Live Like You Were Dying

 

*Title: Live Like You Were Dying

*Author: kazeko [ginnokonekochan@yahoo.com]

*Show: Power Rangers

*Rating: M15

*Chapters: 17

*Series: no, also no relation to “Children of the Gods”

*Multipart: yes

*Time: After Power Rangers in Space, changing the Power Rangers timeline after that

*Couple(s): Tommy/Kimberly, Jason/Kat, Tanya/Adam

*Disclaimer: Saban and Disney own Power Rangers and they don’t deserve it if they won’t release MMPR on DVD!

*Disclaimer 2: I own everything else, including characters, other planets, and the plot.

 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Chapter 1: Ranger Reunion

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

 

He sat on the bluff, watching as a tall man in a white shirt with mahogany hair waved goodbye to his uncle one last time and jumped into his jeep, speeding away to a hidden town in the distance, noted only for its conception of the world-famous Power Rangers so many years before.  He watched the vehicle speed away, smiling as he remembered that young man, so hopeful, but in so much pain.  There was still pain, but a different type, and there had been decades of happiness.  Nothing wonderful lasts forever, but pain never goes away.

 

“That’s a very depressing thought, my love.”

 

He smiled at her, loving her so much at that moment, knowing that she was suffering.  Every minute of every day she suffered and there was nothing he could do about it.  Except love her and be there for her.  “I’m getting old, Beautiful.  Sometimes it’s all I’ve got.  Especially now.”

 

“Shhh,” she soothed, resting her head on his shoulder.  “You promised not to think about it.  We’re here to change all of that.”

 

“You’re right, of course.”  They looked up at the same instant as their partner appeared, dark brown hair longer than it had been in his youth, ears pointed from decades of power peeking out from under his curls.  “You’re late, Bro.”

 

“There’s been a problem.”  She sat up straighter, brown eyes wide as the second man bit his lip, tears in his eyes.  “It’s about the baby.”

 

“No . . .”

 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

 

“Tanya?”

 

“Aisha!!”  Tanya squealed as she embraced the woman who had given up her place on the team for her.  “How have you been?”

 

“God, Vet School is torture.  You would not believe how much random stuff there is to memorize!  I mean, every single bone in a cat’s body?  It’s nice to be home for the summer.  How are you and Adam?  Working on that family yet?”

 

Tanya blushed, her dark cheeks darkening, as she helped Aisha gather her bags and led her to the guest room.  “Come on, Aisha.  You know we’re still young.”

 

“Being a Power Ranger has this annoying habit of making us grow up too fast.  Most seventeen-year-olds don’t have to make life-and-death decisions on a daily basis.  I’m kind of glad that you all retired.”

 

“Me, too, a little.  I mean, I liked saving the world and stuff, but it’s nice not to have to listen for Zordon’s signal.”  She paused, wiping a tear from her eye as she placed the bag on the empty bed.  “I miss him.”

 

“He did what he had to do, Tanya.  It’s nobody’s fault.  We couldn’t have gotten rid of so much evil by sacrificing ourselves, but we would have in a second if we could.  He was just a Power Ranger without a body.  When he got his chance to change the world, he took it.”

 

“Tommy took it pretty badly,” the third Yellow Ranger whispered.  She picked up one of Aisha’s pictures, one of the group at the Youth Center.  Tommy was white back then, smiling, his chestnut-haired girlfriend nestled securely in his arms, Adam glaring at Rocky as the sneaky second Red Ranger pilfered a fry, Billy’s nose buried in a manual of some sort, Aisha smiling at the camera.  “I know I wasn’t a Ranger for that long, not like Tommy, but I always knew that the teams weren’t the same.  Every new incarnation of the Power Rangers was different—new zords, new colors, new powers, new people.  How many different teams were there?”

 

“Let me think.  First there were the original five Rangers; then Tommy as the Green Ranger joined; then Tommy turned white and became the leader; then Jason, Trini, and Zack had to leave; then Kimberly left and gave Kat her coin; then Billy and I left during the Zeo Quest.”

 

“Yeah.  Then the rest of us went Turbo and gained Justin when Rocky left.  Seven teams here in Angel Grove.  Then the Space Rangers gave Zordon his chance and now he’s gone.  Everything’s changed so much.”

 

“We need a reunion or something.  All of the Power Rangers who can make it.  I’ll bet we could dig most of them up.”  Aisha placed her picture beside the one of Tanya with the Zeo Rangers.  “I don’t know any of the Space Rangers . . .”

 

“I wouldn’t know how to get in contact with them, anyway.  But we could get most of the first seven teams except for Billy.”

 

“What about Kimberly?  Would she come?”

 

Tanya hung the last of Aisha’s clothes in the closet and led her friend downstairs, digging in the cabinet for something remotely edible.  “I don’t know.  None of us have spoken to her since . . . I mean, Zack and Trini keep in contact with Jason, and Adam and I see him and Rocky at least twice a week.  Sometimes Kat will call me from London and Tommy will call Jason from wherever he is that week, but I don’t think anyone ever talks to Kimberly.  Unless you do?”

 

“I don’t.  I never really told her that I stayed in Africa, and she might not know that I left Angel Grove or the team at all.”

 

“Is she still in Florida?  We could try to call her . . .”

 

“Yeah, she’s in Florida.”  Both women turned at the voice, smiling as Jason sauntered into the kitchen, lengthening hair pulled back out of his way.  He and Rocky owned and operated the Red Phoenix Dojo in town, the name a reminder of the Ranger color they shared and the rebirth of all Rangers into new incarnations.  “How are you doing, Aisha?  How’s Africa?”

 

“Nothing like Angel Grove.”  The three sat down at the table as Tanya found some bread and meat, placing them and the appropriate condiments on the table so her guests could slap a sandwich together.  She also managed to find three glasses and welcomed Jason and Aisha to the tea she had brewed the day before, claiming that at least it wasn’t poison.  Rocky, who had driven Jason to Tanya’s apartment, huffed up the stairs a few minutes later, having had to park the car, and dove for the food.  Adam, who lived in the next apartment, always visited Tanya, and swelled the group to five, and Aisha finally asked Jason about Kimberly.

 

“I wandered over to Florida last month to see how she was doing.  She’s an assistant coach in her own right now, and she really enjoys teaching gymnastics.  It was kind of strange, though.  You remember the gold she got in the Pan-Globals and her medals from the Olympics?  She has them buried in a box in the back of her closet.  It’s like she doesn’t want to think about them.”

 

“Maybe she just ran out of space,” Rocky smiled.  “I’m sure if she had someone to show them to she’d have them out.”  He paused to take a bite and gather his thoughts.  “That idea you girls mentioned about a Ranger Reunion sounds pretty great.  I’m sure Kimberly would come.”

 

“Actually, Trini suggested the same thing when I spoke to her last week.  She and Zack are coming back to Angel Grove sometime later this week and she wanted to see all of her friends and the Rangers she never met.  She asked me about Kimberly, but I couldn’t give her any answer.  She seems happy enough, but there’s a light missing from her eyes.  I know we’re not teenagers anymore, but she’s not the same happy person I knew all those years ago.”

 

“Maybe it was the letter,” Adam whispered, some of his old guilt surfacing.  No matter how many times Tanya tried to comfort him, he was still guilty about the letter.  After all, he read it to Tommy, and it hurt almost as much as seeing his friend go through the pain of losing the only woman he ever really loved.

 

A sharp knock on the door interrupted the group, and Tanya shrugged.  “It’s open,” she called.  The door swung open to reveal Tommy, the former Green-White-Red Ranger, smiling, dressed in the white he liked the most.

 

“Hey.  Look who I found at the airport.”  He pushed the door open a little more, and the first Black and Yellow Rangers stood there, grinning.  They were enveloped in hugs and effusive greetings by the later Rangers, and all dark thoughts were banished for the moment.  As the group helped Zack and Trini stow their stuff and polished off the food, Tanya led the ex-Rangers to her living room.

 

“Tommy, what is it?”

 

The former leader shook his head, the hair on the back of his neck standing on end.  He was frozen in the middle of the room, staring at nothing, all of his instincts screaming at him.  “I’m not sure . . . it feels like we’re being watched.”

 

A flash of silver-white-red light in the center of the room confirmed his suspicions and Tommy leapt back, falling into a defensive posture as the other Rangers also shot to their feet.  The glow faded and gasps of shock and disbelief filled the room.  “Oh my god . . .” Aisha whispered.  No one else could speak.

 

The leader of the three grinned.  “Hey, guys.  How’ve you been?”

 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Chapter 2: Choices

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

 

Kat smiled at her fellow performers as she closed the door of her dressing-room, leaning against the wood and sighing.  Though dancing usually thrilled her, tonight there was no joy, no excitement.  She realized that she missed her friends, her real friends, the people she suffered and fought evil with in High School.  She missed the Power Rangers.

 

It wasn’t like she hadn’t kept in touch; she had, but they were eight time zones away and actually talking to one of her friends was expensive and difficult.  Letters were fine, as far as they went, but she wanted to see them, to ask them how they’d been, to admire and envy the romance between Tanya and Adam.  She did envy them their love, but she would never do anything to hurt them.  Just because she was denied her happy ending didn’t mean that her friends shouldn’t get a reward for all of their hard work.  She let her thoughts wander to Tommy as she sat in front of her mirror and began to take her hair down, smiling at the thought of the mahogany-haired man.  Sure, they had realized eventually that he was using her as a replacement for Kimberly and she didn’t really love him, but it had been nice while it lasted.

 

She jumped, startled, as a simple piece of white paper floated onto the table in front of her, appearing from out of nowhere.  Pausing a moment to see if it was some sort of trap, the blonde Aussie picked it up and read the simple note.  “There is always a chance for a happy ending.  Your friends need you now.”  Turning it over, she found the information for a plane ticket back to Angel Grove, bought and paid for, that she could print from the travel website listed.  Confused and more than a little skeptical, Kat walked over to her computer, woke it up, and typed in the website.  Sure enough, it listed one first-class seat, paid for, for Katherine Hilliard from London to Angel Grove.  Printing the paper, she noticed that there was no return ticket.

 

“Maybe I’m not meant to come back,” she whispered, secretly wondering who would have bought her a first-class ticket in the first place.  Checking the date and time, she realized that she only had a day to make arrangements to leave.  Smiling, the blue-eyed second Pink Ranger pulled her hair into a ponytail and threw on some clothes, heading for the door.  It would be nice to go home.

 

Unnoticed, a tall man with curly brown hair and pointed ears sat outside her window, eyes sparkling.  She had accepted.

 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

 

The Queen of the Adamarei Alliance sat on her throne, staring at the reports from her Dukes and Duchesses of the various Regions that she controlled scroll through the air, a holo-projection.  Touching her finger to one entry, the silver-haired woman brought up the report from Earth, a planet under her protection if not direct jurisdiction.  “All readings confirm our worst fear: Zordon of Eltar is indeed dead, his sacrifice saving the galaxy from Lord Zedd, King Mondo, Rita Repusa, and Divatox.  His last group of teen heroes, his Power Rangers, are powerless, retiring as every group before them has done.  More information if requested.”

