“She’s been sitting outside for hours in this rain. Don’t you think we ought to go get her, so she doesn’t catch a cold, or something?”

Kira looked past the sliding glass doors of Wes’s living room and stared at the swing where Jen sat, curled up in a ball, her head in her hands, and eyes gazing out through the raindrops and up into the clouds, as if searching for something. It all stemmed from their encounter with Kane only hours ago. Jen had shocked them all out of reality, and it was no surprise she wasn’t all with it.

The Yellow Ranger looked back to where Xander sat, his mind too curious about why Jen was sitting in the rain. “I don’t know, Xander. I don’t think she wants to be disturbed.” Kira looked back to her magazine. “Hell, after what happened, if I were her, I wouldn’t want to be either.”

“It really is strange what happened.” Chip spoke up from behind his cup of coffee. “Who was the girl Kane killed? Was it Jen’s sister, or something?”

Alyssa shook her head. “I have no idea, and neither does Eric or Wes. Cole was asking them about it after they got back, but neither of them knew.”

“No one really does.” Katie’s voice chimed in. Holding a small piece of cake and an ice pack, she sat down next to Xander and looked out to where Jen sat. “Not much is known about Jen.” Katie chuckled and thought back. “I remember the first time I met her, back at the Academy. She never spoke of her parents, her past, or even her plans for the future. Just how much she wanted to get her badge.”

Connor laughed. “Kind of like Tommy. We didn’t know he was a Power Rangers before he took control of the Black Dino Gem. When we did find out, boy were we surprised.” He looked to Kira who nodded in agreement.

“Does anyone know about what really happened between Jen and Kane?” Chip asked. Katie sighed to her fellow Yellow Ranger.

“Only one of us does,” Katie said and glanced up to the ceiling, where Alex’s room resided above their heads.

--

“I— I’m sorry, Maddie, for getting you mixed up in this whole ordeal. I really am.” Vida said as she rubbed a wash cloth over Madison’s warm forehead. With the return of Madison, the Blue Ranger had come down with a nasty cold that kept her bedridden. “It’s just that, I was afraid that Billy’s prediction would come true, and I would be taken. I never meant for you to get mixed up in any of this.”

“Then why did you call me home?” Madison asked. Her voice was high and nasally as she spoke and gently sipped her tea. Vida shrugged.

“I . . . I was afraid, and I guess that calling you home would make me feel better.” Vida sighed. “I didn’t think that Samira would have come earlier, and believe me Maddie; I was going to be home— I just didn’t get there in time.”

Madison let out a loud cough, but managed a small smile. “Whatever, the matter is done and over with, there’s no need to ponder on it, really. I’m home and we’re all safe. That’s all that matters.”

There came a knock at Madison’s door. Nick his head in and saw the girls having a sisterly heart-to-heart. Vida grinned at him, then back to Madison. “Well, maybe for you, there’s more that matters. I’ll leave you two alone, then.” Giving her sister’s hand a squeeze, Vida got up from the bed and grinned at Nick.

Nick ignored Vida’s stare and closed the door behind the Pink Ranger. Madison let out a loud cough and grinned at the Red Ranger. Nick couldn’t help but laugh. “I’m sorry, it’s just that you look so miserable lying there.”

“Oh, so seeing people like me absolutely miserable makes you laugh? You seriously have to rethink that feeling of yours, Nick.”

He grinned and sat down next to her. It seemed so strange to see her after three years, but she looked as brilliant as ever, even when she was sick. She sat up and gently placed her head against the bedrest. She looked older now. Her skin was lighter, her hair lighter, but her eyes still a beautiful brown. He took her hand and ran this thumb over it, trying to put words into a sentence.

“I’ve thought of so many things to say, Madison that I can’t remember what they were. Seeing you after three, almost four years is—“

“Overwhelming,” she nodded and her eyes fell to the comforter. “I thought you would never come back, Nick. After the first few months, my hopes began to shrink. After the first year, I kind of gave up hope. What happened? I mean, four years is a really long time off.”

Nick bit his lip. “I had some things I needed to sort out, with Udonna, Leinbow, and my adopted parents. It was a little hard to smooth things over with them, and tell them I had found my birth parents. It was more the fact that by birth parents were Magical beings, and I was a Power Ranger. It took a little longer than anticipated. But when I heard something happened in Briarwood, I had to come back.” He sat closer to her. “And when Xander told me you were kidnapped— well— my heart stopped. I had to find you, Madison.”

She looked at him curiously. Something was different, but what she couldn’t put her finger on. Did he really mean what he told her, that he would come back for her? Did he really have feelings for her? “Why, Nick? Why did you come back for me?”

