Note: This story was written and posted with the permission of Kiri, author of the story Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow. This is intended as a sequel to Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow, a story which haunted me for at least a year before I asked her--for the second time--how she felt about a followup.

(Jack)

It was another two days before he got up the courage to call Sky's mom.  Catherine had always loved him--but then, so had Sky, and look how that had turned out.  She had let this happen, and that more than anything made him wary of the reception he'd find at the Tate house.  But he couldn't let it go.

His Sky was dead, and damned if he'd accept it just because they told him to.

Catherine didn't answer the phone.   She didn't return his call, either, and the whole thing made him irrationally paranoid.  He'd left all his new friends behind at Nebula, and the old ones were either gone or under orders not to talk to him.  It was almost like he was the one who didn't exist anymore.

She opened the door for him when he showed up on her front steps the next day, and that nearly made it worth the trip right there.  "Hello," she said, with a casual friendliness that made him want to look over his shoulder.  "Can I help you?"

"Hey," he said, lifting his hand a little in greeting.  "I'm, uh, Jack?  Jack Landors?"

A brief smile touched her face, though she didn't step away from the door.  "Don't be silly, Jack.  Of course I remember you."

"Ah," he said, sticking his hands back in his pockets.  "Well, that makes one of you, then."

Her smile fell away, and he saw her fingers whiten on the door.  "I can't talk about the lawsuit, Jack.  You know that."

He blinked.  "Lawsuit?  What lawsuit?"

Catherine gave him a look so much like Sky's that it made his heart ache.  "I don't know, Jack; what possible reason could I have for suing the organization that took my son from me?"

"Oh," he said.  His hand went to his chest, an involuntary reaction to the spasm that felt like something inside unknotting.  "You didn't know."

She stared at him, and he felt like the lowest creature on Earth.  "God, I'm sorry," he blurted out, the words tumbling over each other.  "I'm so sorry.  I just found out; I would have come sooner... god.

"We didn't mean it, Catherine, you have to believe me."  He was horrified to feel tears in his eyes.  "We never meant for any of this to happen."

"He was only seventeen," she said softly.

He lowered his head, pressing his knuckles to his mouth, trying to breathe.  To his surprise, he felt a hand squeeze his shoulder.  "You should come in," she murmured.  "Come inside, Jack."

She made tea while he prowled around the kitchen, trying to get himself under control.  He couldn't count the number of times he'd been here, and never once had he thought it might come to this: that he would ever be here without Sky, that he would have to keep it a secret, that he and Catherine would be afraid of being seen together.  She was his boyfriend's mom.  They were the closest thing he had to family--and he'd already lost one of them.

"When did you get back?" she asked at last, pulling a couple of mugs out of the cupboard.

"Almost a week ago," he muttered.  He couldn't stop moving, restless with this sudden freedom.  There was no one listening now but her, and she knew.  She understood.

"Saw him the first day," he added.  "No one told me, Catherine; I swear.  I had no idea."

"I'm sorry," she said, surprising him.  "That must have been...

She trailed off, then said quietly, "They posted a notification to our account.  Like it was some kind of...  'Schuyler Tate, medical intervention.  Cadet's mental imbalance has been--'"

The metal teapot clattered onto the stove, and he looked over in time to see her shake her head.  "When did we start treating emotions like diseases, Jack?  When was that, because the road to hell..."

"Begins with good intentions," he whispered.  Clearing his throat, all he could do was stare helplessly at her.  "I'm so sorry.  If we'd ever thought anything like this could happen..."

"This isn't your fault," she said.  She was sharp, suddenly, decisive even in her forgiveness.  "He wouldn't have let this happen either, not if they'd given him any chance."  She looked up, catching his eye as she turned.  "And he wouldn't have let you go."

Jack swallowed, eyes hot and yet another apology on his tongue.

"He loved you," Catherine told him.  "He would never have let you go just to get the doctors off his back."

"Maybe he should have," he said, the words catching on the rough edges of his throat.  "Then at least he'd still be around to for me to yell at."

Her eyes smiled, the tiniest lightening of her expression as she turned back to the counter and picked up their mugs.  "He would have quit, Jack.  He would have quit for you.  The fact that they didn't give him that chance puts the blame squarely with SPD.  There was nothing else either of you could have done, short of being completely different people."

She carried a mug over to the table he stood closest to and set it down, the handle facing him.  Resting hers against her other hand for a moment, she added, "I'd do anything to have him back.  Anything except wishing for him to be someone other than who he was."

He was quiet for a long moment, watching the steam curl over the lip of his mug.  It formed and vanished, reformed and rose and vanished again, going in whatever direction it had to before it was gone.  Being what the environment made it.

"Anything?" Jack asked at last.

Day 1

The first day, he thought it was a training exercise.  He woke up with what was not quite the worst hangover of his life, a missing morpher, and no clue where he was.  Except that the bed seemed strangely familiar.  The pillow was red.  There were little planets and planes climbing the walls--

He sat up abruptly and his hand went to his head with no more voluntary control that that.  Because ow, fuck, what the hell had happened to his head, and why did the rest of his body feel like he was dragging it through grit and molasses?  He was tired and in pain and apparently stashed in his old bunk on the Drews' private shuttle.

He was still wearing his uniform.  Minus his shoes and his jacket, but the jacket was draped over the ladder and those were clearly his shoes there on the floor beside it.  Wincing at the ache, he bent over to retrieve them and found he had to sit down again in order to pull them on.  One painful foot at a time.

He pushed himself back up, fist clenching on his jacket as he yanked it off the ladder and tried to shrug into it without hurting his head any more.  This was definitely the Drews' shuttle.  Only they would have glitter embedded in the kids' bunk ladders.  Unfortunately, he wasn't any closer to remembering what he was doing here than he had been before.

It didn't become clear until he dragged himself up the ladder and found Jack Landors in the forward compartment.  He groaned, settling himself into the co-pilot's seat without so much as a "hi, how are you" from his new teammate.  "This is so stupid," he muttered.

Jack looked up from his comic book at that, studying him with disturbing intensity.  "Why do you say that?" he asked.

"What, I'm just supposed to trust you, just like that?" he demanded.  "No SPD, no morphers... here we are out in the middle of nowhere, our lives in each other's hands.  Do we just drift around out here until we magically bond, or what?"

"Something like that, I guess," Jack agreed, giving him a sympathetic smile.

Goddamn team-building exercises, he thought irritably.

Day 2

On the second day, it occurred to him that SPD had plenty of shuttles it could use for team-building exercises.  It really didn't need to co-opt private equipment for cadet missions.  And the Drews had been acting strangely around him for almost two years now.

"Any idea where the others are?" he asked, when the morning finally dragged into lunch.  "They're probably all together somewhere, huh?"

Jack shrugged noncommittally.  "Probably," he said.

He narrowed his eyes.  "So whose family shuttle do you think they're using?"

But Jack just tilted his head to one side, considering this.  "I dunno... you don't think the Drews have another one lying around?"

"Why would SPD be using private shuttles for training missions?" he demanded.  "That doesn't make any sense."

"It might if this war is as close to Earth as Galaxy Command thinks it is," Jack pointed out.  "You know all official resources are going to the front lines right now."

This gave him pause, because if Jack thought that he knew something about how Galaxy Command was handling the war, then that meant that Jack probably knew something about how Galaxy Command was handling the war.  That would make him different from every other cadet on base at SPD Earth.

But then, Jack wasn't from SPD Earth, was he.

Day 3

The third day, he was starting to get a little paranoid.  He didn't really know anything about his new team leader.  Jack didn't seem to know any more about what they were doing out here than he did... but Jack wasn't asking questions.  And if there was one thing SPD looked for in its Ranger-track cadets, it was the ability to ask questions.

"This doesn't bother you?" he asked, after he had tried and failed to get the shuttle nav controls to respond to him for the fifteenth time.  "Being stuck somewhere in space, on a shuttle we can't control, with no communication and no instructions?"

Jack looked up from the same comic book he'd been reading for three days straight.  He'd fallen asleep with it under his coat, he said.  Aside from cards and the Drews' library of hologames and reference materials, it was the only entertainment on the shuttle.

"Kind of," Jack said at last.  "But I figure if I'm out here with you, it must be for a reason, right?"

His rational mind knew that this was a relatively logical assumption to make.  Jack was SPD, the leader of a new team at a new academy, and it wasn't unreasonable to think that his new commanders might want to test either his loyalty or the confidence of his team.  When someone like that found themselves cut off from their former situation with plenty to eat and drink and one of their teammates to keep them company, maybe their first reaction was to sit back and wait it out.

The irrational part of his mind pointed out that Jack had been awake before he was.  Jack had his own comic book.  And Jack wasn't asking anywhere near enough questions.

Day 4

On the fourth day, he'd had enough.

"I want to talk about this," he said, the moment Jack climbed up the ladder from the other room, rubbing sleep out of his eyes and wearing--

He stared at his team leader.  "Are you wearing a different shirt?"

Jack blinked at him, stepping off the ladder and hiding a yawn.  "Nothing gets by you, does it," he said at last.  "What's for breakfast?"

"How do you have a different shirt?" he wanted to know.

Jack just looked at him.  "I brought it with me."

"How did you bring it with you?!  I woke up here with a splitting headache and nothing except what I was wearing when I went to bed!"

"Ah," Jack said, lifting a finger in his direction.  "Not true.  You weren't wearing your jacket or your shoes when you went to bed."

Shrugging at his obvious outrage, Jack added, "I had a little more warning."

"How much more warning?" he demanded.  "What the hell is going on here?"

Weirdly, this made Jack brighten.  "You really want to know?"

He threw up his hands.  "No, Jack, I'd rather be kept in the dark about a stupid game that SPD invented to prove to me that you're trustworthy, or to prove to you that I'm trustworthy, or whatever they're trying to do other than slow down our training and keep a squad off of streets that could really use us right now!"

"Oh."  Jack appeared to take this seriously.  "Well.  Your choice."

"Tell me what's going on," he snapped.

Jack shrugged.  "I kidnapped you."

"Very funny," he said, eyes narrowed.

"I'm not kidding," Jack replied, turning away.  "But I am kind of hungry, so.  You want anything?"

"Answers," he said curtly.  "What do you know about this?"

"Pretty much all of it," Jack said, tapping something into the synthesizer.  "Since it was my idea.  I'm hoping you're going to start remembering something soon, since Kat tells me you haven't spent more than three days in a row off base for the last two years."

He stared at the back of Jack's head, suspicion warring with anger at the mention of Kat's name.  "What does she have to do with this?" he growled.  Kat Manx had never liked him.

"Nothing," Jack told him.  "Nothing at all.  I just asked her for a little background information, you know... sort of a 'getting to know my teammates' thing."

"She doesn't know the first thing about me," he informed Jack.

Jack gave him the oddest look, but all he said was, "She used to."

"What are you talking about?" he scoffed.

"It's like this."  Jack removed his plate from the synthesizer and set it on the little table.  "You were mindwiped.  It didn't go so well, and a lot of people are really pissed about it.  I volunteered to try and reverse it."

He rolled his eyes.  "Okay, first off, I wasn't mindwiped.  Second, you can't reverse something like that; that's the whole point."

"Sometime yes, sometimes no," Jack remarked.  "You're really stubborn, you know?  Memories wouldn't stay suppressed, so Kat thinks they've been drugging you.  Or blocking you telepathically.  Hard to say."

"Have you been talking to my mom?" he demanded.  "She says crazy stuff like this all the time.  She's like an SPD conspiracy theorist or something; I don't know what's gotten into her."

Jack paused, and there was that weird look again.  "As a matter of fact, yes."

"You've been talking to my mom?" he repeated incredulously.  "Great.  That's just great!"  And he had the Drews' shuttle...  "You're not even from Nebula, are you."

"No."  Jack seemed pleased with this statement, just for a moment.  Then he frowned.  "Oh.  I told you that, didn't I."

"Did Kylee Drew hire you?" he wanted to know.  "That's what this is about, isn't it.  They're trying to get me away from Earth long enough to take the whole thing to court.  I can't believe this!  I told them, nothing happened!"

"They're not trying to get you away from Earth," Jack snapped, and it was the first time he'd been snippy about any of this.  "They're trying to get you away from SPD."

Just like that, his "team leader" went from enigmatic ally to weirdly fanatic enemy.  Anyone who went to this much trouble to infiltrate a military organization was being paid an exorbitant amount of money, and probably had more private backing than any one person could combat alone.  Which meant that he needed SPD on his side--the one organization this guy was apparently going to great lengths to separate him from.

"Why you?" he asked, wary and more than a little worried.  "Why did they pick you?"

The man shrugged it off.  "Friend of the family," he said.

He glared for a long moment, during which time Jack did nothing more threatening than pick up a spoon and start eating his cereal.  So he turned and headed for the forward compartment.  He would find out soon enough just how much freedom he really had here.

Day 5

By the fifth day, it was clear that someone with a lot more skill than an SPD cadet had rigged the shuttle controls.  The good news was that they were coded to Jack's voice authorization, which meant that at least the shuttle could be rerouted.  The bad news was that he'd had zero success in overriding them, which meant that the chances the shuttle would be rerouted were... uncertain.

He still wasn't sure what Jack was getting out of all this.

"Has it occurred to you," he asked, frowning over at the man sprawled out with that same comic book, "that you might want to get my side of whatever story they told you?"

Jack looked up from his place by the door to the rear compartment.  He'd wandered up front, keeping an eye on the efforts to circumvent the authorization lockout but not making any move to stop them.  He got out of the way when ordered, moving from chair to chair and then finally into a boneless sprawl on the floor--looking more amused with each relocation.  He was clearly not afraid of losing control of the shuttle, and that was more annoying than not being able to get control of it in the first place.

"It's occurred to me," Jack said seriously.  Serious enough to be mocking, if it came right down to it.  "Unfortunately, since you don't remember your side of the story, I didn't see much point in asking for it."

"I haven't lost my memory!" he exclaimed.  "I think I would know if there were mysterious gaps I can't explain!"

"Oh yeah?"  Jack was propped up on one elbow, but he managed to nod in the general direction of his wrist.  "Who gave you that bracelet?"

He looked down, but the only thing on his wrist was the Tangarian coil Dru had given him years ago.  "It's not a bracelet," he said.  "It's a--"

"Tangarian friendship coil," Jack parroted along with him.  "Yeah, believe me, I've heard it before.  Take it off."

He resisted automatically.  "No."

"Why not?" Jack wanted to know.  "It's not like I'm gonna steal it or anything."

"Yeah, and I know that because of your stellar record when it comes to not committing serious crime," he shot back.

Jack just raised his eyebrows at him, and he grimaced.  It was a fair point, as far as he was concerned, but it did seem slightly juvenile in light of the subject matter.  He pulled off the coil reluctantly and offered it to Jack.  If nothing else, the guy wasn't going to go anywhere with it.

Jack stood up, taking the thing and turning it over.  "See that?" he asked, holding it up.  "Remember where that came from?"

He frowned, first at Jack, then at the coil.  "A friend of mine gave it to me."

"Yeah, Dru Harrington," Jack said impatiently.  "I remember.  I'm not talking about the bracelet.  I'm talking about those scratches, right there."

He blinked.  "What do you mean, you remember?"

"Where did the scratches come from?" Jack demanded, lifting the coil higher.

He shook his head irritably.  "How should I know?  I've probably banged it a million times; I'm surprised it looks as good as it does."

"I put them there," Jack informed him.  "I was trying to prove it wasn't real silver, remember?  I said it wouldn't scratch, because it wasn't real silver, and I hit it with a rock."

"Of course it's real silver," he said tightly.

"Well, now we know," Jack said with a shrug.  "You never thought maybe those scratches looked like initials?"

He snatched the coil back.  "How the hell do you know who gave me this?" he growled, jamming it onto his wrist.  "I find it hard to believe that was part of Dr. Manx's 'getting to know your teammates' report."

"You'd be surprised," Jack said with a sigh.  "But no, it wasn't.  She didn't have to tell me that, because I was there.  We were roommates for three years, so I'm sorry if hearing you say you'd know if there were things you don't remember rings a little hollow."

He folded his arms uneasily.  Maybe this guy had him confused with someone else.  It was possible that he was more delusional than fanatic.  "Bridge Carson is my roommate," he said, for whatever good it would do.

"For the last two years," Jack agreed.  "What about before that?"

He frowned a little.  "I didn't have a roommate."

"Why not?" Jack demanded.  "Isn't double occupancy SPD policy?"

He hesitated.  "I--my father was a Ranger.  The Red Ranger.  I got special treatment."

Jack snorted.  "Oh, yeah, that really sounds like SPD.  What about your team, then?  Who was on your team before B Squad?"

"Is there a point to this?"

"Name your teammates," Jack challenged.

He rolled his eyes.  "Charlie Carrera, Bridge Carson, Gibbs tel Far, and Syd Drew."

"That was C Squad," Jack said.  "Who was on D Squad with you?"

"The same people," he said impatiently.

"Nuh-uh."  Jack pointed at him.  "Bridge and Syd are new.  They joined two years ago, and you know it.  D Squad was you, Charlie, Gibbs... and who?"

"Dru," he said.  Of course.  So it had slipped his mind.  If he'd been expecting a background check, he would have studied up.

"And?" Jack prompted.

"That was it."

"Can you count?" Jack demanded.  "How many people is that?  Don't you ever think about these things?  If they'd fed you some kind of story, that would be one thing, but as far as I can tell you just don't care enough to ask questions!"

That stung, and he made more of an effort to remember.  If only to prove Jack wrong.  D Squad seemed like a long time ago, now, but there was Charlie with her stupid red streak.  Gibbs, always getting between the two of them... Dru.  Flirting.   Needling Charlie every chance he got.  So very gay.  Older and obnoxious and exotic, he might actually have given the pilot a shot if it hadn't been for--

He frowned, glancing down at his bracelet.

"You're saying that you were my teammate," he said abruptly.  "My roommate.  For... what?  How long?"

"Since I got to the academy," Jack replied.  "From the time I arrived to the time they made me transfer.  Three years."

"And you think SPD made me forget."  Still easily the most ridiculous thing he'd heard in weeks.  Months.  Maybe years.

Since your mom made the same accusation, some traitorous part of his brain whispered.  Yeah, fine.  The most ridiculous thing he'd heard since his mom went crazy.  No surprise there.

"Believe me," Jack told him, "I'm more than happy to blame someone else, but since Cruger actually admitted it when I confronted him last week--yeah.  I'm pretty sure it was SPD."

"Why?" he demanded.  "Hypothetically speaking.  Why would anyone do that?  What's the point?  What are you, some kind of super secret agent?  Who's so important that SPD would try to erase any trace of them?"

"No one," Jack said, holding his gaze with an eerie look of knowing that might have made him wonder.  If he hadn't been kidnapped by a crazy man who thought SPD was running some kind of black ops program on the side.  "I was no one."

"Then what are you doing here?" he exclaimed, frustrated.

"Because you weren't," Jack told him.

"I wasn't what!"

"You weren't no one," Jack said simply.

Day 6

On the sixth day, Jack only said one sentence to him all day.

He was up first, back at work in the forward compartment, and he heard Jack at the synthesizer almost an hour later.  The man wandered up front soon after, bringing his breakfast with him.  Jack settled in to watch, and this time, he resolved not to talk to his potentially disturbed captor at all.

