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athersgeoI have my own personal bodyguard this morning - Jessie (one of the cats) is lying in 'guard mode' beside me. Which is fine, except that every time I move, she follows, usually in such a way as to all but trip me up...
Explode is two scenes from being done, which is of the good. I'll also, probably, make a stab at getting one of the Valentine's stories done today. Of course, if my back plays up TOO badly, that may be knocked on the head. Have to see.
And, before I go...
Disclaimer: Alex, Wes, Jen and Eric (who gets talked about again) don't belong to be. They're borrowed from BVE without permission but no harm, no foul, no money made. Deregovian Brandy -- and its properties -- along with everything else in this chapter, does belong to me. You're welcome to borrow but please ask me first.
Muchos gracias to Angel and Chris who allowed me to work bits and pieces of this chapter off them -- special thanks be to Chris for spotting my 'deliberate mistake'.
Can't remember what it was, but it was some sort of goof with MMPR show canon, which Chris spotted and gave me the fix for.
Huge, huge thanks also go to Gamine for once more stepping unto the breach.
Please offer feedback -- it tells me how I'm doing.
~*~
Future Imperfect -- In The End
Named after the Linkin Park song, which rather nicely fits the mood and content of this chapter.
Alex gave a quiet sigh as he slid into his seat. This, he decided, was not going to be pleasant and by the time he was done, there was a better than even chance that neither Wes nor especially Jen would want to talk to him ever again.
I'd say poor Alex, here, but a lot of his trouble is - as you'll see - somewhat self-inflicted...
The sight of Wes and Jen entering the office stalled his train of thought. Doing his best to swallow back the depression that was threatening again, Alex offered them a smile. "Please, have a seat."
"You look rough," Wes observed as he sat down. "I can't believe you guys have a concussion cure but no hangover cure."
Concussion cure was invented by me for Identity, when I was writing my version of Clash for Control. It did feel very much like cheating, BUT it did allow me to move that chapter to its conclusion - and it's since proved to be quite a handy thing to have.
Alex sighed. "There is a cure," he admitted. "I just... It's a long story and not very germane at the moment." He watched as Wes and Jen exchanged looks. "Yes, that does mean it will become relevant," he continued. "Can I give you the good news first?"
It almost looked as if Jen was going to argue that point, then she said, "About Eric?"
Alex nodded. "Temporal have finally managed to confirm the time line has stabilised, which is good. What is better is that destiny force is now inactive."
"Which, in English, means?" said Wes pointedly.
"Which means that the pre-Biocon timeline has been restored. Which means that when you return to Silverhills, Eric will be there safe and sound and, probably, no worse for wear."
"Only probably?" Jen queried.
Alex offered a wry smile. "Our friend Dr Hawking is insisting that we have to abide by 'all rules and regulations in this matter', despite the fact that the information would be going no further than you two."
And you can see Hawking being that Anal about it, too.
"Huh?" said Wes, confused. "Does that come with a translation?"
Alex groaned. This was not boding well for the rest of what he had to say, if he couldn't successfully paraphrase the Director of TF Temporal. "I'm sorry -- a Deregovian Brandy binge will do this to your thought process."
"Deregovian Brandy?!" Jen squeaked. "Are you nuts?"
Jen knows the implications of that, even if Wes doesn't. Yet.
Alex winced as his head started to throb again.
"And again with the help files enabled?" Wes suggested.
"Sorry Wes," Alex apologised.
"Deregovian Brandy's like moonshine or home-made vodka," Jen explained. Wes winced. "It's also the drink of choice for most alcoholics in this century." Alex felt her turn a dissecting gaze on him although he didn't look to check.
Instead, he added, "Because it gets you drunk and keeps you drunk." It was a neutral answer, neither confirming nor denying the tacit accusation in Jen's words. Time enough to answer it later. "As for Hawking," he continued, pulling the conversation back to Eric, "he's insisting that every temporal regulation be adhered to, particularly the 'no looking up specific individuals if it has no bearing on a case' rule."
