Disclaimer: "Power Rangers Space Patrol Delta", "Bridge Carson" and other such figures are the property of people who are hundred times more successful-thus more miserable-than I will ever be.
A/N:This fic is/will be a collection of ten one shot Alternate Universe (what could have happened but didn't) stories focused on Bridge (but basically everyone makes a solid appearance at some point). It was inspired by a project in the West Wing fandom called The 100 Things That Never Happened on the West Wing Project. This means that each chapter is a new story unrelated to the previous chapter.
Warning: I am slash friendly therefore there will be some slash in later chapters (3/10 is what I'm calculating). Because each chapter is a separate story, each slash chapter will be labeled and can be skipped. It also goes to say there will be some het chapters (yes, that means Z/Bridge and some surprises…will that keep you reading?). This first one is gen with liberal amounts of het/slash shout outs. Enjoy!
Chapter 1. "(Alternate) Beginnings"
I
In one of the more secluded back alleys in Newtech City, a loud shuffling noise broke the quiet early afternoon air. The shuffling noise increased as Bridge Carson riffled through a slightly crushed cardboard box full of green and blue tube socks, pausing occasionally to hold up a pair up for a closer inspection.
The majority of the socks were in the most hideous shade of blue, as far as Bridge was concerned. They were much less of a sky blue and more the color of old faded blue, a grayish tone that gave the socks the appearance of peeling paint chips about to be discarded to the wind.
'A Billboard blue', Bridge thought, 'like the one on 26th and 3rd.'
At any rate, the ugly blue and acceptably green ('less of a grass green and more of… a folksy art green') socks were made of cotton and were unfortunately thin- too thin for anyone who was spending a winter's night out in Newtech.
'We'll have to double', Bridge concluded with a slight frown wrinkling his nose.
'Maybe tell everyone to cover up the billboard blue socks with the folksy green socks, 'cause green's a better color. More like-'
"Bridge! Git off your butt!" A voice echoed from somewhere behind Bridge, breaking his train of thought.
"I need that last box!"
"R..right…coming!" Bridge yelled, as he shoved the socks back into their not-quite-square box while simultaneously jostling it into a firm carrying position in his arms.
Bridge shuffled over to the source of the impatient voice-a crowd of assorted aliens and humans all chattering eagerly in a circle around more brown cardboard boxes. As he drew close, a few of the aliens parted to form a path to the interior of the circle and to the petite figure standing with the boxes at its center. Bridge's approach to this figure shifted the worried frown from earlier into a softer smile.
"I got socks," he announced simply.
"Oh! Gimme!" Sydney Drew squealed as she grabbed the box from Bridge's arms.
She held it aloft like she was the recipient of an unexpected prize; meanwhile the crowd of aliens and humans began to narrow the circle further. Thin arms and skinny hands began to paw at Syd's upheld box.
"Just wait a minute, please. Line up- yes, like that, Rotolan, there's plenty in this box for everyone.
"Wait a minute, quit grabbing-this was an especially hard haul, Kysh, and I'd appreciate some respect and that hand moved from my back! Thank you! Here you go…"
Bridge shifted nervously as he felt hands against his body moving past him towards Syd.
"Ahh, Syd…I think, ah…well, the socks are a bit…thin."
Bridge winced as a particularly eager woman chose that moment to step on his toes.
"Got it Bridge! Alright, you heard the man, two pairs for one pair of feet, no exceptions! No pushing, take what you get!"
"And..ah.. the blue, its ah…well…blue's a nice color usually-"
"Kysh! Socks aren't food! Gimme those!"
"And well…I think the green…ah Syd…the green-"
"Not now, Bridgey, we're almost done!"
"But..I..oof!" Bridge stopped mid sentence as a bulky Fernovan male butted up against Bridge to knock him off balance.
The sheer number of bodies pushing against him was also unnerving-Bridge caught a wisp of color from the Fernovan and the older woman next to him-grey yellow, with tingles of white. There were also brownish spots that hovered above Bridge's face, making him want to pull away, further back into the alley.
"I guess…no one else minds colors," Bridge murmured to himself, as he attempted to backpedal out of the crowd.
