Long Journey Home

The tests Alpha ran on Jason were exhaustive, but brought the results everyone had been hoping for. Even the possibility of getting the former Blue Ranger back seemed feasible; their ancient mentor promised to contact Aquitar at the next opportunity. Jubilantly, the Rangers looked at each other.
 
"What now?" Kat asked, smiling brightly. She could see that Tommy was feeling worlds better than before, and her own mood rose accordingly. While she didn’t know Jason all that well yet -- after all, he’d only been home for a few months -- she was aware how much he meant to her boyfriend. Besides, the former Gold Ranger soon had made his own place on the team, and he’d been missed in spirit, if not in body.
 
"Breakfast!" Jason announced decisively. "I’ve been up since dawn, and I only had an apple on the way to the park. I’m starving!"
 
Rocky grinned; now here was a man after his own heart!
 
"What have you been up to this early anyway, Jase?" he queried, an evil grin spreading over his face. This was going to be good! "Having hot, steamy sex with Jay’s Companion?"
 
"Rocky!" Tanya swatted him. "As if Jason would do such a thing!" Kat and Adam laughed at the idea. Only Tommy noticed the slight shadow that crossed Jason’s face, before he forced a smile onto his face.
 
"Is that what you think, Rocky? Do you really believe I would intrude on a solid relationship just for the hell of it? After all, I may have lived in Jay’s body for a while, but he was here!" The Blue Ranger subsided, apologizing for suspecting Jason. The others just shook their heads at Rocky’s one-track mind; he’d speculated enough about Jason’s activities in those other realities. No-one but Tommy noticed that the former Ranger had neatly avoided giving a direct answer.
 
The banter continued as the six teleported out, to buy breakfast items and go to the Olivers’ house, as per their previous plan. The meal turned into an impromptu party, lasting till late in the afternoon. It ended at the lake, where they spent hours just playing in the sand, the water, relaxing and sharing experiences. Naturally, they exchanged stories how it had been for Jason on the one hand, and for the Rangers on the other, learning about their counterparts.
 
"You really think Jason was in love with Tammy?" Jason’s question surprised everyone with its intensity.
 
"Yeah, he really was. I mean, he had trouble sometimes relating to Tommy, but he talked to Adam and me about her a lot. Also, that he didn’t have the guts to tell her about his feelings."
 
Adam corroborated Rocky’s words. "Yes, really. She was all he sometimes talked about."
 
"Good."
 
That took quite a load off Jason’s mind. If what he suspected was true, his alter ego would find himself exactly in the space he’d occupied last when the transfer occurred. He couldn’t help a tiny grin. He remembered quite clearly his shock when he’d found himself in bed with Tommy the second time around; that other Jason would wake up in bed next to the girl he secretly loved, with no memory of how he’d gotten there. Well, he had every confidence in Tammy; she’d been so sure about her feelings, Jason didn’t doubt she would set him straight as soon as possible.
 
"How did you cope with him?" he asked Tommy, curiously.
 
"You mean, once he got over wanting to deck me because he thought we had somehow abducted Tammy?" The Red Ranger smiled, considering.
 
"Pretty well, actually, when he was around me. Of course, it was hard for him not having any Powers at all, but he did okay, all told. He was a lot like you."
 
"He was a bit more serious than you," Kat mused. "Less ready to do things just for fun. I doubt I could have persuaded him to take part in my ballet, or that he would have done the Fashion show for anyone."
 
"You got that right, girl!" Tanya laughed. "By the way, Jase, what about Emily? Did you meet hero?" o?"
 
Jason shuddered theatrically, garnering curious looks from his friends.
 
"Let’s say I saw her; I certainly had no desire to meet her there."
 
"Oh? Do tell!" Rocky, of course.
 
"I’ve never been into the chains-and-leather scene, thank you very much!"
 
"What?!?" The others looked dumbfounded.
 
"Over there, Emily is part of a biker gang -- remember those punks Bulk and Skull used to hang out with for a while?"
 
Tommy nodded; the Troublesome Twosome had had sense enough, at least, to distance themselves from the really bad apples even AGH had shortly after he’d moved to Angel Grove. He’d heard the stories about the Food Fair, though. Bulk and Skull might be stupid, but they were not really mean -- most of the time, anyway. They already knew that the blonde waitress hadn't been around Jess, or Jay in their respective realities. It had been hard to explain Jason's sudden disinterest, but thankfully the Beach Bar had kept Emily too busy for much socializing.
 
Jason told the others a bit about the fights the Ranger team had had in that other reality; Tommy listened as avidly as the others, commenting and comparing occasionally on the four weeks that had passed here. All the time, though, he couldn’t shake the feeling that there were some things Jason wasn’t telling. It showed in his choice of words, in the way he sometimes would get a faraway look in his eyes .... none of the others noticed, but he knew his friend better than that. There had been something between Jase and Tammy, he was sure of it, and the thought sent a feeling he couldn’t identify into the pit of his stomach. Well, Jason would tell him when he was ready.
 
The talk slowly turned to the fifth week, when Jess had been an unwitting guest in Jason’s body. He’d given the Rangers a very sanitized version of his first moments as a girl, and had all of them nearly in stitches with laughter. Now that it was past, Jason could see the humour in the situation, although he’d flushed beet-red when he told his woes about having to take the Pill and wearing the lacy underwear Jess favoured.
 
"Aw, man! I haven’t laughed so hard in ages!" Rocky lay wheezing on his beach towel, holding his aching sides.
 
"Yeah, well, I’d have liked to see you in a peach bra and panties!" Jason shot back, grinning despite his embarrassment. That got another shout of laughter from his friends. He looked to the two female Rangers for support.
 
