Wes, Eric, Kat, and all other characters from Power Rangers belong to Disney/Saban. I am using them without permission, however I have not and don't expect to make money from this.
Nick Tate, while technically canon, is mine in the form he appears in here.

Rated T: Be warned, there is some strong language and talk about sex.

This story is slash, meaning sexual and romantic relationships between men. If that's not something you're okay with, don't read it.

The Secret of BioSynth

Connection

- - -

Their new laboratories were certainly well equipped, one of the advantages of joining forces with - or being absorbed by - a large company with deep pockets. Kat heard a soft buzz of excited conversation behind her as the small group of scientists she headed spread out into the room. She ran an expert eye over workbenches, supplies, and instruments, all better than what they were used to at BioSynth. Absently she touched the clean, shining surface of a metal storage cabinet, catching sight of the hologrammatically disguised reflection of her own face, still a little disconcerting even after all this time. Maybe someday soon she'd no longer need to pretend, but not yet.

"Pretty nice, huh, Kat?" a voice asked.

Nick was standing behind her, Jake Walsh at his side. Giving them a quick smile, she answered, "Not bad. Not bad at all."

"We should be able to make some real progress here."

"Yes, we should." Especially if she could get her hands on the records of Dr. Zaskin's experiments with the Quantum morpher. Better yet, if she could get her hands on one of the morphers themselves. There was still time, but unforeseen events had slowed them down... She glanced again at both of them and asked, "How are you settling in, by the way?"

"Okay," Nick answered. "Our furniture came yesterday, and Lyn's getting things unpacked. Wish I could be there to help out more. It's a lot of work, what with taking care of the baby too."

Jake nodded. "Wish I had time to pitch in more myself. At least I'll be on my own and off your hands soon, I hope."

Nick smiled. "Hey, you're family. Lyn wouldn't want her brother staying in a hotel. Besides, you're doing as much as you can to help."

"Everything will work out fine, I'm sure." Kat hesitated. "How's Schuyler doing?"

Nick gave her a quick, uncomfortable look. "Well - it happened again, Kat. Lyn was feeding him and - something invisible kept pushing the spoon away. When she kept trying, it knocked the jar right out of her hands. It stopped when she changed to a food he likes better - but she was scared. She's sure he did it somehow. That he can control it."

"Oh." Kat's heart sank. "I'm sorry to hear it. How's he doing otherwise?"

"Fine. But we're nervous about taking him to a doctor - what if he gets upset when he gets a shot or something and does the same thing, only worse?"

"We'll handle it when the time comes. Maybe I can take over his routine care; I'm qualified as a medical doctor. Don't worry."

"Don't worry?" Jake demanded, his voice lowered but sharp and his eyes narrowing slightly. "This is my nephew we're talking about. How do we know the long-term effects? What about the Carsons' baby? And Callie Drew is pregnant now too. What if the same thing happens to her kid? All of our kids, when we have them?"

"Look, Sky's happy and healthy, despite his extra ability," Kat said, trying to sound reassuring. "I'm sure he'll stay that way. Besides..." She sighed. "What's done is done. We have to make the best of it, knowing it was in a good cause."

"A good cause?" Jake said. "What good cause? You've never explained-"

"Shh. Company." Hastily she stopped talking as two uniformed men walked through the door and stopped to look around. Wes Collins spotted her, grinned and raised a hand in a half-wave, and started in their direction. Eric Myers followed more slowly, his expression impressing her as reluctant.

"Morning, Dr. Manx," Wes said as he reached them. "Thought we'd see how you like your new lab."

"It's wonderful. And please, call me Kat."

"Kat Manx..." His lips quirked, although he was too polite to say anything more.

"Yes, I get a lot of jokes. Maybe that wasn't the best choice of a name. On my parents' part, of course."

"It's very pretty," he said gallantly, and went on to her companions. "Jake, right? I met so many people yesterday; I hope I got the names straight."

"Yes. Nice to see you again."

"And this is Eric Myers..." Kat saw curiosity in the look Wes gave Nick as he put out a hand. "Hi, I'm Wes Collins."

"I know. I'm Nick Tate." Nick glanced at Eric and then back to Wes, his face tightening slightly.

"Eric tells me you two already know each other."

Nick's and Eric's eyes met. They both nodded, but what Kat sensed passing between them was anything but friendly. "Yes, we met in the Army. We were both stationed at Fort Dartmouth, outside New York," Nick said, crossing his arms, a faintly ironic smile on his face. "We spent quite a bit of time together for about a year, until he was discharged. Right, Eric?"

"I guess," Eric replied curtly.

"So you guys knew each other pretty well?" Wes had picked up on the tension between them too, judging by his slightly baffled expression.

