Transitions are never easy for anyone; especially when you never see them coming.

All things Power Rangers belong to Saban and Disney. All things Carri belong to KJ, with many thanks. Demonking belongs solely to Daniel White, Teeg and Rexo belong to KS and the Solar Force Ranger is Chris incarnate. The premise of the Coin Series has been borrowed from a story written by Terry, Chris, Daniel, Brice and myself.

It should be noted that all events in The Coins series take place in an alternate dimension

Please note: Kanara's name has been changed to Kemora (a combination of Kim and Maligore) at the request of Emily. For more information, please see my profile page.

Updated 7/8/07 KSuzie

Power Rangers: The Coin Series
Transitions

Kimberly was aware of three things as she slowly began to wake up. First, Jason was very frustrated with her, which meant that the empathic link they shared was firmly back in place. Second, she was starving, which told her she was alive and her body functioning normally. And third, she was not in her own bed, which made her smile.

She lazily reached out across the double bed, only to discover that she was alone, but given the amount of light that poured through the windows in the tiny bedroom, that wasn’t much of a surprise. Tommy didn’t sleep much, she knew that, and he’d probably just left her to rest. She had no idea how long she’d been asleep. They had been up until just past dawn, so it must be fairly late in the day.

She smiled at the memory of the previous night and rolled over, pulling the sheet close, only to wrinkle her nose at the smell. She was obviously in a bachelor’s bed and Tommy obviously hadn’t been expecting company, but it didn’t matter. For the first time in a long while she was gloriously happy and reveled in the feeling for a few more seconds before allowing her mind to process the events of the previous day.

She had taken her power coin back into the Pit of Eternal Fire and in doing so had changed its dynamic drastically. Jason was also concerned about the shift in power, but neither of them knew what to do about it. As soon as she could slip away, she’d travel to the Mystic Realm to ask advice. She bit her lip uncertainly, wishing for the millionth time Zordon was still on Earth. This was going to be more complicated than just a quick trip to Briarwood and would probably require her traveling back to Phaedos or even Liaria. She frowned, unwilling to deal with that complication just yet. She and the boys had mulled it over briefly before they left Muirantias, but Tommy was eager to get her back home and she was more than willing to go with him.

Returning to the Command Center had been a mixed blessing. Everyone was thrilled and amazed at her instant recovery, but amidst the tears of joy, there was also a hard goodbye to be said. To say Tommy had made it difficult for her to return to the Enzway was an understatement, but she needed to talk things out with Elemi privately and she also needed to meet with her former team. Only when Tommy began to realize how frustrated she was with him, did he begin to back off and allow her to travel, without him, to the ship.

Saying goodbye to Elemi had been harder than she anticipated. Both of them knew she was going back to Tommy. Elemi had hugged her tightly and said it was better to lose her in life to the man who had saved her rather than to lose her in death, but it was little consolation. She knew now, without a doubt, that she could never love him as much as he loved her. Although they would continue to work together towards a common goal, it would always be different between them and she felt that loss more harshly than she expected.

The Novas had been overjoyed at her recovery and Tommy’s reputation as Zordon’s heir and the Greatest Ranger was sure to be more firmly cemented than ever as they spread the story. Thanks to Tommy’s distress calls, many Rangers across the galaxy already knew of her plight and everyone would also soon know that Tommy had found a way to save her when so many other well-known masters had been at a loss.

Tommy was already uncomfortable with the title of Legend and probably wasn’t going to take the renewal of his reputation with much grace, especially as Rita was involved, but she didn’t think either of them was much inclined to share that part of the story. Rita, afraid of drawing attention to herself, tended to shy away from things like that. She wasn’t sure Tommy would be willing to talk about the Mystic Mother’s assistance either, so the bulk of the credit would be shuffled back on him, whether he liked it or not.

Kee had been especially pleased to see her return and Kim had been surprised and touched by the girl’s welcome. She had begged her for private council, which Kim had easily granted her, but that discussion was another problem she wasn’t willing to deal with just now.

The girl had entered into a liaison with Elemi’s son and had begged Kimberly’s advice. Knowing what she did about Rheigan society, Kim honestly didn’t know how to begin dealing with the social ramifications Kee was talking about, so she had simply told the girl to take a deep breath and let her think on the matter. Kee had promised to wait for Kimberly’s guidance, but Kim knew full well what the combination of teenage love and hormones was like. She doubted the two would stay apart for very long.

That had not been the time to discuss the matter with Elemi. Emotions were already too tense. She would have to do a lot of research, very quickly, before she returned and discussed it with him. Whatever the outcome, she doubted he’d be pleased and Elemi was a hard force to go up against on a good day.

Her visit with the Novas had lasted just over an hour, at which point they had returned to deep space, but she had transported back to find Tommy climbing the walls. His protectiveness was annoying, but the rest of the Zeos seemed to find the whole thing humorous and the mood was light at his expense. Trying to think of an excuse to break away, she made a point of saying she was starving and Tommy quickly offered to take her to late lunch or early dinner. But any hope the two of them had of slipping off alone was quickly dashed when the entire team decided to tag along to celebrate her return.

Jason, the only one who knew at that point the two had already reunited and were looking for privacy, found it utterly amusing that their attempts to sneak off were being foiled. He gave them both smug looks the entire afternoon and continued to suggest that the whole band tag along wherever they went as the hours slipped by into evening. After twenty-four hours of intense emotions and strain, the Zeos were more than eager to band together to blow off a little steam and the revelry lasted well into the night.

Despite the fact that Tommy tried nearly every half hour to end things, Kim actually had a good time. She was relaxed and having fun, she felt victorious and powerful after her reconnection, she was with some of her best friends, and she had the promise of love again. Finally, as the clock slipped past ten, Tommy had physically picked her up out of her seat and marched her out the door on the pretense that she needed rest.

Jason immediately doubled over in laughter and shot out several, rather embarrassing, barbs about just how much rest she’d actually get with him around. The team, more than a little tipsy and full of the fun of the evening, was more than willing to chime in as they realized what the two were up to.

Despite the jesting, it wasn’t difficult to rekindle the fervor that had consumed them on Muirantias. Without asking, Tommy had driven them back to the little house he had recently purchased and all but pulled her from his Jeep and rushed her inside.

They hadn’t really made love the first time. It had been frantic, almost desperate and over very quickly. So quickly that neither of them remembered she had a regenerated body. The result of the frenzy was that she had been painfully hurt.

Tommy had been mortified and very apologetic, but she had dismissed it with a giggle, laughing that they really were starting over after all. He had sheepishly followed her into the bathroom when she went to clean up, but that simply resulted in another intense session in the shower which was, quite simply, the most erotic moment of her life.

Kim grinned wickedly to herself as she stretched and pushed the sheet away. The next session on the bed he had been excruciatingly gentle, but the damage had been done and even now she was beyond sore. Despite the aches, she had been infinitely happy and had fallen into a very deep, contented sleep just as the first the first orange colors of dawn peaked through the windows.

Kim sat up and looked around the room for a clock, but it was unplugged on the night stand opposite her. Either Tommy didn’t need it, or he had unplugged it to let her sleep. Moving boxes were still scattered here and there around the small room and she navigated around them on her way to the connecting bathroom.

A tiny bit of doubt began to creep its way up her spine as she closed the door behind her. Tommy wasn’t with her in the room. She knew he was close by, but he had still left her alone in the bed. The phone rang once and she heard him quickly pick it up from his office in the next room. A girlish tickle of embarrassment and insecurity ran through her at the sound of his voice. Yesterday had been extreme in its intensity, whether the morning light had changed things was yet to be discovered.

“Billy this honestly isn’t funny.” Trini said, trying her best to keep the annoyance out of her voice. She tugged at the blindfold he’d insisted she wear and he batted her hand away from it. She was in the car and they’d been driving for what seemed like forever.

“It’s a fifteen minute dive, you’re fine.”

“I think I’m getting car sick.” She complained and she felt the car immediately merge over to one side and stop. Damn, she thought, if that was all she’d had to do to get him to stop this silliness, she’d have said it ten minutes ago. She reached up to take the blindfold off and he batted her hand away again.

“Just tell me when you’re feeling better and we’ll get started again.” He said patiently.

She sighed dramatically. “I don’t like this and I’m not having fun.” She said, the irritation clear in her voice. It was early Sunday evening in California and very soon it would be Monday morning in her old town in Switzerland. Her divorce was about to be finalized.

Trini hadn’t slept well the previous night. Despite the relief of getting Kim back and the revelry of the night before, she was positive something was going to go wrong at the last minute with her divorce and she had tossed and turned. She had elected not to return to Switzerland, she didn’t have to and her lawyer had argued that she was too sick with her pregnancy. It was true that she had been very sick the past few weeks, but thankfully that seemed to be finally ebbing. The truth was that she didn’t want to see her ex again; didn’t even want to see her old town again. It was over for her and it was best left in the past as if it had never existed.

Billy had done his best to re-assure her, but there was really nothing he could do. She had been surprised how vindictive her ex had become despite the fact that he would soon also be re-married. Her lawyer told her she was settling too low, that she was entitled to far more, but she wanted it over and Geirge gone. Her life was here in Angel grove now. In a few days she and Billy would be married and they’d start the brand new life they should have started a decade before.

Married again. Trini’s stomach cramped at the idea. She wanted to be with Billy, she knew that. She loved him and she trusted him, but if she was going to be honest with herself, if it weren’t for the fact that she was pregnant, she would have waited a lot longer to consider the idea of marriage again. It was way too soon, but she had her daughter to think about. The baby was going to need a father and she had already benefited from the protection Billy could give her.

