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Jason didn’t expect for them to come over- he was in his bedroom with the door shut tight and loud music blaring from his headphones. His dad was out at the bar with a few mates from the dock, so he wasn’t expected to be home until much later, and Beverly was doing the regular weekend shopping, so he was home alone for most of the day.
He didn’t notice the heavy knocking on the door, and it was only when a rock was thrown so hard at his bedroom window that the glass shattered and sprayed shards all over his face that he sat up, ripped the earphones from his ears and looked outside. Below his window, in various states of impatient, were the rest of the Rangers, all looking up at him expectantly. “What the hell are you doing?” He called down to them. “You broke my window!”
“You weren’t answering the door!” Zack defended as if it was obvious, and with a groan, Jason shut what remained of the window and sprinted down the stairs until he reached the door. He flung it open, a little annoyed. “Oh, that's much better, thank you.”
“Don’t be so snarky,” Kimberly said as she pushed past him and into the house. She glanced around the room and Jason knew that if Beverly were home she would have been going crazy about guests seeing her house in the state it was in. He was supposed to have cleaned by now, but he didn’t have the time. He was about to ask why they were here, but as usual, Kim was a few steps ahead of him and answered his question before he had the chance to ask. “You didn’t come to school today. We were worried.”
Jason ran a hand down the back of his neck. “Uh, yeah. Babysitting’s a full-time deal. I’m in charge of watching my little sister for the day, and I couldn’t exactly bring her to school with me unless I wanted another detention. I thought that staying home was for the best.”
Zack’s face seemed to drain of blood. “Little sister... oh god, I didn’t hit her when I threw the rock, did I?”
“No, she’s fine,” Jason waved him off, turning away from them and opening the fridge. “She’s sleeping in the other room. She’s sick, so I’ve just been keeping an eye on her, but she’s been asleep for most of the day. But she’s fine.”
The information seemed to register with Billy a little later than others. “Wait, you’ve got a little sister?”
“Yeah, Pearl,” Jason answered, head still stuck in the fridge. “My dad’s a fisherman- I guess he wanted to go for a more thematic theme for his second child.” His head re-appeared around the fridge door for just a second while he glanced at his friends. “Does anyone want a drink? There’s beer or there’s water or there’s juice or...” he trailed off as he continued searching, grimacing at the rotten tomato that had made a mess at the bottom of the cooler but decided best not to mention it.
“I think we’re fine, thanks Jase,” Trini said while Jason was still shifting things around in the fridge and it looked like nobody else was going to make a move. “Uh... none of us have actually been to your house. It’s weird.”
“And smells like dead fish,” Billy commented as he squinted around the kitchen. Zack lightly elbowed him in the ribs and Billy jumped in surprise.
Jason laughed as he finally shut the fridge. “You get used to it after a while. When my parents come back we can crash this joint and go train or something. I don’t... really want to be here anymore. It sucks. Even without the ankle band working, it still feels like I’m under house arrest.”
That hadn’t really been the plan, but Jason sounded so hopeful and desperate that nobody really had the heart to refuse. “Yeah, that sounds great,” Kimberly smiled, and Jason’s shoulder’s dropped in relief.
From the other room someone whined out a loud, desperate, and drawn out, ‘Jason,’ followed by a series of heavy coughing. Jason blinked and glanced towards the sound. “Hold on, I’m going to check on Pearl. You guys are welcome to hang out here until I come back, or my rooms just around the corner and up the stairs. You’ll probably be able to find it.”
He left them alone in the kitchen while he went to check on his little sister, and they stood there, awkwardly, as they waited for him to come back. Billy disappeared to go look for Jason’s room.
The fridge was covered in a thick layer of photos and long letters depicting Jason’s sporting achievements, some of which looked deliberately ripped and carefully stuck back together with clear-drying glue and sticky tape. Beside those were blurry photos of the Power Rangers at different moments in time, and they were almost brand new as if Jason was much prouder of that than he was of his football days. There was an article calling Jason the ‘Golden Boy’ of football, and it was positioned proudly next to a black and white newspaper clipping of the Red Ranger.
All the walls were decorated with picture frames of Jason and his family- his little sister on her first day of school, Jason getting into the football team, Pearl at dancing lesions, Jason getting his first touchdown, Pearl in too-big gum-boots planting flowers in the garden, Jason holding up a large golden trophy... there seemed to be an obvious pattern.
On the kitchen bench was a pile of legal documents dated over the last year and a half describing crimes and pranks and dangerous stunts Jason had committed, and the most recent one was something about a good behaviour bond for never once failing to comply with curfew, and it was just thrown in the corner as if meant nothing. Kim went over to it and flipped it over in her fingers. “At least we know what Jason’s parents think his greatest achievement is.”
Trini was at the fridge, looking at the picture of their Megazord standing over a melted puddle of gold and the dilapidated remains of the Krispy Kreme. It was the second-largest picture on the fridge, second behind a fuzzy photo of Jason in football garb running down the court and pushing through men with a football under his arm. “Yeah, this is crazy. No wonder his dad was mad at him for never being able to play again. This guy is obsessed.”
