Disclaimers: Characters are owned not be writer of this particular fan fiction. Please do not sue me for I'm definitely not making any money off of this story and this is for amusement only.
Warning: Rated NC-17 for content and language.
Note: The former rangers have moved on in their lives but are pulled back into the game by a little gift left behind from an old "friend." While they fight for their lives yet again, they learn more about each other.
Age check: Billy, Tommy, Jason, Zack-27. Adam, Aisha, Rocky, Trini, Kimberly-26. Katherine, Tonya-25.
Acknowledgements: This one is for Shawn (Ozmandayus), for all the encouragements he has given me and for inspiring me to do this story with all this great writing. Thanks! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chapter Six – Desperations and Declarations
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April 22, 2002 – 9:14 a.m. Berlin Time
ISS Warsaw Headquarters – Conference Room
Warsaw Poland
Kimberly read the reports over her coffee and silently wondered to herself what she was doing. Last night would have been the ideal time to really talk to Tommy. But what did she do instead? She cried like a baby all over him and fell asleep. Granted she got to sleep in his arms, but still……
She sighed and picked up a piece of toast.
"Hey," Edward came in and sat down across from her. "How are you feeling this morning?"
"Better after a seven hour sleep cycle."
"You should sleep some more. The boys are working on analyzing whatever it is that Trini had them working on last night." Edward grabbed a cup of coffee and donuts. "Thank god for American chiefs. You would not believe what they have for breakfast around here."
Kimberly shook her head and handed him the file she was looking at. "What's this about temperature scanners?"
Looking over the report on the last mission, Edward nodded to himself. "Interpol has a little baby call the thermo radiation scanner. Our boys at the Pentagon hooked it up to instant relay portable computers when they went in. We got these readings off before the machine went dead, as well as the rest of the team."
"Did they hook it up to any of the other machines?"
"No, not enough time."
"So we're looking at a temperature of about freezing level."
"Yeah."
"How does anything survive in a freezing level temperature."
"You got me." He wiped his hands off and headed the report back to her. "Now look at this, the humidity level was at 100%."
"Excuse me?"
"Yeah."
Kim looked at him blankly. "Has Trini seen this?"
"No."
"She's got to see it. Maybe she could shed a little light on this."
"Yeah," Edward got up again. "But I'm not going to wake her up until she's good and ready to get up or whenever the eggheads finish that molecular-do-hicky scan. I'm going to go work with the others on unloading the chemicals she requested."
"Okay, I'll talk to you later."
"Sure." He walked out and nodded to Zack and Billy as they walked in.
"Morning Kim." Zack greeted before attacking the coffee. "I really need a cup of this."
"Me too." Billy grumbled. "Got no sleep last night. Kept waking up."
"Nightmares?" Kim said as she put the files down.
"What else?" Billy said as he took the black coffee from Zack gratefully. "You guys seen Jason this morning?"
"No," Zack said. "I knocked on his door but he wasn't in. Probably spent the night in Trini's room."
Kim choked on her coffee, while Billy looked up pretending to be mildly curious. "Why would you say that?"
Zack shrugged his broad shoulders. "You saw how he was last night. If she even tried to get out of bed before ten in the morning, he's likely to beat her over the head with something hard. So, chances are, he probably spent the night to make sure she sleeps."
Kimberly and Billy exchanged glances and nodded their heads vigorously knowing that if either one of them said anything, they would both end up on the floor laughing hard enough to hurt themselves.
Adam came in next with his eyes still full of sleep and his shirt buttoned all wrong. "Hey guys, what was all the commotion?"
"What are you talking about?" Billy asked helping himself to some of the scrambled eggs.
"The boys in the white coats were running around like crazy."
Kimberly got up and looked out the window. The science teams were running around like a bunch of mad ants, pushing and pulling on carts and boxes. The only thing left undisturbed was the containment unit. "Hum….. guess Trini must have ordered more than one shipment of stuff."
Adam poured himself coffee and sat down with a sigh. Sleep had not come as easily as he had hoped. Nightmarish images of what they could be confronting haunted him. He could not get the images from the day before out of his mind. Now he knew how Trini and Kimberly felt. "Do they always give Trini what she wants?"
"Won't you?" Zack asked pointedly. "Let's see: Ph.D, Nobel Prize, international spy, save the word from a deadly virus, and Power Ranger to boot. Jeeze, I wonder why they would give her anything she wants?"
