Tommy met Jase in the Gym where the bigger man was having a little trouble finding the upper ranges of what his strength was becoming. It wasn't that he was suddenly lifting tanks or anything; it was more of a case of him no longer having accurate benchmarks for optimum resistance. He leaned against the door and chuckled before saying, "You look frustrated Bro." Then smiling, he added, "Of course there's also that ah….ummm… how should I put this, Uh… grin on your face this morning when you came to breakfast."

"I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about," Jason lied through his teeth. Looking down at the resistance set on the machine he was using he started cursing.

"You're mom hear you use that kind of language, she'd turn you over her knee," Tommy chided his old friend.

Jason smirked back at him, "Then we wont tell her will we."

"What's it worth to you?"

"Depends on what you want," Jason replied as he started stacking fifty- pound plates onto the barbell.

Tommy smiled and went over and sat on the weight bench under the barbell, "How 'bout some brotherly information?"

"On?" Jason asked as he tightened the clamps down to hold the weights on the bar. Before Tommy could reply, he shooed him from the bench and lay down under the bar. Tommy did some quick calculations and realized that the first Red Ranger was attempting to bench press nearly six hundred pounds.

"Oh, I don't know. How about how things went last night with you and Billy?" Tommy said. "Did you two reach some kind of understanding?"

Jase lifted the weight from barbell and brought it down to his chest. Looking over at Tommy he said, "You could say that."

For a few moments Tommy watched as Jason went through ten reps, and a fine sheen of sweat slowly appeared on the team leader. When he set the bar down, Tommy asked, "You going to say any more than that?" He smiled, "Look Bro, I'm not trying to pry. I'm just trying to make sure two of closest friends are getting their heads out of their collective asses."

Jason grinned over at him as he put another hundred pounds on the bar. "What do you want to know, Tom?"

"Are you two going to at least give each other a chance again?" Tommy asked as he watched Jason once again lay down on the bench.

Grabbing the bar Jase lifted it and went through ten more reps without saying a word. Finally when he finished he sat up and casually handed Tommy the bar. "Here hold this." Without thinking, Tommy took the barbell and sat it down behind on one of the stands. Then realizing what he just did, he turned back and looked at the weights, mouth agape. When he looked back, Jase said, "Close your mouth Bro."

Looking down, at his hands in astonishment, Tommy flexed his fingers, and wondered just what it was Billy had done to them. Finally he returned his gaze to where Jase was smiling hugely and asked, "Well?"

"Are you two going to give each other a chance?" Tommy put his hands on his hips.

"Oh, yeah," Jase said distractedly. "Why wouldn't we?"

"Jason Lee Scott," Tommy began.

"Yes?"

"I think I'm going to kick your ass," Tommy told him. "Just on principle."

Jason smiled at him and shrugged, "Okay, you can give it a shot."

"You're impossible to talk to, you know that." Tommy told him.

"Me? Impossible? Never!" Jason replied. "I'm the perfect officer and a gentleman. The easiest person in the world to talk to." Then letting his face go serious, Jase put a hand on Tommy's shoulder. "Look, Billy and I talked. We're going to at least give each other a chance. There were some misunderstandings a few years back, and we're going to try and work them out." He locked eyes with Tommy, "Are we a couple? Not yet." He sighed, "But we're trying to see if we can become one. More than that, I can't say." Sitting down on the bench, he wiped his face with a towel, "Look, I hurt Billy pretty bad. It's going to take a while for him trust me again. He said some things last night that made me realize just how deep things went between us before I walked out. I've got a lot to make up for. So does he, and we both realize it."

"As long as you're trying Bro." Tommy said.

Jase laughed, "We're trying. However, to be honest, your reaction to all this is sort of surprising."

"Oh?" Tommy asked.

Jason shrugged, "I at least thought you'd be a little uncomfortable to find out that my feelings for Billy went deeper than just friends."

