack interrupted. Then he thought better of it and he added, "Actually, tell us the one with the easiest name. If I have to remember this, I don't want to be trying to come up with Geordi Wilhelm Richard III when someone who might or might not be you is pointing a gun at me."

Beside him, Sky made a sound that might have been a snicker.

"Killian," Syd said, ignoring him. "He was the first boy who gave me jewelry. When I was six."

"Six?" Z exclaimed.

"Killian?" Jack repeated. "That's the easiest name you can come up with?"

"What about that guy," Bridge put in, "Dan, from D Squad?"

"Oh, he was just a friend," Syd said, waving it off. "He reminded me of one of the security guards from my singing days."

Z was staring at her. "You dated your security guards?"

Syd gave her a surprised look. "I didn't say that. Did I say that? I just said he reminded me of one of them."

"Did you date him?" Z asked.

"Who, Dan?" Syd considered that. "I guess."

"Okay, okay," Jack put in. "You guys can compare notes later. Sky?"

Sky didn't answer.

"Come on," Jack coaxed, bumping his shoulder. "You don't have to tell us the whole story. Just a name."

"Sky doesn't do crushes," Syd informed him. "He says they're a waste of energy. If you want to be with someone, you should just tell them, and if you don't, there's no reason to waste time thinking about it."

"Oh, dating advice from the Blue Ranger," Jack teased. "Wait, let me get something so I can write that down."

"Funny," Sky said, not moving. "I can give you some other things to write down while you're at it."

"Fine," Jack said. "Should we just consider Dru your first crush and move on?"

Sky's jaw tightened, but he didn't answer.

Jack set his smoothie down and picked up Sky's soda from the table. He poured some into his shot glass, filled it the rest of the way with tequila, and handed it over. "You didn't even do a full shot," he reminded Sky. "You can either talk, or drink."

Sky still didn't move. "Aiden," he said. "I went out with a boy named Aiden in seventh grade."

Jack knew when to declare victory and change the subject. "Okay," he said, putting the glass back on the table. "Bridge?"

"Well, you have good taste, Jack," Bridge answered. "I'm going to have to say Z."

"It's supposed to be your first crush, Bridge," Syd reminded him. "Not who you have a crush on now."

"I disagree," Bridge said calmly. "It's an open-ended question with a lot of room for interpretation. Is it really the first crush that matters, or the most important one?"

"Wow," Jack said, looking at Z. "And he hasn't even had anything to drink."

"That's not entirely true," Bridge pointed out. "I mean, I am drinking this smoothie right now, and just a few minutes ago--"

"Bridge," Z interrupted.

He stopped immediately, and she smiled at him. "I think that's the sweetest thing I've ever heard."

"Uh, the part about you being the most important crush, right?" he said. "Not the part about the smoothie? Because it is kind of sweet, but that's mostly the fruit. And the juice."

"Yeah," she said, laughing a little at his apologetic expression. "The crush part."

"Okay, my turn," Syd declared. "Who in this room do you most want to kiss, and you have to tell the truth!"

"Don't you mean, you have to actually do it?" Jack said with a grin. She was so obviously setting the two of them up that he couldn't resist helping.

"That's exactly what I meant," Syd agreed, nodding at him. "There's no one here you wouldn't kiss if they asked, right?"

Jack scoffed. "There's no one on this base I wouldn't kiss if they asked. Except maybe Commander Cruger."

"Thank you for that mental image," Sky muttered from beside him.

"What about you?" Jack asked, poking him. "You'll kiss anyone who says they want to kiss you, right?"

Sky gave him a look like he'd lost his mind. "No."

"Anyone in this room," Syd clarified. "Just us."

"Still no," Sky told her.

"Sky's excused," Z put in. "As long as he answers the question."

"Sky is not excused," Jack retorted. "The whole point is that no one here actually knows Sky, and I think someone should be able to kiss him and know if he's who he says he is."

"Why?" Sky demanded. "That's ridiculous. Why would you ever need to identify someone by kissing them?"

"A better question," Z said, apparently unaware that she was imitating him as she narrowed her eyes at Jack, "is who in this room does Jack most want to kiss?"

He grinned sheepishly as everyone turned to look at him. "Well, Sky, obviously. Otherwise why would I make such a big deal of it?"

"Z," Bridge said. He drew their attention, and he added, "I mean, that's who I want to kiss. I mean, if Syd's question counts, and even if it doesn't, it's still true, so."

"Bridge," Z agreed, grinning. "Shall we set a good example?"

Bridge nodded, but she was already getting up, so he stood up a little awkwardly and met her next to the table. Z lifted her face, smiling up at him, and Jack clapped when Bridge kissed her carefully on the mouth. "Very gentlemanly," he approved. "Well done."

"Yeah, meet me in the hall later," Z teased, giving Bridge a wink before shooting a sideways look at Jack. "We'll do it right."

Jack put his hands over his ears. "La la la," he said loudly, looking around the lounge like he didn't even know they were there. "I can't hear you!"

"Is it going to cause problems if I say 'Bridge' too?" Syd wanted to know.

Jack lowered his hands, wondering if he'd misheard her. "What?"

"Yeah," Z said, putting her hands on her hips as she pretended to glare at her roommate. "What?"

"What!" Syd exclaimed. "I have to pick someone, and he's the nicest!"

"That's true," Jack agreed, grinning.

"Well, I'm not sure I'm the nicest," Bridge began, "but I'm happy to kiss two beautiful women if the situation calls for it."

"See?" Syd said. "The nicest."

"That doesn't prove he's the nicest, Syd," Jack told her. "Just the smartest."

Z held up her hands in apparent surrender until Bridge said thoughtfully, "What if I kiss Syd, then I kiss Z again?"

Jack laughed. "See?" he imitated Syd. "The smartest!"

Bridge ended up just letting them both kiss him, one after the other, but he looked exceptionally pleased about it.

"Okay, Sky," Syd said, as she sat down again. Z flopped down right beside her, looking about as pleased as Bridge, so Jack figured they were all right. "Now you have to pick someone."

"I'm pretty sure I don't," Sky answered.

"We could all kiss him," Z suggested. "That way if we ever do have to identify each other by kissing, at least Sky will be safe."

Syd nodded seriously. "That's a great idea."

"That's a terrible idea," Sky said, scowl audible in his voice.

"Then pick someone," Jack told him, retrieving his smoothie from the table and sticking the straw in his mouth. "It's not that hard."

"Pick me," Syd chirped. "I'm the prettiest."

Z smacked her gently on the back of the head. "Pick Bridge," she told Sky. "He's the nicest."

"Actually," Bridge said, "I may be wrong, but I believe the question was who you most want to kiss. And everyone--" He held up one gloved hand and counted off four fingers. "Yeah, everyone's answered that except Sky."

Jack sucked on his smoothie, watching Sky glare at the table. He smiled around his straw when Sky's gaze flicked to him, just briefly. "One kiss," he promised, setting the glass down. "Then you're off the hook."

Sky just rolled his eyes, which Jack decided to take as agreement. He shifted, pulling one knee up underneath him and bracing a fist on either side of Sky's legs as their mouths met. Sky smelled like tequila and tasted like soda and his eyes were really, really blue, and Jack didn't process any of it until he'd already pulled away.

"Well, I wouldn't exactly call that 'gentlemanly,'" Z commented, "but only because you crawled over top of him to do it."

"Yeah, I'd give you a five or six for technique," Syd said. "It looked okay, but usually you only invade someone's space like that if you're going to do some serious making out."

"Hey," Jack protested, sitting forward on the couch. "Am I getting penalized for being too involved, or not involved enough?"

They looked at each other, but Bridge beat them to it. "It seems like Sky would know better than we would," he offered.

Jack turned to him expectantly, not disappointed by the opportunity.

Sky just raised his eyebrows in return. "You already asked a question," he pointed out. "I think it's someone else's turn now."

Jack looked at him, searching his expression for some sign of real reaction. He figured refusing to comment fell into one of two categories: letting someone down easy, or teasing the hell out of them. He didn't think Sky was the type to let people down easy.

"I have a question," Z said. "What made you guys want to join SPD?"

"Stalkers," Syd said.

Jack's shoulder brushed against Sky's when he settled into the back of the couch again, smoothie in hand. Almost half gone, and yeah, Bridge was right: it was pretty good. Especially when Sky didn't move over.

"Stalkers made you want to join SPD?" Z was asking.

Syd shrugged it off like it was nothing. "Singing, modeling, rich parents... I was running out of careers where I didn't have to be surrounded by bodyguards all day. What about you?"

Sky snorted. "We know why she and Jack joined."

"Hey, no you don't," Z warned him. "So keep your attitude to yourself, okay?"

"Why did you choose to become a cadet?" Bridge asked, like they hadn't arrested her on the street themselves.

"I wanted to make a difference," Z said, looking at Jack. "What me and Jack were doing--it mattered, you know? But it never felt like enough. Like no matter how many people we helped, there were always more we couldn't. I wanted to do something that would help everyone."

"Whereas I," Jack said, lifting his almost-empty glass in a silent toast to her, "would have been perfectly happy changing the world one person at a time. Had already busted out of my cell and was on my way out when you guys called for backup."

"Nice of you to change your plans for us," Sky remarked.

"Not so much for you," Jack told him, his shoulder warm against Sky's. "The guy who arrested me after I helped save his team from krybots wasn't actually someone I wanted to help again. But Z was, so. I showed up."

"Jack Landors," Sky said, shaking his head. "The Red Ranger who showed up."

"I joined for the aliens," Bridge offered. "The alien citizens, I mean. And the visitors. The ones who don't do anything wrong but get harassed anyway. I want to make sure that the people we bring in are the ones who are actually guilty."

"Altruists," Syd said, pretending to sigh as she looked at Z. "You guys deserve each other."

"You?" Jack tapped Sky's foot with his own. "Your dad?"

This time, his hesitation was almost imperceptible. "He was SPD before SPD Earth officially existed," Sky answered. "All I wanted when I was little was to be like him."

"What about now?" Bridge said suddenly. "If you couldn't be SPD, what would you do?"

Sky paused. "Fly, I guess," he said after a moment. "Get offworld somehow. See what's out there."

Huh. Jack wasn't sure why he felt surprised by that answer.

"That's not a bad idea," Syd remarked. "No one would know me on, like, Triforia or something."

"You like it when people know you," Z reminded her.

"I know," Syd admitted with a sigh. "There must be some way to be fabulously rich and famous without being completely stifled."

"Yeah," Z said, patting her knee. "When you find it, let us know."

"What about you, Z?" Bridge wanted to know. "How would you help people if you weren't in SPD?"

"Oh, I don't know." Z shrugged it off, but after a moment she admitted, "Actually, you know what? I always kind of wanted to be a teacher. Except I didn't go to school long enough."

Jack felt Sky stir beside him. "SPD will pay for two classes a semester," he said, eyes fixed on his feet, which he'd propped up on the table again. "University level, I mean. If you can get in."

Z glared at him. "I'm poor," she snapped. "Not stupid."

Sky shook his head. "I didn't mean it like that," he told his feet.

"You should do that," Jack said, catching Z's eye. "That'd be great."

"Yeah, in my spare time," Z agreed, rolling her eyes.

"After we get rid of Grumm," Syd suggested, as though it was only a matter of time. "There are some classes I've been meaning to take, too. Maybe we could enroll in something together."

Z hesitated, and it was an open question whether she would laugh it off or take the suggestion seriously. Especially coming from Sky and Syd. Finally, though, she just smiled at her roommate. "I'd like that."

Jack had finished his smoothie, but leaning forward to set it down would mean giving up the proximity he'd managed to bully Sky into accepting. So he propped his empty glass on the couch beside him and nudged Sky with his elbow. "You got a question?" he wanted to know.

He'd tried to keep his voice low, but when no one was talking there was no missing it in the quiet room. Sky's only reply was that he hadn't even answered Bridge's question yet, and Jack shrugged. "Pretty much what I was doing before, I guess."

