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Disclaimer: All things PR belong to Disney/Saban, no one's giving me money. (Well damn ...)

Note: Thanks to Alan W. for getting me thinking along the "tunnel" line; hope this doesn't get too confusing. I know it still confuses ME, and I'm writing this; I'm supposed to know how it all works out. I think. ) Once more, this chapter got out of hand length-wise, so I'm cutting it short (er ... relatively speaking, that is ..; besides, I can live without the sure-to-follow death threats for the next bit over the holidays. grins More to follow soon, though. As usual, in case you enjoyed reading this, leave a little something in the feedback box on the way out, please - and Merry Christmas, everybody! DB



Times Present, Times Past

Chapter 8: Blue Rangers To The Rescue





/Angel Grove, The Present /



"Billy, please ... can't you tell us anything why you haven't found them yet?" The look in Tommy's eyes was somewhere between hopeful and desperate, and the pleading tone in his voice would have moved a far harder heart than his old friend's.

"Please ... I'm not trying to nag you or anything, I know you and Justin are doing all you can, but ..."

Billy sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. Justin had left late last evening, and was now in school, leaving him to work on alone. Not that Billy minded too much; in fact, usually he preferred going solo, but even he had to admit that it helped having a competent assistant who understood his trains of thought with only a minimum of explanations. Not even on Aquitar had he found such a helpmate, aside from Cestro; after all, Ranger technology was not available to just anyone in the galaxy. It took a certain mindset and shared experience with various phenomena to be able to work on a problem as complex as this.

Glancing around, he could recognize much the same sentiments on all of his friends' faces, in varying degrees of urgency. All of them had wanted to spend the night, as usual, but Dimitria had vetoed that plan quite vehemently (for her) - also as usual. He recalled the conversation all too clearly.

*

"What purpose would it serve if you exhausted yourself by being in discomfort if you can rest far more thoroughly in your own homes? Isn't it sufficient that William will saty at his post as long as he is physically able?"

"But Dimitria - what if Billy has a breakthrough while we're gone?" Tommy had tried to argue.

"Are you not still used to wakening upon the sound of your communicators?"

"I guess, but ..."

"Then why do you fear that you won't be able to hear the alert this time? Do you not trust your colleague to alert you to any significant changes immediately?" The Inquirian's voice held a tone that was a mixture of fond exasperation, irritation and just a hint of sternness. Billy found it quite ... motherly, to tell the truth.

"Well, yeah, but ..." Tommy just couldn't let it go; his need to be at the hub of events was just too strong, and the others let him do the arguing. Maybe they even hoped that his famous puppy-dog look would sway Zordon's replacement, but for once it had absolutely no effect.

"Will you force me to evict you in person, Thomas? Do you honestly expect me to change my mind on this when I only have your welfare at heart?"

Tommy's shoulders had slumped in defeat then. He could be an irresistible force if he had to, but even he knew when he'd run into an immovable object.

"No, Dimitria," he'd sighed.

*

And that had very definitely been that./ Sitting back in the chair he'd been glued to for most of the night, Billy shifted tired muscles and looked back at Tommy. "I wish I could, Tommy, honestly. Of course, I could show you the calculations we've already done, but ... how much /do you guys know about temporal mechanics and physics?"

There was a brief moment of silence, then seven pairs of shoulders slumped. "Next to nothing," Rocky muttered. "Which is why you two have to do all the work and why all the rest of us idiots can do is hang around and wait." He sounded surprisingly bitter.

"Rocky, by no means did I mean to imply that any one of you are intellectually deficient; I know you're not," Billy hastened to say, a look of alarm entering his greenish eyes. With a secret feeling of shame, he suddenly recalled being under the Hate-Master's spell and saying precisely that about his friends and teammates. He blushed guiltily.

"We know you didn't, Billy," Trini soothed.

"Yeah, it's just that it's so frustrating, knowing we can't do anything to help," Aisha added, glaring at Rocky. The former Blue Zeo Ranger squirmed.

"Yeah, well, okay; I didn't mean it the way it sounded," he mumbled. Billy smiled slightly.

"I am aware of that. Don't worry, Rocky." He inhaled deeply, chewed briefly on his lip, then shrugged. I might as well attempt to explain some of the problems; maybe then they'll get an inkling of what I - we - have to deal with here.