In front of him, Syd managed to quickly and efficiently hand out all of the socks in the box and was now explaining to Kysh what had made this morning's run unusually difficult. Syd's voice rose in pitch as she excitedly narrated her narrow escape from two upper division SPD cadets-
"You could tell they were cadets, because they were so serious! I thought the girl was going to shoot me in the eyes for a moment!" Syd cackled.
"But even a cadet can't hurt a fist of iron!" Syd raised her hand in emphasis.
Bridge shook his head at Syd's enthusiasm-and winced when the movement produced an all too familiar headache. The morning's near arrest by the two SPD cadets had certainly been exciting-they had wiped the floor with SPD, outnumbering and outmaneuvering them-but the event had left Bridge with an uneasy feeling in his stomach. The two cadets had been strangely, impossibly, familiar to him.
'Not like that deja-whatever,' Bridge thought as he walked forward.
More like something out of a reoccurring dream, a shadow that occurred only when the light hit at a distant angle, only not quite that. Not quite….'
"Not quite what, Bridge?"
A loud voice suddenly boomed above Bridge, snapping the confused boy out of his train of thought. Bridge winced again, the sudden noise a booming sensation in his mind.
"Sky!" Bridge murmured. "You scared me."
"Sorry," the unreadable face of Sky Tate said from a spot directly in front of Bridge. The older boy was leaning against a brick building, with a slight smirk on his face and a lit cigarette dangling from his lips.
"Was I talking out loud again?" Bridge puzzled aloud. Sky nodded.
"Oh."
Thanks to Sky, the train of thought Bridge had been pondering before was gone, scattered to the wind. Bridge sighed as his joined his friend in holding up the wall behind them.
Noting the despondent sound from his friend, Sky shifted in his slouched position to offer Bridge an unlit cig from the back of his jean pocket. Bridge plucked the offering from Sky's hand and pull out a lighter from his own pocket. Seconds later two tiny plums of smoke wafted upwards, spiraling into the early afternoon air.
For a while, the two friends were silent, each lost in their own thoughts. Soft laughter and animated chattering drifted past the two boys. Occasionally Bridge picked up Syd's giggling from the rest of the indistinguishable noise, the bright center of everyone's attention. Yet despite the relaxed atmosphere of the group behind them, Bridge could read an underlining tension in the air, psychic energy and nicotine smoke streaming forth from the silent form beside him.
Bridge frowned; Sky was upset about…something. His agitation came off of him in soft waves of color that battered Bridge's already overwhelmed mind.
Sky's moodiness only added to Bridge's raging headache; nevertheless he stood impatiently waiting for the expected outburst. He was soon rewarded when Sky abruptly shifted up against the wall, so that he nearly had his full height above Bridge's slouching form.
"I'm tired of playing Robin Hood,"
Sky suddenly stated, flicking the ash of his cig as if in emphasis. Bridge said nothing but took a long drag on his cigarette, letting the smoke sit in his chest for several seconds before letting it slowly float upwards out his nose.
This was an old argument of Sky's-it was best to let him talk it out on his own.
"Bridge."
Well, sometimes. 'Damn.'
Bridge thought for a moment, mentally reviewing the day's earlier events in a jumble of flashing images.
Two (impossibly) familiar faces and flashes of red and gold flew before his mind's eye. A male cadet in a dark drab uniform with an arrogant grin and a swagger, along with a female cadet, pretty eyes and a determined frown.
"Freeze! SPD!" Wanted. For what?
A good haul taken, donated to the poor; expensive goods 'lifted' from their owners.
A showdown; two on three, SPD vs the infamous "Parkington Market Thieves".
Syd always liked the name the local vendors had given them. It sounded "professional" and important-"like important criminals" Sky had once snarled at Syd. Well that seemed all too true now. But what else…
Technical jargon about lawbreaking. Unimpressive posturing. Fighting. Movements that were already a blur in his memory. The five of them. Victory? Too confused.
The recollection was too much for Bridge and he mentally groaned. He had a strong urge to sit down and hold his head between his knees. To Bridge's right, Sky glared with a mixture of impatience and concern. Finally Bridge blurted out the loudest thought running through his head.
