Chapter Three

Sky tossed restlessly in bed, sheets twisted around him as he slept.

"You are the beginning. Once we're finished with you, you won't remember anything of your former life."

"His mind is strong and he's resisting us."

"It doesn't matter. Dig deeper, take anything you can find."

He opened his eyes to stark white light, so bright he could barely keep his eyes open. "It seems we have an intruder. Fortunately the security system caught him before he got too far. It seems he was trying to rescue you."

Jack's brown eyes stared back at him lifelessly and the world exploded.

-----

Jack turned over in bed and sighed in annoyance when he still couldn't get comfortable. Usually he didn't have any problems getting off to sleep, but tonight for some reason he just couldn't settle and he was constantly shifting, trying to get comfortable in the hopes that it might help. But it didn't. He just felt too tense to sleep, like something was hanging over his head, denying him rest.

His morpher went off and he grabbed for it immediately. "Landors."

"Jack." Bridge's voice was strained and Jack tensed; this couldn't be good. "Jack, I think you'd better come over."

"I'm on my way," he replied and threw himself out of bed, out the door a moment later.

When he reached Sky's room he was relieved to find no sign of the ghostly light that usually accompanied Sky's transformations, so whatever the problem was it didn't look like that was it. There were, however, any number of possibilities and none of them were pleasant. He forcibly reminded himself to knock on the door before he simply ran in and when Bridge answered, his voice was just as strained as before.

It was easy to see why, once he was actually inside the room. The green ranger was crouched by Sky's bed, trying to calm Sky as he tossed in his bed and not having much luck. Lines of pain were etched around Bridge's eyes and mouth and there were deep furrows creased on his forehead as he battled what had to be a killer headache. "I got it, Bridge," he said softly and the green ranger nodded, edging away slightly, relief washing over his face, followed quickly by guilt. Jack ignored both, more concerned with how he was going to get Sky out of the mother of all nightmares.

He reached out, but before he could close his fingers around Sky's the other man screamed, his body convulsing, shield lashing out from the unconscious form. Once again Jack found himself flying through the air to slam against the far wall and he landed in a tangled heap on the floor. "I hate it when he does that," he muttered, gingerly picking himself up. And damn, that was really starting to hurt a lot more than it should. Were those things getting more powerful? "Bridge, you okay?"

"Is the room supposed to be spinning?" Bridge asked blearily as he slowly sat up.

"Don't think so, no."

"Oh, okay then."

Reaching out blindly, Jack patted the nearest part of Bridge he could reach, then got to his feet and stumbled back over to Sky's bed. Sky was surrounded by the blue light of his shield and Jack's heart sank. Sky couldn't keep this up forever, but unless he woke up soon his body would burn itself out to maintain the shield. Gritting his teeth and bracing himself, Jack plunged his hands through the shield to latch onto Sky's biceps. Pain exploded through his body as if every nerve were on fire; the price of countering Sky's powers with his own. He didn't do well with kinetic energy of any kind, it always left him feeling as if he on the verge of disintegrating, unable to hold his body together any longer and Sky's shields were the worst of the lot. It didn't matter. He needed to wake Sky up before he burnt out and if this was the only way then he'd take it.

He could feel Bridge at his shoulder and prayed the green ranger wouldn't try to help; right now any interference at all would only make things worse. Fortunately Bridge seemed to recognise that trying to help would do more harm than good and stayed back, but always close enough that he could jump in if he had to.

Come on, come on, he thought. Wake up already! He couldn't keep this up forever and already he could feel himself beginning to flag, his body screaming at him to rematerialise before it was too late. Just a bit more, come on. You can do this. There was no change, nothing to indicate anything was changing or was about to, then, just as he couldn't take any more, Sky's eyes flew open.

-----

He stared around the room wildly, panic running riot before he recognised his room at the base: the photo on the nightstand; Bridge's computer in the corner; Bridge supporting an ashen faced Jack. He blinked as that last one sank in, confusion pushing back the terror that had been so overpowering.

"What--?"

"You okay?" Jack asked, pushing himself back up to his knees, Bridge reluctantly letting go.

"Am I okay?" he repeated. "What about you? You look like hell."

A ghost of Jack's usual cocky grin flashed across the other man's face. "Don't hold back, Sky, tell me what you really think."

