Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with the Power Rangers TV show; the concept and everything belongs to Saban.
Writer's note: I took some liberties with the story line of Power Rangers, although I did try to stick with it as much as possible. I also don't know much about magic or Wicca, so I'm pretty much treading in dark waters there. If something's wrong, I apologize for that, and please realize that I'm trying to do the best I can with the little that I know. Margery and Tabitha are the brain child of myself and a friend in Texas (I have moved WAY too much for one person!). Please don't take them.
Celine Dion, I Don't Know
Maggie woke up screaming. Her eyes darted around the room, searching for something, anything to look at so she didn't have to see the pictures in her mind, playing over and over again; a familiar little black car, broadsided by a moving van, then seeing the shrouded body.... The light came on, blinding bright, then Tabitha captured her attention. Her friend was pale.
"Maggie, what's wrong?'
The pictures wouldn't end, there was nothing she could do. "I killed him!" she yelled. "I killed him! He died, and it was my fault, and there was nothing I could do!" Tears spilled down her cheeks, but she barely noticed them.
"Shh," Tabitha said gently, and sat down next to her. Feeling the weight, Margery struck out and knocked her friend away. There was a thud as she landed on the floor.
"You don't understand! It was my fault!" she screamed through her tears, and curled up into a ball. "I killed him, and I couldn't stop it!"
The next thing she knew, she was looking into the face of a rather irritated tiger with her ears pinned back. She stood on top of Maggie, pinning her down with quite a bit more weight than she really found comfortable. Distracted, she began to calm down, but she couldn't stop the tears. As soon as the cat determined she was calm enough, she climbed down off the bed. Maggie curled tighter, if possible, and sobbed into her blanket-filled hands.
"Maggie," Tabitha's voice penetrated her brain finally, and she looked up at her friend, who no longer looked irritated. She did look worried, though. Tabitha began stroking her hair, gently soothing her with the rhythmic motion. "What happened."
"I don't..." she gulped, trying to make her voice work. "I don't think it's happened yet, but he doesn't survive...." She could feel the hysteria rise again, and apparently, so could Tabitha. Her hand gripped Maggie's shoulder, distracting her again.
"Don't think about it. It hasn't happened yet." She started the gentle soothing again. "Go ahead and cry it out, and when you're done, I'll get you some tea, okay?"
Maggie nodded, miserable and wishing .... She didn't know what she wished. She didn't dare wish she'd never moved here, and she wouldn't wish away the last ten years for anything. Finally, the tears eased, and she loosened the grip on her comforter. "Okay," she whispered. "I'd like that tea now."
"Good." She pushed the blankets away from Maggie, and pulled her up. "Come on. I don't want to leave you alone." Maggie paused long enough to grab a blanket and wrap it around her, then followed Tabitha into the kitchen. She sank down on one of the kitchen chairs and watched her fill the teapot. "Do you feel like talking about it?" Tabitha's voice calmed her as much as her purring did.
Maggie hesitated. "It was..." She could feel the tears start up again. "No," she sobbed. "Not yet."
"It had to do with Adam," Tabitha said softly as she pulled honey, milk, and sugar out to set on the table. "He's the only one you would have such a violent reaction to. Not even your dad."
Maggie nodded. "He... It was a car accident."
"Were you there?"
She thought about it. "No."
"Then how was it your fault?"
"It was, it was, I don't know...." Tabitha took hold of her shoulders and shook her.
"I know. Your dreams are always specific, and if you feel it was your fault, it must have been. But why, Maggie. Think why."
The rational train of thought finally intruded on Maggie, and she found herself calming down. She tried to think of why she would be to blame for this accident that was going to happen. She continued to think back, going back in her memories, sipping absently at the tea Tabitha gave her. After a while, she sighed. "I can't. I'm going to have to try again, later."
Tabitha smiled at her. "You look a lot better, you know?"
Maggie chuckled. "So, what time did I wake you up this morning?"
"Not too early, it's only six." She turned the stove off. "I'm going back to bed." She looked tired.
