notes: warnings for off-screen character deaths and general sadness. this one takes place post-series.
finally, we're here at the end - thank you so much to those of you who have reviewed, i really appreciate all your kind words and feedback. i hope you enjoy this one! it was hard to write, because i had so much for them to talk about and i don't think i got everything but... these are two of my favorite rangers, so hopefully it turned out okay.
as always, reviews are much appreciated!
we could be immortals (but not for long)
she's got lions in her heart
a fire in her soul
he's got a beast in his belly
that's so hard to control
'cause they've taken too much hit
taking blow by blow
now light a match, stand back
and watch them explode
― the script, superheroes
v. kat
He has no interest in babysitting, but Summer drops a tiny, blonde child in his lap and asks him to watch her for a bit while she goes to deal with a Ziggy-and-K problem at their school, and it's really hard to say no to Summer, so here he is.
Sydney is actually not that tiny; she's about ten, which means she can entertain herself. Dillon keeps her in his sights as she runs around the park, but otherwise tries to do as little babysitting as possible. She seems like a smart girl; he's fairly confident she won't die if left alone.
"Dillon!" she screeches about half an hour past the time Summer was supposed to come back to relieve him, hurtling herself at his legs. "Look who I found!"
He looks up to see a tall, blonde woman standing there, smiling fondly down at Syd. She's wearing a pink coat that seems unnaturally bright in the otherwise muted colors of the fake-autumn day around them, and when she kneels down to Syd's height, he has to wonder if they're related – same blonde hair, blue eyes, shining smile.
"Is this your new friend, Syd?" she asks, and her accent takes him by surprise – he's used to Flynn's Scottish, but he's never heard anyone Australian around Corinth before.
"This is Summer's boyfriend," Syd says in a sing-song voice, shaking his knee enthusiastically to punctuate her point. Dillon grimaces. "His name is Dillon and he's the black ranger. Dillon, this is Kat. She's a – "
"Why don't you go play with your friend on the monkey bars?" Kat interrupts quickly, making him frown. "And I'll get acquainted with Mr. Black Ranger over here?"
Syd blinks, but brightens up. "Okay!" she says. "But I wanna go with you for pizza later."
Kat laughs and sends her off with a wave. He stares after Syd for a moment, making note of where the monkey bars are, before turning back to Kat, eyes narrowed.
"Who are you?" he asks, probably more bluntly than needed. Kat seems amused more than anything else though, rising to her feet and taking a seat next to him on the bench. "How do you know Summer and Syd?"
She adjusts herself so her elbow is on the back of the bench and she can face him properly. "Family friends," she replies lightly. "Syd is the daughter of two of my friends. And her adopted parents and Summer's run in the same sort of circles."
"Oh, you mean they're super rich?" he asks sarcastically. He rewinds her statement and notices that she separated Syd's parents from her adopted parents. "Are you friends with her adopted parents?"
"We get along," Kat says. "But no, I know her through her birth parents. She's quite keen on you, did you know?"
Dillon stares at her. "What does that mean?" he asks warily.
Kat laughs. "Oh, come on. Public identity black ranger, and you still don't know how popular you are – especially amongst teenage girls? And pre-teen girls, for that matter."
He frowns at her, casting aside the rest of her, quite frankly, ridiculous statement and zeroing in on the part that stands out. "Public identity? Are there secret identity rangers?"
She goes silent for long enough to confirm his suspicions, then says, "Do they not teach you kids your history over at RPM headquarters?"
"They didn't bother with me," he says. "What's your story?"
Kat looks at him with a hard gaze, like he's being judged – and maybe not only by her. "It's not for strangers."
"I'm not a stranger," he finds himself saying before he can think about it. "I'm one of you. Aren't I?"
"Are you?" she asks softly, playing with a ring around her – around her left ring finger, he notices with a shattering of realization. "You know who I am?"
"No, but I bet my girlfriend does," he says, nodding behind her. Summer walks up to them, surprise on her face as she takes in his companion. "How's everything with Ziggy and K?" he asks her quietly as she smiles at Kat and sits down next to him.
"Oh, fine, part of the school blew up, but it'll be okay," she says brightly, offering her hand to shake. "Hi, I'm Summer. I'd like to apologize if he said anything dumb."
Kat smiles and shakes her hand. Her ring gleams gold in the fake sunlight. "Don't worry, we were having a lovely conversation. You got lucky with this one."
Dillon snorts, but can't help feeling pleased as Summer nudges him in the side. "She was telling me about how she used to be a power ranger," he says casually, and everyone goes still.
Summer looks between the two of them, then asks, equally casually, "How'd you figure that one out?"
He holds up a finger. "Syd was going to say something about you before you interrupted her; if you're secret identity that makes sense." Two fingers. "If Syd knows, that means she was raised knowing – that means her parents were rangers, and you said you knew her through them." Three fingers. "You didn't deny it."
"Must be the robotics," Kat remarks, shooting Summer a smile. "Most people don't figure it out that fast."
Summer snorts. "Tell me about it. One time, I had an entire conversation with the Megaforce pink ranger and didn't realize who she was until I went home."