She swallowed hard, trying to calm her doubts and insecurities. Billy was a good man and she loved him. She had liked him from childhood and they had always been close friends. His willingness to come to her rescue was really not a surprise. The surprise had been how quickly and easily she returned his feelings. Even three months into their relationship it still amazed her how wonderfully they fit together.

“Better?” he asked and she nodded. “We’re literally five minutes from our destination.” He said calmly.

“Fine.” She said between clenched teeth. “Let’s just get it over with.”

Trini leaned her head against the cold glass of the window and breathed through the anxiety that coursed through her. She wasn’t being fair to him. Her daughter wasn’t his; she was her ex-husband’s. No matter how firmly she tried to put that one fact out of her mind, she couldn’t do it. Billy said he didn’t care, he wanted them both, but what if that changed someday? Men were funny about that. They had told everyone the baby was his, but the truth still lay between them.

Right now, they shared all the joys and passions of any other new couple, but Trini’s stomach was growing and this morning she couldn’t even button her jeans. She hadn’t told him, she couldn’t tell him, she simply changed into a pair of yellow sweat pants. But the baby was a reality and that reality was going to become apparent very soon.

Billy had been so good to her and she genuinely loved him. She just prayed she wasn’t using him to relieve the insecurities that had so suddenly assaulted her life. She didn’t think so, but she just wasn’t sure.

She had been astounded to learn how wealthy he was. She literally had no idea before he confided in her. She knew that Cestria had secured the rights and fortunes to all his work on Aquitar and he had been forced to leave everything behind when he chose to return home, but that work was completely separate from what he’d done on Earth.

Apparently, he’d been patenting and selling his inventions since he was a young teenager and his father had managed all his accounts very well. He had complained bitterly about the work and accounts he’d been forced to leave behind with his ex-wife, but the truth was that he had been more than financially capable of walking away from it.

Yet Billy held to his father’s belief of living simply. He didn’t want people to know what he was worth, they’d just pester him. He had his lab, he had his work, so he was content. But he had also been very pleased with himself as he explained what he had accomplished.

Trini had been stunned and more than a little unnerved. Far from being delighted with this new information, she was intimidated. She already felt she didn’t deserve him and worried now more than ever that he’d wake up one day and want more than she could provide. She also began to fret more and more that, even subconsciously, she was taking advantage of him. She honestly thought Billy was happy with her, but she wasn’t completely positive. Men had never been easy for her to understand.

Geirge had been a difficult husband, but not intolerable. She had never noticed the signs of his infidelity and had never seen the separation and divorce coming. She had been incredibly blind. It was only after living with Billy for the past three months that she had even begun to comprehend how horribly she’d been treated before coming back to Angel Grove.

Things were so much better with Billy it was glaring and she fretted it couldn’t possibly last. They fit well together in every aspect and honestly hadn’t been separated for more than a few hours in the three months they had been together. But Trini also knew that the enthusiasm of a new relationship rapidly faded and, with her stomach growing, that newness was going to be over very quickly. She shifted in her seat and sighed heavily again. She really wasn’t in the mood for this trip.

Billy chuckled as he merged in and out of traffic. Trini was so seldom out of sorts it was amusing, but he didn’t mind a little crankiness. He was so excited he was literally about to burst. Her divorce was only a few hours away and then they would be free to marry and raise a family. Life, for him, was perfect. He had everything he wanted nearly in his grasp. He was, honestly, thinking twice about the blindfold as it obviously irritated her, but if he didn’t insist, she’d know exactly where they were going. Besides, it wasn’t as if his surprise wasn’t worth it.

Tommy hung up the phone and smiled softly to himself when he heard the quiet rustling noises from the bedroom. Kimberly had slept just under twelve hours and it had been all he could do not to wake her and make love to her again.

For the first few hours, he had simply starred at her in wonder that she was actually alive and curled up next to him in his bed. The remaining hours, he’d kept a quite vigil, not allowing anyone access to her and letting her sleep herself out. His jealous protectiveness surprised him, but he assumed it would fade in time. For right now, he had come way too close to losing her and he intended to keep her as close as possible. She was his; there was no way in hell he’d give her up again.

He was in love again, something he hadn’t felt in a very long time, and he was enjoying every second of the feeling. It was different than the way he had felt about her as a boy and that surprised him. But then again, they were different people. Friendship had been the foundation of their first relationship and he knew the friendship they had developed over the last twelve weeks would be the foundation of the new one, but it was so much richer now.

She wasn’t a giggling girl anymore and the experience of adulthood showed in their lovemaking. It had been intense and intoxicating and he wanted far more than just the one night they had shared. The way they moved and fit together astounded him. He had always remembered the lustfulness of their youth as the highlight of his young life, but that seemed to pale in comparison to the intensity of the night before and that pleased him to no end.

He disconnected the information tube she had given him from the reader he was using and quickly stored it away in a hidden compartment within the wall. He closed the reader and stored it in a separate, but equally secure compartment within his desk. The information the drives contained required more security than he could provide at his new home, but they would be safe enough with him there until he could move them later.

He felt a bit guilty for reading Kim’s diaries. She was right; she wasn’t good at writing histories. The information was far too personal and was severely clouded from her perspective on things. Eventually, someone was going to have to go back through and clean it up, but it was a fascinating read.

He hadn’t meant to delve that deeply into it, especially since she hadn’t died, but once he started, he couldn’t help himself. Besides his brother, there was no one else he knew of that was as deeply involved in his kind of work. He had suspected some of it. Kimberly had always been special to Zordon, so it made since that he had left her similar duties to his, but to know the intricacies of her work thrilled him. There was so much they could share, so much that they could accomplish together; the potential was limitless.

The diaries began by making references to the events that had happened on Muirantias eleven years ago, but basically started a few years back when Kim began to develop her powers. Other diaries were referenced, making him assume that there was another set somewhere, but his box contained only the two data tubes she’d handed him.

He had downloaded both tubes into his reader, but the contents of the green one were all the he’d actually had time to scan. It went into depth about the Nova’s quest to find the coins, giving him an insight he hadn’t had before on the urgency of that cause. To his frustration, Kimberly specifically avoided any mention of her personal relationship with Elemi. Their adventures together were chronicled, but not their affair. It was, in reality, better that she had avoided the topic, the bigger part of him really didn’t want to know, but given the depth and personal details of the rest of the diaries, the lack of information surprised him.

There was a detailed description of how Zordon had protected the power coins, how to deactivate the security shields, as well as how to combine the coins together to create the original cosmic key used to seal Demonking in his dimension, and exhaustive instructions on how to re-seal him back into his prison dimension should he ever break out. Everything she knew about Teeg and several other henchmen was also painstakingly outlined as well as the history of the Demonking himself; which both frightened and fascinated him.

There were several interesting cross references where Kimberly had been working with Cole Evans to decipher a link between the viruses used to create the viratrons and the one infecting the Master Org spores. Kimberly had managed to draw a weak link between them, but had failed to show anything conclusive as yet.

Her work inside the Mystic Realm with Rita was also chronicled. Tommy didn’t agree with her on all the choices she had made there, but he couldn’t dispute that the Mystic Mother had been exceedingly effective. Kimberly had created a portal and taken Rita back in time nearly twenty-five years where she had become a well-loved and highly admired force for good. He was still unwilling to concede that Kimberly had done the right thing, but he had to admit that it had worked.

He had only briefly scanned through her documentation on the search for Zordon. He browsed it, only half reading, and paused only to note that the Phantom Ranger was in fact still alive and as fanatically dedicated to that particular quest as Kim seemed to be. They had teamed up with someone named the Solar Force Ranger, but he skimmed through those notes, marking only a few pages to go back and analyze in detail later.

Her reasoning for believing Zordon was alive was frankly beyond him and would take much more understanding of the mysticism she’d learned from Dulcea and Dimitria than he currently had. He was slightly amused to note that Rita had refused to help her, apparently agreeing with Tommy that it was a useless cause.

What held his attention most though, was her work with Thomas. It was far more involved and complex than he would have ever thought possible and he had to admit to being a bit envious. Where Zordon had left him the overwhelming responsibility of continuing the Rangers, he had left Kim in charge of fixing the things that had gone wrong over the years. It would take Tommy half a lifetime to fully understand the equations and forces involved, but Kimberly’s propensity to write diaries instead of histories had fortunately created a writing style that very much simplified things and outlined them in layman’s terms.

Kim had begun working with Thomas only a few years ago, but traveling through time and dimensions was deceiving. Kimberly would leave for a mission, be gone several days or even several months, and return within minutes of her departure. She called it looping time and later referred to it simply as looping. He was aware that phenomenon existed, hyper space travel worked along a similar pretense, but didn’t know any physical being outside of Dulcea who had actually accomplished it. Years ago, when they had all gone up against Ivan, Dulcea had sent them back in time to just minutes after they’d originally left Earth. He’d asked Zordon how it was done, but never received a direct answer.

There, outlined before him, was a detailed analysis how it was accomplished, but it was still beyond him. To complicate matters, about this time in her chronology, things seemed to shift and simply stop making sense. He assumed that Kim, in an effort to make things easier, had begun assigning her own names to things, but he honestly wasn’t quite sure and his head hurt just reading it.

The result was that he understood the basics of what she was doing, but was left with the distinct feeling that it was far more complicated and he was only gleaning insight into a fraction of what was really going on.

