Chapter Four: Saying Good-Bye Part I
As Mike reached the bottom of the very long staircase, he set Emily down. When her feet hit the ground she felt that the ground didn't feel very sturdy. It felt soft, not like concrete or wood floors. She looked down through the slit she had made in her blindfold. She couldn't see well because it was so dark, but it looked like sand.
"You can take the blindfold off now." Mike said.
Emily slowly took the blindfold off and realized she was right. Her and Mike were on the beach, and no one else was around. She looked up and saw all of the stars shining brightly overhead. It reminded her of home. Although she didn't want to leave her friends, she was still kind of happy to go home. She got to see her parents again, who she missed dearly, and she got to go back to the farm. She liked the city, but she was definitely a country girl.
"It's beautiful." Emily said. She was awestruck, this was the first time she had seen the stars outside of her small farm.
"It gets even better at sunrise. The sky is all orange and yellow and pink and purple. You can see all the stars too. It's pretty amazing. I thought you might like it, so I figured we could stay until sunrise. It's in like half an hour." Mike said.
"Sounds perfect." Emily faced him with a big smile on her face.
"Great." Mike said, returning the smile.
Mike sat down in the sand facing the water and Emily sat down beside him. As they sat there waiting for the sunrise, Mike saw Emily start to shiver. So he took off his jacket and put it on her shoulders. Then he pulled her closer to him, and wrapped his arm gently around her. Emily looked up and smiled at him, silently thanking him.
Mike smiled back and they turned their focus back to the ocean. There was no sounds except the crashing of waves on the shore. Soon they saw the sun rise up over the horizon, and soon the sky was a multitude of colours. They both smiled as they watched it, and they looked back and saw that some stars were still visible too. It looked like half the sky was pink and orange and yellow, while the other half was a beautiful purple with small white dots.
Emily snuggled in closer to Mike as they watched the sun completely rise over the water, and the sky was turning bright blue again. When the sun was finally over the water, they decided it was time to leave.
They silently walked back to the car, holding hands. Emily still had Mike's jacket draped over her shoulders. She wasn't cold anymore, but she liked how it made her feel warm and safe.
They both got in the car and drove back to the Shiba house. When they got back, thankfully no one was up yet, so they snuck back in. Mike returned Jayden's keys to their rightful place, and he walked Emily back to her room so she could get a little bit of sleep before she left.
"Thanks for tonight," Emily said when they reached her door. "I had a lot of fun."
"Me too." Mike replied with a happy smile.
They both stood there a moment before Emily took off Mike's jacket and gave it back to him. Then she got on her tiptoes and gave him a kiss on the cheek. With that she opened the door and went straight into her room.
Mike stood there a moment after the door closed and just smiled to himself. It had been the perfect night, and the only thing that could make Mike happier was Emily staying. Unfortunately though she had to leave that day, so Mike went back to his room to get some sleep before Emily left.
When Emily heard her alarm clock going off, she knew it was finally time to get up. She had gotten no sleep that night/morning. She had been gone all night with Mike, and hadn't gotten home til around 6 in the morning. When she got home she was exhausted, but she couldn't sleep. So she set her alarm for 7 and sat in her bed and started thinking.
Was Serena really fully healed? Had she changed much since she'd seen her last, besides the disease? Had Emily changed at all? Would the kids at school welcome her back, or would she start right where she left off? These thoughts had raced through Emily's mind for about an hour until it was interrupted by her alarm clock.
When she heard it, she quickly turned it off and went to take a shower. She wanted to look good for her sister, and for her last day with her friends. While she was with Mike, she realized ignoring her friends was stupid. Although they had hurt her deeply, she should enjoy the time she had left with them.
She looked over to Mia's bed and saw that she was already up. So she grabbed her clothes and went into the bathroom before Mia came and hogged it all morning. Mentor had told her yesterday that because of Emily's departure and Serena's arrival, they would have the day off from training. So Emily knew that she could put on her make-up and do her hair without worrying that training would just mess it up.
Emily took a quick shower, and came straight out. She didn't want to waste any time. She got dressed, applied her make-up, and started drying her hair. When it was mostly dry she pinned back some of her hair and exited the bathroom. When she came out she noticed that Mia wasn't in the room yet.
Emily, confused, walked out of the room and into the common room. When she walked in she saw yellow balloons everywhere. She saw on the table was cake, her favorite. It was a chocolate cake with yellow and white frosting on it. She walked closer and saw there was writing on it. When she got a closer look she saw it said "We'll miss you Em!". She smiled seeing that even though she had ignored them, her friends still cared. She looked around the room, expecting to see someone. But she didn't, the room was empty.
Emily jumped when her friends all jumped out from behind chairs and counters yelling, "SURPRISE!".
Emily's hand flew to her mouth as she was trying to recover from the shock. Before she could recover though, her friends all pulled her into a big group hug. Emily's eyes started to water as her hand left her mouth and she flung her arms around her friends.
"Thank you guys, so much." Emily said while trying to hold back the tears threatening to spill over her eyes.
"So you aren't mad anymore?" Mia said with a smile.
Emily laughed, "Of course not. I am so sorry guys. It was so childish of me to get mad at you all like that. I hope you can forgive me."
"Of course we forgive you. We understand why you were upset." Kevin told her.
This time Emily's eyes really did start to water. She started crying and she couldn't stop. Her friends all tightened the hug around her, and she gladly embraced them all again.
"Thank you guys. This means a lot, really." Emily said with a big grin on her face.
"Anything for you, Em." Mike said cheerfully.
They all finally let go from the rather large group hug, and Emily had time to catch her breath. Tears were still coming from her eyes, but they were happy tears.
"We want you to know that even if you leave, we will never forget you. And no one, can ever replace you. You will always be the yellow ranger to us." Mia said, trying to hold back her own tears.
"We'll even try to figure out a way to talk to you while you're on the farm." Jayden said. Even he was getting touched by all the emotions coming from everyone in the room.
"I think I may have already figured that out." Antonio said with a smirk. He ran off down the hallway and into his and Jayden's room. They heard shuffling, but soon Antonio came out with a rectangular box wrapped in bright yellow paper.
"What's this?" Emily said as Antonio presented her with the box.
"A good-bye present, it's from all of us." Kevin replied.
"You guys didn't have to." Emily said looking around at all her friend's faces.
"Just open it and thank us later." Mike said as he urged her to open it.
Emily gently took the paper off her present and saw it was a laptop. It looked rather new, and was still in the proper packaging.
"Oh gosh guys! This is so cool! Thank you, this is so sweet of you!" Emily said as she went around and hugged each of the rangers as thanks for her gift.
"It has a webcam, so you can video call us. Mike told us you had one at home, but this one is the newest model. It'll work a lot better than a plain video camera." Antonio said happily.
"I even allowed them to buy a laptop with a camera for the Shiba house, so we can all talk to you." Mentor said smiling.
"Awwh Mentor!" Emily said excitedly as she ran over and gave her mentor a big hug.
The hug was interrupted when the rangers and Ji all heard the doorbell. Knowing who it was this time, Emily ran over to answer it. She looked out the window quick just to double check. She smiled when she saw she was right, and opened the door to reveal her older sister, looking healthy as ever, with her bags at her side and a smile matching her sister's on her face.
"Serena!" Emily said excitedly as she gave her sister a huge hug.