Chapter Twenty-two

Fourth Down and Long

1994

The Angel Grove Sentinel sports department was not the most enjoyable place to work. Carrie had spent three years working as a stringer, writing high school sports. Now she was so good at her job that she had to edit the work of the other stringers, which was often terrible, in addition to dealing with idiot coaches who couldn't even remember what league their school was in and answering calls from whack jobs with random sports trivia. It was also really grating on her that just about every guy who called into the department referred to her as "sweetheart" or "darling" and found some way to patronize her for the crime of being a girl. Despite the deeply engrained rivalry between the sports and features departments, Carrie longed to leave the world of sports behind and become a features reporter; many Sentinel employees claimed they'd gotten their starts in reporting as stringers, which was why she'd taken the job in the first place. However, it didn't look like her chance to move on was coming anytime soon. Everyone in Angel Grove news jobs clung to their employment—covering the world's first superheroes was bound to look good on a résumé, so Carrie was stuck where she was.

Today, things were particularly bad, even without the annoyance at work. Her car had started making that funny noise again, she'd torn her favorite jeans, the cat had ruined another set of curtains, and she'd gotten a call from her mother demanding that they have lunch sometime soon. Not only that, but Jenny, Carrie's best friend and fellow stringer, had called in sick, and the only other stringers in the office were two of Jenny's ex-boyfriends. Ex No. 1 kept trying to ask Carrie for advice about getting Jenny back, while Ex No. 2 kept trying to hit on Carrie; unfortunately, the Girl Code dictated that she couldn't date the ex of a friend, and she couldn't give the other ex advice without permission from Jenny.

Then one of the copyeditors had reminded Carrie that they needed toner for the printer, which was another of Carrie's unofficial duties—stealing toner from the features department. (Sports had a very low budget, so toner theft was Carrie's way of ensuring that she didn't get laid off; being underpaid and hating your job were not good reasons to let employment slip through your fingers.) Unfortunately, she'd been forced to use Ex No. 2 as a lookout since Jenny wasn't at work, and he'd made some comment about photocopying her butt and now she was going to have to avoid the copy machine for the next few days, just in case.

"What's wrong?" Ex No. 2 asked, giving her a flirtatious grin. "You look like you're having a bad day."

Carrie forced a polite smile. "I don't know if anyone's having as bad a day as I am."

"What's wrong?" Ex. No. 2 asked, but before she could answer, an angry roar sounded from somewhere near her left and she spun her chair around, fearing the wrath of the sports editor. She nearly fell right out of the desk chair at the sight of the Red Ranger, fully suited with his Blade Blaster in one hand, standing not five feet away and radiating anger like a dragon woken up to find a bunch of idiot adventurers trying to make off with its treasure hoard.

"LISTEN UP!" the Red Ranger shouted, waving the blaster at the six copyeditors, three designers, two editors, three stringers and an agate clerk. "I am sick and tired of proving that every person you've suspected of being the Red Ranger is not me! I have spent weeks dealing with all sorts of problems that you people have caused with your stupid articles and I'm here to tell you that no monster attack is half as scary as I am! IF YOU DO NOT STOP NAMING CANDIDATES FOR MY SECRET IDENTITY, I WILL DESTROY YOU ALL, UNDERSTAND?"

The Sentinel sports staff stared at him.

"Do you have any idea what it's like, trying to have a normal life while fighting monsters and dealing with all sorts of issues and I just want to spend a few hours alone with Yellow without the others trying to spy or without us having to fight something and you know, it's really rude of you to put me through all this when you'd all be dead if it wasn't for me! And I am not crazy! At least I wasn't until now! I'm perfectly sane, you hear? Now stop writing those horrible articles or I'll kill you all, get me?"

The staff continued to stare, none of them doubting that the Red Ranger was in fact very much insane.