Maggie made a face. "I think I'll stay up. I'm fairly sure that dream will come back..." She stopped. It hadn't been a dream, it had been a Foretelling, and a strong one. "I'm sure that will come back if I try to sleep. They'll just have to deal with me being tired at work. Sleep well."
Tabitha had reached the hallway back to the bedrooms when there was a knock on the door. She checked the peephole, and started laughing. "Oh, this is priceless. Maggie, you have company!" she called, and opened the door with a flourish. "Come on in. She's in the kitchen."
Maggie looked up to see Adam, looking as if he'd run the whole way to her apartment, dark hair curling riotously, as if he'd forgotten to brush it. He seemed to relax as soon as he saw her. "Are you okay?" He moved swiftly to her, laying an arm across her shoulders.
"I'm fine," she smiled.
"You're up early." He sat down next to her, keeping a hand on her arm.
"So are you, and I know for a fact that you don't have to be up for another three hours," she teased gently. He still didn't smile. "What's wrong, Adam?"
He sighed and shook his head. "I don't know. Just... a feeling, mostly, that something wasn't right with you. And a dream about a tiger, who looked like it was about to eat you." He barked a laugh. "It made sense at the time."
Her eyes jerked to meet his. "A tiger?" she asked, trying not to show how panicked she was getting. Then Tabby jumped into her lap and began to purr lustily.
"Isn't that the cat from the park?" he asked, reaching to pet her. One hand still rested on Maggie's arm. She found the gesture comforting.
"Yes. She followed me home." Technically, she had come home in the jeep with Rocky and Adam, but Maggie wasn't going to tell him that.
"Huh. Must be nice." He thought a minute. "Wait. They don't allow pets here."
"She comes and goes," Maggie said.
"Has anyone reported you?"
"One man tried. They didn't find evidence of her, so they couldn't kick me out." Maggie shook her head.
"So... did you... I don't know, put a spell on him? or curse him?"
Maggie laughed. "No, it doesn't work that way."
"Why not?"
"It's the three fold law. What goes around...." She paused, a horrifying idea forming in her mind, but she forced herself to go on. "...comes around, only multiplied three times. If you send love, healing, stuff like that around, it will come back to you threefold. Same with hate, injury, and so on." She looked at him, and he blurred from the tears that suddenly filled in her eyes with the comprehension that filled her mind. "Oh, Lady, no," she whispered, and pushed the cat from her lap and stood up. "You have to go, Adam." She swallowed hard, barely able to talk. "Go far away and forget...." She couldn't talk anymore as his arms went around her and held her. She didn't have the strength to push him away, and found rather that she clung to him as she sobbed. His power, gently black, brushed on her shields and only served to make it worse.
"What happened?" Tabitha asked from the hallway. "I just got her calmed down." She sounded perturbed, but her touch on Maggie's shoulder was gentle.
"I don't know. I asked her about the cat, and she told me to go away." His soft voice echoed in his chest.
"What were you talking about?"
"The cat."
"Okay, what about it?" She sounded impatient.
"She said that someone tried to report her having the cat, and I asked her if she'd put a spell on him." He paused. "She said no, and said something about a threefold law, then told me to go away."
"Oh." She sounded as confused as Adam had, then sucked in her breath. "Oh. Oh, no. Okay, that makes sense."
"Good. Can you explain it to me?"
"No, not now." Maggie pulled away from him and wiped angrily at the tears that refused to stop. "I have to... I have to figure out how to fix it." 'I can risk me, but not him'. Her rather careless words to Kat from ten years ago echoed in her mind.
"Maggie, please. What is wrong?" He cupped her face in his hands, his thumbs gently stroking her cheeks.
She took hold of his wrists and sighed. She had to start trusting him sometime, had to tell him everything she could, if she wanted him in her life. And she did want him in her life; she just didn't know if he felt the same way. "Just... residual energy from some of the things I did. It has to go somewhere, and I asked the Lady to divert it for me, that I'd pay for it later. I forgot about it. That's why my kitten ended up dead in Eden, I think." She met his eyes. "I need you to... to stay away from me for a few days." She chuckled mirthlessly. "I can't concentrate when you're around, and I'm going to need to concentrate."