“I didn’t think he was that good of a player,” Zack said from where he was crouched under the picture frames on the wall. “Did this kid even have a childhood? All I’m seeing are teenage football photos.”
Heavy footsteps echoed down the hall and Billy re-entered the kitchen holding the broken remains of a plastic golden trophy. “I have never seen so many trophies in the same place in my life, and to be honest, I’ve never seen so much mess either. When Jason comes back, we need to have like, an intervention or something. That boy is messy.”
“Did you break it?” Zack asked, frowning.
Billy looked offended. “No, of course, I didn’t break it. I found it like this, in his rubbish bin. I almost didn’t see it, really, because it buried under piles of stuff, but it was already broken. Jason must have done it.”
“Now I’m wondering if being a star football player was Jason’s dream,” Kim said quietly from where she was running her fingers lightly over the pictures and articles on the fridge. “Or his dads.”
The front door jingled for a moment and they all snapped their heads over to watch in surprise as Jason’s dad walked through the front door holding a bag of groceries, grumbling to himself as he wiped his boots on the mat. He paused when he caught sight of four teenagers in his kitchen, and he tensed. “Uh, we’re Jason’s friends,” Zack spoke first, raising his hand up slightly to wave. “He’s in the other room.”
Sam looked them over with a critical eye, each and every one of them, and he didn’t even look satisfied until Jason returned from the back room holding his sister in his arms while she giggled and played with a stuffed teddy bear over his shoulder. He paused when he saw his dad and placed Pearl on the floor. “Oh, dad, these are my friends that I’ve...”
He stopped at the look on his dad’s face. “Jason,” Sam said lowly. “I think we need to talk.”
Biting his lip, Jason glanced over at his friends. “Go wait in my room, ok? I’ll be done with this in a sec, and then we’ll go get lunch or something, alright?”
Diligently, the others made their way to Jason’s room and understood firsthand what Billy was talking about regarding the mess and the trophies. The wall above his bed was littered with posters and every available space was either filled with clothes or awards. Medals hung from the walls by a nail and the corner of his bed head. There was no system to where he had placed his trophies, almost as if he had dropped it somewhere one day and that was where it had stayed. “See what I mean?” Billy said as he gingerly picked his way around the things on the floor. Trini followed his example when she almost stepped on a large black plastic knee brace. “This is all just... too much. Who the hell has so much stuff?”
“You do,” Zack responded as he tossed a baseball back into the pile of clothes that he found it in. “You’re just neater than Jason.”
And then the yelling started, voices floating up the stairs and through the bedroom door like a sudden explosion. “What the hell is your problem? You told me you wanted me to make some better friends and stop getting into trouble, and now that I have, you’re still not happy?”
“You expect me to believe that you’re staying out of trouble?” Jason’s dad replied, just as heated and just as loud. “You come home every night covered in bruises and act like it’s no big deal, you’re clothes are always wet and stink of pond water, and you’re tired all the god damn time despite not playing any sport anymore, so what’s your excuse?”
“Excuse? Why the hell do I need an excuse?” Kim had opened the bedroom door a crack so they could hear them better. Zack was already starting to grab the essentials Jason always carried with him so he didn’t have to go back upstairs- phone, car keys, glowing red Power Coin. “I’ve finally got friends to hang out with who don’t want to watch the world burn and break shit just for the fun of it, and you don’t believe me? You just saw them! They’re waiting upstairs! What more do you want from me?”
“Fine, then explain to me how you manage to be out of the house at night and never have your ankle monitor set off? I know you’ve done something to it, Jason, there’s no way in hell that the police gave you a defective monitor.” There was the sound of paper rusting, almost as if Sam had grabbed one of the legal letters and was waving it in Jason’s face. “Don’t look at me like that. I’m not an idiot, and I know how to check the time. You’re supposed to be home by 7’o’clock and yet you never are, and I haven’t brought it up because I wanted to respect your privacy and didn’t want you to think that I was spying on you, but now I think you owe me an explanation. One of your new friends did it, didn’t they?”
Billy looked guilty around the room, but thankfully Jason didn’t comment on it. “What are you talking about? You know what, I don’t care. My friends are here, and they’re waiting for me, so I’m just gonna get going now before you embarrass me more than you already have.”
“You’ve already embarrassed us enough, there’s nothing I can do to tarnish your reputation any more,” Sam snapped. “You’re one of those Power Ranger’s aren’t you? You have to be because I swear to god when that red one pulled me from my truck the day that crazy gold woman attacked and destroyed half the city, I thought it might have been you, and it all matches up, Jason, the only thing missing is you actually admitting it!”
Kim was already down the stairs. “Right, that’s our cue, time to go.”
The others were running behind Kim as she bolted down the stairs and into the kitchen, just as Jason threw his arms up in the air and retorted, “I’ve got friends now, people who care about me, isn’t that enough? These people wouldn’t leave me for three days in jail covered in my own blood with a badly injured knee just because they thought I deserved it!”
