Forever Red –After The Mission

A/N: Hey guys, this little idea came to me while watching the red mission and the guys acting all macho around each other especially Jason with the exception of Cole, he was adorable in this one. ENJOY R&R PLZ!

Andros walked into the conference area where all the other reds were seated. "Okay guys we should be back on Earth soon." Everyone nodded, they were all eager to get home and just relax.

"I hope there was no trouble while I was gone," Cole commented.

"The team is fine," Wes reassured him, "They would've called if there was anything bad."

"And," added TJ, "Now you have this great story to tell them when you get back. I mean you took down one the most powerful zords of all time."

"Yeah it was pretty awesome," Cole grinned.

"You did good rookie," Jason leaned back in his chair like it was a throne.

"Your team will be proud of you man," Tommy leaned across the table to bump fists with the red wildforce ranger.

"Maybe Taylor will finally warm up to me," Cole joked while looking at Eric who shot him a glare. Wes coughed into his hand earning him a glare too.

"I'm sure the girls will be all over you after this one," Andros chuckled, "After you tell them how you tried to take on the generals and then drove your cycle straight into Serpentera's mouth while it was blasting at you making the whole thing explode."

"You were so brave Cole," Wes imitated a breathless voice and everyone cracked up. Cole surprised the other reds by scratching the back of his head with a sheepish expression.

"To be honest guys," said Cole with a pain expression, "I don't how much I'm actually going to tell them."

"Why not?" asked TJ.

"Well you see the thing is -" Cole started to explain but his growl phone went off. "Sorry guys, give me a second," he pulled it out and visibly blanched.

"Everything okay?" Jason cocked an eyebrow.

"Wha – what? Huh?" Cole looked around at them, "Yeah…everything's…hold on -" he took a deep breath and answered the phone, "Hey Alyssa." He sounded cheery but the men could see the tension written on his face.

"Oh, that's what you called for," Cole breathed heavily in relief, "you scared me for a minute. I thought… something was wrong back home." The other rangers exchanged looks of disbelief. "Yeah I should be home soon. What? Oh the mission went great, it was a success." They all nodded smugly at that. "Me? Nothing much, just fought a few robots." Everyone's jaws dropped and Cole gave them a look before saying, "Yep kept my promise, no stupid risks." There was a collective "OH" before the sniggering began. Cole ran his fingers through his hair, "Yeah nothing spectacular although I got to meet some veteran rangers, I fought beside the very first red. Yeah Wes and Eric are here – wait how did you know that?" The Wildforce ranger swivelled his chair to stare at the Quantum ranger, "Oh really? I had no idea Eric and Taylor still kept in touch."

"Neither did I for that matter and I'm his best friend. You've been seeing a real live girl for a change and you didn't tell me? I'm hurt Eric," Wes fake-whined causing Eric to punch his shoulder.

"Now you're really hurt," muttered Eric while Wes rotated his arm.

Meanwhile Cole kept talking to Alyssa, "I'm not sure what you want me to tell you, it was pretty straightforward."

"She's got him on something," Carter shook his head in sympathy.

"Well of course it was dangerous just like any other ranger job an- Huh? Where was it? Well believe or not Ally it was on the moon. Yeah crazy isn't it?" Cole smiled and took a sip of water only to gag on it. Spluttering and coughing, he wheezed, "Explosion? What explosion?"

"Yep," Leo bobbed his head slowly, "she's got him." Quiet laughs went around the room.

"Oh." Cole gulped. "You saw that did you? The thing is Ally, there was this super powerful zord that these evil robots were trying to use to take over earth, we tried stop them but one robot got away into the zord and started to fly it so we had to destroy it. How? Well uh…" Cole looked at his fellow rangers for help and they all held up their hands. Cole's shoulders sagged, "It was me. I flew my cycle into the zord." The rangers winced at the high pitched sounds now coming from the phone. Cole was left scrambling to explain, "No no no, not like that, the zord had a mouth piece that it was firing lasers from and I drove in straight through." The noises only got louder.

"You shouldn't have mentioned the laser part buddy," Wes grimaced.

"Female rangers," Tommy rubbed his face, "just about the scariest thing we deal with other than the villains we face."

"Are you kidding Tommy?" Jason crossed his arms, "They ARE the scariest thing we face period. That's why Kat doesn't know I'm here."

Tommy's eyebrows shot up, "You didn't tell her?"

"Not really, I told her that you called me for some help on ranger work and that you said it was important I go." Jason shrugged.

"Great so when she finds out, she'll blame me," Tommy rolled his eyes.

"That's the plan," Jason said proudly.