"Um," Carrie said slowly, swallowing heavily and raising her hand as though in class. "Mr., um, Red Ranger…"

"Yes? What is it, evil reporter?"
"I'm… I'm not a reporter. I'm a stringer. With all due respect, sir, this is the sports department. The features department is over there." She pointed around the corner, where a group of angry reporters was clustered around a printer some thirty feet away, wondering where their toner had gone this time.

The Red Ranger sighed heavily. "Can't you just, you know, pass along the message or something, please? You guys have memos and stuff, right?"

Carrie gave him a shaky, apologetic smile. "They don't really like us that much."

The Red Ranger stared at her for a moment, then threw back his head and laughed in a rather creepy way. "Of course not. Of course not. I'm giving intimidating speeches to the sports department. By the way, the Angel Grove Warriors need better receivers, not a new quarterback. Anyone could see that."

He took a step towards Carrie, frowning at the bowl on the edge of her desk, which was full of ice and cheap cans of pop (staff members occasionally brought in food or drink for everyone, but actually making punch was too involved for those who were suited to work in sports; cookies and such were likewise store-bought). "You guys have Red Pop."

"Yep. Gotta love Faygo," Carrie said nervously, fully aware that a psychotic superhero was approaching her desk.

"Can I have some?" the Red Ranger asked hopefully. "I've been doing a lot of shouting lately. Rather thirsty."

"Well, um, y-you'd have to take off your helmet," she replied.

"Oh, you'd love that, wouldn't you, evil reporter!" he snarled.

"No! And I'm not a reporter, I'm a stringer. Actually, I… hey, how about a straw? That could fit under your helmet. I'm sure we have a straw around here somewhere. Why don't you just, um, calm down and watch the game?" She gestured at a row of televisions set high up in the wall, playing various sports events.

"Thanks, evil reporter," he replied solemnly. He sat down on the edge of her desk and plucked a can of Red Pop from the bowl, trying valiantly to open it with his gloves on. Seeing that he was concentrating hard, she turned to Jenny's two exes.

"You," she hissed at Ex No. 1, "go dig through the packet drawers and see if you can find a straw. And you," she added to Ex No. 2, "go convince someone from features to come over here."

As they scurried off, Carrie caught her editor's eye; he nodded slightly, then looked at the Red Ranger, indicating (she assumed) that she was doing something correctly before he picked up his phone and began to whisper into it. She turned back to the Red Ranger with a large smile and offered to open his drink for him. Despite his insanity and threatening nature, she was quickly developing a liking for him. Here was a man who knew what it was like to have a bad day… and here was a man who could be her ticket out of the sports department and into features. There had been many rumors of the paper putting out a reward to anyone who could give reliable information on the Power Rangers… and here was her chance to give just that.

"Anything?" Tommy asked as they met up in the park.

"Nothing. There hasn't been any sort of panic at any of the TV stations," Trini replied in frustration.

"I checked the newspaper offices. No one running or screaming there," Kimberly said.

"I've been by his house, the Youth Center, everywhere," Zack added.

"Negative at the Command Center, and I couldn't get near the Viewing Globe without Alpha overhearing," Billy said with a sigh.

Tommy sighed. While he was slowly becoming a good leader, he found himself wondering what to do far too often. He wasn't above asking Jason for advice, either, and that was what he would have done right now if Jason hadn't gone completely mental. "Okay. I guess it's time to call him on the communicators."

"Don't use his name," Billy warned. "We don't know if his location is public."

Tommy nodded and started to lift his wrist to his mouth, then stopped. "Um, Trini," he said slowly, knowing she could tame a rhinoceros in ten words or less, "maybe you'd better do it."

Jason hummed to himself as he sat cross-legged on the girl's desk. She had explained to him that she was no evil reporter, but rather a "stringer," which meant she just wrote tiny blurbs about high school sports. He liked that; the only reason he got the paper was for the comics and the sports page (and, lately, he hadn't been able to enjoy the paper at all), and he had to admit it was nice to see his name in the paper and grin about the fact that the whole town knew how many yards he'd rushed in the big game (not that he could tell her that, as it would give away too much of his identity). Apparently there weren't any reporters at all in the sports department, especially this time of day; sports reporters rarely came into the office at all, spending most of their time out covering games. So he was free to sit around and chat with Carrie and somehow he felt very, very relaxed. Sports often made him feel much better about things.