“Madison,” Nick paused, searching for the right words, and bit his lip to avoid saying something stupid. “I . . . have feelings for you— and you’re more than just a friend to me.”

She laughed gently. “Nick can fight a monster, slay a dragon and damn near save the world, but he can’t find the words to express his heart to a girl. Ain’t that ironic?” She sat closer to him and placed a hand on his cheek. “A simple ‘I like you’ would suffice, you know.”

He chuckled. “I guess you caught me, then.” He let out a shaky breath. “But it’s a little more than like.” Madison felt a tear come to her eye as she turned her head and coughed. She felt Nick’s arms go around her body and hold her in a deep and heart felt hug. Closing her eyes, she hugged him back and felt the heat from his body.

“I promise, Maddie, I’ll never leave you like that again, I swear.” He pressed his lips to her forehead and sat against the bed rest, gently tucking her back under the covers. Sliding down next to her, he cradled her head in his arm as he placed his arm around her waist. Minutes later, he heard Madison’s deep breathing as she drifted off to sleep. She seemed so peaceful when she was asleep, that Nick couldn’t imagine ever leaving her again.

“You want to know how I feel, Madison, well here it is,” he whispered into her ear. “I love you, Maddie, I really do— with all my heart, I love you.” He kissed her cheek once more and sat up as to not disturb her. Quietly he walked out of her room and closed the door, while the rain continued to pound on the roof above.

--

He scanned through what seemed like a thousand articles, and pulled up many he had already read through. How could it be possible that there were no articles tying Jen and Kane together? He found dozens on the murder Kane committed, and how Jessica Lynn McClane was stabbed twenty-two times with a kitchen knife and died due to massive trauma and bleeding. In later years there were numerous articles about Jen and her promotion to Lieutenant, her mission back to 2001, and even a snipet about when Dave was born; but nothing about Jen and Kane. Absolutely nothing. What was he not looking for, there was something; there had to be.

“If you’re looking for information on Jen and Kane, don’t bother, Wes, because you’re not going to find any,” Alex’s voice cut through Wes’s concentration as he exited yet another web-search on Trip’s computer. “If you’re looking for information, it’s better to go right to the source.”

Wes sighed and rubbed his eyes. “The one thing I’m questioning is whether Jen’s going to tell me. You know how she gets when you ask her something personal. She gets defensive.”

Alex let out a hearty laugh. “You’re telling me that? I dated her before she even got to Ensign. Hell, as you know, I was engaged to her. She was fun back then, too.” Alex returned Wes’s amused grin with a tip of his whiskey glass. “Use your imagination, Wes. Jen at nineteen was probably the most outgoing year of her life. She had a lot of . . . personal awakenings.” Wes raised an eyebrow to Alex’s comment.

“But then you went and got yourself killed by Ransik and she changed, dramatically.” Wes said and earned a nod from Alex.

“There was one thing I learned from the two years that we dated, and that was how to talk to her. You’ve got to be patient and a good listener, and just let her talk. Don’t try and argue, because we both know that arguing with Jen doesn’t get you anywhere.” Alex sipped his whiskey. “Most of all, you’ve got to get her trust first. She’s had a rough time in doing that in her life.”

Wes cocked his head. “I take it you know what happened, between her and Kane all those years ago, and why some girl’s death has such a big impact on Jen?” Alex nodded.

“But I don’t think you want to hear it from me.” The Commander stood up. “Just ask her, Wes. Don’t push the subject, just flat out ask her. Because if she trusts you as much as you think, you’ll be surprised what can happen.” He patted Wes’s shoulder twice as he walked into the kitchen.

Another sound caught Wes’s attention as the sliding glass door in the living room opened and Jen walked through it, her clothes soaked with the rain. She walked slowly, more like floated towards the staircase and went up to her room, her head bent down slightly. She had been this way since they returned from their mission to Alcatraz, and since her last encounter with Kane.

Taking Alex’s advice into consideration Wes closed the laptop and looked out past the window and into the cloudy gray skies above. The weather seemed fitting for the mood that surrounded the mansion. Even though they had gotten Madison back, Kane was still out there and probably still planning his next move. In a way, Kane was right. They might have won the battle, but this war was far from over.

“I’m going out,” Jen announced as she walked into the kitchen with a new set of clothes and a raincoat. “I’ll be back by dinner.” She fell into silence again as she slowly exited the house and closed the door quietly behind her. Wes sighed and let his hand fall besides the laptop. Maybe this chance was gone . . .

