Comments: Let me say that I'm truly apologetic about the length of time it's taken me to write this chapter. To say it's not gone well would be an understatement! Writer's block set in and...well, anyway. What should have only taken a week or two has almost taken me longer than writing the previous eight chapters put together!
This picks up where Time To Heal left off.
Disclaimer: The events, characters and at least some of the dialogue belong to BVE, not me. I'm not making any money out of this -- it's purely for entertainment.
This is an interpretation of the whole Clash For Control arc with a few of the plot hitches smoothed out.
With grateful thanks to Selma and Darcy for the assorted cattle prodding you guys have done, and with MASSIVE thanks to Ekat for the hand holding, nurse-maiding, cattle prodding, beta'ing, question answering and patience you've shown me through this chapter. You are an absolute angel!
Please offer feedback -- glad you guys are enjoying it (and I promise the next few chapters will be out quicker!)
~*~
Identity -- Control Issues
"Whoa -- where do you think you're going?" Jen enquired, as Wes moved to stand up.
"To talk to Eric," Wes replied.
Jen got to her feet. "Nonono. You stay right here. We," and Jen gestured at the other rangers, "go talk to Eric."
Wes sighed. "He doesn't like any of us -- but at least he knows me." He got to his feet. "Besides, I've been cooped up in here too long. And I am feeling better."
Jen groaned. "Wes, you're impossible."
"He's also right," Lucas commented. "About Eric, at least."
"I know." Jen sighed. "Doesn't mean I have to think it's a good idea, though."
Wes rolled his eyes as the rangers started to leave the clock tower. "Why? What could I possibly do? All we're doing is talking to the guy."
~*~
With hindsight, Wes realised that he should have known something out of the ordinary was bound to happen after so vehemently protesting nothing would. But not even his powers of imagination could have dreamed of this.
Jen is going to kill me.
He and the other four rangers had gone to the Silver Guardians' compound, had sought out Eric and had tried talking some sense into him. But Eric had cut the floor out from under them.
Why we assumed he didn't know what he had, I don't know,
Wes mused. It was stupid. Especially on my part.Eric clearly knew all too well what he had in the quantum morpher and attendant powers, and said as much. And before anyone could contradict him, there had been a flash of light and a time hole had appeared on the horizon.
"Ransik must be going for the Quantasaurus!" Trip had exclaimed.
"No-one," Eric had vowed, "is getting the Quantasaurus but me."
Without waiting for any kind of response, Eric had morphed and had summoned something that looked decidedly reminiscent of a fighter jet to Wes' eyes, called the TF Eagle.
It had been clear, at least to Wes, that Eric was planning on going through the time hole to find the Quantasaurus. But that, Wes realised, was his last piece of conscious thought process. The next minute of his life had been purely instinctive. As the TF Eagle, with Eric aboard, had started to lift off, Wes had found himself running towards it, morphing -- which induced a burst of pain that he managed to shrug off -- and leaping for the jet, determined that Eric shouldn't go alone.
That determination had been his last thought of any kind, which brought Wes to his present situation. Had he succeeded? Or had Eric evaded him and was he now lying on the couch in the clock tower about to be on the receiving end of another Jen lecture?
Wes opened his eyes.
And found himself staring up at blue sky through the fronds of comfortably the biggest fern he had ever seen.
"Where am I?"
Then a sight that every fibre of his body said was impossible drifted across his field of vision: A pterodactyl. It was one thing to know that time travel was possible -- it was another to actually do it, Wes realised.
"When am I?" he wondered, sitting up and taking in the details of the lush vegetation he was surrounded by.
"My guess," drawled a voice behind him, "is that we've gone back about a hundred and fifty million years. Give or take."
Wes swiftly got to his feet and turned to face the speaker -- and tried not to wince as the manoeuvre upset assorted injuries. Eric just shook his head and headed back in the direction of the TF Eagle. For a lack of a better idea, Wes followed.
"Know something," Eric remarked. "I had pegged you as smarter than this."
"What?" Wes tried to drag his attention back to Eric, but the sight of a Stegosaurus ambling through a nearby clearing was more than distracting.
His attention did return to Eric however as the Silver Guardian brought his hand down on Wes' shoulder and shook it.
"This was stupid, Wes," Eric commented.
Wes winced. "What was?"
"Following me here."
