Impact of Power - Adam [Black and Green]

By: ScarletDeva

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

Rating: K (maybe K+)…

Spoiler: MMPR to Turbo

Disclaimer: Power Rangers belonged to Saban, then to Disney, and now are owned by Saban again. I'm so confused…

Summary: Adam is the quiet one. He's always there. Always lending a hand. And it's been years since he hasn't been a Ranger. Since he took over from Zack. Now he's a Ranger, and he isn't a high school student. So it might be a long, hard road to find who he is instead.

This is another in 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. Keep your eye out for additional stories, which have been and will be posted under the Impact of Power title by other authors such as Pink_Green_White_4ever and Shawn30. A community is also now set up where all the series will be archived, as well as JTrevizo's website.

Adam raised the window cover and looked through the glass, the endless grey-blue of the sky merging far in the distance with the endless deeper blue of the water below. He exhaled, tired from the hours spent half-dozing over the continental United States, body contorted into a too small airplane economy seat with not enough leg room. Just a few hours more until he landed in Marrakesh and dusted off not just the ick of the twenty hours long international flight but... everything.

He absently brushed off his grey tee and blue jeans and switched the song on his discman, the intro to "Wherever I May Roam" thundering inside his right ear. It was no mistake that he wore none of his old colors - no black, no green. He had been a ranger for most of high school. Saving the world was what defined his burgeoning transition to adulthood. Saving the world and watching his friends walk away.

First it was Kimberly, who, outside of his childhood friends, had been the easiest person to talk to. He still faithfully called her on the first Friday of every month. The only Friday he didn't was the one after he accidentally broke up with Tommy for her, spoke out loud words that were written in a familiar hand but that read in an unfamiliar voice. That Saturday he got a call from Zack, from Geneva, and Zack, sounding strangely serious and falsely casual, reminded Adam of Kim's number. The first retired rangers were only casual friends to him by then, like distant relatives you love but see rarely and know very little about, regular batches of international emails only going so far to reveal those three people who walked away from saving the world to save the world a different way. But Adam thought he knew Zack well enough to understand what he was implying. So he bucked up, ended that call, dialed up Kim and never missed a first Friday of the month again. He emailed the guys in Switzerland more often too.

Then Aisha left. One day she was there, all brass and beaming grins and swinging braids, and the next, gone, replaced by another dark eyed, dark skinned girl as if they were interchangeable, as if everyone was interchangeable. There were no emails to Aisha, and no phone calls except on birthdays, but he wrote letters, typed them out on the computer because he knew she would make fun of his scribbly handwriting, and then printed them out so he could sign them in a pretty green gel pen that he knew she'd like. He saved all the letters she sent back, the envelopes bent and stained, the pages smelling like myrrh and rooibos.

Billy had to go. He was not well, he was dying. And Adam couldn't help. With all of their amazing powers, all of the villains they beat, Billy had to go across the universe to save himself. He never returned. Adam got to email him and even talk to him through a secured connection, Billy's body having returned to that of a teenager, although his eyes were still old, still aged.

It was a little better when Billy left; Jason came back. And by this time, the retired rangers in Geneva were more than those relatives that you distantly love and see once a millenium. They were people he called sometimes when he couldn't think of what to do, people he emailed with random ranger trivia and funny Tommy stories. So having Jason around was a little like having Kim and Billy around again. A little. But that didn't last. And the powers tried to kill Jason too. Adam wondered if they weren't trying to kill them, were killing all of them. He had wondered if he shouldn't have walked away himself a long time ago. But he couldn't.

He had friends on the battlefield. He had a battle to fight. And there was a dark skinned, dark eyed girl who had neither brass in her spirit nor beaming light in her grins but a softness in her face that drew him in. And sometimes, when Zack told him about the music that he lived to, Adam too could hear it.

So he hung on, hung on and leaned on Rocky while backing up Tommy, who had been leader for more than forever, watched Kat try to be who she thought the pink ranger was, and wondered when they were all going to burn out.

And then Rocky hurt himself. A stupid mundane accident that still occasionally bothered Rocky's back and that tore him out of the shrinking cocoon that was Adam's ranger world. He still went over to Rocky's house for dinner every Tuesday and sparred lightly with him on Sundays. But he no longer called to the power with his best friend at his side.

And now he really couldn't walk away.

Because now it was just him, Tommy, two sweet sweet girls and a child. The world needed him. Tommy needed him, whether he knew it or not. And Adam knew he had to finish what he started or die trying.

He was grateful he hadn't had to die trying.

He was grateful he was allowed to hand over the power to a set of bright eyed, bushy tailed young people who had no idea what they were accepting. Grateful. And guilty.

Guilty. And free.

The power gave him people he loved. And it took them away.

And, now, he was getting them all back and he was never ever letting any one of them go. Starting with Aisha.

He dozed through the rest of the flight and fumbled through customs, his eyes wide and glazed as he hefted his carry-on and searched for the exit.

Even the airport was different, smelled different, sweet and hot, and about five minutes later he couldn't care less as he was dropping his carry-on and picking up Aisha instead, her brassy laughter ringing as her braids swung out and smacked his neck.

It was on. A week of exploring Morocco side by side with one of his oldest friends, staying in the cheapest hostels, washing their clothes in the sink and hanging them out to dry, eating local food, spicy, spicy, spicier, and drinking local coffee, rich and bitter, before they both returned to California.

Adam couldn't wait.

He hooked his arm into Aisha's and they stepped into the Jemaa el-Fnaa, the main market square. The drifting sounds of storytellers lulling their audience into a trance melded with the music accompanying chleuh dancing boys, the bells tinkling as the drums tattooed steadily. Adam nodded to the beat, inhaling the scent of oranges, cloves and myrrh and he smiled.

He had a week and then it was back to California, by way of Europe and then Florida. He had been quietly angry for so long. Angry at the power, angry at Zordon. Even angry at his team.

But standing with his feet on foreign soil, his ears inside that music that Zack always talked about, he remembered. This was the world he saved. And this was the world he loved.

And in this world, half a world away, there was a girl with dark skin, dark eyes and sweet sweet smile.