Note: Jumping forward in time, this tells about how secrets have a habit of eventually being revealed. :) And how some things just run in the family ... please leave feedback on the way out, as usual? CR/DB
Seasons To Remember
Chapter 11: Like Fathers, Like Sons
"Anyone for a refill?" Kat asked as she began collecting coffee cups from the table.
"Don't do that, Mom; I'll ...." Lynne said as she began to get up from her seat.
"Rest, hon," Tommy advised. "After all, you're the one with the new baby. Kat and I know our way around your kitchen."
"Thanks," Lynne sighed gratefully.
Tommy and Kat took the requests for refills and headed for the kitchen.
As Kat put a fresh pot of coffee on to brew, she said to Tommy, "Remembering the Red Ranger mission to the moon makes me wonder if the boys ever experienced extraterrestrial travel."
"It wouldn't surprise me," Tommy replied as he sliced some more nutroll and filled the dessert plate with more cookies. "I guess you could say that was one of the perks of being a Ranger. We got to see some pretty awesome sights. We didn't exactly have time for sightseeing on that mission, but I can still remember standing on the moon and seeing the earth so blue and beautiful filling up the sky ...."
"Jason often spoke of that, too," Kat recalled fondly. "He was so proud that Oliver was chosen to follow in his footsteps – even if he could never tell him so. I think I was more scared than proud; I worried so every time I heard their communicators go off. They were so young ... only seventeen ...."
"We were even younger than that when we were first recruited," Tommy reminded her. "I was sixteen when I first became the Green Ranger – the same with Jason and the others. We barely had our driver's licenses, and we were piloting vehicles more sophisticated than anything NASA every put up."
"Do you remember when we first learned for certain the boys were Rangers?" Kat queried.
"Yeah, it was the summer before Jason died," Tommy said with a wistful smile. "We were all over at the house; I had that barbeque when Caroline and Adrian came for their annual visit. All our parents were there, except for Kim's father ..."
~*~
"Well, Bro, I gotta hand it to you; you pulled it off without burning the house down," Jason announced as he sat back, sipping his soda in post-prandial bliss.
"Hey, we haven't needed a fire extinguisher at my cookouts in years," Tommy pouted.
"Face it, Handsome, you're never going to live down the fire of '08," Kim teased her husband.
"It was enough to make me regret giving you the grill," Tommy's father interjected.
"Look who's talking, Thomas," Janice Oliver snorted.
"Aren't you on a first-name basis with the entire Angel Grove Fire Department?" Helen Scott added, to the amusement of all.
"How long will you be in the States?" Doris queried of Kim's mother.
"We'll be flying back at the end of the week," Caroline answered.
"Hey, do any of you bottomless pits want another burger?" Tommy asked the kids, who were congregated at their own table.
Lynne and Trini declined. Jay and Oliver were undecided, but Jared accepted wholeheartedly.
All of a sudden, a familiar chiming filled the air. Four adults snapped to attention, pulses quickening, senses alert. However, it was two teenagers who were the most obviously disturbed by the alarm. Jay and Oliver traded worried looks and all but jumped out of their seats.
"What is that noise?" Trini demanded with a touch of exasperation. "I always hear it –day and night. Is it some kind of alarm?"
"Hey, that watch you're wearing," Lynne realized, grabbing her brother's wrist. Oliver tried to jerk it away, but his sister held it fast. "It looks like the science fair project Rachel showed me."
Rachel Cranston had inherited all of her father's intelligence.
"It's a kind of pager," Oliver hedged uncomfortably.
"I don't see why Rachel gave all you guys those neat watches and didn't give one to me an' Lynne," Trini huffed.
"These are the – uh – experimental models; she's waiting until she gets 'em right before she gives you one, Squirt," Jay fibbed smoothly.
"So, who's paging you?" Kim asked, doing her best not to let her knowing grin show.
"Ramon," Oliver piped up.
"We promised to help him with his car," Jay added.
"Then you'd better get going," Jason suggested.
"Bring Ramon by when you're done," Tommy added.
"Will do!" With a wave, the boys dashed off.