"The two SPD. They were….good. Really good."
Sky said nothing to this, staring at some indistinguishable spot on the wall in front of him.
"Good, I mean, not just good as in fighting or like good as a cadet. The boy we fought together? I really liked his dreads and he seemed nice, aside from the trying to arrest us part.
But he was a good fighter, I liked his heel kick thingy, it was amazing! He was tough. Real tough."
Bridge paused as he recalled how the strange SPD cadet had charged at him and Sky, moving to tackle Bridge before Sky jumped in front of him with a forcefield. That had certainty surprised the cadet, but he had recovered and had sent down a series of blows that had left Bridge with a bunch of welts certain to become bruises later.
Bridge remembered Syd's pain filled cries as she took a few blows from the female SPD officer-and also Syd's triumphant yell as she managed to pitch the cadet off of a stairwell into a marketplace tent.
Bridge had panicked when he saw the pretty cadet fall to the floor-luckily the tent sufficiently broke the young woman's fall. Still-
"That fight was scary. I didn't want to fight them. It seemed…it was…"
Bridge angrily sucked on his cigarette in frustration. What was wrong about the fight? Bridge's frustrated gaze fell downward to his gloved hands, his right hand unconsciously fiddling with a gapping hole in the knitted nylon of his left one.
' Huh.' Bridge didn't recall the hole being that big before. Maybe that was why he was picking up on colors more vividly today.
Bridge mentally sighed to himself as he attempted to bring his wandering thoughts back into order. It was what?
"It was just wrong."
Sky snorted in response but remained silent, glaring into the distance. Bridge wasn't sure Sky was listening anymore.
"Sky, did you notice that the boy SPD officer…cadet…person….when we rushed at him…"
Bridge paused again, remembering how the cadet had thrown himself at the wall and somehow, inexplicably disappeared, only to reappear after Bridge had crashed into the place where he had been.
"He did something to himself, to the wall…do you think he's….different? Like u-"
"What I think," Sky interrupted,
"Is that we nearly got ourselves arrested by a two wannabe hotshot Spacers-who seemed to be specifically looking for us, and not any other two-bit criminal in Parkington."
The older boy abruptly launched from his position against the wall to begin pacing in the space directly in front of Bridge, using the full momentum of his body to emphasize his words.
"Those two SPD jerks knew exactly where to find us this morning! We have to stop playing this hero bullshit, Bridge, before one of us really gets hurt!"
Frustrated, Sky threw down the butt of his cigarette and gave it a vicious stomp.
I can't keep acting like your bodyguard-you and Syd."
"But you're not-"
"Yes I am! I'm the only one who acts with any kind of damn logic! 'There goes Bridge and Syd, off to save the world again!'"
"Well yea, and like you're never a part of any of it, Sky!" Bridge said, wounded.
Sky ignored him.
"Every time you two decide to play good guys we get more and more of the attention of the damn Spacers," Sky emphasized the last word with a particularly spiteful hiss.
I mean Syd I can understand-she needs to be at the center of attention, get some feeling of being…something in the goddamn world. She eats up this 'Robin Hood' shit. What I don't understand is you Bridge."
Sky abruptly stopped his pacing to look Bridge square in the eye.
"You get these headaches and fevers and nightmares from your…your thing..all the time. You don't keep anything you steal, you don't want to fight back when the Spacers rough us up...you feel that its 'wrong' to protect yourself!"
Sky ran a hand through his long greasy hair in frustration.
"Tell me, why is any of this," Sky waved a head around the alley, "is worth this."
Sky reached over and gently cupped the back of Bridge's aching head. Bridge winced slightly, but also moved into the contact.
"Because." Bridge stared into Sky's angry, concerned blue eyes, "Because of this."
Bridge gestured to the alley.
'Cause of Syd, and you, and Kysh, and …even Piggy." Although Bridge somewhat frowned at the last name.
Those SPD cadets are good people, Sky. I can sense it."
"Good people don't let people like us starve on the streets, Bridge." Sky protested.