They skidded to a halt across the kitchen tiles. Sam looked at them, his face red and guilty when he saw them, mouth hanging open slightly in surprise. Jason turned, and he looked like he was either about to cry or scream or break something or maybe all three at once, but he looked so angry that Kim was a little surprised- he had heard him talk about how angry he got, but never actually seen it. Around his waist, his little sister clung to him in her overalls and pink shirt and sparkly sneakers, her arms reaching around his torso as far as they could go, mumbling things into his skin.
Sam spoke first. “I... I uh...”
“Don’t mind us,” Zack said, patting Jason on the shoulder as he passed him and shoulder checking his dad on his way to the door because only Zack would be so stupid. “We were just leaving. All five of us.”
Trini left next after she had given Pearl a high-five that the girl accepted with only a little confusion and glared at Sam with so much ire that the larger man actually had to look away before she exited outside with Zach. Billy followed close behind, but when he passed Jason, he held out his hand. “Are you ready to go, man? It doesn’t look like you want to be here anymore, I mean, I can’t blame you because I’ve only been here for 10 minutes and I want to get the hell out of here, so we can just...”
“Billy,” Jason said softly, and Billy gulped, took a breath and continued much slower than before.
“Uh, right,” he said, still holding out his hand. “What I meant is... let’s go?”
Jason looked at Billy’s outstretched hand for a very long moment before he slowly reached out and took it. Billy squeezed it, smiled, and led Jason out the kitchen, past his dad, and out the front door to the lawn where the others were waiting.
Unsurprisingly, Kim was the last to leave, and she deliberately took her time walking to the front door. Sam refused to look at her and focused instead on the many photos and articles on the fridge. “We heard all of that, you know,” she said when she was right beside him, close enough to see him flinch, anyway. “He’s a good kid. The best we’ve got. Without him... well. Let’s just say our lives would have been worse off if we hadn’t met at detention. So I’m glad he did what he did because otherwise, we wouldn’t have become the team that we have. So maybe, just maybe, you stop treating him like a prized pig at a farmer’s market ribbon ceremony and start treating him like your god damn son.”
When she was half out the door, she paused, and called back to Sam over her shoulder, “And for the love of God, take down so many of his football photos. The kid feels guilty enough as it is- I doubt it feels great having your mistake rubbed in your face every time you look around. Maybe find some happy memories or other achievements to put on your walls. Just a thought.” she exited with, "Have a good day, Mr Scott. We'll look after your son for you."
She closed the door behind her, not trying to be careful in the slightest, and joined the rest of her team on the front lawn. There was an old bike lying against the wall in the corner, and a cracked little garden gnome hidden mostly in weeds. Jason was kicking at the ground, his hands in his pockets, his eyes down on his shoes. “He just wants what’s best for me,” he was saying when Kim approached. “He can be a dick about it sometimes, but he’s usually right.”
“He’s very... perceptive,” Billy said carefully. “I mean, not really regarding emotions and body language and all that, but he knew about your ankle thing when nobody else in town has and he made the connection between you being a Ranger and... I don’t know, he may be pretty shitty at seeing what’s in front of him, but he’s good at thinking about things until he stumbles across the right answer.”
“We were listening,” Trini said as an answer to Jason’s confused look. “Don’t worry, we get it. Parents never understand. I just... doesn’t he see that you’re happier now that you were playing football?”
Jason shrugged. “I guess he’s just disappointed that I’ll never be the star footballer that he knew I could be. I let him down. I let everyone down.”
“And he left you in jail for three days?” Zack scoffed as he handed Jason his phone, coin, wallet and useless car keys that he had collected from his bedroom before he left, forgetting that Jason didn’t actually have a car anymore and that he only kept the keys as a painful reminder. Jason took them anyway. “That’s harsh, man. I would have kicked his ass the second I walked through that door. Why didn’t he come and get you?”
“He wanted to punish me, to make me learn my lesson,” Jason said, voice low. “He got really mad when I didn’t rat out my friends for a lighter sentence. He made me plead guilty because I deserved everything that came with it- the ankle monitor, the Saturday detention, everyone staring at me when I walk through the town and thinking about how much of a screw up I am. You know. Anything to make me grow up. I guess it serves me right for embarrassing him.”
Kim moved forward and interrupted before anyone could ask any more questions and that sad look on Jason’s face got even sadder. “You know what, how about we forget all about him for a couple of hours? He’s home now, so he can look after your sister, so we can go have lunch. And then, we can go jump over mountains and fist-fight waterfalls and some shit, whatever the hell Power Rangers are supposed to do on their days off. Yeah?”
Jason laughed, and Kim was glad. Even the others, all looking at the back of Jason’s head from where they stood around him in a circle, looked relieved. Billy was beaming. “Yeah, actually, I’d really like that,” Jason agreed, letting the others tug him away from his house and his dad and towards the nearest restaurant that was still intact after Rita’s attack.
He protested the entire way, but even though he could have easily broken free from their grasp, he enjoyed the soft, gentle contact, and he welcomed it for as long as it would last. Which, with this group, he knew could be a very long time. But there was no way in hell he was going to refuse.
Maybe, despite everything that happened, it would be a good day after all?