The next morning found Alex standing on the sidewalk of a busy city street, staring up at a tall and beautiful old building. He almost smiled. A clock tower. That, and the name on the only door in sight. ‘Nick of Time Odd Jobs’. Coincidence? Or had they done it on purpose?

The Quantum morpher had brought him here, when he had asked for the location of the other morphers. He hesitated, nervous, wondering what to do, what he might find inside, uncomfortable at the way passers-by were staring at his white Time Force uniform. But he didn’t want to go in until he knew the situation. Precisely, he wanted to know who that man was who had been with them. The man who looked so much like him. The man who had exchanged a look with Jen in such a familiar way, and touched her arm, as if to reassure her.

And -- he was probably the red Ranger they had found evidence of in the altered history files. They must have found some way to get around the DNA lock. Unless there was something strange going on. And that was why he was lurking here, across the street, watching and waiting for them to appear, instead of marching inside and finding Jen. He had to know more, wanted to watch them for a little while first.

And perhaps he simply needed the extra time to figure out what to say to them. Or maybe he dreaded that meeting on some deep level, the idea of facing Jen, not being able to tell her the truth, that her home, her world, was gone, and their lives might be the price of restoring it.

When the distraction came, he welcomed it. The shop door opened, Alex straightened and stepped into the shadows of a doorway as all five filed out, stood for moment talking, and then headed down the street. He waited until they were a safe distance away, and started after them.

“Oh, boy. All that Time Force training, and I end up mopping floors and picking up trash.”

“Hey, it’s a living.” Wes smiled at Lucas’s disgusted expression. He wasn’t any more enthusiastic than his teammate about this job, cleaning an empty office suite, but it earned them money. And strangely enough, it was fulfilling in a way that his job at Bio-Lab hadn’t been. These jobs they did might be small and menial, but they made a real contribution to someone’s life, no matter how minor.

“Rangers!” They all started and raised their morphers at the summons in Circuit’s metallic voice. “I’m picking up reports of a disturbance downtown. It’s near your location.”

“Come on!” They followed Jen, running down the stairs and out to the sidewalk, where Wes automatically glanced at her, waiting for her to take the lead. She paused for a moment to listen. There were sirens, wailing through the streets. The sounds of gunfire and blasters. It had only been yesterday that Nadira had caused trouble, and this seemed much more serious.

“Sounds like it’s only a few blocks away,” Trip said.

“Let’s go.” But Jen stopped after a few running steps as they heard engines, and saw a familiar line of black SUV’s speed by them. “The Silver Guardians again!” she said.

“Oh, my God...” Katie gasped as they ran around a corner.

“In here.” Jen grabbed Wes’s arm, pulling him and the others into an alley, out of view of the people running away from the battle they had glimpsed, not that any of them looked like they’d notice, or care, about five people morphing into multi-colored fighting suits.

In another moment they were running again, Wes’s eyes finding the tall, golden form of Frax, Ransik’s robot follower, using the blasters built into his mechanical arms. He was at the head of a group of cyclobots, and seemed simply to be trying to cause as much destruction as possible, blasting at cars, buildings, and people indiscriminately.

Silver Hills was fighting back; several police cars were haphazardly parked in the street, a couple of them damaged, with clumps of police behind them, firing at the robots. Several of the officers appeared to be damaged as well. The Rangers ran up past black SUV’s at the side of the road, the Silver Guardians were still piling out, trying to dodge blaster fire and get behind shelter. For a moment, Wes thought he saw his father’s limousine behind the other cars.

Jen already had her blaster in hand. Wes summoned his and followed her. The five of them worked their way closer, dashing from one bit of cover to another, firing when they could. Frax had taken cover behind the remains of a car, and was also shielded by the cyclobots surrounding him. The police were staying where they were, trying to protect several wounded officers. The Silver Guardians were behind their own cars, starting to add their blaster fire to the general barrage.

And then, Wes looked up, recognizing the small aircraft that swooped overhead in a repeat of yesterday, the Quantum Ranger appearing on one wing and leaping off as the flyer dipped low over the street and then headed up again. He landed in the midst of the robots, almost on top of Frax, and attacked instantly. They saw the big golden robot knocked back and off his feet, and saw the cyclobots close in.

“Come on!” Jen yelled. They were all already in motion, taking advantage of the distraction to cross the remaining space and pile into the fight. The police stopped shooting, the Guardians broke cover and came closer, picking off the robots when they could get a clear shot.