"Look -- you're not the only one here for the Quantasaurus. Ransik's sent a mutant and..."
Before Wes could finish, Eric had grabbed him by the shirtfront. "I'm gonna get the Q-Rex. Not some mutant. And I don't need your help!" Punctuating the sentence, Eric pushed Wes backwards.
Wes landed awkwardly on his back, the breath knocked out of him. Abused ribs complained and for a couple of seconds, he saw stars. But as that faded, the ground started to shake with an ominous rumble.
I have a very bad feeling about this.
"Eric..."
"Shh!" Eric waved at him to be quiet, clearly trying to pinpoint the direction of the noise.
Wes, in turn, also listened. Silence. Then...
An ear splitting roar sounded from directly behind Wes. He didn't want to turn round and look -- particularly given the expression of total horror on Eric's face.
"Run!"
Wes found himself being pulled to his feet by Eric and dragged off at a breakneck pace. The jungle around them erupted with the sounds of something big and nasty in the hunt for food. It was several yards before Wes even dared to look back and confirm it, but when he did, he wished he hadn't. He was not enough of a dinosaur expert to instantly identify what was chasing them -- but big, mean and hungry with lots of teeth seemed to fit the bill.
The chase continued unimpeded for, what Wes later estimated, about a mile. Neither he nor Eric exchanged words they just ran. If either stumbled, the other caught him to prevent the fall.
Suddenly, the path -- such as it was -- petered out into a wall of foliage too dense for them to get through.
"There's gotta be a way through this!" Eric muttered, frantically searching.
Wes glanced over his shoulder to see how much of a lead they had on their pursuer. "Oh, crap!"
He pushed Eric one way and dived in the other, just as the beast lunged for them both. There was a spurt of pain as Wes landed and rolled to a stop at the base of an impossibly large tree. Looking round, though, he realised that the chasing dinosaur had followed Eric and was now towering over him, toying with him and all but completely ignoring Wes' position.
Wes got back to his feet. Sure, it was tempting to let Eric become some dinosaur's breakfast, but Wes had no intention of sticking around in this time period and to get back to the right time, he would need Eric. With that thought in mind Wes eyed up the distance between him and Eric.
The dinosaur lifted its snout, presumably preparing to finally take a bite. "No chance, buddy," Wes muttered, and dived across.
The dive took him directly between Eric's prone form and the snapping jaws of the dinosaur. He grabbed Eric's arm as he passed and dragged the Silver Guardian out of the way just as the dinosaur lunged.
The dinosaur got a mouth full of vegetation for its troubles.
Wes' much abused ribs complained again.
Eric lay where he'd landed, more than slightly stunned at the narrow escape.
Wes shook his head, trying to clear the black spots that seemed to suddenly fill his vision, and staggered to his feet. The first clear thing he saw was the dinosaur recovering from its unexpected mouthful of leaves.
"Crap! C'mon -- get up...we gotta go!"
Almost to underline the point, the dinosaur roared. That seemed to spur Eric into moving. Wes reached to offer him a hand up -- a gesture Eric accepted -- and they restarted the chase.
This section lasted much less time as they found themselves almost running off the edge of a twenty-foot drop. Wes saw the cliff edge first and managed to stop in time. Eric only saw it at the last moment. For a couple of seconds his arms frantically pinwheeled in an effort not to go head first down the cliff before Wes grabbed one and dragged him back from the edge.
Behind them, the dinosaur roared. Slowly, they both turned back to face their pursuer. Perhaps sensing its prey was now thoroughly trapped, the dinosaur's charge slowed to something that -- in a human -- would have been called a strut.
"We're toast."
Wes ignored Eric's calm assessment. There had to be a way out of this. Frantically, Wes cast his eyes around their location, praying for some kind of inspiration. There was the jungle that they'd just left -- but between them and it was the dinosaur. Behind them was the twenty-foot drop, which was unlikely to kill them but... Then his eyes fell on a rise of land about a hundred yards to their left -- and more particularly the small opening at its base.
"Not if we can make it to that cave," Wes finally answered.
"What cave?"
"Over there." Wes pointed. "I think we can make it."
"And get pinned in there?" Eric retorted.
"It's gotta be better than becoming prehistoric lunch! Besides -- it would give us the chance to morph and get the hell away from that thing."
"When you put it that way..."
Eric bolted towards the cave mouth. Wes followed suit.
