Fourteen Hours earlier...
"You're really a Grinch, you know that, don't you?"
It was a clear, icy day, less than a week before Christmas. Jack Landors and Sky Tate were jogging along a trail about four miles out from the base. The red, sandy gravel crunched under their shoes as they ran in perfect rhythm, synchronized like a team of carriage horses, even their breath clouded the air in twin plumes, leaving a trail in the frosty air every bit as clear as the prints of their shoe treads on the ground. They had long ago exhausted the amusement of racing one another.
It had been Sky's remark about the Grinch, and now Jack responded.
"Hey man, if anything, I'm a Scrooge," he said between strides and breaths.
There was a momentary pause as they swung into a turn in the path together. Sky, at Jack's right, had the outside of the turn. He sped up subtly to remain precisely at his jogging partner's side. They had jogged all the way out this far, and didn't really have the breath for proper conversation.
Normally, they didn't say anything. They got along better when they didn't say anything to each other.
Sky grudgingly accepted that Jack was a competent Red Ranger, as Jack unhappily conceded that -just maybe- the team was really better for having Sky as Blue Ranger. They didn't have to like each other, but they did have to work together.
"What's the difference?" Sky asked, adding after a beat, "Between Scrooge and the Grinch, I mean."
Frankly, Jack was surprised to discover that he and Sky had any activities in common. But going for a long run in the morning, especially during cold weather, was common ground. As the inevitable yuletide carol season came rushing on like an out-of-control freight train, Jack had anticipated that he and Sky would also have an opinion of Christmas in common.
"The Grinch wanted to steal Christmas from everybody, so they'd all be just as miserable as he was," Jack explained, though it took him awhile because he had to pause every three words or so, "Scrooge just wanted to ignore it, avoid it, not participate."
Actually, in all truth, Jack didn't enjoy running. Unlike Sky, he didn't wake up in the morning with text from the SPD handbook written across his brain. He didn't eat, sleep, dream, live SPD regulations every second of every day. But what he did do, at least now, was try and be a good leader for his team. That meant not only setting a good example by running to keep in shape, but also to clear his head. Nothing settled you out like a long morning run. Afterward, you just didn't have the energy to be excessively emotional about anything.
"Oh," was the grunted reply.
Sky was one of those people born without a sense of humor. You got the impression that he'd never been a kid at all, just churned out of some Power Ranger making machine and slipped into a uniform on the first day. He didn't talk about his past if he could avoid it, he didn't make jokes, he didn't socialize when he could get out of it, he didn't have fun. Jack sometimes wondered if he was even capable of it.
Sky was a natural born Grinch or Scrooge if ever there had been one. Heck, he ought to have been both. Or maybe something even worse. The guy was a dyed in the wool curmudgeon, he had absolutely no business showing anything akin to holiday spirit, merriment or good cheer.
"Oh? What do you mean 'oh'? What, you never read A Christmas Carol or the other one?" Jack declined to mention the other book by name, specifically because it had a long title and he preferred to save his breath in preparation for whatever Sky was going to say.
"Read? Of course I've read them," Sky replied, and then put in the zinger, "I'm just surprised you have. You don't seem like the culture type."
"Culture? What culture? How is Dr. Seuss culture?" Jack wanted to know.
"I made a reference, you understood it, and corrected me on it. That, my friend, is culture."
Jack risked taking his eyes off the path ahead for a moment to look at Sky. Sky's face was serious, all except for his expressive blue eyes, which couldn't have kept a secret if all of Earth had depended on it. Maybe there was some truth to the saying that eyes were the windows to the soul. At the very least, these particular bright orbs were the window to Sky's inner thoughts.
"I don't believe this," Jack said, slowing to a stop so he could shake his head in disbelief.
"What?" Sky stopped, chest heaving as he gulped frigid air like it was water, seeming to drink it in rather than just inhale it.
"You just made a joke," Jack said, "You're making fun of me."
Sky's brow furrowed. His entire face crumpled into a puzzled expression, all except for his eyes, which were still brightly lit and amused. Whatever talents (or faults) Sky might have, being a good liar wasn't one of them.
"I didn't make a joke," Sky said unconvincingly, "I just stated a fact."
"But you had fun while doing it," Jack said, pointing an accusatory finger at him, "You have to admit that. You enjoyed it, and that's like making a joke."
Sky shook his head, then abruptly took off at an easy lope. He tossed a parting shot over his shoulder.
"I admit nothing. Now hurry up, we'll be late for the briefing!"
"I'm right and you know it!" Jack shouted, "Hey, get back here! I'm not finished with you!"
There were times, just a few, but more lately than before, that Jack found it in himself to admit -at least privately- that he didn't entirely hate everything about Sky, and not every single second of their time together was spent in mutual seething and insufferable awkward silence.
"All I'm saying is that it's wrong," Syd Drew said, "When I was growing up, it always snowed in winter, but especially on Christmas. And here we are five days away, it's been under thirty degrees every day for the past two weeks, and... nothing. Not so much as a flake. People are putting up plastic snowmen. Plastic snowmen."
