by MadSlash
Power Rangers are not my property. No money made from this; no harm done.
Tommy
"Tommy? What are you doing here?"
"I was in the neighborhood..."
I expected him to laugh and remind me that Reefside was hardly in his neighborhood, but he just stared at me, his face blank. I waited, trying to see through those veiled eyes, but Jason's always been good at hiding what he feels. Maybe it comes with the whole secret identity territory. Again I noticed the changes: the way his face had matured, the quiet confidence he had gained. There was a deeper change, too, something I couldn't quite put my finger on, a distance that seemed to have opened up between us.
Maybe all this was a mistake. But - Jason's visit two weeks ago had brought back so many memories, brought up so many feelings. I'd already lost so many people who had been close to me. Gained some too, of course; Conner, Kira, and Ethan were great kids - but they were kids, and students, not friends exactly. Hayley was great, too, but our relationship was more business than personal. Everyone I had been close to was gone... moved away, drifted apart... Kim, who had broken my heart, Kat, who had put it together again. My teammates. All gone.
And now Jason, the one I had thought would always be there. The one who had held out his hand in friendship when he had every reason to despise me. The one who had become as close as a brother, as well as a friend and teammate. The one who had forgiven me so easily when I took his position of leadership. The one, out of all of them, who had been most important to me, I realized now. And the one who had taken off eight years ago with only a casual goodbye, apparently leaving our friendship behind.
Then, two weeks ago, a fast phone call and a visit that was almost as fast. A visit that ended in my driveway with a handshake, and with a look on Jason's face that said he didn't expect to see me again. There had been something so sad in that look that I hadn't been able to get it out of my mind, or to stop wondering what had gone so wrong between us. No, I couldn't leave it like that. After two weeks of thinking, wondering, trying to make a decision, I had just jumped in my car and made the trip. No phone call, no warning; I didn't want to give him the chance to make up some excuse. I had simply shown up at his door.
"Look, are we going to stand here all night, or are you going to invite me in?" I finally asked.
He smiled at that, and stood aside. "Sorry, I was just surprised to see you. Sure, come on in."
I followed him into a small living room, decorated with a few discarded pieces of clothing and several magazines left lying around. The home of a man living alone. It was the same way my own house usually looked.
"Want something to drink?" Jason asked as he switched off the television.
"No, I'm fine, thanks." We sat and looked each other over again. Now that I was here, suddenly I couldn't think of anything to say. After a moment of uncomfortable silence, I finally came up with something. "You ever hear from the others? Trini, Zack, Billy...?"
He shrugged. "I get a card from Trini once in a while. She said Zack's living in New York now. Billy's still way out of town, as far as I know."
I noticed he didn't mention Kim. Of course, neither had I. "Funny. After everything we went through together, I thought we'd stay tight forever."
"Things change, I guess. People change." His eyes turned dark.
"Yeah." And I clumsily segued into what I really wanted to talk about. "I - I thought at least the two of us would always be friends."
That got his attention, as he frowned and answered, "We're still friends, Tommy. What makes you think we aren't?"
"Until two weeks ago we saw each other exactly once in eight years, and that was only because of ranger business. I must have called a couple dozen times. If you're there, you're too busy to talk. If you're not there, you don't call back."
He didn't even try to look at me. "I have a lot to do, running the center. I just don't have time."
"Don't give me that bull. You don't have time to pick up the phone and talk for five minutes?"
Still refusing to meet my eyes, he said, "I just visited you, didn't I?"
"Yeah, for about an hour. After two years. And six years before that."
"We live in different cities, in case you haven't noticed."
"It's only a couple hours drive, but you act like we're on different planets. Why are you avoiding me like this?"
"I'm not avoiding you."
I leaned towards him. "What is it, Jason? You said you're over Zordon making me leader. Did I do something else? Did I say something? Whatever it is, I apologize, man. Whatever it is you're angry about..."
"I'm not angry."
"Then what is it?"
"Nothing. There's nothing. Like I said, I just don't have much spare time."
I was on my feet, angry now, frustrated. "Okay, fine. You're right, I'm just imagining the whole thing. Forget it. I won't bother you again."
"Tommy..." I was halfway to the door when his voice stopped me. He was standing in the middle of the living room when I looked back, his face open for once, and filled with some unhappy emotion that instantly dissolved my hostility. "Look, I don't want you to leave like this."
The expression on his face made me more sure than ever that something was wrong. "Then tell me what's going on."
"Tommy... I can't."
"Jason, what is it?" The look on his face was starting to scare me.
"There's things about me you don't know. Things you don't want to know."