He finally smiled, and it warmed his eyes, although it didn't replace the worry she saw there. "Well, it's nice to know I have the same effect on you as you have on me. Rocky's been pulling his hair out."
"Hm, Rocky, bald. Interesting vision," Tabitha said, and Maggie giggled. It very quickly turned into hysterical laughter, and she collapsed back into the chair. "Oops. Sorry, Adam, I didn't mean to set her off like that."
"It sounds like she's tired."
"I'm sure she is; she woke up early.... well, duh, you knew that." Tabitha chuckled. "And she's been crying almost constantly since then. I'll get her back in bed."
"I can do that."
Maggie's giggles stopped abruptly as he lifted her, and she looked at him, startled, her arms looping almost instinctively around his neck. He grinned at her. "What are you doing?" Exhaustion hit her like a ton of bricks.
"Putting you back to bed. You need sleep."
"Sleep is highly overrated," she mumbled, and lay her head on his shoulder. He was so sweet to do this for her.
He chuckled. "Yeah, I know." He lay her gently on her bed and pulled the sheets up around her. "Sleep well." His lips brushed her cheek.
"Night, Adam. Love you." She slipped off into sleep, barely aware of his response.
"Love you, too."
Maggie cut the circle, dismissing it, and sank down on her knees. She was exhausted, but at least all that negative stuff was aimed back at her, where it belonged, and no longer at Adam or any of her other friends.
"Done?" Tabitha's voice from the doorway was soft and inquiring. "I felt the energy go. Do you want something to eat?"
"Yes, please. I'll be in there in a minute." She began to slowly put the candles away, then everything else. Using the chest that had been her altar, she pulled herself to her feet. "Ugh. I'm totally wiped," she mumbled, and staggered out of the room and into the kitchen.
"Wow. Some kind of spell, I guess?" Tabitha asked, setting a thick sandwich in front of her.
"Yeah. It's the reverse of the original one, but there wasn't as much energy to direct when I did it the first time. Plus, I had to thank her for the warning." She eyed the sandwich, not sure if it was going to work out, but took a bite anyway.
Tabitha got some milk from the fridge and turned around. "Well. Want another one?"
Maggie looked down at the empty plate and blushed. Had she really just eaten that fast? "Yes, please. How long was I in there?"
"About... three and a half hours." She set the second sandwich down on the plate. "I figured you'd be starved. There's a couple more if you want them."
The second sandwich took her longer to eat, and when it was done, she leaned back in her chair, relaxed for the first time in days. Then sat bolt upright again as a memory surfaced. "Did he really say that?" she demanded, staring at her friend.
"Say what." Tabitha sat down across from her to eat her own sandwich.
"That he loved me?"
The look Tabitha gave her would have wilted a flower, except for the smirk Maggie could see twitching at her lips. "So you did hear that. Thing is, he said that in response, so you must have said it first. Boy did he looked shocked, too."
Maggie felt her face go red, and she covered her cheeks with her hands. "I didn't," she whispered. Tabitha laughed and nodded. "Oh, great. When did that happen?"
"When did what happen?"
"When did I fall in love with him?" She picked idly at the crumbs on her plate, more to give her hands something to do than anything else.
"It's been that way as long as I've been with you," Tabitha said. "So, I would guess it dates back to high school. I'm sure it didn't happen after you left."
"Why didn't I notice before?"
"Because, silly, you were wrapped up in doing Her work. You had other priorities. She knew it, and I knew it, and I think he knew it, too. There were parts of the readings that I saw that lead to this conclusion, but you seemed to ignore them." She chuckled. "It was almost as if you didn't see them."
"So, what do I do now?"
"You could do a reading and find out what is going on with him," Tabitha suggested, her eyes glinting mischievously. Maggie glared at her, and she sighed melodramatically. "Well, is that foretelling still there?"
