Disclaimer: I don't own them. Saban does.
It was strange, Jason thought, being back on the Power Rangers. He had decided to come back from the Peace Conference because things just weren't working out for him there. It was lots of fun but the person he was... it wasn't really the person they needed. Trini loved it in Geneva and had jumped on the chance to renew her contract for another year. She was a born diplomat and, even when she'd been in Angel Grove, had always been intensely interested in making the world around her a better place. When she was still at home, it had been bottle drives and petitions to save the park. Now she got to play in the big pool and she was loving every minute of it.
Zack had fit in well there too, although for a different reason. Zack was always the kind of person who loved trying new things and meeting new people. The opportunity to do that on a global level was one he'd never give up. Well, not for a while anyway. Jason had a feeling Trini would be going into the internship program once her worldschool years finished out but Zack would probably come back and try new opportunities. Jason loved Zack but he wasn't known for his ability to stick around when things got boring. Meanwhile, Zack would eat greek cuisine while hanging out with ethiopian girls with his iranian roommate and his roommate's russian best friend. And he would love every minute of it.
Jason himself had decided to finally opt out at the two-year mark. He had already renewed his contract once but, this year, he had felt a distinct lack of excitement and pride in what he was doing. Instead, he'd mostly been getting irritated and restless. Trini, ever the person who saw everything, had talked him through it.
"You're a warrior." Trini had explained patiently. "You're meant to be on the front lines of things, not scheming in the background like the rest of us." And there it had been. Scheming. Jason had often thought that particular word himself. Everyone here was a schemer, a negotiator. They could sit for hours discussing the tiny details of one thing or another, trying to squeeze just a little more benefit out of everything. Meanwhile, Jason just wanted to be DOING something. He wanted to be out there in the field, building water shelters and helping people. As they had gone into the second year, there had been less and less of that and more of what most of the United Nations people actually did. They schemed.
So Jason had declined when his contract had come up for renewing and had come back here. Angel Grove. Home. Of course, it was a little different from when he left it. He himself was different. He wasn't a ranger anymore, for one. Or he hadn't been.
He didn't know how Tommy had known he was back in town. Maybe Trini had passed the information along; it was the kind of thing that she did. They had started hanging out again, on the down-low since Jason didn't want the others to know he was back just yet. He wasn't quite sure what he was afraid of. Maybe of them judging him for not being able to stick things out at the peace conference. Maybe of coming back but being excluded from the group like Tommy had been excluded when he'd lost his powers, as hard as they'd tried not to. He didn't know. Tommy had agreed to give Jason some space and didn't let anybody else know where he disappeared to. The rest assumed he was just out with his new brother.
Then the horrible and amazing thing had happened. Horrible because it meant someone had lost their powers. Amazing because Tommy wanted Jason to take up those powers. Tommy had kept Jason apprised of what had been happening with the rangers over the last little while. Technically, he wasn't really supposed to, since Jason wasn't a ranger anymore, but they both ignored that technicality. After all, ranger or not, he was in on the secret and he wouldn't tell. So he had heard about the mysterious gold ranger. Including the debate on who the Gold Ranger really was and, strangely enough, Rocky's insistence it was actually Billy.
When Tommy showed up at his door, Jason wondered why providence had decided to throw him back into the ranger game. Billy deserved to be back just as much, and Jason knew he probably wanted to be back in, no matter how much her denied it. Billy was just that kind of guy, always a little too selfless for his own good. And people took advantage of it without realizing they were doing so. Jason knew it had been a huge sacrifice for Billy to not be a Zeo ranger, no matter how much he insisted that he was more interested in being tech support anyway. But, according to Tommy's explanation, the powers had rejected bonding with him. Tommy thought they would bond with Jason and Jason hoped that this was true. He didn't know if he could handle being in the same shoes that Billy was in, if he could have the hope of becoming a ranger again dangled in front of him and then have it be taken away.
So they had taken off for the command center. Because they had to stay off Mondo's tracking sensors and Tommy's zeo crystal was needed in protecting the gold powers, they couldn't teleport. They'd decided to drive out as far as they could and hike the rest of the way until the teleporters could pick them up.. This proved to not be their best idea in the world. Not too long after the hiking started, they'd been attacked by evil minions.
As they fought, Jason took a split second to savour the hilarity present in this entire situation. They could have just transported to the command center but nooo, Billy hadn't calibrated the teleportation system to accept non-ranger presences. And they couldn't tell Billy because, for some insane reason, Tommy wanted to keep his identity a surprise. They could have had help fighting off the cogs but nooo, they couldn't tell anybody, Tommy said. And in case they were watching through the viewing screen, (they had a screen now instead of a globe) Jason had to wear this baggy jacket and sunglasses so nobody would recognize him!
At least the surprise would be worth it, or so he hoped. As far as he knew, no one other than Tommy DID know he was around so they wouldn't be expecting to see him. Jason had a feeling that, if they watching him in the viewing screen, they thought he was Tommy's newfound brother. Which wasn't a bad guess, really. If Jason hadn't been around, that was most likely who Tommy would have asked.
Cogs fought off, they teleported the rest of the way to the command center. Getting him through the security wards was a bitch. The system, probably as some programmed security measure, hadn't teleported him to the actual command room but instead directed them right outside. Luckily enough, the wards which had rejected him over and over had finally let in when, in the midst of his cursing, he had mentioned the red mighty morphin ranger. Then it was all "identification accepted." The others had been just as shocked as he had hoped when he'd shown up and taken off the stupid sunglasses. Luckily, again, it was a good shock and had faded quickly to happiness.
As the powers settled into him without too much of a hitch, Jason felt this huge sense of relief. Somehow, he didn't know how, he knew he wouldn't be a gold ranger for long but, for now, he was so happy to have the power again. For the first time since coming back, he knew what he was meant to be doing. He finally fit back in with his life.
He knew there would be problems, very soon, but, for now, he was home.