"Trying to get rid of the leftovers?" Kim snickered under her breath. Among other things, Ramon had inherited the DeSantos appetite.
"He's Rocky's boy all right," Kat said with a smile.
"What is it with those two?" Trini wondered.
"I know what you mean; they've sure been acting weird lately," Lynne agreed.
"Like father, like son," John Scott remarked sagely.
"Didn't Rachel's father give you all some sort of pager when you were the kids' age?" Janice asked.
"We'd hear that beep beep beep-beep beep beep and you'd be off like a shot," Caroline added.
"I see the boys are going through the same phase you did," Helen remarked, eyeing her son meaningfully.
"Which phase was that?" Robert wondered.
"The mono-color clothing phase," Helen elaborated. "Before he went to Geneva, Jason developed a liking for red clothes. After he returned, he had a thing for black."
"Oh, yes. Katherine just had to have pink," Doris commented.
"As did Kimberly," Caroline said.
"Tommy couldn't seem to make up his mind," Janice offered. "He went from green to white to red."
The quartet said nothing; they just traded knowing glances and secretive smiles.
"What was that all about anyway?" Robert asked point blank.
Each former Ranger shifted uneasily in his or her seat. It had been a long time ... Their mentor was gone, but old habits died hard.
"You mean you never figured it out?" Thomas spoke up.
"And you did?" Jan challenged him.
"I thought it was pretty obvious," Tommy's dad went on.
Four pairs of eyes widened with anxiety. Was their secret about to be revealed?
"Think about it. They all started being color-specific about the time the Power Rangers showed up, right?"
"If I remember correctly, yes," Helen confirmed.
"You know how kids look up to movies stars, rock singers and famous athletes – always putting up posters, buying merchandise, wearing t-shirts and the like. The kids were just trying to find a way to emulate their favorite Power Rangers," Thomas concluded.
The retired Rangers heaved silent sighs of relief.
"Makes sense," John agreed, "but why be so secretive about it?"
"I think being secretive is just a part of being a teenager," Robert said.
The elder generation moved on to another topic without any input from their offspring, satisfied with the conclusions they had drawn. But their once-secretive teenagers continued to converse in low tones.
"That was close," Kat murmured.
"The kids may be acting and dressing like we used to, but can we be sure they're the new generation of Rangers?" Tommy put forth.
"Actually, this is the first time I've ever heard their communicators go off," Jason said.
"I'm sure," Kim asserted. The others looked to her, surprised by her certainty. "Let's just say that something very interesting fell out of Jay's backpack the other day – a very familiar something."
"Oh?" Tommy prompted, but his wife didn't respond. She cast an expectant glance back towards the house.
"So what color do you think the boys are?" Jason asked.
"Oliver is black," Kat said with certainty. "I've seen an unusual amount of black in his laundry basket of late."
"Jay must be red; the other day, he asked to borrow one of my old red shirts," Tommy remarked.
"I wonder who the other three are," Kat mused.
"Which of the other Rangers' kids are about the boys' ages?" Kim queried.
"Surely not Billy's girl; she's too young. Rachel's what – thirteen?" Jason discounted.
"Justin was eleven, going on twelve when he first received the blue Turbo Powers," Kat reminded him.
"Plus, she's been favoring blue a lot lately," Kim added. "I bet Ashala is the Pink Ranger."
Ashala Taylor was Zack and Aisha's eldest child.
"My money's on Ramon for the Yellow Ranger," Tommy concluded. Rocky's son was the obvious choice since the Parks were still living on the east coast. Although, Jasmine would have been a good Ranger, too. The same could be said for Sloan, Jasmine's elder brother by two years. Ramon's older sisters – Sophia, Carmen and the twins Marissa and Melissa – could have also been selected, but the girls were away at school now.
"Haven't the Yellow Rangers always been female?" Kat asked.
"So far, but Pink's the only uniform that's always had a skirt," Jason essayed. "Neither Trini's nor Aisha's uniforms had it, so yellow could have gone to a guy as well."
Kim was about to offer a comment when she heard the front door slam. She rose from her seat.
"That'll be Jay," she said knowingly.
