A/N: Wow… update in two weeks. Record for me, yeah? So, anyway, despite not getting any reviews (and I understand, I'm not the most reliable updater), I figured I'd go ahead and toss this online. Hope you enjoy it!

"…": characters talking to each other

'…': characters talking to themselves

(…): extra facts about something in the story

(Takes place just after "Mystic Fate II")

Theme 52: Dream

Bly Residence, May, 2015, 1:30 PM – Briarwood, CA, USA

"Vida, you here?" Xander Bly tossed his keys into a small hand-woven basket in the foyer, quickly followed by his wallet and cell phone. A corduroy jacket was soon hung as well, his Mystical Symbol stitched in dark green glinting in the afternoon sun.

"Kitchen," came the reply and as the twenty-six year old moved past a mound of magazines he reflected on his life thus far, absently creating a Tiger Lily as he did so. After finishing off Octomus all those years ago, he'd gone on to get his degree in Studio Arts and Vida hers in Musical Creation and Therapy; currently, she was working on an album with Kira Ford-Mercer and Tanya Park, both of whom were heroines and well-known in the musical business. In fact, the entirety of the Mystic Force team had moved on with their lives, with close contact still kept amongst them. Nick and Madison had married just after Xander and Vida, the latter two having gotten hitched in Las Vegas of all places on a dare, then deciding that they liked being married and refused to get an annulment, much to Vida's father's disapproval. Nick was currently working on his advanced mechanics degree and Maddie on her filmmaking talents. She actually had a video in production at the moment and, amazingly enough, the plot had been fought over by a few movie studios.

Chip was on the verge of knighthood (Daggeron had commented that he was fulfilling the requirements much more quickly than he himself had under Lienbow's tutelage) and to celebrate was throwing a party. Of course, due to his status as the guest of honor, he had to escort a noble lady to the party and he'd elected to ask Clare, who'd squealed an affirmative before fainting out of excitement. Upon finding out about the incident, Udonna was pleased as a peacock that her niece's dreams of dating the Yellow Garuda were currently being fulfilled.

On that note, Lienbow and Udonna had continued to be the go-betweens of the human and magical worlds, settling disputes and helping to rebuild the Mystical Realm with its multiple dimensions, all of which had been negatively affected in some way or form by the stream of seemingly endless battles with Infershia (the term Underworld had been discarded in place of the dark realm's real name some time ago). Daggeron was training Chip and his newest protégé, one Justin Stewart (he'd showed great magical potential when he'd been in Rootcore during the last Ranger Reunion) with Jenji's input and Phineas and Leelee traveled with Lienbow and Udonna, both on the hunt for other Troblins. Toby and Nikki were kept busy with Rock Porium and its new employees, plus their adopted son, a five-year old former orphan named Graham.

"Hey there," Vida commented looking up from the kitchen table, which was currently covered in a mass of compact disks, files of sheet music, labels, a string of headphones hooked up to miniature CD players and iPods, plus a miniature laptop computer to round up the collection. Strains of classical music mixed with jazz and pop could be heard emanating from the laptop. Cool gray eyes winked at a pair of chocolate orbs in greeting.

"Hey yourself." Xander dropped a kiss on Vida's head, quickly twining the flower into his wife's hair with a few deft finger movements, by now a common ritual. After this, he went to get a glass of water, ducking the rolled up ball of paper that came flying his way. He smirked. No matter how comfortable he and Vida were as a married couple, he loved that he still had the ability to irritate her like no tomorrow. It was a throwback to their days as Rock Porium employees when everything he did was to get her attention and now that he had it he'd go through Infershia and back to keep it.

"How'd it go today?" Vida asked absently hanging a set of bright yellow and orange earphones (a gift from Chip, of course) around her neck, picking up a pencil. She ignored the flower's presence in her hair; secretly, she thought it kind of romantic that Xander continued to give her flowers every day, and had gotten to the point where she just ignored their presence in her hair and later took them out (the vase of various flowers on a nearby kitchen counter belayed this fact). She turned off the musical mix and began drawing whole, quarter, and half notes onto a blank piece of sheet music, bobbing her head to some tune that only she could hear.

Xander shrugged. "As well as can be, V. Trent an' I are having trouble finding a backer." He shook his head. "Bloody bastards are afraid to invest in some dinky little company." Xander and Trent Fernandez-Mercer had joined forces to create a small comic-book company, but they were having trouble finding a backer that was not Trent's adopted father as his input, while welcomed, wasn't really all that good for encouraging other people's confidence in the company.

"Sucks for you," Vida sing-songed, a glint in her eyes. Xander cocked an eyebrow, sensing a challenge. Vida scribbled something else on the sheet music before grabbing a pen and tracing the pencil markings so they wouldn't smear. After a few minutes of silence, she remarked, "Any chance of finding someone else?"

Xander had, by now, moved so that he was leaning over Vida's shoulder, eyes roving the music. Ignoring the previous question, he asked instead, "Anything good, love?"

Vida scoffed before rolling her eyes. "Don't know. I'll have to talk to Tanya and Kira before I know." After a few minutes of pen-scribbles, she threw the headphones onto the table in disgust. "The muse isn't talking; hasn't been for a while."

"You okay?" Xander was concerned. His Pink Sprite usually had mountain-loads of inspiration; but lately, it'd dried up. Nothing she did was able to restore it, and for that he was worried.

