Disclaimer: I own nothing. Don't sue. I have maybe ten bucks to my name if I'm lucky.

Author's Notes: This one goes to Didi, whom I adore for locking Rocky and Aisha in the attic. You rock.

Chapter 15
Once A Ranger...


Tommy and Kim pulled up at the ruins of the Command Centre about half an hour later in Tommy's red and white truck.

"Looks like someone beat us here." Kim commented pointing out the dark green jeep parked near the bushes.

"That's Adam's jeep." Tommy remarked parking his truck beside it.

They found Adam sitting on a large concrete block, leaning against the large pillar behind it. He had been staring off into space, quite literally. He was staring up into the vast starry sky that hung high above them and neither Tommy or Kim could guess what had been going through his head. When they approached turned his head to look at them.

"Hey." Adam greeted softly as Kim took a seat beside him and Tommy sat on the ground, leaning up against the block.

"Hi." Kim replied just as quietly. Tommy only nodded slowly, trying and failing to summon a small smile.

Before they knew it Rocky had arrived in his red pick-up. Soon after came Zack in his beat up black car that no one could tell the make off. He was followed by Tanya and Aisha who had piled into Tanya's brand new yellow Bug that also carried enough other junk to fill at least half a dozen boxes. Kat arrived in her car, an old, white Toyota with a pink strip on each side. Trini came in a faded yellow van that the originals Rangers recognized as her older brother's 'banana car' as it had been called. Billy was the last to arrive in a royal blue, classic convertible that he and Jason had finished restoring just before Billy left for Aquitar. It had only been driven twice since it's restoration and since then had sat in the Cranston's garage awaiting Billy's return. It was the last big project Jason and Billy finished together.

"Hey guys." Billy greeted half heartedly. Tommy noticed Billy's eyes, much like his own, showed signs of crying with a slight red, puffiness around them.

They all murmured some form of soft greeting as the former Blue Ranger joined the ranks, stretching out next to Zack. Their were a few minutes of silence before Adam spoke up softly.

"Weird, how we all came up here, isn't it?" Adam mused trying for a getting a weak smile to flicker over his face.

"A lot of things started here," Zack commented, "The Rangers began here. We, as a team, began here."

Kim smiled, "Who would have thought the five of us would be chosen to be super heros?"

"Not me, that's for sure," Trini confessed, "It's not everyday a giant floating head tells you an evil witch will take over the world if you don't become a super hero in spandex."

"Why spandex in the first place? It was a fashion nightmare," Kim adding getting giggles and nods from the female members of the team.

Billy grinned at the oh so Kimberly comment before his face became more serious, "We all thought it was a joke, we had to or otherwise I know at least I would have been scared out of my mind. Except, Jason wasn't."

Zack nodded, adding, "He only followed us out of the Command Centre when I called to him and when we were walking out he kept trying to convince us to go back."

"Then the putties came," Trini remarked evoking groans from the remaining original Rangers.

"I take it you guys didn't fare to well against them," Tanya said a slight smile dawning on her features.

"Hell no, we got our butts kicked!" Zack replied with a short laugh.

"It was really rather sad how badly we fared against the putties our first day 'on the job'," Kim remarked a weak grin chasing away some of the grief written on her face.

"Well, technically since we had no Powers at that point and were not sure about taking them we weren't really 'on the job'," Billy added.

"Once we got our Powers they were much easier to take care of," Trini could remember that day very vividly. Had it really been that long since she had first morphed? Had that much time passed so quickly?

"Remember when Jason tried to break the fitness record?" Trini asked.

"Or the time the food festival turned into that giant food fight?" Kim giggled softly that the memory of Mr. Caplan covered in food.

That got the ball rolling and soon all the Rangers were reminiscing about the times they had shared together. Their stories were a mix of funny ones, sad ones, happy ones and a variety of other classifications. All of them involved Jason in some way, even if only because he was there or thought of. They all laughed when hearing about some of the situations that seemed much more humorous after the passage of time. They all smiled and chimed in their own stories when speaking of the less nerve wracking instances of daily Rangerhood. And it was safe to say tears sprung to many pairs of eyes when relating stories of sheer courage and compassion acted out by the former Power Ranger's leader and by other team members.

