Tommy could here the hubbub of what was obviously the other reds teasing him. Typical, he thought as he walked up to the gate.
"Is Uncle Jason back yet?" a young voice asked, as a young child with bright red hair tied back into pig tails peered up at him with large doe colored eyes, Kim's eyes.
"Uncle Jason?" Tommy echoed, how did Jason's niece have Kim's eyes?
"Yeah, Aunt Trini said that she needed to talk to Uncle Jason about something before we go get ice cream," the little girl said, brightly before tipping her head to the side, "Why did someone need Uncle Jason's help here? Where did you guys go?"
"Sara!" a sharp voice exclaimed, as a very pregnant Asian American rushed over, "Honestly, I told you to wait next to the bathroom."
"But Aunt Trini," the redhead exclaimed, "I saw a spaceship, like what the power rangers use. Was Uncle Jason helping the power rangers?"
Tommy chuckled as his former teammate glanced around, eyes locking on his, "Hey Trini."
"Tommy!" she chuckled, "I hope Sara here hasn't been annoying you, I promise all I did was go to the restroom."
"She's fine," Tommy insisted, chuckling, "Jason's over there somewhere," he gestured behind him, "Telling the Rookie embarrassing stories about me, something about me kissing Kim in the Youth Center."
"Why were you kissing Mommy?" the red head asked, "And why is your hair short, it's long in all the pictures Mommy showed me."
Tommy frowned, what in the world was this little girl talking about.
"Sara is Kim's daughter," Trini explained.
"Kim?" Tommy echoed, so that was why the girl had her eyes, "How is she, I haven't heard from her in years."
"Mommy got sick, so these men came and took her to the doctor in an abu-lance, they had the lights on and everything. She's so lucky," Sara exclaimed.
Tommy's chest constricted, his heart started to pound, Kim had been sick enough that she had to go to the hospital in an ambulance. His eyes met those of Trini's silently pleading, he needed to know what was wrong with Kim, his Kim, his beautiful Kimberly.
Trini meet his eyes and gave him a sad look before she turned to Sara, motioning over to where Jason and the other red rangers were still talking, "Uncle Jason's over there," she announced, "Why don't you go fetch him while I talk to Tommy."
"Okay," the little girl shouted, racing off eagerly.
Trini smiled softly at the enthusiastic little girl, "She reminds me of Kim when we were that age."
"What's wrong with Kim," Tommy demanded as soon as he was sure that Sara was out of ear shot, whatever Trini had to tell him, she didn't want the little girl to hear.
"Jason didn't tell you?" Trini asked, "Kim asked him to, she wanted to see everyone, one last time."
"You're talking as if she's dying," Tommy protested, as his heart started to squeeze itself, it couldn't be true, she was Kim, she was so full of life, always with a ready smile for him. She couldn't be dying, they were still so young, Kim only turned twenty-three last February.
Trini wondered if Tommy even knew that he had let out a strangled cry, his face draining of color as it occurred to him exactly what she was saying. He started making weird noises, as if he was trying to form some sort of word, but kept changing his mind about what word it should be.
"She has cancer, Leukemia," Trini explained softly, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder as Tommy trembled terribly, she hadn't seen him this bad since his long ago green ranger days.
"Do you think… will she… can I… Visit her," Tommy stammered.
"Of course you can, she'd love that. She still cares about you. If it wasn't for Coach Schmidt and that stupid letter he forced her to write, who knows what would have happened. Besides she asked Jason and I to try to round up the whole team, you, Zack, Billy, Rocky, Adam, and Aisha, Kat as well." Tommy's face was pale and he was breathing a little funny, "Tommy are you alright?"
Tommy shook his head, think Tommy, think, there had to be something that you can do. Cancer was caused when there was a mutation at a cellular level, then those mutated cells reproduced. He specialized in cellular mutation, maybe, just maybe, "I can fix this."
Trini glanced at Tommy in concern as he announced that he could fix this and walked away. She wasn't sure that even Billy could fix this, and he could fix just about everything.
…
Jason had been joking around with TJ when a little red headed girl threw herself at him with a loud squeal of, "Uncle Jason!"
"Hi squirt," Jason said, scooping her up in his arms, "What are you doing here?"
"Aunt Trini needed to talk to you, but you weren't answering your phone, and Mommy's in Hospital, so I had to come along."
"What did Aunt Trini want to talk to me about."
"The Reunion," Sara said, "What's a reunion."