 

The queen sighed and turned the machine off, letting her head fall into her hands.  Zordon dead.  He had been one of the greatest Avatars of Light ever.  Now who would govern Earth and protect it from evil she knew would return?  The ancient woman knew that she was not the one to do so, and she realized that only her heir would have enough power.  “But I am left sterile by a touch of the plague,” she whispered, never realizing that she had spoken out loud.

 

“Anarii?”

 

The queen’s closest friend entered the room, the Duchess of Azareth Region smiling, long red hair pulled into a simple braid.  The youngest of the Duchesses at only one century, Baliree hated to wear formal clothing, no matter what.  Queen Anarii didn’t mind in the least.  “Yes, Baliree?”

 

“Ana, I know that you are worried that you have no heir, but you can still bestow your powers on a deserving young woman.  If you can find a powerful girl that you trust to lead your people, she doesn’t even have to be Shamirin by birth.”

 

“Where can I find a child like that?  She’d have to be just coming into her adulthood and powers.  There are no twenty-year-olds in my kingdom that I trust so much.”

 

“What about Zordon’s children?”  Earth was part of Azareth Region, and Anarii knew how much the Eltaran’s death hurt the young Duchess.  “There are quite a few to choose from, and Zordon trusted the fate of the Universe to them.  You can trust Adamarei to one of them.”

 

“Which one?  And how can I ask one of those girls to leave behind everything she’s ever known and come here to serve me?”

 

“Then take two or three.  Pick the woman you want and ask her who she would most like to accompany her.  I’m sure they would come, Ana.  They are hurting without their powers and the whole saving-the-world bit, though they could never admit it.  I know the Dragon Power is very different from the power of the Morphin’ Grid or the Zeo Crystals, but I’m sure they’d jump at the chance.”

 

“Who are my choices, then, Bali?”

 

“I would prefer one of the earlier girls, not the ones who were with Zordon when he died.  The wounds and the pain are too fresh for them, the power too near.  So, one of the first seven teams.”  Bali waved her hand, and a new image appeared before the queen.  Seven different groups of Human teenagers stood before her, some noticeably similar.  She pulled the girls out and lined them up, highlighting each as she spoke.  “These are the Yellow Rangers first.  Trini Kwan was first, leaving the team within the second year to attend a peace conference in Switzerland.  She is bright and caring and had only a few problems passing the power onto the next Yellow Ranger.  Aisha Campbell was the second, staying for quite some time, electing to stay in Africa during the Zeo Quest.  She has since entered Veterinarian School so she can help the animals she lives with.  She never really had to go through Power withdrawal due to the unique circumstances of her leaving.  Tanya Sloan returned with the yellow Zeo Crystal and took Aisha’s place on the team, remaining through the Turbo Powers.  She voluntarily passed on her powers and retired from the team.”

 

The former Yellow Rangers faded slightly, leaving only two girls standing there.  “In five years there were only two Pink Rangers.  The first is Kimberly Ann Hart, very small even for a human, an accomplished gymnast.  She suffered a great deal as a Ranger, carrying the Power and the responsibility for almost three years, including being kidnapped by Lord Zedd to become his bride, almost being killed more times than I can count, and having her Power Coin stolen by a girl who was at that time Rita’s servant.  She’s the only one who ever had her coin stolen, and that almost killed her.  In the end, she left for Florida, unable to handle the Power any longer, and competed in two major Human gymnastic competitions.  She is currently an assistant coach in Florida, hoping to teach others how to be winners, too.”

 

“How did she handle losing the power?”

 

“Major depression.  She suffered so much, poor thing, and she didn’t have anyone to talk to while in Florida.  Eventually she decided that the only way to make the pain go away was to pretend that it never happened, so she cut the last of her ties to Angel Grove.”

 

“What tie?”

 

“Her boyfriend, Tommy Oliver,” Baliree whispered, showing a picture of the man.  “She’s the one who accepted him into the team without a thought or worry when he was freed from Rita’s spell while he was the Green Ranger.  She was there for him when he lost his powers and he saved her when her coin was stolen.  In the end, she left to chase another of her dreams, always planning to return and give him the family he always wanted.  She sent him a letter worded just right to keep him from trying to contact her, and they have not spoken since.  The only link she has left to any of the former Rangers is Jason Scott, who visits her once in a while.  He knows better than to mention the Rangers.”

 

“Tell me about this last one, the blonde.”

 

“That’s Katherine Hilliard, an Australian who was brought to Angel Grove by Rita to steal the Power Coins of the Power Rangers.  She fell for Tommy and decided to steal only the Pink Coin, almost killing Kimberly in the process.  In the end, Katherine turned good and Kimberly gave her the Pink Coin, making her the second Pink Ranger, when she went to Florida.  Katherine and Tommy dated for a while after Kimberly’s letter, but they realized that Tommy only ever loved Kimberly and they broke up.”  The three Yellow Rangers faded back in, and Queen Anarii studied the five women.

 

“Who should I choose?”

 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Chapter 3: Gathering

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

 

Jason watched Rocky finish teaching his students, contemplating the Rangers’ lives after the power left.  He was a teacher, surely one of his finer dreams, but he was so damn lonely.  He tried to explain it to Rocky once, but DeSantos went through girlfriends faster than sane people went through shirts and couldn’t understand the first Red Ranger’s need for a permanent girlfriend.  Rocky finished with his students and sent them to change, wandering over to where Jason was seated.  The second Red Ranger flopped onto the couch beside his counterpart, grinning.  “Whatcha’ thinking?”

 

“I was just wondering why I’m so lonely, that’s all.”

 

“You’re lonely because you’re too picky, that’s why.  You could have just a normal girl but you want one that touched the Power, and there are only five to choose from.”

 

“It’s not fair, really.  I mean, at least Tommy had his chance with the girl of his dreams.  He didn’t have to hide anything from Kimberly and she was always there for him.  It doesn’t matter how it ended, the point is that they had their chance.”  Jason sighed and dropped his head in his hands.  “I really want that chance.  I deserve that chance.”

 

Tanya burst into the dojo, Adam close on her heels, both pale and shaking.  Jason and Rocky stood, confused, and helped the other Rangers sit.  “What is it, Adam?”

 

The second Black Ranger swallowed a couple of times, shaking his head at Rocky’s question.  “It’s . . . it’s Zordon,” he whispered, wiping tears out of his eyes.  “He’s dead.”

 

“Wh-what?”  Jason hit his knees, hands gripping the edge of the couch.  “He . . . he can’t be dead, Adam.”

 

“It’s true,” Tanya whispered.  “He died and his life force spread out to cleanse the galaxy of evil.  The Rangers’ message said that Zedd, Rita, and Divatox are good.  And there is no more Power.  There won’t ever be a Command Center or Alpha or Zordon or Power Rangers ever again.”

 

“Oh god,” Rocky whispered.  “This can’t be happening.  We saved him before, why couldn’t these Rangers save the world without him?  Everything seemed fine a week ago when all of the cogs vanished.”

 

“That’s when it happened.  After letting us fight for so long, he found his way to make a difference.”  Tanya bit her lip, desperate to restrain her tears.  “We were fighting just fine.  He didn’t have to do that.”

 

“Yes he did,” Adam whispered.  “We would have done the same thing.”

 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

 

Zordon can’t be dead.  That thought ran through Tommy’s head again and again as he stared out across the lake, a stone in his hand.  He threw it at the uncaring water, feeling moisture in his eyes.  “Why did you leave us?  We’re not Rangers anymore, but it was nice, knowing that you were here, watching over everything.  And now there’s no more Command Center, no more Alpha, no more Rangers, and no more home.  Now we’re not a family, we’re just scattered friends.  We don’t have anywhere to go anymore.”

 

Images filled his mind, memories of his time as a Ranger.  Despite all of the stress and fear and constant battles, he had been happy.  Back then at least he had friends, a family to share his hopes and dreams and experiences with.  The gentle breeze brought a soft scent to the man, a scent he couldn’t name, but it sparked memories of Kimberly.  They had shared a dream once, when he was a Ranger, when he was a whole person.  Now he didn’t have the Power, he didn’t have her, he didn’t have anything.  “I miss you so much, Beautiful,” he whispered.  “You once said that Zordon was the father you never had, the one who left you and your mother alone, and now he’s gone, too.  I wonder what you’re thinking right now.”

 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

 

“Wonderful!  Okay, that’s it for today.  I expect to see you all in the morning, bright and early.  We’ll be closed Monday; don’t forget to tell your parents.”  The petite brunette watched as her students left, a small smile on her face.  Coach Withers smiled at her newest apprentice.

 

“Very good, Kimberly.  They love having such a young teacher.  One day you’ll make a great coach, maybe an Olympic Coach.  That’s the best feeling in the world, watching one of your kids win a medal.”

 

“I enjoy teaching, Beatrice.  After the Olympics, I decided that I wanted to help other girls achieve their dreams.  I have a date tonight, if you don’t mind.”

 

“No, no!  Go have fun, Kimberly.  I’ll see you in the morning.”

 

Kimberly Ann Hart, world-famous Pan-Global and Olympic gymnastics champion, smiled and headed for her apartment and her date with the man and woman who had been her best friends since she was just a little girl.  Zack Taylor and Trini Kwan had been able to catch a cheap flight to Miami and were glad to join the slender young woman for supper.  They had all grown apart after leaving Angel Grove, but they managed to see each other when they could.

 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

 

“Hi, guys!  Why so down?”  Kimberly plopped into the chair across from Zack and Trini, smiling at the waitress as she brought three glasses of water and wandered away, leaving the three to peruse the menu.  Zack and Trini exchanged a pained glance, and the oriental woman bit her lip.

 

“Kimberly, Jason called us today, after we landed.”  She nodded toward her cell phone, and Kimberly mentally reminded herself that she needed to give her cell number to the first Red Ranger.  “Kim, do you remember when the Power Rangers faced off against the Machines for the last time about a week or more ago?”

 

“Sure.  It was all over the television.  It was kind of cool, finally learning who the Power Rangers were.”  Trini and Zack exchanged a startled glance, the woman shrugging.  It was possible that no one ever thought to tell Kimberly who took over after Tommy and the others left the team.  “What about it?”

 

“Kimberly, the reason all of the cogs and stuff vanished was because Zordon expended his life force.  He’s dead, Kimberly.”

 

And then they knew something was wrong.

 

Kimberly smiled and shrugged.  “Okay.  Who’s Zordon?  The Power Ranger leader or something?”

 

“Kimberly, Zordon’s dead!  You said he was like a father to you!  Did you forget?”

 

“Forget what, Trini?  I’m sure if I knew someone named Zordon, I would remember.”  Her confusion and blank expression could not and were not faked.  She honestly had no idea who Zordon was.

 

Trini felt Zack squeeze her hand in warning, and Trini smiled.  “I thought I introduced you.  I must have been mistaken.  Well, shall we order?”

 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

 

“Tommy?”

 

“Trini!  Zack!”  The former leader of the Power Rangers grinned as he embraced his old teammates and helped them gather their bags.  “How have you been?”