Sky's exasperated sigh should have made him smirk, but instead he found himself shifting defensively. "Maybe with less law breaking," he said. "I don't know. What does it matter? I'm here now."

"For how long?" Sky said pointedly. "You didn't even want to be a Ranger. What's keeping you here?"

"You guys," Jack reminded him. "You guys are keeping me here. I'm not going to let you down, okay?"

Sky shook his head impatiently. "I didn't mean it like that," he repeated. "I just meant--squads don't stay together forever. What would you do if you weren't--if you didn't have to answer for us anymore?"

Jack was very aware of the rest of the team watching, listening to his answers. "This isn't punishment for me," he said. "I want to be here with you guys. You're my friends. And B Squad is a great team."

"What if you got bumped up?" Sky insisted. "Say they don't find A Squad. No one wants to talk about it, but we're all thinking it: what if they don't come back? Someone has to move up."

This conversation had turned a lot more serious than he'd expected, and he couldn't help feeling like he was being interrogated, like he was on trial for his position. "Come on," he said, trying to lighten the mood. "Like you haven't wanted the Red morpher for months."

The silence that greeted this was definitely not what he was going for.

"Wow," Bridge said after a moment. "That was remarkably un-funny."

"Look," Jack said desperately. "I haven't moved up through the ranks like you have, all right? They're not gonna promote me. But if they did, you guys go with me or I don't go, understand? That's how it is, and that's how it's gonna be."

He had no idea how they'd gotten from 'getting to know each other' to 'squads don't last forever.' Through Sky, no less. Since when was Mr. Born To Be A Red Ranger worried about his future?

"Hmm," Syd said. There was a noticeable pause before she added, "That's a good point."

Jack just stared at her. "What is?"

"Well, why haven't they promoted anyone?" she asked, frowning a little. "I mean, yeah, the other Rangers are still searching for A Squad. Apparently. But SPD isn't. Why hasn't anyone tried to fill their positions?"

"Because they'll be back." Sky said it like it was a given, like he hadn't just suggested replacing them himself, and in that moment Jack knew: Sky hadn't accepted their disappearance at all. Because in his mind, they weren't really gone.

"And because the commander has been holding off Galaxy Command ever since A Squad was declared MIA," Bridge added.

Still stuck in his own thoughts of the contradiction that was Sky, the words didn't really register with Jack until he heard Z question them. "Someone's trying to get him to find replacements?" she asked.

Bridge nodded. "Yeah, but he won't do it. Kat says he's pretty attached to them. He might have told her that he won't believe they're gone until he pries the morphers from their cold dead hands himself... but you might not want to repeat that, because I think that was in confidence. And also, it's kind of morbid."

Syd was the one who broke the ensuing quiet. "Do you think he'd feel that way about us?" she asked, a little curious and maybe a little sad. "If something happened to us?"

"Nothing's going to happen to us," Z said.

At the same time, Sky said, "It's not about who he likes better. It's about training and experience. A Squad is the best, therefore the commander is least likely to accept their loss."

"Hey," Jack said slowly. "Do you think it pisses him off that the Ranger teams that come through here always report to us? I mean, if he knows them that well... I'm lucky when I can remember their last names."

"Well, you're the exception," Sky muttered, but the criticism lacked some of its usual heat. "Those of us who trained with them don't have that problem."

"Yeah, Sky's rivalry with Charlie is legendary," Syd put in. "She got promoted to A Squad just before you guys got here, and he's still mad that she beat him to it."

There was something about that that set off warning bells in Jack's mind, but he couldn't quite get his head around it. Not when Bridge was saying, "I think it does bother him, though. Commander Cruger, I mean. Even now that he's a Ranger, offworld teams won't report without all of us there."

That was when it came to him. "She got promoted to A Squad?" Jack blurted out. "Promoted from where?"

He could feel Sky shift, head turning to look at him, but Jack kept his eyes on Bridge as he said, "Well, B Squad. Obviously. Unless you mean literally where the promotion took place, which I think was Command."

Jack looked at Z, and he was vaguely reassured to see his surprise mirrored on her face. "I thought squads rose through the ranks together," she said.

He could tell Sky was frowning without having to see his face. "Why would you think that?" Sky wanted to know. "You filled an open slot on B Squad. Where do you think it came from?"

"Two open slots," Jack said, ignoring the attitude in favor of information. "Someone else move up recently?"

"Gibbs transferred out just before Charlie left," Syd offered. "They were a great team. Gibbs kind of... well. Smoothed things over between Charlie and Sky."

"Some people said if Gibbs ever left, either Sky or Charlie would have to move up," Bridge mused. "To keep them from killing each other."

"Or us," Syd muttered.

"Some people should have better things to do than gossip about other cadets," Sky said irritably.

"So," Syd declared, turning where she sat. "What about you, Bridge? Where would you be if you weren't with SPD?"

Bridge seemed to give this serious consideration, but it was just as possible that he was trying to decide whether or not to say anything else about the team before Jack and Z. If he was, he must have decided against it. And it wasn't like Jack didn't want to know, but Sky felt so tense that he thought letting it go might be the only way to win.

"Synesthesia study group," Bridge said at last. "Counseling kids with sensory disorders. The commander recruited me from Youth-to-Youth, and--not that this isn't important, but I really liked what I was doing there."

"Youth-to-Youth," Z repeated. "I've heard some of their ads. They do... what, kids helping kids? With mental problems, and stuff like that?"

"The idea is to provide role models for kids who aren't totally, uh, normal," Bridge explained. "It's a great program. And they liked me because they figured, whatever my problem was, I was really high functioning."

"And because you were a psychology major," Syd added. This last was mostly lost as Z bristled.

"Your 'problem'?" she demanded.

Bridge shrugged. "When I was younger, my parents thought I was making up all the stuff about colors and auras. Then one of my teachers decided I was synesthetic, and it kind of snowballed."

"You said that before," Jack put in. "Synesthesia. What's that?"

"It's just a different kind of wiring in your brain. Like, normally your eyes are hooked up to the visual part of your brain, right? So that when you look at something, you see what it looks like? But some people's eyes are hooked up to the visual and the auditory part of their brain, so when they look at something, they see what it looks like and what it sounds like."

"They know what it sounds like by looking at it?" Jack asked, frowning.

"They don't hear what it actually sounds like," Bridge told him. "Just what their brain thinks it sounds like when they see it. Like, maybe a cat sounds like a bell. So every time they see a cat, they hear a bell. Plus, you know, whatever sound the cat makes."

"That would be really noisy," Syd said, making a face. "If you heard something every time you opened your eyes?"

"Well, not everyone hears something," Bridge said. "Some people associate smells with the things they see. Or hear, or touch. Or things they see or hear can make them feel like they're touching something, something warm or cold or sharp or whatever."

"Still disturbing," Syd declared. "I don't even know how you handle your color thing. How could you ever coordinate a room if you can't see it without all that extra... stuff? Or your clothes!"

"Wait, how is this like you?" Jack interrupted. Sky shifted, sliding further down on the couch so he could rest his head against the back of it, and Jack forgot what he was going to say next. Sky was too tall to put his head on the couch without practically lying down. It was either funny or sexy, and his brain couldn't process it either way.

"Technically, I see extra stuff," Bridge was saying. "For a while everyone thought I was seeing sounds. Then when they decided it was purely visual, they thought I was seeing concepts, like emotions. Some people do that, with numbers or letters or something."

"But you're not," Z said, like it was obvious.

"Well, actually, I could be. An aura is just an electromagnetic field. Everyone and almost everything has one," Bridge told her. "Maybe I just perceive those fields as colors."

"Except your mom was in a lab accident twenty-four years ago," Sky said, "and everyone in there had kids with freakish powers. So, probably not."

Jack looked down at him, Sky's head on a level with his shoulder--and that didn't happen often--but his eyes were closed. Apparently powers were a safer topic of conversation than squads. If he'd had to guess about that, he would have gotten it wrong.

"It doesn't really matter," Bridge said with a shrug. "I got interested in the way people see stuff. And I get synesthetic kids, you know? I mean, they're cool. And a lot of them don't have anyone who really understands them, so. I liked working with them."

"They weren't all like that, though, right?" Syd was asking. "Didn't you say you worked with autistic kids?"

This close, Jack was pretty sure Sky would be able to tell Jack was talking to him even with his eyes closed. So he murmured, "Comfortable?" and he was rewarded by the slightest smile.

"Could use another pillow, actually," Sky said, without opening his eyes.

Jack grabbed the red pillow beside him while Bridge explained something about synesthesia, how people hadn't always known it was neurological, and how a lot of kids with severe sensory miswiring still ended up diagnosed with autism because the way they perceived the world was just too overwhelming. It was probably very interesting. It might even be something he would wish he knew someday, but it really couldn't compete with a relaxed Sky lying right next to him.

He turned sideways a little, telling him, "Lift your head for a second."

And, for possibly the first time ever, Sky took an order without question. He lifted his head up, and Jack put the pillow behind him on the back of the couch. "Okay," he said, holding on until Sky's head was resting on it, keeping it in place.

Sky hadn't so much as opened his eyes. Instead of acknowledging the gesture, though, he just asked, "Is this a red pillow?"

Jack had to grin, but he wasn't sure whether "yes" or "no" was the right answer. "No?" he guessed.

Sky snorted. "Uh-huh."

So "no" actually would have been the right answer, Jack thought, amused. Interesting. One could never tell with Sky.

"See, this is why I didn't tell anyone about my power," Syd said, getting his attention. "They always want to diagnose you with something."

"Lucky you," Z said with a sigh. "Mine isn't that subtle."

"Did you used to copy yourself involuntarily?" Bridge asked.

"Used to?" she said dryly. "Try, still do. At least Jack doesn't accidentally walk through walls."

He shrugged when they glanced his way. "It takes some concentration," he said, very aware of the fact that Bridge and Syd had immediately looked from him to Sky.

Sky might like to be aware of that too, so he elbowed him gently. "What about you? Ever do that shield thing by accident?"

"It's not a shield," Sky said, finally opening his eyes. "It's a forcefield. And no. Not by accident."

"Unless you consider compulsive practicing an accident," Syd commented.

"Oh, like you haven't been everything you can touch," Sky retorted, not moving.

Syd lifted one hand away from her glass and flipped suddenly transparent fingers at him in a clear "whatever" gesture. "Don't hate me because I got the pretty power," she told him.

Sky didn't deign to reply.

"Got a question, Sky?" Z asked after a moment.

He lifted his head to give her a weird look.

"Everyone else asked one," she pointed out. "Something you want to know?"

Sky let his head fall back again. "No," he told the ceiling.

Jack leaned into him a little, staring down at Sky's face until that blue gaze flicked toward him. "Do we have to have the drinking argument again?" Jack asked.

Sky's gaze didn't waver. "You don't want to hear my question," he said quietly.

If he'd just been winding them up, he might have looked away when he said it. But he didn't. And that made Jack frown, because he was kind of worried that Sky meant it. Maybe he really didn't want to hear it.

"I've learned a lot of things since I joined SPD that I didn't necessarily want to know," he said at last. "Doesn't mean it wasn't worth it."

Sky sat up abruptly, making Jack scramble to find his balance without someone to lean on. Reaching for his juice glass, Sky cupped his smoothie in both hands, bracing his elbows on his knees without drinking. Jack caught Bridge's eye, but he couldn't bring himself to smile. Bridge's expression didn't change either.

"You really couldn't tell?" Sky asked at last.

Jack froze, still breathing, too normal. Like he'd been hit and just couldn't feel it yet. Because he'd hoped--somehow he'd hoped that it hadn't hurt as much as he'd thought it had to, that maybe Sky just didn't see it that way, something. Because if it did...

How could they ever fix something like that?

"I get that you didn't recognize me," Sky said, still talking to his purple smoothie. "I mean, who would? It's not like I could talk to you or anything.