"But he's our friend!" Wes objected.
Alex spread his hands wide. "There y'go. I didn't say it made sense. Particularly given that you guys are going back to that time period at the end of the week. Unfortunately Hawking is not going to change his mind."
"What an ass," Wes muttered.
"Never a truer word spoken."
For a few minutes, there was silence. Alex watched as the relief of knowing Eric was all right worked its way through both Wes and Jen, leaving them both relaxed for possibly the first time since their arrival in this century. I could end the meeting here, he mused, and they'd both leave here happy...but I've promised them the truth...and I know I go through with this. He grimaced.
"Alex?"
He blinked and refocused his attention on Jen and Wes. "Sorry." He swallowed. "Do you mind if we do the rest of this behind a privacy lock?"
Jen looked startled. "Uh, no...I guess not."
Wes shrugged. "What she said."
He hasn't got a clue what he's just agreed to.
Alex managed a faint smile. "Thank you." He activated the privacy lock and once it was confirmed he continued, "It's just... The rest of what I have to tell you is both personal and private. The last thing I want...or need...is for it to join the already burgeoning gossip files about me."
"If it's that private," said Jen, "why are you telling us?"
Alex leaned forward until he was propping his head up on his hands. Not looking at either Wes or Jen, he said quietly, "Because it involves you both...and you deserve to know." C'mon Al -- you can do this. Just do like you always do. Package up your own feelings and push them away. They need to know this and you need to be straight with them. "Just...this is hard to explain so if you have questions..." he looked up slowly. "Or you want to punch my lights out...can you wait until I've finished?"
Wes and Jen exchanged looks. "OK," said Jen, speaking for both of them.
Alex nodded. "My full name is Alexander Collins and no, that isn't a coincidence. My father named me after your father," and he nodded at Wes. "I'm your descendant -- I think it's something like thirty-six greats grandson." That was the part they knew, or suspected. He turned his attention to Jen – this was the part that was going to hurt. He swallowed and added softly, "Both of you."
And there's the bombshell...
He hated the expressions that crossed Jen's face. Shock, horror, fear, anger. It was anger that she settled on and for a full second Alex thought she wouldn't adhere to the 'not punching him' promise. Instead, however, she settled for glaring at him.
Alex looked down, avoiding her gaze -- it was only going to get worse. "I guess the next question would be how long have I known that...and the answer is, I've known since I was eighteen."
"You bastard." Jen's voice was deceptively soft. Alex knew without needing to look up that her expression was full of loathing for him.
"Why?" asked Wes.
His tone of voice did surprise Alex enough that he risked looking up...and saw Wes' expression confirmed what he'd heard. For whatever reason, Wes wasn't condemning him. Yet. It offered him a spark of hope.
Remember, Wes actually kind of likes the guy.
You can do this. You have to do this. "Piece of family tradition," Alex explained. Wes' eyebrows skyrocketed at that. "Passed down, father to son, has been a book, sealed in a DNA encoded box. It was given to me on my eighteenth birthday and as luck would have it, I was the only person who could open it."
"I encoded...will encode the box?" Wes queried.
Alex nodded. "I'm guessing your thinking was you didn't want anyone but me to read the book."
"Which was?" asked Jen coldly.
"One of Wes' journals." It's just words, they won't cost you anything. "In it, you wrote about a lot of the events in the last year or so. None of the details, very few of the names...just enough to tell me that something was coming in my life. I guess you were trying to prepare me...or something."
"Sounds like something I'd do," Wes admitted.
"The one thing that you made clear, though," Alex continued, almost as if Wes had said nothing, "was that I was going to die...and die young."
He looked down so that he didn't see their reactions, but he could picture them all too clearly. He heard Jen gasp. He heard Wes curse softly. He knew that both would look shocked. But with that out of the way, the next part came easier.
Wes wondering why the hell he'd do something that cruel.
