Chapters:

1. Team Building with Jack Landors

The best thing about sleeping with Sky was not the fact that he got up at six o'clock in the morning every single day. (Six-ten, Sky would insist, which, yeah, was so completely not different at all.) It was also not the way he either turned on the light or fumbled around in the perfectly adequate light from the window until Jack wanted to hit him with a pillow.

"What're you doing," Jack mumbled, hiding his head under the pillow instead. He was vaguely aware that Sky was in more of a hurry than usual--which wasn't saying much, but he usually at least got a kiss before Sleepy Sky turned into SPD Sky for the day.

"Morning training," Sky said briefly. Jack would swear even his exercise sweats snapped when he tugged at them just so. "Pre-breakfast run."

Jack tightened his grip on the pillow. "I'm so glad I'm not on your team anymore," he muttered into the mattress.

"You're the only one," Sky informed him. Then, without warning, he yanked the pillow away and leaned down to kiss the side of Jack's face. "See you at lunch."

"Mmm." He might have tried to mumble something more coherent, but Sky was already gone.

Jack rolled out of bed at the much more reasonable hour of seven forty-five, didn't finish waking up until he was completely dressed, and was in the mess hall by seven fifty-two. (Three things he took for granted: the stairs, walking through walls, and yelling hello to people over his shoulder as he passed.) He grabbed orange juice and a blueberry muffin and headed for Kat's lab.

The muffin was gone by the time he got there. "Hi Kat!" he called, swinging through the open door and scanning for three of his four teammates. Boom, check. Kat, check. "Am I fired yet?"

"Not today," Kat replied without looking up from her holographic interface.

"Great." Jack downed the rest of his orange juice as he slid onto the stool next to Boom. "So, Boom, you and Sophie ready to hit the streets?"

Sophie obviously wasn't, since she wasn't there, but she didn't need to eat or sleep so who knew what was keeping her. Boom also wasn't, but only because he was Boom and thus was rarely ready for anything. His real strength lay in dealing with situations, not anticipating them.

Jack took them both down to New Tech PD before they went on patrol, on the grounds that the more people they were introduced to the harder it would be to fire them later, and also because the police tended to be less likely to ditch Rangers they could name in the middle of a firefight. (Sophie, it turned out, had stopped to rescue a stray cat that had found its way into the base courtyard. No kidding.) They were all on their best behavior, which meant that it took them five whole minutes to wear out their welcome at the station.

By the time Jack made it back from patrol, Sky's team had staged a revolt, deposed him as team leader, and reluctantly re-elected him on the grounds that no one else wanted the job. Jack decided not to mention that he'd brought his teammates home the long way, via duck boat tour on the river, as a celebration of their new understanding of justice. Or as a bribe to keep them from telling Cruger about the kid they'd caught shoplifting in Parkington Market.

He'd been wearing a Samuels jacket, and Jack had let him go.

"I knew you must have gotten out of bed eventually because I stopped by the room," Sky said, as Jack put his tray down and slid into a chair across the table. "Where have you been?"

Jack gave this question the consideration it was due. "Team building activity," he said easily. "Long morning."

As expected, Sky frowned. But Jack almost choked on the first bite of his sandwich when Sky said, "Maybe B Squad would benefit from a team building activity."

"Sky," Jack said, eyeing him with amusement. "You don't need to bond with your team. You're all friends already. You've been working together for almost a year."

"Not like this," Sky muttered. "And not the new guy, either."

"The new guy?" Jack echoed.

"I have to pick someone for B Squad Blue," Sky reminded him. "Since someone had to shoot off his mouth and leave me with an impromptu promotion, now we're a Ranger short."

"You can't bring in someone new to be your Second," Jack said. "No matter how much team building you do, you're not gonna want to leave a new guy in charge of an established team every time you have other stuff going on."

"Unless his name is Jack Landors," Sky replied. "Because the rules are always different for you, aren't they."

He'd known it was stupid the second he said it, but as usual, Sky didn't give him a chance to take it back. (Like he ever would, Sky would say. Jack and Cruger didn't clash because they were different; they fought because they were exactly the same.) So he could either own it or he could ignore it.

"Yeah," Jack said. "I was the new guy in charge of an established team. And look how well it didn't work. I screwed up your dynamic so bad, I practically invited Grumm to Earth myself."

Sky paused. "That wasn't you," he said, giving Jack an odd look. "If anything, Cruger's convinced it was my fault."

"If he'd put you in charge of the team to begin with," Jack pointed out, "you wouldn't have thought you had something to prove."

Sky scoffed. "I didn't do it because I had something to prove," he said, reaching out to snag Jack's jello and replace it with his own. "I did it because you were being a jerk."

Jack looked from one jello cup to the other. "You do realize those are both red, don't you?" (Habit, Sky would tell him. B Squad had a jello thing.)

"Habit," Sky muttered around a spoonful of jello. Swallowing, he added, "We can't be a four person team, anyway. Squads are five people. We'll have to bring someone new in at some point."

"Not for Second," Jack insisted. "Promote Bridge. Make Bridge your Second and get someone new for Green."

Sky considered that, pulling the spoon out of his mouth absently and holding it up like he was going to use it to illustrate his point. As soon as he figured out what it was. "Why Bridge?" he asked at last.

"Mostly because he'd make a good Second," Jack said with a shrug. "Partly because Cruger wants it to be Syd, and you know I live to make him crazy."

Sky raised an eyebrow at that. "Can you imagine what Syd would be like if she had to wear blue everyday?"

"It's not the blue she'd mind," Jack said. Because he'd seen Syd wear blue, and if she didn't see fashion first and Ranger colors second, he might have been more suspicious. "It's watching someone else wear pink that'll piss her off."

By the end of the day, Bridge was wearing a blue SPD t-shirt under his green jacket. Jack missed the revolution again, because he had training with Ally that afternoon and he'd promised to stop by and see Charlie afterward. Kat told him later that he was lucky Cruger hadn't been able to find him.

All he knew was that Ally was bemused by the attention she was suddenly getting at work, and Charlie found the entire situation hilarious. "Seriously," she said, when he dropped in just before dinner. "You guys are the best entertainment SPD's seen in years."

"You're selling yourself short," he drawled, throwing himself down in an armchair. (A Squad had their own suite in the section of rehab currently devoted to "unexplained psychic alien triggers that cause people to kidnap and attack without warning.")

"I hear you and Sky lit up the practice fields a few times," Jack continued. "Blew up an entire training room... Oh, and there was that thing in the mess with the pudding. I'm still not totally clear how you managed to involve the kitchen."

"Those forcefields of his are more powerful than you'd think," Charlie remarked. "He can blow out windows with those things."

"Yeah, and you'd know," Jack said with a grin. "Is it true the training room wasn't usable for weeks?"

"Month and a half," Charlie agreed. "Mostly because we were the ones that had to fix it. Whatever else Sky can do, construction isn't his specialty."

"More like the opposite," Jack suggested. He wasn't sure she'd recognize the reference, but he couldn't be the only one on base who knew about Sky's fondness for old James Bond movies.

Charlie gave him a look that said, no, he wasn't. "Did he make you watch those things?"

"Sky was hard to date before we were actually, you know, dating," Jack told her. "It was either sit on the couch with him for hours or let him kick my butt at lightball. Again. I went with the couch."

Rose wandered through while he was filling Charlie in on their side of the latest squad shakeups, mentioned that they'd gotten permission for the poolside barbecue that night, and invited Jack to join them. He got stuck on "pool" for several seconds. "Barbecue" didn't penetrate until afterwards.

"Wait," he said. "You have a pool?"

Charlie grinned at him, a lazy look full of satisfaction that he wasn't sure he'd ever seen from her before. (Which, given the circumstances when they'd met, was maybe understandable.) "Getting us into rehab was easy," she told him. "It's getting us to leave that'll be hard."

He wouldn't have minded staying. But leaving Sky to face Cruger alone, while funny, also struck him as kind of cruel, so he said his goodbyes and headed out. He made it all the way back to base--into B Wing, even--before the day started to catch up with him.

"Jack!" Syd ambushed him the moment he stepped out of the elevator. "You let Sky out of his cage before breakfast!"

"Whoa." Jack paused where he was and stared at her. "Hey, Syd. How's it going?"

"Jack, why was there a cat in your room?" Z asked, poking her head out of the lounge. Bridge was right behind her, the aforementioned cat in his arms.

"Uh, Sophie found it in the courtyard this morning?" he offered, edging around Syd. (He wondered if the real question was what Z had been doing in his room.) "Kat wouldn't let it stay in the lab, so..."

"The commander's been looking for you," Bridge remarked. He was cuddling the little cat against his--blue shirt? "Well, not so much looking as asking everyone he sees if we know where you are. Which doesn't make a lot of sense, really, since you have a morpher, unless he's just doing it as a form of venting. As opposed to actually trying to find you."

"Hey, am I talking to the new Blue Ranger?" Jack asked, because the fact that Cruger was "looking" for him was no surprise to anyone. "Congratulations, Bridge."

"Yeah, thanks." Bridge smiled at him. "Really, Jack. Thanks."

Because Bridge could see right through him if he tried, and there was no use pretending he hadn't had anything to do with it. "You deserve it," Jack told him. "Try to keep Sky from eating the rest of the team, okay?"

"Only if you do your part," Syd interrupted, not waiting for Bridge to answer. "We all figured you'd be able to keep him in bed until at least seven. Imagine our surprise when someone came banging on our doors at six-thirty! My hair wasn't even done!"

"Like it mattered," Z scoffed. "You did it when we got back anyway."

"Which I barely had time for!" Syd exclaimed. "Honestly, Jack, you can't just leave us and leave us with Sky. That is so not fair."

"Come on, Syd." Jack rolled his eyes. "He's just trying to find his own style. I was way worse when I started as Red Ranger."

There was a moment of silence as they all contemplated this.

"Well, yes," Bridge agreed at last. "That's true."

"Way worse," Z repeated.

"I guess that's a point," Syd said, still pouting. "But you had Sky to make you change. Who does Sky have?"

"All of you," Jack reminded them. (Sky would agree, he supposed, amused by the thought. That whatever success he'd had leading B Squad had been because of Sky.) "You're a team. You just have to remember that, and it's all good."

"'Good' being relative," Z added. "Better or worse depending on how early in the morning we have to be a team on any given day."

"Where is Sky, anyway?" Because this was an argument he still wasn't having with Z. "I thought we were all meeting here for dinner."

His Sky sense turned out to be as good as ever. And later, when he realized how much of that conversation Sky had overheard, he had to wonder--aloud--if Sky eavesdropped on purpose. The question made Sky laugh.

"Yeah, right," he said, in the privacy of Jack's room. "Because I could ever keep my mouth shut long enough to convince people I'm not really there."

Jack grinned. "So, we really are that loud, then."

"By 'we' do you mean Red Rangers?" Sky asked. "Or B Squad's inability to hold a private conversation?"

"Yes," Jack said, sinking down onto the side of the bed. "Hey, is there any way I can requisition an actual double bed? SPD must have them, right?"

"You have Kat on your team," Sky reminded him. "You can requisition anything you want."

Jack yawned, deciding it was easier not to think about that right now. (He had a team. That wasn't B Squad. Kat answered to him. In theory. And "A Squad" was patrolling with no set rotation, dispatch that was informal at best, and zero official backing.) "Tomorrow," he said. "This is all going to look so much better tomorrow."

"Keep a good thought," Sky told him, toeing off his shoes. Which was sort of incongruous, Jack decided, watching him. Because Sky never just stuffed his feet into his shoes. But he did kick them off.

He'd avoided Cruger another day, Jack realized suddenly. He wondered what that meant. It wasn't like Cruger couldn't find him if he actually wanted to.

"How did you make it look so easy?" Sky asked.

Jack looked up in surprise. "What?"

"Leading B Squad," Sky said. "You told us what to do, and we just... did it."

It was on the tip of his tongue to ask when, exactly, that had been. Instead he just smiled tiredly. "Sky, you were the only person everyone on my team consistently listened to. Including me."

Sky snorted. "Well, yeah. Because I'm the loudest."

"A great quality in a team leader," Jack said, pushing a pillow behind him to pad the hard middle of the bed before he let himself fall back onto it. (He was learning.) With any luck, he wouldn't still be alone there when he fell asleep approximately thirty seconds from now. A period of time he was sure could be indefinitely extended by company.

Sky got the message. He was on the bed with Jack a moment later, all his clothes still on because sometimes it wasn't about efficiency or progression or anything logical at all. Sometimes it was just something you felt. And the best thing about sleeping with Sky was that he felt things more deeply than anyone else Jack knew.

2. TSO's Little Girl - "the wish of one soul for the happiness of another"

Jack Landors had been making a shambles of the base before he'd even set foot on it.  The obnoxious Parkington Market thief had distracted the most competent cadet on B Squad and the rest of the team had fallen apart behind him.  With A Squad's new leader tearing her own team to pieces with an abrasive and unnecessarily rigid style of command, Cruger had been counting on the second string to step up.

It hadn't happened.  At least, not in the way he'd expected it to.  Charlie had gotten her team in over its collective head half a galaxy away, and suddenly Sky's inability to see the bigger picture had become a matter of planetary survival.  Giving the one thing the future Red Ranger wanted most to his latest criminal obsession had been a last ditch effort to age him, to force the maturity SPD so desperately needed.

Who knew Jack would turn out to be halfway decent at leadership.  Good enough to rally Sky's team into some kind of remotely cohesive fighting force.  Just good enough to avoid the mutiny, led by Sky, that should have overturned Cruger's "decision" and put a full team back in the hands of a now-chastened but supremely confident leader.  A Red Ranger who actually knew what he was doing.

They'd lost A Squad.  They'd almost lost B Squad.  Syd had been a breath away from gone any number of times over the years, and Bridge's loyalty had always been more to his friends than to the organization.  And Sky--reckless and promising young Sky--had gone and done the exact opposite of what he was supposed to do.

All because Cruger had underestimated Jack Landors.

"You're quiet," a welcome voice murmured in his ear.  Right into his ear, in fact, because Kat was the only one allowed to get that close to him and she took advantage of it with shameless frequency.

"Did you expect to find me talking to myself?" he grumbled, conscious of the public space and the attention they could draw on the mess hall balcony if they weren't careful.  Where had she been?  This certainly wasn't the first place he'd looked.

"Wouldn't be the first time," Kat remarked.  "How are you doing?"

Ready to snap if she asked him that one more time.  Normally she left his feelings alone, only slapping him upside the head with them when he started to self-destruct.  Even then he sometimes thought she might let him do it if it weren't for the fact that he would take the base down with him.

"Isinia?" she added, and he turned his head to glare at her.  Unfortunately, she was wearing her new uniform, and the shock of seeing her in A Squad Yellow was still enough to gain her extra seconds of silence.  "How's she adjusting?"

"She's not," Cruger growled.  "I don't want to talk about it, Kat."

"And in a world where your festering guilt and rage affected no one but yourself, you might even be able to get away with that," Kat said.  "This is not that world."

"No."  It was a split second swing between anger and affection and he heard himself add, "I thought not."

She bumped her shoulder against his arm.  He sighed, wondering how she could make him want to howl, hold her, and hide somewhere far away, all without ever giving him more than friendly advice and an occasionally sympathetic ear.  This strange alien woman would be the death of him one day.

"I don't suppose you've given any thought to Christmas," she was saying.  A temporary reprieve from the question she wouldn't let go and a tactic he recognized all too well.  He had probably two topic changes to address the subject himself--three, if she was distracted by something else in the meantime--and then she would ask again.  And again.  And again.

Now was really not the time to be on the receiving end of a lecture by the one person who might be able to tell him how to put this place back together.

"Is that coming up?" Cruger muttered, trying to figure out what he could tell her without telling her anything at all.  Isinia's not adjusting; too much trauma.  Isinia is adjusting; she just hates Earth. I have no idea how Isinia's doing; she hates me--

Are you sure it's her, Kat would say?  Is it Isinia who hates you?  Or is it you?

"The biggest holiday season of the year," she was saying.  In reality.  Not in his mind.  "They already missed the beginning of it; their Thanksgiving was totally taken up by..."  She waved a hand, indicating anything and everything.  "This.  The least you can do is give them some time off for Christmas."

"Time off?" he repeated, startled out of his brooding.  "Have you seen the base?  Have you seen the city?  We barely manage without them overnight."

"You don't manage without us overnight," she said dryly.  "If the activity on the allcall at three AM is anything to go by.  Somehow the city is still standing."  

A Squad Yellow.  The position he'd told Jack to give her, and here she was, calmly reminding him that she wasn't just a lab rat anymore.  She was a soldier again, as she hadn't been since before he knew her, and it was... disconcerting.  More disturbing than he'd expected, somehow.

"I don't care what it takes, Doggie."  He could feel her indifference, her stubborn lack of concern for any argument he might make.  She had already decided, then.  And she was perfectly capable of making his life hell until he agreed.  "These kids deserve to celebrate."

"They can celebrate here," he growled.  Her kind of hell was, after all, a reminder of just how well she knew him.  It was a reminder he'd appreciate right about now.

"Oh, they will."  Her voice was dangerous and determined and it almost made him smile.  One constant in a world of chaos.  "A Squad is in charge of morale, and we're assigning holiday tasks to all the cadets.  I'm sure you'll turn a blind eye to it."

He snorted.  She was sure.  She'd probably promised them that he would when they first came up with the idea.  Jack wasn't stupid, and he hadn't made Kat A Squad because Cruger had told him to.

"As long as it doesn't interfere with their duties," he muttered.  He knew a losing battle when he saw one.  That didn't always keep him from fighting them, but when it came to Kat, he was already engaged on too many fronts.

"And they're getting Christmas Day off," she continued.  "No one works the night shift on Christmas Eve, either.  It can be your gift to them."

He considered this.  Mostly because it wasn't worth getting angry with Kat right now, and partly because he wondered what he could get in return.  She would do whatever she wanted; he understood that.  No one took over SPD Earth without knowing who was outside the chain of command, and Kat Manx had been so before he'd even heard of Earth.

She respected the hierarchy here, though.  Or at least, she understood how it worked.  Too many people already knew that his wasn't the final word on the base, and she didn't undermine his authority for the fun of it.  She did it because there were things she genuinely believed he got wrong.  If he compromised when she pushed, she would make it look like it had been his idea all along.

"What about him?" he asked at last.  Jack had drawn his eye by walking into the mess, a ridiculous red hat with a giant white pompom perched on top of his head.  His jacket hung open, revealing a distinctly non-regulation shirt underneath, and the comically disheveled effect made him look less like A Squad than anyone on the entire base.

"Can I fire him?" Cruger asked, glancing sideways at his conscience.  "It can be your gift to me."

Kat just smiled, lifting her hand to wave.  He shot a sharp look at the floor, where, sure enough, Jack was gesturing enthusiastically in their direction.  "Hey!" the Red Ranger called.  "It's Mr. and Mrs. Claus!"

Cruger narrowed his eyes, because he understood the structure of that if not the spirit.  It definitely didn't apply to him and Kat.  It did, of course, get the attention of every last person in the mess hall, and suddenly the two of them were subject to a lot more scrutiny than he'd expected.

"I've changed my mind," he said under his breath.  "Can I kill him?"

"Is it physically possible?"  Kat's voice was just as quiet, but it held a hint of amusement that he really couldn't fathom.  "Yes.  Will it go well at the tribunal?  No."

Jack had been distracted by one of the girls from C Squad, and Cruger took the opportunity to stalk away from the balcony as though he had more important places to be.  He probably did, if it came to that.  But right now he needed Kat, and everything else would just have to wait.

"He's only trying to cheer them up."  She kept pace with him, silent footsteps and unshakable curiosity still at his side.  "It's been a tough year."

"You think you have to tell me that?"  It came out harsher than he'd intended.  He gave his head a shake, wordless apology that he couldn't bring himself to voice.  "This is what we do."

"We hold the line," Kat said.  She sounded matter-of-fact, like there was nothing he could say that would shock her.  Like she didn't even have to prove it.  "No matter how thin.  But how we do it matters, Doggie."

"We do it well," he snapped.  What else was there?

As though it were a prayer, if believing in such things would get him anywhere.  What else was there...  There were days when he didn't want to know, because knowing might distract him, might keep him from doing what he knew he had to.  Then there were days like this, when he thought knowing might be the only thing that kept him from madness.

What else is there?

"We do it together," she retorted.  "We do it as ourselves, as a community of people who matter, not just faceless soldiers that can be ordered into position like machines.  We can't lose ourselves in this."

He didn't answer, not aloud.  Because he did and she knew it.  He did lose himself in this.  He was here to atone, had always been on Earth to make up for what had happened at Sirius, and he wouldn't survive the loss of another base.  One way or another, he would make sure of that.

One way or another, he almost had.  He had heard the tears in Kat's voice when she realized what he was doing on the Terror.  It wasn't lost on him that the one time he and Isinia had been in complete accord had also been the time when Kat was the most miserable, and he was trying not to think about what could happen if she ever forgave him.

"This is their home, Doggie," Kat said quietly.  Gentler, but no less insistent.  "If they're not allowed to celebrate it, then what was the point of fighting in the first place?"

"There are things worth defending," he muttered.  Just to have something to say.  She would only grow kinder the longer he was quiet.

"There are things worth enjoying," she countered.  "You're allowed to take time off to help your wife acclimate, you know.  She might like seeing something other than the other side of the war zone."

Not that there was anything wrong with kinder.  He could feel his back stiffen and he cursed his body's betrayal.  Kat would read his reaction better than if he'd spoken aloud.

"Is she not ready to leave the base?" Kat asked, and he could hear her frowning.  "Rehab isn't the worst option, whether there's a shortage of xenopsychiatrists or not.  There are counselors here who know their capabilities."

He came to an abrupt halt, glaring at her.  "We are not discussing this here."

She folded her arms, giving it right back to him.  "Pick your place."

He eyed her warily.  "I suppose you'll make a scene if I don't," he muttered.

"You know me better than that."  She sounded cool and genuinely offended, which made no sense until she reached for her morpher.  That was enough to give him a bad feeling right there, but it got worse when she lifted the device and declared, "Computer, locate Isinia Cruger."

His eyes widened.  He had no idea what she thought she was going to do, but he wanted to find out even less.  "Ten years, Kat," he blurted out.  "What do you expect?  Who do you expect her to be?"

Who do you expect me to be, he added silently?

She stared at him for a moment, then lowered her morpher without acknowledging the computer's reply.  "Talk to me," she said at last.

He did, of course.  Why else had he been looking for her?  Even when he couldn't admit it to himself, he knew what had to be done.  Kat had devoted herself to this project, to this planet, long ago.  And somewhere along the way, she had decided that he was a part of it: an integral part, not one that could be replaced on a whim.  So she had devoted herself to him, too.

Kat's devotion had kept everyone on this base alive a dozen, a hundred times over.  It had been so very easy to depend on her.  Over and over again, he had allowed himself to accept everything she gave, no questions and no gratitude, because that was just what she did.  He didn't bother to find out why.  He was driven like that, too.  He understood.

It wasn't until Isinia was back in his life, alive and hurt and needing attention he didn't have to spare, that he realized how long his wife had been dead to him.  Not everything was about retribution anymore.  He enjoyed Kat's presence, not just because she was efficient and intelligent and committed to SPD, but because he liked her.  He liked the cadets--most of them--and he was going to find a way to stick Charlie with a medal one of these days whether she liked it or not.

Not because it was the right thing to do, which it was.  He was going to give it to her because he wanted to.  He'd forgotten that he could care about more than SPD until Isinia came back, so separate from the organization in his mind now... yet, surprisingly, so much a person that he didn't care about.  Not the way he cared about Charlie and Sky and, on days when the boy wasn't stealing valuable pieces of equipment or encouraging other cadets to destroy things in the name of training, sometimes even Jack.

Not the way he cared about Kat.

She didn't make him talk for long.  She poked and prodded at his feelings in an empty conference room for all of two minutes.  After pronouncing his grudging responses "surprisingly normal," she told him that Isinia deserved counseling even if he personally couldn't answer the question "how are you?" without pulling rank to avoid it.  She also told him that he was in charge of directing or delegating the acquisition of a holiday tree for the mess hall.

This provoked an argument long enough that Jack had beaten him to Command by the time he finally arrived for the morning shift.  He debated not checking in at all.  As base commander he certainly didn't have to, and if Jack was there ahead of him then he was more than late.  He was no longer in control: his territory was now Jack's to defend.

And as usual, where Jack was, chaos was also present.

Cadets in various stages of dress code adherence filled the room.  Most of them were at least in uniform, but between Jack and Kat, A Squad had been setting a terrible example lately.  Boom and Sophie were a credit to their training and they dressed like it, but Ally Samuels only carried her badge because security wouldn't let her onto the base without it.  Kat seemed to feel that jackets were optional, and, for no reason Cruger could fathom, Jack had decided it was acceptable to wear his over his civilian clothes.

He sighed, knowing full well that no one in the crowded room would hear him.  He wondered how long he could stand in the doorway before someone noticed he was there.  He also wondered how on Earth an SPD base commander could ever have the chance to find out, but that was probably his answer: they were on Earth.  Home of social egalitarianism and an inherent lack of hierarchical structure.  Structure could be imposed, but it was only maintained through massive effort.  Left to their own devices, the humans here tended to revert.

And then there was Jack Landors.  Holding court like some kind of democratic king, his own teammates were the only ones paying no attention to him.  The C Squad cadet he'd been chatting up in the mess hall had taken on one of Jack's former teammates in what was as close to a shouting match as Cruger could even tacitly condone, while B Squad Red stood by and looked vaguely disgusted.  

Sky's ability to prioritize was one of his most valuable skills.  It was the reason Cruger had long given him so much leeway when it came to the chain of command.  Unfortunately, like so many others', his judgement had developed a massive blind spot when it came to Jack.

"Syd," Jack was saying.  "Syd."  Over and over again, because B Squad Pink was looking at him but apparently not listening as she kept on talking.  "Syd!"

"Syd."  Sky's voice was sharp and stern and he only had to say it once.

"What!" Syd snapped.

Cruger saw Ruby flinch at the reproof, despite the fact that she had been quiet for several seconds before Sky spoke.  C Squad's technical expert sometimes seemed surprised to find herself in the middle of a military operation--although in that she was hardly unique among the most recent bunch of recruits.  SPD Earth grew less like the Sirian organization it was modeled on with every passing year.

"Syd, C Squad is in charge of music."  Jack actually was wearing a regulation shirt underneath his jacket, Cruger realized suddenly.  It was just that the improvised block letters spelling out "SANTA" beneath the faded SPD logo made it look... well, like an old shirt that someone had taken a marker to.

Someday, someone would convince Jack to throw away the clothes he had worn through instead of constantly salvaging them as some sort of fashion statement.  Lately, it was looking more and more like that person would be Sky Tate or no one.  Cruger hoped that the leader of B Squad was only biding his time for maximum effect.

"Music with a holiday theme," Syd protested.  "You specifically said that all of our assignments had to have a holiday theme, and I'm just saying that no matter what else you can say for the very eclectic mix of audible spirit that has taken over this base, it has no theme whatsoever!"

Cruger couldn't decide whether Bridge Carson's positive effect on his teammates' vocabulary outweighed his contagious tendency to speak without periods or not.

"The theme is the holidays," Ruby informed anyone who was listening.  Which right now seemed to include... Jack.  "We're diverse, they're diverse, the music is diverse.  I don't what see the problem is!"

"I like the music," Jack said with a shrug.  "Nice job with the allcall at mealtimes, by the way.  That was inspired."

Ah.  He assumed this explained why the allcall now activated regularly three times a day, broadcasting no emergency or even routine announcement but instead some sort of noise that everyone around him assured him was music.  He was going to have to have a talk with Jack about that.

Among other things.  He'd put it at the bottom of a very long list.

"Sky," Syd complained.  "Tell Jack the music has no theme.  He'll listen to you."

Cruger watched, torn between horror and amusement as A Squad Red actually looked to his lower-ranked lover for an opinion on appropriate content with which to hijack the emergency allcall system.  And Sky shrugged, mirroring Jack's response to Ruby, but he did raise his eyebrows.  Cruger liked to think he'd gotten better at reading human body language over the years: he was pretty sure Sky had just given Syd his silent support.

"Fine," Jack said.  "B Squad can be in charge of music.  But," he added, over Syd's obvious delight, "you can't change anything C Squad did.  You can only add to it."

"Deal," Syd declared.

"But we already did all the work!" Ruby exclaimed.

"When he says 'B Squad,'" Sky informed Syd, "he means you.  We already have a team job."

"Oh, did you say you've finished your job?" Jack was asking Ruby with carefully feigned surprise.  "Well, I guess that means C Squad gets the day off, then.  Have fun.  See you at dinner."

Cruger had opened his mouth to speak when Jack lifted his head and looked straight at him.  "Morning, Commander," he said easily.  "Message for you from Galaxy Command."

Everyone in the room turned to look at him.  Sky, Syd, and Sophie snapped to attention.  Next to Sophie, Boom fumbled whatever device the two of them had been bent over and it clattered to the floor, keeping him from saluting as he chased it underneath the console.  Across the room, B Squad Yellow and Blue were engaged in a whispered conversation that somehow seemed to supercede everything going on around them, and he stared at them until one of them finally glanced his way.

"Oh, hi, Commander," Bridge Carson remarked, incredibly offering him a small wave.

Then he blinked, straightening up even as Z followed his gaze.  "Uh, I mean--"  Without even looking at each other, the two of them saluted in perfect synch.  "Sir!"

Bridge's jacket hung open, as usual, and Z had left hers in the training room if the workout shirt she had on was any indication.  They'd gotten hold of Jack's marker, though, because each of them had a large star outlined beneath the letters "SPD."  Bridge's had six points while Z's only had five, and Cruger wondered distantly if there was any significance to the designs.

"Birdie says 'Happy Christmas,'" Jack drawled, still leaning back against the console he'd been standing at when Cruger arrived.  He apparently felt that his "promotion" to A Squad had relieved him of any obligation to rank or respect--and if Cruger didn't dismiss him for it, the first offworld Command officer who came through would.

"I think he's trying to be native, you know?" Jack was saying.  "Demonstrating his cultural sensitivity and all.  He was doing all right until he asked if I'd heard anything from Saint Nicholas this year.  Still, you gotta give the guy points for trying."

Boom had retrieved his equipment on the second attempt, shoving it out of the way and coming to attention beside Sophie.  Ruby still hadn't managed anything but a blank stare.  Her uniform jacket was at least closed, he noted, but it didn't completely hide a star to match the one on Z's shirt.  He wondered if this was one of those things that Kat had told them he would conveniently overlook.

"You know what?" he said at last, taking a step back.  "I don't think I want to know."

And he didn't.  He really didn't.  Because anything he knew would just get them into trouble later.  He was fairly sure Kat wouldn't let them do anything that endangered the planet.

He turned around and walked away.

Coon seemed a little too willing to talk counseling with him, even when she found out it was for Isinia and not for him.  It was her job, of course.  But did she have to be so enthusiastic about it?

It got him away from Command, anyway, and he grumbled his way through the interview because this was Isinia they were talking about.  He did it because she was one of his.  Because she deserved the best they could offer, and because it was no less than he would do for any of his people.  Not because, ten years ago, she had been his wife.

He wasn't hiding.  Checking in with Charlie's team was the least he could do when he was already in rehab himself.  The fact that it was the last place anyone would look for him was simply an added bonus.

Of course, the shrillness of a human child almost outweighed the benefits of being difficult to locate.  Humans started life loud and only got louder, as far as he could tell.  But at least they seemed to get a little lower in pitch as they aged.

Luckily, Don's small family seemed more focused on the little tree in the common room window than on him.  The boy was directing Don and his wife in the placement of colored pieces of paper on its branches, while Rose and Des cut more shapes out of folded white paper sheets.  Miguel, he was told, was in the infirmary getting light therapy for an eye problem.

"Thanks for letting them bring in scissors," Charlie said under her breath, once the initial flurry over his arrival had settled down.  "Sir.  I know we're not supposed to have anything sharp, but we'll make sure Cecila takes them with her when she leaves."

He considered that.  "Coon must have authorized it," he said at last, more than a little dismayed that his former Rangers weren't even allowed to have their own scissors.  No wonder they were using paper: it was possibly the only decoration Don's wife had been able to get through security.

"Speaking of authorization, sir."  She didn't give him any time to question Coon's judgement, he noticed.  "Is there any way to get Miguel a priority link back home?  He hasn't been able to call out since he got here, and his partner doesn't even know he's alive."

Cruger gave her a sharp look.  "SPD should have contacted his next-of-kin immediately."

Charlie turned away from the group gathered in front of the tree, folding her arms as she muttered, "He and his partner aren't legally associated on his planet.  As far as SPD's concerned, he doesn't have any living relatives."

He barely managed to keep from swearing aloud.  "You should have told me," he growled.

"Charlie!"  The boy's strident tone cut him off before he could promise priority access.  "Dad says you have to put the angel on top!"

She held his gaze even as she turned, and Cruger took the opportunity to nod.  Miguel would have his comm link from the infirmary, if necessary.  He should have asked if there was anything they needed before this, but he'd understood that Jack was taking care of the requests a base commander wasn't supposed to know about.  It honestly hadn't occurred to him that there were things even Jack couldn't do.

"That's a silly looking angel, Stone," Charlie was telling the child.  "Who made that?"

"Mom did!"  He pointed at Don's wife without hesitation, and Charlie's mouth quirked.

"Well, we'd better not piss off your mom."  She smirked at Cecila, who gave her the finger as soon as her son looked away.  "C'mere and I'll pick you up so you can put it on the tree."

"No!"  Stone was adamant on this point.  "You have to put it on.  Dad said!  'Cause you're the one who brought him back."

Charlie didn't so much as pause.  "Oh, our very own Kwanzaa miracle.  Guess you deserve it after I stole him away from you last year."

"It's a Christmas miracle," the boy corrected, handing her the angel.

"Well, I'm the one holding the angel," Charlie told him.  "And I say it's a Kwanzaa miracle."

"Does Kwanzaa have angels?" Stone asked curiously.

"It's got one," Charlie said.  Rose looked up at that moment, catching her eye.  Charlie's expression didn't change, but Rose smiled as she looked down again.

"Which one?" the boy wanted to know.  "Does it look like our angel?  What's its name?  Does it bring you presents?"

Charlie didn't answer, holding the paper angel up to the highest branch on the tree and tilting it slightly.  "How is this supposed to stay on?" she demanded.  "Is it held up by the wishes of small children, or what?"

"Des," Stone whined.  "Does the Kwanzaa angel bring you presents?"

"Hey, man, I don't know anything about that Kwanzaa stuff," Des said, holding up his hands.  "This brother celebrates Christmas."

"It has a skirt," Cecila told Charlie.  "Just pinch the sides and stick it on top."

"There aren't any Kwanzaa angels," Rose remarked.  She held up her folded piece of white paper and shook it, but nothing happened.  She started to gently pull it apart instead.  "But we do get presents on New Years."

"From Santa?" Stone asked.

"How can you keep four other people alive on a planet with no grocery stores yet not be able to put a paper angel on a tree?"  Cecila left Don's side long enough to join Charlie beside the window.  "Look, it goes like--there.  How hard is that?"

"From each other," Rose said.  "From our friends and family."

"Are they going to come bring you your presents here?" Stone wanted to know.

"My parents are in Japan," Rose told him, holding up her paper cutout in front of her face and peering through the holes at him.  Charlie and Cecila were both watching from the window now.  "But most of my family is here in this room, so yes.  I think they'll bring me my presents here."

SPD should have flown her parents in from wherever they were.  Cruger couldn't fathom how so many basic courtesies had been overlooked when it came to the former A Squad.  He had a bad feeling, though, that Jack had been right all along: without him, Charlie's team could have been completely overwhelmed under a cloud of ignorance and distrust.

They could have ended up in prison.  They could have gone before a tribunal, been stripped of rank and honor, and held up as examples of what it meant to betray the planet they had sworn to defend.  They could have been made responsible for an entire population's fear and guilt.

While Cruger was consumed by the aftershocks of the Terror, Jack Landors had made sure that didn't happen.  Because Jack knew what Kat had been saying for years: without the assumption of peace, there could be no end to war.  Distrust bred violence, not safety.

He stopped by Coon's office on his way out, but she wasn't there.  "Cadet Shan."

The woman looked up with a frown that faded when she caught sight of him.  Still, her voice was firm when she said, "It's Cadet Tai, sir.  Tai Shan."

"Cadet Tai," he amended.  He should have known that.  "I want to speak with Dr. Coon."

"Right away, sir."

Panda Coon didn't seem surprised when he told her to release the former A Squad Rangers.  From constant evaluation, from confinement, from committed rehab... he wanted them out of here.  They were to have orientation level authorization on base again, along with access to their old residential wing if they so desired.  Jack's team hadn't moved into A Wing and showed no inclination to do so--possibly in anticipation of this moment--so there wouldn't be conflict on that front.

All Coon said was, "Tonight, sir?"

"Yesterday," he told her.  "Tell me where to sign."

He had to document his authorization five different ways, but it was done before he left.  Charlie would get her own Kwanzaa miracle.  She would say that bringing her team home safely was enough, and she would believe it.  But safety without freedom became a bitter thing.

He trusted her.  He trusted Kat, who had let the former A Squad into her lab without security the day after they'd turned on him.  He trusted Jack, who had called in Ranger credit from across the galaxies to try to prove their innocence.  And at the end of the day he trusted Charlie, from whom one betrayal couldn't erase years of study and service.

Not in his eyes.  Not on his base.  Not as long as the people they fought for were more important than the fight itself.

It took him all afternoon to find Kat again.  Off on assignment with A Squad, no doubt.  He deliberately didn't check the patrol rotation, because wherever Jack's team was, they weren't currently his problem and he might as well take the opportunity to restore order.  Such as it was.

As the afternoon shift drew to a close, though, he made his way to the lab and frowned at Kat's continued absence.  Two of her cadets were hard at work, and they shot furtive glances at him as he made his way to her desk.  He ignored them.

Taking a seat in Kat's chair, he casually reached out and bumped the emergency button under her desk.  Nothing happened.  He sat back and waited, swiveling idly back and forth.

It took Kat less than two minutes to rush through the door.  Her attention went first to her cadets, which made him wonder what she had told them about the system, and only secondarily to her desk.  Her eyes narrowed when she caught sight of him sitting there, so clearly not in distress, but she approached warily and stopped well out of lunging distance.

"Commander?" she asked, her tone cool.

"Refresh my memory," he said.  "When is this holiday, exactly?"

"Which one?" she countered.

She was mad at him for abusing the alert system.  Which was fair, he supposed, given the number of times he'd lectured her about it.  Treating every summons as though it was real had saved her life twice now--but there had been ten times that number of false alarms.  She wasn't going to let him forget this one.

"Hanukkah started last night," she was telling him.  "It ends this Sunday, on Solstice.  Christmas is next Thursday, and Kwanzaa starts the day after.  It ends on New Years... shall I continue, or do you plan to actually learn something about the planet you're stationed on at some point?"

Definitely mad.  He couldn't explain why he found that so amusing, and he knew he wouldn't get any points for trying.  So all he said was, "Pick one."

Kat raised her eyebrows at him.  "Excuse me?"

"Pick a holiday," he repeated.  Her cadets were so obviously pretending not to listen that he thought they might actually be recording the conversation.  He didn't have any illusions about the base's interest in his personal life, or how quickly news of this exchange would get around.

"Happy first day of Hanukkah," Kat informed him.

"Fine," he agreed.  "You too.  Have dinner with me."

She stared at him.  He leaned back in her chair, pleased with the rare moment of speechlessness.  This was no minor accomplishment.

She came forward slowly, bracing her arms on the far side of her desk and blocking the cadets' view of their faces.  She didn't take her eyes off of him.  "I can wait," she said quietly.

He didn't have to tilt his head far to look up at her.  "For what?" he inquired.  "The eighth day of Hanukkah?"  He did know something about Earth holidays.

A small smile graced her expression, but she didn't raise her voice.  "For you," she murmured.  "I can wait.  It isn't now or never."

If he were a braver man, he would have stood up so that everyone in the room could see him.  As it was, he settled for sitting forward in her chair so that they were face to face across the desk.  "You may live another hundred years," he told her, "but I won't.  I know what I want, Kat."

She didn't move, but the challenge was there in her tone.  "What do you want?"  She sounded soft and dangerous all at once.

He liked dangerous.  "Would it be presumptuous if I said 'you'?"

"Yes."  No hesitation, but no hiding the brilliant smile that spread across her face, either.  "But that's why I love you, so.  It might work."

To hell with it.  He stood up, mirroring her position on the other side of the desk.  "I want you," he said.  "Celebrate Hanukkah with me tonight, and find out whether or not I can hold a conversation about something that isn't SPD."

She tossed her head, dark hair curling around pointy ears as she beamed at him.  "I have faith," she assured him.

Faith was the seventh day of Kwanzaa, according to Rose, but he decided that saying so might misrepresent the amount of knowledge he had concerning the current holidays.  The evening song over the allcall started so quietly that, distracted as he was by more pleasant thoughts, he might have missed it.  But the words intruded when he could have ignored the "music" itself.

"So tell me, Christmas, are we wise to believe in things we never see?  Are prayers just wishes in disguise, and are these wishes being granted me?"

He narrowed his eyes at Kat, lowering his voice further.  "Did you tell them they could do that?"  His gesture at the allcall should leave no doubt about what he meant.

She shook her head silently, mouthing the word "no" through her smile.

He had a morpher and he wasn't afraid to use it.  "Cadet Landors," he told it sternly.  "Clear the allcall immediately."

"Uh, Commander Cruger--"  That wasn't Jack's voice.  "This is Cadet Tate.  We're actually having some trouble with the allcall system at the moment."

"Fix it," he growled.  He had no idea why he was talking to Sky right now: had he forgotten and accidentally paged B Squad Red, or had Sky picked up Jack's A Squad morpher for reasons unknown?

"Sir," Sky's voice answered crisply.  "Yes, sir!"

Kat caught his eye as he replaced his own morpher, a look of unfiltered delight lingering in her expression.  "Ten bucks says it can't be 'fixed' until the song is over," she teased.

"It's taken me a long time," he told her, "but I've finally learned it's better to bet on you than against you."

"I'm glad to hear it."  She sounded very satisfied.  "There's hope for you yet."

The song played out over the allcall in its entirety.

3. Somewhere in Between

They were leaving the base when Kat’s morpher went off.  It didn’t even wait for her to acknowledge before Jack’s voice said, “All on-base squads to the residential level.  Repeat, on-base squads to the residential level.”

“What--”  Cruger was cut off.  Her hand had barely made it to her morpher to acknowledge before the allcall came alive.  They didn’t have time to do more than glance at each other, and he might look irritated but she didn’t think this was a joke.

“All cadets to the residential level.”  This time it was Sky’s voice.  He didn’t sound as stern as usual, and only after the fact did she realize that it was because Jack had sounded so harsh.  Sky sounded calm by comparison.  “All cadets, report to the residential level.”

That was when the Shadow morpher went off.  It didn’t speak until he activated it, and then she could hear Syd’s voice saying, “Commander Cruger.  You’re needed on the residential level, sir.”

“Status, Cadet,” he snapped.  They had already turned back, and he was leading the way at a pace that bordered on a run.  Clearly Sky and Syd had convinced him that this wasn’t just one of Jack’s whims.

“Non-violent, sir,” Syd’s voice relied cryptically.  “So far.”

Kat was pretty sure that wasn’t what he’d been expecting when he asked for their status, but it was enough.  She beat him to the lift easily, holding the door while he skidded inside.  “What have they done now,” he muttered, slamming his morpher back into place and glaring at the doors while they closed behind them.  “B Wing.”

She shot him a sideways glance as the lift started to move, and he caught it.  “Whatever’s happening,” he said, with utter certainty, “B Squad is in the middle of it.”

Recent history wouldn’t contradict that assumption, she thought.

The silence that accompanied the lift’s climb was tense and heavy.  Kat was checking her mental list of personality conflicts among the cadets against the sound of Jack’s voice when he’d called for reinforcements--and that against the fact that he’d had two members of B Squad handy by when he’d done it.  It clearly wasn’t an issue with one of his teams.  Her companion was watching her do it.

It was a testament to her distraction that she didn’t realize he was staring at her until the lift had already started to slow.  Catching his eye, she gave him a curious look, and he shook his head once.  “It’s always something,” he muttered, possibly by way of explanation.

She decided to take it as such whether it was or not.  “I told you,” she said, smiling up at him.  He was sweet when he was impatient.  Especially when it wasn’t over something she was supposed to have finished five minutes ago.  “I can wait.”