Tommy looked at the rest of them, "Did any of you tell your girls what was going on?" There whole room shook their heads. "You're all nuts!"

TJ called out, "Don't worry Tommy, how are they going to find out? We haven't even been gone for a day."

Tommy just pinched the bridge of his nose, "Thank god I don't have a woman in my life."

"Oh you'll find one," Jason chuckled, "How much you wanna bet she'll be ranger? Maybe a yellow, you know a little variety never hurt."

"Well there are no available yellows right now so she would have to be younger," Leo pointed out.

"And have an attitude," chipped in Andros, "speaking as man with a yellow himself, be prepared Tommy and be afraid."

Tommy laughed, "Yeah for a woman I haven't even met yet. Why not make her a famous pop star while you're at it?"

Jason looked like he was actually giving this some thought, "Pop star? No. But singing, yes. Maybe she could play a guitar…what?" he asked when Tommy glowered at him, "You always did like Kim's original songs."

"Fine," Tommy rolled his eyes again, sarcasm dripped from every word, "I'll let you know it if I ever come across a younger, guitar-playing, song-writing, singing yellow ranger with attitude."

This entire time Cole had been trying to save himself from Alyssa's wrath with no success, "It's not as bad as you think it is. I'm fine okay? Yes I know I promised but – yes I know that too – Alyssa just listen to me for a – wait what? Um o-oh-okay." Cole put the phone down the table, "She wants me to put on the speaker," he said to the room at large. Hesitantly he jabbed a button on the cell and braced himself, "Okay Alyssa you're on speaker."

"COLE EVANS!" For a petite and typically sweet girl she really had a set of lungs, "You are so dead when you get back! What part of no stupid risks or trying to act the hero did you not understand? And to the rest of you red idiots if you think you're safe think again!"

There was brief pause then – "ERIC MYERS!" All eyes swivelled to the Quantum Ranger.

Eric tried to maintain his neutral face but he twitched a little, "Taylor?"

"WHO ELSE? How dare you head off on some dangerous mission without so much as a phone call?"

Eric looked a little outraged, "Hang on I called you before I left the headquarters!"

"Yes and what did you tell me? Hmm? Wes and I got a message that said we needed to come to the NASADA air base and that's it!"

"Well that's all I knew," Eric shot back.

"So you mean to tell me you couldn't find two seconds to inform me that you were leaving EARTH!" Eric remained silent and seemed to shrink into himself. "That's what I thought. Alright who's next?"

"Wes," another voice hissed deadly.

"Jen," yelped Wes.

"Oh so you now remember me! Mind explaining how you forgot when you were taking off to do god knows what? "

"Now sweetheart -" Wes began but she cut him off.

"You didn't even call me! At least Taylor got a call before Eric left, I got nothing! I had to hear from it from her after so much time had passed with no word from him."

"I am really sorry Jen," Wes passed a hand over his face, "At first I didn't know what was going on, then when we got to the airbase it kind of spiralled out from there. It all happened so fast. Besides it's not like I'd have cell service on the moon."

"Wesley," Jen replied in clipped tones, "you see that thing strapped to your wrist? It's a morpher. In fact I was the one who gave it to you. I have one as well and when you press that button it opens a communication link so you can talk to me no matter how far away you are." She ground out that last bit and Wes's head hit the table.

"Right. Really really sorry Jen."

They could hear Jen go 'hmph' then say, "here."

"Mr. Grayson," a voice greeted with obvious faux pleasantness.

Carter didn't look remotely surprised. He rubbed his eye and responded, "Mrs. Grayson."

"So had some fun did we?"

"Now Dana," Carter tried to placate his wife in what he hoped was a non-condescending voice, "to be fair, I did talk to you last night about this."

"Yeah – see the thing about that is you told me Andros asked you to gather all the red rangers in the area so he could ask them and yourself for help on a secret mission that you knew nothing about but would find out more when you went. You also told me you would most likely go."

"Which you agreed to," Carter inserted.

"Not exactly. I said okay as long as you checked in, not called, not messaged - you could've just paged me for Pete's sake - if it was anything particularly dangerous or if it you took far away."

"I remember," Carter said much like child who was being reminded of rules.

"So…what? You didn't think going to moon to fight to a bunch of crazy evil robots bent on world domination was dangerous or far away?"

"I'm sorry Dana, you're absolutely right. I promise to make it up to you when I get home."

"You can do it from the couch," all the men winced.

"Thank god my girl is on Mirinoi right now," Leo stretched and propped his feet up the table.

A new voice issued from the phone, "You sure about that Leo?"

