Spoilers: "Undercover Rangers"
Rating: PG for language.
Author's Notes:This was posted as an experiment on fanfiction.net (wanted to check out the chaptering function), but ffn decided to yoyo again, so I'm presenting this for those wanting to read it.
Wes | Lucas | Trip | Eric | Katie | Jen
Some See Better Than Others
by Selma McCrory
copyright 2001
(Wes)
I often daydream about what would happen if Jen and I got together. I know it's an impossibility, of course, but I still dream. I can't help it. How did someone like Jen ever enter my life and turn it around? And what would have happened if I hadn't been ready for her?
Ready for her, that's a laugh. I wasn't ready for Jen or the others. I was this spoiled rotten rich kid. That's all. The only thing I had going for me was that I looked and sounded like some guy they knew. Jen's fiance, Alex, I found out later.
But I can't stop dreaming about me and Jen together. She's the one who rocked my life out of its rut, the girl who challenged who I was and showed me something new to life. No matter what, I don't regret the life fate threw my way. Despite everything, I like being a Ranger.
After I became a permanent part of the team, after I moved in to the tower, I did a little research. That one Ranger team, the one in Angel Grove, they were close. And I don't mean friends, I mean close, in a non-sexual way. People who would do anything for one another.
I once heard a saying: "Friends will help you move. Real friends will help you move bodies." That's what's being a Ranger is like, having real friends. You'd give your lives for one another without question.
Of course, that makes it hard to pursue a relationship, especially with your team leader. I know it's possible. That last team's Yellow and Red Rangers managed it. But none of them had Jen. I have Jen.
I have Jen. I am in pursuit of a woman who will someday be married to somebody else. Alex still exists, we have seen him with our own eyes, healthy and well. And it's obvious that she loves him - why else would she start acting jealous of me and that woman? What was her name? Teresa, I think.
And Jen's no doubt seen my puppydog crush on her and she's no doubt spent quite some time on how to quash it without hurting my feelings. The two of us have come a long way since that little scene next to my house.
Even though I know that's what she's going to say, I can't stop dreaming of a leather-jacketed beauty in pink with a morpher on her wrist. I can't explain why I love her, but I do.
All I can say is that I'm lucky Trip didn't catch me kissing his blanket as I woke up from that dream the other night. Not that Trip doesn't know - I can see it in his eyes that he does. Gads, what if Lucas knew? He'd be holding it over my head for weeks. And Katie and Trip would tease us, as always.
But he'd understand. If there's anyone I think of as a closer-than-close friend in this bunch of thirtieth-century police officers, it's Trip. We're an odd pairing - Trip, who doesn't understand lying, and me, the person who was taught to lie as an art form. Of course, the impossible hasn't happened yet. Hell hasn't frozen over.
Jen hasn't fallen in love with me.
And if she did, what future would we have, anyway? Face it, I'm from the twenty-first century. Jen's from the thirtieth. I couldn't ask her to stay in my century any more than she could ask me to leave with her and the others.
Face it, I'm too chicken to ask. What does she see in me besides Alex, anyway?
Man, those two are going to drive me nuts!
Anybody with a pair of eyes - heck, anybody lacking a pair of eyes - can see that Jen and Wes have fallen in love with each other. And quite independently. The fact that those two are so stubborn isn't helping, either!
I've given up trying to give them subtle hints. Maybe whacking the two of them over their collective heads will give them the clue the two of them lack and leave the rest of us in peace.
Maybe I should have headed this off at the pass, to borrow a cliche from one of Wes' westerns, but how could I have known that Jen was going to fall for Wes? I mean, her fiance had just died! Wes going for Jen was predictable, I knew that from the start, but Jen? What happened? Did we suddenly get her twin from another universe? Because there's no way the Jen I knew would have allowed this to happen, Wes' physical similarity to Alex or no.
I swear something in this century is affecting us. We can't see it, of course, but something about this place, this time, is making us do things we'd never even think of at home. Junk food is a guilty pleasure. Trip is learning to lie, something he never bothered with even on Earth in our time. And Jen, for some reason, has fallen in love with Wes.
Alex must have known something was wrong. We couldn't see it, but he could. And now it's too late for anything. Nothing to do but to get those two together, just so that there's some peace out here.
If this continues, we could have to temporarily haul Wes to the thirtieth century just so that we can untangle this mess. I just can't see the two of them together, but obviously, if those two ever compared notes, they'd believe otherwise.
That's it. Those two aren't going to stop being tongue-tied unless somebody does something about it. I'm going to have to intervene. I don't like it, but I have to do it. Anything's better than having to listen to those two go back and forth, back and forth, until they resemble politicians at a virgin's ball.
They trust each other, I know it, they know it, heck, the whole team knows it! But they can't take the next step. The dangerous step. They don't want to look foolish. I understand that. But even when they trust, they're still afraid.
Jen, afraid? Yes. And Wes, who'd want to admit that he's fallen in love with a superior officer? I can understand that. But I still don't want to listen to them stutter at each other for the rest of their time here.
I never have that problem. The girls go after me, not the other way around. I'd have thought that Wes would have been that way, too, but I guess not.