Adam shrugged and nodded his head. "Okay, okay, I got it. Though they don't know about the Power Ranger bit."
"True," Zack said still chewing on his food. "Hey, do you think she's forgiven us yet?"
"Forgiven you?" Billy asked frowning over his coffee cup. "Forgive you for what?"
"For trying to kidnap her." Adam explained as he eyed the toasts. He's not sure if his stomach can handle any food this early in the morning. He was suffering from major jetlag.
Kimberly and Billy stared at the two in completely stunned silence. "WHAT!!!"
Zack and Adam looked up startled. "She didn't tell you?"
Setting her cup down carefully, she shook her head. "Tell us what?"
Swallowing his bacon and eggs, Zack took a sip of water. "About three years ago, when Trini decided to do that whole save-the-world-from-deadly-virus thing, Adam and me and Rocky went there to stop her from going into the containment unit."
Adam nodded. "We were basically going to kidnap her and take her back to the States."
Billy stared open mouthed. "What happened?"
Zack grinned his usually boyish self. "Trini kicked our ass and called the police on us."
Kimberly laughed. "You're kidding."
"Nope," Adam said as he decided to risk it and grabbed some jelly for the toast. "She had us thrown in jail overnight. Then came to get us with the meanest looking guys in the world to escort us to the airport." He smiled at the memory. "She was real nice about it though."
Billy chuckled with amusement. It would be like Trini to be completely touched by their gesture and still be able to put her foot down. "That's Trini all right, all heart. So I'm guessing that she forgave you after that and probably even sent you all thank you notes."
Zack and Adam laughed and nodded their head. "No doubt in a moment of weakness."
Kimberly poured herself more coffee. "No doubt."
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April 22, 2002 – 10:23 a.m. Berlin Time
ISS Warsaw Headquarters – Hallway Outside Personnel Quarters
Warsaw Poland
"You do it."
"No, you."
"I'm not going to risk it."
"Guys!" Doctor Diana Russell looked at them with annoyance. "We're only here to tell her that the equipment from Settle arrived. Not to disturb her peace."
Dr. Jessica Manila looked around nervously. "But Agent van Bureau said that no one was to disturb her until she is awake."
"Hey, but that's his order not ours." Diana was so excited about getting to meet with Dr. Trini Kwan. "Dr. Kwan said that she wanted to be informed the minute the equipment arrived."
Dr. Sherry Coranida nodded her head. "So we're just following orders."
"Right."
Diana knocked softly, not wanting to disturb her if she truly was asleep. They had all seen how exhausted she was yesterday when she arrived. The talk was going around that she hadn't slept three days straight. Apparently the boys at state didn't realize just how bad sleep deprivation was on one of the greatest minds in history.
She was about to knock again when the door was jerked open. A tall, handsome, muscular man wearing nothing but a pair of soft pajama pants stood in the doorway. His eyes were misty with sleep and he leaned his forearm against the door. Tan skin was shown in abundance as he rubbed his eye with his knuckle and ran long elegant fingers through thick short brown hair. He was like something out of a wet dream.
"Can I help you?"
Jessica felt as she had swallowed her tongue. Washboard abs looked good enough to eat off of. Those arms were not something you see in the laboratory every day. "Um…..um…….um……."
He squinted at them and shook his head to help clear the sleep from his mind. "Something wrong?"
"We…..we……" Sherry swallowed hard. He had the cutest dimple on his cheek as he smiled at them. She felt like a sixteen-year-old girl watching the captain of the football team all over again. "We…….."
Diana elbowed Sherry to get her to stop stuttering like a ninny. "I'm sorry." She wanted to pack all of him up in a suitcase and run off to some typical island and rub coconut oil all over that wonderfully put together body. "We must have gotten the wrong room." Look at those hands!
He smiled reassuringly at them. "Who are you looking for?"
Jessica wondered if he was one of the GI boys they were talking about. "Dr. Kwan."
"Oh," he nodded. "You didn't get the wrong room."
That was like a jolt to their systems. This man was in Dr. Kwan's room? What was going on?
"Something you need from her?"
"No," Diana hated herself for the stab of jealousy she felt. "We were supposed to inform her when the equipment she requested for arrived."
Sherry swallowed her tongue as he moved to stand up to full height and he looked over his shoulders. What a magnificent specimen of a man.
"Okay, I'll tell her when she wakes up."
"Thank you."
