happiness and grief walk hand in hand

chapter 1

Chapter 1:

It was a rainy day in the now quiet town, Angel Grove. It was already two years ago when Tommy had given his powers to TJ and realized is a childhood dream, he had opened a dojo with his best friend and brother in everything but blood, Jason Lee Scott.

The dojo that they had called 'The White Dragon', using Tommy's favorite ranger-color and Jason's favorite thunderzord, was a great success, but they had worked hard those first two years to stand where they were now.

The first year wasn't easy so they had decided to live in the loft above the dojo, they shared it first to save money they continued because they liked living together, each had his own room, the rest of the loft was shared, they both had a little private room where they kept really personal stuff, mostly still unpacked from their move out of their childhood homes, not really finding the time to sort it all out.

They had hired two trainers though, not just two trainers they had hired Rocky and Adam to help them with the dojo, both guys had accepted the job immediately, they both knew who they were working for and more importantly there was already a mutual trust, every single one trusted each other with their lives, they had proved that in their time as power rangers.

This gave them the possibility to take a well-earned vacation, although the trust was there they had decided that they would take a turn in their vacation, this was Tommy's week off, leaving the dojo in the capable hands of Jason and leaving his students in the capable hands of Rocky and Adam.

He would use this time to finally sort out the unpacked stuff, there were things to throw away anyway, things that he had to hold on to for God knows what reason.

Tommy sighed, " I better get on with it, those boxes will not sort itself out!" He turned on the radio on a country station, Tommy's music had a wide music interest but the country was the best music for jobs like this.

He worked for hours, sorting out every box in the room, giving the things he would keep a place in that room or somewhere in the room, trophy's he had won, all of his morphers, placed neatly in a box, that he placed in a safe behind a framed and enlarged picture of the group of friends right before they left for Switzerland, it would be the last picture of everyone in the group, the last picture with Trini in it who had died in a car accident, she was one of the few who hadn't survived it, a drunk driver had run them from the Swiss roads, Trini was the only one who flew out of the car and against landed with her head into a big tree, her friend a student she had met there was in a coma for a while but had survived it after all.

Jason and Zack stayed behind because of the schoolwork they still needed to finish for the next day. The news had devastated them so much that they stayed in America after the funeral, it would be too hard to go back there without her.

The whole group grieved for a long time but nobody grieved as hard or as long as Jason, he felt guilty that he and Zack had decided to stay behind, who knows he could have saved her if he were there with her, Jason had taken the role of big brother of the group and he took it very seriously, too seriously at times.

It took long conversations with Tommy to see reason, Tommy had told him it was alright to grieve but there was no reason to blame himself, Tommy believed that everything happened for a reason but that it was hard to see the reason sometimes, they would keep her right in their hearts and her picture had a prominent place in the loft with two white candles surrounding the picture.

Tommy smiled sadly against when he watched the enlarged photo, the same picture was hanging in the living room, every one of the original rangers owned that specific photo, as a reminder that their family would never be the same.

The last item in the box was a shoe box, he opened the box, he knew the content by heart, a reminder of another hard time in his life.

He took out the two pictures and a letter, the letter.

It was a time that he was surrounded by friends but also a time where he never felt more alone, it was for the first time he discovered he liked both men and women.

He had a hard time accepting it even when his parents were nothing but support for him, accepting him the way he was, first he had Kimberly and their relation to lean on, she was the only one of his friends that knew about his orientation, she still was the only one. Tommy even suspected that Kimberley knew which man he secretly loved, was still in love with the present day.

She was the only one who held him from leaving this world forever and after that horrible letter, it was his position as a commander of the power rangers that kept him on his feet.

He watched the picture of him and Kimberley, holding the letter in his other hand, Alan Jackson's remember when booming through the radio.

He sighed, Kimberley would always be special to him, watching the other picture, one of him and Jason right after Jason lost his powers and almost his life, he placed the items back in the box and placed the box in the safe, this was too personal for him.

PR-PR-PR

at the same time in Florida,...

Kimberly sat on the beach, watching her three-year-old son, who was a spitting image of his father, with the same brown hair and the same chocolate brown eyes, playing in the sand. The tears rolled over her face when she thought of her future or the lack of it.

She had received some horrible news from her doctor.

She kept watching at her son who wasn't aware of how his life would change soon.

She put her knees towards her chest, her arms around her legs, her chin resting on the top of her knees, tears still rolling from her face, she wouldn't have the chance to see her son grow in a handsome young man, it was time to drop a bomb in the dojo from Angel Grove and she needed to do it soon before she would become too weak to do it.

The doctors had just told her that she was sick with no chance of healing.

Kimberley had made up her mind, she would travel back to Angel Grove, a place she thought she left behind after she had chosen to train for the pan-global games and when she had written Tommy that horrible letter without giving him the most important reason of her break-up, their son Diego Jay Oliver, only returning for the funeral of her best friend, not knowing then that she was, in fact, pregnant, they never talked that day but they both were mature enough to be in the same room, that day wasn't about them, it was about their mutual friend.

It was time to do something she postponed long enough, tell Tommy the truth, the whole truth, she would be gone in a few months anyway, because that is what the doctors had given her.

It was still something she didn't look forward to doing and she hoped that he would take good care of their son once she would be gone from this world.

 She stood up from her place in the sand, removing the sand from her behind, she walked towards her son, it was time to start organizing the trip that would change their lives forever, it was time to go back to her childhood town.