Impact of Power: Jason (Forever Red)

Author's Note: This is part of a series of vignettes focused on former power rangers and how they find what they accomplished under the helmet had bigger impacts than just saving the world. A community is set up where all the series will be archived, as well as JTrevizo's website.

Betaed by: Some combination of Shawn30, JTrevizo and Pink_Green_White_4ever.

Disclaimer: Do not own. Wish I did.

Summary: Jason has been Red and Jason has been Gold. And now he's back in action if only for one mission. But it isn't his only mission.

Jason laughed to himself as he walked away from the red ranger mission. It has been a long time since he donned a ranger suit and even longer since he wore red. In truth, although he had no regrets about giving it up for Geneva and the Peace Conference, having a chance to be Morphin Red again felt like coming home.

And thinking of home and his last time as a ranger turned his smile bittersweet as memories hit him hard.

When he left Geneva, he left behind a possibility.

When he left Angel Grove again, he found that possibility and so much more. But fate had other ideas and the woman he loved for as long as he'd understood the meaning of love was taken from him in the most mundane possible way. For a long time, he wondered if things would have been different if they never left Angel Grove in the first place or maybe if he didn't leave Geneva, or maybe if he never came back and disrupted her life.

After... he had dived head first into his studies, eschewing sleep, food, friends... life... Zack had nearly gone spare trying to remind him that Trini wouldn't have wanted that for him but it was no use. The empty hole that was Jason's heart couldn't help wondering what the use was of being rangers, of saving the world, if the world took away what meant most, in such a tragically stupid way.

It wasn't until Zack called reinforcements and Jason found Kim and Tommy, his little sister and his bro, awkwardly not touching at his doorstep, that he began to remember who he was. It was when Kim screamed at him for five minutes before Tommy shushed her not to wake up Hope that Jason began to surface from the stupor he had been in. It was when Tommy cradled Hope awkwardly in his arms, humming off key, as Kim stormed around the tiny studio apartment, picking up, cleaning up, starting a pot of soup, that Jason found the strength to smile.

Kim and Tommy stayed for a month, crammed into his tiny studio in Cambridge, as Jason re-learned how to live. Kim told Hope bedtime stories about her mother, giggling as she blew raspberries on the baby's tender tummy and his baby yanked on her long caramel tresses. Tommy fumbled alongside Jason with diaper duty as Zack, bolstered by Kim, refused to help anymore, and Jason had to figure out diaper brands, creams, and how to keep Hope from kicking him in the face while he changed her. They locked up his textbooks sometimes, no matter how he protested that he needed to graduate in the accelerated program, and stayed out of the way as he sat in the bean bag chair, holding Hope against his chest and seeing Trini in her unblinking brown eyes and long dark lashes.

He still reached for Trini when he woke up to Hope's crying, mumbled, "Babe, she's your kid too, you take her," and felt the sharp pain behind his eyelids when consciousness returned and he knew there'd be no answer.

Deep down, he knew he'd never stop reaching for her.

But by the time the interfering duo went back to their respective homes, he could handle those moments of silence when Trini's voice sounded inside his head. "I love you, too," he'd answer and then he'd continue with his day.

It had been about two years since then and he'd come to terms that Zack was right to meddle, even if he stuffed him into a giant snowdrift in vengeance anyway, because he managed to graduate as part of the accelerated program. And Hope was a toddler now, all awkward limbs and laughing brown eyes.

And Jason was living, working for the State Department and making a difference like he promised himself long, long ago when he first came to Geneva; when he found out that Power Rangers mattered not just in Angel Grove, but mattered because they fought, fought with every day, fought even when they couldn't, even when it took everything they had and more.

And that was why he agreed to join the red ranger mission even as a single dad with a toddler at home. Because there was a threat and he could fight, could don an old armor and call on an old power and he could protect the same old world that contained his still brand new child with Trini's ageless eyes. Because he'd never forgive himself if he didn't. Trini would never forgive him. And at the very bottom line, where the ledger tallied up everything he has been and done, letting down Trini just wasn't in the cards. Neither was letting Zedd win, even by proxy.

So he dropped off Hope with Aisha, who crowed about getting the coveted babysitting position over video chat to Kat who was in London on tour and to Billy who was off-world, called up Adam to keep him on stand-by just in case and hopped on his rarely used but well loved bike. It was just like old times, but not. And it was too bad Rocky couldn't make it, both because it would have been great to have another old friend by his side and because the littlest DeSantos sister, Angelica, was in the hospital with pneumonia and Jason knew just how much that could knock a man off his stride, having experienced both sick siblings and a sick kid.

So Jason promised Rocky he'd kick double the villain ass and torment the newbies for him, which he thought he delivered on handsomely, even getting one in on Tommy, because his bro really needed some loosening up. Not to mention salving that still broken heart - because, while his own heart was shattered, whispering Trini with each beat, that didn't mean he was totally dumb and blind. And he just wanted everyone to be happy in the way that he used to be, waking up every morning with the sense that the sun was shining just for him and that he could do just about anything at all when Trini smiled, her lashes sweeping down to cast shadows on her cheeks.

He figured they all deserved that. They fought for the world, they saved it, a lot. And many of them retired. Eventually many more would - even that kid, the one with the nervously excited smile and sweaty hands. And there needed to be some kind of pot at the end of the rainbow. Maybe not gold, maybe just a pot of stew, like Zack's mom used to make sometimes when they stayed over Zack's for dinner, thick and beefy, full of vegetables, that they would slurp down with a hunk of bread.

Gods he was getting maudlin.

But he was considered an adult by American standards only by a few years when, really, he had already lived a life more full than most people ever did. A life where he was blessed with friends who would literally and have literally risked their lives for him. A life where an amazing, brilliant woman who he wasn't sure he deserved passed through with meteoric brightness that chased the shadows from his heart and forever changed him. A life where that woman left behind a precious gift with her eyes and smile that he certainly did not deserve. But he would do his best to be deserving of all of it.

And that's why Serpentera had to be buried. And it was.

Now Jason was going to go have a beer with Tommy, talk about the old days and mock the shit out of his bro, like they did as often as they could, sometimes just the two of them, and sometimes with as many of the old gang as could make it. If Tommy decided to unburden himself about anything, that was okay too. Cause that's what friends did.

When they were done, he would go relieve Aisha, settle his baby in her bed and watch her sleep, her small body sprawled across the mattress as if she could encompass the whole bed, the whole world even.

And for him - she did.