They don't arrest people for sleeping on park benches because it looks bad, they don't walk by without a second glance! They don't give a shit about people like you and me; they just sit in their little squad cars acting like a bunch of arrogant assholes."
"Sky" Bridge sighed, slumping downward.
Sky's emotions were blaring in a protective redish blue aura was simultaneously suffocating and comforting, a mixture Bridge was intimately familiar with after years of life on the streets with Sky.
"That's not fair. You don't really know that. Them. Know them." Bridge couldn't formulate a protest beyond the obvious. He really wanted to put his head down somewhere.
Sky shrugged. "A spacer is a spacer." He said simply.
"Bridge is right-that's not really fair, Sky,"
A new voice suddenly interrupted behind Sky and Bridge. It was Syd. She darted forward from her previously unseen position behind her friends and reached over to Bridge's sagging form to pluck the nearly extinguished and forgotten cigarette from Bridge's gloved fingers.
"You seem to forget, that those Spacers were hot!" Syd smirked as she attempted to redirect the argument.
Sky glared daggers.
"I didn't think the girl was your type, Sydney."
Syd's response was an equally rude hand gesture.
"She was pretty," Bridge picked up on the comment. "Her color was a pretty yellow, or at least… a pale sparkly yellow, almost butt-"
"Ugh, Bridge, don't mention food," Syd complained. "I'm so hungry. And exhausted."
Then, by some unexplained reminder, Syd's face brightened.
"Oh I almost forgot! Look, Bridgey, I got something just for you!" Syd reached into her jacket to reveal a bailed up piece of fabric for Bridge.
"Oh! New gloves!" Bridge exclaimed, unraveling a knitted pair. "Green too!" Bridge beamed. "Thanks Syd!"
"I saved him some socks too," Syd said to Sky. "These are for you."
Syd handed Sky a small cloth bundle. Sky started to nod his thanks when he suddenly froze, staring at a point just beyond Syd and Bridge. Alarmed, the two whirled around.
To find a tiny hunched over blue and green alien, dressed in rags approaching the trio. The alien moved with a slow faltering gait and made a request to the three of them in a soft mewing language.
"I'm sorry, but we don't have anything else to give out," Syd said apologetically. "Maybe tomorrow."
The alien mew-purred in a dejected tone, slumping down even further and began to make a slow turnaround with its head downcast. The scene broke Bridge's heart. He spread his left hand, still in its ripped glove, towards the alien and gave a tiny wave. Colors bombarded Bridge to the point where he nearly groaned out loud, yet he found his feet moving rapidly towards the alien.
"Wait!"
The alien turned to face Bridge.
"Here," Bridge said as his hands fumbled to remove his jacket and drape it across the shoulders of the alien. Bridge smiled as the figure purred in thanks and moved with a slightly faster step back towards the other end of the alley.
Then he turned back towards his friends-only to find himself caught in a set of twin glares.
Ah oh.
"What?"
"Your jacket Bridge!" Syd moaned.
"She needed it!" Bridge protested softly. "For her son".
The ghost like image of color flashed again before Bridge's eyes; he closed his eyes tightly as if to push it further from his mind. He didn't mention that the colors around the alien were a mix of desperation and hopeless-that inky blackness swirled around her, indicating sickness and woe.
Bridge's headache was reaching epic proportions. He felt weak in the knees and cold.
Syd's eyes softened at the look of pain that was emanating from Bridge. Sky's on the other hand, were still filled with angry frustration.
"You can't save them, Bridge," Sky bluntly stated.
This is exactly what I was talking about! You can't even save yourself! How the hell are you supposed to stay alive when every homeless person in Newtech can just come up and take what little you already have!"
"Sky!" Syd roared. "You big jerk, leave him alone will ya, he's hurting!"
Sky ignored her.
"Look, the three of us, especially you," he pointed directly at Bridge, "are freaks. We should be focused on taking care of ourselves-leave the others to fight their own battles! Freaks aren't given a good life -we have to take what's ours and get ourselves out of this hellish nightmare!"
"Find something bigger."
Bridge didn't know why the words came out of his mouth, but as soon as they did they felt right, somehow. Something bigger than him, than Sky and Syd, a reason to keep going, a reason to be alive. A desperate wish. That felt right.