Jack made that easy.  His spoon clattered in his bowl when he was done, and there was a pause measured in seconds.  Then he said, "I wasn't just a family friend."

Without waiting for a reply, the man got up and took his dishes out back.  He stayed there the rest of the day.

Day 7

It was the seventh time in a row he found himself waking up on the Drews' damn shuttle, and it was the first time he woke up afraid.  His heart was pounding.  The darkness was loud and menacing and full of people who kept reaching for him, clawing at him, trying to--

His breath came out in a sob, and the sound of it shocked him back to reality.  Just a dream.  Just a nightmare.  Just the shadowy fear of the unknown, prompted by his current helplessness.

He swallowed hard, fumbling for the wall, vowing not to sleep with the lights off again.  Jack must have turned off the ones upstairs.  He couldn't see anything, and he flinched back from the cold touch of the bunk where he didn't expect it.

Light poured in from above, and he froze.

"Hey," a voice called down the ladder.  Gentle and strange and not at all like the Jack he knew, the sleep-fogged words were still frighteningly familiar.  "You okay, Sky?"

He drew back, eyes wide, back pressed against the wall.

You okay, Sky?

They were reaching for him, holding him down.  Jack, he thought desperately.  They were everywhere.  Everything he tried to hold onto slipped away, disintegrating, caving in on itself until there was nothing left and he was falling.  Jack.

He didn't realize he'd said it aloud until he heard feet on the ladder, skin skidding over embedded glitter--coming closer.  Reaching for him.  He lashed out with an inarticulate cry, landing a glancing blow and scrabbling frantically for the lights.

The room lit up, revealing an expression of anguish twisting features that were too dark, too serious... too old.  "Jack," he whispered, horrified.  That figure started forward, unquestioning, unafraid, and he flinched away from the hands that reached for him.  "Get back!"

"Okay."  He did, too.  Jack backed up against the far wall and kept his hands in full view, repeating, "Okay.  It's okay.  No one can hurt you here."

"What did you do to me!" he shouted.  "What the fuck am I on!  You put something in the food, you've been drugging me, I've got this--what's in my head, Jack!  I'm fucking hallucinating!"

"It's okay," Jack murmured.  "I didn't, I'm sorry, Sky.  I didn't do anything.  You're okay now... it's gonna be all right."

"It's not okay," he spat.  "It's a fucking long way to okay from here, and it starts with you turning this damn shuttle around!"

Jack's eyes were bright in the artificial daylight that blazed all around them, but the shadows seemed to cling to his skin, making him look vaguely sinister in this kid-cute room.  "I'm sorry," he said softly.  "I can't do that."

He refused to eat or drink anything for the rest of the day.

By lunchtime, Jack had started to argue with him.  "Come on," Jack insisted, "what the hell do I know about synthesizers?  How could I possibly be doing anything to the food?  To the water?  At least drink something."

"Making this entire exercise pointless," he snapped.  "Water is the most logical choice.  We can go for weeks without eating, but no one can go more than three days without drinking something."

"Oh, great," Jack retorted, "so we're now on day one of you trying to kill yourself?  How does that make sense?  What does that prove?"

"It proves that you're more concerned with money than with--"  He stopped just short of saying "me," because, obviously.  It was stupid to even say it.  What did this guy care about him, after all?  Jack wasn't even his team leader; he was just someone hired to keep him out of the way for as long as it took.

"I don't know why you think I'm getting paid for this!" Jack exclaimed.  "All I get out of it is the end of my career, a longer criminal record than before, and a hell of a lot of attitude from you!"

"Too bad you didn't think of that first," he sneered.

"Believe me, I thought of it."  Jack was suddenly grim.  "I knew exactly what I was doing."

He scoffed.  "Then why do it at all?"

"Because you're worth it," Jack told him.

He might as well try to get some more work done before dehydration made him feverish.  He hadn't had any luck overriding the nav controls, but he thought he was on to something with the comm system.  It kept him busy.

Day 8

Between the hunger and the thirst and the return of his nightmares, he barely slept, and he wasn't totally sure at what point Jack appeared in his room.  He kept saying things like it's okay and you're gonna be all right.  Jack didn't touch, didn't try to make him talk, just sat there and mumbled things that were only half-heard.

I'm sorry, Sky, he said.  I didn't want to leave you.  You're okay.  You'll be all right, okay?  Just let go... this will be so much easier...

The voice changed, many voices instead of one, drowning him with their endless idiocy.  Reaching for him.  Pulling him down.  There was nothing there underneath him, just the ground crumbling away and he was falling--

"Sky!"

He jerked awake, throat raw and harsh and he could barely breathe.  Jack was yelling at him from somewhere far away, just yelling his name, over and over.  Bright light on little red rings around the stickers on the wall.

On the shuttle.

He shoved hard, terrified of being held down, and the covers tangled around his arms even as he fought to get them off.  Jack's voice was gone, nothing there, lost like everything else he couldn't concentrate on anymore.  It just slid away, unimportant and imprisoning and as long as he didn't look too close it wouldn't poke at him like little tiny needles of hurt day in and day out.

The covers let him go and he lurched backwards, on his feet and off balance, banging his head against the wall before he caught himself.  He heard Jack curse.  He looked up at the tense figure crouched at the top of the ladder, ready to leap into action, into battle, for...

For what?

"Sorry," he muttered, even though he wasn't quite sure why.  His tongue was thick and it was hard to swallow.  "Nightmares."

"No fucking kidding," Jack murmured, barely audible this time.  "Sky, please, it isn't me.  I'm not the one doing this.  I just want you back, I swear, I'd never... I could never hurt you like this."

"Then take me home," he said, his skin hot and dry and weak with the hole in his gut.  "Just let me go, Jack.  I'm not who you think I am."

This was met by quiet, a silence so long that he thought words might be obscured by the rushing in his ears.  He was dizzy as hell, and he thought the wall was farther away than it had been a second ago.  He heard Jack swear again, though, which meant that his hearing was fine.

"What if we set down?" Jack blurted out.  "We're not far out of the Mirinoan system.  They trade.  We'll get you some food, some fresh water... I can't have drugged all the food in the universe, right?"

He knew that hadn't been his point, but right now he just wanted to sit down.  He did, sliding down the wall until the floor was solid underneath him, not disintegrating or spinning or doing anything that floors weren't supposed to do.  He'd just close his eyes for a second, and it would all come back.

"Sky."

He shifted, uncomfortable.  Thirsty.

"Sky," Jack said again, and this time he managed to open his eyes.  Yeah, that was Jack, all right.  Crouched down on the floor this time, just out of arms' reach.  A really almost amusingly worried look on his face.

"I'm guessing I can't bring you anything," Jack said, searching his expression.  He was dressed again--not in his uniform, and not in the pajamas he'd been wearing before.  "You want to go get it yourself?"

"Are we there?" he mumbled.  His voice was still hoarse.

"Yeah."  Jack was just staring at him.  "We're there."

He held out a hand without thinking, and Jack clasped it.  No hesitation... no force behind it.  He didn't yank, didn't even stand up himself.  Jack just hovered there.  Holding his hand.

"Up," he whispered, and Jack stood, pulling him up without a word.

"Not just a family friend, huh," he muttered.

"Your friend," Jack said quietly.  "Your friend first, Sky."

He couldn't bring himself to say anything else.

They'd landed on the day side of the planet, but without any direction or frame of reference he couldn't tell if the sun was coming or going.  All he knew was that it was bright, and Jack stuck to his side like a guard, an armed escort in the madness... except that he wasn't armed, and the hand on his shoulder was more steadying than controlling.  Steering him through the traffic on the field, walking--always walking.

Until they weren't anymore, and he blinked in the sudden shade of a canopy.  He'd never been to Mirinoi.  He was starting to see why.  Was this really an open-air travel market on the edge of their landing strip?

"Yeah, thank you," he heard Jack saying, and he turned when he realized that the hand on his shoulder was gone.  "I can't touch it... Sky!  Come get your water."

Jack was talking to a pretty woman with a handwoven shawl and a bemused expression on her face.  She was holding some kind of decorative glaze, and she looked at him when Jack did.  "He thinks I'm trying to drug him," Jack said conversationally.  "You'll take it from someone else, though, right?"

This last was clearly aimed at him, and he managed a glare that was probably compromised by both his appearance and his thirst.  He wanted a drink, badly, and at this point if it didn't come from the synthesizer on the shuttle he didn't care.  He tried not to think about how he must look, in week-old clothes and wearing an expression that was probably as crazed as he'd accused Jack of being.

"Hey, whoa."  Jack didn't sound alarmed, and he didn't make any sudden moves to prevent him from snatching the odd container.  Lighter than it looked, maybe more fragile, he couldn't tell and it didn't really matter when there was water inside.

"Sip it," Jack advised.  "I'm not kidding, Sky, you'll make yourself sick."

He didn't.  The woman didn't call whatever quaint security force was in place here, either, so that was probably a win.  Or a testament to Jack's manipulative charm.  He hated to think that there might have been a time when he thought they were the same thing.

"So," Jack said, a little while later when he was finally eating.  They were sitting on a bench beside the place that had sold them the... food, such as it was.  And he wasn't at all surprised that Jack had that much hard currency on him.  "I guess this is when you give me the slip and run back to SPD."

"Let me finish breakfast first," he muttered, not looking up.

"I would," Jack assured him, "except that this might be my last chance to talk to you, so.  I gotta take advantage of it.  You think not remembering this shit is gonna make it go away?"

He swallowed, reaching for his water.  "I remember fine," he growled.

"Then what are you dreaming about?" Jack pressed.  "What's all that, with the fighting and the crying and the yelling my name?"

"I'm not yelling your name," he snapped, taking another bite of food.  Jack wasn't eating, but he couldn't bring himself to care.

"I beg to differ," Jack said hotly, making the formal phrase weirdly street when he said it just so.  "In case you didn't notice, I'm the one who has to listen, and I'm telling you, I don't know how you can talk at all with what you must've done to your voice last night."

His hand went to his throat involuntarily, and Jack pressed the point.  "I haven't hurt you, Sky.  You're not that afraid of me.  So what the hell do you see when you're asleep that makes you scream like that?"

"Nothing."  He meant it to be brusque, but his voice broke and he reached for the water again.  "Nothing," he muttered, gulping more water over his abused throat.

"Is that what scares you?" Jack insisted.  "That you can't see what happened?"

"God damn it, Jack!" he hissed, hand clenching on the glaze.  "For once in your life, let something go!"

The silence stretched and snapped when Jack said softly, "Anything but you, Sky."

He couldn't keep from looking at Jack, then, and what he saw was bittersweet.  So far from sinister that he found himself asking, "Who are you?  Really?"

"No one," Jack repeated.  He didn't look away.  "Just a juvie who fell for his roommate while he was waiting to turn eighteen."

The least of three evils, Jack had called it, when Syd asked.

"SPD doesn't look kindly on cadet romances," he muttered.

Jack didn't smile.  "Not among minors, no."

And definitely not between underage roommates.  "Is that why you transferred?" he asked, mouth dry again.  He reached blindly for his water.

"Is that why they made me transfer?" Jack countered, gaze following his reach.  His eyes came back, and he added, "They took it a little far, yeah."

He could barely get the words out and the water wasn't helping.  "You're saying I--I was that roommate."

"No."

He froze.

"They killed my roommate when they made him forget," Jack said flatly.  "They took Catherine's son away from her.  They took Dru's friend, and Kat's favorite student.  They took something from everyone who knew you, Sky.  They took you."

He shook his head.  "I'm right here," he muttered.

"I hope so," Jack said, surprising him.  "I really hope that's true.  In fact, I'm counting on it.  Because it means I might someday get you back."

He couldn't look at Jack anymore.  He concentrated on his food instead.  "I'm not saying I believe you," he said around bites of something that he'd probably rather not identify.  "But I think there's something you should know."

"You rigged an override for the lockout on the comm system," Jack said.

His head jerked up.  "What--"

"Yeah," Jack continued.  "I figured."

He stared at him.  "Then why did you land?  The second we got within range of a system relay..."

"We were never out of range," Jack told him.  "Come on, what if something had happened?  What if you turned on me?  I didn't want you stranded in deep space somewhere."

"We were never--"  He closed his mouth abruptly.  "They're coming.  They're on their way; Jack, they could be here already.  You can't go back to the shuttle."

Jack raised his eyebrows at him.  "I made my choice," he pointed out.  "I know the consequences."

"I didn't," he said sharply, scanning the crowd for any sign of uniforms.  SPD would stand out here like nowhere back home.  They stood out like nowhere back home, and their position could have already been made.  "I didn't make this choice."

"Two o'clock," Jack said, waving idly to his right.  "It's too late, Sky.  They're not gonna let me do anything else for you.  You've gotta go the rest of the way on your own."

Jack was right.  There was a woman angling for them, purposeful and confident, with a military stride even in native clothing.  Wearing a fucking knife on her hip.  Their "quaint security force," no doubt.  No way did she not know who they were.

"Whatever you do," Jack was saying, "don't stay on the base.  They'll arrest me; fine, let them.  Tell them you're so traumatized that you need time off, you can't be anywhere you used to see me, it doesn't matter.  Just don't go back until the nightmares stop, okay?"

He stiffened, catching sight of another security guard.  Loitering down the market aisle in the opposite direction, they were clearly together.  Something about their clothing, or the way they held themselves, or just the fact that they were cutting off any potential escape propelled him to his feet.

His food was on the ground.  Jack's hand was on his arm.  He threw it off and then Jack was standing beside him.  It was too fast, too inevitable, every nightmare he'd had clawing at his brain while the trap closed in around them.

"Promise me you won't go back to the base, Sky," Jack whispered urgently.

"Jack Landors?"

"Hey."  Jack's voice was friendly and casual all of a sudden, and he went so far as to extend his hand.  "That's me."

To his surprise, the woman who had accosted them took Jack's hand and shook it once.  "Mirinoan Ranger Jewel Morgan," she said.  "Space Patrol Delta is looking for you."

"Yeah," Jack agreed.  "I thought they might be."

She glanced from Jack to him.  "Schuyler Tate?"

He could only stare, trapped in this charade of civility.  Jack had abducted him.  He had broadcast their location to every SPD outpost in relay range.  Now all he had to do was turn his erstwhile captor in, and he could go back to his life.  His cold, comfortable life, filled with every rule he could wish for: instructions on how to train, to study, to speak... to be.

SPD told him how to be.  And wasn't that what he wanted?

"Hunger strike," Jack was telling Morgan.  "Didn't eat or drink anything all yesterday.  He's still recovering."

Morgan frowned at that.  "SPD claims they're conducting a search and rescue," she said carefully, looking from him to Jack.  "I'm afraid we can't let them land, but we can arrange transport for you if you'd like."

"No," he blurted out.  If you like?

Jack looked at him, then asked Morgan, "Why can't you let them land?"

"System policy," she said.  "No foreign military on Mirinoan soil.  Sorry."

She didn't sound sorry, and he found himself wondering if all Red Rangers had Jack's attitude.  "What about us?" he demanded.  "You know who we are.  Don't you have to deport us or something?"

Morgan gave him a look like he might have come from the smallest planet on the outskirts of nowhere, which he took particularly poorly considering the source.  "Rangers are always welcome," she said, in a tone that indicated he might be the exception.

"Ah," Jack said.  "I hate to bring this up.  I really do, since we'd prefer to accept your hospitality.  But neither of us are actually carrying morphers at the moment."

"You're listed as Rangers for Earth," she said, like that was all there was to it.  "Something changed?"

Jack crossed his arms, glancing sideways at him, and he couldn't help thinking that it was the most uncomfortable he'd ever seen Jack look.  In front of other people.  "We're, uh... having some problems with the establishment," he offered awkwardly.

Incredibly, this made Morgan smile.  "When aren't we?" she replied.

Jack hesitated.  "Sorry?" he asked at last.

"Look," she said.  "If you need help, all you have to do is ask.  Nobody runs search and rescue without making a lot more noise than your friends up there did, so as far as I'm concerned, someone's lying to me.  And I'm inclined to trust Rangers before non- any day."

She wasn't going to turn them in.  It was--the feeling flooded him, overwhelming.  Unidentified.  He sat down abruptly, because he wasn't sure, but... it felt strangely like relief.

"Sky?"  Jack sounded worried.

He waved Jack off, though he somehow doubted that had ever worked.  It didn't look like it was going to start now, either.  Jack was already turning back to Morgan, leaving him alone on the bench through what was probably a massive exertion of will.

"He's dehydrated," Jack was saying.  "Hungry, tired... he hasn't been sleeping well the last couple nights.  Is there someplace we could maybe... stay, for a little while?  At least long enough for him to get a hot shower and a change of clothes?"

"Do you need medical attention?" Morgan asked.  Her tone was gentler and more focused, all at once.  "We have a medlab in town."

"No," he said harshly, reaching for his water again.  It was empty.

"Actually," Jack said, and he sounded cautious.  "Do you... you wouldn't happen to have a mind healer, would you?"

"No!" he snapped.  "Leave it alone, Jack!"

"Not here," Morgan said calmly.  "There's one in the northern settlement, though, if you change your mind."

"I don't need a 'mind healer'," he snarled.  "What I need is some clean water!"

"Thanks," Jack told her.  "We'd better go."

"Wait."  Morgan lifted her hand, waving down the aisle at the guard he'd identified earlier.  She gestured, then said aloud, "Devin will bring you more water.  I'll tell your 'search and rescue' squad that you've been found, and that you'll be remaining with us for treatment until you're healthy enough to travel.  Is that sufficient?"

Jack didn't answer.

It took him a moment to realize that Jack was looking at him, actually waiting for him to answer.  "What?" he demanded.  "You've made every decision up to now.  What do you suddenly want my opinion for?"

"Sky..."  Jack's voice was very quiet, and he dropped down onto the bench beside him.  At the other end.  Just out of arms' reach.  "They're right there, Sky.  Right up there.  If you want to go back, I can't stop you."

The empty glaze was still in his hand, and he slammed it against the back of the bench before he knew what he was doing.  The fragile ceramic vessel exploded between them, and Jack scrambled back, wide-eyed and frightened.  Just for a moment.  Just for a moment, Jack knew what it felt like to be him.

"Fuck you, Jack," he hissed.  "You've spent eight fucking days trying to make me question everything I know.  Now you ask me to choose?"

His hand stung, sharp and brilliant with blood where the cut sliced along his palm.  "Fuck you," he muttered, distracted by the image.

He'd seen that before.  Somewhere, out of control, in a white infirmary with bright lights and too many people to fight.  Close quarters.  Nowhere to run.  Blood on his hands, the floor collapsing under his feet, and he was falling--always falling.

"That'd be great," Jack was telling someone.  "Thanks for your help."

"Jack," he whispered.

"We'd better get back to the shuttle," Jack added.  "Get a first-aid kit and clean up your hand, okay?  You okay to walk?"

Of course he was okay to walk.  What kind of a stupid question was that?

"Devin," Morgan was saying.  "Would you get a bandage, please?"

"Better not," Jack put in, and he couldn't even lift his head to see what was going on as Jack stepped in front of him.  "I'll take it.  Thanks."

"Got it," an unfamiliar voice agreed.

He couldn't hold onto anything.  His head felt like it was going to fall off, like he was going to fall, like there was nothing solid in the world and if he blacked out here, he would never hear the end of it.  He braced his elbows on his knees and leaned forward, careful to keep his bloody hand away from his face.  The other went instinctively to his forehead.