He nodded his you're-welcomes as he closed the door in their faces. They stood there in the hallways with a shared sense of awe, amusement, and envy. The good ones, the cute ones, the ones that looked like Greek Gods made to flesh, are always taken.
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April 22, 2002 – 10:45 a.m. Berlin Time
ISS Warsaw Headquarters – Conference Room
Warsaw Poland
Excluding Jason and Trini, Tommy was the last to arrive at the conference room. He had spent the night sleeping in a chair with Kimberly curled in his arms. When he woke about half an hour ago, he was alone and with a very nice blanket over him.
Everything had been beautiful last night. Between Kimberly's fit of tears and his sleepless night, he was able to figure some things out. Now all he had to do was convince Kimberly that it was time that they worked out whatever is between them and get married. Yes, that shouldn't be too hard. He silently laughed at himself, about as hard as surviving this whole thing.
"Hey, look who's finally out of bed." Rocky said as he poured a cup of java for Tommy. "Food on the table and coffee for our fearless leader."
"Shut up." He said as he sat down gratefully. An armchair was not meant to be slept in by two people. "Where's Jason?"
"Missing in action." Adam said as he looked over the report Kimberly handed to him. It was very much written up in the same fashion as most police reports.
"Probably Trini's room." Zack said as he relaxed in his chair. Kimberly had given him a heads up on the stuff that may be going on between her and Tommy. He was just going to sit back and enjoy the show now.
"Oh," Tommy said nothing else. He was happy for his friend, not that he suspected anything other than sleeping would be happening in that room. Trini looked ready to drop last night. He doubted that Jason could have gotten anything more than a kiss if anything before she fell asleep.
Edward chose that moment to walk in. "Kimmy, director on the line."
"Which one?"
"New York."
Kimberly dropped the file on the agent in charge and pushed the flashing button. "You're on the air, Director Ballard."
"Agent Hart, good morning."
"Morning sir. What can I do for you?"
"Dr. Kwan there?"
"No sir, she's asleep."
"Thank god, I thought that girl would never sleep." He sighed. "We may have a little situation here."
"Sir?"
"The Russians are getting nervous."
"I can understand that sir. We're pretty close to their boarders." Kimberly glanced over at Aisha who was rolling her eyes.
"They're talking about nuclear warheads."
There was silence at everyone in the room absorb that. "SIR?"
"Yeah, that was my reaction too. Look, we're trying to calm things down from this end. But I'm telling you, people are getting kind of desperate here."
"We've only been on the case less than twenty-four hours."
"Totally understood. I'm blocking for you as much as I can. London office is having a field day with the Chinese since they are threatening the same thing. Don't worry, we won't let it happen."
"Thank you sir."
"Okay, I just wanted to give you a heads up on that in case you hear anything about it. Keep me posted."
Kimberly pushed the button off and sat back into her chair with a thump. "What else could go wrong?"
Tanya patted her hand. "It could be worse."
"Like?"
"Aliens invading again."
"Thanks." She said it so dryly that Tanya laughed.
Jason walked in and headed for the coffee while the rest of the team turned to look at him. He was taking his first sip when the silence hit him. "What?"
Kat smiled sweetly at him. They all knew where he had been if no one really suspected that he had any real fun last night. Trini would have been way too tired. "Good morning, sleepyhead."
"Did you have a good night?" Billy asked teasingly, he wanted to see if Jason would give anything away as to whether he and Trini talked. As worn-out as Trini was, they probably couldn't have had that meaningful of a conversation.
"I'm beat." Jason said as he reached for toast. "Trini had nightmares last night."
"How bad?" Billy lost his smile.
"Bad." Jason sat down gratefully. He wasn't not about to share what came afterward the nightmare. "She smack me in the face while in a fit of nightmarish fright."
"Ouch." Zack pushed the plate of fruit across the table.
"You're telling me. She finally got some rest earlier this morning." He glanced at the different files scattered across the table. "Anything interesting?"
"Yeah," Kimberly slid it across the table to him. "But I can't make heads or tails of it. Hopefully Trini can though. She awake?"
"No, but some of your scientists came around this morning to tell her about some equipments arriving."
Edward frowned. "They were told not to disturb her."
"They didn't listen." Jason said it with a raised brow. A very clear warning that it was not to happen again. Edward nodded his understanding of it.
Kimberly noted it well. "Science team done?"
Edward looked at her sympathetically. "Almost. They unpacked the body this morning. Trini wanted to get to it today."