 

“It’s nice to be home,” Trini admitted.  “There may be some perks to being world travelers, but I really missed my friends.  How has Angel Grove been?”

 

“Remarkably quiet, especially since . . .”  Tommy placed the bags he was carrying in the back of his jeep and gestured for the other two to jump in.  “It looks like Zordon’s final sacrifice eliminated evil as he planned.  I kinda’ miss the action, you know?”

 

“I know,” Zack smiled as Tommy drove off, heading toward Tanya’s apartment.  “I remember some of that.  It was hard, being a normal person again.  But I’ve gotten used to it.  Trini?”

 

“I liked saving people, but I’m glad we got a reward of a normal life.  What about you, Tommy?  You were a Power Ranger much longer than either of us.  You were there for what, six different teams?”

 

“Yeah.  It’s not easy.”  He sighed as he stopped at the light, waiting for the red to turn green.  “The green turned red,” he whispered.  “The green turned white then red.”  He smiled at his friends.  “Sorry.  I was just thinking.  I kinda miss being the Green Ranger.  Isn’t that the strangest thing?  When I was the Green Ranger, no matter what happened to me and my powers, I knew who I was.  When I was the White Ranger and the leader, I had so many more responsibilities, and I wasn’t so insecure.  I didn’t need her as much.  But when I became the Red Ranger, there was nothing left of me.  There was nothing left that she knew.”

 

“Kimberly,” Trini realized as they pulled into the parking lot of Tanya and Adam’s apartment complex.  The three of them grabbed the bags and headed for the elevator.  “You’re talking about your relationship with Kimberly.  Tommy, it’s not your fault.”

 

“Yes it is,” Tommy whispered as they rode the elevator to Tanya’s floor.  “If it wasn’t something I did, then why did she leave me?”

 

“Tommy, there’s something we need to tell you about Kimberly.”

 

“Tell me in a sec, Trini.  We’re here.”  Tommy knocked on the door, pushing it open at Tanya’s behest.  “Hey, look who I found at the airport.”

 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Chapter 4: Future Shocked

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

 

“Tommy, what is it?”

 

The former leader shook his head, the hair on the back of his neck standing on end.  He was frozen in the middle of the room, staring at nothing, all of his instincts screaming at him.  “I’m not sure . . . it feels like we’re being watched.”

 

A flash of silver-white-red light in the center of the room confirmed his suspicions and Tommy leapt back, falling into a defensive posture as the other Rangers also shot to their feet.  The glow faded and gasps of shock and disbelief filled the room.  “Oh my god . . .” Aisha whispered.  No one else could speak.

 

The leader of the three grinned.  “Hey, guys.  How’ve you been?”

 

Tommy stared at the woman, unable to look at either man.  “Kimberly . . .” he breathed.  “Oh god . . .”

 

The woman smiled, her eyes warm and friendly.  “Hello Tommy.”

 

The former White Ranger fell to the couch, eyes locked on the woman.  “What . . . you aren’t the Kimberly I know.”

 

Kimberly grinned and glanced at her two companions.  “No, I’m not.”  The man on her arm glanced at Tommy, the third member of their party reaching out to take Jason’s hand.

 

“Hello, Jason.”

 

“You’re . . . me?  How is that possible?”

 

“And you’re Tommy,” Rocky whispered, staring at the man in white.  “Why do you have pointed ears?”

 

“It’s a really long story, and we can’t tell you everything.”  Kimberly, Tommy, and Jason took a seat, and the woman continued.  “Look, the point is that Tommy, Jason, and I have come back in time to fix something that went terribly wrong.”

 

“How far back in time?”

 

“Seventy-seven years.”

 

“Oh my god . . .”  Aisha stared at the woman seated on the couch across from her.  “You don’t look a hundred, Kim.”

 

“I know.  Shamirii do not age the same way humans do.”

 

“You three are human,” Adam pointed out.

 

“We were,” Tommy corrected, “but not anymore.  Now we are Shamirii.  The planets of the Adamarei Alliance are suffering from a deadly plague and we came here to prevent it.  We wouldn’t have revealed ourselves, but something else has happened.  There is a small faction of Shamirii who blame the three of us for the plague, though it existed long before we arrived on Adamarei Prime.  Queen Anarii put us in charge of defending her heir from all members of that faction, and we thought she would be safe here on Earth.  She was kidnapped less than a day ago and we need your help to find her.”  Kimberly winced at Tommy’s words, and the older man pulled her closer.  Young Tommy found himself watching their every move, knowing that they were in love, married, perhaps even with a family.  That meant that he and Kimberly were destined to make up, but when?

 

“We’ll do all we can, of course,” Adam assured the three.  “Are you really from the future?”

 

Jason smiled and pushed his hair behind his pointed ear.  “Yes, we are.  Sometime this year, within the month, Queen Anarii will send her messengers here and recruit us to help her save her alliance.  Seventy-seven years later, we will discover how to come back in time and prevent any of that from ever happening.”  There was something in his voice, a hesitation perhaps, that indicated that he wasn’t being one hundred percent truthful.  The younger Jason sat up, dark eyes searching his future-self’s face.

 

He knew that the older Jason was lying, and he narrowed his eyes.  “Why are your ears pointed?  All three of you?  Is that part of being Shamirii?”

 

“He knows,” Jason sent along the link, eyes locked on his younger self.

 

“He can’t possibly, he just knows that you’re hiding something,” Kimberly assured the man who had always been like her older brother.  “We can keep it a secret long enough to find her.  We have to find her.”

 

“We will,” Tommy promised, resting his forehead on hers as Jason answered himself.

 

“Not really.  The more powerful we are and the more we exercise that power, the more pointed our ears become.”  He touched his ears as he glanced at Kimberly and Tommy.  He wondered if the younger Rangers could see that Kimberly’s petite ears were pointed but not sharp and that Tommy’s ears were dulling in response.  Probably not.  “We’ve used a lot of Dragon Power over the decades, but there are Shamirin Prophets and Healers who have much more pronounced points.”

 

“What are you, then?”  Tanya shook her head, trying to organize her thoughts.  “I mean, are you Prophets or healers . . .”

 

“We’re warriors,” Kimberly sighed, tears sparkling in her eyes for a moment.  Only young Tommy noticed.  “We protect the Heir of the Adamarei Alliance.  We use magic to create, alter, change, destroy, fight, and defend.  We can do everything except Look Forward, and we have only limited empathic and telepathic abilities.  We are as Queen Anarii made us almost eighty years ago.”

 

“There’s something you’re not telling us.”

 

All heads turned toward the door to find a smiling Australian dancer standing there.  The older Jason grinned and stood up.  “I wondered if you got my note.”

 

“Ah, so you’re the one who bought that ticket.  Thanks.  But there is something you’re not telling us.”

 

Kimberly smiled at Kat and glanced at Tommy, sending a telepathic message to her partners.  Jason started, turning to face the slender woman, and the Rangers realized what was going on.  Tommy crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head, relenting as tears formed in Kimberly’s eyes.  Jason moved closer and placed a hand on Tommy’s shoulder, nodding reluctantly.  Tommy raised an eyebrow and Kimberly slowly nodded.  She let her partner embrace her, drawing strength from the man she had pledged her heart to so many decades earlier.  Taking a deep breath, Kimberly faced the Rangers again as Kat sat down between Tanya and Aisha.

 

“You’re right, Kat.  I have really missed you.  Seventy-seven years ago Queen Anarii learned of Zordon’s death and realized that many of the great Avatars of Light were dying.  She didn’t have any time left to find an heir.  The plague did not kill her since she is not that powerful of a warrior, but it left her sterile, unable to birth an heir.  No one in the Alliance would argue with her choosing a daughter, as long as she was young and could be instilled with Anarii’s Dragon Power.  A child to the Shamirii is a twenty-year-old, but Anarii did not know of any Shamirii she could trust, so she asked Baliree, the Duchess of Azareth Region—of which Earth is a protectorate—to help her choose one of the ex-Rangers to be her daughter.”

 

“She chose you,” Tommy whispered, mind flying to Trini’s last words before they entered the apartment.  “You’re Anarii’s heir?”

 

“Not anymore,” she managed, fists clenched.  Both Tommys moved to comfort the petite brunette, the older one wrapping his arms around her, the younger one stopping himself.  What was he doing?  “That child is now.  I can’t ever take the throne as Anarii planned, but Shana can.  She has to.  She’s our only hope.”

 

“She’s your daughter,” Kat breathed, shocking the other Rangers.  “She’s not just the future queen of your alliance, she’s your child.  Your . . . your only child.”

 

Kimberly nodded.  “Please help me find her.”

 

“We’ll help you, Kimberly,” Tommy whispered, knowing what the other ex-Rangers were thinking.  “And we will find Shana.  You don’t have to worry.”

 

Zack stood, glancing around, voicing the question that was on everyone’s mind.  “But where do we start?”

 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Chapter 5: What She Won’t Say

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

 

“Dervalet is a powerless Shamiri, and he leads the Azouret, a faction of Shamirii who oppose Anarii choosing a human for her heir.  Shana isn’t really human, not after we’ve lived so long among them and used so much power, but he wants Anarii to pick his daughter to be queen.  She’s a distant relative of the royal line through her late mother, and Dervalet believes that Kapiire deserves the throne.”

 

Adam raised his hand.  “Hold on a second, Kimberly.  That’s way too much information.  How involved are the politics of Adamarei Alliance?”

 

Kimberly glanced at her husband and shrugged.  “There’s a lot of planets in the Alliance.  Basically, all you need to know is that we and you are on the side of Queen Anarii and the Azouret are the ones who stole Shana.  Anything else we can tell you.”

 

Trini pulled Tommy to one side and glanced at the three Shamirii standing in the center of the room.  “Tommy, there’s something I need to tell you about Kimberly.  Our Kimberly.  There’s something very wrong with her.”

 

“What do you mean?  Isn’t she happy in Florida?”

 

“She’s too happy, Tommy.  We never mentioned it, but Zack and I would visit her sometimes when we were in the States, and we made a special trip after all the cogs and stuff disappeared.  We wanted to come all the way to Angel Grove, but we decided that just seeing Kimberly would be enough.  We thought that maybe she kept in touch with some of you.  Jason called me when our plane touched down and told us that Zordon was dead, that he sacrificed himself to rid the galaxy of evil.”

 

“And?  How did Kimberly react?”

 

“She didn’t.”

 

“What?  But she said Zordon was like a father to her.  I thought she’d take it badly.”

 

“We thought so, too, Tommy, but she didn’t even seem to know anything about the Power Rangers.  We told her Zordon was dead and she asked us who he was.”  Trini glanced at the three visitors from the future, dark eyes worried.  “I think Kimberly tried to block out all of the painful memories of her time as a Ranger and she ended up forgetting everything.  If Anarii’s friend Baliree is coming here within the month, she’ll be brutally reminded of her time as a Ranger, and that pain could send her into a deep bought of depression.  We can’t let Baliree shock her like that.”

 

“What can we do?”

 

Trini gestured for Tommy to follow her as she approached young Jason, pulling him away from the group conversation with Tommy and Kimberly.  “Jason, when was the last time you saw Kimberly?”