Kat's face softens at the mention of Megaforce. "She doesn't really talk about it that much… Megaforce was hit harder than most of us," she says quietly, twisting her ring again. Dillon finds himself staring at it, wondering how she picked up that nervous habit – it's on the wrong hand to be a wedding ring, and it almost seems sad, the way she does it. Like she lost the person who gave it to her.
"Megaforce and Overdrive," Summer agrees, and he sends her a curious look so she explains, "Only one survivor from each. Although, I guess technically, Megaforce has two, but he doesn't live on Earth. And… that's besides the originals."
"Dino Thunder," Kat adds, smiling wistfully. "But you wouldn't know that, I guess. One survivor, but he doesn't live in the city, so I guess that doesn't count."
Summer looks like she's cataloguing that fact away for further research, so Dillon speaks up. "What happened to the originals?"
Kat's smile fades almost instantly from wistfulness to bitterness. He almost regrets asking – almost. "What happened everywhere else," she says, and he catches her looking down at her ring. One pink diamond surrounded by rubies on a gold band. Pink and red and gold. "They died."
"Aren't you one of them?" he asks carefully, looking at Summer for verification, but she only shrugs.
Kat sighs. "If you use a loose definition, yes, I suppose I am. But I wasn't one of the first six. None of them survived."
"I'm sorry," Summer offers, and he can feel her hand sliding into his, squeezing tightly. She hates this part, he knows – the apologizing, the guilt, the sadness. It's worse this time; he can see it in Kat's eyes, the shadow of blame, the knowledge that they're sitting in front of her wearing black and yellow and her friends aren't.
He veers the subject back with no large amount of deftness. "If you're using this loose definition… how many of you were there? Or – are there?"
Kat raises her eyebrows. "Lot of questions for someone who didn't know about secret identity teams before now."
Dillon grins at her. "I'm trying to learn about my history." Summer elbows him, but he ignores her – if Kat's a ranger, she's not going to take his attitude the wrong way.
She laughs, proving him right. "You really want to learn about your history? Come to this pizza party with me and Syd. Every ranger in Corinth will be there."
Dillon exchanges a look with Summer. "Um… what?"
Kat pulls a card from her purse and hands it to him. Jungle Karma Pizza is written on it in bright blocky letters, along with a date and time – tonight, at 7pm. "Kind of an annual get together type of thing. We all try to keep in touch. I guess it's time to induct you guys into the family, huh?"
"Every ranger in Corinth?" Summer repeats, taking the card from him to study it. "How many?"
Kat grins at them. "You never know. Some of them come to Corinth just for this, if they can make it."
"Whoa, wait," Dillon says, holding up a hand. "There are rangers outside of Corinth?"
"There are rangers everywhere they're needed," Kat says with a soft smile. "You'll learn that soon enough. Come by, it'll be fun. You might recognize some people."
"Okay," Summer agrees, giving him the card so he can tuck it into his pocket. "We'll be there."
"You still haven't told me," he points out because it looks like she might leave now. "How many of you were there?"
"Originals?" she asks and he nods. "Twelve. The records count twelve. Zordon's chosen."
"Bit of a pretentious name," he says with a smirk and she manages a laugh. "How many are left?"
"Four," she says, but not bitterly like he would have expected. "There are four of us left. But seven of you, and so many others. Life has a way of working out, Dillon."
Kat stands up as he and Summer sit there, her words settling around them. The pink of her coat seems a little sadder now that he knows – knows her color, know her story. Her ring catches the sunlight and shines gold, and he remembers one more question before she leaves.
"Wait," Dillon says quickly. "Can I ask one more thing?"
Summer sends him a warning look, but Kat nods at him to go on. He swallows, because suddenly the question feels heavy, too personal, too much – but the ring is itching at him, and he wants to know. Wants to understand her, this woman in pink who sat down and told him that she was part of his history, part of his legacy. Wants to know why and who and how.
"Who was he?" he asks, and a shadow passes over her face before he even finishes, because she knows what he's asking. "Your fiancé – was he – did he – "
Kat looks down at her ring, her blonde curls falling over her face and hiding it from view. "Jason," she says finally, quietly. "His name was Jason. He was red. He was the first red."
The first red. The words knock the breath out of him as he watches her walk away. I wasn't one of the first six, she had told them. None of them survived.
He can't imagine losing Summer like that. Can't even imagine losing Scott, Ziggy, Flynn, any of them. He looks over at her, memorizing every part of her face like he hasn't already done it a million times. Just in case. She smiles gently at him, reaching up to brush his hair away from his forehead, and presses another business card in his palm.
Emma Goodall, Phoenix Photography. The words are written in pink. He looks back up at her and she shrugs.
"Maybe she'll be there. I'll call the others?"
"Yeah," he says, pulling out the card Kat gave him and comparing them. "I think we should all go tonight."
for the record, syd is carter and dana's daughter, but she was adopted by some rich friends of theirs when they died. at least, in this world. so, really, there are six pinks in this story. i hope you all enjoyed this!
if you're curious how the pizza party went: everyone got super mega trashed after the spd kids went to sleep and probably accidentally made something explode. everyone lives happily ever after, the end.
don't forget to review!