"But to get back to you, Tommy, I'm not insensitive to your position ... it's just extremely complicated to put into layman's terms. However, I believe I can give you at least a ... visualization of sorts; maybe that will help you to understand. Think of the time hole as the entrance to a tunnel. One end of this is - was - fixed to our timeline, at the precise moment and location when and where Jason and Katherine disappeared into it."

Zack grinned fleetingly at Aisha. "Billy's gonna get his tongue tied in knots if he has to keep talking about both space and time in the same sentence," he stage-whispered, causing everyone to chuckle.

"Precisely," Billy agreed with a fleeting smile. "To continue - we have pinpointed the exact placement, both temporally and spatially. That was fairly easy to do. The problem, however, is that we don't know how long this tunnel is. This means that Justin and I have to determine not only the length of the tunnel ..."

Adam was able to follow this far, at least. "That means you need to find out exactly how far back in time they've gone, right?"

"Yes. However, to our misfortune the tunnel is ... flexible. That means that while the length determines the overall amount of time we need to reach back into, the flexibility determines the window in which it will be accessible to Jason and Kat."

He was met with blank looks all around. Adam frowned, trying to digest the information, then gave up with a helpless sigh.

"You've lost me," he admitted.

"Us, too." Tanya spoke for the rest of the group.

Trini thought for a moment. "Maybe a tunnel isn't quite the right comparison," she mused out loud. "Billy, check me if I get it wrong, okay?" Turning to Adam and Tommy, she began to explain. "Picture not a tunnel, but a pipe - like on a common household washer. There's only one place on the back of a washing machine where you can fix the water pipe. That socket is our end of it. Now, normally you'll be able to move the washer around just a little bit, but we can't - it's wedged into a fitted kitchen, say."

"Good image, Trini," Billy murmured approvingly. It was something that would never have occurred to him. She flashed him a quick, pleased smile. "Please continue," he requested.

"Thanks. Anyway, what we do have is a certain leeway in the kitchen design of where exactly to place that washing machine - definitely near an electrical outlet, and close to a water source, but we can decide whether to put it to the left or right of the dryer, for example. We do have to eventually fix that other end to the wall somehow, though. And that's the point Billy and Justin need to find. Only, it's hidden behind the other kitchen units."

"And those other units are the time stream you have to search," Adam realized.

"Yeah - and if the pipe doesn't fit into the wall connection just right, you'll get leakage all over the place," Kimberly grimaced, remembering an incident at home from a few years back. "Ew!"

The others nodded thoughtfully.

"But at least we do know where the mains are supposed to be behind the kitchen units; this means we know they're stuck in the past, right?" Rocky added, brightening.

"Yes. That is all we can say for certain, though."

"What exactly does that mean for Jason and Kat?" Tanya wanted to know.

Billy glanced gravely at his erstwhile replacement. "If we don't miss them entirely and they become 'water leakage', so to speak - it could mean that either they end up in yet another point in time, or they get lost completely."

"Man!" Tommy blanched. "No wonder you're being so super-careful!"

"Unfortunately, I have to be. I am not willing to take any chances unless they are absolutely unavoidable and offer good odds of succeeding. It could mean their lives if I did."

"I'll never interrupt you again," Tommy vowed.

Billy actually had to laugh a little.

"Don't make promises you won't be able to keep, Tommy," he admonished good-naturedly. "But don't worry, I'm not holding it against you. Just ... if you could keep any disruptions to a minimum, please?"

The long-haired young man blushed and grinned sheepishly. "I'll try," he said. "Just get them back safe and sound, okay?"

"I shall certainly endeavour to do so."

With that assurance, Billy turned back towards his computers, shutting out the soft conversation of his friends once more to delve into the highly complex world of temporal theories.

~*~





/Angel Grove, The Past /



"I told you that one branch wasn't altogether stable," Kat smiled as she watched Jason gingerly move his left arm. The limb was badly scratched from a tumble down from a fruit tree they'd harvested for the next couple of days. "It will take my weight - or it would, if I could still climb that high - but not yours, big guy!"

She automatically rested one hand on her swollen belly, feeling the baby inside her shift slightly. It had taken a long, heated discussion with Jason, but she had finally agreed to give up any too-strenuous physical exertions in order to protect their unborn child, and climbing trees to pick late apples definitely qualified. Instead, she foraged mostly on the ground and let Jason do the heavy, dangerous work, only directing him towards the best spots she'd discovered over time.

