Alex/Wes, Jen, Trip, Lucas, Katie and all other characters from Power Rangers belong to Disney/Saban. Methos and Duncan belong to Davis/Panzer Productions. I am using them without permission, however I have not and don't expect to make money from this.
Reviews are always appreciated.
Alex Drake's Journal, March 17, 1996
Strange how the mistakes we make always seem to come back to haunt us. When you're an Immortal with a past as long as mine, there are so many mistakes, just waiting their turn. Now mine have seen their chance, and taken it.
"Damn!" Alex muttered, half to himself. "I can't believe we let them get away!"
Four pairs of eyes focused on his face and then quickly dropped away. His teammates' expressions were all various combinations of shock, anger, resentment, and confusion, all except Trip who looked both upset and sympathetic. With the discipline of long practice at hiding his feelings, Alex choked back the impulse to blame them for what was really his fault. His fault for letting himself be distracted, for letting the situation get out of control, for not telling them all the truth long ago, for being an Immortal in the first place.
The damage was done. Both Methos and Duncan were gone. Easy to understand Methos; he had escaped. But what was Duncan up to? They could only hope he wouldn't be an additional problem, that he had only followed Methos either in an attempt to talk to him alone or to find out where he was hiding.
"What do we do now?" Lucas asked, his voice steady and his face under control.
Surprising... Alex adjusted his opinion of his taller teammate up a few notches. "What Methos wants is here, in this hospital. He'll be back. We have to cover the entrance." He thought for another moment. "We also have to make sure he doesn't get to either of the timeships and make another attempt by going a few days or months into the past."
"There are five of us."
"Yes." Alex glanced around at all of them. Jen was pale and avoided his eyes, but they were all at least listening. "Two here. Three to cover the ships. Lucas, can you move the one Methos stole?"
"Of course."
"Good. Move it to where we landed so you can watch both of them. I don't want anyone posted alone. Can't tell how long we'll be waiting."
"Isn't there any way we can track him down?" Katie asked. "Do we have to just wait?"
"Trip?"
Green hair escaped Trip's cap and caught the sun as he shook his head. "No. We have no way to scan Immortals, their lifesigns are normal human." Lucas and Katie exchanged a silent glance. Alex saw Jen's lips compress.
"All right." He hesitated, wondering, and then went on. "Lucas, Katie, Trip, return to the ship. Jen, you're with me."
They hesitated, looking at Jen, and for a moment he thought he'd have to order them to go, until she gave them a curt nod. Lucas turned away, taking Katie's arm as he started back to the street. Trip lingered, his eyes moving from Alex to Jen and back, but then he followed.
Now the hardest part. Alex took a deep breath and faced his former fiancée, the woman he had known and loved in two different lifetimes. "Jen, we need to talk about this-" he started.
"No." She backed away, arms crossed as if hugging herself, only giving him a brief glance from the corner of her eyes as if the sight hurt her. "Alex... Wes... whoever you are. Not now."
Duncan felt his fingers brush his sword almost of their own accord. His sword - a momentary image came to him of the Japanese katana he had been using in this era of his past, the remembered gleam of light running over the blade bringing an ache of longing. He, along with most Immortals, had given up carrying real swords by the year 3001, although he still had his hidden safely at home. In an age of weapons detectors and surveillance it wasn't practical. Instead, slung from his belt he carried what appeared to be a scrollbook, but - instead of unrolling into a thin, flexible screen electronically displaying a book or magazine page, at the touch of a button it would project an energy blade that looked, felt, and cut just like the real thing. Illegal, of course, but absolutely necessary for his kind.
With a frown Duncan pulled his hand away. There would be no need for that. When he had seen Methos slip away into the trees while the Rangers were busy with their own troubles, he had kept quiet and followed. Better this way. Alex meant well, but Methos wouldn't respond to orders and threats; he needed a friend to talk to him and make him realize what he was doing, to help him decide to give this up.
