A/N: I've decided to break with personal tradition and put my author note at the beginning. Thank you in advance for reading, and I hope you enjoy the story. Please take a moment to review; I really appreciate it!
Monster (1/3)
There was a scar behind his left ear, buried beneath unruly brown hair, and Bridge couldn't remember how he got it. He walked his finger along it, prodding, testing, exploring the jagged landscape of an undiscovered wound.
Another excruciating headache was beginning its slow march across his skull. They came often now, to the point where the pain was a daily fixture. He tried to ignore it, to push past and, when that failed, to draw strength from within it. At the end of everything, he was functional… barely. On his better days, he was good enough, and good enough was something Cruger and Kat were prepared to accept. There was something off about that, but every time he focused on his doubts, they slipped away like sand through his fingers.
Post-traumatic amnesia, Kat called it, even as a different phrase danced on the tip of her tongue. He had fought Dru Harrington — Sky's former friend turned assassin — and lost. The scar was only the most visible consequence of their battle. He remembered how Dru moved faster and struck harder than any human. He never even had a chance to morph. He remembered fighting without any real hope of winning, trying to hold out for a second, just one more second, until help would arrive.
He remembered falling.
Oddly enough, there was no pain, no fear. Not when he battled Dru, and not even when he woke in the infirmary to find that twenty-two days had been obliterated from his memory. It was better this way. Some things were best not to think about, and certainly not to feel. That was Kat's advice, and he tried. They all did. He tiptoed each day on the event horizon between thinking and not-thinking, feeling and not-feeling, while his friends did their best to forget something that, try as he might, he couldn't remember.
He had forgotten so many things. The other day, Sky offhandedly mentioned a classmate at the Academy. Bridge was appalled to realize that he had forgotten them so thoroughly, it was as if they never existed. There were battles he couldn't remember fighting, arrest records he didn't remember signing, awards he didn't remember earning. His mind was a jigsaw puzzle and, in his most lucid moments, he could almost remember where the pieces were meant to fit.
It had always been this way. Or had it? Memory was unreliable; events and experiences tottered on crumbling foundations. One thing was certain — there had always been pain. There had always been loss, and sacrifice. His fingers traced the scar one last time. Maybe he had suffered more than most, but when all was said and done, the Commander was still alive.
And that had to be good enough.
The most important mission of his career, and Sky is late. Far too late, because the dimensional reconstruction process has already begun. He feels it in the way the air crackles with electricity and his skin crawls, like a thousand insects burrow underneath.
It is the work of a moment to confine criminals to their two-dimensional prisons, but it takes a specialized facility, tapped into the molten heart of an exo-planet, to reverse the process. Sky had the entire trip from the Pegasi colony to rehearse this conversation, to practice how he would talk Bridge out of this insanity, how he would convince him to come home.
The door to the control room is unlocked. Bridge has his back turned, all his attention focusing on the reconstruction beam, where a hazy shape has already begun to take form. In that moment, Sky has a clear shot of both Bridge and the central computer. His first shameful impulse is to destroy the computer, interrupting the reconstruction process. Cold-blooded murder, yes, but if anyone in the galaxy deserves to be disintegrated at the atomic level, it is Dru Harrington.
The logical, level-headed option is a non-fatal wound to incapacitate Bridge, and then another to disable Dru once he materializes. It is what Cruger expects him to do.
Sky hesitates, and the moment slips past. Bridge turns to face him. The green ranger is not surprised to see him. They know each other too well for surprises.
"Hello, Sky," Bridge says, his voice uncharacteristically cool. "Where are the others?"
"They refused to come." Sky had never seen the Commander so angry, but nothing would move Jack once the red ranger made up his mind. They had done enough; more than enough, Syd said, and Z agreed. When Sky volunteered, all three stared at him, their eyes filled with disgust and loathing.
Bridge nods. "I see. So that's why Cruger made you red ranger. You must be happy."
"Not particularly." He doesn't want the red morpher. Not under these circumstances. The shape in the reconstruction beam begins to look vaguely humanoid. "Bridge, don't do this. You're not yourself right now."
"No, I am." Bridge sighs, and Sky notices the green ranger is not wearing gloves. "I remember now. I remember everything."
The first time, he was tinkering with a gadget in his dorm. He woke mid-stride on the exercise track, out of breath and heart pounding, running as if he was being chased, hunted by unseen foes.
The next time was worse. One moment he was being briefed by Cruger, and the next he was six blocks from Headquarters, standing alone on the sidewalk, chilled to the bone and dripping wet.
Once, he ate an entire loaf of buttered toast without knowing it, the only evidence a dirty plate and an empty bread bag. Another time, he woke and his morpher was gone. Cruger had every right to demote him for his carelessness, but he received only a mild reprimand.
He lived in constant fear that he would black out during a battle, and do something none of them would live to regret. He hid his episodes as best he could. He came close to telling Kat so many times, but some instinct compelled him to stay silent, even though secrets were dangerous. Perhaps because secrets were dangerous.
When he closed his eyes, he dreamed of lost time.
"What did Dru do to you?" Sky demands, even as a cold pit of fear grows in his stomach. If Bridge remembered everything, then he might be beyond saving. If he remembered everything, then for the first time in a hundred and forty seven years, Kat had been completely, horribly, tragically wrong.
"He showed me the truth," Bridge says, as if it were obvious. Then he adds, "well, not really. He told me. It was Kat and Cruger who did all the showing."
Sky straightens. "Dru's a criminal and a monster." He could now make out the outline of limbs within the reconstruction beam. He has five minutes, maybe less. "All he ever did was lie. You can't believe anything he has to say."
"I didn't believe him," Bridge explains. His eyes lose focus, staring through Sky back into memories. "Not at first. Actually, I didn't even recognize him…" (TBC)