"It's not easy, learning on your eighteenth birthday, that you're not going to make thirty. I started drinking, hoping the nightmares would go away. Not that anyone around me really noticed, but by the time I was nineteen, I was a wreck." He gave a huff of bleak laughter. "When you can drink a bottle of Deregovian Brandy like it was water you have a serious problem.
"About the only people who noticed there was anything wrong were Rob Logan and my then-girlfriend, Ven Desouza. She dumped me; he gave me the lecture from hell and threatened me with one a day until I did something about myself." He sighed. "He was fed up of having to cover for me -- amongst other things. And he had a point. It was a struggle, but I managed to dry myself out, managed to avoid flunking the academy course...managed, I suppose, to start living my life properly. And, amazingly, the nightmares went away."
I wrote this up as a story in its own right, What Friends Won't Do.
Alex paused to collect his thoughts. Neither Wes nor Jen said a word. He suspected both were still more than slightly stunned by what he'd had to say so far.
"I had just made Squad Leader when the chance to join the ranger program came up. To this day, I don't know why I took it, but I did. It was yearlong assessment -- me, Merck Taylor...a few other people -- and at the end of it I was chosen. I couldn't have been prouder..." Alex studied the top of his desk. "I sort of hoped you'd have been proud of me too -- particularly after the sort of mess I'd almost made of myself. And then I went and bust my ribs."
For the first time since he had started his explanations, he risked looking up at Wes and Jen's expressions. Jen's was unreadable. Wes looked both faintly embarrassed and faintly amused. Alex wasn't sure what to make of the latter emotion.
Wes is amused because of the sheer number of times he's bust his ribs - it was a running joke for about four or five chapters of Identity!
"Pride goeth before a fall," he continued, "and boy did it. I was off active duty for three months and re-assigned to the academy to help self defence classes...which is how and where I met Jen."
"What did you do?" Wes asked, interrupting for the first time.
Fair question, Alex admitted silently. "Short version," he said, "I tripped over a wall. Literally. Rob Logan -- who was with me -- will probably take great delight in telling you all the details."
Wes smirked -- an expression that Alex wasn't entirely sure how to take, although he was sure it was better than the threat of violence that was still likely to come.
"If you knew who I was," said Jen coldly, "why did you do it?"
Alex gave a sigh. You knew she was going to ask. "Everything in Wes' journal made it clear that you graduated the academy..."
"And I was flunking in a major way," Jen put in. "So you decided you'd help me." Her words were emotionless and remote.
Alex flinched in spite of his determination not to care. "I didn't mean to hurt you."
"'Didn't mean it' is one hell of a let off, Alex," Jen snapped, anger and enmity suddenly rolling off her in waves. "Half the criminals in cryo-sleep 'didn't mean it'."
Alex opened his mouth to rebut that claim, then closed it and simply nodded. She was right.
"I'm sure Alex can explain," said Wes pointedly.
"He'd better," Jen muttered.
"I..." Alex grimaced. "I didn't mean for a lot of this to happen. All I wanted to do was help you graduate. And...and then I got to know you. I'm human. I tried not to fall in love. I tried not to let you fall in love. Like just about everything else in my life, I fucked that up. We both fell…and fell hard." He looked down again, unable to face the silent accusations in their expressions. "I couldn't even die on time."
"What?"
Alex continued to study his desk top, not even looking up to identify the speaker. "I should have died at the cyro-prison."
"So now you have a death wish." Wes' accusation was flat and to the point.
He shrugged, still regarding the desk. "I didn't want this. Any of this. That day at the cryo-prison was nearly a year ago since then..." He sighed. "I'm not looking for sympathy. I don't deserve it, I'm just trying to explain...and I'm fucking that up too." He put his head in his hands. "I'm sorry."
For several minutes, silence reigned in the office. Alex tried desperately to pull his thoughts into order but the headache was getting worse. Finally, in a quiet voice, he continued,
"You were never supposed to know I'd survived. I was just going to run Covert Ops. Send the Time Shadow as necessary...and it seemed to be working...and then Steelix was released. I don't know what happened...I guess it doesn't matter. That was when I knew I had to get involved."
