Disclaimer: Power Rangers still doesn't belong to me:-)
Chapter 11: Make Your Own Destiny
"Take of me, Z," said Nova softly with a combination of worry and sadness in her voice.
"What does Nova mean by that?" thought Z to herself in total surprise before being zapped back twenty years to her present time.
Z tumbled out of the time hole, rolling sideways across the SPD Command Center until being stopped at someone's feet. Feeling dizzy, Z looked up into a familiar, chiseled face and pair of brilliant, blue eyes.
"Sky!" gasped Z upon seeing the man she loved, only twenty years younger again the way she knew him.
"Z, thank goodness!" cried Sky, his voice choked with tears of joy and relief. Grabbing Z urgently, Sky pulled the yellow ranger into a tight hug and held her like he never wanted to let her go. Sky's caring reception shocked the already overwhelmed Z. It was hands down the most emotion she'd ever seen Sky show.
Swept up in his happiness at seeing Z safe, it took Bridge clearing his throat for Sky to realize that Kat and the other rangers were looking at him strangely for his unusually extroverted display of affectionate behavior. Sky in response immediately – yet reluctantly – backed away from Z. He was not ready for his team to know that his concern for Z extended beyond friendship.
"I mean, welcome back Cadet Delgado," continued Sky in his normal, uptight tone. "It's good to see you're OK."
"Z!" shouted twelve-year-old Sam ecstatically, running over and jumping up to hug the girl he considered his big sister. "You're alright! You're alright! I'm so happy you've returned!"
Dazed and disoriented, Z glanced down at the young Sam she supported in her arms. "THIS is the man in the future I'm going to marry?" thought Z to herself incredulously. "This is the guy that I could possibly come to feel more passionately for than Sky?"
A gentle squeeze of her shoulder snapped Z out her reverie. "Sam was really concerned about you," said Syd, coming up behind Z. "We all were."
"And SYD is really the one Sky's meant to be with?" continued Z to herself as she stared at the girl who was supposed to be her best friend. Z felt a wave of nausea creeping over her.
"Z, you do look a little ill," commented Kat. "I'd like to do a physical exam after your debriefing just to make sure there are no bodily side effects from your time travel to the future."
"Debriefing, ok," responded Z, still a little out of it. "Where's Cruger?"
"Doggie just found out his wife Isinia is pregnant with their first puppy," explained Kat. "He's out of the Academy for the day. Doggie didn't want to leave Isinia's side. Or his future daughter's for that matter."
"So much for Alanna hoping her dad could change from being so over-protective," thought Z wryly to herself. "I guess the future I saw really is set in stone," she noted to herself more glumly as she glanced over at Sky.
"With Doggie out, Z please debrief Sky in private on your future experience," continued Kat.
As Sky's eyes shone with anticipation at the chance to finally be alone with Z, the yellow ranger's face had morphed white. Given all Z had seen during her trip to the future, she under no circumstance was ready yet to be placed in romantically compromising situation with Sky. Z had barely begun to process all the developments that would occur over the next twenty years in all their lives, let alone enough to speak about them to Sky of all people. Yet before Z could protest, Sky was eagerly shoving her out of the Command Center and down the Academy halls.
Once out of the Command Center, Sky took Z's hand tenderly as he led her toward one of the Academy's private meeting rooms. It was ironic, Sky noted, that he would be ending up with Z in the same room he and Syd had first hooked up in when they were young D-Squad cadets. "Time really does have a funny way of playing tricks on you," Sky chuckled to himself.
Z's palms began to feel sweaty as Sky shut the door to the private meeting room. When Sky started to slowly stride toward her, Z felt her knees give way in nervousness. She quickly backed up against the wall for balance before realizing she'd left herself with no room to keep Sky at bay. Her heart thudded as Sky was only a few feet from her now.
"These are for you!" piped up Z quickly, holding out the containment cards for Admiral Alarm and Count Clock-u-lar in order to keep Sky at arm's length distance away.
"Ummm, thanks," replied Sky a bit bewildered, pocketing the containment cards before pressing his left hand against the wall and moving his lips dangerously close to Z's. "Now are you going to let me kiss you and tell you how much the thought of loosing you terrified me?"
"He's a sweet talker, that's for sure!" thought Z to herself as her heart raced from both delight and dread at having Sky so near. "Shouldn't we talk about the Count Clock-u-lar case first?" pleaded Z, trying to avoid having to sort through her feelings for Sky at that second.
"Shouldn't we be doing this already?" asked Sky, after which he passionately pressed his lips on top of Z's.
Sky's sensual kiss left Z senseless. Her emotions were on overdrive the way Sky hungrily moved his lips against hers and desperately clasped her lower back. Every part of Z wanted to loose herself in the passionate moment with Sky and in his tender embrace.
Yet Z couldn't shake the disturbing image that lingered in the back of her mind: the scene of Sky kissing his pregnant wife Syd. A scene that Z knew twenty years down the line, whether she liked it or not, WOULD be more than just a vision. It would be her reality to deal with. And despite future Sky's recollection that Nova had broken his heart, it was the red ranger right now who was inadvertently breaking Z's heart.
Immediately at that moment Z tore herself away from Sky and pushed him away from her with such force that he was sent stumbling back across the room. "What's wrong?" questioned Sky tenderly.
"I can't do this!" sputtered Z in confusion, angry at both herself and at Sky. "I'm sorry."
Turning so Sky wouldn't her chocolate eyes water, Z tore out of the room and left the red ranger behind feeling as though a knife had been shoved in his heart.
