Wes, Jen, Eric 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.
Gaby, Chris, and Proteus are mine.

Rated T: mild language, violence, sexual references, and danger to a child.

A/N: This is a sequel to 'Reversals of Fortune' and part of my AU 'Year of Time' series. It can, however, stand alone, with most of the background from the series being mentioned along the way.

Reviews are always appreciated.

Tapestry

Home Again

- - -

"Wes, your twelve o'clock is here."

Wes frowned at his office speakerphone. "I have an appointment? Now?"

"Yes, she called yesterday, and you didn't have anything on your calendar. Sorry if it's a bad time. Should I tell her to reschedule?"

"No." Wes sighed. It wasn't the fault of the Bio-Lab receptionist who took care of office appointments for himself and Eric that he had forgotten to update his calendar in all the excitement and activity of the last two days since the baby had been born. "I'll have to make it short, but send her in."

Her face was familiar when he looked up a minute later to see a pretty young woman with dark red hair tapping on his open door, but it took him a moment to place her. The same woman he had last seen as a hostage two days ago. Surprised, he stood and beckoned her in. "Hello again, uh..."

"We were never introduced, were we? Hi, I'm Christina Tutto." She came forward and shook his hand over the desk.

"Nice to see you. Have a seat." Back in his own chair, he smiled inquiringly. "Is there some kind of problem having to do with the bank robbery?"

"No, nothing like that, except that I'd like to thank you again."

He waved a hand. "No need, Ms. Tutto."

"Please, call me Chris. You risk your life all the time to help people, and I'll bet not enough of them bother to say thank you, so I wanted to do it twice."

"Well... That's very kind of you, Ms - I mean Chris. Is that the only reason you came by?"

"Not the only reason." She settled into the chair more comfortably and crossed her legs. "I hear you're a new father."

"Well, yes. Has it been in the news? How'd you know?"

She smiled, uncrossing and re-crossing her legs. They were very nice legs, he couldn't help noticing. "I wouldn't have been surprised if it was on the news; you're pretty famous here in Silver Hills. But no, your friend, the other Ranger, told me when you rushed off after saving me."

"Yes, I was kind of in a hurry. Sorry if I was rude."

"Not at all." She smiled and leaned forward. "I have a lot of experience with parents. In fact, that's why I'm here."

"Excuse me?"

"I'm a child therapist, specializing in developmental and behavioral problems. I'm sure your baby is perfect, but if you ever need any testing done, or just want a little advice..."

"A therapist? He's only two days old."

Chris laughed. "I know it seems very early, but there are tests that can be done even on small babies, and in my opinion it's worth while just to make sure. Maybe I could do an evaluation for you, on the house. My way of saying thanks."

"Well... I'll think about it. Maybe mention it to my wife."

"Good!" She smiled brightly and opened her purse. "Here's my card, and my private number too. Call anytime."

"Thanks for the offer." Wes took it, stood, and came around the desk. He opened the door for her and shook hands again. "And thanks for coming by."

"My pleasure." She turned in the doorway. "As long as I'm here... Will you let me take you to lunch? As another thank you for saving me?"

"Well, that sounds great, but I can't. In fact I'm on my way to the hospital."

"Nothing wrong, I hope?"

"Nope." He grinned happily. I'm taking my wife and our new baby home."

"Oh." Her eyes dropped, just for an instant, covering what had seemed for an instant like disappointment or even annoyance - but the expression was gone in a flash, and she was smiling up at him again. "That's wonderful. You must be very happy."

"Yeah, I am." Wes blinked at her. She had the most remarkably brilliant hazel eyes... quite fascinating, really, the way they sparkled...

"So I guess this is goodbye for now." Chris had stepped closer, and taken both his hands in hers. Their gazes locked together. "But you will call and make an appointment to come and see me soon, won't you?"

"Uh..." Strange that he hadn't noticed before just how beautiful she really was. Amazingly beautiful... "All right. Soon," he said a little breathlessly.

"Wes?"

Startled, he looked around to find Gaby standing in the hallway, staring at the two of them curiously. He took a step back and nodded to Chris, who had returned to looking like any other attractive young woman. That sudden feeling of being drawn to her must have been his imagination; he hadn't been sleeping much lately, after all, and he certainly wouldn't be thinking that way about any woman but Jen, especially now. "Okay, I'll call if we decide to come in, then."

"Thanks. Goodbye for now." Chris turned and headed down the hall towards the exit.

"Wow, she looked like she wanted to shoot me for interrupting. Who was that?"

"She was a hostage in that bank robbery. Wanted to thank me."

"I'd say that's not all she wants," she said with a smirk.

"What do you mean?"

"She was totally flirting with you, dummy."