Sky and Jack, newly returned from their morning jog, exchanged looks. Syd had been on a wishing for snow kick about as long as Sky had been issuing seasonally appropriate salutations. Right now, she was voicing her concerns to Elizabeth 'Z' Delgado, who had no sympathy.
"What? You think Emperor Grumm is holding back the snow?" Z asked.
"I wouldn't put it past him," Syd replied reasonably.
"Neither would I. But if he were doing something like that, I'm sure we'd know about it by now. And, looking at global weather patterns, everything looks normal. This just isn't our year for snow."
"It won't be Christmas without snow," Syd pouted.
"Look," Jack interjected without being invited to join the conversation, "Where I grew up, it never snowed. As a kid, I couldn't imagine anything stupider than dreaming of a white Christmas."
"Oh, so they did have Christmas on planet Jack Landors. And here I was beginning to wonder," Syd remarked.
"Really? You too?" Jack shook his head, then turned to Z, "And I suppose you also have some cute comment about my lack of interest in what is clearly a commercial holiday where people with money buy things for other people who also have money but wouldn't buy for themselves, give those items as gifts and pretend to be nice to one another for just one day when every other day is spent fighting and avoiding each other."
"Whoa, Grinch, much?" Syd crossed her arms.
"Scrooge, actually," Sky interjected, but nobody paid him any mind.
"It's not just one day," Syd continued, "People get into the holiday spirit as early as November. You can feel the difference in the air. Everyone's happy."
"Happy? Pretend happy, you mean," Jack said, "The only thing in the air is deceit. Nobody's happier in December than at any other time of the year."
"Not if there's no snow," Syd agreed.
"Snow doesn't make Christmas, Syd," Sky interrupted, and this time got the attention he wanted, "Snow's just snow. Frozen water fallen from clouds. Just that, nothing more."
"Then what does make Christmas, O Wise One?" Z wanted to know, then nodded toward Jack, "And please tell me you're not a stick in the mud like Jack here."
"Oh, here we go. Hey, look everybody, the holiday special is on!" Jack called, but the only other person in the room was Bridge Carson, and he had his ear to the floor and seemed oblivious of them.
"No holiday special," Sky corrected Jack mildly, "If you don't get Christmas, I can't explain it to you, so I won't even try. You don't like it, I won't try to make you. I'll make fun of you, but I won't try to change you."
"Ah ha! You admit it! You were having fun earlier!"
Instead of answering, Sky looked over at Bridge, who was still kneeling on the floor with one ear against it, eyes closed in concentration, gloved hands flat on the linoleum surface.
"What's with him?" Sky asked, nodding in Bridge's direction.
"He says the universe is wrong," Z answered with a sigh, "He's been doing that all morning."
"Not the universe," Bridge corrected from down on the floor, "Just the energy."
He hopped to his feet and brushed imaginary dust from his gloves.
"Oh, that's right," Syd said, rolling her eyes in Jack's direction, "The spirit of Christmas present is wavering."
"What?" Bridge sounded shocked, and even slightly appalled, "No. It's fine. The Christmas Spirit is just fine. It's the energies of people, where they're all inextricably intertwined and connected, where the source of joy and peace and harmony exists that's wrong. The vibrations aren't good. It's like when Rhyme and Reason were banished to the Castle in the Air. Nothing makes sense."
"Who are Rhyme and Reason?" Jack asked.
"So much for culture," Sky shook his head with disapproval.
"Better question," Jack said, ignoring him and turning to Bridge instead, "You're saying there's an actual Christmas Spirit?"
"It doesn't make any sense," Bridge said, his gaze seeming to be set on something more distant than the gray wall he was now facing, "The spirit is fine, the auras are all fine, everything and everyone together, but it's wrong... there's something... wrong," Bridge turned towards Jack, who saw for the first time the desperation in his eyes.
Bridge's antics were often funny, and nobody could understand what he was doing or talking about. Most of the time, anyway. But it wasn't funny at all to see him so deeply unsettled, so ill at ease. Now Jack saw subtler signs of it. Bridge shifted his weight nervously, the frenetic movements of his hands seemed more like he was trying to shake or wipe something off than supplement his words with gestures. His brow was furrowed with worry.
"You're really upset about this, aren't you?" Jack inquired gently.
"Upset? Of course I'm upset," Bridge turned toward the wall, then back to Jack and the others, "You can't feel it? There's something off, like everything's the wrong color, the wrong note being played in a song. You can't feel any of it?"
It was long established that Bridge was aware of the world in a way the others simply were not. Bridge seemed to have perfect knowledge of his difference from the others. He would patiently, if incomprehensibly, explain what he saw and felt, knowing the others couldn't see it or feel it. He had never, not once, asked Jack if he could feel the color or sound of energy.
"No," Jack admitted to Bridge, "I don't feel anything like that."
A/N: Jack and Sky obviously are referring to How the Grinch Stole Christmas (Dr Seuss) and A Christmas Carol (Charles Dickens). Perhaps less obvious to some is the reference Bridge is making to The Phantom Toll Booth (Norton Juster).