He might have been about to say something, but there was noise through the doors and she was already straining to identify it.  The whine of the lift was soft but came at exactly the wrong frequency for her ears, making her shake her head in annoyance when she tried to listen through it.  Human voices, that much she knew.  But too quiet even for her to hear through the walls.

“Non-violent,” the commander muttered, with a grunt that spoke of skepticism.  The doors slid open and she gave him a warning look that he paid no attention to as they pushed out into B Wing.

Where there was no one.  The noise was coming from around the corner, the great room that itself opened on to each of the cadet wings.  A quiet rustle of people and whispered conversations and she didn’t like the atmosphere even before she saw what they were walking into: the low-pitched shuffle of so many people trying not to make any noise was deafeningly ominous.

“What is going on here?” Cruger demanded.  He strode into the crowd like he was breaking up a fight, and cadets parted before him without a word.  “Cadet Landors.  I want a situation report!”

She sized up the “situation” with a single glance: on one side, Jack, Sky, and Syd, with Boom and Bridge emerging from the main lift even as she watched.  On the other: Ruby, Caleb, and Hiyaki of C Squad, an orientation level cadet named Rayman with his D Squad mentor, Chi... and no fewer than six armed security guards.  All with their weapons drawn.

And somewhere in between, Charlie stood in front of her squad with Rose at her left shoulder.  Des and Miguel had circled defensively, keeping Don and his wife Cecilya in the middle.  Don’s little boy was pressed between the two of them, watching everything with wide eyes and one finger in his mouth.  A paper angel was clutched in his other hand.

None of them were moving.

“Well, sir.”  Jack’s voice sounded tight and angry.  “We thought you might be able to tell us.  Seeing how Charlie’s team is clearly here on your orders, but--and here’s the funny part--no one else on base seems to know about it.”

Three more orientation level cadets spilled out of the arriving lift, right behind the recently promoted B Squad Green, and one of them actually bumped into Dan before she could check her momentum.  “Huh,” was all Dan said, surveying the area with casual speed.  “This seems bad.”

“Charlie and her team were released from rehab this afternoon with a clean bill of health.”  Cruger’s voice was loud and, as usual, brooked no argument.  “They have orientation level access on this base and priority admittance to A Wing.  I expect everyone here to treat them as the soldiers they are.”

Jack looked furious.  Kat was already making her way around the cadets, angling for a spot beside him and Boom.  Two more D Squad kids piled into the room and came up short at the sight of weapons that were already being lowered.  Someone caught Kat’s arm, gentle but insistent, and somehow Sophie had arrived unnoticed.  She pulled Kat into line with the rest of A Squad while Jack called them all to attention.

“Sir!” he snapped.  A Squad, B Squad, and the six present members of C and D Squads saluted along with him.  The orientation level cadets were belated, to varying degrees, in their emulation of military precision, but their voices were as one.  “Yes sir!”

“Hey,” Bridge added, not even waiting for Cruger to acknowledge them before he broke ranks.  “You want some help with that stuff?”

The remark was clearly directed at Charlie’s team, who exchanged wary glances even as Boom jumped in.  “Yeah, we can help you carry things; I mean, you probably want to set all that stuff down, right?”

“We can help you clean out your old wing,” Syd chirped, coming forward to join them.  “I love a good decorating session.  Just don’t tell Z, okay?  Because wow, what she calls ‘alternative’ is what everyone else calls ‘highly disturbing.’”

The rest of the cadets, still at attention, were sneaking uncertain looks at each other.  Charlie and Rose were keeping an eye on them while the rest of their team accepted the Rangers’ presence in their midst, handing over backpacks and even, in Des’ case, clapping Bridge and Boom on the back.  “Thanks, man,” he said.  “We could use it, you know?”

Cruger was eyeing the other cadets.  “Dismissed!” he barked.  Half of them jumped, several scurried forward to help the Rangers, and the rest looked nervously after the security guards who were in hasty retreat.

“Commander,” Jack said sharply.  He saluted again, which Kat privately thought was a very bad sign.  “Could I speak to you for a moment, sir?”

Cruger glared at him.  “Certainly.  Cadet.”  He said it in the tone of voice that meant even Kat wasn’t going to be able to talk him out of firing Jack this time.  If he emphasized “cadet,” then he did it in the way that implied this was the last time he would ever say it.

“Kat?”  Sophie’s voice was very soft, probably pitched too low for human ears to even register.  She tore her eyes away from the two of them as they turned stiffly for B Wing and whatever minimal privacy it might afford, finding Sophie’s expression worried.  “What’s going on?”

Jack’s “A Squad” had just reached the end of the line, Kat thought with a sigh.  He obviously hadn’t known about Charlie’s team being released, he wasn’t pleased, and he was going to make sure Cruger knew it.  He wasn’t totally wrong to do it, either.

Cruger, who really should have more communication with his nominal second-in-command--any communication would be an improvement, really--would use this outburst as the excuse he’d been looking for all along.  And without Jack, everyone who currently held an A Squad morpher would be “demoted” and reassigned.  It didn’t matter one way or the other to Kat, and she suspected Ally couldn’t care less.  But this would go on Sophie and Boom’s records, and she wished Jack had thought of that before he made them Rangers for no reason other than that it was convenient.

“Jack’s just...”  Kat trailed off, catching Sophie’s expectant look again.  “Being Jack,” she finished with a sigh.  “Come on.  Let’s help get Charlie’s team back where they belong.”

At least their mad ride had done some good for A Squad along the way.

Jack didn’t expect this to go well, but right now, he didn’t care.  He only allowed Cruger the semblance of privacy because there was a very slight chance that the commander would actually hear some of what he said if he wasn’t doing it in front of the entire base.  A very slight chance.

“Commander,” he said, slamming the doors on the B Wing lounge with way more force than necessary.  “With all due respect, you need to tell me shit like this before you do it!”

“Jack.”  The way Cruger said his name made it clear that this was not a term of affection, but rather a stripping of his rank.  He wasn’t even a cadet in the commander’s eyes anymore.

That was fine with him.

“Let me explain something to you,” the commander continued, eyeing him as though he were a particularly unevolved form of life.  “Charlie Carrera is A Squad Red.  You are an SPD dropout who voluntarily resigned his morpher and shouldn’t have clearance to be on this base, let alone Command.”

“If it had been left up to you,” Jack snapped, “Charlie would be in solitary and her team would be serving multiple life sentences for treason!  They’re fucking heroes after what they went through and we failed them six ways to Sunday before they ever even got home!”

Cruger held out his hand.  “The morpher,” he growled.

Jack snorted.  “Yeah, right.  You got me with that once.  Back when I thought you cared about things like rules and honor.  But now I’m pretty sure that you need me to care about those things for you, so... no.”

“I’ll have you escorted off this base,” Cruger rumbled.

“I don’t think so,” Jack told him.  “And here’s why: I don’t want to be here any more than you want me here.  And you know that.  But here I am, still wearing the uniform, still getting past security.  Why is that, Commander?

“I think it’s because you’re distracted,” he continued.  His best chance was probably to keep Cruger from talking as long as possible.  “You’ve got a thousand things going on right now, and you can’t make decisions for everyone.  I can’t answer to Galaxy Command, I can’t coordinate citywide, I can’t even run the base and I sure as hell can’t save your marriage.

“But you know what I can do is catch some of the spillover, the stuff you don’t get to!”  He glared at a dog who looked like he was pretending he had no ears.  “I can help Charlie, Commander.  I know what they’ve been through; I can help them.  I can keep all of your cadets safe if you let me--if you’d just talk to me, I can make sure stuff like this doesn’t go down!”

“No one is safe,” Cruger snarled.  “Let go of that illusion right now.  You can’t set this right just by wishing for it.”

“And you can’t fix it by ignoring it,” Jack shot back.  “Stay away from Kat until you talk to your wife, Commander.  She’s one of mine now--and if that out there was any indication of how you ‘set things right,’” he added, jerking his head back toward the door, “I think everyone who got between A Squad and a blast rifle tonight would appreciate you putting a little more thought into what you’re doing!”

And Cruger roared at him.  “You are out of line, Cadet!”

It was “cadet” again.  Jack sighed inwardly, because he hadn’t been totally sure he wanted to win this one.  “Commander, I’m so far from the line, I could be in a different dimension.  Do you want my help or not?”  Because he did owe them: he owed all of them, he owed the organization itself for everything it had done for him, and if Cruger let him, however grudgingly, he would try to make good on his debt.

“A Squad Red,” Cruger began, making an obvious effort to rein himself in, though the words came out through gritted teeth.

“Is Charlie’s position,” Jack finished.  “Believe me, the second she asks for this morpher back, it’s all hers.”

Cruger hesitated just long enough for Jack to curse silently.  How far did a guy have to go to get fired around here, anyway?  Did Cruger have a mom he could insult or something?

“I want your word on that,” the old dog growled at last.

“Yeah, trust me,” Jack said, rolling his eyes.  “You so have it.”

Back in the A Wing lounge for the first time since... she drew a blank, maybe because her mind refused to work after a day like this and maybe because she was half-asleep.  She was leaning against Miguel, watching Charlie pace through half-lidded eyes while Des rediscovered the joys of a giant flat screen.  It seemed, in some weird way, like they’d never even left.  Like maybe they’d been here all along, and the last year had just been a bizarre dream.

Except that now, whenever one of them left their wing, a member of B Squad would mysteriously appear.  Chatting, helping, or otherwise accompanying them without making it seem like they were under guard.  Because they weren’t, Rose understood... but not everyone on base knew what to make of them, and the Rangers were trying to set the tone.  Or possibly to protect them.  She hadn’t ruled that option out.

“Hey, moto,” Des said, out of the blue.  There was a long pause while the sound of cheering and motors revving filled the lounge, and then he remarked, “This is less cool than I remembered it.”

Charlie didn’t answer, but Miguel rumbled something about machines and food and then his translator picked up and she couldn’t focus on his own words anymore.  “Frivolous mechanical things aren’t as impressive when you keep thinking how much food that level of technology could produce.”

“Uh-huh,” Des agreed, clearly not listening.  Rose squeezed Miguel’s arm without lifting her head, letting him know that she’d heard.  His fingers twitched in return, and she snuggled a little closer, glad at least one person was willing to cuddle tonight.  Nights had been sticky in the jungle, but she missed the group huddles against bugs and predators and creeping loneliness and fear.

Jack’s team had joined them for dinner.  Of course.  Or rather, Jack and most of the other Rangers had closed ranks with them in the mess hall that evening, since it was sort of hard to tell who was on his team and who wasn’t, sometimes, and the younger cadets seemed understandably reluctant to socialize with people who had taken the base commander hostage.  Jack, she thought, didn’t have that problem, and she wasn’t sure how much that had caused or been caused by his obvious conflict with Cruger.

“We could leave,” Charlie said suddenly.  “Can you believe that?  We could just walk out of here.  Off the base, into the city... away from Earth, if we wanted to.  We’re free to go.”

Don had.  The whirlwind chaos that was the current A and B Squads had swept through A Wing and left it more than livable in their wake.  They had apologized profusely for the dusty and vaguely creepy atmosphere of a place so long abandoned, but Rose found it oddly touching that their old rooms had been left, waiting for their return.

Or in memorial.  That was admittedly creepier, and the sight of her nightgown stuffed under Charlie’s pillow had brought tears to her eyes.  When Charlie had stepped on the “chick” magnet Rose had thrown at her the morning A Squad was roused for temporary deployment to the Helix Nebula, Rose had had to send her out of the room while she picked up after the ghosts of their past selves.  It wouldn’t do any good to have them both break down.

By the time they finished, dinner was almost over and Don was still carrying the standard issue backpack they’d given him on his way out of rehab.  Stone and Cecilya joined them for their first meal in the mess, but he had left with them once it was over.  She didn’t blame him--Stone had climbed into the window himself to get that paper angel off the tree when Dr. Coon came in to tell them Cruger had authorized their release, and the boy hadn’t let go of it yet--but she missed him.  It felt wrong to have one of them gone, like she’d set her arm down somewhere and forgotten to pick it up again.

“I’m too tired to go anywhere,” Miguel said, and a moment later the translator repeated his words.  “I think you’re all very ambitious, but I’ll be staying here overnight, thank you very much.”

The translator didn’t actually render it as “thank you very much,” but rather, “assuming it’s all the same to you,” Rose noted with a small smile.  Jack had finally managed to get him a new one, five very long days after they were committed to rehab.  They hadn’t had any room to complain, especially when, with Kat’s help, the model requisitioned for Miguel was no less than the latest version of his old, highly sophisticated translation device.  Rose had been sure they wouldn’t see its like again for years--possibly ever, depending on the team’s fate.

“I’m sure leaving the base would end up involving New Tech PD in ways I don’t even want to imagine,” Charlie said, biting off words in that way she had when she was impatient with herself and really wanted to take it out on someone else.  “It feels so wrong to just sit here.”

Rose tilted her head on Miguel’s shoulder just enough that she could get an unobstructed view of their team leader.  Because really, she was warm and comfortable and sleepy, and Charlie was going to have to look pretty bad for Rose to give that up just to make her a little calmer.  The only way they’d survived such close quarters for so long was by knowing when to step back and let each other work things out for themselves.

Charlie looked like she was about to crawl out of her skin.  Or punch something.  Repeatedly.  Possibly both, and that wild-eyed look did not bode well for any kind of restful sleep in their room tonight.  Rose could sleep out here, or with Miguel, or even with Des if it came to that.  But then Charlie would still look like this come morning, only more exhausted and that much closer to snapping.

Rose sighed, pushing herself up off of Miguel with some effort.  “I’ll go get changed,” she said.  “Don’t go anywhere yet.”

It felt pretty amazing to get up from the couch and just walk out of the room into a hallway that led somewhere.  They could leave; that was true.  Hard to believe, but true.  The temptation to wander was overwhelming the draw of the warm and comfortable lounge... but she had said she was going to change, and the second she went past the lift someone from B Squad would inevitably appear and pretend they had been going whichever way she happened to be headed.

So she ducked into the room she shared with Charlie instead.  She tipped the picture she’d just set out that afternoon face down, because no, seeing the two of them playing cards in the lounge a year ago was still weird.  She switched her old too-big civvies for new squad pants, pulled on a heavy sweatshirt over her pink SPD t-shirt, and grabbed an extra tee for Charlie because she liked that NASA tank and didn’t want to have to try to find her another one.

When she returned to the lounge, she found Charlie and Des fighting over a pair of VR goggles.  Like there weren’t six of them in the room.  “Children!” she said loudly, clapping her hands twice.  “Attention, please!”

Even Miguel looked at her, although Charlie smirked with the briefest glance and elbowed Des in the side.  “Told you.”

“Dykes,” he grumbled, shoving her back.  “You’re so messed.”

Rose glanced at Miguel, who shrugged.  “They bet on what you were changing into.  Des thought you’d come back wearing less.  Charlie guessed more.”

“What!” Des protested, when Rose frowned at him.  “She’s bouncing off the walls!  Guys fix that with sex!  That’s all I’m saying!”

“We’re going now,” Rose said firmly.  She threw the extra t-shirt at Charlie.  “Mud swamp.  Leave the NASA shirt here; I like it.”

This drew no resistance from Charlie, who shucked her spaghetti strap tank in the middle of the lounge and tossed it into a chair while she pulled the regulation tee on in its place.  Des watched, and Rose didn’t bother smacking him for it.  Waste of time, she’d learned.  Charlie would continue to not care, and he would continue to stare, no matter what she did.  So she just waited, smiling at Miguel when he gave her a thumbs-up.

“You guys want to come?” Charlie asked, heading for the door like she already knew the answer.  Which she did.  Who wanted to be in the mud swamp at this hour?  Or ever?

“Oh, yeah,” Des agreed, getting up and making as if to follow them.  Charlie flipped him the bird without even turning around.  He just grinned, sitting down again.

“Have fun,” Miguel added wryly.

“Yeah,” Rose said with a sigh, falling into step beside Charlie.  “You’re lucky I fell for you, you know.  Because that couch was really comfortable.”

“Thanks for the sacrifice, dear,” Charlie replied.  “Don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“Probably fall off the stupid course, knock yourself into a coma, and lie there in the mud until someone came through tomorrow morning and found you dying of exposure.”  She felt like being cruel all of a sudden, and she couldn’t explain why.  Except that the way Charlie fought with everyone was contagious sometimes.

“More likely lose it,” Charlie replied offhand.  “Get locked up again, self-destruct, and spend the rest of my life mean and lonely without you.”

She almost couldn’t answer around the sudden lump in her throat.  “You’re already mean.”

“Well, I was lonely, too,” Charlie countered.  She’d shoved her hands into her pockets as they swung around the corner and into the great room.  Might as well give B Squad their chance.  “Until you.  Who knows what other miracles you can work.”

“Given enough time,” Rose managed, but her voice was soft and she’d never been good at talking about her feelings.  Or anyone else’s.

“That’s what I figure.”  Charlie looked right at her and smiled, so Rose had a good view of her face when Z’s voice yelled a greeting from the direction of B Wing.  She rolled her eyes, stuck her tongue out, and played dead with the slightest tilt of her head.

“Hi, Z!” Rose called back, unable to keep the smile out of her voice.

“Hey, you guys want to come in for some ice cream?”  Z bounded out with way more energy than anyone who had been assigned to decorate the entire base for the holidays--on top of her extended patrol rotation--should have.  Unless, of course, she could do both things simultaneously, in numbers that bordered on ridiculous.

B Squad was full of some of the weirdest cadets Rose had ever met.

“Syd and I are trying to keep Sky from quizzing us on the manual,” Z continued.  “He might be better behaved with company.”

Charlie snorted.  “Not unless he’s grown a new personality in the last year.”

“Where’s Jack?” Rose wanted to know.  She hadn’t had much opportunity to observe her fellow cadets since returning to Earth, but it didn’t take a genius to see the effect B Squad’s new leader had had on the team.

B Squad’s old leader, now.  It was hard to get used to everything that had happened in their absence.  Hard even to remember it, sometimes, let alone to comprehend it all.  But it was clear that, whatever else had happened to Sky Tate while they were gone, he had finally found someone capable of loving as hard and as exclusively as he did.

“If you see him,” Z said, widening her eyes with false good cheer, “send him up here, would you?  Before Sky drives us completely insane.”

“We will,” Rose promised, putting a hand on Charlie’s shoulder to keep her from speaking.  “I’m going to take this one out for some exercise.  Before she does exactly the same thing to our team.”

Charlie folded her arms, huffing in a way that made it clear what she thought of being compared to Sky.  Ever.  And in fairness, she’d never been much for the SPD manual, but she had the same drive when it came to training.

Z just grinned at Rose.  “Red Rangers, huh?  Must be something in the water.”

“Yeah,” Rose said, rolling her eyes.  “The food coloring.”

“Well, there will still be ice cream when you get back,” Z told them.  “I can’t promise we’ll still have a leader, but there’s definitely an endless supply of dessert.  Where are you headed?”

This last was so casual that it caught Rose by surprise, but Charlie was already giving Z a narrow-eyed look that made the Yellow Ranger back off.  “Right, sorry,” she said.  “Not gonna follow you.  But, look...”

She hesitated, then unclipped her morpher and held it out to Rose.  “Take this, okay?  People around here are still a little on edge, and there’s no telling what you could run into if you go into the city.  Call us if you need anything.”

Rose accepted automatically: someone handed her something, she responded by taking it.  But Charlie was still staring at Z.  “You can’t just give away your morpher.  What if B Squad gets a call?”

Z shrugged, apparently unconcerned.  “I’ll send Kat.  She’s Jack’s Yellow now.  And believe me, she needs something to do.  She’s got Boom and Sophie down there in the lab inventing cold fusion or something.”

Charlie and Rose exchanged glances.  “What’s she doing in the lab on a patrol night?” Rose asked carefully.  Jack had mentioned that Kat retained control of the tech department, even with her morpher, but whether Kat herself needed a lot of sleep or not, her human lab rats did.  Boom had a morpher now, too.

“Traditionally?” Z asked.  “Being pissed at Cruger.  Tonight in particular?  I don’t know.  Bridge has been making noises about rescuing Boom for the last half hour or so, but I’m pretty sure if he goes down there he’ll just get sucked into it with them.”

“Um--”

Rose had been ignoring the C Squad cadet who had wandered through the great room while they were talking, but now she was hovering just outside easy conversation range, looking torn.  Her reluctant interruption had been halted by the sharp look Charlie shot her as soon as she spoke.  Rose smiled at her in apology, recognizing the girl as one of the new cadets who had helped them out in A Wing earlier.

“Hi,” Ruby said, awkwardly, looking very young in her purple star pajamas.  “I... it’s just--Boom?  I could get him out of the lab, if you wanted.”

“Oh, you don’t have to do that,” Z assured her.  “Jack will show eventually and we’ll send him down.”

The corner of Ruby’s mouth quirked, and Rose saw a brief flash of the self-possession that had gotten this cadet through orientation, onto D Squad, and promoted to C Squad tech.  “I’m actually pretty good at lab moderation.  After all--”  She held her hands out to the sides.  “You don’t really think Kat could be mean to someone in fuzzy pajamas, do you?”

“Yes,” Charlie muttered, but Z was eyeing Ruby speculatively.

“You’re not bad,” she decided, with a frankness that probably hadn’t gotten her far in SPD.  “You want a cover story or something?”

Ruby’s smile vanished as quickly as it had come, her sudden solemnity making her look young and vulnerable again.  “No need,” she said, very seriously.  “It’s all in the slippers.”  Equally fuzzy, Rose noted, with a little duck beak on the front of each one.

“You’re a brave woman,” Z told her.

Ruby just grinned as she turned away.  “Back in a few minutes.”

“We’re going too,” Rose said, feeling Charlie’s shoulder rise and fall in a silent sigh.  “Good luck with the team.  And thanks for the insurance,” she added, holding up Z’s morpher.

“Don’t lose it,” Z told her.  “I don’t have any fuzzy pajamas.”

Charlie snorted, so Rose gave her a push.  “Stairs for you,” she said.  “We’ll be careful,” she added, waving the morpher at Z as she followed.  “You’ll have it back as soon as we are.”

They did take the stairs--which they were definitely not going to do when they came back--and security acknowledged them on their way out but didn’t make any move to stop them.  The courtyard blazed bright as daylight, if significantly more surreal, when they finally stepped outside.  There were officers there too, but the memo must have circulated by now because they were again allowed to pass.

“I don’t know what’s weirder,” Charlie said under her breath.  “Being here, or...”  She trailed off, and after a moment she just shook her head.

“Or being here,” Rose finished quietly.  “I know what you mean.”

Charlie didn’t answer, but her silence was enough.  Only when they reached the entrance to the remote base training site did she seem to rouse herself.  “Oh, yeah,” she said aloud, smirking at the shadowed obstacle course that snaked off into a gloomy and unlit swamp.  “This should go well.”

Rose rolled her eyes, looking for and finding the observers’ station.  “I’ll just be over there,” she said, waving vaguely in that direction.  Sitting down, hopefully warm if not exactly cozy.  Trying not to fall asleep.

“You’re not going to do it with me?”  Charlie pretended to be surprised.  “And here I thought you loved me.”

“I love you enough to sit outside on a cold, dark night while you pretend you’re John McClane in the middle of a mud swamp,” Rose said firmly.  “Because I love you, I will make sure you don’t kill yourself, and I will not accompany you because then I would have to kill you, and no one wants that.”

“But it’s a race,” Charlie wheedled, as though she hadn’t even spoken.  “What good is an obstacle course without two people to run it?”

“Pretend you’re going against Sky,” Rose told her.  “Otherwise, put me down for ‘last’ and come back when you’re done.”

Charlie grumbled, but she let it go, and Rose hugged her sweatshirt tighter around her as she watched the woman too stubborn to die stride off into the swamp alone.  “Don’t get hurt,” she whispered, mostly to herself.  “We still need you.”

She wasn’t the only one who loved Charlie Carrera.

If there was one thing rehab had over active duty--or whatever mockery of “duty” they were currently assigned to--it was the lack of allcall in rehab suites.  There was an emergency notification system, of course, but none of this constant base chatter.  Charlie had forgotten how to sleep with the damn radio talking all night long.

Rose was wearing headphones, sleeping the sleep of the sense-deprived with her tiny music chip tucked behind her ear.  Charlie could hear it, treble leak outlining bouncy pop melodies in the otherwise quiet room.  Quiet except for the occasional squawk of the allcall, of course, and she was seriously considering getting some headphones for herself at this rate.

Not that anyone was supposed to tune out the allcall.  The whole point of the system was that anything broadcast over it was important for everyone to hear, no matter the hour.  Consideration was given to the residential wings during night shift--no one wanted tired soldiers--so that squad-specific calls were routed solely to their wing... and to their morphers, if applicable.

She didn’t have a morpher anymore.  But she and Rose were sleeping in A Wing, and they were getting every single squawk.  Partly because Jack’s team was the one on-call tonight, and probably partly because these were Ranger quarters.  Cadets with morphers weren’t supposed to need as much sleep as everyone else anyway.

“A Squad to Command,” the allcall muttered, for the third time that night.  It could be turned down; that was its single saving grace.  In their room, it was already as low as it would go.  “A Squad, report to Command.  Please acknowledge.”

That they would get too, Charlie knew.  From experience.  Because this was A Squad’s wing, and A Squad communication got priority here.  Were it actually her team being summoned, she would be glad for the litany of check-ins.  It saved her from doing it herself.  But it wasn’t her team, and she was having enough trouble sleeping as it was.

“A Squad Blue acknowledges,” a cute young voice chirped.

Right behind her, Kat’s calm reply.  “A Squad Yellow, acknowledged.”

She wondered what it was this time.  What could possibly call any squad out of bed three times in one night?  This wasn’t what it was like now, was it?  She knew the city was a mess, but that was ridiculous.  There was no way they could function on a schedule like that, even with morphers... because they had morphers, they would be pulling two or three times the night duty of any other squad.  How did they have the time or the energy for Jack’s base-wide mission of holiday cheer?

“Acknowledged,” Boom’s voice said, after a pause.  He sounded sleepy and distracted.  Which meant exactly nothing, since that was the way he always sounded.  She wondered if that C Squad cadet had been able to get him out of the lab.

“Uh, Green,” he added belatedly.

His identification was drowned out by a cross protest from A Squad Pink, who didn’t bother to acknowledge or identify.  “Honestly, why don’t I just live here,” she snapped over the open channel.

Jack’s grumbled remark, “This had better be good,” overlapped with hers, and Charlie wondered just how “open” the channel was.  They were obviously getting the call over their morphers, not the allcall, which probably meant that neither Jack nor Ally would be brought up on charges of rank insubordination.  But depending on who was in Command, issuing the call at this hour, they were almost definitely in line for an official reprimand.

Her lips twitched a little as she considered how much that wouldn’t mean to Jack.  He was, as far as she could tell, actively trying to get himself fired.  She hadn’t been kidding when she told him he and his team were the best entertainment SPD had seen in years.

“Hmm,” Rose murmured, just a soft little sound as she burrowed closer under the blankets.  She must be hearing something over the constant stream on her headphones, because she mumbled, “Not us.”

“Yeah,” Charlie said with a sigh.  She ran her fingers over the arm nearest her, finding Rose’s hand with her own and cupping the comfort close.  Grumbling darkness pressed in, filled not with eyes and teeth and danger, but with order and judgement and constant reminders of what they weren’t.  “Not for us.”

4. Worst Patrol Rotation Ever

The mess hall was loud and raucous by the middle of lunch time, but never let it be said that Jack couldn’t make it more so.  The arrival of his team prompted cheers and a standing ovation for the squad that had been on duty or on call for thirty-six hours straight.  And, okay, they all had morphers and two of them weren’t even human, but half the cadets on the base now had never had an A Squad to worship before.  They were ready to make Jack’s team their idols.

Sky didn’t stand up.  He didn’t applaud, even when Z laughed at the commotion and dropped her fork to join in.  Syd turned in her seat to see what was happening, and she and Dan did get to their feet when they realized who had just come in.  Even Bridge whistled, which made Sky wince and glare at him, because Bridge’s whistle was piercing even when you weren’t sitting right next to it.

“All right!”  Jack’s voice joined the general chaos, and Sky wondered how he could make himself heard over the noise.  “So, let’s see!  That’s five hostages rescued, three people pulled out of a collapsed building, and electricity restored to a house of four!  How many does that make, Sophie?”

She must have answered, because he shouted, “Twelve!  Add twelve to our side of the board!”

The “board” was something Sky never would have allowed, had anyone actually asked him before putting it up.  He still refused to acknowledge the skyrocketing tally that compared A Squad to B Squad in terms of quantifiable results.  The rest of his team, unfortunately, was unfailingly faithful about updating their side of the damn thing.  And somewhere over the weekend, someone had snuck in and changed the header from “criminals apprehended” to “civilians helped,” the practical upshot of which was that Sky’s team had gone from a slight lead to a noticeable deficit.

“Thank you!” Jack was yelling now.  “Thank you; you’re a great audience!  We’ll be here all week!  Thank you!”

Z cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted, “Down in front!”

“What!”  Jack had obviously heard her, because when Sky glanced up grudgingly he could see Jack with a hand to his ear, pretending to squint in their direction.  “Was that an invitation to grace your table with my presence?  Thank you!  I think I will!”

“Bring tribute!” Z shouted back.  “No invitations without a hostess gift!”

The roar of the hall was subsiding a little, possibly due to an effort to overhear their banter, or possibly just because Jack had yielded the floor.  How he held their attention, Sky would never know.  He had been a figurehead ever since taking over B Squad, soon to become the highest-ranked Ranger on base in Charlie’s absence, but his popularity had mushroomed in the wake of the battle for Earth.

“Okay,” Syd was saying, as the rest of the table returned to their seats and started to shove down in anticipation of Jack’s team joining them.  “They’re off this afternoon, right?  That’s our chance to catch up!”

“Technical assistance,” Z agreed, leaning forward over her tray like they were plotting.  “We should be on the lookout for electrical or optic problems while we’re on patrol--those can affect hundreds of people at a time.”

“Can we fix those?” Dan asked skeptically.  “I’m not an electrician.”

“I am,” Bridge put in.  “I mean, I’m not, but I could be.  I mean--well, I could probably fix things like that.”

“Hi!”  Jack’s exuberance hadn’t faded in the slightest as he slid his tray onto the table next to Sky and threw himself down in front of it.  “Are you plotting to steal our title?  You’ll never catch us now!”

“It’s not a competition,” Sky snapped, refusing to look at him.

“Of course it’s not a competition.”  Jack sounded suddenly affronted and so serious that Sky almost looked up.  “But we’re winning!”

Someone clattered into the seat on the other side of Jack, and it had to be Boom.  No one else could make that much noise just sitting down.  “Hey, guys,” he declared happily.  “What a great morning, right?”

“Isn’t it great?” Jack agreed.  “City temporarily saved, law enforcement reinforced, and hey!  We get to have lunch with the other best team on base!”

“What,” Sky said sarcastically, “not the second best team on base?”

“Wow, how quickly I forget your obnoxious ways,” Jack teased.  “You’re such a charmer, Sky.  I don’t know how I got through an entire morning without you.”

“You must have gotten a lot of practice last night,” Sky snapped.

“Ooh,” he heard Z mutter, but Jack just laughed.

“It was still hard,” Jack promised.  “I’m gonna steal you from B Squad if they’re not careful.”

“Why?” Sky demanded.  “You don’t want to have one on each team?”

“Whoa.”  Jack stopped, blinking at him.  “What?”

“Why don’t you ask Ally if she wants me training with you before you talk about promoting me,” Sky told him.  “I wouldn’t want to interrupt your rigorous one-on-one practice schedule.”

“O-kay...”  Jack glanced over at Ally as she took the seat across from him and set her tray down.  “Ally, we have to break up.  Sky doesn’t want me having affairs anymore.”

“Uh-huh.”  Ally didn’t sound at all perturbed by this news.  “Bridge, where did you get yellow jello?”

“Ooh, secrets of the jello stash.”  Syd jumped up, waving at Ally to follow her.  “I’ll show you.”

“I’ll go too,” Z said quickly.  “I must have forgotten to get mine.”  There was a green jello cup sitting on her tray next to her juice.

“Forget it,” Sky said, pushing his chair back.  “I’m done.”

“You said you were fine with Ally,” Jack reminded him.  “I asked you, and you said it was fine.  My team, my decision.  What am I supposed to do, not train her?”

“Just ignore them,” Z advised, pulling Ally away from the table.  “We used to think getting Sky to go out with Jack would make him easier to get along with, but it turns out he’s just neurotic about different things.”

“Make your own decisions,” Sky told him, “and I’ll make mine.”

“All right,” Jack agreed, and something about the way he said it made Sky pause.  That was his mistake.  If he’d picked up his tray and started walking, Jack would never have been able to do what he did.

Climbing up on his chair, Jack yelled, “Hey!  Everyone!  I have a question for Sky!  You wanna know what it is?”

Sky froze, staring up at him.

Jack held out his hand, maybe to pull him up on his own chair, maybe in some bizarre delusion of a romantic overture.  “Schuyler Tate,” he said loudly.  There was no doubt that most of the room could hear him now.  “Will you take my hand in marriage?”

Sky managed to find his voice, and how it came out sounding the way he’d meant it to he would never know.  “Fuck off,” he said, cold and completely serious.  He didn’t bother with his tray, just turned and headed for the door.  It was a walk not unlike the gauntlet, surrounded on all sides by Jack’s admirers, but he kept his eyes straight ahead and eventually it had to end.

Jack, curse him, could still be heard over the sound of the whispers and the growing gossip.  “That sounded like a yes,” he was saying, and Sky could hear boots on the floor as he jumped down from his chair.  “Did anyone else think that was a yes?

“Sky!” he called, not waiting for an answer from his cronies.  “Wait up!”

Sky strode out the door and into the hallway without a backward glance.

At a hundred and forty-eight years old, Kat really thought she should be past behaving like a teenager.  On the other hand, one benefit of the years was that she could at least recognize it when it was happening.  Last night, she might plausibly have claimed that she was working in the lab because it was the only time she had between back-to-back shifts and returning to duty in the morning.  This afternoon, though, they were off with explicit orders to rest.

She knew perfectly well that the rest of Jack’s team wasn’t resting.  But they were young and didn’t know any better.  She of all people should understand that you took the time when you could get it, and that just because they weren’t scheduled to be on call tonight didn’t mean they would actually be able to sleep.

Especially if the fight going on in B Wing was any indication of where squad relations were going.  She’d truly believed Jack was going to get himself fired yesterday.  When he walked into A Wing after his confrontation with Cruger, still wearing a morpher on his hip, she’d been more surprised than anyone.  So now, listening to him and Sky shout at each other directly above her lab, she tried not to wonder if their breakup would lead to one or both of them quitting.

Sky was too professional for that, she told herself.  And if Jack hadn’t quit by now...

She couldn’t help overhearing.  She knew it drove everyone in B Wing crazy when Cruger stormed in there over some conversation he’d caught from her lab, but such was the disadvantage of human hearing.  They just forgot how much farther her own could go--and his, too.

She liked to think she was discreet.  The more time the base commander spent in her lab, though, the bigger the problem had become.  Because no matter what one could say about Commander Cruger, he certainly didn’t know how to stay out of other people’s business.  She didn’t know whether it was because he didn’t trust anyone else to work things out for themselves, or if he just liked meddling because it distracted him from his own problems.

Behaving like a teenager, she reminded herself with a sigh.  Never try to assign motivation to someone else’s actions when you’re angry with them.  Similarly, never try to assign meaning to conversations heard out of context, which was yet another reason she was trying to ignore the current commotion upstairs.

She couldn’t.  Especially when her name suddenly became part of the exchange.

“Well, I didn’t find it funny!”  Sky’s voice probably would have been audible even to her human lab assistants, though none were present right now to confirm that.  “Between Cruger and your mysteriously disappearing parents, you have zero good role models for marriage in your life, and nothing about today makes me think differently!”

“Don’t talk to me about Cruger’s fucked-up worldview!”  Jack was only slightly less voluble.  “I know you don’t like it, but at the end of the day, he’s gonna do whatever he wants and you can’t hold me responsible for that!  I told him to work things out with Isinia!”

“Kat isn’t Ally--”

“Oh, well, thank you for noticing!”

“--and this isn’t about loyalty!”  Sky sounded like he couldn’t even figure out how they’d gotten on this topic, and Kat might had have more sympathy if the topic in question hadn’t been her.  “This is about you and the games you play to keep people hanging on your every word!  I’m not going to be part of your stupid show!  The Jack and Sky Show, today at eleven--”

“Too late.”  Jack wasn’t yelling anymore, but he still had to talk loudly enough to make himself heard over Sky.  “We’re already on display; that’s the price of being a Ranger.  You know that better than I do.  But if you want to talk about ego, take a look in the mirror and tell me what you see.”

“My ego isn’t offering to marry yours, Jack.”

“Well, that’s too bad, because I’m sure they’d be very happy together.  But my ego wasn’t the one proposing today.”

And that must have gone well.  Kat was almost sorry she’d missed it.

“Good, because it wasn’t my ego telling you to fuck off!”

Okay.  She hated to admit it, even in the privacy of her own mind, but she was sorry she’d missed it.  Maybe Sophie had seen it.

“I think it was,” Jack was saying.  “But if you say it wasn’t, it wasn’t.  Offer’s open, either way.”

There was no answer to this other than stony silence.

“Come by tonight,” Jack’s voice added after a moment.  “If you still want to.”

A few minutes later, Kat could only assume that that had been the end of the discussion.  She didn’t know if one or both of them were still in B Wing, but if they were, they weren’t talking.  She wondered if Cruger knew what had gone down between them yet--and what he would say when he found out.

She wondered if Jack telling him to “work things out” with Isinia explained why she hadn’t seen him since yesterday’s disastrous A Squad release.

If there was one thing Sky actually had let himself learn from Jack’s leadership, it was how to set realistic patrol rotations.  If they’d had to spend their entire shift on the streets, someone would have defected, board catchup or not.  Z couldn’t promise that it wouldn’t have been her.

Instead, they were back on base in time for dinner, and Sky even dismissed them all to the mess for break.  He didn’t go himself, but after the scene earlier, he was probably afraid of who they’d find there.  So Sky headed upstairs, at least nominally in the direction of Command, and the rest of them were left with half an hour to eat, commiserate, and possibly yell at Jack.  If he was in the mess hall.

“You guys go ahead,” Bridge said, staring off into space for a moment before catching Syd’s eye and adding, “I have to go light a candle.  I’ll catch up in a few minutes.”

“Sure, sunset, go,” Syd said vaguely, waving one hand in his general direction.  “We’ll save you some jello.”

On impulse, Z asked, “Can I come?”

Bridge smiled at her.  “I’d be honored.”

“Just you and me to defend four cups of jello?” Dan said to Syd.  “How well was this plan thought out?”

“We can take ‘em,” Syd declared.  “No one messes with B Squad!”

She could hear the grin in Dan’s voice without even looking over her shoulder.  “I’m starting to realize that, yes.”

Z did pause then, turning back to watch them go, and she was distracted for a long moment until she realized Bridge was watching her watch them.  Dan had offered an arm, which Syd took with princess-like poise, and even in uniform they glided away like something out of a brand new and politically correct fairy tale.  “Hey,” she said under her breath.  “Are they--?”

Bridge was giving her a politely confused look.  “Are they what?”

She frowned.  “Was Dan...”  She waved after them, vague but perfectly clear as far as she was concerned.  “When they were dating?”

“Transgender?” Bridge supplied helpfully.  “Yes.  Except no, because he doesn’t actually consider himself transgender now.  Or then.”

Z considered that.  She knew way too much about Syd’s lesbian phase, but she hadn’t thought it was still going on.  Did it count as being a lesbian if you were interested in a woman who considered herself a man?  She kind of thought it did, even if she thought Bridge would probably say no.

Break was only half an hour long, and Sky would definitely be back for them in twenty-eight minutes.  “Okay,” she said abruptly.  “Let’s go.”

The menorah in the room Bridge shared with Sky had a place of prominence on the table between their beds.  Some of the wicks would already be black, but she couldn’t tell which ones they were in the dimness.  Bridge hadn’t turned the lights on when he came into the room.  She heard him pick up a lighter, though, and a moment later a little flame was casting fuzzy shadows in the quiet room.

He lit the middle candle, then put the lighter down and lifted the burning candle out of the candelabra.  “Bless these days with light,” he murmured, using the single flame to light another.  “And these nights with hope.”

Z watched him light the second candle in line, and then, unexpectedly, he turned to her.  “Do you want to do the one for tonight?”

“Um, yeah,” she said, surprised.  She took a step forward.  “Can I?”

“Unless you have some sort of anti-fire aura,” Bridge said, squinting at her as she reached for the candle he offered.  “Nope,” he added, as her fingers closed around it and the flame flickered a little.  “I guess you’re okay.”

“This one?” she said with a smile, pointing to the next unlit candle in the row.

“No!”  She could hear him grin even as he folded his arms.  “I mean, yeah.  Just kidding.”

She held the candle up to a new white wick, waiting just long enough for the first drop of wax to melt and the wick to darken.  When she pulled it back, her flame separated from a second, burning happily independent in the third spot in the menorah.  She caught Bridge’s eye and pointed at the middle spot quizzically.

“Got it,” he said, taking the candle gently and placing it back in the tallest holder.  Then he leaned down and blew them all out, one after the other, in quick succession.

Z couldn’t help laughing.  “That’s it?  You just blow them out?”

“Well, I want to eat,” Bridge pointed out.  “And I can’t leave them burning while I’m not here.”

“So why light them at all?” she wanted to know, waving the tiny wisps of smoke away.  “Or is that, I don’t know, insensitive?  Should I ask why you don’t have an electric menorah?”

“Because I like lighting candles,” he said simply.  “I think the action is symbolic of a greater wish for peace.”

“Even when you just blow them out again afterwards?” Z asked, crowding him a little as they headed for the door.

“Especially then,” he said, nodding.  “Because if you light them to look at them, that’s different than lighting them just to light them.  If you light them and then blow them out again right away, that’s like saying the lighting itself had intrinsic value.  Like it was worth it just to light them, no matter what happened afterward.”

She got it.  “Like it’s worth it to wish for peace,” she said softly.  “No matter what happens.”

“Exactly.”  She felt Bridge’s arm settle around her shoulders as they stepped out into the hallway.  She smiled, leaning in and sliding her arm around him in return.

They managed to coordinate their steps on their way toward the lift, and she asked, “Bridge?”

“Yeah?”

“Will you light a candle with me on Solstice?”

Bridge sounded genuinely curious when he asked, “Are you going to light a candle on Solstice?”

“Yeah,” Z said thoughtfully.  “I think I am.”

She could hear the smile in his voice when he said, “In that case, I definitely will.”

He’d tried to catch a nap between dinner and the end of the second shift, but between the weird hours and the way Syd had spent most of her break making him feel like dirt, he couldn’t sleep.  It didn’t help that he was getting every B Squad call in his room.  Or that Sky had left a fake medal of commendation on their bed this morning: Awarded to Jack Landors, for surviving the worst patrol rotation ever.

If Sky had been back to the room since lunch, Jack couldn’t tell.  Well, he could, because if Sky had been here he probably would have grabbed his book and his sweats and dumped them in the room he shared with Bridge, so that he didn’t even have to see Jack after his shift if he didn’t feel like it.  Which Syd seemed to think he wouldn’t.

Jack couldn’t figure out if Sky’s absence was a good sign or a bad one.

With a sigh, he rolled off of the bed and looked around for Sky’s fancy electronic reader.  It was, of course, right where it always was, because the world would end if one of Sky’s toys wasn’t in its accustomed place.  Jack wasn’t very good with the thing, but he knew how to use the “notepad” feature, and he painstakingly typed a short message before setting it on Sky’s pillow and heading out into the deserted hallway.

In A Wing, the reader said.  Call me.

The B Wing lounge was almost eerily quiet when he passed it, and he tried not to think about how screwed up his life had gotten.  Okay, he hadn’t wanted to be SPD in the first place, but he’d found a good thing here.  Even aside from a regular paycheck, he’d had friends that he could work with and a guy he couldn’t help but chase.

Now his old team was off fighting chaos and anarchy without him, and his new one had better things to do in their downtime than hang around a TV lounge playing lightball or having pillow fights.  The guy he’d finally caught didn’t actually want to be caught, or didn’t want to be caught by Jack, or something equally inexplicable.  And the rest of his friends seemed to think it was all his fault.