"Hey," Jack's voice said, careful and close.  "Devin brought you some water."

He held out his hand without thinking--the one with the blood on it.  He wasn't even sure he was asking for the water.  He just knew he didn't want to look at it anymore.

Jack caught his hand and he jerked his head up, yanking back.

Jack let him go.  Just kneeling there in front of him, and he hadn't realized just how close Jack was until now.  Water in one hand, blood on the other... just waiting.

He tried to put his hand aside.  He saw Jack reach for it again, and this time he let him.  Jack's dark hand smeared the blood across his own as he pressed their palms together, wrapping his fingers around the injured hand.  Jack offered the water like nothing else had happened.

He hadn't downed more than half of it before "Devin" returned, apparently with some sort of wash or ointment.  Or both.  He tried not to pay attention while Jack cleaned and dressed a cut that hurt a lot deeper than just torn skin.

"Jewel has a place we can stay," Jack was saying.  "Just for a little while.  We can go back to the shuttle if you want, but I figured... kind of bad associations at this point, right?"

All he wanted right now was for people to stop staring at him.  He wanted cover.  He wanted walls between him and everyone else in the world.  And if he ever saw the inside of that shuttle again, it would be too soon.

He couldn't find the words for that, though, so he just nodded.

Day 9

He didn't wake up screaming.  He barely woke up at all until the effort to figure out where he was trumped exhaustion and odd comfort--the skin on his face was stiff and hot and there were tears still sliding down his cheeks, but there was something there.  Right there.  His hand?

Jack was holding his unbandaged hand.  Fingers twined loosely through his, slack in the semi-darkness while Jack dozed against the near wall.  He'd been crying... crying long enough that Jack had fallen back asleep since it started.  The light left on by the door was enough to cast weary shadows over the man who must have figured it was better than screaming.

"Jack," he whispered, unable to stop himself.  He needed... something.

Jack's eyes opened like he hadn't even been asleep, but the way he winced when he lifted his head told another story.  "Hey," Jack said softly.  He didn't pull his hand away.  "You okay?"

"No," he said.  "I dream that--it's all disappearing.  Everything in the world is disappearing, and I'm the only one left.  I... I fall.  I always fall."

Jack just squeezed his hand, resettling himself against the wall.  "You're not the only one left, Sky.  You won't fall."

"I know that," he said irritably.  "Do you want me to bare my soul or not?"

Jack smiled at that, and something in his eyes glowed in the dim light.  "Sorry.  Go on."

"Maybe I won't," he informed Jack.  "I mean, if you're just saying that.  It's not like you really want to know."

Jack's fingers twitched, and his smile broke into a grin.  "I want  you to bare your soul," he said solemnly.  "Please, Sky.  I'm begging you to tell me what your dream was about."

He scowled at Jack.  "I hate you."

"Uh-huh."  The words had slipped out, but they didn't seem to faze Jack in the slightest.  "I've heard that before."

His frown deepened, but that comment was probably best left alone.  "They hold me down," he said abruptly.  "They just--they won't let me up.  I can't move.  And I can't... I can't move, and I can't think.  Everything just goes away.  It's all gone."

Jack was quiet for a long moment.  "Everything?" he asked at last.

In the dream, it was everything.  "Yeah," he said.  "I don't--I can't--it all disappears.  Like the whole room collapses in on itself."

"Room?" Jack repeated neutrally.

"Like a..."  Hospital room, he wanted to say.  Like the infirmary on base.  But then Jack would assume that he was remembering it, and it was just as likely that his mind had superimposed an image he knew over a concept that he was imagining.

"I always seem to want you," he said instead, eyeing Jack.  "Why is that?  Do you suppose I've imprinted on my captor?"

Jack's mouth quirked again, but this time the smile didn't encompass his whole face.  "Ducks imprint, Sky.  Not humans."

"Well, thank god for small favors," he muttered.  He lifted his other hand without thinking about it, frowning at the silver below the remarkably clean bandage.  "You didn't really put your initials on this."

"No," Jack agreed, after a brief hesitation.

He couldn't account for his sudden feeling of disappointment.

"You did, though."  Jack leaned over to adjust the bracelet on his right wrist.  "Right there.  Look at it in the light; you'll see."

"Where?"  He sat up, letting go of Jack's hand as he impatiently tugged it off.  Tilting it this way and that, he couldn't get enough light on it to make anything out.  So he rolled off of his pallet and took it over to the light by the door.

"You did it with a rock."  Jack's voice sounded amused, and he hadn't moved from his position on the floor.  "It's not exactly a masterpiece."

He would have stamped something he didn't want people to see right... there.  "JL," he read wonderingly.  He still knew something about himself, it seemed.

"You said," Jack told him, "that people put the things they care about the most on there."

He remembered Dru saying that to him.  Vaguely.  Not the precise, word-for-word memory he had of the SPD manual, but the hazy, undefined memory of something not often revisited.

Or of something partially obscured by a larger shadow.

He shook his head, but it didn't help.  It just distracted him from a thought he couldn't quite hold onto.  "Why would anyone do that?" he blurted out.  "All this--about mindwipes and suppressed memories... it doesn't make any sense."

Jack didn't answer, and he turned.

Jack was still sitting against the wall, knees drawn up in front of him so he could brace his elbows and rest his head in his hands.  He wasn't looking anywhere but at the floor.  Dark braids stuck out between his fingers when he buried his hands in his hair, obscuring his face completely.

"No," Jack mumbled, apparently talking to the floor.  "No, it doesn't."

He didn't know what to say.

Jack didn't move for a long time, and he started to wonder if the man could actually fall asleep like that.  He stood beside the light, still, quiet... just in case.  He didn't know what he was going to do.  He just knew that now, right now, at this moment, he didn't want to disturb Jack.

Finally, Jack lifted his head and offered him the shadow of a smile.  "How you doing?"

He would never know what prompted him to say it.  "This isn't easy for you," he said, uncomfortable, and against his better judgement.  Whether it was true or not, there was nothing Jack could say in response that he would want to hear.

Jack just looked at him for a long moment.  "Not so much," he said at last.

That was all he said, and perversely, it wasn't enough.

"Tell me," he said.

Jack closed his eyes, letting his head fall back against the wall.  "Imagine waking up one morning," he said, "and no one in the world knows who you are.  That's pretty much how I feel."

He barely kept himself from scoffing.  "Everyone knows who you are," he countered.  "Except me, apparently."

"Well, without you, the others don't really matter."  Jack's voice was soft and serious, and he didn't lift his head.  "Until I saw you, I thought you were still out there, you know?  The whole time I was at Nebula, I couldn't talk to you, but I knew you were there.  I was sure of it.

"Then I come home," Jack continued, "and hey, it turns out that whole time you weren't there.  You were gone, and no one bothered to tell me."

He tried to fold his arms, stabbing pain into his cut hand when he forgot.  He rested the bandaged hand on top of his arms awkwardly.  Maybe it was the dim light, or the darkness outside, or the surreal little hut they found themselves in... but the words didn't sound quite as crazy when Jack wasn't looking at him.

"The thing is," Jack was saying softly, "you made me, you know?  It was like I existed in you.  I didn't even realize how much until you were gone.  Now, it's like, if you're not Sky anymore... maybe I was never really Jack."

If Jack opened his eyes right now, he didn't know what he would do.  He couldn't handle a responsibility like that, deserved or not, and he never should have asked.  He shouldn't even be here.  He should have made the Mirinoan Rangers send him back--Jack could stay as long as he wanted, he could go back to SPD, and everything would be the way it was before.

Except that SPD would want to know what happened.  If he went back and told them it was all a misunderstanding, he would be under suspicion for--among other things--conspiracy and dereliction of duty.  Possibly even treason, depending on what was going on in the war right now and what kind of evidence they could mount.  

If, on the other hand, he told them that Jack had abducted him, they would be able to extradite an accused criminal no matter how sympathetic Morgan was... and he was surprised that somehow this seemed to weigh evenly against the possibility of being accused of treason.

"I hate your nightmares, Sky."  Jack's voice drifted to him, landing lightly on his frozen shell of indecision and somehow melting straight through despite his best efforts.  He found himself taking a step in Jack's direction.

"I hate that you have to go through this," Jack continued.  "I hate that you can't sleep, that you don't know what's true anymore, that you... everything.  I hate it.

"But you know what I hate more?"

Jack did open his eyes, then, and he was caught by a gaze that was as angry as he'd ever seen it.  He'd been expecting pain, longing, some sort of sorrow that he couldn't answer.  Instead what he saw were eyes full of fury that stopped him where he was.

"I hate that they did this to you," Jack said, very softly.  Like he kept his voice down, not out of gentleness, but out of fear that if he let it go he would rage.

Like him in his nightmares, he thought distantly.  Like there was nothing to hold onto except whatever had kept him going this long--and without knowing what it was, there was nothing to say it would keep working.  Nothing to keep him from falling.

Like Jack might not be able to stop screaming once he started.

"I won't kill you to get you back," Jack told him, and there was a matter-of-factness there that should have scared him.  Like Jack had considered it.  "But I'll let you do whatever you're willing to do to remember.  And if that means watching you suffer like this, whatever it does to me, I'll fucking sit by your bed for the rest of my life."

He'd thought he would leave.  He'd thought facing... this, whatever it was that drove Jack, real or imagined, would be too much.  But now he was facing it, and he couldn't turn away.  "You're in my head," he muttered.

Jack just looked at him.

Waiting.  Patient in a way that didn't make any sense.

"You're--"  He tried again.  "Sometimes I hear you.  Talking.  In my dreams."

That sounded unbelievably stupid, but Jack just smiled a little.  "Probably because I do," he said, offering the easy way out.  Calm again, bottled rage stuffed back into the shadows.  "You probably hear me."

"No."  He should just stop there.  It wasn't like he could explain it any better than he already had.  "I don't think so."

Jack seemed to consider this.  Then he asked, very seriously, "Is this another baring your soul moment, or do I get to make a joke?"

He rolled his eyes, the moment easing, and he shuffled the rest of the way to Jack's side.  "Somehow, I doubt the two are mutually exclusive."

"Oh, hey," Jack said lightly, smiling up at him.  "You're remembering."

"What if I don't?" he wanted to know.  He sat down on the pallet again, darting a glance at the man who had barely moved since he got up.  "I'm still not sure I even believe all this mindwipe stuff.  What if I never do?  Or if I do, and it never comes back?  What then?"

"Well."  Jack was looking at his hands, now, laced together across the space between his knees.  "You're not as obnoxious as my Sky.  But you're okay.  I'd be willing to maybe work on the friend thing, someday.  If you were."

"Someday," he repeated.  Trying not to think about the fact that there would be no "someday" for them.  Whatever happened on Mirinoi, they couldn't stay here forever.

"Someday" they would have to go home.

Day 9, redux

There was sunlight coming in through the window, flashing in his eyes as he tried to remember where he was.  Squinting, he rolled away from the light, pulling his hand out of a cool grip before he realized what it was: Jack, sleeping beside his pallet in the hut on Mirinoi.  The other man didn't so much as stir when he moved.

His other hand throbbed the moment he sat up, and he lifted it to his chest absently.  Above the heart.  Make the blood work to get there.  Stare at Jack.  It didn't hurt so much anymore... it was just uncomfortable.

No nightmares.  Well, wasn't that sweet, he thought, mouth quirking involuntarily.  He'd managed not to dream about the end of the world when Jack was lying next to him.  He rolled his eyes, but there was no denying the fact that he was smiling.

Jack made him smile.  That didn't seem...

It did seem right, which was a vaguely creepy thought all on its own.  It didn't seem logical.  That was the problem.  He didn't remember this supposed mindwipe at all.  And he didn't care if that was the point--there had to be some evidence.  Some trace.  Something that could tell him, once and for all, what the truth was.

He could interrogate Jack all year and it wouldn't do him any good without corroboration.  He could get his own file from SPD, but if any of this was remotely real, he wouldn't be able to trust what it said.  He could maybe... see someone, Jack's 'mind healer' or whatever, but... he wasn't sure he believed in that on a good day.  Which this definitely wasn't.

He edged around Jack's prone form carefully, scooting off the pallet at the far end and a little surprised when Jack still didn't wake.  He'd assumed the man was a light sleeper: he'd woken easily enough last night.  But of course, he'd been asleep sitting up.  He'd woken every other time, too... but then, according to Jack, he'd been screaming every time.  So.  Maybe not the best test.

He found his SPD gear folded up on the bench under the window, beneath the civvies Jack had ditched for native wear the day before.  They had accepted clean clothes--or rather, Jack had accepted clean clothes for both of them--and he hadn't bothered to change out of them before falling asleep.  Now he bothered.

Native clothing was less conspicuous, he told himself.  And who knew how clean his squad gear was after the Mirinoans did whatever they did to wash it.  Wearing the borrowed clothes was just practical.  He dressed with an eye to avoiding the windows and staying out of direct line of sight from the door, should it happen to open unexpectedly.

Jack stayed asleep, even after he rattled around the tiny bathroom and accidentally dropped another one of those stupid glazes on the floor.  At least this one didn't break.  He wasn't trying to wake Jack.  He was just...

For god's sake.  He took himself out of the hut before he could start talking, nominally to keep himself from going crazy and really just to get Jack's attention.  The man deserved some rest.  He couldn't judge whether Jack had been getting more or less sleep than him, but the fact that he was effectively sleeping on the floor and still so undisturbed probably meant that he needed whatever rest he was getting.

He braced his hands on the railing outside the front door, the tiny raised deck shaded by a roof and quiet, even in the midst of several other little huts.  There was only one other person in sight.  She caught his eye when he glanced in her direction, lifting one hand in a wave.

"Morning," she called, from the next porch over.  Their neighbor, he supposed.  Perched on her own railing, back against the outside of her hut, she was wearing a floppy straw sunhat and working on an electronic reader.

He lifted his bandaged hand automatically, then wished he hadn't.  "Hi," he said awkwardly.

She smiled over at him.  "I'm Erin," she said.  "Yellow Ranger.  Can I get you anything?"

The Yellow Ranger.  He hadn't met her yesterday.

"Uh... I'm just going to--"  He pointed in the general direction of something.  "Food?"

"Sounds good," she agreed, swinging her legs off of the railing and hopping down.  As though he had issued an invitation.  "I'll go with you."

He wasn't sure he was allowed to protest.  He and Jack had been given complete autonomy the day before, but he hadn't tried to go anywhere alone.  Erin had clearly been stationed outside their hut.  And he hadn't missed the fact that all important questions so far had been directed at Jack.  It was entirely possible that they had decided he was too much of a head case to be allowed out by himself.

"Fine," he muttered, as she tucked the reader into a shoulder bag and came down off of her porch to join him.  He might as well ask.  "You get babysitting duty today?"

Erin smiled, unconcerned.  "I prefer to think of it as hostess duty," she told him.  "Rangers take care of their own."

"Is that why you're doing this?" he blurted out.  "Ranger loyalty?"  He'd heard about it, but he'd never actually--well.  What did he know about A Squad, really?

"Doing what?" Erin asked, looking over at him as they walked.  "Keeping you company until your friend wakes up?  That's just basic courtesy."

"No--"  He gestured vaguely, trying to take in everything about the planet at once.  "This.  Helping us."

Erin sounded a little bemused.  "Mirinoi is a very hospitable place."

But we're crazy, he wanted to say.  We're fugitives.

"And you just..."  He tried again.  "You just believe Jack, when he says--when he tells you we need help?"

"Please don't take offense," Erin said carefully.  She shot him a sideways look, and her voice was gentle now.  "We can all see that you need help, Sky.  It's your teammate's responsibility to protect you when you're vulnerable.  We'll do everything we can to make sure nothing he can't handle gets through."

He started to protest automatically, but he thought better of it and managed to restrain himself before actual words got loose.  He supposed they were basing their assessment of his "vulnerability" on his weakness and volatility yesterday.  He wondered what she would say if he told her that both those things were because of Jack, not in spite of him.

There was an upside to being thought of as a victim, though.  He'd noticed it yesterday, and he was perfectly willing to take advantage of it today: no one tried to make him talk.  He didn't know if they thought he was too delicate or simply too unpredictable, but Erin let him be unless he spoke first and no one else they passed did more than offer a friendly nod of their head.

After they had eaten--mostly in silence--he got something for Jack and they wandered back to the little circle of huts and porches.  Where Jack was still asleep.  Erin didn't actually follow him inside, so he was spared having to explain why Jack was sleeping on the floor.

He was also free to stare.  Something he hadn't dared to do since they'd been introduced, and had seemed even less acceptable since Jack had stuffed him into a shuttle and taken off for parts unknown.  It was funny, though... Jack drew the eye.  He was cocky and unexpectedly kind and bright with energy.

Unfortunately, it was also possible that Jack was crazy.  He tried to remind himself that "cute" did not equal "mentally stable," and crazy was really the last thing he needed to get involved with at this point in his career.  Or ever.

But what if Jack was telling the truth?  As far-fetched as it seemed, Jack had come up with a story that was its own corroborating evidence.  Jack said he didn't remember things, and voila: not remembering what he'd supposedly forgotten was its own proof.

Except... there was his mom.  Whom Jack admitted he'd spoken to, so maybe the fact that their stories matched didn't mean anything.  But if his mom knew something, too, then they shouldn't be the only ones.  There must be other people outside of SPD who could say one way or the other.

It was the Drews' shuttle Jack had hijacked--with permission?  If there was anyone his mom could have convinced to go along with this, it would have been them.  They'd been odd around him for a while now.  Though not Syd, which he couldn't figure at all.  Syd didn't act any stranger around him than anyone else on B Squad.  

On the other hand, two years ago she'd been caught up in her own scandal.  Maybe she was out of the loop.  Maybe she hadn't listened when her parents talked about his SPD career any more than he listened when his mom talked about her modeling.  Or singing.  Or whatever she'd been doing when the headlines blew up.

Or maybe she wasn't weird because there was nothing to be weird about, and Jack was either the best, most calculating secret agent he'd ever seen, or crazy as a fucking loon.

He didn't want to think about the secret agent option.  It didn't make any sense, and all of the potential implications seemed more disturbing than the Jack being crazy option.  If it came down to it, though, he wasn't as willing to believe in that option as he'd once been, either... because yeah, Jack was strange.  But it was a devoted kind of strange.  He didn't think there was anyone else who cared enough to sit up all night, holding his hand so he wouldn't be alone in his nightmares.

Still.  Being lonely wasn't a reason to cater to insanity.

He wondered if the Drews had saved any of their old communications on the shuttle.  They took a lot of vacations.  Would his mom have mentioned him while they were off touring the galaxies?  Would she have said anything about his first... his fellow cadets?

It was better than nothing.  He tossed a blanket over Jack, trying not to look too closely at him while he did it, and he strode out the door before he could "accidentally" wake him up.  Pay attention to me.  Just yesterday, he would have given anything for Jack to shut up.  Today, he couldn't take the silence.  Without Jack's voice, he was less certain than ever.  About everything.

Erin was still outside, on her own porch, when he re-emerged.  Of course.  He waved her off when she started to put her reader away again.  "It's fine," he said, more curtly than he'd meant to.  If only that were true.  "I'm just going back to the shuttle for a while."

"I'm happy to keep you company," she offered, hovering on the edge of the railing.