While the restriction made sense, Kat still chafed under it. She didn't like placing part of her burden onto her companion, feeling as if she wasn't pulling her full weight, but had agreed out of necessity. Going through an unplanned pregnancy with no medical support whatsoever was risky enough; they simply couldn't afford to take chances. So far, they'd been lucky, and she'd reached the second trimester without mishap - Kat hadn't even had morning sickness. Her hormone-induced cravings were another matter, but with many a sigh she promised herself a major chocolate binge later.

If we ever make it back to a place where there is chocolate!

To his credit, Jason never complained about the added workload. Right now, though, he scowled at her. "No need to rub it in, you know," he grumbled. "That branch didn't do anything but creak when I went up; it certainly looked alright then!"

"Yes, but on the way up you weren't carrying several pounds of fruit," she dimpled smugly. "You forgot to make allowances for the extra weight!"

"Okay, okay, so I screwed up," Jason groused. "But at least I got 'em!" He dumped his load near their fire; they would have to sort out the bruised fruit to eat tonight and put the rest into storage for the following days.

"Nicely seasoned with blood and dirt," Kat laughed. "Come on, I'll wash out your scratches before they get infected."

"I can do that myself," he hedged, but she only took his hand and dragged him over to the water's edge where she sat him down on a convenient rock. Next, she wet a scrap of fur and gently dabbed at the deepest cut.

"I know you can," she said softly. "But I want to." Kat's blue eyes were soft with affection and gratitude; it had occurred to her almost immediately how easily it could have been herself who'd been hurt in just such an accident if she had insisted on climbing that tree herself. Only Jason's superb reflexes had prevented a more serious injury; as it was, he'd been favoring his left foot at least part of the way home. He was walking freely now, though, so he most likely had not sprained (or worse, broken) anything.

Jason couldn't help but react to her tone. His annoyed expression gentled into an answering smile. Reaching out with his free hand, he tilted her lovely face up towards his and gave her a quick kiss. "In that case, I'm all yours, Miss Nightingale."

Kat grinned and wiped away some more dirt. "Just call me Florence."

"Yes, Flo," Jason quipped, and yelped in surprise when Kat shoved him unceremoniously off his seat into the shallow, cold water.

~*~





Angel Grove, The Present



Morning had passed uneventfully at the Power Chamber, filled with desultory conversation among the friends and only broken by a quick food run done by Rocky and Zack. They'd opted for large pizzas, which had been consumed in near-silence; then Justin had showed up unexpectedly shortly after lunch.

"Shouldn't you be at school?" Rocky asked the youngster in his best big-brother voice as he helped himself to a leftover slice of pepperoni pizza.

"Miss Appleby got sick," Justin mumbled through a mouthful of melted cheese. "We got let out early."

"Oh no, what's wrong with her?" Kim asked, concerned. She'd always liked the rotund teacher, and hated to think of her as ill.

Hastily, Justin swallowed. "Nothing serious," he reassured the petite girl. "Just a stomach bug or something. Mr Caplan said she'll be back day after tomorrow."

"Oh, good!"

The boy just nodded, more concerned with his pizza right now than the friends' worries. They subsided, letting him wolf down his lunch in peace. As soon as he was finished, Justin eased himself into a chair next to Billy and asked to be brought up to date on the day's progress so far. The gang fell quiet as the two blue-clad geniuses conferred in low tones, then heaved a collective sigh as Justin fired up his own console and started to type furiously, soon as lost to his surroundings as Billy.

However, all too soon their work was interrupted by the blaring alarm claxons, signalling yet another attack by Divatox on Angel Grove. Within minutes, four colored streams of light coalesced before Dimitria's warp tube, heralding the arrival of the other Turbo Rangers.

"Justin, we need you here, now!" TJ called, frowning. "The best I can make out from these readings is that Divatox has planted a detonator somewhere - again! - and we need to find it, pronto."

"Coming!" Hitting 'save' on his computer, Justin scrambled up and joined his teammates.

"Shift into Turbo!"

In one multicoloured flash, the Rangers morphed and teleported out, to deal with this latest crisis. A few wistful glances lingered on the spot they'd just vacated, but nobody said a word.