He wasn’t sure what kind of welcome he’d get in A Wing, but he hadn’t been expecting the disgusted look Charlie threw at him the moment he poked his head into the lounge.  “Congratulations on being an idiot,” she said, turning her attention back to the screen where her disturbingly realistic looking video fighter was pounding some sort of gargoyle into the ground.

“Hi, Charlie,” Jack told her.  “Nice to see you too.  Des,” he added, waving to the only other occupant of the lounge.

“Yeah, man, what up,” Des said.  He didn’t take his eyes of the screen, and Jack wondered briefly if he was the gargoyle character.

“I want to talk to you about returning to duty,” Jack said.  “Is this a bad time?”

“Hey, hey, pause that.”  Charlie’s character glowed red on the screen, and she reached over Des’ arm for something on his game controller.  He yanked it away, but a shadow in the top of the screen glowed green a moment later.

“That depends,” Charlie said, now giving him her full attention.  “Are you going to say we can, or can’t?”

“Can,” Jack assured her.  “Coon says you’re cleared for light duty around the base, and I got Cruger’s approval to add you to the training rotation.  If you want.

“Don’t get me wrong,” he continued, dropping into one of the chairs.  “I’m sure it was really fun to hang around here doing nothing all day, and believe me, SPD owes you big time.  If you want to hang around doing nothing, Coon can give you up to two months of  therapeutic re-assimilation.  If you do the counseling thing, she can extend it to four.

“But if you want something to do--or someone to beat up,” he added, glancing at the screen, “there’s plenty of training slots.  And they tell me there’s this whole group of orientation level cadets who need instruction--”

“Which you wouldn’t know,” Charlie said, “since you were never one of them.”

He just shrugged.  “What can I say?  I like to skip to the high points.”

“Sky doesn’t,” Charlie remarked.

“I so don’t want to talk about that,” Jack told her.

“Hilarious, man,” Des put in.  “Great story.”

“What did I just say?” Jack demanded.

“‘I’ve somehow never met Sky Tate’?” Charlie suggested.  “What made you think embarrassing him was this great idea?  The man doesn’t even let people give him birthday gifts in public, for crying out loud.”

Jack blinked.  He didn’t know when Sky’s birthday was.  It had never occurred to him before, but he sensed this wasn’t the time to share that revelation.  

“Can I point out that he’d just accused me of cheating on him?” he said instead.  “How was a declaration of eternal love an unfair response?”

“Based solely on Des’ description of the event as ‘hilarious,’” Charlie said dryly, “I’d guess it didn’t quite come across as a declaration of eternal love.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not a woman,” Jack informed her.  “What do I know about that stuff?”

“Okay, here’s a tip,” Des interjected, before Charlie could do more than glare at him.  “And I gotta tell you, this is wisdom gleaned from years of experience, so.  Listen well.”

Jack turned to him expectantly, if only to avoid Charlie’s gaze of death.

“Pretend Sky is a woman,” Des intoned.  “Pretend Charlie isn’t.”  He held out his hands, as though bestowing a priceless gift.  “Swear to god, it’ll save you hours of aggravation.”

“This conversation is over,” Charlie said.  “Let’s talk training rotations.”

“Don’ll be in tomorrow,” Des offered.

“And Miguel will be gone,” Charlie added.  “His flight leaves early in the morning.”

“When’s he due back?” Jack wanted to know.  At the last second, he’d managed not to say, “Miguel’s leaving?” but it turned out that his substitute question wasn’t much better.  He knew it as soon as Des’ gaze flicked to Charlie, even if she didn’t so much as blink.

“He’s not sure,” she said.  Offhand, like it made ten kinds of sense, which it did.  Jack wished he hadn’t asked, because it couldn’t be easy to say.  “He doesn’t know if he’s coming back.”

“Right.”  Miguel was a long way from home, and he’d been gone longer than anyone could have predicted.  None of them had signed up for the kind of tour they’d gotten stuck with.  “Anything I can do?”

“Yeah,” Charlie said, like she honestly couldn’t believe what an idiot she was talking to.  “Talk about training rotations.”

So they did, and eventually Des convinced him to take over the losing game controller, and he was still in the lounge when the second shift came to an end.  It wasn’t the time that he noticed, though--he was so busy completely failing to master “Gargoyle Doom” that he wasn’t paying much attention to anything else.  It was something he would never be able to pin down if pressed, and it made him look up in the middle of getting his butt kicked by a gargoyle Charlie had somehow recruited-–

Sky was leaning against the doorframe, watching them.

“Hey,” Jack said, the controller forgotten in his hands.

Sky just looked at him.

“I’m sorry?” Jack tried.  He felt Des grab for the controller and he let it go without protest.  “That was really stupid?  Um... I promise not to propose to you in front of the entire mess hall again?”

Charlie snorted, but Des must have rescued his guy because her eyes were glued to the screen.  “Try to sound less sure of yourself, Jack.”

“Shut up,” Jack told her.  “You try to guess what he’s thinking.”

This, he saw out of the corner of his eye, actually got a smile out of Sky.  It was gone when Jack looked directly at him, but he did say, “You know, I had this whole thing.  Board party, leftover ice cream, Z made me come get you...  it seems kind of stupid, all of a sudden.”

Jack brightened.  “Because you’ve forgiven me?”

“Because you look so pathetic,” Sky told him.  “Seriously, who tries to beat Charlie at ‘Gargoyle Doom’?  There’s something broken in your head.

“No offense,” he added, nodding at Des.

“Uh-huh,” Des said absently.  “Sure.”

Jack considered this.  “I liked the part about ice cream,” he decided at last.

This time, the small smile lingered on Sky’s face.  “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”  Jack pushed himself to his feet.  “I could maybe even pay... if we, you know, hypothetically speaking.  Went somewhere other than the base?”

Sky straightened, clearly waiting for Jack to join him.  “If you insist.”

“‘Night, guys,” Jack said, stepping around the end of the couch.  “See you tomorrow morning.”

Charlie grunted something noncommittal, but Des actually tore his gaze away from the screen long enough to catch his eye.  Woman, he mouthed.  Jack tried to hide a smile, flashing him a thumbs-up as he turned toward the door.

Sky, perhaps pointedly, did not ask.

5. The Definition of Success

“Wow,” Dan remarked, pausing to survey the table before putting his tray down.  “This looks serious.  Is it safe to eat here?”

Sky didn’t look up.  He had a book open in front of him, which as far as he was concerned excused him from all mealtime conversation.  He was also without Jack, again, which he was trying very hard not to be pissed off about.

“If you’re human,” Kat said, apparently in response to Dan’s question.  “No guarantees for anyone who has a real sense of smell.”

He didn’t know why they had to paint their nails at breakfast, but long experience with Syd had taught him that it was better not to ask.  There were fights he could win, and there were fights he was destined to lose.  Anything that involved health or beauty products seemed to fall into the latter category.

“If it bothers you,” Dan said warily, pulling his chair back without actually taking a seat.  “Why are you doing it?  Or should I not ask?”

“Are you scared to sit down?” Syd asked.  She held out her left hand, studying the nails critically.  “I only ask because by the time you get to actually picking up a fork, breakfast could be over.”

“Good morning, Syd.”  The words were wry, and Sky spared him a single glance.  Dan caught it, raising his eyebrows.  “I’m guessing I was right the second time?  With the not asking?”

Sky snorted.  “Never ask a question you don’t really want to know the answer to,” he muttered, returning his gaze to his book.  He thought he hadn’t turned a page in a while, so he did so now.

Huh.  End of the chapter.  He would have to remember not to stare at this page for quite so long.  He was sure he wasn’t fooling Syd, but the same tacit agreement that kept him from arguing about the nail polish would also keep her from calling him on the “reading.”

“Hey.”  Charlie dropped her tray on the table and swung one leg over the seat beside him.  “That the latest edition of the manual?”

Sky didn’t bother looking at her.  “It’s a present from my mom.”  He put one hand over the propped-open hardcover, as though he was about to turn the page.  It was a futile effort to pre-empt her inevitable snatching of his book for closer inspection.

Charlie did reach out and grab the cover, but to his surprise, she just tipped it up so she could see the title and then let go again.  “Huh,” she said, noncommittally.  “Any good?”

He shrugged, aware of Rose hovering across the table from them.  “Is anyone sitting here?” she asked Syd, waiting for her to shake her head before taking a seat.  “Nice color.”

Syd brightened noticeably.  “You like it?” she said, inspecting her fingers for the twentieth time.  “You can use it if you want.”

“Since when are you fine with this?” Charlie demanded.  “Personal hygiene in the mess hall?  Doesn’t this violate some obscure conduct code?”

Sky could only assume she was talking to him.  “I’m about to go on duty in a section of the city where the chances of us being shot at are one in five,” he told his book.  “If my teammates want to paint their nails beforehand, I’m okay with that.”

There was a moment of silence, and then Dan said, “Okay, give me some of that.”

“Silver or black?” Syd chirped, holding up one bottle in either hand.

“What am I, goth?” Dan demanded.  “Give me a real color.”

“I’m not letting you wear green,” Syd informed him.  “Besides, I don’t have any.”

“Kat has blue,” Dan pointed out.  “What’s wrong with blue?”

“Kat can wear blue because the Blue Ranger on her team is a girl,” Syd said.  “And an android.  Sophie won’t care.  Bridge might.”

“Oh, now we have to ask the appropriate Ranger before we can wear their color?” Dan sounded somewhere between amused and incredulous.  “I think I want to go back to C Squad.  How do I get un-promoted?”

Sky couldn’t tell if Dan was just giving her a hard time, or if he really didn’t see where this was going.  “She’s trying to get you to wear pink,” he interrupted, reaching between them for the salt.  “Excuse me.”

“Really?” Dan asked Syd.  “Because I can handle pink.  I’m secure in my masculinity.”

Sky snorted at that, dumping salt over top of his eggs in an effort to disguise the taste of the box.  Dan apparently didn’t appreciate his wordless commentary, because he turned to Sky and prompted, “You have something to say?”

“No.”  Sky held up his hands in self-defense, then nodded at Rose, who had swiped Syd’s pink nail polish when she wasn’t looking and was currently painting the nails of her right hand.  “Except that you’ll have to wait your turn.”

“Really?  Salt?”  Charlie was still on his case, and she didn’t seem to care that he was trying not to have a conversation with someone else while he pretended to read a book.  “Isn’t that disgustingly unhealthy?  You don’t even put salt on your popcorn.”

“Did I mention the getting shot at,” he snapped.  “It’s just salt.”

“Kind of touchy this morning, aren’t you,” she said.  “Date with Jack not go well?”

“Why are you so chatty all of a sudden?” Sky demanded.

Charlie shrugged, sawing off one side of a pancake with her fork and then splitting it in half.  “I was stuck on a planet with three English-speakers for a year,” she said.  “I spent the last three weeks in a room with them.  Frankly, any new conversation is welcome right now.  Even yours.”

Sky blinked, watching her stack the two pieces of pancake on top of each other and shove them both in her mouth at once.  She managed to look not completely like a starved refugee doing it.  Maybe that was the three weeks of regular meals, he thought.

“He’s training,” Sky said abruptly.  “Ally has to be at work by nine.  She and Jack train in the mornings.”

She finished chewing, swallowed, and remarked, “Nice of him.”

“Yeah,” he muttered.

Charlie reached for her bottle of cranberry juice, breaking the top off and unscrewing it.  “I could train her,” she offered, taking a long drink.

Sky paused, staring at the eggs he’d been pushing around his tray.

“Jack got us cleared for light duty,” she continued, when he didn’t say anything.  “We’re back on the training rotation as of today.  And it’s not like he doesn’t have better things to do.”

He lifted his gaze, and their eyes met.  Charlie smiled slightly.  Raising her juice bottle in a silent salute, she told him, “Consider it done.”

Kat respected the priority of the allcall.  She also felt that anything that was going to broadcast bad news into the middle of their days with radio-like frequency should be used in service to good news at least as often.  Somehow it was only fair.

So she was glad that Cruger hadn’t managed to discourage the cadets from their holiday hijacking of the system just yet.  It probably helped that he was on the other side of the galaxy right now, but whatever it took.  She was enjoying the music.

“Amber called her uncle, said ‘we’re up here for the holiday, Jane and I are having Solstice, now we need a place to stay...’”

“Hey, Dr. Manx?”  Charon poked her head into the lab, and Kat looked around in surprise.  Charon had left for lunch several minutes ago.  “I just wanted to say thank you.”

“For what?” Kat asked, smiling a little.

Charon smiled back.  “For everything,” she said lightly.  “This just seemed like a good time.”

“Well...”  She was at something of a loss, but she certainly appreciated the sentiment.  “You’re welcome.”

Charon lingered.  “See you at lunch?”

Kat had been planning to work through lunch.  A Squad was taking the second shift today, and she had a lot to catch up on in the lab.  But something made her say yes: the special trip Charon had made just to ask, the knowledge that Jack would thank her for this instance of “community visibility,” or maybe just a defensive streak that said no, she was not burying herself in work to avoid noticing the base commander’s absence.

“Sure,” she said.  “I’ll just turn off some things here first.”

“Great.”  Charon waved.  “See you there.”

Kat smiled to herself as Charon left.  It was a nice thing, she’d found, to have people checking up on you every now and then.  She only had one family member on Earth, and she didn’t mind when the lab rats--and more recently, the Rangers--tried to fill that role in their own ways.

“Just before the meal was served, hands were held and prayers were said, sending hope for peace on Earth to all their gods and goddesses...”

If she sometimes wished her students weren’t the only ones, well.  Cruger was an annoyance as much as he was a blessing, and any regret she had about him was her own fault.  She’d fallen for someone as young and impetuous as the cadets he harangued daily for their lack of respect and responsibility.

“Hi, Kat.”  Bridge came to an abrupt halt as she stepped out into the hallway.  He started walking backwards, reversing course without turning around, and he beamed at her.  “On your way to lunch?”

“Yes,” she said, unable to keep from smiling even as she eyed him warily.  “Why?”

He shrugged, easily turning the corner without looking.  “No reason,” he said.  “Except for the reason that everyone goes to lunch, which is that you’re probably hungry and the mess hall is the easiest place to get food.  Unless you want to walk all the way upstairs to the residential wings, which is faster, but most people don’t seem to think synthesizer food is as good as non-synthesizer food.

“I don’t really know why, myself,” Bridge continued.  “I mean, it’s not as satisfying as using an actual toaster, but it tastes just as good.  To me, anyway.”

“Bridge.”  She jumped in when he paused for breath.  “Is there any particular reason you came to see if I was going to lunch in the mess hall today?”

“No,” he said confidently.  “Thanks, though.”

She blinked.  “Thanks for what?”

“I don’t know,” Bridge admitted.  “But thanks.  See you at lunch!”

He stopped where he was and started walking forwards again, right past her.  She turned, startled, and watched him go.  The “no” had clearly been a lie, but to what end, she had no idea.  Diversion?  Surprise party?  Sympathy check?

“Amber’s uncle saw how Amber looked like Tim and like her father, he thought about his brother and how they hadn’t spoken in a year--he thought he’d call him up and say ‘it’s Christmas and your daughter’s here’...”

“Thanks, Dr. Manx!”  Someone called to her just outside the lift, and she turned in time to see Caleb on his way somewhere else--in a hurry.  But he took the time to wave before he disappeared.

She wondered what could possibly be going on.

“So the Christians and the Pagans sat together at the table, finding faith and common ground the best that they were able: lighting trees in darkness, learning new ways from the old, making sense of history and drawing warmth out of the cold...”

A basic sense of self-preservation made her take the stairs.  It didn’t matter how safe she was here, how much she believed in friendship and trust and even, sometimes, the Power.  It had been a long life before SPD, some of it spent lying, lied to, or on the run, and it still made her nervous when people around her didn’t behave quite the way she expected them to.

“Oh, hey, Kat!”  Jack’s voice made her pause, and she waited for him to catch up.  Bounding down the stairs behind her, two, even three at a time, he wasn’t even out of breath when he grinned at her and reached for the stairwell door.

“Let me just say,” he declared, holding the door open for her and waving her though.  “Thank you, Kat.  You’re amazing.  None of us could do what we do without you.”

“You’re making me very, very worried,” Kat told him.  “What’s going on, Jack?  Did you break something?  Catastrophic structural damage?  Accidental time travel?  Did you find another kitten?”

“This is what you worry about?”  Jack seemed interested, but he managed to overlook the kittens.  “Really?  Time travel?”

Apparently he hadn’t had that class.  “You don’t have any idea why I work for SPD, do you,” she realized.  She probably should have expected that... yet she remembered him from all those years ago.  It was still hard to grasp that it didn’t go both ways.

“A fascinating story,” Jack was saying.  “I’m sure.  But right now, we are here to alleviate your paranoia.  After you!”

He waved her into the mess hall, a grander gesture even than the one he had used to usher her out of the stairwell.  It must be so interesting to be inside Jack’s mind, she thought, amused.  What did he see when he looked around him, really?  Did he actually expect everyone to do what he told them to, or did he just act like it for reasons unknown?

She stopped wondering when she walked into the mess.  She didn’t stop thinking, because her mind didn’t work like that.  But she did mostly forget about Jack.

A giant green tree stood at one end of the mess hall.  Right in front of the windows.  With a banner behind it, glowing translucent with the light of day shining through.  The writing was dark enough that the color stood out even in the brightness.  And now she thought she was beginning to understand.

The banner read, Thank you, Dr. Manx.

6. Jonathan Drew

The cat was skinny and soft and surprisingly affectionate for something that had probably been out on the streets its entire life.  She rolled over on her back, pressing her head against Charlie’s hand, then twisted to attack with flying claws and ferocious teeth.  Baby claws.  Baby teeth.  This cat’s definition of “ferocious” was enough to sting a little, drawing little pink lines across her fingers and wrist without actually breaking the skin.

“That’ll be really cute when she gets bigger,” Sky remarked, sitting on the floor beside them and eyeing the cat as though she was some sort of parasite.  Charlie thought she could guess why the cat wasn’t staying in Jack’s room anymore.

“She’s just playing,” Z declared.  She was lying on her stomach, waiting for the cat to get bored with Charlie and come back to pounce on her hair again.  “She has to learn how to defend herself.”

“She’s pretty friendly for someone who’s practicing--”  Charlie closed her fingers around the cat’s midsection and lifted her up.  The cat stuck like a burr to her hand.  “Kitty death matches.”

“You do what you have to do to survive,” Z said.  “Doesn’t change who you are.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Charlie saw Sky shift his skeptical look to Z.  “Please tell me you’re not using this cat as a metaphor for the broader social landscape.”

“Why?”  Z tilted her head, her hair brushing the floor as she smirked up at him.  “Are you hearing metaphors in my perfectly innocent kitten talk?”

The cat twisted, digging her claws into Charlie’s hand as she sprang free, leaping for Z’s hair.  She just missed Z’s head, tumbling with zero grace to the floor when the hair turned out--for the third time--not to be the solid creature that the cat seemed determined it was.  “Oh,” Z said, laughing.  “Sorry!  Still not food!”

“Hey,” Jack’s voice interrupted.  “Sophie’s gonna be mad if she finds out you’re harassing her cat.”

Charlie looked up from a cursory inspection of her hand--still mostly intact--in time to see Jack drop down to the floor beside them wearing what looked like the remnants of riot gear.  She raised her eyebrows at him.  “Why are you wearing a tac vest?”

Jack didn’t hesitate.  “‘Cause I was in a hurry,” he said easily, “and I like the way Sky looks at it.”

“Never ask a question you don’t want to know the answer to,” Z advised, but Charlie was more interested in Sky’s reaction.  He rolled his eyes, of course, but he didn’t complain and from past experience, she wasn’t sure Jack was wrong.

“You already eat?” he was asking Sky.

“No,” Sky said, his gaze flicking to her.  “But Charlie wants to talk to you.”

“What, now?”  Jack looked at her too.  “You want to join us in the mess?”

“Just you,” she said.  “It’ll only take a minute.”

Jack looked at Sky again, and she was very aware that she got time with him on Sky’s sufferance.  Sky was exactly as domineering in his personal relationships as he was in everything else, and so far, it seemed to work for Jack.  In a way that maybe it hadn’t for Dru, who had always seemed to indulge Sky’s demands as he might a pet.

“Yeah, okay,” Jack said, when Sky nodded minutely.  “We’ll take a walk.”

“Bring back some cat toys,” Z said, trying to disentangle the claws from her hair without getting her fingers bitten.

“Why?” Sky asked, as Jack got up again and Charlie followed him to the door.  “She’s already got you.”

“Oh, that’s a good idea.”  Twin voices spoke in unison, and Charlie didn’t have to turn around to know that the cat now had two Zs to play with.  She’d probably stand a better chance of distracting the cat with someone else to help her, and it didn’t look like that someone would be Sky.

“Went looking for information today,” Charlie said, falling into step beside Jack in the hallway.  He was heading away from the great room and the lifts without having to ask.  “On you and Z.”

Jack didn’t flinch.  “You’re a pretty tight group here,” he said.  “I get that.”

She nodded.  “Yeah.  You know Sky and Syd had the same dad?”

That got his attention.  He stopped where he was and turned his full attention to her.  “Yeah,” Jack said warily, searching her expression.  “I didn’t know that was common knowledge.”

“It’s not.  Their teammates knew.”

It was Jack’s turn to nod, slowly, and she thought he was probably reviewing his mental list of who that might include.  Her, Gibbs, Bridge.  Sky might have told Dru, but Syd definitely hadn’t spread it around.  She seemed happy to let everyone think she was flirting when she got a little too close and Sky didn’t bite her head off for it.

“Their teammates still know,” Jack told her.  “So?”

Him and Z, then.  She wondered how that had come up.  Sky and Syd didn’t lie about it, but they danced around the subject with an ease born of long practice.  As far as most of the base was concerned, Syd was from a whole different class, let alone family.

“So I saw your file,” Charlie said bluntly.  “Are you and Syd biological or adopted?”

Jack stared at her like she’d lost her mind.  “What?”

“Jonathan Drew,” she told him.  “That’s you, isn’t it.  I assume at least one of your parents was--”  She waved at him impatiently.  “Black?”

“Assume they both were,” Jack said, eyeing her.  “What’s it got to do with Syd?”

Charlie frowned at him.  “You’re listed as her brother.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, lifting his hands to disclaim all responsibility.  “I didn’t fill out any file.  If you heard that from someone else, they’re on something, ‘cause the only family I know is the one I chose.”

She wouldn’t blame him for lying to her.  Nor did she particularly care if he was involved with his half-brother... as long as that potential half-brother knew about it.  Lying to her was one thing.  Lying to Sky was something else entirely.

“Jonathan Drew,” Charlie said, studying him.  “Born March fourth, 2005.  Next of kin: Kylee Drew, mother, Joshua Drew, father...  Sydney Drew.  Sister.”

“Who the hell is Jonathan Drew?” Jack demanded.

“Jonathan Drew is the name in your file,” Charlie told him.

Jack snorted.  “Well, since my name is Jack Landors, I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say you got the wrong file.”

His morpher went off before she could snap, and he gave her a warning look that worked.  Not because it was a warning, but because it implied that he really thought she might keep talking over an open channel.  She appreciated that kind of respect.

“Go for Jack,” he said, and it was Kat’s voice that replied.

“Jack, I need to see you about a security breach,” she said.

He frowned.  “Are you in the lab?” he asked.  “We’re on break, Kat.  Get something to eat.”

“In a minute,” she said, in that tone of voice that Charlie remembered so well.  The one that meant she wasn’t really listening, that she thought humans were strange, and that if everyone would just do what she told them the base would run so much better.  “This is important.”

“Okay.”  Jack gave Charlie an apologetic shrug, then added, “I’m on my way.”

She waited until he had put his morpher away.  “Des is losing his touch.”

Jack froze, then gave her an outraged look that bordered on comical.  “That was you?”

She was careful not to smile, because Jack entertained her but she didn’t know him well enough to take his loyalty for granted.  “You can’t just look up another cadet’s file, Jack.”

He shook his head, but he didn’t hesitate and he didn’t let her down.  “Tell me what you did,” he told her.  “So I know what’s an actual problem and what Kat should ignore.”

“Personnel hack.  That’s it.”

“Got it.  Hey--”  Jack caught himself before he actually started to walk away.  “Can cadets see their own files?”

“Unless you signed a waiver when you joined,” Charlie told him.  “Everyone can request access to their personal information.”

He snapped his fingers and pointed at her.  “I’ll let you know,” he said.  Then he was gone, straight through the wall by the emergency exit at the end of B Wing.  She stared at the place where he had disappeared for a long moment before turning back toward the lounge.

“Hey, Kat.”  Jack glanced casually around the lab as he strode in, making sure to cover all corners and the isolation room door.  They were the only ones there.  “Who’s Jonathan Drew?”

Kat looked up from the screen on her desk, giving him a speculative look that he knew only too well.  It was a look that said of all the answers she had, this wasn’t one of them.  “I was just about to ask you the same thing.”

He went for his pockets, found his vest instead, and absently hooked his thumbs into the loops.  “Well, you wouldn’t be the first,” he said, frowning.  “Can I see my file?”

“You could,” she said, gesturing at the screen in front of her as she sat back in her chair.  “If it hadn’t been changed sometime between last night and today.”

“Changed?” Jack repeated.  He accepted her unspoken invitation to peer over her shoulder, and he saw himself staring back from the screen.  That was his picture--and a recent one, too, showing him in an A Squad uniform with the collar open far enough to display the new necklace Z had given him.  His hand went to his throat automatically.

“Exactly,” Kat said.  “That’s not your file photo.  That’s been taken some time in the last two weeks and inserted over an archive background.  Along with personal information that wasn’t there before.”

“Jonathan ‘Jack’ Drew,” Jack read aloud.  “Glamour name, Jack Landors.  What the hell is a glamour name?”

Kat folded her arms, still staring at the screen.  “Some cadets come through looking for a fresh start.  SPD lets you use whatever name you want while you’re here, as long as your legal name is on file with your badge number.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Jack said, frowning.  “Since when is Jonathan Drew my legal name?”

“Apparently since sometime last night,” Kat told him.  “You don’t have any idea who could have done this?”

“Someone who’s into practical jokes?” he suggested, leaning a little closer.  “Date of birth... hey, I’m twenty now.  That’s not gonna go well at the liquor store.  And seriously, who’s gonna believe I’m Syd’s brother?”

“This from the man who claims Z Delgado as his sister?” Kat said wryly.  “Anyone who’s seen you and Syd together would believe it.”

“If they didn’t know anything about us,” Jack retorted.  “She’s my teammate, Kat.  That makes her more than my best friend.  Same as it makes all of them.”

“Yes, speaking of that.”  Kat finally tore her eyes away from the screen, either convinced that she wouldn’t change the information on it just by staring or distracted by something more important.  “Do you think you could stop giving Cruger marital advice?  As a favor to me?”

Jack opened his mouth, but he couldn’t come up with something to say in time.

“It’s just that I’ve known him for a while now,” she continued, ignoring his shock.  “And I’d like to think I’ve gained some insight into his psyche in that time.  Maybe it’s more reliable than yours, maybe not.  But when it comes to his feelings for me, I think at least that’s more my business than yours.”

“I told him to treat you better!” he exclaimed, finding his voice.  “That’s all!”

“If I don’t like the way someone is treating me,” she said, “I will tell them.  I won’t hide behind a cadet who thinks an adult relationship means proposing to his boyfriend in the middle of the mess hall.”

Jack gaped at her.  It wasn’t that he hadn’t expected that to get around... it was more that he couldn’t remember the last time Kat had lashed out at someone.  Had he seen her lose her temper since the Terror?  She’d been their rock for weeks, refraining from her usual attitude in the face of--

In the face of what?

“Sorry,” he said at last.  Because she deserved that, at least.  “I didn’t mean to get in the middle of it.  He pissed me off and I yelled at him.  Should’ve kept my mouth shut.”

“Yes, well.”  She twisted, settling back into her chair again with her arms still crossed, looking remarkably sulky for an ancient cat-lady.  “You’re not the only one.  Thanks for...”  She freed one hand and waved it in a disturbingly good impression of Z.  “Being a friend.”

He could practically hear the “or whatever” on the end of that, and it was touching precisely because it was something he’d never expected to hear her say.  Kat didn’t talk about friends except in the abstract.  He’d never once heard her mention family.  And as much as she seemed to like them sometimes, she certainly didn’t seek out their company.

“Back at you,” he said, punching her shoulder lightly.  Because that was how he knew how to be a friend.  “Sometimes we get in each other’s way, you know?  You just gotta let me know.”

She didn’t look at him.  “I did try to tell him myself,” she told the screen.  “He didn’t listen.”

“That’s a shock,” Jack said.  “He’s gonna do whatever he’s gonna do, Kat.  We’ve just gotta be there to pick up the pieces those times when it goes wrong.”

She looked up, then, and he knew it was an illusion but she looked as young as ever and just for a moment, he could see a little sister in that gaze.  He had to grin at her searching look.  “Out on the streets,” he teased, “that’s what we call being a friend.”

“Thanks for the lesson,” she replied, the playful tone replacing her momentary uncertainty and she was once again the Kat he knew.  “Now tell me what you know about this Jonathan Drew thing.  You said you’d heard it before--from who?”

Jack winced.  “Can’t tell you,” he said apologetically.  “Pretty sure they didn’t do it, though.  You said it had to have been in the last 24 hours?”

“That was the last time your file was accessed.”  She didn’t look happy about his reluctance to share, but she was letting it slide for now.  “There’s a shadow program in place to temporarily back up outgoing databursts, and it recorded the old version of your file being transmitted at 1932 last night.  The new one went to Galaxy Command this afternoon just after 1600.”

He glanced at her.  “And you just happen to have a shadow shadow program in place, scanning for--?”

“Discrepancies?” she finished.  “Something like that.  It’s not something anyone else should know about.  But whoever changed your file was good enough to avoid every other flag we have, so I’m not counting on it.”

A scratchy sound came from the direction of her screen, and it took him half a second to place it as her incoming comm alert.  “Go for Kat,” she said, without moving.

Jack straightened up even as security appeared on the screen.  “Visitor,” she told Kat briefly.  “Commander Collins was admitted as your guest three minutes ago.”

“Thank you,” Kat said, but the surprise was audible in her tone.

The officer just nodded and the link cut off.

“Is that Commander Collins as in, the person responsible for bringing SPD to Earth?” Jack wanted to know.

“It’s Commander Collins as in Jaycee,” Kat said, frowning across the room.  “My sister.”

Jack blinked.  “Wow,” he blurted out.  Friends and family in the same conversation.  “Didn’t even know you had a sister.”

“I could say the same of you,” she said archly.

“Ha ha,” he replied.  “Z is the only sister I know.  And Z is the only sister I have.”

“Does that apply to your parents, too?” she asked, giving him that same speculative look she’d worn when he came in.

“Don’t have any parents,” he told her.

She looked back at her desk, shifting things out of the way and clearing the screen so that it displayed only the SPD logo.  “I guess that answers my question.”

“Knock knock,” a voice from the hallway called.

A moment later, Commander Jaycee Collins had blown into the room.  It was sort of like watching Cruger on caffeine, Jack decided, if the old dog would respond to coffee like any normal human.  He definitely had seen Commander Collins before, at a distance--once he caught sight of her in person there was no mistaking that stride and determined air.

“Kat,” she said, nodding to what was apparently... her sister?  “Cadet,” she added, glancing at Jack and giving him an assessing look that didn’t dismiss him quite the same way her words did.  “You’ll have to excuse us.  I need to talk to Dr. Manx alone.”

“There seems to be a lot of that going around today,” Jack drawled.  He couldn’t help it.  Something about her absolute authority made him want to do the exact opposite of whatever she said.

Collins raised her eyebrows at Kat, who held up a hand.  “I know, I know.  He’s the Red Ranger.  And Cruger’s away, so if you need something authorized, it’ll have to be through him.”

Collins frowned, but she came forward and offered her hand to Jack.  “Commander Jaycee Collins,” she told him.  “I don’t think we’ve been officially introduced.”

“Jack Landors,” he said, keeping his tone slow and lazy.  “SPD... Red.”

“Yes, I see that.”  She eyed him, then jerked her head at Kat.  “She’ll need a leave of absence, starting this evening.”

“Wait, what?”  Kat was on her feet now, glaring at both of them.  “Still in the room!”

Collins rolled her eyes.  “Well, make up your mind!” she declared, and there was something affectionate about the way she complained that Jack hadn’t expected to hear.  “Do you want me to talk to him or to you?”

“If it’s something I’m doing,” Kat retorted, “then I’d rather hear about it myself!”

“You’re leaving,” Collins told her.  “Code nine.  I want you at the Mexico base yesterday.  Not--”  She held up her hand in an eerie imitation of Kat’s earlier pre-emptive gesture.  “Literally.”

Jack almost wrote that off, but no one kept up with Z without learning how to sort and process multiple trains of thought simultaneously.  Kat worried about time travel.  The reason Kat worked for SPD had something to do with time travel.  Kat’s sister had just shown up without so much as a hello and told her to leave the country... and she had told her not to do it yesterday.

“I knew I should have asked you about that joke at lunchtime,” he muttered.  He saw Kat turn wide eyes on him, and he silently noted that this was serious.  She looked pale and tense and seconds from hissing.  He kept going anyway.

“Look,” he told Collins, “she’s my Yellow Ranger.  I’m gonna need more of a reason to send her to Mexico than ‘code nine,’ whatever that is.  Cruger will have my head, for one thing, and I don’t know if you’ve noticed but we’re not exactly pulling light duty here in New Tech.  The streets are a disaster after the whole--”

“I can get you help,” Collins interrupted.  “More soldiers, civil service, even Rangers if you need them.  But she’s going.”  She shot an uninterpretable look at Kat as she added, “The only question is whether or not she comes back.”

Charlie had kept her word.  She was back in the B Wing lounge in minutes--but she didn’t bring Jack with her.  Call from Kat, she said, and if she knew more than that she wasn’t sharing.  Sky frowned, but what could he do?  Jack was A Squad Red.  If the head of Base Tech said she needed to see him about something, then she needed to see him.  End of story.

He had resigned himself to dinner alone when Sophie’s morpher came alive.  Jack’s android teammate had joined them in the lounge when she realized her cat was missing again, and she’d made a perfectly logical guess as to where the creature might have gone.  Bridge and Z loved that cat.

“A Squad,” Jack’s voice said, quieter over Sophie’s morpher than anyone’s because she kept it turned down as far as it would go.  Sky could barely make it out.  “Meet up at six-forty-five.  Repeat, patrol resumes at 1845.  Please acknowledge.”

Sky caught Z’s eye as Sophie went for her morpher.  “Six forty-five?” Z repeated, craning her head around to see the time display.  “The whole squad?”

A Squad’s break time had just been doubled.  Knowing Jack, he wouldn’t make them stay out longer to compensate, either.  And Sky wouldn’t put it past him to do it out of the goodness of his heart... if it weren’t for the fact that Jack hadn’t eaten yet, and he was, as far as anyone knew, still with Kat in the lab.

“A Squad Blue acknowledges,” Sophie told her morpher.

The whole squad, though?  It wasn’t like Jack had to keep them all around while he ate dinner.  Surely he could send them back out and catch up once he’d finished whatever he was doing.

“Yo, Sky!”  Sky’s morpher was considerably louder than Sophie’s, because he actually needed to be able to hear it in the middle of a crowded room if something important was going down.  Unfortunately, that made Jack’s informal address all the more obvious.

He saw Charlie hide a smile.  Z laughed outright.  Sophie gave him a wide-eyed look that said she still harbored illusions of Jack being the perfect SPD cadet.  He acknowledged with a sigh, and Jack must be rubbing off on him because he said, “What?” instead of “Tate,” and that drew another grin from Z and a look of surprised amusement from Charlie.

“You still in B Wing?” Jack’s voice demanded.

“Yes, Jack,” he said, ignoring the stare from Sophie that said she was watching all the wrong role models.  “I’m still in B Wing.”

“All right, I’ll be right there.”  Jack sounded distracted all of a sudden, like maybe he was actually doing his job instead of using his morpher as a personal communication device.  “Don’t go anywhere.  I need a favor.”

“Yes, sir,” Sky said, because this was still an official channel, whether Jack made it a personal one or not.  And because there was more subtle sarcasm in those two words than almost anything else he could say.

“What was that?” Jack’s voice replied.  “I didn’t quite catch that last part.”

Sky felt his lips twitch, and he was very careful not to let it show in his voice.  “Don’t push it,” he told his morpher.

“Understood,” Jack answered.  He didn’t bother to hide his grin, and Sky couldn’t help but smile.  He put his morpher away before Jack could hear it.

Charlie was pretending to watch the cat, but Z had propped her chin on her palm and was actually batting her eyes in his direction.  “What?” he snapped, smile vanishing.  Sophie, too, was staring at him like Jack’s contagious insubordination was new to her.

“Aw, I just think you’re cute,” Z teased.  “With your ‘yes, sir!’ and your doing Jack favors...”

“I’ll be doing you a ‘favor’ in a minute,” Sky muttered.  “And I don’t want any witnesses.”

Jack was closer than they’d thought, and it turned out to be a good thing.  Because Z didn’t let it go, Sky didn’t let anything go, and Charlie, unexpectedly, sided with him.  Z was never, ever, outnumbered.  Sophie looked like she thought she might have to referee an actual fight by the time Jack walked in, took one look at them, and made as if to walk out again.

“Oh, no you don’t!”  Another Z blocked his way, and a fourth grabbed his arm and turned him back around.  “See what happens when you leave us alone?  What could Kat possibly have to say that’s more important than us?”

“Nothing’s more important than you,” Jack told her, with a grin that said he meant it as he let her drag him back into the room.  “But Kat’s going on vacation, and I had to say goodbye.”

Sky stared at him, rivalry forgotten, and he wasn’t the only one.

“What?” Charlie demanded.  “Kat’s leaving?”

“Yeah, I think she needs some time,” Jack said with a shrug.  “This whole thing’s been pretty rough on her, you know?  She basically held the base together these last few months.  She led the counteroffensive when this place was overrun, and that was before we reactivated her reserve and put her on call two nights out of three.  She’s gotta have some downtime.”

He felt cold.  He would have shivered, except he was too frozen to move.  He could actually hear his own pulse, slamming through his body, urging him to fight or flee.  Jack was lying to them, calm as could be, throwing the words in their faces like they were nothing.

“That’s bullshit,” Charlie said, and her voice eased the tightness around his heart with a suddenness that almost made him gasp.  Of course it was.  They all knew that.  Jack wasn’t trying to get anything by them; how could he?  It was just a show.  Just part of his show.

The Jack and Sky show, he thought, looking away and catching one of the Zs looking at him sympathetically.  He was still waiting for it, wasn’t he.  Waiting for the day Jack betrayed him.  Tonight at eleven...

“Yeah, I’m glad you think so,” Jack was telling Charlie.  “Cause without her, I’m a Ranger short, and as far as I’m concerned?  Your vacation’s over.  Get your team down to Dr. Coon first thing tomorrow morning and she if she can’t speed up the post-release process a little.

“In fact,” he added.  “Patrol with us tonight so I can give an active duty assessment tomorrow.  Sky, you too.  I need you to cover the rest of Kat’s shift.  C Squad’s got the night shift, so you’ll be done at ten--you up for it?”

He was trying to get them off the base.  Sky looked at Charlie, and, somewhat to his surprise, found her looking back.  She’d heard it too.  How the hell did she know Jack so well already?  He didn’t have time to wonder, though, because she was already nodding.

“Let me call Des first,” she said.  “He’s out tonight, doesn’t know he needs to be in early tomorrow.  I’ll meet you downstairs in half an hour.

Jack didn’t look away from Sky until he gave a curt nod of his own.

“Fine,” Jack said.  “No, wait--”  He grimaced, taking it back the moment the words were out.  Glancing at Charlie, he said, “You can’t get into the armory.  Cruger restricted your access.  I’ll stop on my way down and bring your gear with me.”

“Right.”  Charlie was already on her feet, her expression hidden as she turned away from them.  That was all the acknowledgment Jack got as she strode out of the room, presumably off to alert her teammates.

“Seriously?” Z asked.  There was only one of her now, and Sky had seen two of them vanish as Charlie passed, but he’d missed the disappearance of the third.  “She needs a vacation?  That’s the best you could do?”

“She does need a vacation,” Jack told her.  “Everyone on this base needs some R & R.  Sadly, I can’t dismiss everyone at once, so we’re gonna have to prioritize.  The person most likely to blow us all up if she doesn’t catch up on her sleep goes first.”

Z snorted, but she accepted this like it almost made sense.  And, okay... almost.  Jack did have a way of putting things that made them sound bizarrely plausible.

Which was why the patrol rotation he assigned drew a speculative look from Sophie and Sophie alone.  She had been quiet in the lounge, and she left them to themselves at dinner--but she could clearly see that something was up.  So when Jack put them in teams of two, with instructions to overlap and switch off every hour, Sophie wisely let Charlie choose her as her partner.

Sky would get her last, then.  He arranged them neatly in his head: him and Jack, Charlie and Sophie, Boom and Ally.  Switch.  Charlie and Jack, him and Boom, Sophie and Ally.  Switch.  Jack and Boom, him and Sophie, Charlie and Ally.  By the time they finished their patrol, Jack’s entire team, not to mention the leaders of two others, would be fully briefed on whatever he couldn’t talk about on base.

“Not bad,” Sky admitted, as he and Jack watched the rest of A Squad move out.

“Don’t trust me?” Jack said at the same time.

They turned to look at each other.  Jack just waited, clearly expecting an answer.

“I get it,” Sky said at last.  “I don’t know who you think is listening on base, but if Kat’s really gone, I assume it’s an inside job.  Whatever it is.”

“That wasn’t the question,” Jack pointed out.

Sky glared at him.  “Don’t ask for blind loyalty, Jack.  Even you’re not infallible.”

Jack’s face broke into a grin.  “I think I’ll take that as a ‘yes.’  Thanks.”

Even you’re not infallible, he’d said.  Because maybe he did come close.  On occasion.

“Well,” Sky grumbled, one hand on his tac vest.  “You have your moments.”

Jack beamed at him.  “I love you, too.

“So?” he continued, before Sky could object to such a public declaration.  “Want to hear an interesting story?  I’ll warn you right now, it’s gonna sound slightly less crazy in the dark on a deserted ghetto street.”

“Maybe we should wait until we get to the ghetto, then,” Sky said dryly.

“It might take that long to convince you,” Jack replied.

Sky waved for him to get started as they fell into step together.  “Do your best.”

“What do you know about Time Force?” Jack asked instead.

Sky gave him an irritated look.  He didn’t appreciate games, but Jack didn’t back down.  “Conspiracy theory from the turn of the century,” he said curtly.  “Military force from some imaginary future time helps the Power Rangers capture mutants.  Turns on them, kidnaps some of the Rangers, destroyed during their eventual escape.  Or sent packing.  ‘Back to the future,’ as it were.  Depending on which version you like better.”

Jack spun around to walk backward, making his stare all the more obvious.  “How do you know stuff like that?” he demanded.  He sounded, for lack of a better word, outraged.  “Is there some sort of SPD course on pop culture?”

“I do live in this city,” Sky pointed out, amused beyond reason by Jack’s reaction.  It went a long way toward dissipating his own annoyance.  “My father was a Ranger.  I know what people say.”

“You don’t listen to anyone!” Jack exclaimed.  He waved one arm wildly as he spun around, just in time to avoid a lamp post.  “How do you pick up stuff like this?  I’d never even heard of Time Force!”

Sky smiled at his outburst.  Crazy Jack was inexplicably calming.  It was calculating Jack that made him uneasy.  “Long day?” he inquired.

“You have no fucking idea!” Jack shouted.  Now he was just venting, and somehow, it didn’t bother Sky at all.  “I get attitude from you for getting up to work with Ally, I get attitude from Kat who thinks Cruger will somehow smell her nail polish from the other side of the galaxy, I get D Squad turning into a germ factory because one of their cadets picked up some kind of cold and apparently they’re all, I don’t know, sleeping together for all I know--”

He ran out of breath there, which was probably a good thing.  Sky didn’t say anything, though, and Jack just kept going.  “I’ve got Des lecturing me about how if you were a woman I’d never spend so much time with Ally, and I get Dan in my face because I slipped up and called him ‘she’ when he’s obviously a girl, and as far as I can tell, everyone on this base is fucking insane!”

Sky waited a beat to see if he would continue, then asked, “So.  Get any work done today?”

“When do you think I had time to work!” Jack yelled.  “I’m so glad to be on patrol I may never go back!”

Sky tried very hard not to smile.

