Billy sat back from his computer and stared at the screen in disbelief. All the data was there- including Cestro's warning from the Aquitian Rangers- it made sense, but it was still outstanding. If it was true- and he had no reason to believe it wasn't, he had just made the most profound discovery in human history, and that discovery was very likely to cost him and his friends their lives. If he did nothing about it, then there was a good chance that human civilization would be burnt back into the Stone Age. If he continued with the Rangers, then it was clear that several galactic civilizations would definitely bomb us back there. Billy was going to have to find another way to deal with the Draconics- killing them was no longer a viable option.

Quickly he dumped all his data onto a secure disk, pass-locked the computer so that only four people could access it, and considered his options. He had to get out and think about what he'd discovered, and what he'd been warned about by Cestro. Too much was happening now, and he needed to find his center. Leaving the lab, he headed down the hall, past the commissary. Reaching the end of the hall, he double checked the communicator on his wrist- it felt good to be wearing it again- set some coordinates and disappeared in a flash of blue light.

An instant later, he found himself sitting on the edge of Harper's Gorge, his knees pulled up against his chest, as he looked out over the vista below. The destruction of Los Angeles had had a profound effect on the local ecology. The air was much more moist now and the gap caused by the city's destruction was allowing that moisture to pass through to the desert and plains beyond. Much of that moisture was getting caught in the tricky winds the gap created and was swirling back to drop as rain to the south and the north. That was upsetting natural seasons of the desert as well as the forest area on this side of the mountains. He wondered what Harper's Gorge was going to look like in twenty years or so.

To be honest with himself, he realized he was using the fascinating scientific model it was setting up in his mind to avoid looking too closely to what he was feeling right now. He didn't like to feel- in the past, feeling usually meant pain to him, and he'd had more of that than he wanted. He knew what he really needed was to talk to someone- not someone, a specific someone- but he felt he no longer had the right to ask. He'd already upset her life too much by pulling her into this new team. Still he missed their talks, and wished he could find it in himself to ask her.

As if summoned by his melancholy thoughts, a voice came from behind him. "Penny for your thoughts?"

Billy chuckled and looked back to see Kim's petit form standing behind him. Smiling up at her, he shrugged, "What are you doing here?"

She smiled back at him, "Same thing as you," she said as she sat next to him at edge of the drop-off. "I needed to clear my head, and for some reason, this is a place I can think. Besides, we saw you head out of the Command Center like you'd just discovered that Zordon was really Lord Zed in disguise."

He smiled weakly and then looked back over at the gorge and to the lush vegetation below, "I know, it seems like it was so long ago when we used to camp out here." Refusing to rise to the bait, he couldn't help but smile, "Do you recall the weekend in eighth grade- what was it, a year before we got the Powers?- that we all came up here camping?"

She smiled at him, and he realized that she was willing to play the game for a while at least. "How could I forget? That was the weekend I think when we started to grow up. When we talked about what we wanted to do with our lives."

She looked over at him, "And whom we wanted to spend them with."

Billy sighed and steered the conversation away from sensitive subjects again, "I wonder what we would have thought if someone told us that a year later we'd be dressed in spandex and defending the world against an evil sorceress and her giant winged ape."

Kim laughed, "I think we would have thought they were Looney-Tunes."

"You're probably right." His own problems forgotten in the camaraderie he shared with this most special of friends, Billy put a brotherly arm around her shoulder, "What is disturbing your thoughts so that you need to seek solace among the memories of our childhood?"

She sighed, "The new team, how it's good to see everyone, what happened to Aisha in Angola, the problems the Power created in some of us, you."

"Me?" he asked, know she wasn't going to give. In reality he didn't want her to. He mentally chided himself for being stupid.

Smiling up at him, "Yeah, you silly."

"Please don't tell me that you too are going to pester me about Jason."

She smiled at him, "No. I know better than that. Besides, why should I pester you about it when I've got Trini, Tommy, Zack, and Adam to do it for me." Her brown eyes sparkled with mischief reminding Billy of a wood sprite as she said, "I figure that after a while, they'll wear you down."

"You are an evil woman, did you know that Kim?" he asked.

She giggled, "I try."

Sighing, he said, "I believed I've solved your problem with the Power. It will probably repair itself over the next few months without any interference from me or Dr. Storm."

"Billy! That's great!" Kim told him excitedly. Then noticing his visage she said, "Isn't it?"

Billy smiled at her, "It solves your problems with conceiving, however it opens a whole new realm of problems for our mission as a whole. What good does it do to return to you the ability to conceive a child if the human race ceases to exist?"

"What do you mean?"

He turned and faced her, "I'm afraid, we're going to have to find another way to deal with the Draconics. If we don't there's a good chance we'll destroy a major aspect of human evolution, and I've been warned by the Aquitian Rangers that several other species have threatened human destruction if don't cease trying to kill the dragons."