In the safety of her own bedroom, Z distraughtly flung herself on her yellow bedspread as the floodgates of her eyes opened. Sobbing despairingly with her head buried in her yellow pillow, Z thought of all the people who during her life who had left her: first her parents, then her foster family, next Jack and soon in the future, Sky. Having been abandoned so many times by people she cared about, Z wasn't about set her heart up for disappointment when she had seen definitely back in the future that Sky and Syd were soul mates.
Z hadn't wanted to admit earlier to herself during her time travel trip, but she had known all along that when she returned the present she couldn't be with Sky. Heck, she'd known it five minutes into the trip when Nova first said that Syd had become Mrs. Tate. It didn't matter to Z how much she and Sky cared – or even possibly loved – each other right now in the present. After all the emotional pain she had endured up to this point in her life, there was no way anyone could convince Z Delgado to put her heart on the line again.
At that moment, Z heard her bedroom door slide open. "Well it can't be anyone worse than Sky right now," Z thought moodily to herself, before turning to see Syd walk in. "Ok, maybe it can."
"I saw you sprinting down the SPD halls about to start sobbing, and then I see Sky step out of the meeting room looking like he might actually show human emotion," said Syd in her typical cutesy, matter-of-fact tone that surprisingly made Z smile despite her current state of depression.
"So you decided to come find me to see what good gossip you missed out on?" joked Z, sniffling slightly.
"If you're talking about you and Sky having hooked up, I already knew that," replied Syd straightforwardly. "I am the tabloid queen. Hey, I'm practically on the cover of them each week!"
"How did you know about Sky and I?" gasped Z in shock and horror.
"Please, it was written all over both your faces," responded Syd in a bored manner. "Especially Sky's. I've never seen him look at a girl the way he did when you came tumbling out of that time hole."
"So then why are you here?" asked Z rather defensively, still seeing Syd somewhat as the enemy from the future.
"Besides the fact this is my room too, I came to see why you were so upset because I care about you," replied Syd in gentler tone as she handed Z a tissue. "Now why don't you start from the beginning and tell me what happened today to make my normally tough-as-nails best friend turn into a mushy, gushy mess."
Syd's compassionate comments had cracked the walls Z had been hiding behind ever since the yellow ranger had arrived back in the present. Before Z knew it, the whole story of her trip to the future came spilling out to Syd: from the pink ranger's marriage to Sky to the identity of the Nova Ranger and her relationship with adult Sam the Omega Ranger. When Z had finished her tales from the future, she was stunned to see Syd practically falling off her pink bed in laugher.
"How could you possibly find that story funny?" gaped Z.
"I didn't know Boom has a brother named Crash!" chuckled Syd.
"Well Ok, that is funny," consented Z. "But what about the rest?"
"You're absolutely right," replied Syd in mock graveness. "It's not funny at all. How dare Lex leave me!"
"That's what you're most upset about?" cried Z in disbelief.
"Well Lex is my boyfriend," retorted Syd somewhat offended that Z should make light of the pink ranger's current relationship.
"How can you make jokes when our future lives at SPD will be more like the TV soap show 'Days of Our Lives,'" asked Z incredulously given Syd's carefree mood.
"You really don't know, do you?" questioned Syd, finally growing serious.
"Huh?" inquired Z, even more puzzled.
"Z, what you saw twenty years forward in time was just one possible outcome for the future," explained Syd calmly. "Think of what you experienced as a version of a vision of the future."
"Ok, now you've really lost me," exclaimed Z, thoroughly confused as she was sure anyone listening to Syd right now would be.
"All events in the future depend completely on one's actions in the present," continued Syd. "So the future you saw is no way set in stone. If anything, it's more like a moldable piece of clay."
"So that's what Nova meant when she said 'Take care of me, Z," mused the yellow ranger to herself. "So what you're saying Syd is that you and Sky definitely won't get together in the future?" Z asked her roommate out loud.
"Look here's the deal Z," sighed Syd awkwardly. "You can choose to believe based on what you've seen during your trip to the future that it's pre-determined by the stars Sky and I will end up together."
Seeing the yellow ranger's face fall flat, Syd quickly continued: "Or you, Z Delgado, can say 'Fuck Fate' and choose to make your own destiny by simply deciding that you're always in control of the outcome of your life."
"Where did you learn all that Syd?" asked Z, looking fondly at her friend.
"Well besides everything I said being true according to both The Power Rangers Time Force Manual on Quantum Physics and the thorough research of Dr. Kat Manx," began Syd, "I watch a lot of the Disney Channel."
"I guess you're smarter than I give you credit for!" laughed Z loudly.
"I don't think I'll ever be a genius like Bridge," responded Syd thoughtfully before growing serious again. "But Z, here's one thing I definitely know for sure about the future."
"What?" asked Z fearfully.
"You and I will ALWAYS be best friends," responded Syd firmly, taking Z's hands in her own. "I never had a close girl friend until you joined the team, and I by no means would ever allow any guy to come between us."
"Same here," agreed Z, relieved to finally hear some good news. "Thanks for talking with my Syd. No matter what time we're in, you'll always be my girl!"
As Z and Syd shared a hug, the roommates heard muffled coughing coming from outside their room. Looking through their open doorway, the girls saw Sky sheepishly step out of the shadows. And from the intense look on Sky's face, Z knew immediately that he had heard everything.
A/N: Final chapter of "Only Time Will Tell" is coming up! Stay tuned!