“I know you’re smiling,” Jack warned him.  Loud.  Familiar.  “Do you know I actually wanted Cruger to leave because I thought he’d take some of that damn drama cloud with him?  Little did I know!  He’s the one who keeps it down by not caring!”

“Jack Landors,” Sky remarked, unable to keep his amusement to himself any longer.  “President of the asylum.”

“Yeah, thanks for that,” Jack grumbled, coming down with a sullenness that made Sky feel more sorry for him than anything.  “This was supposed to be your morpher, you know.”

He had the feeling that “you’re welcome” wasn’t the appropriate response.  “You carry it better than I would,” he said instead.  And that was the right thing to say, because Jack was actually silent for several seconds.

“I’m shocked to hear you say that,” Jack said at last.

Sky didn’t think he was kidding.

“Tell me where Kat is,” he said.

“Uh...”  Jack only stammered around him.  Sky was almost positive.  Being him, he couldn’t be completely sure, but he was happy to fill in the blanks in the absence of contradictory evidence.  Jack might throw him off his game, but he did the same for Jack.

“Right,” Jack was saying.  “And we’re back to Time Force.”

“I thought we’d covered Time Force,” Sky said impatiently.  “Freaks.  Crazy rumors.  Some people even say Commander Collins used to work for them, if that gives you any idea.  Can we move on?”

“This is us moving on,” Jack told him.  “Collins did work for them.  She was exiled to our time for screwing it up twenty years ago.  They’re still chasing her sister.”

“Kat,” he said flatly.  Because Jack was right.  That was crazy.

“Exactly.”  Jack did the snapping thing again, and Sky had no idea where he’d picked it up but he wasn’t sure he liked it.  “And possibly me.”

Sky blinked, then frowned at him.  But the mere fact that Jack was pretending it was nothing, unfortunately, meant that it probably wasn’t.  He was serious.

“You’re not serious,” Sky said aloud.  It was worth the possibility of ridicule to get confirmation on this, because he did trust Jack.  Right here, right now.  Jack would tell him straight up if this was a joke or not.

“I wish that was true,” Jack said.  “‘Cause I’m just about out of words, here.”

“Time Force is real,” Sky said.

Jack nodded.  “Yeah.”

“Collins is from the future,” Sky said.

“Yeah.”

“And I suppose she’s trying to hide Kat from her former employers by having you send her on vacation?”

“Yup,” Jack agreed, more cheerful now.  “Thanks.  That was easier than I expected.”

“What do they want with Kat?” Sky demanded.  “That doesn’t make any sense.  So she’s helping Collins.  What, is she breaking some kind of... time law?”

“Yes?”  Jack sounded much less sure of this.  “I dunno.  I’m still trying to figure out what they want with me.”

“What do they want with you?” Sky demanded.  “I can’t help but notice you’re not on ‘vacation’.”

“I don’t think they know who I am,” Jack said thoughtfully.  “Which is fair,” he added, “since neither do I.”

“You’re Jack Landors,” Sky informed him.  He didn’t like the way this conversation was going.  Okay, one for the conspiracy theorists--out of a million--if Jack said so.  But this wasn’t allowed to change anyone’s world.  “SPD Red.  What else do you need to know?”

“Well.”  Jack seemed to give this serious consideration.  “Be nice to know when I was born.  Someone messed with my file; did you know that?  Now I have a birthdate and parents and everything.  At least as far as SPD is concerned.”

“Someone changed your file,” Sky repeated.  Well, screw them.  Jack’s day had been a lot longer than he’d realized, and he had the sudden irrational wish to start it over.  He could have at least... not... glared at him when he left this morning.

“Yeah, now I’m a pisces,” Jack remarked.  “Syd’ll be disappointed.”

It was a stupid question, and the fact that he couldn’t keep himself from asking it gave him some idea of how important the whole thing must be to Jack.  “What--when were you born?”

Jack shrugged.  “According to my new file?  March of ‘05.  Kat thinks that’s a little off, though.”

And Kat would know, if anyone would.  Not enough to give Jack an actual birthday--or if she could, she’d never told them.  Jack had shared Syd’s birthday ever since she found out he didn’t know his own.

“Off by how much?” Sky asked at last.

He saw Jack glance at him out of the corner of his eye, but by the time he turned his head Jack had looked away.  Scanning the street ahead like the answer didn’t matter at all.  “About a thousand years,” Jack said.  “Give or take.”

7. Reins of Time

The way he saw it, there were two possibilities: either everyone on the base had gone completely insane, or he had unknowingly crossed into an alternate dimension on his way back from Galaxy Command.  It probably said something about his history that he thought either was equally likely.  Both were more plausible than what was currently masquerading as SOP at SPD Earth.

He had nominally left Jack in charge.  He had expected Kat to keep an eye on him.  He hadn’t expected Sky Tate to take over, and something that once would have filled him with a deep satisfaction now left him feeling vaguely unsettled.  Jack had been the face of SPD for so long, he told himself; it was natural to question his absence.

If it had only been that, though, if Jack had quit or simply vanished, he wouldn’t have been so surprised.  It was Jack, after all.  But Kat was gone too, which alarmed him on any number of levels, and neither of them were answering their morphers.  No one else on base seemed worried, and that was indicative of an alternate dimension right there.

The first argument for widespread insanity came in the form of messages left for him while he had been away.  Collins had submitted a transfer order for Kat, authorized by Jack Landors, with the explanation: Dr. Manx has been requested by the head of the Mexico base.  Since Cruger wasn’t aware of the existence of any Mexico base, he could only stare at the orders to follow: Dr. Manx requests Jack Landors’ presence at the Mexico base.  Authorized by Schuyler Tate.

There was a separate and hopefully unrelated notification from Drew’s parents, who wanted permission to sponsor a New Years party for their children on SPD grounds.  That they put Sky’s name in the private communication was not unusual: Kylee Drew was a powerful woman, and she had supported both Catherine and Sky after her ex-husband’s death.  What was unusual was that Jack’s name was listed right alongside Syd’s and Sky’s.

If they had been married in the last 24 hours, he thought irritably, he was demoting one of them.  He didn’t care what the tradition was with promotions.  He hadn’t gotten any notice, and the day Kylee Drew knew something about his cadets before he did--

He made an executive decision to ignore the rest of the messages.  The way things were going, he didn’t want to know.  At least with a serious cadet in charge of the base, he should be able to get a real report.  Maybe it would tip the balance toward one quasi-plausible explanation over the other.

He harbored this delusion right up until he found Sky huddled in the B Wing lounge, arms around Charlie Carrera and a baleful glare for anyone who interrupted them.  He didn’t consider himself someone who was intimidated by glares, but the shock of Tate and Carrera together was enough to give him pause.  Mass insanity?  Or alternate dimension?  Who knew?

Unfortunately, the answer to that question was usually Kat.  Who was at a base that didn’t exist, with the one cadet who, appropriately enough, also didn’t exist.  Which meant that the next best place to turn for answers was either Sky, who was “busy,” or Dr. Felix, who was annoying.  Or Collins, who frankly terrified him.

Before he could make a decision, he was ambushed by B Wing’s newest member in the hallway.  “Sir,” Dan said crisply, snapping to attention.  In Cruger’s experience, such formality was atypical of B Squad and usually meant that they had done something wrong.  “Cadet Drew dared me to ask you what you think of my nail polish, sir!”

He stared at B Squad Green, who slouched into a decidedly non-military posture: one hand on his hip, the other extended to display what looked like perfectly ordinary human nails.  Maybe a little pinker than usual.  “Cadet,” he snapped, about to dismiss him.

Then he changed his mind.  They messed with his head; he could mess with theirs.  “Is everyone on this base unhinged?” he demanded.

“Sir!” Dan replied, saluting.  “I think that’s a distinct possibility, sir!”

“Or,” he continued, “am I in some sort of alternate dimension?”

“Sir, I personally find that less likely,” B Squad Green informed him.  “Sir!”

He was aware that he was setting himself up for something.  He just wasn’t sure what.  “And why is that, Cadet?”

“Because blaming your environment is kind of a copout, sir,” Dan replied.  “Believe me, my parents hear it to this day.”

He had no idea what they were talking about anymore.  And wasn’t that just the way his day was going.  He decided to try the direct approach.  “Where is Cadet Landors?”

“Mexico, sir.  With Dr. Manx.”

“And what is Dr. Manx doing in Mexico?” he growled, frustrated beyond reason.

“I don’t know, sir.”  He wasn’t an expert at human expressions, so it might have been his own paranoia that made him think Dan sounded vaguely amused.

Would the mass insanity explanation, he wondered, necessarily include him?  In the absence of any evidence one way or the other, he should probably go with the alternate dimension, just in case.  He was clearly the only rational person on this base.

“Everything in my life is about to fall apart,” Kat told him.  “I think it already has, so I’m going to be... angry.  Don’t take anything I say personally, okay?”

Jack frowned.  “You mean you, or younger you?”

“Younger me,” she said with a sigh.  “I was pretty mean to you, and I never had the chance to apologize.  Until now.  So... I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, okay,” he said, eyeing her skeptically.  “You’re sorry that Kat Jr. is going to be mean to me when I go see her in the future.  Because she thinks her life has fallen apart, even though it hasn’t.  But it’s about to.”

“Yes,” Kat agreed.  “I’m going to sabotage the power grid.  You stay with me, keep me from running, and convince me to erase the data hack before Jen comes.  Smile.”

“Okay, I have no idea who you’re talking about when you call you ‘I’ and the other you ‘I’ too,” Jack informed her.  “I also don’t know who Jen is--and is that the picture you’re using?”

“That’s the picture I just took,” she said.  “I told you to smile.”

“My eyes are half-closed,” he argued.  “Take it again.”

Jack reached up and tugged his collar open, settling himself more comfortably in his seat, and Kat just shook her head.  “There,” she said, putting the new picture up in front of a stock background.  “You look rakish; are you happy?”

“Better,” he declared.  “Who’s Jen?”

“My sister,” Kat replied, tweaking the brand new “Jonathan Drew” file.  “She goes by Jaycee now; it’s a historical nickname.  Makes it easier for Time Force to deny any connection with her.”

“She’s coming with us?” Jack asked, glancing around the quiet room.  Since Kat could apparently teleport--through time, no less--he wasn’t going to rule out her sister’s sudden appearance in the lab just because it had been locked down while they hacked into the SPD mainframe.

“She’s already there,” Kat said.  “She’s going to break me out.  Again.”

“Wait,” Jack said suspiciously.  “You’re doing it again, aren’t you.  Is this the Commander Collins I met yesterday, or Jen Jr., from the time you’re about to send us to?”

“Technically, you won’t meet her until tomorrow,” Kat told him.

“I hate you,” Jack muttered.

“Noted.”  Kat’s fingers were flying now, and somehow she still managed to carry on a conversation.  “Look, your file’s been changed.  I disabled all of the oversight protocols except the double-shadow program, which should warn me tomorrow that we were here today.  Jaycee will show up in time to get us both out before the agency sends someone back, and we can use our vacation to go rescue ourselves.”

“Our past selves,” Jack guessed.

“From the future,” Kat said.

“No, seriously,” he complained.  “I really hate you.”

“You should have taken that intro to temporal mechanics,” she said, standing up while some kind of re-encryption process ran on her screen.  “Get up.  We have exactly four minutes and thirty-two seconds before security walks by and sees that closed door.”

“Don’t you ever close the lab door?” Jack demanded, but he did as he was told.

“Yes,” she said.  “And security knocks, every time.

“There,” Kat added.  “Your file’s done.  Put your chair back.  And pick up that stylus; I don’t leave things lying on the floor.”

“Yes, sir,” he said, then froze as he heard a blaster arm.

Not an SPD-issue weapon.  He knew that sound, heard it sometimes at night when the practice range was still ringing in his ears.  This was a quiet thing, audible only with proximity and silence, and they had both here.

Jack looked up into the gaze of a Yellow Ranger every bit as enigmatic as her one hundred forty-eight years.  “I’m always armed,” she told him.  “And if you call me that, twenty years ago, I will shoot you.  I really don’t want to have to explain that to Sky when I come back.”

He raised his eyebrows at her, and she drew the weapon back, flipping it over her fingers and handing it to him.  “You might need that, actually.  I don’t suppose you’re carrying one.”

“Do I know how to use this?” he asked carefully.  He took it, registering the lighter weight and the smaller design-–  “Is this custom?” Jack demanded.  Who knew Kat had a custom blaster?

“You could say that.”  She was closing things down, rearranging her space in a weirdly precise way, and she gestured for him to step back from the desk.  “Ready?”

He tucked the weapon under his jacket and didn’t ask any more questions.  “Ready.”

The door was sliding open again as the lab disappeared around them.

That was a weird feeling, but he supposed teleporting always was.  What wasn’t weird was the hum of the hallway that reformed around them--a low-pitched generator-style hum that put him more at ease than anything SPD ever had.  He glanced at Kat, but she was already reaching up to plant something on what looked like an arbitrary juncture of wall and ceiling.

“Cameras are down,” she whispered, ghosting toward him, past him, staring down the hall like she could see through it on both sides.  “Just this hallway, none of the rooms, so don’t phase through any walls unless you want someone to see you.

“I’m the second door on your right,” she added, very softly, as she drifted back past him in the other direction.  He checked to make sure her feet were actually touching the ground.  “Jen should have already killed the cameras in there.  Give me two minutes to get the primary grid: the lights will flicker, and I’ll try to run.  Keep me there until Jen comes, all right?”

“Keep Kat Jr. in her cell until Collins gets there,” Jack whispered.  “Get her to erase the personnel hack.  Wait for you.  Check.”

“Explain the hack as best you can,” Kat murmured.  “She’ll know what you’re talking about once you tell her who you are.  Jen will be there momentarily with an anti-trace, and I’ll be right behind her.”

“Don’t get caught,” Jack told her, already backing down the hall in the direction she’d indicated.  “I’d hate to have to steal a timeship to get home.”

Kat flashed him a smile, which he hadn’t expected, and a quick nod, which he had.  Despite all her secrets, she did know how to work as part of a team.  He wondered where she’d learned that.  He didn’t think it was SPD.

She disappeared.  The little glowing ball of light that took her place came back to circle him, briefly, and he heard the words, “Be careful, Jack,” before it zipped off down the hallway.  Interesting.  Very Sam-like.

He shook his head, turning around and striding off in search of her “second door on the right.”  No cameras out here, no cameras in there, so he should be able to walk right in.  Except for the fact that Kat Jr. was in there, and he’d seen Kat Sr. fight.  Surprising  her?  Probably not the best idea.

He looked through the door cautiously, but the room was empty.  It also wasn’t a cell, which made him nervous, because if Kat had gotten the room wrong then this plan was about to fail spectacularly.  He had no way to get in touch with her while she was being a little sparkly ball of light.

“Wrong.  Room.”  The voice was quiet and deadly and very familiar.

“Kat?”  He looked around, but he couldn’t see her anywhere.  Still, if she was here, this was the right place after all... and when was the last time Kat had been wrong about something?  He stepped the rest of the way through the door.

“Who are you.”  Her voice was flat and angry.  Still disembodied.

“Depends who you ask?” he offered cautiously, scanning the room again.  “I came to help, if that counts for anything.”

There was no answer, so he was guessing it didn’t.

“I’m Jack,” he told the apparently empty room.  The large, well-lit, lab-like room didn’t have any shadows or corners big enough to hide a person.  “I’m gonna meet you twenty years from now, and you’re gonna tell me all about how you got out of here.  How a stranger showed up and convinced you to change the past.  How Jen came early because of a power failure and brought a baby with her.  How you got to stay with your family--”

“Get out!”  She appeared with a strangled scream, a snarl on her face that took him aback as she advanced on him.  “Get out of my lab!  I do everything you ask of me!  Just leave me alone!”

“I’m not asking anything,” he said quickly, taking a step back when she hissed at him.  “You brought me here.  I swear.  Or, I mean, you will bring me here.  A thousand years ago.”

There was a blaster in his face, and fuck if Sky hadn’t been terrible for his reflexes.  There was a time when even the peripheral flicker of a weapon would have sent him scrambling.  Now he just stood, unflinching, and slowly held his hands out to the sides.

“Yeah,” he said, as calm as he could pretend to be.  “You mentioned you’d have that.  You want the one from my belt to compare?”

Kat Jr. stared at him for a long moment, and he took the opportunity to size her up.  Skinnier than his Kat, which was saying something, and more darkly alien-looking in the way of anyone under pressure.  The way people looked when they weren’t sleeping and couldn’t be bothered to eat.  When they weren’t even sure it was worth being alive anymore.

“You so much as twitch,” she told him, in the same creepy monotone she’d used when he first appeared, “and you’re dead.”  Like her hysteria had burned fast and hot, extinguishing itself with its very existence.  Like she threatened him, not because she was scared, but because she was willing to trade an excuse to shoot for the chance to be shot in return.

He held perfectly still.  Not for his own life, but for hers.

She ripped the duplicate blaster away from him and studied it dispassionately.  “Where did you get this,” she said, eyes cold and narrow when they met his again.  “It’s one of a kind.”

“Guess that explains why you still have it,” Jack said.  He was careful not to shrug, since she had warned him not to move.  “You gave it to me just before we came here.  Said I might need it.”

“This is stupid,” she spat.  “Tell me what you want and go away.”

“I just want you to wait for Jen,” he said.  “You’re off sabotaging the power or something, and you said that when it went down you would have tried to escape, which probably would have gotten you... reprogrammed?

“I don’t know what that is,” he offered, “but it sounds bad.”  The look on her face betrayed nothing, so he went on, “You said a stranger kept you from going anywhere until Jen showed up, so I’m guessing that’s me.

“Oh,” he added.  “And if you could hit the old SPD records from the twenty-first century?  We kind of messed them up a few minutes ago, and Kat said it’d be noticeable from your time.  She said you could fix it.”

The lights flickered.

It was barely perceptible, and he wondered if something had gone wrong.  Or maybe it wasn’t Kat at all; how was he supposed to know?  Wouldn’t there be more than a tiny flicker if she’d really gotten to the main power station, or wherever she’d been headed?

“You’re not Jack,” the woman in front of him said flatly.

He blinked at her.  “I’ve got a badge that says otherwise.”

“Get out of my way.”

He did, and only when she edged around him--toward the door--did he realize what she was doing.  “Wait,” he said quickly.  He was careful to keep his hands out to his sides, and he didn’t make any  movement toward her.  “Your sister founded SPD.  You work there with her.  You’re the head of Base Tech, and you make everyone crazy by working way longer than humans can.

“You like the base commander,” he continued, saying whatever came to mind in an effort to keep her there just a little longer.  “He’s this dog named Anubis Cruger, and frankly, I don’t know what you see in him.  I wish he’d stop hanging out in your lab, though, ‘cause it’s right under my team’s lounge and he’s got really good hearing.”

“I hate dogs,” she snapped.  “I’ve never heard of SPD.  And Jack can’t walk through closed doors.”

“This Jack can,” he told her.  “And trust me, Cruger’s not too keen on cats either.  He makes an exception for you.  Although I think he’d appreciate it if you’d stop wearing nail polish...   I mean, I realize you do it to piss him off, but I think he hates it more than you know.”

“I don’t wear nail polish,” she informed him.

“Well, you haven’t met Syd Drew yet.  She’ll teach you everything there is to know about passive aggression.  You like her, actually,” he added.  “She’s got that thing, you know, the--”  He couldn’t think of the words.  “The French thing, where people like you even when you’re really annoying.”

The door slid open without a click, a beep, or any kind of warning, which would later lead him to wonder if it had even been locked.  Right now he was busy hoping not to get shot when Kat swung her second blaster around to cover the door.  Without taking the first one off of him.

“Miri?”  The voice, the face, both were eerily familiar even if the uniform wasn’t.  It wasn’t Commander Collins who stood there, in a stark white enforcer uniform with a bundle of clothes clutched to her chest.  “I thought you’d be gone; who the hell is this?”

The words tumbled over each other, voice fast and forceful and completely confident in her situation.  Jen didn’t react to the weapon pulled on her, nor did she make any move to go for her own when she saw Jack.  Sharp eyes, smooth skin, brown hair in a harsh ponytail that bore no hint of grey... this was the Jaycee of twenty plus years past.

The Jen of the future.

“This is Jack,” Kat Jr. told her.  “What are you doing with the baby?”

She’d asked a question.  Funny that that was what caught his attention, more than the weird look Jen gave him or the weapons that her sister still had trained on both of them.  Young Kat had asked a question, and it had actually sounded like a question.

“Jack?” Jen repeated, ignoring it.

“Yeah,” he said.

“Hyanni’s Jack,” Jen said, glancing at her Kat for confirmation.

Kat just shrugged, flicking the blaster in her left hand back, taking the bull’s-eye off of Jen.  “Jack from the future,” she said.  The weapon she had on him didn’t waver.  “Or the past.  I’m not really clear.”

“From your future,” he interrupted.  He thought that possibly the hardest thing about time travel was talking about it.  “You haven’t met me yet, but you will.  In the past.”

She didn’t look at him, just kept staring at Jen.

“He can’t stay here,” Jen told her.  “You were right.  They’ll just keep experimenting, and with Hyanni gone... I’m not sure I’ll be able to take him with me.”

“So you’re sending him with me?” her Kat demanded.  She was remarkably more normal around Jen, Jack thought.  She said things like they mattered, she didn’t flip out, and she’d lost that crazy edge that teetered between death by apathy and death by freakout.

“Wes can help you place him,” Jen said, and it occurred to Jack that maybe he should be paying more attention to what they were saying instead of how they were saying it.  “I’m not asking you to bring him up, Miri.  I just need you to get him out.”

“Wait,” Jack interrupted.  “I already have a ride.  I’m just supposed to make sure you two find each other, which you did, and that Kat erases our hack so it looks like the Jonathan Drew file’s always been there.”

“The who?” Jen asked, turning her full attention on him.  “How did you get here?”

“Kat brought me,” he said.  “Twenty years from now.  She said she remembered me being here--”

“He calls me ‘Kat,’” Kat Jr. interrupted.  “If that helps.”

“I see.”  Jen studied him.  “Go on.”

“She was supposed to knock out the power while I made sure she--you--didn’t run,” he told the person he’d been thinking of as “young Kat.”  Apparently “Kat” wasn’t even her name, so maybe that was less appropriate than he’d realized.  “She told me you’d know what to do with the computer once you found out who I am.”

She and Jen exchanged glances, and Jen shifted the clothes in her arms awkwardly.  Something about the way she did it made another piece click into place, and his eyes widened.  That wasn’t a pile of clothes at all.  And Kat had told him... she’d said he would be here.  He just wasn’t expecting--

“That’s me, isn’t it.”  He stared, torn between trying not to look and wanting to see.  Jen had a wrapped-up baby in her arms.  And that baby was him.

“This is Hyanni’s baby,” Jen said slowly.  He could feel her scrutinizing him, looking for who knew what, but he couldn’t take his eyes off of what she was holding.  “She wanted him to be called Jack.”

“It’s better than XCS-302,” Kat muttered.

He felt really weird.  “Who’s Hyanni?” he asked, still staring at the unwieldy-looking uniform jacket and the shoes sticking out from underneath.  Not just a baby, but a baby in disguise as a change of clothes.  His life had been strange from the very beginning.

“Why are you just standing around?” another voice hissed, and things got even more bizarre as a little glowing ball of light flitted into the room.  It resolved itself almost immediately into the Kat he knew, glaring around at all of them with no concern for the second blaster Kat Jr. now had trained on her.  “Did you fix the computer?  We need to get moving; primary power won’t be down for long!”

“Is it down?” Jack asked, tearing his eyes away from Jen and... him.

She scowled at him.  “I told you to watching for the lights dimming.  That’s the transfer from primary to secondary.  Computer hacks made on secondary power are vulnerable to loop erasure when the primaries come back.  What have you been doing all this time?”

“Trying not to get shot?” he countered.  “It turns out you’re not the most trusting person in the world!”

“Okay, here’s what we’re going to do.”  Jen spoke with the assurance of someone used to being obeyed.  “You two, tell Miri what she’s looking for in the database.  If she can do whatever you want before I finish getting the b--Jack,” she amended.  “Getting Jack ready to go, you’re in luck.  Otherwise, she’s going, and you’re on your own.”

“Huh.”  Jack couldn’t stop himself from muttering, “That sounds familiar.”

“She hasn’t changed much,” his Kat told him.  “Obviously.”

“Don’t you have a word for this?” Kat Jr. demanded.  “Entrapment?  Psychosis?  Shall I go on?”

“The word is opportunity,” his Kat said.  The fact that she was talking to herself didn’t seem to bother her.  “We gave Jack a new identity as Jonathan Drew.  No one in our time can prove the records are fake, but someone in yours could.  We need you to pre-date them for us.”

“I work for Time Force,” Kat Jr. said, folding her arms.  “I don’t even know how to do what you’re asking.”  Almost a year with SPD, and Jack still couldn’t tell if she was telling the truth or just telling them what she thought a secret agent would want to hear.

“We used to play dinosaurs.”  Jen had set her bundle down on the nearest counter, shoes and all, and she was tugging at the jacket.  “Tell me about them.”

Kat Jr. looked at her like she’d lost her mind, but his Kat said immediately, “We played on the floor between our beds.  We each had those little blue ones, the anklyosauruses.  They were my favorite.  And the pink turtle--bright pink.  It lived in a river?  There were big ones with little arms, a purple one and a yellow one, and we used to line them up so that they could march defensively--”

“With the stegosauruses on the outside to protect them,” Jen finished.

“And the triceratops in front,” Kat Jr. snapped.  “Fine, she’s me.  So what?  I work for Time Force.  Just being me doesn’t make me trustworthy.”

“You still have Jack,” Jen pointed out.  “I’d say that makes you trustworthy.  Do whatever they want with the files: Jonathan Drew, did you say?”

It took him a few seconds to realize she was talking to him again, and by that time, his Kat had joined her younger self by a vaguely familiar-seeming interface.  “17 December 2025,” she was saying.  “Jonathan Drew’s file replaced Jack Landors’ in the database at SPD Earth.  I backdated it, of course, but someone in 3004 could find the cracks if they happened to be looking.”

“Jack,” Jen said sharply, and it was a good thing that Kat Jr. had finally lowered her blaster because he jumped.

“Yeah?”

“Come here,” she said.  He wasn’t sure that was a good idea, but she was already lifting the baby out of his jacket nest and cradling him against her elbow.  “He’s been drugged,” she said, catching his expression.  “To keep him quiet.  I’m sorry.”

“I get it,” he muttered, drifting closer.  It wasn’t... it didn’t look like him.  It was a baby.

“Better not touch him,” Jen said quickly.  “Superstition, maybe, but.”  She shook her head once.  “No reason to go asking for trouble.”

“It’s weird,” Jack said, staring down at the sleeping baby.  “I don’t--I mean--well.  It’s not like I have any baby pictures, you know?”

“I wish we could do more for you.”  Jen sounded genuinely frustrated.  “I won’t even be able to track you once you leave.  Time Force is monitoring me; I can’t risk giving either of you away.  At least Miri can find me if she needs me, but you--”

“Hey.”  Jack cut her off.  He didn’t know what she was talking about, but he knew self-recrimination when he heard it.  “You’re doing a good thing here, Jen.  I mean, for K--for your sister, but for me too.  For him,” he amended, nodding at the baby.  “And for me.”

She gave him an odd look, and he added, “I grew up with nothing but my name, you know?  Nothing about my parents, my family, not even a birthday.”  He shrugged, self-conscious.  “Now at least I know someone cared, right?”

Jen shifted the baby a little, reaching out to touch his shoulder.  Her fingers clamped down hard, a grip that was at once reassuring and disconcerting.  “I don’t know how much Miri has told you,” she said, “but you were born the ninth of December, 3003.  Your mom’s name is Hyanni.  She wanted you--so much--but Time Force wouldn’t let her keep you.

“She’s gone,” Jen added.  “To the future.  The agency thinks she’s dead.  I promised her I wouldn’t let them hurt you, and every day it gets harder.  I feel like I’m sending you into exile, but Wes always says it’s better to be free than to be comfortable.”

Jack stared at her.  She had just told him, in ten seconds, more about himself than he’d known his entire life.  And she looked desperately uncertain about all of it.

“Thank you,” he managed.  Because it had to be said.  How could she think anything else?  He lifted his own hand, mirroring her grasp on his shoulder.  “Thanks for giving me--”  He hesitated, then flashed her as much of a smile as he could.  “My life.”

“I hope it’s a good one,” Jen said softly, her eyes searching his.

“It is,” he said, and here he didn’t pause.  “You’ll see.”

“Yeah?”  The more she talked, the more he thought she sounded like she belonged in his time.  The time he was living in now, anyway.

The ninth of December.  3003.

When were you born, Sky had asked him?  Now he had an answer.

“I’m sorry your earliest memory of me will be me stuffing you into an equipment bag,” Jen was saying.  “But I guess the fact that it won’t be your last makes up for it some.”

She wasn’t kidding, either.  He helped her bundle the baby into an equipment bag, and the Kat team had finished agonizing minutes before they were ready.  This time the lights surged, brightening momentarily, enough to make him wonder how all the high-tech equipment around them responded to fluctuations like these... and maybe that was what Kat was counting on.  She must know exactly what it could handle, what was vulnerable and what wasn’t, and how to take advantage of it.

“Your ticket out,” Jen said, as she handed over the bag.

Kat Jr. reluctantly gave up one of her blasters, and his Kat took it and hid it somewhere while her younger self settled the bag over her head and shoulder.  Jen pressed something into her hand, glancing at Kat Sr.  “You have an anti-trace?”

His Kat smiled fondly at her.  “You just gave it to me,” she said, reaching up to adjust her bright yellow jacket.  She pulled out a necklace Jack hadn’t known she was wearing, the tiny disk on it glinting blue and purple as it spun.

Young Kat was holding an identical disk in her open hand.

“Well.”  Jen seemed more taken aback by this than anything else that had happened.  “I guess it works, then.”

“For thirty-nine years,” Kat agreed, slipping the thing back under her shirt.  “Thank you, Jen.  I never said it enough.”

“I wish I could have done more,” Jen said.  She looked from his Kat to Kat Jr., and if the disk had thrown her off, the almost identical faces didn’t seem to.  “It isn’t fair, what they’re doing.  I’m sorry I was a part of it for so long.”

“You’re everything to us,” Kat said quietly.  “Don’t forget that.”

“You’re my only family,” Jen told her.  With a sharp motion that Jack hadn’t expected of her, she stepped in to hug Kat hard.  “Be safe.”

Kat, whom Jack rarely saw touch anyone, wrapped her up tight and rubbed her head against Jen’s affectionately.  “I know you will,” she said softly.  “But do it anyway.”

Then they were pulling away, as if at some pre-arranged signal, and Jen turned to Kat Jr.  Putting a hand on top of the bag she carried, Jen gave her a careful one-armed hug that her Kat permitted with surprising patience.  “They may try to question Wes,” she whispered.  “Don’t tell him any more than you have to.”

“I’ll protect your lover,” Kat Jr. muttered.  The disk Jen had given her was clenched awkwardly in her hand as she tried to return the hug without squashing the baby.  “Get out of here, Jen.  That morpher didn’t save you the last time they tried to rewrite your brain, and it’s only a matter of time before they try again.”

“I’m going,” Jen promised.  “As soon as you’re safe.”

She let go, adding, “Good luck.  Come find me if you can.”

Young Kat nodded, lifting the disk Jen had given her.  It flashed a vivid blue in the colorless room and she vanished, taking the bag with its silent, stolen baby with her.  Jack thought her gaze flicked to him before she disappeared.

They were all quiet for a long moment, and then Jen let out a breath.  “It worked,” she said, almost as though she was surprised.  “No alarms.”

“It’ll be a while before I believe it,” Kat said quietly.

Jen gave her a startled look.  “If the anti-trace didn’t hide her Karmanian powers, everyone on this base would know she’s gone.”

“No--”  Kat smiled a little.  “I know.  I meant her: it’ll be a while before she believes it.  But she will find you, Jen.  She’ll be back, and she’ll find you.”

“Just me, I hope,” Jen said, searching her expression.

“Just you,” Kat confirmed.  “And Jack,” she added, nodding to him.  “Funny how things work out, isn’t it?”

Jen’s gaze went to him, and the sudden softness in her expression gave him his first glimpse of Jaycee.  “Yeah,” she said.  “Hyanni would be proud.”

He couldn’t put into words how strange that made him feel.

“We should go,” Kat said quietly.  “Listen to her, Jen.  You have to get out of here too.”

“I will,” Jen repeated.  “Believe me, Wes will never speak to me again if I let them get to me.”

“Worse,” Kat warned.  “You may never speak to him.”

Just like that, Jen snapped.  “I know!  I know, okay?  I’m on borrowed time; I get it!  But I have a team to think of, I have you, and if I don’t take care of the underground then people like Hyanni and Jack will be stuck in a time that wants to take them apart!”

“And if you lose, we all lose,” Kat replied, refusing to back off.  “Take care of yourself.”

“Yeah.”  Jen wavered for the first time, but finally she smiled.  “Guess I’ll see you in a couple of decades.”

It made Kat smile too.  “I’ll be there,” she said.

She looked over at Jack, and Jen followed her gaze.  “Plenty of people care, Jack,” Jen told him.  “Remember that.”

“Yeah,” he said, and he cleared his throat.  “Yeah.  I got that.”

Time’s policewoman nodded at him.  “Be safe.”

He was aware of Kat coming closer, and the clock was counting down.  He nodded quickly, because he owed her and he didn’t think he even knew how much.  “Thanks, Jen.”

She smiled, and the room went faint and fuzzy and far away.  He knew they were gone the moment the walls of the “Mexico base” reappeared: it wasn’t what he saw, but what he didn’t hear.  The constant, almost unnoticed hum of the thirty-first century was gone.  He could feel the sudden silence in a way he couldn’t explain.

I feel like I’m sending you into exile.

He turned to Kat, intending to make a flip remark about how little the intro class would have prepared him for friends like hers.  They treated a thousand years like a city block: bye, just going to the corner, see you in a couple decades.  His voice caught before he finished the first word, and he swallowed hard.

And Kat... icy Kat, who mouthed off more than he did and didn’t let anyone push her around, who loved SPD but didn’t hesitate to put anyone in it in their place... Kat hugged him like he was family, and she didn’t let go when the tears started to leak out of his eyes.

She was on the mess hall balcony when she heard footsteps approaching.  She was supposed to be meeting Rose before they went on patrol with A Squad that afternoon, so she didn’t turn.  It wasn’t the first year she’d seen a tree in the mess hall to mark the holiday season, but the banner behind it was new--and a source of endless entertainment.

Apparently, everyone on the base was expected to sign the thing.  She hadn’t gotten that memo, but it was clear from the ladders and constant activity around the tree and across the banner that what had started as an individual tribute was turning into an inter-squad competition.  Who could write “thank you” the largest and the loudest?

“Cadet,” Cruger’s voice rumbled from behind her.  “You are out of uniform.”

She straightened, pulling off a crisp turn and a salute that even a year in the jungle couldn’t dull.  “Sir!”

Cruger lowered his head, acknowledging the gesture without returning it.  “As you were.”

She hesitated, but they two hadn’t always stood on ceremony.  She relaxed a little, though she didn’t turn back to the railing, and offered, “I don’t think that’s possible, sir.”

The base commander seemed to consider this, indicating that he had taken it just as she meant it.  “No one is asking you to be the team that left this planet a year ago,” he said after a moment.  “But you should know that Jack Landors’ A Squad is a temporary measure.  It exists only until you and yours are ready to hold morphers again.”

Now she did turn away.  “Half my team doesn’t even want morphers anymore,” she muttered.  “Let Jack keep them.  At least he’s got people doing good with them.”

“Cadet.”  His tone was oddly gentle, despite the obvious reprimand.  He was clearly waiting for her to acknowledge him before he continued.

“Sir.”  She didn’t pause for his reply.  “I’m sorry, but we’ve been through too much.  We’re not cadets anymore.  We can’t go back to being students.  No amount of counseling is going to erase what happened to us, and just being able to walk around the base without snapping doesn’t make us functioning members of the organization.”

She felt better for having said it, but his answer took her by surprise.  “In case you hadn’t noticed,” the base commander told her, “being able to walk around the base without snapping actually puts you ahead of several members of this organization.”

Bracing her hands on the balcony railing, she didn’t say anything, and he let the silence lengthen.  Finally she said, “Sophie is a good team leader.”

Cruger came to stand beside her, ostensibly surveying the mess hall.  “So are you, Charlie.”

She shot him a sharp look that wasn’t returned.  She didn’t think he’d ever called her by her nickname before.  “I was,” she said after a moment.  “Sir.  But our squad is gone.  There’s no point in trying to rebuild something that doesn’t exist.”

“Perhaps not,” he said.  His voice revealed nothing.  “Perhaps it’s time to look to the future.”

Her fingers clenched, white on the railing that separated her from the rest of the room.  With Miguel gone, Des and Don under pressure from their families to resign, and Rose making noise about taking time off--wanting a vacation, of all things--the future looked bleaker than she could have imagined just a few short weeks ago.  What was there for her, now?

“Would you accept a promotion to officer?” Cruger asked abruptly.

She stared at the top of the tree, bright star glinting just above the middle of the banner.  “Hypothetically speaking?”

“No,” he told her.  “Unofficial, yes.  Hypothetical?  No.”

“You want to promote me,” she said flatly.

“I want to give you a medal,” he said.  “Just haven’t found the right one yet.”

She had to smile.  “I suppose they don’t make greeting cards for torture survivors,” she muttered.  He either got it or recognized it as irrelevant, because he waited for her to add, “I don’t know, sir.  That’s the most honest answer I can give you.”

“Consider the offer made to your entire team,” Cruger rumbled.  “I know what you’ve been through.  I know it’s not over.  But I made you A Squad Red for a reason, and I’d hate to lose you now.”

She could think it all she wanted and it still hurt to hear it aloud.  SPD wasn’t anything to her anymore without the people who made it home.  And she was starting to realize that there might not be anywhere else that would be, either.

“I’d hate to lose us too,” she said quietly.

8. Talking to Myself

“Sorry we’re late,” Sky said, putting the blame exactly where it should never be.  “Syd had to do her hair for the sixty-seventh time before she was fit to be seen in public.”

“Oh, please,” she declared.  “The length of time it takes you to do your tie alone is more than I invested in my entire outfit!”

“Which,” Sky said smoothly, “says more about how often you’ve worn that dress than it does about my tie-knotting skills.”

“Sky Tate!”  Her eyes widened, and she didn’t know whether to be offended or incredibly flattered.  He had noticed her dress.  That happened, what?  Once in a blue moon?  “Did you just imply that you’re tired of seeing me in something I’ve worn a total of three times?”

“Three times?”  He glanced sideways at her.  “Is that all?  Because you’re indelibly connected with blue silk in my mind.”

She almost laughed, because that was both sweet and entirely typical.  It wasn’t this dress that he remembered, then: it was anything she wore that was blue.  “Well,” she teased, “Bridge will be very happy to hear that, but Z and I might have some problems.”

Syd wasn’t sure that was true, actually, since Z seemed to have some very liberal ideas about the line between friendship and dating.  But Sky didn’t.  Nor had he yet gotten over how much time Bridge was spending with Z--or, more precisely, how much time Bridge wasn’t spending with him now that he was spending so much of it with Z.  So she thought it was best not to complicate things.

“It’s funny,” Sky said, and he wasn’t talking to her now.  “I always wanted to be Red, you know?  But I think I kind of... got used to Blue.  I was proud of it.  I keep forgetting that I’m not wearing it anymore.”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” Syd added, “but he actually looks better in blue.”

“Oh, shut up,” Sky muttered.

“You do,” she insisted.  “It’s your eyes.  Those red t-shirts don’t do anything to bring out their color.  And when you use your power?  It totally clashes.”

“Do you see what I have to put up with?” Sky demanded of their silent audience.  “She’s like this all the time.  And now we have Jack--the Drews have adopted him, did you know that?  You should see how much he obsesses over his hair!  I swear, he fits right in.”

“Oh, you pay a lot to have your hair look like it does!” Syd exclaimed.  “Don’t listen to him!  Those are not natural highlights!  And look--”  

She reached up, but Sky flinched away, batting at her hands irritably, and she smirked at him.  “Mr. Military here goes through, like, an entire jar of gel every day!  And, ooh, you can still see where he got his ear pierced that one time!”

“What does this have to do with anything?” Sky demanded.  “Stop touching me!”

“‘Stop touching me!’” she mimicked.  “‘She started it!’  ‘Are we there yet?’  Grow up, Sky.”

“Jack is like this too,” Sky said, deliberately ignoring her.  “One second he’s pushing me toward some sort of mental imbalance, and the next he’s telling me to relax.  ‘Lighten up, Sky, it’s just a joke.’  It’s so fitting that they’re suddenly related.”

“Did you tell him about the marriage proposal?” Syd asked.  “That was funny.  Although you’ll be happy to know,” she said, raising a hand to ward off his indignation when he glared at her, “that I yelled at Jack for a good half hour for doing it to you in the first place.”

“That wasn’t a marriage proposal,” Sky informed her.  “That was Jack being Jack.”

“Well, in case you haven’t noticed, Jack wants to marry you,” she retorted, “so those two things aren’t mutually exclusive.”

“Jack doesn’t know what he wants,” Sky muttered.

That gave her pause.  “You don’t think so?”

“Why else is he still hanging around SPD?” Sky wanted to know.  “You know he hates it there.  With all the rules and the chain of command and having to salute every time he turns around.  He just can’t figure out what he’d rather be doing.”

Syd stared at him.  “Are you joking?  Tell me you’re joking.”

“Do I look like I’m joking?” he demanded.

“Well, with you, it’s kind of hard to tell,” she informed him.  “It’s not so hard with Jack, so I don’t know how you could have missed it.”

“It’s not hard to tell with Jack because he’s always joking,” Sky grumbled.

“Jack Landors is in love with you!” she exclaimed.  “Of the five thousand other things he’d rather be doing than working for SPD, he’s not having trouble choosing--he’s having trouble leaving you!  Why do you think that’s a joke?”

“He’s dramatic like this too,” Sky said as an aside.  “In case you’re curious.  I’ll bring him by sometime; you’ll see.”

“Luckily he’s not quite as socially inept as Sky,” Syd declared.  “Or they never would have gotten together.”

“I know how to ask a guy out,” Sky snapped.

“You haven’t asked anyone out since Dru,” she retorted.  “Maybe not even Jack, and you’ve been together for months.  Does he always pick you up and pay?”

“What the hell business is it of yours?” Sky shot back.

“Dru was a horrible person who knew you were Ranger-track and said ‘yes’ whenever it was convenient for him!” she shouted.  “I never liked him!  He and Jack are nothing alike!”

Sky just stood there, gaping at her.

Syd lifted her chin and folded her hands in front of her.  “Also, he had terrible fashion sense.  He should never have worn those fatigues when he wasn’t on-duty.  They were dull and boring and frankly, they made him look like a pigeon.”

A chuckle escaped, and Sky hid what was probably a smile behind his hand.  “Maybe that’s what he was going for,” he offered.  “Did you ever think of that?”

“What, that he wanted to be the Pigeon Ranger?”  She eyed him.  “No.  Shockingly, that never occurred to me.”

“Know any Pigeon Rangers?” Sky asked, turning his head.  “I haven’t heard of any, but then, I only found out Time Force was real two days ago.”

“Do you think he knew?” Syd wondered.  “About Time Force, I mean?”

“I’d like to think you didn’t,” Sky said slowly.  “I guess.  I mean... well, it’s just another secret, isn’t it?  If you knew, and you didn’t even tell Mom?”

“I don’t think he did,” Syd decided.  “I mean, Collins must have known, and Myers, but why would they tell anyone?  Even the people who replaced them?”

“Especially the people who replaced them,” Sky said, frowning a little.  “I mean, what better way to protect the morphers than to give them to people who didn’t know anything about them?  Time Force couldn’t ask for them back without revealing themselves.  Better to just accept the disruption and hope the timestream healed itself behind them.”

“Instead of making it worse by confirming the stories and getting people all upset,” Syd finished.  “But it must not have worked, right?  If Commander Collins was sent back to contain whatever happened?”

Sky was quiet for a moment.  “She’s married,” he said at last.  “Do you think she wanted to come back?”

“Obviously,” she said, rolling her eyes.  “But if you went undercover, SPD wouldn’t let Jack go with you just because you were married.  I’m guessing Time Force wouldn’t let her travel a thousand years into the past just because she’s married, either.”