But Bridge also felt as though he could barely stand and he leaned into Syd unsteadily, just as a part of him inwardly marveled at the strange prophetic feelings he had been feeling the entire day.
Sky made a strange strangled sound that was half-swallowed rage, half emotional outcry.
"You guys make me sick."
Sky spat out, abruptly turning to stomp out of the alley into the busy street.
Neither Bridge nor Syd moved to follow him. They stood huddled together, watching the distance between them and Sky widen, silently watching the gust of wind caused by the wake of Sky's strides move the litter from the alley into a delicate dance, hypnotically drifting paper upwards and then down again towards the hard ground.
II.
The early afternoon sun and the relatively empty streets of Newtech marched quickly into evening coolness and frantic rush hour-Bridge's least favorite time of day. The clogging smell of traffic, the fast paced movement of pedestrians and the bright aura colors of emotional workers leaving their offices and jobs typically left Bridge with a dull throb in his temples and an aching dryness in his throat. However the morning encounter with the SPD officers combined with the draining fight with Sky had mutated Bridge's daily pains into a near paralysis in his neck and a severe stomach cramping.
After watching Sky disappear into the heart of the city, Syd had literally dragged Bridge back to their "home" in an abandoned warehouse by the east docks of Newtech Harbor. She had put him to bed in their nest of blankets and queen sized mildewing mattress-one of the few items not stolen by the trio but given to them by an admiring family of poor Triforians.
After cooing a few words of gentle encouragement, Syd had gone off to find food for the two of them and to run off some of her anger towards Sky. Bridge felt sad when Syd finally left, even though her anger filled misty aura hung in the air and stuck to Bridge's overloaded mind like a faint perfume.
In spending so much time with Syd and Sky, Bridge's mind had become used to their psychic auras. His mind had adapted to them so that they were like a constant background presence, like psychic white noise-unnoticeable so long as the two of them weren't extremely emotional. Syd, and especially Sky, were calming presences in a life which always entailed constant stimulus and no privacy-the downside was that Bridge hated to be alone, ever. So even with Syd angry at Sky, her lingering aura was a small comfort-a piece of Syd, however distressing, to sit at Bridge's sickbed.
Bridge fell asleep with pale red of Syd and the sounds of seagulls in his mind.
He slept in a dreamless exhaustion for most of the afternoon until Syd returned with a few cartons of Chinese food and a new pack of cigarettes-the sun had completely disappeared by then and the skyline that was visible in one of the many broken widows of the warehouse was aglow with neon brightness. The two ate in companionable silence, though their peace occasionally broken by a slight shiver from Bridge-from the cold or from his illness, Syd couldn't tell.
Dinner brought some color back into Bridge's face, enough so that the two were able to occupy themselves outside by the warehouse, investigating the docks and along the shoreline in the early evening hours. Both were in silent agreement about the day's events-that despite his blunt statements, Sky had a valid point concerning their latest escapade. It had been way too close.
At one point in the evening Bridge's keen eyes had zeroed in on a large blackish green bruise on Syd's shoulder blade; he also noted Syd's pace was more sedate, as if she was favoring sore muscles.
Still Bridge couldn't bring himself to say anything, his deja-vu feelings towards the SPD cadets had made him leery of forming any negative opinions about the two. After all, the five of them had simply been doing their jobs-all justified depending on the perspective.
But as to whose perspective was the correct one….well Bridge couldn't bring his wits together enough for find an answer he was comfortable with.
The increasing coldness coming off the shoreline eventually lured Syd and Bridge back to their bed in the warehouse, where Syd fell into a deep slumber, her arms wrapped around Bridge's waist and her head pillowed in his lap. Bridge sat up in the mattress leaning up against a wooden crate, while his gloved hands combed the softness of Syd's blond hair.
Bridge loved to watch Syd sleep; he enjoyed the feel of the rise and fall of her breath against him and the way in which sleep brought down all of Syd's barriers. She possessed an innocence that wasn't visible in the daytime and this tiny aspect of childishness softened the features in her face. At night Syd was a different person-she was almost a fairytale princess, trapped by some magical circumstances in an urban concrete forest-perhaps asleep because of a wicked spell, some wondrous, impossible magic.