One thing was absolutely clear; calculating the time spent outside of time, Thomas was unfathomably old and Kimberly herself was well over a hundred, if not two hundred, Earth years. This explained the depth and wealth of information she had collected and also explained how she had become so proficient, over such a wide variety of topics, in such a short time. He understood now why her powers were so much more developed than Jason’s, despite her seeming unwillingness to cultivate them, and why she seemed to have so much more equanimity in battle. She’d cheated.

Understanding that she hadn’t nearly the time to become strong enough to defeat Demonking or even Teeg, she’d borrowed the time necessary to train herself. She had used the looping skills she’d learned with Thomas to travel from world to world and hone her skills with different masters, all the while continuing with her life on Earth as if nothing was out of the ordinary.

It was such a Kimberly thing to do, that it made him laugh. What baffled him was that no one had caught onto her yet and taken her to task for attempting something as dangerous and duplicate existence. If they had, she took care to avoid mentioning it in her notes.

Reading further, he discovered that Kemora was hardly their main objective. The primary task was repairing the timelines she had destroyed. There was a force, referred to as DG, which Tommy had a sneaking suspicion referred to the dimensional guardians; a force he’d never been given a clear answer about. Kim never specifically called it that, but the rest of her abbreviations hadn’t been that original, so he doubted she suddenly start three quarters into the data.

The DG had taken it upon themselves to stabilize a timeline spanning from about ten thousand years in the past to just over ten thousand years in the future. It had begun, if Tommy was interpreting the story correctly, when the forces of good, thousands of years into the future, had discovered that the forces of evil had deliberately altered the timeline nearly twenty thousand years in the past. An agreement of sorts had been reached in order to stabilize the pandemonium that had ensued and a correction of the balance of power was trying to be reached.

According to Kimberly, the DG was a specialized group dedicated to preserving nearly six “standard” timelines that stretched out across the dimensions. Relative alterations and allowances were expected as long as the general timeline was achieved. In other words, the timelines were allowed to vary, as were the characters, but the relative themes and the basic outcome had to be the same.

Jason had apparently been wrong about Thomas turning his back on his own world. Nothing could have saved it from becoming a dark dimension and the DG viewed themselves lucky to have saved him from it.

In the timelines that they were responsible for, there were four standard versions of history that the DG were interested in preserving. To accomplish this, the DG would dramatically alter people’s lives; adding children, removing children, altering relationships and basically interfering with the natural progression of things. It infuriated Tommy, but it also enthralled him.

To help her on assignments, Kimberly and Thomas had come up with a device that would show a simplistically linear timeline for the dimension they were in. It was a modification of a far more complicated device that most of the DG used. This device would show four colors: blue, green, yellow, orange, and red. Red meant the timeline was critically off and orange and yellow meant that they were getting closer to correcting it.

Blue and green were the objective colors. In the green worlds, the timeline would proceed as desired toward a dimension devoted to good. In the blue worlds, the timelines would proceed as desired toward a dimension devoted to evil. Kim had no control over which way a dimension would turn, but the device worked and was beginning to be utilized by others.

There were many, many DG and each was assigned a different series of events. Kimberly wasn’t “allowed” to work in her own dimension because she was still a part of it. It was clear to him that would have changed if she had been allowed to die and her spirit had remained. He wondered angrily if that was why Thomas had been so quick to give up on saving her and made a mental note to ask her about it later. For the most part, though, she only worked on a series of timelines within a given period, mostly related to Kemora.

More important, in Tommy’s opinion, Kim had become disillusioned with the DG and she and Thomas appeared to be formulating their own group which looked suspiciously to him like the beginnings of Time Force. Theirs was a group of Rangers, not DG, that went back in time and stabilized history. Tommy was almost certain that Kimberly didn’t know the Silver Guardians outside of the Red Assembly, but he had more than a few questions for her about how many cues she’d taken from his own histories.

As he read, he realized Kimberly’s disillusionment stemmed from the fact that she felt she had been abused by the DG. She understood, because she knew the signs, that they had been hard at work in her dimension. However, she felt they had overstepped their boundaries.

Two things caught and held Tommy’s interest. The first were a few slightly condemning references that led the reader to assume Zordon and Lerigot had allowed her and Jason to be taken to Muirantias and had purposely slowed the Turbo team in hopes of creating a counter version of Kemora. Zordon, it seemed, had been deeply involved with the DG and, although Tommy knew she loved Zordon dearly, Kimberly could not deny that he had made several glaring choices where that event and others were concerned.

The second was that Kimberly, as a teen, had been contacted by the DG and specifically instructed to end their teenage relationship. She had agreed only because Zordon had assured her that all would be well in the future for them both and because she had been allowed to believe the assumption that Thomas was simply an older version of her Tommy.

This explained to him why her letter had been sent from California and not Florida and why she’d never been able to fully explain it to him. Apparently, this was the betrayal that Jason had spoken of, but how he learned of it, Tommy didn’t know. In her opinion, it was further proof that “they” had purposely led her down the tract that would send her to Muirantias.

Tommy, it appeared, had been compensated for his loss with Katherine; which he didn’t find comforting or humorous at all. Apparently, there were a great many timelines where the two had lived long and happy lives together, but in their dimension, the manipulation hadn’t worked. Tommy had left Katherine after only a few years and lived his life until now very much alone. There was one vague reference to where this substitution had apparently failed in other dimensions as well, but it was based on a stray comment of Thomas’s and Kim wrote that he hadn’t elaborated.

Kim had written extensively of the turmoil that one decision had cost her. She knew, because she recognized the signs, that their dimension had been seriously altered. Why they had chosen to alter it, she could only assume. That she suspected Zordon had known and approved, had been heartbreaking.

By the end of the diary, Kim had written of her transfer to the Zeo team and her resignation to Tommy’s indifference towards her. She had tried three separate times to reconcile with him, to no avail, and in the end had accepted her fate. This knowledge broke his heart and he thanked the Power a thousand times that she was still alive and he could change things. It would have devastated him to read the diaries after her death, with no way to make amends.

The last bit of information regarding Kim’s feelings had been trivial considering the huge body of the work, but it was the single most important fact to Tommy. Kimberly had continued to love him and he had consistently pushed her away because his own pride was too great to overcome the fact that she had hurt him. He would change that now and he thanked all the powers that be that she was still with him.

The question was how. Tommy was an extremely patient man, but he was also someone who formulated a plan and then acted on it without hesitation. He was in no mood to wait. They had lost ten years; time that was precious to him considering how close he’d just come to losing her. He was too busy and far too involved with his work to play games.

The issue was what he wanted. He knew what he didn’t want. He didn’t want to play the dating games, to skirt around the essence of the relationship all in the name of social conformity. That was good enough for someone with whom he couldn’t share his work, but not what he wanted now.

Those diaries proved to him that she was more than capable of sharing in his life and that was something he’d long ago given up on. Very few could understand, let alone participate in, the diversity of jobs he’d inherited. The fact that she’d already been doing similar work, cemented in his mind that the Power had meant for them to be together as a team and that this was the right course.

A permanent relationship suited him just fine. He felt blessed and was truly grateful for a second chance. If he was going to be completely honest with himself, he also had to admit that jealously played a big part in what he chose next as well. Elemi had pulled him aside and made no bones about the fact he wanted her back and would be waiting for the day that Tommy screwed up. He wanted her ex-husband and every other potential rival as far away from her as possible.

On Earth, simple arrangements would be fine, but if he was going to pull her with him through the intergalactic community, a more traditional arrangement was going to be necessary. He wasn’t exactly sure how she would respond to that; given her fight with Elemi, probably not very well. But her ex had been right, Earth’s compliant views on extra marital sex weren’t accepted at all on the core worlds and could seriously damage one’s standing and credibility. That was something neither of them could afford.

They needed time to adjust to each other again; he realized that. They were both used to their independence. He had been a bachelor for a long time and learning to live with a female again would be as difficult for him as adjusting to life with him would be for her. Glancing at the calendar, he quickly scanned through the next year’s events that had already been scheduled. Six months would do it, but getting her to agree was going to be tough. He’d have to go overboard, then back down to a compromise.

Decision made, Tommy closed out the computer’s calendar, straightened his desk, and walked quietly into the bedroom.

Rita was furious. If her spells and calculations were right, the reason she hadn’t been able to successfully tap the rest her predecessor’s powers was because her predecessor hadn’t been destroyed at all. She was actually alive somewhere.

It was unfathomable. Everyone in the dark empire had been destroyed by Zordon’s energy wave. Well, she had to admit, not everyone. Even Zordon wasn’t able to alter the balance of good and evil. The continuum had to be maintained.

But just how the other Rita had survived when so many other dark warriors had not, was incomprehensible. She had not re-joined any of the dark kingdoms nor had she registered on any of the goodie-goodie’s radars. She had simply and inexplicably vanished.

But what burned Rita the most was that her own powers through the staff were now limited simply because of the old witch’s mere existence. It wasn’t fair.

She had secretively and meticulously cultivated the staff’s power without Zedd’s notice, but now, on the very verge of her ultimate transformation, she was stuck. It was beyond maddening. To be so close and to be thwarted by a technicality was unbelievable. She was not going to let it happen.

Now was the perfect time to have achieved her fullest potential. Zedd was scrambling to get his plans working now that Teeg had left them alone. She needed to impress him, to swoop in and provide the answer to Earth’s demise.

She had waited patiently for this moment for three whole months; to be denied like this was intolerable. She wasn’t even sure she’d be able to make the damn monsters grow. How the hell was Zedd going to fall in love with her if she couldn’t even grow a simple monster?