Maggie closed her eyes and focused on the nightmare she'd had two days before. It was faded, fading as she tried to grasp it, and finally just gone, just a normal nightmare. She opened her eyes and sighed in relief. "No. It's gone. Now I just wait and see what happens."
Metallica, Low Man's Lyric
Maggie woke slowly, slower than usual, and the first thing she noticed were voices. "The car took most of the damage, thank heaven. She should be fine, once everything heals again."
"When will she wake up?" That was Tabitha's voice; she didn't recognize the first one.
"I don't know. When she's ready. That's how it usually works."
While they talked, Maggie became more aware of herself, and of her surroundings. She ached... no, she hurt. There were sharp pains coming from one leg, but she wasn't sure which one. Both arms seemed to hurt equally. In between, she felt like a pile of jumbled bones. "Tabitha?" she asked, and was surprised to find she could barely whisper, and even that word sent sharp pains through her.
"Maggie! You're awake."
"Awake is one thing," she managed to get out, but the rest of the sentence remained in her head. Alive is quite another.
"You were lucky, Miss," a stern voice said. "You almost didn't make it." A gentle hand encircled her wrist, feeling for a pulse. "But you did, and I bet you're in pain." Maggie forced her eyes to follow the arm attached to the hand on her wrist, but everything blurred before she even found the elbow. "Here, this will help." She felt a sharp sting in her hip, then the pain began to go away. The blurriness didn't, however.
"Tabitha?" she repeated softly, trying to think, trying to remember.
"I'm here," Tabitha's voice said from her other side.
"What happened?" she turned to find her friend, then remembered the blurriness. Hopefully that would go away soon.
"You were hit in an accident. Some guy came out of nowhere, apparently, and decided not to stop at the red light just as you were going through the intersection."
"Is he okay?" she asked, and closed her eyes. It felt weird, having a conversation with her eyes closed, but it cut down on her headache. Headache? She hadn't even realized she had a headache until then.
"He's banged up a little," Tabitha said.
"What was he driving?" She had to know, or it would drive her nuts.
"A moving van," Tabitha said. "Now, you go to sleep. I'll call Adam and get him to stop worrying; I made Rocky take him home when he about collapsed from exhaustion."
A moving van, really, what a surprise, Maggie thought. "How long have I been asleep?"
"Long enough. But it's okay. You go back to sleep. Don't worry about anything but getting better."
Maggie thought about that, then nodded. It wasn't as if she could really do anything else, she thought. "Okay. Promise to make him stop worrying?"
Tabitha chuckled. "I can't do that. But I'll help him feel better."
"Okay," she mumbled as she drifted off to sleep.
When she woke, it was suddenly and with a lot of pain. The blurriness in her eyes seemed to have retreated; she could see to the end of the bed, but beyond that was a cloud of white. Except for the cast on her leg elevated at some angle, she would have guessed she were in someone's view of heaven. She turned her head to find out what else she could see, and found herself looking into Rocky's very worried face. "Hey," she whispered. If this were heaven, he was definitely an angel.
"So, she wasn't lying," he said with a sigh that seemed to go all the way through him. "How are you?"
"Mostly, I hurt," she said softly. "I'm glad you're here." She tried to reach out and take his hand, only to find that her hand - and arm - were also in a cast. "Hey.... how much of me got broken?" she asked.
"One leg and one arm. A couple of the ribs on your left side were cracked, and your right arm got really twisted, probably when your car turned over." He chuckled. "But only you could get hit on the left side and break your right leg."
She smiled. "How is my car?"
"Totaled," he said. "Sorry. But if it had been a smaller car, you would have been just as totaled," he told her. The vision of Adam's smashed black Mustang flashed before her eyes.
"I'm not?" she asked, struggling to keep her voice steady, as a tall, slender, dark haired woman stepped out of the clouds at the foot of her bed and sat next to Rocky. He reached out and took her hand, clinging almost desperately. "You must be Reva," she said. Enter the second angel, she thought.
"You are definitely not totaled," Rocky said. "Yes, this is my wife, Reva. This is Margery Jourdemain, or Maggie, as she prefers to be called."