"You were pushing us together," Wes put in.
"You were the one who'd altered history!" Jen exclaimed. "It was never us -- it was always you..."
And there's the realisation. This was one of the prime motivating factors in me deciding to write PRTF at all - Alex's behaviour in the Destiny arc was just so guarenteed to drive Jen away there had to be a reason for it, and the quick and logical answer I came up with was that he was trying to push Jen and Wes together, and that seemed to be born out by Alex's instruction to Wes in Undercover Rangers "You must protect Jen". Once I had that idea/concept, it was just too tempting to let go of.
"I know," Alex whispered. "Believe me, I know."
"You son of a bitch!"
Alex didn't look up. Didn't need to. Didn't want to see Jen's expression. Didn't want to see her looking at him like the scum he was.
"Let's hear him out," Wes said, even his voice remote now.
Wes understands, but that doesn't mean he condones.
Alex felt the last spark of hope extinguish at that. You knew this would be how it ended. Just pack it up and push it aside. You need to get this done. "There isn't a lot more to say," he admitted. "Jen's right. The future was shifting -- not because of anything you'd done but because of my own arrogance. Destiny Force was slowly purging the timeline of everything that wouldn't happen if you didn't get together. I had to do something -- the only thing I could think of to do was go to 2001 myself and try to force you together..."
Alex forced himself to look up and meet their angry gazes. "I'm not looking for forgiveness...I'm not even really looking for understanding because I know what I've done is wrong. Like I said -- I guess I'm human. And I will completely understand if you never want to speak to me ever again."
"Oh no." Jen shook her head. "You don't get off that easy."
Alex blinked.
"Jen's right," said Wes coolly. "You seriously think we're just going to let you go after admitting all that? Ooh no. I am not prepared to validate your death wish."
"Me neither," Jen agreed. "I am so pissed off right now I want to push you through the window. But sorry, that would be letting you off. I went through hell for you, Alex. I grieved for you. I denied my own feelings and hurt both myself, and Wes – and very nearly my whole team – because of you. And you tell me that it was all some cosmic mistake and that you're sorry? No, you have to live with this, the same way I do."
Alex opened his mouth to say something.
Wes shook his head. "Uh-uh. You said you wanted me -- as your ancestor -- to be proud of you. Well live, damn it! Yes, what you did was wrong," Wes continued. "Yes, some of what you did was stupid. As you keep pointing out -- you're human. You're using that as a defence to us but you're not holding to it yourself. Believe it or not, Alex, humans make mistakes."
Alex opened his mouth again.
"And people make their own destiny," Wes added. "Some things might be set in stone. Maybe Eric did have to meet Zafar bel Abis again because maybe there was something to learn in it. But what would your death have served if you had died at the cryo-prison? What point would there have been to that?"
"But..."
"No buts," said Wes firmly. "If I know the way I think, whatever I wrote was...is intended to make sure you avoid dying a pointless death. Did that cross your mind?"
Alex just stared in silent non-comprehension.
Guess that would be a resounding no, there, Wes!
"Now," Wes finished, "we're going to go. We have a lot to think about. So do you. Let me give you two last suggestions, Alex. First -- don't be stubborn. Take the hangover cure. Second..." He glanced at Jen, who nodded. "Talk to Katie."
Mechanically, Alex rescinded the privacy lock and watched as Wes and Jen walked out of the office.
That was the last outcome he'd imagined for this talk.
And what did Wes mean by that last part. Talk to Katie?
Another line that surprised the hell out of me. Up until this point, I hadn't been entirely intending to write Alex/Katie. Except that the scene in the bar - and the fact that it was Katie who went looking for Alex made me think, and there was something 'right' about it. Certainly nothing contradictory!
This whole big reveal sequence was originally planned for Max Force, but when the timescale of that shrank down to the main events taking place over the course of a weekend it HAD to be cut from there (it just didn't make sense), so this scene was more or less the whole raison d'etre for Future Imperfect.
