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Ziggy had always known that it had been Dillon who had gotten him out of prison, but he hadn't given much thought to the specifics of how Dillon had done it until just after he became the Series Green Operator.
After Ziggy's first battle as a ranger, Ziggy knew Scott was furious with him. Scott was angry that Ziggy had inadvertently activated the morpher, and also because Ziggy had "borrowed" gas from Scott's car to refill his scooter. When Scott marched towards Ziggy with a look of frustrated rage on his face, Ziggy's fight or flight instincts kicked in. He bolted towards safety -- in this case Dillon -- and hid behind him, putting Dillon between Scott and himself.
Dillon looked over his shoulder and raised a questioning eyebrow in Ziggy's direction, but Ziggy didn't get a chance to answer before Scott approached them.
"Why in the world would you release Ziggy?" Scott all but roared. Ziggy cringed, and then when he took a moment to consider what Scott was asking, he froze. Scott wasn't just upset because Ziggy was a ranger, he was still upset that Ziggy had ever been released from prison in the first place. And his anger was directed at Dillon.
Dillon crossed his arms and met Scott's gaze evenly. "Don't you have somewhere else to be, oh fearless leader?"
The lone wolf and alpha male stared at each other in a standoff. For a moment, Scott looked like he was going to say something, but then he growled in annoyance and stormed back the way he came. His words replayed in Ziggy's mind. Why was I released from prison? Ziggy wondered to himself. What did Dillon do?
Dillon turned to Ziggy. "You okay?" he asked.
A little flustered, he replied, "Yeah, I'm fine."
It was later that night that Ziggy overheard Scott complaining to Summer, "I know we needed Dillon as a ranger, but I still can't understand why he demanded we set Ziggy free. If he was still behind bars, none of this would have happened."
"Ziggy is a ranger now," Summer said softly. "He's a member of this team, and you need to start treating him like one."
Scott frowned at her, but nodded, as though what he was hearing was something he had already known deep down but hadn't been willing to accept on his own.
Ziggy hastily made his exit before either of them noticed him. They would assume he had been eavesdropping. And who could blame them, since he had been. He felt something inside him swell at Summer's acceptance of him, but at the same time, he couldn't get Scott's questions out of his head.
When Ziggy noticed Flynn sitting at a table in the kitchen by himself reading a newspaper, he wondered if Flynn would give him some answers.
"Flynn, you got a second?" he asked, taking a seat across from him.
Flynn eyed him, and then set his paper down on the tabletop, giving Ziggy his full attention. "You look like you have a lot on your mind."
Ziggy didn't know where to start, so he blurted, "The first time you and I met was right after Dillon got me out of prison. Yesterday I overheard Scott say Dillon demanded my release."
Flynn was obviously thrown off by the unexpected conversation topic, but he nodded.
"If he demanded my release... you guys must have wanted something from him, right?"
Flynn nodded again. "Aye."
Ziggy frowned. He had always figured that they had wanted information from Dillon: information on who Dillon was and the origin of the Venjix technology within his body. He had thought that maybe they had wanted information on his experiences in the Wastes or about Venjix operations. The more Ziggy thought about it, the more the benefit of hindsight allowed Ziggy to realize that Dillon hadn't had that kind of information to bargain with.
Swallowing a lump in his throat, Ziggy asked, "So... what were the conditions of my release?"
Flynn eyes widened. "No one told you?" he asked.
Ziggy shook his head.
"Oh," Flynn said, sounding surprised. "It was quite simple. We wanted him to be a ranger, but he refused to join us until you were freed."
Ziggy knocked on Dillon's bedroom door.
"Come in," Dillon said from inside and Ziggy swung open the door. Dillon was lying on his back on his bed and fiddling with his locket. When he noticed it was Ziggy, he tucked the locket back under his shirt and sat up. "What's up?"
Ziggy didn't know why Dillon did it: why Dillon went out of his way to help Ziggy, especially since Ziggy knew Dillon had found him incredibly annoying and they hadn't even been friends for twenty-hour hours at that point.
Ziggy had no idea how to express what he was feeling, so he replied, "It's not that important. That is, it is important to me, but maybe not to--"
"Ziggy," Dillon interrupted, sounding simultaneously annoyed and affectionate. "Spill."
Ziggy took a deep breath before admitting, "Flynn told me you only had one condition for accepting the Series Black Morpher."
"And?"
Ziggy flushed. "And that condition was me."
Dillon shrugged, like his demands regarding Ziggy were nothing special. "Yeah, so?"
To Ziggy, what Dillon did was special. It meant something. Ziggy never had a friend like Dillon before. Dillon was someone who was willing to stay in prison for Ziggy's sake and he was someone who refused to be a Power Ranger until he secured Ziggy's freedom. Ziggy would have done anything to been a Power Ranger, but Dillon had added conditions to the offer of a lifetime.
Ziggy recalled Scott's rage the day before and thought of the ways Dillon was someone who was still looking out for him.
"So... I guess I just wanted to say thank you." The words seemed inadequate to Ziggy. They were not nearly enough to convey his gratitude, or the way he felt knowing someone cared about what happened to him.
Dillon's lips quirked upwards. "You guess?"
Ziggy blinked. Flustered, he replied, "I mean, I don't guess--"
Dillon chuckled and Ziggy realized somewhat belatedly that Dillon was teasing him. Dillon swung his legs over the side of the mattress and stood. As he ruffled Ziggy's hair with his hand, he told Ziggy, "You're welcome."
Ziggy knew that the other rangers still had some reservations about him joining their team, but he also understood now that Dillon was someone who would stand by him like no one else ever had. Ziggy realized then that Dillon's friendship was worth more to him than a morpher.
Ziggy looked up at Dillon and couldn't keep from grinning.