Sure she was.  "I can't take off," he told her.  "It's keyed to his voice.  I'm not going to do anything drastic; I just want to look something up."

"Well."  She looked torn.  "If you're sure."

He just waved again, starting out on the road to the travel market.  They did have motorized vehicles here; he'd seen them.  But everywhere he'd been so far had been set up in such a way that "walking distance" meant exactly that: they walked.

It was even moderately pleasant.  The sun was out, the air was warm enough that he didn't miss his jacket, and people didn't seem to stare quite as readily as they had the day before.  When he looked over his shoulder he didn't see Erin following him, so that was an unexpected bonus.

The travel market was busier than it had been the day before, but he walked out toward the landing strip without being stopped.  If they had security other than the Rangers--and they must--it seemed to allow people to wander at will among the planetside spacecraft.  He wondered if they ever had trouble with vandals.

The shuttle wasn't as bad as he remembered it.  With light streaming in through the hatch in back, it seemed almost... antiquated.  Sleepy, small, and mostly harmless.  Not the automated, futuristic trap it had become when he was stuck on it for a week plus with someone he didn't know and whose actions he couldn't predict.

He left the hatch open, sitting as close to the sunlight as he could while he powered up shipboard data services.  Anything personal would probably require some kind of password.  He wasn't even sure what he thought he could find here, but it was the one remotely objective source he had.  No officer would fail to exhaust every resource available to him.

Including mind healers?

He pushed the thought aside.  Comm log: available.  Interesting.  He asked it to display recent records, just to see what would happen.  Somewhat to his surprise, it did.  Just a long list of databursts, transmitted and received... no password prompt in sight.

Jack had been transferred two years ago.  He claimed they had been roommates for... three years before that?  Five years back.  When he had first been accepted for training.  The same year he had moved to the Delta Base.

The comm log filled the screen, dates five years old scrolling off the top and bottom with no end in sight.  Did they keep everything?  He shook his head, scanning for his mom's comm code in the mess.  There was a search function, and finally he had to use it.  Not only were the Drews chatty, they were ridiculously unorganized.  Nothing here had been filed in any way.

His mom's messages were displayed, oldest to newest, from the beginning of the year.  He tried not to actually read them.  It wasn't any of his business, and at the end of the day, there were things he didn't need to know about his mom.  He skimmed for his name, for SPD, for anything that would give him a clue--

Sky.  In mid-March, probably about the time the Drews would have been going on their spring vacation.  Space Patrol Delta... his father; you understand.  I'm not sure it's good for him to be without a roommate, but they feel a room to himself is the least they can do.

He swallowed hard, looking away.

That was it, then: he wasn't the one Jack was looking for.  Jack had gotten him confused with someone else.  That was all there was to it.  No long lost childhood friend, no mysterious medical program to rewrite memories... no love he'd somehow misplaced or forgotten about.

He had to skip ahead a little.  Just in case.  Maybe he'd gotten a roommate later.  Maybe his mom had protested, or the base had run out of room, or--something.  The Drews' next trip had been months later, and there were two messages from his mom in June: "birthday pictures" and "thank you note."

Sorry to bother you on your vacation...  Because the Drews so rarely got away.  He shook his head, glancing across the rest of the message, which seemed to deal mostly with the aftermath of Syd's annual party.  The boy doesn't even know when his birthday is, so Sky asked for some pictures.  I'm afraid I don't have copies of--

He froze, gaze flicking back up the message.

He says Jack had a great time at the lake.

He couldn't move.

He says Jack had a great time at the lake...

Syd's sixteenth birthday party--at the lake.  With the car underneath the pavilion and the lanterns and the sun off of the water.  He'd gotten the worst sunburn of his life.  He remembered that day.  No Jack.  He remembered the cake and the boat and the music...

Had they had cake on the boat?  Or had the cake come after the boat?

He says Jack had a great time at the lake.  It was so kind of you to invite Sky's friend.  You know he has trouble making friends, and to tell you the truth, I don't know that Sky would have gone without him.  I think they may have talked each other into it.

He didn't even go to Syd's birthday parties.  They were an extravagant waste of money and time.  And the kind of people who went weren't the kinds of people he ever liked to spend time with.  Why had he gone to that one?

He told me to tell you thank you: from both of them, if you can believe it.  And that's not all.  Apparently they're having some kind of decorating war on the cadet levels, and of course Sky plans to win.  Over the objections of his roommate.  The boy doesn't even know when his birthday is, so Sky asked for some pictures...

"Jack," he whispered, unable to tear his eyes away.

A sound from the hatch made him jump, almost knocking over the chair as he spun around.  Jack held up his hands.  Seated sideways in the hatch, one foot propped up against the deck and the other dangling over the edge, he looked like he'd been there all morning.  "Sorry," he offered.  "Didn't mean to startle you."

"When's your birthday?" Sky demanded, staring at him.

Jack shrugged, lowering his hands to his sides.  "Don't know," he said.  "Never celebrated it."

"Did you--"  He says Jack had a great time at the lake.  "Did you ever... go to one of Syd's?"

Jack's expression didn't change.  "Yeah, but she wouldn't remember it.  Didn't meet her once the whole time we were there.  Too busy chumming with her rich friends."

Syd was like that.  "Which one?" he asked, and even to him, his voice sounded strangled.

Jack's was perfectly even.  "Which friend?"

"Which birthday," he whispered.

"Sixteenth," Jack said, watching him carefully.  "'Bout a month after we met."

He turned away, shoving the chair back up to the console.  So what.  So they'd both come up with the same story, so they'd planted evidence in the comm log.  Jack was crazy, and the Drews were fucking manipulative.  So what.

A search by date instead of comm code revealed fifteen messages sent that day.  God, they couldn't turn it off, could they.  They had to keep their hand in, even on vacation.  The reply to his mom was third from the top.

We were delighted to see all of you at...

His eyes blurred, hot and harsh with the word "Jack" repeated over and over down the screen.  Sky's friend Jack, Jack and Sky, Sky and Jack...  He didn't know why his hands were shaking when he tried to call up the attached data packet, but he couldn't make them stop.

Jack's image filled the screen.  A younger, meaner Jack, with his hair shorn close to his head and a gang bandana around his neck.  Baring his teeth in what could have been a smile.  Sky next to him, pink with sun, holding a pointy cone hat over his head.

"What is that?" Jack's voice asked.

He couldn't answer, couldn't move, even when he heard Jack getting up and pacing over to stand beside him.  "Wow," Jack said after a moment.  "That's old.  Where'd you find that?"

"Is that--"  He didn't know why he had to ask.  It was obviously Jack.  He pointed anyway, unable to take his eyes off of the screen.

"Yeah, I was young and stupid," Jack said, and the smile was audible in his voice.  "Let's move on."

"Why don't I remember?" he whispered.

This time, Jack didn't answer.

He turned in his chair, staring up at the man standing next to him.  Jack looked back, a maturity in his eyes that didn't show in the picture.  Long braids framed his face.  Too long to have grown out since taking a fake photograph, even if short hair could make him look as young as he did on the screen.

"Why?" he asked, his voice gaining strength.  "What did I do?  Who would--I was mindwiped?"

Jack only nodded.

"Why?" he demanded.  "When I was--two years ago?  They erased my memory two years ago?"

"Looks like," Jack said quietly.

"How is that even legal!" he exclaimed.  "What, did I--did I let them?  Why?  Where was my mom?"

Jack didn't take his eyes off of him.  "Your mom wasn't told," he said.  "And judging by the nightmares you've been having, you didn't 'let' anyone do anything."

His mom had filed a fucking lawsuit.  And this whole time, he'd been trying to get her to knock it off.  Nothing happened, he'd insisted; he was fine.

Except that he couldn't remember three years of his life.

"Tell me," he said, suddenly determined.  "Tell me what they made me forget."

Jack hesitated.  "That could... take a while."

"It better," he said grimly.  "I want it back.  All of it."

"You might get it back on your own," Jack pointed out.  "You're obviously remembering something when you sleep.  And Kat was pretty sure that time off base would bring some of it back--she said they went to a lot of trouble, those first few weeks, to keep you from leaving at all."

"Yeah, well, that was two years ago," he snapped.  "Maybe whatever the hell they did was cumulative.  Maybe it's built up in my system until there's nothing left.  I can't remember, Jack.  I can't remember any of it!"

"You will," Jack insisted.  "It's just taking longer than we thought, that's all."

"So help me!" he exclaimed.  "Tell me what happened!"

Jack shook his head, looking at the picture over his shoulder.  "I'm not--I can't take the place of your memories," he muttered.  He sounded more uncomfortable than anything, and that was all that kept Sky from snapping at him.

"Jack."  Words weren't memories, but they were better than nothing, and it looked like there was only one person who had them.  "Please."

Jack folded his arms, turning just enough that he could lean one hip against the console.  His back to the screen, he looked ashamed and apologetic all at once.  "Look... I'm not--it isn't that I don't want to tell you, okay?  I do.  I want to tell you everything; I've wanted to ever since--"

He broke off, looking down at the floor.  He blew out his breath in a carefully controlled sigh and continued, "I love you, okay?  I was in love with you.  I mean, you probably got that, right?"  Jack glanced up, then away.  "You don't even remember.  Imagine trying to tell a stranger about..."

It was the first time he'd felt shut out of whatever was in Jack's head.  It had been his for the asking, as far as he knew, and Jack had answered every question he came up with.  He didn't know how to handle this.

"Tell me something else?" he asked, subdued.  "Anything.  How we met, or... or the party.  Why did we go to the party?"

Jack smiled at that, eyes flicking back up to him.  "Because you dared me."

Sky narrowed his eyes.  "Did not."

"Did," Jack insisted.  "You said I'd never fit in, that I'd hate it.  That I wouldn't be able to go the whole day without stealing something.  You were terrible back then."

And you loved me anyway?  He bit back a question Jack clearly wouldn't welcome, managing to say only, "Tell me."

Jack's smile widened.  "With pleasure."

(Jack)

It wasn't Sky that woke him up this time.  It was a knock on his door, the dark of night, and the empty pallet beside him.  He knew what that meant, so he spared a groan and rolled over, trying to rub the sleep out of his eyes.

"Come in," he called, pushing himself up and squinting toward the light by the door.  The door opened, and it was Maz.  Of course.

"Sorry, Jack," Maz said, pausing on the threshold.  "He's gone again."

"Yeah, I figured," Jack muttered.  Damn it, he used to wake up.  How the hell did Sky keep sneaking by him like that?  "Did he say where?"

"The shuttle."  Mirinoi's Pink Ranger--their male Pink Ranger, and Jack still hadn't gotten past that--sounded resigned.  "I did try to get him to take an escort, but..."

"Believe me, I know what he's like."  Jack hadn't asked them to keep watch, let alone follow Sky whenever he would let them.  "I'll go."

"Want company?" Maz offered.  "Extra flashlight?  Big stick?"

He cracked a smile.  "All of the above?"

"Be right back."

It gave Jack time to use the bathroom, find his shoes, and put on an extra layer.  Mirinoi wasn't cold at night, but the bugs made him nervous.  He wasn't used to being surrounded by quite so much... nature.

He met Maz out on the porch, with a flashlight for him and a big stick for each of them.  He had to grin.  That was what he liked about Mirinoans: they were practical, and they said exactly what they meant.  If they said "big stick," they meant "big stick," and he didn't doubt that they'd let him use it for anything big sticks were good for.

"So," Maz said, taking the lead as they headed for the road.  Without a flashlight.  Jack flicked his on and cast it around experimentally.  "His head's still pretty bad, huh?"

His flashlight caught a pair of glowing eyes in the bushes, and he hastily turned the light back onto the path.  No reason to piss off the local wildlife.  If it came down to big sticks against teeth, he'd bet on the teeth.

"Yeah," Jack admitted.  "You can tell that just from talking to him?"

"No."  Maz surprised him by adding, "He makes the galactabeasts upset."

"The--oh," he realized.  "Your zords?"

"Yeah.  They say he's not supposed to be a Ranger."

Jack bristled.  "What does that mean?" he demanded, trying not to walk too close to the edge of the road.  He couldn't really remember what the edges were like now, in the dark.  Was he likely to step on something unfriendly?

"I don't know," Maz told him.  "Jewel's not sure either.  Erin's good with the galactabeasts, though, and she says they think he's missing something."

"Missing something," Jack repeated.  "Like what?"

"I don't know."  For the first time, Maz sounded vaguely troubled.  "Something's wrong, though, right?  He's twitchy like a... Jewel's worried he might hurt someone by accident."

"He's not normally like this."  Jack felt compelled to defend him, even if saying the words made him realize how little he actually knew this Sky.  Everyone on base had assured him the man was steady, if unaccountably angry sometimes.  Not the kind of person who acted out.

"Yeah," Maz said.  "I figured."

"It's--"  He hesitated, not sure Sky would benefit from them knowing.  "He's forgotten a lot of stuff," he said at last.  "I keep trying to, you know... help him remember.  But he gets really frustrated sometimes."

Maz didn't answer right away.  They passed a group of people, loud and laughing in a circle of light illuminated by lanterns.  Jack had to smile, turning his flashlight away so it wouldn't intrude on their warm glow.  So the planet didn't stop at night.  He'd wondered.

"Why did he forget?" Maz asked, as the noise moved off down the road.  "Accident?"

Jack readjusted his grip on the walking stick Maz had provided.  "Someone made him forget," he said.  "He doesn't know who to trust anymore."

"Oh."  Maz put more consideration into that one word than Jack could have managed in a whole lot more.  "Sorry."

"Yeah," Jack said with a sigh, flicking his flashlight in an idle pattern over the road.  "Me too."

They didn't talk again until he missed a turn, and Maz called him back.  "This way," he corrected, no hint of mocking in his tone.

"Thanks," Jack said, shaking his head.  "Good thing you came with."

"Things look different in the dark," Maz offered.  "Do you worry about your friend?"

Jack blinked.  "What, you mean, in general, or here specifically?"

"Are you worried that he'll get lost," Maz clarified.  "We could make more noise as we go, just in case."

"Nah."  Jack had to grin.  "He's like a bat.  He won't have any trouble."

"A bat?" Maz echoed, and they passed the rest of the walk talking about bats, Batman and Robin, and homing pigeons.  It kept Jack's mind off of what Sky might be doing at the shuttle, and for that he was grateful.

They walked out toward the landing strip together, and Maz didn't stop until they had identified the Drews' shuttle among the hulking shadows.  There was light spilling out the back, from the hatch halfway up the exterior hull, and Jack shook his head.  "I have no idea what he's doing," he muttered, mostly to himself.

"You might consider closing the hatch," Maz said, keeping his voice at the same level.  "If it doesn't bother him.  The light will draw the bugs in."

"Sure, thanks."  Jack held out his fist, and Maz bumped it companionably with his own.  They'd been hanging out.  "I appreciate the directions, man.  And the flashlight."

Maz just nodded, falling back a little.  "Glad to help."

And the stick, Jack remembered a moment later, when he had to prop it by the bottom of the shuttle so he could climb up to the hatch.  He kept the flashlight, though, wedging it against his hip so he'd have both hands free.  He could carry it, but there was plenty of light from the hatch and he wasn't totally sure what he would find when he got there.

When he looked back down, he didn't see Maz, but he'd bet the Pink Ranger was still lurking in the shadows.  Just in case.

He poked his head above the bottom of the hatch cautiously.  There was Sky, sitting in front of the entertainment screen, chair pushed right up to the console.  Reading again, Jack thought, catching the grab bar to the side of the hatch and taking another few rungs.  Sky didn't turn.

Jack lifted a hand, knocking on the hull as gently as he could.  It made a muffled thumping sound that was perfectly audible in the quiet night, and damned if Sky didn't start just as badly as he had this morning.  He'd really been trying to avoid that.

"Hey," he offered, climbing on through.  "How's it going?"

"What are you doing here?" Sky demanded.  He had his back to the screen, now, and he looked like he expected a whole platoon to appear behind Jack.

Yeah, Jack thought with a sigh.  "Twitchy" was as good a word as any.

"They wake me up when you leave," he said, reaching for pockets that weren't there.  Hard habit to break, no matter what he was wearing.  "Sorry."

Sky opened his mouth, then frowned.  "You're apologizing to me," he said flatly.

"I'm not trying to make you crazy," Jack told him.  "I'll stay out of the way."

Sky folded his arms, looking supremely uncomfortable.  "I was just... I mean, I know it's a breach of privacy.  I know--"

He broke off, and it dawned on Jack that he was more embarrassed than upset.  "Do what you gotta do," Jack told him.  "I'll just go crash downstairs, okay?  Wake me up if you need anything."

Sky looked agonizingly undecided.  "Could you--would you mind... looking at something for me?"

Jack raised his eyebrows.  "Sorry?"

Sky turned a little, revealing the screen behind him, and it wasn't covered with words.  It had a picture on it.  Two things occurred to him simultaneously: Sky wasn't just reading, he was combing through the comm log for mentions of his life.  And he'd found them.

Him and Sky when they'd been promoted to D Squad.

He tried to smile.  "Aw, see, that's so typical.  Dru took that picture, so you look totally hot and I'm just--"  He waved his hand, but he couldn't look away.  God, Sky had been so happy back then.

"I remember being promoted," Sky said uncertainly.  "I don't... I mean, we're--"

"Obviously together?" Jack finished.  "Yeah, we learned subtle from Charlie and Dru, so.  That's where that comes from."

Sky sat down hard, and Jack glanced sideways at him.  He was just staring at the picture.  "But we're--"

When he stopped, Jack tried to finish the sentence in his head.  In uniform?  Sixteen?  Teammates?  Roommates?  Grinning like crazy people?

"Happy," Sky said softly.  Wonderingly.  "I wish I could remember."

"Yeah, well."  Jack tried to brush it off, but his hand found the back of Sky's head.  "I'm about two seconds from flipping Dru off, so don't get too sentimental.  Your mom didn't get that picture."

He was petting Sky's dirty blonde hair.  Soft and disheveled without gel, the short cut went in every direction.  He knew he shouldn't do it, but it was late and he just... he was right there.  It was like he was right there.

"Why aren't you wearing your jacket?" Sky asked, an odd note in his voice.

"'Cause it was a hundred degrees that day," Jack informed him.  "You and Gibbs were the only ones in full uniform, and Gibbs is from the fucking desert.  I don't know how you do it."

"I'm guessing Charlie didn't have her jacket on, either," Sky grumbled.

Jack curled his fingers to scratch the top of Sky's head affectionately.  "What did I just say?" he asked.  "Just you and Gibbs.  Besides, when did Charlie ever follow the dress code?"

There was a pause, and then Sky said quietly, "That's really distracting."

Jack froze.  Taking a step back, he folded his arms across his chest and tried not to look at the picture on the screen.  "Sorry," he muttered.  "I'm just tired.  It won't happen again."

"I wasn't--"  Sky was still staring at the screen.  "I didn't mean to make it sound like I was complaining."

Jack closed his eyes.  "I'll be downstairs," he said.  "Yell if you need me."

Sky didn't answer, and he turned away without looking at either of them.  New Sky, stiff and confused in his chair, or Old Sky, sweet and irascible as he smirked at the camera.  With his arm around Old Jack.

He missed Old Jack.

Something flew in front of his face, and he paused by the ladder to the sleeping compartment.  "Oh, hey," he called, making an effort at normalcy.  "Close the hatch, would you?  It's letting the bugs in."

