All characters belong to Disney/Saban. I am using them without permission, but I am not and don't expect to make money from this.

Rated T: Mild sexuality.

A/N: Takes place immediately after 'Quantum Secrets'. A one-shot standalone, not part of any series.

Clash

- - -

"So he lifted her up so she could talk to the birds. He was smiling and everything. A real smile, you know? Not a mean one."

I watched silently from the shadows of our clock tower home. Wes finished his story of how he had gone to check on Eric after our latest encounter, and found him with two pet birds and his neighbors' little girl. I listened, and thought, not smiling like Katie or Trip or shaking my head in disbelief like Lucas.

"I just watched for a little while, and then I left. Don't think he saw me." Wes shrugged. "He's okay, and that's what I wanted to know. It would have felt like snooping to stay any longer."

"See?" Trip said. "I told you Eric's not such a bad guy."

"Well, maybe." Lucas nodded. "But after the way he turned his back on us, I'll believe it when I see it with my own eyes."

"I hope you're right, Trip," Katie said, her smile fading a little. "But it's a little hard to believe Eric has a human side."

"We all do, don't we?" Wes looked up, his eyes finding mine. "I think we can trust him. At least I hope so."

Trust. That was the real question. I avoided that blue gaze for the brighter blue of the sky over Silver Hills, outside the clock tower windows. So much depended on whether we could trust this one man, a man who had taken the Quantum Morpher and used it for his own purposes, a man who had opposed us at almost every turn. Yes, he fought on the same side that we did - but he fought for himself. No one else. Or so it seemed.

And now he knew our greatest secret. That rough voice floated through my head again. "I'm not making any promises." No, Eric Myers would make no promises. What did he intend to do? Would he betray us to benefit himself? Or - did that hard-edged exterior hide a more generous spirit, one capable of loyalty and self-denial?

I had to know. "I'm going out for a walk," I said, getting to my feet.

I could see in Wes's eyes that he wanted to offer to come with me. But that's one of the things I was coming to like more and more about him - he was learning when to back off. "Okay, Jen. See you later," he said.

- - -

The house surprised me, for some reason. It really shouldn't have; Eric had to live somewhere. Why not a perfectly ordinary-looking house in the suburbs? I guess what surprised me was that it looked - comfortable, despite a few signs of damage from Conwing's attack today. Welcoming, even. Very different from the man himself.

With a deep breath to remind me of what I was there for, and of who I was - a Time Force officer, dammit, and a Ranger, and a leader with the responsibility of preserving the timeline on her shoulders - dammit - I marched up to the door and knocked, a little harder than I really had intended. Silence answered me, until I heard the faint sound of footsteps from the other side.

There was a soft scrape as the peephole opened, and then a few seconds of nothing. He knew it was me now, Jen Scotts, the one who had demanded that he give his morpher back only a few short weeks ago. I raised my chin. I was also the one who had pulled him out of a river earlier today and saved his life, and he owed me enough to at least open the door.

I guess he agreed with that because he did open it, and stood staring at me from inside. His expression was - I don't know, some mixture of surprise and curiosity and defiance and uncertainty. He looked at me. I looked at him. I noticed the bruises and scratches, marring what again struck me as a very handsome face - harsh, all angles and sharp, uncompromising edges, but - attractive.

"Well?" I asked. "Are you going to let me in?"

"What do you want?" he countered.

"Let me in and I'll tell you."

For another moment or two I wondered what I would do if he slammed the door in my face. But then he opened it wider and stood aside.

In his living room I stopped to look around, unable to avoid the mental comparison between this small and homely place and Wes's father's beautiful, rich, and spacious mansion - or our own chilly, shabby, but somehow comfortable and cheerful clock tower. This was - well cared for and clean, the furniture old but serviceable - but it felt closed in, as if it offered its owner more a place to hide from the world than a place to live. And yet - it held a hint of that owner's human side, in the form of the two pet birds Wes had mentioned, softly twittering in their cage in a corner.

"Don't you approve?" came Eric's sarcastic voice from behind me.

"I - it surprises me. I don't know why," I said, turning to face him. "But whether I approve of your living arrangements isn't important, is it?"

He raised an eyebrow and nodded, one corner of his mouth twisting in ironic agreement. A second nod indicated a chair, and we sat down.

"Well?" he asked.

"Well..." I had debated how to approach this, but with my gaze challenged by the darkness of Eric's I sensed that bluntness and directness would be the only approach he would respect. "I want to know if you're going to tell Mr. Collins we're from the future."

He didn't blink. Probably was expecting this. "I already reported back to Bio-Lab," he said. "Maybe I already told him."

"Did you?" I stared back at him, not giving an inch, trying not to show anything.

A flicker of something like discomfort ran across his face. "Not yet." His eyes narrowed. "But I still might. When it'll work to my advantage."

"Even if it means destroying everything my team and I are trying to accomplish? If it means changing our past and maybe leaving us no home in the year 3000 to go back to?"

"It's not my home."

"No, but it's your future."

"The future I'm worried about is a lot closer than a thousand years away."

I tried to stare him down, without success. "And you don't care about us? Or anyone else?"

"Why should I? Not like any of you care about me!"

"Maybe we would if you'd give us half a chance!" We had both leaned forward by this time, our faces separated by only a couple of feet. I tried to fight down the anger and get back on track. "We want to be your friends, Eric. We want you to work with us, not against us."

"And would any of you give a damn about me if I didn't have this?" he demanded, holding up his arm.