Wes shook his head and smiled. "Was there something you wanted, Gaby?"

"Eric said you're taking Jen and the baby home today."

"That's right."

"Oh, good. Make sure to say hello to her for me. I can't wait to see the baby."

"Come by the house with Eric, then. Maybe you can come for dinner in a few days, when we're settled."

"Sounds like a plan."

"I'll tell Dad." He glanced at his watch. "Gotta go. See you later!"

- - -

Silver City, 3005

"Another dream, Trip?" Katie asked as she sat down at his table in the Time Force break room.

"How did you know?" Trip stared at her.

"Not by reading your mind, don't worry." She leaned across the small table on her elbows. "You look tired, like you haven't been sleeping. And you look worried."

"I am worried. That's why I wanted to talk to you about it."

"Tell me."

"Yeah, I had-" He stopped and looked up as the door opened again.

Lucas appeared, frowned, and walked over to them. "You know you dragged me off the practice range," he said by way of greeting as he dropped into another chair. "This better be important."

"I - I think it is..." Trip stammered. "I was just about to tell Katie; I had another dream."

"Another dream?" Lucas rolled his eyes.

Katie glared. "You know Trip's dreams may be visions of something real. Let him talk."

"Okay." He sighed. "As long as you got me here... Go on and tell us about your dream." Lucas faced him with arms crossed and an exaggeratedly interested expression.

"Well, I told you about the first two, that they were in that parallel universe Jen and Wes and Eric were in about seven months ago."

"Yeah, I remember." Lucas's tone was still impatient, but there was a gleam of genuine curiosity in his eyes. "You mean you had number three in the continuing drama of Lucie, Kevin, and Trix?"

"Don't forget Jon, Wendy, and Erica," Katie said.

Lucas leaned back with a grin. "I bet I make a pretty good-looking woman."

"And such a modest one, too," Katie muttered, but softened it with a chuckle.

Lucas gave her a scowl and said, "Well, get on with it."

"Okay. This one was a little later, probably a day or two, since Wendy and the baby were just getting home..."

"She's lovely, ma'am. It's been too long since there was a baby in this house."

Trix watched with a smile. The elderly housekeeper, Miss Philips, spent another moment gazing fondly at the child in Wendy's arms, and then led all of them towards the front door of the Collins mansion. Both Jon and Mrs. Collins hovered anxiously as Wendy politely turned down offers of help and carried the baby inside. More servants awaited, and there were several minutes of greetings, exclamations, baby talk, and general confusion.

"Geez. You'd think the kid was the second coming." The cynical remark came from Erica, who had been last through the door.

"Lighten up," Kevin murmured. "Don't you like babies?"

"Do I like the little diaper-fillers? Not particularly."

"Wait till you have one of your own."

"God forbid. And if Gabe wants one he's going to have to carry it himself."

"Maybe you're right. The world's not ready for another Erica Myers."

Trix put a hand to her mouth to stifle a laugh. Even Lucie was chuckling as Erica gave them a scowl and left, saying she was headed back to Bio-Lab. They returned their attention to the happy family as Mrs. Collins took charge and the servants began to drift away.

Miss Philips paused and looked back at them. "Will all of you be staying to dinner?" she asked.

"No," Lucie answered for them before Jon could say anything. "In fact, the three of us will be leaving. Time for us to go home."

"Oh, too bad." Jon hesitated. "We should take the baby to her room. Will you come upstairs for a few minutes? We need to talk."

They all took a few seconds to look around as they entered the nursery, a bright, comfortable place, freshly painted, cleaned, and decorated in shades of pastel rose. Trix watched Wendy carefully put her daughter down in the crib at the center of the room, and moved to her side.

Wendy glanced at her and smiled. "It's been wonderful having you here again, despite the circumstances," she said. "I wish you could stay longer."

Lucie's voice came from behind them. "We'd like to, but we still have a job to take care of."

"Yes." Jon sighed on the other side of the crib. "You have to find Proteus. But shouldn't you stay here to look for him?"

Trix shook her head. "He's not here."

"How can you be sure?"

"When we were chasing that Time Force guard, and Proteus left his body, I could feel him. Then, just before we saw you, he just... disappeared. He was gone. At first I thought he had gone into you, Wendy, or your baby, but we know now he didn't. Even if he had, I think I could have still felt him."

There was a brief silence, broken by Jon's low voice. "So there's only one logical answer."

"Yes. The three duplicates of you."

"Wes, Jen, and Eric. We were saying goodbye to them just before you showed up."

"That was the light we saw, the - the dimension-hole you said they used to go back to their own universe. That was when Proteus disappeared."

"You don't suppose my duplicate, Jen, could have been pregnant?"