"Nah," Tommy shook his head, "doesn't bother me," He took a deep breath, "Look Jase, it's not like you're some limp wrested dancer in San Francisco, or Midtown Atlanta. You're a fighter pilot for God's sake. I have no reason to question your masculinity at all." He smiled, "Your intelligence sometimes, but not your manhood."

Jase looked at him funny, "Where'd that come from?"

Tommy smiled, "Something T.J. said to me right after that Serpentera incident when Kat hinted that yours and Billy's estrangement might have been more than just two Bro's having an argument."

"What did he say?" Jase asked.

Tommy chuckled, "That you couldn't be gay, that you were the Red Ranger."

Jason laughed, "What does that have to do with it?"

Tommy shrugged, "I don't know. For that answer we'd have to psychoanalyze T.J. Not something I really want to do. He just didn't think you acted gay."

Jason looked at him, "What's THAT supposed to mean?"

"Hell if I know. Maybe he thought you should run around with a purse and keep your wrist limp." Tommy told him and both men laughed. After a few moments, Tommy said. "Look Bro, some of us were going over to try and get to know Billy's new friends, the Commander and his sister."

Jason smiled at him, "Which one are you reconnoitering?"

"Hey it's nothing like that. They're Billy's friends, and if they're the kind of people who Billy trusts enough to tell about us being Power Rangers, then they're worth knowing," Tommy protested.

"Yeah, but which one are you going to meet first?" Jase asked. Tommy knew that his old friend knew that it was a case of both scenarios.

"Commander Storm," Tommy grinned at him.




"Do you really think this is a good idea, Kimberly?" Aisha asked. When the first Pink Ranger had come to her about the idea of trying to get to know Mic Storm a little better, she thought it would be a good idea. Now as she, Rocky, Adam, Kim and Trini were entering the 'Tech bay, she wasn't so sure. She realized that together, they might all be more like an interrogation squad than an overture to friendship.

"Of course it's a good idea." The petit woman smiled, "All of my ideas are good ideas at the time I come up with them."

"Yeah, it's not until you try to put them into place do they fall apart," Trini teased her friend.

Kim stuck her tongue out at Trini and said, "Besides, if we're going to be working close with these guys, we need to get to know them better," As the doors to the 'Tech bay slid open, the strains of Holst's: The Planets came drifting through the elevator doors.

Rocky smiled, "You could always invite her shopping."

"Talk first," Kim said. "Shopping later."

Adam gave her a strange look, "Yeah shopping's a bondage… I mean bonding experience for you, isn't it Kim."

Kim smiled at her husband as they strode across the bay floor looking for their quarry, "Just for that mister, you're going with us next time we go." She grinned wickedly and added, "Just to carry the packages."

"You're doomed, Bro," Rocky said.

"Don't get too cocky, Rocko," Aisha warned. "You can go too."

Rocky looked at his old friend with hurt in his voice and mischief in his eyes, "You had to go and do it didn't Bro. You had to make her mad. Now we BOTH are in fire."
"Mad?" Adam asked. "She was already insane!" The dark-haired man protested with a line from one of his favorite movies.

"Who's insane?" Ms. Storm's voice came from under one of the 'Techs.

Kim leaned down and looked under the 'Tech where a pair of shoes seemed to be floating a few inches above the ground. Looking closer, Kim could see where the woman was connected to a harness that suspended her from the underside of the 'Tech to make it more comfortable to work on the craft. "My husband. He doesn't like shopping. Especially when he has to carry the packages."

"Well, if you have a husband that's okay I guess. Otherwise, I'm stuck using my brother and Bill."

Kim raised an eyebrow, "You can get Billy to go shopping with you?"

The woman shoved herself out from under the 'Tech. "Yeah, it's not hard, as long as you're willing to add an hour or so in a computer store." She shrugged, "And I like computer stores."