The only reason she hadn’t been banished already was because Teeg had said she’d return soon with the other power coin. Apparently Rita’s magic was the only magic that had ever successfully turned the coins evil and Teeg was nearly ready to have her malevolent Rangers make their first appearance.

She wasn’t completely useless, but he hadn’t any time for her either. If she could just reclaim that power she’d finally have his full attention.

Somehow, someway, she would find her predecessor; wherever she was hiding. Rita would have all of what was hers and once she found that old witch, she’d tear her apart.

Kimberly turned around when she heard Tommy approach. She straightened her top and smiled cautiously. “I slept really hard.” She said and he smiled, leaning against the doorframe and simply staring at her.

It still amazed him that she was there, in his room, and it was all he could do to make himself believe it was a reality. She wasn’t gone, he hadn’t lost her, and he had his second chance to make things right.

He felt another twinge of guilt that he had gone ahead and read her diaries, but he was also imminently grateful for the information they contained. She had continued to love him and that knowledge was precious. It made him far bolder than he might otherwise have been under the circumstances.

Kimberly shifted uncomfortably in the silence. Finally, she walked the short distance around the bed to the door. His eyes followed her, but he still remained silent.

“I um…I guess I should go home.” She said hesitantly. He shook his head slowly no, but still didn’t answer her; lifting his hand and gently tracing the outline of her face. She gave him an uncertain look and lifted her eyes to his, measuring him.

His silence confused her. He had told her over and over again during their time in bed how much he loved her. Yet, with the dawn of a new day and a sharp return to reality, she wasn’t entirely sure he wouldn’t regret his decision and the hastiness of the night’s passion. Doubt nipped at her heart and she was very afraid that he would want to take things back to the way they had been before. She wasn’t entirely sure she could go back to it. It hurt to even consider the idea. “Say something will you?” She said uncertainly.

He lifted her chin with his finger and lowered his lips to hers. The kiss deepened and the emotions of the night they had spent together surfaced again. She smiled as she felt him walk her backwards to the bed and lay back down expectantly. But he didn’t attack her as he had last night. Instead, he crawled up next to her and laid down alongside, head propped up on one hand, the other gently brushing her hair away from her face. Again the damned silence. She couldn’t read his expression, he was thinking hard about something; what, she could only guess.

“Please don’t tell me you’re about to say something like we have to talk.” She tried to be glib, but the apprehension had taken hold of her again.

“No.” He said, giving her an amused smile and kissing her softly again. Actually he was trying to decide once and for all just how bold he wanted to be. Reaching a decision, he grinned at her. What he was about to do wasn’t playing fair, but right now he had the upper hand. Playing fair could wait for another time.

He had spent the last nine hours reading her innermost thoughts, desires, and regrets while he himself was still reeling from the devastation of almost losing her. It scared him to death to think about an alternate reality where he’d read those diaries after she was beyond his reach. He wanted her with him and he wanted to insure a future with her in it.

“How are you feeling?” He asked, stroking her shoulder and arm absently.

“Nervous.” She admitted, and he frowned at her, not expecting that answer.

“I meant physically.”

“Sore,” She said honestly and a mischievous look sparkled into her eyes. “But also very much like the first time I received my powers. Everything’s all new and energized.”

He smiled at her answer. He’d had his powers for a long time, but a Ranger never forgot the first day he received them. You felt a boundless energy, like you could take on the entire universe single handedly. “Why are you nervous?” He asked, playing with her hair and the thin straps to her top.

“Because I’m waiting for you to tell me this was bad idea and that we need to cool it and just be friends.”

He rolled over on his back with a laugh and reached out to pull her to him. She rested her forearms on his chest and looked down at him. He had a self-satisfied look, like a Cheshire cat that had just eaten the rabbit. “Nope.” He said plainly, grinning a little more. “That’s not gonna happen. I’m afraid you’re stuck with me. I have no intention of letting you out of my sight ever again.” He watched as her eyes lit up and she smiled down at him. He felt one last twinge of guilt before plowing ahead. “Do you love me?” He asked playfully.

Kim hesitated for a second, sensing he was up to something. She had already told him in depth the night before how she felt, but she also knew that passion play counted for little in the bright light of morning. “Yes.” She said simply and his eyes twinkled in response to her answer.

“Enough to marry me?” He asked.

“What?” she gasped, pushing up from him and coming to a sitting position on the other side of the bed. He chuckled, expecting that response, and sat up himself so that they were face to face.

“Not expecting that?” He asked glibly, reaching out to take her hands.

“No.” She said, stunned. That was the last thing she had expected. “Don’t you think that’s kinda of rushing things a little?” The sex had been awesome last night and she wanted to be with him, but the idea of marriage was just crazy. Kim’s mind reeled, she’d just gone through this with one man and now another was starting the same thing.

He regarded her quietly for a moment and then explained himself. “I love you.” He said earnestly, thumbs gently stroking the tops of her hands. “I’ve always loved you.” At her panicked look he continued on. “Kimberly I don’t want a girlfriend, my life is far too extreme for that. I want a partner and you’re the only one I’ve ever known who fits into that category.”

“There’s a little thing called dating.” She said, squeezing his hands and trying her best to put a playful look on her face. “Maybe you’ve heard of it?”

“You and I are both beyond that.” He said seriously. “You know it and I do. I’m too old to play games and I’m not going to dance around and follow stupid courtship rules. Hell, we’ve broken the first set already by sleeping together on the first night.”

“But there’s a huge gap between that and something like marriage.” She interjected. “I want to be with you,” She rushed on, afraid he might misunderstand her and back away completely, “I chose to be with you, but I think, maybe, we should take some time to get to know one another again.” She said carefully.

Her heart was pounding wildly and her mind scrambled to make sense of things. Tommy had always been one to jump head first into things, but this was just insanity; even for him. Although, she thought, given the fact that she’d nearly died the night before, maybe he felt the need to rush things.

“I’ve known you since I was fifteen years old” He said firmly, not budging an inch “And we’ve spent pretty much every day of the last three months developing a more grown up relationship. We already know we’re compatible. We already know we work well together. Now we agree that we still love each other and I, for one, have no intention of sleeping without you ever again. I want you with me and I want to know you feel the same.”

“Couldn’t we just move in together and try it out first?” She asked, slightly panicked. In a way, she should have expected this. Tommy was never conventional. He made a decision and he plowed forward, for better or for worse, until his objective had been achieved. He had never liked to play the dating games when they were younger, although he had dutifully done them to please her. She should have known that the grown version would be far blunter and move much faster.

Her heart raced and she honestly didn’t know what to do. She had begged the Power for years to give her a second chance; she didn’t want to screw it up after only one night. At her silence, his shoulders slumped slightly and he exhaled deeply.

“I don’t want a girlfriend.” He said simply. “And I don’t want you simply living with me. I need to have permanency this time Kim, I need to know you’re not going to back out again.”

She winced visibly and he regretted the last words, but it was true, he wanted her with him and he wasn’t going to give her up again. He needed to know that her ex and anyone else out there was permanently out of the picture. He needed to be confident that, if either of them were suddenly taken, they hadn’t wasted a second of their time together.

He knew very well that Kim had never been keen on marriage. He had held her hand through her parents ugly legal battles and knew firsthand how sour she was on the idea. He also knew, based on her own diaries, that she regretted the end of their relationship. She wanted him as badly as he wanted her. What he was doing wasn’t fair, and in a way it was kind of cheating, but knew his best shot at getting a long term commitment out of her, marriage or not, was in the beginning when she was still insecure; when she still wanted it as badly as he did.

“I’m not saying I want you to drop your life and marry me this afternoon,” He said, giving in a little ground, “But you and I both live and work inside the intergalactic community and that society doesn’t tolerate non-marital relationships.”

“The intergalactic community.” She sniffed. “The intergalactic community considers Earth a backwater that’s not worth civilizing.”

“Earth, yes, not Zordon’s heirs.” He said seriously. That was a low card to play, he admitted as she cringed again, but he had already decided not to play fair. “Besides,” He added, softening his word, “Gruumm’s changing the dynamics. The community’s getting closer and closer. Earth’s moving quickly towards initiation, if only because we’re willing to take refugees.”

“That won’t happen for decades.” She said dismissively.

“Actually we’re on the fast tract.” He countered,” But you’re changing the subject.”

Kimberly’s mind continued to spin, she couldn’t think straight. Not with him here on the bed and stroking her hands like that. A few hours ago she’d been resigned to death and now he was talking about the rest of their lives. It was an oxymoron. “Marriage is just a piece of paper.” She countered.

“True.” He said simply. “But it’s also a mental and emotional commitment. It makes you more willing to work through things than just a verbal agreement.” And it would also efficiently get rid of her ex, he added silently.

His eyes met hers and he waited for an answer. It was a gamble, one based on the information he had recently read in her diaries. They had just stepped off an emotional roller coaster where they had very nearly lost each other permanently. That had been followed with an extremely passionate night where they had clung to each other, as if they still weren’t certain the morning would separate them again. If he was ever going to get her to commit to the idea, now was the time. If he allowed her to wait, she would be better prepared to argue against it.

“I have something for you.” He said, breaking eye contact and scooting off the bed. He walked quickly to his office in the second bedroom and returned again few seconds later with a small plastic bag. He took out a thick stack of yellow receipts that had been stapled together and handed them to her. “Look at that.”

She took the receipts and read the bottom. “Sales price…” She began.