"C’mon, girls, help me out here!" Kat and Tanya looked at each other, at Jason, at each other again, and broke into near-hysterical giggles.
 
"What?"
 
Jason sat up, suddenly suspicious. There was more going on here than met the eye.
 
The guys smirked openly.
 
"Why don’t you tell him about that Wednesday afternoon?" Adam grinned. Jason fought off a slight chill. That had been the day he’d almost gotten mugged, or worse.
 
Kat controlled herself with a visible effort. Her lips twitching, she didn’t dare look at Tanya.
 
"Well, Jess was getting a bit stir-crazy; there wasn’t much she could do that wouldn’t create a stir, so she spent the afternoon with us."
 
"Tell me about it; at least she could go to school as me -- I was pretty much confined to the apartment. All I could do was watch ‘Oprah’ every day!"
 
That set off the laughter all over again, as much at Jason’s indignant tone as at the image it provoked.
 
"You won’t be so happy about Jess taking your place in class -- she botched your science test pretty badly!"
 
"Oh no....." Jason’s pained groan as he sank back on his back was drowned in the group’s merriment. He recovered soon, though. Recalling the earlier smirks, he asked again.
 
"What have you guys been up to that day?"
 
"Oh, nothing much," Tanya said with studied innocence. "We just took Jess to the mall...."
 
Jason stared at the girls, torn between horror and laughter. He knew those two, and their shopping habits.
 
"Please tell me that nobody saw me there with you ...!"
 
"Don’t worry; nobody important, anyway," Kat reassured their friend. Her slightly evil smile told another story, though.
 
Jason sat up again, alarmed. Hoping against hope, he hardly dared ask.
 
"Who saw me?"
 
This time, it was Tommy who delivered the bad news with twitching lips.
 
"As Kat said, nobody important -- only half the football team."
 YeahYeah -- just as you came out of the lingerie shop with those two, shopping bags in hand!"
 
Jason fell back on the blanket with a moan of sheer despair. It was too much for the male Rangers; they all collapsed into howling bundles of mirth. Trying to gasp for breath, Rocky blurted out the last escapade the girls had gotten Jess into.
 
"Y-you also haven’t t-told your mother yet about the p-pair of jeans she bought for you ...." he had to stop because he was laughing so hard.
 
"Oh, come on, Rocky, they are really stylish, and look great on Jason!", Tanya protested.
 
"Yeah -- they also cost close to a hundred bucks!"
 
Jason jerked up with a start.
 
"WHAT?!"
 
"Well, they were on sale at the GQ boutique...." Kat tried to defend herself and Tanya. "They fit real well, too!"
 
"If you don’t want to sit down in them, they actually do," Adam consoled the horrified former Ranger. "They are a bit ... um ... tight."
 
Having tried the jeans Jess had in her wardrobe, Jason could well imagine. Covering his eyes with his hand, he just shook his head. "Thank you, God, that it was only a week! Who knows what else you two would have gotten her into if I’d stayed in her reality much longer!" Almost dreading the answer, he couldn’t help but ask.
 
"Where’d she get that much money, anyway?"
 
"She said she found it in your desk, in an envelope marked ‘clothes’," Kat replied. Jason fell back.
 
"That was for my new gi, and equipment! What else did you do?"
 
Tanya considered for a moment. "We had made an appointment at Antonio’s for a makeover for you, but Jay didn’t want to go. Would you like us to reschedule?"
 
Defeated, Jason only looked at his male friends from his prone position on the blanket.
 
"How could you let them do that?"
 
All he got was another round of laughter.
 
When everybody had quieted down somewhat, Tommy brought the conversation to Jason’s stay in Jay’s reality and his trip to Phaedos.
 
The girls were intrigued to learn about the Spirit Animals their counterparts had received; Adam, Rocky and Tommy found Jason’s tale about having to choose between two different Spirit Animals fascinating. It was so different from their own experience, that they wanted to know every detail.
 
"I don’t get it; we had to fight that dinosaur skeleton, and those gargoyles at the Monolith; why’d you have to go someplace else? Was there no danger at all?" Adam wanted to know.
 
"Well, there was that one instance," Jason recalled. "Before the Lion went deeper into the jungle, we passed by this stretch close to the river where the ground was really rocky; Tommy wanted to go clear across, but the Lion, who was waiting under the trees, looked at me so ... I dunno. Anyway, I decided to go along the perimeter, even though it was farther and harder to negotiate; good thing we did, because we were about halfway past, when suddenly these boiling hot geysirs sprang up all over the place. There were at least a dozen at the same time, and if I hadn’t picked the other way, we’d have been caught right in the middle. As it was, we got away with only a few splashes." He showed them a half-healed burn on the inside of his arm; somehow, during that last transfer, the slight injury had been transported back to his body along with his consciousness. Zordon had reassured him it wasn't serious, though, just a consequence of the matching-again resonances.
 
"Wow," Rocky commented, impressed despite himself. You could fight gargoyles and skeletons, but nature?
 
"What made you choose the Lion instead of the Eagle?" Kat asked, curious. "I mean, you are so much like Tommy, and so close in so many ways, I’d have thought you would have chosen a Spirit Animal close to the Falcon."
 
"Part of me wanted to," Jason admitted, directing an understanding smile towards Tommy. He knew that his best friend was asking himself the same question. "Especially since Billy in that first reality had told me that Jason had had the White Eagle as his Spirit Guide. But I saw the Lion’s pack in the distance, almost as if they were supporting him while he came for me. Somehow, they reminded me of you guys -- of the team. I ... something just told me that my place was with the team, not just going it alone." He shook his head. He hadn’t been able to put his exact feelings into words yet, it was so intensely personal. A quick sideways glance at Tommy showed him that his friend understood, though. That was all that mattered.