Billy took the opportunity to rise from his chair and walk some of the stiffness out of his legs. He'd been sitting in one position way too long. He could feel his friends' eyes follow him around the room, but he tried to ignore the question he knew were in them as long and as best as he could. He was no closer to an answer than he'd been hours earlier, and the frustration was getting to him as well.

"I wish I had an inkling of what else to do," he muttered to himself. "As far as I can see, we already have eliminated all venues of locating Jason and Kat."

"Does that mean you're giving up on the search?" Tommy asked sharply, alarm in his voice.

"No, of course not," Billy replied immediately. "I'm just saying that we may have to go over the data we have accumulated again, with a fine-toothed comb as it were, to determine whether we have made a mistake or overlooked something."

"Oh."

"Although to be honest, that hardly seems a likely scenario; Justin and I both checked and double-checked each other's work ..." The former Blue Ranger quite obviously was mentally running through his work so far, to judge by the slightly distant expression entering his eyes.

"Is there nothing else you can try, aside from checking the time stream? I mean, can't we search for signs of them being wherever they are?"

Billy glanced up at that. "What exactly do you have in mind, Tommy?"

The long-haired young man shrugged helplessly. "Hell, I dunno! You're the science expert ... it was just a thought I had."

Aisha frowned. "You may be onto something there, Tommy. Back in Kenya, when we came upon a place where we thought people might have passed through the tribe's land, we looked for traces of ... well, civilization, I guess. A firepit, trash, things they might have left behind ... And if the tribe's trackers found anything, we could go from there and make a good guess as to when they could have been there."

The chocolate eyes brightened. "Yeah, how about it, Billy?"

Billy looked dubious. "I don't know. The time Jason and Katherine have gone hardly seems long enough for them to leave any kind of artefacts for us to find."

"But surely they would have lit a fire?" Adam suggested. "I mean, even if they didn't have matches or stuff, if Jason was an Eagle Scout like Kim said, wouldn't he know how to get one going?"

"He should," Kimberly agreed. "And in the wilderness, having a fire is always a good idea - both for warmth and to keep animals away at night."

"Not to mention for cooking," Rocky murmured, and earned himself a sharp elbow to his side from Tanya. "Ow!"

"Stop thinking with your stomach," she hissed, hiding an involuntary smile.

"I wouldn't exactly call the park a wilderness," Zack said, only to earn himself a pitying look from Trini.

"Zack ... in the past, there was no park here."

"Yeah, when I was stuck back in 1880, there was only prairie and mountains outside main street," Kimberly confirmed. "Well, maybe some farms I didn't see, but certainly no park."

"Oh. Duh." Zack smacked his forehead melodramatically, making his friends grin.

The blond genius was once more lost in thought. "Hmm. That has indeed certain possibilities. If Jason and Kat /did /light a fire, they will most likely have burned wood. Positing the fact that at one point they may have used a large log instead of just branches and twigs, it may have turned into charcoal ... and we just might be able to trace the remnants of that with carbon-dating ... hmm ..." Absently, he wandered off towards his computer consoles and started typing in commands at a rapid pace. "I'll need Justin to help me with this, but in the meantime I can at least look up what kinds of wood were indigenous to this area in the past, how long a log of sufficient size to be of use to us might have burned, what its rate of deterioration is ..." Billy's voice trailed off as he continued muttering to himself, calling up database after database.

Wisely, his friends retreated to a corner of the Power Chamber, in order not to disturb him. About half an hour later, the Turbo Rangers returned, went through their debriefing by Dimitria, and then Justin joined Billy. The older boy briefly stopped whatever he was doing to bring his assistant up to speed about what he was researching, and soon the two were deep into a discussion too complicated for the others to follow.

TJ walked up to the group of former Rangers. "Looks as if the boys in blue are at it again," he smiled.

"Yes - and hopefully, they'll find something soon," Trini sighed. "It's getting really hard to look into Jason's parents' eyes, they're so desperate."

"The Hillards aren't doing much better," Tanya added glumly. "Not that I can blame them. When I think how I felt when I learned my folks were lost on Mysterio Island ..."

"You got them back, though," Adam reminded his girlfriend.

"Thank God I did," she sighed.