Unfortunately, keeping Methos in sight without getting close enough to set off his Immortal senses was proving to be difficult in the narrow, winding streets of Geneva. Duncan turned another corner and hesitated. The familiar form was not in sight. Which way had he gone? Wait... movement in the entrance to a small, tree-lined park enclosed in an ornamental fence. Yes, it was him.
Inside the low wall he stopped again, this time as a warning tingle ran through his head. He turned, circling to look all around, backing deeper into the walkways and shade trees and turning again, finally seeing a man step into view from behind the pillars of a small gazebo.
"You followed me," Methos said, his face harsh and eyes wary.
"Obviously."
"And your new friends?"
"I left them behind. It's just you and me, Methos. I thought we should work this out between the two of us."
"How do you suggest we do that?"
Duncan caught the movement of his friend's hand towards a pocket. He held his own hands up, palms out. "I suggest we talk about this. That's all."
"All right. Let's talk." Methos crossed his arms. At least his hands were in sight, and empty of weapons. "I already know what you're going to say. Let's get it over with."
Alex turned to pace back again, past the bench where Jen was sitting hunched and staring down at her own knees. Neither of them had said a word since her refusal to talk to him. He glanced at her and then looked up. Sun high overhead, a cool breeze rustling the leaves, a lovely, warm day, and yet under these trees he felt a chill.
Another glance at her face; her eyes wide and glazed, as if looking into some nightmare vision. What did she see? What was she remembering? The first time they had met, bumping into each other at the Silver Hills shopping mall in 2001? "Excuse me!" "Sorry 'bout that." But that hadn't been the first time for her. Maybe when they had met a few years ago at Time Force. Or those first tentative dates, dinner now and then, a movie, when they both had time. The day he had proposed. "I was thinking of something more permanent." The evenings together. The nights. How long had it been since they had touched, held each other, made love? An eternity.
Or maybe she was remembering the events that had torn them apart. The fight when Ransik had killed him. "You and me." "Forever." She had no way at the time of knowing his 'death' was only temporary. The brief days he had spent in 2001 as Alex. Saying goodbye when he returned. Their trip to 3000 during the final battle. Jen silently pulling his ring from her finger and holding it out, her face unhappy but determined.
No, she was probably remembering him as Wes... how he had joined the team, the shared danger - and the excitement, the companionship, the laughter, the - the fun... The five of them happy in their clock tower in spite of everything. Then the end of their mission to bring Ransik back, saying goodbye on the beach. Goodbye. "I wish I could live a thousand years..." Would he have wished it if he had known it could come true?
"Alex."
He blinked, realizing he had stopped and was standing over Jen. She had looked up, finally meeting his gaze. "Yes?" he said as steadily as he could.
"Just tell me why."
"Why what?"
"Why didn't you tell me?" she asked, her voice very low but quivering. "Why did you lie to me all these years? Why did you let me think you were dead? Wes - Alex..." She shook her head slightly. "I don't even know what to call you. I can't believe it. Can't take it in. I can't..." Brown eyes filled with tears raised to his. "I don't know if I'm angry or happy or - or what."
"Jen, let me explain..." He sank down next to her, reaching out, fingers finding the sleeve of her jacket.
"Explain?" She jerked her arm out of his grasp, sliding away from him along the bench. "How can you possibly explain? You - you aren't who I thought you were. Literally. You deceived me. Were you laughing at me the whole time, thinking what a fool I am?"
"I'm sorry. I wish I had told you." He saw her turn her angry face away from him, lips folding tightly together, expression stony and closed. "Look, hit me if you want. Shout at me. But listen to me. Please."
"I - I could understand - sort of - back when you were Wes. No one knew about Immortals then."
"Including me. I had no idea what I was then, not until years after you had left, when another Immortal tried to take my head and killed Eric in the process."
"Eric..." She looked at him again, startled eyes widening. "Oh, God. I read that in the historical records. The man who killed Eric was an Immortal, and he was after you?"
"Yes. I've had to fight quite a few headhunters over the years."
Again her eyes widened. "What - what happened?"
"I defended myself." He watched her face, seeing it pale slightly. "I've had to kill in order to survive. That's the way we live, Jen. Not my choice, but not many of us, mortal or not, get to choose what we are."
