Time Force belongs to Disney/Saban. I am using it without permission, but I am not and don't expect to make money from this.

Rated PG: a little minor language.

This is for the 'Five Things that Never Happened' fanfiction challenge/exercise.

A/N: Remember the car Lucas was driving in 'Bodyguard in Blue'? As far as I recall, it never appeared again. This takes place sometime soon after that episode.

Kindly take a moment to review...

Five Nice Things Eric Never Did


Speed

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"Damn," Lucas muttered. He shoved his hands in his pockets and kicked at a rock lying by the roadside. "Damn." No one to hear him, so he repeated it a third time. "Damn!"

Should have known the damn thing would break down at the first opportunity. It was just a cheap piece of junk, after all, not like one of his prize racecars. But the racecars were a thousand years away, and in the here and now they had no money for a decent ride - except Wes, who'd left his car behind when he moved out of his father's house - so here he was, trudging down the highway just outside of town, wondering how much longer it was going to take him to get home to the clock tower.

It was a quiet afternoon, not many cars on the road. While he didn't much like the idea of hitchhiking, after almost an hour of walking in the hot sun Lucas was quite willing to beg a ride. When at last he heard the sound of an engine and saw a car approaching, he shaded his eyes to peer at it with a good deal of interest and raised his arm to wave it down. And then lowered it just as quickly as the vehicle got close enough for him to make out the form of a black SUV marked with the golden Silver Guardians emblem.

Lucas wasn't quite sure if he was glad or sorry as it slowed and pulled over, stopping a couple of yards in front of him. But it shouldn't be a problem. There must be a hundred Silver Guardians in Silver Hills, after all. No reason this particular one would be...

"Oh, crap," he muttered under his breath as the car door opened and a hard-faced man wearing an SG uniform, sunglasses, and a red beret got out far enough to stare at him over the hood.

"What are you doing out here?" Eric demanded.

"What does it look like?" Lucas retorted, irritated at the abrupt and unfriendly tone.

"Well..." Eric looked down the deserted highway and then back at him. "It looks like you're hitchhiking on the side of an interstate highway. Which is illegal."

Caught off guard, Lucas said blankly, "It is?"

A smirk appeared on Eric's face behind the sunglasses. "Yeah, blue boy. It is."

"Oh." Lucas frowned and crossed his arms. "What are you going to do, arrest me?"

He hadn't quite meant the question literally - but he felt a moment of alarm as Eric said, "Give me a good reason not to."

The bastard would probably enjoy throwing him in jail. Lucas gulped at the thought of Jen's face if she had to pay a fine for him on top of whatever it would cost for towing, and gestured down the road. "Look, my car broke down a few miles back. What was I supposed to do?"

"Could have called your buddies."

"They're busy on a job." True enough, Jen, Wes, Trip, and Katie were all out on Nick of Time business. He could have called anyway, but Lucas had wanted to put off the moment when he had to tell them the car he had insisted on using part of their hard-earned money for had broken down, and if he was any judge of engines - which he was - would cost more to fix than it had to buy in the first place.

"Hmmm." Eric continued to consider him, face now expressionless behind the glasses, one hand drumming fingers briefly on the SUV doorframe. Then he sighed with a note of disgust and said, "Get in."

"What?"

"Get in. You'll just get in trouble wandering around out here and I'll probably get stuck bailing you out. I'll take you back to town."

A ride? That was what he had wanted a few minutes ago. But with Eric? Lucas could just picture them sitting in stony silence the whole way. Or worse, Eric pulling his whole usual arrogant, superior attitude, while Lucas would have to just put up with it.

Eric had gotten back into the SUV. He leaned across the seat to push the passenger door open and growled. "Hurry up, willya? I don't have all day."

Accepting his fate, Lucas hurried to get in and snap his seat belt, tempted to point out that U-turns were illegal too as Eric pulled into one before heading back to Silver Hills, but not quite daring to. He contented himself with leaning against the door to put as much distance between them as possible, and tried to calculate how long it would take to get someplace where he could ask to be let out.

"What are you going to do about your car?"

Lucas blinked and frowned. "I dunno. The engine's shot and it'll probably cost too much to fix it," he said gloomily. "Maybe Trip can use the parts for something."

"I meant, what are you going to do to get it off the road? You can't just leave it sitting out there."

Abandoning a car was probably illegal, too. Lucas bit back a sharp retort and muttered, "Don't worry, we'll take care of it."

"Thought you guys have those bikes. What do you need a car for, anyway?"

Why was he asking so many questions? Must be the cop mentality. "The vectorcycles are just for when we're morphed, unless we want the whole city to know who we are."

"What are you going to do without it, then?"

"Well..." Lucas shrugged. "We don't need a car, exactly. We can walk pretty much everywhere we need to go. I just wanted one. Back in-- back home, I drive racecars."

"Racecars?"

"Yeah." Lucas felt a smile curve his lips and soften his eyes, the way it always did when he talked about cars, and hardly noticed Eric glancing at him. "I've been racing for years. Just a hobby, of course, but there's nothing like the feeling of flying down the track, knowing nobody's going to catch you, in a car you worked on yourself so you know every little quirk, every response, every vibration, every little sound her engine makes..." He trailed off, a little embarrassed. "You should try it sometime."

All Eric gave him was a non-committal "Huh."

"Of course, I can't afford to have a car like that here, but I wanted something. She turned out to be a piece of junk, but I'm kinda going to miss her anyway." Lucas's gloom returned as he eyed the interior of the SUV. "Man, I wish I could have something like this."

"This isn't exactly a racecar."

"No, but it's solid and powerful. Good engine. Good control, especially for an SUV. You guys keep them tuned pretty well. Not very aerodynamic, but..." He reached out to run his fingers over the dashboard in front of him, "I wouldn't mind seeing how fast she can go."

"Fast enough. They get us where we need to be." Eric glanced at him again before adding, "But you'll be back with your racecars when this is all over, right?"

"I hope so." At the moment the possibility seemed very far away - not just of his cars, but of home, of his life that was now a thousand years in the future. "Sometimes it's just hard to wait, you know?"

"We all have to wait for what we really want."

There didn't seem to be an answer for that. As Lucas was wondering exactly what it was that Eric was still waiting for, they turned onto his familiar street and saw the clock tower loom before them. As soon as Eric had stopped in front of the Nick of Time entrance Lucas popped open the car door and climbed out. He turned back to close it and leaned over to the window, summoning a smile. "Thanks for the lift. I appreciate it."

Eric didn't even look up, his profile as expressionless as ever. "I want your junkheap car off the highway," he said over the sound of the engine.

"I said we'll-"

Eric shot him a hard look and interrupted, "You guys'll probably screw up and hire someone illegal. I'll send a Guardians truck to tow it here. After that it's your problem."

Before Lucas could think of anything to say, the SUV was backing up and pulling into the street as if escaping as fast as it could. He watched it go with a puzzled shake of his head. A ride home and his car towed for free. And yet, the guy couldn't say a kind word. Strange - but it was good to have a little glimpse of someone different under the tough, angry shell Eric showed to the world. Someone who might work with them someday, who might even be willing to be friends, or at least not enemies. Someday.

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