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After Aiyon wakes -- after he finds out that sixty-five million years have gone by since his teammates died, and discovers that Zayto hasn't told the new ones about his connection to the sporix -- after all of that is said and done and he can call Zayto a friend again, there's still one thing that bothers him.
It was the look on Zayto's face when Aiyon had deactivated his morph that first time, and Zayto had seen that he was alive.
"I don't think Zayto was happy to see me," Aiyon tells Solon when she asks him what's wrong.
"What?" she says. "What makes you say that?"
It was the furrow between Zayto's brows. The way he seemed almost defensive and took a step back. The way he showed no happiness or relief even though he just learned his closest friend had survived.
And that... that hurt.
"Trust me, Aiyon," Solon says, placing one clawed hand on his shoulder when he doesn't answer aloud. "He's overjoyed to have you back."
Aiyon isn't so sure, though.
*
Zayto is different.
He's always been a little awkward, a little stiff, but watching him interact with the new rangers, Aiyon's sure he's never seen Zayto this awkward or stiff. He hangs back from the group often, content to observe when before he'd always be in the thick of things. He's still Zayto, just quieter and more distant than Aiyon remembers.
He asks Javi if he thinks Zayto is acting strange. Then he asks Ollie. Then Amelia. Then Izzy.
They all give him the same answer. That this is nothing out of the ordinary to them. That this is just how Zayto acts now, apparently.
*
Well after sundown, Zayto leaves his quarters. Aiyon only notices because he's up late running a check on his zord's systems and happens to see Zayto walk by the command center door.
In the olden days, Aiyon would've called out to him, maybe thrown a friendly arm over his shoulder and asked him where he was heading at this time of night. Now, Aiyon silently tails after him, ducking out of sight when Zayto looks behind him as if to make sure he's not being followed.
Zayto stops outside of the door to an old storeroom on the other side of the base. This section of the base was where their old team hung out and this storeroom belonged to their blue ranger. He had converted it into a garden, but Aiyon knows that the impossible number of years they were asleep has to have killed the blooms that used to grow inside.
Zayto types in a passcode and slips through the door. A few moments later, when Aiyon tries to follow, the door is sealed shut. Aiyon waits, even though patience is not his strong suit, and about an hour later, he darts behind an alcove as the door finally opens and Zayto steps out.
Aiyon follows him, suspicious and curious, but Zayto only heads back to his quarters.
*
The next night, Aiyon waits in the command center at the same time just to see what happens. Sure enough, Zayto silently walks across the base and disappears into the same storeroom again.
During the day, Aiyon tries to open the door, but it's been locked to Zayto's bio-signature and the passcode on it is so complex it would take him weeks to hack.
Whatever Zayto's hiding, it's clear he doesn't want anyone else to see it.
*
Another difference Aiyon notices is that the two of them don't spend time together, not like they used to.
He and Zayto used to spend their days training and fighting together, dawn to dust. Their waking lives were spent in each other's close orbits, and they were closer to each other than any of their teammates.
Yet here in the future, they wake at different times. Zayto goes to help at BuzzBlast and Aiyon works on his own projects. They still train and fight side by side, and often eat their third meal of the day together, but Zayto is as reserved with him as he is with their new teammates.
They used to tell each other everything. Their passions and dreams were always something they shared, and while he and Zayto still speak, Zayto's not as forthcoming as he used to be. He gives clipped answers. He holds things back.
They've known each other their whole lives, but it feels like maybe Zayto doesn't want Aiyon in his anymore.
It makes Aiyon's want to scream. Because it's a miracle they both survived, that they're both here, in the future together, and instead of recognizing or celebrating the wonder of that, Zayto is more closed off than ever.
*
Zayto doesn't talk about their old team.
Well, he does, but only when Aiyon brings them up. Otherwise, he doesn't at all, and Aiyon doesn't like that either.
It's been millions of years since that terrible fight, but it's also been no time at all, and Aiyon misses his friends so much that sometimes it threatens to overpower him. He wants to talk about them. He wants to be surrounded by stories of their memory. He doesn't like how sometimes it feels like Zayto replaced them with new rangers and moved on.