"That doesn't sound like Wes."
"It's Wes with a thousand years of experience, not all of it pleasant." He hesitated. "I was Wes so long ago... sometimes - most of the time - I think of him as another person. But when it comes down to it, everything I've done and everyone I've been is still a part of me, including him. Especially him. I grew up as Wes, became a man as Wes. It was as Wes that I became an Immortal. And... it was Wes who fell in love with you."
She gave a huff of humorless laughter. "Love. Maybe you loved me as Wes, but as Alex... you lied, or at least hid the truth." Anger was back in her voice and face. "Do you have any idea of how confused I was? What I went through while we were in 2001? I thought you were dead! How could you let me go on thinking that? Then I started to fall for Wes, and felt so disloyal, and so much more when you showed up again as Alex, and I was cheating on you, not physically, but in my heart... And now - I wasn't cheating at all, was I? Then I thought I'd lost Wes forever, but... Why didn't you tell me? What kind of love lets you hide something like that from me?"
"I'm sorry you were hurt. I wish I could have prevented it. But I won't apologize beyond that." Alex drew in another deep breath. "I may be Immortal and a thousand years old, but I'm still human. I make mistakes. I get confused, and afraid. I get hurt, on the inside, where it doesn't heal so easily. Look at what you said to me before about Immortals, how you're reacting right now, at how Lucas reacted to Duncan. Over the last thousand years, some people did find out the truth about me. Some of them took it well. Some just - turned away. Some tried, but they couldn't control their envy, or fear, or whatever. Some ended up hating me. And that's why I didn't tell you."
"Do you expect me to just give up and go back with you?" Methos' voice held an edge of anger as sharp and cold as the point of a sword.
"I expect you to be reasonable."
"And that means go back to 3001 like a good little boy, and let Alexa die all over again."
"Methos..." Duncan sighed. "You can't change history. You must know that."
"But I can. It's been done before. Alex did it."
"All right, maybe you can save Alexa. But what then? You already exist in this time. It won't be your present self who'll be with her, it'll be you of 1996. When you return to 3001, she'll still have been dead for centuries. All you'll have is a few more memories."
"But Alexa will have had the chance that was taken away from her, to live a decent number of years, to do all the things she should have had time to do. To have children. To grow old."
"They won't be your children. And she probably won't grow old with you."
"You don't understand at all, do you?" Methos took a few restless steps, moving from one tree-cast shadow to another as Duncan pivoted to keep him in view. "This isn't for me. It's for her. Whether the rest of her life is spent with me or not, it doesn't matter. I want her to have that time. I want her to at least have the choice of having children, of seeing some part of her live on, forever. That's their version of immortality. Maybe when we go back to 3001, her descendants will be all around us. Maybe not. But I want that possibility for her."
Unexpectedly moved, Duncan spent a few moments searching for an answer. "I understand, believe me. If it wasn't so dangerous, I'd be the first to help you. But we have to think about the people who already exist in our time, and what this could do to them."
"What harm could it do to let Alexa die at her proper time?"
He had to say it, even if it turned his friend's face to stony hurt and anger. "Methos, she did die at her proper time. This is the way it was meant to be. Can't you see that?"
"No! I may not have done a great many good things in the world, but saving Alexa is going to be one of them. And I won't let you stop me." This time when Methos' hand reached into his pocket it came out with a short black cylinder. With the touch of a trigger, it elongated, light flashing along the curve of a sub-space generated blade. Not normal, solid matter, Duncan knew, not a real sword, but just as capable of separating his head from his body.
Alex was wondering whether to break the silence that had begun to stretch out between them when Jen did it for him, momentarily disorienting him with a change of subject.
"You knew everything that was going to happen, didn't you? But you didn't do anything to stop it. You knew Ransik was going to escape. Why didn't you help us transport him to prison? With you there we could have stopped him, and none of this would have happened."
"I thought of it. In fact, that's what I intended to do. But - when Trip told me the story, when I was Wes, I didn't pay attention to all the details. And you forget a lot over a thousand years. I wasn't sure exactly when and where Ransik would make his move. Then, when the transfer was made, I wasn't informed. I didn't know about it until it was too late."