“No, not the price.” He said, pointing to the top of the paper. “The date.”

“August nineteenth, nineteen-ninety five.” She said slowly. That was over twelve years ago. Tommy raised his other hand to reveal a small velvet jeweler’s box. Kim swallowed hard and stared at it, an uneasiness settling into her stomach.

“It’s yours.” He said, urging her to take it.

She lifted it off his palm slowly and opened the lid. Inside was a gold ring, about half an inch wide, with a pink tourmaline heart in the center. The heart was surrounded by tiny diamond chips and three little rows of diamond chips spread out on each side. Time seemed to slow down and come to a stop as she stared at it.

“I had that made for you after the summer we spent at the lake.” He said quietly. “I wanted to get you something better, but at the time, that was all I could do. As it was, I spent a whole year paying it off.” Kimberly didn’t look at him, she simply stared. “I was going to promise you something better when we finished college.” He continued. “I’ll still buy you something better. I just wanted you to know that I was serious about marrying you then and I’m still serious about it now.”

Kimberly shook her head and shifted her seat, trying to absorb what he was telling her. “You were going to ask me to marry you?” She asked in amazement. He nodded.

“I knew you mom was telling you it was just a high school crush. I didn’t want you leaving after graduation. I wanted you to know I was serious about us staying together.”

“Did Zordon know what you were planning?” She asked quietly. He frowned at her, remembering the entries in her diary where she insinuated Zordon might have purposely altered their history together.

“I didn’t tell anyone except my mom.” He said. “She thought I was crazy spending so much money on a girlfriend.” He slid closer to her, placing his arms around her and kissing the top of her head. “I know it’s not much, I’ll get you something nicer later.” He said. After five years in partnership with Hayley, he could afford pretty much anything she wanted. The little ring was wide, making it look larger than it actually was, and the design his own, but the little diamond chips were laughable to a man his age.

She shook her head and leaned into his chest. “Don’t you dare.” She said firmly. “It’s perfect.” He had wanted to marry her. It hadn’t been a high school crush or first love. It had been real and she had screwed it all up. She had begged for a second chance to make things right and here she was letting her fears mess it all up again.

“Perfect for a high school promise ring,” He said. “Hardly something I’d give you now… I can afford better, it’s not like I’m a broke high school kid.” He admitted. She pulled away from him, meeting his eyes.

“You think I care about that?” She asked, a bit offended.

“No.” He smiled at her. “But money helps and life’s been pretty good to me in that department.”

She sniffed as if insulted. “I have my own money.” She said plainly, eyes going back to the ring. “And this is mine.”

She put her hands protectively around the little box and he laughed at her. “Then we have a deal?” He asked impishly. She looked back up at him, then down at the ring again as if considering the idea. He reached out and tried to take the box, but she pulled it away from him and held it outside his reach.

“You’ll regret saddling yourself with me so quickly.” She warned. “I’m high maintenance and I’ll drive you crazy.”

“I’ll take my chances.” He said, watching her carefully.

He had been tempted to donate the ring to charity countless times in the last eleven years and he wasn’t even sure why he’d bothered bringing it with him from Reefside. It had been in one of the security boxes in the Dinothunder Command Center and he could have easily left it behind. But when he’d seen it, there had been a long moment when he realized he was about to work with her again and for some reason he’d brought it along.

He was suddenly very glad he’d held on to it. It was nothing, just a bauble, but she was holding it as if it was a priceless

“Are you willing to wait a year?” She asked. If they could wait a year and live together, there would be plenty of time to decide if this was real or if it was just insanity.

He fought the urge to grin. He knew exactly what she was doing. He agreed with her, they needed time to smooth things out between them, get used to each other, but he wasn’t going to wait a whole year. “Six months,” He countered, “And you move in with me.”

“Deal.” She said quietly and his heart soared.

He reached again for the box but, she moved it out of his reach again. He wrestled with her a bit, eventually prying it away from her. She slapped him in mock frustration until he removed the ring and grabbed her left hand.

“Deal.” He said firmly, placing it on her fourth finger. It slid on easily, as if it had always belonged to her and she stared at it numbly, wondering what she’d just gotten herself into. It looked impossibly wide on her tiny finger and she honestly thought she might faint just at the sight of it.

Her eyes left the ring and found his. He was grinning like a little boy at Christmas and the sight made her giggle. Well, why not, she thought numbly. Hadn’t she always wished to have him back? She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him with all the enthusiasm of the night before. He wrapped his arms around her, eagerly returning the kiss and pushed her down on the bed.

“Sounds like an intense day.” Andros said calmly. His sister had just finished relating the previous day’s events to him. He was glad that Karone had gotten a chance to serve as a Ranger with Tommy. Her volunteer work as a “replacement” Ranger worried him. Rangering was dangerous enough without the added detriment of not knowing the team you were working with. Just about the time she seemed to settle in, her time was over and a long term Ranger found.

Dinner was over, the baby had been changed and fed, and they were sitting on the back patio while Ashley ran some errands. Karone had her feet up on the base of the lounge chair, with the baby balanced on her lap and her tiny head supported by her legs.

Sage had not been his idea for her name, but he had to admit, it fit her. His mother’s name had been Saegwyn and if he had any say at all in his daughter, he wanted her to have that name. Ashley had frowned and put him off until the last possible second. She wanted an Earth name and was afraid their child would be teased unmercifully by the other children. In the end, he had prevailed, but Ashley had quickly shortened the name to Sage. Nicknaming his daughter after a spice didn’t make much sense to him and he was frankly insulted no one seemed to like his mother’s name, but Ashley’s entire family and most of their friends seemed to relax considerably when they heard the shortened form.

“I can’t believe he pulled it off.” Karone said, cooing to her niece and beaming when the baby smiled at her. “It makes me almost willing to accept your views of him.” She added glibly.

“Karone, what makes him the best is not that he’s the most powerful.” He said. He knew his sister was skeptical of Tommy. She was a natural cynic. People had to prove themselves to Karone and then, maybe, she’d be a little more accepting. “He’s a man, with very human weaknesses. It’s that he never gives up, even when others are willing to accept defeat. His dedication is what drives him to greatness.”

“Maybe.” She replied.

Tommy impressed her, but she still thought what he had done was reckless and irresponsible. Karone remembered the old Zedd. Although, as Astronima, she’d never thought much of him, she knew the older version would have struck while the iron was hot.

That’s what she would have done. The Rangers were down, it was best to attack before they re-grouped. True, the Nova’s appearance might have been a deterrent, especially if he didn’t have the numbers he needed on his side, but all it would have taken was another multi monster attack while the Rangers were licking their wounds and Earth would have been in serious trouble.

She was glad it didn’t happen, but why it didn’t happen bothered her. She didn’t understand it. Then again, most would-be planetary conquerors were incompetent, only Teeg and Gruumm seemed to have any of the critical organization needed to be effective, but Teeg didn’t seem the least bit interested in Earth and Gruumm was many galaxies away. Tommy’s obsession with Kimberly could have cost them all dearly if Teeg had remained. It hadn’t happened, but it could have. If the Nova’s were correct and Teeg’s ship had left orbit, she wondered just what condition Zedd’s fighting force was in and when he’d attack next.

“What are you thinking about so hard?” Andros asked. They baby was beginning to nod off as Karone rocked her back and forth with her legs. It struck him how peaceful the moment was. He had everything he could ever ask for in life. His sister was living close by, he had a wife and baby he adored, a home of his own, and a job he enjoyed.

Coming to live on Earth had been hard for him. He had left his people and his culture behind at the one moment in history that they needed him most. Their population was at critical lows and they had only enough people to successfully re-colonize one city after the demise of Dark Specter. He also felt like he should be doing more for his planet’s defense, especially with Gruumm on the move, but they had a new set of Astro Rangers protecting the colony, so he had sat back and let the next generation handle things.

Kaoans were a difficult race. They built the best ships in five galaxies, but they were isolationistic by nature and didn’t tolerate foreigners among them. They had even gone so far as to have removed Ashley and the others as Astro Rangers in their histories, despite the fact that his friends had helped his people on more than one occasion. Because of this kind of attitude, they had been hopelessly persecuted by other species and even by other humans for years.

Their intolerance for outsiders had cost them dearly throughout the centuries. They were hopelessly inbred, but the penalty for breeding outside their race was expulsion. It pained him that his daughter would never be accepted as anything more than a foreigner and never know his ways, but he had known what he was doing when he accepted Ashley as his wife. He had been told in no uncertain terms that Ashley was not welcome on KO-34 as his spouse. Yet he couldn’t imagine living without her; even if that meant giving up his entire culture and adopting hers.

Fortunately, he had met Tommy. Tommy understood he’d never be happy isolated from the mainstream intergalactic community. Earth was still too much of a backwater. It was hard living here; even working at NASADA didn’t really fulfill him. So Tommy had kept Andros busy on mission after mission as an ambassador for Earth and for other things. Some of the missions were serious, but many of them just excuses to go home and hear his own language for a while.

Ashley didn’t mind. Sometimes he felt she was actually relieved to have him out of her hair for a while. She was so busy with her clothing designs, that he occasionally felt there were a few times she didn’t even seem to notice his absence. Many times he’d just kiss her cheek and she’d wave absently, all the while talking on the phone or via the computer, or sketching madly.

When Karone had followed him a few years after his relocation, he’d been overjoyed. His family was in one place and his home complete. All in all, as he settled into his life, he found himself happy.