"Not as well as I thought," Nick said, his tone edged subtly with sarcasm. Eric's eyes flared in unmistakable anger.

Wes glanced between them, his brows creasing. "Well... Always nice to meet one of Eric's old friends..." he said, and took a step back. "We should leave you to get on with your work. Eric, you coming?"

In another moment they had disappeared through the door, leaving a puzzled Kat to watch Nick stalk off to another corner of the lab, and Jake staring after the two Silver Guardians. She shrugged and sighed. Humans. Despite her years and experience, sometimes they were still beyond her understanding.

- - -

"Well? Are you going to tell me what's going on?" Wes had waited only long enough for them to reach an unoccupied storeroom on the way back to the Silver Guardians' area of Bio-Lab before stopping Eric with a hand on his arm.

"What do you mean?"

"Don't play dumb." Wes hadn't raised his voice, but Eric could hear the annoyance. "What is it with you and Nick Tate?"

"Nothing."

"Look, I didn't say anything when you sneaked off to talk to him yesterday-"

"I didn't sneak."

"Do you have a problem with him or something? Did he give you a hard time in the Army? If he did..."

"No, nothing like that."

"Then why'd he act like that?"

"Why don't you ask him?"

"Maybe I should."

"No!" He sighed and repeated more quietly, "No, don't ask him."

"Eric..." Wes moved closer and lightly grasped his shoulders. "Something's wrong, isn't it?" He hesitated, his fingers tightening. "Does it have anything to do with... Did he find out you're gay?"

Eric half-smiled. "Yeah, I think he knows."

"What do you mean?"

"It's been over for years, Wes. Just - leave it alone."

"Oh." Wes's hands dropped away. His face betrayed dismay, even hurt, before he hid it. "I get it. Finally."

"It was nothing. Don't even think about it." Eric watched Wes's face, trying not to look anxious.

"Hey, I always knew I wasn't the first guy for you. No reason for me to get upset just because one of your old boyfriends shows up."

"You were the first one who mattered. The only one who matters now."

"You don't have to say that."

"But it's true." He hesitated. "So you're okay with it?"

"I wish you'd just told me, instead of making me drag it out of you, but..." Wes moved in, producing a brief smile before the warmth of his lips pressed Eric's. "Does that answer your question?" he asked after a few moments.

"It's a start." Eric kissed him back, harder, arms pulling their bodies closer together.

"Hey..." Wes's smile was more genuine this time. "I hate to stop this, but we'd better save it for a better time."

"Yeah, I guess you're right."

They continued on their way to their offices and said a casual goodbye at Wes's door. Eric turned away to go on to his own office, his feet automatically finding the way but his mind already drifting, returning to a dark street in New York six years ago. He had told Wes the truth... most of it. What he had felt for Nick was only a pale shadow of what he now felt for Wes. But - much as he had tried to deny it at the time, and as much as he didn't want to admit it now, Nick hadn't been nothing. He had been a great deal more...

"Hey, whoa! Not so fast!"

Eric pulled back far enough to see Nick's face, the hand he had reached down between their bodies stopping its exploration. "What's the problem?" he muttered.

"The problem is we just met." Nick pushed him off and stepped away from the alley wall Eric had pressed him against. "The problem is... Shouldn't we get to know each other a little first?"

"What for?"

"I prefer to at least know someone's last name before we go at it."

"Okay, it's Myers. Happy now?"

Nick gave him an exasperated look. "There's more to it than that. I just don't like doing it with strangers, is all."

"Hey, I thought that was what we came out here for. But if you're not interested, there's plenty others who are."

"I thought we came out here to walk back to base together, not to get it on in the first dark alley we pass."

"Oh yeah? I didn't come back here tonight just to take a walk!"

"You mean you came here to meet me?"

Caught, Eric frowned and shrugged. "Well... I hang out around here all the time."

"Yeah, right. And that's why you're looking even better than the other night. All dressed up just to hang out with the guys."

"I'm not..." Eric couldn't help smiling. "You think I look good?"

Nick looked him up and down and grinned. "Yes, I do." He held up a hand as Eric moved at him again. "But I still want to talk first."

"Jesus H. Christ. What do you wanna talk about?"

"Well... What you do on the base. Background information, like parents. Friends. Lovers."

Eric shook his head, amused in spite of himself. "Okay, already. Special Ops, working in security. Gone. Very few. And... didn't get their names. Now you."

"Umm... First off, my last name's Tate. Biophysics, weapons research. Typical middle-class mid-Western family. A few friends, here and there. And... a few lovers. Both men and women." He cast a glance at Eric.

"Like it both ways, do you?"

"I'm equal opportunity."