She told him a lot about the way the department worked, explaining that copyeditors were the ones who made reporters' stories fit neatly on the page and edited the reporters' terrible grammar and spelling, and tried to tell him what all the odd terms floating around were. The sports staff was trying hard to ignore Jason entirely, and so they continued their work, calling out all sorts of confusing jargon to each other. Jason didn't understand much of it, but there was something comforting in knowing that not everyone who worked for the media was Satanic and out to get him (and even more comforting to know that the people who weren't Satanic covered football). Oddly enough, being in the news building was the calmest he'd felt in days.

Jason sipped his can of Red Pop through the Burger King straw that one of the other stringers had produced. "So," he said to Carrie, "I think I understand what a subhead is, and I'm pretty sure I get why you all keep talking about inches and factboxes and 'the wire,' but what's a packet drawer?"

"The sports gang is well-known at every take-out, fast food, and pizza restaurant within five miles of the building," Carrie explained. "We always save a lot of ketchup packets, salad dressing, napkins, plastic forks, you name it. And when no one could see the desk tops, we designated a couple packet drawers. I wouldn't actually use anything edible from them—most of it is pretty old—but the straws and utensils and stuff are good."

"I see." Jason looked at his straw contemplatively for a moment before nodding at the game. "You rooting for Chicago or—ack!" The sound of his communicator nearly startled him right off the edge of the desk.

"What was that?" Carrie demanded, looking around for the source of the odd beeping noise.

"Nothing to worry about," Jason said, determinedly holding on to his peaceful moment. He was not going to leave. He was going to sit here until someone made him leave. Or until they ran out of Red Pop. Clearing his throat, he lifted his wrist to his mouth. "Red here."

"Red? Where are you?" Trini's voice came through, sounding concerned.

"Oh, I'm watching the game."

"Watching the game? What? But… but you weren't home…"

"Nope, I'm not home."

"And you're not at the Y… the hangout?"

"Nope. I'm in the sports department."

"…What? What sports department?"

"The one at the Sentinel. Me and Carrie here are watching the Chicago game."

There was a pause. Jason waited, wondering what was going on. He could hear hesitation in her voice, thought he heard the others muttering in the background. He waited for her to order him to leave the building, to stop being an idiot, to—

"Who's Carrie?"

Oops.

"Random 'stringer,' whatever that means. She insists she's not an evil reporter, though."

There was the sound of a scuffle, then Trini yelping. "OW! Jesus, use your own!"

"Red! Are you going to get out of there on your own, or do I have to come get you?"

"White! Let go of my arm!" Trini yelled. Tommy was obviously using her communicator.

Jason narrowed his eyes behind his helmet, a bit incensed at the thought that Tommy was annoying Trini, but he let it go, still trying to stay calm. "Is the city being attacked?" Jason asked.

"What? No," Tommy replied.

"Then I see no reason to leave. I've got Red Pop, I've got the Chicago game, I've got a nice comfy desk to sit on. I'm not leaving."

"Red, don't make me come after you," Tommy threatened.

"I'm not going to make you. You do what you want. And I'll do what I want."

"Red, leave the Sentinel. That's an order."

The haze that had been clouding his vision so often lately came back. "Excuse me?"

"I said—"

"You listen to me, White!" Jason snarled. "I led your sorry butt for a year and I've covered you on numerous occasions. While you were slacking off, I was leading. And I'm fine that you're the leader and I'll take your orders in combat but I'm not leaving this building and you and your stupid talking sword aren't gonna make me! RED OUT!"

Jason flung his wrist back on his lap, ignoring the subsequent beeps of his communicator. He was not going to put up with crap from Tommy. He needed some time off, and if his only solace was thirty feet away from the people who wrote evil stories about him, then he was just going to have to take what he could get.

