Chapter Seven
Denver 4:48 p.m.
in New York City 7:48 p.m.
Friday April 25th, 2007
Rain was pouring down on Denver, hard, so hard that people were going home early from work. Everybody but Team 7 of the ATF.
"…but Buck, it's raining cats and dogs out there. I swear I saw a Doberman falling just a while ago. Why can't we go home? It's going to be hell to get home." said JD as he looked up from his computer to look over at Buck. Buck laughed at JD as he shook his head.
"Don't worry, JD, I'll drive you home tonight and yes the truck will make it. And you didn't see a Doberman falling from the sky." said Buck with a smile on his face.
"Yes I did and there goes a Persian cat, I'm telling you that the truck will never make it in this weather." said JD as his phone rang; he grabbed it and started out the door after looking at the number.
"Agent JD Dunne?!" said JD as he stepped out into the hall, which was empty.
"Justin, Kim showed up here in New York. She said that she was going to show the drawings to all of our friends and teammates. She has gone over the edge; she showed me photos of everybody. She has been having us followed, very closely. Some of them she should not have had. We have to go." said Jason with a sigh as JD, paced along the hallway.
"Are you sure?" asked JD in a small voice as he slid to the ground his back to one of the walls.
"Yeah. I'm… I'm sorry Justin. For everything." sighed Jason with a heavy sigh.
"Jason, it's not your fault or Tommy's. I joined the fight of my own free will, and the other… well the only one to blame is Kimberly. Jason… have you thought about… well telling?" asked JD, as he looked into the office and saw Buck and Vin goofing off.
"Yeah Justin, but… I don't see how we can keep our lives if we tell. Some times I think that this is our punishment for fighting and then running." said Jason, the last part barley a whisper.
"Oh. I guess that I'll see you guy's at the meeting place in three day's. See-you." said JD with a sigh.
"See-you Justin." said Jason then they hung up, then he looked at the office, then with a sigh he got up and went back in to the office. JD started shutting off everything very slowly.
"Hey JD, me and Vin are about to try to get Chris to let us leave early, you want to help us?" asked Buck with a smile on his face as he looked up from talking with Vin.
"No, you and Vin go ahead." said JD, his face not showing the heartache that it was going thru. Once they were in Chris's office JD finished closing down his computer and unhooking his laptop, he packed up everything that was important to him, and then he left the office. Luckily, the rest of the boy's were out of the office at the time, so he was able to make his escape. JD headed down to the parking garage, he looked around at the vehicles that were there. He knew that he couldn't take his bike, no matter how much he wanted to. And he knew that he couldn't take Buck's truck. 'Well, I guess that Chris's will have to do.' thought JD as he hotwired Chris's Ram. Once he got it running he took off into the night, he headed home to pick up the rest of his things that he couldn't leave with out. Once he got home, he rushed around the loft, getting everything that was important to him. He was grabbing the lockbox, a blanket that Miss Nettie had made him and the necklace that Casey had given to him the weekend before. On his bed, he had left a box that had enough to cover his half of the mortgage. He stopped as he rushed into the front room; there standing in the front room was the rest of Team 7.
"JD, why in the hell did you take my truck and just were in the hell do you think your going?!" yelled Chris as he advanced on JD.
I… I…" stuttered JD, with a lost look on his face.
"JD, what's going on, Pard? Something got you spooked." said Buck as he tried to be gentle with him.
"I… I lied to you guy's." said JD with a sob as he dropped his stuff and fell to his knees, crying. The boy's looked at JD in shock then at each other again. Buck knelt by JD.
"What do you mean you lied to us, Pard?" asked Buck gently.
"My name isn't JD Dunne. It's Justin Stewart, I changed it and everything else that you know about me." said JD, with a sob, as he wrapped his arms around himself and started rocking back and forth. Buck wrapped his arms around JD, stopping him from rocking.
"Aw, Pard. Why did you do that for?" asked Buck, as JD, looked up at Buck.
"I… me and my friends, we… you have to understand… ah hell. You boy's ever heard of the Power Rangers?" asked JD as he got up from the floor and picking up his lockbox.
"Yeah, that was that hoax that that town in California pulled, right?" said Nathan as JD went and sat down on the couch.
"Yeah, sort of. Only the Power Rangers were real, there was no hoax. The rest of the world just thought that there was." said JD as he opened his lockbox, pulling out a number of things. Two photo albums, the bundle of birth certificates and Social Security cards, a set of car keys. And finally his morpher. JD looked up at the rest of them before he stood up and put it on.
"Shift in to Turbo!!" yelled JD, morphing as he did. He stood there for second, then…
"Power down!!" said JD, unmorphing, he stumbled as he walked back over to the couch. Chris and Vin catching him as he nearly crashed to the floor. Nathan rushed over to him and started checking him over.
"Uh, thanks guys. I'm not suppose to do that anymore, it… it could kill me." said JD, causing the rest of Team 7 to look at him in shock. Then Buck slapped him in the back of the head.