"Jack…"

"I'm fine," Jack said, despite all evidence to the contrary. "What happened?" he continued. "What were you dreaming about? It looked pretty bad from where we were standing."

So that was why Jack was here. Didn't explain why he looked so exhausted, but it was somewhere to start. Then he frowned as he thought back. He didn't know what he'd been dreaming about, he couldn't remember any of it anymore. Even the blind terror was fading. "I don't remember," he said slowly. It had to be about that missing time though. He couldn't think of anything else that would have this kind of effect on him. Jack sighed and braced his hands against the floor as he pushed himself to his feet.

"Yeah, I figured."

Sky bristled, then offended pride vanished as Jack lost his balance and fell against Sky's bed. "What the hell have you been doing?" he demanded, lurching forward to grab Jack before he could fall back to the floor.

"Bit of this, bit of that," Jack replied evasively, his exhaustion more than evident in his voice.

"He forced his way through your shields," Bridge said and Jack's head came up sharply, giving Bridge a look that teetered between betrayal and an annoyed glare.

"Bridge," he said warningly and Sky's roommate shrugged.

"Sorry, Jack," he replied, not sounding at all apologetic.

"Wait, what?" Sky broke in. "Someone want to fill me in?"

"Whatever it was you were dreaming about, you were shielding against it," Bridge said quickly, ignoring the glare on Jack's face. "Jack broke through it to try and wake you up before you burnt yourself out."

"Thank you, Bridge," Sky replied pleasantly before returning his attention to Jack. His boyfriend was looking distinctly sheepish with a side dose of defiance and if wasn't for the fact that he couldn't even stand up by himself, Sky would have had no qualms about slapping him upside the head. "What were you thinking?" he demanded. "Do you have any idea how dangerous that was? That's what Doctor Felix is for, you idiot."

"And if Doctor Felix gets involved, how long before people start wondering if you should be back on duty yet," Jack shot back. "Besides, we didn't know how much time we had before you started flipping out, best to take care of it while we had the chance."

Sky opened his mouth to protest, but before he could say anything Jack started to tilt off the bed again and Sky yanked him back. "You're still an idiot," he muttered.

"Love you, too."

-----

Jack opened his eyes and blinked blearily at the blue paint on the walls before it sank in that he wasn't in his room. Once he recognised that blue paint meant Sky's room then other things started demanding his attention, like the fact that the warmth he was lying next to was his boyfriend and that somehow his right ankle had got trapped between the edge of Sky's bed and Sky himself, which was uncomfortable as all hell. Then there was the added bonus of generally feeling like crap. He was still paying for forcing his way through Sky's shields last night and it would probably take at least the rest of the day before he started getting over that. It was only adding insult to injury that Sky's arm was wrapped around his waist, keeping him firmly where he was when Jack desperately wanted to go to the bathroom. While in theory he could phase out and get up that way, the very thought of using his powers left him feeling nauseous, so no, he wasn't going there.

He eventually managed to wriggle his way off the bed and padded into the tiny bathroom, coming out again a couple of minutes later, feeling a little more awake. He eyed the bed he'd just gotten out of and sat back down on it, working his way back under the covers. "These are so not made for two people," he muttered under his breath, squirming slightly until he got comfortable.

"Well, we aren't supposed to have people over, so they're only made for one person."

The voice came completely out of nowhere and Jack sat bolt upright with an undignified yelp, barely managing to keep himself on the bed. He glared at the other occupant of the room who was wearing a faintly sheepish expression. "Don't do that!" he snapped at Bridge, heart rate slowly calming down.

"Sorry, Jack."

"Yeah, yeah," he grumbled, more than a little thrown by having witnesses to him waking up in Sky's bed, and wasn't that hypocritical. He'd been pissed at Sky yesterday for being exactly this uncomfortable with the idea. He glanced at the object of his thoughts and was surprised to find that Sky hadn't so much as twitched, whereas a yell like the one he'd not long let out would have woken him more easily than practically anything else save the base alarms. He frowned in concern. Maybe last night had taken more out of Sky than he'd thought. But Sky was supposed to be over the nightmares by now; he'd sworn he wasn't having them and even Shauna had agreed the dreams were less frequent than they had been when Sky had first gone home. Was it simply being back on base that had triggered the dream last night? Or was it something else?