"Are you in trouble or something? Can I help?" He turned away, hiding his reaction. I took a step back towards him. "Jase?" I asked again.
"I'm gay."
I have to admit, it shocked me. It was the one possibility that had never occurred to me, in all these years... I just stopped and stared at him, feeling - what? Stunned. Feeling like I had never known him at all...
He turned long enough to take a quick look at me gaping at him like an idiot, and faced away again, head bent and shoulders hunched, as if he half-expected me to hit him. "If you want to leave now, I understand. No hard feelings."
"You're gay?"
"That's what I said."
"Man, I can't believe this." I flopped back into a chair, still trying to get my head around it.
He shrugged and finally looked at me. We had a brief staring contest. I guess he couldn't think of anything to say. I know I couldn't. But finally I asked the obvious question. "All the time we've known each other, and you never told me?"
"I didn't even know myself, for sure, until after I left for the peace conference. And I guess I got pretty good at hiding it."
"You sure as hell did." And that was when it clicked into place. "Wait a minute. Is that why you've been acting like this?"
"Yeah, that's basically it."
"Let me see if I've got this straight. Pardon the expression. Because you're gay, you think we can't be friends anymore?"
"Well, it's a problem, isn't it?"
"Why?"
His voice had a thread of anger in it now. "A lot of straight guys can't handle it. They think you're going to hit on them, or look at them in the locker room, or they're just uncomfortable around you. I thought if you knew, you'd never see me the same way - but I got so tired of hiding it, of - of lying to you..."
"Jase - you really think I'd be like that? What do you think I am?"
He snorted, half-smiling bitterly. "You're straight."
"So what? Straight people can't be decent human beings?" I watched as his face closed up again, and started to get angry. "If it doesn't bother me, why does it bother you so much?"
It wasn't much. Just a flicker of - something - in his eyes as he glanced at my face and then away. I knew. Did it bother me? Hell, yeah. The idea that the man I thought of as my best friend - that he wants me like that - it bothered me. A lot.
"Oh," I said.
"Yeah."
The sadness in his voice, the hopelessness, it got to me. And I realized I could handle this. What was really the problem, after all? Was it really any different than if a woman friend fell for me, if I didn't feel the same way? No reason it should be. And this was Jason. My oldest and closest friend. Suddenly the only thing I was thinking about was how I could help him.
"Oh, man. I'm sorry."
"You're not mad? Or - disgusted or something?"
"Of course not." I shook my head. "Hell, I'm flattered."
"Never thought you'd take it like this." When I met his eyes, to my relief he was smiling.
"Maybe you should have given me a chance." And maybe, just maybe, there was a way I could help, after all. "Jase... why me?"
"What do you mean? Why not you?"
"For one thing, because I'm straight."
"I know that." He sighed. "I guess you don't get to choose who you love."
"But you can choose when to give up. To let go, and move on."
"Maybe it's not so easy for me." Now there was an edge of resentment in his voice again.
"Look..." I hesitated, trying hard to find the right way to say it, and trying to figure it out for myself along the way. "When Kim dumped me, I thought there'd never be anyone else. Then when Kat and I broke up, I felt pretty much the same way. I kept thinking we'd get back together, until I heard she was getting married. Hell, I've even thought maybe Kim would come back... Did you know that Rocky and Aisha are married? Adam and Tanya were together for a few years... Most of the others are still single. Still looking. The same kind of thing has happened in the other ranger teams.
"It's like all of us, the rangers, just can't let go. We date each other. We marry each other. Maybe because we get so close as teammates, go through so much stuff together. Maybe we feel like we can't have that kind of closeness with anyone else. And maybe that's what's happened with you."
He just stared at the floor for a while, as I wondered if anything I'd said had gotten through. Then he asked, "So what about you? Have you moved on?"
And I had to be honest. "No, I haven't. And maybe it's time to take my own advice. Past time..." Hayley's face drifted into my mind. I smiled. "There's a lot of other people in the world, Jason. A lot of people you can be close to. A lot of people who can be special. A great guy like you - you won't have any problem finding someone terrific."
He smiled again, really smiled this time, that big warm grin, and in an instant the old Jason was back; the genuine, solid Jason; the one I could always depend on, the one I had missed so much. He nodded and said, "Well, you're right about one thing, anyway."
"What?"
"That I'm great, of course."
We talked for hours, I don't really know how long. By the time I left, it was like all the years we had been separated had never happened; the old feeling was back as strong as ever, the old friendship. But something different had been added. Call it trust, maybe. Call it sharing. Call it the knowledge that your friendship is stronger than anything that might try to break it.
Call it love.