Team Building with Jack Landors (SPD, A Squad, #14, T)
characters: SPD’s A Squad (Jack, Kat)
prompt #14: save the day
word count: 1900
rating: T
summary: Kat's sister interrupts her conference with Jack.
Team Building with Jack Landors (save the day)
by *Andrea
“Hey, Kat.” Jack glanced casually around the lab as he strode in, making sure to cover all corners and the isolation room door. They were the only ones there. “Who’s Jonathan Drew?”
Kat looked up from the screen on her desk, giving him a speculative look that he knew only too well. It was a look that said of all the answers she had, this wasn’t one of them. “I was just about to ask you the same thing.”
He went for his pockets, found his vest instead, and absently hooked his thumbs into the loops. “Well, you wouldn’t be the first,” he said, frowning. “Can I see my file?”
“You could,” she said, gesturing at the screen in front of her as she sat back in her chair. “If it hadn’t been changed sometime between last night and today.”
“Changed?” Jack repeated. He accepted her unspoken invitation to peer over her shoulder, and he saw himself staring back from the screen. That was his picture--and a recent one, too, showing him in an A Squad uniform with the collar open far enough to display the new necklace Z had given him. His hand went to his throat automatically.
“Exactly,” Kat said. “That’s not your file photo. That’s been taken some time in the last two weeks and inserted over an archive background. Along with personal information that wasn’t there before.”
“Jonathan ‘Jack’ Drew,” Jack read aloud. “Glamour name, Jack Landors. What the hell is a glamour name?”
Kat folded her arms, still staring at the screen. “Some cadets come through looking for a fresh start. SPD lets you use whatever name you want while you’re here, as long as your legal name is on file with your badge number.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Jack said, frowning. “Since when is Jonathan Drew my legal name?”
“Apparently since sometime last night,” Kat told him. “You don’t have any idea who could have done this?”
“Someone who’s into practical jokes?” he suggested, leaning a little closer. “Date of birth... hey, I’m twenty now. That’s not gonna go well at the liquor store. And seriously, who’s gonna believe I’m Syd’s brother?”
“This from the man who claims Z Delgado as his sister?” Kat said wryly. “Anyone who’s seen you and Syd together would believe it.”
“If they didn’t know anything about us,” Jack retorted. “She’s my teammate, Kat. That makes her more than my best friend. Same as it makes all of them.”
“Yes, speaking of that.” Kat finally tore her eyes away from the screen, either convinced that she wouldn’t change the information on it just by staring or distracted by something more important. “Do you think you could stop giving Cruger marital advice? As a favor to me?”
Jack opened his mouth, but he couldn’t come up with something to say in time .
“It’s just that I’ve known him for a while now,” she continued, ignoring his shock. “And I’d like to think I’ve gained some insight into his psyche in that time. Maybe it’s more reliable than yours, maybe not. But when it comes to his feelings for me, I think at least those are more my business than yours.”
“I told him to treat you better!” he exclaimed, finding his voice. “That’s all!”
“If I don’t like the way someone is treating me,” she said, “I will tell them. I won’t hide behind a cadet who thinks an adult relationship means proposing to his boyfriend in the middle of the mess hall.”
Jack gaped at her. It wasn’t that he hadn’t expected that to get around... it was more that he couldn’t remember the last time Kat had lashed out at someone. Had he seen her lose her temper since the Terror? She’d been their rock for weeks, refraining from her usual attitude in the face of--
In the face of what?
“Sorry,” he said at last. Because she deserved that, at least. “I didn’t mean to get in the middle of it. He pissed me off and I yelled at him. Should’ve kept my mouth shut.”
“Yes, well.” She twisted, settling back into her chair again with her arms still crossed, looking remarkably sulky for an ancient cat-lady. “You’re not the only one. Thanks for...” She freed one hand and waved it in a disturbingly good impression of Z. “Being a friend.”
He could practically hear the “or whatever” on the end of that, and it was touching precisely because it was something he’d never expected to hear her say. Kat didn’t talk about friends except in the abstract. He’d never once heard her mention family. And as much as she seemed to like them sometimes, she certainly didn’t seek out their company.
“Back at you,” he said, punching her shoulder lightly. Because that was how he knew how to be a friend. “Sometimes we get in each other’s way, you know? You just gotta let me know.”
She didn’t look at him. “I did try to tell him myself,” she told the screen. “He didn’t listen.”
“That’s a shock,” Jack said. “He’s gonna do whatever he’s gonna do, Kat. We’ve just gotta be there to pick up the pieces those times when it goes wrong.”
She looked up, then, and he knew it was an illusion but she looked as young as ever and just for a moment, he could see a little sister in that gaze. He had to grin at her searching look. “Out on the streets,” he teased, “that’s what we call being a friend.”
