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He has never been awake before.
Soft, gentle illusions--the silence of rain and slumber some days, the happiness of sunshine and play on others. The whole world was an illusion.
The Dino Gem shatters it.
The world is raw and vital and real, and he is thrumming with otherworldly energy under his skin. He is a live wire, he is unstoppable--
(They can hit you, something whispers. The bruises hurt. You could get killed. Why aren’t you noticing this?)
Even when he falls, it is all part of a larger plan.
And then he finds out Mesegog is his dad.
* * *
It is ripping and tearing and shredding and--
And suddenly reality is not tinged golden, it is tinged with a sick darkness that pulses, deep blues and violets like bruises across his mind.
His father is Mesegog.
His father planned to burn the world. Would have started with Trent, if Trent hadn’t escaped him. He--
Wants loyalty. Wants an obedient son.
“I am loyal.” He promises, the words tumbling out. Because nothing is right anymore, everything is wrong, and he cannot win. He knows it in his bones, that he cannot win. “I’m with you, Dad. All the way.”
The words are right and they might buy time--
Time for what time for who what will you do now?
It slides slowly into place, over hours. That he is still evil, still ready to destroy the Rangers. The rage simmers now, under his skin. It is slow and steady, like a controlled fire instead of the wild lightning he was.
(Something is under it, part of his mind whispers. Something bad. Go look at it. Recognize it. Pay attention something is wrong! )
He is evil and that is all there is to it.
* * *
Whatever was wrong with the Dino Gem is…
Not.
Trent knows what he’s done. It hits him in a burst, the insanity, the determination to kill --and he just as quickly shoves it aside, because he’s still in danger and his father is unstrapping him from the dentist’s chair\operating table. He stumbles upright.
“I’m...me again.”
(It’s a lie. Something is unstable. Don’t you feel it? Like ground you can’t tread on without falling?)
“Go do good with it.” His dad urges. And then his dad transforms, because Mesegog is hungry and greedy and wants the White Dino Gem back.
“I won’t tell.” Trent blurts out, because his father loves loyalty. Some things should stay...between us, Trent. You know I love you, but you can’t tell other people what I say at home. I’m only thinking of what’s best for you. A family is like a corporation--we can’t tear each other apart .
This should stay in the family, too.
“I promise,” Trent adds, and then he runs, because loyalty is not enough to make him stay anymore. He can either be loyal or kill people, and he knows which he chooses.
He will never hurt anyone again.
He runs.
* * *
He’s sleeping more, the first few weeks. They say it’s because he’s recovering from the metabolic effects of what happened to him. Then suddenly it’s like he’s a live wire again, but quieter, softer, because he doesn’t want to hurt people.
“You’re making a full recovery.” Dr. O smiles. “Good job, Trent.”
Trent feels good and smiles back.
(That’s not what’s happening. You’re unstable and you know it. Please. Listen to me .)
The next week he’s exhausted again.
* * *
One of the electives Trent is taking is psychology, because that’s always useful to a writer. They get to a unit on bipolar and have a little test online to see what a real one would look like.
You were so irritable that you shouted at people or started fights or arguments?
You felt much more self-confident than usual?
You got much less sleep than usual and found you didn’t really miss it?
(Being evil. They’re talking about being evil. And your dad doesn’t work in magic, he deals in genetics…)
Changes in sleeping patterns…
I feel dull, numb, or detached
(They don’t list ‘nothing will ever get better’, but you know the symptoms of depression. Come on. Put it together. )
Put it together.
Trent finally hears the little voice in the back of his head and listens.
Bipolar.
* * *
“No, you’re fine.” Dr. O says. He smiles. “Don’t worry. It’s normal when you’re doing a psych class to diagnose yourself with everything. You’re just adjusting.”
That is wrong. There is no way to argue with that without ‘proving’ him right.
Trent walks away.
* * *
He doesn’t get low enough to break his promise. He knows his father’s rules.
He doesn’t get high enough to forget how temporary it is.
