Chapter 5

Preston slowly opened his eyes and noticed that he was in his room. The room was dark and his curtains were pulled shut. He definitely did not remember falling asleep here. He had a pounding headache and was extremely tired even though he just woke up. He was also pretty sure that he was running a fever. He kind of felt like he did when he was sick a couple of weeks ago, except worse this time. He saw his phone sitting on the table beside his bed to check the time and saw that it said 10:00am. He quickly sat up, but quickly regretted it as the room spun for a moment. He was late for school. Like really late. His dad was going to be so mad at him. Granted, he was having issues with his dad right now, but he didn't want his dad to think that he was skipping school.

As he made a move to get out of his bed, his bedroom door opened and his dad entered. "Preston, you're awake!" his dad said surprised which confused Preston.

"Yeah," he said slowly. His dad didn't seem upset that he wasn't in school right now, but more of relieved that he was awake at all.

Marcus Tien went over to his son and that was when Preston noticed what his father was holding: a thermometer, some medicine, and a glass of water. "Lay back down," Marcus instructed his son and Preston complied. Preston was not up for arguing with what his father was telling him to do. He honestly felt terrible and probably wouldn't be able to make it through school anyway. His father slipped the thermometer under his tongue and waited for the beep. Once it beeped, his father took it out and sighed. "That's definitely a fever."

"Dad, what happened? I don't even remember falling asleep in here," Preston said. He was genuinely confused. His mind was kind of fuzzy at the moment and he couldn't exactly remember what happened.

"I'll be honest, I only know what your friends told me when they brought you home unconscious," Marcus started. "They said that your brother showed up and you guys fought. I'm glad that he backed off after you passed out."

Everything started coming back to Preston. The fight. He lost. Badly. His brother's magic was way stronger than his. "Oh."

"I'm not the only one who has been keeping a secret though. You're the blue ranger."

Preston's eyes widened. "How did you find out?"

Marcus huffed a laugh. "Your friends told me when they brought you here. They thought it was important that I knew and knew I could keep a secret since I've kept the secret about your mom."

Preston just nodded. He understood why the others told his father that he's a ranger, but he still doesn't like that he didn't know the truth about his mother until recently. He took the pills that his father held out for him and took them with the water that his father had also brought.

"Just give the medicine some time to kick in," Marcus said. "It should start helping within the next half an hour. It helped your mother when she got like this."

"Got like what?"

"When you use a lot of energy with your powers, it can cause you to feel sick. I helped your mother when it happened to her. It didn't happen to her very often because she had already reached her full potential with her power. Your powers are still growing which means that you don't have as much energy to give. Your powers will get stronger the more advanced you get, but right now, it does make you more vulnerable to using up your energy."

Preston was surprised by how much knowledge his father actually had about his powers. "How do you know so much?"

Marcus chuckled. "I might not have powers myself, but I learned a lot from your mother and the time she was training your brother. I might not have always understood everything involving magic, but at some point, I came to the conclusion that magic doesn't always make sense."

That got a small laugh from Preston. "That's what I've always loved about magic. Things didn't need to make sense. Whenever everything else was hard or confusing, I could turn to the one thing where it didn't matter what else was going on."

"I guess that's partly my fault for not being around that much when you needed me." Marcus sighed. "I'm sorry for being so involved in my business after your mother's death. I should've been there for you." It's true. Marcus became distant with Preston after his mother's death. Marcus still made sure Preston ate, went to school, and had all his necessities, but that was about it and the man regrets that. "And I'm especially sorry that I never told you the truth about your mother and that you have a brother. I thought that I was protecting you by not telling you, but I think I made everything worse in the long run. That's on me."

"I understand why you didn't tell me," Preston cut in. "I didn't at first and I was so angry about it, but now I think that I'm starting to understand." Preston pulled his father in for a hug and his father immediately hugged back. The two have had a strained relationship for a while, but now, it looks like they can finally start to heal their relationship.