The pretence of magic was helped by the shifting play of moonlight that shone from an old dusty skylight directly above the two teens. The moon lit upon Syd's hair in a way Bridge imagined fairy dust shone-or something else equally amazing.
It was…Syd was beautiful-not even Sky could deny that.
'Well, she's beautiful all the time' Bridge amended, 'but at night Syd is more…more…herself?'
Bridge pondered this train of thought, his hands momentarily stilled in Syd's hair. Was this truly Syd? Or was she a different person, somewhere, a person who was considered as beautiful as she was to him right now?
'Someplace different', Bridge thought, tightening his grip around Syd's slumbering form, 'would I be there too?' Would Sky?
It was childish-all of it. Foolish scattered thoughts, something Sky would certainty dismiss-in fact so would Syd if she were awake.
'But if she was awake, then the moonlight wouldn't be the same, the stars would be so much further away than they already are.'
Bridge drifted his gaze from Syd to the shifting interplay of clouds and moon, eyes moving as he searched for stars.
'So close and yet so distant.'
But Bridge wasn't sure this thought was entirely concerning the stars.
A soft bump from the darkness on the right side of Bridge made him jump, his thoughts slipping down into forgetfulness. Syd shifted in response to Bridge but appeared to remain asleep. Meanwhile a pale form now approached the two of them, stepping in wide strides towards the moonlight.
"Sky," Bridge murmured.
Sky held a brown paper bag in one hand and a small light from his other hand indicated a lit cigarette in the other. Bridge's heart sank as the implications of the brown bag reached him-what Sky had been up to the entire evening.
Yet Sky's steps appeared sure and he moved with his usual grace…Bridge wasn't sure what to expect.
Of the three of them, Bridge mused as Sky approached, Sky had the most complicated expectations for himself. He expected to be able to protect his friends against anything-as if his body was just an extension of the shields he created with his mind. Yet he was also equally protective of himself-showing weakness only in the most extreme circumstances and then only to Bridge and Syd.
Drinking was one of those slips of selfhood. Sky's mother had been an alcoholic-she had died from the drink and left Sky a homeless orphan. Sky rarely spoke of his mother and when he did it was filled with a hatred that made Bridge tremble. In contrast, Sky's opinion of his father was much higher-he had died protecting the innocent and was nothing like his grieving widow who found herself unable to cope with such a heroic loss.
Sky's anger towards SPD also sprung from his parents-his father had been a power ranger and Sky attributed his loss to the institution itself. Sky hatred for 'those damn Spacers' was a convoluted mix of personal loss and righteous indignation. That they had done nothing to help his drunken mother-or her son-and did little to stem the rising number of homeless in the city cemented Sky's feelings towards all SPD officers.
Yet he also, somehow, respected the rangers, whose overall presence was a mystery to all of Newtech's civilians. No one knew who the current rangers were, if they were humans or even robots-but they were still heroes and people like Bridge, Syd (and even Sky) looked up to them.
Bridge could understand Sky's anger to some extent-he was himself unsure of the feelings he had towards his birthparents, the couple who had given him up into foster care when he was too little to remember because he was…."a freak".
A freak, who bounced from one home to the next because kids and adults were all too intent on punishing the strange children. A child no one was willing to adopt or keep longer than a few months or a year at best.
A child who was completely and utterly alone.
It had been too much for him too.
If Syd remembered her biological parents or her separation from them she never said anything. She only possessed a deep hatred towards her own foster care family. She hadn't bounced in the system like Bridge but instead had an emotionally abusive relationship with her foster father. His fierce temper led a young desperate Syd to run away into the streets, eventually into the company of Bridge and Sky.
But Syd's anger always seemed to pale in comparison Sky's anger at his past. At times Sky was an unbearably righteous victim-and his drinking confused Bridge.
Bridge's musing was interrupted by Sky joining him and Syd on their bed. Bridge blinked hesitantly, disorientated as Sky placed a hand on his shoulder. Bridge turned to face his friend, noting only the lightest smell of alcohol on him-Sky had gone easy then.