“I was just thinking...” Karone began, but she was cut off as several large explosions rocked them, followed by the sound of breaking glass and the fire alarm from inside the house. The baby screamed and Karone held her tightly against her, sheltering her in case any glass was still flying their way. “I’m taking her to the Command Center.” She shouted over the noise and Andros nodded that he understood. In a flash of yellow light, she and the baby were gone and Andros carefully stepped through the remains of the sliding glass door and entered the house to see if anything could be salvaged.

Everything down the hallway to the bedrooms seemed to be engulfed in flames. He made his way to Ashley’s office and grabbed the box of data disks and records they kept in one place in case of an emergency, but it was already too late to grab anything else. He made it back to the front door and opened it, only to find it covered by a large sheet. He ripped the sheet down and charged through, just as the first of the fire trucks roared down his street.

His neighbors had gathered on the front lawn and simply starred. Whoever had done this had known exactly how to take out the small ranch style house as quickly as possible. The entire building was engulfed in flames. Mrs. Henderson, his elderly next door neighbor put two strong hands on either side of his shoulders. He was surprised at the strength in them. The old black woman looked at him sadly, her eyes showing genuine sympathy.

“Honey I’m so sorry.” She said simply.

Andros looked at her in confusion until her eyes went back to his home. There in the middle of the small lawn were two signs: Abomination and No Half Breeds.

His heart sinking, he opened the sheet he had ripped from in front of the door. In black and red paint it said: Alien Go Home.

“Alright.” Billy said, turning her around. “You can take it off now.”

Trini gratefully pulled the blindfold off and blinked in the dim evening light. She was standing in one of the cul-de-sacs of their old neighborhood. She turned around and looked up the street. Straight down about five houses in front of her was a stop sign where the road dead ended into the street they had lived on as children. To the right and two doors down was Billy’s dad’s house and her parent’s house was about three doors down to the left of the same sign.

“You blindfolded me and took me to our parent’s neighborhood.” She said, her voice completely deadpan. Billy was grinning at her like he’d just delivered the best punch line he’d ever heard of. She loved him, but his sense of humor baffled her.

“No, he said, turning her back around.”

“What?” She asked, baffled.

“That.” He said, pointing to the house in front of her.

“The Miller’s house?” She asked, frowning.

“Nope.” He said, putting his arms around her from behind and kissing her shoulder. “Our house.”

“What?” She asked, spinning around to face him. His grin had gotten impossibly bigger and he looked extremely pleased with himself. “You bought a house?”

“I bought the house.” He answered, grinning madly. “When we were kids, we’d ride our bikes down here and you’d always say that was the house you were going to live in when you grew up.”

Trini gaped at him incredulously. She turned back around and regarded the house. It was the biggest model in the neighborhood and the one with the best climbing tree. To her younger self, it had seemed like a mansion and a hopelessly romantic dream. To her grown-up self, it looked like an old house in desperate need of attention.

She swallowed hard, Billy had done an incredibly romantic thing, but she really wished he’d asked her about it. Living a block away from his father might be alright, she was very fond of him, but living a block away from her mother was going to be a nightmare. She’d be over constantly. Not that Trini didn’t love her parents, but her mother was dominating. She was going to completely take over.

“Wow.” Was all she said. “I didn’t even know it was for sale.”

“It wasn’t.” Billy said with a smug grin. He wrapped his arms around her again and tucked his chin in-between her neck and shoulder. “I made them an offer they couldn’t refuse. They’re off to Arizona to retire in style, so both parties are happy now.”

“Wow.” Trini said again, wishing she could think of something more to say. That meant he had paid way too much for it.

“I know it needs some work, but I’ve hired a landscaper and a designer. They’re both waiting to hear from you. You can do whatever you want to the house to make it yours. I mean it, money’s no object. Everyone’s under orders to make it happen before the baby arrives.”

“Wow...”

“Your mother’s really excited.” He continued. “The Miller’s told her before I could get you out here and I asked her not to say anything. She wants to help with everything, even after the baby arrives.”

“I’ll bet she does.” Trini said softly, still in shock. Fear and doubt assaulted her. He had done it to please her, but she wished she’d had a say in the matter. It wasn’t that she was ungrateful, but if he’d asked her she could have told him that living so close to her mother was the last thing she wanted.

They needed a home. She knew that. They had talked for hours about the need to move out of the lab and into a real house. Nothing fancy, just room for the baby and a slightly bigger bed. She was thinking of a condo or a townhouse close to the others, but he’d obviously been thinking something very different .

Geirge had done the same thing, she realized with a start. She had packed up her apartment, expecting to move into his place after the wedding and he’d simply announced that he had arranged for them to move into his family’s old house instead. Panic, doubt and a whole host of other emotions assaulted her.

“Come on,” Billy urged, releasing her and grabbing her hand, let’s go explore the inside. She followed him numbly, barely aware where they were and what they were seeing.

Rocky was going to be sick. Despite everything he’d seen as a Ranger, this was beyond his ability to cope with. Cestro watched him curiously and inquired politely after his health, but Rocky waved him away. The former blue Aquitian Ranger had been assigned to guard and watch over Carri, but Rocky had yet to learn why. At the moment though, he was grateful for the other Ranger’s presence as he wasn’t entirely sure he wasn’t going to pass out.

Carri was submerged, unconscious, in a red tank as a robotic arm detached one of her ears. They were going to replace it with an identical, unscarred one that had been grown from her tissue. The idea of it, combined with the actual site of the surgery, was too much. Cestro offered him a seat and he gratefully slid into it.

“She is your mate?” He asked.

Rocky could only nod. It wasn’t exactly true, but he didn’t want to get into a cultural discussion with the Aquitian. His stomach rolled and as the last of the tissue was severed, he began to sweat profusely.

Cestro studied Rocky curiously. He had known this Ranger from Earth, but he had never had the chance to develop a friendship with him as he had Billy. Delphine was in a panic, certain that Rocky’s sudden appearance was due somehow to Billy learning of Cestria’s actions towards Carri on her first afternoon here. It was not improbable that Billy still had spies in the laboratory, but somehow, Cestro doubted he had learned of any trouble yet.

Rocky seemed overly connected to the female they were treating. Cestro had heard Billy speak of such bonding, but it was an alien concept to him. They had practically clung to one another since his arrival, which was as fascinating as it was revolting, but Carri did seem to tolerate the treatments better in this session. Before his arrival, she’d been depressed and listless, now she seemed to have far more energy.

“It is difficult for you to watch.” Cestro said simply, trying to engage the other Ranger in conversation. He had seen hundreds of these procedures and, although it was interesting to view it on a different species, it was basically the same old routine.

Rocky nodded again, but didn’t answer. They were attaching the new ear now. Somehow that wasn’t quite as difficult to watch. As soon as they were done, Carri would be removed from the red tank and placed in the clear one on the opposite wall. It was a slow, arduous process.

“Is it because you love her?” Cestro asked. He was eager to explore the concept of human mating rituals. Billy had tried to explain it, but admitted it was something that needed to be participated in to completely understand.

“Yeah, I guess.” Rocky added absently, wondering for the hundredth time why the Aquitian was so eager to converse. Billy had horror stories about his time on this planet and, although he still maintained a friendship with Cestro and Delphine and a few other Rangers of that era, Rocky wasn’t exactly enthusiastic about renewing ties.

The Aquitians had come to their rescue when Mater Vile had somehow altered time and turned the Rangers into children. They’d always be eternally grateful to them for risking their own lives to come and save the planet, but Billy’s ex wife had placed a scar on that friendship.

Rocky was worried about Carri and not just because he loved her. Her treatments were serious and he worried for her health and safety. He didn’t think Cestria would actually harm her, but he didn’t trust the scientist either.

“Aquitians bond empathically, is it the same with you race?” Cestro continued.

“Sort of.” Rocky answered uncomfortably.

“But you are a physical race.” The Aquitian stated. “Where we are not.”

“Yes.” Rocky answered awkwardly.

“You exchange fluids with your mate.”

“Look,” Rocky interrupted quickly. “I’m not sure what you and Billy talked about, but I’m just not comfortable talking about my relationship with Carri.”

“Yet the two of you spent several minutes orally…”

“I kissed her.” Rocky cut in. “She’s going through a lot, I was supporting her.”

Cestro considered the idea of physically giving a mate mental support. It was an enthralling new twist on things and something he hadn’t previously known about. Rocky’s unwillingness to discuss the matter confused him though. “So it is culturally acceptable to physically act publically, but not discuss the same act publically.”

“Correct.” Rocky stated uneasily. Nausea forgotten, he felt a blush creep up the back of his neck and into his ears.

“Fascinating.” Cestro commented and Rocky rolled his eyes. This was going to a long couple of weeks.

Kim closed her cell phone and digested the messages her mother had left her. She, Andre, and Charlotte were on their way to California for the holidays; nearly three weeks early.

Kim’s mother still had many friends in Angel Grove. Among them was a friend who had a daughter living in Paris. For the past three years, Kim’s mother had traded homes with her during the holidays. They would usually arrive just before Thanksgiving Day and stay through New Years, but this year her friend was off to cruise the Greek Isles before heading to Paris, so her mother had decided to come early.

Usually, the arrangement worked out well, as both women could visit with their children during the holidays, but this year things would be different. Her mother sounded so excited that she had moved back to Angel Grove and they’d all be together in one place. True, Kim had moved down from Turtle Cove and didn’t have to commute, but she had also just agreed to move in with Tommy. Kim frowned, wondering how her mother was going to take the news that she was going to marry her former high school boyfriend.