 

“Pretty recently, why?”

 

“Does she seem different to you?”

 

“Well, she has the gymnastics medals she won hidden in the back of her closet.  She never talks about her accomplishments, but nothing else.”

 

“What about . . . I know you remember how she was before becoming a Ranger.  Does it seem to you like that change never happened?”

 

Jason thought a moment and slowly nodded.  “Yeah, I guess that must be why she’s so different.  It’s like those three years never happened.”  He glanced at the older Kimberly and raised an eyebrow.  “Maybe we can ask her.”

 

Zack shook his head at something the older Tommy mentioned.  “Yes, I see that the baby would be their main target, but the only way for Dervalet to insure that Kapiire is handed the throne is for him to eliminate any opposition.”

 

“He’s tried,” Jason admitted, rolling his eyes.  “He tried to kill me and he tried to kill Tommy but it did no good.  He can’t outright kill Shana because of the nature of her birth and the protection spells we wove.”

 

“Can’t he prevent her birth?”

 

“What do you mean?”  As young Jason, Tommy, and Trini rejoined the group, older Tommy crossed his arms over his chest.  “He doesn’t have the power to Alter.  He lacks the Dragon Power.”

 

“He doesn’t need the power to travel through time; you gave it to him already.”  Zack pointed outside, toward some imaginary man, one eyebrow raised.  “He followed you here and he has the simple mundane power to kill the one person who has to survive until Baliree comes.”  He let his words sink in, and the three Shamirii turned white.  “That’s right.  He took Shana to keep you occupied while he hunts down Kimberly.  Our Kimberly.  And right now she’s suffering from some sort of selective amnesia.  She’d be dead before she even realized that she could fight back.”

 

“Oh god,” Tommy whispered.  “She has no idea . . .” 

 

Kimberly glanced at her Tommy.  “We have to find a way to warn her.  I want to save her the pain of these later years, but we can’t let Dervalet prevent Shana’s birth.”  She included Jason in the mental exchange, brown eyes glancing at her husband’s younger self.  “I wish I could help them, Tommy.”

 

“You can’t, Beautiful.  Jason, you said you have an idea how to prevent the catastrophe, and we will follow your plan.”

 

Rocky cleared his throat.  “Hey, no private conversations.  If you can’t say it to us, we’re not the friends you claimed we are.”

“I’m sorry,” Kimberly whispered.  “We’ve had to hide our thoughts for so long . . . we were just discussing Jason’s plan to change our future.  We think we’ve found a way to keep the plague from becoming so virulent without dooming Shana to non-existence.  We have to find a way to get to me and bring her here.”  She scrunched up her little nose and Tommy felt his heart warm at the sight.  She was still so very beautiful, even seventy-seven years later, even with little pointed ears and sad eyes.  “That sounds so very weird.  Are you guys up to another adventure?”

 

Adam shrugged, glancing at Tommy to lead the Rangers again.  “We’ll do whatever you need us to do, Kimberly, but we don’t have any power.  With Zordon gone, there’s no grid or anything left.”

 

Kimberly glanced at Tommy and Jason, and the other two Shamirii nodded.  The first Pink Ranger turned back to her old friends and smiled.  “There is a way.  Tommy and Jason can give you some power, but you must all swear not to use any of the Dragon Power without them around.  And don’t use any of it near me.  Your lives quite literally depend on it.  Do you swear?”

 

“Kimberly, what’s going on?”

 

“Tommy, I don’t need any of your questions.  Do you swear not to use the power unless Tommy or Jason is with you?”

 

Tommy nodded.  “I do.”

 

Jason and Aisha also nodded, the former Yellow Ranger speaking.  “Yeah, Kim, you know you can trust me.”

 

Adam, Tanya, and Rocky also nodded.  “Sure, absolutely.”

 

Trini, Zack, and Kat were last, and they also promised.  Kat raised her hand, feeling ridiculously like a schoolgirl again.  “Kimberly, what’s this plan that you three have to save our future?”

 

Jason smiled at the blonde, eyes sparkling.  “We’ll tell you when your Kimberly and our Shana are safe.”

 

Kimberly suddenly gasped, doubling over in pain, as threads of silver light snaked across her body, sparking where they touched bare skin.  Tommy and Jason pulled away, her husband holding his younger self back as all of the former Rangers moved forward to help their friend.  Kimberly fell to her knees, biting her lip to keep from screaming, collapsing as the silver faded.  Tommy was by her side in an instant, wrapping his white cloak around the shivering brunette as he lifted her and helped her lay down on the couch.  “Just rest a second,” he whispered, brown eyes full of a secret pain.  Jason watched over his partner’s shoulder, knowing that he couldn’t do anything.  “How bad is it, Beautiful?”

 

“It’s bad,” she whispered, clenching a fist before relaxing.  “Narethi told me that it would come fast when it came.  We don’t have long, Tommy.”

 

“How long did Narethi say?”

 

“A week.”

 

“God,” Tommy whispered, clenching his fists.  “Ten years and I’m still not ready for this.  I don’t know if I can do it, Beautiful.”

 

Kimberly reached up and rested her hand on Tommy’s cheek, brown eyes smiling.  “It will be okay, Tommy.  You’ll make it.  You really will.”  She glanced up at Jason and took his hand.  “If we can find Shana, then you two can take care of her.”

 

“I promise we will.”

 

Young Tommy glanced at his friends and nodded at the three Shamirii in front of them.  “Jase, what do you think is going on?”

 

“I’m not exactly sure, Bro, but I think their plan has something to do with saving her.”

 

Tommy and Jason moved away from the resting woman, pulling out nine golden chains hung with teardrop-shaped garnet-colored stones.  The two Shamirii Warriors handed out the necklaces, and a closer examination proved that the dark red gems were smooth and translucent, darker striations in their depths.  “What are they?  They’re not like any stone I’ve ever seen.”

 

“Because they’re not exactly stones.  Shamirii live in a symbiotic relationship with the Dragons that originated in the Home System, and we use their life power as magic.  There are some Shamirii and most of our allies who cannot use the Dragon Power, so some Dragons give drops of their blood to Mages to distribute to unfortunate individuals.  You each hold a drop of Dragon blood, and it is very powerful.  Put the necklaces on.”

 

Tommy slipped the gold chain over his head and his brown eyes widened as power flowed through him, a power he had not experienced since he was the Red Ranger.  He had missed the invulnerable larger-than-life feeling the Power gave him.  Glancing at Jason, he could see that his best friend and soul-brother was affected the same way, as was Kat.  Tanya, Adam, Trini, Aisha, Zack, and Rocky were smiling, but they didn’t seem quite as happy.  The Rangers turned to the two Mages, and Jason grinned.

 

“You nine seem to have adapted well to the Power.  We expected as much from ex-Power Rangers.  All you have to do to teleport to Florida is take the stone in your hand and think about Kimberly—your Kimberly.  Be very specific with your visual, too.”  Jason moved into the group of Rangers, Tommy just behind him.  All eleven of them glanced at the woman falling asleep on the couch, and Kat left the group.

 

“Sorry, mate, you’ll have to do it without me.  Someone has to stay here.”

 

“Just don’t use your power around Kimberly,” Tommy warned.  The ten vanished, leaving the two Pink Rangers alone.

 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Chapter 6: Confessions of the Pink Rangers

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

 

Kimberly hummed to herself as she brushed her hair, digging through her closet for one of her favorite shirts.  She froze as her fingers touched flannel.  “I don’t have any flannel shirts,” she murmured.  Shrugging, she pulled out the shirt, realizing instantly that it did not belong to her.  Staring at the green-and-white checkered material, she struggled to remember where it came from.  Digging deeper, she found a small wooden box.  She sat on her bed and opened it, smiling at the shining medals.  “I remember these,” she smiled.  “Why did I put them down there?”  Pushing the gold and silver circles of metal to one side, she pulled out a strange-looking pink watch with extra buttons on the side.  “I wonder . . . what is this?”

 

A knock on her door interrupted the brunette’s thoughts, and she snapped the watch on her wrist as she rose and glanced outside.  A tall man with black hair and strange reddish eyes smiled at her, something in his expression chilling her to the bone.  “Yes?  Can I help you?”

 

“I should hope so.  I’m Dervalet, and I am searching for a Kimberly Ann Hart.  Do you know her?”

 

Kimberly nodded.  “I am her.  Do you have a child you want to enroll in my class?  Is that why you’re here?”

 

The man nodded.  “Yes, that’s it exactly.  My daughter, Kapiire, is very interested in gymnastics.  She’s a little shy and wouldn’t come.  We live nearby, and it would be a great boost to her confidence if you could stop by some time and ask her to come to a class.”

 

Kimberly glanced over her shoulder and smiled.  “I’m not busy now.  If you don’t have somewhere else to be, I can go with you.”

 

Dervalet nodded and bowed slightly.  “I don’t have anywhere else to be.”

 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

 

“Is this Kim’s apartment?”  Aisha and Trini exchanged a glance, wrinkling their nose at the furnishings and random items that attempted to turn the small apartment into a home and failed pretty miserably.  “This isn’t her,” Aisha pointed out.  “It doesn’t remind me of her, I mean.”

 

“I reminds me of her before Zordon and the Power Rangers,” Trini admitted, glancing at young Tommy.  The two former Yellow Rangers turned to the pair of Mages.  “Did she tell you what was going on in Florida?”

 

“We can’t tell you.”

 

Jason glared at his older self as he picked up the wooden box on the bed.  “Her medals,” he whispered, picking up the green-and-white shirt.  “Tommy,” he whispered.  “This shirt.  Is this the one you gave her?”

 

“Yeah, it is.”  Tommy glanced at his future self as he looked around.  “She’s not here.”

 

“Maybe she went out for a bite.”

 

“No, Tanya,” Adam whispered.  “She wouldn’t have left stuff out.  What if . . .”

 

Tommy whirled on his older self, fists clenched.  “You said that we would find Kimberly if we thought of her!  Here we are, so where is she?”

 

Tommy closed his eyes, focusing on his link with his wife.  “Dervalet hasn’t hurt her, or Kimberly would have reacted.  He must have a Mage with him to block their power signature and push us off the scent.  The only thing we can do is go back and try to cast a tracer spell . . .”

 

Tommy reached in his pocket and pulled out his old communicator.  “In the past it was so easy.  If Kimberly was missing we could just trace her through the grid.  Now . . .”  He smiled as he pushed the button for pink, jumping when he got an answer.  The others gathered around as Kimberly’s shocked voice crackled from the old piece of equipment.

 

“Whoa, what was that?  Hello?”

 

“Kimberly?  Where are you?”

 

“Who is this?  What is this?  Is this some sort of pager?  Who are you?”

 

Tommy tapped a button on his communicator, closing his fingers around the bloodstone.  He vanished, the other ex-Rangers just behind him.

 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

 

Kimberly opened her eyes, startled to find Kat sitting in the chair across from her.  “Kat?  Why aren’t you with the others?”

 

“Because you needed me more.  How have you been?”