He didn’t have an answer for that, which kind of surprised her, but she wasn’t about to let him brood here.  He came alone often enough; he could do it then.  “Leave your wreath,” she said, nudging his arm.  “We’ll be late.”

He started--definitely lost in thought--but he stepped forward as he retorted, “Yeah, and who’s fault will that be?”

“Not mine,” she said, watching him set the wreath down and adjust it, just so.  The red bow and the berries would last for days, maybe a week if it didn’t rain, and she could see that Sky’s mom had been by recently to weed and rake what the regular caretakers missed.  “Merry Christmas, Mr. Tate.”

“Merry Christmas,” Sky echoed.  “I’ll be back before the holiday to give you an update without Syd interrupting every two seconds.”

“What’s changed?” she wanted to know.  “The city’s still in chaos, you’re still in love with Jack, and I’m dating Dan again.  Life goes on.”

“Dan’s a girl, by the way,” Sky said.  “If you were curious.”

“He’s not a girl!” Syd exclaimed.

“He’s a girl,” Sky repeated.  “Sorry, Dad, but all your children are gay.”

“At least they’re not all obnoxious like you,” Syd declared.  She linked her arm through his and threw a wink at the gravesite as they turned away.  “Someone in the family had to get the charming genes.”

Sky snorted.  “All evidence to the contrary.”

“Did you just say I’m not charming?” she demanded, placing her feet carefully as they walked back toward the path.  Sky was surprisingly good at finding the easiest route for heels.

“Sure sounded that way,” he agreed.  “Come on, Syd.  Even Z is more charming than you.”

“And Jack isn’t more obnoxious than you,” she told him.  “So there.”

“See if you say that the first time you try to get him dressed up,” Sky countered.  “He’ll have to do his hair and his tie.  And that’s if he can find anything to wear in the first place.”

Syd considered this as they turned toward the front of the cemetery.  “You should take him shopping.”

“Oh, yeah.”  The eyeroll was almost audible.  “I can see that going really well.”

“Me too,” she said with a smirk.  “I’ll go with you.”

“This,” Syd announced, passing her a bottle, “is what happens when Cruger is distracted.”

Z grinned, accepting the drink and tipping it toward Bridge in silent question.  He shook his head, but he did pick up the bottle opener for her.  “Isn’t that, like, all the time?” he said thoughtfully.

“Okay,” Syd agreed, handing Sky a second bottle and taking two for herself.  “So it’s what happens when Cruger is distracted and Sky is trying to pretend he’s not thinking about Jack.”

Z glanced at Bridge, and she could see they were about to say the same thing.  He smiled, so she smirked back at him.  “Isn’t that, like, all the time?” she repeated.

“I’m not drinking because I miss Jack,” Sky informed them.  He was perched on the edge of one of the chairs, loosening his tie, and he glared up at Syd when she glided over and snatched the bottle from his hand.

“Yes,” she said, holding the hard lemonade up to the light and making a show of swishing the remainder around the bottom of the bottle.  “We can see that.”  She handed it back to him, touching the hand that was tugging at his tie and leaning down to kiss him on the forehead.

“Ooh, picture,” Z declared, watching Sky accept the gesture without so much as a frown.  It could be some time before they saw him this dressed up again, and Jack would kill her for letting him miss it.  “Don’t move!”

Across the room, she came through the door with Syd’s camera a moment later.  She had an even better angle on them from here, with Sky looking over one shoulder while Syd stepped close and put a hand on the other one.  “Smile!” Z said.

Sky didn’t, of course, and Syd poked him the moment Z lowered the camera.  “Stand up,” she ordered.  “Turn around and pose with me--and smile this time!  I want a real picture.”

Z grinned, looking over at herself on the couch with Bridge.  An open lemonade bottle was raised in her direction, and she lifted the camera in silent acknowledgment.  She saw Bridge look back and forth between the two of them as she toasted herself, amused and very interested.

“Okay,” Syd announced, and Z held up her camera again.  She took a picture of Syd posing with Sky, then another when Sky actually put his arm around her.  Syd laughed, putting a hand on his chest as she leaned into him, and Z made sure she got that too.

Then Sky lifted his bottle over her head, tilting it slightly, and Syd just beamed at the camera.  “Do it and die,” she said sweetly, and Z took another picture.

Sky relented, and this time he was the one to lean down to kiss her.  Turning his head slightly, he brushed his lips against her hair and caught Z’s eye at the same time.  She laughed, perfectly willing to push the button as many times as they wanted if they were going to ham it up.  Syd pressed up against his side, hiking her skirt up as she lifted one knee to show off some skin, and Sky kissed the top of her head again.

A whistle from the door announced Dan’s return, and Syd shot a sultry look in his direction.  “Wow,” he declared, clapping Z on the shoulder as he came to stand beside her.  “If I’d known it was as easy as a camera, I’d have tried that before.”

“She was a model!” Z said with a laugh.  “What did you expect?”

“Hey, guys,” she added from the couch.  She could see Charlie and Rose trailing Dan into the room.  He’d found them, then, and they didn’t look terribly surprised to see Syd and Sky neatening each other up and moving apart.  Sometimes she wondered what B Squad had been like before her and Jack.

“Pose with me,” Syd was telling Dan, who didn’t have to be told twice.  Z took pictures of them and directed Charlie and Rose toward the lemonade at the same time.  Bridge had a six pack of root beer on the floor beside him, and when Charlie went for the lemonade Rose stopped her.

“It’s hard lemonade,” Z offered, not bothering to watch herself watch Syd and Dan.  She could see them perfectly well through the camera.  Bridge, on the other hand, was clearly waiting to see what Charlie would say, and his attention was interesting in and of itself.

“Thank god,” Charlie said.  “Got anything stronger?”

Z had opened her mouth to say yes when Rose said, “No.  Bridge, is that soda?”

“Sure is!”  He offered her a root beer, which she accepted with a smile.

“Thank you,” Rose said.  “Charlie will have one too.”

“Charlie will not,” her girlfriend snapped.  “Charlie will have a damn beer, thank you very much.”

“Then Charlie will be sleeping alone tonight,” Rose replied, “probably in the infirmary, while the combination of alcohol and migraine meds washes out of her system.”

Charlie stared at her.  “How did you--”

She managed to stop, too late, and Rose just shook her head.  “You should know that anything you say right now other than ‘okay’ or ‘yes, Rose’ will be taken very badly.”

Bridge offered her another root beer without a word.  Charlie snatched it out of his hand, glaring around until Z produced the bottle opener.  Sky chose that moment to laugh, which could have caused problems if he wasn’t so obviously reacting to Syd’s faux swoon.  As it was, he drew everyone’s attention just as she and Dan struck an obscene pose.

Sky held up a hand and turned away, which made Z giggle, because apparently he and she were the only ones who had seen the “fainting” and now no one knew what he had really been laughing at.  Charlie, in particular, looked noticeably less grim at the thought that proper Sky had not only been watching this, but had been entertained by it.  Rose was unfazed, though, and Bridge shrugged it off as Syd and Dan straightened up and he helped her smooth out her dress.

“We’re going to need copies of these pictures,” Z said from the couch.

Camera in one hand, she gave herself a thumbs-up just as Sky added, “If you could refrain from posting them anywhere inappropriate, I’d appreciate it.”

“Oh?” Z teased, waving the camera in his direction.  “Afraid Jack’s going to see you having a good time without him?”

“I’m more afraid for Syd’s reputation,” he said dryly.  “Why don’t you take some pictures of her with you while you’re at it.”

“We already have compromising pictures of us,” Syd assured him, but she came around behind the couch and draped her arms artfully over Z’s shoulders anyway.  Z grinned at Sky’s expression, leaned her head against Syd’s, and smiled for the camera.

“Wow,” Syd said as she straightened up, “why am I even still wearing these!”  There was a clunking sound, and neither Z had to look to know that she had just slid her feet out of her shoes.  “Oh, that’s right,” she added as an afterthought.  “Because I look so hot in them.”

“You look hot in everything,” Dan pointed out.  “But the hot and put-together part of the evening is over.  Let’s move on to hot and disheveled.”

“Oh, well.”  Syd’s fingers came to rest just above the neckline of her dress while she pretended to think about it.  “If you put it like that... okay.”

Z put the camera down on the table in front of herself and reverted to the couch, just the one of her there beside Bridge.  It got her out of Syd’s way, and besides, she wanted a drink.  She might as well not go through more than her share.  She scooted over when Rose put her feet up on the corner of their couch, knees bent and her back braced against Charlie’s shoulder, but Sky spoke before she could say anything.

“Has anyone seen Boom this evening?” he asked, out of the blue.

She turned her head to stare at him, but Bridge just said, “I think he’s in the C Wing lounge with Sophie and Ruby and some of those little solar fuel-cell remote-controlled cars.  Sophie’s been helping them add miniature rocket packs and gyros so that when you steer them off the top of something really tall they--”

He stopped abruptly, hands pausing in mid-air as he realized they were all staring at him.  “Uh, I think they’re working on some sort of, uh... team-building exercise?” he finished awkwardly.

Sky snorted, and Z exchanged knowing looks with Bridge.  Before Sky could ask any more questions, she added, “Since when are you the Hall Monitor of Loneliness and Social Exclusion?  And why Boom?  You’d think if anyone could find something to do with himself, it would be him.”

Sky frowned at her, but he didn’t deign to respond directly.  “I just haven’t seen him since this morning, that’s all.”

It clicked half a second before Syd voiced the thought aloud.  “Aw, you’re keeping track of Jack’s team for him,” she said, sitting prim and pretty against the back of the opposite couch while Dan slouched beside her.  “That’s so sweet, Sky.”

Z saw Sky glance at Charlie and close his mouth.  It was Rose who said, “Either that, or he’s wishing he was down the hall building remote-controlled rocket cars.”

“Technically,” Bridge pointed out, “those two things aren’t mutually exclusive.”

“I want a remote-controlled rocket car,” Dan said, not as if he was about to do anything about it.  They were all like that tonight: quiet and close and uninspired.  Worn down, if Dan’s posture was anything to go by.

It probably was, Z decided, surveying the room while Syd pointed out that Dan had a SWAT flyer, so what did he need a rocket car for?  She was the only one of them sitting up straight, not leaning or slumped over completely, and even Sky looked like he wasn’t sure holding his almost-empty lemonade bottle was worth the effort.  Bridge and Rose were in competition for most boneless sprawl on their respective couches.

Dan was really just mimicking Charlie’s careless slouch, if it came right down to it.  Head back, limbs limp in all directions as he told the ceiling, “But it’s not remote-controlled.”

“Sure it is,” Syd argued.  “It has voice activation through your morpher.  How much more remote do you want it to be?”

Z looked back and forth from Dan to Charlie, wondering why Charlie somehow managed to look more like one of the guys than Dan did.  She had Rose beside her, whose short hair and squad gear should have made Charlie’s braids and non-regulation tank look more feminine by comparison.  Dan’s contrast with Syd was bigger and in the opposite direction: his unisex fatigues were something Princess Sydney wouldn’t even consider work clothes, let alone lounge wear for a Friday night.

“I want it to be small enough to fit in this room,” Dan was saying, “and I want it to be able to push buttons and carry things, so that it can go to the synthesizer and get me some chips.  Can my SWAT flyer do that?”

Syd turned her head to stare down at him.  “Remarkably,” she told him, “you can do that.  That’s what these are for--”  And she picked up one of his hands and waved it in front of his face.  “See?  Pushing buttons and carrying things.  And look, legs!  For walking there and back.”

“Yours are prettier,” Dan said.  “If you got me chips, I could watch you walk across the room and back, and that would be much better.”

“Yes,” Syd agreed without hesitation.  “But if I got you chips, you’d end up with raisins, which are much healthier.”

Z glanced at Bridge while Dan considered this, and she found him smiling.  He looked up when she looked over, and their eyes met.  He turned his hands over and lifted them both subtly, one after the other, making a tiny weighing gesture.  She tried to hide her grin by taking another swallow of lemonade.

“That’s a fair trade,” Dan said at last.  “I accept.”

Charlie snorted, and Dan lifted one hand to point vaguely in her direction.  “Don’t wanna hear it, Ms. Root Beer.”

“On the allcall,” Charlie said, lifting her root beer in a mock-toast, “Ms. Root Beer will beat Mr. Raisin every time.”

“Hey, if we’re talking about who’s the most whipped, can we please include Sky?”  Z gave him a bright smile when he turned his glare on her.  He was brooding over there alone, and she felt kind of bad that the rest of them had paired off on couches without even thinking about it.  “He’s been sleeping in Jack’s room since he’s been gone.”

Sky rolled his eyes.  “All my stuff is in Jack’s room,” he informed her.

“Well, except for your clothes,” Bridge interjected.  “And your gear.  And your books, and your music, plus your pictures, and all your--”

“Okay,” Sky said loudly, talking over him until he stopped.  “Some of my stuff is in my room, okay?  I wasn’t being literal.”

“Yeah, and it sounds like it would be really hard to move your toothbrush back into your room,” Z agreed, smirking at him.  “I think you’re afraid Jack’s gonna come back early and think you moved out or something.”

“What!”  Sky was exactly as outraged by that as she’d hoped he would be, but when he narrowed his eyes at her the words that came out took her by surprise.  “Hey, did you just make Jack the woman in this relationship?”

“What?”  She tried not to laugh, but it was good to see him playing again.

“I guess technically the analogy is apt,” Bridge mused.  “That is, if you assume that a couple has to include a man and a woman, and that it’s okay to say men are ‘whipped’ but not women, because that might imply some form of physical abuse and historically speaking...”

He trailed off there, glancing around the room.  At first she’d thought he realized that he was rambling, but then he caught her eye and asked, “Do you realize we’re the only traditionally heterosexual couple in this room?”

“Uh...”  Z looked around, but only because it seemed like the thing to do.  Just lucky, really, since she was pretty sure Jack and Syd swung both ways, and who knew how Dan counted.  “Yeah?”

“I’m trying to decide whether to take offense at ‘traditional’ or not,” Dan said, as Syd returned from the synthesizer and executed a pretty little spin before sitting down beside him and folding her legs underneath her.

“Hey,” he added, holding up what looked like a piece of candy.  “These are yogurt-covered!”

Syd waved off his adoration with a careless flip of her hand.  “You don’t expect me to eat plain old boring raisins, do you?”

“You’re beautiful,” Dan said, offering the bowl to her first.

She beamed down at him.  “I know.”  She carefully picked a single raisin from the bowl and popped it into her mouth.  “Mmm... strawberry.”

“Okay,” Z said, and she wasn’t sure whether it was the lemonade or the exhaustion talking, but she really felt like she’d avoided the topic long enough.  “So, you’re a guy.”

Dan glanced her way just long enough to be sure she was looking at him.  “Yup.”

“But you weren’t...”  She waved a hand in his direction, ignoring the warning look Sky shot her.  “You weren’t born a guy.”

“Nope,” Dan agreed, taking a handful of raisins and shoving them into his mouth.  That was all he said, and Z saw Sky shift.  Since when was he uncomfortable with the obvious, she wondered?

“So why do you want to be one?” Z persisted.

“I don’t want to be a guy,” Dan said, and the look he gave her was one of tolerant amusement.  “I am a guy.  I just happen to have a woman’s body.”

Z blinked.  She heard Bridge give a little “hmm” of agreement, like he’d been wondering too and now he had his answer.  It was Rose, though, who craned her neck over Charlie’s shoulder and asked curiously, “Do you kiss like a guy?”

Z looked at her, then back at Dan, who’d turned his head to give Syd an inquiring look.

Syd caught the look and answered for him.  “Yes,” she declared, as though that were the final word on the subject.  “I’m trying to recondition him.”

“Guys don’t kiss differently,” Sky scoffed, getting up and helping himself to some of the raisins as he passed.  “That’s ridiculous.”

“Yeah, they do,” Rose said, resettling herself against Charlie.  “It’s actually kind of annoying.”

Syd pointed at her, holding another raisin just long enough to say, “I agree,” before putting it in her mouth.  Then she seemed to think better of it and patted Dan’s knee, adding, “Not that you’re annoying, sweetie.”

“Didn’t hear a word,” he assured her.  “Too distracted by the raisins.”

Z mentally added “letting Syd pat him on the knee” to the Guy Column, and “mollified by candy” to the Girl Column.  She couldn’t decide what to do with “sweetie.”  Maybe it went in both columns.

“Kissing is a function of the individual,” Sky said from the synthesizer.  “Not the gender.”

“Oh, Sky, get over yourself,” Charlie said.  “You kiss like a woman.”

Z would have written it off as a diss if she hadn’t been looking right at Sky when Charlie said it.  He froze, just for a moment, and when she glanced at Rose, Charlie’s girlfriend had her eyes closed... and a smile on her face.  It wasn’t the look of someone who was ignoring the conversation.

“How do you know how Sky kisses?” Z blurted out.

“Observation,” Charlie replied, after an almost unnoticeable pause.

Syd coughed once, putting a hand over her mouth and widening her eyes innocently.  “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, when Z looked at her.  “Must have had something caught in my throat.  Those raisins are, um...”  She waved her hand aimlessly.

“Bridge?” Z demanded.

“Well, there was this one night,” he began.

“Do we really need to tell this story?” Sky wanted to know.  He took the long way around the room with a second bowl of yogurt raisins, offering them to Charlie and Rose as he passed.  Charlie waved them off, but Rose stirred herself to take a handful, and Z followed suit when Sky offered them to her and Bridge.

“No,” Charlie said, but she was the only one.

“I think we do,” Syd said.

“I vote yes,” Dan agreed.

Bridge took two handfuls of raisins, and Z thought the only reason he didn’t take more was because he wouldn’t have anywhere to put them.  He poured half of one handful into his mouth while she prompted, “There was this one night...”

“With a very ill-advised game of ‘Spin the Bottle,’” Sky finished.  “End of story.”

“Oh, I like this one already,” Z said with a grin.  “How much alcohol was involved in this game?”

“Well, someone had to empty the bottle,” Charlie said dryly.

“Dru brought tequila,” Bridge explained.  “Sky and Charlie have this kind of competitive streak, see--”

“We noticed,” Rose interrupted, not moving.

“Oh, like no one else had anything to drink,” Charlie retorted.  “We were not the only drunk people in that room.”

“Although it’s possible we were the drunkest,” Sky muttered, and Z couldn’t stop the delighted grin that spread across her face.

“I’m totally telling Jack on you,” she said gleefully.  “Sky plus tequila equals fun and games!”

“Jack knows.”  Sky crunched loudly on one of the raisins, putting another one in his mouth before he’d finished chewing, and she laughed aloud.

“Jack knows!” Z exclaimed.  “Did you have the kiss and tell talk?  Did you have to go back and share everyone you ever had the tiniest crush on?”

Sky eyed her over the raisins.  “Yes,” he said pointedly.

It was enough to give her pause, because when was the last time Sky had bluffed?  Weighing that against the likelihood of Jack telling Sky everything, she decided she was better safe than sorry.  “Okay,” she said.  “Shutting up now.”

Sky smirked at her.

“Are you going to eat those raisins?” Bridge asked her, propping himself on his elbow and studying her hands with interest.

“Yes,” she said, pulling them away.  “Sky, give Bridge some more raisins.”

Sky just raised his eyebrows at her when she looked his way.  “Get them yourself.”

Z narrowed her eyes at him, but the look on his face said there were stories he would tell and they didn’t involve him.  Which was too bad, since nothing that included the words “spin the bottle” was ever not worth hearing.  Except at the cost of whatever Sky thought she might not want the others to know about her best friend’s one-time crush on her.

She was so getting it out of Jack when he got back.

9. Coming Home

It was six twenty-nine on Saturday morning when Sky rolled over and found Jack sitting on the bed next to him.  One hand hovering over the alarm and an unrepentant grin on his face, he wore an eye-searing tropical shirt that could have lit up the room all by itself.  “Morning,” he said cheerfully, voice just quiet enough that it didn’t quite sound like him.

“Jack?”  He sat up abruptly, reaching out to touch, to reassure himself that it wasn’t a dream.  “What are you--when did you get back?”

Jack flipped the alarm off half a second before the display clicked over to six thirty.  He leaned in for a kiss that woke Sky up the rest of the way, and he smelled like... how was it even possible for someone to smell like the outdoors?  Like sunshine and fresh air and damned if he wouldn’t buy anything Jack was selling right now.

“‘Bout half an hour ago,” Jack was saying, oblivious to his reaction.  “Had to make sure Cruger didn’t kill Kat first--geez, does that guy ever sleep?  And I wanted to catch Syd before she got up at oh dark hundred to do her makeup, since B Squad gets today off and what good is it if you don’t get to sleep in?”

Sky reached up to rub his eyes, making sure they were really open in the process, and yes, Jack was still there.  “We’re not off today,” he said.  “C Squad is off after night duty last night.”

“That part is still true,” Jack agreed, smiling at him.  “The first part isn’t.  Everyone’s off today except for D Squad.”

“They’re dispatch for us,” Sky said.  Long experience with Jack’s way of doing things told him that if he didn’t argue, he might actually get the day off, but longer experience with the system said not to let it go.

“They were,” Jack corrected.  “They’ve been sick all week.  C Squad swapped dispatch duty with them twice, and those poor kids pulled a double shift and and two on-calls in a row because of it.  D Squad can patrol today.  Kat and I will do dispatch for them, and the rest of you just... take a day.”

“You and Kat, huh?”  Sky eyed him skeptically as his brain started to move past the schedule disruption and into something resembling observation mode.  “You’re awfully awake for six-thirty in the morning.”

Jack grinned at him.  “It’s almost lunchtime on Fernando de Noronha.  I’m taking you there someday, just so you know.  My Portuguese is lousy, but believe me, you don’t have to do a lot of talking to appreciate beaches like that.”

Portuguese.  Sky stared at him.  “I thought you were in Mexico.”

“We started in Mexico,” Jack agreed.  “But it turns out Brazil is nicer this time of year.”

“You--”  He broke off, because he really hated it when Jack made him repeat everything he’d just said.  If only the man wasn’t so... Jack.  “Did you at least do what you went to do?” he asked at last.

“See dolphins?” Jack said.  “Sure did.  Did you know Kat can swim?  Because I didn’t know that.  She’s a cat; why does she like water?”

“I hate you,” Sky told him.

Jack flashed another ridiculous grin, and when he looked like that, Sky couldn’t honestly wish for him to be any different.  “I know,” Jack said.  “I missed you, too.”

There was really only one answer to that, and he didn’t have to go far to press another kiss to Jack’s mouth.  Jack was eager and way more energetic than he usually was this time of day.  He swung around, letting Sky pull away while he shifted the rest of the way onto the bed, then chased his kiss back onto the pillows.  Jack grinned down at him, braids framing his face, and asked, “What, no ‘shut up’?”

“Since when do you need an invitation?” Sky countered, sliding his hand around behind Jack’s neck.  He ran his thumb over the spot beneath Jack’s ear and brought him close enough to kiss if he lifted his head.  He did, tongue following breath as he kissed his way across skin made dark and salty by sun.

Salty.  He let his head fall back, still surrounded by the smell of the beach as he gazed up into Jack’s dark eyes.  “You’re--”

“Went in the water this morning,” Jack murmured, searching his expression.  “Didn’t shower.  I wasn’t sure...”

Sky had to smile.  He’d fallen for Jack’s cocky certainty, but the occasional doubt and deeply hidden desire to please made it somehow more charming.  Jack was, at the end of the day, just another guy.  Trying to do right by the people he loved.

Jack must have seen some of that in his eyes, because he brightened.  “You like?”

“Yeah,” Sky said softly.  Tightening his fingers, he tugged Jack down again and rolled them over so he could attack that sea salted skin with his mouth and his hands.  He was off today, and they had an hour and a half before Jack had to be in Command.  “I like it a lot.”

“Kat, can you hold this for me?”  Syd passed her the end of a paper chain without waiting for an answer, stepping back and studying the way it fell between them critically.  “Hmm.  I don’t think that’s going to be quite long enough.”

“What did you do with the rest of the tinsel, princess?” Z’s voice called from the other side of Command.  “I know we didn’t use it all downstairs.”

“Bridge, I need some more of those paper strips,” Syd said, piling up the rest of the chain on the console beside Kat.  “It won’t have the same effect if it doesn’t reach the floor on both sides of the door.”

Kat lifted her end of the paper circles for closer inspection, tugging on them experimentally.  Whatever adhesive B Squad was using would probably hold them together longer than the paper would last.  She smiled as Syd swirled back around the console, a handful of paper strips in hand, and started linking them through the other end of the chain and pressing them together to make loops one at a time.

“Sky, where’s the tinsel?” Z demanded.

Sky looked up from the sector map he and Jack were huddled over to give her a skeptical look.  “What makes you think I have any idea where the tinsel is?”

“B Squad is in charge of decorating, and you’re in charge of B Squad,” she informed him.  “So... find me some tinsel.”

Kat watched Jack and Sky exchange glances.  Jack obviously tried--and failed--to suppress a smile when Sky asked, “Have you noticed it’s only when things go wrong that they admit I’m in charge?”

“There,” Syd declared, picking up her end of the paper chain and holding it up again.  “What do you think, Kat?”

She eyed it carefully.  “I think it’s about five links short.”

Syd paused.  “Do you know, I actually believe you,” she said after a moment.  “Bridge?”

“Well, if anyone could do it by eye, it would be Kat,” he pointed out.  “She’s used to judging three dimensional specifications, and a lot of her design work calls for precision that the computer can only achieve through manual input.”

Syd opened her mouth, turning on him, and was brought up short when he turned up right behind her with five strips of paper in his hand.  “Thanks,” she said instead.

“Syd.”  Sky’s voice, coming from the middle of the room, would not be ignored.  “Tell Z where the tinsel is before she makes me crazy.”

“Isn’t it a little late for that?” Syd countered.

“Oh, hey, I think I saw tinsel in the lounge last night,” Bridge offered.  “Back behind one of the couches.  I’ll go check.”

“No, it’s all right,” Z assured him.  “I can look.  I just thought Syd had it and was hiding it or something.”

That Syd heard, and Kat smiled as she demanded to know what they thought she wanted with tinsel when she was obviously hanging paper chains.  It was, Kat thought, a typically B Squad response to being told that one of their number wouldn’t be taking the day off with the rest of them... and Jack was still B Squad, no matter what the morpher he carried said.  If he was working, the rest of them wouldn’t leave.

So the team had trickled into Command over the course of the morning, coming to entertain Jack on dispatch and bringing their holiday spirit with them.  She was sure that entertaining her was just a side benefit, but she was enjoying it nonetheless.  It was good to be home.

“SPD.”  A voice echoed through Command, temporarily silencing the banter.  “NTPD Unit 157 requests backup at the plaza, junction fifth and market.  Code two one niner.  That’s code two one niner at plaza junction fifth and market.”

“Delta Base acknowledges,” Jack said into the sudden quiet.  Code 219 was alien weapons’ discharge.  “Ranger squad dispatched.

“Landors for Lin,” he continued, switching channels.  “Acknowledge.”

“Go for Lin,” Chi’s voice answered immediately.

“New Tech PD is requesting backup at the plaza, at the corner of fifth and market,” he told her.  “They have alien weapons’ fire, and they want Ranger backup.”

Chi’s reply was sharp and businesslike.  “We’re on our way.”

Kat caught his eye across the room, and he waved her off before she could even say anything.  “Stand down, number four,” he said, flashing her a smile.  “They can handle it.”

“Just out of curiosity,” Sky added.  “When did you start telling NTPD that all our squads are Ranger squads?”

“Since they all started doing Ranger duty,” Jack answered.  His light tone indicated that he knew Sky wasn’t going to make something of it; that in fact, it was probably a conversation they’d had before.  In some form or other.

Kat had noticed that too--weeks ago, when Jack had formally taken over patrol rotations and liaison assignments.  He’d been doing it unofficially for months, but after the battle for Earth and his accidental promotion to A Squad Red, he’d apparently decided to bump everyone else up too.  She’d pointed it out to the commander as a sort of pre-emptive strike, to keep him from finding out on his own and exploding at the worst possible time.

To her surprise, though, Cruger had taken it well.  “They’re all Ranger-track,” he’d pointed out.  “And frankly, if it keeps NTPD from complaining every time we assign them a lower-ranked squad, I’m all for it.  Tell him to keep it up.”

She hadn’t, not least because it was incredibly childish of the base commander to pass orders to his second-in-command through a third party.  But she’d also refrained because she thought Jack got a kick out of making unauthorized unilateral decisions, and telling him that the commander approved might take some of the fun out of it.  He didn’t get to have enough fun at SPD, as far as she was concerned.

Kat shook her head as Jack stole his Santa hat back from Sky and held it on his head as he danced out of the way of Sky’s retaliatory lunge.  All appearances to the contrary, she thought, amused.  One glimpse, one reminder of a baby decades old by now, and suddenly she was feeling maternal.

“Come on,” Sky complained, when Jack braced his arms against the far side of the command console and grinned at him, practically daring him to give chase.  “It looks terrible with your shirt!”

While that was certainly true--Jack had put the tropical print back on over his SPD t-shirt--Kat couldn’t decide whether it was stranger to hear Sky whine or to hear him talk about what someone else was wearing.  Syd must have agreed, since she said, “Sky, you’re the last person who should be giving anyone fashion advice.”

“Such as it is,” Z put in.  One of her had gone with Bridge to look for the tinsel, while the other remained in Command with the rest of them.  Kat couldn’t help wondering what Time Force would have tried to do to her, had she been born a thousand years later.

“Everything looks great with this shirt,” Jack declared.  “That’s why I’m wearing it.  I’m tired of SPD grey.”

“Join the club,” Syd told him.  “Kat, can you help me put this up?”

She slid off the console without a word, secretly pleased to be asked.  She’d told Jack that the day they visited in the future had been twenty years ago--twenty-two, to be exact--and it had been, for him.  For her, it was closer to forty.  She’d spent a lot of time hiding after her escape, unwilling to believe that Time Force could or would give up.  She’d finally dared to look for Jen, and it had been two long years after she’d found her before she attempted contact.

Jen had worked another miracle... for herself this time.  Time Force had granted her “exile” to the time she’d fallen in love with, on condition of continued if autonomous service.  She’d been given broad orders regarding the reparation of a timeline she and her team had splintered in their quest to avenge their leader.  The details were entrusted to her.

So her sister had predated the “Kat Manx” identity to 2001, a refugee from a world that had fallen to the Troobian Empire years before, and installed her as a visiting consultant to SPD Earth.  This made it easy for “Kat” to disappear whenever Jen got word that Time Force was sending someone to check in, and it kept her far enough out of the chain of command that she wasn’t subject to constant background checks.  Visitors from the future still occasionally caught them by surprise, but this week was the closest call they’d had in nineteen years and their backup plan had gone off without a hitch.

“Sky,” Syd said imperiously.  “I need another tall person, here.”

“Try a chair,” Jack offered, watching her glare at the doorway from the relative safety of the command console.

“I can do it.”  Kat held out her hand for the adhesive, which Syd relinquished without question, but it didn’t keep her from staring impatiently in Sky’s direction.  “Really, Syd, it’s fine.”

“I’m not going to make Kat decorate by herself because Syd’s too lazy to get a chair,” Sky was telling Jack.

“So you’re going to give her a personal army instead?” Jack retorted, but Sky was already coming over to help.

“Tell me when it’s even,” he said, catching the other side of the paper chain and holding it up top of the door.  He held up his free hand and pointed at Syd as she opened her mouth.  “Not you,” he said, rolling his eyes.  “Kat.”

Kat glanced over at him in surprise, since Sky wasn’t exactly known for soliciting advice.  From anyone.  But he just looked back at her, waiting with some semblance of patience, and she wondered what Jack had told him about their “vacation.”  Was he treating her differently all of a sudden, or was it just her imagination?

“A little lower,” she said, just to see what he would happen.  When he dropped it too far, she corrected, “No, up... higher--stop.”

“Maybe a little to the right,” Syd added helpfully.

Sky ignored her.  “Good?” he asked Kat.

She tried not to smile as she handed over the adhesive, but it was a losing battle.  Sky was definitely being sweeter than usual.  It was only underscored by his lack of response to Syd.  She’d expected to suffer by association for his irritation with Jack, but when the irritation didn’t manifest, it hadn’t occurred to her that she might get some of the spillover affection instead.

“Perfect,” she told him, deciding she might as well enjoy it while it lasted.

Sky actually smiled at her.

“Well, at least the length is,” Syd said, eyeing the door critically.

“You’re welcome,” Kat replied.

“You okay?” Sky asked, catching her flinch when the lab alert was triggered.

Maybe it was the calm of Command, the general peace that seemed to prevail with the holidays and only a skeleton crew on to celebrate.  Maybe it was finally outwitting Time Force, feeling that there really were times and places she was safe, or that at the very least there were people who cared enough to help when she wasn’t.  But she reached for her morpher instead of racing for the door when she felt the emergency signal go off.

“Doggie,” she said, holding up one finger in Sky’s direction.  “Is that you?”

The room was suddenly quiet, and it only made the pause before his reply heavier.  “Possibly?”  The base commander sounded--as far as she was concerned--appropriately chagrinned.  She was not going to let him get in the habit of using the emergency signal as a Kat-specific pager system.

“And are you,” she inquired, just to drive her point home, “or anyone around you, in immediate and/or life-threatening jeopardy?”

The pause was shorter this time.  “Not at the moment.”

“Did you press the emergency alert button underneath the desk in my lab for any reason other than a desire to get back at me for accidentally bumping into it eighteen times, despite a strategically convenient location that makes it impossible for anyone actually using the desk to avoid hitting it?”

“While I’m disappointed that you didn’t consider the possibility I might in fact be using your desk for legitimate purposes,” his voice replied, “yes.  Yes I did.”

“And that reason would be?” she demanded, aware of Jack coming around the console to stand beside Z.  Making sure he didn’t miss anything, no doubt.  Sky and Syd weren’t making any secret of their interest, either.

“Come down here and find out,” the base commander told her.

“She’s on duty,” Jack called, clearly intending for the remark to be overheard.

Kat shot him a look, and Jack held up his hands in apology.  Sorry, he mouthed.

“Tell Cadet Landors that I’m perfectly aware he has most of B Squad in Command with him,” the commander said.  “They’re probably engaged in some utterly frivolous activity involving either holidays or horseplay, possibly both, and I see no reason one or more of them can’t cover for you while you take a moment to visit your own lab.”

“Well, maybe I see a reason,” she told him.

Next to her, Syd folded her arms and smiled.  She and Sky exchanged glances, and Kat barely kept herself from rolling her eyes.  If SPD put even a quarter of the effort into their background checks that they put into the rumor mill, she wouldn’t be here today.

“That is, of course, your choice,” Cruger’s voice informed her.  That was probably as close to an admission of guilt as she would get.

This time she did roll her eyes, and it was Sky who hid a smile.  “I’ll be there in a minute,” she said, cutting the link before she could hear whether he had a reply or not.

“You know,” Sky said thoughtfully, “I bet Bridge could rig something so the alert system responded differently to certain people.”

“Yeah, like with the cake dish,” Syd agreed.  “It only shocked Boom.”

Kat looked at her, and she added quickly, “It was just a tiny shock.  Just the once.”

“It wouldn’t stop someone from using it to call for help,” Sky put in.  “It would just be a deterrent for anyone prone to hitting it ‘accidentally.’”  He mimed little quotes around the word, and when she glared past him at Jack, he just held up his hands again.

“No,” she said firmly.  “Guys, I can handle this.  I’ve already had to discourage Jack from helping, and I’d appreciate it if you would just let us work this out on our own.”

Syd shrugged, and Sky followed suit.  “Up to you,” he agreed.  “You change your mind, just say the word.”

She shook her head, heading out into the hallway before she could become an accomplice to things she didn’t even want to know about.  She wasn’t sure she could survive having Sky’s affection, after all.  She knew Cruger thought the one good thing about the relationship between his two Red Rangers was Sky’s tendency to keep Jack in check, but this wasn’t the first time she’d thought it was probably the other way around.

Charon was in the lab when she got there--using the hood, of course, which was probably the only reason she was there on a Saturday morning.  Her current project was time-intensive, and she couldn’t just walk out while it was in progress.  Which meant that whatever the commander had to say, he was either going to say it in front of one of Kat’s students or somewhere else entirely.

“You know,” Kat said, folding her arms.  He was sitting forward forward in her chair, fidgeting with the same stylus Jack had been playing with three days before.  “You do have an office.  With your own desk, even.”

“So I’m told,” he agreed.  He didn’t put the stylus down.

She waited.  There wasn’t much more she could do at this point, and she was getting a little tired of it.  A third of her life gone since Time Force, and here she was... exactly where that grown-up child had told her she would be, thirty-nine years ago.

“Your sister founded SPD,” he’d told her.  “You work there with her.  You’re the head of Base Tech, and you make everyone crazy by working way longer hours than humans can.”

That was what he had known about her.  Funny, she remembered thinking at the time.  That was pretty much what everyone then thought of her too.  Except she suspected that she’d gotten slightly more respect as a time-traveling Karmanian prisoner than she did now as an alien war refugee.

“Dr. Manx.”  The commander was watching her, and he seemed to know when her attention came back to him from wherever it had been.  Tipping his head toward the hood, he obviously indicated Charon.

She glared back at him.  No, she could not ask Charon to leave, and she was starting to think she wouldn’t even if she could.  “Yes?” she countered coldly.

“You like the base commander,” Hyanni’s son had told her.  “He’s this dog named Anubis Cruger, and frankly, I don’t know what you see in him.  I wish he’d stop hanging out in your lab, though--”

Cruger stood up, all stiff formality and odd personal courage combined.  “I wanted to apologize for my behavior this morning,” he said.  Now that she had drawn the line, he was going to try to call her bluff?  “That was hardly the appropriate time.”

He made no effort to keep his voice down, but if he thought she was afraid of people overhearing, well... he hadn’t worked on this base as long as she had.  “No,” she agreed, lifting her chin.  “It wasn’t.

“I accept your apology,” she added, just before he might have continued.

He looked at her for a long moment.  Then, finally, “Take a walk with me.”

She gave him the stare right back, because she wasn’t following an order.  But he just waited, making it clear--slowly and silently--that it had been a request, not a command.  She would answer a request.

She turned, inclining her head, and he set the stylus down carefully before coming out from behind her desk.  “So, were you?” she asked, as he joined her.

She could feel the sidelong glance he gave her as they headed out into the hallway.  “Was I what?”

“Using my desk for legitimate purposes,” she said.

She could hear him smile.  “Yes,” he said.  “If you consider getting your attention a legitimate purpose.”

“Depends on the day.”  The answer was easy, but she hadn’t decided which kind of day this was yet.

“I meant what I said about this morning.”  His tone was suddenly serious again.  “I was upset because I was... worried.  About you.  And Jack.  I shouldn’t have brought it up the moment you got back.”

“You already apologized,” she reminded him.  “If you have more to say, just say it.”

She could see him shake his head out of the corner of her eye.  “There’s no Mexico base, Kat.”

“Not yet,” she said lightly.

He stopped where he was and turned to her there, in the middle of a deserted hallway.  “I can’t protect you if I don’t know what you’re doing,” he told her.  He held up a hand when she went to speak, and she hesitated just long enough for him to add, “I know, you don’t need protecting.  But if you want to know why I was upset... that’s why.”

“You know when I said I could wait?”  She didn’t realize she was saying it until the words were out.  “I changed my mind.”

And for someone who could barely talk about the weather, some days, he kept up and came back in kind.  “When I said I want you,” he replied, “what I meant was, I love you.”

She opened her mouth, but he had absolutely won this round because she had no response for that.  He knew it, too, and instead of smiling he reached out to touch her face.  His hand was shockingly warm.

“Tomorrow is, I believe, the eighth day of Hanukkah,” he said quietly.  “I would be honored if you would have dinner with me.”

She finally managed to find her voice.  “Hanukkah ends at sundown.”

Now he did smile.  “Have dinner with me anyway.”

She heard herself say, “Okay,” and she wondered what disaster would strike tomorrow.

He liked to see people having fun.  It wasn’t his kind of party, but he liked the balcony view.  They shouldn’t have open flames on the main level of the mess hall anyway, not with all the people and dancing and climbing up on things.  Ladders, and chairs... tables.  Whatever was handy.

It wasn’t actually that rowdy yet, but it would be.  Bridge had seen both bowls of punch spiked by now, and the volume of the music was creeping up.  He smiled at the commotion on the improvised dance floor, where Jack had made C Squad cordon off a section for “solving disagreements.”  Of course a cadets-only party at SPD would involve fighting.

The balcony was calmer, less crowded, if not any quieter.  People didn’t swirl around each other up here, tugging and bumping and constantly touching.  Motions were more deliberate around the ceremonial candles, almost entirely enclosed by glass spheres but still a fire hazard if they weren’t careful.  He was happy to spend some time tending the flames.

“Hi,” Z said, slipping up to the railing beside him.  He smiled again, because he was more happy to do it with her there.  It wasn’t like he was taking Z away from anything, either: she could be up here with him, down there dancing, and harassing Sky all at once.

“You promised to light a candle with me,” she was saying as she nudged his shoulder companionably.  Her closeness was expected, the opposite of annoying.  “Darkest day of the year.  Time to light up the night.”

The menorahs on the balcony were all out.  They’d burned symbolically low and been extinguished after this, the last day of the Festival of Lights.  Individual candles had been lit in between them, on tables and on the wall and on display, everywhere.

Solstice: the day the sun stopped.  It had taken up the torch of celebration.

“I got you a present,” Bridge told her.

She turned to him playfully, golden aura glittering bright and curious as she cocked her head.  “You didn’t have to do that,” she said.  She was happy about it, though.

“Well, you don’t have to take it.”  It was a gift he didn’t offer many people, although some of them had shared it by accident.  Some people didn’t think it was a gift at all.  But he thought she would like it.  “You know how I can see auras?”

Z smiled, puzzled but patient.  “Yeah?”

“It turns out I’m not the only one,” he said.  He pulled the glove off of his right hand and held it out, palm up.

Her eyes flicked from his to his hand, her smile fading.  “Really?”

They all knew.  Bridge hadn’t told them, but they knew.  He thought maybe Sky had said, at some point, to spare him the questions or the discomfort or something.  Even now, she wasn’t asking if he was telling the truth.  She was asking if he was really offering what she thought he was offering.

He raised his eyebrows, daring her, and she took his hand without any more hesitation.  Her eyes widened, scanning him, lifting involuntarily to the rest of the room, and he smiled to himself.  Yeah.  It had definitely been Sky.  She was thinking of the ocean, wave after wave... the same image Sky used for background noise.

“Wow,” Z said, with an appreciation bordering on reverence.  “You see this all the time?”

Bridge followed her gaze, looking out over the bright rainbow hues of the party below.  Ranger auras shimmered through the crowd, Sky’s a bright beacon in the middle of the room where  he and Jack were slow-dancing to the pounding music, while the pink of Syd and Rose together almost drowned out Charlie by one of the punch bowls.  Dan’s soft glow lit up the tree, peaceful in a way Boom’s aura never was, and Sophie was blue like colored glass beside him.

“Pretty much,” he agreed.  The times he didn’t weren’t worth talking about.  “Yeah.”

“Wow,” Z repeated.  “It’s like when two of me look at the same thing.”

“Is it?” he asked curiously.

“Yeah,” she said, delighted grin spreading across her face.  “Kaleidoscopic.”

Pleased, he lifted their clasped hands above her head and turned around her, so they could both lean against the railing to look out over the hall.  Candles burning behind them, ocean waves still whispering in his head.  Z’s focus was sharp and easy, which he’d kind of expected, and it made the contact comfortable while they stood there together.

Watching the light.

10. The Life You Choose

Kat was easy to take out precisely because she was so hard to treat.  He had no idea what she liked to do in the free time she didn’t have or how she liked to be entertained by people she never got close to.  He didn’t see that there was any point in guessing, either.  History suggested that if she didn’t like what he chose to do, she would have no compunction about telling him.

He chose dinner on the base.  He didn’t particularly feel like eating human food, and he’d been surrounded by humans all day.  He didn’t need more of them watching him eat.  So he put aside his uniform, stopped by the officers’ mess, and went on out to the observation deck.

It was predictably empty tonight.  He knew he had Jack Landors to thank for that, not that he would.  A Squad’s Solstice party was nominally cadets-only, but Kat’s team leader couldn’t host an exclusive event to save his life.  Every off duty officer who didn’t have somewhere better to be was probably downstairs right now, dancing and no doubt drinking... tomorrow morning would not go well.