“Thanks for the lesson,” she replied, the playful tone replacing her momentary uncertainty and she was once again the Kat he knew. “Now tell me what you know about this Jonathan Drew thing. You said you’d heard it before--from who?”
Jack winced. “Can’t tell you,” he said apologetically. “Pretty sure they didn’t do it, though. You said it had to have been in the last 24 hours?”
“That was the last time your file was accessed.” She didn’t look happy about his reluctance to share, but she was letting it slide for now. “There’s a shadow program in place to temporarily back up outgoing databursts, and it recorded the old version of your file being transmitted at 1932 last night. The new one went to Galaxy Command this afternoon just after 1600.”
He glanced at her. “And you just happen to have a shadow shadow program in place, scanning for--?”
“Discrepancies?” she finished. “Something like that. It’s not something anyone else should know about. But whoever changed your file was good enough to avoid every other flag we have, so I’m not counting on it.”
A scratchy sound came from the direction of her screen, and it took him half a second to place it as her incoming comm alert. “Go for Kat,” she said, without moving.
Jack straightened up even as security appeared on the screen. “Visitor,” she told Kat briefly. “Commander Collins was admitted as your guest three minutes ago.”
“Thank you,” Kat said, but the surprise was audible in her tone.
The officer just nodded and the link cut off.
“Is that Commander Collins as in, the person responsible for bringing SPD to Earth?” Jack wanted to know.
“It’s Commander Collins as in Jaycee,” Kat said, frowning across the room. “My sister.”
Jack blinked. “Wow,” he blurted out. Friends and family in the same conversation. “Didn’t even know you had a sister.”
“I could say the same of you,” she said archly.
“Ha ha,” he replied. “Z is the only sister I know. And Z is the only sister I have.”
“Does that apply to your parents, too?” she asked, giving him that same speculative look she’d worn when he came in.
“Don’t have any parents,” he told her.
She looked back at her desk, shifting things out of the way and clearing the screen so that it displayed only the SPD logo. “I guess that answers my question.”
“Knock knock,” a voice from the hallway called.
A moment later, Commander Jaycee Collins had blown into the room. It was sort of like watching Cruger on caffeine, Jack decided, if the old dog would respond to coffee like any normal human. He definitely had seen Commander Collins before, at a distance--once he caught sight of her in person there was no mistaking that stride and determined air.
“Kat,” she said, nodding to what was apparently... her sister? “Cadet,” she added, glancing at Jack and giving him an assessing look that didn’t dismiss him quite the same way her words did. “You’ll have to excuse us. I need to talk to Dr. Manx alone.”
“There seems to be a lot of that going around today,” Jack drawled. He couldn’t help it. Something about her absolute authority made him want to do the exact opposite of whatever she said.
Collins raised her eyebrows at Kat, who held up a hand. “I know, I know. He’s the Red Ranger. And Cruger’s away, so if you need something authorized, it’ll have to be through him.”
Collins frowned, but she came forward and offered her hand to Jack. “Commander Jaycee Collins,” she told him. “I don’t think we’ve been officially introduced.”
“Jack Landors,” he said, keeping his tone slow and lazy. “SPD... Red.”
“Yes, I see that.” She eyed him, then jerked her head at Kat. “She’ll need a leave of absence, starting this evening.”
“Wait, what?” Kat was on her feet now, glaring at both of them. “Still in the room!”
Collins rolled her eyes. “Well, make up your mind!” she declared, and there was something affectionate about the way she complained that Jack hadn’t expected to hear. “Do you want me to talk to him or to you?”
“If it’s something I’m doing,” Kat retorted, “then I’d rather hear about it myself!”
“You’re leaving,” Collins told her. “Code nine. I want you at the Mexico base yesterday. Not--” She held up her hand in an eerie imitation of Kat’s early pre-emptive gesture. “Literally.”
Jack almost wrote that off, but no one kept up with Z without learning how to sort and process multiple trains of thought simultaneously. Kat worried about time travel. The reason Kat worked for SPD had something to do with time travel. Kat’s sister had just shown up without so much as a hello and told her to leave the country... and she had told her not to do it yesterday.
“I knew I should have asked you about that joke at lunchtime,” he muttered. He saw Kat turn wide eyes on him, and he silently noted that this was serious. She looked pale and tense and seconds from hissing. He kept going anyway.
“Look,” he told Collins, “she’s my Yellow Ranger. I’m gonna need more of a reason to send her to Mexico than ‘code nine,’ whatever that is. Cruger will have my head, for one thing, and I don’t know if you’ve noticed but we’re not exactly pulling light duty here in New Tech. The streets are a disaster after the whole--”
“I can get you help,” Collins interrupted. “More soldiers, civil service, even Rangers if you need them. But she’s going.” She shot an uninterpretable look at Kat as she added, “The only question is whether or not she comes back.”
prompt #14: save the day
word count: 1900
rating: T
summary: Kat's sister interrupts her conference with Jack.
