Disclaimer: 'Power Rangers' (all incarnations) are property of 'Saban', who are in some strange way related to Disney, who run the show on ABC. No infringement is intended.

ROARING ON THE WIND

By Etcetera Kit

Chapter Eleven: the Heart Grows Older

Leo was tired of being the invalid of the group. He had taken the NyQuil Cole gave him and slept all afternoon. Upon waking up around dinner time, he felt better than he had all day and had called Wes, managing to convince him to pick him up. The group at Tommy's house was much smaller than it normally would have been—most people were still at the hospital with Andros and Ashley and baby Karone. Notably present were Kimberly and Billy. He was not sure why Kimberly was there, but Billy had been working on the teleportation system. After hearing that and not wanting a technical speech about it, Leo slipped out on the back porch into the cool evening air.

He pulled his flannel shirt tighter around him as he shivered. Taking his cell phone out of his pocket, he dialed his home number. There were some things he and Kendrix needed to talk about. The phone rang twice. On the third ring, a familiar voice came over the line.

"Hey, Leo!" Kendrix said. For some reason, Leo felt like her cheerful tone sounded forced. Did she really not want to hear from him?

"Hi Kendrix," he replied, his voice still sounding scratchy from the cold.

"Are you all right? You sound kind of sick."

"I woke up with a cold this morning, but its better."

"Oh." She paused. "So how are things out there?"

"Fine. It's kind of fun to be helping out again." Kendrix didn't reply. Leo didn't know what to make of it. She had been acting kind of strange before he left, but it just seemed to be magnified more and more as he stayed helping the Dino Thunder rangers. "Kendrix," he said seriously, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing! I'm fine."

Every cell in his body told him that she was lying. Was this going to go back to their continuing argument about him 'smothering' her and how she needed space? "Kendrix, something has to be wrong. You're never this…" He searched for a word. "… quiet," he finished lamely.

"Leo…"

"Do you want me to come home?" he asked before she could say anything. He knew that being a ranger always came first, but everyone else seemed to have things well in hand. He could leave for a few days and come back if his help was still needed.

"No, Leo, you don't need to come home," she replied. Her tone of voice sounded tired and almost defeated.

"Then what is going on?"

"Nothing! Why are you convinced something is wrong?"

"Because you sound like you're hiding something from me!"

"And this is from the man whose car keys perpetually end up in the freezer!" Her voice was rising in volume and pitch. "You aren't perceptive enough to find your own clothes and you tell me that I sound like I'm hiding something!"

"Kendrix…"

"Do not start this with me, Leo. I don't have to tell you everything!"

"I'm worried about you!"

"Worried? Where was all your infamous worry before you though I had died? You didn't care about things like that before, why now? You haven't let up on badgering me into telling you everything since we got married and I'm sick of it. You are not in charge of me, Leo Corbett!"

"I never said I was!"

There was a definitive click on the other end of the line. She had hung up on him. They had been married five years and never once had she gotten so angry that she hung up on him. Leo dialed the number again and waited. The phone rang four times and then the answering machine came on. Okay, now was the part where he talked like an idiot into the answering machine.

"Kendrix!" he said. "I know you're still there! Pick up the phone!" He waited a moment. She didn't pick up the phone. "Look," he said in a softer tone of voice. "I'm sorry. I'm worried about you and want to make sure you're okay. You don't have to tell me everything, but I wish you'd tell me why you're angry with me. Just give me a call back when you're ready. I love you." He disconnected the call, hoping that Kendrix had heard him.

He put his cell phone back in his pocket and leaned his head against the railing down the steps. For the first time since he thought Mike died, he wanted to cry. No, it was not worth crying about and he was all out of sync because he had been sick. But it happened anyways. Hot tears slipped down his cheeks as he furiously wiped at them. He hoped to God that everyone would stay in the house and leave him alone for once.

Tommy walked slowly up the stairs from the lab. Billy had just given him a technical explanation of what he had been doing concerning the new teleportation system. Now, his head was spinning and he was sorry he asked Billy what he had been doing in the first place. He walked into the kitchen and gave a brief smile to Kimberly, who was sitting at the table with a cup of tea. All day he had been wondering why she was here not either at the hospital, work or home. The only other people here were Leo (out on the back porch on his cell phone) and Billy (down in the lab immersed in his world of science).