Kim’s mother had liked Tommy, she’d embarrassed her often enough by calling him a hunk to her friends, but she also been very serious with Kim about not getting “too involved.” She wanted Kim to enjoy Tommy, but she also pointed out that there were many more fish in the sea and there would be time enough for true love after college.

The younger Kim had been annoyed and dismissed her mom, but she now understood what her mother had been trying to do. She had gotten pregnant right out of high school with Kim and didn’t want history to repeat itself. But there was more to it than that. Kim had the sneaking suspicion that she felt Tommy wasn’t good enough for her.

Her mother had come from a very old and very wealthy family and, even though her father had never been able to hold onto money anymore than he had managed to hold down a job, the Hart’s were very prominent in Angel Grove as well. Although Tommy had grown up in Arizona, his mother’s family also had deep roots in Angel Grove and they were a good, solid family, so Kim wasn’t sure what the problem was. She didn’t think that it had anything to do with Tommy being adopted or of American Indian descent, but their mothers had always been uncomfortable together, as if neither really approved of the other or even wanted to be in the same room with one another.

This feeling had been further impressed into Kim when they broke up. Her mom had been delighted and all her misgivings about the long haired, multi pierced “hippie” had come gushing out. When Kim would reflect back on her high school days or lament her loss, her mother was quick to say that if she thought that little high school boy was the highlight of her life, then she should go back to Angel Grove, look up the pier he was probably living under, and share his bong.

Her brother thought their mother’s comments were hysterical, but they annoyed Kim to no end. The rest of the galaxy considered Tommy one of the greatest Rangers that had ever lived. He was a well respected master and leaders all over the galaxy sought out his help and advice, but Ranger code forced her to hold her tongue.

Her attempts to defend him in the past, and even recently had fallen on deaf ears. It didn’t matter that he had completed his PhD, he was only a high school teacher and that, apparently, just wasn’t good enough for her only daughter. That her mother was married to an artist who’d struggled financially his entire life and only just started to become famous a decade before, apparently didn’t matter. To her mom, Tommy had been cemented in history as the boy with multiple earrings and hair down to his waist. She was convinced that Tommy had only been after one thing and that her baby girl had been very lucky to escape morally unscathed.

The last concern, Kim had to grudgingly admit, was probably a justifiable worry. She’d never told her mother she’d lost her virginity at sixteen. If her mother preferred blissful ignorance, even knowing she’d been temporarily married, then Kim wouldn’t correct her. It wasn’t worth the conversation it was likely to create. But she had hoped to have a little more time alone with Tommy before her mother arrived and started passing judgments.

Her mother had asked her pointedly if Tommy had been at the reunion and her brother had been feeding the flames by telling her that Tommy was helping her renovate the old house. Kim wondered briefly if that was why her mother was showing up so early, but dismissed the idea as paranoid and silly.

Her decision this afternoon to marry him had been precipitous, she knew that very well, but it felt right. For the first time in a long time, she knew she was on the correct path. She took a deep breath and then exhaled her frustrations. She couldn’t call her mother now, the first message had been left Friday afternoon and, providing they hadn’t been delayed in New York, they would be arriving at Angel Grove Airport in a few hours.

The last of the messages her mother had left said that she didn’t know where Kim was, but her brother was picking them up and to call her at the house late Sunday night or Monday morning. She wasn’t sure what to do, but as she flipped her phone back open to call her brother, Tommy came through the door to tell her about Andros.

Ashley was hysterical by the time she made it down the street to the shell of her house. Andros’s identity as a Power Ranger wasn’t widely known, but the news that his house had blown up had traveled fast. She had no sooner loaded the groceries into the car and turned on the ignition, than the report came over the radio. The police had barricaded the block and weren’t going to let her through, but fortunately Lightspeed Rescue had also answered the call and Carter had people on the lookout for her.

Running down the street, she threw herself in Andros’s arms and, after he reassured her that Karone had transported the baby to safety, she burst into tears.

“How could this happen?” She asked. She’d only been gone a little more than an hour. “Was it a monster attack?”

Andros shook his head and gave Carter a rueful look. “No.” He said sadly. A monster attack he could deal with. This…this was unimaginable. He didn’t know what he was going to do.

“Then what? Gas explosion?”

Andros put his arm around her and led her over to where the police had spread out the sheet in the driveway and were taking pictures of it.

“I don’t understand.” Ashley said in a numb voice as she read the words. There had been a mild protest when she had married him, but it had been limited to name calling and the occasional dirty phone call. After six years of marriage, anything of substance had long since died out. “We’ve already been through this,” She said, shaking her head. “You’re a Power Ranger, you helped save this world. This kind of stuff died out years ago.”

“I’m afraid news of the baby has apparently started it up again.” Carter said.

“Sage?” she asked. “What does she have to do with this?”

Andros’s arm tightened around her waist and he moved aside so that she could see the two signs still posted in their yard. “There were three homemade bombs.” He said quietly, still numb himself. “They threw one into each of the bedroom windows.”

Ashley’s mind whirled even as her heart sank. It was just after eight o’clock at night; time for the baby to have been put to bed. “Where was she?’ She asked numbly.

“On the back patio with us. Karone covered her and kept her safe.”

Ashley nodded, tears streaming down her face. Her baby was safe because Karone had kept her up to play with her. If Ashley had been home, the baby would have been put to bed more than a half an hour before.

She stared blankly at the signs before Andros physically turned her around. Kim and Tommy had arrived and she registered their appearance dully. From the other direction, her friend Cassie raced towards her hugged her tightly.

“Are you guys ok?” She asked.

Ashley nodded, “The baby’s with Karone.” She murmured, still in a daze, tears falling heavily down her cheeks. As Andros moved away to talk with Carter and Tommy, she fainted.

Carri said a silent prayer that the latest hydro treatment would end soon. It was almost more than she could bear. Cestro and Rocky kept a silent watch below her and she knew that if Cestria was unduly torturing her they’d interfere, but she was in intense pain. The latest process was to remove the metal alloys from her cells, yet the more they purged, the more seemed to surface.

She felt weird. It was an odd sensation, one she’d never experienced before. Her heart pounded and she felt as if she were suffocating again. She tried to get Rocky’s attention, but the two former blue Rangers were turned from her and engaged in conversation. She fought the rising panic within her. This was silly. She’d already been through half a dozen of these treatments; she should be beyond the panic phase. Her heart pounded wildly and it seemed as though her oxygen had been completely cut off.

Then periphery of her vision began to glow and the room beyond seemed to fade away. Inside the mists of her mind she saw a clear vision of the jungles of Phaedos and the Ninjetti temple of power where she had received her powers. Why she should think of that now, she honestly didn’t know. The vision narrowed and she saw a clear picture of her totem symbol in the old stone wall. Her vision dimmed to blackness and from somewhere in the depths of that darkness she heard a low growl, which rose into the distinct hunting cry of the panther, her Ninjetti animal spirit.

“Cestria, I believe you should observe this.” The tech announced and both Rocky and Cestro looked up at him.

“What is it now?” Cestria asked, but didn’t turn away from the project she had been working on.”

“The yellow Ranger’s pulse has risen significantly.”

“Then add a sedative to the water.” She responded absently.

“It’s not having any effect.” The tech reported. “And the readings are very unusual. I believe you should observe them for yourself.”

Cestria made and exasperated sound and pushed herself away from her console. She marched over to the tech and forcefully pushed him aside. Alternately switching levers and keying in codes to the control panel for the tank, a small frown developed on her forehead.

Rocky turned away from Cestria to look at Carri and immediately stepped back and grabbed Cestro’s arm. Yellow energy crackled around her suspended body and, in a burst of light, she morphed into her Ninjetti form.

It was well past midnight before Kim made her way back to the condo she shared with Carri. Nothing had changed, but it seemed empty and strange to her. There were six more messages from her mother and just about as many from her brother, all demanding to know where she was and why she wasn’t returning calls. She sighed heavily and deleted the bulk of them without even listening. On a whim, she deleted the outgoing message and left a new one, stating Carri was on vacation for the next couple of weeks and for anyone looking for Kim to call her on her cell phone.

“You need any help?” Tommy asked. She shook her head and smiled slightly, putting the phone back in its cradle. The two of them had been on cloud nine until the call came in about Andros. Fortunately everyone had survived, even if their home and Ashley’s work hadn’t, but the entire Ranger community was rattled.

Billy had arranged for them to stay in temporarily quarters on the main side of level eight and many of the reds and other former Rangers had joined them there in an impromptu meeting to discuss what to do about the situation.

It scared them that someone would go after a former Ranger and everyone was looking to Tommy for guidance. The whole thing had caught him off guard and he had become very quiet and introspective. Kim felt for him, everyone expected bombs from monsters, but not other humans and not even the worst villains went after a retired Ranger. Fortunately, the rest of the universe felt there was no honor in going after a Ranger without his powers, but it was a bad precedent to set.

The immediate question still remained where Andros would take his family and what they would do. Andros felt, rightly, that he needed to protect them and was ready to leave Earth behind immediately, but they weren’t welcome on his home world and, thanks to Gruumm, the rest of the galaxy was becoming less and less safe. Ashley wasn’t keen on leaving her family either, so they were at a loss. Everyone had finally adjourned for the night with promises to come back in the morning.

During the uproar, Jason had, very quietly, pulled her left hand up and silently inquired about the ring there, but she had just rolled her eyes and said she’d talk to him later about it. He’d given her a look which was equally divided between amusement and admonishment, but had stayed mute. She was a bit surprised that he was the only one who noticed, the thing seemed huge to her and weighed heavy on her finger, but she was hardly the focus of the evening.