Team Building with Jack Landors (save the day)
by *Andrea
“Hey, Kat.” Jack glanced casually around the lab as he strode in, making sure to cover all corners and the isolation room door. They were the only ones there. “Who’s Jonathan Drew?”
Kat looked up from the screen on her desk, giving him a speculative look that he knew only too well. It was a look that said of all the answers she had, this wasn’t one of them. “I was just about to ask you the same thing.”
He went for his pockets, found his vest instead, and absently hooked his thumbs into the loops. “Well, you wouldn’t be the first,” he said, frowning. “Can I see my file?”
“You could,” she said, gesturing at the screen in front of her as she sat back in her chair. “If it hadn’t been changed sometime between last night and today.”
“Changed?” Jack repeated. He accepted her unspoken invitation to peer over her shoulder, and he saw himself staring back from the screen. That was his picture--and a recent one, too, showing him in an A Squad uniform with the collar open far enough to display the new necklace Z had given him. His hand went to his throat automatically.
“Exactly,” Kat said. “That’s not your file photo. That’s been taken some time in the last two weeks and inserted over an archive background. Along with personal information that wasn’t there before.”
“Jonathan ‘Jack’ Drew,” Jack read aloud. “Glamour name, Jack Landors. What the hell is a glamour name?”
Kat folded her arms, still staring at the screen. “Some cadets come through looking for a fresh start. SPD lets you use whatever name you want while you’re here, as long as your legal name is on file with your badge number.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Jack said, frowning. “Since when is Jonathan Drew my legal name?”
“Apparently since sometime last night,” Kat told him. “You don’t have any idea who could have done this?”
“Someone who’s into practical jokes?” he suggested, leaning a little closer. “Date of birth... hey, I’m twenty now. That’s not gonna go well at the liquor store. And seriously, who’s gonna believe I’m Syd’s brother?”
“This from the man who claims Z Delgado as his sister?” Kat said wryly. “Anyone who’s seen you and Syd together would believe it.”
“If they didn’t know anything about us,” Jack retorted. “She’s my teammate, Kat. That makes her more than my best friend. Same as it makes all of them.”
“Yes, speaking of that.” Kat finally tore her eyes away from the screen, either convinced that she wouldn’t change the information on it just by staring or distracted by something more important. “Do you think you could stop giving Cruger marital advice? As a favor to me?”
Jack opened his mouth, but he couldn’t come up with something to say in time .
“It’s just that I’ve known him for a while now,” she continued, ignoring his shock. “And I’d like to think I’ve gained some insight into his psyche in that time. Maybe it’s more reliable than yours, maybe not. But when it comes to his feelings for me, I think at least those are more my business than yours.”
“I told him to treat you better!” he exclaimed, finding his voice. “That’s all!”
“If I don’t like the way someone is treating me,” she said, “I will tell them. I won’t hide behind a cadet who thinks an adult relationship means proposing to his boyfriend in the middle of the mess hall.”
Jack gaped at her. It wasn’t that he hadn’t expected that to get around... it was more that he couldn’t remember the last time Kat had lashed out at someone. Had he seen her lose her temper since the Terror? She’d been their rock for weeks, refraining from her usual attitude in the face of--
In the face of what?
“Sorry,” he said at last. Because she deserved that, at least. “I didn’t mean to get in the middle of it. He pissed me off and I yelled at him. Should’ve kept my mouth shut.”
“Yes, well.” She twisted, settling back into her chair again with her arms still crossed, looking remarkably sulky for an ancient cat-lady. “You’re not the only one. Thanks for...” She freed one hand and waved it in a disturbingly good impression of Z. “Being a friend.”
He could practically hear the “or whatever” on the end of that, and it was touching precisely because it was something he’d never expected to hear her say. Kat didn’t talk about friends except in the abstract. He’d never once heard her mention family. And as much as she seemed to like them sometimes, she certainly didn’t seek out their company.
“Back at you,” he said, punching her shoulder lightly. Because that was how he knew how to be a friend. “Sometimes we get in each other’s way, you know? You just gotta let me know.”
She didn’t look at him. “I did try to tell him myself,” she told the screen. “He didn’t listen.”
“That’s a shock,” Jack said. “He’s gonna do whatever he’s gonna do, Kat. We’ve just gotta be there to pick up the pieces those times when it goes wrong.”
She looked up, then, and he knew it was an illusion but she looked as young as ever and just for a moment, he could see a little sister in that gaze. He had to grin at her searching look. “Out on the streets,” he teased, “that’s what we call being a friend.”