"But he could," he continued. "And he did. So he looked like me; so what? He talked to you. He talked to all of you. How could you think he was me?"

There was no way Jack was going to let silence linger after a question like that. He had no idea what he was going to say, but he was going to say something. While he was trying to figure out what, Syd beat him to it.

"Because we suck," she said. "We totally suck, Sky. And we're really sorry."

"Yeah," Z said quietly. She didn't seem to know where to go after that.

"I don't know," Bridge said. He seemed genuinely puzzled, but it was overshadowed by apology. "I really don't know, Sky."

"It's not going to happen again," Jack said. "It won't."

"Yeah," Sky scoffed, not looking up. "Because you'll just kiss me and the imposter will be revealed."

Jack blinked. Joking? He had to be. "It's a thought."

Sky shook his head, pulling the straw out of his glass and swallowing some of the fruit drink without it. Setting the glass back on the table, he said, "Just try not to lock me up again, okay?"

"Promise," Syd said quickly, holding out her own glass.

Sky glanced at her, then picked up his glass again clinked it against hers.

"Cross my heart," Z added, leaning in to press her glass against theirs.

"And hope to die," Bridge said, contributing his glass. "Only not really, because that wouldn't help anyone. I mean, if we died, who would switch you back?"

"RIC?" Jack suggested, holding his empty smoothie glass up to the others. "We have to get that dog a better doghouse."

"Already done," Sky told him. "I talked to Boom about it this afternoon."

"Here's to RIC," Syd said, tapping her glass against the collective again.

"To RIC," Bridge agreed.

"And to Sky," Z said.

Jack nodded, picking up Sky's soda and pouring some into his glass while he held it against the others. It wasn't really a toast if you didn't drink, after all. When Z caught his eye, he poured some into her empty glass too.

"No," Sky said, watching the glasses fill up. "To us."

Jack smiled, and this time he repeated the words with everyone else. His smile widened when Sky solemnly drank from his purple smoothie along with the rest of them. And when Sky sat back on the couch, beside Jack with his glass still in one hand, he didn't leave any space between them.

When Jack went to stash the rest of the tequila under his bed later that night, he hesitated over the bag he kept at the end of the bed. Not his standard issue gear bag, but a backpack he'd picked up with his first week's paycheck and filled with the stuff he'd want if he found himself out on the street again tomorrow. Plus a couple of things he'd accumulated since and wouldn't leave behind if he had the choice.

Taking a deep breath, he pulled out the coat and tossed it on his bed. Then he grabbed the wallet and put it on table. The emergency protein bars went under his bed with the tequila. He threw the empty water bottle at his gear bag, then stared at the gloves Z had given him two years back.

After a moment's consideration, he set them on the table beside his wallet. The necklace was also a gift from Z, and he decided to put it on again. Against the dress code, maybe, but Syd wore barrettes. What was the difference?

Finally he was left with the thin circle of metal at the bottom of the bag. He frowned down at it, wondering why he didn't just throw it away. It wasn't even his. But he took Dru's bracelet out of his bag, hid it under the gloves on the table, and stuffed the empty backpack in with his clothes.

Standing up again, he picked up his coat and hung it with his uniform jacket by the door. Then he surveyed the room with some satisfaction. It looked like he might be staying a while.

5. "Reflection"

In retrospect, Sky thought, splitting up might not have been the best idea. Which made that decision his second of three major screwups this week alone: letting Mirloc escape, dividing the team to go look for him, and failing to protect Syd in the park. He was on a roll, a long downward slide, and he was starting to think D Squad might not be as far as he could fall.

"He hasn't gotten Jack," Z was saying, for what had to be the hundredth time. "We're going to be fine. Jack will get us out of here."

"He hasn't gotten Jack yet," Syd countered. "Mirloc managed to capture all of us, and we're not exactly helpless."

"Although, looking back," Bridge said thoughtfully, "getting out of the Jeep might have been a mistake. If we had been inside the vehicle, it's possible that he wouldn't have been able to get a reflective angle on both of us at once. Or the Jeep might have blocked the reflection entirely."

"So why did you get out?" Sky demanded. Staring at his own image copied a hundred times in the walls of their mirrored prison, he didn't have any trouble summoning the disdain that question deserved.

"Well, we couldn't judge him in the rearview mirror," Bridge said. Then he paused, considering that. "Or could we?"

"I don't see you out there evading capture," Z told him. "Aren't you supposed to have more experience with this guy than any of us?"

"Oh, yeah," Sky said, folding his arms and glaring at himself. "Losing family to him makes me a real expert. I could write a book."

"I meant the interrogation," Z retorted.

"Hey, I have an idea," Syd interrupted. "Why don't we stop trying to figure out what we did wrong and start figuring out how to get out of here?"

"Just like that," Sky said, shaking his head. "We're in a funhouse, Syd. There's no way out."

"Actually, funhouses have at least two exits," Bridge pointed out. "The way you came in, and the way you're supposed to go out. So either we're not really trapped, or... this isn't really a funhouse."

"That's probably the more likely explanation," Z said.

"Still," Syd insisted. "I like looking in the mirror as much as the next person--probably more, considering what I have to look at--but if the options are standing around feeling sorry for ourselves or trying to find a way out of this crazy funhouse prison? I'm gonna go with trying to find a way out."

"You forgot option three," Z reminded her, "which is waiting for Jack to find us."

"Option three doesn't technically preclude options one or two," Bridge remarked. "We should be able to accomplish it while simultaneously achieving one of our other goals. Those being escape or, uh... standing around."

"If Jack was going to get us out of here, he would have done it by now," Sky snapped. "We're on our own."

"Listen, Sky, Jack has been coming for me since I met him," Z declared. "And ever since we met you, he's done the same for you. I think he deserves--"

"Hey," Bridge said. "Look at that."

The Omegamax Megazord shimmered into view briefly, trapped in the mirrors even as Jack tumbled out, his Ranger uniform disappearing when the zord did, lost in the reflection. Lying on the ground at their feet, he squinted up at them ruefully. "Well, that could have gone better."

He held up his hand, and Z stepped forward to take it without hesitation. "You all right?" she asked, looking him over as she helped him to his feet.

"Wow," he said. He was staring at his own reflection, echoed over and over again in every direction. "That's seriously weird."

"I guess staying in the Jeep wouldn't have made a difference," Bridge mused.

"Okay," Syd said. "Now can we look for a way out of here?"

"Uh, guys--" Jack had reached out to touch his reflection, and his hand went right through himself. "I think we'd better stay close together."

"What do you mean?" Syd spun around, and Sky could see her reflection reach for Z. She didn't touch anything, but then, she wouldn't if Z didn't want her to. "Wait, why am I testing this on you?"

"That's not me," Z's reflection said. She put her hand on Syd's shoulder, and her other hand fumbled for Jack's again. "Jack."

"Yeah," he said. "Bridge, Sky. Fall in."

"It's surprisingly easy to get disoriented in here," Bridge observed, stepping in closer to them. One gloved hand brushed against Syd's arm, as if to reassure himself. "Or maybe, not surprisingly."

"Sky," Jack said impatiently, his reflection reaching out to Sky's.

Sky waited for contact that never came. Turning, he caught Jack's startled gaze--or the gaze of Jack's reflection. He'd thought he was standing right next to them. But which them was the real them? Every time someone reached out, all of their reflections reached out in exactly the same way.

"Don't move," Z said.

Suddenly there were a thousand Zs, moving and reflecting everywhere, and he caught the one that walked into him automatically. "Gotcha," she said, pulling him in the opposite direction. He stumbled into Jack, who grabbed his arm even as the Z who'd been leading him disappeared.

"Even to me," Z muttered, watching her selves vanish by the hundreds, "that's a little weird."

"Okay," Syd repeated. "Now we're in trouble."

"Nah," Jack said confidently. "Me and Sam had a deal. I take out the giant robot, he finds the team. He'll bust us out of here any second."

"You sent Sam to find us?" Z sounded offended by this explanation.

"Actually, Cruger sent Sam," Jack admitted. "He wouldn't let me leave the base. But then, giant robot, threatening the city, you know how it goes. I figured Sam wouldn't mind if I borrowed his ride for a quick mop-up job."

"Yeah," Sky snorted. "Good work with that."

"Hey, I got the robot," Jack told him. "And Sam is always complaining that he isn't challenged enough, so. I just gave him another Ranger to rescue."

"Sam," Sky said through gritted teeth, and he wasn't talking about Sam at all, "is a cocky son of a bitch who would be more useful to the team if he stopped showing off and occasionally did what he was told."

He heard Z mutter, "Well, good thing none of the rest of us have that problem."

It was Jack's gaze that held his attention, though, calm and just amused enough to set Sky's nerves on edge. "Sam's confidence is justified," he replied. "He's a smart kid. And don't forget he put his life on hold to hang around here and help us out."

"He's not a kid anymore," Sky grumbled. "He's older than you are. Sure he's smart; you would be too if you had fifteen years' future knowledge on the people around you. And he wouldn't have had to put his life on hold if he hadn't screwed up his time travel in the first place!"

Jack raised his eyebrows, but he held up one finger and pointed to it with his other hand. "You don't actually know he's older than I am." Pointing to a second finger, he added, "You're just mad that he won't tell you when you're going to become Red Ranger."

His third finger had nothing to do with anything Sky had said, except in a general and very unwelcome sense. Still studying Sky, he pointed to it and asked, "Why do you keep comparing me and Sam?"

Sky scowled at him. "That wasn't the third point."

Jack smirked. "It wasn't your third point, no. But it was my third point. So?"

"I'm sure Sam would make a great second-in-command," Sky said stiffly. "You obviously think alike. And recently he does have a more successful track record than I do."

"Is that what this is about?" Instead of impatience, Jack radiated a smug satisfaction that made Sky want to deck him. "Jealousy isn't a good look for you, Sky."

He paused, then added, "Well, it is, but not as good as most of your others."

Sky reminded himself that hitting his team leader would get him exactly nowhere. Jack's flirting had gotten to a point where people outside the team were starting to notice, and all he could do was ignore anything that wasn't said to his face. Which was everything. It turned out he had a reputation as somebody no one wanted to piss off.

"Oh, I don't know," Z said, deliberately casual. "It's better than the 'why am I surrounded by idiots' look."

"Or the 'you totally screwed up' look," Syd agreed. Then she added, "Or is that the same one?"

"Variations on a theme," Z told her.

The reputation didn't extend to his team, unfortunately. "Would you shut up?" Sky demanded.

"Ooh." Z pretended to wince. "Definitely better than that look."

"Fine," Jack said, and he had the nerve to grin. "So it's not as good as some of your others. The point is that Sam isn't the Blue Ranger. You are."

"Maybe I shouldn't be," Sky snapped. "This hasn't exactly been a stellar week for me. Don't make deals with criminals, that's D level education. Don't let your emotions get in the way--that's not even D level, that's orientation level one."

"Don't wallow in self-pity," Jack interrupted. "What level is that? Come on, Sky, this is ridiculous. Suck it up and do your job like the rest of us."

"I'm telling you I can't do my job!" Sky glared at him. "Are you even listening to me?"

"Are you listening to you?" Jack retorted. "You think you're the only one who's made a mistake? What about the commander, huh? What about him not telling you something that affected your interrogation and put not just you but everyone in this galaxy at risk? You gonna demote him too?

"What about all of us, getting ourselves captured by a criminal who can travel through reflections? We didn't have enough respect for his abilities--and frankly, it's not the first time. We've underestimated suspects before, and we've paid the price. That's how it works: you pay, you learn, you get better and you try again.

"You don't get better by going back to D Squad and being the fucking Super Cadet," Jack told him. "You don't get to live your life being great at the things you already know how to do. You have to live with what you don't know and hope you figure some of it out as you go."

"And if I don't figure it out," Sky growled, "you die. I can't put the entire team at risk for the sake of my education."

"Hey!" Jack let go of Z long enough to wave his free hand in Sky's face. "News flash! This is a police academy! We put ourselves on the line for each other; that's what we do here!"