"And you're a - what did you say? Biophysicist?"

"Yeah, it's no big deal. You're Special Ops? What's your specialty, hand-to-hand? Sharpshooting?"

"Martial arts."

"Hey, maybe you could give me a few lessons. And I can teach you all about quantum mechanics."

"Why the hell would I want to know about quantum anything?"

Before he realized it they had started walking again, still deep in conversation, that dingy alleyway left far behind.

Had it been the resemblance to Wes? No, that had been what attracted Eric to him at first, and maybe what made him persist when ordinarily he would have moved on to easier game. But no, there had been more to Nick than his appearance. That was what had made it last. For a while.

- - -

Nicolas Tate. One of the perks of being commander of the Silver Guardians was having full access to Bio-Lab personnel records. It had taken a few hours, but curiosity and more than a hint of jealousy had won out, and Wes had decided to use that privilege. He was now staring at a screenful of data about one Nicolas Tate. He frowned at the picture of a handsome young man with dirty-blond hair in an Army uniform.

Nicolas Tate... Married. One son, eight months old, named Schuyler. That was a surprise; either the guy was bisexual or covering - or it wasn't a conventional marriage. Another question, in addition to the ones he already had. Why the hostility between Nick and Eric that had been so obvious? What had happened between them? Something that had left them with hard feelings, even after all this time? Or maybe the guy was just uncomfortable at being confronted with a gay ex-boyfriend? Or - were there other feelings involved? Did he want Eric back?

Wes shook his head and closed the computer file. There was no reason to look for trouble, and every reason not to start acting like a jealous lover. Even if Nick was interested, Eric wouldn't be. Or at least that's what he said... Better to forget about it; think about something else. Wes looked at the pile of papers in his inbox and sighed. Sometimes work had its uses.

It seemed like any other letter, at first, a plain envelope, computer-printed, addressed to him at Bio-Lab. The single sheet of paper inside seemed blank at first glance. Wes unfolded it, read it, and frowned. Strange. Just some weirdo, probably.

"Huh," he muttered after a moment's hesitation. "It's a secret from me, too." A moment later he tossed it aside to be filed with the other assorted threats and rants, trying to ignore his lingering sense of uneasiness.

- - -

Alan Collins scowled at the envelope in his hand, and the folded piece of paper that had come out of it. He hesitated, and then shrugged. He had a drawer full of similar things, no reason this one should be any different, and yet somehow it disturbed him. Inevitably a company like Bio-Lab was a target for all kinds of nutcases and fanatics, and this was probably nothing to be concerned about.

Still... For the work of a nutcase or fanatic, it was relatively rational. There was no real threat included, but there was the implication of one. More important to him, there was the implication that something was going on in his company that he had no knowledge of. No real reason to take it seriously, and yet it was mysterious enough to make him read what was written there again.

'You can't hide your secret for long.'

"What secret?" he murmured. "Whose secret?"

- - -

Kat's first impulse was to crumple the paper in her hands. Unfortunately, that wouldn't make it go away. She contented herself with a quiet hiss that no one outside her small office would hear, even if most of them hadn't already left for the day.

What would happen if the truth about the effects their experiments had had on her co-workers came out? If the public found out about Schuyler? The research would be stopped, just when it seemed like they were making real progress. Sky would be treated like a freak and possibly taken away from his parents. She herself would be investigated. If they looked into her manufactured past and found out that she had simply appeared five years ago, seemingly from nowhere, with fake credentials... And if they discovered the real truth, long before this world was prepared to deal with it?

'You can't hide your secret for long.'

But the secret of what had happened at BioSynth had to remain hidden, along with all the secrets behind it, the ones even her team didn't know. No matter what it took. Too much depended on it, and on her.

- - -

"Shit!" Eric muttered, staring at it.

'You can't hide your secret for long.'

Ordinarily he would have assumed it was directed at Bio-Lab, not at himself personally, but now - with Nick here, with the memory of the threat that had been spoken between them so long ago... What else could it be? If it got out to the public and the news media that he was gay - at best, things would change. At worst, it could hamper his effectiveness and undermine his leadership of the Guardians. Mr. Collins would stand by him, but the situation would still be difficult.

And if Wes got involved... Eric's stomach churned at the thought. He could take just about anything as long as it was just him - but to have Wes exposed to embarrassment, or jokes, or criticism because of him, to bring trouble on his lover because of someone from his own past - no, he couldn't let it happen. He wouldn't let anyone make Wes regret their relationship.

And there was only one way he knew how to settle it. Grimly, Eric refolded the paper and shoved it in his pocket. If Nick wanted some kind of revenge after all this time, he was going to find it wasn't going to be as easy as he thought.

- - -

TBC...