Marcus spoke once they broke apart. "I'm going to leave you to get some rest for a little while. I'm confining you to this bed until you're better and then we'll start talking about training." He stood up and started walking to the door.

"Training?" Preston asked confused.

Marcus stopped and turned back to his son. "Like I said, I learned things from your mother and now I'm going to help you learn to use your powers using what she taught me about magic."

Preston nodded with a smile before snuggling back under his covers and closing his eyes.

Marcus smiled at his son before leaving the room closing the door behind him.

Summer Cove High School

Sarah was worried about her boyfriend. After dropping him off with his dad, she couldn't help but feel worried. He was unconscious when she and the other rangers dropped him off. She remembered how Levi and Brody had to carry him there and how everyone else kept a look out to make sure no one saw them while they were bringing him to his house. They agreed to tell Mr. Tien that Preston was the blue ranger to give him a better understanding as to what happened. Levi and Sarah had to give a quick rundown of everything that's been going on with Preston recently to the others in order for them to agree to that. Sarah gave Mr. Tien her phone number to contact her with news about Preston's condition.

She was currently at her locker between classes when she felt her phone buzz. She quickly took it out as Levi was walking over to her and read the message.

"Hey Sarah," Levi said to her and saw that she was read something intently. "Everything ok?"

"Preston is awake," Sarah said. "His dad said he's not feeling the best, but he's resting."

"That's probably to be expected. He got hit pretty hard."

"Yeah. We can go over there after school to see him."

"That's good."

"Where are the others?" Sarah asked. She hadn't seen much of them today. Normally, they would meet up in their usual spot during breaks, but she looked and they weren't there. The only time she's seen them is during the classes they share.

"Yeah. I think they might be a little upset with us for keeping such a big secret. I could tell that Brody was worried about Preston, but he barely talked to me last night. I think that Calvin and Hayley have been kind of avoiding us too."

"I understand that it was a big secret, but it wasn't ours to tell," Sarah said sadly. The others shouldn't be mad at them. It really was Preston's choice if he wanted to tell the others and he didn't.

"I agree. Honestly, everything that's been going on has been so messed up. Who purposely attacks their own brother?"

"I know. The best we can do is help protect him because I'm pretty sure Asher will be back."

"Yeah." The bell rang signaling that they had to go to their next class. "I'll see you after school."

"Yeah. Meet me in the front and we'll head over to Preston's house."

After School

Levi and Sarah met up like they agreed upon and rode on Sarah's hoverboard to Preston's house. Once they got there, they hopped off the hoverboard and walked to the front door and rang the doorbell. Preston's dad greeted them when the door opened and invited them in leading them up to Preston's room. Preston was awake when they got up there and Sarah went over to sit on the edge of her boyfriend's bed while Levi hovered to the side of the bed. Preston's father left the room to let the three rangers talk.

"How are you doing?" Sarah asked her boyfriend.

"I'm ok," Preston said. "I have a fever which my dad said is from me overexerting myself with my powers."

"That can happen?" Levi asked.

Preston shrugged. "Apparently. My dad said he's not sending me to school until I'm better."

"That's good," Sarah said. "You shouldn't be going anywhere at the moment."

"Is everything ok between you and your dad?" Levi asked.

"Yeah," Preston said with a small smile. "We talked and I think we are going to start to rebuild our relationship."

Of course, their communicators had to go off then. Levi answered. "What's going on?" he asked.

"There's a monster attacking right outside the school," Mick's voice came through the communicator. "The others are already there."

"We're on our way."

Preston made a move to get up, but Sarah pushed him back down. "You're not going anywhere," Sarah said. "We'll handle it. You rest."

Preston pouted. "I really hate this."

"The faster you get better, the faster you can be out there fighting monsters with us."

"Fine."

Sarah stood up and followed Levi out leaving Preston alone in his room wishing he could join them right now.

A/N: I hope you enjoyed!