"JD don't you pull that stunt every again." Buck said, JD just nodded as he rubbed his head were Buck had hit him.
"Ok, JD… uh Justin. You were a Power… Ranger. Well you something happened and you ran away from home, and changed everything and joined the Police Academy?" asked Chris with a look of shock on his face.
"No, I… something's happened and well… I was twelve when I was a Ranger; everybody else was seventeen or eighteen. But most of them… well they had started when they were fifteen. No, what happened was… someone fell in love, only the person that they were in love with… he was… was… loved by someone else. But the thing was that, Tommy, the one in the middle of all of it; he had had something bad happen to him in the past. So when we were attacked by this monster that showed your greatest fear… well Tommy's greatest fear was turning into what had hurt him. After that, Tommy was talking with a councilor, and he was having Tommy draw what he feared, and what his nightmares were. Some how, Kim, the one that loved him, not the one that fell in love with him. Well she some how got a hold of the drawings, well see, by then Tommy was dating Jason, the one that had fallen in love with him. And Kim was down in Florida training for the Olympics and stuff. She had even dumped Tommy the year before; well she came back, I don't know why. The rest of the Rangers were quiet about that, anyways, when she found out that Tommy and Jason were dating, she threatened to tell the cops that Tommy was molesting some of the kids that he taught karate to. Well, we figured that she would never do that and even if she did, well no one would ever believe her. Well she told the cops, and showed them the drawings. Well, they were all over Tommy then, he tried to explain that they were his fears and that… that the councilor had had him do them. Well, it took three days before they talked to his councilor, and was told that they were part of his therapy and that they were what he feared he was going to become. It took another three days before they let him out, Tommy won't talk about what happened during that time, but… he wouldn't let Jason touch him for a long while. We thought that that was it, then a week later Kim sent us a letter saying that if Tommy didn't leave Jason and come back to her that she was going to send this photo she had. It was a photo of Tommy and me in a bed naked, now days you could tell that it was cooked up on the computer, but twelve years ago… Tommy would have been in trouble. And, I guess Tommy had told the others what had happened in jail, but I was twelve, so they didn't tell me. All I knew was that Tommy was afraid of going back, and… well they were my friends, my teammates. So, we left, and every once in awhile Kim will send letters, telling us that she is going to tell, most of the time, all we do is move houses, or cities. But this time, she has been having us followed. And Jason says that we have to leave, but… I don't want to leave. I feel… like I did when I was a Ranger, like I have a family." said JD, as he looked in to the eyes of Chris, who just nodded at JD
"Wow, that is… JD… which to you want to be called?" asked Buck as he looked at JD in shock.
"JD, I like it better then Justin and it's the name that I picked out. I could have kept it as my middle name if I had wanted. You… you're not mad at me?" asked JD as he looked at Buck then the rest of them. They all shook their heads at him.
"JD, where's the rest of… your team at?" asked Josiah as Ezra and the rest of the team sat down on any seat and listened to what JD had to say
"Well, the we are spread out, in fact only two of us have someone else with us. Tommy down in Miami and Billy out in Vegas. Tommy because… well… just in case Kim tried anything. Billy… well he sometimes forgets to eat and sleep. He is a really big brain and well… sometimes he forgets the small stuff." said Justin as he opened on of the albums.
"This is my team." said JD, as he held out a picture for them to see.
"That's Adam in the back, he is a doctor out in L.A now, the one that I'm sitting on is Tommy, he and Trini they have a Dojo in Miami. The one in yellow is Tanya, she lives in New York, she is a radio disc jockey, and the other girl is Kat, she is in London teaching dance." said JD as he pointed to each of them. The he flipped the page.
"This is Jason, he was the first Red Ranger, he is down in Texas, he's a Texas Ranger." JD said as he pointed to the first picture, then he flipped it.
"This is Trini, she was the first Yellow Ranger." said JD, then he flipped the page.
"This is Rocky, he is the one that I took over for, he had gotten hurt in a tournament, for kickboxing. He's a NCIS agent out in D.C, has been for five years now." said JD
"This is Aisha, she was the second Yellow Ranger, before Tanya, she is out in Vegas with Billy." JD said as he point to Aisha's photo.
"This is Billy, he's the one out in Vegas with Aisha." said JD
"And this is Kimberly, the one that cause all of this." said JD as he pointed to a small photo.
"This is the first team, the guy on the end is named Zach. He left the team with Jason and Trini to go to A Teen World Conference. I never met him, he moved to Chicago after the Conference." said JD
"This is the team once Jason, Trini and Zach left." said JD, as he pointed to a photo. The guy's stared in shock at the photos, then back at JD
"Ok, JD, your staying out at the ranch till this is all dealt with." said Chris, as he stood up and grabbed some of the things that JD had dropped. JD just nodded and they loaded his stuff up in the truck, along with some of Buck's then they went out to Chris's ranch.
"Ok, what do you boy's want to know?" asked JD once they were seated around Chris's front room with take-out and beer.
"How did you become a Power Ranger if all the others were older?" asked Nathan with a shake of his head.