"That's not what I do!" Sky shouted at him. "My dad was the best SPD had, and if I can't be that too then I don't deserve the uniform!"

"Your dad was the best, and now he's dead," Jack said harshly. "A Squad was the best, and they're gone. The Eltaran Rangers out there looking for them, they're the best of the best, and they can't even find five missing superpowered cadets! Even the best make mistakes, Sky!"

"Don't talk to me about mistakes," Sky said, icy and hard and scrabbling desperately for a way not to feel. Horror at the reminder of his father, despair at his own failure, and anger--always anger--at Jack.

Jack wasn't done. "You think you're the only one of us who doesn't get to screw up? That's insulting. If anyone ever demotes you it'll be for failing to show respect for your teammates, your squad, for SPD as a whole and for Power Rangers everywhere.

"But it's not going to be me," he concluded. "You're messed in the head if you think I'd ever voluntarily surrender the best fighter on this team. Anyone on this team. Any of my friends."

He really hated Jack sometimes. Most of the time, actually. But as much as he told himself it was true, it was getting harder and harder to remember in unguarded moments when he was distracted by something else.

That was the only excuse he had when Jack let go of his arm, grabbed the front of his jacket, and calmly informed him, "And yeah, I know I'm taking my life in my hands here. But you gotta live with what you don't know, right?"

Jack was in his face and Sky stiffened automatically until Jack's mouth landed on his and he realized what was happening. He felt his hands catch hold of Jack's arms without any intention at all, holding them together. He pressed for another kiss when Jack would have pulled away and Jack let him, answering his doubt with the kind of certainty only fools and maybe Red Rangers seemed to possess.

"So, inquiring minds want to know," Syd declared, as Jack let go of his jacket and fumbled for Z's shoulder again, making sure they were still where he thought they were. "Are you guys still going to be this scary when you finally start going out, or is this just some weird form of repression where you yell and scream at each other and then make out afterwards?"

"Actually, repression would be if they didn't make out afterwards," Bridge said thoughtfully. "You're thinking of sublimation, where you go from one phase to another without passing through the state in between."

"My god, are you actually analyzing this?" Z demanded. "I want to get them some kind of, I don't know, therapy."

"Thanks for the thought, Z," Jack said, squeezing her shoulder. "You're always looking out for my best interests."

"This means you're not actually going to quit, though, right?" Syd was eyeing Sky suspiciously. "Or demote yourself, or whatever? Because Jack doesn't hang around with D level cadets."

"None of us do, really," Bridge said. "I mean, we probably should. Helping them out, setting a good example, the kind of thing that's really helpful when you've just been promoted to your first squad. Jack used to--"

"Bridge," Z interrupted. Sky could see her reflection shake its head, a hundred times over. "He doesn't anymore. We're B level, and we're doing all the A level duties on top of it. We don't have time to socialize with D Squad."

"Right," Bridge agreed immediately. "Of course. We definitely wouldn't see you if you were on D Squad."

"Besides," Jack said with a grin, "which poor D level cadet are you going to demote so you can have their space? That's cruel, Sky."

Sky shook his head, because there wasn't any other answer to that. "At least you don't think I'm staying just because I'd miss you if I left," he told Jack.

Jack laughed. He hadn't meant it to be funny. "I'm just glad I don't have to replace you," Jack teased. "Sam's a redhead, you know. He probably looks terrible in blue."

6. "S.W.A.T."

"Are you out of your mind?" Z demanded, storming into the lounge with all the outrage of yet another Friday night spent on base behind her.

They'd been on dispatch for C Squad's patrol all afternoon, and what should have been an easy support assignment had turned frantic when C Squad ended up needing actual backup. SPD Rangers, officers, and even New Tech PD had been called in to contain the mess when the single fugitive they'd basically stumbled over turned violent, coercive, and willing to involve a whole lot of hostages. B Squad had only gotten back to base an hour ago.

"Maybe," Jack said, turning the page of his Ranger Quest comic book and grinning at the team's ultimate triumph. He held it up and turned it around so she could see. "Check it out: Gamma Power wins again."

"Jack," she snapped. Hands on her hips, she glared down at him where he was sprawled out on the couch. "You put Sky in charge of our weekend training schedule."

He shrugged, flipping the comic book back so he could read the last panel. "He looked like he needed something to do."

"Yeah, well, the rest of us don't!" she exclaimed. "We've been pulling double shifts all week, and we haven't had a day off since before Zentor! Our easy afternoon was a bust, and the last thing we need is Sky making us live in the mud swamp for the next two days!"

"He won't," Jack said confidently. He liked Gamma Power. They were ridiculously strong and they got pizza after every mission. "The commander's sending us on a team building retreat outside the city."

"Are you joking?" Z demanded. She kicked the leg he had draped over the end of the couch, and he sat up obediently, moving over to make room for her. "We just went on a team building retreat!"

He tossed the sixty-seventh issue of Ranger Quest onto the table as she sat down beside him. "Technically, we went on pre-upgrade training," he said. "Teamwork wasn't the original goal; it just happened to be what Silverback thought we sucked at the most."

"A hermit gorilla living alone with a robot dog," Z said with a snort. "His thoughts on teamwork meant a lot to me."

Jack chuckled, leaning back and putting his hands behind his head. "This is different," he promised. "Two days at some cabin on a lake, with our own transportation and no sergeants telling us what to do. Cruger says to think of it as a vacation."

"Uh-huh." Z wasn't buying it. "So what's Sky doing?"

"He's making up the team building agenda Cruger asked us to submit before we leave tomorrow morning." Jack waited for her to be outraged, but she knew him too well for that.

"An agenda that will be carried out in the absence of any official SPD supervision?" Z guessed. She already sounded less dangerous.

"Honor system," Jack said solemnly. "After all, we are the highest ranked cadets on the base right now. The commander thinks we can handle this responsibility."

"Oh, definitely," Z agreed. "We're very responsible. We're responsibility personified."

"Jack!" Syd's voice echoed down the hall, and Jack and Z exchanged glances. "Jack Landors!"

"In here!" Jack yelled back, not bothering to get up. He was pretty sure he knew what she wanted.

"Have you mentioned this lack of supervision to Sky?" Z asked while they waited for Syd to find them. "He seemed pretty enthusiastic about that 'agenda' he's working on."

"Jack," Syd declared, gliding into the lounge in what might very well have been a kimono. "What is the meaning of this? I just saw Sky and he's making up a training schedule for the weekend!"

"We're going on a team building retreat," Jack began, but Syd cut him off before he could go any further.

"No," she said, glaring at him. "No more team building! This is where I draw the line! If we have to do one more team building exercise, I quit! Turn in my badge, my blaster, and my ID, I'm done! D-O-N-E, done, do you understand?"

"Yeah," Jack agreed. "I got it."

Syd glared at him suspiciously, then at Z. She frowned a little. "You're very calm," she told her roommate. "You're too calm."

Look back at Jack, she asked, "Was this your idea, or the commander's?"

Jack grinned at her. "You mean, is there going to be alcohol involved?"

"I mean," Syd said, fluttering her kimono smoothly as she sat down in the chair opposite them, "on a scale of one to ten, one being airport runs and ten being Zentor, how much is this retreat like your idea of team building and how much is it like the commander's?"

"Well, it was Commander Cruger's idea," Jack admitted. "He's sending us off to some cabin in the middle of nowhere to relax. In between weapons and tactics drills."

"Yeah, I saw those on Sky's list." Syd was scowling again. "Who's our taskmaster this time? A dinosaur with a stuffed chinchilla?"

"Jack," Z said before he could answer. He looked over at her, but she was just smirking. "Jack is our taskmaster."

"Really?" Syd brightened for a moment, but then she eyed him skeptically. "Does Sky know?"

Jack rolled his eyes. "Guys, Sky isn't stupid. Get him away from the base and I promise he can act like a normal human being. For extended periods of time, even."

"His idea of normal and my idea of normal are totally different," Z pointed out.

"Let's just say that given the choice between teamwork drills and sleeping in," Jack told her, "I have it on good authority that he'll pick sleeping in."

Z scoffed, and Syd shook her head. "I don't know, Jack. He seemed pretty gung ho about teamwork on Zentor."

Jack waited for the punch line, but it didn't come. "Sorry?" he said at last. "I thought you just mentioned Sky and teamwork in the same sentence."

"Yes," Syd said impatiently. "Sky and teamwork and Zentor. Weren't you there?"

"Uh, when he was yelling at us or when he was ignoring us?" Jack asked, glancing at Z. She just held up her hands, claiming neutrality.

"When he was giving us the speech," Syd insisted. "About what he was thinking about while he was running, about friendship and wanting to be with us."

Jack couldn't help it. He snickered. Syd got that he was laughing at her instantly and lobbed a pillow at him, no questions asked. "Sorry!" he protested, trying for apologetic and mostly just coming up hilariously entertained. "Sorry, really, Syd. I'm sorry, okay?"

She looked only moderately appeased. "What's so funny?" she demanded.

"Look," Jack said, tossing the pillow back to her. "If Sky had any epiphanies while he was running, they were all about how to win Silverback's little game. That's what he does: he figures out the game and the rules. And then he wins. Simple as that."

Z was smirking at him now, and he did a double take when he noticed the expression. "What?" he wanted to know. "What's that look for?"

She shrugged. "I just think he took it a little far if he was only playing to win, that's all. And I don't think you thought he was faking it at the time, either."

"You hugged him!" Syd exclaimed. "And he let you!"

"That's 'cause he wants me," Jack joked. "He just hasn't admitted it yet."

Z poked him, hard. "He admits it every time you say something like that and he doesn't correct you," she informed him. "Do you think you could hurry it up and ask him out already? He might be nicer to us."

"Ah," Jack said, wagging a finger in her direction. "But if I push him before he's ready, he might be worse. He's tricky that way."

"Before he's ready?" Z repeated. "I've never met anyone more ready to be housebroken than Sky."

"Well..." Syd hesitated, and they both looked at her. She sighed all at once, shaking her head. "I think Dru hurt him, you know? Really bad. Maybe you're right; maybe he isn't ready yet."

Z raised her eyebrows, glancing from Syd to Jack, maybe to get his opinion on this. He shrugged. Sky was driven, no doubt about it. But what, exactly, was driving him... that was a question for much later at night.

"Hey, Jack?" Bridge's voice drifted in just ahead of him, eyeing them curiously as he wandered into the lounge. "I have a question about this weekend."

"You and everyone else, Bridge." Jack waved him over. "What's on your mind?"

"Well, I couldn't help but notice that Sky is working on the training schedule," Bridge began.

It finally occurred to Jack that for the entire squad to know what Sky was doing, something had to be going on. "Hey," he interrupted, frowning. "I gave him that job specifically to get him out of my hair, and now you're saying that you've all seen him in the, what, half an hour since dinner?"

"Jack." Sky strode in, paying no attention to the team gathered around him. "Rope swing or rowing?"

Jack blinked. "Um... rope swing?"

"Rowing it is," Sky said, writing something down on the electronic notepad he was carrying around. It looked like a lot more than a single word. He was probably writing a new manual in his spare time.

"Sky," Jack said, glaring at him as the pieces started to come together. "Have you been going around asking everyone really obnoxious questions about what kind of training they'd least like to do this weekend?"

Sky underlined something sharply on his notepad, glanced up long enough to catch Jack's eye, then went back to writing. "It's perfectly logical," he told the notepad. "The things we like to do least are naturally things we spend less time on. That's where we need the most practice."

Sky thrust the notepad at him abruptly, and Jack could feel the girls' accusing gazes on him as he took it. Sky was already turning away by the time he realized there was nothing about rowing on it. No list, no agenda, just the words Cruger is in Kat's lab, underlined twice and followed by: To get me out of your hair?