 

Kimberly struggled to sit, groaning in pain.  “Not so good, Kat.  Really not so good.  How about you?  It’s been, what, a year since Zordon’s death?”

 

“Yeah, that’s about right.  How did you feel when you learned what happened?”

 

Kimberly grinned and gratefully took the cup of water Kat offered.  “Quite honestly, I was suffering from a bout of severe self-inflicted amnesia at the time.  When Trini told me Zordon was dead, I didn’t know who Zordon was.  When Baliree took me and forced me to remember, I cried for so long.  I still miss him, Kat, seventy-eight years later, and I know that the pain will never go away.  He really was like a father to me.”

 

“I guess it was different for you and the other original Rangers.  After all, he chose you and gave you the power to save the world.  You gave me my power, and I imagine that you and I are quite a bit closer than the Yellow Rangers or the Blacks.”

 

Kimberly nodded, wiping tears from her eyes.  “I really missed you, Kat.  Ten, twenty, even thirty years after we left, I wanted to come back.  If I could have done anything differently, I would have answered Baliree when she asked me who I wanted to come with me.  I told her that I didn’t want to go and that it didn’t matter to me who else she chose, so she asked Tommy who he wanted to come besides me.  I think if he could he would have chosen every Power Ranger he’s served with, but he had a choice of one and he chose the man who has been like his bother and mine for so long.”

 

“How did Jason fare?  Does he have a wife and kids back in the Adamarei Alliance?”

 

Kimberly shook her head sadly.  “No, and I don’t think he ever will.  He left someone on Earth and he always regretted that he didn’t have the chance to tell her how he felt.”

 

“Who was she?”

 

“You have to know that I’m not going to tell you, Kat.”

 

The Aussie shrugged and sipped her water.  “I thought I’d try.  So, Shana’s your kid, huh?  I see that you and Tommy finally worked everything out.”

 

“It took ten years.  God we were stubborn, Kat.  And it’ll probably take ten more years this time around.  I hate Time Paradoxes.”

 

“Then why did you come back?”

 

“To stop this damn plague.  It’s going to wipe out Adamaren Prime if we can’t halt it.  The Dragons caught it first—I think someone was trying to wipe them out, take our power away.  It might have been Dervalet or one of his faction.  The Shamirii with power live in a symbiotic relationship with the Dragons—we need their power to have children and they need us to protect theirs.  They’re lonely without us.  When the first Dragons on Adamaren Prime came down with the plague, their powers faded so fast and they just died one day.  Anarii was only a child then, but she lost two of her best Dragon friends.  The strongest Shamirin Mages tried to cure it, but they caught it and it spread.”

 

“How does a magical plague spread?”

 

“When we do spells together, Shamirin magic from two Mages links.”  Kimberly held up her hands and twined the fingers.  “Like this.  If one has the plague, the other gets it.”  She pulled her hands apart, just barely not touching.  “If an infected Mage casts a spell near a normal person, sometimes the plague will pass that small space and infect the next person.  For a very weak Shamiri, the plague will only sterilize them, prevent them from having children.  That’s what happened to Anarii, which is why she had to choose an heir.  Tommy, Jason, and I tried to stop the plague, but it didn’t work.”  Kimberly fell silent, staring into her cup.

 

“Kimberly, what aren’t you telling us?  What aren’t you telling me?”

 

Kimberly looked up suddenly, a touch of suspicion in her brown eyes.  “Why are you here?”

 

“Jason sent me a ticket.”

 

“No, Kat; why did you really come?  Why did you stay with me?  Tommy and the others could have used your help; I’m not going anywhere and I’m not going to get into any trouble in this time.  So, why?”

 

Kat bit her lip nervously, placing her own cup on the table.  “Kimberly, when I learned that you, Tommy, and Jason are going to leave, the first thing I thought was, ‘God I wish I could go with them.’  Then I knew that me being there would have hampered you and Tommy, and who knows if you would have ever gotten together.  I know that I never got the chance to tell you, but I know that you never stopped loving Tommy and I’m really sorry.”

 

“Sorry?  For what?”

 

“Because when Tommy got your letter, all I could think was how lucky I was.  I had him all to myself, and I tried so hard to keep him.  When it didn’t work out after I headed to London . . . all I could think was that I wanted you and Tommy to have another chance.  I was hoping I could tell you.”

 

Kimberly wiped the tears out of her eyes and leaned forward, embracing the taller blonde.  “Thank you, Kat.  I wondered for decades . . . Jase and Tommy have a plan to fix your future, and maybe you and I will get a chance to talk.”

 

“Can I come with you?”

 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Chapter 7: Confessions of a Future Queen

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

 

Kimberly slowly opened her eyes, wondering where she was.  The last thing she could remember was entering Dervalet’s house and meeting his daughter Kapiire.  Then three more men burst into the room . . . and everything went black.  No, wait!  Kimberly sat up, finding herself in a darkened bedroom, reaching for the strange watch on her wrist.  It had beeped just before she lost consciousness.  Now she could tell that it was offline, no longer able to respond to whatever voice had come through the watch.  Who was that man, anyway?  He sounded so familiar.

 

A baby’s strident cry interrupted her thoughts, and the young gymnast slid out of bed, silently padding to the door.  Forgotten warrior instincts kicked in as she silently opened the door and slid down the hallway, toward the sound.  She stopped at a closed door at the other end of the hall, and it irised open when it sensed her, startling the brunette.  A single crib sat in the room, a large bed, small table, and chair the only other furniture in the room.  A strange black screen occupied part of one wall, blinking lights in the wall.

 

Kimberly only took a moment to examine the room before moving toward the crib, stopping at the edge and staring at the tiny baby lying there.  The girl had brown hair and deep brown eyes, specks of green sparkling in their depth.  She looked so much like Tommy that Kimberly felt tears fill her eyes.  Tommy.  Fragments of her life in Angel Grove filtered through the block she had erected so long ago as the petite brunette gently lifted the screaming infant, smiling as she silenced.  “Hey,” she whispered.  “There’s no need to cry, little one.”

 

“I thought she would never shut up.”

 

Kimberly pulled the baby closer to her breast as she looked up at Dervalet, the red-eyed man leaning casually against the doorframe.  “Why doesn’t her mother feed her?  She’s so young . . . she must still be breastfeeding.”

 

“She is, but her mother is not here.”

 

“Whose child is she?  Is she Tommy’s?”

 

“Of course she’s Tommy’s,” Dervalet scoffed.  Kimberly felt her heart freeze at the thought, and tears filled her eyes.  “Look, can you keep her quiet or what?”

 

Kimberly narrowed her eyes, turning her pain to fury.  “I don’t know what you did to the poor thing’s mother, but the only person qualified to take care of her is that woman.  I can’t do it and I certainly can’t nurse her.”

 

“That’s where you’re wrong.  My Mage can cast a spell to make your body produce milk for the brat.”

 

“Mage?”  Kimberly nodded, remembering pieces of things.  What he was telling her made a little sense, and she glanced at the babe.  “If I can help, I will.  Is that why you lured me here?”

 

“Something like that.  Shana needs someone to take care of her, and you’re as good a human as any to do the job.”  Dervalet pulled a small bottle out of his pocket and held it out.  “Azaemer said that if you drink this and let the child nurse, your body will produce the milk she needs.”

 

“What will you do to me if I refuse to be her wet nurse?”

 

Dervalet shrugged and placed the vial on the table.  “No one will suffer but the child.”  He left, closing and locking the door behind him.

 

Kimberly sighed and glanced at the waiting child.  “He tricked me, you know.  He let me wake up when you did so I’d come here to take care of you.”  Shana giggled, and the woman smiled.  “I wonder who your mother is, child.  She must be pretty special to have won Tommy over like that.  I can’t remember . . . I wonder why I forgot him?”  She shook her head, banishing the thoughts and the memories, as she reached for the vial.

 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

 

Kimberly watched Shana as she nursed peacefully, drowsily listening to the tiny sounds the infant made.  She felt a strange warmth envelop her, filling her with power and strength, and she closed her brown eyes as Shana finished her meal.

 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

 

“Father, are you crazy?!  You put Shana in with her mother?!”

“Kapiire!  She’s not the brat’s mother yet.  Besides, no one else could do the job.”

 

Kapiire grunted and crossed her arms over her chest.  “Why can’t we just kill the thing?  Then we wouldn’t have had to lure that stupid human here and waste a potion forcing her body to make milk.”

 

“How many times do I have to explain this to you?  If we kill Shana before Kimberly has to pass on her powers, then she’ll give them to her husband or one of these humans.  If we keep Shana alive until it’s too late, then Kimberly’s powers will be lost and we can kill the child and still get the throne.”

 

Kapiire sighed as she ran a brush through her long black hair.  “Still, I don’t trust her.  This is really not a good idea.”

 

“I’ll go check on them, if you’d like.  I should feed Kimberly, anyway.”

 

“Don’t let that kid shock you again!  Her lightning attacks are pretty powerful for only being a month old.”

 

“I know.”  Dervalet rubbed the angry red line on his cheek as he headed for Shana’s room.

 

He found Kimberly sound asleep, legs curled under her in the large chair, the baby sound asleep in her arms, one of Kimberly’s breasts still bared.  He wondered what it would be like to possess that woman, make Shana his child, and he grinned as he pushed the door further open.

 

Kimberly jumped at the noise, automatically closing her shirt and pulling the baby closer.  “What are you doing here?”  There was an edge to her voice that had not been there before, and Dervalet backed away.  “Get away from us.”

 

“Now look here!  You’re my prisoners and I won’t have you talking to me like that!  If you don’t behave, I’ll take her away from you.”  Ha!  That should make the powerless human watch herself.

 

To Dervalet’s shock, Kimberly stood up and hugged the baby closer, a strange light in her brown eyes.  “You will not take her from me,” she whispered, pale pink/silver light glowing from her slender frame.  Lightning leapt from the baby, wrapping itself around her nursemaid and new protector.  The baby giggled as the pair vanished, leaving a very shocked Shamiri in their wake.

 

“How could Shana’s powers be compatible with that human?!  Damn her!!  Kapiire!  The baby escaped!”

 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

 

Tommy stared across the water, twirling a blade of grass between his fingers.  The other humans stood in a loose circle around him, each in various levels of depression.  The two Mages were further away, unwilling to return to Kimberly without her daughter.  “How could we have missed her?  We transported to where her communicator should have been, but she wasn’t there.”

 

“She’s still alive,” the older Jason consoled the ex-Rangers.  “If she wasn’t, we wouldn’t be here discussing it.”

 

Tommy turned to his older self, thinking a moment before he blurted out his question.  “What’s wrong with Kimberly?  What was that power a few hours ago?”

 

“I can’t tell you.  It wouldn’t change anything, anyway.”

 

“Then what about our Kimberly?  Why doesn’t she remember any of her time as a Ranger?”  Tommy stood at the hesitation in his future’s eyes, smiling kindly.  “Look, I know you don’t want to destroy the future; you’re here to make it better, right?  If she can’t or won’t remember anything about the Power Rangers, how can she adjust to life as a Shamiri?”

