Title: Later
Ship: Kim x Adam
Chapters: 1-1||Words:: 1,758
Genre: Romance, Drama||Rated: G
Summary: Kim's husband is with her in her final hour.
She doesn't look her age. She doesn't look as if she is eighty-nine. But as I sit here with my hand in hers, I look back on the nearly six decades we had together, and I remember what it was like when we were teenagers. That seems so long ago now. So very long ago.
Her white hair was brown then, and her eyes which are now filmed with silver sparkled with a life that time and tragedy has not even considered dimming. We have had a great deal of tragedy. With it has come joy as well, and it has been that joy that kept us together and in love all of these years.
Her name is Kimberly. Kim. Kimmie. I've called her all of those over the years. But there were other names as well. Friend. Almost-sister. Pink Ranger. Beloved. Lover. Wife. When we first met, I had no idea that I would one day spend the rest of my life with her. At that time, she was dating Tommy Oliver, who became one of my best friends, as well as being the leader of the Power Rangers.
She left before I did, however. She went to Florida and blossomed. Getting out of Angel Grove made her grow in ways that I could never have imagined when she left. She fell in love with a young man there, John Tappen. He was the one she spoke about when she wrote that break-up letter to Tommy.
I will never forget the look in Tommy's eyes when he read that. I was convinced at that moment the man would never love again. Thank goodness I was wrong about that. Thank everything he never harbored any resentment against me when Kim and I began to date. He could have easily cleaned up the floor with me if he'd really wanted to. I saw on a daily basis just how good he was, and I never really wanted to see it turned against me.
She's moving a little. Just a little, but she isn't waking up. Dr. Cranston already said she wouldn't wake up again, not on Earth, at any rate. In the afterlife, perhaps. I've thought a lot about what comes after death. I think we all have. In our former line of work, it was a natural topic of thought. I hope she waits for me there. I lived without her long enough when we were young. I don't really want to keep going much longer without her.
Unlike her, I'm disgustingly healthy. I shifted powers more times than she did, and the different forms of it coursing through me gave me a stronger body than most people. Only Tommy has changed powers more times, and he looks like he isn't a day over forty. Of course, that could also be the effect of him being a martial arts instructor even to this day. He can and has taken on young punks a fourth of his age and left them panting on the floor.
"Dad?" It's our son. Our firstborn son. As I look at him, I remember how I felt on the day that he was born. As if I could take on the universe and win, all by myself. "How is she?"
I smile a little. "In no pain. Dr. Cranston made certain of it."
"Good." His name is Tommy, named after her first love. There is no child named after her first husband, however. Kim and Johan married shortly after the events of Murianthus. They'd announced the engagement when Kim won the gold medal for gymnastics at the Pan-Globals. We all went, of course. All the former Rangers, all the active Rangers, everyone who had ever interacted with Kim in any fashion. I didn't recognize him at the time, but even Lord Zedd was there. He was in disguise though. The disguise that is his real face now.
It was two years before we found out what was really going on in what looked to be one of the happiest marriages on the planet. John wasn't a wife-beater. Kim would have torn him a new orifice, to paraphrase in Billy-speak, in under a minute. No, he was lazy to the core. He refused to work to support them, he refused to do anything but sit on his laurels, having won the gold at the Pan-Globals for his own events, and leave Kim to work three different jobs so he could suck up the money.
We didn't find out until Kim finally dumped him and came back to Angel Grove. That was the first night that we spent together, just the two of us. I met her at the airport. I was the only one she'd told about her return, and I'd made special arrangements to meet her. Around then, I wasn't dating anyone. The girl I'd been seeing had broken up with me a couple of months earlier. We'd been going out for a while, but in the end, the relationship really just didn't work out the way that we'd both hoped it would.
Kim and I talked for hours that night. Hours and hours, until we fell asleep in each other's arms. Nothing physical had happened, not right then, anyway. Once Kim's divorce was finalized and she had put herself back together in Angel Grove, then things began to change.