Kim smiled, "I'll have to try that some time. I've only ever gotten him to go shopping with me a few times. He never seems to get into it very much."

Mic smiled at her, and offered her hand, "You must be Kim."

Kim smiled back and took the hand, grinning as she squealed slightly in delight, "How'd you guess?"

"Shopping," Mic said. "Dead give away. Besides, Bill said you were a pretty little brunette." She grinned, again, "But I'll let you in on a little secret about Bill and shopping." Rocky and Adam looked at each other closely, wondering if some great mystery of the female mind was about to be revealed. After all, most of the women present seemed to be ignoring them. If they played their cards right, not only might they learn something, they may actually get out of the threatened shopping trip.

"What?" Kimberly asked.

"Bill said that for some reason, you always wanted to go shopping for hats. He never could figure out why some one as pretty as you, would want to cover half their faces with a hat."

Kim just looked over at her husband and Rocky, "You two taking notes?" Rocky and Adam just nodded in agreement. Fools they may occasionally be, idiots they weren't.

Mic just looked at the group around her and smiled, "Let me guess? You're either the Welcome Wagon, or here to find out if I've been corrupting Bill."

"Nothing like that, Ms. Storm," Trini offered. "Actually we just wanted to get to know you better. Billy spoke rather highly of you, and anyone who earns his respect is someone I'd like to know."

Mic smiled at her, "Now I can see why you're the diplomat." She sighed, "All right, let's get to know each other. First off, let's drop the Ms. Storm. Just call me Mic or McKenzie. If you call Ms. Storm, I tend to look around for a business suit, and for the most part, I don't like business suits."

Trini raised an eyebrow, "That's surprising. Considering that Storm Avionics has a reputation for being a rock solid corporation, that almost never loses a contract to its competitors."

Mic smiled, wiped her hands on a rag from the toolbox and said, "I never said I wasn't good at business, just that I don't like it." She sighed, "If I could talk that overgrown red white and blue school boy of brother of mine to stop playing fly-boy for the Navy, I could turn the business part of the company over to him and get back to my engines." Putting the rag down, she said, "How 'bout I buy you a late lunch and we can talk."

Aisha looked down at her watch and realized it was past three and she'd not eaten since breakfast, almost ten hours ago. Smiling she said, "You're on. Suddenly I'm starving."

"It's the 'Tech fuel, it makes everybody hungry."

"But the 'Techs don't use conventional aircraft fuel," Trini protested. Aisha remembered the first Yellow Ranger telling her that these craft used stored electrical energy to charge a magnetic grid that pushed against the Earth's magnetic field.

"True, but they don't, but there's nothing to say that the magnetic fields given off by the coils won't make you hungry," Mic replied. Trini looked unconvinced.

Rocky however nodded quickly in agreement. "Make sense to me."

Aisha gently elbowed her husband in the ribs. "You'd agree with anything that would justify you eating."

Rocky smiled, "Your point is, 'Sha?"

Aisha smiled at her husband, "No point love. Just an observation."

"And a true one at that," Adam volunteered. "I'm afraid your reputation precedes you, Bro."

Mic smiled at the interplay, "Or- and I'm not kidding here- it could be your metabolism still adjusting to the proto-phyre treatments. It took Bill months to adjust to it, and he was not a happy camper about it. I spent more than one evening holding his head while he was puking in the toilet. Luckily we isolated his difficulty and compensated for it."

Adam suddenly looked worried, "Uh, we're not going to have that kind of problem are we?"

Mic looked at him, "You don't happen to have particles of physically impossible matter encapsulated by remnants of the Great Power in your cells do you?"

"Huh?" Rocky asked.

Trini smiled, "She says, that Adam wasn't exposed to negative protons, that were kept from blowing Billy to atoms by the what was left of the Great Power from Phaedos."

Mic smiled at the Asian woman and pumped her fist in triumph, "Yes! A fellow geek-speaker!" She winked at Trini, "Bill was right! You ARE one special lady."