"Why don't we take that as a good sign, guys?" Kimberly interjected, giving all an encouraging smile. "I mean, it's not as if the Bad Guys are on Jase and Kat's heels to get a mystical thingie to attack Earth with, is it?" She'd heard a lot of stories about events that had happened during her absence; it was a way to pass the time while they were waiting for Billy to find their missing friends.

"I guess you're right," Tommy mumbled, leaning against a wall and stretching his long legs. "Doesn't make the waiting any easier, though."

"How long has it been, anyway?" Carlos asked curiously. In an aside, he whispered to TJ, "Cass and Ashley are already off; I think I heard the word 'mall' ..."

The Red Ranger shuddered. "Good thing we're here, then," he murmured back, catching Rocky and Zack's understanding grin out of the corner of his eye.

Trini quietly called up a digital display on one of the instruments, checking it against her watch. "It's now 2.23pm; elapsed time since the time hole opened ... ninety-three hours, twelve minutes and an odd number of seconds."

Adam did some quick mental math. "Almost exactly four days, then."

"Uh huh," Rocky said, rubbing his hands over his face. "It sure seemed longer."

"No kidding," Zack agreed.

As if he hadn't heard him, Rocky continued. "Man, I thought the three weeks I spent in hospital after my accident were bad. But at least then I had visitors, could read, watch TV ... all we can do now is sit around and wait," he complained, his voice rising slightly in volume as his chagrin mounted. Neither he nor his friends noticed Billy glancing up sharply, then leaving his chair to come over. "I had no idea that a measly four days could stretch into an eternity!"

He flinched as a hand clamped on his shoulder and whirled him around. "B-billy?"

"What did you just say?" his former teammate asked sharply, gray-green eyes boring into Rocky's brown orbs.

"Huh?"

"Repeat what you just said," Billy demanded, his voice strangely urgent. Confused, Rocky tried to gather his wits.

"I, um, I just said that the three weeks I was in hospital seemed much shorter in comparison to the four days we've been looking for Jason and Kat," he stammered, thoroughly bewildered by Billy's unusual behaviour. "Why?"

He didn't get an answer, as Billy blanched, closed his eyes as if in pain, then opened them again. The sudden glitter in them was disconcerting and somehow made Rocky's heart beat very fast - as if something important was about to happen. If I only knew what!

"Why didn't I consider this before?" Billy muttered to himself, looking extremely put out. "That's it ... it has to be! Rocky, you're a genius!"

"Huh?!?" That was the absolute last thing Rocky ever expected to be called - especially by Billy. The statement left him with his mouth hanging open, completely speechless. Nor did his friends fare much better; there was more than one pair of eyes darting back and forth between the two ex-Blue Rangers with a rather shell-shocked expression.

Billy nodded firmly, an amused smile playing briefly around his mouth. As soon as he'd said it, he'd become aware of the incongruity of his statement, and he was fairly certain it would haunt him for some time in the future. However, this was not a moment for much levity. He gave Rocky a 'well-done' pat on the shoulder, then drew a deep breath.

"JUSTIN!"

The startled boy eeped at being called so peremptorily (and loudly) from his calculations, but bounded over as fast as he could. "Yeah? What's up?"

"I think Rocky may have just presented us with the solution to our conundrum," Billy said, doing a rather bad job of hiding his budding excitement. He could already feel his mind darting from one possibility to the next, computing, evaluating ...

"I have?!?" Rocky was dumbfounded.

"He has? How?" Justin wanted to know, his boyish voice easily drowning out his predecessor's.

"He mentioned disparities in the subjective experience of the passage of time," Billy explained. "To wit, how the past four days appear longer to him than his weeks-long hospital stay. I can't believe we overlooked this possibility before, but consider this: What if the passage of time here - in the present - is significantly slower than it is at the other end of the temporal vortex - /in the past/?"

Instantly comprehending, Justin flushed with sudden enthusiasm. "Aw, man! That would explain why we haven't been able to trace them yet - we always assumed that time is passing at the same rate now and then!"

"Exactly. And in doing so, we were working from an inaccurate set of parameters."

"Right. But we can fix that, easy. We only have to recalibrate the chronoton gauges, and ..."

The two dove deeply back into the world of temporal physics, leaving their friends behind, who gathered around the still-stunned former Zeo Ranger Three.

"I - I'm a ... a genius?" he stuttered, looking totally bewildered. "Me????"