Through it all the original Blue Ranger remained quiet, contributing comments and reacting with the others but never really getting into his own slue of stories. It wasn't that it was too painful to share his memories of Jason, as even Tommy joined in with his own tales, but the stories he had of his friend were so much a part of him he no longer viewed them as something to be told. They were like working parts of himself and telling them to the other's had never really occurred to him before. When the stories turned to those of which took place in Jason's childhood Trini, Zack and Kim had a great many anecdotes to reveal. But Billy still remained silent, only sharing something when asked.

"How'd you and Jase become friends, Billy?" Tanya inquired, looking intently at their quiet friend.

"Yeah, when I moved here you two were already fast friends," Kim mentioned remembering the first time she had met the two of them. Jason, who had included the younger, perky Kimberly from the start, and Billy who hung back a little but offered a shy tentative smile when she didn't tease.

Billy shrugged, the origins of their friendship had never seemed all that special to him. He didn't actually remember the first time he met Jason but his father had told him the story before, "Our mothers were friends, they went to college together," he explained, "When we moved to Angel Grove I was a year and a half old. My mother to visit Jason's mother and she brought me with her. Jason shared his blocks with me while our mothers talked. I can't really remember a time when I haven't been friends with him."

"And you've stayed friends all this time?" Kat asked frankly amazed that their relationship had been strong enough and durable enough to last that long. She was barely in touch with her friends from grammar school, receiving and sending cards for Christmas and birthdays but not much more.

Billy nodded, "We went through everything together. He was the big brother I never had and always wished for. He saw me through my awkward years, meeting you guys, my mum's illness, her dea..."

Billy trailed off, after all the time that had passed the death of his mother still affected him. With everything that had happened recently those feelings of loss and loneliness had come surging back with a vengeance. Only now there was no big brother there to protect him from the cruelest aspects of death. But maybe, just maybe...Billy sighed and started to reveal the circumstances surrounding his mother's death which only Jason had really heard in detail before even though the original Rangers had all been friends before that.

"My mum died of a brain tumour. They tried to operate but they couldn't remove it all," Billy told them not exactly sure why he was explaining this to them, "My dad stayed with her in the hospital but I was too young to go visit her in the ICU. I stayed with Jason and his family during that time. I was so miserable and I wanted to go home so badly I must have cried myself to sleep nearly every night. Jason found me doing just that the second night I was there. He stayed with me until I fell asleep again and would sit with me when I woke up during the night. He used to rub my back and tell me everything would be okay even when it wasn't. God, I'm going to miss that about him. I'm going to miss the way he could always make things seem better, he could make you see the hope in any situation, no matter how bleak it really was. He never let me lose my hope for anything."

Billy fell silent, a silvery tear trickling down his cheek. He made no attempt to brush it away. The wound on his heart was simply too raw to be hidden and the fact that they all shared that wound, maybe not as deeply, made it easier for Billy to get the bittersweet memory out. No one knew what to say or do after that. The normally shuttered young man had never opened up in a crowd of people to share something that intimate. And his observations on Jason struck a cord in all of them.

It was Rocky who broke the stillness. An odd look crossed his face, a mixture of grief, pain, confusion and anger lining the usually cheerful, lighthearted features. He rose, picked up a wooden board and walked purposely over to a smaller pillar amongst the ruins.

"Rocky..." Adam began softly wondering what was going through his friend's mind.

His name, spoken quietly and gently was enough to set him off. Rocky exploded venting his frustrations and anger as he began hitting the wood to the pillar, not carrying about the splinters that cut his hands.

"Stuff like this isn't supposed to happen to us." Rocky yelled as he smashed the board with a fierce intensity and rage, "I mean, we defended the goddamn world! We saved the planet more than once! We were the freaking Power Rangers for God's sake! How could this happen? I thought we were supposed to be protected! Didn't Zordon always say the Power would protect us!? Well, where was it, huh? Where was the Power when Jason needed help!?"

No one had an answer for him but stayed wordless as Rocky vented his anger, most had wanted to do hit something like he was at some point. It kept up for a few minutes until the pillar won out over the board and the wood splintered into pieces.

