It was late out. He didn't want to go home. He didn't want to go anywhere near him. He felt feelings of betrayal, distrust, doubt and anger, all mixed up into one.

Wes wondered around aimlessly through Bio-Lab in its late hours, passing by the night cleaning crew and a few security guards. He ignored their curious glances, wondering what he was still doing here. He should have been home hours ago, but after his talk with Eric, he had taken off and returned here just before dark, not wanting to go home just yet.

He had nowhere else to go. The clock tower had been destroyed years earlier. He couldn't go to Eric's, not after their argument. He half thought about going to Lisa's home, but it was late and it just didn't seem right. He could stay at a hotel, but everyone in town knew his name and would wonder why the son of a millionaire was staying at their hotel. So he ended up here of all places. The very place that caused his problems, but also in different ways fixed his problems.

Wes walked into Dr. Manx' lab, sighing heavily as he sat on the ground leaning his back against the counter. He was overwhelmed with everything, the academy, SPD, morphers, missions, military law enforcement, DNA corruption. It all seemed too much for him to handle all in one day. He was so lost in his thoughts that he didn't notice that RIC had wandered over to him, staring right at him. RIC then whacked Wes's hand with his nose.

"Oh, it's you, RIC right?"

RIC barked and his eyes lit up.

Wes smiled faintly, slightly amused by the robotic dog. "You know, when I was a kid I always wanted a dog, but I couldn't have one. My dad was allergic. My mom always said she'd get me one, but," Wes sighed, "she died." Wes hesitantly patted RIC on the head, feeling slightly weird about it, because he was a machine, but Eric seemed to think of the Q-Rex as being alive, so maybe it wasn't so weird after all. Besides, he was already talking to RIC like it was a living thing, so it was too late for feeling weird.

Wes smiled faintly, probably the first smile he had all day; suddenly all his problems didn't seem so bad. He felt at ease in the company of RIC. No worries, no problems, maybe that was because RIC didn't expect anything out of him, no pressure.

RIC then opened a compartment on its back and little blue ball jumped out and landed into Wes's lap. RIC barked. Then again…

"You want to play?" Wes picked up the ball and tossed it as RIC went flying after it and came back to Wes. Wes continued to play catch with RIC until Dr. Manx snuck up on him.

"Careful, he could go on for days."

Wes quickly jumped to his feet. "Dr. Manx, sorry I didn't know you were here."

She gave him a reassuring smile. "It's all right. After all, you are the heir to the company; you have every right to be here."

"Yeah," Wes sighed. RIC returned to his side, ball in mouth. "We'll play later, okay?" Wes then watched as RIC walked into the back room.

"Seems RIC taken a liking to you," smiled Kat. "He doesn't do that with just anyone."

"I guess." Wes shrugged his shoulders.

"Come here. I think this may be something you want to see." Kat led Wes into the back room where a bunch of blueprints were stored. She searched through a pile until she found what she was looking for. "Here." She handed the blueprint to Wes.

Wes opened it up and looked at the design. "It's the blue print of RIC."

"Yes. Look closer."

Wes continued to look it over, seeing if there was something he was missing. His eyes widened. In the right hand corner was a date, dating back a little more then twenty years ago, and his mother's name underneath it. "My mother? But how?"

"In the notes I was able to gather, she had stated that RIC was a special project." She looked into Wes's eyes. "For her son."

"Me?" Wes's eyes widened and then fell onto RIC. RIC was his, but….And then it came back to him. What his mother had told him, she never said she get him a dog. She had told him she would make him a dog, called RIC. He couldn't believe he had forgotten that, but he had been so young back then.

"There's a lot you don't know about your mother, Wes. The things she was working on before she died. What she and your father were planning." Kat bit her lip. "I believe your father was going to tell you that, but you took off before he could finish."

"Did you know?"

Kat sighed. "Yes I knew."

"So it affected you too, changed your DNA, like me and the others?"

"No." Kat shook her head. "It didn't affect me."

Wes looked at her, confused. How could she not have been affected when the rest of them were? "But how?"

"Because my DNA is different from yours and the others." She continued on when she saw the confusion in Wes's eyes. "I come from another world; my planet was destroyed. Andros and his team rescued me and brought me here."

Wes didn't know what to say. It was just one thing after another today: new-found information, almost too much to handle all at once. "What?" Wes shook his head, feeling like it could explode at any moment. "So you're not human?"

"No. I'm not, well, not fully anyway." Kat then showed Wes her true form. "I'm half feline." She appeared human, but catlike features showed through, pointed ears, catlike teeth and even hints of whiskers.