"Well, you see, Sara, when you get to be all grown up, you sometimes move away from all of your friends, and your friends move too, a reunion is when all your friends meet up again after you are all grown up."
"Oh, it's a play date for grown ups, why didn't you just say that."
Cole, who was still hanging around, snorted, as did Carter.
Jason gave them a look, "actually with Zack and Rocky, play date might be a better term to use," he paused, "Unless they actually matured in the past years since I saw them last."
"Do you need help contacting Billy?" Andros asked, "He's still..." he trailed off, glancing at Sara with a knowing expression.
"Billy's exploring space," she announced eagerly.
"He's still in space, but my space ship has the equipment needed to contact him with ease."
"How do you know Uncle Jason and Billy?" Sara asked, peering up at the Alien power ranger.
Andros looked pleadingly at Jason, "I… how do we know each other?"
"Tommy," Jason stated, "He knew your wife while she was defending Angel Grove."
Andros nodded, "That's right."
"Why would a power ranger need help from Uncle Jason, he works at McDonald's, Did you want a Happy Meal?"
"Sara," a large hand clasped over Sara's mouth, "Honestly," he glanced up at Andros, "if I can contact Billy, that would be great."
"No problem, Alpha six can help you."
…
Billy could count the amount of time that the other rangers called him on one hand, intergalactic communication was hard and complicated, and with the command center destroyed, it wasn't something you did just to say "What's up?". So when he heard that someone was calling from earth he knew that it was important.
It was Jason, which greatly concerned the former blue ranger, he and all of the other red rangers had gone to the moon to deal with the Machine Empire, had something happened on the moon?
Jason actually chuckled a little when he heard that question, "No the moon mission went fine, new kid showed off a little, but that's to be expected."
"If everything went according to plan on the moon, then why are you calling me?"
"Well, truth be told, Kim's not doing good, she's been battling cancer off and on for the past six years or so, she's taken a turn for the worse recently, and she asked Trini and I to organize a team reunion, we want to do it sooner, rather than later, just in case."
Billy felt the color drain from his face, "Of course, I can come, but it will probably take me a week to make arrangements and get there. Where are we meeting? I assume that Kim is in no condition to meet up at some place like the Youth Center."
"The Youth Center was closed the last time I went home for a visit," Jason said, "Once Ernie left it didn't stand a chance," he shook his head, "She's at the Seattle Cancer Institution, if you need a place to stay, we can probably squeeze you into our apartment, Kim's in the hospital, so you can have her bed, if you don't mind that a four year old might try to climb into bed with you in the middle of the night."
"Kim has a child?"
"Yeah, a little girl," Jason said, "Don't ask about the father, all I know is that he isn't in the picture."
"How is she handling this situation? I know what it's like to lose your mother at a young age."
"Trini and I keep her distracted as best we can, we've already have her living with us, so she won't have a huge adjustment when the time comes for us to take on full custody. At the moment we are her temporary guardians."
"At least she has everything worked out," Billy said, "It will probably work best for me to return to earth near where the command center use to be, I know that area, and am unlikely to be spotted."
"Great, let me know when and where, and I'll bring the Radbug or something."
…
Hayley knocked on the door, but got no answer, causing her to frown, before letting herself in with a spare key. She didn't know why she felt the need to babysit Tommy Oliver, but for someone who could look down a monster and win, he was completely useless on other stuff, like remembering to eat, turn in homework, do homework, or even sleep. So when he didn't answer her phone call, or, for that matter, didn't call back within a normal span of time, she figured she would have to check on him.
"Tommy?" she called out entering the dark apartment, side stepping a pile of dirty clothes, since his roommate Smitty had moved out, he had let the place go, "Are you in here, you haven't been answering my phone calls."
There was a noise from the bedroom. Hayley crept closer to it, wondering what she would find inside. She had once walked in on a battle scene, Tommy Oliver against a small handful of cogs. That had been how she had learned his secret identity, and how Tommy had learned that the machine Empire was regrouping.
Thankfully the only one in the bedroom was Tommy Oliver, pouring over some notes, and jolting things down. Oblivious to anything around him.
"Tommy you missed class," Hayley announced.
"What!" Tommy jumped up from his chair, falling into a defensive position, before dropping it, "It's summer break."
"I know," Hayley insisted, "So what are you working on, another project for Mercer? Please tell me you aren't building more Foot soldiers?"
"No, I'm building a machine that targets and reverts mutations at a cellular level."
"You're building a machine that cures cancer?"
"Affirmative," Tommy said, turning back to his project.