He sat down at the table with her. "Hey," he said softly.

She looked up from where she had been staring into the depths of her mug. Her brown eyes looked so haunted and… lost. She was as beautiful as he remembered, except no longer in that pretty high school way. She had grown up into a gorgeous woman that any man would be proud to date or marry. He wondered what had happened to her since their parting all those years ago… why the lost look? "Hey, Tommy," she replied, a ghost of a smile over her lips.

"What're you thinking about?"

"Just being a ranger again. I never thought that it would happen. I thought that that era of my life was over and my time as a serious gymnast had to begin."

"Seems natural enough."

She nodded. "It does, until I realized that I didn't want to hear about ranger adventures from Adam or Rocky or Kat. I wanted to be there. I wanted to help. At the time I had thought that this opportunity would be the best thing instead of being a ranger. It wasn't until I gave my powers to Kat that I realized being a ranger is the most important thing I could ever have done with my life."

Tommy smiled. "Conner said almost that same thing when he first became a ranger."

"I think we all missed it once we moved on."

"Have you really moved on?" he asked softly.

She looked up quickly, her eyes wide and round. She shook her head. "No. I missed all my friends and Angel Grove and being a ranger so much… I thought it would help to cut all connections with it and concentrate on being a gymnast."

"You did get the gold at the Pan Globals."

Kimberly snorted. "And lost contact with all my friends while doing it."

He took a deep breath, asking the question he had wanted to for years. "When you wrote me that letter… was there really someone else?"

"Of course there was. There were always boys from the men's team around who wanted to date the cute petite girls on the women's team. I didn't feel for him what I told you I did."

"So what happens now?" he asked.

Her eyes looked so hopeful, it nearly broke his heart. "I don't know. I mean we're both rangers again and we're both in Reefside…"

He held up a hand. "Don't say it. We've lived separate lives since high school. You've been in a world of gymnastics and I've been in a world of education and science. We can't just pick up where we left off like nothing happened, like no time has passed."

"I didn't want to break up with you," she whispered.

He nodded. "I know that. I think I knew it then, but thought I had to let you go. But we're different people now. We can't cling to a memory. We can't live a memory."

"Can we ever repair this?"

"Maybe, someday, but not to what it was. I think we can be friends once more." He looked towards the living room as the front door banged open and he could hear Eric saying something along the lines of 'he brought beer named after the baby.' "Look, Kim," he said quietly. "You're a gorgeous woman and any man would kill to have you in his life. But that man can't be me. Too much has happened."

"So it will remain a memory?"

"Yes," he said with a smile. "It will remain a memory."

Eric and Cole came into the kitchen carrying a six-pack of Coronas. "I've got drinks!" Eric proclaimed, even though that fact was obvious. Kim stood up and left the kitchen. Eric stared after her. "What's with her?" he asked Tommy.

Tommy shrugged. "Reality."

"Reality sucks," Eric said definitively. "That's why I sit at home on Friday night and watch CSI Miami and eat popcorn."

Cole rolled his eyes, easily saying that that was not what Eric normally did on a Friday night, but he wasn't going to say anything. Tommy laughed. Even if he never found the woman he was meant to be with, he knew he would always have good friends.

Kimberly Hart slipped out of the kitchen and down the steps to the lab. She didn't really want to be around Eric Myers more than she had to—he had an abrasive personality that grated on her nerves and made her want to scream. She didn't see how any of the former red rangers, especially Cole, put up with Eric for such long periods of time. From one way of thinking, he was part of the group. From another way of thinking, he was completely rude, crude and socially unacceptable.

The lab was quiet as she entered. A soft breathing sound came from the direction of the zord bay, indicating that all the zords were asleep. It was peaceful down here, something she wasn't going to get in the kitchen with Eric and Cole and their beer. It was funny, but she never would have pictured Cole as much of a drinker. But the peace was what she needed. Her thoughts were too erratic to settle in that atmosphere.

A dull 'clunk' came from the computer panel. Her heart leaped as she automatically launched into a defensive position. Billy emerged from under the computer desk, wiping his hands on a dirty rag. His face was smeared with grease and sweat. She dropped the stance. How could she have forgotten that Billy was down here working on the teleportation system?