Jack looked up, but Sky was just unlocking the lounge doors and letting them slide closed. Tipping the notepad toward Z, he let her take it away from him and pass it to Syd while he called, "I guess it's a good thing we have you to keep us on task, Sky."

Sky snorted. "You have no idea," he informed them, coming back to join their little group in the far corner. "I could hear you in the hallway."

"I thought he couldn't hear us from the lab unless we yelled," Z said, her voice barely above an indignant whisper. "What's he doing there this late, anyway?"

"He only complains when we yell," Sky countered. He wasn't much louder, despite the fact that the doors were shut now. "Who knows how much he can hear."

"He's trying to get Kat to go home," Bridge offered. When they all looked at him he added, "That's what he's doing in the lab, I mean. Probably. She hasn't slept since I think Wednesday. Give or take a week or so."

Z groaned. "That stupid quantum enhancer," she muttered. "When I get my hands on Piggy..."

"It's a little late to tell her to go home now," Syd declared. "And I don't care if he does hear me, because he was awful to her all last week. The only reason she was looking for a new quantum enhancer in the first place is because he kept pressuring her to finish the upgrade."

"It's kind of ironic, when you think about it," Sky said thoughtfully. "That the commander sends us on team building assignments when he's arguably the least team-oriented person on base."

There was a moment of absolute silence.

"Sky," Z said at last. "Did you just criticize Commander Cruger?"

Jack snickered at the entirely typical look of disdain that Sky sent her way. "Please," he said. "I'm the first to admit that my superiors can make mistakes."

"That's true," Jack put in. "Giving me the Red morpher, for one. Keeping Sky on B Squad, for another."

"Not giving him a new bike," Bridge said solemnly.

"Ooh," Syd said. "Putting him on nightwatch!"

"Refusing to help as Shadow Ranger," Sky countered. "Cutting us off from Kat. Not to mention that emergency button in her lab; what kind of power trip is that? You know it only signals one person. What if he's off base? What if he's in the bathroom? Six Rangers on this base and I could have killed her in her own lab before anyone knew what happened just because she doesn't have a general alarm."

Jack put one foot up on the corner of the couch nearest him. The couch Sky was sharing with Bridge. "That wasn't you," he said firmly.

"Doesn't change anything," Sky told him. "All I'm saying is that a little team building wouldn't kill him."

"It makes sense, actually," Bridge remarked. "It's our own weaknesses that tend to aggravate us most in others. It's entirely possible that he's disproportionately sensitive to our constant show of disunity."

Jack eyed him. "Meaning?"

"He feels bad about himself because we argue a lot," Syd translated.

"Arguing is our preferred method of communication," Bridge pointed out.

"We don't get team building assignments because we argue," Z said. "We get team building assignments because Mr. Perfect here can't learn to take an order."

"Well, that's a possibility too," Bridge allowed.

Sky glared at him. "Would you stop agreeing with your girlfriend?"

Bridge gave him an odd look. "Why?"

Jack wasn't stupid, and getting between Z and Sky was not high on his list of fun things to do. So he lifted his chin in Syd's direction and asked, "Hey, where is home for Kat? I thought she lived on base."

"Yeah, she's always here," Z agreed. "Or off working on some project or other."

"Ah," Bridge said. "See how those two statements are mutually exclusive? They don't seem like they are, because they both imply the same thing: that she's always working. But she's not always working when she's here, and she's not always here when she's not working.

"Or here when she's working," he continued. "Or not working when she's here. Obviously. I mean, we've all seen her."

Sky sighed. "Kat always says she has a project when she leaves so people don't bother her at home."

"And by people," Syd added, "he means the commander."

"That's good," Jack said with a grin. "Because if by people he meant all of you, then I was gonna say, she needs to rethink her strategy."

"Bridge figured it out right away," Syd told him. "Because he and Boom spend so much time in the lab. He told me and Sky so we could help cover for her on her days off."

"The commander takes this 24/7 style of SPD a little too seriously," Z remarked.

"Oh, hey, that's what I wanted to ask you about," Bridge said suddenly. "Before I found out that we had training this weekend, and then found out that we don't really, but everyone thinks we do... maybe I shouldn't ask at all?"

"Maybe you should," Jack said. "And then we can all just think you didn't."

Bridge considered that. "Yeah," he decided. "That might work."

"What is it?" Sky reminded him, when he stopped there.

"The Dancing Dragons," Bridge said, very seriously. "They're having a jumpathon tomorrow, and I told Lynelle I might be able to be there, so I was wondering if I... might."

"Oh, your sister's jumprope team," Syd said, before Jack could ask what the hell he was talking about. "Are they doing a demonstration?"

"At ten o'clock," Bridge agreed. "They start with a demonstration, then the team leads the jumpathon for the rest of the day. They're raising money for kids with disabilities."

"I think jumping rope counts as training," Z said. "What do you think, Jack?"

"I think--" He frowned at Bridge. "Really? They jump rope all day?"

Bridge nodded. "They'll be teaching, too, sharing some of their secrets with the other participants. Extreme jumproping is becoming very popular--some of the local schools have even started to form their own teams, so they should have a good turnout."

"Extreme jumproping," Jack repeated. Bemused, yes, but this was Bridge, after all. "Well, hey. Anything that has extreme in the title should definitely count. Go for it."

"Hey, Jack?" Syd said, very sweetly. "Taking care of ourselves is part of what makes an effective team, right?"

He tried very hard not to smile, because he knew that tone. "What do you want, Syd."

"Well, there's this extreme spa and massage place," she began, and he couldn't help it. He was grinning before she even finished the sentence, and he waved his hand in acquiescence.

"Like I said," he agreed, slouching down on the couch and bracing his feet against the bottom of the table. "If it says 'extreme,' it counts as training, and god knows what this team needs is more training.

"We leave together," Jack added. "Everyone meet in the garage at eight o'clock tomorrow morning. Sky will file our team building agenda before we head out. I'll take the van to the cabin--and if I happen to be the only one who actually makes it there, well." He shrugged. "All you gotta tell me before I drop you at your designated team building sites is when to pick you up."

"Ooh!" Syd brightened. "Can we stay out overnight?"

"What are you, five?" Jack demanded. "Of course you can stay out overnight. We have to be back here... Sky, when do we have to be back here?"

"Ten Sunday night," Sky told him. "Any later and the commander might think I'm being too hard on you."

Jack scoffed. "You? Why would he think that?"

"So, you could pick us up on your way back to base on Sunday?" Z asked. "What about you? You don't have to spend the whole weekend at some cabin."

"Nah, might as well," he said. "That way if anyone stops by to check on us I can tell them you're all out on a scavenger hunt or something. Besides, I haven't been out of New Tech in years.

"That weird Japan thing does not count," Jack added, when he saw Sky open his mouth. "Chasing suspects never counts.

"So I'm gonna go to this nice, quiet little cabin," he continued, "far away from SPD. I'm gonna sleep, read comic books, and be your chauffeur. Consider it my way of saying thanks for pulling it together on Zentor."

It really didn't sound that bad to him, all things considered. And that was even before he realized that Sky wasn't just being close-mouthed about his plans--by the next morning, he still hadn't made any. He was riding shotgun, though, pretending to work and studiously ignoring the rest of them, so everyone left him alone.

Jack dropped Bridge and Z off on Lynelle's sprawling university campus, Syd off at her giant luxury spa, and debated just driving around until Sky said something. Unfortunately, that would only be fun if Sky did say something, and all indications were that he could go the entire two days without opening his mouth once. So Jack gave in first.

"Got a destination in mind?" he asked, firing up the engine and pulling away from Syd's spa. They were waiting to turn out of the entrance before Sky finally looked up from whatever he was not working on.

"Actually, I'd like to go to the cabin," Sky said. "My mom and my uncle used to take me camping a lot, after my dad died. I miss it."

Jack blinked. "Really?"

Sky shrugged and mostly avoided answering. "I checked out the remote training facilities back on base, and I think 'cabin' is just SPD's way of saying 'no weapons'. It has everything else. Including kayaks. I like kayaking."

Really, Jack thought? He managed to keep himself from saying it out loud this time. "I've never been," he said instead. Like it was perfectly normal to be on his way to a cabin to spend two days alone with Sky. "Never been on the water at all, really."

"I could teach you," Sky offered. He was staring out the windshield, no expression on his face. "If you're interested."

Okay, this weekend had just become something totally different, but Jack hadn't gotten this far by failing to notice opportunity when it kicked down his door. "Yeah," he agreed. "You bet I'm interested."

Sky gave him a sideways look that Jack wouldn't have seen if he hadn't taken his eyes off of the road at exactly that moment to glance at Sky. "I heard you talking about Dru last night," Sky remarked.

Which pretty much confirmed that, yes, Sky had just asked him out. "I was talking about you," Jack corrected easily. "Syd was talking about Dru."

"If I asked you what you say about me when I'm not around," Sky said after a moment, "would you tell me the truth?"

Jack grinned out the windshield. "Sky, I tell the team exactly what I tell you," he declared. "Whether you're around or not. You've heard me say I want you. You've probably heard me say you want me.

"And if you haven't," he added as an aside, "you totally want me. So there."

He heard Sky snort. "Real mature, Jack."

"But you're not denying it," Jack pointed out. "The kissing, that's not just for the hell of it, you know? I'm not just trying to mess with your head."

"You're not just trying to mess with my head," Sky repeated. "You are, in part, trying to mess with my head."

Jack smirked as the van rolled to a stop at a traffic light. "Is it working?"

"No," Sky retorted.

They idled there in traffic for a while until Sky said abruptly, "Syd's right, you know."

Jack just nodded. "I figured your thing with Dru was pretty intense," he said.

"I can't help that you remind me of him," Sky told the car in front of them, as the light turned green and they started to roll again. "It creeps me out."

Jack stifled his laugh as best he could, because Sky was rarely anything less than brutally honest. And when he decided to do something, he did it. Whether it was a career or a conversation. Period.

"What," he said, when he could almost keep a straight face, "because I'm so great, or because he turned out so bad?"

Sky didn't answer, and he figured maybe that wasn't exactly the right thing to say.

"Sorry," Jack offered after a moment. "I'm not used to you talking about... you."

Now Sky was the one who sounded amused. "I don't know why," he said. "I do it all the time."

Jack chuckled. "Well, like Z would say: good thing you're the only one."

Several minutes passed before Sky remarked, "It's not that I think you'd sell out."

"Oh, thanks," Jack said, rolling his eyes. "I appreciate the confidence you have in me; it means a lot."

Sky ignored him. "It's just that I know you put yourself before SPD," he continued. "I've already been with someone who did that, and I don't want to do it again." He hesitated. "Why do I feel like I should apologize?"

"Cause you're being totally unfair," Jack told him. "We all put ourselves before SPD, Sky. Even you, with your 'I should be the Red Ranger' and your 'I only obey orders when I feel like it' crap.

"Not that I'm saying we don't all do that," he added, lifting a placating hand from the steering wheel when Sky shifted irritably. "In fact, that's exactly what I'm saying: we all do it. We do put ourselves first. Because without us, there's no SPD."

"SPD is my life," Sky snapped. "Everything I do, I do because I think it makes SPD better."

"Yeah, so, what about making yourself better?" Jack countered. "Doesn't that make SPD better too?"

He could practically hear Sky frowning. "Obviously."

"So why'd you kiss me?" Jack asked, staring out at the road. "When Mirloc captured us, and we had to have that whole D Squad argument? Why'd you kiss me? Was that to make you better, or to make SPD better?"

Sky didn't answer.

"Why'd you hug me on Zentor?" Jack insisted. "Why do you want to go kayaking this weekend? Is that good for SPD? Or is that good for you?"

Sky folded his arms, turning his head to look out the passenger window.

"It's okay to want things, you know," Jack said. "Just because. Because you want them, not because they make everything worth it. You can go after things that aren't, like, your lifelong goal without letting everyone down."

"Nice speech," Sky muttered to the window. "Got any lifelong goals, Jack?"

