Captain Logan, along with Alex and a few of the Time Forces Medics, entered the room where Jen and the others slept comfortably. Just a little over an hour ago their time ship had arrived right on schedule. The rangers were still in hyper sleep and would remain that way for some time.
"I want a full evaluation to be done, mentally and physically," ordered Logan to the Medics team. He wanted to make sure the team was in tip top shape and hadn't brought back any diseases with them. He turned to Alex. "And Commander Drake, I would like you to oversee it,"
"Yes sir!" answered Alex sharply. His eyes then turned to where Jen was sleeping peacefully, just as she always had when she had stayed over at his apartment. He would often wake up in the middle of the night and find her sleeping close to him, resting her head on his shoulder. But now all that seemed like an eternity ago. Now everything had changed.
Logan walked around the room and came across Circuit, who was sitting close to Trip. When the time ship had arrived they had found him damaged, so Logan had ordered his team to make the repairs to the noble robot that had assisted the rangers all these months. "Circuit, it is good to have you back with us. I assume all your repairs were to your liking?"
"Yes sir, I've never felt better." The owl flapped his wings, and turned his attention back to Trip. He was eagerly waiting for his friend and the other rangers to awake, to let them know it had been Wes who had damaged him, although he assumed they would have figured that out by now. He looked back up at Captain Logan. "Captain Logan, when will the others and I return to the past to assist the red ranger?" Circuit was deeply concerned about the friend they had left behind. "Ransik and Frax weren't defeated."
Logan was caught off guard, but dismissed it with a cough and smiled. "Don't you worry about that, you just keep an eye on Trip. Let me worry about the rest." The Captain then made his way back over to Alex and the Medic team, and eyed them sharply. "I thought I made it clear that the robot was going to get his memory wiped."
"Sorry sir, there must have been some sort of a mix up," answered one of the medics. "I'll contact the technicians."
Logan nodded his head. "Just make sure when the rangers go through memory adaptation, he gets his memory wiped as well." He looked Alex sharply in the eyes. "The last thing we need is a little bird telling stories."
"Don't worry sir, you have my word. They won't remember a thing about the year 2001," Alex assured him. "Including Circuit."
"Good," Logan looked at them all one last time. "You'd better hurry; they will only be asleep for a couple more hours." In past years many officers had resisted the memory adaptation and caused all sorts of problems. Since then when an officer who had spent more than five days in a different time period returned, while they were in hyper sleep Time Force personnel would do the memory adaptation. Thankfully the rangers returned at the time they were supposed to. The medic team was already waiting for them as they arrived back home.
"By the time they wake up, it'll be done sir," answered Alex.
"I'm sure it will."
"You did what!" Eric yelled, as he grabbed Wes by the collar of his shirt and shoved him against the wall. Just moments ago, Wes had come to his aid, as an army of cyclobots had come close to ending his career as leader of the Silver Guardians. The two had then retreated and run for cover inside an ally.
"I sent them back, alright!" Wes tried to shove Eric off of him, but Eric, even in his weakened state, proved to be the stronger of the two. "Now are you going to let me go or not?"
"Not until you tell me why." Eric stared Wes right in the eyes, his dark cold stare that could send shivers down your back. "Why'd you send them back, Wes? In case you haven't noticed, the city is under attack; people are already evacuating as we speak. The city is swarming with cyclobots. Ransik and Nadera are out on a rampage and Doomtron is destroying the city. So again Wes, why the hell did you send them back?" It wasn't that he was looking for their help or anything, but deep down he knew this was way too big for him, the Silver Guardians, anyone to handle on their own. They were going to need all the help they could get.
"If they stayed they were going to die, okay?" He felt Eric loosen his grip and he pushed him away. "Look, last night I got a message from myself, from the future. Telling me the others would die unless I sent them back."
"Oh I see, so you thought your friends' and your girlfriend's lives were more important than a bunch of innocent people."
"Jen is not my girlfriend!" Wes lost it, and got right into Eric's face, acting in such a way that they both thought he would strike Eric in the face. But that would be a mistake he would only regret a second later. It just proved how right Eric was.
Eric crossed his arm against his chest, and answered flatly. "Yeah, then how'd you know I was talking about her? And don't look at me like that, I'm not stupid. Everyone knows you're crazy about her."
"Leave Jen out of this."
"Oh, but I can't do that, because she's the main reason we're in this situation!" yelled Eric. "A whole lot of people are going to die because of your selfish act." Eric shoved Wes hard in the chest. "Nice going, hero, Daddy's going to be real proud!"
Already he could feel himself burn with anger. How dare he try to turn things around and make me look like the bad guy? When all he was doing was trying to save his friends, save the woman he loved more than anything. "Fine, I messed up, I'll admit it." Wes looked Eric hard in the face. "But I'm not sorry I did."
"Fine, but just remember that when all those people die and the city is destroyed," he pointed his finger directly at Wes, "it will be riding on your shoulders! And you're the one who's going to have to live with it."
It wasn't until then that he realized how much Eric was right. It would be his fault. He was the one that sent them back. All because he didn't want to watch them die, watch her die. But there was nothing he could do about it now, what was done was done. "Are you done here? Because we're the only hope this city has right now and it's not going to get saved with you lecturing me."
"Well, at least we agree on one thing." He poked Wes hard in the chest. "But from here on out I make the calls, got it?"
