Disclaimer: not mine.

Author's note: thanks to Nalanzu for threatening me into writing this.

Another time And Place
by Smittysgirl

Something which should have taken moments seemed to drag on for Dr. Terrance Smith. The young doctor shook the rubble off his back and rose on unsteady feet. Hayley, the woman he loved, his reason for being, lay nestled where he had lain. He had managed to shield her from the explosion just as Trent had opened fire.

Trent! Terrance barreled across the remains of the laboratory, tearing scaffolding from what passed for the ground.

It might have been too much to hope, but there had to be some chance that the others had survived. It all seemed so incredible in hindsight. Conner's brother Eric was Zeltrax. Terrance had barely come to grips with the revelation that Zeltrax was his old colleague Eddie Payne, and to suddenly deal with Eddie's death atop Eric's arrival was almost too much to bear.

A dark hand broke free of the ceiling tiles, and Terrance began removing the materials pinning the attached body down. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw Trent Ferenandez-Mercer alive and well - save perhaps for his Dinogem, still pulsating with an unnatural rhythm.

"Dr. T," Trent wheezed as Terrance pulled him back upright, "what just happened back there?"

He inspected the teen for injury, wincing at the laserations across his own back all the while. "Seems like you unlocked a level beyond your Superdino Mode. Trent, what were you thinking? You went into battle with all the safeties off."

"I'm sorry," the White Ranger said, avoiding the older man's gaze. "Zeltrax, was ... I couldn't stop myself. Not after what happened last night. Not after today."

Terrance slumped back against what remained of the Genome Randomizer. "Trent, I don't think the Zeltrax you faced last night and the Zeltrax you fought now were the same person. Somehow, somehow that was Eric McKnight in the armor."

Trent's jaw dropped.

Terrance nodded. "Though I guess you weren't in a place where you could have recognized any of us in that suit. I'm - I'm sorry about your father. Sorry I didn't do more for him back there."

Trent shook his head. "No, Dr. Smitty. Dad was right, taking him back to base made him a liability to us. We have to keep Mesogog the way he is, someplace where we know he's safe, until we can free my Dad from his control."

Hayley staggered to her feet with a grunt. Terrance climbed back over to her. She brushed past him in confusion, taking a seat on what looked like a stable collection of debris. "I think you broke my shoe," she said finally.

Terrance's grin widened when her eyes met his. He didn't know what he would do if he didn't have Hayley beside him. He'd have gladly traded his life for hers back there, though given all the choices he found this most preferable.

"Where's Conner?" Hayley asked when she regained her bearings. Terrance and Trent exchanged an uneasy look. The McKnights had been at the epicentre of the blast. Their odds of survival couldn't be good.

"What?" she asked again, more anxiously.

Terrance's response was interrupted by a heavy moan from the examination table's former location.

He was alive. Somehow he knew it. Maybe the fact that he knew anything was enough, or maybe some subconscious instinct had begun to process before his conscious mind took take stock, but Conner McKnight was alive. He was buried under a ton of crap and was blind as a bat, but alive never the less.

"Eric?" he gasped through the darkness. His lungs felt heavy from the smoke and his body seemed like it weighed a ton underneath all the rubble. He felt blindly for anything of his brother's, but all for naught. Conner choked back a sigh of frustration and kept at it, reaching and whispering for his twin.

This wasn't Trent's fault, he realized suddenly. The cold, reptilian logic he might have used before to compartmentalize his feelings had yet to descend. He had seen the desperation in the other Ranger's eyes, a look he had often seen in the mirror. A look he'd seen only moments before in Eric. They were being haunted by Mesogog, all three of them, and the cycle had to be broken today.

His burden began to lighten, and he realized gradually that the others must have survived, must have begun looking for them!

Conner lent as much strength as he could, and finally broke free of the debris. He looked around uncertainly as he saw Dr. Smitty, Hayley, and Trent kneeling beside the upended exam table. He moved behind uncertainly, gasping in disgust at the mangled figure sprawled out in front of them. it was nude, its hair and the Zeltrax armor burnt away in the explosion.

"Eric?" he choked, tears filling his eyes.

The others turned around slowly, recognition and fear crossing their eyes. "Guys?"

Dr. T and Trent remolecularized their morphers from bracelet form. Conner raised his hand uncertainly.

His black ... armored ... hand ...

Conner screamed.

"This is getting us nowhere!" Ethan yelled as he swept the area with the Fossil Finder. "There's no trace of them anywhere. We have to go rescue them ourselves."

"Yeah," Kira said softly as she sprayed chemicals across the field, forcing Ethan to strain just to pick her voice out. The Blue Ranger sighed. He hated being relegated to the sidelines like this, and he could guess that Devin was feeling this even more than him. Ethan, at least, was actively working on extinquishing the fire. Devin was pulling monitor duty with no relief in sight.

Today was going so well, too. He was pulling some work off campus for computer club, then he hoped to fit in later this afternoon - or rather, about an hour ago - some Detonation Man decompression time, and then he planned to surprise Cassidy with a nice dinner at the trendiest restaurant in the harbor district.

Now all he could do was worry whether their leader, their mentor, their other mentor, and Kira's off-again boyfriend were alive. In whatever free time he had left he had taken to mulling over what, besides the usual, had made their Yellow Ranger so introverted.

His morpher chimed. "What's up, Dev?"

"Hate to interrupted you guys," the Triassic Ranger said, "but there's been a massive explosion over at Casa Mesogog. I'm pulling up the data now, but it's enough that invisiportals have sprung up all over." Ethan chewed his lip.

"I want you back out there. Call Cassidy back to Ops, and take Conner's Raptor. If there's something the matter with the others, we're going to want the Triassic Ranger in our pocket."

"The Cambrian Ranger, for all the good I am with just two of you." Dev sighed.

Ethan shook his head. Devin's low self-esteem because of how his powers worked wasn't going to help any of them right now, especially not Kira. They'd need to work on that once everything boiled over. "Just get your rear in gear."

Kira walked over to him nervously. "Cassidy? Where did you send her?"

"Just back to base, don't worry. Somebody has to man the controls with Devin out on the field."

Kira clutched at her chest protectively. "But who's going to ... she ... she said this would all be over soon. Ethan, I can't keep doing this for people!"

His heart went out for the small girl. He knew how hard they'd leaned on Kira these last few months, and he was amazed it hadn't taken its toll on her emotional state before now. He patted her reassuringly on the shoulder. "It WILL all be over soon, don't worry. We'll get Dr. Smitty and everybody back, and then you'll be fine. I promise."

"Do you mean it?" she asked, her visor hiding the tears he knew were welling up in her eyes.

"Pinky swear."