"Hello. It's nice to finally meet you," Reva said. Maggie smiled.
"Yes, I'm glad I got to meet you, too. I wish I'd known about your marriage, I would have sent something." A sharp twinge in her side let her know that she'd done too much already.
"Hey, you did something for me," Rocky said. "I met her at the tournament. Her brother was competing against us. I almost didn't get to go."
"Oh, really?" The Lady must have really helped out on that spell. Well, Rocky had been a good friend to her. "How long have you been married?"
"About four years," Reva answered.
"What took so long?" The only reason she kept talking was because it kept her mind off the pain.
"Various things," Rocky grinned. "Mostly, she was away at school, and I was working. We kept up correspondence, though, and when she graduated she moved back here. We started dating seriously, and got married about a year later."
"Slowpoke," she grinned at Rocky.
He barked a laugh. "Me? Slowpoke? Now, I realize you had things to do, but ten years is a long time, Maggie."
She sighed, and gasped in pain. "I know. I had horrid visions of Adam getting serious with Tanya or some other girl, then getting one of my letters and breaking it off with her because of that. I kept my letters friendly and far between, for that reason."
"You are not the reason he's still single, at least, I don't think so. Tanya ...." He paused. "Tanya's a cool woman, but she...." He sighed. "I don't know how to put it. She didn't mean to string him along like that, I don't think...."
"I do," Reva said bluntly. "It was cruel. How many times did he show up at our house that first year we were married, saying he didn't want to be alone, looking like he'd gotten dressed up for a date?" She took a deep breath. "I know she's one of your friends, Rocky, but I can't make myself like her. And I did try."
He sighed. "I know you did."
"She's one of my friends, too," Maggie said. "There were times I didn't like her very much either." She thought a minute, refusing to give in to the pain. "That was about four years ago, and lasted about a year?" she asked.
"Yes," Reva said. "How do you know?"
"I was about to leave Chicago, and if I hadn't been sure I was needed in Kentucky right then, I would have come back here and told her what I thought about her." She stopped to breath, feeling her ribs pressing painfully on something. Her side felt on fire. "She would have beaten me soundly. I only had basics of about four different styles of martial arts, for all that Adam tried to get me to learn one and get good. But at least she'd know how I felt."
"Okay, that's enough," Reva said softly. "I'm sorry I even brought it up."
Rocky brushed her hair away from her face. "Hey, was your hair always so red?" he asked.
"Um, yeah, I think so. I mean, I think Tabitha's is a little redder than mine, but not by much. You're seeing it in contrast to white for the first time, Rocky. I don't wear white, it bleaches me out."
"I can't tell if it's the white from the pillow or because of the pain," Reva said softly, and smiled. "I really am sorry to have upset you like that."
"Oh, that's okay. Talking to someone has kept the pain at bay."
"You mean, you're supposed to have had something already?" Rocky asked.
"I don't know. I've been asleep." She smiled. "It's not that I don't like you, Rocko, but..."
"Where's Adam?"he asked with a knowing smile. "You two have the worst luck. Tabitha took him home an hour ago."
"Is he okay?" she asked, a little too vehemently, and she had to stop to breath again.
"He's fine. Just...."
Reva laughed, interrupting him. "I have never seen him so bad. What ever you have done to him, it's a good thing, but he's worried sick. He said he hadn't seen you since... a nightmare he had?"
Maggie nodded. "Yeah. I don't know..." She looked at Rocky.
"I haven't told her, and she'll take it fine."
"Told me what?"
"That I'm Wiccan. I had a Foretelling, and to avoid it there were a lot of complications, the least one being that he distracted me. I had to be distraction free..." She smiled at their laughter. "Oh, don't laugh too hard, Rocky. He said I was just as distracting for him, and you were pulling your hair out." She chuckled, winced, and resolved not to do that again. "And Tabitha treated us both to a picture of you bald."
Reva burst into laughter as Rocky went red. "Oh. Quite a picture. Tell Tabitha thanks for that one."