"Do you miss them?" he asks Zayto, when they're training with their new team in the forest outside the base, and he and Zayto are standing by dino henge, watching them laugh about a silly move Javi tried.
To his credit, Zayto doesn't ask Aiyon who he's asking after. He answers, simply, "All the time."
*
That night, Zayto takes a bottle into the storeroom with him. It has a unique shape Aiyon doesn't recognize that means it's likely human.
It's not lost on Aiyon that he's caught Zayto sneaking into the locked room every night now for almost two weeks.
It's not lost on Aiyon that Zayto' keeping secrets from him -- that he feels more and more like a stranger.
*
He's with Amelia and Ollie in the park the next day, the three of them on their way to grab lunch, when he asks about the bottle. With permission, he touches their hands to show them an image of it and tries not to let his resentment leak through the connection.
"That's alcohol," Ollie says, and he and Amelia share a look. "It's a well-known vodka brand judging from the shape."
"Alcohol?"
"Um, it's something adult humans consume," Amelia explains. "It's usually for special occasions with friends and family, but it can also be used... recreationally. It can make humans... tipsy."
Aiyon understands instantly. "Oh, it's drink." Or the human equivalent, at least. On Rafcon, it was brought out at celebrations and had an inebriating effect if consumed in excess.
As the leader of the Knights, Zayto rarely partook in it, not to mention that he hated the taste.
It only raises more questions. What was Zayto doing with the human version of drink in an old storeroom?
*
"What's Zayto keeping in his locked storeroom?" Aiyon asks, cornering Solon in the command center when Zayto is at BuzzBlast.
Solon startles, like she wasn't expecting the question. "You... you know about the storeroom?"
Aiyon crosses his arms over his chest. "He's there every night. Kinda hard not to notice."
Solon sighs, her shoulders rising and falling with it. She pushes something on the communication console, probably checking for new Ranger Hotline messages. "I think it would be best if you asked Zayto that question."
The thing is, Aiyon has no idea what Zayto could possibly be up to. What could be so important that Zayto has to work on it every night in secret?
"Is he okay?" he asks, because something's clearly not right.
Tellingly, Solon pauses for a moment before answering. "Zayto was alone for a long time," she says. "He didn't take it well. As you know, sometimes grief affects us in different ways."
Aiyon wants to point out that Zayto isn't alone anymore -- that he has a new team, that he still has Aiyon -- but he holds his tongue.
*
They've been winning the vast majority of their battles against the sporix, so it was only a matter of time before the tables turned. This sporix is stronger than any of the others they've fought. It's large, it's ugly, and it has the extremely annoying ability to copy the attacks of sporix they've already defeated. It also carries around a large wooden chest for a reason they don't understand until Aiyon and Izzy are blasted with an energy beam and find themselves trapped inside it.
It's not Aiyon's first time being captured by a sporix, but it's no walk in the park. Their communication is cut off from the outside, and it takes them three hours of anxiety-filled trial and error to find a combination of their weapons' energy frequencies to break free.
The other rangers must teleport to their location the second their signals reappear, because suddenly they're all there. Javi has his sister in his arms, and Ollie and Amelia are checking them both over for injuries.
Aiyon's attention, however, is on Zayto, who walks over to them slowly. He doesn't pull Aiyon into a hug like Aiyon expects and hopes he will. He doesn't show any outward happiness to see Aiyon, or even relief. He just puts a hand on Aiyon's arm and says, "You're okay," like that's somehow enough.
It's not though, and Aiyon, who just escaped a horrifying ordeal and who just wants his best friend to comfort him, feels his blood boil.
*
At their third meal that night, Aiyon waits for Zayto to say something. They had debriefed the events of the day, and he and Izzy had explained how they escaped, but he needs some confirmation that Zayto even noticed he was missing.
It doesn't come.
When Zayto starts telling Solon an anecdote about a video he watched being filmed at BuzzBlast, he snaps. He drops his cutlery and, interrupting Zayto's story, asks, "Did you even care?"