"Shit,"
Sky suddenly cursed. Bridge frowned. "You're freezing." Sky explained as he shifted to throw an arm around Bridge's shoulder. Sky brought Bridge's head to rest against his chest and for a moment it was like any other evening, the three of them curled up together for warmth after a long day.
The though caused Bridge's breath to hitch in his chest and he buried his face against the fabric of Sky's ratty navy sweatshirt as Sky's hand moved in a comforting circle against his best friend's back.
'This is right', Bridge thought, 'and yet different'- a strange embrace in the moonlight.
Sky broke contact first, moving Bridge's head away from his chest and shifting his position so his arm curled around Bridge's middle and fingertips dipped into Syd's hair. His free hand, holding the brown bag ('where had the cig gone?' Bridge wondered) moved towards Bridge's face.
"You're still too cold," Sky commented softly.
Bridge rolled his eyes but Sky's stare was intense, full of concern. Reluctantly, Bridge allowed Sky to tip some of the bag's contents into this mouth. The sharp taste and sudden heat of the alcohol immediately made Bridge want to gag- he let out a sharp hacking cough and turned his head away in disgust. Distantly he heard Sky attempt to stifle a snicker at his friend's expense. Bridge rolled his eyes.
"Quit making the bed move."
Syd was awake, a muffled voice against Bridge's thigh. "You're something else, Sky. Bridge is a cheap date and you know it."
"Says the women currently in his lap."
Syd whacked Sky's leg softly and rolled off of Bridge to the tiny space on his right. She propped her self up with her arms and patted Bridge's leg sympathetically. As if in apology, Sky offered up the merger contents of the bottle to Syd, who expertly downed its remainder while still in a reclined position on the mattress.
"Yuck, that's disgusting Sky. Where the hell did you get this slop from? Piggy?"
"Sorry Princess," Sky said and made the moment even stranger by giving Syd a rare smile.
For a moment, no one had a response to it-but the moment was made less awkward simply by Sky's presence and his return to their "home". Syd smiled in response and shuffled closer so that she and Sky were tightly entwined around Bridge and each other.
"I still mean what I said though."
Bridge and Syd paused for a moment before letting out twin sighs.
"Good ol' Sky," Syd muttered.
Then louder; "Whatever. Lets just go to bed. I'm tired, and sore 'cause Little Miss Spacer gave me half a dozen new bruises-though prolly not as many as I gave her."
Sky snorted. "Plus" Syd tighter her grip on Bridge "Bridgey is still shaking."
"That's probably the booze."
"Erf."
Bridge replied, his head half buried in Sky's shoulder. With Sky home he felt himself finally relaxing, slipping easily into a drowsy state. Silence settled on the trio and Bridge soon felt Syd's breath fall back into a rhythmical pattern-she always managed to fall asleep faster than Bridge or Sky. Sleep beckoned Bridge his eyes began to close slowly, his body finally warm with the combined body heat of Sky and Syd and the heaviness of his slip of alcohol.
"Bridge."
Bridge felt the whisper against his forehead. Bridge attempted to open his eyes but they suddenly felt impossibly heavy-maybe the voice was just a dream? He saw color beneath his eyelids-a soft shimmering blue, reminding him of the iridescent moonlight that had shone against Syd's hair. The shade was apologetic and full of affection, a true color of blue. It presence was enough to slide Bridge off into sleep, even as Sky whispered something he didn't catch in his ear.
It didn't matter. Bridge knew.
III.
The trio awoke in the late morning of the next day and returned to business as usual-this included a breakfast run in which Syd distracted a local baker and Bridge and Sky made off with a loaf of fresh bread and some milk ("Non-fat" Bridge pouted). The events of the day before seemed to have completely left everyone's mind-until Sky suddenly disappeared after breakfast, giving Syd and Bridge strict instructions to meet him at a certain location in the "Alien Quarter" of Newtech.
Soon, Syd and Bridge found themselves alone again standing beside a white truck in an abandoned factory-Newtech City was full of them, thanks in part to a financial crisis in the early 2000's. Syd was slouched across the grill of the van while Bridge fidgeted excitedly beside her. The two were glaring at each other with intense looks of concentration and the tension was evident between them.