Speaking of change, by then the non-Ranger world, and the Ranger world, had really undergone a makeover. Andros, the Red Astro Ranger, had killed Zordon, by our old mentor's own will, and the power that had swept over the cosmos had healed or destroyed every last being of evil. It was that energy, when it touched Kimberly, that gave her the strength of mind and will to leave her husband go back to where she had truly been happy. I hesitate to say 'back to me', since at the time I had no feelings other than true friendship for her. But that did set off the chain of events that led to our marriage.
Others are coming in. My friends, our friends, children and grandchildren, the offspring of our friends. So many couples formed from the various teams over the years. Even the Astro Rangers are here, since Kim and Cassie grew very close after Zordon's death. Cassie's granddaughter and our youngest grandson are dating. They look to be about as happy as Kim and I have been.
My mind draws me back in time briefly. It is said that the very old live more in the past than they do in the present, and perhaps that's true. The past is wonderful. After that first night, Kim and I began dating. It was amazing. We'd never thought of each other as romantic material, until it began to happen. Time spun by faster and faster, until we were in love before we had a chance to really notice.
It was on Billy and Trini's wedding day when it happened. After Zordon's death, Billy had also returned to Angel Grove. He didn't speak of what had happened with Cestria, but we all received the impression that it had been a gentle breakup, with only the smallest amounts of pain on either side. A year after his return, he and Trini had crossed paths, and almost at once sparks had flown. It had taken less than another year for them to get married.
We were at the reception together, and I couldn't hold back for another moment. I'd asked advice from everyone, and they had all told me to just go ahead and do it. Tommy went so far as to tell me that if I didn't ask her to marry me, he was going to inflict severe bodily damage on me.
"Everyone," I had cleared my throat quickly and firmly, my hand wrapped around a box in my pocket. "Everyone, may I please have your attention?" As everyone looked at me, I looked at Kim. "As you all know, Kim and I have been dating for a while now, and I'd like to ask her something."
She was staring at me as if I'd lost my mind. I went down on one knee and held the box out to her, lid lifted to display the diamond ring inside. "Will you marry me, Kim?"
If she'd hesitated even for a moment, I think my heart would've stopped. She didn't, however. She simply nodded eagerly, then hugged and kissed me, and I kissed back.
"For better or for worse," I hold her withered hand gently, and a tear drops onto the ring still there. In all of these years, it has never left her hand for even a moment. "In sickness and in health, until death do us part. And now we're parting."
A hand lands on my shoulder, and I look up into the eyes of my best friend. We did everything together. We learned karate and kung-fu together, we learned the Rangers' identities together, we joined the Rangers together. She left the team before I did, though. I smile at Aisha Taylor. She and Zack look fantastic. Not as young as some of the rest of us look, but well enough. "Are you all right?"
I can't find the words to answer that, and I just look back at Kim. Her eyes are open. Against all medical knowledge and all reason, her eyes are open. They are warm, alive, and aware, just as they were on the day that we first met. She looks at me. "I love you." Her fingers tighten on mine for a moment. "Good-bye."
"Not good-bye," I tell her softly. "Just see you later. I love you, too."
She lifts her other hand, brushes it across my face gently one last time, then it falls. She takes no more breaths.
Many days later, after the funeral is over, I stare down at the small bronze plaque that marks her resting place for now. In time, a proper gravestone will rest here. One day, I will sleep here too. With her in death as we were together so often in life. I feel no more sorrow. I know she's waiting for me. I love her, and she loves me. We'll be together again one day.
Slowly I touch the plaque. "See you soon, Kim." I trace the words written there with my fingertips, and I don't wipe away the tear that falls onto them.
Kimberly Ann Hart Tappen Park
Beloved Wife
Beloved Mother
She lived her life well. February 14, 1978-December 6, 2067.
The End