The dinosaur roared its anger and picked its pace up once more, clearly determined its meal was not about to escape. Eric, who was a couple of yards ahead, dived for the cave and made it safely. The dinosaur roared again. Wes stumbled.
The tiny slip was all it took for the dinosaur to block Wes' escape. There was a long frozen moment where he found himself staring straight at the dinosaur. Then the dinosaur gave another ear-splitting roar and lunged forward. Instinctively Wes leapt back, out of range, only to land awkwardly and off balance, teetering on the cliff edge.
Then the dinosaur lunged again.
Oh crap!
~*~
The first thing that came to Wes as he slowly swam back to consciousness was the unbelievable sense of déjà vu.
Not again.
He knew he was lying on his back and for a fraction of a second, he thought he could feel the clock tower couch beneath him. Then a distant roar sounded.
Well that's not something from the clock tower. Where the hell am I?
And slowly the remembrance of what had occurred filtered through the cotton wool that seemed to once again be shrouding his mind. He took a few moments more to assess what damage the fall had done to him.
The obvious was that his chest was throbbing with a low grade but steady pain, something that boded no good whatsoever. Beyond that were sundry other aches and pains, most notably in his head.
Must have cracked it good and hard.
Injuries catalogued as best he could, Wes finally risked opening his eyes to see where he'd landed. For a few moments, his vision blurred and swam. A distracted aspect of his mind informed him this probably meant he was concussed. Wes ignored it. Eventually he managed to focus on the cliff top he had fallen from. There was no sign of either Eric or the dinosaur.
Not that I was expecting there to be.
He sighed. Now that he was conscious, the question arose, what was he going to do? The obvious answer was that he needed to find Eric and the Quantasaurus...but how? Or where?
For all I know, Eric might have found the Quantasaurus already and gone,
Wes mused, although even as the thought crossed his mind, he dismissed it. Eric was a lot of things, but he wasn't that mean. At least, Wes didn't think he was.Slowly he got to his feet. For a few moments, the world swayed, then everything settled back on its proper axis. He slowly scanned the area and spotted a likely path.
Might as well go that way.
The first few yards were tough going as more aches and pains made themselves known, but with no other option, Wes gritted his teeth and continued, hoping that he was heading in the right direction.
Wes didn't know how long he stumbled along the path. It could have been minutes or it could have been hours, his sense of time seemed to be thoroughly confused. He suspected that part of the problem was that he was fading in and out of full consciousness, but there didn't seem to be a great deal he could do about that.
Even as he was noting that, however, the ground suddenly vanished from beneath his feet and he found himself falling again.
What the...?
He landed awkwardly, with a jarring thud. There was another moment where everything seemed to blur before his eyesight refocused. Looking around, he realised he'd landed in a pit, roughly six feet deep, but it was a strange shaped pit. The sides were angular and -- looking at the far end -- instead of it being flat, it had three indentations...almost like...
If this is a footprint I really don't want to meet what made it.
He painfully got back to his feet and scrambled out of the hole. Looking at it from ground level, it looked more like a footprint than ever. Shaking his head, Wes continued along the path, making sure to keep an eye out for any more giant footprints. But before he could get more than a couple more yards along the path, the ground started shaking.
Not again.
The sound of heavy footfalls filled the air. Barely keeping his feet, Wes turned and looked. Then looked up, and up, as a huge dinosaur loomed over him. For a full minute, he could only stare in outright shock as the monster creature came closer. But as it got closer, he realised something: This wasn't a real dinosaur.
It was made of metal.
"That must be the Quantasaurus," Wes murmured.
But along with that realisation came the knowledge that the massive zord was just about to step on him. Frantically, he dived aside, but the dive wasn't fast enough to beat the updraft caused by the Quantasaurus setting it's foot down, and Wes found himself being hurled through the air by the huge gust of wind. He landed some fifteen yards away, on the edge of a clearing.
Again the world vanished in a blurred haze. This time, his vision took longer to clear. Dimly, Wes recognised that this was not a good sign. Painfully, he eased himself back into a sitting position. Looking round, he saw the Quantasaurus make its ponderous way into a nearby cave. A couple of moments after that, the ground stopped shaking -- something that Wes took to mean the giant metal zord had stopped moving.
"The Quantasaurus Rex!" exclaimed a new voice. "I've found it!"