"Yes! 55 times in a row!" Bridge suddenly crowed.
He pumped his arms up into the air and made fake crowd cheering noises as he did an impromptu victory dance.
"Ok! I am officially bored to tears!" Syd pouted.
55 games of sticks and stones and Sky's still not back! What's taking loner boy so long-don't start!" Syd warned as Bridge opened his mouth to reply.
Bridge frowned and Syd, seeing the wounded look in Bridge's face, sighed.
"I'm sorry. I'm just a tad annoyed that after yesterday's mess, Sky decided out of the blue to do another job today. I have bruises." Syd whined.
"So do I, and you don't hear me complaining" a sardonic voice boomed from behind.
"Argh!" Syd gasped, whirling around to see Sky. Syd then whipped back to Bridge,
"Warn me next time, psychic boy!" she yelled. Bridge pretended not to hear her.
"Anyways, Sydney," Sky continued, "I was late because I needed to pick up this" here Sky shook something draped across his arm and handed it to Bridge, "and these" he opened a clenched hand to reveal a set of keys.
"A coat!" Bridge exclaimed. "Sweet!"
"Car keys?" Syd wondered. She turned to give Sky a brilliant smile.
"You sir, are a softy."
Syd punctuated her statement by closing the distance between her and Sky and by delivering a swift kiss to Sky's cheek. Sky's face colored before he ducked his head and attempted to straighten his jacket.
"Yea..well..don't let it get out. Lets move people, we got a job to do."
"Sweet. I'm driving."
Syd started to head for the car, and before Sky could reply they were interrupted by a sudden jarring squeal.
"HELP ME!"
Sky, Syd and Bridge immediately dropped into fighting positions, with Sky assuming a protective stance in front of the other two. A frightened green alien suddenly came skidding across the expanse of the factory, nearly ramming into them in a state of panic.
"Take this!" the alien panted, thrusting a strange metal object behind Sky to a startled Bridge behind him.
"Don't let them have it!" The alien begged as Bridge hesitated to grab the object. Syd took advantage of Bridge's hesitation to intercept the object, moving to cover her startled friend.
"The future of the world depends on it! Hide it!" the green alien shouted, his gaze remaining locked on Bridge.
Bridge found himself nodding, immediately accepting the stranger's dire words as truth. The alien then broke his gaze and turned once to look behind him before suddenly darting away, in the opposite direction of the trio.
Bridge watched the figure dash off before turning his attention to the object in Syd's hands. He removed a glove and made a circle movement, immediately picking up on a strange sensation of color. He struggled to make some sense of their variance-there were colors of fear, desperation and anxiety along with a swirl of deep responsibility and panic-what did it mean? Bridge marveled.
Abruptly coming to his senses, Sky glanced at Syd and Bridge before leaning over to remove the metal object from Syd's possession. He turned it over a few times with an intense look of concentration on his face. After a moment's pause, Syd broke out in nervous laughter.
"Why do all the nuts of the world find you?" she questioned Bridge. Releasing the object from his look of intense scrutiny, Sky also chuckled at the comment
"Freaks attract freaks." Sky explained.
He lightly tossed the object to Bridge before turning to move towards the van.
Weirder stuff has happened to us. Lets go, Bridge."
"R..right."
Bridge nodded but remained frozen in the same spot, holding the metal close to his chest. 'Something is coming' Bridge thought. 'Finally, something to do with the three of us.'
All of Bridge's prophetic feelings in the past 24 hours seemed to return to Bridge with a sudden rush of brilliant clarity.
"Something bigger." Bridge whispered. 'Strange and wonderful.'
"Bridge!"
He smiled.
"Right. Ok. Lets go."
THE END
A/N II: And this was all because I could not keep this image of Syd, Sky and Bridge together in a big bed out of my head (it's a lot cleaner than it sounds I swear…)
Next Chapter: Is much shorter. It's a stand alone AU of the episode "Robotpoloza" where there is an attempt to salvage something good out of a clip show.
Please Review, kthanxbye