She sighed deeply, regretting the loss of the temporary peace they had enjoyed. For the moment, it looked as if they were all still stuck on their emotional roller coaster for a while longer.

Tommy came up and put his arms around her, nuzzling her neck as she put the phone down. “You worried what your mom is going to say?” He asked. She turned, and at her surprised look he added, “Jason says she refers to me as the long haired hippie.”

Kimberly couldn’t help it, she burst out laughing, but the laughter was good for her and she felt better after. “I didn’t think you knew that.” She admitted. He wanted to say that she’d be surprised at what he knew, but now was not the time or place for that conversation.

“Do you care what she says?” he asked simply.

“Yes,” she admitted. “I love her and I want her to love you, but I honestly don’t know how enthusiastic she’s going to be.”

Tommy thought about that for a second. “Does her opinion matter enough for you to change your mind?”

“Nope.” Kim answered without hesitation. She grinned, putting her arms around his neck. “That’s one decision she’s just going to have to learn live with.”

Tommy exhaled the breath he’d been holding. “Then go get packed.” He said, kissing her quickly, then turning her around and pushing her toward her bedroom.

“I should really call her tonight.” Kim called over her shoulder. “They should be at the house by now and I’m sure they’re still up.”

Tommy shrugged and followed her into the room. He had more important things to worry about right now. As long as Kim was comfortable enough with her mother’s presumed disapproval to still pack her things and move in with him tonight, he’d let her deal with it.

He’d always felt Kim’s mother hadn’t really liked him. She’d been nice enough to him in person, but his gut told him she hadn’t been pleased with her daughter’s choice of boyfriends. He had nothing against her except that she hadn’t seemed to get along with his own mother.

He’d seen enough teenage lust in his days as a high school teacher to have a pretty good idea why her mother had been weary of him. He and Kim had been inseparable and there actually was a grain of truth in Jason’s claim that he was the one out saving the world while Tommy was out kissing Kimberly. How they’d never managed to get pregnant, he didn’t know; it wasn’t like they’d always been careful. At that thought, his head came up and he stared hard at Kim.

“You never got pregnant did you?” He asked bluntly. She turned around and faced him, a surprised look on her face.

“No.” She answered. “Why would you ask that?”

“We weren’t exactly the poster children for safe sex.” He said and she grinned wickedly at him.

“We were pretty wild.” She admitted. If their first day back together was any indication, they were still wild.

He watched the thoughts cross her face and smiled at his own memories of that era. “I’m surprised.” He admitted. “I guess we were just lucky.”

“The older power coins sterilized the females that used them.” She said and his eyebrows came up in surprise. “Just the older coins,” She added. “It’s like an ancient form of birth control. Kept a female from taking an innocent into battle or at least that’s what Zordon said.”

“But Trini…”

“The effect wears off after a while and it was never a hundred percent effective,” She added, thinking of the dimensions she had seen where the Kim really had become pregnant as a teenager. “But Trini and I will always have problems conceiving.”

He thought about that for a moment. “Do you want children?” He asked.

“Oh yeah,” She said sarcastically “It’s just so conducive to our line of work.”

“I’m serious.” He said. This was the first of many import questions they had yet to hash out, but it was one on the top of his list.

She sat down on the bed and folded the nightgowns she’d taken out of a laundry basket of clean clothes. “I don’t know.” She answered honestly, but not looking at him. “Jason and I talked adnauseam about this. We’re not normal. No children we have will ever be normal.”

“Normal by whose standards?” He asked and she gave a soft chuckle.

“Earth’s I guess.” She answered.

“Sweetheart,” He said, walking over and sitting next to her. “None of us can ever be judged by Earth’s current standards. Too much has happened to us. We’ll never fit into that narrow of a definition again.”

She met his gaze and smiled ruefully. “And what if I birth a son who comes out looking exactly like Maligore?”

“Then we cross that bridge when we come to it.” He said seriously. Then he asked an even more serious question. “Do you think you can have children?”

Kim was a hybrid, a Muirantian, whatever that meant. He knew that Jason had sworn never to have children, to never pass on his Muirantian abilities, but he didn’t know Kim’s stance. He understood and, in a way, approved, but after years of wondering what he was an where he came from, he still wanted a family of his own.

He understood that she wasn’t entirely human anymore, neither was he if he was going to be completely honest. Every morpher altered your DNA just a little and after so many, he just wasn’t sure what his genetics scans would read like. The Dino gems were also never meant for human use. What they had done to further complicate his DNA, he really didn’t want to complicate. All of that added to the powers Zordon had given him just before he left and he supposed he was as different genetically as she was. Family had always been important to him and to have a family that was genetically related to him was priceless. 

If he was going to be honest, neither he nor his brother had ever been what Earth would consider a normal human being. Both had advanced telekinetic skills and powers that would be considered strange even on a core world. He wasn’t even sure where they were from; but he was pretty sure it wasn’t Earth. He and David had extensively searched their closed adoption records using Tommy’s vast connections, but the woman the records indicated was their birth mother wasn’t even genetically related to them and there was no father listed. His brother seemed non phased by it all, but it was baffling and frustrating and left Tommy feeling more isolated and alone than ever.

Eyes focusing back on Kim as she packed up her room, he realized she’d ignored his question, so he asked it again. She shrugged, “I don’t know. I suppose so, but I know the scientists at NASADA said I could only expect to ovulate once or twice a year… if that.”

Tommy thought about that for a moment. That would mean they’d have to consciously be trying and even then they’d probably need artificial help, but it certainly solved the burning question he’d had since their incredibly fabulous but stupidly unprotected night and afternoon together.

“Is that ok?” She asked quietly.

He thought about it for a minute and nodded. “I want kids.” He said. “Not now, but in the future. I don’t have any biological family except for my brother and his son. Having kids has always been important to me.”

Kimberly nodded at him in understanding. They had talked about this as kids and his views apparently hadn’t changed. It was beyond her though how they’d ever manage to raise children together. Tommy had his duties and she had hers. There was no time for children. “Then we’ll talk about it again in the future.” She said quietly.

Tommy nodded, but didn’t say anything. His eyes strayed to the folded night gowns and he grinned roguishly. “You actually think you’re gonna get a chance to wear these?” he asked. She gave him an admonishing look and he laughed, leaning back across the small bed and rubbing his eyes. He hadn’t expected to get tired again so quickly, but they’d had a rough couple of days.

He spied a picture of Kim and her brother as kids on the side table and picked it up for a closer look, wondering what their own kids might look like one day. The framed picture was how he remembered her brother; young and full of mischief. Mike was now grown and out on his own. It was hard to believe. His thoughts drifted back to the early years of high school and he frowned deeply.

“What?” she asked, adding several pairs of jeans to the suitcase.

“Just wondering why your mother hated me so much.”

“She didn’t hate you,” she said, dropping the matching shirts she’d selected into the suitcase and coming over to him. “She just thought your only mission in life was to steal my virginity.”

“Well she was right about that.” He said, roguishly. “Only, if I remember correctly, it was you climbing all over me.”

“Hey,” she barked indignantly, slapping him playfully.

His eyes took on a smoky look and he pulled her down to him, hands wandering seductively. “Too bad you’ve only got a single bed in here.” He leered.

She shrugged her shoulder, returning his gaze with a heat that surprised and enthralled him. “If we could do it in the back of that little car I had, a single bed could be considered spacious.”

He laughed, pushing her back up and smacking her backside playfully. “Go pack.” He said. “We’ll continue that conversation once I get you home.”

Home, he thought. Andros had lost his home. He understood his friend’s dilemma. The galaxy was far from a safe place. Andros had thought he’d found a safe haven for his family on his wife’s world, but he’d been wrong. Alien monsters weren’t the only beings who hated. Unfortunately, Tommy was afraid this was just the tip of the iceberg.

This was an issue that was just going to get worse as the war progressed. There were massive droves of refugees running in terror from General Gruumm. Millions had already been displaced from conquered or destroyed worlds; millions more would be next. Soon there would be no place left for them to go among the core worlds. All of them needed safe homes for their families and all of them were looking to the Rangers for help.

Tommy mulled over his earlier conversation with Carter. Lightspeed had an idea, but it was not set up to take charge of such a massive and public project. He wondered if it could really work. A segregated island, to be created just off the California coastline, that would house a major intergalactic port city and cater to thousands of displaced families.

Billy had already approached him about the idea and he’d dismissed it. There was no way the governments of the world would cooperate long enough to get it built. But Billy’s idea had been to make it a separate society; one massive intergalactic embassy. Territory the rest of world would have no say over and governed and protected by the Power Rangers themselves.

He wondered if it could possibly work and if the crimes committed against Andros might be used as a catalyst to gain acceptance for the project with the world governments. If the Power Rangers themselves weren’t safe from these kinds of crimes, what hope did the refugees have?

The refugees needed a home of their own, maybe it was time for the Power Rangers to have a home of their own too; a place where all the different fractions and academies could exchange knowledge under one roof. The idea seemed too good to be true.

Tommy watched as Kim closed one large suitcase and opened another. She didn’t have much here; most of her stuff was in storage until her house was renovated. She’d planned to take one or two suitcases tonight and then they’d come for the rest of her things later.

As he watched her pack, he realized that he was taking her to his own home; one they were going to share together. Home. The word stuck in his brain and he mulled it over and over again. What a wonderful and marvelous concept when it pertained to her.

The End

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