"RED! COME IN! Jason, do you hear me? I'm gonna beat you like Rita never did if you don't answer me now!"

"Tommy, LET GO!" Trini roared, kicking him in the shin. He had her arm in a death grip and was shouting at it, shaking her wrist as if he was trying to talk some sense into her communicator instead of Jason.

Tommy let her go, suddenly quite enraged. He understood that Jason had been put through hell these past few weeks. But it had been Jason who let Tommy's name slip and forced Billy and Zack to cover it up, and anyway it had been Jason's idea to throw Tommy to the fans, and Tommy thought it was rather big of him to forgive something like that so Jason had no right getting pissed at him. And Jason was the one causing his own stress about Jason and Trini; sure, Tommy was trying to bring it to the surface because it was interesting as hell, but Jason was the one keeping secrets when none of them ever had before. At least, not anything major.

Tommy hadn't asked to be leader. He wasn't even sure why he'd been made leader, though he suspected it has something to do with the powers of the White Ranger and Saba. He couldn't help it if he was late and forgetful; he tried not to be. And it wasn't his fault that sometimes he got so involved in certain things that he didn't hear his communicator! And he wasn't always kissing Kimberly in the Juice Bar! …Sometimes they were at the park. Or by the lake. Or… well, that wasn't the point!

"That wasn't an unreasonable order, was it?" he demanded of his friends. They all took a nervous step backwards, save Trini, who glared at him and rubbed her wrist.

"Well… no," Kimberly said. "I don't think so."

"He shouldn't be in a news building, especially in morph," Billy admitted.

"I'm going after him," Tommy growled, reaching for his morpher.

"Tommy," Trini said slowly, "Jason's got a lot of problems right now—"

"We've all got problems," Tommy snapped. "Jason's sitting in a newsroom right now, possibly compromising his—our—identity because he's having a bad day. I'm putting a stop to it. Tigerzord!"

Before anyone could say another word, Tommy teleported away. Trini winced. "Damn," she muttered.

"Jason will be fine," Kimberly told her. "Tommy won't—"

"I'm not worried about Jason," Trini interrupted. "I'm worried about Tommy. Now's not the best time to storm off and get in Jason's face. The boy's out of his mind."

Trini shrugged, turned, and wandered away, looking down at her arm and muttering about ice. Kimberly, Billy and Zack glanced at each other, now decidedly more nervous.

"I'm serious," Ex No. 2 insisted for the thirty-eighth time. "He's here! He just wandered in and started yelling at us and Carrie sent me to go get someone from the features department!"

The five reporters and three copyeditors from features glared down at him. "Yeah, right," said a skinny man with a ponytail, snorting derisively.

"You want to tell us what happened to our toner?" asked a short woman with a square jaw.

"I saw you hiding around the corner, trying to look nonchalant, right before the toner disappeared," the ponytail guy said accusingly.

"This is just some sort of distraction to steal more of our office supplies, isn't it?" said Square Jaw.

"No! Honest! I don't know what happened to your toner! I'm just a lowly stringer! A freelancer! I don't even get benefits! I don't even get free parking!"

"Yeah? Do the printers in the sports department have toner, kid?" growled Ponytail.

"I didn't take your toner! We have plenty of toner! Guys, please, the Red Ranger is sitting over in sports department and there's no one there to right a story about it! Come on!"

"Whatever," Ponytail said contemptuously. "As if Power Rangers would actually come here."

Tommy teleported to the top of the building across the street from the Sentinel and immediately started scanning the rooms through the windows. "This doesn't look like a battle site," Saba commented, sounding a little confused.

"It's not," Tommy said distractedly. "I'm looking for Jason. He's in the building somewhere, possibly in morph."

"Is that him over there? On the fourth floor?"

Tommy swung his head around. "Where?"

"There."

"Where?"

"I am a saber, you know. I don't exactly have fingers to point with."

Tommy sighed, then smacked the forehead area of his helmet and pulled Saba from his belt, aiming the point of the sword at the building. "Okay, tell me hot or cold, then."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Say left or right!"

