Disclaimer: I own nothing, it all belongs to the folks at Disney
Author Notes: This is set roughly a year after the Mystic Force finale episodes 'Mystic Fate Parts 1 & 2' and centrally features Nick/Madison and some minor Chip/Clare. I'm always so nervous that I haven't got the characterisation right, especially Nick who was so tough to write, but the muse insisted this be written. All feedback is welcome. I hope you enjoy it.
Welcome to Briarwood.
It hadn't changed since the last time he'd seen it. Nick gazed silently at the sign as his bike's engine quietened to a throaty purr, then cast his eyes over the city below. It didn't look like it had changed either. It still looked ordinary and serene, filling the green valley with grey and silver and flashes of light as the sun caught the buildings. Nick shook his head, a smile creeping over his face; Briarwood had always seemed peaceful and whole, even when being seeped in dark magic or the setting for way too many battles.
It was kind of comforting to see the familiarity of it, a warm feeling that had nothing to do with the sun on his skin as he gazed down at the city. Maybe this was what coming home felt like.
He really hoped that some other things in Briarwood hadn't changed either.
"Ok, here goes nothing," he muttered, restarting his bike and snapping his helmet visor down.
There was a lot in Briarwood he was looking forward to seeing again. It was weird having good memories about a place he'd left behind. Wasn't that the fountain Chip had landed in after Xander's bad levitation spell, and that the place LeeLee had bought that ugly jacket for Phineas who'd loved it and worn it for about a fortnight straight?
Was this what it was like for people with a regular upbringing, having good memories to laugh about when they thought about the past? For Nick, it was a strange new experience that he was still getting used to it. But it was a really good feeling to be able to look at some parts of his past without anger or frustration.
He parked near the tree they used to travel through from Rootcore and where he'd volunteered to find the man's lost brother that day that had changed the entire direction of his life. And where he'd had two very important talks with Madison Rocca.
Madison.
It had been a year, and he still didn't have the words to express how he felt about her. He could feel it inside of him, but when it came to actually expressing it out loud he drew a blank. The last time he'd tried, he'd given her a blanket to look after instead. She hadn't looked confused or laughed, so maybe she'd understood.
There had been too much going on inside his head that day, the Rangers had won and he was taking his birth parents to meet his other parents and he'd just needed the open road to clear his head again. It was clearer now, but he still sucked at talking about how he felt about her. He'd always been open and blunt with words about almost everything else, it had gotten him into trouble since he'd started talking, but this was different. It wasn't like he'd cared this much about someone before and he did not want to screw it up.
He'd talked about Madison with Udonna before he'd left. She'd had found him staring out of the window lost in thoughts that made him frown and had asked if he was thinking about Madison.
"Have you told her how you feel?"
"I've tried, but I can't. It's not what I do."
"You are so like your father!" Udonna had laughed fondly, sounding like an ordinary mother for about half a second. "He doesn't often voice his feelings. He used to say that he preferred to speak with his actions."
"Yeah, I know the feeling."
"It took a while for me to learn how to understand him and his gestures and in return he began to talk to me a little more. But it took time and patience for us to learn to communicate. Perhaps it will be the same for you and Madison, is it worth it to go through that struggle together?"
He'd thought about the other girls he'd dated, who'd gotten frustrated when he didn't totally open up and couldn't give them as much as they'd wanted. He hadn't really cared when they'd left and then he'd moved on anyway. But Madison knew a lot about his past and his anger. She'd confronted him when he'd wanted to give up and she'd asked him to come back for her. She was so completely worth it.
Udonna had smiled affectionately then, seeming to know his non-verbal conclusion, and Nick had thought, with a weird twist in his stomach, that maybe this was what life could have been like if there hadn't been a battle that had torn his family to shreds. He didn't talk to either of his adopted parents about this stuff. But Udonna looked at him and knew the ways that he could and couldn't communicate and got him to talk anyway. It was like she saw stuff that his other parents didn't and it didn't have anything to do with magic.
