13

Jason's head swam as he tried to listen to what the doctors were telling him. He could hardly keep it up, it seemed to slosh back and forth with the waves moving through his head with every slight movement. He was drunk, he knew that. Or maybe just hungover.

He was in the hospital.

He knew that.

He had some sort of a leg injury.

He knew that.

He could feel the throbbing below his knee cap, a familiar feeling from his martial arts training. The many times he'd felt his knee go one way and his leg the other. Not to mention the sort of thumping and banging around that was a daily occurrence from fighting putties and the like. How many times had he ended up in a doctor's office or a hospital to get some sort of cast or surgery put on a body part. Because of a sprain, because of a pulled muscle, because of swollen joints, because of a torn ACL, because of a broken bone? Too many times to count. Too many hospital bills to think about, bills that his parents whispered about so that they didn't worry him. Not that he had to worry too much, his parents' jobs made it so that they were able to afford it easily.

But could they afford this? The emotional pain? The mental pain? The mental anguish of not only knowing they let their son go off on a trip without any parental supervision, something they were worried about in the first place. But to then know their only child had gotten into some sort of an accident where not only he, but all of his best friends were hurt in some way, and he was drunk and…

And they didn't know anything.

All Jason knew was that when he woke up, is parents were by his side, his leg was elevated, his knee was swollen, and he couldn't say anything to his parents. Every slight movement made that wave slosh through his heard that nearly knocked him over, every breath made his tongue even drier, sticking to his teeth and tongue. Every time he breathed, he could taste the foul taste of that dry mouth and the aftertaste of beer stuck to everything. And every time so much as twitched, nausea rolled through him, leaving a sour taste in his mouth that threatened to come out.

And yet, there was his mom, leaning by his side, lovingly running a hand over his hair just as she used to do when he was a young child. She murmured quietly, continuing to run her fingers through his hair, she smiled widely, seeing he was slowly starting to wake up. It was then he saw his father's face come into view, and it scared him.

Scared him more than anything he'd seen when morphing to take down a monster. Because his father was crying. He'd never seen his father cry before. Had never seen the strongest man that Jason had ever known to break down into tears, not even with the ailments that befell his grandparents, or even when his uncle had to go into rehab for his drug addiction. And what made everything worse for Jason, was that he was the cause of it.

The cause of the disappointment and fear that made his father burst out into tears. Jason felt his own eyes prick and tears well up when he spotted his father leaning over to him to give him a relieved hug, tugging Jason's mother into his embrace and the three hugged. Jason reached up his arm, could only move it as far as his elbow would allow, tried not to tug out the IV that stuck in the crook of his elbow, tried not to pull off the heart monitor attached to his fingertip, and pressed his hand to his mother's arm, allowing the embrace.

The three held onto each other for a long time. As long as it took for his mother's audible sobs of relief to subside, as long for the nurse to hover around them and check Jason's vitals in the small space he had to get around the grieving family. Jason brought up his other arm, finding that it wasn't attached to anything medical, and grasped his parents with more force than he thought possible. They thought they'd lost him...and yet Jason risked losing his parents that night. In the back of his head, he knew they would've disapproved on his actions. Knew they would've said it was a bad idea that they were just trying to experiment. Kids will be kids. But he went along with it anyway.

What had made him go along with it?

An almost memory of teasing, gentle prodding, then harsh words reached his ears. An argument of some sort? He could see a scowl on Zack's face. That was it. A scowl. And maybe some bad words. Had he fought with Zack? Is that what started everything? It wasn't that he and Zack hard argued before, they certainly had. But if it were something like this, it was a different kind of argument. He could feel it in his bones. Almost as much as his worry for Zack. If Zack wasn't in the chair next to him, grinning and cracking jokes and making sure everything was alright, then something had seriously gone wrong.

"We're going to have to prep you for surgery soon," the doctor said, standing aside with Jason's chart. He looked to the nurse and nodded in confirmation. "There's just too much damage to his knee, not to mention previous scar tissue, that if we don't get him in as soon as possible, he may lose his leg."

"What?" Mrs. Scott whirled around to face the doctor. Her tears dried almost instantly at the news. "He's going to lose his leg?"

"I didn't say for sure he'd lose it, I said he may lose it," the doctor said calmly. If not a little harshly.

He couldn't help but do so, angered that this was happening to such a young teen, but also due to the fact that he had a no-nonsense job, and worked through patients like this on a daily basis. Only to wash his hands of it, go home, and live his own life. The point being he couldn't take any of it home or else he couldn't move forward.

His bedside manner wasn't the best, but at least he told the truth. It was consistently written in comments on his performance. And it was a surprise to see how much damage Jason had sustained in such a short life. He got the information from his parents, he was a martial artist, and that explained some things. It explained how he was so strong for a young man his age.

But it didn't quite explain everything he needed to know. Like, why he was so healthy. How he had so many injuries that didn't seem to bother him. How he almost seemed to be bouncing back from the accident with no residual pain. Any other person who came into the hospital with a leg they were almost certain to lose would certainly be in more pain.

But Jason sat there calmly, watching as the doctor and nurse spoke around him. His mind was elsewhere. On his friends. On Zordon and Alpha. If his parents were here, then all the parents had to have known, had to have come.

Had to be more than disappointed.

"Why?"

The question caught Jason off-guard. He looked to the side, suddenly seeing that his room was empty save for his parents. That the doctor and nurse had gotten everything they needed and had swept away as quickly as they'd came. That his father's one-word question was harshly directed at him. Jason watched his father's eyebrows come together, swallowed the sour taste in his mouth, tried to get something wet on his tongue.

There was no saliva to be found. He struggled to speak, and his mother quickly grabbed water from the table beside him and put it to Jason's lips. His lips stung with the icy cold of the water at first, form the temperature and from his dry lips splitting. Jason winced then cracked open his mouth for a little bit of water to go in. He took a few grateful swallows and turned back to his dad, eyebrows coming together. Silently prompted him to continue.

"Why?" Mr. Scott repeated. "'Why did you do it?"

Oh. That 'why?'. Why did he drink? Why did he drive? Why did he not use his head? Why was he such a disappointment?

His father had never said that, said he was a disappointment, but Jason knew that was what he was really asking. Why did he have to give up everything he had over a stupid mistake? A mistake that Jason had been warned about for years.

"It was an accident," Jason murmured, finally finding his voice.

"It was an accident for you to drink?"

"Caine," Mrs. Scott warned.

But Mr. Scott continued. "It was an accident for you to drive? Did you accidentally pick up the keys and keep going? Keep driving until you hurt someone?"

"Stop it!" Mrs. Scott snapped.

"There were so many other choices you could've made. We trusted you. And you broke that trust. But now…it's not just that you broke the trust, it's that you hurt your friends. Did you know that?"

Mrs. Scott stood up and grabbed her husband's arm. She pulled him away to the corner of the room where they spoke in low, harsh tones. But Jason knew what it was they were arguing about. The words got stuck in his head. His friends were hurt. And judging by his father's reaction, more hurt than he was.

He was lucky. He was unlucky.

His life would never be the same.

He should've listened to Trini.

He made a mistake.

A/N: Hello again. I've missed you all! It took me a little bit to get back to this. But now we've seen what happened with Jason. Thanks for your guys' patience as I slowly continue to chug away with this story!

~Av