 

“She won’t very easily,” Tommy admitted.  “It took five years for her to fully relax and be able to accept the Queen’s power.”

 

“How long until you two got together?”

 

“Tommy, you have to understand that she was in a great deal of pain and very confused.  To be honest, I didn’t fare much better, what with the new worlds and the Power.  We barely talked unless we had to until she got her powers.”

 

“How long?”

 

Tommy sighed and hung his head, knowing that Jason would not help him.  “Twenty years,” he finally admitted.

 

“What?!  It took you twenty years to speak to her?  What was the matter with you?”

 

The white-robed Mage looked up, brown eyes sparkling fiercely.  “There are things you don’t know about what happened on Adamaren Prime!  I can’t tell you what took so long!”

 

“Yes you can!  My Kimberly, the woman I love more than my life and even this planet, the woman I’ve saved and been saved by countless times has been captured by your enemy through no fault of her own and he wants to KILL her and all you can do is sit there and say that you won’t tell me!!  Your Kimberly is sick, and I want you to tell me what’s wrong with her!!”

 

“She’s dying!!”

 

Silence filled the small grove after Tommy’s furious answer, the two Mages stepping back, shocked that Tommy had actually answered the question.  “She’s . . . what?”

 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Chapter 8: Confessions of the White Rangers

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

 

Tommy waved his hand and activated the bloodstones, moving the entire group back to Tanya’s apartment.  He and Jason moved to Kimberly’s side as the conversation between the two Pink Rangers ceased.  The other Rangers pulled Kat into their midst, Tanya filling her friend in on the turn of the conversation.  Kimberly glanced at her husband, a question in her eyes, but the Mage didn’t get a chance to answer before is former self moved forward.  “Kimberly, tell us about the plague.”

 

Kat answered when her predecessor would not.  “It’s a magic-based contagious infliction that originated with the Dragons from whom the Shamirii get their power.  When an infected Shamiri performs a spell with or very near another Shamiri, the second Mage is certain to catch it.  She told me that the plague will usually sterilize weaker Mages like Queen Anarii, but she never said what it does to powerful Mages.”  All eyes turned to Kimberly and Tommy, and they looked away, swallowing.  “Kimberly, all you did when I asked you was to change the answer.  Answer me now.  What happens to strong Mages when they get the plague?”

 

“We die,” Kimberly whispered, tears in her eyes.  “There’s no cure, no going back, no preventing it.  If strong Mages catch the plague, we never recover.  Sometimes it takes a long time for the symptoms to appear, especially if we don’t use magic at all during that time, but it happens eventually.”

 

“How long have you had the plague, Kim?”

 

At Trini’s question, the Power Rangers fell to the chairs and couch, reality hitting them.  Kimberly really was going to die, and for the first time ever there was nothing they could do to save her.  “Ten years,” she whispered.  “Ten years ago the three of us cast a spell to rid Shamirin Prime of the plague, but we weren’t strong enough.  We were too damn confident and I realized at the last second that it wasn’t going to work.  Our spell didn’t have a focus, one person through whom the energy was flowing, and I knew that if we didn’t refocus the spell, the entire planet would catch the plague.  I shifted the spell and became the focus.  I got the plague, but Tommy and Jason were okay, and the planet was no worse off than it had been.”

 

“How long do you have to live?”

 

Kimberly bit her lip at young Tommy’s question.  “My nurse, Narethi, promised me no more than a week after the first power explosion.  We have to find Shana, dead or alive, before then, so I can pass Anarii’s power on to her.”

 

“What if she’s dead?”

 

“Then all hope for curing the plague dies with her.”  Kimberly smiled, remembering to the day she birthed Shana, tears in her eyes.  “Tommy and I didn’t have any children before I was infected, and we found out that I could only pass my powers onto a child who was born powerless or had her powers stripped when she was born.  The same thing was true when Anarii was searching for her princess.  Since there were no candidates, Anarii and Narethi determined that I had to have a child.”

 

“Wouldn’t you want to?”

 

“Of course I wanted a child, but Tommy and I hadn’t quite gotten around to that yet.  You see, Shamirii can live for a thousand or more years, and we had all the time we needed.  When we found out that I had to get pregnant, I refused initially.”

 

“Why?”

 

Kat answered Zack before Kimberly could speak again.  “It’s because of that power transfer thing you told me about, isn’t it?  Your power would pass to her and to Tommy and you didn’t want either of them to suffer as you did.”

 

“Exactly.  When two Shamirii . . .”  She blushed, looking at her husband.  “This is so embarrassing, Tommy.  When two Shamirii . . . make love, it’s not just a physical thing.  Empowered Shamirii can only conceive with the aid of Dragon Power—we don’t control the power exactly, but the urge to have a child activates them.  If Tommy and I even made love . . . he would catch it.”  She reached out and took Tommy’s hand, unable to look at her husband.  “We haven’t even been able to sleep in the same bed for a decade.  I have to wear a necklace that warns Tommy, Jason, and Narethi if I try to use my powers, intentionally or not.”

 

“Then how did you conceive Shana?”

 

Tommy tuned in at Trini’s question, eyes flying to Kimberly’s face.  Dying.  How could she be dying?  How could his future self permit it?  “Don’t you love her?”  He didn’t realize he had blurted his thoughts out until everyone turned to find the former white ranger staring at his future self.

 

The older Tommy gestured toward Tanya’s bedroom.  “Come with me.  I can see that we have a lot of things to talk about.”

 

Tommy sat down on the bed, glancing up at his future self, watching the Mage as he closed the door and leaned against the window, staring out.  “It’s not easy, being here.  All I can see is the mistakes I made so long ago and I want to tell you what to do, what to change, to keep my past from becoming your future.  But I can’t.  It’s not that we have some sort of law to keep time travelers silent—because we don’t—and it really hasn’t happened that many times before, but Kimberly won’t let us do anything to save her.”

 

“Why not?”

 

The Mage laughed, glancing over his shoulder at the younger ex-Ranger.  “I sometimes forget what I was like back then.  What Kimberly didn’t say is that our spell cured the Dragons of the plague.  We need them more than we need powerful Shamirii.  Anarii has created a spell for her heir to cast that will start to break the power dependency between the Dragons and the Shamirii.  We won’t be Mages anymore and we won’t get the plague.  It was Kim’s idea.  She doesn’t want anyone else to suffer the loss of a loved one.”

 

“What does Shana have to do with any of this?”

 

“She just might be the cure, Tommy.  She was born with immense power but free of the plague.  We had to use a powerful timed spell and a type of artificial insemination for Kimberly to get pregnant in the first place, and the procedure almost always guarantees a powerless child.  When Shana was born, Baliree could hear her from Earth.  She was born with power and free of the plague.  It was a miracle.”  He smiled, staring out across the city, remembering simpler days when he was still human.  “Kimberly can pass her power on with no fears, because her daughter is the cure.  We couldn’t give her the powers when she was born, and Kimberly wanted to wait until the last possible second to make sure that Shana is strong enough to handle the power.  She doesn’t have much time left, though.”

 

“Why didn’t you do anything to help her?  I know that you love Kimberly because I still do and I will never stop.  If there was anything I could do to save her, I would have.”

 

“Don’t you think I tried?!”  Tommy whirled on his younger self, controlling the white power that enveloped his frame and threatened to fill the room.  “I tried everything, but there was nothing I could do!  The only thing we could do to keep Kimberly alive for as long as possible was to keep her from doing any magic at all.  For nine years that worked, then Anarii and Narethi determined that Kimberly had to get pregnant.  There was no choice and she was slowly creeping closer to the onset of the symptoms.  A pregnancy takes a lot of power for a Shamiri, and Kimberly had to go into seclusion with some of the Dragons she cured and powerless Shamiri during her pregnancy.  Jason and I weren’t allowed under any circumstances to see her.  You have no idea how hard it is to know where the woman you love is, but she’s just out of reach and you can’t see her.”

 

“Yes I do,” Tommy whispered, staring at his hands.  “Do you remember how hard it was to let her go to Florida?  I thought about her every day, and I wanted her so badly.  I don’t have to tell you how many times I thought about rushing off to Florida and bringing her home, how often I imagined sweeping her off her feet after the Pan-Globals and begging her to marry me.”

 

“I just wanted to see her, hold her when the morning sickness was too much, tell her that she was beautiful with a big round belly, watch her lie there at night when she thought I was asleep and rub her belly, talking to our daughter,” Tommy whispered, joining his younger self on the bed.  “We had a direct holo-feed from her retreat to my room, and I called her at least twice a day.  I wanted to be there, to share the experience with her.  Some couples have been close enough that the husband would feel the baby kick as if he was the pregnant one.  I wanted that, I wanted to lay my hand on her stomach and feel Shana and know that she was waiting to come out and join us.  We knew that she wouldn’t last long after giving birth, and all I wanted was to spend what time she had with her, but I had to stay away for our daughter’s sake.”

 

“I wrote her letters, but I’m so damn forgetful that I started to let them slide.  I would let being a Ranger take more and more of my time until I devoted none to her, not calling, not writing; eventually I started thinking of Kat as the Pink Ranger.  When that happened, I lost her.  I don’t blame Kimberly for what happened; I’m the one who stopped trying.  She did everything she could to keep our relationship strong, but I was too weak.  She deserves someone who cared, who would be there, who wouldn’t let anything be more important than her.  Once, that was me.  Before she sent me that letter, I thought that we were okay, that everything was as it had been when she was in Angel Grove, but I was so wrong.  It was like a wake-up call, and I chose not to acknowledge my mistakes.  I let Kat and my own insecurities draw me away.  I should have gone to Florida when I got that letter and told Kim how much I loved her and that I would do whatever it took to prove it, but I just went to the pond and felt sorry for myself.”

 

“Narethi was vehemently opposed to me attending the birth, but she was my wife, damn it all, and I deserved to be there!  So Jason and I teleported to her side the instant the first labor pains hit her, and there were seventeen Mages there to keep our powers separate.  I was by her side the entire time, being there when she needed me most as I had not been when she went away to Florida, and then Shana was born and she was the most beautiful little baby . . . her first mental cry pierced the Mages’ shields and reached all the way even to Earth and Kimberly cried when she learned that her baby was free of the plague.”

 

“And now that I’ve finally realized what I did wrong, Dervalet captured Kimberly and I don’t even know why she’s still alive!”

 

“And now that I have her back in my arms where she belongs, Dervalet captured our baby and Kimberly’s going to die within the week!”

 

The pair sighed and spoke together.  “I’ve found her just in time to lose her.”  They looked at each other and laughed, the other’s words finally registering, both feeling lighter and stronger after their talk.  “We’ll get her back from Dervalet,” the Mage promised.  “I love her and I won’t deny her the last seventy-seven years of her life.”

 

“She came back here to die, didn’t she?  Kimberly wanted to see her old friends and remember what they were like years ago, one last time before she passed her powers on to Shana and died.”

 

“Yeah.”  The two Tommys stood up, smiling.  “Shall we go see if she’s finished with her explanation?”