"So you're saying that even with the new discoveries, Billy still had difficulties taking the Power."

"Difficulties no." Mic told them, "However I can honestly say, it's something he'll never have to endure again, and any residual damage caused by his overactive desire to protect his friends while he was a the Blue Ranger will no longer cause him difficulty." Aisha got the feeling that embedded somewhere in that statement was mild rebuke. She was unsure as to who was being rebuked, but it was there.

"Yeah," Kim smiled as they all entered the elevator, "He had a tendency to hide his injuries. I think he was trying to prove that he was as strong as the rest of us."

"No," Mic said. "To borrow a line from Alfred, he'd just decided that gentleman doesn't discuss his ailments." She shook her head, "I think it has something do with right after his mother died."

Trini smiled, "He was always like that. He didn't want anyone else to know if he was having problems. He had," she corrected herself, " or HAS a rather strong sense of pride, and didn't want to appear as weak."

Mic laughed, "There's a lot of words, I'd use to describe Bill, and weak is NOT one of them. He's bright- no he's brilliant, funny, handsome, dedicated, and a loyal friend. He's not weak." Aisha slowly began to realize that Billy's two groups of friends were beginning to compete with each other, to see who was the most loyal to him. It spoke volumes of the man's character and made her own worries about his being an Army officer ease somewhat.

Adam just chuckled, leaned back in his chair and T-d his hands together, "Time out ladies."

All of the women turned to face him. "Yes, oh he who thinks he's brave enough to referee?" Kim asked.

"Look, we all like Billy. Do we really have to get into this contest on who likes him the best?" He smiled, "I know men get accused of competing over too many things but," he looked over at Rocky, "Rocko and I here are drowning in estrogen."

Mic leaned across the table at Kim, "You married him?"

Kim nodded, "I guess I'm guilty."

Mic smiled, "You're a braver woman than I. He's just a little too smart to be male. He could figure out too many of our feminine secrets." She gave Kim Aisha and Trini a conspiratorial look. "You girls did hide the manuals didn't you?"





Tommy stuck his head into the door to the Med bay. A short woman wearing a nurse's uniform and with graying hair looked up at him, "Can I help you, Mr. Oliver?"

Tommy smiled at her, "We were just looking for Commander Storm," he replied.

The woman smiled, "Doctor Storm is in his office." She pointed toward a door on the other side of the room. Nodding her head toward it, she said, "Go on back. He probably needs a break from the paperwork."

"Bad?" Zack asked.

The woman smiled, "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

Zack smiled, "Then it's our duty as Rangers to save the poor man from a fate worse than death." He looked back at Jason and Kat, "Are you with me?"

Jason grinned at the unflappable diplomat. "Lead on D'Artagnon."

Zack grinned over at Tommy, "Cover me, I'm going in." Before anyone else could say anything, the Black Ranger did a shoulder roll across the floor of the Med Bay came up to his feet at the door, straightened his shirt and knocked politely. Tommy couldn't help but grin at his old friend's antics as he, Jase, and Kat sheepishly walked across the floor hoping nobody else saw what happened.

Kat took Tommy by the arm and asked, "Is he always this way?"

Before Tommy could reply, Jase said, "You have no idea. Actually this is calmer than he used to be." He winked at Tommy, "I think Trini's wearing off on him."

Tommy laughed, "Or wearing him out."

Zack turned and looked at both of them, "Hey, that' my wife you're talking about."

Before anyone could reply, Doctor Storm's voice said from the other side of the door, "Come."

Zack opened the door with a dramatic flair and said, "Never fear, Zack his here to rescue you, my dear doc…" Suddenly Zack was speechless, stopping in mid-sentence. Then entering the office, he walked across the room to stare at a life-sized portrait of Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman. Tommy noted that it was signed about mid thigh: To my favorite fan, from Lynda. "Cool!" Turning to Jase Zack said, "I knew I liked this man."

