Chapter 28:
"Do you hear the waves?" Alex asked, after a few moments in silence admiring the bright blue sky.
"Yes, we must be close to the shore, obviously on the surface, or close enough to it," Jen said.
"Yeah, I wonder why they are letting us be so close to an escape way,"
"They know we won't leave this place without our children, they probably don't fear we might escape," she answered.
Alex nodded, giving her reason. He looked down and commented: "The floor is sandy, we are definitely out of the caves, well, at least temporarily."
Nodding, Jen took Tao from her shoulder and asked him, "What did you find about the Cattle of Geryon?"
"It was Heracles' tenth labor. He had to get the precious cattle of Geryon and take it back to King Eurystheus court. This involved killing the sentinels-Eurythion and Orthus- who watched over the cattle and their master, and then driving the cattle single-handedly through sea and land."
"Sounds like a though job," Alex said.
"It was," Tao said. "He began crossing the Lybian desert and found the heat unbearable, so he shot an arrow at the sun angrily. Helios pleaded Heracles to shoot no more, and the hero said he wouldn't if Helios allowed him to borrow the golden goblet the god used to sail across the ocean every night. Helios granted Heracles his request. Heracles used the golden goblet to sail to the island of Erytheia,"
"Well, the sunlight we've got, and this corridor looks long anough to make us beg for the heat to stop," Alex commented bitterly.
"what happened when he got to Erytheia?"
"No sooner had he set foot on the island he was confronted by the two-headed dog Orthrus, with one huge blow from his wooden club he killed the dog. Eurythion, the herdsman, came to assist Orthrus, but Heracles also defeated him using his wooden club. The conmotion caused Geryon to spring into action, wearing his triple war gear,"
"what do you mean triple?" Jen asked.
"Geryon had three bodies, three pairs of arms and three heads; so he used three armours, three helmets, three spears and three shields," Tao explained matter-of-factly.
"Holy shit," Alex cursed under his breath, giving Jen an eloquent look. "How did Heracles defeat that monster?"
"As it happens often with Greek myths, there are two versions. In one he shot the monsters with his poisoned arrows. In the other he fought him and tore him apart in three pieces," Tao answered.
"I shudder to think…" Jen muttered, looking at Alex.
"So he defeated Geryon and brought the cattle home with him?" Alex asked.
"You wish!" Tao said derogatively. "He herded the cattle back to the ship and sailed towards Greece, but he landed in Italy, where Cacus, the fire-breathing giant stole a portion of the cattle while the hero slept, and deceived him by making them walk backwards into a cave. This deceived the hero briefly, but he discovered the deceit and killed Cacus. Just when the hero tought it was hard enough to kepe the cattle together, Hera sent a biting horsefly to scatter the cattle with its irritating bite. Last, Heracles had to fight another monster, half-woman, half-serpent, and The Hera sent a flood which made crossing the rivers impossible. However Heracles threw stones into the river until the water was shallow enough to cross. When he arrived at the court of Eurystheus, the king sacrificed the cattle to Hera, and claimed that since Heracles had received help in two previous tasks, so asked him to do two more tasks,"
"Well, I guess we know now what to do," Alex said.
"We do?" Jen asked, looking at him with wide eyes.
"Jen, look around. What are we supposed to do here but walk forward!" he said.
"Sorry," Jen said with a hurt look.
"I didn't mean to hurt you," Alex said, putting his hand on her shoulder. "I was just stating the obvious,"
"You need to be careful with your tone," she said, softly, not looking at him. "It was the tone of your voice that made me sunder myself from you back in the 21st century" she confessed.
"The tone of my voice?" he repeated.
"Yes," she said. "You were harsh, derogative, cold and critical. You made us feel as if we were a bunch of useless morons. You made ME feel as if I had never done anything right, ever,"
"I made you feel what?" Alex said, stopping on his tracks. Jen didn't noticed and kept walking. "Jen!" he called after her. "Stop! Let's talk about this!"
She stopped and turned to him, her face impassive, although she seemed to be struggling to keep the mask on. "your attitude made me feel insecure of myself and my actions. Until you arrived there with all your bickering and criticizing I believed in myself and in my team. I thought I was doing the right things and I believed we were going to capture Ransik and I had the idea that I was a good leader. And then you came in, and burst my bubble," she said, still not looking at him in the eyes.