Or maybe they've succeeded. Maybe I am nuts. Maybe there is no escape. I'd hate to admit it, but it might be true. But I have to get those two together. Maybe I'll find the sane world again.
Maybe someday I'll understand humans.
Sometimes my abilities don't operate, but I'm more perceptive than the others might think. I knew that my best friend in this time was falling for my commanding officer. I know that Jen feels the same way. Neither of them can hide it from me, not like they can from others or from each other.
If the two of them were Xybrian, this would be over by now. But they're not. They're humans, and I have to admit, humans seem very blind sometimes.
I don't know the precise moment that Jen started looking at Wes as more than a stand-in Red Ranger, but it was obvious from the start in Wes' case. He really took what Jen said to heart. We almost didn't have a red Ranger in the end, not if I hadn't convinced him that he should try again, and why Jen was acting the way she was.
And I think Jen gradually realized that she didn't just have somebody who looked but didn't act like Alex. I think she finally saw what I saw in him. He's a clown, to be sure, but he can be deadly serious, and I think she respects that. Plus he's gone out of his way to befriend the four of us, anchor us in this time. I think he realized, more than any of us, that we might be here a long time, and that we needed to prepare for that. I don't think Jen realized it at the time, but that's something she likes as well.
I know it's a risk that Wes might not be able to come home with us, but I want him to be happy. It doesn't seem to bother him at all that I'm an alien. Humans of this time are supposed to be xenophobic, yet he's adapted to us just like we've adapted to him.
He's finally getting the idea that he might be attracted to Jen. Actually, I think he's been trying to impress her for the longest time. He told me once that he'd felt like he'd gotten off on the wrong foot, which when I was confused told me that he wanted Jen to look at him differently than the spoiled kid who laughed her off when she told him the truth.
Wes feels sorry for that now. It's just that he, like people of this time, aren't used to that sort of thing. We've had a thousand years of Rangers to get used to the concept. Wes' had maybe eight. He thought she was crazy.
Our first attempt at interacting with a person of the twenty-first century and it falls flat for both of them. As Wes told me, not the best first step when you're falling in love. Or, as he told me, wanting to impress her. He left the love thing out, but I could see what he meant but didn't say.
It must be terrible for Wes. I can see what he wants, but he's determined not to try to impress her with his connections. Being a Ranger has made him a lot more serious, and I know that Jen is happy about that, though she might deny it. I don't know why those two don't get together, but they haven't. Not yet.
And I know that if I interfere, they might be upset. I like Wes, very much, and believe it or not, I like Jen too. Something tells me to be patient, to let these humans have their rituals without an overhelpful Xybrian in the mix.
So all I can do is smile and maybe send some gentle hints the way of two very good friends who are a little handicapped. They'll get it eventually. I know they will.
I'm not stupid, though I wonder if they know that.
I'm not blind, either. Jen surprised me, but anyone could tell that I'd ended up in the middle of a lover's spat between the two of them. I've seen enough of those in my life to know exactly what I could have gotten into, and congratulated myself in skipping out of that. Of course, the fact that the three of us were about to go into combat helped.
From what little I know about Wes and his relationship with his father, I know that Mr. Collins is not too thrilled about Jen. She was the one who took Wes away from him, turned him into a Ranger. Of course, Mr. Collins is proud of Wes now, but I know that he wasn't at the beginning. And I don't know how my employer would feel about Wes' love life.
Of course, I know things that he doesn't. Like the fact that Jen and the others are from the future. I don't think Mr. Collins has to worry about a daughter-in-law. Either she'll leave, with Wes staying in this century, or he'll go with her.
No, he can't go with her. No matter how much I want to be him, I can't let him go away. That would break Mr. Collins for good, and he might blame me for that. I'm not Wesley Collins, no matter how hard I try.
I hate being swept to the side because of that. Just because I'm not the owner's son, my opinion doesn't matter once Mr. Collins is unconcious. He doesn't want it, but they want him. And I want it and they don't want me. Story of our lives.
I used to hate him for that. Everything at his fingertips, and he refuses to take advantage of that. It's only the idle rich who can do what he does; the rest of us have to struggle through just to make a dent.
I could see him throwing it all away, just for a girl. Admittedly, a tough girl from the thirtieth century, but what's important for Mr. Collins just isn't important for Wes.
Mr. Collins is starting to be more than just a boss for me, though. I run the Silver Guardians, and it's not just because I have the Quantum Morpher anymore, either. I'm more competent than those two jerks like to think. Just because I wasn't educated at Harvard doesn't mean I can't add two and two together and get four.
So can Wes, but he likes sitting around just about as much as I do. When Mr. Collins was in the coma and Wes and I were at that board meeting, I could see it in his eyes. I was able to walk out of there and do my duty and he desperately wanted to join me.
Face it, Wes doesn't want some society girl who knows her etiquette and can look pretty during social gatherings. He wants somebody who can stand by his side and fight, and that is what Jen does.
In a way, I understand. I understand him better now that we've both been Rangers than I ever did at school.
But if he ever even thinks of eloping with Jen in the thirtieth century, I'll kick his butt so hard that he won't think of sitting down for a week. Then I'll let his father talk sense into him. I think he'll listen now.
He'd better.
(Series continues with Katie....)