For a fraction of a second, Wes thought the voice belonged to Eric, but a glance into the clearing showed him the real source: Ransik's mutant.
"It's all mine!" the mutant exclaimed, starting out across the clearing.
The sight and sound of the mutant brought about a burst of adrenaline. "Oh no it's not," Wes muttered softly, got to his feet and launched a jump kick at the mutant, sending it flying.
Wes landed a little awkwardly, but managed to remain on his feet. "Think again, ugly."
"Haha, very funny," snapped the mutant. "You can't stop me!"
"Wanna bet?" Gritting his teeth for something he knew was going to hurt, Wes added, "Time for Time Force."
Just as it did when he morphed to go after the Quantum Controller a little over two weeks earlier, the actual morph was like pure acid through his veins, but at least once it was over and the pain died away he was left feeling somewhat energised. Calling forth both Chrono-Sabres, Wes charged forward to engage the mutant in battle.
It didn't last long. Thanks to the assorted injuries and exhaustion, Wes' timing and reflexes were off and it didn't take much for the mutant to get him into a chokehold.
"You might as well give up," the mutant gloated. "You can't beat me!"
Wes struggled to get out of the hold. "I'm a power ranger -- I never give up." But Wes wasn't sure if he was trying to convince the mutant or himself.
Then suddenly he found himself falling. Dimly he realised that the mutant had released the hold and had pushed him away like a rag doll. As he hit the ground however, he felt an energy blast hit his back. As consciousness started to fade away, Wes distantly heard the mutant gloat some more about the fate of the Q-Rex, and then everything faded to a blissful, soothing, black.
~*~
Wes wasn't sure how long he'd been unconscious for, although he got the distinct feeling that it hadn't actually been all that long. Recalling that the mutant had just been about to claim the Q-Rex, he started to push himself off the ground and back to his feet. Tired muscles and bruised bones complained, but he ignored that as best he could. The only thing that mattered was stopping Ransik's mutant.
There was a sudden blast of red laser fire.
"What the...?!" Wes stopped and turned to face the direction the blast had come from. Across the clearing was Eric, fully morphed as the Quantum Ranger, aiming the Quantum Defender at... "Eric?!"
"And where do you think you're going?" Eric asked, not lowering the weapon from its aim point right in the middle of Wes' chest.
Wes gestured at the cave entrance. "There's a mutant in there -- we gotta stop him before he gets the Q-Rex!"
"Uh-uh. You're not going anywhere. No-one gets the Q-Rex but me."
Wes rolled his eyes and groaned. "Ransik's gonna get him if we don't get in there." He took a couple more steps forward. There was another laser blast, this time right at Wes' feet. "Eric! What are you doing?" Turning to face where Eric had been standing, Wes discovered that the Silver Guardian was now charging towards him with the Quantum Defender in blade mode.
Wes avoided that charge, but found himself on the defensive -- and coming off worst. At his best, Wes knew he could match Eric blow for blow but this was far from his best. It took little time at all for Wes to find himself on his knees, staring down the barrel of the Quantum Defender in blaster mode.
There was a long, drawn out moment when Wes wondered if Eric was actually crazy enough to pull the trigger. Breaking that moment came two noises. One from the mountain behind him and one from just above the tree line behind Eric.
"The volcano!" Eric exclaimed. Then he looked behind him. "Oh no! The time hole!"
Before Wes could properly register what was going on, Eric had shot back into the jungle.
"Eric!" Wes started after him, but the ground started to shake and crumble and then a chasm opened up in front of him, preventing his flight. "Eric, you can't leave me here!" But in the back of Wes' mind he knew that Eric could. And based on his behaviour so far, he probably would, too. Almost to underline that point, the TF Eagle rose up over the tree line.
"See ya, Wes!" Eric's smug fair well drifted down to Wes over the increasing noise of the erupting volcano.
"ERIC!"
The TF Eagle flew off, quickly leaving Wes' field of vision. Looking around, he felt his heart sink.
This is it. This is really it. I'm going to die here.
And then the patch of ground he was standing on crumbled into the rapidly widening chasm before him. Wes found himself falling straight towards a steaming river of lava.
And then suddenly he wasn't falling any more.
In fact, he realised, he was being pulled upwards.
"Now we're even," Eric muttered as he helped Wes up onto the TF Eagle.
"Thanks Eric."
"Huh." Eric grunted. "Just hold on tight."