When he'd told all his parents that he was heading back to Briarwood for a while, Udonna had asked that he look in on Clare to see how she was dealing with being Rootcore's resident sorceress, and Leanbow had requested news on both Daggeron and Jenji.
His adopted parents had only asked that he take photos of his friends. They wanted proof that the notoriously independent and later surly son they had raised and who had always maintained that friendships weren't important to him had actually made some friends worth going back to visit. A decent camera was stowed in his sparse luggage.
Peeling his helmet off and hefting his backpack over his shoulder, Nick paused as he drank in the sight of the Rock Porium. It was more like home to him than any other place had ever been, except for maybe Rootcore. He could feel himself relax in response to seeing the building. It was really good to be back.
The window display blocked all of Nick's efforts to see if Madison was inside and he cursed softly under his breath, frustration welling up inside him. It had been a year and a lot could have happened. He hadn't left her any promises and it wouldn't be unreasonable if she'd moved on. It was a lot to hope that leaving a blanket behind would mean she'd waited for him without knowing when he'd be back.
Nick sighed, clenching his fists reflexively. She had wanted him to come back for her. He really wanted that still to be true. No matter how reasonable it might be, if she'd gotten a boyfriend or wasn't interested, he didn't know how long he'd stay in Briarwood for. The urge to run was still there under the surface.
He'd spent most of his life wishing he'd known who his real parents were and now that question was answered. But he'd found, after months of getting to know Udonna and Leanbow and who they really were besides Rangers and mentors, that there was someone else he needed in his life too. Like his birth parents, Madison had left a hole that couldn't be filled by anyone else. It had happened without him realising it and it had gotten to the point where he couldn't run away from it and he couldn't survive on just memories of her.
He hadn't stopped thinking about her smile, and the way she had made him feel from the moment she'd first asked him to stay. No one had ever asked him to stay before.
A flood of sound escaped the Rock Porium as Nick stepped inside, the noise making him smile. Vida's music had always made up a lot of the Porium's atmosphere, and she only ever used to play it that loud when they didn't have any customers, sometimes it made the windows rattle. Toby encouraged it; he liked his music loud because it reminded him of the concerts and festivals he'd been to. The others'd learnt to work through it.
Nick immediately spotted Vida behind her beloved decks, her hair still bright pink for some reason. He'd thought that was a statement, a temporary way of celebrating that they'd beaten the bad guys. But the pink hair was still there a year later, and she was wearing some kind of pale pink top under her purple shop shirt. V really had gotten attached to her colour during her time with a morpher, despite her adamant initial protests.
As Nick smiled at the memory of an angry Vida with black hair and more attitude than her teenage body had any right to contain, Vida seemed to sense she was being watched and raised her gaze to see Nick standing just inside the door. Her eyes widening, she gave a very Vida-like holler that proved why she had never needed a microphone.
"Nick! Nick's back!"
The next thing he knew Vida had launched herself across the room towards him with surprising speed, managing to reach him quicker than Xander who appeared from the office. Nick's smile widened into a full grin as Vida grabbed him into a rough squeezing hug that he gladly returned. Everything about Vida had always been instinct and strength and it looked like that hadn't changed. He was more relieved than he'd expected to be at that.
When Vida pulled back, her grin dimmed a little and the only warning he got was her hand curling before she thumped him solidly in the shoulder.
"Ow! V, what was that for?"
"How about because it's taken you a year to visit us?!" Vida prodded him hard in the chest, but there was laughter in her eyes that made her gesture playful. "What took you so long?"
"Hey, I wrote to you! You did get my letters, right?"
"Yeah, we got them, mate," Xander put a restraining hand on Vida's shoulder and Nick was surprised when she didn't immediately shrug it off. So other things had changed. "Thanks, by the way. Chip loved that superhero birthday card."
"It was no problem," Nick eyed Vida carefully. "So are we cool, V?"
Vida's answering smile was that soft sincere one that was so rare and caused the person receiving it to know that they'd done something right.
"Yeah, we're cool, Nick," she smirked as he rubbed at the shoulder she'd hit. "It's good to see you. You should have called, we could have got everyone together."