With a sigh, she looked at the others. "Want to take a look at what they have?"
The consensus was yes. They would like to look at what they could possibly be dealing with. The little trek down to the science area was short and silent. Everyone had his or her own thoughts to work through.
People were milling around and appeared to be doing things hap hazardously but with some clear unseen organization to it. The isolation tent was set up for the body along with a cryo genetics tube for preserving the body. The smell as they step through the flap was terrible. Three white lab coated men were carefully unpacking the iced down body. The body was wrapped in some sort of silver tinfoil material and they men wore thick metal gloves.
"It's covered in acid from something and base from when they tried to neutralize the acid." Edward explained. "We are not supposed to touch anything. They want Trini to take first crack so that there is no contamination."
Kimberly nodded and held her head over her nose as she moved closer. Charlie's face was almost unrecognizable. She wished that it were. Her friend had not died easily even if he never woke up to feel the pain. It must have been so bad.
"Do we know the cause of death?" Billy asked as he looked over the edge of the foil.
"Massive blood loss, internal bleeding, cranial fracturing, you name it."
The others looked sick and all wished that they had not eaten anything that morning. One by one, they all left to get some fresh air and a chance for their stomachs to calm itself down.
"What's next?" Billy asked as he stared up at the sunny sky.
"We just have to wait until…." Kimberly never got to finish the sentence as the ground shook.
They grabbed on to each other, trying to keep on their feet. The tents had been stationed in tripod style, so it easily withstood the shaking of the ground. People fell, crates and boxes crashing. Screams and cries were heard all over the place, but there was nothing they could do but wait out the quake.
"Okay," Edward glanced to make sure everyone was all right. "That one was stronger than the last one."
Billy glanced at his watch. "Six hours, right on time."
They other all looked rather disturbed by that news. There was more people in lab coats milling around, including the three female scientists that had showed up at Trini's door before. They were eyeing Jason was interest, an observation Zack and Tanya noticed.
"Sir?" A science tech held a file full of paper. "Analysis Dr. Kwan wanted."
"Thanks." Edward looked over the number filled columns and felt a headache developing. "Time to wake the doc."
Jason stopped him with an open palm at his chest. "Over my dead body. I finally got her to sleep some and no one is going to wake her."
"Look," Edward knew this was not going to be friendly. "I know that you think you're trying to protect her but she needs to look at these things. No one knows more about this case right now that she does, Mr….." He faltered.
"Scott." Jason said firmly. This guy was not going to wake Trini and that was that. "Jason Scott."
Edward frowned as the name registered in his mind. "The architect?"
He nodded.
That surprised the hell out of Edward. He had just submitted a proposal to Scott and Company's Architectural Firm two months before. He had seen Mr. Scott's "Water over Mountain" House in Toronto, Canada and fell in love with it. "Mr. Scott. We are here on a mission and Trini is part of this…."
"I don't care." The look in Jason's eyes did not bode well for Edward. "She's been up since Thursday. You really think half a night of sleep is going to be enough to get her working again?"
Edward sighed. He knew that Trini needed to sleep, but this was important. And it would appear her self-appointed guardian angel is going to was an issue if it. "Mr. Scott…."
"You've got thirty people around here with Ph.D.'s, you don't think any of them could put their heads together and get this without Trini?"
Kimberly knew that she'd have to stop this before Edward loses an arm or something. "Jason, that's not what he meant." She slowly separated the two. "Edward knows that Trini needs to rest. But there isn't anyone around better at this than Trini. Besides, you know her. She'd want to be here."
Jason seemed to be warring with himself. But a quick nod showed that he got it even if he didn't like it. "I'll get her. You get coffee ready for her when she comes down."
With that, he turned around and headed for the building again.
Zack whistled low. "You lucked out man, he looked ready to beat the shit out of you."
Edward pulled at his collar and swallowed hard. He sent Kimberly a grateful look. "I know."
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April 22, 2002 – 11:14 a.m. Berlin Time
ISS Warsaw Headquarters – Dr. Trini Kwan's Quarters
Warsaw Poland
Jason stood there for a second and watched her. She was beautiful when she slept. Curled on her side, she appeared completely oblivious of everything else in the world. He wished to hell he could allow her more time in the wonderful world of dreams.
"Trini?" He shook her gently by the shoulder and hoped to god that she doesn't wake up swinging as she did once on a camping trip, back when they were kids. He remembered wearing a black eye for days after that. "Trini, time to wake up."