"What? We're fighting for our very survival here. Most of Africa and Asia are in ruins! Europe isn't much better! Kim protested. "How dare they tell us to roll over and die? What right do they have to tell us we can't defend ourselves against these overgrown lizards?" Then after a brief thought, she quickly added, "However, I get the feeling that you knew they were coming before they got here."

Sighing Billy told her, "It seems the other races see the dragons as some kind of intergalactic treasure- a protected species."

"Huh?" Kim asked. "Since when do alien races take interest in human myths come to life?"

"They aren't just a myth. Most of the Galaxy knows about dragons and humans too." He looked off across the gorge, afraid to meet her eyes. Afraid she'd see the terrible truth he'd discovered. Instead he told her how it really started, "While on Aquitar, I found several historical texts that mentioned Dragons going to Earth. You can imagine my surprise to find a mythical beast from my planet, mentioned in an alien text. It intrigued me so, I got to digging through the old archives and found out quite a bit about it."

"You mean the Aquitians knew about the dragons and that they came to Earth?"

Billy nodded. "Yeah, it seems that dragons are seen throughout the galaxy as being one of the elder-races who evolved when the universe was young. To see one it is said is to be extremely lucky." He shook his head, "Somehow I don't think the people in Los Angeles, Cairo, and Paris would agree." He chuckled bitterly, "I also got a rather nasty surprise when I found out that humans have something of an unsavory reputation throughout the rest of the galaxy."

"How can we have a reputation when we've never been past the moon?" Kimberly asked.

Billy shook his head, "Because of the dragons. Most other races see us as some kind of parasitic creature living off what the dragons do here. Especially when somebody gets lucky and manages to kill one of them." Billy shook his head again, "And the bad part about it, is they may be right."

"Huh?" Kimberly asked. "Now I'm really confused."

Billy sighed, "Okay, I've been doing some checking- both in the Terran fossil records and in the alien archives. It seems that the dragons appear on Earth about once every twenty-five centuries or so. I think that it might be a mating cycle of some sort. Anyway, almost without exception, every time they appear, the fossil record shows some jump in human evolution." He looked at Kim, "I think the dragons are the missing link from early apes to man. Something about the proto-phyre changes human physiology, jump starting it ahead."

"You mean that the dragons come here to mate, and the energy they give off forces humans to the next step in our evolution?"

Billy nodded, "Something like that. One of the reasons that other races see us in a negative light, is that we're the youngest race in several galactic histories to reach space travel. The dragons are evolving us faster than the other races. We're the only intelligent species in the galaxy who evolved on a planet revolving around a second generation star." "So what does that have to do with us stopping them from destroying cities? Why would the Alien Rangers threaten to destroy us if we defended ourselves?"

Billy sighed, "Because the dragons are seen as more important to galactic civilization than humans. As long as we were facing them one on one, with the dragons winning, the galactic community was willing to let us be. However, when Mic and I introduced the Omni-techs to the equation, they got upset. He chuckled, more than upset actually. There are several governments calling for a pre-emptive strike against us to preserve the dragon's habitat."

"And the dragons are linked to our evolution?" Kim asked.

Billy nodded, "I've done some extrapolation on the effects of proto- phyre on humans and various jumps in our evolution from the fossil record from the past several million years. Almost without fail, a major mutation in the human genome appears when the dragon's show up."

Billy felt Kim shudder beside him, "This is NOT good Billy. The Aquitian Rangers are our friends. I can't believe they'd do this."

Billy shook his head, "They have no choice. If anyone found out that Cestro sent me that warning, he could lose his position as a Ranger. They don't want us prepared to fight back, if they decide to attack."

"What are you going to do?" Kim asked. "When are you going to tell the others?"

Billy sighed, "Some time this evening. I'm afraid that Admiral Hazard is going to have kittens." He looked at Kim, "I'm afraid she'll push for a military option over trying to find another way." He stared at his old friend, "Kim, we can't fight the dragons and the Alien Rangers at the same time."

"What about the Space Rangers? Will they help?" Kim asked.

"Andros already told me that if it came to it, he and Zhane would fight with the Alien Rangers."

Kim stood up, and took his hand, "Billy, you've got to tell Jase. He'll know what to do. You can't carry this by yourself. The other Rangers have to know."

Billy nodded, "Kim, I know. I just., after last night I.," He suddenly found himself at a loss for words.

Kim looked at him and asked, "What is it Billy? What about last night?"