Only after he said it did he realize that closing the hatch would simulate the same imprisonment Sky had lived for a week with Jack in control of the shuttle.  He winced, opening his mouth to take it back, but Sky just waved over his shoulder.  "Yeah, sure," he said absently.

Jack looked at him for a long moment.  Above him, the winged thing flew straight into the embedded light panels.  Its shell made a faint clicking sound as it banged futilely against the casing, over and over again.

Day 10

He was alone when he woke up.  Alone, and on the floor in Syd's room.  Jack had one-upped him, because he not only had a blanket over his shoulders but there was also a pillow under his head.  A very pink pillow, but a pillow nonetheless.

For the first time, he wondered what had made Jack choose this room.  There were three sleeping compartments on the Drews' shuttle, and it sounded like Jack had gotten first pick.  Why hadn't he taken the red one?  Or, if he cared that that one was obviously Sky's, why not the largest one?

He lifted his head, surveying the explosion of red and black and grey currently at war with the color scheme of this princess room.  It was very--Jack.  Weirdly personal, even in the midst of something so contrary to his nature.  The normally neat pink bed was a mess.  The few clothes he'd brought were everywhere.  That damn comic book was propped open in front of the mirror, displaying a full page spread of Gamma Power in all their armored glory.

Pushing himself into a sitting position, he did a careful assessment.  He was stiff, but not in pain.  His hand wasn't throbbing.  And perhaps most astonishingly, his head was full of jumbled images and conversation fragments: Jack's voice, Jack's face, the stories Jack had told yesterday taking over his brain to such an extent that they had apparently shoved the nightmares aside.

He didn't delude himself into thinking that he was remembering.  Everything he'd dreamt about had been something Jack had told him, or something he'd seen or read in the Drews' comm log.  But he'd slept through the night--eventually--and had been peaceful enough that Jack had actually left him alone when he got up.

Maybe.  The light he'd left on upstairs was still burning, and it was perfectly plausible that Jack was sitting a few feet from the ladder, ready to leap down it at a moment's notice.  My hero, he thought wryly.

He tried not to think about how apt that description might turn out to be.

It wasn't until he went to put the pillow back that he noticed the sailboat.  He tossed the folded-up blanket over the end of the messy bed and adjusted both pillows so they were even.  Jack's extra t-shirt stuck out from under the pillow he'd just moved.  He rolled his eyes, moving the pillow back to cover it up--

Except that wasn't a regulation design.  He looked over his shoulder at the ladder automatically.  Had Jack really modified one of his SPD t-shirts?  And why was he surprised?  Nudging the pillow a little further, he studied the fragment of a wrinkled image.  Yeah.  Little sailboat silhouette, black on red.

He glanced up the ladder again, knowing he'd made enough noise moving around to alert anyone in the rear compartment.  Still no Jack, though.  He moved the pillow again, but he still couldn't see any SPD lettering on the shirt.

With a sigh, he gave up and yanked the t-shirt free.  Yes, fine, he was looking at Jack's clothes.  Whatever the reason--and he would be the first to admit that he wasn't admitting anything--there was no need to be juvenile about it.

He shook the t-shirt out and held it up, blinking at the words above the sailboat.

Red Sky.

At night, he thought.  Sailors' delight.  Red sky in the morning... sailors take warning.

He should put it back.  It wasn't his, it was none of his business, and Jack had already made it clear that he and the guy Jack had left two years ago weren't the same person.  Not to him.  Not to either of them, apparently.

Whoever he was, he wasn't Jack's Sky.

He put the t-shirt over his shoulder and headed upstairs.  Jack was sitting at the open hatch, legs hanging over the side while he ate.  Without even seeing around him, Sky knew he had a bowl of cereal in one hand a spoon in the other.

"Morning," he offered.  His voice cracked with sleep and he cleared his throat, embarrassed.  He'd spent a lot of time recently treating Jack like the enemy.  Now that it was clear that wasn't the case, he didn't know how to act around him.

Jack lifted a spoon over his shoulder, waving without turning around.  A moment later, he answered, "Morning.  Sleep okay?"

"Yeah."  Funny how easy it was to take not having nightmares for granted.  "Sorry about the... you know.  Crashing in your room thing."

"Nah, man, it's cool."  Jack waved his spoon again, still staring out at the morning.  There was plenty of sun coming in to light up the rear compartment.  The light he'd left on when he went to bed served the sole purpose of directing light downstairs.

"I wouldn't want to sleep alone either," Jack added.  "After what you've been through."

"Yeah, well."  He turned the light off, hesitated briefly before dropping the t-shirt over the back of one of the chairs, and glanced at the synthesizer.  "I dreamed about you."

That made Jack turn around, which he hadn't expected, and he was caught with one hand still on the shirt.  Jack's gaze went from his face to the back of the chair, and his expression went blank.  He didn't say anything.

"Sorry," he said, already regretting the impulse.  "I shouldn't have--"

He didn't know what he shouldn't have done, and he'd half-expected Jack to rescue him before he got that far.  But Jack just kept staring, breakfast forgotten, his thoughts inscrutable.  If he'd had any doubt that the t-shirt mattered, it was gone now.  Along with whatever confidence he'd found.

"It--I wanted to ask you about it," he said awkwardly.  Because the only thing he could do now was go on, no matter how bad an idea it suddenly seemed.  "It's just... 'red sky'?"

Jack looked down, twisting his head to the side.  His shoulders rose, then fell--deep breath?--and he set his cereal, very carefully, on the floor to one side of the hatch.  He let the spoon fall into the bowl.

Aloud, he said only, "Well, fuck."

He sounded weirdly amused, Sky thought.

"Fuck," Jack repeated after a moment.  Still not looking at him.  "What am I supposed to do now?  Throwing the bowl is a waste of good cereal.  Yelling at you gets me exactly nowhere.  Walking away leaves you alone, which is cruel, not to mention--"

He broke off, shaking his head.  "Fuck," he said again.

Calm.  Matter of fact.

"Don't you ever get angry?" Sky blurted out.

"No, Sky."  At least Jack was looking at him again.  "I don't get angry.  They just wiped your fucking memory.  I couldn't care less."

"I shouldn't have touched your stuff," he said uncertainly.  He didn't know what was wrong, and he had even less idea how to fix it.  But anyone could see that Jack was on edge, and pissing him off seemed really, phenomenally unwise right now.

"It's not mine," Jack said.  His voice was quieter now.

He didn't make the mistake of assuming the mood had passed.  "Well, I shouldn't have--"

"It's your goddamned t-shirt," Jack snapped.  His fists were clenched on the deck beside him, and the open hatch behind him loomed large and dangerous.  "You can do whatever you want with it.  Take it, wear it, burn it, I don't care.  It's not mine."

He held his hands out to the sides.  He couldn't step back, but he managed to keep himself from stepping forward.  "Okay," he said uneasily.  "I didn't mean to make you upset."

"Hard to imagine what about this could upset me, isn't it?" Jack retorted.  "I let them transfer me because you wanted to stay, you know.  Because SPD Earth meant more to you than it ever did to me, and without you one base was pretty much the same as another.  They kicked me back a full year at Nebula.  And I let them.

"I let them," he added, "because at the end of the day, I knew you'd still graduate on time.  I knew you were Ranger-track.  I knew you'd be Red.  And you wanted that, Sky, you wanted it more than anything!  More than me!"

Pushing himself to his feet, Jack took a step backward.  He threw his arms wide, framed by the hatch, and declared, "I wanted you to have what you wanted, okay?  Sue me.  I let them split us up because I knew how much SPD meant to you."

"Jack," Sky interrupted.  The drama wasn't worth the heart attack Jack would give him if he fell.  "Get away from the hatch."

"Look what they did!" Jack shouted, stalking forward.  Straight up to him, and he actually relaxed the tiniest bit.  Damn Jack and his stupid risks.  "Look at what your precious SPD did to you!  They fucked up your brain and they lied to you about it for years!"

Funny, he thought, staring down at Jack as he raged in such a uniquely Jack way.  Start soft, start distant... end by yelling in their face.  This part actually seemed kind of familiar.

"Was it worth it?" Jack demanded.  "Was it worth me?  'Cause I gotta tell you, I lost my whole life so you could be a mindless automaton.  You're fucking welcome, by the way."

He was trying not to smile.  There was no way Jack could miss it.

"What the hell are you grinning about!" he shouted, clearly catching it and ratcheting up his outrage accordingly.  "Is this funny to you?  Another wacky quirk of Space Patrol Delta, run by fucking animals?!"

"Do we ever--"  Sky lifted one hand, the one he'd cut, the one with a bandage that needed replacing, to gesture back and forth between them.  "Is this--do we ever kiss when you do this?"

Jack just stood there, gaping at him.  "What?"

"I mean, when you--when we fight."  He felt his mouth quirk, and now he was definitely smiling.  He had no idea why.  "Do we ever kiss afterwards?"

"God damn it," Jack muttered, laughter escaping between the words even as he looked away.  "I hate you, man.  I hate you so much."

"Yeah," he said, heart lightening as Jack laughed.    He couldn't take his eyes off of him.  "I think I remember hating you too."

He hadn't actually meant it the way it came out.  He'd said he hated Jack, hadn't he?  Just the other day.  But Jack's head swung around, intent look searching his face, and his felt his smile disappear.  He'd said the magic word.

Jack's gaze wavered, leaving his eyes... landing on his mouth.

It wouldn't exactly be a chore to kiss him.  He was sweet and strong and devoted as hell.  Whoever Sky had been, Jack had obviously spent two years not letting him go.  He was willing to throw away everything to get him back.  And still he managed to act like he had nothing on the line, like whatever Sky didn't know or remember was fine.  No pressure.

Jack closed his eyes, lowering his head, and something in him protested.  Please.  Not when he was so close... not when he needed everything Jack was willing to do.  He couldn't let this go.  Not if he wanted to know.

One hand reaching for Jack's face, he leaned in and pressed a gentle kiss to his mouth.  He was ready to flinch, ready for a blow that never came when Jack's hands tangled in the weave of his shirt and pulled him closer.  Jack was strangely short for someone who exuded as much presence and authority as he did, but somehow kissing him wasn't as uncomfortable as he would have thought.

If he'd let himself think about it.  If he'd let himself think about Jack pushing into him, mouth open, hot and strong and demanding.  If he'd let himself think that maybe Jack would moan, caught up in wanting something that Sky couldn't even remember.  Needy.  Desperate for it.

Fucking frightening.  He would have pushed Jack away if his arms weren't already around him, holding him there.  His head was cursing him for being three kinds of stupid while his hands seemed to have a life of their own.  His arms wouldn't let go.  His mouth was missing Jack's tongue.

Body memory.

Jack wrenched away, still gripping the front of his shirt.  "Holy shit," he gasped, trying to straighten his arms.  Trying to distance himself.  "I didn't mean... I'm s--Sky--"

He couldn't let go.  He wanted to pull him back.  He wanted to feel that weird sense of familiarity again, the frightening rightness of something he shouldn't recognize.  But his body knew this, too, it seemed, and his hold loosened when Jack twisted to one side and pushed.

"You can't just kiss me," Jack hissed, crossing his arms over his chest, fingers clenched so hard they had to leave marks.  "I can't--I'm doing the best I can, okay?  But I'm only human."

"It felt right," he blurted out.  "I'm sorry; I shouldn't have--I know you.  That was the only time I could feel it.  Last night... don't you get it?"

Jack was looking at him like he was the crazy one.

"I look at those pictures," he said desperately, "and it's like they're of someone else.  I don't remember--like I wasn't even there.  But when you touched me, I thought... it was like you'd done it before."

"What--"  Jack shifted, hugging his arms tighter to his chest.  "The--when I--"

He reached out to touch Jack's hair.  Jack didn't move, for a wonder, just letting him run his fingers through braids that felt smoother than they looked.  "I had to," he said quietly.  "I'm sorry.  I had to try to remember."

"You had to kiss me," Jack said flatly, as his hand fell away.

All he could do was nod.

"And?" Jack asked after a moment.

He tried to smile.  "Pretty sure you usually use more tongue."

Jack's eyes widened.

"Please," he said softly.  He felt like scum for doing it, but he pressed his advantage.  He told himself this was for Jack as much as it was for him.  "I'm sorry, and I know it sucks.  But it's the only thing I know."

Jack stared at him, hunched and miserable and obviously well aware of what he was asking.  He didn't unfold his arms. "I might be able to handle touching," he muttered at last.  Stiff, and heartbreakingly reluctant.  "But if you fucking kiss me again, you're gonna wind up flat on your back."

He bit his tongue to keep from saying anything that would get him hit.  Instead, he just nodded, and Jack sighed like he was bracing himself for doom.  He held up one hand when Sky took a step closer.

"And," Jack said.  "I want you to go see that mind healer."

He didn't hesitate.  "Okay."

Jack lowered his hand.  "Okay."

He reached out, then, fingers ghosting along Jack's skin.  Tracing his face, fitting a hand alongside his jaw.  That was right.  Two fingers above his ear, two below... thumb against the corner of his mouth.  Jack didn't move.

His hand slid down, over his neck, palm brushing against the collar of Jack's shirt.  On impulse, he drew his fingers forward and pressed gently, looking for his heartbeat.  Oddly, that made Jack shudder, tilting his head away and closing his eyes.

"You're so weird," Jack muttered, the half-hearted protest sounding anything but annoyed.  "Why do you always do that?  Who checks for a pulse before they kiss someone?"

He lifted his thumb to Jack's mouth again, and sure enough, parted lips moved against his skin in the ghost of a kiss.  He felt something deep inside him throb, heat stuttering to life, and he was torn between pressing closer and pulling away.  He... wanted Jack.  His body wanted Jack, and it was very specific about how.

Touch, kiss, get naked.  Repeat.  There was an order to it, a strange sense of direction, even inevitability, to this.  And it was, he was convinced, no product of attraction to a guy he'd first laid eyes on only two weeks before.

This was part of a path he'd traveled for years.  With a partner he trusted and bodies that knew each other.  With feelings born not of the brain, but of the heart.  Lingering in muscle memory that a mindwipe couldn't touch.

"Okay," Jack whispered, turning his head without stepping away.  "We're done here."

He heard the quiet plea in Jack's voice, and he stepped back without hesitation.  His idea... his request.  His responsibility.

Jack still didn't move.

"Would you believe me," Sky offered softly, "if I said I remembered this?"

He saw Jack swallow.  Lifting his head, Jack caught his gaze and replied unsteadily, "Right now, I'll believe anything you say."

"I remember--"  He changed what he was going to say at the last second.  "You.

"And I'll remember more," he felt compelled to add.  "It'll be worth it, Jack.  I promise."

Jack gave him a slow, sweet smile, like memories coming through the emptiness.  "Believe me," he said.  "It already is."

Day 11

It was their fourth day on Mirinoi when they went to meet the Blue Ranger's parents.  Jewel was still keeping SPD at bay, somehow, with a story he probably didn't want to know too much about.  He was afraid it involved him being either completely incapacitated or a total basket case.  Possibly both.

Either way, Hanae's parents apparently owned a motorized vehicle that could make the trip to the northern settlement in under an hour.  He wanted to take the shuttle, but he'd heard excuse after excuse: more environmentally efficient, not that much longer, the atmosphere wasn't kind to spacefaring vehicles in the north.  Also, Jack had informed him, "You like flying, so.  We're flying."

He thought this was an odd thing to say, so he protested.  He liked a lot of things, but that didn't mean--

Shut up, Jack had told him.  Do you even see those planes on the wall of your room anymore?  Do you remember anything other than what SPD's told you about yourself?  Where's your stuff, Sky?  Who packed up your books?  What was the last thing you read that wasn't SPD?

Jack was in a foul mood this morning, and he'd correctly deduced that "I don't know" was not an answer that would get him any sympathy today.  So he kept his mouth shut while Jack stomped around, muttering, and he and Erin exchanged glances over breakfast.  She'd turned out to be decent company when Jack needed a break.

Sky actually felt better than he had in days.  His right hand was clean and healing without a bandage, now, and he'd slept through the night with nothing but too-vivid dreams of Jack in his head.  Jack had spent most of the evening before hanging out on the porch with Maz, and Sky had fallen asleep without him.

"Ready when you are!" Hanae yelled from the window.  Jack grumbled about the noise, continued to eat nothing, and ignored the way Erin quietly poured the rest of her drink into Sky's almost-empty glaze.  Not quite coffee, but not bad.  Apparently she thought he was going to need it.

They had to walk, of course.  He'd have thought that would be good for Jack--he could vent some of his frustration silently, and the jungle was bright and calming this early in the morning.  Instead, Jack complained about the bugs, the vegetation, the sun, and the humidity.  The whole way.

Hanae mostly ignored him, after his initial efforts to sympathize had been rebuffed.  Sky ignored him from the start, more worried about what they would find in the northern settlement than whatever mood Jack was in.  He wasn't totally sure what a mind healer was, but he knew he was suspicious of it.  It didn't sound scientific.

A branch snapped in his face, and he blinked.  Pushing it out of the way, he found Jack glaring at him.  "I'm sorry," Jack said sarcastically.  "Am I interrupting your self-absorption?"

He gave that the consideration it was due.  "No," he said, following Hanae along their supposed shortcut.  "I'm good."

He heard Jack mutter something that wasn't meant to be overheard, and he stopped where he was.  Jack overtook him with a single stride, and Sky offered him the glaze.  "Fake coffee?"

Jack took it with a frown, but he stopped muttering.

They found Hanae's parents--or at least, his dad--outside at what looked like a private landing strip.  The jungle didn't ebb.  It had clearly been beaten back, here, in the middle of otherwise dense undergrowth and soaring canopy.  But when his eye fell on the collection of small flyers scattered at one end of the open space, he judged it room enough for takeoff.

"Wow," Jack said, when they'd all introduced themselves around.  "This is quite a place you have here."

Hanae's dad was Kai Chen, whom Sky placed after only a few seconds as one of the original Terra Venture Rangers.  Just one of many parts of Ranger history he'd memorized since C Squad, and he tried not to think about why the hobby had started then.  He'd just been more serious about his training, not trying to fill in the...

"Thank you," Kai was saying, and he concentrated on that.  "Attacking the vegetation keeps my husband busy.  Some days, sending him out with an axe is the best thing for everyone's peace."

"And peace of mind," Hanae put in.  "He's never hurt himself with farming implements."

"Yes, if we could go a month without one of you trying to kill yourselves," Kai said dryly, "that would really free up my schedule."

Sky glanced at Jack and found him looking back.  With something approaching a smile.  He wasn't sure exactly what the look was for, but he wouldn't object to seeing it more often.  When Jack offered him the rest of the fake coffee, he figured whatever he'd done this time had been forgiven.

Kai flew them up north while Hanae stayed behind--"Try not to hurt yourself while we're gone," his dad told him--and Sky realized two things.  One, Jack was right about him and flying.  It was amazing and exhilarating and Kai let him take the controls after a brief lesson, keeping them aloft and on course.  He didn't know how he could have ever forgotten this feeling.

Two, what Jack had failed to mention was that he hated to fly.

Sky tried to talk to him when he realized, but Jack just waved him off and kept plying Kai with questions about the scenery.  What were they flying over?  Why did the clouds look like that?  How passable was the jungle below for someone trying to go it on foot?