 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Chapter 9: Confessions of the Red Ranger

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

 

Jason watched Kat listen to Kimberly’s story, brushing his brown hair behind his pointed ears.  His hair was almost as long as Kat’s, though Kimberly had let hers grow to her feet in the last seventy years.  She had hers braided around her head so the others couldn’t tell, but Shamirii valued long hair as a sign of position and power.

 

He let his thoughts return to Kat, smiling at the sparkle in her light blue eyes, the way her blonde curls shone in the light, the way her warm spirit tried to reach out and comfort her friend.  Kimberly had chosen her to be the second Pink Ranger because no one was more qualified, more kind, more loving, even if she did fall for the wrong man.  Jason sighed and walked away from the window, leaving the apartment, wondering if anyone even noticed.

 

He wandered down to the park, knowing that he was dressed strangely even for Angel Grove and not even caring.  He found the old oak tree and sat down beneath it, dark eyes staring out across the calm waters of the small pond.  “I miss this.”

 

“What?”  He hadn’t realized he had spoken out loud until Kat’s gentle voice interrupted his musings.  “What do you miss?”

 

“This calm.  Life is a lot harder in the Adamarei Alliance.  Please, join me Kat.”  He moved over and placed his cape on the ground for the second Pink Ranger.  “You followed me?”

 

“Yeah.  I wondered why you left.”

 

“I lived it; Kim’s little explanation just upsets me.”  Jason sighed and hung his head.  “Tommy doesn’t like to think about it anymore.  They’re my family, Kat; they’re all I have left, and it’s hard watching them deny the truth.  Kim’s dying and there’s nothing any of us can do.  I promised her that I would help take care of Shana, but that’s all I can do for her.”

 

Kat placed her small hand on Jason’s shoulder, tears sparkling in her blue eyes.  “Jason, why don’t you have your own family?  Are you waiting for something?”

 

“No.  The woman I would have chosen is lost.”

 

“Kimberly mentioned something like that.  Who was she?”  Kat didn’t wait for an answer, knowing that the Mage had the same restraint Kimberly did.  “She must have been a pretty special gal to catch your eye.”

 

“She was.  And gorgeous, too.”

 

Kat grinned, glad that Jason seemed a little happier.  “Tell me about her.”

 

“There isn’t that much I can say.  She and I didn’t know each other for very long.  I never had to hide anything from her and she was so innocent.  Not in a naïve kind of innocence, but a sweet, gentle, caring kind of innocence.  No matter what life threw at her, she came up smiling.  During some of our darker moments, I have missed her.”

 

“Did you guys ever come back and visit Earth?”

 

“Once or twice.  We eventually contacted the other ex-Rangers and told them what happened to us, and they wished us luck.  We invited them to Kim and Tommy’s wedding, and they managed to make some time away from their families to visit Adamaren Prime.  It was a beautiful ceremony.”

 

“She was there, wasn’t she?  And you wished that it was you and her getting married.”

 

Jason nodded, staring off across the clear waters.  “I really did, Kat.”

 

Kat smiled.  “I imagined marrying Tommy one day, long ago, but he never really stopped loving Kimberly.  I really can’t see now why I ever thought that he and I had a chance—all I have to do is look at them and see that they’re meant for each other.  Maybe they’re having problems right now, but every couple does, and they fix them by your time.”  She let the silence claim them again.

 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

 

“Jase, where have you been?”

 

“Talking to Kat.  You?”

 

Tommy smiled as he and Jason sat on the couch, cupping one hand on top of another in their laps, eyes closing as they prepared to cast a locator spell.  Kimberly and most of the ex-Rangers had gone to Jason and Rocky’s dojo, knowing that they had to keep the princess away from any sort of power.  Unbeknownst to the older Rangers, Jason had remained behind, curious about the two Mages.  He watched from the next room as the pair prepared for their spell.  “My stubborn younger self.  He was finally convinced that I love Kimberly as much as he does.  How was your conversation with Kat?”

 

Jason sighed and paused in his preparations for the spell, pained brown eyes startling his younger self.  “It kinda hurts, to see her so young and innocent.  I don’t want my younger self to go off and leave her again.  He really doesn’t deserve to go through that pain.”  Pain?  What was the older Mage talking about?  Jason leaned closer, listening closely.  “After all, I know that he’s been thinking recently about his own happy ending.”

 

“Bro, if anyone deserves to be happy, you do.  Maybe you can drop hints so Jason will figure out that he’s falling in love.  It might make these later years easier.  I’m sure it wouldn’t hurt the timeline that much.”

 

“I really love her,” Jason whispered as both returned to their spell.  “I just realized it far too late to do anything.”

 

Love?  Kat?  Oh God . . .

 

Somehow the first Red Ranger managed to slip out of the apartment while the two Mages wove their locator spell, mind trying desperately to grasp his older self’s words.  How could he be in love with Kat?  She was a really good friend, sure, and the time he had spent serving with her as Rangers was great, but she was taken.

 

He stopped short at his own mental words.  “No she’s not,” he whispered.  “Not anymore.  I never let myself look at her because she was Tommy’s girl.” 

 

That didn’t stop you with Kimberly.  You didn’t have to be stopped with Kimberly, he reminded himself.

 

“Well, sure, because she’s like my little sister.  I never saw her that way.”  He knew that anyone who walked past him on the way to the dojo would think him insane for carrying on a conversation with himself, but he really didn’t care.

 

And did you ever see Kat that way?  Do you now?

 

“I really don’t know.”

 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

 

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but there just aren’t any empty seats on this plane.  No amount of money will change that.”

 

“And this is the only flight?”

 

“From Miami to Angel Grove, yes.  There will be one to Chicago tomorrow afternoon and one from Chicago to Angel Grove after that, but planes don’t go there much anymore.  There’s no call for it, now that the Power Rangers are gone and all.”  The man at the ticket booth frowned at the tears in the young woman’s eyes.  “Look, miss, I’m really sorry, but I can’t help you.”

 

“Maybe I can.”  One of the passengers, a tall woman with strawberry blonde hair and silvery gray eyes smiled as she approached the counter and handed the man two tickets.  She placed two tickets on the counter, one with her name on the face and the other blank.  Flashing the appropriate ID, the woman smiled at the pink-clad brunette and held out her free hand.  “I’m Alina.  You?”

 

“K-Kimberly,” she managed, taking the woman’s hand.  “You sound Australian.”

 

“I am.  You sound like you’re from California, so I’d guess that you need to get back home—which looks to be Angel Grove.  How’d you know I was Australian, anyway?”

 

“You mean and not British?  I’ve got a friend back home, in Angel Grove.  I need to get there as soon as possible.”  Kimberly glanced at Shana, smiling.  She wasn’t really sure what prompted this sudden urge to fly, but she wasn’t going to fight the child.  Wait, she knew an Aussie?  Who?  When?  The image of a tall blonde with blue eyes flashed through her mind, but it was gone as quickly as it materialized.  “But the plane is full.”

 

“Not true.  I’ve got two tickets, but my brother couldn’t make it and I was afraid the second seat would go to waste.  Are you heading home to see her father?”  Alina cast her eyes over the young mother, wondering what could have happened to the brunette in Florida.  The child looked so much like her mother that it was scary, but she didn’t seem to have anything to take care of her with.

 

“Yes, I am.  I have to get there soon.”

 

“Then take the extra ticket.”  Alina handed a pen to Kimberly and pointed at the small scrap of paper.  The man watched, smiling, as the woman neatly printed ‘Kimberly Ann Hart and Shana Rose Oliver’ in the blank.  “Kimberly Hart?  The gymnast?”

 

“Yes, that’s right.  I can’t thank you enough . . .”

 

“Please don’t.  I’m glad I could help.  Do you have any bags or anything?”

 

Kimberly shook her head.  “They’re at my apartment, and I can’t go home—He knows where I live.”

 

Alina bristled protectively as she led the young mother onto the plane, gathering her bags and swinging them over one shoulder.  Someone had scared the gymnast badly, and she no longer felt safe in Miami.  She seemed so determined to get back to her home, and Alina realized that she did not doubt that the petite mother could do whatever she needed to in order to protect her child.  She decided to choose a safe topic as she led Kimberly to their two first-class seats, touching the sleepy baby.  “Shana?  That’s her name?”

 

“Yeah.”  Kimberly’s eyes softened as she smiled at the baby, leaning back so Alina could help her fasten her seatbelt.  “It means ‘Miracle’.”

 

“Really?  What language?”

 

“I’m not sure.  Tommy picked it.”

 

“I assume he’s Mr. Oliver, her father?”

 

“Yeah.”  A darkness seemed to envelop the young woman at the mention of Tommy, and Alina wondered if he even knew about his child.  After all, he and Kimberly didn’t seem to be married, and maybe the young gymnast was afraid of his reaction when he found out.  She decided to change topics and grabbed the first thing that came to mind.

 

“So, what’s it like to be a world-famous gymnast?”

 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Chapter 10: Confessions of a Blue Ranger

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

 

“I don’t know why I can’t get a trace on Kimberly.  It’s almost like she’s being blocked, but it doesn’t feel like Dervalet’s current Mage.  Maybe he got a new one?”

 

Tommy shook his head at Jason’s suggestion.  “Unlikely.  He only had the one Mage when he came—Azaemer, I believe—and he cannot call another.  We are the only ones who can open that gateway.”

 

The two looked up as Rocky, Adam, Tanya, and Zack reentered the apartment, Aisha, Kat, and Trini helping a steadily-weakening Kimberly sit in the nearest chair, a somber young Jason and Tommy bringing up the rear.  Jason glanced at his future self and looked away, and the two Mages exchanged a startled glance.  “What’s wrong with your younger self, Bro?”

 

“I have no idea,” Jason murmured, giving no outward sign of the tight telepathic communication.  He reached out with his mind and included Kimberly in the exchange, wondering if she had noticed anything strange.

 

“Yeah, I guess.  He was a little late to the dojo, and he seemed a little worried and thoughtful.  He talked to Tommy and they both clammed up, pulling away from the rest of the group.  I know he’ll never tell me what he’s thinking, but I might be able to enlist Kat or Rocky’s aid.”  She paused, knowing that Kat could tell she was conversing with her husband and soul-brother as she tilted her head, glancing at the three small crystals lying on the table between the Mages.  “How did your search go?”

 

“We didn’t find either of them, Beautiful.”

 

Kimberly stifled a sob and turned away, gaining control of her emotions as the room silenced.  “That’s okay; I’m sure she’s fine.”  Kimberly clenched her fists as silvery light snaked across her body again, the visible deterioration of the would-be-queen pulling her husband to her side.  Tommy wrapped his arms around his wife, holding her as her shaking subsided.  “I don’t think Dervalet has them anymore, Kimberly.  I think maybe your younger self managed to get Shana away from him.  Don’t lose hope; we’ll get her back in time for the transfer.”

 

“You don’t have much time,” she whispered, struggling to stand.  Tommy easily scooped her into his arms and carried the slight woman, heading for Tanya’s room, taking Kimberly to what he knew would be her death bed.  As the three Mages vanished into the next room, Aisha pulled the other Rangers to one side, tears in her dark eyes.