Wes was just blown away. He always thought there was something odd and off about Dr. Manx, but never suspected this. "Unbelievable!"

"Wesley. I was worried sick about you." Mr. Collins was in his robe as he walked out of his bedroom into the hall where he had heard Wes come up the stairs. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah." Wes sighed. "I didn't mean to worry you, everything's so messed up right now. I guess I may have overreacted."

"No." Collins sighed. "You have every right to be angry with me. And I wouldn't blame you if you never talked to me again."

"Dinner definitely would be quieter then usual," smiled Wes, laughing slightly.

Which his father took as a good sign, and laughed along with him. "I see you haven't lost your sense of humor."

"Yeah. I guess not." This was hard for him, forgiving his father, when he felt so angry, filled with hurt, but if there was one thing Wes had learned it was that he couldn't go through his life pushing his father away. They already had missed so much as it was.

"You want to talk about something, son?"

"Can you tell me about Mom? Kat mentioned a few things."

Collins smiled. "Of course." He patted his son on the shoulder. "Come on, let's go fix you a sandwich and we'll talk. How does that sound?"

"Sounds pretty good." Wes smiled as his father led him down the stairs. "Um, Dad, did you know that, um, Kat is-"

"Yes, she and Andros told me all about it today."

"You okay with it?"

Collins turned to his son. "Of course. Why wouldn't I be?"

Wes stopped for a moment, watching as his father walked into the kitchen. Perhaps Eric was right, maybe he should cut his father some slack; after all he wasn't the same man he had been back then. No one is perfect, even Wes had made his fair share of mistakes.

"Wes?" He heard his father call for him.

"Coming, Dad."

Over the next hours Wes listened as his father told him about his mother, what their original plans were and everything that had followed. Wes learned that the Silver Guardians were supposed to be started years ago. It had been one of the projects his mother had been working on before her death, that along with the Raimei. But that wasn't all she had been working on, she had been working on creating her own morphers, which was something Wes was having a hard time comprehending.

"But how? Where did she get the knowledge to even come up with that?"

"From a man named William Mitchell, your mother and he went to college together. William was training to be a fireman, but on the side was studying defense mechanisms. Together your mother and him found they could create something unlike anything anyone has ever seen."

"What happened?"

"Shortly after the believed death of his son, six-year-old son Ryan, back in 1986, he and your mother parted ways and eventually fell out of touch." Collins sighed, knowing that really broke his wife apart. She and William had been friends for so long. She had been there for him when his wife had died and wanted to be there for him after the loss of his son, but he pushed her away and she never saw him again. "Before that happened, we all used to be really good friends. You, Ryan and his sister Dana used to play together."

Wes's eyes widened. It had just been a few years ago that he had seen both Ryan and Dana. It wasn't until now that he had realized he had known them, at one time he and Ryan and Dana had all been good friends. "You know, I thought they looked familiar when they helped me and the rangers out. I just couldn't put my finger on it."

"You were a child back then, it's understandable. I haven't talked to William in years. The last time I spoke to him was after your mother passed on. The only way I knew his son had turned up alive was because of a newspaper article."

Wes nodded his head. "So this whole law enforcement defense industry was always supposed to happen."

Collins sighed. "Yes, it was. After your mother died I just couldn't continue. It hurt too much. But years later when Ransik and his gang of criminals showed up, I knew then this was the kind of thing your mother wanted to prevent, and you know the rest."

Wes finally understood everything. It all made perfect sense. The missing pieces had finally been put together. All of this was supposed to happen, the Silver Guardians were always meant to be, and soon they would become something that was so much more. Wes had to wonder, would all of this one day evolve into Time Force? He would never know for sure, but just maybe this had been his destiny after all.

"So you talked to your father?" asked Eric, leaning his back against his locker.

"Yep," answered Wes as he put his gear on.

"Worked everything out?"

"Mostly."

Eric nodded his head. "Uh huh. So you got anything else to say?"

"Okay. Okay, you were right." Wes laughed as he put his beret on. "Is that what you wanted to hear?"

"Yep. Feels good being right for a change."

"Yeah, well, don't get used to it." Wes turned and grinned. "Because starting Monday I'm in charge of you."

"Uh huh, we'll just see about that, rich boy." Eric smiled. It was a slow process, but he was starting to see the old Wes come back.

"Come on, I'll race you to the truck, last one there buys lunch!"

"You're on. I missed breakfast today, so I could use a big lunch." And the two were off, running out of the locker room, down the hall and out the door to the garage where the trucks were parked.