Mania, depression. Mania, depression. The depression gets worse and worse--some days he barely feels like he can move, and a little nasty thing in his head whispers that he should get a knife and cut himself, punish himself, he killed so many people, doesn’t he know he deserves so much worse.
Finally, the nasty little thing gets so noisy that Trent grabs the nearest sharp thing and presses it into his shoulder.
Silence.
Blessed, peaceful silence.
The sensation is not quite pain, not exactly--it is pain, and adrenaline, and endorphins, and everything else. He pulls just a little, enough to draw blood.
Then he stops. That is enough. It will shut the nasty little thing up.
(You should go get help, you know, his common sense says. Because that’s what the voice is.)
Trent hears, but he ignores it.
* * *
If you can find the trigger you can calm the episodes.
Trent searches. The obvious--monster attacks--gets ruled out quickly. The less obvious--he isn’t living at home, he doesn’t have enough of anything--gets ruled out more slowly.
Finally he realizes it’s just his hormones cycling.
He tries to look up how to cope with that and finds advice to meditate.
It’s desperation that makes him try it.
It’s despair that makes him realize it was never going to work anyway.
* * *
They find out.
Trent holds a blade to his wrists before he snaps awake and throws it away. He stares at it in horror.
He was going to kill himself.
He goes to the phone and dials in a number he looked up months ago, just in case. Twenty minutes later he has an appointment with a therapist who can deal with his lack of money. No way to get to his dad for more, after all.
He hangs up and wonders what he’s become.
* * *
“Well, that’s pretty much bipolar you’re describing.” The therapist agrees. She seems...no-nonsense, but kind. It’s a nice feeling. “Any pattern to the episodes? Things that happen beforehand?”
Trent shakes his head. “I read online you’re supposed to find triggers. And I…I tried , but there are none.”
The therapist nods. “There are always triggers.” She tells him.
(Does she think we are fucking morons ? Common Sense whispers, hisses . What the hell does she know? This is hormones! We have ruled out everything else ! Who the hell is she to tell us about our body when we live in it ?)
But she’s the therapist so Trent nods.
“But we can start on medications, that’ll help too. Have you tried anything that does help?”
Trent hesitates, because…”Once I tried a few sips of Four Lokos. It helped.”
The therapist just nods. “Okay. That gives us a place to start looking.”
* * *
Trent almost falls asleep mid-battle.
He’s in his Zord and he’s just...not moving. And the drugs make him feel heavy and tired, a greyness that can’t be touched by gold or bruised darkness. It’s a small price to pay--
Until there’s people running and his Zord teetering because he is so. Damn. Tired.
He goes to the therapist and says he found a job working with heavy machinery, so he can’t do medication yet. Can he try something else?
She tells him to find the triggers.
* * *
The day it’s over, Trent finds a new therapist, walks into her office, and explains his previous diagnosis, says he was fired from a job working with heavy machinery, and he would like to just start some damn meds already.
He frowns until Trent rolls up his sleeve to show the scars.
“Are you addicted?” The new therapist asks.
“No. It’s like…” Trent’s seen the websites addressed at cutting. Addiction, recovery...not the right words for him. “Like opiates. I know it’s addictive, but I’m not addicted. It just makes the pain stop for a while. If I don’t feel pain I don’t cut.”
Mania tested that. Mania tests everything. He wouldn’t remember to cut even if he were addicted; he’d be too busy writing ten papers at once and saving the world on three hours of sleep.
“Okay. Bipolar first, then. What have you already tried?”
He walks out with a prescription for a new medication.
* * *
The summer is spent testing, testing, testing. At some point his dad asks what he’s doing. He explains.
Anton hums but can’t find anything to criticize in two separate psychologists making the same diagnosis. “You should try yoga.” He finally says. “I’m doing it for my own issues. It’s wonderfully helpful.”
Trent wonders how to explain what it’s like to be almost incapable of getting out of bed in the morning. To only do anything, even keep your eyes open, because it might have the chance of saving the world, because anything less just isn’t enough for your body to respond.
“I’ll try that.” He lies.
* * *
When Hayley finds out, her eyes go wide.