"And later? The fight at the prison ship?"
"Again, I knew it was going to happen but didn't know or didn't remember the details. I thought I was prepared. Thought I could take him; I'd done it before. Obviously, I was wrong."
"And - and..." She stared at him. "Did you...?"
"Yes, I died. For real. Woke up a day later in the Time Force morgue." Where Patrick-Methos had been waiting.
"Why didn't you contact us? Tell us you were alive?"
"I wanted to. For one thing, it took Time Force a while to release me from the hospital, despite the fact that they couldn't find anything wrong with me. Then they took a few weeks before they'd let me come back on active duty. Maybe they were right." He frowned. "Maybe Logan was trying to protect me, since it would have looked strange if I showed up strong and healthy right after being 'almost' killed. And then... I didn't know what to say, how to tell you. I ended up waiting a few more weeks until I was due to show up in person."
"In person. Right. Why did you tell Wes - tell yourself - that his father was going to die? You must have known it wasn't true."
He had been expecting that question, sooner or later. "Ransik had changed the timeline with his attack. In the new version, Dad had died. I knew I had to try to save him, but it was more important to stop Frax's attack. There was always the possibility that things wouldn't go the way I remembered as Wes. It seemed better not to give false hope."
"And it got Wes out of the way for you." Her glance was resentful.
"Yes, it did. It was necessary that I be there for that first battle, to prevent you from accidentally blowing yourselves up. Besides..." He felt his lips twist into a slight, ironic smile. "I knew that's what was supposed to happen: thinking Dad was about to die, giving up my morpher as Wes and then getting it back, the whole thing. I'd lived through it before, remember."
"Okay." She took a deep breath. "Okay, then... When he - you - tricked us into going back to 3000, why did you tell us Wes had died fighting Ransik and Frax? Why did you try to erase our memories?"
That was less straightforward, and more likely to make her angry, but he owed her the truth. "I knew you would return to 2001 to save me and stop the attack on Silver Hills, but I couldn't tell you that without giving myself away - and without possibly changing history by telling you too much about what was going to happen. The normal procedure at that point would have been memory dampening after a traumatic time travel experience, and return to duty. You were all trained officers; you would have gone through with it if you had known everything in 2001 had turned out all right. Yes, I lied, but the only sure way I knew to get you to break the rules and go back again was to tell you Wes had died."
"Then why did you want us to return to 3000 in the first place? Why not just leave us there?"
"If I had, you might have been killed in the first attack. We couldn't send you any help while the Q-Rex and Doomtron were fighting, remember. Later, after the Q-Rex was almost destroyed and Eric was injured and unable to fight, you went back with the Megazord. Without it, you would have lost." He watched her face as she thought about it. "It was hard, not telling you," he said softly. "Having to manipulate all of you like that. But much more than your feelings was at stake. Still, I'm sorry."
"I see." To his relief, she seemed to accept it without outward anger. "I still don't understand..." Jen's voice was calmer now, but her expression was still cold, except for the hurt in the brown eyes that came up to look at him. "Why didn't you tell me later, after it was all over? You're right; maybe I wouldn't have taken it very well, at first. At least you could have tried. You could have trusted me."
"I know. Maybe I made the wrong decision, but I didn't want to take the chance."
"The chance of what? We had broken up. You acted so distant, like you didn't even want to be friends anymore. What risk would you have been taking? Did you actually think I would have told people, exposed you and - and ruined your life as Alex Drake?"
"Try not to take this the wrong way." He paused, but she was looking at him expectantly, her brows creased in the way he had always found so endearing... "Over the years I've found that you can never be sure of what someone will do, no matter how well you think you know them. You're right; in this case I should have trusted you. I should have known better. But I was afraid... not that you would speak out against me, but that you would end up hating me, or thinking of me... as not quite human." He watched her face closely, thinking he saw both hurt and guilt in her reaction. "Is that what's happened now, Jen?" he asked softly.