Tonight, though.  Tonight he didn’t really care.  He knew as well as anyone that soldiers had to blow off steam, and with the patrol rotation they’d been facing lately there wasn’t anywhere near enough downtime to let it happen naturally.  So they forced the issue.  No night was worse than any other.

Kat had gotten there first, and he had a moment to admire her before she turned away from the view.  Dark against the lights of the city: she was dressed in black with none of her Ranger color to speak of.  The clothes didn’t mean much to him, except that she was out of uniform, but the look on her face was relaxed and smiling.

“This is beautiful,” she said, not bothering to greet him otherwise.

“You don’t come up here,” he said, and he didn’t make it a question.  He’d never seen her here before, and her reaction spoke for itself.  Still, it seemed difficult to believe that she’d been on the base this long without spending any time at all on the observation deck.

“I’m not an officer,” Kat countered, lacing her fingers together in front of her.  She was teasing him, so he didn’t point out that no one with the kind of authority she wielded would need to provide identification.

Instead, he just looked at her, and she smiled.  “I don’t get a lot of time to enjoy the sights,” she said.  But that wasn’t entirely true either, and there was color in her skin to prove it.  She took the time--when someone other than him ordered her to do it.

“Not on our base, apparently,” he agreed.  Watching for her flinch.

It didn’t come, of course, and he should have known better.

“We do what we have to do,” she said.  “So far it’s enough.”

“Are you going to tell me about this alleged Mexico base?” he asked.  He thought he already knew the answer, but if he got her to say the words then at least he could stop wondering.

She didn’t surprise him.  “No.”

Something about the way she said it made it more amusing than annoying.  “Would Commander Collins tell me, assuming I could ever pin her down long enough to question her?”

Kat smiled a little at that.  “I don’t know,” she said, as though it might actually be true.  Then she added, “Probably not.”

He eyed her.  “I could order Jack to report.”

“And ordering him around has proven so successful in the past,” she said.  “If you try, you’ll probably find that he spent the last three days on an island off the coast of Brazil.  Which wasn’t as relaxing as you might think, since he spent most of his time worrying about B Squad, but I assure you that Mexico wasn’t a big part of the adventure.”

“It isn’t Mexico that concerns me,” he told her.  “It’s the safety and well-being of the personnel under my command.”

A striking silhouette with the lights of the city twinkling through the wraparound transparency behind her, she had never looked less like someone under his command.  And that was saying a great deal.  “The personnel on this base are in service to an ideal,” she said quietly.  “The ideal, first and always.  The organization--the chain of command--has to come second.”

Spoken as the civilian he had always known her to be, not the A Squad Power Ranger she had so recently become.  “Did Jack tell you that?” he asked, and he was mocking her but he couldn’t help it.  She represented everything he stood for, and she was the opposite of every procedure he knew.

“Sometimes we need children to remind us of who we wanted to be,” she said.

That wasn’t at all what he’d expected, and he stared at her for a long moment.  “You were a soldier, weren’t you.  For your planet, when Grumm came.”

He had always been sure of that, though he had no official confirmation.  Her family was military, and Kat could fight her way out of situations he didn’t like to imagine.  It wasn’t even the first time he’d entertained the idea that she might have been a Ranger--Galaxy Command didn’t issue temporary morphers to just anyone, and she’d taken hers very casually.

She just gazed back at him, inscrutable.  “I don’t ask you about your past,” she reminded him.  “I’d rather not talk about mine.”

He had to smile, because she was the most even mix of endearing and infuriating in existence.    “Kat,” he told her, “don’t ever change.  Not for anything or anyone.”

“Too late,” she said, eyeing him with some odd combination of confusion and suspicion.  He’d surprised her, and he was pretty sure that meant the last point had gone to him.  He’d take them where he could get them.

“As you will, then,” he declared, offering her his arm.  “Shall we eat?”

She frowned at him, but she took his arm, and if that wasn’t symbolic of their relationship then he didn’t know what was.  He didn’t understand her, but he could count on her, and for ten years that had been enough.  Now he thought he might be willing to trade that past for a chance at their future.

Her parents had never actually met Charlie.  They hadn’t even been friends until A Squad, and after that things had happened so fast that there hadn’t been a good moment to mention it, let alone introduce them.  At the time, Charlie’s rollercoaster “courtship” hadn’t given Rose any reason to believe they’d be together a month, let alone a year, and keeping her mouth shut until it all blew over seemed safest.

Okay, it had seemed easiest.  She had wanted to believe, and she hadn’t been ready to hear any of the reasons it would never work.  Her parents were two of those reasons--so she hadn’t told them.  New team leader, she’d said.  Charlie Carrera.  Strict, loud, SPD through and through... pisses everyone off.  Can’t listen her way out of a paper bag.  I’ll let you know how it works out.

And then they’d been deployed.  Too fast, too long, everything went wrong at once and all she’d been able to do was leave a message at her parents’ home letting them know that she’d be in touch as soon as she could.  There had been so many things she wanted to say, including I think I’m falling in love, but she knew better than to frighten them with the thought that it might be the last time they heard from her.

She didn’t think she was falling for Charlie anymore.  It was ancient history, a crush so old after weeks of fighting and fucking and what felt like an entire lifetime spent subsisting side by side in the middle of an untamed jungle that she could no longer remember what it felt like not to know.  Not to know that Charlie was a part of her, that she would always be Rose’s champion.  That there was nothing she said that she wouldn’t take back if Rose asked.

Unfortunately, her parents didn’t have that perspective, and they certainly hadn’t had a year to get used to it.  Which meant, practically speaking, that when they begged her to come home--just for a little while, they insisted, unless it wasn’t--her explanation that Charlie wasn’t ready to leave made no sense to them.  She tried anyway, because she might have considered breaking the news about a new relationship over the phone, but she wasn’t going to tell her family that she might as well be married without seeing them in person first.

“We’re not confined, Mama,” she said, for what could have been the dozenth time.  “Commander Cruger approved our return to duty; that’s the problem.  We’re too busy.  We can’t get away right now.”

Except, her mother pointed out, the holiday season surely deserved some recognition.  Couldn’t she travel?  Couldn’t she take a long weekend, at least?  Her family wanted to see her, to know she was okay--didn’t that take precedence over work?

“Charlie’s family too,” she said with a sigh.  It was like trying to weigh the wind, to hold air in her hands: balancing one love with the other.  “I can’t leave her right now, not with the rest of the team gone.”

This went over about as well today as it had every other time she had explained, and finally she couldn’t take the guilt anymore.  “Mama,” she interrupted.  “I want you to meet her when I come visit.”

This prompted a moment of silence, and she was pretty sure that was the sound of her mother figuring it out.  It was followed by the sound of reluctant acceptance, a little more guilt for good measure, and then her father’s voice.  He had obviously been listening, because he asked all the questions they had already asked about Charlie... more seriously this time.  It made her smile.

Could be worse, she decided, leaning back against one of the lounge couches as she started to relax.  More respectable to do it in person, yes.  But breaking news over the phone did have its advantages.

Rose had long since closed her eyes, a good sixteen hours behind the time zone she was talking to now, when the cushion behind her head moved.  She broke off in the middle of a sentence, opening her eyes, and there was the subject of conversation.  “Hi, Charlie,” she said, mostly for her father’s benefit.

Charlie lifted one hand from the back of the couch to wiggle her fingers in reply.  Lifting her hand to her ear in a phone gesture, she raised her eyebrows.  Who?

“My dad,” Rose told her.  “He says hello.”

“Hello back,” Charlie murmured, maybe not loud enough to be heard over the phone.  Thinking, then.  Serious.  Not chatty.  She came around the couch anyway and flopped down beside Rose, but Rose knew better than to offer her the phone.

“I’m gonna go,” she told her father.  “I’ll call again soon.”

This didn’t seem to upset him, but that was thing about her family: they were unfailingly polite.  If there was someone in the room with her, they wouldn’t expect her to keep talking on the phone.  Even if that someone was the one teammate they were currently most curious about.

She really was going to find a way to get both of them to Japan.  Soon.

“Hi,” Charlie said, the moment she hung up.  “So.”

Rose smiled a little, letting the hand with the phone drop over the side of the couch.  “So,” she agreed.

“Am I keeping you here?” Charlie wanted to know.  “Would you leave if it wasn’t for me?  Like the others?”

Her smile faded, but she gave this the consideration it was due.  She knew Charlie was going through some things, things she hadn’t wanted to talk about--until now, apparently.  She knew crying, painkillers, and alcohol had all been involved.   Thankfully at different times.  She knew that Charlie had gone to Sky when she thought Rose was overwhelmed.

“I’m not sure the others are going to leave,” Rose said at last.  Because that seemed like the biggest part of whatever this was, and she figured they might as well address it first.

“Whatever.”  Charlie dismissed this without a second thought.  “Do you want to leave?”

Or not.  “SPD?” she asked.  “Would I quit SPD if it weren’t for you?”

“Yeah.”  Charlie put her feet up on the table and stared at them, ignoring the fact that Rose was watching her.  “Sky says I’m trying to push you away, by the way.  Tell me if it’s working.  I’ll stop trying so hard.”

“I didn’t notice,” Rose said.  “Unless you being you counts as trying to push me away, which I guess is an argument some people might make.”

That made Charlie smile.  Of course.  She probably took it as a compliment.

“I don’t know,” Rose added after a moment.  “Who cares?  You’re here.  I’m not quitting.  End of story.”

Charlie still didn’t look at her.  “What about your family?”

“They want to meet you,” Rose said bluntly.  “Still pushing for a vacation.  Not that I think it’ll be the most relaxing thing in the world, especially for you, but I have to see them and you might as well get it over with.”

“They’re okay with you staying in?”  Charlie managed to ignore everything that had to do with meeting the parents, as she had for weeks.  “You were taken prisoner, tortured, marooned, and then imprisoned by our own people, and they’re fine with that?”

“I wouldn’t say they’re fine with it.”  Rose lifted her bare feet up onto the couch and pressed them against Charlie’s leg.  “I’m okay with it.”

Charlie reached for her feet absently, fingers ghosting across her ankles.  “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”  She wiggled her toes, and Charlie squeezed her ankle in return.  “What about you?”

“I’m okay with you staying in,” Charlie told her.

Rose kicked her.  Now she was just being a smart-ass.

“I dunno,” Charlie said, patting her ankles as she got up.  Dragging a chair across to the end of the couch, she scooped all the pillows off of it and used them to cushion the arm.  It gave her something to lean back against when she sat down again, swinging her legs up onto the couch alongside Rose’s.  “Cruger offered to promote us.  All of us.  To officer.”

Dropping the phone on the floor and pushing it under the couch, she put her hands behind her head.  She didn’t know how she felt about that.  The base commander hadn’t exactly led the charge to keep them out of confinement, and if Jack hadn’t told her about Isinia, she would have thought he was holding a grudge.

“You always said you didn’t want to go farther than Ranger,” Charlie said after a moment.  She was clearly waiting for Rose’s response.

“I don’t--”  She hesitated, but Charlie wanted to know.  “I don’t really think I’m officer material.  And, to be honest...?  I’m not sure you are either.”

Charlie snorted.  “Please.  I could kick officer butt.”

“Yeah, that’s kind of the problem,” Rose said, smiling a little.  “What would you do when you were done?”

Charlie raised an eyebrow at her.

“Once you’re better than all the officers,” Rose said, “what do you do then?  There’s always another challenge when you’re a Ranger.  Civilian law enforcement isn’t quite so... competitive.”

Charlie didn’t answer.  Rose tangled their legs together, adjusting the pillow behind her head so she had one hand free to tickle Charlie’s feet.  She didn’t say anything either.  If there was one thing she knew about Charlie, other than everything, it was that she didn’t need anyone trying to fix her.  She would work it out in her own time, and heaven help anyone who told her more than she wanted to hear.

“You’re saying you want to stay a Ranger,” Charlie said at last.

Rose considered that.  “No,” she said, slowly.  “I’m saying... if we stay in SPD, which I’m absolutely willing to do... I want to work with Rangers.  As a Ranger, training Rangers, reinforcing Rangers; I don’t care.

“I’m fine if you don’t,” she added, just in case that wasn’t clear.  “I promise to only say ‘I told you so’ a hundred times when you decide that being an officer isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

It was Charlie’s turn to kick her.

“Also--”  Rose couldn’t resist.  “We’ll mock you until the end of time the first day you complain about illegal immigration.”  Civvie work, according to Charlie.  Rangers didn’t check papers.  You did right or you didn’t, and procedure had never been her favorite part of the academy.

“You’re assuming you’ll have company for the mocking,” Charlie muttered.

Rose’s smile faded.  The bigger issue, after all.

“Don’t write the team off yet,” she said quietly.  “Sometimes we just need something to come back to.”

Charlie let her head fall back against the chair, and there was a bone-deep fatigue in her voice that no amount of sleep would fix.  “We kept the faith for two hundred sixty-one days, Rose.”  It could have been a promise to continue or a warning that she wasn’t sure she could.

Either way, her place was here.  Times like this, Rose thought maybe all she could do was fill it.

The A Wing lounge was dark, but Jack wasn’t stupid and he’d played his share of “no one here but us couch cushions.” He stopped in the open doorway and knocked on the inside wall, just in case. He was pretty sure he would hear them if they were up to something they didn’t want interrupted, but still. No reason to barge into someone else’s space.

Unless they were your own teammates, of course.

No one answered the knock, and he did briefly entertain the thought that they had snuck off base. They hadn’t left through any of the regular exits; he’d checked. And they could be in any number of places on the base itself, but he wasn’t the only one he’d sent off to search. He would find them eventually.

“It’s Jack,” he told the darkened room. “There’s some people looking for you.”

Which told them exactly nothing, so he was a little surprised when Charlie’s voice floated back to him then. “Get bored with the party? You could set up some target practice.”

He shrugged, leaning against the doorframe. “We’ve already got a jousting ring.”

“Yeah, I saw.” Charlie sounded amused. “I figured actual weapons was the next logical step.”

Jack scoffed. “If you think those jousting sticks aren’t actual weapons, you’ve obviously never seen Sky lay someone out with one of them.”

“Please tell me you kept him away from the punch,” Charlie replied.

“He doesn’t drink,” Jack told her.

There was the sound of movement from inside the lounge, someone sitting up, maybe. “Who told you that?” Charlie’s voice wanted to know.

“He did.” Jack could hear someone else moving, and he relaxed a little. He’d assumed they were together, but he hadn’t been sure. “Bad associations, he says.”

It was Rose who laughed. Her quiet voice was very clear, even from where he was. “You’re losing your touch, dear.”

“Okay, look. Lights,” Charlie said, louder. They sprang up, shadows vanishing, and Charlie and Rose appeared on the far couch. The one that had been turned so that it faced the window, its back to the door. Charlie had already twisted to eye Jack in the doorway.

“Someone’s been pulling your leg,” she told him. “Because whatever Sky did or didn’t do in the past, he had a couple of beers the other night and there are pictures to prove it.”

He blinked. Really?

“Friday,” Rose offered, turning to look at him over the back of the couch. “He and Syd went out, and when they came back they brought the party with them. Dan came by to invite us.”

“Rose wouldn’t let me drink,” Charlie muttered.

“Oh, because that would have gone so well,” Rose retorted. “That’s the last thing any of us needed, a ‘who can drink the most beer’ competition.”

Jack hadn’t heard anything about alcohol at this little get-together, which had been described to him as “hanging out in the lounge” after Sky and Syd came back from dinner with Sky’s mom. He’d been jealous because he hadn’t even met Sky’s mom, and he wasn’t sure how that was possible since he’d met members of everyone else’s family. Apparently there was more to it than that.

“If it helps,” Rose said, and he looked up to see her still watching him, “there was widespread agreement that he was only drinking because he missed you.”

“Oh, please,” Charlie said. “Sky hasn’t done that since--”

Jack raised an eyebrow when she stopped.

“Since Dru,” Rose said quietly. “He used to go out with Gibbs when Dru was off on training flights.”

Jack didn’t know what to say to that. “I’m really trying to avoid comparisons to Dru,” he said at last. “He’s already making them enough for both of us. Thanks, though.” And he meant that, because he actually did want to know about Dru. He just didn’t want to think that Sky was thinking about it all the time.

“You come up here to tell us something?” Charlie wanted to know.

“Really,” he insisted. “It’s not like I’m not curious, you know? All I know about the guy is what I guess from the times I mess up and Sky goes, ‘Dru did that too,’ or... you know, whatever.”

He saw Rose glance at Charlie, saw her look back. “You’re kind of like him,” Charlie said abruptly. “Not in the selling out way, but. You kind of talk the same way.”

“You probably would have laughed at the same things,” Rose added. She was more gentle about it, and she followed with, “You’re a lot sweeter, though. Dru didn’t hang out with just anyone. He was kind of a snob.”

“Of course, so is Sky,” Charlie muttered.

“You’re better for him,” Rose said. “He needs you.”

This time, the silence hung over them until Jack cleared his throat. “You’ve got some guests,” he said. “They’re, uh... at the party. Looking for you.”

He could see Charlie frowning. “What guests?”

Rose asked, more simply, “Who?”

He’d been specifically instructed not to tell them. Probably because the guests in question didn’t want to give Charlie a chance to decide how she was going to react ahead of time. He figured they knew better than he did.

“I think you’ll want to come and see,” Jack said.

11. And Choose Again

She managed to catch Jack just before he walked back into the mess hall. “Heads up,” Z told him, falling into step beside him with a quick nod for Charlie and Rose. “You’re supposed to fight Syd for Sky sometime tonight.”

Jack stopped where he was, forcing the rest of them to flow around him. Z caught Rose when she almost walked into him, but Charlie stepped neatly to one side. “Say that again?”

“Oh, this sounds fun.” Charlie folded her arms as she eyed Z, clearly willing to stay and listen as long as the entertainment was better out here than it was in there. “What’s Syd wearing? Are there tickets involved?”

Rose smacked her arm, and Z figured that was pretty much the only response necessary.

“We took some pictures,” she told Jack. “While you were away. It’s possible that someone might have... uh, leaked some of them.”

Oddly, Jack glared at Charlie, who just raised her eyebrows in reply. “What? She was the one with the camera.”

Jack turned a suspicious but slightly less impatient look on her. “What are these pictures of?” he wanted to know. “I assume they have something to do with why I’m fighting Syd?”

Z had a couple of herself inside the mess hall, and she knew they’d already been spotted out here. Which meant she had a limited amount of time to prepare Jack for what he was about to be in the middle of. “Here’s the thing,” she began.

“Syd made Sky pose with her,” Charlie interrupted. “There was kissing. She did a lot worse with her girlfriend.”

“Boyfriend,” Z corrected automatically.

Charlie didn’t look impressed. “Whatever.”

Z didn’t have time to argue about it. “C Squad got hold of the pictures,” she told Jack. “You’re their champion. They’re convinced you’re going to prove Sky is yours by fighting Syd.”

Jack scoffed. “That’s ridiculous. Sky could take both of us.”

“Hey!” And they were found. Des and Don and what looked like half of A Squad support poured out of the doorway and engulfed them. Including Boom, and Sophie, and Charlie looked surprised and Rose was smiling and then they were swept up.

Jack was laughing when he finally pushed his way through the crowd back to Z. “That,” he said with great satisfaction, “was totally worth it.”

She leaned into the arm he wrapped around her shoulders, watching Charlie and Rose get hugged within an inch of their lives. Z thought most of the crowd was actually trying to pull them back into the mess, it was just that they were being joined by more and more of the curious the longer they stayed in the hall. Outflow was, for now, overwhelming any movement in the other direction.

“You should know,” Z said while they watched, “there are banners.”

“Of what?” Jack was still smiling. He looked like he’d forgotten all about C Squad and the pictures. But he was going to get a rude awakening the moment Ruby and Hiyaki caught up with him--which, according to her second self, was going to happen in about a minute and a half.

“You,” she told him. “Sky. Sky and Syd. Someone got a projector, and I don’t know what they’re using for backdrops but you can’t miss it. King Jack. King Sky. Apparently Syd’s the spoiler.”

“You can’t have two kings,” Jack said, rolling his eyes. “Why can’t we be knights or something?”

“I didn’t say it made sense,” she reminded him. “They’re not kidding, though. They’re coming for you. And I don’t think you get how disappointed they’re going to be when you say no.”

“Who said I’m gonna say no?” Jack demanded. “I haven’t seen these pictures yet. And, hey, I heard there was drinking at this little party? Why didn’t I know about that? How much kissing was there, anyway?”

Z drew back, looking at him in surprise. “Wait, Sky didn’t tell you? I thought you knew about this. I distinctly recall threatening to tell on him, and he said you knew. Would know. Whatever.”

“What exactly were you gonna tell me?” Jack wanted to know.

“Everything!” she exclaimed. “About the tequila, and the--”

“Okay, wait, what?” Jack interrupted. “I heard there was beer! Not tequila!”

“Who did you hear that from?” she said, frowning. “I thought you didn’t even know there was drinking.”

“Charlie just told me.”

“Jack!” Somehow little Hiyaki managed to project her voice above the crowd, and Ruby joined in, and C Squad had found them. Even in the middle of the chaos in the hallway, they got to him, and they were telling him the whole story. Only their story sounded a lot longer than hers.

Jack didn’t look terribly upset about it, Z decided. She wondered if maybe she should be more worried about Syd.

“Wrong way,” Z said, appearing in front of him with no warning whatsoever.

Sky tried not to jump, but no matter how long he’d known her he still couldn’t get used to that.  “It’s not a one-way street,” he told her.  “People are allowed to walk through this particular doorway in either direction.”

“Jack’s here,” she said.

“Yeah, I guessed that from the angelic choir.  Can I go now?”

“He’s on the balcony,” she continued.  “I’ve been sent specifically to make sure you’re also on the balcony in the next five minutes.  I’ve been authorized to bribe you.”

Sky couldn’t help it.  He looked up at the balcony.

“It’s an unspecified bribe of your choosing,” Z was saying.  “To be redeemed with Jack at any time.  I’d take advantage of it, if I were you.  He can be kind of obnoxious, but he usually makes good on offers like that.”

“Does he know about the-–”

“Thrones?” Z finished for him.  “Yeah.  He sent C Squad off in search of cameras.  I think he has an escape route planned from the balcony.”

Sky held up a hand.  He didn’t need to hear any more, and he was pretty sure he didn’t want to.  This was the part of being a Red Ranger that they never told you about beforehand: the parties, the groupies, and the really weird publicity that went with them.

Or, in fairness, this was what they didn’t tell you about Jack Landors being a Red Ranger.  Sky couldn’t imagine drawing this much attention on his own, no matter what color he wore.  He sometimes suspected he could be anyone off the street and get the same treatment, as long as he was dating Jack.

“Psst.”  The balcony was empty, save for the whisper that came out of the wall.  Jack followed, quickly enough that Sky couldn’t locate his voice before he saw his face.  “I hear I’m supposed to fight for you.”

“I hear the punch was spiked five too many times,” Sky retorted.  “You throw a hell of a party, Jack.”

“I think it’s self-sustaining by now,” Jack observed.  “Want to go have our own?”

Sky tried to frown at him, but he looked utterly unintentional.  “I was just leaving.”

“It’s safer up this way,” Jack told him.  “Not so many people in the halls.  Also, I want to show you something.”

Sky didn’t move.  “I swear to god,” he said, “if you’re setting me up?  If there’s a group of people somewhere, waiting to leap out and yell ‘surprise’--”

“Everyone is here,” Jack interrupted.  “Look.”

When Sky didn’t, Jack held out his arm and swept it across the mess hall.  “Seriously, who else could I find?  Everyone I could possibly want to embarrass you in front of is here.  And if we leave before they notice us up here, they’ll still be here when we’re somewhere far away.”

“How far?” Sky demanded suspiciously.

Jack eyed him.  “You’re mad at me for something,” he said.  “What?  The pictures?  I wasn’t even there; I have no idea what they look like.  You’re the one who got caught making out with Syd.”

“There was no making out,” Sky snapped.  “I knew I should have grabbed that camera the second Z set it down.”

“I heard there was tequila, too,” Jack remarked.  “Did the camera show up before or after that?”

Sky paused, surprised enough by this that he just looked at Jack for a long moment.  “What tequila?” he asked, when he was sure Jack actually meant two nights ago.  “There wasn’t any tequila.”

“I heard there was,” Jack said.  “And kissing.”

“Syd kissed me on the cheek,” Sky told him.  “I kissed her hair.  It was just for some stupid pictures Z wanted to take to give to you.  Because we were dressed up, she said.  I assumed you’d already seen them.”

“Nope.”  Jack looked exactly the way he’d looked throughout the entire conversation, which Sky was only now starting to realize was a bad sign.  Jack wasn’t playing with him, he was just looking for reassurance.  And Sky wasn’t giving it.

“There wasn’t any tequila,” he repeated.  “Z and Dan made some hard lemonade, and they shared it around.  It wasn’t tough stuff.  Everyone had some, except for Bridge and Rose.  And Charlie.  Rose wouldn’t let her.  Something about her meds.”

“Z said she was going to tell on you,” Jack said.  “About the tequila.  She seemed surprised when I didn’t know.”

“Oh, for the--”  Sky rolled his eyes.  “You do know.  That story about Charlie came up again.  The night before Dru left, with the tequila... we all played Spin the Bottle?  I swear, we’re never going to live that down.

“Z’s giving me the signal,” Jack said.  “We gotta get out of here.”

“Jack--”  Sky reached for him, trying to apologize without saying the words.

Jack grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the nearest door.  “Later,” he said over his shoulder.  “Unless you want C Squad to be posting their own pictures all over the mess hall.”

That was a convincing argument.  Sky let himself be led, but they didn’t make it far down the hall before Jack shoved into a stairwell and let the fire door clang shut behind them.  He’d never spent as much time in stairwells as he had since knowing Jack.

“Up,” Jack said, letting go of his hand to grab the railing and swing around.  “Coming?”

“Where?” Sky asked, but of course he was coming.  He just didn’t race up and down stairs as much as Jack did.  There were lifts, after all.  He’d rather incoming cadets didn’t see him running for no reason.

“If I promise there’s no one there waiting to yell ‘surprise,’” Jack said, “can it be a surprise?”

He tried not to smile.  Jack did get it, sometimes.  When he forgot, he only forgot because he was trying too hard.

“I’ll take that as a yes!”  Jack was grinning as he spun away up the stairs, happy for the first time since their dance had been interrupted earlier.  “You’ll like it,” he called back down the stairwell.  “It’s your kind of thing.”

Which was fine, until Jack got off on a restricted level, paying no attention to the signs and urgent warnings or even to Sky’s look as he followed.  When Jack walked through a barred door, though, Sky put his foot down.  Metaphorically.  He didn’t really want to make enough noise for Jack to hear him on the other side--he had only the vaguest idea of where they were, and he didn’t want to call attention to either of them if he could help it.

Then the electronic lock on the door turned blue, the bar retracted, and Jack pulled the door open from the other side.  The outside.  Sky’s protest faded in his throat as he realized he was looking through the outer wall of the base.  Jack was standing on an external maintenance access, the night pressing in around him even as the tiny safety lights at his feet tried to keep it at bay.

“I asked the others if you’d ever been up here before,” Jack said, studying his face.  “They didn’t know what I was talking about, so I’m guessing not.”

“Where--”  Sky stepped carefully out onto the walkway, putting a hand on one of the struts to steady himself.  He could feel adrenaline, cold sweat on his hands, the sharp feeling of danger as the Power responded to his body’s instinctive recoil.  They were standing in open air on an access that clung to the outside of the base some sixteen stories up.  He was pretty sure no one was allowed up here without safety equipment.

“Under the observation deck,” Jack said, pointing up.  He was holding onto the next strut down, leaning casually against it while he followed the direction of his finger with his eyes.  “Ruins the stargazing, but it’s still the best view of the city there is.”

Sky shot a quick look above them.  It was closer than it felt.  There were no lights in the supports over his head--the ones at his feet were the observation deck lights, he realized.  The same ones that appeared to line the upper levels of the base from the street.

Up close, it was a different story.

“You actually can stargaze from higher up,” Jack was saying.  “And it’s worth it to get away from the city lights, but the cameras are a lot better up there.  No one pays much attention to this level.”

“I didn’t even know you could get out here.”  His fingers clenched reflexively on the support as he stared down, wondering if the Power would do anything for someone who took a dive from a height like this.  “If we fell from here, we could die.”

“Don’t fall,” Jack advised.

Sky lifted his gaze to the only other person crazy enough to enjoy a place like this, and he felt his expression softening without his conscious consent.  Jack was dark and elusive here on this narrow walkway of wind and shadow.  The safety lights washed out the red in his uniform until only his silhouette remained, black braids whipping wild and free as he leaned out over the edge.

Sky suppressed the urge to call him back, to get Jack away from danger like this.  They were Jack’s shadows to haunt, if he chose.  And if he chose to bring Sky with him... well.  He was here, wasn’t he?

“Too late,” Sky said softly.

Jack turned, pulling himself back before he brushed his braids out of his face and looked at Sky.  In the dim light of the safeties and the sharper spill of illumination from the door behind them, Jack’s smile was quirky and strangely peaceful.  “I got you something.  In Brazil.

“Well,” Jack amended.  “On one of the islands.  I’ve been trying to figure out how to give it to you.  Since I screwed up so badly the first time, I mean.”

He knew.  Just like that, he knew what Jack was doing.  He had no idea what to do about it.  He didn’t know what to say, how to look at him, when to breathe.

Because Jack wasn’t kidding this time.

“They have this tradition,” Jack offered, putting his hands in his pockets.  “Nothing lasts forever, right?  But you can choose to keep going.  You can choose to change when someone else changes.  You can choose to start over, when you have to.”

Jack pulled something out of his pocket, straightened up, and went down on one knee in front of Sky.  He looked very smooth, but Sky saw his free hand go to the walkway.  Steadying himself.  So that was what you noticed at a time like this, Sky thought.

“Will you keep going with me?” Jack was saying.  He held something up, in the safeties’ shadow but it caught the light from the door and Sky knew perfectly well what it was.  “For as long as we can?”

“How long is that?”  His voice sounded strange in his ears, uncertain and not strong at all.  Not even slightly like someone who knew what they were doing.

“I hope for the rest of our lives,” Jack said.  For once, he sounded completely serious.  “But the ring’s not made of metal, Sky.  It’s made of shell, and it’ll break.  Just like us.  We’ll get mad, we’ll fight, something will happen and one or both of us won’t be the same.  We’ll have to make this choice, over and over again.  To keep going.  To stay with each other.

“Nothing lasts forever,” Jack repeated, “and one promise isn’t gonna be enough.  It’s gonna take a lot of them.  Not one big promise at the beginning, but lots of little ones, all along the way.  It’ll probably be a lot of work.  But I’m ready to do it if you are.”

He really had no idea what to do.  Or what to say.  Mostly what to do, though.  Was he supposed to take the ring?  Was he supposed to let Jack give it to him?

He couldn’t tell if he hesitated too long, of if Jack had always planned to end with, “Will you marry me?”

“We haven’t even talked about it,” Sky blurted out.  “How do we--we live on an SPD base.  We--you have a cat!  Do you want kids?  What if Time Force comes back?”

“Whoa, stop,” Jack said.  “So not the question, Sky.  Focus.”

“But--”

“Look,” Jack interrupted.  “You just said we haven’t talked about any of those things.  So consider this your invitation to start and just take the ring, okay?  You can always break it later.”

Sky stared at him.  “You’re not serious.”

“I’m proposing to you with no net and no safety ropes,” Jack reminded him, and Sky was suddenly sure that he wasn’t talking about the location.  “I’m pretty damn serious.”

“Okay,” Sky said.  It was so quiet he wasn’t sure Jack heard it, so he added, “Yes,” and awkwardly offered a hand to help Jack up.

Jack just smiled up at him.  “Wrong hand.”

Sky swallowed.  He supposed that answered the question.  Without a word, he offered Jack his left hand, and he watched his... fiance?  He watched Jack ease the ring onto his finger.  It fit tighter than he expected, and it occurred to him suddenly that--the way Jack explained it--it was as much a wedding ring as it was an engagement ring.

“Do you get one?” he asked abruptly.

Jack just tilted his hand to one side in the light, apparently inspecting his effort.  “I guess that’s up to you,” he said.

Sky’s fingers curled around his, and Jack looked up.  “Can we kiss now?” Sky wanted to know.

Jack grinned.  “Not out here.  You know if we fell from up here, we could die?”

Sky tried not to smile, but it was losing battle.  “Don’t fall.”

“Too late,” Jack replied.  He let Sky help him up, jerking his head toward the open door.  “Inside for kissing?  It’s not as romantic, but the drop isn’t quite as terrifying, either.”

“Being practical can be romantic,” Sky told him.  He almost let Jack’s hand slide out of his, but he remembered the feeling of Jack pulling him off of the balcony and down the hall.  He would have followed Jack anywhere.  So he adjusted his fingers and clasped Jack’s hand again, tugging him gently back through the side of the base.

“Also?” Jack said from behind him.  “I don’t have a cat.”

“Just because B Squad thinks it’s their mascot doesn’t mean it isn’t your cat,” Sky replied.

“Oh, Sophie’s kitten?”  Jack stepped up close as Sky turned, not bothering to close the door behind them.  Lights twinkled through the darkness just beyond the open door, winking in and out as Jack leaned into him.  “She isn’t mine.”

Sometimes, Sky thought, arms sliding around him, they were all Jack’s.

“I’m going to bed,” Syd announced from the doorway of the lounge.  “The nightlight’s on.  You want anything out of the room?”

Z looked up from her craft project to see Syd, makeup scrubbed off and rollers in her hair and a kimono-style robe wrapped around her tiny figure.  The old fuzzy elephant hanging over her left arm had a little scarf wrapped around its head.  Sometimes she thought Syd carried Peanuts around to startle people, to make them question their assumptions, the way she did everything else: rich model working on her masters, pop singer joining an alien enforcement agency.  Pretty blonde dating a transgender woman.

Sometimes Z thought she carried Peanuts just because she felt like it, so she did it.

The way she did everything else.

“Do you have those pictures you took of me and you that night we were playing Twister?” she wanted to know.  “The compromising ones you were telling Sky about when Jack was gone?”

“Well, not in my pocket or anything,” Syd said, taking this as an invitation to come over and see what she was doing.  “But I know where they are.  Why?  And where did you get that picture, because Sky is gong to kill you!”

“Or Jack,” Z said with a grin.  “That’s why I’m looking for the ones of us.  If there are pictures on all of our doors in the morning, he’ll suspect someone outside of B Squad.”

“You’re putting that on his door?”  Syd stared at the picture for a long moment, then looked up at Z as though just realizing.  “You’re the one who gave those pictures to C Squad.”

Z shrugged.  “I was the one with the camera,” she reminded her.  “Caleb gave me some in return.  Including this one.”

“You’re bad,” Syd said, in an admiring tone of voice.  “I’ll see what I can find.  Hold on.”

That was good.  If Syd was in it with her, Sky would have fewer choices when it came to revenge.  Unfortunately, Syd was also more likely to spill, but the tradeoff was a better prank.  She was willing to risk Sky finding out who did it in exchange for getting the picture to Jack.

She couldn’t just hand it over, of course.  Whether Jack knew anything about it beforehand or not, Sky would accuse Jack of setting him up--or, if Jack managed to argue his innocence, Sky would just ban the picture from all public display or discussion.  If, on the other hand, Z plausibly made the picture a non-Jack-related bit of trickery, Jack would be free to tease Sky with it for the rest of the year.  Possibly longer.

“Got them,” Syd declared, sashaying back into the lounge a few minutes later.  “I have one of Bridgey, too.  I’m sure he won’t mind.”

“It’s for a good cause,” Z agreed.  “This way Jack can frame their first public display of affection as an engaged couple without Sky getting mad at him.”

“He’ll get mad,” Syd agreed.  “Just not at Jack.”

“Hopefully not at us, either,” Z said.  “Maybe we should go steal some of C Squad’s tape.”

Syd looked thoughtful.  “Too bad there isn’t any way to pin it on Ally.”

“You’re just mad because she doesn’t wear your color seriously enough,” Z told her.

“She doesn’t wear it at all,” Syd complained.  “She’s like the Orange Ranger.  It looks so ugly with her jacket.”

“Her jacket is pink,” Z pointed out.

“That’s my whole point!” Syd exclaimed.  “It looks terrible with orange!  When she bothers to wear it, which obviously isn’t that often.”

“Maybe you should give her some pointers,” Z suggested, not really paying attention anymore.  Syd could go on about this for a while, and it would give her a chance to find the right picture.  Tape, though.  She wasn’t sure what she was going to do about tape.

“Or I could just send you in as my proxy,” Syd said, and suddenly she was listening again.

“Wait, what?”

“I can’t believe I had to fight Jack’s proxy for my own brother,” Syd said with a sigh.  “I thought being SPD would be more normal than being a celebrity.  I mean, it’s just aliens and guns and little girls trying to take over the world.”

Z rolled her eyes.  “Come on, princess.  You won; I don’t know what you’re complaining about.”  She had, too.  They weren’t allowed to use their powers in the jousting ring, and Syd was better with a stick.  Apparently she’d gotten an early start in self-defense at modeling school.

“We won,” Syd corrected.  “And you know... sometimes I think that Mora must be really lonely.  They won’t let her out of solitary, you know.  She doesn’t even get to eat with anyone else.  And she lost her doll during the battle for Earth.”

Z stared at her, uncomprehending.  “Syd.  She’s the enemy.  You’re feeling sorry for her?”

“Well, you were the enemy too,” Syd remarked.  “When we went after you and Jack in the market.  You guys turned out to be okay.”

“Okay?” Z repeated.  “And also, we didn’t try to kill you!”

“Oh, please.”  Syd did the little head tilt that meant she remembered she was wearing rollers.  “A few days on Grumm’s ship and I would have been ready to kill someone too.  I mean, look at A Squad.  They had a whole year to get over it, and it still made them crazy.”

“I wouldn’t exactly call surviving ‘Jungle Fury II’ a year to get over it,” Z said, eyeing her carefully.  If she said a single thing about the lighting, Z was officially ending this conversation.  “Besides, they weren’t evil.”

“Uh-huh.”  Syd propped Peanuts up on the table in front of her and rested her chin on his head.  “And how do we know Mora was?”

Z frowned.

“I think she should have a new doll,” Syd continued.  “Do you think Jack would let me give her one?”

As the leader of A Squad, Z knew Jack had containment-level access.  But she was pretty sure he wasn’t the one to ask about interacting with prisoners.  On the other hand, she wasn’t sure who they should be asking.

“I guess Sky might know,” she said at last.

Syd picked up the picture of Sky on his “throne” with Jack sitting in his lap and waved it in Z’s face.  “I don’t think Sky’s going to be doing anyone any favors for a while,” she said.  “I’ll ask Jack in the morning.”

12. A Time to Trust

She hadn’t slept.  She wasn’t planning to, either.  A Squad was on call tonight, and even if she suspected that Jack had some sort of arrangement with the officer patrol, she was going to stick it out.  She couldn’t go home, and she didn’t want to sleep on the base right now.

Dinner had been... nice.  Their sometimes-lovable base commander was actually very funny when he wasn’t trying to intimidate the hell out of the people below him.  Which, on an SPD base, happened to be everyone.  The Sirian martial hierarchy was inflexible and exasperating when it came to personal relationships between people in the command structure.

Kat thought the Earth influence was growing stronger with the years.  She’d watched him bond with Charlie, seen him protect B Squad when the front line failed, and enjoyed the blind eye he turned to recent efforts at de-militarizing the base.  She certainly hadn’t expected him to let Jack’s reorganization of squads and personnel assignments to pass unchallenged.

Of course, being asked out to dinner had surpassed all previous levels of relaxation.

It was her own fault, she supposed.  She had delivered an ultimatum, and he had called her bluff.  She wasn’t ready to be personally involved with anyone, let alone an alien from Earth’s year 2025 who didn’t know a thing about her.  What had she been thinking?

Maybe Jack was right.  Maybe he was supposed to be with his wife, and she was supposed to be... well.  She was lucky to be alone, if it came right down to it.  She’d spent too many years under someone else’s control to find freedom lonely.

That was what she told herself, anyway.

She turned a corner and almost tripped over Isinia Cruger.

Oh, some small resigned part of her mind whispered.  This is so not fair.

Funny, she thought.  Even the voices in her head were starting to sound like Jack.

The subterranean arboretum beneath the base isolated and encouraged the growth of exotic species, specifically Sirian, to provide the raw materials that kept much of their extraterrestrial technology going.  No one was blind to the aesthetic possibilities of such an environment, though, and gardens had sprung up along winding footpaths in the midst of this carefully controlled resource.  There were even benches and signs and, perhaps one day, a tour of this space designed to simulate rotation beneath an alien star.

“Am I in your way?”  Dark eyes stared up at her from beneath blue hair, and for a fleeting moment she wondered if the commander’s wife even recognized her.  They had only been introduced the once.

Isinia looked much healthier now, she noted distantly.  Better color.  Blue where she’d been brown, and white where she’d been grey.  Cool and pretty against the deep maroon silk that wrapped around her shoulders.  She looked too real for the forced growth of this artificial greenhouse.

“No,” Kat assured her.  “Not at all.  I couldn’t sleep, I’m afraid.  I’m just... out for a walk.”

Those dark eyes flicked over her, taking in her bright yellow jacket and the lab ID underneath.  “I can’t tell if you’ve been promoted or demoted since I saw you last.”

It was a prickly feeling, then, to realize that the woman knew exactly who she was and what she did.  Stranger than she’d expected, to be face to face and effectively alone with the commander’s wife.  She wondered if Isinia had anyone like Jack: someone to meddle, to insist, to prod her out of herself.  Had anyone told her that she was supposed to work things out with her husband?

“I can’t tell either,” Kat admitted at last.  “That’s typical of SPD, though.  Every time they tell you you’re doing a good job, you expect to see your workload double.  Fortunately they’re not big on compliments around here.”

“I wouldn’t know it from the way they talk about you.”  Isinia’s stare was unblinking, much like her husband’s.  “Everyone tells me you keep the base going.”

Kat tried to smile.  “The commander does that.”

“He’s everyone I talk to.”  So different from him in tone, there was no expression there to tell Kat whether she was joking or not.  Had she deliberately twisted Kat’s reply, or had she just misunderstood?  “It’s difficult to be alien among so many.  To have no shared experience to lessen the divide.”

“Yes,” Kat said quietly.  That was a feeling she had always known.

Isinia stared at her for a long moment.  “Are you not human?”

Kat shook her head.  “I’m from Krshk’terii.”  Which was even true, insofar as she had been there once.  “It fell to the Troobian Empire years ago.  My children will be of Earth.”

“Oh?” Isinia prompted.  “Do you expect children soon?”

Maybe it was the softening of her voice, a sign of wistfulness or shared concern or something else that Kat didn’t understand.  Maybe it was the chance to tell someone, anyone, because they’d asked instead of her having to announce it.  Maybe it was just true what they said, that people told strangers things they didn’t know how to tell their friends.

“Yes,” Kat told her.  “I’m pregnant.”

“I know it wasn’t C Squad,” Sky announced, letting his tray clatter to the table across from Syd.  Bridge moved down to make room, and Jack made no room whatsoever on his other side.  “Nice try, though.”

“What wasn’t?” Boom asked.  Next to Syd on the other side of the table, he looked from his own tray to Sky and back again, as though the answer might be hidden in his cereal somewhere.

“Yeah,” Syd agreed, peeling open her jello cup.  “What wasn’t, Sky?”

“Thank you,” Jack said to the table at large.  “Whoever did it gets an ice cream social on a holiday of their choice.  For once, I’m not the one Sky’s mad at, and that’s a good feeling.  I’m gonna enjoy it while it lasts.”

“It won’t last long with the way you’re gloating about it,” Sky informed him.

“I think it will,” Jack said with a grin.  “Come on, I got super huge bonus points last night!  It’s gonna take a while to burn through all of them.”

Sky tried very hard to maintain a stern expression.  He mostly failed.  “I’m sure you’ll come up with new and faster ways than anyone before you.”

“Well, I am the best,” Jack agreed cheerfully.  “I’ll get ‘em back, though.”

The  morning music over the allcall was interrupted by Cruger’s voice, bringing an instant quiet to the mess hall even as it was slowly yawning to life.  “Cadets Landors and Tate,” the commander’s voice boomed.  “Report to Command immediately.”

He didn’t repeat himself--not that he had to--nor did the music resume when the allcall was silent again.  Sky exchanged glances with Jack, who was taking a long drink of coffee.  “He’s pissed,” Sky said.