The next five minutes were tense as Eric piloted the TF Eagle through the time hole. Wes didn't think he'd ever been so pleased to see the familiar sky line of Silverhills as he was when the TF Eagle finally broke out of the time hole in the correct time period.
"Last stop -- everybody off," Eric commented.
Before Wes could ask for clarification, Eric pulled the TF Eagle into a tight, banking turn. Wes found himself being thrown off into freefall.
Oh crap!
~*~
Did anyone get the number of that truck?
It took Wes a few minutes more before he managed achieve anything more coherent. When he finally succeeded, he realised that the other rangers were clustered around him.
"Wesley Collins," Jen muttered, "if you every do something that utterly stupid again so help me I'll..."
Dizzily, Wes squinted up at her, glad that she couldn't see his face behind the faceplate of his helmet, but before he could say anything in his own defence, Lucas cut in,
"I don't think we have time for that now, Jen -- look." And Lucas pointed at something behind Jen.
Wes, aided by Trip and Katie, managed to stagger to his feet in time to see what Lucas was pointing at.
"Oh no..." Wes groaned softly.
The Q-Rex was systematically laying waste to the city.
"We have to do something," Trip murmured.
"Yeah. But what?" Katie asked.
"We have to try and stop it," Wes answered.
~*~
Stopping something as big and as powerful as the Q-Rex, Wes realised, was rather easier said than done. They had managed to force the savage zord into a retreat but apparently that had only bought them a brief respite.
"It only takes a couple of hours for the Q-Rex to repair itself," Circuit announced, perching on the end of the clock tower's table.
"Which gives us two hours to find it and find a way to permanently stop it," said Jen.
"The Quantum Morpher should have control over the Q-Rex," Circuit continued.
"Well that wasn't Eric ordering it to tear up the city," stated Lucas.
"Which means Ransik has control some how," Circuit replied, "and is blocking the voice recognition from the Quantum Morpher."
"If I had the Quantum Morpher," Trip mused, "I could bypass the blocking device."
"We have to get that morpher back," Circuit finished.
Wes found himself the centre of everyone's attention. "What?"
"As you pointed out this morning," said Jen, "Eric doesn't like any of us, but he knows you."
Wes sighed. "You want me to go talk to him."
"Yes." Jen nodded.
"What about looking for the Q-Rex?"
"We can handle that," Lucas replied.
Jen nodded again. "You deal with Eric."
Wes sighed and reluctantly nodded.
~*~
Half an hour later, Wes found himself sitting in the reception area of the Silver Guardians' headquarters, waiting for Eric. The receptionist -- a different, and even more bored looking woman to the one who had been there two weeks earlier -- had paged Eric and told Wes to take a seat.
That had been ten minutes ago and Wes was beginning to wonder if Eric was actually in the building.
"You've got a lot of nerve coming here," drawled a voice behind him.
Wes glanced round and realised Eric had managed to sneak up behind him. "We need to talk," Wes replied.
Eric lifted an eyebrow. "We do, do we?"
"Yeah. We do," Wes replied firmly. "Not here."
Eric smirked. "OK. This way." Wes followed as Eric led him out of the Silver Guardians' headquarters building and into the deserted yard area out back. "Now, what's so important?"
Wes took a deep breath. "The Q-Rex will be back any time now." Eric looked at him as much to say 'I know -- your point is?' "We think we can get control over it with the Quantum Morpher..."
"No deal," Eric cut in, not letting Wes finish. "And what makes you think you can get control of the Q-Rex with this," and he tapped the morpher strapped to his wrist, "if I can't?" Wes opened his mouth. "You just don't want me to be the Quantum Ranger. Admit it."
Wes stared. "That's not what this is all about!"
"Suuuuure," Eric drawled. "Admit it, Collins -- it really burns you up to see me with as much power as you."
"Eric this isn't about me. Or you."
Eric smirked and shrugged. "You keep telling yourself that. Maybe one day you'll believe it. Anyway -- it won't matter what you think soon."
"What?"
Eric took a step closer to Wes. "Pretty soon, I'll be the leader of the Time Force Rangers."
For a full minute, Wes stared at Eric in complete and utter disbelief before managing to exclaim, "What are you talking about?"
"Oh, that's right," Eric replied, laying the sarcasm on inch-thick, "you didn't know."
