Back again with the happy couple. Usual stuff to say first. Please feel free to review and comment, even if it's to give some cinstructive criticism.
Legal: I don't own Power Rangers etc. Any events, characters etc. not under the rights of Power Rangers are purely the creation of the author.
Rating: T. Mild themes and violence.
As usual, I'd prefer if you read my fics in order, but just in case here's the five minute version.
Three years after leaving Reefside, Kira comes back for a visit and is involved in a car accident in which both her parents are killed. As Tommy takes her in and comforts her in the run up to the memorial service they both experrience painful reminders of the feelings they had for each other but never revealed. Hayley, in whom both confided years ago realises old wounds have been opened and helps them to finally confess their feelings for each other.
Kira is offered a Record contract by Barry Goldstein, a flamboyant and unusual record producer from Las Vegas, and they both move to Nevada. Kira releases her first album to huge acclaim thanks to Barry's aggressive and borderline unethical marketing. A few months later, they marry despite a number of dramas.
One year later, Kira re-signs with Barry despite a number of more lucrative offers in exchange for a reduced touring schedule and the opportunity to record most of her work at home, revealing to Tommy that she's pregnant and wants to spend more time at home.
During her pregnancy, Kira suffers an accident and is kidnapped by evil and despicable doctors who plan to sell her baby as part of an operation with several other expectant mothers, including the original Pink Ranger, Kimberly. Kimberly's husband together with Tommy, Adam and the former Dino Rangers tracks down where they're being held and Tommy and his former Ranger friends rescue the captives, before turning the evidence over to the press. As the trial begins, a slick high-priced lawyer appears to get the Ringleader released, only for him to be fatally shot by an assassin that unknown to Tommy and Kira was hired by the amoral Barry Goldstein.
Now following the birth of their twins, What new challenges await?
Baby Proofing
Kira sat on the couch, gently rocking Frank in the bouncy chair with her foot as she cradles Emma in her left arm, while she wrote some lyrics down on a note pad. She knew all the baby guides said she should try and sleep when the babies did, but the had never been good at following advice, and that was one of the few quiet times she got to write these days.
It had been three months now since the children had been born, and she was starting to get used to the routine of motherhood. It had been a bit emotional and frustrating at first as she tried to figure out what all the different forms of crying meant, and figure out what the babies wanted when they started screaming the house down, but she was finally getting the hang of it, which was just as .
There were two things in particular she loved about having the twins in the house at the same time. The first was that all the extra running around had helped her almost get back into shape. She knew herself she had a couple of pounds to go before she was back to her pre-pregnancy weight, but pretty much everyone she met told her they couldn't believe she's only given birth to twins only two months ago. It wasn't much of a gesture, but it always made her feel good to know she was thought of that way. She had tried hard to discipline her eating habits following the inevitable calorie increase during her pregnancy, and it was nice to know that it was working.
The other thing she loved was that they were a great source of inspiration. She didn't know what it was about them, but looking at them she always got a million and one ideas to write songs. She practically never got writers block since they were born, in fact she was going to finish her latest album almost a month ahead of schedule. As she finished off the last of the notes on this song, she took a quick look to check that both the babies were still asleep, and decided to risk taking them downstairs into the recording studio Barry's sound tech guys had built in her basement. Leaving Frank happily dozing away on the bouncy chair, she carried Emma carefully downstairs, she strapped her into one of the chairs they had left down there so she could keep an eye on the kids while she recorded her music. Heading back upstairs and collecting Frank, she strapped him in beside his sister and switched on the baby monitor before making her way into the booth and shutting the door.
She flicked on the other baby monitor, and made sure she had left the sound turned right down. She used the lights across the top of it to track if the babies were making noise so that she could leave the sound turned down and prevent having her kids try and upstage her own musical efforts before they were out of diapers. Picking up her guitar, she began strumming away, tuning it as she started humming, trying to get a tune.
She thought for a while how happy she was now. It had always bothered her how much time she spent away from Tommy in the early days, but she resigned herself to the fact that it was a necessary part of the business. However, when she discovered she was pregnant she knew she wanted to spend more time at home. There was no way she was going to miss out on her kids growing up. She knew that she made the right choice sticking with Barry's company, he allowed her to do most of her recording at home now and only rarely asked her to do promotional tours, handling most of her PR through television and radio appearances.
When the guitar was tuned to her satisfaction, she looked over again at the twins with a satisfied smile. They always made her feel good about herself. She played the song through once, checking that she was happy with how it sounded as she watched the lights on the baby monitor, all the while thinking how much she loved her new life. Nothing could take that feeling away from her now.
Noticing her children were still sound asleep, she quickly checked her watch. They had been sleeping for a while, but she decided to take her chances. Clicking the control on the handset, she started recording, playing through once more for the tape. As she neared the end of the song, she saw the lights on the baby monitor flicker a little.
'two more minutes.' She willed them. 'Just two more minutes.' The babies seemed to read mommy's mind, granting her just enough time to finish off the song and switch off the recording before they noticeably began to stir.
"How are you feeling little lady?" She asked, picking up her daughter. Holding her, she quickly ran a hand across the underside of her nappy. "Ooh, no wonder you woke up." She commented. "Time to go upstairs I think. I'll be back in a minute Frank."