Jack snorted, putting a hand over his mouth as he lowered the cup to his tray, eyes sparkling as he swallowed hard and managed not to laugh.  “Yeah,” he agreed, grinning at Sky.  “I’d say that about covers it.”

“I guess we could quit before he fires us,” Sky offered.

“Nah.”  Jack shook his head.  “Already tried that.”

“Make him turn the music back on,” Z said helpfully, perched on Syd’s other side and clearly sure he’d forgotten all about the pictures by now.  “I liked that song.”

“Thank you,” Syd said.

“I’ll deal with you later,” Sky told them, standing up.  “Jack?”

“I’m eating,” Jack protested.  “Can’t he wait ‘til we finish breakfast?”

“At a guess?” Sky said dryly.  “No.  And some of us care about our careers, so come on.”

With an exaggerated sigh, Jack grabbed the mostly-peeled orange off of his plate and waved to the rest of the table.  “If we’re not back in ten minutes, send help.  Thanks for the picture.

“What?” he added, when Sky glared at him.  “I’m coming!”

And he was, but he was also carrying the smelliest piece of fruit available in the mess hall today.  He was eating it as he went, messily and with no apology.  He offered Sky some in the lift, and Sky told himself it was only because they were behind closed doors that he took it.

The orange was almost gone by the time they strode into Command.  Sky was sure Jack had saved the last piece just so he could pop it into his mouth the moment Cruger turned around.  He saluted, but even out of the corner of his eye Sky could tell he was chewing while he did it.

“Cadets,” Cruger snapped.  He didn’t acknowledge the salute in any way, and of course he didn’t tell them to stand down.  Yeah.  He was pissed all right.  “It’s come to my attention that a change in your civil status may be imminent.”

Sky felt Jack glance at him.  He tried not to sigh.  He lifted his left hand enough that it would catch Jack’s attention, and he saw Jack straighten.

“Ah,” Jack said aloud.  So not regulation.  “Yes.  We’re getting married, sir.”

Sky tried to remember the last time Jack had called the commander “sir.”

“You’re aware of SPD regulations surrounding formal fraternization and legal ties,” Cruger said.

Sky thought he could hear the eye roll.  “Not so much,” Jack said.  “Sky’s good with that stuff, though.  I figure if we needed to worry, he would have yelled at me already.  You know, sent me on some sort of quest of worthiness or something.  Over the bureaucracy and through the red tape to grandmother’s house we go.”

Jack was either going to make him laugh or get him fired.  Possibly both.  Sky guessed, either way, that his best course of action was to keep his mouth shut as long as he could.

“Married individuals may not serve on the same team,” Cruger growled.

Jack shrugged.  “Well, that’s taken care of.”

“No individual may have a spouse in their direct line of command.”

This made Jack pause.  Cruger looked forbidding.  Sky’s gaze flicked to him.

“Ah,” Jack repeated, a moment later.  “Well.  I quit, then.”

“Accepted,” Cruger snapped.

“Wait a minute,” Sky interrupted.  “Stop it.  Sir.  Jack.  Look, you can’t quit.  We need you, Jack; this base would fall apart without you.  Commander, with all due respect, you have to know that or you wouldn’t have let him stay this long.”

Cruger glowered at him.  “No one is irreplaceable, Cadet.”

“Everyone is irreplaceable, sir.”  Sky met him stare for stare.  “We didn’t fight for Earth to make sure someone would survive.  We fought to make sure these people would survive, that we would survive, that those we know and care about would survive.

“It matters that it’s us, Commander.  Not just faceless numbers.  Jack gets that, and that’s why everyone under his command came back.  The people above him came back.  Even when the rest of us wanted to lock them up and throw away the key, Jack saw them, and he brought them back to us.  We need him.”

He could feel Jack’s eyes on him, but it was Cruger who growled, “I can’t rewrite the regulations, Sky.”

Sky refrained from pointing out that he’d certainly overlooked enough of them in the past.  Jack beat him to it, offering, “We’re not married yet, Commander.  Apparently Sky has a questionnaire for me, and it’ll probably take a few days.  Plus he owes me a ring.”

Cruger didn’t look amused.  “Don’t surprise me with this.  I’ve been lectured by Kylee Drew three times too many this year, and I don’t want to hear it again.  There’s nowhere to promote Cadet Tate if he turns up married to A Squad Red later this week.”

“Wait,” Jack said, even as the comm chimed.  “Promoted?”  He turned to Sky for an explanation when the Commander was called to answer it.

“Traditionally,” Sky murmured, “one promotes the lower-ranking spouse out of the higher-ranking spouse’s chain of command.”

Jack’s bark of laughter made him sigh.  The things Jack didn’t know about SPD were enough to write an entire auxiliary manual.  Preferably, Sky was sure, one with pictures and action words and graphically enhanced sound effects.

“You said you’d do anything for an A Squad spot,” Jack teased.  “Little did I know you’d stage a romantic campaign of epic proportions.  I have to stay in SPD now, or my ambitious fiance will dump me for an officer!”

“If you don’t learn to shut up,” Sky told him, “you’re not going to be in SPD much longer.”

“I did learn to shut up,” Jack said playfully.  “You taught me.”

If Jack kissed him here, now, Sky was going to kill him.  Ring or not.

“I’d still be under you on A Squad,” Sky reminded him.  “Promoting me wouldn’t help.  That’s what the commander is saying; SPD regulations indirectly prohibit married Rangers from being on active duty at the same time.”

“Well, I’m pretty sure SPD regulations directly prohibit about a dozen other things we’ve done to save this base over the past year,” Jack countered.  “People make the rules, Sky.  The rules don’t make the people.”

“Cadets!”  Cruger interrupted their quarrel with a roar that made even Sky start.  They weren’t being that loud.  “Any overt disregard for SPD regulations will result in disciplinary action.  Dismissed.”

They both saluted automatically, but Sky couldn’t help noticing that he was the only one who said, “Yes, sir!”

His morning was not going well.  He had spent the night on base, which ensured that he could at the very least beat Jack to Command.  Unfortunately, he couldn’t beat the rumors of Jack’s overnight activity.  He had known that Jack’s holiday party would affect the start of the work week.  He hadn’t anticipated that Jack would threaten such a direct effect himself, but he probably should have.

There were a lot of things he probably should have expected from Jack Landors.  If it was too late to see Jack coming, though, he hoped it wasn’t too late to get out of the way.  Because this young man had swept up a lot of very intelligent people in his wake, and Cruger was starting to think that the groundswell of optimism and support might be self-sustaining.

Jack Landors might be the Red Ranger that SPD Earth had been looking for all along.

If only he wasn’t also impossible to work with, then life in Command would be easier.  He couldn’t help overhearing a conversation that threatened mutiny if the A and B Squad leaders weren’t allowed to marry, the latter of whom had just demonstrated why he couldn’t fire Jack.  It went without saying that Jack would never stand for Sky’s removal.  So he was left with no recourse but to pretend he had no idea what they were doing.

It could ultimately mean his job, but he had people to take care of.  Some days he wished they were all as simple as knowing when to look the other way.  Right now he had improbable requests for a city curfew, unfocused demands from Galaxy Command, and Cadet Tai on the comm telling him that his wife was late for therapy and did he know where she was?

He bit back a growl.  Why would he know where she was?  Intellectually, he knew it wasn’t an unreasonable question: she was his wife, he was her next-of-kin.  As he expected to be notified of problems, he should also be able to answer basic questions.

But he couldn’t.  He told Tai as much, assured her that he would let her know if that changed, and tried to change it.  There were two people on base who could officially override privacy protocols in the name of base security: the base commander, and A Squad Red.  There were any number of people who could do it unofficially, since it was no use trying to keep Base Tech out of anything they wanted to be involved in.

The computer informed him that Isinia was in the infirmary.  It drove the rest out of his mind, even after records showed that she hadn’t been admitted.  Whatever she was doing there, she wasn’t doing it as a patient.  He went anyway.

Only to be barred by Dr. Felix, who informed him he couldn’t just wander through the medical center at will.  While technically true, this policy had been waived for him in the past, and its sudden enforcement made him irritable and very worried.  “Doctor,” he said, as calmly as he could, “you can tell me where my wife is, or I can conduct a security sweep of this entire level.  Starting with the infirmary.”

“Doctor?”  Jack strode into the infirmary, some sort of pastry in hand and a concerned look on his face.  It only deepened when he saw who Felix was talking to.  “Commander.  What’s going on?”

“You’ll find Mara in Ranger Care,” Felix told him.  “She can answer your questions.  And Jack... no outside food in the infirmary, please.”

“Right,” Jack said, tearing off half of the pastry with his teeth and waving the other half at Dr. Felix.  “Coming?”

This was clearly directed at him, but Felix intervened.  “The Commander and I were discussing something else.  He won’t be joining you.”

Oh, but he would be.  “Doctor, Isinia is my wife.  I have a legal and moral obligation to her care.”

“Uh--”  Jack paused just as he was about to stuff the second half of the pastry into his mouth.  “Wait.  What’s wrong with Isinia?  Is she okay?”

“Infirmary admittance is confidential information,” Dr. Felix protested.  “Jack, my patient asked for you.  You may go through.  Commander, I’m going to have to deny your request for a security sweep.”

“That wasn’t a request,” he growled.  “All issues of base security are subject to the discretion of the base commander.”

“And all medical personnel are exempt from the military chain of command when their orders are in direct conflict with their oath as healers,” Felix replied.  “If I see your wife, I’ll be sure to tell her you’re looking for her.”

Jack, apparently still chewing, gave a little wave that was probably supposed to excuse him from the interaction.  His first step past Felix, though, Jack’s hand dropped to his hip and he tapped his morpher once.  The silent signal was enough to hold him where he was, glaring at Felix, while the doctor ignored Jack to eye him warily in return.

Standoff.

Jack was kind of annoyed.  He was supposed to be off-duty right now, which you’d think would mean he could get some breakfast without being constantly interrupted.  He wasn’t really annoyed, because Sky had agreed to marry him, which was pretty much the best thing ever.  But it did make the breakfast thing worse, because today was the first day everyone who wasn’t at the party last night would see the ring on Sky’s hand, and he wanted to be around to watch.

Instead he had Cruger paging him the second he set foot in the mess hall, and then he had Kat’s voice over his morpher a few minutes later.  He’d had a few moments of thinking they were actually trying to piss him off--until he got to the infirmary and found the commander there too.  If they were working together, why was Cruger being run around too?

“Mara,” Jack said, not even waiting until he was through the door.  “What could you possibly be doing to my teammates that requires isolation?”

The door to Ranger Care slid shut behind him, and he blinked at the scene on the other side.  Kat was sitting on one of the patient beds--holding a sippy cup, of all things--while Mara sat on the bed opposite her in a distinctly non-medical professional way.  Jack hadn’t had a lot of experience with doctors before joining SPD, but no one had ever sat down with him in the infirmary while he... drank from a sippy cup.

To top it all off, there was Isinia Cruger, sitting on a chair between the two beds.  She looked vaguely regal compared to the other two women, and Jack wondered what exactly she was doing here.  He supposed that explained what the commander was all upset about.

Except it didn’t at all.

“What’s going on?” Jack demanded.  “Why do you have a sippy cup?”  He had no idea why that was the first thing he wanted to know, but there it was.  The second thing he wanted to know was, “Do you know Cruger’s standing right outside?  Felix won’t let him in; it’s kind of funny.”

Isinia stood up, putting a hand on Kat’s shoulder before pushing her chair out of the way.  “He probably heard that I was here, that’s all.  I’ll go talk to him.”

“No--”  Kat made a move to stop her.  “It’s fine.  He should come in; I don’t want to have to do this twice.”

“I’ll tell him,” Mara said, standing up.

“I got it,” Jack said.  Something was obviously wrong with Kat, and that made him nervous, but if she didn’t want to say it twice then she didn’t want to say it twice.  “I’ve always wanted to do this.”

Flipping his morpher open, he said, “Cruger to Ranger Care.  Repeat: Commander Cruger, report to Ranger Care.”

He’d barely finished when the door slid open and Cruger shoved his way inside.  “Thank you, Cadet,” he said tightly.  “That will be quite enough.  Isinia, what--Kat?”

Jack watched as all of the commander’s irritation and worry turned to fear.  Kat’s sippy cup, whatever it else it was for, instantly marked her as the patient in the room, and Cruger didn’t like that at all.  Jack didn’t know what had brought him to the infirmary, but he clearly hadn’t expected... this.  Whatever this was.

“What on Earth is going on here?” Cruger demanded.

“This isn’t doing anyone any good,” Jack interrupted.  “Ladies, we’re sorry to barge in on you like this.  Anything that involves a sippy cup must be serious, and we’re not trying to make it worse.  Commander, why don’t you and I sit down?”

“No, I will not sit down!” Cruger growled.  “You’re out of line, Cadet.”

“I’m actually not,” Jack pointed out, pulling out another chair.  “Since I was called here and you weren’t.”  He pointed at the chair.  “Why don’t you have a seat, and Kat can tell us whatever she wants to tell us.”

He strolled over to Kat and hopped up on the bed beside her without waiting for an answer.  “Hi Kat,” Jack said.  “You don’t have anything contagious, do you?”  He assumed not; the Power protected them from a wide variety of infectious diseases.

“No,” she said.

“Are you going to die?” Jack wanted to know.

Cruger, he noted, was sitting reluctantly in the chair.

“Not from this,” Kat said.

“Good.”  Jack nodded at her hands.  “So what’s with the sippy cup?”

Kat looked down at the cup, but that was her only hesitation.  “Jack, you’re going to have to replace me.  On A Squad,” she added, when she finally caught his eye.  She didn’t look at anyone else.  “I’m pregnant.”

Even out of the corner of his eye, Jack could see Cruger react.  He managed not to say anything, though, so Jack didn’t look at him.  “Congratulations,” he said, even as his mind refused to kick into gear.  Damn it, there were a dozen things he should be asking and he couldn’t think of a single one.  “That’s great.”

Kat smiled, but her sigh shook when she breathed out and he didn’t even think about it.  Not the head of Base Tech, not even a new teammate under his nominal command.  Just a friend.  Just someone he had known... almost as long as he’d known Sky, now.  Someone who had been there for him through this mad, crazy year, who had backed him up when he needed it and made fun of him when he didn’t.

He hugged Kat without a thought, and, somewhat to his surprise, she put her arms around him in return and squeezed.  “Thank you,” she murmured in his ear.  “It’s because of you, you know.”

He laughed without letting go.  He didn’t believe that for a second.  “I know you didn’t mean that the way it sounded,” he said.  “But thanks for making sure that Cruger will hate me forever.”

The smile on her face was an honest one when she pulled away.  “The Mexico base,” she said, holding his gaze for a moment before her eyes flicked over his shoulder.  To Cruger, he knew.  Jack held up one finger, pointing to the air, and Kat shook her head.

“They’re already off,” she said.  Infirmary cameras were routinely shut down for purposes of confidentiality--it was at the discretion of the doctor, and Jack had been told Felix was more liberal in his definition of “confidentiality” than most.  “Mara and Felix know.  And Isinia.”

She’d come a long way from the woman who barely trusted her own sister, Jack thought.

“I’m not Krshk’teriian,” Kat said.  She was talking to the base commander, now.  “I’m Karmanian, and I’m from your future.”

“Like Sam,” Cruger rumbled.  It seemed to be the only association he was capable of making right now.  Jack didn’t totally blame him, although he thought the guy could show a little more sympathy.  Kat obviously cared more about his opinion than any of theirs.

“Considerably farther in the future than Sam,” Kat said with another smile.  It didn’t disguise her anxiety.  “I was born during what would be Earth’s twenty-ninth century.  I became Karmanian during the thirtieth, and they started hunting me soon afterwards.  I eventually managed to escape to... this time.”

Jack sensed some heavy editing going on, and he wondered if maybe she wasn’t quite as trusting as he’d thought.  Still, he decided, a big step forward.  It occurred to him at almost the same time that Collins passed as human, and he had no idea how old she was.  Now probably wasn’t the time to ask.

“So you’re a temporal refugee instead of a Troobian one,” Cruger was saying.  “So what?  What does this have to do with you being pregnant?”

Jack couldn’t decide whether he was taking the news particularly well or so badly that he could only focus on one thing at a time.  He supposed it was possible that Cruger just didn’t care where Kat was from.  He did seem to have a policy of “the past is past” when it came to cadets, at least.  Whether that policy would extend to someone he was obviously in love with, Jack didn’t know.

“Karmanians are time travelers by nature,” Kat said.  “My... children’s father was--is... he was Karmanian, and Karmanian children...”  For all her scientific genius, she couldn’t seem to explain.  Jack wished he could do it for her somehow, but he had no idea what she was talking about.

“Karmanian gametes require temporal fluctuation after fertilization to signal the beginning of cell division,” Mara said.  “They exist in an essentially static state: zero growth and minimal consumption of resources, much like a plant seed, until conditions are favorable.  Gestation doesn’t begin until the appropriate environmental factors are present.”

Jack stared at her, then glanced apologetically at Kat.  “Sorry, what?”

“I wasn’t pregnant until we went to the Mexico base,” she said.

“Oh,” he said.  That didn’t really answer his question.

Cruger seemed to be following better.  “I assume, then, that this excursion to a non-existent base involved time travel in some way.”

Kat just nodded.  Jack glanced at her, which might have been a mistake since she was going to so much trouble not to look at him.  It only occurred to him then that, as she was deliberately not mentioning her sister, she might be leaving him out for the same reasons.

“So what did Jack have to do with it?” Cruger demanded.

“He was my backup,” Kat said smoothly.  “SPD partner policy.”

Jack nudged her shoulder, and she finally looked at him again.  You can tell him, he wanted to say, but if she didn’t think she should then maybe she shouldn’t.  So he just said, “I trust you,” and hoped she got the message.

Her smile said she did.  “I trust them,” she said quietly, indicating the rest of the room with her eyes.  “But it’s easier for me to disappear than it is for you.”

Jack shrugged.  He wouldn’t bet on that.  Still.  “I trust them too,” he said.

“We were rescuing Jack,” Kat said, not taking her eyes off of him.  “At the ‘Mexico base.’  We went to the future to rescue Jack.  When he was much younger.  We sent him back to the beginning of this century to grow up.”

“Jack is from your time.”  It was impossible to tell whether Cruger believed this or not.

“Yes.”  It was Kat’s turn to put a hand on his shoulder, squeezing gently.  It was weirdly comforting.  “Not Karmanian.  From Earth, just... a genetic mutation.  Like the rest of B Squad.”

Jack passed a hand through the bed in idle demonstration.

“We come from a less tolerant time,” Kat said.  “I thought, if I found a home here--he could too.”

Yeah, she was definitely leaving Collins out on purpose.  He hadn’t heard her say the words “Time Force” yet, either.  Maybe, if Sky was right and everyone had heard the name before, confirming that it was real would automatically link Collins to their crazy story.

“And I did,” Jack said aloud.  “Here’s the thing, though.”  He held out a hand.  “If you’re carrying around baby kittens inside you, I’m gonna need your morpher.”

She frowned at him, but he thought it was more a frown of relief than anything else.  “They’re not kittens, Jack.  They’re regular babies.”

“Uh-huh.  Regular, time-traveling, cat-eared babies,” Jack agreed.  “Until some crazy person kicks you in the stomach.  I don’t want that on my conscience.  Base duty for you, my friend.”

Kat sighed.  Since she was the one who’d said she had to be replaced, though, he was pretty sure it was a token protest.  “I can keep working in the lab,” she said.  “As long as we keep the experimental synthetics to a minimum, and--”

“As long as everyone in that lab knows you’re pregnant,” Jack interrupted.  “Sorry, Kat.  You can either take some time off, or you can spread the word.  I don’t want Boom testing rocket packs in there with you watching.  I don’t want out-of-control robot arms or tranquilizing mist or wacky cadet experiments sneaking up on you.”

“How long?”  Isinia had been so quiet that Jack had almost forgotten she was there.  What was she doing here, anyway?  When they looked at her curiously, she added, “How long is a typical Karmanian pregnancy?”

They all looked at Kat.  Even Mara, who had rattled off a lot of medical stuff earlier.  Maybe Kat had told her something before the rest of them showed up.

“April,” Kat said.  She sounded as confident as she always did, which Jack figured meant that she wouldn’t tell them anything different until and unless she was obviously wrong.  “Probably April.”

“Aw,” he teased, bumping her shoulder again.  “Spring kittens.  That’s nice.”

She narrowed her eyes at him.  “They’re not kittens.”

Jack just grinned.  “Four months until you can prove it by me.”

13. Adjustment Period

“Tell me Jack didn’t have anything to do with this,” Sky was saying.

Charlie watched Syd’s head tilt innocently.  “Jack didn’t have anything to do with this,” she repeated.  There was a pause for dramatic effect, and then she added, “With what?”

“Look,” Sky said.  “All I want to know is that he wasn’t involved.  Because if it was one of you delinquents, I’m going to use it for something, but I don’t want to go screwing this up with stuff I don’t understand.”

He was really serious, Charlie decided.  She had no idea what was going on, but she assumed it had something to do with the ring on his left hand.  Sky was very... focused.  And if Jack had managed to talk him into a marriage proposal, then she was willing to bet Sky wouldn’t think about anything else until the next time there was a gun in his face.

“Hi,” Sophie said cheerily.  She paused next to Charlie to survey what had been unofficially designated the A-B table.  “How are you this morning?”

“Fine.”  Charlie caught Sky’s gaze when he looked up, alerted by Sophie’s greeting, and she raised an eyebrow.  He was fucking engaged.  Mr. Solitary Super Soldier was engaged.

Sky actually lowered his head, smiling like he’d forgotten how to keep a straight face, and when she kept staring at him he glanced at her again from under his eyelashes.  Which was, objectively speaking, a much too adorable look for someone like him.  “You confuse the hell out of me,” she announced.

Everyone at the table who hadn’t already turned to see what Sky was looking at did now.  Most of Jack’s A Squad then looked back at Sky, as if to see what he would do.  Sky’s B Squad, though, looked like they were ready to stare her right out of the mess hall.

No one screwed with Sky on their watch.  That was good.

“Are you sure it’s me?” Sky said dryly.  He still had that ridiculous smile on his face.  It didn’t stop him from pointing at Syd when she set her fork down.  “I’m not done with you,” he told her, then pointed at Charlie.  “Look in a mirror.”

“If you’re talking about the pictures,” Syd said, “Jack didn’t have anything to do with it.  Can I go now?  Some of us have things to do before we report!”

This made Dan glance at the clock, but anyone who wasn’t going to go spend an extra hour on their hair had plenty of time.  Charlie wasn’t sure how long women-who-were-really-guys spent in the bathroom, but she didn’t care, either.  So it worked out.

Sky waved her away, and Syd leaned over to kiss Dan before she got up.  Sophie slid into a seat on his other side, so Charlie took Syd’s.  “Seriously,” she said.  “You turn him down in front of the whole mess hall, and then a few days later it’s all kittens and puppies?”

“Where’s Ally?” Z wanted to know.  “Did you eat her, or what?”

“She was late,” Charlie snapped.  “I didn’t feel like waiting.”

“Even when I walked in just as she was walking out,” Ally’s voice added, “with a note from my parents and everything.  Thanks for breakfast, by the way.”

“Oh, hi, Ally.”  Boom lifted a hand in a half-wave, which Bridge immediately echoed.  Z nodded in her direction.  “You’re looking very pink today!”

Ally apparently knew him well enough to take this as a compliment.  “Thanks, Boom.”  Coming around the far side of the table, she paused beside Sky and asked, “Someone sitting here?”

“Do you see the tray on the table?” he retorted.

She shrugged, moving to the next seat down.  “I thought you might have put it there so it wouldn’t look like no one wanted to sit next to you.”

“Where’s your fiance?” Charlie asked.  “Doesn’t seem like him to cause trouble without sticking around to see how it turns out.”

“Where’s your keeper?” Sky countered.  “She’s not worried you’re going to make bad breakfast choices without her here to hold your hand?”

She chucked a grape at him, just on principle, and he surprised her by deflecting it one-handed.  A blue shimmer flared between his spread fingers as the grape bounced onto Bridge’s tray.  She raised an eyebrow.  “That’s new.”

“Not really,” Bridge remarked, picking the grape up and studying it briefly before tossing it into his mouth.  “Sky’s been able to make forcefields practically since he was born.”

“Hey.”  Z picked up a piece of dry cereal from Bridge’s plate and bounced it off of Charlie’s shoulder.  “He’s been known to start food fights, so be careful.”

“Why am I involved?” Dan wanted to know, picking up the piece of cereal and throwing it back at Z.  “I didn’t do anything.”

She didn’t have to see Jack coming to know that he had just walked in.  He must have been right behind them.  The red jello on the abandoned tray next to Sky’s place would have marked it as Jack’s even if its location hadn’t.  Sky had clearly been expecting his return, because he kept looking up--and when his expression softened, a disgustingly pleased smile not quite hidden on his face, she knew he’d found what he was looking for.

Leave it to Sky.  She couldn’t tell if the fact that he was going to marry a man he’d arrested proved that he took SPD more or less seriously than the rest of them.  She wasn’t totally immune to the fact that he was marrying A Squad Red, either.

“No throwing food,” Jack’s voice declared.  It was followed by a shower of purple sparkly things across the center of the table.  “Unless it’s good food,” he added, “in which case, I think we should throw as much as possible.”

Z reached for one, holding up a little purple-wrapped chocolate kiss.  “Who did you steal these from?” she wanted to know, ripping it open without waiting for an answer.  She popped one into her mouth and tossed a second at Sky.

He didn’t deflect it, Charlie noticed.  He just picked it up off his tray and meticulously unwrapped it.  She shook her head, scooping up three more pieces of candy and distributing them down the line: one each on Dan’s, hers, and Boom’s trays.

“I didn’t steal them,” Jack protested, swinging into the empty place beside Sky.  “Stacy was putting them out in the lobby, and she gave me some when I wandered through.”

Ally scoffed.  “You just happened to be wandering through the lobby at seven-thirty on a Monday morning?  Who does that?  Other than me?”

“Anyone who knows that’s when Stacy puts the candy out,” Z said dryly.  “It isn’t the fact that you got candy that surprises me.  It’s the fact that you got enough for all of us.  Something bad must be happening.”

“An imminent chocolate shortage?” Bridge suggested.

“The trouble with Z,” Jack said, eyeing everyone else’s trays as though deciding what he would most like to have, “is that she knows me too well.  We’re about to have a problem.”

Charlie glanced over her shoulder when he paused, because she knew that look.  Sure enough, Akume of C Squad had stopped on her way past the table, staring at Jack with wide eyes.  “Which we will take care of,” Charlie said, turning back to the table.

“Because it’s a small, almost non-existent problem,” Jack agreed.

“That no one except this team will even notice occurring,” Sky finished.

Akume must have kept walking then, because Jack added under his breath, “And this team.  And the infirmary.  And the entire lab, and also anyone on a patrol rotation.  We’re gonna need to have a little conference later.”

“I’m on duty,” Sky muttered.

“Well, this is duty-related,” Jack shot back.  “Bridge, can you guys do without Sky for an hour?  Charlie, you mind?”

She eyed him.  “Are you inviting me, or are you asking if I can do without Sky?”

His face broke into a grin.  “Both?”

She rolled her eyes.  “I’ll think about it.”

“Okay,” Jack said, closing the door to the conference room behind them.  “We gotta get everyone two things: some time off, and a regular schedule.  Preferably both, but I’m willing to prioritize the first if we can’t manage the second right away.”

Sky sat down, mostly because he thought neither Charlie nor Jack would do it first.  And he knew how Jack’s plans went.  If this was going to be quick, he would have already done it himself.  He’d asked for their help, therefore, the “hour” he’d asked for could end up going until lunch.

“What do I have to do with it?” Charlie wanted to know.  She pulled two chairs back from the table, sat in the first one and put her feet up on the second one.  “I thought you said there was a problem.”

Jack turned a chair around and swung his leg over it, resting his arms on the back as he stared at the table.  Sky blinked.  Looking from one to the other and back again, he remembered story after story: rebellion, improvisation, disciplinary action, failure to follow orders.  Not the perfect soldier.  The anti-soldier.

The tradition of the Red Ranger.

It was a strange moment, realizing that the role of leader wasn’t to do as one was told, but to question why everyone else obeyed.  Jack and Charlie did it without thinking, without effort.  Because they really didn’t know.  It didn’t make any sense to them that people would follow blindly--them, or anyone else.  That was why they ended up standing with the others, instead of in front of them.

“There is,” Jack was saying.  “But here’s a more important thing: I told Commander Cruger that I was keeping this morpher until you asked for it back.  So far you haven’t asked.”

Charlie rested one hand on the table, fingers still on its surface.  “No,” she agreed, staring back at him.  “I haven’t.”

“It’s yours when you do,” Jack told her.  “It’s not mine, and I know it was well as Cruger does.”

Charlie didn’t answer.

“Next thing,” Jack continued, and Sky raised an eyebrow.  Interesting way to start.  Especially since, if he knew Jack, he was about to follow up with the actual problem.  “Kat’s pregnant.  She’s not gonna be patrolling anymore, and she voluntarily surrendered her morpher.”

Sky glanced at Charlie and found her looking back.  “Maybe I heard wrong,” Sky said, “but I thought you just said Kat’s pregnant.”

“Dr. Felix confirms it,” Jack said, refolding his arms on the top of his chair.  “Kat is pregnant.”

“Our Kat,” Sky repeated, just to make sure.  “Dr. Manx, from the lab?”

“How is that possible?” Charlie asked, frowning.  “She’s the only one of her--”  She waved her hand vaguely, though whether to indicate species, race, or people, Sky didn’t know.  “Kind,” she finished, “on Earth.”

Jack held up his hands.  “You’d have to ask her.  I don’t know who the other parent is, I don’t know where they are, I don’t know when they knew each other.  All I know is that her due date’s in April, and she doesn’t know if she’ll be able to keep working in the lab that whole time.”

“Sophie,” Sky said, suddenly understanding.

“Boom,” Charlie said at the same time.

“Both of them,” Jack admitted.  “It’s gonna take at least two people to do Kat’s job when she’s gone, and they’re the ones she wants.  Which means they’re gonna need extra time with her pretty soon.  While she’s still around.”

Sky glanced at Charlie, and she folded her arms.  “Yeah,” she said, not looking at him.  “I get it.”

“Look, we’re just marking the space,” Jack said.  “A Squad is your team.  You can have as much time as you want, but I want your input before I pick new subs.  They’re still your morphers.  They’re ready when you’re ready for them.”

“We’re not,” Charlie said bluntly.  “Less than half my team is still committed to SPD, let alone to picking up a morpher.  I’ve got one thinking about quitting and one who’s fallen off the radar.  I can’t promise you anything right now.”

“What about you?” Sky asked, before Jack could say anything.  “Are you staying?”

She met his gaze evenly, but he had held her while she cried.  He knew she hadn’t been anywhere on that list.  “I won’t stay without my team,” she said.

“There are other people here who care about you,” he reminded her.

“Hooray for them,” Charlie snapped.  “I’m telling you how it is; you can take it or leave it.”

“You and Rose were a big help while Kat and I were gone,” Jack interrupted.  “Do you have anyone who wants a morpher now?  Temporarily or otherwise?”

Charlie put her hand back on the table and looked at it in lieu of either of them.  “Rose wants back on a team,” she said.  “Don wants back on A Squad.  Des is pissed at Miguel right now and won’t commit to SPD without him.  No one’s heard from Miguel in days, so who knows how that turns out.”

Sky frowned.  He would have guessed Des would be the one to stay while Don left--if they split at all, which he hadn’t counted on.  He’d pegged theirs as the friendship least likely to break, even before Charlie and Rose.  There’d been a couple of days when he was sure Charlie would go too far and drive Rose away.  Deliberately.

He obviously needed more practice with the whole psychological aspect of team building.

“Can I give Don the Yellow morpher?” Jack was asking.

Charlie shrugged.  “Fine by me.”

“What about Rose?” Jack pressed.  “Is she willing to take over for Ally?  Ally’s just doing me a favor out there, and she’s really not happy about the hours.”

Charlie actually cracked a smile at that, which surprised Sky.  “Yeah.”

“Yeah, you noticed,” Jack said, “or yeah, Rose will take a morpher?”

“She wants a vacation,” Charlie said.  “Rose.  She wants to go home and see her parents for Kwanzaa.  I’m going with her.”

“That’s the next thing.”  Jack seemed to think this was a perfectly reasonable evasion.  “We’ve gotta get people time off.  Holidays or not, we can’t keep going like this.  We need a solid rotation with weekends for everyone and night shifts that don’t get changed at the last second.”

“It won’t happen,” Sky said.  “Not until after New Years.  Never does.”

“That’s true.”  Charlie glanced at him, then back at Jack.  “Rank-based scheduling is tossed during December.  Every year.  We default back at the beginning of January.”

Jack considered that.  “You’re saying everyone’s used to this?”

They exchanged glances again, and Charlie shook her head.  “This is worse than usual.  Mostly because the streets are so bad, though.  Not because of the schedule.”

“Patrol is usually easier this time of year,” Sky offered.  “No one’s used to getting shot at so often.”

“Yeah, that’s a real morale killer,” Jack muttered.

“I’ll make the schedule,” Charlie said.  “For the next two weeks.  Then we default, and everyone can either suck it up or transfer.”

“Default scheduling is what you were doing when I started?”  Jack was looking at Sky for confirmation, and he nodded.  “Okay, so, back when we had five-day weeks and actual weekends.”

“Yeah.”  Charlie waved at the embedded table terminal, and it glowed to life.  Grabbing a stylus from beside the screen, she said, “Jack, days you have to have off.  Go.”

“What?  None of them.”  Jack frowned at the screen.  “You mean, in the next two weeks?  I think Cruger’s trying to get everyone off on Christmas.  I don’t have anywhere to go, though, so I’d rather work.  Just put me in wherever you need someone.”

Sky shifted, but Charlie pointed to him before he could protest.  “Sky, you want Jack off for Christmas?”

“Yes,” he said.  He folded his arms, casting an uncertain look in Jack’s direction.  “Thanks.”

“Done.  Jack, if your team is Boom, Sophie, and Ally, who wants what?”

Jack looked surprised, but not displeased.  “Uh... Boom wants Christmas Eve and Christmas.  Sophie wants New Years Eve.  Ally, too.  Oh, and she wants the day after Christmas.  Ally, I mean.”

“How do you know that?” Sky wanted to know.  That had to be another leadership thing he was missing.  The ability to psychically predict his teammates’ requests.

Jack gave him a look like he was kidding.  “We talked about out vacation plans.”

“You didn’t even know you were getting a vacation,” Sky pointed out.

“Sky,” Charlie interrupted.  “Days you need off, followed by your team.  Go.”

“Just Christmas,” he said.  “Bridge too, ironically.  And Z.  Syd’ll want the day after, and you should probably give it to Dan too.  They both want New Years Eve.”

“How do you know that?” Jack mimicked, smirking at him.

Sky rolled his eyes.  “It’s what they wanted last year,” he said.

“Z and Dan weren’t on your team last year,” Jack pointed out.

“Charlie, what about you?” Charlie asked aloud.  “Oh, thanks for caring.  Don needs Christmas and Christmas Eve.  Who knows if Des will even be here.  Ditto for Miguel.  Rose doesn’t care about Christmas, but she’ll need either the first or last two days of Kwanzaa.”

“She’s taking the whole week,” Jack said firmly.  “You too.  Go with her.  You can fly out on Christmas; maybe the lines won’t be so ridiculous.”

Charlie glared at the screen.  “You saying you don’t need us?”

“I’m saying Rose hasn’t seen her family in more than a year,” Jack told her.  “I think we can spare her for the week between Christmas and New Years.  You’re not even on the patrol rotation, so I don’t know what you’re complaining about.”

“Fine.”  Charlie tapped her stylus irritably and didn’t thank him.  “I’ll harass the other squads until they tell me something useful or I get bored and assign them at random.  Orientation levels are usually dismissed for the year on the twenty-third; that all right with you?”

“Yeah, that’d be great.  Give everyone a chance relax a little.  Who handles the rest of the base?” Jack wanted to know.

“Not us,” Charlie muttered.

“Support is handled internally,” Sky offered.  “The other departments manage their own vacations.”

“Good enough for me,” Jack said.  “Thanks, Charlie.  I’m gonna go scare the lab rats before Kat can convince them everything is fine.  Sky, pass the word?”

Charlie still didn’t look up.  “I’ll post the schedule in the mess hall.”

Jack was already halfway to the door, so Sky called after him, “Don’t make plans for Christmas!”

Jack turned in the doorway, grinned back at him, and said, “Too late,” before he disappeared down the hall.

The B Wing lounge was empty when Jack finally got in, and he tried not to look at it as he went by. He loved these guys, he really did, but if he thought about what he was doing too long he was going to lose it. He tried not to think too much these days.

The light was still on when his door slid open, but Sky’s book was on his chest and his eyes were closed. Jack paused in the doorway, smiling. He’d meant what he said when he took Charlie’s morpher: there were things he couldn’t imagine giving up, and leaving SPD would mean doing without... this. At the end of the day, Sky made up for a lot.

“We live on an SPD base.” What would it take to change that? When would it be okay to walk away? How long before he could convince Sky there was more to life?

How long before he believed it himself?

Sky was watching him, and Jack hadn’t even seen him open his eyes. “How’d it go?”

Jack shrugged, stepping into the room and letting the door close behind him. “Don intimidates the hell out of Sophie and Boom, but he and Ally are hilarious together. Kind of glad Rose is leaving in a few days--I think we’re gonna need Ally to keep the balance.”

“Did she agree to take a morpher?” Sky asked, not moving.

“Rose?” Jack hung his jacket up and sat down on the edge of the bed to pull his shoes off. “Don’t know. Haven’t heard anything since this morning.”

“Charlie posted the schedule,” Sky offered. He lifted his book off his chest, closed it, and managed to stretch across the bed to set it on the table. In the one clear space left for it. Jack had found that he didn’t get any grief for his messy room as long as he didn’t touch, move, or cover up any of Sky’s things.

“Saw it.” He waited until Sky stopped fussing with his book to lie back, head on Sky’s legs and his eyes already closed. If only it were that easy. “Apparently, I’m not working Christmas.”

“What a surprise.” He felt Sky’s hand on his hair a moment later. “I want you to have a holiday this year, Jack.”

He opened his eyes, staring up at the ceiling. He didn’t need anyone feeling sorry for him. "I’ve had holidays,” he said. “I had Thanksgiving and Hanukkah and Solstice. Z and I have Solstice every year; it’s not like this year was different.”

“I want you to have a holiday with me,” Sky said smoothly. He was very good at that, Jack thought with a wry smile. For someone who pissed him off so much, Sky seemed to be getting steadily better as disarming him.

“My mom wants to meet you,” Sky added. “Do you mind? She and my uncle are having Christmas dinner together, and I always go. I should have asked you earlier. I meant to, I just... didn’t.”

Jack shrugged up at the ceiling. “I guess I should have asked if you wanted to, you know. Do anything.” He’d asked Z. She’d wanted a party. It hadn’t occurred to him to ask Sky, but looking back, he was pretty sure it should have.

“You haven’t said you’ll go.” Sky was playing with his hair now, fingers just brushing the skin of his neck each time he idly combed them through Jack’s braids. “Do I have to call in my bribe?”

Jack smiled. He’d wondered if Z had delivered that part of the message. “You know,” he said, “it’s a good thing we both suck at this. It means we don’t have to feel as guilty when we screw up.”

“Very romantic,” Sky observed. “But not the question.”

“I’ll go,” Jack said, reaching his arm along Sky’s leg and squeezing just above his ankle. “You know I’ll go. I want to.”

“Good.” Sky sounded satisfied.

Jack made sure to wait for at least a count of three before asking, “How likely is it that I can get sex out of this newfound understanding?”

“How likely is it that you need an excuse?” Sky countered.

Jack’s smile widened into a grin. “I’m hoping not very.”

Sky’s hand had dropped to his neck, fingers strong and warm on his skin. “Not at all.”

14. Back to You

Dan had enlisted on a dare, worked his butt off because it was a challenge, and found himself promoted to D Squad for reasons he still didn't understand. He hadn't expected the military to be so forgiving of a transgendered recruit. SPD was both more and less tolerant than the surrounding California environs: the aliens didn't know the difference when he told them he was a guy, and the humans didn't care.

They didn't care enough to get it right, but they didn't care enough to make his life hell over being wrong, either.

So when he lifted his head off of the couch in the B Wing lounge, blinking blearily at a face he didn't recognize, his first thought was, What blew up now? It couldn't be that late, since they wouldn't have let him nap through the beginning of the second shift. But if it wasn't one of his teammates, something was wrong, and lately most of the things that went wrong seemed to involve explosions of one kind or another.

"Syd Drew," the stranger said, "is straight and spoken for."

Oh, he didn't like the sound of this at all.

Before he could sit up, though, there was the distinctive sound of a weapon arming, overriden almost immediately by the shriek of the anti-weapons alarm. Dan rolled off the couch and lashed out without a second thought, the intruder alert coming on over top of the alarm and all he could feel was the adrenaline and the almost incidental crash of a body encountering the floor. He ripped the weapon away and shoved himself past it, staggering for the door and managing to spin as his balance caught up.

"Dan!" That was Sky's voice--Sky, who barely looked at him if he could help it and who had, by all accounts, let Bridge pick his own replacement to B Squad.

"Stay down!" Dan shouted over the sound of the alarms. He'd drawn his own weapon, because who fired something they didn't recognize? But he sure as hell wasn't letting go of the one he'd grabbed.

"You all right?" Sky demanded, slamming to a halt beside and just behind him, careful not to restrict his range of motion. "Who's that? How'd he get in here?"

"Stay down or I'll shoot," Dan warned, and when the stranger lurched to his feet anyway Dan fired. "Screw that," he muttered, the words hopefully buried under the alarms. "Spoken for by me."

Sky already had his morpher out and was ordering a basewide lockdown: maybe overkill, for one crazy person who didn't know enough to shoot first, or maybe not, considering that the crazy person had gotten past three levels of security to make it into the residential wings undetected. Who knew how many more of them there could be on the base?

Then Bridge was there, entering something into the panel by the door, and the alarms were mercifully muted. Silent in the lounge, throughout the wing even, but still audible as they wailed from the great room and beyond. “Problem?” he asked, giving the guy on the ground a curious look. “Who’s that?”

“Stalker?” Dan guessed, belatedly forcing himself to lower his weapon. Both of them. “I don’t know; he said something about Syd. I was mostly asleep at the time.” And the way his heart was pounding he thought maybe he was still waking up.

“What about Syd?” Sky asked sharply. “Where is she?”

“Are you all right?” Bridge added.

“Yeah,” Dan said, because that was the easiest question to answer. “Fine. And I don’t know; I was asleep. Something about Syd being spoken for.”

“Tate for Drew, acknowledge.” Sky didn’t even wait for him to finish. “B Squad Pink. Check in immediately.”

“Go for Drew,” Syd’s voice answered.

“Are you all right?” Sky demanded.

“Aside from hearing loss caused by the alarms and deep exasperation at being paged twice?” she replied, and Dan felt himself relax a little. “Yes. What’s going on?”

“B Wing had an unauthorized visitor,” Sky said curtly. “Came after Dan, said something about you. We’re sweeping the base for any more surprises.”

The feigned irritation was gone from Syd’s voice when she asked, “Dan?”

“He’s fine.” Sky’s eyes met his, and Dan nodded again. “He’s right here.”

Sky handed over his morpher without another word, and Dan holstered his blaster to take the device. Only when Bridge gestured, silently asking for and receiving the foreign weapon in his other hand, did he realized how instinctively he trusted them. Yeah, defending himself had been second nature--but knowing these people had his back was exactly the same.

“Hey,” he told Sky’s morpher. “We’re all good here.”

Jack was talking to Syd when the base went into lockdown, and his first thought was, Crap. Ally's gonna kill me. Because he had told her, he had promised that he wasn't going to abandon her with Boom and Don for the rest of the patrol. But Sophie had taken Kat's place in the lab for yet another robot test, and Jack had been recalled to deal with the damn NTPD curfew, and the only reason he was still on the base in the first place was Sky.

Who, he had to admit, was a really good reason. He was happy to be ambushed by B Squad Red at any time. No matter who was waiting for him or what he was supposed to be doing. Especially when there were closets involved, which he had so not expected from Sky.

So he'd been in a good mood when Syd caught up to him in the lobby, just steps away from calling Ally to let her know he was on his way back. Syd wanted to talk about Mora, of all things, but hey, it was Syd. And a doll. He didn't know what harm a doll could do. He also had no idea why she was asking him, but Sky wasn't around to pass it off to, so he said yes just before the intruder alert started to shriek.