"Didn't know what?"
"Your dad's gonna hire the other rangers to join me and the Silver Guardians. I," and Eric underlined the comment by pointing at his own chest, "am gonna be their leader."
For another minute, Wes stared at Eric in complete silence before bursting out laughing. "That's ridiculous. You have got to be kidding -- they would never work for my father." Or you, he added silently.
Eric smirked. "Are you sure? They only want one thing, and that's to catch Ransik. With your dad's money and technology behind them, they'll do it a whole lot faster." Wes wanted to deny that statement, but it was simple fact. "You never thought about that, did you? You only thought about yourself." Eric rolled his eyes. "Typical, spoiled, rich kid. Truth is, your friends would be better off without you."
There was another, long and drawn out moment of silence. All the doubts and questions that Wes had thought he'd put to rest over a month ago surged back into being. He was sure Jen wouldn't want to work with his father or Eric, but at the end of the day, she wanted to catch Ransik and she'd already shown she'd do just about anything to achieve that goal. The others would follow her lead because she was their commanding officer. Even if they didn't agree with it. He had seen them do it once, right back when he'd first met them -- twice if he counted the fact that they'd followed Jen back to 2001 in the first place.
Eric was probably right. They would be better off that way.
But she's my commanding officer too. Until she tells me otherwise.
Wes looked back at Eric, who was casually leaning against the yard fence. "I came here for the morpher."
Wes took some measure of satisfaction at seeing Eric look surprised by the comment. The other man quickly hid his reaction -- but not before Wes had seen it.
"You want it? You're gonna have to take it from me."
"If that's the way it has to be."
Without waiting for Eric to make a move, Wes leapt forward into an attack. By rights and all logic, he knew who ought to win this fight. He was injured, probably still concussed from the assorted misadventures earlier in the day and bone tired, while Eric was fully fit.
But there was one major factor to Wes' advantage: Wes was pissed.
He managed to drive Eric back a good five yards, landing some solid blows, before the Silver Guardian even had a chance to mount a defence, and even once Eric had managed to put up some kind of defence, Wes continued to attack relentlessly. Then Eric did the only thing open to him: He morphed and managed to land a solitary kick to Wes' injured ribs.
Wes found himself flying backwards through the air for just long enough to think: This is going to hurt. Then he landed on the ground and everything seemed to explode into red, hot, fiery pain.
~*~
Wes wasn't sure how much time had passed. He felt a gentle touch on his shoulder. Opening eyes he didn't remember shutting, he found himself looking up at Jen's face.
"When we get done," she murmured, "you and I are going to have a nice, long talk."
"Fall in line!" Eric commanded. Wes got the impression that this wasn't the first time Eric had said it. Neither Jen nor the other rangers, who, Wes realised, were also present, made the slightest attempt to obey. "He's not on your team anymore!"
"Oh, you didn't know?" Lucas replied to Eric's statement in an almost exact match for Eric's earlier tone of voice.
"We told Mr Collins we weren't interested in his offer," Katie continued.
"Yeah. We like our team just the way it is," Trip finished.
Wes couldn't see Eric's expression at this but he could well imagine it, and that imagining was confirmed by Eric's next comment: "You'll regret this."
"No, Eric," Jen answered, standing up. "This," and she waved a hand at the other rangers, and included Wes in the gesture, "is what teamwork is all about." She crouched down again. "If we help you up, you think you can stand?"
"I think so."
"Good. Katie, Lucas, Trip -- give me a hand here." Wes found himself gently being helped back to his feet. "Now, we need to..."
"Rangers!" Circuit's voice came over Jen's morpher, startling them. "The Q-Rex is back. You've got to stop it."
"We're on it." Jen glanced at Wes.
"I'm not going anywhere," Wes stated, before she could say anything. "So don't ask me to. Like you said: This is what teamwork is all about."
Jen smiled faintly. "All right. Let's do this."
~*~
Although Wes knew it was liable to lead to more problems in the long run, he was actually relieved when Eric succeeded in gaining control of the Q-Rex. The headache that he'd been suffering with off and on since getting knocked off the cliff was back, and getting more and more intrusive. At least with the Q-Rex finally on their side, he didn't have to try and concentrate through it. And mercifully, with the Q-Rex on their side, the battle with Commandocon didn't last much longer either.
"Wes, are you OK?"