It wasn't until they arrived, and Kai had stepped aside to talk to someone at the larger public strip serving the northern settlement, that Jack let himself be cornered.  "You've sacrificed enough for me," Sky warned, quiet and with a concerned eye for Jack's tight expression.  "You can't keep doing this."

"Yeah, well."  Jack held up his hand, and Sky fumbled to answer.  When he went to clasp the offered hand, though, Jack's fingers swept right through his, the eerie phasing demonstration clearly meant to swing back through his hand from the other direction.

Okay, so it should have been obvious why Jack hated flying.

His answering field glowed blue as Jack's hand went right through it, but the back of his hand hit Sky's hard enough to be jarring.  Jack blinked as Sky turned his hand over and clasped his, both their hands glowing blue now as Jack tried to phase free.  He smiled.  He hadn't even had to think about it.

Jack stopped pulling and stared at him.  "How did you know you could do that?"

"What, stop you?"  He'd surprised Jack.  Double bonus.  "It's obvious, isn't it?  We're opposites.  Our powers neutralize each other."

"Yeah."  Jack's expression was intent.  "But how did you know that?"

Sky shrugged, a little uncomfortable with that look.  "I just know.  How do you know?"

"I know because we practiced together a million times," Jack informed him.  "I know because Kat ran every test there is and a few I think she made up on the spot.  I can reach you and you can catch me--"

"But we're the only ones," Sky finished.

Jack just stood there, watching him.  Waiting.

He looked away.  Kai was carefully pretending not to listen, but he tilted his head when Sky caught his eye and offered, "I can leave directions, if you want."

"No," he said, glancing back at Jack.  Jack didn't answer.  "We're ready."

For once, they borrowed a vehicle instead of walking to... wherever they were going.  It didn't take long to see why.  Without fail, the people they passed along the way looked up, offering a smile or a wave.  At first he thought it was just because motorized transport was so rare.  But then he heard the people calling Kai's name, saw small children chasing their vehicle in the street--

"Former Power Ranger," Kai said, when Jack gave him a sideways look.

"One of the first," Sky added, when Jack just nodded.  "You were the colony's first Blue Ranger."

Kai only smiled.  "They never forget."

"You must be very proud of your son," Jack observed.

"What parent isn't?" Kai said.  "But yeah... the Power chose well.  And it doesn't hurt that I won, either."

"Won?" Sky repeated.

Kai's smile deepened.  "His father was Red," he remarked, his gaze flicking briefly from one of them to the other.  "You can probably imagine the color wars."

Jack chuckled, settling back in his seat.  He kept his eyes on the road, but he said, "Yes.  Yes we can."

"You're outnumbered," Sky told him.

"Says the man in the red shirt," Jack drawled.

He hadn't wanted to take the sailboat shirt off, and he was wearing it underneath the loose-woven Mirinoi garb they'd both put on that morning.  Of course Jack had noticed.  Probably everyone he'd seen today had noticed.

It was strange to realize he was more pleased than embarrassed by that.

By the time they reached their destination, the random followers they accumulated each time the vehicle slowed had almost prepared him for the group they found there.  Children and adults gathered at tables outside a building that seemed to be more porch than interior.  Circulating, possibly working... not as loud as he might have expected.

At least, not until the three of them climbed out of the vehicle, and the kids who had followed them down the street started to catch up.  Kai took the time to yell for his friend, waving her toward them before he was engulfed by kids clamoring for attention, a handful of adults trying to calm them, possibly even some wandering pets.  Sky could only stare: the current Rangers hadn't gotten anywhere near this response in the settlement they'd just come from.

Then Jack elbowed him, he turned to snap--and closed his mouth abruptly.  Right.  The mind healer.  She was very... barefoot.  Native.  Whatever.

"Hello," she greeted them with a smile.  "I'm Maya.  You must be Sky?"

She was, he thought, the first person on the planet to acknowledge him before Jack.  "Sky Tate," he said, offering his hand warily.  "Blue Ranger."

The shell-like beads that adorned her skirt clicked when she moved, even just to step forward and shake his hand.  "It's nice to meet you," Maya said, her gaze sliding politely to Jack.  "And Jack?"

"Jack Landors," Jack said, following his form.  "Red Ranger.  Nice to meet you too."

She smiled at him, and Jack did his charming street-boy look.  Sky tried not to roll his eyes.  People fell for that; that was what killed him.  Braids or no braids, Jack looked tough until he smiled.  Then, suddenly, he was the guy everyone wanted to take home to their mom.

He should know.  He'd done it himself.

"Come inside," Maya was saying.  "I just need to check on someone before we talk.  I'm sorry about Kai," she added, stepping back to gather them up as she nominally led the way.  "He and Leo are very popular with the children.  Hopefully they'll have let him go by the time you're ready to leave."

"Nah, it's cool."  Jack looked over his shoulder while they made their way onto the porch.  "They look like they're having fun."

Wistful, Sky thought, shooting him a sideways glance.  Jack liked kids.  Had he known that?

"Very much so," Maya agreed fondly.  "Please, come in."

The inside was much like the outside, he thought.  People gathered in little groups, this time around blankets spread out on the floor, and maybe the average age was a little younger.  These groups were definitely making--but, no.  They weren't all making something.  That group over there was reading something aloud.

People wandered less inside.  That was all he could be sure of.  They were more stationary, quieter, and Maya went swiftly to a man who was maybe middle-aged, helping two little boys... string something.  Sky shook his head.  Strange place.

"Community center," Jack murmured in his ear.  "You think?"

He thought he liked Jack whispering in his ear; that was what he thought.  "Maybe," he said quietly.  "You don't think it's like this every day?"

Jack was standing close enough that he could feel him shrug.  "Dunno.  Town party?  Day care?  School?"

"School?" he repeated skeptically.

He heard Jack smile.  "Life isn't all desks and computers, Sky."

Maya laid her hand on the man's shoulder, and he smiled up at her.  Sky thought he should probably recognize that face, but when it didn't come to him immediately, he gave up.  He'd memorized it or he hadn't.  Poking at things that weren't there only disturbed him.

"Excuse me."  Something brushed against his hand, and he looked down just as a little girl latched on to his fingers.  "What are you doing here?"

He stared at her in surprise, and he felt Jack lean around his shoulder.  "Hey, there," Jack said, grinning.  "We're here to see Maya.  What are you doing here?"

"Um."  She looked up at him with wide eyes, considering.  "I'm making a puppet."

"Oh yeah?" Jack said.  "That sounds like fun."

She nodded, swinging Sky's hand back and forth.  "It is."  That was all she said for a moment, then she added, "You're really tall."

She wasn't even looking at him when she said it, frowning off across the room at something he couldn't pick out, but Jack laughed.  "That's true," he agreed.  "He is really tall."

Now she frowned up at Jack.  "He's taller than you."

Jack nodded.  "Yup.  But I'm taller than you."

"Not by much," she insisted, standing up on her tiptoes.  She used Sky's hand to balance, and she came maybe to his elbow.  "See?  I'm close!"

"She's right," Sky decided.  "She is close."

Jack gave him a look, but the little girl bounced on her toes and beamed up at him.  "Wanna come see my puppet?"

He'd opened his mouth to say... something, when Maya reappeared.  "Shairra," she said, smiling down at the girl.  "I need these two to help me with something first, all right?  We'll be back soon."

The girl sighed.  "Fine," she said.  Then she tugged on Sky's hand again.  "We're having cookies later," she told him, very seriously.  "Tell Maya to bring you back in time."

"Okay," Sky said, darting a look at Maya.  "Cookies.  Got it."

The girl let go of his hand and danced away, not bothering to look back.  He glanced at Jack, who had a hand over his mouth and was very obviously "hiding" a smile.  Sky ignored him, looking back at Maya when she said, "I will do my best."

"That's all right," he said quickly, but Jack interrupted.

"Speak for yourself," he declared.  "I want some of those cookies."

Sky felt compelled to point out, "She didn't invite you."

"Oh, now you accept invitations alone?"  Jack gave him a wounded look.  "Inviting you is inviting me, Sky."

"So it would seem," Sky muttered, and Jack just grinned.

Maya exuded patience and good humor, which he supposed were good qualities in a mind healer.  It just happened that they were also good qualities in anyone who had to deal with Jack.  He was unfortunately aware that he had neither.  Maya, though, managed to have them outside, past the tables, and moving into the jungle before either of them thought to ask where they were going.

"Somewhere we can talk," she replied with a smile.

He and Jack exchanged glances.  Jack tilted his head toward Maya, very slightly, with an oddly readable look on his face.  It was as though he'd said, Anything funny and she's so a hostage.

Sky nodded back.  You get out of the way and I'll grab her.

Jack winked at him.

The need for hostage-taking was, luckily for them, nonexistent.  Their complicated and well-thought-out plan encountered no test more serious than a tool shed--albeit a well-lit one with a fire pit in the middle.  Well-lit and, he hoped, well-ventilated.

But Maya didn't make any move to start a fire.  She just walked around, opening windows and putting away a couple of things that had been left out on benches.  She picked up a couple of stools as she went, nodding to a third one when Jack went over to help.  She put one down by the fire pit, then offered the other to him.

He couldn't help asking, "What, no candles or chimes or anything?"

Jack frowned at him, but Maya just smiled.  "I find men are often less comfortable with magic and superstition," she replied.  "Why don't you just tell me what the problem is, and I'll see what I can do to help?"

Well, that was unexpectedly rational.  He put his stool down, glancing over at Jack.  Jack set his down beside him and clambered up on it, looking strangely comfortable with his feet hooked around the legs.  "Works for me," he remarked.

"There's stuff I can't remember," Sky said, turning his stool a little so it didn't sit so crookedly on the uneven floor.  He leaned against it uneasily, watching Maya arrange her skirt over her stool with care.  "Jack thought maybe you could... do something."

"No one remembers everything," Maya pointed out.  "What have you forgotten that's so troubling?"

He shifted uncomfortably.  "Jack," he said.  "I can't remember Jack."

Maya glanced from one of them to the other.  "You remember his name."

That made Jack grin, and he sighed.  "Not now," he said.  "I can't remember him from years ago.  He thinks--we think someone forced me to forget knowing him."

Maya considered that for a moment.  "Do you remember other things from years ago?" she asked at last.  "Is it only Jack that's missing?"

He could feel Jack staring at him, but he deliberately didn't look.  He knew what answer Jack wanted him to give, and he knew what he wanted to believe.  He knew he didn't want to go there again.  He knew it was going to hurt.

"No," he said quietly.  "It's not just Jack."

"There are many things you don't remember, then."  Maya sounded almost like she was asking a question.  "Things you think you should remember, but don't.  Are there things you do remember?"

"Yeah, of course."  He stopped, because even he could hear how defensive it sounded.  "Maybe not as much as I should," he muttered after a minute.

"What do you remember?"  Maya sounded only mildly curious, which made it seem... less like the end of the world.

"I remember B Squad," he said, folding his arms.  "And C Squad."  He frowned down at the floor, because part of his--had been not to talk about it.  Just training.  It wasn't that important.  "I remember memorizing a whole lot of stuff."

"Two years back," Jack said, maybe for Maya's benefit.  "C Squad started two years ago.  B Squad is more recent."

"What did you memorize?" Maya asked, as though Jack hadn't spoken.

It was just training.  It wasn't important.

Just a small movement, in his peripheral vision, but he saw her glance at Jack.  "Would it be easier if Jack waited back at the school?" she suggested.

"No," he said sharply.

Jack had already started to get up, but now he hesitated.  "I don't mind," he offered.  He sounded like he did, but he would obviously do it.  If Maya thought he should.  "I get that it's hard to, you know.  Talk about."

If Jack left him alone here, with this, he was going to lose it.

Jack didn't sit back down.  His first step toward the door brought Sky to his feet, and he felt the stool tangle and fall behind him.  "I can't."  He had to force the words out.  "If you go--I can't.  I can't."  

He couldn't get past "can't" to what he couldn't do, and Jack gave Maya an anguished look.  She nodded.  "It's up to you," she said, and it was impossible to say which of them she was talking to.  "I want you to do what you want to do, not what you think you should do."

Well, he wanted to run away, so that wasn't going to hold up.  He felt her gaze on him, though, and he tried to breathe again as Jack sat down.  He wanted to remember more than he wanted to run.

"He's right," Sky said abruptly.  "Two years."

"What's before that?" Maya asked.  "Anything?"

"Everything," he said.  He closed his eyes, feeling his expression twist and he couldn't stop it.  "Everything I know I did.  Nothing I don't."

Jack was very still, but he could feel him there.  Watching.

"What did you memorize?" Maya asked quietly.

He swallowed.  "It was just training," he said.  "I was more focused on my training, after.  I studied more."

Maya didn't say anything for a long moment.  "You can tell yourself what you want to hear without me," she pointed out.  "You don't really need me to sit here and reinforce your problems."

He blinked, eyes open, staring at her.  She just stared back.  She didn't look upset.  She didn't look amused, or tolerant, or patronizing.  She looked... curious.  Like she really wanted to know why he was telling her these things.

"My life," he blurted out.  "I memorized my life."

Jack's silence was louder than anything he could have said.

"Because you couldn't remember it," Maya said.

"I don't know," he said.  Then he shook his head.  "Yeah.  It was part of--I had to."

"Part of what?' she prompted.

"Training."

"When did you start training?" Maya wanted to know.

He had joined SPD Earth at fourteen.  He'd spent a year on probation, like everyone else.  Then orientation.  He'd been promoted to D Squad at sixteen, and they'd spent a year drawing large amounts of attention and publicity before the squad had split up.  Everyone agreed Dru had never been Ranger material.

Almost six years on the Delta Base, and the answer to that question made him queasy.

"Two years ago," he muttered.

"What happened two years ago?" Maya wondered.

He couldn't take the silence anymore, so he turned away and picked up the stool he'd knocked over.  Jack didn't say anything, even though he was the obvious answer.  "Jack left," he told his stool, fidgeting it back into the same place it had been before.

Maya's reply surprised him.  "Do you remember Jack leaving?"

He paused.  "No."

"What do you remember?" she said simply.

He put one hand on the stool, staring down at it.  "I have--I had dreams."

"Two years ago?"

"No."  He almost rolled his eyes at their sheer inability to communicate.  She couldn't string together more than four or five words at a time, and he could barely find any at all.  "I have them now.  They're--I think they're the last thing I remember.  From before."

"Why?" Maya wanted to know.

His mouth twisted.  "Because afterwards I forgot."

It was attitude, pure and simple.  He didn't want to talk about it, he didn't like thinking about it, and this was one of the worst things he could imagine doing.  He couldn't not snap at her.

She went with it anyway.  "So perhaps they are the connection, the bridge in your mind between now and then."

She couldn't have any idea how right she was--or how little he wanted to acknowledge it.  "Or maybe I'm just making up a traumatic experience to give myself an excuse for whatever went wrong in my head."

"Even if that's true," Maya told him, "the nature of the traumatic experience you imagine  may be as much of an answer as anything."

"Falling," he snapped.  "I imagine falling.  Where's the magic symbolism in that?"

Maya wasn't fazed.  "That mostly depends on whether you're afraid of falling or not."

Jack had apparently had enough.  "People hold him down!" he burst out.  "He's in a hospital room and people grab him and restrain him!  Then he falls."

"And I forget," he muttered.  "I think the falling is just... forgetting."

"Ah," Maya said with a smile.  "Your own magic symbolism?"

He didn't answer.

"Jack," Maya said, surprising him.  "What do you know about the dreams Sky is having?"

"They creep me out," Jack said vehemently.  "He's remembering something, and it's not cool.  It's the fucking opposite of cool.  They screwed with his mind and he tried to stop them, and now he has nightmares about it."

"What do you know about them?" she repeated.

"I know they make him scream," Jack snapped.  "I know that whatever the hell he sees makes him so upset he can't sleep, can't function.  Can't stop crying.  I'm sorry," he added, when Sky looked at him, "but whatever they did to you killed the guy I knew.  You can't expect me to like it."

"Jack," Maya said quietly.  "I wouldn't ask you to be here if Sky didn't need you."

That was all she said, but it was enough.  Jack got up and walked away.  Walked toward a window, not the door, and just stood there staring out for a long moment.  He didn't say anything.  He didn't look at them.  And the way he set his shoulders made Sky painfully aware of how close he was to breaking.

"It's a white room," he muttered.  "It looks like the infirmary, on base.  On the base where I live," he added, for Maya's benefit.  "I'm surrounded by people, and I can't fight them.  They're too close.

"There's blood on my hands," he said, and he saw Jack turn away from the window.  "From fighting, maybe, I don't know.  They grab me and pull me down.  I can't move.  I can't think.  Everything--"

He shook his head sharply, but it didn't help.  He stood up, trying to remind himself he was awake.  "Falling," he said.  "Everything falls.  The whole room caves in.  That's all.  That's when I wake up."

"What happens after you fall?" Maya asked, like he hadn't just said.

"I don't know," he said tightly.  "I wake up."

"What about before?" she wondered.  "Before you fall--why do forget?"

"I don't know," he protested.  "They wouldn't tell me!"

It slipped out, and the surprise of it startled him into silence.  Maya just tilted her head to one side and asked, "Do you mind it I touch you?"

He blinked at her.  "I'd rather you didn't," he said honestly.

She nodded as though it was nothing.  "What about Jack?" she asked.  "Do you mind if he touches you?"

He hesitated, but there was really only one answer to that question.  "No."

"Why?" Jack asked warily.

"To keep him from falling."  Maya flowed off of her stool, shell beads clicking as she moved.  "Sit on the floor, please."

He sighed.  Did they really think he was that messed up?  "It's just a dream," he said, trying not to sound irritated.  "I know I'm not going to fall."

"I don't," Maya replied, studying him.  "Please, humor me.  I'll feel better if you're already on the floor."

That was when it occurred to him that maybe "mind healer" wasn't just a native way of saying "cognitive behavioral therapist."  He stood up reluctantly, waiting until she took a seat on the floor herself to sit down across from her.  Now, he supposed, came the candles and the chimes.

"Jack," Maya said, glancing up at him.  "If you would sit behind Sky?  Are you comfortable with that?" she added, her gaze sliding to him again.  "Please let me know if I ask you to do something you'd rather not, for whatever reason."

He'd rather not be here, but he was pretty sure that wasn't what she meant.  "No," he muttered.  "It's fine."

He could feel Jack settling on the floor behind him, one hand on Sky's shoulder to steady himself.  Or to offer reassurance.  He let go once he was sitting down, and Sky missed the contact.

That's why you're here, he reminded himself.  That's why it matters.

"I want you to think about the dream you had," Maya was saying.  "If the falling is the hardest part, then I need you to think about what it would take to let it happen."

When she stopped there, he frowned at her.  "That's what I don't want to have happen."

"Then that's probably why you don't remember," she said, and her voice was oddly gentle.  "Whatever the falling is, it's already happened.  You've fallen.  You don't want to relive that experience, so your brain refuses to remember it."

He shook his head.  He wasn't inclined to blame parts of his body as though they weren't even him.  If he refused to remember, then fine--except he didn't.  He wanted to remember, but something was preventing him.  It wasn't his brain.  It was something that had been done to his brain.

"What?" Maya asked, more quietly curious than before.  "Do you not associate confidence with results?"

"What?"  He was annoyed to realize he'd echoed her, but she didn't smile.