“Thanks for the lesson,” she replied, the playful tone replacing her momentary uncertainty and she was once again the Kat he knew. “Now tell me what you know about this Jonathan Drew thing. You said you’d heard it before--from who?”
Jack winced. “Can’t tell you,” he said apologetically. “Pretty sure they didn’t do it, though. You said it had to have been in the last 24 hours?”
“That was the last time your file was accessed.” She didn’t look happy about his reluctance to share, but she was letting it slide for now. “There’s a shadow program in place to temporarily back up outgoing databursts, and it recorded the old version of your file being transmitted at 1932 last night. The new one went to Galaxy Command this afternoon just after 1600.”
He glanced at her. “And you just happen to have a shadow shadow program in place, scanning for--?”
“Discrepancies?” she finished. “Something like that. It’s not something anyone else should know about. But whoever changed your file was good enough to avoid every other flag we have, so I’m not counting on it.”
A scratchy sound came from the direction of her screen, and it took him half a second to place it as her incoming comm alert. “Go for Kat,” she said, without moving.
Jack straightened up even as security appeared on the screen. “Visitor,” she told Kat briefly. “Commander Collins was admitted as your guest three minutes ago.”
“Thank you,” Kat said, but the surprise was audible in her tone.
The officer just nodded and the link cut off.
“Is that Commander Collins as in, the person responsible for bringing SPD to Earth?” Jack wanted to know.
“It’s Commander Collins as in Jaycee,” Kat said, frowning across the room. “My sister.”
Jack blinked. “Wow,” he blurted out. Friends and family in the same conversation. “Didn’t even know you had a sister.”
“I could say the same of you,” she said archly.
“Ha ha,” he replied. “Z is the only sister I know. And Z is the only sister I have.”
“Does that apply to your parents, too?” she asked, giving him that same speculative look she’d worn when he came in.
“Don’t have any parents,” he told her.
She looked back at her desk, shifting things out of the way and clearing the screen so that it displayed only the SPD logo. “I guess that answers my question.”
“Knock knock,” a voice from the hallway called.
A moment later, Commander Jaycee Collins had blown into the room. It was sort of like watching Cruger on caffeine, Jack decided, if the old dog would respond to coffee like any normal human. He definitely had seen Commander Collins before, at a distance--once he caught sight of her in person there was no mistaking that stride and determined air.
“Kat,” she said, nodding to what was apparently... her sister? “Cadet,” she added, glancing at Jack and giving him an assessing look that didn’t dismiss him quite the same way her words did. “You’ll have to excuse us. I need to talk to Dr. Manx alone.”
“There seems to be a lot of that going around today,” Jack drawled. He couldn’t help it. Something about her absolute authority made him want to do the exact opposite of whatever she said.
Collins raised her eyebrows at Kat, who held up a hand. “I know, I know. He’s the Red Ranger. And Cruger’s away, so if you need something authorized, it’ll have to be through him.”
Collins frowned, but she came forward and offered her hand to Jack. “Commander Jaycee Collins,” she told him. “I don’t think we’ve been officially introduced.”
“Jack Landors,” he said, keeping his tone slow and lazy. “SPD... Red.”
“Yes, I see that.” She eyed him, then jerked her head at Kat. “She’ll need a leave of absence, starting this evening.”
“Wait, what?” Kat was on her feet now, glaring at both of them. “Still in the room!”
Collins rolled her eyes. “Well, make up your mind!” she declared, and there was something affectionate about the way she complained that Jack hadn’t expected to hear. “Do you want me to talk to him or to you?”
“If it’s something I’m doing,” Kat retorted, “then I’d rather hear about it myself!”
“You’re leaving,” Collins told her. “Code nine. I want you at the Mexico base yesterday. Not--” She held up her hand in an eerie imitation of Kat’s early pre-emptive gesture. “Literally.”
Jack almost wrote that off, but no one kept up with Z without learning how to sort and process multiple trains of thought simultaneously. Kat worried about time travel. The reason Kat worked for SPD had something to do with time travel. Kat’s sister had just shown up without so much as a hello and told her to leave the country... and she had told her not to do it yesterday.
“I knew I should have asked you about that joke at lunchtime,” he muttered. He saw Kat turn wide eyes on him, and he silently noted that this was serious. She looked pale and tense and seconds from hissing. He kept going anyway.
“Look,” he told Collins, “she’s my Yellow Ranger. I’m gonna need more of a reason to send her to Mexico than ‘code nine,’ whatever that is. Cruger will have my head, for one thing, and I don’t know if you’ve noticed but we’re not exactly pulling light duty here in New Tech. The streets are a disaster after the whole--”
“I can get you help,” Collins interrupted. “More soldiers, civil service, even Rangers if you need them. But she’s going.” She shot an uninterpretable look at Kat as she added, “The only question is whether or not she comes back.”