"Yeah," Jack told him. "As a matter of fact, I do. To make things better for people who don't know what better is."

This produced a very satisfying pause, until Sky startled him with a bitterness that usually only surfaced when he was talking about Dru. "What am I, then?" he wanted to know. "Just another project?"

"You know what better is," Jack said. "You're just too scared to go after something that hasn't been part of the plan since you were three years old."

Sky's voice was perfectly even when he asked, "What if you leave?"

Jack blinked, and it took him a moment to figure out what Sky was asking. "What if you get promoted?" he countered. "There aren't any guarantees. You gotta live with what you don't know."

Sky didn't say anything else for the better part of an hour. When the lines disappeared from the roads, though, Jack made him get out the directions and start navigating. Because what the hell did Jack know about finding places where the landmarks were giant live oak trees and wild azalea bushes?

They found the cabin, no problem. They also found the boathouse, the sauna, and the screened in gazebo. Jack was laughing by the time they made their way down to the lakeshore, because Cruger really hadn't lied. It could be a vacation. A resort vacation.

"Okay," Sky said, as they walked out onto the L-shaped dock to get a good look around the lake. "No way is the commander going to believe we were up here doing teamwork drills all weekend."

"Are you kidding?" Jack said with a grin. "You're here. He'll believe it."

Sky paused at the end of the dock, giving him a speculative look. "Hey," he said, deceptively casual. "Can you swim?"

"No," Jack said, holding up his hands and backing away. "So don't get any ideas."

"Don't you think you should learn?" Sky asked innocently.

"Push me in the water and you'll never get me out in a kayak," Jack warned. "I'm not kidding, Sky."

Sky relaxed slightly and something about his posture told Jack that the threat had been taken seriously. It was reassuring in more ways than one. His interactions with Sky before he was SPD had been brief, intense struggles for control that he was just as glad to leave behind. Sky wasn't a comfortable enemy.

It had made him wonder, though, how much of his current ability to deflect Sky's more forceful personality was a direct result of his rank. He didn't have any illusions about them being evenly matched: Sky was more experienced, stronger, the better fighter and frankly the better thinker. Jack wasn't convinced that he hadn't been made Red Ranger just to teach Sky a lesson.

Where that left them as friends--let alone anything more--he wasn't sure. They didn't have to respect each other to mess around together. But Jack didn't sleep with anyone he didn't trust, and he had plenty of evidence that anything Sky got into, he got into for the long haul.

So he let Sky teach him to kayak. He told Sky about how he'd met up with Z, and he listened to Sky's wholesome family stories about camping. They got lunch, and later dinner, from a very well-programmed synthesizer. And when Sky couldn't coax him back into a boat one more time, and they didn't feel like talking anymore, Jack brought his comic books down to the dock and pretended to read while he watched Sky swim.

It was a lazy, beautiful day, the kind he'd almost forgotten existed since he'd joined SPD. He didn't try to kiss Sky once, at first because he didn't want Sky to stop talking and then because he almost didn't need to. They'd never been closer than this, with the setting sun warm and golden on wet skin and no words necessary to enjoy the evening.

Still, he couldn't help a flash of disappointment when Sky hauled himself up on the dock, dripping water all over the place as he flopped down on his back and said, "We should call the others."

Jack stopped pretending to read and pushed his sunglasses up, leaning over the arm of his chair to stare down at Sky. "To interrupt their Saturday night out of pure malicious spite?" he guessed.

Sky smiled, which had finally stopped surprising Jack with its ease after maybe the twentieth time this afternoon. "Just to let them know what they're missing. We could still pick them up if they wanted to come for the day tomorrow."

"Not Z's idea of fun," Jack said with certainty. "Not Syd's either, I think. And Bridge hasn't seen his family in a while."

Sky let it go, arms over his head as he stretched for the other side of the dock. Being Sky, of course, he could reach, and he just laid there like that for a moment. "What about you?" he asked at last. "Is it your idea of fun?"

Jack braced his elbow against the arm of the chair, putting his chin on his fist, and grinned down at Sky. "The part where you kayak shirtless, or the part where you walk around in swim trunks dripping wet? 'Cause as far as I'm concerned, this day just keeps getting better."

Of course, Sky let go of the dock and sat up, but it had been worth it. Even when Sky said idly, "You know, you really do sound just like him."

Jack's smile faded, but he didn't move. "Just because a lot of guys are attracted to you," he said, "that doesn't mean we're all the same."

"No," Sky said. He looked up at Jack, still hanging on the arm of the chair, and their eyes met. "No, you're not."

They just sat there like that for a moment, and when Sky glanced out over the lake Jack followed his gaze. They didn't go back to the cabin until the bugs were enough to drive them in and the first stars were showing through the deep blue of the sky. The cabin loomed on the hill, a massive shadow in the fading light.

Once there, they settled in for the night. Contrary to his assurances back on base, Sky was now determined to get up early. To go fishing, of all things. Since he didn't make more than a token effort to get Jack to go with him, Jack didn't complain, and they ended up watching TV in the common room until they fell asleep.

It was the beeping sound that woke him up. Well, that and the way the body underneath him shifted, reaching for something and making him more awake than he wanted to be in the process. On the plus side, the beeping stopped.

On the even more plus side, he felt hands on his arms and a gentle brush against his head before Sky's voice said quietly, "Jack."

He mumbled something that wasn't supposed to be anything, happy to play it up if it got him a few more seconds of lying on top of Sky. This was the best team building retreat ever. They should do these every weekend.

"Jack," Sky said again, still soft. Softer than Jack had ever heard him. "Wake up."

"You jus' kissed me," Jack slurred, making no effort to move. It seemed like a fairly intelligent observation, considering the hour.

"Yeah, well." He could hear Sky smiling. "You owed me one."

"Do it again," Jack demanded, not lifting his head.

"Maybe if you get up," Sky's voice suggested.

It sounded like a trick, but he couldn't quite work out why. He rolled over, struggling to push himself up, and he was only halfway there when he realized Sky was helping. Or holding him in place. Hands still on his arms, another mouth soft on his, he melted into the support and gave all of his attention to the kiss.

Breath, wet warmth, tongue... he moaned into the mouth he'd been dreaming about for months. Best morning breath ever. He wanted it, wanted the smell and the taste and especially the tongue, eager to learn it and never forget. He couldn't talk, could barely breathe and he didn't care, happy to share and happier to express his appreciation with gasps and unintelligible requests for more.

Then the pressure was gone, the heat disentangled from himself and he heard Sky whisper, "You fight dirty." There was a sound like someone trying to catch their breath, and his voice continued, "Guess I shouldn't be surprised."

Jack blinked blearily at him, slumped back against the couch again and wondering what he was talking about now. "Huh?"

"I'm going fishing," Sky said over his shoulder, already turning away. "Sorry I woke you up."

Oh, but Jack wasn't. Jack was only sorry that he was walking away. He closed his eyes, just for a minute, and the next thing he knew the smell of coffee wouldn't turn off and there was sunlight through the windows and someone was knocking at the door.

Someone knocking at the door. He pushed himself up quickly, reaching for his morpher and only then realizing he didn't have it. He'd clipped it to his civvies, taken it off when he sat down--

There it was. On the table next to the coffee. The coffee?

Jack rubbed his eyes, trying to remember exactly what was going on. Weekend retreat, TV, Sky, yeah, he'd got it. But coffee?

"Sky?" he called, just to make sure.

There was no answer except for another knock at the front door. Right. Someone wanted to come in. Or talk to him. Or something. And he was pretty sure Sky was out... fishing, or something.

"Coming!" he yelled, trying to stifle a yawn.

He got up, tugged his shirt into place, and reached for the coffee. Or his morpher. Yeah, he should probably have his morpher. He grabbed that first, clipping it to his jeans' pocket awkwardly, and took the coffee with him to the door. This had better not be anyone from SPD.

He managed one swallow of hot coffee--luxuries like warm coasters were SPD through and through--before he pulled the door open and found a woman in red on the other side. They stared at each other for a moment. He probably looked like shit, he realized belatedly. Although in his defense, he hadn't been expecting company.

"Red Ranger," she said, holding up her morpher like a badge. And it was a morpher, he knew that instinctively even though he'd never seen it before. "I'm looking for Jack Landors?"

His first thought was that this was Charlie, that they'd found A Squad. But Kat hadn't made him memorize that file for nothing: he was almost positive Charlie was a brunette. This woman was blonde. And she wasn't in uniform.

"Yeah," he said, clearing his throat a little. "That's me."

"Hi." She lowered her morpher and held out her other hand. "Hope, of RS-42. Ranger for the Kerova System. Nice to meet you."

He frowned. "Hope," he repeated, transferring the coffee to his other hand and reaching out to shake hers. "That's your name?"

"Yeah." She looked vaguely amused, which could be a good sign or a very bad one. "I'm sorry; did I wake you up?"

"Uh..." Kerovan Rangers. Currently searching for A Squad. "No," he said, beginning to understand who he was talking to. "Hey, why don't you come in. I didn't mean to keep you, uh, standing there on the doorstep. So to speak."

She smiled, accepting the invitation with the air of someone who definitely hadn't just woken up. "Thanks," she said, following him inside. "Sorry to intrude. I heard you and your teammates were up here on a team building retreat."

"Team building," he repeated, wondering why it didn't sound as ridiculous when she said it. "Yeah. Well." He frowned down at the mug in his hand. "I'm pretty sure Sky made me this coffee..."

The blonde woman from another planet gave him an odd look as he led her into the common room. "There is a reason for Commander Cruger to think you're on a team building retreat, right?"

He shifted, waving awkwardly at the chairs by the couch. "Yeah, we might have told him something like that," he admitted.

"Ah." She smiled again, taking a seat. "As long as you're the ones lying, then. I have to admit I was a little suspicious when he said his entire team just happened to be gone the day we showed up to report on the search."

Jack hesitated by the chair opposite her. "We weren't totally lying," he felt compelled to point out. "The five of us live and work and fight together. Nothing builds team like a little time apart."

"Oh, so you're not all here?" she asked, glancing around.

He had the uncomfortable feeling that he was just digging himself deeper. "Sky's around somewhere," he muttered. "The others are, uh, taking some personal time."

"Team building," she said. "I understand. Believe me, after living in each other's back pockets these last two weeks? My team's ready for some personal time too."

He finally sat down, studying her with a little more conscious awareness. She didn't look appalled. She didn't look upset. She actually looked kind of sympathetic, and that wasn't at all what he'd been expecting. As he took another sip of coffee, it occurred to him that he sucked as a host.

"Hey, can I get you anything?" he offered. "A drink or something? Something to eat?"

"That coffee smells pretty good," she admitted. "Who do I have to know to get some of that?"

"Just me," he promised, getting up again. "You want anything in it?"

"If you could fill half the mug with cream and sugar," she told him, "then add the coffee? That would be perfect."

He grinned, hoping he wasn't wrong to trust her casual ease. "You got it."

"So," she said, while he got her coffee. "Any particular reason a team building retreat is more important than a briefing on the whereabouts of your teammates?"

Jack winced, careful not to turn away from the synthesizer until he had his expression under control. "Ah, see," he said, picking up her mug in his free hand, "we didn't make that choice, because we didn't actually know you were coming."

"That's what I mean." She leaned over to pull the single coaster to the edge of the table, closest to her. "Why didn't you know we were coming? Why would you be sent away the same day we were passing through the Sol system?"

He shrugged. "The commander probably didn't want to disrupt our schedule," he said, setting her mug down on the coaster. "He likes schedules. Routines. That kind of thing. Sorry you had to come all the way out here."

"I didn't." She was watching him sit down, and she caught his eye when he looked up curiously. "My team is reporting to your Shadow Ranger. They made some excuse for my absence so I could track you down, and here I am: on your doorstep, so to speak. Looking for the rest of the SPD Earth Rangers."

Okay, he hadn't seen that coming. "You snuck out of a briefing to find us?" he blurted out.