"KENDRIX!" Leo jumped and fell on to the ground. He scrambled back into his seat, "why aren't you on Mirinoi?"

"I could ask you the same thing," the pink galaxy ranger quipped. Before Leo could respond she exploded, "I wake up, you're gone, the quasar saber is gone, and all I see is a two-line note on the table about being called back to action. At least the others have the excuse of not knowing beforehand, you knew everything and you didn't see fit to inform your girlfriend."

"Kendrix ba-"

"Save it! Just wait and see what happens when I get my hands on you, you'll wish that one of the robots took you out – at least then you would've gone out with some dignity." Leo fidgeted in his seat. "You're turn -" she added to someone else on the other end of the line.

Andros seemed to realise what was coming for him but before he could do anything a voice screeched, "ANDROS!"

"Hey Ash," the space ranger let out nervous chuckle.

"Don't 'hey Ash' me and I don't see anything to laugh about. So all those extended missions, you were doing recon on the Machines weren't you?"

"Well…uh…yes." Tommy mouthed 'you didn't tell her about that either?!', Andros shook his head sheepishly.

"And who may I ask gave you this mission?" Tommy began to chant "I'm a dead man."

"Tommy did," Andros dodged the water bottle Tommy threw at him.

"Tommy? Really? I see." Her tone was light yet foreboding and Tommy amended the chant to 'I'm so a dead man.'

"I just didn't want to worry you Ash."

"So disappearing for almost a day with no word would not make me worry? Seriously? What were you thinking?"

"I love you," Andros shrugged at all the eye rolls.

"There's still a line-up so we'll finish this in person," Ashley replied sweetly. "Here."

"THEODORE JAY JARVIS JOHNSON!"

TJ rubbed his head, "Cassie I -"

"I what?! What can you possibly say right now?"

"I…love you? I'm sorry? I won't do it again? All of the above?"

"Nice try, nice try and oh sweetheart I know you won't do it again. You wanna know why? You left your Ferrari here at the airbase, keys in the ignition." There was a sound of jingling accenting her point.

TJ panicked, "Cassie let's not do anything hasty here!"

"HA! Look who's talking?"

"You walked into that one man," Wes chuckled.

"Well, I should go there is still some people waiting -"

"Cass…"

"I want to see how fast this thing can run."

"Cassie wait -"

"Have fun walking home."

"Cassie!"

"Sorry she's gone TJ," another person came on and Tommy's jaw dropped.

"Kim?! You're there too?"

"Of course I'm here idiot. You think just because I'm not your girlfriend anymore I won't kick your ass for pulling a stunt like this."

"You have your own red to worry about."

"Yeah but Rocky didn't go running off to the moon to fight cogs and Serpentera now did he? Nor did he organise a bunch of other reds to go with him without making sure their teams knew what was going on."

"I'm not the babysitter. It was their job to call. And for the record good sweet Rocky wanted to come but Jason called dibs on the original morpher and his ninjetti powers were destroyed."

"Whatever, I guess I'll never know if he would've called me or not. But you assembled them, you lead them, they are your responsibility. Relax T, you're not the one in the most trouble by a long shot"

"JASON!" a voice yelled.

"Kat?" Jason asked tentatively. Everyone sat back to watch the macho Mr. First Red Ranger get his.

"What the hell is wrong with you?! And don't you dare try to pin this on Tommy," 'oh thank you god,' Tommy muttered, "You just left without a word! I oughta take that same morpher and smash it over your head. You want to know how I found out? Kim called me and asked if I had heard from any of you. She said that all the other reds had gone missing and no one knew where they were. You had me worried sick Jason, I sincerely hope you enjoyed the limelight because when you get back there will be hell to pay. The doghouse is going to look like paradise when I'm done with you. GOOD-BYE!" The phone cut off.

Jason was silent for a long moment. Finally he said, "Andros I think those gauges are off."

"What?" The Red Space ranger looked at the control panel behind him, "What are you talking about? What gauges?"

"Those ones," he said gesturing vaguely, "I think we should stop and do a maintenance check. I know it will take a couple hours but I don't think we should risk it, especially in this ship."

"What? It's a brand new ship," Andros looked at him weirdly.

"Exactly my friend," Jason stood up and gripped his shoulder, "We wouldn't want to damage it. Besides, don't you think we've taken enough risks for today? The girls are already very very mad at us."

There was a joint "OHHHHHHH" and Andros coughed in his hand. "You know what Jase, I think you're right. I hope nobody minds if we take a pit stop for a while."

"NOPE!"

A/N: Love it? Hate it? Review!