As she carried her daughter up the stairs, trying not to think of the horrors that awaited when she unfastened the straps on her diaper, she reminded herself that this was just one of the downsides to her new role as a mommy. She didn't mind especially much, like most things, the spitting up, the messy feeding times, the time Frank gave her an all-too-direct lesson on why exactly mommy shouldn't bend over him when unfastening a dirty nappy, she realised that this was just part of the territory and simply took a little getting used to. She rolled out the changing mat on her living room floor and unfastened Emma's nappy, recoiling a little as the stench hit her.
"What the heck have you been eating?" She asked as Emma just giggled and kicked a little. "There's no way you should be making that kind of mess." She had always known about diapers, she had looked after Kimberly's son, Joe, for ages before they moved away to the quickly-developing new city, New Tech City. But it still amazed her exactly how much a simple milk-based poop could actually smell. As she finished cleaning off Emma and attached a new diaper, she heard Frank downstairs beginning to complain about exactly how long mommy had left him alone.
"I'm coming Frankie." She called down, hoping to appease him briefly while she placed Emma in her play pen. "I'll be there soon."
She arrived downstairs, picking up her son who was now making his protestations to his perceived neglect very vocal as he screamed blue murder. Kira picked him up, and held him close. "It's ok little man, mommy's here." She said soothingly as she carried him up the stairs, gently bobbing him as she did so in the hopes of stopping him screaming straight in her ear. Cleaning and changing him quickly, she picked him up and moved over to the playpen, only to find her heart jumping out of her chest as she panicked.
"Emma!" She shouted as she placed Frank in the playpen. "Emma, where are you honey?"
Tommy stood at the blackboard in his third period class, inwardly cursing the futility of attempting to explain human reproduction to a class full of giggling, immature and wildly hormonal teenagers.
"You may think this is funny, but believe me. Even as an 'adult'." He mimed the quotation marks to reinforce the point as he said this. "Bringing up babies is no laughing matter. If anyone wants to try out that theory, I challenge you to come to my house and meet my twins."
"Come on Dr. O." One of the girls protested. "We've seen them when your wife came to pick you up the other week. They're adorable."
"When they're quiet." He informed her. "But they don't seem too adorable when you're changing and feeding them at three in the morning, only to be repaid by having them spit up on you."
"Ewwwww!" The girls chorused.
"You sound like you don't like them." One of the boys interrupted.
"Oh no, I love them very much. I've never been happier." He corrected him. "I'm just trying to emphasise that, like everything else worth having in life, there are downsides, so it's best to be prepared. Now, shall we continue with the lesson?"
The students wordlessly nodded in agreement, though Tommy couldn't help but chuckle as he noticed a number of girls giving their boyfriends a 'you're not touching me again' kind of look. 'Looks like a lot of the guys aren't getting any action any time soon.' He thought to himself. 'Mission accomplished.'
Kira frantically darted around the living room, throwing pillow, toys and furniture around in her frantic search for her missing daughter.
"Emma, mommy's really worried. Please come out." She pleaded. Frank began to cry as she frantically searched the house.
"Not now Frank, mommy's looking for your sister." She tried to explain, checking for the third time to see if she had somehow climbed into the toy chest by the sofa. "Emma, it's dinner time, please come out now, mommy's getting really angry."
Frank continued to scream louder and higher, glowing bright red with the effort in his efforts to get Kira's attention as she continued to throw around her possessions.
"I told, you in a minute Frankie." She protested. Suddenly, she found herself being thrown across the room and into the opposite wall as an all-too-familiar high-pitched sound wave blasted out from the direction of the play pen. Every glass item in the room shattered under the extreme abuse of the ultra sonic vibrations. As Kira picked herself up, looking over at the play pen in disbelief, she saw Emma, reappearing into view as though appearing from thin air, screaming as she was thoroughly terrified by the unbelievable noise her brother had made. As Kira sprinted to the playpen, picking up her children in her arms and holding them close, she tried to calm them back down.
"Wait until daddy gets home." She told her babies. "I think we may just need some help with this one."
Tommy absent-mindedly daydreamed about the weekend ahead as he made his way home. Since the twins had arrived he had slowly but surely cut back on his after-school activities with the Advanced Study Programme. He had passed his after school science tutorials onto the new head of the science department, Professor McKay, and since Adam had bought the gym across the street from the school, he had convinced him to take over the Friday martial arts lessons. He wanted to spend as much time as he could with the kids, and he always loved coming home to…
His thoughts were interrupted as he pulled into the driveway. His house was a wreck! The entire living room window had been shattered. Dashing inside as his heart pounded, he breathed a sigh of relief as he found Kira and the twins safe and well in the hall. Kira was gently rocking the twins to sleep as Tommy approached her.
"What happed to the living room?" He asked, noting the mess as he took Emma from her and rocking her gently. "Did someone break in?"
"We've been here all day." Kira informed him. "I made the mess while I was looking for our daughter. She just vanished."
"Where was she?" He asked obviously confused. "What happened to the window?"
"Your daughter was in the playpen the whole time." She began. "She pulled one of your 'vanishing acts'. And you have your son to thank for the window; he has an impressive set of lungs on him, just like his mommy."
Looking at the twins in disbelief, he suddenly realised.
"The Dino Gem powers!" He stated as the thought came to him. "They bonded with our DNA, which is why we're still able to use them! We must have…"
Kira nodded in agreement, obviously having already figured the rest out for herself. "I think we might have to call Hayley about this." She replied.
"I think that would be a good idea." Tommy agreed.