Hope of RS-42 smiled: a calm, polite smile that didn't reach her eyes. "That's one way of putting it," she agreed.

"Is there another?" he asked, studying her suspiciously.

"Honestly?" She picked up her coffee mug, but she didn't try to drink from it. "Shadow Ranger acts like he outranks you. And I have to tell you, one Red Ranger to another, that kind of annoys me."

"That's why you snuck out of the briefing?" He didn't know whether to be skeptical or amused.

"Sorry," she said, not like she meant it. She lifted the mug briefly in his direction. "They tell me I have problems with authority."

Amused, he decided. Definitely amused.

"Seems to go with the color," Jack said, raising his mug to her in return.

This time when she smiled, it looked bright and sincere. "Is that why you just happened to be out of town when we showed up?"

"Possibly," he admitted. "There's a reason we're not A Squad, you know?"

She seemed to understand this without him having to explain. "You're doing all the duties of a front line team," she told him. "As far as the League is concerned, you and your team are the face of Earth."

Jack tried not to smile. "Tell you the truth?" he said, since she seemed perfectly willing to do it for him. "I don't know whether that's comforting or kind of frightening."

"Believe me," she said. "I know exactly what you mean."

Their eyes met, and he got the feeling that maybe she wasn't at the top of her class either. It was just a thought, and maybe it was groundless, but she seemed to get him in a way that no one at SPD did. Easily, without trying, like sharing a color made up for coming from a totally different world.

He decided that if Charlie was anything like her, then Sky was going to be pissed when they finally met.

"My team will leave all the official search parameters back at base," Hope was saying. "And if we'd found them, obviously you'd know by now. But I wanted to come out here and make sure you know that, um... this may not end well."

He blinked. It was the first time she'd hesitated since she'd come in. "Did you just say 'this may not end well'?" he asked. "Grumm threatening to destroy the planet, our entire team lost in the Helix Nebula, and hey, it might not end well?"

"Half your team," she corrected. "And I'm not sure they're in the Helix Nebula anymore."

"What?" It wasn't the most clever thing he could have come up with, but it was all he could manage. Jack frowned down at his coffee, wondering how it could be mostly gone if he was still this far behind.

"Look," she said. "It's a big galaxy out there, but teams have been searching the nebula for months. We should have come up with something by now."

He had actually said the same thing a few weeks ago, but Sky had sneered at him until he backed off. He'd gotten a lecture on astronomy--solar, stellar, and galactic--that he'd tried to tune out, but he'd been left with one impression. Well, two. "Space is big," and "Sky knows way too much about how big space is."

Luckily, Hope seemed to take his silence as manly regret rather than utter confusion. "We'll keep looking," she promised. "We'll look until we find them. But there's something weird going on, and I'm getting worried about what exactly we'll find when we do."

"Something weird?" he repeated carefully. Was this one of those things the commander hadn't bothered to tell them about, or was it just a crazy alien hunch that she couldn't put in a report?

A thump from the back porch made them both look up, and Hope glanced at him when it became clear that someone was coming up the stairs. He just smiled, finishing off his coffee while he waited to see what kind of entrance Sky would make. There was a clatter from outside, something being dropped on the deck, and then more footsteps.

Finally the door slid open, and Sky definitely hadn't bothered to look through before he came in, because he got about three steps into the room before coming to an abrupt halt. Putting him right on the edge of the sunlight that spilled through the door as he stared at them in surprise. Barefoot, with mussed hair, and wearing only swim trunks, he made the light look damn good.

"Hey, Sky," Jack drawled, grinning at him. "This is Hope. Leader of the Kerovan Rangers. She snuck out of the A Squad briefing on base to make sure we got the full story."

Sky still looked kind of shell-shocked, so Jack added, "Hope, my Second, Sky Tate."

"Hi." Sky's brain seemed to kick into gear, and he came forward quickly. Jack stood up when Hope did, and Sky held out his hand. "Nice to meet you."

"You too," she said, shaking his hand smoothly. She was clearly just as impressed with his appearance as Jack, and he thought the glance at Sky's shorts was totally unnecessary even when she added, "Blue Ranger?"

"Yeah," Jack said, before Sky could answer. "Get in line."

Her face broke into a grin, and Sky tried to pretend that he hadn't heard. "I'm going to go get a shirt," he said, in exactly the same tone of voice that he might have said, My shift starts in ten minutes, or I have to go present a seminar.

"He's cute," Hope said, not two seconds after Sky had turned away. She was nominally talking to Jack, but Sky stopped anyway.

"Yeah," Jack repeated, smirking at Sky's back. "Tell me about it."

"You do realize I can hear you," Sky said calmly, not turning around.

"Nothing you haven't heard before," Jack teased. "You're cute, I want you, and hey, thanks for the coffee."

Sky walked out of the room without looking back.

"Wow," Hope remarked, glancing back at him. "I was kind of expecting a girl."

"I think his parents were too," Jack said with a grin. "Something about the way he talks."

"Yeah," she said, more thoughtfully than he'd expected. "You're right about that. His reaction time, too. It's funny."

He raised his eyebrows at her, because he'd been joking.

She gave him a speculative look in return. "He's not, is he?"

Jack just stared at her, and she laughed.

"Welcome to life as a Power Ranger," she said with an apologetic shrug. "Obviously when someone isn't quite what you expect, the most logical explanation is that they've been body-switched with someone else. Or magically altered. Or possessed."

His eyes widened. "You know?" he demanded, sinking into his chair in disbelief. "All of those things have actually happened to us."

Hope just lifted her coffee mug again, saluting him silently.

"Wow," he realized. "We really are Power Rangers, aren't we."

She grinned, sitting down across from him. "So many things about this life seem funnier in retrospect, don't they?"

He shook his head, at a total loss.

"So," she said after a moment. "Are you and he...?" She gestured in the direction Sky had gone with her mug, but she didn't finish the question.

"Unfortunately," Jack said ruefully, "no matter what you're asking, the answer is probably no."

"Really?" That was all she said, but her skeptical tone said the rest for her.

"Kind of a long story," he admitted. "Let's just say, when he finally figures out what he wants... if I don't get first refusal I'm gonna be really pissed."

"And by really," she began, eyeing him, "you mean, not at all."

"No," he said lightly. "By pissed, I mean heartbroken."

"Seriously," Sky's voice interrupted. "I can hear you."

Jack glanced over his shoulder, watching Sky stride across the common room toward them: still in his swim trunks, blue SPD t-shirt pulled on over top of them. "Seriously," he mimicked, rolling his eyes. "We don't care."

There were plenty of other chairs in the room, but for some reason Sky pushed the coaster out of the way on the coffee table and perched on the edge of it, looking at them expectantly. "So what's going on?"

Jack sighed, because what did he care if Sky wanted to be uncomfortable? "Haven't you seen Stargate?" he asked anyway, getting up to grab another chair before anyone could answer. "No good ever comes of sitting on tables."

"Jack, we have company," Sky reminded him. "Pretend to be normal, okay?"

Leaving the chair directly across from the table, Jack pointed at it. "Sit."

Sky held up his hands in a way that made it clear he was only humoring the crazy man, but he did get up and sit in the chair. Hope just looked on in amusement. Jack shook his head, deciding that in this particular case, the better part of victory was silence.

"Hope was just saying she's got a bad feeling about A Squad," he said instead.

Sky glanced at him, eyebrows raised.

"Yeah," Jack continued, unable to resist. "She says she thinks they should have found some sign of them by now." He kicked the leg of Sky's chair, just because. Space wasn't so big after all.

"Rangers can track each other," Hope told them. "If your teammates were in the Helix Nebula, even if they were dead, we should have been able to find their morphers by now. The fact that we haven't tells me something's wrong."

"Well, but it's not totally bad, right?" Jack asked. "I mean... they're not dead, then."

"Not in the Helix Nebula," Sky muttered.

"The two most likely options?" Hope offered. "They were captured by evil and taken somewhere else, or they escaped and got stranded outside the nebula somewhere. Either way, we're going to have a hell of a time finding them unless they can get a message out somehow."

"Or if we can get information from Grumm," Sky said grimly. "He has to know something."

"Well--" Hope hesitated again, and Jack focused on her. "I don't officially know this, okay? I don't even unofficially know this. And you should know that two of my teammates think it's crazy."

"What?" Jack leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. He recognized that tone already. "This is your weird thing, isn't it. Whatever it is that makes you think we're in trouble."

"Yeah," she said with a sigh. "This is the weird thing: attacks in the vicinity of the Helix Nebula have continued ever since Grumm left for Earth. Most of the sites have been obliterated... no survivors. No witnesses, biological or artificial."

Jack frowned. "Some of his forces get left behind?"

"Maybe," Hope agreed. But that was all she said.

"No one's seen anything?" Sky was searching her expression for... something. "No clue at all about who the attackers are?"

Just like that, Jack got it. Or at least, he got what Sky was implying. He didn't get why Sky would say it, why he would even think it. Who the hell suspected Power Rangers?

He'd opened his mouth to ask when all of a sudden he realized: Sky. Of course Sky suspected the unsuspectable. Damn it. Had he really lost all of his heroes with the breaking of a bracelet?

"Gamma 4 got a message out," Hope was saying. "They were the only ones to manage it: a distress call meant for SPD."

Her gaze flicked to Jack, then back to Sky. "Did you see it?"

They exchanged glances, and Jack shook his head.

"'They're not the Power Rangers,'" she said quietly. "That's the last anyone heard from Gamma 4."

"Meaning," Sky said, sounding grim, "that someone had reason to think they were the Power Rangers."

"That's crazy," Jack protested. "A Squad went out there to fight Grumm, not turn into him!"

Hope held his gaze. "Half my team agrees," she said. "They say it makes no sense, there's no evidence to support it, and they didn't even want me to mention it to you. But the other half thinks you need to be aware of the possibility. I happen to agree."

"So, what," Jack demanded, "you think they've all been... I don't know, brainwashed? All five of them? At the same time?"

Sky shifted. "Could they have just switched sides?" he asked.

Jack closed his mouth, but Hope didn't appear to give the question serious consideration. "No, of course not," she said. "If it's them, they've obviously been brainwashed. Or copied somehow, their power drained from one to the other.

"My parents were part of a team of five," she added as an aside, the corner of her mouth quirking up in a half-smile. "Two of them were brainwashed. Two of them were copied. It's not as uncommon as we wish it was."

Jack glanced at Sky and found him looking back. Before they could say anything, though, a quiet burble made Hope reach for her morpher. She gave it a brief look, then lifted it to say, "Yeah."

They could all hear the voice on the other end say, "We're out. You ready?"

"Five minutes," she told her morpher. "I'll meet you on the ship."

Very informal, Jack thought. Or just very... knowing. He and Z were like that too: they didn't need a lot of words to say what needed to be said. SPD regulations dictated stricter radio protocols, but it was nice to see that some things weren't constant.

"I have to go." Hope was already getting to her feet, draining the rest of her coffee in one gulp and setting it back on the table. "Thanks for the coffee."

"Sure." Jack got up when she did, but Sky just sat there, staring at the table. "Thanks for everything you've done for A Squad. And for us."

"Always," she promised. "If they aren't found, we'll be back. Until they come home, Jack. No matter how long it takes."

"Until they come home," he repeated, holding out his hand.

She shook it without hesitation, glancing down at Sky as she let go. "You've got another team of Border Rangers coming your way next," she said. "They'll probably expand the search from the Helix Nebula outward. Just so you know."

"Outward," Sky said, still staring at the table. "In the direction of the attacks?"

Hope didn't flinch. "Up to you."

Sky finally looked up, and when he caught her eye he stood too. "Thank you," he said, more subdued than usual.

"Same to you," she answered. "If you need anything, just call."

They saw her out. Jack didn't realize how ridiculous it was until they were standing outside and it dawned on him that she didn't have a car. Five minutes, she'd said. I'll meet you on the ship.