The day got weirder from there.

It turned out Syd had once been engaged to her "Killian," the boy who had given her jewelry when she was six. Or at least, one of his crazy friends thought he had--Jack wasn't too clear on that. He was a little more concerned that the crazy friend in question knew Sirian-style security well enough to bust onto an SPD base.

Since there weren't any guarantees that the guy was alone, and select cameras all over the base seemed to have malfunctioned simultaneously, they stayed in lockdown for several hours while security swept the base. Manually. It was enough time to be impressed by Dan's reflexes, to smirk at Sky again, and to inform Kat that she was no longer part of the emergency response team.

Kat contested this, vehemently, so he amended it to "the front line emergency defense team," and even then he had to specify that he was trying to keep her out of hand-to-hand combat, not restricting her ability to provide support.

He also learned that Rose and Charlie did occasionally leave the base, and wherever they had gone, they had taken Des with them. This resulted in the entirely appropriate irony of A Squad being, for once, locked out of the base instead of in it. Jack couldn't resist pointing this out to everyone he encountered during the sweep.

Unfortunately, Cruger was also locked out, and that didn't go well for any of them. Jack finally told Kat to just call him already. This made her bristle all over again, demanding to know when appeasing the commander had become her responsibility. Jack refrained from pointing out that appeasing the commander had always been her responsibility, and instead told her that it wasn't him Cruger wanted to talk to.

By the time the sweep had turned up zero physical evidence of other intruders, Base Tech had managed to pinpoint the security breach responsible for knocking out the cameras. Jack really didn't want to know. It was one of the few things that wasn't his job, and if Base Tech said they'd taken care of it, then they'd taken care of it.

Don and Boom were in the mess hall at dinner time, but Ally didn't speak to him for the rest of the day. He called and left a message to apologize. Then Sky told him his mom was getting a tree the next day and they had to help--how else was she going to set it up?--and Jack rolled his eyes because Sky expected him to, but he also agreed, because Sky expected that too.

SPD wasn't about pleasing everyone, after all. It was about figuring out who you wanted to please most and how many people you could afford to piss off to make it happen.

"I want to climb Mt. Fuji," Charlie announced.

Rose didn't look up from the dragon she was painting. "Climbing season is over," she said. She had every color imaginable spread out on the glass table in front of her, and Des knew she didn't need them all but he had bought every shade he could find and wrapped them up in one long box that he insisted she open before she left.

"Good," Charlie said, from her seat in front of the networked screen. "No crowds."

Charlie was supposed to be ordering their tickets. It was remotely possible that she had done this before getting sidetracked by Japan's biggest tourist attractions. It was also possible that she hadn't done anything of the sort, and she would be using air travel arrangements as an excuse to get out of anything she didn't feel like doing for the next two days. Rose was betting on the latter.

"Mt. Fuji is covered with snow right now," she said, brushing a long blue-green streak over the nearest wing. She studied the effect critically, decided that it was sufficiently stretched-looking, and repeated the stroke on the other side. Alternating should help it dry just enough to layer, the edge of one pass overlapping with the next.

"Sounds good to me," Charlie declared. "We don't get enough snow around here."

"We don't get any snow." Aliya had a holo proof spread across her lap, stylus in each hand, tweaking 3D details no one else could see. Des was off in the other room, on the comm with Miguel, and had been for the last who-knew-how-long.

His sister was more fun anyway, Rose thought. She didn't insist on having the TV on in the background no matter what she was doing.

"Neither did Dagobah," Charlie said. They had argued over what to call the planet they'd been stranded on many times, with Des pointing out that it was more reminiscent of Wayland's climate while Don called it their sanctuary moon. Charlie won, of course, but comparisons continued when she wasn't around.

"You're not going to pull the 'I was stranded for a year so I get to do anything I want' crap," Rose told the dragon's wing. "I was there too."

"You grew up in Japan," Charlie said. "This is the first time I'm going to be anywhere near your famous mountain."

"It'll be the last if you try to climb it in December," Rose replied calmly. "Mt. Fuji is cold and harsh and unpredictable. And there's no air. Read a guidebook."

"Respect the mountain," Charlie mimicked. "Whatever. I'm a Ranger; I can do whatever I want."

"You're not climbing the mountain," Rose said.

"Yeah, what," Charlie said, and Rose looked up just as the screen switched over to a Sirian image with the A Squad logo emblazoned across it. "We're taking the afternoon off."

"Slackers," Don's voice answered. "What the hell is Des doing? He won't pick up."

"What the hell are you doing," Charlie countered, insolent and automatic. But she glanced back, caught Rose's eye, and jerked her head at the door. Rose was already putting her paintbrush down. "Aren't you supposed to be on patrol?"

"Indefinite patrol, now," Don said. "Base is locked down."

"Why?" Charlie asked. "You try to cook again?"

Rose shook her head, only mildly tempted to wait and find out what was going on. Charlie would figure it out and pass it on. In the meantime, what could Des possibly be doing that was more important than acknowledging a Ranger call?

She found him with his feet up on the desk, still chatting with Miguel over an extended intergalactic link that probably cost more than SPD paid. Rose paused long enough to be sure they weren't talking about anything sensitive or traumatic--it seemed to be an accounting of recent moto tricks--before she interrupted. "Are you not talking to Don now?" she asked.

Des looked up, glanced at the dragon she was carrying with interest, and didn't look at all guilty. "I'm not talking to Miguel, lately," he said. "Figured we could change that."

"That's a lovely dragon," Miguel added from the screen. "May I see it?"

"It's not done," Rose felt compelled to point out, but she brought it over and held it up to the camera, turning it a little so he could see the whole thing. "Don says the base is locked down and Charlie is afraid something terrible has happened to you."

Des snorted. "I'm sure."

Rose tried not to smile. "Well, she asked me to make sure you were still alive, anyway."

"By not stopping you when you decided to come check," Miguel added.

She couldn't keep from smiling at that. "I'll tell her you're fine. But if you want to know what's going on at the base, you'll have to come find out for yourself."

"I'm sure it's a thrill a minute," Des said dryly. "At least this time we're on the right side of security."

"I'd like to see your dragon when it's done," Miguel added.

"I'll bring it in," Rose promised. "Since you'll probably still be on the comm by then."

Des waved her away, but all he said was, "Close the door behind you, would you?"

She didn't ask. They'd all earned their secrets, few and fleeting though they might be after the last year. Des obviously wasn't furious with Miguel anymore, and that was worth a lot. Maybe it meant Miguel was coming back, maybe it didn't. But at least he didn't seem as far away as he had before.

She tilted her hand a little, making sure the polish came all the way to the edge of the nail. It did, of course. It wasn't like she ever missed. Still, it was good to inspect perfection from all angles.

Movement in the doorway made her look up, and she smiled at Dan's slouch.

"Hey," he offered, smiling back. "Want some company?"

"Yes, please." Syd dipped her brush back in the bottle, adding, "You didn't dispatch any more of my stalkers this evening, did you?"

"Do I get extra credit if I say yes?" Dan asked, bracing his arms against the back of the couch.

"Like you need any." She smoothed another cap of polish over her ring finger, then lifted her face for a kiss. He obliged, leaning forward and brushing his lips against hers. Syd smiled. "That was very girly, thank you."

"I can learn," he said. "Do I get a seat on the couch, or will that throw off your concentration?"

She scoffed. "Please. I could paint my nails in my sleep."

Dan grinned as he came around the end of the couch and sprawled beside her. "That explains the color, then."

She pretended to be offended. "This color is an exact match for the dress I will be wearing tomorrow night. Which reminds me--" She lowered her hand and gave Dan her full attention. "Would you escort me to my parents' Christmas party?"

"Tomorrow night?" He lifted an arm off the back of the couch and waved it in a way that was vaguely reminiscent of a bow. "It would be my honor. Whom do we have to thank for the unexpected time off?"

"Kat," she said, frowning down at her fingers again. "And Charlie. Charlie made the schedule, but Kat bullied the commander into giving us extra time. No one works Christmas or Christmas Eve. Charlie did the rest by request."

"Dare I ask who's running the base for the next two days?"

"Well, Kat will be here." She finished her right hand and put the brush back in the bottle carefully. "She got volunteers from the orientiation levels who aren't going home. Which I'm guessing means Jack will stop by to throw them a surprise party at some point. And the commander will be around, of course."

"It's gonna be a fun couple of days," Dan said dryly. "I'm almost sorry to miss it. Can we stop by too, or will this party go all night?"

"Probably all night," Syd admitted. "But I'm betting Jack's party is Thursday morning. Probably about... eleven o'clock. We could easily happen to be here around that time."

She got a raised eyebrow for this. "What did you do, steal his datebook?"

"Sky's," she corrected. "His family never comes to our party because they have their own plans. Regular plans. There's always a gap around lunch on Christmas Day when he sneaks out. I'm guessing Jack will take advantage of it."

Dan saluted her gently, fist across his chest, then asked, "Does this mean we're sleeping over at your parents' house?"

"Believe me," she said, "it's easier than getting home afterward." She paused, then added, "But if you don't want to, I understand."

"Hey, if you're willing to have me," he told her, "I'm willing to be there."

Syd wrinkled her nose. "Even if it means being subject to my family's curiosity for the rest of your life? I warned you about that, you know. If you come home with me, they'll never stop caring about you. No matter what happens."

"If you can deal with it, I can deal with it," he said.

"Look at Jack, after all," she said, lifting her hands to survey the top coat again. "He's been adopted."

Dan watched her wave her hands around idly. "Yeah, why is that, again?"

"I don't know." She tilted her head. "Something about hiding him from the time police. As long as you pretend not to be surprised when it comes up, it'll be fine."

"Got it." Dan sounded amused. "Anything other specific reactions I should remember?"

"You won't have to drink if you tell them you're on call," she said. "Don't be fooled if they give you a denominational holiday greeting; say something neutral back. Oh, and they'll probably ask you when we're getting married."

"Oh?" He didn't sound startled. "Should I have picked out a ring?"

"Don't be silly." Syd rolled her eyes. "Obviously, if there's going to be a ring, I have to pick it out."

Dan actually laughed. "My mistake. So sorry; I'll be sure to consult you."

She sniffed. "See that you do."

"Hey," he said, still grinning. "Am I really supposed to propose? Because I could probably handle that, but it seems a little early. I thought your parents would be scandalized enough just meeting me."

"Are you kidding?" Syd thought he probably was: he'd known her even before she joined SPD. "After everything I've done? You'd have to work pretty hard to be more scandalous than me."

"Princess Sydney," Dan teased. "You have to be the best at everything, don't you."

"Yes," she said primly. "But," she allowed, when he didn't challenge this, "you can be the best with me. If you like."

He bent his head to her shoulder to press a kiss to her bare skin. "Done," he declared. "Pick out your ring."

She beamed. "I would definitely hug you right now, except this color really does match my dress and the top coat is the shiny kind that isn't quick-set."

"Hold your arms out to the sides," Dan suggested. She did, shifting a little to the side, and he wrapped her in a careful embrace that never once threatened her still-soft nails.

That, Syd thought, was true love.

15. Hug Me, I'm Awesome

Bridge had a rainbow duffel bag specifically for events like these, but he couldn't find it, so he was using a military bag decorated with multi-colored yarn instead. Not an SPD military bag, which would have been dark blue, but a US military bag, which was camo green. It worked better with the holiday theme, he thought.

Especially after Z had helped him braid tinsel and variegated yarn around the handles. They'd made yarn pom-poms for the zippers and woven funny little stick figures through the mesh pockets with colored pipe cleaners. It kind of looked like a craft store had exploded, which basically made it the best thing ever for a Christmas Eve party at the homeless shelter.

He was currently squeezing last-minute stuff into the already packed bag while Sky stared at a tiny little box on the table beside his bed. Bridge had left him alone with it for long enough that he wondered what Sky was seeing. But hey, this was part of his process, so. If Sky needed to stare at a ring box, he needed to stare at a ring box.

Bridge squeezed his squeaky clown nose experimentally. Sky didn't move, so he squeezed it a couple more times before he tossed it into the bag. Actual clowns were scary, but clown noses were funny. Especially if the person wearing them was juggling things that had candy in them.

What else was he missing? Candy, check. More candy, check. Sparkly things, colorful things, glue, clothespins, elastics... no, those weren't the important things. He was forgetting something important.

"Sky," he said at last.

Sky didn't move. "Yeah?"

Bridge studied him, still sitting stiff and straight on the edge of his bed as he contemplated the box. There was a piece of paper lying next to him. Not his reader, not his pager with the memo function, but an actual piece of paper with writing on it. Unattended. Bridge went over and picked it up.

"Hey," Sky protested. He stood up, reaching for it even as Bridge turned away, pretending not to notice.

Marriage Questionnaire, the paper read. The two words were centered at the top of the page, and underneath was the addendum, as presented to Jack Landors by Sky Tate.

Bridge considered that. It was all in Jack's careless scrawl, and he was pretty sure no such questionnaire had ever been presented. The record of it was totally filled out, though, if a little repetitive. Living arrangements, it said. Negotiable.

Working arrangements, the list continued. Negotiable. Pets: negotiable. Kids: negotiable. Time Force: crazy, reaction to: negotiable.

How long, it said at the bottom. Forever.

Bridge turned the paper sideways to read what Jack had written in the wide margin of the list. We can't decide everything ahead of time, Sky. But we can decide together. As many times as it takes. What do you say? Jack.

He lowered the paper, turning back to Sky. "Funny," he said, propping the list up on the table in front of Sky's clock. He used the ring box as a paperweight to keep it from sliding forward. "I think you might have been staring at the wrong thing."

A banging on the door prevented Sky from answering, and Z swung in without waiting for either of them to invite her. "T-shirts!" she declared, a second her following her in with a matching armful. "Ready to be decorated! Do you have an extra bag?"

Bridge glanced around, spotted his laundry bag, and upended it on the floor. There wasn't that much in it, but he heard Sky sigh, so he kicked the clothes out of the way before he held it open for Z--well, both Zs--to fill up. He knew he'd been forgetting something.

"Perfect," Z said brightly, although it was possible that she liked the plan as much for the way it annoyed Sky as for its inherent genius. "We each get to make one too, right? There should be enough there."

"Of course," Bridge agreed, tightening the drawstring on the t-shirts that declared, Hug me, I'm awesome! He swung it over his shoulder with a flourish, and Z picked up the craft bag before he could get to it.

He beamed at her. "Doing it together is the most important thing, after all."

"I see," Kat said, staring out at the devastation that underwrote the current cleanup efforts in her lab. "Was there any particular reason you decided to model it on a young dog?"

"Well," Sophie said, "we thought RIC might like someone to take care of? I mean, he's been around a while, so it seemed rude to introduce an older, wiser version. That's really his role. It seemed like the new one should be more puppyish."

"They're robots," Kat pointed out. "Age doesn't have to be a factor in their behavior."

"Well, can we call it their personality, then?" Sophie stepped out of the way of one of the collection bots. "RIC's gotten a lot more thoughtful, kind of responsible, almost. He needs someone who leaps without looking. To balance him out."

Kat was mindful of who she was talking to, so she didn't question the characterization. It was an effort. "I see," she repeated. She was trying not to think about what her lab might look like with Sophie and Boom in charge of it for an extended period of time. "Well. As long as you clean up after yourselves."

"We're on it," Sophie promised. "It'll be totally clear before I go down to the mess hall tonight. Um, except for the floor. The gouged parts might have to set overnight."

She felt her lips twitch, so it was probably time to change the subject. "Is the mess hall serving a holiday dinner this evening?"

"Oh, yes!" Sophie looked pleased. "With candle globes and everything. And if you go down early, you can sign up for Jack's Secret Santa."

Kat frowned. That didn't bode well. "I thought Jack had already left the base. Isn't he supposed to be celebrating with Sky's family?"

"Oh, he is." Another cargo bot trundled by, this one carrying supplies for the repairs going on under her desk. "He put me in charge of the project. I mean, he set it all up in advance--I'm just going to make sure everyone knows how to play and take care of the details."

"Such as?" Kat asked curiously.

"Collecting names," Sophie said. "There's a big box that everyone can use to sign up until just before eight o'clock. That's when we pass the names out. Everyone gets one, and you have the rest of the night to make something. You have to wrap it up somehow, put your person's name on it, and make sure it's under the tree by lunchtime tomorrow."

"You have to make something?" Kat repeated.

"Anything you want," Sophie agreed. "No one's allowed to give away things they didn't make themselves, but that's the only rule. You can even ask your person what they want if you like."

Kat raised an eyebrow. "Where does the 'secret' part come in?"

"Jack says that's just to make it sound cool," Sophie told her. "You can keep it a secret if you want, but you don't have to."

Now she did smile, and it happened before she had the chance to notice. That sounded very much like Jack. "When do sign-ups start?" she asked.

"The box is already out," Sophie assured her. "Bridge and Z helped Jack decorate it last night."

"I guess I'll go put my name in, then." Kat turned away from the activity even as a final question occurred to her. "Sophie? Just out of curiosity... where's the new puppy now?"

"Hmm?" Sophie looked up as though she hadn't really heard, but there was an easy-to-read mischief behind her innocent expression. "Oh, don't worry. I sent it home with Sky."

"Are you sure we can't leave it alone?" Jack was eyeing the robot dog warily. "It looks pretty calm to me."

"It's learning," Sky said. "It's basing its behavior patterns on us. In the absence of interaction, its internal code stops creating new response algorithms and starts copying old ones--with greater and greater amplitude--until it starts receiving feedback again."

Jack's bemused look was aimed at him now, so Sky elaborated, "It freaks out."

"Right." Jack reached down to pat the dog carefully on the top of its head. "You could have just said that."

"I did say that," Sky pointed out. "Why are you patting it?"

"Why do you throw tennis balls for RIC?" Jack countered, and Sky closed his mouth.

Fortunately, the front door opened and activity on the porch cut off their conversation. "Hello!" his mom called. "Who did you bring with you?"

"Base Tech project," Sky called back. "Sophie wanted to get it off the base before Kat took it apart."

"Uh, Sky," Jack said under his breath. "I think she means me."

Sky rolled his eyes. "Why would she mean you? She already knows who you are."

"Hi, Jack!" his mom added, coming down the porch steps. His uncle was right behind her, only closing the door before he came to join them in the driveway. "We're so glad you could join us for dinner. Is that a dog?"

"It looks like a dog," his uncle said. "But this is SPD. Pretty much everything they do looks like a dog."

"Yeah, I hear that," Jack said with a grin. "Nice to meet you; Sky's told me a lot about you."

Which wasn't completely true, but Jack always knew what people wanted to hear. "Jack," Sky said, "my mom, Catherine, and my dad's brother, Chris."

"Sky's fiance," his uncle greeted Jack, shaking his hand. "You're a brave man."

Jack laughed. "Hey, you raised him," he said. "I only have to live with him."

Sky was trying to keep an eye on them while his mom hugged him. He'd figured they would either hate each other on sight or bond instantly. He wasn't totally sure which way it had gone... but it was clearly going to be embarrassing for him no matter what they decided.

"Hi, Jack," his mom repeated as she released him. Sky knew she'd already decided to like Jack. She was reaching out for his hand, and Sky relaxed a little when Jack took it in both of his. His mom beamed. "Merry Christmas."

"Same to you," Jack said, flashing her a bright smile and a charmingly innocent expression. He immediately looked five years younger. Like a teenager who hadn't seen anything, didn't know anything of the world Sky had grown up in.

How did he do that, Sky wondered, when it should be exactly the opposite?

"It's great to meet you," Jack was saying. "Thanks for having me."

"I'm so sorry we haven't met before now." His mom did in fact look chagrinned, like they hadn't had the world blowing up around them for most of the last year. "It isn't lack of interest, I promise you. There's just been so much going on."

"Well, they tell me this is the best time of year for family," Jack said, still sweet and sort of... not like him. "I'm glad we could all be here tonight."

Sky was struck by the inappropriate urge to laugh, and he managed to repress it only by looking away. He heard his uncle say gruffly, "You celebrate Christmas, Jack?"

"I celebrate everything," Jack said. "Nothing like a good party to make us appreciate what we have, right?"

"Very practical," his uncle said, sounding suddenly more amused. More like Sky felt. "Maybe we should try that, Cathy. We might get more presents."

"We'd have to give more presents," she pointed out.

"That's the easy part," Jack put in.

"Jack's instituted overnight Secret Santas on base," Sky said. "The latest in a long string of parties and projects designed to make Commander Cruger completely insane."

"Hey," Jack protested. "I'm introducing him to Earth culture! I'm sure he appreciates it."

Sky shook his head, but the dog barked and that made his mom look down. "Does it need anything?" she asked. "Light? Power?"

"A power nap?" his uncle suggested.

"Attention," Sky said. "Pretty much all the time."

"Well, you've brought it to the right place," his mom said with a smile. "Why don't we go inside--does it do stairs?"

"Stairs and escalators," Sky said, putting a casual hand on Jack's shoulder as they turned toward the house. "At least in theory."

"Theories are made for testing," Jack said cheerfully, and Sky looked over at just the right moment to catch his eye. Jack grinned at him. Sky's arm went around his shoulders without thinking, and Jack slung an arm around him in return.

It was strange... so strange to be here at his mom's house with the man he was going to marry. Strange like worlds colliding, strange like reality reshaping itself. Strange like something he had never really expected to see.

Strange in a good way.

The good and the bad of flying on Christmas Day were the same: no one wanted to do it. Rose muttered something dire about throwing things and pulled a pillow over her head, so Charlie went off to breakfast alone. She came back with scones, which were Rose's favorite, and two filled water bottles, which they'd make her dump at security and refill on the other side but she didn't care. She'd be surprised if any of her teammates traveled without water anymore.

"Hey," she murmured, in case Rose had already pulled out her earbuds. "You awake yet?"

There was no response. Rose would kill her if she woke up with less than half an hour to go, but she could still have a few minutes. Charlie piled their bags by the door, checked their flight status, and glanced up when the allcall came on.

With the condition of the city, the chaos on the streets and the waves of disaster reports still coming in, it was a credit to Jack that the whole base didn't flinch at the sound of the allcall. It delivered its share of bad news, but co-opting it for music had been a good idea. Even if the commander kept rumbling about disciplining the responsible parties.

"Hey," Charlie repeated, louder. She got up and pulled the pillow away from Rose, leaning down to tug her earbuds free. "Breakfast music. Listen."

"'M listening," Rose mumbled. "Syd gave it to me."

Syd had given her a copy of C Squad's playlist. Interesting, but not the point. "So listen with everyone else," Charlie said.

"I fly, sometimes, through the frozen trees in the winter woods..."

"Does this mean it's time to get up?" Rose muttered.

"In their robes of white, chanting silently..."

"Dear," Charlie said dryly, "it's considerably past time to get up. I got you a scone."

"Scones?" Rose opened her eyes, cringing at the light and blinking as she rolled over onto her back. "When are we leaving?"

"Thirty-two minutes. Your stuff's all ready except your music and the shirt you're wearing. Get dressed and you win a scone," Charlie added, holding it up to prove its existence. "We can get something else to eat at the airport."

"Flight?" Rose asked, pushing herself up on her elbows and watching her earbuds tumble down into the blankets.

"On time," Charlie said, rescuing the music chip and the new earbuds together. "Clothes," she said, pointing to the end of the bed.

Rose made several noises that were not at all like grumbling but might have been protests of some kind. She stretched her way over the covers and out of her t-shirt anyway, and Charlie was happy to watch. The scones were ready whenever Rose was.

"And they bid me sing, and I comply, in the winter woods..."

"Thanks," Rose said, not quite managing to stifle a yawn. She still hadn't gotten off the bed. "For letting me sleep."

"But I stumble in my turn, because I can not find the words..."

Charlie shrugged, because obviously. "You said you wanted to."

Rose shot her a look that wasn't sleepy or annoyed or impatient. It was, inexplicably, a smile, and Charlie had learned not to ask. She just accepted what Rose gave her.

"In that church of birch and pine, the only word that comes to mind is 'beautiful'..."

16. What Has Gone Before

She shouldn't have been surprised to find Jack in the mess hall, feet up on one of the chairs, surveying the post-breakfast trickle of base residents who hadn't found anywhere else to go for the holidays. Or people who, like him, had gone and found themselves drawn back. It was a small but important group, Z thought.

"Hey," she said, throwing herself down in a chair beside him. They were in the same place that the Secret Santa drawing had been the night before: beneath the single jousting banner that had remained since the Solstice party that weekend. "Merry Christmas."

"Yeah, you too," Jack said. His eyes flicked in her direction, but he was already smiling out at the hall. "Having fun?"

"You bet," she agreed. "Bridge and I signed up for your Secret Santa; I hope that doesn't throw it off."

"The more the merrier," Jack said. She'd known he would say that. "Can't wait to see what Bridge made."

"What about you?" Z asked, poking him in the side. "Aren't you supposed to be loving it up with Sky's family? How was Christmas Eve? Are they all as crazy as he is?"

"Nah, they're great." Jack didn't seem to realize he'd just agreed with her that Sky was crazy. "His uncle's kind of... weirdly normal. His mom's a character, though. You know she could take over this base and convince us it was our idea?"

"That sounds about right," Z said with a grin. "He had to get it from somewhere."

"I told them I had a surprise party to run," Jack continued. "I thought she was going to come run it herself. I'm still not convinced we won't be getting a visit from Mrs. Claus or something later on."

"Oh, that reminds me." Not that she didn't want to meet Sky's family, but really, one of him was enough. "Can I invite Lynelle to the base for lunch? Bridge's sister?" she added, in case he didn't remember. "Anyone who could authorize it's on vacation."

Jack scoffed. "You're such a liar, Z."

"Okay, I want you to authorize it because Cruger's still mad about the thing with Dru, and that was like, ten years ago." Z rolled her eyes. "I figure he can't fire you. Not that he hasn't tried."

Jack dismissed this with a wave of his hand. "She's welcome. Obviously. Bring her whenever you want. Party starts at eleven."

"Thanks, Jack."

"Anytime." He tipped his head toward her, and then up toward the ceiling. "By the way, nice banner."

"I actually didn't have anything to do with that," Z said, following his gaze. "C Squad did it all on their own. Well," she added, when he smirked at her, "I might have traded them a few pictures, but it was their idea. Mostly."

"Uh-huh." Jack wasn't buying it, of course. Before he could explain exactly what Sky thought of the banner, she spotted Kat just entering the mess hall and she bounced up out of her chair."

"Hey, it's Kat. I haven't even see her long enough to congratulate her. Bye, Jack."

He probably waved. She didn't check. She didn't really have to.

Kat looked up as Z wandered into the non-existent line behind her. She smiled a little. "Hello, Z. Tell me, is it appropriate to say 'Merry Christmas' even to someone who isn't celebrating?"

"It is to me," Z said cheerfully. "Jack says we celebrate every day. Sometimes it's just fancier than others."

"In that case," Kat said, pushing her tray along in front of her, "Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas, Kat," Z replied. "And hey, I hear I should congratulate you."

Kat skipped the pudding, so Z took one for her. "That's what people say when you're pregnant here?" Kat asked, and it was clearly a question she already knew the answer to. "I've heard it a lot over the last few days."

Okay. That was a "back off" vibe if she'd ever heard one.

"Hey, if you don't want to talk about it," Z said, "I'm not talking about it. Here, have some pudding." She snuck it onto Kat's tray and added, "Are you doing Jack's Secret Santa?"

"Yes," Kat said, smiling again. Right choice, then. "Sophie told me about it yesterday."

"Oh, thanks for the days off," Z said, going back for an extra pudding for herself when Kat didn't refuse it. "Christmas Eve and Christmas, I mean. Charlie said you made a deal with the commander."

"Something like that," Kat agreed.

"Good morning," a new voice said from just behind her. Z blinked, looking from Isinia to Kat without having any idea what she was supposed to say.

"Um," she said at last, when Kat just nodded. "Hi?"

"I understand that they are the current Red Rangers?" Isinia continued, glancing in the direction of the banner beside the tree to make it clear what she meant. Jack had disappeared, Z noticed, and she wondered where he'd gone. "Is their likeness a display of professional recognition?"

"Not exactly," Kat said, in what was probably the understatement of the year.

Kat's "thank you" banner was still lit by the windows above the tree, but below it the final jousting banner hung prominently to one side. Sky seated on their makeshift throne, Jack standing beside it with his arm draped casually over the back. C Squad had originally been projecting images onto the banners, but Z was pretty sure this one was permanent.

She was still surprised Sky hadn't yanked it down yet.

"Yet it remains," Isinia was saying, and Z heard the question as clearly as Kat.

"They've become figureheads," Kat remarked. "Symbols of what the base can be. What it is. What brought us through the war with Grumm, and the ideals that will guide the reconstruction. I think everyone looks up to them."

Z glanced at the banner again, raising her eyebrows, but when she looked back Isinia was nodding. "I see," she said, sounding very much like Kat for a second there.

"Besides," Z couldn't resist adding, "the commander must have thought Sky would make them take it down. I think he underestimated how totally hopeless he and Jack are together."

"I wouldn't say hopeless." Kat was smiling a little. Maybe pregnancy made her more cheerful. "I'd say... just the opposite, in fact."

"Then," Isinia said, "it would seem that is a very auspicious representation."

Oh, Jack, Z thought fondly. They just believe whatever you tell them, don't they.

In retrospect, she thought Jack's remarks about Sky's mom were funnier than she'd realized. It took one to know one, after all.

"Sir."

Cruger didn't have to look to know that Jack had come to impart some wisdom for the morning. "What is it, Cadet."

Jack took this as an invitation to join him on the balcony, which it wouldn't have been if he'd thought there was anything that could make Jack go away. He'd tried. He'd tried very hard, if it came to that, but it was only fair that his own attempt at manipulation would backfire in such spectacular fashion.

"Kat told me to stay out of your..." Jack's hand waved, easily visible, impossible to interpret. "Relationship. Business. Whatever."

He saw no reason to dignify this with an answer.

"And I was going to," Jack said, bracing his hands on the railing that separated them from the lower level of the mess hall. "Until I saw you up here. Alone. When she's down there."

He set his jaw, because anything he said now only validated Jack's right to speak to him about this. He had done just fine without Jack Landors giving him advice his entire life.

"That's not her choice, Commander," Jack said. "That's yours."

"That is her choice," he growled before he could stop himself. "She's made her pre-existing loyalties clear."

Jack snorted. "What, by letting everyone know she's pregnant? You're the one with a wife, Commander."

There were only so many times he could threaten Jack with professional termination before even pretending to care became a joke. "And my wife is the one she wants to talk to," he muttered, surveying the hall.

"Your wife is the one who's available," Jack informed him. "Out of all the people on this base, she told Isinia Cruger. Does that sound like someone who doesn't want your attention? What do you want her to do, hold up a sign?"

"I want her to tell me," he snarled. "Why Mexico? Pregnant, since when? What do I have to do to be the one she confides in?"

"You have to be there." Jack, too, was staring down at the tables below. "Stop waiting for her to appear at your side. Stop expecting her to psychically know when you need her. Stop summoning her."

"No one summons Dr. Manx," he grumbled.

"Not unless she lets them," Jack agreed. "She lets you. You could return the favor. Try being the psychic one for a change."

"I am not psychic," he snapped.

"Neither is she," Jack said, with more patience than was strictly necessary. "You don't have to have magic powers to know when someone wants you around.

"Well," Jack added, eyeing him out of the corner of his eye. "Maybe you do. Most people don't."

Cruger growled at him wordlessly.

Jack grinned outright. "New experience for you, Commander?"

As though his glare had ever worked on Jack. "You're pushing it, Cadet."

"I've got a lot to do," Jack said, taking his hands off of the railing as though getting ready to go. Letting him have the appearance of winning. The way Kat did. "Sir."

Jack managed a decent salute in his street clothes and missing badge. Cruger didn't bother to dismiss him, and Jack didn't seem to expect it. He just stepped back and moved on.

They were in a hurry; that was the only excuse Rose had for not noticing the little girl who had suddenly appeared underfoot. They'd already been through security, stopping to eat in one of the little snack shops inside the terminal. Not a restaurant: Charlie had less patience for that than she used to, but she was fine if they could get their food themselves and be left alone.

Rose had teased her into playing one of the menu games on the back of their table cards. They were close enough to their gate that they'd tried to keep an eye on crowd conditions and pre-boarding calls from inside the shop, and that had probably been a mistake. But they both knew better than to take a seat at the gate sooner than they had to: there was nowhere else to go if someone sat down next to them and started talking.

"Um, hi," the little girl said, as Rose came to an abrupt halt and Charlie swung her backpack high to keep from knocking her over. "I'm, um--I mean... hi!"

"Sol," a man said, just as suddenly in their way. "Come on, please. I'm sure these ladies are trying to catch a flight."

"Hi," Charlie told the little girl. "Nice to meet you."

The girl beamed adoringly up at her, and Rose couldn't help smiling. "I'm Sol," she said. She seemed to draw courage from Charlie's greeting. "I--my dad said you were really busy," she blurted out. "But, if you have time? Could you sign my hat?"

"Sure thing, Sol," Charlie said. "How do you spell your name?"

Rose was already letting her backpack slide off and Charlie must have seen it, because she didn't make a move for her own. Des had given her detail markers, and she was carrying two of them to finish the dragon. One of them was dark enough to show up on the girl's red cap.

"S-O-L," the girl said eagerly. "Like the sun!"

Her father must have known enough to keep his mouth shut. Charlie had far less tolerance for men than she did for little girls. But he just stood by, hand on the girl's shoulder as she pulled off her baseball cap and held it out.

Sol didn't have any hair.

"The Angels, huh?" Charlie said, taking the cap and studying it. "That's a good team. Are you a fan?"

"Yup!" Sol sounded proud. "I watch all their games. My dad takes me when we're at home. It's really hot, but I get ice cream, so it's okay."

"So you live around here?" Charlie asked. "You ever been to the SPD base?"

Rose found the markers, pulling the darker one out and handing it to Charlie. She got a smile from the dad and an offhanded "thanks" from Charlie, but Sol's eyes remained fixed on Charlie. "I've seen pictures of it," she said. "It's a long way from the hospital."

She was perfectly matter-of-fact, but she'd just confirmed what Rose had hoped wasn't true. Charlie didn't bat an eye. "Well," she said, careful with the marker's tip even as she traced a message over the brim of the hat, "if you ever want to see it up close, you just let me know."

"Really?" Sol craned her neck to look up at her dad. "Can we? Can I go?"

"Ask if I can give you a present," Charlie added, not looking up from the baseball cap.

"Can I have a present?" Sol asked her dad.

Charlie was paying closer attention than it appeared. Rose saw her glance sideways, catching the dad's eye. He nodded, and Sol exclaimed, "Yes! Yes, you can give me a present!"

Rose thought she might climb over Charlie's arm to see her hat as Charlie finished signing it. Charlie capped the marker, pushing it into her pocket as she returned the girl's hat. She didn't seem at all self-conscious about her lack of hair, beaming proudly as she settled the baseball cap back on her head.

Sol, Charlie had written. Keep on shining. Love, Charlie Carrera

She didn't sign "love" for just anyone, Rose thought, smiling as the girl lifted her chin. Only for children under ten, and only for girls. It won her fans for life when she did it.

"You know how people in the military wear dogtags?" Charlie was saying. "Metal tags with their name on them?"

"Yup," Sol said. "My mom's in the military. She's awesome."

"I bet she is," Charlie agreed. "SPD makes us wear dogtags too, but sometimes they get in the way. So I wear this instead." She was taking off the bracelet that had her name, species, and badge number on it.

"Why don't you keep it," she continued, offering it to Sol, who held out both hands with wide eyes. "Me and Rose are going to spend Kwanzaa with Rose's family, but we'll be back first thing next year. If you want to see the base, and your family says it's okay, I'll give your dad a comm code he can call."

This time the dad beat Rose to it, fumbling in his pocket for a pager which he offered to Charlie. "What's your last name?" she asked, typing in what was probably the second or third tier public relations number.

"Takiernen," Sol and her dad said at the same time.

"Okay," Charlie said, handing the pager back. "If you have time, just give the base a call and tell them you're Sol Takiernen, and Charlie Carrera gave you her ID bracelet and promised you a tour. Okay?"

"Okay," Sol echoed. "Thanks!"

"Thank you," her dad added, as Charlie grabbed Rose's backpack and held it up for her to slide back into. "Really, thank you."

"Safe travel," Charlie said, fingers brushing the girl's shoulder as they stepped around her.

"Happy Kwanzaa!" Sol called after them.

Charlie kept walking, throwing a wave over her shoulder, but Rose looked back. "Have a good holiday," she said with a smile.

Sol beamed. She was holding up her hand to her dad, and as Rose watched, he fastened Charlie's bracelet around her wrist. Then Rose bumped into Charlie, who grabbed her elbow and steered her around a luggage cart and into the waiting area for their gate.

No one was sitting down, already divided into lines for the final boarding shuffle. Charlie had her ticket in one hand and Rose's marker in the other. "Thanks," she said, in a normal tone of voice. "I'll get you a new one."

"I'll get you a new bracelet," Rose said. "SPD's going to start ordering them in bulk."

Charlie shrugged. "They owe me for the year we were gone."

"Some people go their whole lives without replacing their dogtags," Rose said.

"How nice for them."

Rose smiled, handing over her ticket and photo ID without being prompted. Some things, like holidays and children and Charlie, just never changed. No matter which planet they were on.

They were all there. Dan hadn't expected that, but he thought this might be the last time it took him by surprise. Jack didn't do anything alone. He didn't do anything in a group, either. He just did, and other people turned up to do it too.

He and Syd had planned to come, of course. After a not completely disastrous encounter with Syd's family, they'd slept late this morning and wandered into the mess hall in time to witness the transformation. People were put to work as they arrived, and the two of them were no exception.

Red and green tablecloths. Silver and gold balloons were being passed around; Dan had no idea where they were supposed to end up and apparently no one else did either. Presents were being dropped off one by one, and Bridge had set up a last-minute wrapping station next to the tree.

The holographic projectors were a mystery--until five minutes before eleven, when it started to snow in the mess hall. Giant, pretty, see-through flakes, distractingly laughable... they never landed, and they disappeared as soon as something got between them and the projector. It made everyone in the hall cast invisible snowflake-free shadows.

Z was apparently helping the kitchen staff, keeping them from having to maneuver through the chaos. She'd recruited several people to assist, not that she needed them. The sum total of Sophie's job seemed to be to keep her new robot puppy from chasing the still nameless kitten.

Cadet volunteers were coming in, along with support staff, lab rats, and officers who'd drawn the short straw. Or maybe they'd traded the Christmas holiday for alternative time during the season. It was impossible to tell which of them would rather have been somewhere else, because everyone who walked into the not-so-surprise party looked delighted, pleased, or at least mildly entertained.

Even Sky, who didn't in Dan's experience do mild entertainment: he was either laughing at you or glaring at you, and there was very little in between. But today he was standing next to the tree, possibly keeping a record of who dropped off a present and for whom--like the anti-Santa, Dan thought--while Jack yelled things to him from various locations around the hall that either made him smile or shout back.

The shouting was inevitably hilarious. Sky was almost as irreverent as Jack today, and the two of them set an example of blind rank that kept the rest of the room from looking for insignia or saluting every time they turned around. For now, the hierarchy was gone, and they were all just people trying to help each other out.

As Jack's team had always been.

"Bah, humbug! No that's too strong, it is my favorite holiday..."

"Jack," Sky said. "Just pretending that the base has a new mascot doesn't mean the cat isn't your responsibility."

"But all this year's been a busy blur, don't think I have the energy--"

"A responsibility I've delegated to Sophie!" Jack protested. "Who was, I think I should point out, the one who rescued the cat in the first place."

"To add to my already mad rush just 'cause it's 'tis the season"

"Sophie has a new dog," Sky said. "I think she has her hands full."

"The perfect gift for me would completions and connections left from last year,"

"Oh, please," Jack scoffed. "She gave us the dog last night, I think I can give her the cat this morning. Don't let that act fool you, either; she's designing upgrades behind her eyelids."

"Had his number but never the time, most of '81 passed along those lines..."

Sky held up the electronic pad in his hand and Jack obligingly stepped closer. Instead of pointing out anything on it, though, Sky murmured, "You're aware there's a woman on the balcony who's been watching you for the last seven minutes."

Jack grinned. "Everyone watches me, Sky. It's because I'm so great."

Sky just raised his eyebrows, and Jack added, "Human looking, black hair, really non-festive clothing? Yeah. Couldn't look more like she was trying to blend in if she wanted to."

"She doesn't work on the base," Sky said quietly.

Jack gave him a look that was a lot less skeptical than it would have been a year ago. "What'd you do, memorize the roster?"

Sky waved the pad at him. "Computer. Image correlation. Technology is your friend, Jack; learn to use it."

"Believe me, I weighed the chances of you memorizing every single person on this base against the odds of the computer providing useful information, and what do you know: it came up in your favor."

"Which probably says more about how you think I spend my time than it does about your ability to talk to the computer," Sky said, eyeing him with something like amusement.

Jack smirked. "I know exactly how you spend your time."

"She's wearing a guest pass," Sky told him.

"Good," Jack said, waving it off. "She's probably someone's sister or girlfriend or something. Let's talk about whether or not I'm supposed to get your mom a hostess gift for putting up with me two nights running."

"Yes," Sky said. "I already picked it up. I'd rather talk about this banner and why it's still up when I'm sure C Squad promised you it would be gone by Monday morning. Four days ago," he added, in case that wasn't clear.

"Oh, they took all their banners down." Jack looked up, studying the remaining banner from below. "This one's mine now, so I put it back up."

Sky was staring at him. "Yours?" he repeated.

"Mine," Jack agreed. "You like it? They've got an artist on their team."

"Is that what it's called."

"It's a great picture," Jack said. "Everyone who sees it likes it."

"And everyone sees it," Sky finished for him. "You can't do anything without making it into a spectacle, can you."

Jack snorted. "That's funny, coming from you. May I remind you that I was a highly successful thief for many years. I don't know where you get this idea that I can't keep a low profile."

"You were successful because you can walk through walls," Sky said. "You got caught because you don't know how to keep your mouth shut."

Jack pushed the pad away. "I got caught because I came back to help you!" he exclaimed.

Unexpectedly, Sky smiled. "Did I ever thank you for that?"

"No," Jack said, still suspicious.

"Thanks," Sky said simply.

When he didn't qualify it, Jack found himself strangely grateful. "Sure," he said, for lack of any better response. "No problem."

Sky let out his breath in a huff that was almost a laugh, and Jack felt his lips twitch. "Okay," he admitted. "Maybe a few problems." He was definitely smiling now. "They were worth it, though."

"Yeah?" Sky's gaze was steady on him.

"Yeah," Jack said. Like it was even a question anymore. "Absolutely."

"Jack!" Z shouted. "What do we do if we have extra presents?"

"So on with the boots, back out in the snow to the only all-night grocery,"

"We... celebrate extra long?" Jack guessed. "Why?"

"When what to my wondering eyes should appear: in the line is that guy I've been chasing all year!"

"Some people brought multiples," Sky said under his breath. "They made a couple things, or they made a batch and wrapped them separately."

"'I'm spending this one alone,' he said, 'I need a break, this year's been crazy.'"

"Because Santa loves us," Syd offered. "And why wouldn't he? We are the best, after all."

"I said, 'Me too, but why are you... you mean you forgot cranberries too?'"

"It might be more accurate to say that we love each other," Bridge said. "But I can't disagree with your reasoning."

"Then suddenly we laughed and laughed, caught on to what was happening,"

"And that," Jack said with fond satisfaction, "is an excuse for a party if I ever heard one."

"That Christmas magic's brought this tale to a very happy ending..."

Epilogue

She hadn't had a chance to learn much about the twenty-first century yet. She would, she must, she had to know. But today she could only spare this brief glimpse; there was still so much to learn about her own time... her new time.

So much easier than Jack's. Twenty years later, instead of a thousand years earlier. She still had her pretty interstellar view, her teleportals and her beloved hoverboard, her familiar comfort food. She had everything she had denied him.

It was only fair, then, that when he'd gone he had taken anything that might have made it home. Peace, purpose, and family, all lost in one fell swoop. He wasn't hers anymore. He didn't even know the name "Hyanni," and revealing it would give him no reason to call her "Mom."

He'd made a life here. She had no idea how when her own was in pieces: shattered by the frantic temporal flight meant to keep her free, yanking her out of government control only weeks before. Yet here he was, already grown, a man of the time.

And now they wanted him back.