"Yes, you are, Rocky," Tanya told him warmly, giving him a hug and peck on the cheek. Her eyes warned everyone to contradict her, or crack a joke.

"Wow," Rocky breathed, a beatific smile crossing his face. He was jerked from his self-directed awe, however, when Tommy clamped a hand on his shoulder and whirled him around into a fierce bear-hug.

"Way to go, Rocko!"

Rocky was tempted to pout at being so abruptly torn from feeling extremely pleased with himself (especially as he was only now beginning to grasp the implications), but that vanished as soon as he read the relief and renewed hope in his former team leader's eyes.

"Yeah, well, /de nada/," he mumbled. "Billy and Justin are gonna have to do the real work ..."

"Yes, but it was you who sent them into the -hopefully! - right direction," Aisha said loyally, giving her childhood buddy an equally fierce hug. "Good job!"

The others echoed the sentiment, making Rocky squirm in a mixture of pleased embarrassment and subdued pride as he basked in his friends' unabashed praise, until Trini quieted the group with one of her gentle smiles.

"Maybe we should be a bit more quiet, guys?" she suggested softly but firmly. "While I agree that Rocky did great, perhaps we should keep it down a bit so we don't distract Billy and Justin?"

"Sure thing, Trini," Kimberly agreed. "Come on, guys, let's take this outside."

Tommy looked mutinous for a second, glancing longingly at the two heads bent over their respective computer consoles, but the girls were right; and he remembered the promise he'd made to Billy earlier.

"Yeah," he sighed. "Let's go." Dragging his heels somewhat despite himself, he led the group to the rocky ledge overlooking the desert below the Power Chamber. They settled in the shade of a large boulder and started speculating on this new, unexpected development. Although nobody dared mention it out loud, they were all asking themselves the same question - if Billy's theory was correct and time did /pass at different speeds now and in the past, how long /had Jason and Kat been trapped all alone, cut off from anybody and anything?

It took about two hours until the unspoken question was answered. Billy came out of the hidden doorway and joined his friends, a computer printout in his hand. He was greeted with curious looks as he sank wearily to the ground next to Trini. Predictably, it was Tommy who broke the expectant silence.

"Well?" His tenor voice nearly broke on the single, breathless word.

Billy sighed, the elation he'd felt earlier slowly draining from him as his adrenaline levels began to subside now that he had answers to give to Tommy and their friends. He devoutly wished they would like those answers, but unfortunately, that wasn't very likely.

"I have both good news and bad news," the young genius finally started.

"What? Spill it, man!" Tommy demanded anxiously, the worried look creeping back into his chocolate eyes. If he hadn't been sitting down, Billy was sure Tommy would be literally dancing with nerves. He certainly was fidgety enough even now. "Was Rocky wrong after all?"

"No ... no, he wasn't," Billy reassured him. "It was exactly the right approach; how Justin and I both managed to overlook something like that is completely beyond me." He shook his head.

"Billy, no offense, but can't you just cut to the chase?" Kimberly interrupted him, then shared a reminiscent smile with Trini and Zack. She'd said the same words to him when Billy had discovered Zordon working on creating a new, the White Ranger all those years ago. For an instant, Billy looked puzzled, then connected the memory and smiled as well. As then, he drew a deep breath and just said what he had to.

"We found them."

There was a moment of stunned silence, then the group broke into a collective cheer that echoed off the rocks.

"Well done, Billy!"

"And Justin!"

"I always knew you could do it!"

"Hooray!"

"Rocky, you are a genius!"

"Way to go, main brain!"

"We're so proud of you!"

The blond blushed with pleasure at his friends' effusive cheers, but there was more he had to tell them, and he held up a cautioning hand, asking for silence with the gesture. It was faintly gratifying to see how quickly the others complied, holding their breaths in anticipation.

"That's the good news, I'm afraid."

"What? I thought you said you found them!" Tommy's voice shifted from relief to renewed frenzy in a heartbeat.

"We have. We now know for certain that Jason and Kat were transported back 317 years, to the year 1679."

"Wow. That's pretty far back," Aisha murmured, aghast.

"Indeed, but I would postulate this is good; as this area of California wasn't colonized until the mid-seventeenth century, there is very little chance they had either a run-in with early Spanish explorers or risked contaminating history," Billy explained.