He shouldn't have been surprised when she pulled out her morpher again, but somehow he was. "It's Hope," she told it. "I'm ready to go." She lowered the little device without waiting for an acknowledgment, lifting her other hand to wave at them.

A shower of crimson sparkles washed over her figure and she was gone.

"Man." Jack folded his arms, studying the empty space where she'd been. "I've gotta get me one of those."

"Teleportation," Sky said, and of course he would know. "Very useful."

"You're telling me," Jack agreed. "So--from here to 'the ship'? Just like that?"

"Just like that."

"Huh." Jack considered that until Sky spoke again.

"We should head back to base," he said.

Jack didn't even have to think about it. "No."

He head Sky sigh. "Jack."

"Sky," Jack countered.

"Now you're just being juvenile," Sky informed him.

"And you're being unrealistic," Jack said. "So what if we go back to base? What can we do there that we can't do here? We go back, we blow Hope's cover, not to mention our own, for what? So we can act worried and pissy and helpless there instead of here?"

Sky was giving him what could generously be described as the evil eye. "I don't act worried and helpless," he said.

"Well, I wasn't talking about me," Jack retorted. "And you forgot pissy."

Sky's expression didn't change. "Not true," he said evenly. "I do act pissy."

Jack blinked. "No one will ever believe me if I tell them you said that," he realized.

"That's my diabolical plan," Sky agreed, and this time his mouth quirked upward at the corners. "You want to know the secrets of Sky Tate? First I have to destroy your credibility."

Jack stared at him for a long moment. "The scary thing is that I think you might be telling the truth."

"No," Sky told him. "The scary thing is that you had to think about it."

Jack held up a hand, heading back inside before he lost this round any more completely than he already had. "I need something to eat. Actual food. And maybe some more coffee."

Sky waited until he had made a few concessions to the new day: shower, change of clothes, breakfast. Sky ate too. It wasn't until they were finishing up that he said, "We should at least tell the others."

It took him a few seconds, but Jack picked up the thread of conversation. Talking to Sky could be like trying to monitor multiple radio frequencies at the same time. "Yeah," he agreed. "When we pick them up tonight."

Just being able to keep up seemed to gain him a few points. Sky dropped it, anyway, and that was enough for Jack. Especially when he found out that Sky hadn't actually caught any fish that morning, and Sky as much as admitted that for him, "fishing" was just another excuse to go swimming.

"Now, I'm not an expert," Jack teased, "but doesn't jumping in the water kind of make the fish... I don't know. Swim away?"

"No," Sky told him. "You're not an expert, so shut up."

Not an expert on fishing, maybe. But enough of an expert on Sky to know that "shut up" meant "I've run out of things to say." So he took advantage of the moment, stole a kiss, and spent the rest of the day trying to train Sky that "shut up" meant "kiss me."

Sky was a fast learner. He was also, happily, somewhat short-sighted when it came to the consequences of this new association. Because as fun as it was to kiss Sky in private whenever he said "shut up," it was going be even more entertaining in public.

For the first time in weeks, Jack found himself looking forward to Monday morning.

7. "Badge"

"Is there some kind of remedial training for Rangers who refuse to morph? Some sort of seminar you can attend, a class or something? After school tutoring?"

Sky opened his eyes, staring up at the ceiling of the infirmary for the simple reason that he wasn't allowed to move his head. That was getting old really fast. He obviously didn't have spinal damage.

"You waited long enough to get that morpher," Jack's voice continued. "I don't get why you wouldn't want to use it."

His throat was rough with forced unconsciousness, but he managed to get out, "What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about you and your fucking stupid overconfidence!"

Jack was mad. He only swore when he was really pissed. Or when he was nervous and trying to cover it up, but Sky wasn't the only one with arrogance issues and he was pretty sure Jack wasn't worried for his own safety just because three of his teammates had been laid up by the same criminal.

"Good," Sky told the ceiling. He was still just a little dissociated from events. "I haven't been humiliated enough, I definitely needed you to come down here and add to it. Thanks for making my day complete, Jack."

"What did Bridge and Syd do when they were threatened?" Jack demanded, paying no attention to him. "Oh, hey. They morphed to SWAT mode and defended themselves. They didn't stand there in their SPD uniforms and tell the guy to bring it on!"

"Which really made a big difference," Syd's voice declared from the next bed over. "Lay off, Jack. Sky did the best he could."

Sky gritted his teeth, because the last thing he needed was for someone to say he'd done his best. If that was the best he could do, he didn't have a future in SPD. It clearly wasn't his best, since the guy had gotten away and taken down two of his teammates on top of it.

"Yeah, the best he could do with hand-to-hand combat in civilian form!" Jack retorted. "If civilians could handle the stuff we face, New Tech wouldn't need Power Rangers!"

"I morphed," Sky snapped.

"Not to SWAT," Jack shot back.

"SWAT didn't help!" Syd exclaimed. "We tried it!"

"That's so not my point!" Jack yelled. "That's so far from being my point, you can't even see my point from where you are!"

"Spell it out for us, Jack," Sky growled. "Apparently we can't keep up with your vastly superior intellect."

Jack leaned close enough that Sky could see his expression without trying to watch out of the corner of his eye. He held up something between them, silver glinting in the harsh hospital lighting. Sky could only stare at the thin circle of metal, stamped with the letters "SPD" and on display for everyone to see.

"Were you more careful before this?" Jack asked. "Because I don't remember you getting into this much trouble when I first knew you."

Sky snatched it, and the sharp motion must have taken Jack by surprise because his fingers wrapped around the bracelet and yanked it away without resistance. "What are you doing?" Sky hissed.

"You said you didn't want it anymore." Jack's voice sounded more reproachful than apologetic.

"I don't want to talk about this now," Sky informed him, acutely aware of Syd and Bridge in the room with them and the door open behind Jack. Or ever.

"Do you need a reason to come back?" Jack wanted to know. "Because I'll give you a damn bracelet if it'll help."

"Not. Now," Sky gritted, his fingers clenching convulsively on the metal.

"Then when?" Jack loomed over him, taking full advantage of Sky's helplessness. "When do we talk about it? When do we talk about watching you risk your life for stupid things, trying to prove yourself to people who are already convinced? When do we talk about me?"

"We talk about you when you explain what the hell you were doing locking down the autopilot on my SWAT flier," Sky ground out. "You tell me what gives you the right to decide what's too dangerous and what isn't, and then you explain your own fucking suicide mission, and until then you don't get to lecture me on being the one who gets left behind!"

There was a quiet moment, just long enough for him to realize what he'd said. What he'd implied. Then Jack said, "Okay. The meteor mission. That's fair."

It was a lot more than "fair," but Sky didn't have time to get the words together before Bridge's voice said thoughtfully, "Technically, it was a meteoroid. Meteoroids only become meteors when they hit an atmosphere and start to burn. If they make it through, of course, they're called meteorites--"

"Bridge," Syd interrupted. "We're supposed to pretend we can't hear them."

"Oh. Right." There was a pause, then Bridge added, "Sorry guys."

Jack lifted one hand to scrub at his face, but he didn't give any other indication that he'd heard them. "Is it weirder if I keep standing over you," he asked abruptly, "or if I sit down and you can't see me?"

Sky sighed, only realizing when he went to wave his hand that he was still holding Dru's bracelet. "Just sit down," he muttered.

Jack did, a constant but mostly silent presence in Sky's peripheral vision. Sky couldn't see his face anymore, so he had no idea what his expression was doing. He did hear Jack start drumming on the edge of his stool after a moment.

"Look, I'm sorry," Jack said at last. "Maybe the meteor thing was out of line."

Sky hadn't meant to say anything, but he couldn't help repeating, "Maybe?"

"I'm not used to thinking about other people," Jack admitted. Sky could see him lift a hand, maybe to push his hair back out of his face. "I'm not really good at it yet. Sometimes I think too much... sometimes I don't think enough."

"I can't tell you what a shock that isn't," Sky grumbled.

"I need you to work on this with me," Jack insisted. "We both have people to come back to now, okay? Let's try not to screw them over any more than we have to."

"Jack, I don't have a death wish," Sky said bluntly. He really wished he could turn his head. "I'm no more or less careful than I've ever been. And I kind of resent the implication that my life isn't worth living unless there's someone back on base worrying about me."

"Well, there is!" Jack exclaimed. "I'm sorry if I flipped out when I heard a cakewalk patrol sent you to the infirmary!"

"This is our job," Sky reminded him. "If you can't handle the risk, turn in your badge and leave."

"He's trying to say he's sorry," Syd's voice said from the other side of him. "You probably can't understand him, because, being Sky, he has to pretend he's better than you. But he really didn't mean to end up here."

"Well, none of us did, really," Bridge pointed out. He seemed to take Syd's interjection as permission to speak again. "I mean, if it had been Jack out on patrol this morning, he'd be the one in the hospital bed and Sky would be the one storming in here to chew him out."

"They're sort of cutely predictable," Syd agreed. "If you think loud and obnoxious is cute, which I personally don't."

"We've put up with them for this long," Bridge said.

"What's a little longer," Syd added, as though they'd had this conversation before.

Sky might have snapped at them, except that Jack was standing next to him again and he must have put his hands on the bed because the mattress shifted slightly. "I want you to be more careful," Jack repeated, staring down at him.

"You can't change the way I do my job," Sky told him. He said it before he could think better of it, before it could make his stomach clench into knots. "And you wouldn't love me if you could."

Jack didn't laugh. His expression didn't change in any way. "You saying I love you because you're a stubborn fool?"

His palms were sweaty and his skin felt cold. "Do you?"

Jack smiled at him. "Yeah."

"Shut up," Sky whispered.

Jack's smile widened, and Sky felt fingers fumbling for his hand on the bed. He relaxed his grip, letting the bracelet fall, and Jack's hand took its place. The metal made a quiet clinking sound as it hit the floor, but Jack didn't look for it.

"Hold still," he told Sky. "If I get in trouble for compounding your injuries, you know they're gonna throw me out."

Sky didn't move, and Jack's free hand held his hair back as he bent over the bed to kiss Sky gently. It was something Dru never would have done, Sky thought distantly. Nowhere so public. Never so unashamed.

As he drew back, though, Sky's partial view of the room was unobstructed again and his eyes widened.

Jack misinterpreted his expression. "What," he teased, "you thought I wouldn't kiss you just because you're laid up in the infirmary?"

"No," Sky said, trying to decided between horrified and very, very entertained. "I thought you might not kiss me because Commander Cruger is standing right behind you."

He got a skeptical look for this, but Jack turned anyway, and it was a measure of his disbelief that he didn't snap to attention right away. "Sir..."

The way Jack said it, the word was little more than a nod to the chain of command. But he sounded genuinely uncomfortable as he continued, "I was just, ah... well, trying to seduce one of my teammates. Sir."

One part uncomfortable. One part Jack Landors.

"You may find, Cadet," Cruger rumbled, "that being in the infirmary makes one unsuited for certain activities."

Now Jack came to attention, hands behind his back as he declared, "Appearances can be deceiving, sir."

"Indeed," Cruger said gravely. What that meant was anyone's guess, especially since his next question was, "I don't suppose any of you have seen Kat recently?"

Jack gave them a token look, but of course Kat could have been and gone five times since he'd arrived and Sky wouldn't know the difference. "Sorry sir," he said, after a moment. "That's a no."

"Very well." Cruger seemed preoccupied, which might explain why he added, "As you were," before he left.

The silence lingered, but nowhere near long enough for someone with the commander's hearing. Sky could only hope he wasn't listening by the time Jack snickered and Syd started to giggle. His teammates were ridiculously juvenile sometimes.

"When he says 'as you were,'" Bridge remarked thoughtfully, "do you suppose he means the way we were? Or the way Jack and Sky were?"

"I think he means the way each of us was individually," Syd replied. Then, clearly having a Bridge moment, she added, "Or together."

Jack didn't say anything. But when his fingers laced through Sky's on the bed and squeezed, Sky figured that for once he didn't have to.