"Oh. Left. I said left. Still left. No, no, my left, not your left."

"You don't have a left!"

"Go right, then, for crying out loud! Wait, back back back! You know, if you let me go, I can float around and—"

Tommy let go. With a short scream, Saba plummeted a good ten feet before catching himself and raising back up and aiming straight at Jason. Tommy squinted at the building, finally spotting a large red figure sitting cross-legged on a desk, next to a smiling girl in a desk chair, who was nodding at him as though engrossed in whatever he was saying. Tommy prayed no one saw the White Ranger aiming his sword at the building and panicked, but no one seemed to be looking his way.

"What the hell is he doing?" Tommy growled, stuffing Saba unceremoniously back in his rightful place. Saba let out a yelp of protest. "Singing Kum Ba Yah?"

"Lovely tune, that," Saba said. He began to hum a few bars.

"Saba, now is not the time," Tommy said sternly. His sword was more of a weirdo than Tommy cared to admit; never mind that its speech and numerous abilities made it weird in the first place.

"Right, sorry."

Tommy looked at the line of windows near Jason, finally spotting an open one nearby. The sports department was in the back corner of the building, and a window at the very corner was wide open. Landing on the ledge beneath the windows would normally be unbelievably tricky—well, okay, impossible—but of course it was nothing to a Ranger.

Tommy smacked against the side of the building a few seconds later, grabbing the sill to keep himself from falling backwards. Holding tight to the window, he leaped up and slid through feet-first.

A yelp alerted him to the fact that others had noticed his arrival. He was now standing right behind a row of low-walled cubicles. The nearest cubicle held a bald man with glasses, who was staring at him in horror. Everyone in the area was turned in his direction, but Tommy ignored them for the moment, familiarizing himself with the layout of the building first. The sports section extended for ten or fifteen yards, ending in room with vending machines and microwaves, flanked by bathrooms. A hallway led to the left, with a sign hanging above and pointing the way to several other departments.

Just out of sight of anyone down the hall, Jason sat Indian-style on a girl's desk, sipping Red Pop through a straw wedged carefully under his helmet, taking no notice of Tommy. While everyone in the vicinity was now trying to appear busy, Tommy noticed that they kept sneaking glances at both him and Jason, their heads cocked towards one of the two. Great. So everyone had been hanging on Jason's every word and he'd probably never noticed. The only person who didn't appear to be listening to Jason and the girl was a man in the corner, speaking in low voices on the phone. Tommy distinctly heard the name "Perkins" and realized with no small amount of horror that Perkins was the most well-known sports columnist the Sentinel had; apparently the man on the phone was trying to get the reporters back into the office. Tommy hoped he was failing miserably. (He was.)

"So do you have a job?" the girl asked Jason casually. Tommy had heard somewhere that it was a reporter's job to put the people they interviewed at ease, giving them not only the chance to talk but the desire to do so. Tommy hoped he wasn't too late.

"Well, saving the world's kind of my job," Jason said carefully. "Other than that, I can't tell you."

"Of course not. I was just going to say, it must be awful trying to hold down a job when you have to leave all the time to fight monsters. Sounds really difficult."

Jason took a sip of his drink, stalling for time. If he said yes or no, she'd think he had a job. If he said anything else, she'd assume he didn't. But if she suspected he was a student, and from what he gathered she was pretty bright, then he needed to be quiet.

"Totally sucks," he replied finally. Better to mislead her than to let her get close.

"I can't even get time off when I've got a fever," she said, letting a note of admiration creep into her voice. "So… tell me. Is it difficult to be… you know… hallucinating?"

Jason went rigid. Tommy halted his approach, wanting to hear the answer to this. Jason swallowed and tried to think of a good crazy person answer. "Just because no one else can see my invisible friends, doesn't make them hallucinations," he said, figuring that anyone who was crazy wouldn't think their delusions were false. "And by the way, they'll never find me in the medical records. Ever."