Everything turned into a whirlwind of struggling bodies, some in Ranger suits, others made of gleaming metal. Wes dodged a blaster shot, ducked a flying robot arm, pivoted and side-kicked, sending a cyclobot flying into two others. Jen grunted as she spun and drove a boot into a metal midsection. Lucas, Trip, and Katie had almost disappeared in the crowd of combatants.

A glance showed him the Quantum Ranger concentrating on Frax, catching him in the face with a kick as he started to get up. Frax kicked back, clumsily, and climbed to his feet as a mass of cyclobots swarmed the Ranger, who fought back viciously, clearing a space around himself quickly. When he faced the golden robot again, he had a large blaster in his hand.

“You win the battle, Quantum Ranger!” Frax cried. “But not the war!” He triggered his transporter device and vanished abruptly in a glitter of light, all of the cyclobots which were still functioning disappearing with him.

The robots Wes had been struggling with were abruptly gone. He looked around to see wreckage everywhere, cars, damaged buildings, the police tending to their wounded. The Silver Guardians moved in, finishing off a few cyclobots that were still moving, their commander giving the Rangers a glance and a nod. Wes noticed Eric among them, staring at him without recognition, suspicion on his face until he turned away. Another familiar face caught his eye, his father, out of the limo now and talking to the Guardians’ commander. As Wes watched, he gave them a curious look, then went back to his car, which pulled out a moment later.

Jen was approaching the Quantum Ranger, who stood quietly, watching her. “We need to talk,” she said softly. He didn’t answer. “Not here,” she went on.

The strange Ranger nodded silently and started walking, leading them away from the battle site and down the street, into the same alley where they had morphed only a few minutes ago. Behind a set of garbage dumpsters, out of sight from the street, he turned to face them, his hands clenching.

He raised his morpher and said quietly, “Power down.” A glimmer of light swept around him, removing his red and black suit, leaving him in the same white jumpsuit uniform Jen and the others had been wearing when Wes first saw them. They all stood, unmoving, staring.

“Alex…” Wes heard Katie murmur. She raised her morpher and transformed back to her normal self. Lucas and Trip did the same. After a moment’s stunned hesitation, so did Wes, seeing the other man’s eyes move to his face, almost like looking in a distorted mirror, because he was looking at the image of himself, dark hair being the only difference. They say everyone has a double -- a doppelganger, he thought. He had known Alex looked like him -- but it was still startling and disturbing on some deep and basic level to see his face on someone else.

Jen was last to demorph, raising her arm with a jerky motion, then saying, “Alex!” with what sounded like a sob. She moved then, running forward as he stepped to meet her, throwing her arms around him and clutching him tightly as Wes watched, jealousy stabbing through him like a knife, until he finally looked away.

“Alex? Alex, are you all right?” Jen was touching him now, as if reassuring herself he was really there. “What happened? How did you... Oh, Alex, I thought you were gone forever...”

“It’s okay, Jen. I’ll explain everything.”

The others had recovered enough now to go to them, smiling, grinning, hands patting Alex. Only Wes hung back, uncomfortable as he watched a reunion which didn’t include him. He and his double exchanged a look, one which wasn’t quite hostile, but not friendly either.

“Who is this?” Alex asked, gently but firmly moving Jen away.

Jen turned to glance at him, then back to Alex. “This is Wes. Wes Collins. Wes, this is Alex Drake. I -- I told you about him.”

“Yeah. Hello. Heard a lot about you.” Wes moved forward now, and held out his hand, an almost sincere smile on his face.

Alex shook his hand briefly. “Wes Collins. You’re the one who’s using the red morpher, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Jen cut in. “We gave the morpher to Wes. Trip was able to reprogram it to accept him since he has similar DNA to yours, you must be related...”

“You gave a morpher to a civilian? A native of this time?” There was an edge of disapproval in his voice.

“We had no choice.” Jen stepped between them. “We needed him to use the red morpher, to activate all of them.”

Alex nodded, although it looked reluctant. “All right. But after your morphers were activated, why did you let him keep it?”

“Because five Rangers are better than four,” Lucas answered, his eyes steady and cool. “We lost most of our equipment when our ship crashed. We need all the help we can get.”

“Your ship crashed?”