Of course she finds out. The meds make him exhausted and ill and he can’t quite keep up with the side effects, he finally has to tell her and say he needs to quit. “Trent. No wonder...oh, Trent.”
Then she gets up and calls Tommy, and Trent can’t hear what she says, but yelling is involved. Then she comes out and says, “Okay. If you ever want the job again, it’s here. Ever . I mean it.”
Trent nods. He’s too tired to care.
“Go get some sleep.”
Trent obeys.
* * *
The awareness of the new meds working is slow. It takes a while. Sometimes there’s space between episodes.
But then one day he realizes it’s a longer space than he’s ever had before, and he’s not exhausted anymore.
He’s just...himself.
He goes over to Kira’s house, to invite her to a street fair going on downtown. Kira answers the door and shrugs.
He realizes that the entire time she’s with him, she’s looking away.
He doesn’t go back to her. He doesn’t cry, even though it hurts almost as much as depression. He goes to art galleries and his father’s parties and tries, very hard, to pretend nothing is wrong.
Ethan stops talking to him. Conner never did anyway.
By the time summer is over, Trent doesn’t even expect Christmas cards.
* * *
At Christmas he gets a card from Dr. O anyway, impersonal and with a note scrawled saying everything’s going well.
Trent laughs for a long time.
* * *
Years pass, and Trent starts to learn.
He doesn’t mention bipolar by the second semester, even when he knows more about the topic than the teacher. Too many people were treating him like a deranged, frothing-at-the-mouth movie character.
He learns that evil isn’t just monsters. It’s a society that teaches that anyone different is automatically evil and horrible and violent, and has to be treated like a plague.
When he hides it, though, he learns what friendship feels like. People who actually want to be around you, not because you share an energy source and have to play nice for Dr. O, but like you . Miss you when you’re gone and invite you to things.
Tumblr shows up, and he learns that child soldiers are illegal. That the government isn’t sure, can’t prove anything, but oh, he knows, and he reads the words post-traumatic stress disorder and thinks of his own nightmares and wonders--
But he’d have to talk about it to get a diagnosis. And he won’t betray the family secrets.
In an ethics class, he learns that punishing children can sometimes be wrong. That you have to use proportionate force. That nothing is worth putting a child in danger--
He stares at his morpher and remembers it was only Kira, Conner, and Ethan standing between him and death, and wonders what would have happened if they’d said no.
He learns and learns and learns.
Learning doesn’t turn to art. Trent still prefers graphic novels, where he can make things better. He hides the painful truths from people, and presents the snippets they can handle as monsters to be defeated.
Trent learns that eventually even Dr. O will stop sending Christmas cards.
He learns that the Power is what makes it feel like an ache, like missing limbs (thank you Cam, thank you, you are a blessing), but he realizes that this is actually healthier than staying around people who only tolerated him. He’s wanted here.
He learns that in the middle of the night, waking from a nightmare, that’s not quite enough to take away the pain.
But most of the time, it’s enough to forget and start over.
* * *
His Dino Gem activates. He feels it as an impulse to morph and save people.
He wants to tear it off his wrist.
He goes back anyway.
* * *
Dr. O plonks down next to him.
He’s wearing green now.
Trent knows drinking and his meds are a bad combination. He also knows he can’t live his life avoiding alcohol entirely. He nurses his drink instead, has only had two so far, and very light drinks at that. Dr. O’s probably had enough to say something stupid, Trent thinks bitterly, because he knows , he’s had these conversations with every moron who thinks they know bipolar better than him and no one ever really changes--
“I’m sorry.”
Trent blinks.
“I screwed up. Mentoring you, I thought…” Dr. O sighs. “I’m sorry. You did a really good job, and I was a jerk.”
Trent considers that. “Are you drunk?”
“No. I had some...personal things to sort out.” Dr. O says. Then he sighs. “I was evil too. And I was kind of...mixing us up, in my head.”
“I wondered.” Trent did, once he got a little farther into psych. Trauma did things to you, and Hayley mentioned Evil Green…
“Can we...start over?”
It hurt too much not to try.
Trent nodded.
Dr. O smiled.