"Did he forget something?" Tommy wondered.
"Let's just say that this'll teach him not to leave his things lying around the house." With that, she headed in through the kitchen door.
She was halfway up the stairs when she heard the frantic cry of "MOM!"
Kim kept her pace sedate as she headed for her son's room. She paused briefly at her and Tommy's room to retrieve the missing item. Once at Jay's room, she stood in the doorway, watching him fling his belongings helter-skelter as he desperately searched.
"You will clean this up when you're done at Ramon's," she said sternly, announcing her presence.
"Mom!" Jay yelped breathlessly, startled.
"Yes ..."
"Have you seen ... well, it's kind of like a belt buckle ... with a gold coin in the center ..."
Kim did her best to hide her smile as her son fumbled over his description; Jay was doing his best to make his missing morpher seem like an innocent, everyday ordinary object.
"If you'd put your backpack away – like I've told you a hundred times – and not just toss it in the first convenient corner you find, you wouldn't lose things," she scolded as she threw him the 'belt buckle'.
A look of profound gratitude filled his face as he caught the all-important device.
"Thanks, Mom," he sighed with relief. As he bolted from the room, he paused to give her a peck on the cheek.
"You know, your backpack isn't the safest place to leave anything important, especially if you leave it unattended," she cautioned her child. Kim gave him a smile full of irony. "Trust me on this one."
"Mom?" Jay queried, pulling up short and glancing back at her, his eyes narrowing with suspicion. He wondered what she knew.
Kim met his skepticism with her most guileless expression. "You'd better get going; Oliver and Ramon are waiting."
"Right. I promise I'll clean this up later," Jay assured her as he raced off.
Kimberly waited until he was down the stairs and out the door before offering up this prayer:
"Please, Lord, keep my boy safe while he saves the world."
~*~
"I said that same prayer far too many times for my comfort," Kat murmured.
"Didn't we all," Tommy concurred. He found himself suddenly grateful that his folks had never known about his being a Ranger. He was glad they never worried about him the way he had about Jay.
"Do you think Scott will someday be called to be a Power Ranger?" the former Pink Ranger queried.
Tommy laughed. "Probably. Like father, like son."
"You mean, you guys knew all along I was a Power Ranger?"
Tommy and Kat turned to find Jay standing in the doorway, a look of complete astonishment on his face.
"Yes," Tommy answered.
"Just as Jason and I knew about Oliver," Kat added.
"... and Ramon and Rachel and Ashala," Tommy continued, ticking down the list of their friends.
"But how? What gave us away?" Jay asked, concerned and puzzled. After all, he and his friends had given their word ... "We tried to be so careful."
"You were, but it was pretty obvious if you knew what to look for," Kat replied. "Just little things: your clothes, the communicator, inexplicable comings and goings ..."
"But nobody else figured it out," Jay protested. While unsettled by the fact his secret was out, he was relieved to have the burden of secrecy lifted from his shoulders after so many years.
"Nobody else kicked monster tail when they were your age," Tommy said.
For long moments, Jay was silent, struggling to assimilate his father's bombshell.
"You mean, you guys were ... no way!"
"Didn't your mentor tell you the history of Earth's Power Rangers?" Kat asked patiently.
"Zarrah did, but she never mentioned their civilian identities," Jay confessed. Stunned, he regarded his father. "You and Aunt Kat really were Power Rangers?"
"As were your mother and Uncle Jason," Tommy confirmed.
"Mom?!?" That revelation was a little harder to digest. Granted, his mother was always tougher than she looked, but tiny, petite Kimberly Oliver ...?
"She could kick putty butt with the best of us," Tommy said fondly.
"Your mother was the reason I became a Ranger," Kat said.
"Oh wow!"
"Didn't you ever wonder why we never questioned you and just accepted your lame excuses at face value?" Tommy asked. "It wasn't because we were dense; it was because we knew how difficult it was to keep a secret that big and still be straight with your parents."
"Tommy, do you think we should finally tell the others?" Kat wondered. "They have a right to know, especially Lynne and Trini."
"We probably should so they're ready when the next generation is called
up."
To Be Continued ...