"I guess you've met her, then?"
"We've run into each other a few times," Rocky said, then the nurse came in to give Maggie her pain killers. Not long after that, she fell asleep again.
When she woke up, there was a purring engine on her chest and draped across her right ribs, and the pressure on her injured ones nearly made her want to cry. "Tabby?" she whispered, and tried to open her eyes. "Tabby, you've got to move, that hurts." The cat slipped off her chest and curled against her unbroken ribs.
"Does that mean you're awake?" a soft, most welcome voice asked, and she made her eyes open. Adam sat by her bed, leaning over her, one hand petting the cat at her side, the other entwined in her hair.
"Yes," she said, "and even before the painkillers wear off." Then the paradox slammed into her and she looked at him, eyes wide. "Did you smuggle the cat in here?" she asked.
"Well, sort of," he said, and gave her the half smile that used to drive her crazy in high school. Okay, never mind used to. It still did, if her heart rate were any indication. Maggie was glad they had taken the heart monitor away before she'd seen him again. "She walked in with me."
"She told you."
He nodded. "She said if you trusted me, then she could. And she felt that having something living curled up to you would help. I offered," he grinned, his face flushing slightly, "but she pointed out that the nurses would not go for that, even less than they'd go for a cat."
"Darn," Maggie whispered, and he blushed bright red. She wondered if she had, too, then chuckled, wincing at the stabbing pain.
"We've had two near calls already, and we haven't been here that long," he continued, trying to regain his composure. "Kat and Tommy were here for a while." He looked at her, head tilted to the side, color nearly restored. "Tabitha reminds me a lot of Kat, you know?"
"Yeah, I've noticed that, too," she said softly. "I'm glad to see you."
He chuckled. "So Rocky said when he called me earlier." He leaned down and kissed her forehead. "Don't do that again," he said.
"It was out of my hands, Adam," she said.
He looked away from her, his hand moving in her hair, stroking gently. "What was your nightmare?"
"That morning you showed up at our apartment?"
"Yes."
She sighed. "I dreamed that... there was an accident, and..." She paused, looking up at him, meeting his eyes. They were deep brown, full of concern for her. She tried not to get lost in them, and found that she failed miserably, or was too late to take that kind of caution. It had already happened. "And you died. And it was my fault."
"Your fault?" He touched her face, running his fingers down the side of it ever so lightly, but she still felt twinges from the bruises. She didn't say a thing, but he stopped and went back to petting the cat. "Were you driving?"
"No. I wasn't even there."
"Then how was it your fault?"
"Remember the threefold law?" He nodded. "I had to... had to..." She paused, trying to find the right words. "Destroy a werewolf, and a few other things. And while it was for a good cause, still, there were repercussions. I had diverted those away from me, and... forgot that I had to pay the price, sometime. She reminded me... and if I hadn't acted, if I had let it stay away from me..." She was surprised to find that he blurred, then tears trickled from her eyes. "I would have killed you. Maybe I wasn't driving the car that would have hit you, but it would have been my doing. The dream was a warning."
"So, what happened?" he asked, gently wiping the tears from her eyes.
"I think... I think I took your place. Or, you were taking mine, if I hadn't undone the spell. My car is just sturdier than yours. I don't know. But as I pointed out to Her, I can't serve Her if I'm dead." But I can if you are....
"Oh." He nodded. "Dangerous line of work."
She grinned. "No more dangerous than your former one. At lot less dangerous, in some ways."
"Scared me to death." He was whispering, his mouth by her ear. "Please try not to do that again."
"Please forgive me," she whispered back. At least he hadn't made her promise it wouldn't happen again. She had a horrid feeling it would, and more often than she'd really like, if her memories of her mother were any indication. And possibly more often than he'd like, if they ended up together. She pushed the thought away, almost afraid to think like that, to get her hopes up.
"Always." His breath was warm on her neck. "I'm beginning to think I'd go crazy without you."
"And if you don't kiss me, I am going to go crazy," she responded, and he did, almost before she finished her sentence.