"Well like I said earlier, Rocky, who was the Blue Ranger before me, well he got hurt in a kickboxing tournament and I had overheard the guy's talking about what might happen if they were attacked and needed the Blue Ranger. Well when the time came, I took the morpher and helped. Well Rocky couldn't go back to fighting, if you have ever watched some of the news about the Power Rangers, you would see that we got thrown around a lot. Well the doctor told Rocky that he would have to give up tournaments or run the risk of putting himself in a wheel chair. So his days as the Blue Ranger were over, and I was asked to take his place on the team. But Rocky still helped out, he helped Tommy, Adam and Jason teach me how to fight a whole lot better. And… ha, he taught me some of the Spanish cuss words that I know. You think that Inez has a bad mouth when we mess up her place, hell you should hear Rocky curse in the middle of a battle, there was this one time… the whole group of us were at the beach. Jason was teaching me and his cousin Matt how to surf when this monster showed up, right when Rocky was making time with this girl. It pissed him off so much that he started cussing this monster out, calling him everything in the book, and a couple that I know he had to have made up on the spot. The one and only time that I have ever felt sorry for one of the monsters, it didn't know what it had done and… oh you should have seen it. It just stood there while Rocky cussed it up and down the beach, till it finally just went away." said JD, as he laughed at the memory of what Rocky had done that day. The boy's laughed at the image.
"JD, why did you run with the others, why not stay at home, I mean you must have had friends that were closer to your age that you spent most of your time with?" asked Chris as he looked at JD, who was looking down at his feet.
"No, not really. See, my mother died when I was five, and my father… well he was never really at home and we moved around a whole lot. The year that I was a Ranger, was the first time that we had stayed in one spot for more then six months. An as for friends, well I was really smart and in ninth grade already. But I hung out with some of the guy's from my karate class and Rocky's younger brothers, and I kissed Adam's little sister. And well, Kim sort of went off the deep end, she… see, some one had taken some shots at me and Jason when we were surfing one day, but I didn't know if that was Kim or if it was aimed at some of the other guy's that were out there. But when those photos showed up, well we… we decided that it was best to run. And the guy's tried to get me to stay behind. Till we got to my house and we found that my dad had left and wasn't going to be back for three weeks and that I was to stay over at Rocky's or one of my friends. So…" said JD, as he looked down at the floor. Chris and them were mad at his father, to leave your son by his self when he was twelve years old.
"So why Boston?" asked Ezra, as he looked at JD.
"Well, I was born there, actually. And that is were my mother is buried, so me, Rocky, Adam, Aisha and Billy went to Boston. While Tommy, Jason, Kat, Trini and Tanya went to Texas. With Jason, Trini and Tommy going to Dallas, while Kat and Tanya went to Fort Worth. It was just for college, then we all scattered." said JD, with a sad smile on his face as he looked at the photos of his friends and thought of what was going on. Once JD was done telling the boys about his time as a Power Ranger and why they had ran, he slipped out to the front porch and called Rocky.
"DiNozzo." Rocky said, JD hear the sounds of the road going by in the background, Rocky was already on the move.
"Rocky, it's Justin, I take it that Jason called you?" JD said, as he looked out over Chris's ranch and what he had built here in the last six months. A new barn after a gang of thieves had burned down the old one.
"Yeah, you?" Rocky said, JD could hear that he was driving, probably on his way to the meeting place.
"Yeah. But… I'm staying. I've talked to my team, when you get to the meeting place, tell Jason that my team will back Tommy an him. I haven't told them were the meeting place is and I won't, but if they want to stop running, me and the boys will help them clear Tommy's name." JD said, as they front door opened and Buck walked out of the house.
"Justin, that's… that's great, I'll be sure to tell them that. You be careful, and if you talk to my mom, tell her I love her. See-you, Justin." Rocky said, and hung up as soon as JD told him that he would see him. JD closed his phone, looking at it in confusion.
"JD, something wrong?" Buck asked as he held out a cup of coffee to JD, who took it and took a small sip, to make sure that Vin hadn't made it.
"I… I don't know. I called Rocky to let him know that I wasn't going to be coming. He… he sounded afraid, when I told him that I wasn't coming. I told him that Chris and you guy's would back Tommy, but he… he didn't sound as happy as I thought that he would be." JD said as he sipped his coffee as he looked over at Buck, who was frowning at him now.
"Why do you think that he wasn't that happy?" Buck said as he took a sip from his coffee cup and turned to JD.
"That's just it, I can't think of a reason that he wouldn't be happy. I mean they now have the… he told me to tell his mom that he loved her. The others will jump at a chance to tell the truth and get in contact with their families, and the DeSantos family is very tight nit. Rocky should have been jumping for joy, but… but he was afraid. Buck, I think something else is going, something that Rocky and Jason… and Adam, are hiding. But I don't know what." JD said, his mind whirling as he thought about everything that had happened in the past twelve yrs. Some of the things that had always confused him were starting to make a lot of sense, a lot of scary sense.