“Go after her, Wes.” Alex said from the doorway, in light of seeing Wes’s distraught expression.

Wes huffed. “Yea, now if I knew where she went, that would make things easier.” Immediately he kicked himself. Grabbing his raincoat and boots, he quickly excited the mansion and headed down Silver Hills Boulevard trying to avoid puddles and massive rain drops. His feet pounded against the wet pavement as he rounded a corner and stopped as he looked down the hill. Standing in front of a building he saw Jen close the door to the old Clock tower.

He hadn’t entered the building since it was rebuilt. It seemed strange to enter an old memory. Eight years of dust had accumulated on the counter tops and cobwebs seemed to work themselves into the most odd of places. On the floor he saw where Jen’s footprints left wet marks in the sea of dust. Near the cash register, a single line about the width of a finger trailed off onto the end.

He caught site of her footprints once again as he made his way toward the staircase that led up to the loft of a clock tower, where he spent most of his time back in 2001. As he walked up he heard the cheery voices of Trip, Katie and Lucas as they came careening down the stairs, eager to go do some job they had lined up. He remembered the first time he came down these stairs with Jen and they landed their first job painting some guy’s radio building.

Back then they had no worries, except bill deadlines and what mutant Ransik would send out next. Now things seemed different, with the added bonus that maybe this would be the last time Wes saw his friends, the last and first time he would see Dave, and his final moments with Jen.

Minutes later he found her, like many times he had done before. Walking up the stairs he looked over his right shoulder and found her sitting on the window sill, her foot swinging carelessly back and forth as she looked over the city and scanned the gray horizon. For a moment Wes felt like he traveled back in time, back to when they were barely leaving the teenage years. Jen would sit on that same sill when she had a lot on her mind, and when she was only nineteen— a helpless teenager in love.

He couldn’t think of anything to say to her, nothing came to his mind. How do you ask someone about a haunted memory that was laid to rest without stirring up any feelings for it? How do you go about asking about someone who you watched die and have no control over it? He sighed gently as he walked over to where she sat with a blanket wrapped around her and an old photograph in hand.

“Whoever she was, Jen, I’m sorry,” Wes managed to say alongside with the rain that still fell. Still, her eyes remained focused on the horizon. The only response he received was a small chuckle. He moved closer and starred at the picture. “If you don’t mind me asking, who is she?”

Jen’s eyes averted to the picture of the brunette and gave it a small smile. “My favorite picture of her. She seems so innocent; no one would guess what troubles she had. Jessica Lynn McClane was one of the best friends anyone could have” Jen trailed off as she swallowed hard and closed her eyes.

“Her mother died when she was ten, and that took a lot out of her father. Drove him deeper into his studies— he was a chemical engineer for Time Force, and a genius at that. For hours she would watch him work, amazed by what he could achieve, but it changed. He hardly had time for her, forcing her to fend for herself. It went on like this for years, until he discovered that alcohol could make his worries go away, and one night they got into an argument, putting her in the hospital with a pretty serious concussion, and a few broken ribs.

“He got out of prison on good behavior and a successful rehab session. One night, she heard a loud explosion and rushed downstairs to find her father lying on the ground with a chemical beaker in one hand, and a bottle of vodka in the other. Turns out he mixed something he shouldn’t have mixed. But there was something else. She found he was testing his concoction on some of Time Force’s inmates, slipping it into their food and testing them. It was hard, but she reported it immediately and Time Force came to her house to arrest him. They found him dead on the floor, and all the enhancers gone. After doing a blood test, turns out he injected them all into his body, and it killed him. She was fifteen.”

Jen’s eyes trailed back to the horizon. “She was placed into a foster home for the time being and a few months after she turned sixteen, went to get an application to join Time Force. But she ran into someone who she thought was dead. Markus McClane went into exile for a year and let everything settle before seeking his revenge. The enhancers twisted his mind and his body, changing him into that monster Kalvin Kane. He waited outside the house she was at and followed her. When she saw him she tried to get away, but he smashed her in the head with his fist.”

“Then he chased her into an alleyway and killed her.” Wes trailed off as Jen nodded.

“He pinned her up against a wall, grabbed her by the throat and placed the butcher knife on her skin and said, ‘You sold me to the Devil. You ruined my life, now it’s time I ruined yours.’ Then, he stabbed her, shoving the knife into her stomach, then again in the chest. He let her body fall before he stabbed her twenty times more.” Her hands shook. “There was nothing she could do but watch him in horror. She couldn’t move, couldn’t breath, but watch as he robbed her of every ounce of dignity and pride she had.”