My eyes fell on the morpher that was back around his wrist as I searched for an answer, for some way, any way, of getting past that hard shell. After a moment I got to my feet and stepped forward as he rose also, not backing away but looking wary as I reached towards him. Gently and slowly I took his wrist in both hands, raising it to glance at the Quantum Morpher and then up at his face, half expecting him to pull it out of my grasp. I felt his muscles twitch a little at my touch, but he didn't resist.

"Is this all you care about?" I asked. "The power this gives you? Have you thought about the responsibility it gives you, too?"

"I'm using it to fight on your side, aren't I?" Eric's voice was tight, his eyes narrowed, but his face - I could glimpse something behind the rigid control, something I couldn't quite identify.

"Yes. So far. But... why? Because it's the right thing to do, or because that's what you're being paid for?"

To my surprise, his expression suddenly softened with just a spark of humor. "Maybe a little bit of both. No reason I can't get paid for doing the right thing, is there?"

"No, I guess not." I realized I was still holding his arm, and let go. We were standing so close I could feel the warmth of his body, making my pulse race in a way I found slightly alarming - but he would probably think it was a sign of weakness if I stepped back. Besides, he seemed almost approachable at the moment - maybe all he needed was a sign that somebody cared... Without thinking I reached up, hesitantly touching the scrape running along one of those angular cheekbones. "We do care, you know," I said. "I care..."

There was just a moment when our eyes locked, the intensity of his gaze so hot I flushed with the warmth of it. Then I had no time to react when strong hands grabbed my arms, pulling me closer, and then moved to my back as powerful arms closed around me and hard lips descended on mine, stealing my breath and demanding a response I was helpless to deny. It had been so long - only months, but it seemed like a lifetime - the memory of Alex blurred into the image of Wes and was dispelled by Eric's searching tongue and the hands beginning to roam over me... I melted, but as I realized that in another few seconds we would be edging towards the bedroom and a step I could never take back, I pulled my arms from around his neck and pushed against his chest.

He froze, and then let go and stepped back as if I had burned him. For just an instant, his mask was gone and I saw longing and naked desire in his face, along with a need that I knew had little to do with sex. And then it was gone.

"Sorry," he said coldly. "Was I trespassing on Wes's territory?"

In a way I was glad of the insult. Anger came to my rescue, stiffening my spine and sharpening my voice. "I'm not anybody's territory," I snapped. "Wes has nothing to do with it."

"Yeah, right," Eric sneered. "I've seen the way Rich Boy looks at you."

Did he? The thought startled me - not that I hadn't had suspicions at times, but - I had no time to think about such things. "I don't know how Wes feels," I said. "If - if what you say is true, that's another reason I - we can't..." I looked down to where the fingers of my right hand had already found the ring on my third left finger. "I lost my fiancé four months ago. I can't - not yet..."

"Lost your fiancé?" Eric's voice was still cool, but the hostility that had filled his eyes faded a little.

"Ransik killed him," I said bluntly. "He died in my arms. But with his last breath, Alex made me promise to come after Ransik, and bring him in, and stop him from damaging the timeline. To make him pay."

I glanced up at Eric, wondering what he thought of the hatred and anger that had entered my own voice. But maybe that's what he could most easily understand, because I could swear I saw sympathy in his eyes. "I'm sorry for your loss," he said quietly.

"Thanks. That means a lot," I said, finding I meant every word. "So - you can see why this can't happen between us, can't you? Lucas, Trip, Katie, and I - we're not from here. We can't afford to start - anything. We have a job to do, and there's no room for anything that might complicate that job." Plus the small fact that I had sensed something in Eric - a need, an anger and emptiness, that was too much for me to handle at this time, in this place, and maybe not ever, at least not until he found a few of his answers for himself.

"A job to do." Eric met my eyes. "But - if things were different...?"

"I don't know."

"We have a lot in common, I think."

"Yes." I smiled a little. "Maybe too much."

Again he surprised me by returning the smile and nodding with that glimpse of humor again. "Maybe you're right."

Suddenly I was sorry that we would never find out if it could work between us. "I should go," I said, hoping it didn't sound as if I was running away.

"Yeah." He made no further comment, only started for the hallway.

We paused at the front door, careful to keep a safe distance between us. I raised my eyes to Eric's once more in the half-light filtering in from outside. There was one more thing I had to confront, out of fairness. "About Wes," I began.

"What about him?"

Hostility again. I ignored it. "It's not his fault that his father is rich, or that he got the Red Chronomorpher. You were right back at the river, that I don't know much about you. But I'm guessing that your life hasn't been very easy, and that's not Wes's fault either. You asked if any of us would care about you if you didn't have the morpher. Wes would. He tried to be your friend before you had it, and he'll go on trying." I saw Eric shrug, but with a trace of discomfort on his face, and went on. "He came here, to your house, a couple of hours ago, not to talk to you or try to get anything but just because he wanted to know you're all right. He's a nice guy."

"I guess."

And that muttered response was apparently all I was going to get on the topic. I turned to the door and stepped through as Eric opened it for me. "Well, goodbye," I said with a glance back.

"Jen?"

I turned. "Yes?"

"I won't tell. Wouldn't have anyway." Before I could say anything he swung the door shut between us.

We still had the same problems with our uncooperative Quantum Ranger, I reminded myself as I walked down to the street. He had said nothing about working together, or about changing his attitude. He still seemed bent on pushing away anyone who tried to reach out to him. And yet - my heart was light as I started for home.

- End -