"I don't want to fight you, Methos," Duncan said, holding his arms out, careful not to make any sudden moves.
"And you know I'm not eager to fight, either, especially when I know you're likely to win. But maybe this proves that I mean what I say. Short of fighting, you're not going to stop me."
"Damn it, why are you being so stubborn?"
"Stubborn?" Unexpectedly, Methos smiled, a not entirely friendly expression. "I said it before - what if it was Tessa? If you had the chance to save her from being murdered by a random thug? Wouldn't you be stubborn?"
Tessa... He was on the sidewalk beside their car, kneeling over her, lifting her into his arms. Beside him, Richie shivered back into life, gasping, hand reaching for where the mugger's bullet had struck. But there was no revival for Tessa. Bullets had no respect for their love, their plans to marry, no compassion for her mortality.
Duncan shook his head. "And I have the same answer as before. I loved Tessa very much, maybe more than I've loved any other woman. I'd give a great deal to be able to save her - but not if it means endangering everything."
"Then what about Richie?" Duncan felt his face stiffen and saw Methos' eyes flare as his barb struck home. "Yes, Richie Ryan. Remember him? How old was he when he died? Early twenties? Young, even for a mortal. What would you give to have the chance to prevent his death? If you could take back that moment, that mistake, if you could make it never have happened? If you could live without the guilt of knowing you killed him? He was one of us, an Immortal; he was cheated out of hundreds or maybe thousands of years, not just a few decades."
It hurt, even more than the mention of Tessa. Guilt - it hadn't been his fault, not really; he had been tricked, but it had been his hand that struck down his own Immortal student and protégé, the young man he and Tessa had taken in from the streets of Seacouver and treated almost like a son. The katana flashed through the air, slicing cleanly, and the head of the creature pretending to be Richie fell to the floor with a thud... It was only when the Quickening began and the unmistakable essence of Richie's life and strength and soul poured into him that he realized the terrible mistake he had made. Not his fault - and yet he had never stopped blaming himself. "Not fair," Duncan muttered.
"You could do it. It would be so easy. A word of warning, to either him or the MacLeod who belongs in this time. We could go home to find Richie alive. Don't you owe him that?"
Almost against his will, Duncan reached to his belt and unclipped his own weapon. As the curved blade flashed into existence, he took a deep breath, trying not to react in anger, or worse, in response to the prickle of fear he felt at how strongly he was tempted to give in, to help Methos save his woman, and then to save the two people he had cared for and lost in this time; to forget the future; it was a thousand years away, it could take care of itself...
"No," he said forcefully. "I'm sorry, Methos, and I understand better than you probably think. But I can't let you do this. Too much depends on it. I think you know that, even if you won't admit it." He held the sword up, blade angled above his head, and started his approach.
Methos swung without warning, not a blow seriously intended to do harm, but forcing him to step back and defend himself. The weapons clashed with a loud ring of energy-generated metal on metal. "You're a fool, Mac!" he shouted. "You were always a bloody idealistic fool!"
"You're interfering with forces you don't understand, risking the future of the world for love. You work at Time Force, you know the danger. Which of us is the fool?"
Was that uncertainty in the other man's face? Just a fleeting expression, and the nervous shifting of his fingers on the sword hilt. Methos hesitated for a moment, sword lifted, as Duncan wondered if he had listened and understood. But then the blade was flashing down. Duncan blocked it easily, but Methos took advantage of the instant he was off-balance to whirl and run.
Too late, Duncan realized their shouting and brief swordfight had attracted a small crowd, people scattering as Methos shoved through them. He started in pursuit, only to find himself face to face with a dark-haired, strongly-built teenager who eyed Duncan's sword tensely but refused to move.
"What's going on here?" the young man demanded.
Duncan hesitated. The kid didn't look like he was going to back down, and he had friends - an equally young black man and an Asian girl were at his side. There was a shrill whistle in the distance, announcing that the police were probably on their way. "Nothing. Nothing at all," he muttered, and turned his back, transforming his sword back into a harmless gray metal tube and walking away as quickly and inconspicuously as he could.
TBC...