“Yes. Just about everything was destroyed except the morphers, Trip’s computer, our vectorcycles and flyers, and our medical unit.”

“I don’t know what we would have done if Wes hadn’t helped us find a place to live and a way to earn money,” Trip put in eagerly.

“But to involve someone from this time -- it could cause problems...”

Wes spoke up, letting only a trace of his irritation show. “What Ransik is doing affects my time. My city, my neighbors. If he isn’t stopped, that’ll cause a lot more problems.”

Alex considered him coldly. “How much have you told him?” he asked Jen.

“Everything.” Her chin came up. “It’s only fair, considering what he’s doing to help us. The risks he’s taking.”

“Perhaps. And I suppose what’s done is done.”

“Good.” Wes watched as Jen smiled at her fiancé, seeing her eyes bright with tears, and wanted to look away again. “Alex, you haven’t told us what happened... I thought...”

“You thought I was dead. It was almost true...”

The others crowded around him again, the questions starting. Wes began to turn away, wondering if it would look childish if he simply left... if any of them would even notice... His eyes raised as he saw motion in the sky. A strange, twisting thing, hanging in the air in the distance, like an unnatural violet and black whirlwind.

“What’s that?” he exclaimed, startled.

“A timehole?” Trip’s voice said behind him. Wes looked back to see all of them staring up. Trip took a few steps closer and spoke again. “It must be Ransik! He still has the timehole generator he used to get here! But where’s he going now?”

“Look!” Alex said, as they saw a small flyer rise towards the timehole and dart through it. “It’s the Q-Rex. Must be. Time Force sent it after me, but it landed in the wrong time. Ransik must have detected it, and now he’s trying to reach it.”

“The Q-Rex? We can’t let him get it!” Jen exclaimed.

“Right. I’m going after them.” Alex raised his arm again, and called, “Quantum Power!” A burst of light enveloped him, leaving him morphed. He called again, saying, “TF Eagle!” this time. The small flyer they had seen him in before appeared as if by magic and lowered itself over them.

“What are you doing?” Jen grabbed his arm as he seemed about to jump upwards.

“Going through that timehole.”

“Not without me, you’re not.”

“Jen...”

“I’m going, Alex.”

“There’s no room in the Eagle for both of us.”

“We’ll take your timeship. That way we’ll know we have a way back.”

Alex hesitated. Looked upwards. Following his gaze, Wes saw the timehole shrinking, starting to disappear. “Looks like I don’t have a choice,” Alex said, his tone not entirely displeased. “All right. Jump on, and get a good grip.”

She took only a second to tap her morpher and transform back into the pink Ranger. They both leaped up and landed on the Eagle’s wing, Alex quickly sliding into the small cockpit, Jen crouching and finding a handhold. “Jen!” Wes shouted as they lifted up into the sky. But they didn’t hear.

The two of them swept down to a landing on the beach, Jen still clinging to her perch on the Eagle’s wing. Absently, she noted that it was very close to the spot where she and her team had crashed. She leaped to the sand, where Alex joined her a moment later, and watched as he raised his arm, gave a command, and the small flyer disappeared.

“A flyer in your morpher. Convenient,” she murmured.

“Very. Let’s go.” They both demorphed, and headed for the ship. As he opened the door, she reached to touch his arm.

“We still need to talk, Alex.”

“I know.” He held her eyes for a moment, seemed to want to say more. But then his mouth thinned, his face hardened, and he turned away. “We will. Later. We have to get to the Q-Rex first. There’s no time for anything else.”

“All right.” She followed him in, watching his straight, stiff back, wondering... exactly what had happened? Something was different. He had almost died... but it seemed to be more than that... a sudden shiver ran through her as the conviction hit that something was terribly wrong.

She caught at his arm again. “Alex, what is it? Something’s wrong, something’s happened, I can tell!”

He faced her, and again there seemed to be a flicker of pain in his face, perhaps, or vulnerability. But it was gone before she was sure she had seen it. “We have to go,” he repeated.

“But...”

“Now, Lieutenant.” With a look that seemed almost angry, he turned and took his seat at the controls.

“Yes, sir.” She sat in the co-pilot’s seat, fighting her sense of unease, trying to focus her mind on the mission ahead. Alex was right, after all. They had to get to the Q-Rex first. But -- it was foolish, silly, unprofessional, she knew. But she couldn’t help it. Couldn’t help thinking that he hadn’t even kissed her.