"Does it look like it?" Vida hissed moving through mounds of papers. "I can't write anything good; it's all crap, the music's out of tune and I just can't think anymore!" She moved to sweep everything off the table in one fell swoop, but Xander quickly grabbed her in his arms, holding her tight despite her struggling to get free.

"Let me go, Xander," Vida snarled eyes snapping dangerously. Where Xander might once have acquiesced to the request, he now stood his ground.

"V, if you do that you're going to regret it in the morning," Xander responded his eyes looking into his wife's. "What's wrong, love? Something else's going on, and I want to know what."

Vida didn't move for a moment but, all of a sudden, she pushed Xander away from her and defensively wrapped her arms around herself. Xander watched anxiously as his Sprite began to pace, a wide array of emotions moving through her eyes. The Tiger Lily seemed to want to fall out of Vida's hair, but it somehow stayed in place.

"I was at the doctor's office today," Vida said suddenly interrupting the tense silence.

"What's wrong? Are you sick?" Xander asked getting a tad impatient at how long Vida was taking to get to the point. He moved to feel her forehead but she ducked out of the way, causing his irritation level to rise.

"Not quite," Vida whispered stopping in front of her husband. Lifting her eyes to meet his nervously, she took a breath and said, "The doctor told me that I was, that we're going to, um, well," the stuttering worried Xander even more. She took another breath before blurting out, "I'm pregnant."

Xander blinked rapidly trying to absorb what he had just heard. 'V's pregnant? Then that means that, well, that I'm going to be a dad…'

Xander must have taken too long to formulate a response because Vida's eyes clouded over with anger. She turned to leave the kitchen, a string of insults on the tip of her tongue. However, she didn't expect Xander to pull her against him, almost crushing her.

"Xan, can't breathe." The hug was ended but she was spun around and, looking up into the chocolate eyes that she had come to love didn't see anything. "Xander?"

"You're sure, V?" The eyes were now filled with concern.

Vida nodded still entranced by Xander's eyes. "Yeah, she said that I'm like a month and a half along."

Xander merely smiled before gently kissing her, smirking when the kiss was returned. When they broke apart, he asked, "Who else knows?"

Vida, now grinning at the stupidity of her earlier anger shrugged while wrapping her arms around Xander's broad shoulders. "No one as I figured that it was only right to tell you first." She pressed a kiss to Xander's mouth and the gentleness soon gave way to passion. As Xander and Vida stumbled towards the bedroom, Xander was sure that he had the best life ever, and as he leaned down to kiss his wife again he paused absently noting that the flower had fallen from Vida's hair and was now on the floor. Ignoring it, he went to kiss Vida again but heard a sound. He lifted his head and turned it, looking for the source of the sound that had invaded his life…

Bly Residence, May 11, 2007, 6:30 am – Briarwood, CA, USA

The shrill sound of Xander's alarm clock threw the Minotaur onto the floor of his bedroom, a mess of pillows and blankets falling around him. A tanned hand quickly rose into the air and threw the electrical device at the nearest wall. He blinked rapidly looking around the room for the paintings done by his cousin Kat as a wedding gift to Vida and him, for the lithographs from the Aquitian Rangers as an apology for their not being able to meet the happy couple previous to their marriage, the blues and greens of the landscapes from the water world creating a comforting aura in the room, the furnishings that he and Vida had chosen together. The room only had a single bed instead of the King he'd invested in when Vida had first moved in, and there was no closet, merely two armoires, one covered with hair and skin products, the other his drawing supplies.

"Oh no…" Xander muttered eyes widening. "Please, spirits, don't tell me that it was all a dream." He looked around once more followed by his getting to his feet, moving around and looking for any signs that he was being tricked. Vida had a tendency to do that to mess with him and, unfortunately, succeeded almost every time. He choked up when he remembered the entirety of his dream and frantically began pulling apart his armoires, looking for his maternal grandmother's jewelry box, knowing that Vida's engagement ring had come straight from it.

'Please don't let it be here,' Xander thought as he set the large box gently on his bed. Opening it, he felt his eyes tear up when the ring, a pink diamond set among a field of green emeralds and white quartz set on gold was nestled dead and center in the box.

"No. No, no, no!" Xander closed the lid and slid to the floor of his room, hands going to cover his eyes tears falling down his face. "It really was a dream… stupid bloody dreams. Tempting me like that." Then, a brainstorm emerged. "Tempting, huh? Well, that can be arranged." Quicker than imaginable, Xander changed into some decent clothes, locked his bedroom door (and, for good measure, blockaded it with one of his armoires) and, grabbing his Morpher chanted a short transportation spell. A dull green Spell Circle appeared underneath him and within seconds he was standing in Vida Rocca's bedroom (she and Maddie had received their own rooms a few months previous when their father had lost a game of poker with the twins and at this moment, Xander was praising every spirit he knew for that stroke of good luck).

"V, wake up," Xander whispered moving over to where the Sprite slept, hair tinted pale pink.

"Xan, what the hell?" Vida's eyes cracked open only to groan when she caught sight of the illuminated numbers. "It's 6:30 in the fucking morning, Xander. What the hell is going on?" She sat up only to have her eyes widen substantially in shock when her teammate forcefully kissed her. After a moment of hesitation, she returned the kiss with just as much fervor and passion.

"Xan, what was that?" Vida whispered pressing butterfly kisses along the Minotaur's jaw.

Xander smirked as he caught Vida's chin in one hand and kissed her again. "Insurance, V, that my dream comes true."