"I'm sorry I left it so long, things just got out of hand," Nick shrugged, hands splayed as he tried to explain. "The road trip took a lot longer than we thought and then Udonna and Leanbow were meeting my other parents and I had a lot of catching up to do."
He didn't say that it had taken him this long to feel like he could finally deal with his two very different sets of parents. Or that for the first time ever he'd felt a real inner tug to go back to somewhere he'd lived, somewhere where he actually had solid and real friends that he wanted to see again. But Xander and Vida didn't tease him or fill the silence and maybe they knew anyway.
"Well, it's good you're here now, mate" Xander declared at last, pushing past Vida to rap knuckles with Nick before pulling him in for a brief hug. "How long are you here for?"
"A few weeks I guess, maybe more. I didn't really think about it."
"Where're you staying?" Vida wanted to know.
"One of the motels in town maybe. My sister's got friends staying so I thought…."
"No way," Vida held a hand up, halting any more of his words. "You can stay with us. Mom and Dad are away on vacation so it's empty apart from me and Maddie. We won't charge and it'll be a lot more comfortable than some of the places round here."
"I don't want to put you guys out."
"You're not, and I know Maddie won't mind," Vida wiggled her eyebrows suggestively.
Nick shoved his hands into his pockets, a nonchalant look sliding over his face like a shutter. Vida and Xander were his friends and he'd shared more with them and the other Rangers than he had with anyone else. But there was still some stuff that he was going to fight to keep private, stuff that they'd push him or tease him about, stuff that he didn't want to talk about with anyone except Madison. And he was anticipating a fight; Xander and Vida had always seen their friends' lives as completely open for interference, ignoring any protests.
"Why'd you say that?" he asked casually, leaning against the counter.
Xander laughed loudly and slapped Nick on the back.
"Oh come on, mate! You can play dumb if you like, but we know how you feel about Maddie," he said firmly. "You always were really bad at hiding it, we all knew."
"Whatever, guys. I am not talking about this, ok?" Nick warned them.
He knew he sounded kind of cold, but for him this was progress. A few years ago he would have hit anyone who pushed him on stuff that was off-limits. Then a few years after that, he would have walked or driven away from the people asking the questions.
Vida smoothed a hand through her pink hair with a sort of fond and exasperated smile. Xander had become distracted by the time he'd seen on his watch and was gazing out of the window.
"It's been you since you volunteered to go into the forest everyone else said was haunted," Vida told Nick, unrepentant and clearly not bothered by whatever threat was in his voice. "You're a good guy and you're the only one on her mind, so you'd better not screw it up."
Nick raised his eyebrows and crossed his arms with a slow grin. It sounded like he was about to get the big sister speech from Vida, warning him to treat her little sister right. He'd kinda expected to hear it at some point when the guys realised how he felt about Madison. But Xander interrupted, gathering something from behind the counter.
"Hey, Nick, fancy a blast from the past? How about working here for the afternoon?" he asked, holding up the purple shirt. "One of the villagers hasn't turned up again."
"Hey, I'm on vacation and you're putting me to work?" Nick protested, latching onto the change of topic as a grin threatening to take over his mouth.
"Think of it as volunteer work," suggested Vida as she headed back to her decks with a last mildly warning look at Nick.
"Would you, mate? I could use the help."
Xander smiled his most engaging charming smile at Nick, the one he'd always used when he was trying to get his own way, and Nick laughed, accepting the shirt and tugging it on over his faded red t-shirt. He'd been planning on hanging out at the Rock Porium for the afternoon anyway, and working there wouldn't make much of a difference. It'd be fun and it would probably completely confuse Toby when he turned up.
"Thanks, I owe you one," Xander told him, heading back into the office.
"I know," Nick called after him, planning on convincing Xander to pay for a tank of gas for his bike later. "Is there still room for my bag in there?"
"On top of the lockers," called Vida as she started the music up again.
Nick smiled, hefting his pack over one shoulder. It felt like no time had passed at all since the last time he'd been there. It felt like home.
-TBC very soon! Two more chapters to come.