"Dammit," Rocky swore noticing he had cut his hand in the process of smashing the board. He stepped back too quickly and stumbled on a large rock

"Rocky," Aisha chided gently as walked over to him and examined the cut while they both drifted back towards where the others were sitting. She carefully removed a large splinter from the cut and made sure she got all the little pieces of wood as well, "I don't have anything to bandage this with."

"I do," Tommy remarked quickly going over to his truck and grabbing something from his glove compartment.

Aisha looked at what he handed her a smile creeping over her face, "You have a first aid kit in your car? Really, Tommy, I'm not even sure what to call that."

Tommy shrugged, "Left over leader paranoia, I guess. At least this is the first time I've used it," Tommy glanced at Rocky who was watching Aisha wrap some gauze around his hand and carefully avoiding the eyes of his former teammates.

"Sorry, I just..." Rocky sighed glancing away and out over the mountains, "It's not fair and I know everyone says life isn't fair but this...this is different. This is just wrong! We shouldn't have to be remembering all the good times we had with Jason, we should still be having them. I just don't understand why this had to happen. I mean, what about the things Jason still wanted to do? What about the things he still wanted to accomplish? What happens to all the dreams he had?"

There was a moment of painful silence before Tommy answered, "There are ones we can we keep alive. There are things Jason wanted to do that don't just apply to him. He wanted our school to be successful, he wanted to keep protecting those he loved, he wanted to live by the morals we all learned as Power Rangers and before and maybe most of all he wanted to help people, as many as he possibly could. Those things we can keep up. I will because I believe in them too and because I feel I owe it to him somehow."

"There are other things," Tommy said after a short pause of heavy silence, "that we can't do for him. He wanted to marry and have a family some day. We can't do that for him but we can remember how lucky we are because we get the chance to do those things he wanted to but never got the chance at accomplishing."

"Jason...he wanted us to be happy," Trini told them softly, "When I was sitting with him, saying my good bye he made me promise I would be happy. He told me he wouldn't be able to stand it if we weren't happy."

Tommy smiled sadly, "That's just like Jason. He was more worried about us than himself."

Trini glanced down at the ring she would wear on her finger until tomorrow after the service and said in a choked voice, "Yeah, he was."

Kim could see her long time friend was keeping something that had happened between her and Jason to herself. Part of her wanted to get her friend to spill it but the look of longing that crossed Trini's face made Kim hold that impulse in check, deciding to ask the former Yellow Ranger about it later. 'Maybe it will be easier for her to confide whatever happened, and I know from that look something happened, between her and Jason, in just me instead of the whole group,' Kim mused. Indeed, the experiences was too fresh in Trini's mind to be shared with all the others just yet.

"We formed a strong bond as Rangers," Kim said softly. "It's more than a team thing, it's more than the fact we faced danger together, it's family. We're family, the original team has been since we first became Rangers, it cemented our bond beyond just friendship."

"And then whenever someone new came they were adopted into the group," Aisha added, knowing the feeling of family that stemmed from their service as Rangers all too well, "We'd do anything for each other and everyone sitting here knows it."

"Losing Jason," Tommy put in quietly, drawing their thoughts toward a conclusion, "is so much more than losing a friend or even a good friend. He is one of us, he will always be one of us even now that he's gone. We aren't whole as a family without him. He was too important for us to ever be whole, as a family, without him here."

There was a long silence as that information sunk in. It had always been an unspoken feeling the former Rangers had but to hear it voiced was something else. The whole experience had taken a large toll on them. They now knew they weren't invincible, they weren't always going to be saved and they weren't always going to able to save one of their own. But it didn't mean they were helpless. They were a family and a family goes through gains and losses but what makes them different was no matter what they went through it together. Even when faced with death they stood united by staying with Jason until the end, seeing their brother Home though they could not make the journey with him.

"We had some good times," Billy said softly breaking through the deafening silence, "and we had some bad ones."

"But we were always there for each other, through everything," Adam added solemnly, "We always will be."

"Once a Ranger..." Tommy intoned the familiar mantra softly knowing the others would pick it up with him.

"Always a Ranger."