"You said almost everything seemed to be the same in their world, just like ours but with everyone the opposite sex. Wendy was pregnant then. It makes sense that Jen was too."

"Damn." Jon took a deep breath. "So Proteus may have possessed Jen's baby, like we thought he did with ours, and escaped into their dimension. What can we do?"

Kevin spoke into the silence this time. "We don't have dimension-traveling technology. Maybe there's nothing we can do."

Trix smiled grimly. "The three of us have to go home first, back to our own time. Then - I have an idea. Maybe we can at least warn them."

"And then - then I woke up," Trip finished. He looked anxiously at Katie, and then at Lucas.

They both stared back. Finally Lucas said, "So - you think the dreams are Trix's way of warning us?"

"Yes! Yes, she found some way to send her memories to me, only when I'm asleep, and it makes sense, you know, we're really the same person, and our - our minds are sort of in tune, I guess, I mean besides us having the power to sense stuff, and remember how the dimension transfers were off then when we tried to bring Wes, Jen, and Eric back to our dimension, and we thought it was Jen's baby, but the technicians couldn't get it adjusted right and it must have been because it wasn't just the baby, it was Proteus too-"

"Whoa, Trip, slow down." Katie smiled for a moment in amusement before her expression became serious again. "Even if your dreams are a warning, what can we do about it?"

"She's right," Lucas said. "We're in 3005, and even if you're right about this Proteus character, he's in the year 2006. Maybe he was a known mutant in that other dimension, but he isn't in ours. We don't know anything about him; we don't know how to scan for him or what to do if we find him, even if Time Force was willing to let us go back to look for him."

"Yeah, I guess." Trip paused for a moment to think, and then smiled. "But I have an idea too. Maybe the same one Trix had."

- - -

Silver Hills, 2006

"What a lovely child. It's been too long since there was a baby in this house."

"Thank you, Philips." Jen smiled at the fond expression on the elderly butler's face as he looked at the child in her arms. Then, politely declining Wes's and Mr. Collins' offers of help, she followed him towards the front door as the two of them hovered and Eric, who had showed up unexpectedly at the hospital, brought up the rear of the little parade.

Inside, what looked like a small gauntlet of servants waited to greet her and exclaim admiringly over the baby, who seemed to be taking it with surprising calmness. Exactly the way he seemed to react to everything - no crying, except for the occasional single demanding yell that wasn't even a normal-sounding cry, when he was hungry or needed changing. None of the curiosity or incomprehension you'd expect from an infant experiencing the world for the first time, either, just that cool and considering look, as if he'd seen it all before.

Impatiently, she shook off the thought. Just the misgivings of a new mother. It must be.

It was a relief to be distracted by Eric's voice muttering, "Geez, you'd think the kid was the second coming."

"What's the matter, Eric?" Wes asked with a grin. "Don't you like babies?"

"All they do is scream and fill diapers. No, not particularly."

"Wait till you have one of your own," Mr. Collins said. "You'll change your mind."

"God forbid. And don't go giving Gaby any ideas." Eric turned back to the door. "Well, I'm heading back to Bio-Lab. Someone's got to keep the place running."

To Jen's relief, Mr. Collins took charge, dispersed the crowd, and disappeared in the direction of the kitchen with Philips. She smiled at Wes as relative peace descended. "Let's go upstairs," she said. "Is the nursery all finished?"

"Sure is." He grinned. "They did the painting as soon as Junior was born and they knew what color to use."

She smiled. "Remember all the complaining about us not finding out in advance if he was a boy or a girl?"

"Yep. But I'm glad we waited."

"Me too."

Upstairs, Jen walked into a room that was freshly cleaned and decorated, and painted in cool shades of pastel blue. She took a moment to look around, and then went to the crib and carefully lowered the baby into it.

"Welcome home, little guy," Wes said softly, leaning over his son and offering a finger for him to grab. The child stared up at them, ignoring it. Jen saw Wes's brows crease slightly as he said, "I guess he's tired."

"I guess."

"You probably are too. Want to go lie down?"

"No, I'm okay." The baby was still lying there quietly, watching them with that disconcerting concentration.

"We really have to decide on a name soon. Can't keep calling him 'Junior'."

"We will. Soon." She looked down into the crib, feeling an odd reluctance. Strange that she was having so much trouble even thinking about a name. It had gotten to the point that she had refused to decide, and let them put 'Junior' on the birth certificate as a temporary name, which they would legally change later. A lot of trouble to go through because of indecision - but somehow it wouldn't have felt right to give him a name. She felt a chill, seeing those infant eyes stare back into hers with their hint of something very un-childlike. It was as if she would be naming the wrong person. As if this wasn't really her baby.

- - -

TBC...