"Jen, my commentaries were never aimed at making you feel bad about yourself, or your skills. I offer you my most sincere apologies if I ever made you feel bad, or I ever made you feel less. Your job leading the rangers was much better than expected from a recently graduated cadet. You were exceptional in your leading and in your actions. My derogative voice was addressed towards Wesley Collins and anything related to him, I admit I didn't exactly like him back then, I still don't like him completely. My commentaries were supposed to be constructive criticism, and I never knew they sounded so terribly wrong. I guess now I understand why you wouldn't follow my orders, why you were all so angry at me. I admit also that frustrated me, and it made me incredibly angry, but I never meant to make any of you feel inferior, I just expected you to follow my orders, since I was the highest ranked officer, which, you have to admit, was to be expected," He looked at her and took a step forward, preparing to go from defensive to offensive. "Not to mention you have to cut me some slack, since you wouldn't follow my commands but you all fell on a beautiful straight line ad did everything Wesley Collins -who was a mere civilian- told you to do," he launched his first attack.
"We didn't do everything Wes told us to do," she yelled back.
"if Wesley Collins had told you to jump out of the clocktowers' windows you would have done it!" he accused
"And what evidence of that do you have!" she demanded angrily.
"Well, you wouldn't let me take a shot at the damned dragon, but you were willing to ride the megazord on the Q-rex back!" he said
"We were so frightened when he said he would do that!" she lied.
"really? Well you hid it very well, because according to the megazord cockpit's audio recorder you mentioned you trusted him for anything and Trip said you would all back him up until the end, so much for the 'we were frightened' bullshit!" he said. She stood there, looking at him.
"He inspired trust into us, we trusted him, we believed in him, he was our leader, you…" her voice died for a moment and she lowered her gaze. "You did the exact opposite."
"really? Well, there was time when you used to trust me and believe in me," he said. "But I guess those feelings died a long time ago. We've done terrible things to each other, Jennifer. We've been cheating each other," he whispered, walking past her.
"What do you mean?" she asked from behind his back.
"We don't belong together anymore, Jennifer, no matter how hard we try it. We love each other, and we will always have the twins after we are done with these tasks, but we should get a divorce, before we hurt each other even more, we just don't belong together," he said, looking at her over his shoulder, his face sad.
"No," she said shaking her head. "No, don't say that!"
"What am I supposed to say!" he yelled turning back at her. "we keep going back to the same problems, we keep going back to the same damn things, to the same damned time! To fucking Wesley Collins and his fucked life stealing! I am bored of fighting over the same two days Jennifer. It was just two days and they keep coming back to hunt us, to make us fight to tear us apart. We are never going to solve this problems, they will always be there, and as much as we want to have a home and a family, those two days in the 21st century will forever keep us from having what we want so badly."
"There has got to be a way, maybe if we let it all out, maybe if we…"
"WE DON'T TRUST EACH OTHER!" He bellowed. "How can we be married if we don't trust each other! How can we support each other if we don't believe in each other? I want to go back to the force, you want to stay at home—"
"That's not true! I trust you, I trust you with my life! We have worked together for years, years after that incident in the year 2001. You are stuck there! You don't see what we have now, you don't want to see that I trust you that I love you, that I believe in you! You don't trust yourself, you don't believe in yourself and you are trying to push me away from you, but I won't leave you, because I can see what we have! I cherish what we have. We went through a lot of things, a lot of painful things that involved us as a couple and us as human beings. We grew, and the love we had was too small for us. It was to young, too naïve, and it died. But we got a new one, a strong, powerful, mature one, a new love we grew from scratch. We can't apply the problems of our old love to our new one. We have issues, but not as a couple. We have issues as human beings, as individuals, and once you have realized that, we can help ad support each other as a couple, while we solve those problems," she walked towards him with teary eyes and looked up at him, her hands on his shoulders. "I'm here, I'm your wife, and you can count on me, because I will stay here forever, by your side, because I believe in you." She closed her speech with a tender kiss on his lips, that brought tears to his eyes. "Let go of those things, let go of those feelings that hurt you so much. It's the past, it's long gone and this is now! We are together, Wes married another woman, you led the Power Rangers into many victories as the black ranger. Let go Alex, so you can move on, let go, so we can be happy, let those things go, so you can be free, baby, I just want to see you free from those things that imprison you and crush, I just want you to take that dagger out of your heart, so you can stop bleeding and start healing," her voice had turned into a plea and she pressed herself against him. She held him tight, until she felt him break under her arms.
She held him, unaware of the sun that washed over their skins, hot and merciless, just like his pain.