Tommy noticed the doctor blushing from his desk. "Does he always burst into rooms like that?"

"Only when he's hyper," Jase said. Then he teased his old friend, "Which is about ninety percent of the time." Then nodding over toward the picture, "Although I tend to agree with him. Where did you get that?"

The doctor smiled and blushed again, "From my sister. She got to meet the lady in Washington and actually managed to con her into signing it for me. She gave it to me for my birthday last month, and I haven't found a place to put it yet." He shook his head, "You have no idea how much ribbing I take from Bill about it. Although he did offer to trade me signed photos of BOTH Pink Rangers for it."

"I'm not sure how to take that," Kat said. "I mean, two of us aren't worth one of her?"

"My dear lady," Ben said. "It all has to do with what generation you grew up in. You're the Wonder Women of this generation."

"Good save," Tommy told the man.

Ben smiled and nodded, "I've had lots of practice. When it comes to my hobby, the only person who loves to tease me more about it than Bill is Mic. The only difference is that he's kidding, she's vicious." He laughed and gestured toward the poster, "But she makes up for it with things like this. When we were kids, we had one television and competing shows on at the same time. I was older, so I got to pick."

"That hardly seems fair," Kat protested.

"Mrs. Oliver, when it comes to Wonder Woman, Battlestar Galactica can't compete."

"See?" Zack said, "I told you this man was cool."

"But Zack, you used to get mad at Billy for picking Battlestar Galactica apart for you," Jason protested.

"Yeah, but at least he knows about it." Then looking the poster up and down, "Besides, she's got something a little more interesting than Starbuck and Apollo."

Jason smiled, "You didn't think so back then."

"Back then I was ten." He looked at the picture again, "Now, unlike some people, I can appreciate the female form."

"Hey, I can appreciate it," Jason protested. "I just don't feel like drooling over it."

Zack waved a dismissive hand at him, "I know, I know." He turned to Commander Storm, "Hey Doc, we're here to torment you. The only way to get rid of us is to go to lunch with us."

Commander Storm looked over toward Tommy for help, "Don't look at me Doc. It was my idea."

"And to think I used to pull for you at Talladega?" the Doctor protested.

"You went to Talladega?" Tommy asked.

"After I met Bill, Mic and I went every year with him," the doctor replied. Tommy had no idea that Billy would be willing to fly across country just to see him race. "We'd always make sure we had some leave scheduled at that time. The only year we missed was the year he was in Baghdad."

"So you coming to lunch or not?" Jase asked.

Tommy watched for a long moment as the Doctor sized Jason up. He wondered what was going on in both men's head. Somehow, he got the feeling that it wasn't a case of jealousy- at least not on the Doctor's part- there was a wedding picture of him and a blonde sitting on the desk. Finally, he looked at his watch and said, "Sure. Just give me a minute to put this file away."

Five minutes later, the five of them came walking into the commissary only to see the rest of their friends sitting down at a table. Tommy noted with some dismay that Billy was not among them. "Hey guys!" Kim called from across the room. "Over here." Without a word, Kim and the others pulled a second table over so they could all sit together.

On the whole it was a pleasant meal, and Rangers got to know a little bit more about Billy's new friends. Tommy felt much better about the people he knew would become part of his professional, and possibly personal life as they battled for Earth's survival against the Dragons.

Toward the end of the meal, Tommy looked up to see a rather upset looking Billy heading past the commissary. "I wonder where he's going?" Tommy asked.

"Oh this is not good," Kim and Mic said simultaneously. Both women looked across the table at each other and smiled wryly. A silent agreement was reached between the two. Kim stood, kissed her husband quickly and said, "I'll go."

Mic tossed her something. Tommy was surprised to see it was an updated version of their old communicators. "Take mine. It's got a tracker in it."

Kim smiled, and said, "Thanks," before disappearing in a column of Pink light."