She groaned softly and stretched out under the sheets like a lazy cat. Jason smiled as she moved luxuriously and slowly surface to the harsh waking world.
"Good morning, Beautiful."
Trini blinked at him slowly. Her mind has yet to waken enough for her to remember anything. It took a moment. Took a long moment for her to remember who it was. Another moment for where they were. And a second for the memories of the night before to come flooding back too quickly for her to avoid the blush that bloomed on her cheeks. "Hi." Smooth, Trini, real smooth.
His grin was wide as he climbed back into the bed with her, caging her between his arms. "Hi yourself. How do you feel?"
"Bad." She groaned as she stretched again. "You're awfully playful this early in the morning."
"Not so early anymore. It's a little past eleven"
She reacted as if he had just stuck her and tried to get up from underneath him but he wasn't having any of that. "Jason, I have to get up."
"I know, take it easy." He held her still for a moment. "You have plenty of time to do that."
"Jas….." He stopped the words with his lips, swallowing the protest. She moaned under his mouth and their tongued dueled for control.
When he finally came up for breath, he felt as if the whole world could go to hell in a hand basket and he won't care. Right here, right now, everything was perfect. "I love you."
She was stunned. Having him turn into a one eyed, one horn, flying purple people eater right then and there would not have staggered her as badly as those three little words. "What?"
His eyes held amusement as he grinned at her. "Man, I'm glad the boys as the science institution can't see that blank look on your face. They'd demand their Nobel Prize back!" He backed up and started to get up but she grabbed him by the arm.
"Jason! You can't just say that and decide to get up and get dressed."
"Trini," He looked at her with a big grin on his face. "I didn't say it to get you all hot and bothered. I said it cause it's how I feel. I wanted you to know. I love you and that's it. No strings attached." He got up while she followed him with her still befuddled eyes. "You might want to get dressed. The science team is a little edgy without you around. They're down stairs waiting for you to take a look at some analysis stuff you had them do and they have the body all ready for you to look at."
"Jason?"
He turned back to her, still stunned, still on the bed. "Yes?"
"Why?"
He frowned. "Why what?"
"Why do you think you love me?"
"I don't think, I know." He leaned over the side and kissed her on the tip of her nose. "I've known for years."
She looked at him with shielded eyes now. "When?"
"Since the day I got on the plane to London to try to talk you out doing that whole virus experiment." He looked at her amused. She was looking at him as if he'd just grown another head. "What?"
She shook her head as if trying to clear it, or at least knock some things into place. "But you were the only one that supported me. You said that you wanted me to go. That you know how important and….. you supported me!"
"Yeah, I know." He held her hands. "I supported you."
"But you just said….." Her brilliant mind was going into melt down. Nothing was making sense to her now.
"Trini," he looked her in the eye, seeing the struggle there. "I got on that plane ready to give you a thousand different reasons why I think you shouldn't go. Most of it was going to be bull, but I was going to try it anyways. I was going to counter anything you threw at me. And I kept thinking and thinking and thinking. I had a lot of time on that 14 hour plane ride to think." He touched her soft face. That same beautiful face that kept him from going out his mind so many years before. "I could think of all the reason for you to do that experiment, all the good, right, selfless reasons that you were going to give me. You are the most generous, most giving person I know. I only had one real good reason why I didn't want you to do it. It was that I loved you and I didn't want to lose you. It was selfish but it was true."
Her eyes were teary now.
Jason kissed those brown watery eyes tenderly. "My grandmother once told me that to really love someone—truly love them—you have to love them unconditionally. My grandmother was a wise and wonderful woman. I knew if I loved you, I would love you for everything you are. I would support you no matter what. No matter how dangerous or how much it hurt me. And I love you. I wanted to support you. You will never know how much it hurt me to watch that door close with you on the other side of it. I wanted to lock myself in there with you, to keep you from doing anything that was dangerous."
Trini was crying now. Her eyes were so full of pain and happiness. "Oh Jason, you have no idea how close you came to talking me out of it that night. Just you being there made me hesitate. I wanted to stay with you so bad." The tears trickled down her cheeks and he wiped them away with his thumb. "What the hell took you so long anyways?"
He laughed and kissed her salty tears away. "Am I to take that as an admission of your affections toward me?"
"Yeah, you idiot." She kissed him long and hard, pouring all her emotions into it. "I love you."