"I'm-I'm sorry," she stammered. "I forgot you were down here."

Billy smiled as he stood up. "It's all right. I could use the company. The last two people down here got scared off by my technical explanations." He looked at his watch. "Besides, I promised the girls I would be home by ten."

She reluctantly returned the smile. It was so strange to think of Billy as a father and a widower. The Ph.D. part of him came more naturally. Her smile faded. She had not found out about Trini's death until well after the fact. Billy had kept it quiet, since he did have a baby to take care of. Trini had been her closest friend since sixth grade… well, they had grown apart once Trini went to the peace conference and she went off to Florida. It was also hard to think of Billy and Trini as having their first child at age sixteen, however accidentally. There was so much surrounding Dr. Cranston that she was sure she would never find out, since he didn't willing divulge details of his past to anyone. And she had supposedly known him since the sixth grade?

He sat down on the steps up to the control panel, motioning for her to sit next to him. She slowly sat down next to him, making sure to keep a respectable distance. She glanced up at his profile. In all the years she had known Billy, she would not have pictured him with long hair, but the look suited him. It seemed to gently accentuate his strong jaw line and draw attention to his muscular shoulders and back. Not a martial artist's shoulders, but a gymnast's… He glanced down at her, a smile playing over his lips.

"Are you ogling me?"

She rolled her eyes, a slight pink blush coming into her cheeks. "No. I was just looking for a quiet place to think."

Billy's gaze was knowing. "Tommy finally tell you what he ultimately feels?"

"Yeah… I don't know what I thought. I guess I thought that he still cared for me on some level, that we could pick up where we left off." She sighed. "He's changed. He used to be such an…" She searched for a word.

"Airhead?" Billy supplied. She nodded, amazed at how accurate the word used to describe her tended towards Tommy in his high school years. "It took him a long time to grow out of that, believe me. And he still does care for you, just not as a boyfriend would care for a girlfriend. It's more like he cares for you as a dear friend."

Kimberly nodded and then gave Billy a sharp look. "Since when are you so perceptive?"

Billy smiled and then laughed. "Kimberly, my dear, the last time I spoke to you, we were still in high school. Being married to Trini and being the father of two children tends to make you listen to others and pick up on nuances in their tone."

"I can't believe I missed you and Trini being married." She glanced down at his left hand and saw the plain silver band there. As if he subconsciously caught her gaze, he picked up his hand and started twisting the ring around. "You still wear your wedding ring," she said softly. "How long has it been?"

"Eight years," he replied in a whisper. "We had the rings that would ultimately become our wedding bands a long time before we married."

"You miss her." It was not a question, but a statement.

"There isn't a day that goes by that I don't miss her." He smiled. "Mary Anne and Susie are so much like her." He paused and gave her a sidelong glance. "I guess there's more than one of us that needs to move on."

Kimberly smiled. "So how did you two come up with the names 'Mary Anne' and 'Susie'?"

To her surprise, Billy scowled. "I had nothing to do with either one of their names. I wasn't around when Mary Anne was born and Trini picked out Susie's name long before she born because, and I quote, 'I have no taste in names'." He paused. "Now they sound like they're from Alabama or Mississippi or something."

She laughed and looked at the tools lying around. "Did you need some help with this before you need to get home?"

"I actually need help getting today's pop quizzes graded," he said dryly. "I've had complaints from students that I'm not getting their work back to them in a timely fashion."

"Want some help?"

He gave her an appraising look. "Sure." He stood up, finishing wiping most of the grease from his hands and picked up his briefcase. He pulled out a sheaf of papers and two colored pens. He laid the answer key between them on the steps. "The answers are either completely right or completely wrong," he explained. "Ten question quiz, so ten points per question."

Kimberly nodded and picked up a purple pen and first period's quizzes. Silence descended over them as they graded the quizzes. The only sound was the slight shuffling of paper and the scratch of the pens. For once in her life, she didn't feel the need to fill the silence with idle chatter. It was comfortable. She could get used to moments like this, just sitting with a close friend and not saying anything. A smile floated over her lips as she came to Conner's quiz, which he failed abominably. She stifled a laugh.