Billy found his old fears surfacing again. He knew it was irrational, he knew in his head that Jason wouldn't hold it against him, but his heart was a different matter. He was running on little sleep, and had been walking through an emotional mine field for the last few days. He was exhausted and it was playing havoc with his ability to think. He smiled when he realized that recent events had unbalanced his normally well- structured life as much as the loss of Los Angeles had disrupted the ecology of the local landscape. Then it hit: an attempt to preserve ecology was at the heart of the problem as a whole. It was all one big cosmic joke and he was the only one who got it. He began to chuckle; then to laugh, and finally the laughter turned to tears. Moments later her he was sobbing into Kim's shoulder.

*****************************************************************

For long moments, Kim sat and held Billy against her. She had no idea what had really set him off, but she suspected he'd been under a lot of stress lately. Hell, if she'd been through what he'd been with Jase of late, she'd be an emotional wreck. Then being given a choice, either die at the hands of the dragons or the Alien Rangers had not made things better. She made a mental note to thank Cestro if she ever saw him again, and to kick Zhane's and Andro's asses into next Tuesday sideways.

After a while the sobbing stopped and Billy pulled away from her embarrassed. Wiping his eyes on the sleeve of his shirt, he smiled weakly, "I apologize Kim. I shouldn't have imposed like that. I really have no excuse."

Kim fixed him with her gaze, "Like hell you didn't. Billy, you don't have to hold these things inside all the time. You have the right to ask for comfort," she put her hands on her hips, "and I have the right to give it whether you want it or not." Sticking her tongue out at him, she said, "So there!"

Billy smiled at her, "Yes, ma'am."

She just chuckled, "Good, now what are we going to do about this situation?"

Billy stood up, "Tell Jason and the others. Find a solution."

"And what are you going to do about him?"

Billy gave her a confused look, "I don't understand."

"It's no real secret Billy." She told him. "Although neither of you really act like it, those of us who love you- both of you- know that there's been something pretty special between you and Jase for a long time. We've all hated seeing this distance growing between you two."

"I thought you weren't going to badger me about Jason?" Billy protested.

"I lied," she said.

Billy smiled, "Look, Jase and I are working on it. Give us some time."

Kim fixed him with a glare. Tommy would probably kick her butt for prying, but she had to know. Not for her own curiosity, but if she knew, maybe she could help. "Working on what Billy? Being friends? Somehow I get the feeling neither of you will ever be satisfied with being just that. You're too close. Too much water has passed under bridge. I'm afraid you're pretty stuck with each other."

"Kim, that makes no sense what-so-ever," Billy protested.

"Doesn't it?" Kim challenged him. "Did you ever wonder why Rangers marry Rangers? It's not from any spandex fetish I can tell you that."

Billy smiled at her joke. She'd once told him that she hated the way that the Pink Ranger uniform looked on her- of course not, as much as Trini did at first. He chuckled remembering his Asian friend once saying to him that it made her look like a guy, complete with all the requisite extra parts. "Because we sort of become attached to each other?"

Kim shook her head, "No. Because it takes another Ranger to understand just how strange our past lives were. I think Jase is about the only person in the world that can really understand what it's like to do what you've done. You two are too close to let something come between you."

Billy just smiled at her, "Then I guess it's a good thing that Jason feels the same way about me as I do him."

Kim crossed her arms, unsuccessfully resisting with all her might rising to the verbal bait Billy just dangled in front of her. Finally, unable to take the building curiosity and excitement, she asked, "And how is that?"

He looked at her, "You remember that night we camped out here and you asked me who I thought I wanted to marry?" Kim nodded in frustration. "Do you remember my answer?"

To this day Kim could remember the sadness in her young friend's eyes back then. Even then he looked like he was walking around with the weight of the world on his slim shoulders. They had all been discussing who they thought they'd like to marry when they grew up. Zack had said, "Letoya Jackson, and Jason had volunteered, Cindy Crawford. She remembered Billy flinching at Jason's answer. All Billy had said was that he expected to spend the rest of his life alone. "I remember," Kim told him. "I was just slightly less happy about that answer then than I would to be hearing it from you now."

In his most neutral tone he said, "Then I guess I'll have to find another answer for you."

"Billy!" Kim grinned, understanding what her friend was trying to say without saying it. "That's wonderful! I'm so glad, you two are perfect for each other." She pulled him into a tight embrace.

Blushing at his friend's exuberance, Billy told her, "There's nothing there yet, Kim. But at least there's a chance now."

Pulling away from him, she said, "I know you two. You can and WILL make it work."

Billy smiled, "I hope so. I never thought he'd feel the way about me that I've felt about him for so long."

Kim stopped, and thought about it for a moment, "How long?" she asked.

Billy just said, "Too long."

Laughing she put her arm through his. "Now why don't we go and tell Jason what you've discovered. Maybe between all of us, plus that pushy little red-headed friend of yours we can find a way out of this mess."

Billy laughed as they teleported back to the Command Center, the weight on his soul slightly less heavy.