"Aiyon?"
Aiyon's jaw clenches, his nails digging into his palms. "Did you even care that I was trapped inside that thing?"
"Aiyon?" Zayto asks again, and now he hears concern in Zayto's voice. And he hates it. He hates that it wasn't there after Aiyon was missing for hours, but it's here now because Aiyon is seconds away from exploding.
"Of course, I cared," he says, and Aiyon must be angrier than he thought because he doesn't know when Zayto rounded the table. Zayto is close enough to touch, and he reaches out and lays a hand on Aiyon's shoulder. It's gentle. Intolerably gentle.
"Were you?" Aiyon spits back anyway.
"He was worried sick," Solon says, hovering nearby. "Aiyon, what's gotten into you?"
But the anger is still there, the pressure of it pushing against his heart in the worst way, and he rears backwards forcing Zayto's hand off of him. "Then show it," he says, looking Zayto in the eye, before storming off.
*
Both Zayto and Solon knock on the door to his quarters multiple times that evening. He ignores them every time.
*
Aiyon is too angry to try to sleep, and when he checks the time, he gets an idea. He pulls himself out of bed and into the command center. Then he sits by the door and waits.
Sure enough, it's only a few minutes later that Zayto passes by. Aiyon trails after him on silent feet and when Zayto enters the storeroom, Aiyon rushes forward and just manages to catch the door before it closes.
He doesn't force himself inside even though he could. Instead, he holds the door open with just his fingers, leaving only a tiny crack in it to peer through.
He knows Zayto doesn't want him to even know that this storeroom exists, but he's too worked up to care.
He looks through the crack.
To his surprise, there's greenery inside. The floor is still covered in Rafconian soil, but otherwise it doesn't look like the lush expanse of plants that his old friend spent years tending to. These plants are young, the tallest one only about as high as his knee.
It's not just the plants that catch his attention, because sunk into the soil are four glowing pillars in a semicircle. From left to right, they're black, green, blue, and pink, and at the base of each, is a collection of small stones.
Aiyon sucks in a breath. They're memorial pillars.
On Rafcon, when someone died, they'd erect a pillar in the soil, usually from metal, and most often, they planted them in a garden. They'd carve into it the names and other information about their loved ones, as a way honor and remember them, but also as a way to grieve.
Here, on a faraway planet, millions of years in the future, it should be impossible but there are pillars planted in Rafconian soil, in a garden even. The pillars are each made of pipes from the base and have been outfitted with lights so they glow in the colors of their deceased friends, and even all the way from the door, Aiyon can make out Rafconian characters carved into them.
It's a fitting tribute for former rangers, and Zayto, the obvious architect of this gravesite, kneels in its center, his head bowed, his eyes squeezed shut, pain etched into his expression.
Aiyon's always been sharp, the first to solve puzzles or find creative ways to save the day, so it doesn't take him long to make the connection between the contents of this storeroom and the way Zayto has been acting so strange and distant and different.
He didn't see it, but it's obvious. Even the drink makes sense now. On Rafcon, they often shared toasts with the deceased. Zayto must have poured it on the stones.
Solon had tried to tell him, but he was too angry to listen.
As you know, sometimes grief affects us in different ways.
Zayto has been grieving. He lost his whole team, just like Aiyon did and--
There's a sound of a sob. Aiyon slaps his free hand over his mouth when he realizes it escaped from him.
Zayto turns and suddenly his eyes are on Aiyon, wide with surprise.
Aiyon stumbles backwards, releasing his hold on the door and it clicks shut between them.
Aiyon should go. His anger is gone, replaced by something that feels so much worse, and he shouldn't be here. He's made a mistake.
"Aiyon?"
The door's wide open now, and Zayto is crouching in front of him.
"You made them pillars," Aiyon says.
Zayto nods.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
Zayto takes a deep breath and frowns. "I wanted to."
"I thought--" He had thought Zayto hadn't cared. That he didn't feel anything. Worse, he thought he had moved on.
"Come on," Zayto says, taking his hand and pulling him to his feet. "I'll show you."