"Fine with me."
"Good. Let's go."
Jen, Trip, Lucas and Katie all sat quietly in the room as the doctors left. All of them appeared disorientated and unsure of their surroundings or why they were there. Alex entered the room and eyed them all. He took a deep breath and whispered softly. "Here goes nothing…" He stepped in front of them. "I'm sure you all have a lot of questions and in time I will do my best to answer them. But for now, you are on paid leave from Time Force for the next few weeks. During that time I want you all to take it easy."
The four looked at each other, slightly confused and unsure of what to think. But they decided it best not to question Alex, after all he was their commanding officer. And the fact that they all felt tired and uneasy made them the all more ready to head home to their apartments and get some rest.
Alex led Jen to her apartment, during that time neither one had spoken a word to the other. "Here, let me get the door." Alex took her keys and unlocked the door for her and helped her inside.
Jen looked around for a moment, moving around slowly. She sighed heavily and turned to face Alex. "Why?"
"Why what?" he answered, already knowing.
"Don't play games with me, Alex. I've been with Time Force long enough to know protocol. The others don't remember where we've been all this time. What we have done." She looked him right in the eyes. "Why do I?"
He knew it wouldn't be long before she realized what had happened. He had only given her a small dosage to make her appear disorientated like the others. Alex sighed heavily and pulled the photo out of his pocket and handed it to her. It was a photo of Wes kissing her on the cheek.
"I found it in your pocket, shortly after you and the others returned from the year 2001."
Jen stared at the photo, feeling lost in the moment. It brought back so many memories, both good and bad… She sighed heavily and took a deep breath to hold back her tears. It hurt just to think about him, think about what had happened to him. "This is why you didn't have me go through memory adaptation, like the others?" There had to be more of a reason than just a simple photograph for Alex not to have put her through memory adaptation like the others.
Alex was silent for a moment. He had thought about this conversation a lot, ever since he had gotten back from the past all those months ago. He had hoped it would never come to this, but things hadn't worked out as he had hoped they would. He took her hand, gently rubbing it, hoping to see that look in her eyes again. The one he had seen the day he had asked her to marry him, but now he could see everything had changed, everything was different now. She no longer looked at him the way she once had. "Look Jen, we both know that you don't love me any more." He licked his lips. "At least not in the way you used to."
"Alex, no I do…." But she couldn't get the words out, as much as she wanted to deny it. She didn't love him, not as she had the day he had proposed to her. The time apart and everything that had happened had drifted them away from each other. Now her heart belonged to someone else, someone a thousand years in the past.
"You love Wes, Jen," It was heart wrenching for him having to accept that his double had taken his place in Jen's heart. He didn't want it to be true. It was supposed to be him and Jen, forever, as they used to say. But the look in Jen's eyes, the sound of her voice, said it all. "It's as simple as that." He gently raised his hand to brush away a falling tear from her eye. "That's why I couldn't let you go through memory adaptation, lose your memories. I couldn't marry you knowing that you didn't love me. It wouldn't be fair to either of us."
"I never meant to hurt you, Alex." Tears filled her eyes, knowing this probably hurt him more than she could ever imagine. Alex had always been there for her whenever she needed him. She had told him it would be them together forever on so many occasions. Now forever would never come, that dream they both had so long ago had come to an end. "And I want you to know that nothing ever happened between Wes and me. He never even knew…." And then she couldn't hold it back any longer. She had left Wes behind, with him never knowing the truth, never knowing how much she cared for him, how much he meant to her, and how much she loved him.
Alex wrapped his arms around her, as Jen sobbed heavily on his shoulder. It was hard, being there for her, and not being able to be there the way he wanted. Sure, he could have put her through memory adaptation and she would have forgotten she had ever met Wes, ever fallen in love with him, but he wouldn't have been able to live with himself. He would always know the truth. Wes's ghost would always be there, hidden in the shadows. He would never be able to live with himself if he put her through that.
He had only been in the past a couple of days. He hadn't been there long enough to feel accustomed to the time period. Memory adaptation didn't apply to him. "I'm sorry Jen. I'm so sorry." And he knew it would only get harder. She would want to know what had happened to Wes. And sooner or later, he was going to have to tell her. No matter how hard it would be…
Mr. Collins sat close to Eric's bedside in the hospital room where he was resting. He had just gotten out of surgery. The doctor had told him things had gone fine, and in a few months Eric would be back to his old self.
The room was silent; he had turned the TV off right after he had heard about the Q-Rex self-destructing to take out Doomtron. It had worked, but after the explosion no one had seen or heard from Wes. Shortly after the explosion, Silver Guardians had rushed to the scene, which was swarming with cyclobots, but that was hours ago. He was starting to worry; Wes should have contacted him by now to let him know he was all right. He heard footsteps, his heart skipped a beat. Could it…. "Wes…" He turned his head, but only to find two badly beaten Silver Guardians, their faces grim, and in one of their hands the red ranger morpher, stained in blood.
"I'm sorry, sir." He placed it into Collins' hands. "It was all we could find. The explosion took out a lot of the surrounding area, a lot of rubble, Ransik and cyclobots all over the place." He sighed heavily. "We think that he……" He couldn't even bring the words out, it was far too painful.
Collins stared at Wes's morpher; it was damaged and stained in blood. Wes's blood…. He felt tears run down his cheek. "Wes…"