"It also means, though, that they're truly on their own, without any kind of help, for however long they've been marooned in the past," Trini mused.

"Yeah - how big is the difference, anyway?" Adam wanted to know.

"I have a feeling that's gonna be the bad news," Zack muttered to Rocky, who nodded grimly. Billy's unhappy expression spoke volumes.

"Billy? How much longer than four days are we talking about?" Kimberly's doe eyes went from her squirming childhood friend to a clearly impatient Tommy, who fixed his former teammate with a demanding stare.

"Come on, Billy, spill it already; surely it can't be that bad?"

Reluctantly, Billy cleared his throat. "I think that depends entirely on how you define 'bad'," he murmured. "From the readings Justin and I took ... the divergence is much larger than we thought ..."

At the end of his tether, Tommy took a step forward, looming over the shorter blond - his demeanor almost, but not quite threatening. He never seemed to see the alarmed looks on his friends' faces, nor feel the restraining hand Kimberly placed on his arm. He certainly never heard her soft entreaty of "Tommy, don't!"

"How. Much," Tommy ground out from between clenched teeth.

To his credit, Billy stood his ground and didn't cower back; he knew only too well that only his extreme emotional stress made Tommy so out of control. Still, it didn't make the news he had to impart any easier.

"Please, Billy, just say it," Tanya requested. "Hemming and hawing isn't going to make it better, is it?"

"No, of course not," the young scientist sighed. He swallowed once, hard, wishing he was back on Aquitar for an instant, then squared his shoulders and looked directly at Tommy.

"I'm not going to plague you with decimals," he prevaricated just a moment longer, then bit the proverbial bullet. "As far as we've been able to determine, the time difference is 1 to approximately 210."

"Meaning what, exactly?" Rocky was clearly too impatient to do any kind of math.

Billy sighed again. "Justin and I believe that for every day that passed here, in the present, Jason and Katherine had to live through ... um ... seven months in the past," he said softly. And found himself unable to meet anyone's eyes after all.

"Oh boy," Adam gulped inadequately when he finally found his voice again. "That ... that's /long/." The slender Asian felt like kicking himself for saying something so obvious and lame, but it was all he could think of right now. The rest of the former Rangers didn't fare much better; in fact, none of them had yet been able to utter more than inarticulate sounds of surprise and shock.

Tommy had gone sheet-white.

"That's over two /years/," he breathed, horrified.

"I'm afraid so," Billy admitted. He knew it wasn't in any way responsible, and yet he felt the need to apologize. "I'm truly sorry, Tommy."

"It's not your fault, Billy," Kim murmured, wanting to hug Tommy who was staring blankly out over the desert, lost once more in his private hell. But she knew from experience that she had to wait for him to be aware of his surroundings again before she could even start trying to comfort him. As he was now, anything she could say would sail right past him.

"Man. Do you think they even made it that long?" Rocky asked Trini under his breath. The willowy girl shrugged helplessly.

"We can only hope," she murmured back. "Jason is resourceful and strong; he won't have given up hope, no matter how long it takes ... took ... er ..."

"Never mind the tenses," Zack said rather grimly. "The real question Rocky was too tactful to ask is - can they still be alive after such a long time?"

"That's a first for Rocky - being called a genius and tactful in one day," Aisha joked weakly. Nobody cracked so much as a hint of a smile; not even Rocky himself reacted to the jibe. She grimaced. "Anyway, we can't afford to think that way, can we?"

"Most definitely not," Tanya declared. Now that the first shock was wearing off, her mind turned to practical matters once more. "I mean, Jason and Kat trust us to get them back home; now that we've finally found them, we have to get through with rescuing them. We can't just stop here!" Her flashing dark eyes challenged everyone to contradict her.

"Indeed not," Billy immediately supported her.

"What if they didn't make it, though?" Zack insisted. He flushed under the angry glares he received. "Look, guys, I'm not trying to be negative here, just facing facts. I hate the thought as much as any one of you, but - what if they are dead? Or only one of them survived two years in the wilderness?"

Tommy swayed, losing even more color even though his friends would have thought it impossible. Secretly grateful for Kimberly's arm around his waist, he forced himself to think as the leader once more..

"Even in a worst-case scenario, we still have to try to get them back," he declared. "Even if we only find bodies. We owe it to them ... and their families." His voice was rough and wobbly, but he didn't care.