"Bridge," he said slowly. "What was Sky dreaming about last night?" If anyone would know, Bridge would. He switched his gaze from Sky to Bridge and found the green ranger giving him a disapproving look. "I wouldn't be asking if it wasn't important, Bridge," he continued. "But Sky was fine until he came back on base. If there's a reason being back here's triggering everything off all over again then we need to know that and what it is, otherwise it'll never be over."

He could see the indecision on Bridge's face, torn between his ethics and his need to help his friend. He waited, not pushing Bridge to the answer he needed to hear. This was something Bridge needed to decide this for himself. Bridge sighed and his shoulders slumped. "Loss," he said quietly. "He lost someone he cared about more than anything." On that, Bridge's head came up and he fixed his gaze firmly on Jack. "He was dreaming about you."

Jack froze, his mind going blank. He lost someone he cared about more than anything. He was dreaming about you. The words echoed inside his head and he had no idea how to react. He'd never pushed, because with Sky you could never tell what he was feeling and finding that Sky felt less about this than he did would have been incredibly painful. He'd never let himself think that maybe Sky was just as involved as he was, better to ignore the subject than have to deal with the rejection that was sure to follow. There weren't a lot of things that scared him, but finding himself alone was the big one, one that he hadn't been willing to face. But apparently he needn't have worried. That just left him with the oh so tiny problem of working out what the hell he did now.

Bridge was still staring at him when he shook off the reverie, his gaze assessing. "Sky can't lose anyone else, Jack. He's lost too many people already."

"I'm not going anywhere, Bridge," he replied, stung and not a little betrayed by the implication that he wouldn't stick with this. He'd already had one confrontation about his relationship with Sky inside the team, and that was with Z over the supposed lack of trust he had in her, a lack of trust implied by his silence on the subject. Until they'd joined SPD they'd rarely kept anything from each other, and major things never. It was possibly the bitterest fight they'd ever had, made worse by the fact that they hadn't even been shouting at each other. He'd had a lot of excuses, but really it had all come down to one thing and that was that, despite his words the previous day, he hadn't wanted to tell anyone; and that despite the constant sneaking around, it had been good having something that was just for him. That had been a difficult admission to make, he wasn't used to wanting things just for him. Strangely enough, that confession seemed to have been the mending point for Z, and over the weeks that had followed they'd rebuilt their relationship. It would never be the same as it had been before SPD, they'd taken a couple too many knocks for that over the past few years, but that was okay. They had other people to care about now.

Bridge nodded, then paused mid-nod. "I just had a bad thought. Well, more than one, because they all follow on, but they're bad and--"

"Bridge!" Jack interrupted. "It's too early in the morning, okay? My brain doesn't work that fast. You're going to have to spell it out."

"They knew what they were doing," Bridge said seriously.

It took a moment before Jack caught on. "Well, yeah," he replied. "They'd pretty much have to."

"No," Bridge countered. "I mean, they knew what would happen if they pushed Sky far enough. At least in theory," he added. "I don't think they expected him to break out."

"They expected him to become a Psycho Ranger?" Jack hazarded, unsure if that was where Bridge was going and not liking it at all if it was. His heart sank when Bridge nodded.

"They had to," Bridge repeated. "Why else would they take an active ranger? They'd want to know what it took to push someone active, for a baseline if nothing else. They'd want to know if they could break an active ranger."

"And now they know they can," Jack finished softly.

"Exactly. Just think about what they could do with a squad of Psycho Rangers, Jack."

"I'd rather not," he said lightly, fighting the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. The idea of those people with a team, or worse, an army of Psycho Rangers was terrifying. A Squad had been bad enough, but this? This would make A Squad look tame. "SPD will need to warn all the former rangers they can get hold of," he said, thinking out loud. "Some of them still have powers, don't they?" Bridge nodded. "And even if they don't that doesn't mean they can't do exactly the same thing to them." He met Bridge's eyes and they shared a grim look.

"We need to talk to the Commander," Bridge stated and Jack nodded.

"Talk to the others first, though," he added. "See if we can hammer this out a bit more before we take it to Cruger. Assuming he doesn't know already. He was interrogating Dr. Kennedy, after all."

"But why wouldn't he tell us?" Bridge asked in confusion and Jack shrugged. It wasn't like Cruger didn't have a history of not telling them anything.

"Maybe he was waiting to see if we figured it out ourselves."

Bridge started to say something, but was cut off by Sky waking up and looking round at them in bleary confusion.