A Reds Dilemma

by Airforce1990

Secrets have a way to be destructive, to have someone lose themselve to those secrets. But it is family that sticks together. Jayden thought his secrets was going to destroy his ranger family, but it was this family that saved him instead.

A Red's Dilemma – Power Rangers Samurai

For over a year, I have kept more secrets than I can count from the other rangers. I have struggled with those secrets, the decision not to tell since I met them. A first they were my teammates, then they became my friends, now they are my family, my brothers and sisters, and if I tell them the truth, I'm afraid that they'll stop being my friends. I don't want to lose them, but I also know that once the truth is revealed I will have to leave the Shiba House, my home, because I'm not the true red ranger and only the rangers live in that house. And, because I'm not the true red ranger, not the true 17th head of the Shiba clan, I don't belong in that house. I know that I don't belong in that house, that I don't deserve to be there, deserve to be the red ranger, not when I've bee keeping this secret from them. But I have been with this team, my friends, for over a year, fighting by their side, trying to protect them, but I'm just protecting myself. Protecting myself from getting hurt, from being rejected, from not being wanted. When I lost both my father and sister, I was only a kid, I didn't know what I should be feeling and by the time I realized what it meant, I wasn't sure how I was supposed to mourn them. But with it getting closer to the end, it is only a matter of time. But the thing with secrets is that they will eventually come out and ruin everything and when that day comes, I will lose my family. I will lose the most important people in my life, just as I had lost my family all those years ago. This is what I am most afraid of when my secrets are revealed. That I will lose everything, everyone that I care about.

Some Months Later:
My teammates found out about my secrets. They found out that I have an older sister, that she is the true head of the Shiba clan and that she was the one with the sealing power. Mentor told the other rangers of that night, the choices that my father had to make as the battle waged all around them. The choices that changed the lives of two small children and a monster whose sole intent was to destroy lives. When the other rangers found out the truth, the day when my sister came back into my life, I made the choice that I knew I had to make, the choice to leave on my own. That day when I was walking down that pathway, my heart was breaking into pieces because my team was letting me go, that they weren't fighting for me to stay. But I soon found out after my battle with Dekker, sitting in the forest as the flames had died out, is that I hadn't lost them, that I was still their brother, that they were my family. I learned within myself, while I was wallowing in self-pity, that it was me that had left them, that in the last few weeks, I was already distancing themselves from me, that I was the one who pushed them away, I was the one that was scared of the inevitable.
But as I stand here, waving goodbye to my family, I know that they will be back in a few weeks. That just because we had defeated Xandred, that we weren't family anymore. Just that we spent the last year together that we need to take time for ourselves, to visit family and friends, or in Antonio's case, to go on a cruise, or in Lauren's case, to travel the world, but I know that we all will be back, because we are a family.