The Garden of Vacant Dreams

Time Stands Still - Pt. 1

A/N: Saban/Disney owns the characters you know. I own the ones you don't.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

TIME STANDS STILL – Pt. 1

His hazel eyes watched the tall forest trees pass by one-by-one. The dirt road ahead seemed endless to him and the silence inside the car was less than welcoming.

All he could do within the confinement of this silence was reflect on the events that took place two hours prior. He would blink a few times every couple of minutes hoping to wake up from the numbing nightmare he was currently enduring. He found himself periodically staring into the side view mirror wondering if his bruised and beaten face looked as bad as he thought it did.

"Jason?"

The last thing he wanted was to open his mouth.

"Can you say something—anything?" She was desperate to hear him speak, his own silence adding to her anxiety.

"What are you feeling right now?" She continued, "Tell me what's going through your mind, Jason... I'm here-"

"Nothing," He calmly interrupted. "I don't feel anything."

They both looked ahead as she made a left turn onto the main road that would take them to Angel Grove.

"Of course you do..." Kimberly replied in just above a whisper. "I am barely holding it together. We need to talk about this..."

"If you're lookin' for me to say something to make you feel better, you're out of luck."

Kimberly scowled, her grip tightening on the steering wheel. She grunted in frustration.

"You really want me to talk?" Jason spoke up quickly, clearly irritated. "Fine... here I go." He took in a deep breath before continuing. "I started my day off by going to the funeral of a dear friend and teammate... we lost a Ranger on the battlefield... I almost killed a man... my Goddaughter was taken hostage before my eyes." He paused as he pursed his lips, reality setting in again. He shook his head slightly in disbelief. "...And I watched my best friend die today." He finished quietly as he cracked open his window.

"I wouldn't worry about what you did to her father, Jase... it was well deserved." She replied. "And you can't blame yourself for what happened to Jamie. We will find her... Samuel is extremely vulnerable right now." She paused, biting her lip momentarily as her eyes began to water. "...and as for Tommy, we can still hold onto hope right now. We don't have a definitive answer just yet."

She glanced over at him then, doing a double take as she watched his shaky hands pull out a cigarette and bring it to his lips.

"Don't you light that cigarette." Kimberly warned. "Not in my car... I refuse to support that habit."

"Pull over then." He ordered.

"We are less than ten minutes away from the hospital, I am not pulling over." She insisted. "And you are not going to light that in here."

It took a moment before Jason finally replaced the cigarette in its pack. He refocused his eyes out the passenger window without response.

"He may have lived." She softly acknowledged a few minutes later.

"...I don't even know what hope is anymore." Came his immediate response.

Her heart sank. She never thought she would hear words like that come out of his mouth. She realized then that nothing she could say in that moment would be comforting. He felt helpless and defeated and he would only feel worse in the weeks to come.