At a loss, Aiyon lets himself be led.
Inside the room, the pillars are bigger than they looked from the door, and now that he's closer, he can easily read the names of their friends carved into them, along with their ranger designation, a list of heroic deeds, and things like loved coming up with puns.
Aiyon falls to his knees and feels the weight of tears in his eyes. He gasps for breath.
Zayto had done this. Long before Aiyon was even revived, Zayto had built this place because he cared. Because he loved their team and loved them still.
His vision goes blurry and he rubs at his face, and then Zayto is on the ground next to him, pulling Aiyon into an embrace. Aiyon goes to him easily, wrapping his arms around Zayto's back and holding on tight. He presses his forehead into Zayto's neck, and the dam breaks.
He cries. He cries so hard his head hurts and his chest feels like it's collapsed in on itself. He thinks that if he didn't have Zayto to lean on, he'd be lost.
He doesn't know how much time passes, but finally, he starts being able to breathe again. He stays there, catching his breath, and when he feels like he's not about to crumble to pieces, he opens his eyes.
Over Zayto's shoulder, he notices that there's a fifth pillar. It's leaning against the wall near the door, out of the way and out of sight of the vantage point of his earlier spying. It's made out of the same pipe as the others, but unlike the others, it's no longer planted in the soil and its lights have been switched off. On it, Aiyon reads his own name.
Aiyon almost doesn't understand what he's seeing, but then he remembers that for Zayto, he was dead too.
It's the answer to the question Aiyon has asked himself a terrible number of times since he woke up, and he clings to Zayto even tighter.
Zayto holds him through it. "I've got you," he says against Aiyon's ear in that soft, steady voice of his. "You're okay."
They're the same words he said after Aiyon and Izzy broke free of that sporix, and Aiyon feels like a monster for doubting him. For not putting two and two together sooner. For not understanding.
"I'm sorry," he says hoarsely as the tears come again. "I'm so sorry."
But Zayto isn't angry. He just says more gentle words to Aiyon. His own apologies for not sharing this sooner. That he misses them too. That they'll be okay because they have each other.
It's everything he needed to hear, but for some reason, it just makes him cry harder.
*
The next day, Aiyon feels hollow. His throat hurts from crying. His chest feels empty, but not... not exactly in a bad way. He's been carrying around the weight of his anger since his awakening, and now that anger is gone, like it was never there. It's jarring, and it makes it hard to focus on the routine zord diagnostic he and Solon are running.
When the diagnostic comes back clear, the words bubble up out of him. "Zayto showed me the pillars last night."
He's not sure what kind of answer he expects, but Solon just says, "I'm glad."
"I..." He sighs. It feels awful to say this. "I messed up. Yelling at him, thinking that he wasn't happy to have me back..."
He gets it now. Why Zayto hadn't jumped for joy at the sight of him after his revival. Why he'd acted so strangely.
He was seeing a ghost, after all.
"He was hurting." Aiyon was so irritated that he hadn't seen it. He buries his head in his hands. "I can't believe I thought Zayto didn't care about me. I can't believe I was so angry at him."
Solon lays her claws against his back. "Grief can affect us in different ways," she reminds him. "We don't get to choose how we react to it, and sometimes, it comes out as anger. It can make us angry at anything and everything, even those we love."
He lifts his head, startled. "What?"
"Oh, Aiyon," she says. "Don't forget, you've been grieving, too."
*
Aiyon knows he could've just coordinated with Zayto, but instead he sits in the command center and checks the time. Zayto has always kept to a schedule, and exactly when expected, he walks by.
"Hey, Zayto," he calls out, standing and grabbing the bottle next to him. It's another kind of drink. Amelia helped him get it.
Zayto freezes in his tracks, taking in Aiyon and the bottle in his hands.
Aiyon lifts it as he walks closer. "Do you want some company?"
For a moment, Zayto remains frozen and just stares at Aiyon, but then he visibly relaxes, his shoulders lowering as the corners of his mouth pull upwards into a small smile. "I'd love some," he says, and they walk down the corridor to the storeroom side by side.