“He stabbed her twenty-two times.” Wes placed two fingers on his forehead, as the image came to his mind.

“Yea,” Jen said hoarsely, and her voice dropped. “Ruined my favorite shirt.”

His eyes shot up and stared at her, Jen’s face was distant, her hand draped across her chest with the blanket over her. Gently, he took her knees and turned her around, so she was eye level with him. Pulling the blanket from her shoulders, he saw the pink track jacket she wore, zipped to the top. He stared into her eyes and saw the horror she hid. He reached for the metal zip and pulled it down slowly until it opened, revealing the only clothing she wore beneath it- a sports bra and a blanket of bad memories.

“My God . . .” Wes whispered as his eyes fell upon twenty-two jagged scars that Jen bore on her chest, each an inch and a half long. Jen jumped down from the sill and away from the open window.

“All the while I was praying that I would just die and end it now, and let him have the pleasure of his first kill. He left me to die, but for some reason I didn’t. Something kept me alive. The doctors said it was a miracle I survived an attack like this.” Jen slowly zipped her jacket back up as the wind swept in, creating a chill.

Wes stepped closer to her and eyes her up and down. “Did you get any kind of help for this?”

Jen stared at him and cocked her head. “Yea, I became a cop.”

--

Night had fallen quickly over Silver Hills and even though it was summer, a spine tingling feeling crept through Tommy’s body as he lay in bed, his heart beginning to pace quicker and quicker. He felt his chest heave as if a cinder block was placed on it, his breathing rapid. Beads of sweat collaborated on his forehead as he gripped the sheets tightly and voices floated in and out of his head.

“We did all we could, Officer, but he’s beyond saving.”

“Why did he come after him? Why now?”

“The letter, what did it mean? The letter—”

Instantly Billy’s voice popped into his head. “By now Tommy, you’ve already come to the conclusion that I’m gone, but you must know this is not how it was meant to be. There should have been another instead of me. I was not supposed to die . . .”

Instantly Tommy’s eyes opened and he found himself in a cold sweat that drenched his clothes. His entire body shook wildly. Something was wrong, he could feel it instantly. Even though he was sweating, he was cold to the touch, and had a sudden headache. Throwing the sheets off of him Tommy made his way downstairs to where he saw a curious commotion going on in Wes’s living room.

“We’re running out of time,” Alex’s voice drifted off towards his ears. “The longer we stay here the worse the timeline gets.”

Connor’s voice responded. “You mean that time is changing? How?”

Trip’s voice answered. “Events in this time are being altered— everything is going off balance. The same thing happened when Ransik escaped. The future shifted drastically, because there was no recollection that he was ever there. Granted, the changes were for the better in the long run, but I don’t think that’s the case this time around.”

“What’s so drastic that could change history?” Alyssa asked.

Tommy waited eagerly outside the door for the answer, but only heard silence, and then Lucas spoke in a low and solemn tone.

“It all follows back to when Cranston was killed, and when Kane put Jen only a few breaths away from death. Time Force had done some research through the history records and, judging by what they saw; two things went wrong and threw the timeline off.” Lucas said and looked to where Katie and Trip sat on the edges of their seats.

“And?” Kira asked. “What was supposed to happen?”

All eyes turned to Alex, who sighed and looked at the print out. He hated to be the bearer of bad news. “During the fight Kane should have killed Jen with the final blow he took to her.”

Eric blinked. “So you’re saying that Jen should be dead?” Alex nodded.

“How does this tie into Cranston’s death?” Xander asked curiously as Alex turned to him.

“Coincidently he too should have never died, it should have been someone else, but we don’t exactly know who.”

Swallowing hard Tommy stepped forward into the room. “I— I know who should have died, Alex. I read the letter Vida handed to me a while ago. It was from Billy, explaining that something was going to happen, and that he should have never died.” He handed Alex the letter who read it curiously. “There’s a newspaper clipping on the back as well. It reveals who should have been there instead of Billy.”

The group piled around Alex, all eyes reading the article and diverting to the picture. It was the same scene as Billy’s death, except another lay in his place. Glasses were on the floor, cracked and broken, books were scattered on the floor, and a large pool of blood sat underneath the body. Suddenly Kira’s eyes opened widely as she stared at Tommy, who bowed his head.

“What does this mean? It means nothing!” She said frantically. Again they read the article and the caption beneath the picture where a man’s body lay covered by a white sheet, the headlines screaming in their minds:

January 13, 2009: Murder at Reefside Library— Body identified as one of the most respected scientists of this time, the late and great Doctor Thomas Oliver . . .