 

“Look, they’re magical locator spells are wonderful things when they’re not being blocked, but we’ve forgotten that we’re human and we used to be Rangers.  We have other ways to find Kimberly and Shana.”

 

“Aisha’s right.  Some of us still can be looking for Kimberly and Shana the old-fashioned human way, the Internet, and the rest of us can head out to the ruins of the old Command Center and see if there’s anything left we can use.”  Jason looked around, counting heads.  “Okay; Tommy, you, Tanya, Adam, Kat, and I will work on finding Kimberly, while Trini, Zack, Aisha, and Rocky will dig up the old base.  This makes me wish Billy were here again—he’d find her in a second.”

 

“I know,” Trini sighed, “but we can pull it off.”

 

Tanya pointed at the computer on the other side of the couch.  “Adam and I will work from here; you three can go to the dojo.”

 

The nine ex-Rangers nodded and split, Jason glancing at Kat before turning back to Tommy.  The white Ranger shrugged and headed for Jason’s apartment above his dojo, heading for the pair of computers the ex-Red Rangers kept there.  “You’ll just have to talk to her about what you heard,” he murmured.  “You have to decide if what you heard is true and what you want to do about it.”

 

“That’s just it, Tommy.  I have no idea.  It’s all so confusing.  Why can’t love be simpler and why is it so hard to decipher your own feelings?”

 

“I don’t know.  I still haven’t figured everything out, but I can tell you that if you ever find love, real love, don’t ever let her go.  Fight for her, and don’t make the mistakes I did.  You don’t want Kat to end up like Kimberly.”

 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

 

Jason groaned and leaned back in the chair, smiling when Kat handed him a glass of water.  “I swear, she just vanished off the face of the Earth!”

 

“No luck?”

 

“None.  I wonder how Tommy’s doing?”

 

Kat glanced through the door to Rocky’s room where Tommy was deep in research mode.  He wasn’t using just human methods and the internet to scan for his lost love; he was also tapping into the system of back doors and digital pathways Billy and Alpha 5 had built to research other things, especially Ranger-related ones.  He figured that if they could use that database and system to find Kimberly in Lord Zedd’s palace on the Moon, he could use it to find her on Earth.  However, Billy’s safeguards were incredibly difficult to crack through, and he had only been partially successful.  Kat’s summary was brief.  “He never loses hope.  If Kimberly wasn’t sleeping in Tanya’s room, I’d doubt that Dervalet left her alive.”

 

“I’m beginning to fear the same thing, though.”  Jason sighed as Kat began to massage some of the tension out of his shoulders, sighing as his muscles stretched and relaxed.  “That feels wonderful.  Thanks.”

 

“You know, I was talking to your future self earlier, and I think he’s lonely.”

 

“I know he is.  I heard him talking to Tommy before they did their spell.  They had no idea I was there, of course.”

 

“Then maybe you can tell me why your future self is so much in love with me.”

 

Jason whirled around in his seat, shocked.  “You know?”

 

“He’s not much better than you at hiding his true feelings,” Kat smiled, pulling up her own chair.  “It kind of surprised me, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that, though I finally admitted that I couldn’t be with Tommy, I never considered that I could be with someone else.  Now that I think about it, I’ve kind of been sulking the past couple of years.  I never thought about anything beyond my failed relationship with Tommy.  Seeing them from the future, I realized that I can’t keep holding onto that fantasy any longer.  No matter when Kimberly dies, she and Tommy will be together and if I don’t try to figure out my feelings, I will be alone forever.  Besides, I don’t want you to turn out as lonely as the Mage Jason is.”

 

“What should we do about it?”

 

Kat smiled.  “Well, most people who are trying to figure out how much they like each other go out on a date of sorts.”

 

Jason let his smile join the blonde Aussie’s as he nodded.  “That works for normal people.  If we were Kimberly and Tommy, we would have started out fighting each other and then grown closer as we fought Rita until I lost my power and you were there for me and I finally found the courage to ask you out on a date.”

 

“I wish I could have seen some of that,” Kat laughed, trying to envision a shy Tommy stumbling over his words as he desperately tried to invite Kimberly to a dance.

 

“It was nice watching their relationship grow.  I always wanted a relationship like that.”

 

Kat placed a friendly hand on Jason’s cheek.  “Then we’ll take it slow and see, shall we?  Maybe we’ll know the answer before Baliree comes.”

 

“If she comes, Kat, and we figured out what we mean to each other, I won’t leave you behind.  I think that’s what older Jason was trying to say to you.”

 

“We’ll see.”

 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

 

“Tommy, I found some of Billy’s old codes.  They’re musical, which is why you might be having trouble.”

 

“Can you pipe them though the communicator?”

 

Tommy heard a brief burst of static as Rocky fiddled with the communicator and turned on the console.  A simple tune with a complicated harmony filtered through the tiny speaker and into the microphone of the computer, and the line of code Tommy had been trying to crack finally blinked green and opened a huge file.  Rocky sent another code, similar to the first, and another group of files became visible.  “How’s that?”

 

“Perfect!  Thanks, man.  Let me know if you find anything else.”

 

“Will do.  I doubt it, since the damage is so extensive, but we found some of Billy’s star charts, and there is a planet dubbed ‘Adamaren Prime.’  Apparently Billy, Zordon, and Alpha knew about the Adamarei Alliance, at least in passing.  There’s some sort of com code here, labeled for a Duchess Baliree and one for Queen Anarii.  I also found a file labeled ‘Mages’.  The only name I recognize is Azaemer.”

 

“Azaemer?  Like Dervalet’s Mage?”

 

“Yeah, I guess.  I’ll send it to Billy’s little file system that you found and you see if you can determine how useful this is.  Does Kat still have that PDA?  I’m sure you can just download Billy’s files and especially his codes in case they come in handy later.”

 

“Good idea, Rocko.  I guess I’ll go back to searching.”

 

“Just a sec, Tommy.  There’s this one file I found with the Mages bit that you should look at.  Billy named it ‘Shana Rose’.  You might want to ask your future self what the name means in their language.  It’s a sound file, but not really music.  I’d put that on the PDA in case we need it.”

 

“Will do.  Teleport back when you finish; if we haven’t found anything, Jase, Kat, and I will still be here.”  Tommy turned the communicator off and sighed as he glanced at the names of the files filling his screen.  He changed to a more manageable list view, grouping the files by type and sorting them into folders.  It looked like Billy had dumped all of that information into one big file and double-encoded it just before leaving for Aquitar, but why?  The names meant nothing to him.  “Zameri’net,” Tommy murmured.  Shrugging, seeing no files with English names, he double-clicked the file and watched as Word struggled to life, lines of strange words and letters scrolling across the screen.  A dialogue box popped up, asking ‘do you want Dictami to Translate?’

 

“What’s ‘Dictami’?” Tommy wondered out loud.

 

To his shock, a small icon-like person no more than two inches tall appeared in the corner of his screen, dressed in blue, a Dragon crouched behind him.  “Hello,” the tiny man smiled.  “My name is Dictami, and I am an interactive Shamiret Translation machine.  I can speak seventy-seven languages and their accompanying dialects from the Adamarei Alliance and hundreds of languages and dialects from the planet Earth, Protectorate of Azareth Region.  I was created by William Cranston after contact with the Shamirii was made and a treaty established between Duchess Baliree of Azareth with the blessing of Queen Anarii and Zordon of Eltar in the name of Earth.”

 

“Zordon made a treaty with the Shamirii and never told any of us?”

 

“Yes, many decades ago.  He never thought to mention them since they are currently trying to cure a plague that has ravaged their systems for centuries.”

 

“Oh, right.  Well, if these files of Billy’s are in Shamiret, can you translate and tell me what it is?”

 

“Yes, I can.  Please tell me your name.”

 

Tommy raised an eyebrow.  “Tommy Oliver.”

 

Dictami grew slightly larger as his Dragon curled up and went to sleep, apparently the signal that his name was acceptable to the system.  The strange letters shifted and changed to English, and Dictami waved his hand to highlight key sections.  “This is the treaty Zordon of Eltar and Baliree of Adamarei created.  Is there anything you’d like to know about the treaty?”

 

“Can I save it in English?”

 

“Done.”

 

“Can you translate the file names?”

 

Word closed and the Dragon vanished, obviously keyed to the program, and Dictami stood at the bottom edge of the file folder Tommy had opened.  “Zameri’net means ‘Treaty of Coexistence’.  That is what made Earth a Protectorate.”

 

“That one, ‘Mages’, is in English.  Rocky said that he recognized the name of one of the Mages in that file, Azaemer.”

 

“Azaemer is mentioned many times.  I imagine Billy left that file in English as part of his own notes since he never completely learned Shamiret written language.  The Mage Azaemer, formerly a diplomat, helped to negotiate the Earth-Adamarei Treaty.”

 

Tommy smiled as a sudden idea struck him.  “Hey, Dictami, what else can you sift through?”

 

“I can find anything through the human interactive database known as the ‘internet’ that links all information if one knows where to look.  Is there something you would like me to find?”

 

“Yeah, a woman.  Her name is Kimberly Ann Hart, and she was last seen Miami, Florida, before the three Shamirin Mages from the future arrived.”

 

Dictami nodded and minimized the folder, opening the Internet Explorer window and beginning his search.  The Dragon reappeared, glancing up now and then as files and pictures filled the page.  The newest one was almost two months old.  “There doesn’t seem to be anything useful in the public domain.  Dastirri will help me enter the not-so-public domain.”

 

“You can hack into secured sites?”

 

“Dastirri can.  She contains all of the codes and software Billy used to track Zedd’s movement and to download experimental technology that he used to keep the Zords you used up-to-date.  Give us a second.”  Dictami blinked, and the screen showed a short piece of a video obviously from a security tape, showing Kimberly walking away from her apartment building with a tall man.  The man exuded evil, his burgundy eyes shaded and shifty, his black hair pulled back to reveal the sharp lines of his face. 

 

“Dervalet,” Tommy whispered.  “Why would she go away with him?”

 

“Unknown.  Checking.”  The screen focused on a small corner of the picture, showing a dark blue car that seemed to be rented.  Dervalet and Kimberly climbed in and it sped away.  Dictami froze the image and enhanced the license plate, a list of possible numbers scrolling along the edge of the screen.  A small box appeared on top of the list and blinked as Dastirri entered one of her codes, blinking and allowing access to the rental car company’s database of license numbers.  One turned red and the rest vanished as Dictami pulled up the information for that car.  “The car is rented under the name Derrick Lin.  I am running a search on the name now.”  With the little Dragon’s help, Dictami pulled up another file, listing an apartment in Miami rented to Derrick Lin with Andrew Merit and Kali Lin listed as occupants.  “Here.  This is where he took her.”

 

Tommy’s cry of triumph summoned Jason and Kat to his side, and he downloaded Dictami and Dastirri to Kat’s PDA, slipping the small wireless device into his pocket.  As an afterthought, Tommy downloaded the treaty and the sound file Rocky had thought was strange.  Calling Rocky, he gave the second Red Ranger the address and sent a brief message to tell his older self where they were headed.  The nine ex-Rangers teleported to Miami once more.

 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Part 2

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