"You say you know you won't fall."  Maya just looked at him, still.  Considering.  "Prove it."

He raised an eyebrow at her.  "What do you want me to do?"

"Close your eyes," she said.

He tried not to grimace.  Of course.  He did it, though, and she said, "Jack, if you would place your hands on Sky's face?"

If Jack moved, he didn't make any sound.  "Uh... what?"

"Like this."  Maya must have demonstrated, because Jack's hands touched his shoulders softly--a warning.  A warning he understood, and he tried to relax.  He felt Jack shift, and a moment later his arms slid over Sky's shoulders, hands gentle and awkward on his face.  On either side of his face, warm against his skin... not covering his eyes.

It was remarkably disconcerting.  He tried to breathe normally, but it was an effort and he wasn't really sure why.  Then he heard Maya say, "That's good," and it was with something like relief that he focused on her voice.

"I want you to think about your dream, Sky.  I want you to tell me everything you can about what you see, or hear... or feel."

"The part about falling?"  His face was relaxed under Jack's light touch.  It wasn't uncomfortable, just... strange.  Distracting, maybe, but Jack couldn't actually see him, and that made it less embarrassing.

"Start at the beginning," Maya said.  "The room is white, you said.  Is there anything on the walls?"

This would be an exercise in futility, he thought with a silent sigh.  He'd already told them everything he remembered.  More than he remembered.  The room wasn't really white, after all.

"It's just bright," he mumbled.  "Not... white."

"How many people are there with you?" Maya asked.  Like he knew.  She seemed to get that, because she added, "Closer to five, or closer to twenty?"

"Not that many," he muttered, frowning as he realized he could almost make them out.  Almost sense them, if not see them.  "There aren't a lot of people.  But I can't--I can't see.  I can't see very well; there might be more, but they're not... they're not really there."

"You're hallucinating," Maya's voice said quietly.  Which was weird, and yet... he almost thought it was true.

"They're trying to--to--they're everywhere," he protested.  It was just the way he felt in the dream.  Just a creeping fear and the invasion of something that wasn't supposed to be in his head.  "I can't leave!  They're everywhere.  The whole--everyone's in black.  They keep trying to touch me."

"You said there weren't that many of them," Maya murmured.

He was stiff under Jack's arms, and he tried to draw in a deep breath.  "They're not... they aren't really there," he repeated, trying to force himself to relax.  "It's just... I don't know, part of the dream.  It's just the infirmary.  Just regular medical staff."

"You aren't scared of the infirmary," she observed.  "What about the people in it?"

"Just shadows," he muttered.  "Just my imagination."

"Are they trying to hurt you?"

"I can't--they won't listen to me," he said.  Jack's hands felt heavier on his face all of a sudden.  "No one's listening.  I'm trying to tell them about... about the--"

"About the shadows," Maya said softly.

"Yeah."  They kept trying to quiet him, to calm him down.  "They won't fucking listen.  It's right there; I can see it.  I'm not stupid!"

"Is it trying to hurt you?" she asked again.

"It's right there!" he snapped.  "It's like I'm at a goddamned funeral!  Everyone tries to touch you and comfort you and get in your face every second, and they don't know when to just back off!  Why can't they just--"

When he jerked, a half-violent shrug, he bumped Jack's arm and he closed his mouth abruptly.  He was on Mirinoi.  In a little tool shed in the middle of the jungle, with Jack and a crazy native woman who probably wasn't going to kill them.  It was just a dream.

"They think you're hallucinating," Maya said.  "The medical staff thinks you're becoming violent."

He opened his eyes.  He didn't care.  This was creepy and weird and uncomfortable.

Maya's eyes were closed.

He stared at her for a long moment, torn.  But she didn't move, and Jack didn't move, and finally, he closed his eyes again.  "Maybe," he muttered.  "They--"

Someone had grabbed his arm.

"They hit me with something," he realized, startled and not and sucked back in, all at once.  "It pissed me off.  They didn't even ask, they just--they drugged me."

He hadn't gotten that until now.  And it seemed so obvious.  It was probably even procedure, when someone was as out of control as he... felt.  Acted.  Lashing out, with or without justification, did not go well in the infirmary.

"They held you down," Maya murmured.

"No--yeah."  He shivered, involuntary, and for the first time he felt Jack's fingers twitch.  Thumbs pressed deliberately against his face, subtle comfort when he couldn't do anything else.  "That too.  I wasn't... I can't--"

He was trapped.  He couldn't move, couldn't get away from the things he was seeing.  All of it, everywhere, people talking, moving around him... dizzying.  For days.  Forever.  He was stuck in the middle of a VR experience he couldn't control, couldn't leave, couldn't fucking move.

"Look, it's here or in a cell.  What do you want us to do?"

"He could kill himself in a cell."

"He could kill us here!"

Jack's hands were on his shoulders, the sole anchor in a dream that he could suddenly see.  He didn't dare open his eyes.  "They kept me in the infirmary," he whispered.  "To keep me from hurting anyone."

Just like that, it was gone.  Everything around him, everything in his head, the people talking to him like he could somehow understand them.  Everything but Jack's hands on his shoulders, Jack's fingers tight and painful on his collarbone, thumbs digging into muscle and bone as he fell.

This time, he didn't forget.

"They fucking cured me."  He could hear the words over the rushing in his ears, but he wasn't sure anyone else could.  He wasn't sure anyone else needed to.  Unstable synaptic constellations.  "They turned it all down."

Unpredictable neural misfires.  Memory revivification.  Disconnect between perception and reality results in inappropriate and repeatedly violent behavior.

"They told me," he said.  He couldn't open his eyes.  "They said--I might have--I think I let them."

Repeatedly violent behavior.

"I wasn't supposed to forget," he whispered.

Jack's fingers were loose and gentle now, running over his shoulders in either direction, prodding gently, soothingly, and he hadn't even noticed when it started.  He could still feel the sore points where those fingers had clenched tight, and it was a welcome pain that distinguished between now and then.  He didn't want to move, afraid of limitations he might have forgotten.

"Jack."  Maya's voice was gentle, and a moment later he felt Jack's hands on his face again.  It was weirdly steadying.  The room stopped spinning, anyway, and the breath he tried to draw was shaky but reassuring.

"It wasn't you," he mumbled.  It was somehow important that Jack know.  "It wasn't because of you."

"Were you sick?"  Jack's voice came from right behind his ear, warm heat radiating into him as he rested his arms on Sky's shoulders.  It couldn't be a comfortable position, but Jack didn't move.

He opened his eyes.  "No," he said, staring at Maya.  She was looking back, now, studying him with the same curiosity as before.  Like it was nothing.  And it felt like nothing, remarkably: like his head was the same as it had always been.  Except he knew.

"We went out," he said slowly.  "To bring in--to bring in a fugitive."  He couldn't remember the guy's name, or even what he'd done... except that it was some sort of mind crime.  "He turned on us.  More of a fight than we expected."

"We?" Jack repeated.  His tone was careful.  "D Squad?"

"C Squad."  That part, at least, was automatic.  "Before we... after we were--"  He knew this too, and it was startlingly close to the surface.  "They split up D Squad.  What the hell was that?"

It should have made him angry.  He was angry about it, he thought, he just didn't... feel angry.  He felt tired.  Like it was so far removed from right now that he didn't care anymore.

"Self-defense?"  Jack's voice in his ear was wry.  "Heroes of the base, the rebel squad... everyone loved us.  And they couldn't control us for anything."

"Yeah?"  He tried to remember, tried to call to mind some feeling of D Squad other than names and faces.  Charlie, yelling at him to get down.  Panic as he realized he couldn't break free.  Gibbs, slammed to the ground and still shooting.

It all seemed a long time ago now.

"Was it your first assignment as a new team?" Maya asked, oddly unobtrusive.  And it was that very oddity that drew his attention to her.  It was like she knew things before he did.  Like she was what he was thinking.

"Are you reading my mind?" he demanded.

She smiled at him, and he couldn't interpret that at all.  Not mysterious, not knowing... not... what?  Just a smile.  She even held out her hands, and it didn't help at all.  All she said was, "No candles."

"They sent you out without the rest of the squad."  Jack, at least, made sense of it.  He could hear the quotation marks when Jack added, "After you were 'promoted.'  Before Syd and Bridge."

"Okay, you don't get to read my mind," he muttered.

Jack was smiling.  "I don't have to read your mind, Sky.  I was there."

Oh, how he wished that was true.  The longing hit him hard, and he lifted his hands to Jack's without conscious thought.  Jack let his hands be pulled away, fingers fumbling for Sky's, leaning into him awkwardly as he tried to keep his balance... giving up.

He closed his eyes as Jack wrapped himself around him.  Arms crossed over his chest, Jack's chin on his shoulder, hugging him hard enough that he was here.  Here, now, with Jack.  He felt like he was where he was supposed to be for the first time in days.  Weeks.

Maybe years.

Maya's voice was quiet and kind as she said, "I think you'll remember on your own, now."

He lifted his head, still clutching Jack's arms around him, and caught her eye.  Mind reader or not...  "It's more than I had before," he said.  So much more.  "Thank you."

"Yeah, thanks," Jack murmured, but the words were muffled.  He'd turned his head, speaking more to Sky than anyone, breath warm on his skin.  He didn't say anything else, and for once, Sky didn't feel like pushing him off.

For once.  That was a strange thought.

"The honor is mine," Maya said, smiling at them with a look that was almost... fond.  

"You may wish to keep talking," she added.  "Most memory suppression techniques involve dampening the neural connections in the brain.  Synaptic pathways fade with disuse, but you should be able to retrain your consciousness to access old memories.  As long as they're not  completely overwritten by new ones."

Jack's embrace was warm and very welcome, but he didn't miss the fact that Maya had just surprised him.  Again.  Or that her words were as much a warning as they were encouragement.

"The longer I wait," he surmised, "the harder it will get."

She nodded.  "I'm afraid so."

He took a deep breath, feeling Jack shift against him as his shoulders rose and fell.  Not letting him go.  He was pretty sure he shouldn't be surprised by this.  Jack's whole life lately seemed to be defined by an effort not to cling... which was clearly not his nature.  He was struck by the sudden image of an octopus.

"What should I talk about?" he asked, making a conscious effort not to shrug.

"Start with the dream," Maya suggested.  "Just revisit it, review the memories, make yourself define them.  Jack can help you with the questions.  One pathway often leads to another."

"Jack?"  He raised an eyebrow at her, still not ready to push his very present teammate off.  "You seemed to be doing pretty well there for a while."

She smiled, and he thought she understood that he meant this as a compliment.  "Yes," she agreed serenely.  "But I think Jack will be happy to step in.  And if I don't get back to the school, no one except Shairra will remember to save cookies for you."

Jack lifted his head at this.  "Cookies?" he repeated.  "I definitely remember being offered cookies, earlier."

Of course.  Good to know that he was second to cookies on Jack's list of priorities.

This made Maya beam--which was, Sky thought, a strikingly beautiful expression on her.  "I'll bring you some," she promised.  "Feel free to stay here as long as you like.  I'll be back shortly, but if you leave before I return, stop by the school on your way out."

"For our cookies," Jack said.  Determined.

Maya nodded.  Her skirt fluttered around her as she stood, and--apparently appeased--Jack buried his head in Sky's neck again.  Sky swallowed, fingers twitching on Jack's hands.  "Maya?"

"Yes?"  She was putting her stool away, glancing at him only briefly, but he didn't doubt she was listening.

"Why do I--"  He squeezed Jack's fingers, feeling the pressure instantly returned.  It was a ridiculous question.  Even if it wasn't, what would she know about it?

"Why does Jack feel familiar?" he blurted out.  "I don't--I still don't... remember him.  I mean, I don't remember him ever doing this.  But I know he has.  He didn't tell me; it just... it feels familiar."

She treated this like every other question he'd asked: normal.  Serious.  "Cognitive memory is more vulnerable to loss or suppression," Maya said.  "Motor memory runs deeper.  It's easier to forget a name than it is to unlearn a habit."

"So that's not..."  Jack turned his head, just resting it on Sky's shoulder now.  His words were clearer when he asked, "That's not just the hopeless romantic in him?  He really could remember kissing me?"

Now she did smile.  "It's possible.  You might try it and find out."

He could feel himself flushing, the heat in his skin probably clear on his face, but the sound of Jack's voice was smiling.  "Maybe I will," Jack said.  "Thanks."

This would be the perfect time to disentangle himself, to push Jack off and get some space before he could be any more embarrassed.  He had a sinking suspicion that Jack was better at embarrassing him than he knew.  Much.  Much better.

"Remember to talk," Maya told them, already on her way toward the door.  "Don't let him forget, Jack."

"Oh, we'll talk."  Jack made the promise easily, but Maya gave him a look that said she would know if he didn't follow through.  "We will!"

She just shook her head, letting herself out and closing the door behind her.

Jack huffed, an indignant puff of air that tickled his ear.  He had no chance at all to control the shiver that ran through him.  "I don't think she believes me," Jack informed him.

Sky didn't move.  "I'm not sure I believe you," he muttered.

Jack was silent for a long moment, and Sky could only imagine what he was thinking.  Finally, Jack shifted, tugging his hands free to rest on his shoulders, squeezing gently before he pulled away.  Then he rolled over onto his back on the floor, throwing one arm over his face and blowing out his breath in an impatient sigh.

"I want you to know," Jack said, expression hidden by his arm, "that this was usually your role."

Sky gazed down at him.  Braids fell haphazardly around his head, a dark halo on the man who had broken laws to save his life.  Who still appeared to have no concern for his own future in the face of Sky's uncertainty.

"What?" he asked, belatedly realizing that Jack might expect an answer.

Jack shifted his arm up enough that he could stare back.  "Self-control," he said, a smile teasing the corners of his mouth.  "It's not really my... thing."

"I'd never have guessed," Sky said dryly.  But he had to smile at Jack's pout, because really, Jack was amazing.  Anger, want, uncertainty, loneliness... it was all there.  Yet Jack sat up with him at night, stuck to his side during the day, and gave him t-shirts and plane rides and more comfort than he had remembered the world could offer.

"Hey," he added, smile fading.  "Thanks, Jack."

Jack just shrugged.  "No problem."

"I mean it," he insisted.  "You--this..."  There was no way he'd find the words for everything Jack had done for him.  Awkwardly, he offered, "I know it hasn't been easy."  

The understatement of the year, and Jack just grinned up at him.  "You never were.  You're lucky, though," he added, lowering his arm at last.  "You're worth it."

He sounded perfectly serious about this, and Sky had to smile again.  "Well, yeah," he agreed, watching Jack prop himself up on his elbows.  "I would be."

Jack snorted, eyes dancing.  He tilted his head back to shake the braids out of his face,  exposing his throat, and Sky tried not to stare.  There were safer things he could be looking at right now--like anything that wasn't Jack.

"Still," Jack was saying, catching his eye again when he didn't even come close to looking away.  "If you wanted to pay me back..."

Jack might as well be posing for him, woven shirt drawn tight across his chest and lips parted when he trailed off in the middle of the sentence.  He was suggestive and sly and Sky couldn't help but think that Octopus Jack might have been safer after all.  At least he couldn't see him.

"Yeah?" he prompted, against his better judgement.

Jack flashed him the sexiest smile he'd ever seen.  "I'll take that kiss now."

That was a no.  Absolutely not.  The last thing either of them should invite now, not when he was so raw and Jack was so... Jack.

Patience and pain and fear, pushed to the breaking point--and held there, day after day.  Listening to Sky rage and complain and plead, probably wondering if he had done the right thing... hanging on.  Holding back.  Who knew what Jack had really been through all this time.

"Yeah," he said softly, leaning forward to fulfill a request that Jack did, after all, deserve.  "Okay."

Day 12

SPD arrived on the fifth day.

He was already up, or he wouldn't have gotten to the door in time to keep Jewel from knocking.  Jack was rolled up in a blanket next to him, which couldn't be comfortable in the heat but he insisted that it kept the bugs from crawling on him.  It also kept Sky from touching him, and he wasn't oblivious enough not to think that might be the real point.

He hated to push it, at least peripherally aware of what it must cost Jack every time he did, but he couldn't keep himself from reaching out.  He knew this.  He knew the feeling of Jack beside him, breathing slow with sleep, and he knew what it would feel like to lean down and kiss him awake.

At least, he thought he knew.  He knew the kissing, and he knew the waking up.  The certainty that they could be combined, the confidence that he would remember it if they were, made him itch with the desire to try.

It would help him, he argued with himself.  It would bring back memories, remind him of what D Squad had been before that--before the--something had happened.  Charlie had almost died, Jack said.  A risky squad maneuver during a battle they shouldn't have been in, and it had taken all four of them to get her out.

They had, though, and the heroics had gotten a team of sixteen-year-olds more publicity than even they were used to.  He didn't remember, but he could imagine the backlash: SPD under the microscope for sending them out in the first place, cadet loyalty compared to brainwashing, and the constant questioning of their ability to follow orders under fire.

It had blown up in their faces, Jack said.  Not with a bang, but with the quiet and permanent dissolution of a squad that had made headlines since the day it was formed.  Dru had been forced out, into the pilot track, and Sky had been next on the chopping block.  Jack had agreed to leave the academy entirely if--and only if--Sky was allowed to stay.

Because we were next, Jack told him.  We could have fought it, but everyone knew.  First it was squad loyalty... next it would be squad relationships.  It wasn't like Charlie was the only one we'd do anything for.  You and I only got away with it so long because she and Dru took all the fire.

Got away with what, that was what Sky wanted to know.  He knew--he could see how Jack reacted to him.  Kissing him was like a straight shot back in time, like opening his eyes to things long ignored.  And it felt like that now: like he hadn't quite forgotten, like he'd just... not thought about it for a long time.

It wasn't exactly rushing back, filling his head with the answers to every question.  But some of the things he knew had visuals associated with them now.  Some of the things Jack said sounded more familiar than crazy.  And SPD wasn't everything to him anymore.

He was guessing he had Maya to thank for that.

Whether it would help him or not, he hadn't quite convinced himself that it would help Jack to be kissed awake by someone who was still largely amnesiac when it came to most aspects of their relationship.  He was fighting that battle in his mind when he heard someone outside.  The first step on the porch brought him up out of bed and on his way to the door.

He beat Jewel there by half a step, and she smiled briefly when he lifted a finger to his lips and jerked his head back into the hut.  Stepping aside, she made room for him on the porch without a word.  He closed the door behind him and walked to the railing, reluctant to go any further with bare feet.

"Morning," Jewel said quietly, joining him.  "Sleeping better?"

"Yeah, thanks."  He found himself smiling back, appreciative in a way he knew he'd never be able to explain.  "You've done--you were everything he needed, you know?  When he was ready to give up, you were... everything."

"He was busy," she said simply.  "Being everything for you.  We could all see that."

He shook his head, bracing his arms against the railing.  "I wish I had," he said with a sigh.  "I made it worse for him."

"Love is easy," she said.  "Loyalty is hard.  Every Ranger knows that.  And Jack, I think, has been a Ranger for much longer than he's held a morpher."

"You think that makes it better?" he asked.  "Knowing that he expected it to suck, and he did it anyway?"

"I think your gratitude will make him happier than your guilt," Jewel told him.

Well.  She had a point there.