"You don't see a doctor for your condition?" she asked, startled. She knew, from eavesdropping on the investigative reporters, that everyone they were looking at could fight, had suffered a head injury in the past, and was undergoing psychiatric treatment.

"Even if I was seeing a doctor," Jason said in exasperation, "do you really think I wouldn't have a fallback plan to cover myself? The Power Rangers have the technology to create giant fighting robots. Don't you think we can destroy a few medical records? Why would I even bother going to a doctor in Angel Grove, anyway? If they even guessed I was a Ranger, I'd be screwed."

She raised her eyebrows for a moment before remembering herself. "You're very smart."

"Yes, I am. Some of the others are even smarter. Can I have another can of Red Pop?"

Tommy decided now was as good a moment as any to take action, mostly because the dozen or so people in the room were making him feel claustrophobic again. "Red!" Tommy yelled, stomping over to him. "Come on, let's go."
"Hi, White," Jason replied calmly. "Carrie, this is the White Ranger. Obviously. White, this is Carrie, um… I didn't catch her last name—"

"I don't care what her last name is! You're jeopardizing your—OUR—identity by even talking to her! Now come on, let's get out of here, before Zordon finds out."

"Is Zordon an ally of Rita's?" Carrie asked eagerly.

"I'm jeopardizing our identities?" Jason said mildly, giving Tommy a pointed look. "Isn't that the pot calling the kettle black. Or, um, Red. Or—"

"Red, come on!" Tommy said, throwing up his hands.

"White, I don't see what your problem is, but—"

"You don't see what my problem is?" Tommy interrupted incredulously. "You don't see what my problem is? You've sent all of Angel Grove on a manhunt for the most sacred possession we have—our identities. You're keeping secrets from the rest of the gang. You're snapping at everyone. You're doing crazy things with B—Blue, for crying out loud! BLUE! The sanest one of us all and you're convincing him to—"

"Hey, he was the one who wanted to do it!" Jason snapped. "He was the lunatic who caused the whole mess! I made a mistake, yeah, but I'll remind you that you've made plenty!"

"I didn't ask to be leader, you know!"

"That's not what this is about!"

"Yeah? Then what is it about, huh? Yellow? Pink? Are you really just a psycho? What?"

"White," Jason said, climbing off the desk, "you're like a brother to me. But I'm warning you—get out of my face."

"Or what? Huh?"

Jason wasn't sure why he was so angry. He wasn't sure why Tommy was so angry. He wasn't even really all that sure what they were arguing about. But Jason was tired of dealing with Ranger life. This was the first peaceful moment he'd had in a long time… and he wasn't letting Tommy drag him out of here without a fight.

Jason drew back his fist.

End Notes: We have been nominated for "Best Laugh" at the Power Rangers Couples Awards. Please vote if you feel we deserve it. The link will be posted in my bio. Voting is open until February 21.

Since the hints were so popular, here's a few more:

1) "Hayley!" Tommy wailed, with an "it's too good to be true" sort of tone. "It's you! Thank god! You'll save me, won't you!"

2) There was now a sort of gleam in Jason's eye, a mad gleam, a determined gleam. A gleam of warning. "I love my wife," Jason announced in a cheerful but somehow threatening tone. "And she needs her chainsaw."

3) "We might have to bust Kira and Zack out of jail for attempted bicycle theft and a couple other things. Or, um, at least post their bail."

4) "And that's how I met Jason," Zack finished.

"I'd forgotten about that," Jason said, shaking his head.

Zack nodded. "Good thing we met, eh? Otherwise there'd be a lot less Play-Doh in the world."

5) Whoa, Tommy thought wildly. SO not ready for this conversation.

6) Tommy gaped at him. "Conner's wandering around a strange city… alone!" he yelled. "Oh, god! I'm responsible for him!"

7) "All right, then," he said, beginning to write just beneath the heading "The (Very Top Secret) Mission to Reunite Dr. O and Kim." "This is what we're going to do."