To his relief, Billy nodded. "I agree," he said.

"So do we," Kimberly chimed in, speaking for the rest of them as she wiped away the tears that threatened to roll down her cheeks. She forced a smile. "So, how do we get them back?"

"By modifying Billy's old portalcoms," Justin piped up from behind the group. Nobody had even noticed that he'd come outside as well. "It shouldn't take more than a couple of hours or three to calibrate them here in the Power Chamber."

"Are you nuts? Two to three hours may mean months for Jason and Kat," Tommy exploded. Justin flinched, but met the brown eyes steadily.

"Yes, I know," he replied, "but you do want them back safe and in one piece, don't you?"

Tommy's anger collapsed as quickly as it had flared. "Yeah. Sorry," he sighed, shoulders slumping. Justin grinned briefly.

"On what do you base your estimate, Justin?" Billy frowned. "I should think it would take us not much longer than ninety minutes to adjust the settings ..."

"Probably not, but I changed the location for their re-entry into the present from the park to the Power Chamber. That's what the extra hour is for."

"Why would you do that? Just get them back as fast as possible," Tommy demanded, resisting the urge to shake both Billy and Justin. How could they be so blasted calm when every minute counted for his best friend and girlfriend? Literally?

Justin gave his former leader a compassionate look. "Because I scanned the park, and your friend Jack Boswell and his buddies are still camped out there. I didn't think you'd want to have Jason and Kat land right in the middle of a pack of reporters, do you?"

Tommy wasn't the only one who shuddered at the mere thought. "No, of course not." He closed his eyes resignedly. "Do what you have to, then. Just ... make it fast, please?"

"We'll get on it right away, Tommy," Billy promised. "And I guarantee you that we'll be as precise and diligent as humanly possible."

"Thanks, man." Tommy turned away again, his emotions threatening to overwhelm him. He didn't know if he could survive another three hours of this rollercoaster ride between hope and despair, but he would because he had to. For Kat and Jason, I can do it!

"Is there anything we can do to help, Billy?" Trini asked softly. She, too, felt torn.

To her surprise, he smiled slightly. "As a matter of fact, there is." His greenish eyes warmed as he saw his friends surging forward eagerly - a clear indication of how much the last few days of forced inactivity had grated on their minds as well.

"Just tell us what, where and how," Zack spoke for all of them. "We'll do it."

"Very well. Rocky and Adam, if I could engage you to search the Power Chamber storage rooms for the portalcoms we employed to bring back Kim from Zedd's Dark Dimension? And Trini, if you would be so kind as to alert Ashley and Carlos; I'd like you, Tommy and them to assist with the actual modifications - I know all four of you are quite handy with a wrench or screwdriver."

"Sure thing, man." Even Tommy brightened considerably at the thought that finally he'd be able to do something - even if it just involved tinkering with nuts and bolts under someone else's direction.

"What about us, Billy? We'd like to help, too," Kimberly ventured, gesturing at herself, Tanya, Aisha and Zack.

Billy exchanged a perplexed glance with Justin; really, they already had more than enough helpers. The preteen chewed briefly on his lower lip, then met Kim's hopeful gaze. "Why don't you guys ask TJ and Cassie to morph and go inform the families? Shouldn't they be prepared that we're gonna teleport Jason and Kat right into their back yards once they're home? I mean, that way nobody will faint, or something ..."

"Sound thinking, Justin," Billy nodded approvingly.

The girls and Zack exchanged a look. "That's gonna be so fun. Not," Kimberly sighed, clearly reluctant.

"Somebody has to do it," Zack said, equally unhappy.

"But why us?" Aisha muttered, then answered herself. "Because we're the only ones left over."

"Yes. And since it needs to be done, and it's something we can do while the others work on the portal-things, let's do it," Tanya said bracingly. She earned a disgusted look from Aisha for her effort.

"Do you have to be so damned practical?"

"Yes."

"I could so hate you."

"Love ya too, hon," Tanya grinned suddenly. The prospect of being able to do anything at last was clearly lifting not only her own spirits, to judge by the brightening expressions on the others' faces. "Let's do it, guys!"

"You heard the lady."

Within less than a minute, the plateau outside the Power Chamber was clear of people again as the past and present Rangers hurried to fulfil their assigned tasks.





To Be Continued ...