"Sorry to wake you up," she said, after a moment of silence.  "But there was someone at the market asking for you.  We picked her up.  Devin's escorting her to the medlab in town."

"Someone who?" he asked sharply, aware that this was both a warning and a request.  Get a story together for us, or we're going to have a problem.  The colony couldn't stand against an actual inquiry for very long.

"Devin thinks it's an assumed name," Jewel said.  "Dr. Kat Manx?  She says she's a friend.  She arrived in a government shuttle."

Kat Manx.  She didn't like him, she was with them, she'd helped to cover this up.  But she'd also helped Jack.  Jack trusted her.  And Jack said that he liked Kat, that she was the only one on base who read as much as he did, that they used to hide out in her lab after curfew during their orientation days.

"Is she alone?" he asked at last.

"As far as we can tell."

"I'll get Jack."  He was pretty sure he knew what they needed to do, here.  "Can you take us to the medlab to meet her?"

"I'll get the car," she offered, and the way she said it seemed entirely too casual.  He hesitated, considering this, and finally it clicked.

"Are they walking?" he asked.

Jewel just smiled.

"You're good," he told her, and he meant it.

"I'll wait across the way," she replied.

Jack was gone when he went back inside, but the door to the bathroom was closed.  Funny--he must have heard them on the porch and deliberately not come out.  It gave Sky a chance to get dressed, anyway, digging out his squad gear and dropping Jack's on the end of the pallet for him.  They were probably going to need it.

When Jack finally emerged, he couldn't help but stare.  Wide-eyed and shirtless, it took him a moment to realize that Jack was staring back.  At his uniform.  "Uh," he began, stumbling over the important information.  "I--I mean, Kat's here.  Downtown.  She says she's alone."

"Huh."  Jack had stopped, and he didn't look like he was going anywhere.  "And you're... doing what, exactly?"

"We should go see her."  Too much of his brain was currently being taken up by the effort not to be distracted by Jack's skin.  "She's either a covert operative or a peace offering, right?  We should find out which it is."

Jack didn't look convinced, but he did look noticeably less obstinate about it.  "Okay," he said at last.  "If you say so."

"Jack."  He didn't know what the problem was, and he could only guess that there had been a time when he wouldn't have had to guess.  "SPD is obviously in the wrong.  You took action to ensure the health and safety of your teammate.  This isn't going to go badly for us."

Jack managed a smirk that didn't reach his eyes.  "Ever the optimist."

Sky snorted.  "I find that unlikely.  But Jewel's waiting, so get dressed before we find out how much my self-control has suffered over the years."

This made Jack brighten.  "Lack of practice?" he suggested.  "Come on, SPD is full of hot guys.  Someone has to have caught your eye."

"I'm looking at him," Sky informed him.  "And you'll notice I'm standing way over here, out of some possibly misguided sense of personal boundaries.  I don't know how much longer that's going to last, so."

"Wow."  Jack grinned at him.  "Talk about zero incentive."

"Watch me fight a losing battle today," Sky told him, "or watch me fight a losing battle for many days to come.  Back on base.  It's up to you."

"I lean more toward instant gratification," Jack told him.

"Tough," Sky said.  "Because I'm taking the long view."  Pointing at Jack's squad gear, he added, "Change.  You're the Red Ranger; you might as well remind them."

Jack put his hands on his hips, which was really, really not what Sky needed right now.  Fingers on smooth skin, dark and sweet and the interruption of lines drew the eye even when Jack didn't look away.  Great.  He was sure his authority was so much more convincing when he stopped to check out the guy he was trying to bully into cooperating.

"The only thing for me on that base is you," Jack said bluntly.  "You know I was coerced into joining in the first place."

He knew because Jack had told him.  He hadn't seen it in the way Jack had acted, that first week back on the Delta Base.  He didn't see it in the way anyone treated him, from the cadets to the officers to the Rangers of Mirinoi.  And he definitely didn't see it in the way Jack went to bat for him--not today, and not back then.

"Maybe D Squad was different," Jack was saying, "but it's over.  It was over two years ago, and we're never gonna have anything that good again.  Maybe it's time to get out."

"Maybe D Squad was different because we were on it," Sky said.  "Did you think of that?  Maybe B Squad could be that good.  And maybe," he continued, because he knew how Jack worked, "going back can keep this from happening to anyone else."

Jack closed his mouth abruptly.  He used to say that Gibbs was the altruist, the agent of mercy, and that he was just a guy who did it for kicks.  Because helping people gave him a chance to screw over the ones who thought they were too good for it.

At the end of the day, though, Jack wanted to matter.  He wanted to make a difference.  And when the walls closed in around him, Jack's gift was walking through them.

"Come on, Robin Hood," Sky said quietly.  "I can't do it without you."

"No," Jack said, but something about the way he said it made Sky hold out hope.  Then Jack added, "That's probably true.  I mean, we tried to go it alone once, and look how that turned out."

He dared a smile.  "With you ditching our morphers and abducting me?"

"With your mom and I holding a vigil for the guy SPD took away from us," Jack said.

His smile faded, and Jack sighed.  "Shouldn't have said that," he muttered.  "Sorry."

"Come with me to talk to my mom," Sky said.  It was the least he could do.  "I didn't--I'm sorry.  I never meant to put anyone through this."

"Yeah, we know," Jack said.  "Because it wasn't your fault.  And even if it was an accident," he added, like he thought Sky was about to protest, "they still covered it up.  They told Kat it was deliberate.  They let Catherine think it was about me.  They didn't tell me a damn thing, and I've gotta think if I'd been there maybe I could have done something!"

He had a heartbeat to decide whether to apologize again or to get in Jack's face, and in the end it wasn't even a conscious decision.  "Do something now," he said firmly.  "We can't change what's already happened.  Holding the whole organization responsible for one person's mistake is a great way to feel righteous and a lousy way to make it better."

It was the right choice.  Jack's lips twitched even as he glared back.  "Fuck you, Sky."  He sounded so weirdly happy about it that Sky had to laugh.

Laughing.  He was laughing, and he honestly couldn't remember the last time that had happened.  It made Jack's expression soften.

"The thing is," Jack remarked, watching him with obvious amusement, "somehow you think that means you won."

If he could have kissed Jack without completely losing it, he would have done it.  But Jack was half-naked, caught between fond and pouting, and Sky was afraid of what he would remember if he made a move right now.  He took a step back in self-defense, reaching for the door behind him.

"I'll be with Jewel," he said, waving vaguely out front.  "Catch up when you're ready."

Then it occurred to him to add, "She has a car," and Jack perked up.

"Does it have a backseat?"  he wanted to know.

One hand on the latch, Sky used the other to flip him off, then slammed the door before Jack could smile again.  He wondered if they'd ever made out in the back of a car.  He couldn't even decide what he wanted the answer to be: no, because he couldn't remember it, or yes, because then he'd have an excuse to try?

He took the passenger seat beside Jewel, and they mostly didn't talk until Jack finally wandered out.  He reached in to ruffle Sky's hair before climbing into the back.  "So, what do we know?" he asked, as they pulled out onto the road.  "Kat's here?"

"Is that her real name?" Jewel countered.  "Sky seemed to recognize it."

Jack leaned forward to cuff Sky on the back of the head.  "You didn't tell her who Kat is?" he demanded.

"You're the one who knows," Sky said defensively.  "If I had to describe what she does, Jewel probably would have thrown her off the planet by now."

"She's SPD," Jack said.  "Officially independent, I think, but she has a badge and she runs Base Tech.  She was Sky's probation officer for six months--like a mentor, back when he first joined up."

"What?"  Sky turned around to stare at him.  "She was?"

Jack gave him the strangest look.  "Okay," he said, "what they told you and what they didn't makes no sense."

Sky frowned, searching his expression, and finally he turned back to settle into his seat.  "Yeah," he said.  "I guess."

"She's probably here to negotiate," Jack continued.  "She knows there's nothing wrong with us, except for whatever SPD did to Sky, and she knows I kidnapped him.  I don't know how much she's told the others by now, but I'm not surprised the base commander sent her when he realized no one else was gonna get in."

"Do you trust her?" Jewel asked.

Jack didn't hesitate.  "Yeah.  Her loyalty isn't to us, but she's up front about it.  If she can't promise us anything, she'll tell us."

"Sky?"

He blinked, surprised to be asked.  "No," he said honestly.  "But if she's alone, I don't think there's much she can do.  SPD screwed up, and short of erasing both our memories, they're not going to be able to cover it up this time."

"Won't happen," Jack said.  "You might have noticed that's the Drews' shuttle."

"Did I notice you sleeping in the princess bed?" Sky said dryly.  "Yes.  I should have taken pictures."

There was a grin in Jack's voice when he said, "Maybe on the way back.  My point is that your mom isn't the only one who knows about this, and I talked to Kat before I talked to the Drews.  They know everything she told me."

"If there's a danger that your organization will tamper with your minds," Jewel interjected, "Mirinoi will grant you asylum as refugees from military oppression."

"Thanks," Jack said.  "Believe me, I thought about asking.  Unfortunately, Sky appealed to my better nature."  Only Jack could sound so annoyed about that.  "He convinced me we have a duty to keep this kind of thing from happening again."

The rest of the ride was spent discussing the possibility of Ranger publicity or escort back to Earth.  Sky might have thought they were overdoing it a little before Jewel had mentioned the possibility of Jack's memories being altered.  Then, all of a sudden, going back at all didn't seem like such a bright idea.

He told himself that was a defensive reaction, and an unproductive one at that.  Everything he'd told Jack about changing things for the better was still true.  They wouldn't do it by running.

But he didn't really want to do it by risking Jack, either.

Devin met them in the medlab, conferring with Jewel in the entryway before the three of them went on together.  Sky didn't even realize he was crowding Jack until Jack stopped abruptly enough that Sky almost tripped over him.  Jack put a steadying hand on his arm, frowning up at him.  "Are you okay?"

It took him a moment to realize that Jack meant, was he okay to face Kat.  Was he having creepy SPD-related flashbacks, and was he going to flip out in the middle of this meeting.  "No," he said.  "I mean, yes.  I'm fine."

Okay, he wasn't totally fine, but it wasn't because he was afraid of what they were going to do to him.  He supposed it wouldn't kill him to tell Jack that.  "I'm more afraid for you," he admitted.

Jack just rolled his eyes.  "Now he tells me."

"Not--"  He stopped, trying not to smile.  Jack was cute as the reluctant follower.  "It's not--they're not going to do anything.  I just... I can't imagine you going through this again."

Jack scoffed.  "I can't imagine going through it the first time.  We do what we gotta do, Sky."

Still he hesitated, and Jack smirked at him.  "If it'll make you feel better, I'll hold your hand."

He narrowed his eyes.  "You're like this all the time, aren't you."

"Lucky for you," Jack agreed cheerfully.  

True, he admitted to himself.

"Hey, guys."  Kat's voice was concurrent with her appearance, stepping through a door that he was sure hadn't been open a moment ago.  Her eyes raked across Jewel, acknowledged Jack, and landed squarely on him.

"Sorry," she added, not looking away.  "Good hearing."

"Hi, Kat," Jack said, apparently untroubled.  "Heard you were here."

"Sky?" she asked, ignoring Jack while her gaze searched his.

He nodded warily.  "Dr. Manx."

Now her eyes slid away, finding Jack, and he shrugged once.  "We're still working on it," he said.  "Turns out just leaving the base wasn't enough."

"Oh."  There was a world of sadness in that word.  "Jack, I'm sorry.  I thought--"

"It's okay," he interrupted.  "Really, Kat.  We're working on it."

"Thanks for helping Jack," Sky said, tired of being ignored.  "He told me what you did."

She looked at him again, and all he saw was the civvie consultant who'd made his life miserable for the last two years.  But when she smiled it was sweet and friendly and full of things he didn't remember.  "It's good to see you again, Sky."

"So are you here to bring us in?" Jack asked bluntly.  "We couldn't decide whether Cruger sent you as a spy or a negotiator."

"He didn't send me."  Kat gave him the reproving look that Sky knew all too well.  "I volunteered.  You're welcome, by the way."

That sounded oddly familiar, and it took him several seconds to place it as something Jack had said.  But then, he supposed, they had known each other for years.  That was still hard to get his head around sometimes.

"Let's talk," Jack said, nodding to the door she'd just come out of.  "Jewel, do you have a minute?"

"Of course," she agreed.

Kat gave Jack a look that was easy to interpret, and Jack returned it.  "Her team hid us this long," he told Kat.  "They deserve to know what's going on."

Kat glanced at Jewel, but she allowed herself to be ushered back into the room.  Sky followed Jack in, and Jewel closed the door quietly behind them.  "Nice," Jack said, apparently addressing the room at large.  "Waiting room?"

"Conference area," Jewel answered.  "For anyone who needs privacy."

"I like it," Jack decided.  "First new world I've ever seen, and I gotta say... I think it's an improvement."

Earth had once referred to Mirinoi as "the new world," and Sky didn't think any more of it than that.  Especially when he was distracted by Kat's cautious presence.  But Jewel got it, maybe because she'd always lived here, or maybe just because she was paying attention to the way Jack said it.

"This is your first time offplanet?" she asked.

Jack just shrugged.  "First time on another one, anyway."

Sky turned to stare at him, and peripherally, he was aware of Kat doing the same thing.  He wanted to ask.  He wanted to say, really?  But Jack hadn't grown up the way he had, and maybe it shouldn't surprise him.  Maybe, if he'd thought about it...

I love you, he thought.

Jack glanced at him.  "What?"

He wanted to know why they were staring at him.  Intellectually, Sky knew that.  He knew Jack wasn't a mind reader.  But did it really matter?  It was worth saying anyway.  After all this, it had to be worth saying.

"I love you," he said aloud.

Jack blinked.  "Yeah?"  Then he seemed to realize what was happening, and he added, "I mean, yeah.  Me too."

He looked at Kat, at Jewel, then back at Jack.  "Should I have stuck to 'I hate you' as code?" he asked, hoping he didn't sound quite as off balance as he felt.  He knew how Jack felt.  He'd had it proven over and over again.

"Nah."  Jack was grinning, and that had to be a good sign.  "Pretty sure they already knew."

"Does he do this for everyone?" Sky asked, catching Kat's eye again.  It was the easiest way out of an awkward situation, distracting and demanding at the same time.  Even if he thought he already knew the answer.

She looked from him to Jack and back again.  "What?"

He shook his head, and when he saw Jack watching him with a smile, he couldn't look away.  "Everything," he said.  "He does everything.  Whether he knows what it's going to be or not."

Jack was shaking his head, but it was Kat he believed when she said, "Yes.  Yes, I think he does."

"Okay, cut it out," Jack said.  "Let's move on from how incredibly stupid I am, okay?  Are you here to arrest me or not?"

Sky gave her a sharp look, but this time it was Kat who smiled.  "Actually," she said, lifting her hands, "I'm here to extend a gesture of goodwill."

She was holding their morphers.

Jack looked at him.  Sky raised his eyebrows, and the corner of Jack's mouth twitched.  "What does that mean?" Jack asked evenly.

"It means you scared a lot of people," Kat told him.  "It turns out they've been betting on Sky not pressing charges.  You, on the other hand, could cause a lot of trouble.  Mostly because they know how much you know, and they believe you'd actually do it."

Jack just looked at her.  "How much do I know?"

Kat put the morphers down, careful and precise on the edge of the table.  "I told them the same thing I told you," she pointed out.  "That I thought Sky's memory would start to return almost immediately, given a new environment and the presence of a trigger as strong as... well."

She inclined her head in his direction.  "You're not subtle, Jack."

"Thanks," Jack said wryly.  "But if they're trying to buy our silence with morphers, I don't think it's gonna happen."

"At this point, a little publicity is the least of their worries," Kat told them.  "They covered up medical malpractice involving a foreign minor on treaty-protected land.  Depending on the spin you give it, the world government could shut down SPD Earth for good."

He and Jack exchanged glances, and he read the question in Jack's eyes.  "Maybe you should tell us what you know," Sky said carefully.

Kat slid her hands into the pockets of her form-fitting jacket, managing to look casual and dangerous at the same time.  "Two years ago, C Squad was deployed--before its training time was up--to bring in a telepathic criminal it didn't have the experience to handle.  You paid the price."

"Gibbs was hurt," he said, watching her expression.

She didn't bat an eye.  "And Charlie almost quit," she agreed.  "They both thought they should have been able to stop it, and when the medical team had to tie you down to keep you from hurting your own teammates, they blamed themselves."

"What was it, exactly?" Jack interrupted.  "Sky remembers the attack, and he remembers being restrained, but neither of us can figure out what the guy did to him."

"If they knew," Kat said evenly, "they might have been able to do something.  Something less drastic, anyway.  I wasn't allowed to talk to anyone involved in the actual 'treatment,' but I finally got the records--"

"How?" Sky demanded, not about to let this key detail pass unchallenged.  If she hadn't been part of the coverup, why had they suddenly given her access to something SPD had tried to bury?

"When they realized you weren't coming back on your own," Kat told him, "they figured they'd better find someone you might listen to.  So they let me out, sat me down, and started talking."

"Shit," Jack muttered.  "They got to you?  I thought you said you could cover your tracks."

"Unfortunately, I trained my assistant a little too well," Kat said.  A rueful smile flitted across her expression.  "He didn't mean to figure it out.  He was pretty apologetic about it.  But next time you need shifts rearranged and security cameras taken offline, we'd better get Boom in on it too."

"Wait."  Sky frowned at them.  "They arrested you?"

"They confined me," she said.  "SPD doesn't have to charge you if they think you're a security risk, and I obviously was.  But Cruger likes me, so they locked me in my room instead of--"  She waved vaguely.  "Anywhere else."

"Sorry, Kat."  Jack looked genuinely angry with himself.  "I should have tried to check in with you, after.  I never thought it'd go farther than me."

"I knew what I was doing," Kat told him.  "And if you'd checked in, they would have caught you too.  Then I would have been pissed."

This brought a reluctant smile to Jack's face.  Sky was starting to understand just what it was about Kat that Jack trusted.  And maybe what it was about her that he'd liked, all that time.

"So they let me see the records," Kat continued.  "And all it really says is that Sky's memory was taking over his brain--he was reliving things that had already happened, he couldn't separate them from what was actually happening, and he lashed out in response to things that weren't there."

"Just like you were hallucinating," Jack murmured.

"That's what it would have looked like," Kat said, glancing from one of them to the other.  "Yes.  Someone got the brilliant idea that temporarily suppressing his memories would bring his behavior under control, and the records say he did consent.

"Of course," she added, "the consent of a certifiably unstable person isn't going to carry any weight after the fact.  They should have had written authorization from his proxy, his next of kin--or in this case, his guardian."

"I wasn't supposed to forget," Sky insisted.  "It was supposed to be distancing, disassociation at the most... not amnesia.  Permanent or otherwise."

"That's true," Kat said, studying him.  "For what it's worth, they were just incompetent, not disingenuous.  At least as far as I can tell."

He caught Jack's eye.  Jack just looked at him, waiting, and finally he nodded.  That's worth something to me.

Jack returned the gesture.  "Okay," he said aloud.  "We'll talk."

Watching him, Sky thought: this is the man who's going to lead B Squad.  Here was a man who gave everything he had for the things that needed doing, and asked for nothing in return.  Here was a man Sky could follow.  A man he loved.

Perhaps most importantly, this was a man to whom he could give his loyalty.