Katie's query brought Wes back to reality. He realised, with some surprise, that he was back at the clock tower, with no recollection of getting there.
"Not really," he admitted.
"I'm not surprised," Jen commented. "Circuit's diagnosis is you have major concussion on top of fracturing another rib and re-breaking the partially healed ones."
Wes winced. "Major concussion?" he echoed weakly.
"Here." Jen handed him a glass of a greyish, gloopy liquid.
"What's this?"
"Anti-concussion treatment," Circuit explained.
"I thought concussion patients had to be kept awake or something," Wes murmured, looking at the glass contents dubiously.
"In your time, yes," Circuit agreed.
"And this works?"
"Of course." Circuit sounded vaguely offended at the implication it wouldn't work.
Wes looked at Jen and Katie. Both nodded. "All of it?"
"If you're not going to drink it on your own, we can make you," Jen commented.
Wes looked from Jen to Katie and back and opted to down the contents of the glass without another word. It tasted as revolting as it had looked but the affects were almost instant.
"Wow."
Katie rolled her eyes. "You sound like my brother."
"Ugh."
"You don't like the taste?" Jen queried.
"Do I look like I like the taste?" Wes retorted, grimacing. "It tastes like the dregs of a three day old beer bottle."
Katie snickered. "Definitely like my brother."
"Katie -- I think Lucas and Trip could use a hand clearing up the office," said Jen.
Katie nodded and shot Wes a sympathetic look. "OK." She headed out of the attic, pursued by Circuit.
Wes swallowed and looked down. If Circuit didn't want to be around for this...
"Now," Jen began in a pleasant tone of voice, "you want to explain to me just WHY you did such a stupid thing as hitching a ride on a time vessel?"
Wes risked looking up at Jen and regretted it. Her expression totally belied the tone of voice. Under a glare that could have frozen mercury, he felt his mouth dry up completely.
"You could have been killed, or worse," Jen thundered. "And yes, there is something worse than death. If you had slipped off the TF Eagle half way through the Time Hole you would have got stuck in the time stream, which is something that no-one would have been able to do a thing about. You would have been stuck there from now until all eternity, not dead just in limbo."
"It seemed like a good idea at the time," Wes finally managed to reply.
Jen shook her head. "Impulsiveness is all well and good if you don't have any responsibilities, Wes, but you do now. You're a ranger. Yes, you put other people first -- the kids Tentaclaw kidnapped, the Silver Guardians Univolt would have killed -- but you have got to start thinking before you act because if you don't, it will kill you."
Wes flinched, and said nothing.
"I know you're not playing," Jen continued, in a gentler tone of voice. "I know you know this isn't a game. And yes, as far as Tentaclaw and Univolt go, if I'd been where you were I would have probably done exactly what you did. But this morning... Whether we like it or not, Eric is a ranger too. He's an arrogant pain in the ass, but he knew what was at stake. And just because you have some unresolved grudge with him..."
"I do not!" Wes objected hotly.
Jen lifted her eyebrows. "You don't? Bull. You can dress it up however you like, but the bottom line is you have a problem with Eric that goes beyond the problem we jointly have with him." Wes opened his mouth to object again. "Uh-uh. Don't say it because I can see it for myself." Wes closed his mouth with a snap. "Just because you have this unresolved grudge with Eric, it does not give you the right to do what you did this morning."
Wes forced himself to meet Jen's angry gaze. "I don't know what you want me to say."
"I don't want you to say anything," Jen retorted. "I want you to think. You're no good to anyone if you're injured. It's bad enough if you get injured in a mutant fight, but..."
"I get the picture."
"Do you?"
Wes nodded. "You're right... I didn't think. I'm sorry. I'm doing my best."
Jen's expression softened just fractionally. "I know." She sighed. "I don't like having to do this, you know."
"I'm sorry." Wes looked down again, feeling about as wretched as he'd felt since becoming a ranger. "I'll try to be more like Alex..."
"No!" Jen's vehemence took Wes by surprise. "I don't want you to be like Alex. You're not Alex. Yes, you're similar but you're you...and I don't want to change that. I just want you to be more careful...to think. Not to just react." There was a hesitation. "Besides I... I kinda like the real Wes Collins."
By the time Wes had collected his self-possession back together after that comment, Jen had vanished.
She likes me?
Wes slowly shook his head. When did that happen?TO BE CONTINUED...