Billy glanced at her, one eyebrow raised. "Something funny?"

"Conner seems like he really is an airhead from his quiz grade."

"He's not really. He could do a lot better if he applied himself."

She came to Ethan's quiz (which he aced) and Kira's (which had a passing grade). It was kind of relaxing, the repetitive nature of grading. She wouldn't want to do it all the time, but it seemed like good stress relief once in a while. Putting the last quiz from first period on the finished pile, she looked up at Billy. His blue-gray eyes were drooping shut. He had been working so hard lately…

"Stop ogling me," he said with a smile. He put the quizzes he had been working on down and turned so that he was fully facing her. She looked at his eyes, blue-gray, like the sea after a storm. Why had she never noticed that he had fabulous eyes before this? Why had she never noticed anything about Billy until now? But she knew why—he was the nerd and she was the popular girl and they didn't exchange meaningful conversations, ever.

"I'm not ogling you," she replied, trying to sound indignant. "I am admiring you."

"There's a difference?"

"Yes."

Billy looked amused. "Care to explain?"

Kimberly felt the flush in her cheeks come back. "It's complicated."

He smiled. "Isn't everything?" His hand came up to gently trace her jaw line and then follow up her cheek. "You've always been so pretty," he said softly.

A grin floated over her face. "I think you had to grow into your looks."

"Among other things," he replied dryly.

She stared at him for a moment. He really had grown into an attractive man. It made her wonder if anyone had been in his life since Trini. Any woman would have gobbled him up in a moment. However, she got the feeling that he didn't want anyone in his life. Suddenly, she was all too aware of the fact that his fingers were still stroking her jaw. He leaned closer to her and, before she could think, his warm, soft lips were on hers. Oh God, there was electricity running through that kiss and a million other things that she couldn't describe. How many times had she closed her eyes so tightly when Tommy kissed her… when all the while Billy was never far away? How could she not have realized this? It was amazing.

All too soon, Billy roughly broke the kiss. "I'm sorry," he said, his voice hoarse. "I shouldn't have done that."

"No, it's okay," she quickly reassured him.

"No, it's not okay." He features looked tortured. "You don't want this kind of relationship with me. I have two daughters, one of which is a teenager and-"

She silenced him with a finger on his lips. "I haven't met your daughters, but if they're anything like you or Trini then they're great girls." She stopped. She should have been afraid of a relationship with a man who had children, but, somehow, she wasn't. "I don't know… maybe you could do that again, some time."

Billy's smile could have lit up the darkest place on Earth. He gently pulled her into his lap, locking his arms around her waist. The quizzes forgotten on the floor, she threaded her arms around his neck and let their heated kisses come. She had so many previous boyfriends, but none of them had this kind of fire, this kind of magic in their kisses. She didn't know how long it had been when she heard a distant cell phone ring.

"Shit," Billy muttered and picked up his cell phone from the briefcase. "It's Mary Anne. I need to get home." He paused and looked at her. "You want to come with me?"

She smiled. "That would be great."

Elsa smiled at the readings on the scanner. The Power Rangers' zords would be unusable, but they wouldn't realize that until they went to use the zords. An evil laugh bubbled up from the back of her throat and broke loose. This was too good to be true. With the rangers unable to stop a ten-story monster, it was only a matter of time before Mesogog's plan would be fulfilled once and for all. The first to be destroyed would be the Power Rangers and anyone found to be helping them.

"Elsa," came the low hiss of Mesogog's voice. "Make me a monster."

She turned to the reptile-man and smiled. "When do you want me to unleash it on the city?"

"Tomorrow night. These battles are so much more dramatic at night, don't you think?" Mesogog folded his hands behind his back. "The monster must be able to put the zords permanently out of commission. See that there are no errors."

He left the room. Elsa smiled to herself. Any monster would put the zords out of commission considering the state they would be in. She picked up three jars and placed them in the Geno-Randomizer. This monster would easily do what Mesogog asked.

To Be Continued...

Author's Note: Thanks for the reviews guys! I feel like I should do some reviewer responses, but with midterms coming up, I've barely had time to write. But keep up the great reviews and I'll do my best to do the responses for the next chapter! Thanks! -Etcy