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Author�s Note: For friendships new and old, may the ring of strong friendships never end.

Time line: Read Ch 1 timeline (as of now I seem to have my time line mixed up) Oh well.

�You did what?� Kat scowled at Conner; she had heard every word Tommy had said to the current Red Ranger.

�Now Kat,� Tommy began as he walked towards his wife, but smartly shut his mouth when he received a sharp glare from the former Pink Ranger and stepped back with his hands in the air.

�I�m not talking to you!� she snapped, then turned her gaze on Conner.

Conner winced, somehow wishing that she hadn�t overheard the conversation, but now he was in trouble and didn�t have Ethan or Kira by his side; he had to make do. He had heard that women can shoot daggers from their gazes, and here he was experiencing it firsthand. Lucky me, he thought sarcastically.

�Mrs. Oliver...� Conner began, but trailed off, not knowing how to explain his rudeness earlier. He looked at his teacher, hoping for some guidance, but Dr Oliver was pretending not to be paying attention. Even if he was, there was no way he was getting bailed out. Conner sighed and turned to face the wrath of a woman he had just met.

�Don�t you �Mrs. Oliver� me!� She wagged her finger at him. �And Tommy�s not going to bail you out either, until you tell me why you were rude, or apologize to Jason.�

Tommy bit his lip, he knew Kat was being harsh, but the boy had to learn. Tommy knew he should have spoken to Conner while he had the chance, but he hadn�t thought Kat would jump down his throat. Now he knew how wrong he was. Not only was Kat going to grill the boy, but also make him apologize. He winced, there was no way he could bail Conner out without getting a bit of her anger himself. He leaded back and watched her.

For the next five minutes he heard Kat give her �respect the elders� lecture to Conner. He got up, enough was enough. And she was taking it too far.

�Kat.� He gave a slight shake to his wife�s shoulder, but got brushed away. �Kat, that�s enough!� he nearly snapped.

�Don�t tell me when it�s enough!� She whirled around to face her husband.

Tommy could see the anger in the blue pools of her eyes. �He made a mistake, Kat,� he spoke to her slowly, and saw them change from anger to worry.

Not saying anything, she buried her face in his chest. Tommy nodded to Conner, in his own way letting the Red Ranger know he was free to go.

Conner gave out a loud sigh, grabbed his backpack, and walked out of the back door. More precisely he ran out.

After few minutes of silence, Kat pulled back from Tommy�s embrace. �I can�t stand seeing him in pain, Tommy, I just can�t,� she said, trying to calm down.

�I know,� he agreed, looking at her. �This is the first time in three years I have seen him. He disappeared without a word, without a forwarding address. Trini�s death affected him badly...� He trailed off, composing his own pain. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

�Everyone was affected by her death, we all expected to die in battle, but never in an ordinary car crash.�

Tommy nodded. �I know, but I don�t know how to help him,� he sighed sadly. He loosened his grip on Kat�s arms, and pulled off his glasses, rubbing his tired eyes. It had been a long day, he admitted.

�Talk to him,� she suggested.

�I tried, but he won�t answer. He changed the topic as well.� Tears dripped from Tommy�s voice at the thought of the pain Jason must be feeling. �He�s not the Jason I knew.�

Without a word, Kat wrapped her arms around Tommy, giving him her silent comfort, which he needed badly.

Jason stood behind the hallway listening to Kat�s lecture to Conner; he silently snickered. It was funny the way she was going on and on about respect. But on the other hand he didn�t need Conner�s apology, simply because he wasn�t affected by the boy�s remark. He didn�t know what he was supposed to feel at the unknown anger from him. Mad? Angry? Or plain hurt? Or whatever you felt when someone was rude to you without a reason.

Were all these things he was supposed to feel? He didn�t know. All he knew was that he had to survive the night here, with or without loads of questions. The answers Tommy was searching for: how was he supposed to give them without opening old wounds, the pain he had closed away? The memories he had blocked. The life he was forcing himself to forget.

The risk was too great, too dangerous to think about. He wasn�t prepared for it. And Tommy wouldn�t be either. He didn�t want to lose his sanity, when he had nothing left in the world without the woman he loved. At times he thought a part of him had gone with her, and he was left living in a shell of his own body.

Day in and day out he lived, for what he wasn�t sure; he wanted to end his life but found no reason to do so. So here he was, neither happy nor sad. The emotions he had known were no longer there, he never felt them. Now he never wanted them.

A tiny tugging at his feet brought him to reality. He looked down to see a dog, no bigger than the blank space on his helmet, trying hard to untie his shoelaces with his or her teeth. He softened at the sight before him and bent down to pick up the tiny pup, who at his touch gave a growl.

Jason shook his head as a small smile formed on his lips, and pulled off his right shoe with his other foot, letting the puppy explore the strange object. The tiny dog attacked it and whimpered in dismay when the shoe turned over, softly hitting his tiny head, causing Jason to laugh. But this time around the brown-eyed pup allowed Jason to pick him up.

�Hello there,� Jason said to the dog, who was inches away from his face in an animated Winnie the Pooh voice. In return the pup wiggled and tried to give Jason few wet kisses. Jason giggled without a sound as he sat down on the floor, with the dog in his lap. He was trying to calm the wiggly pup down, but it was having the opposite effect on his new-found friend.

�Hyped, are you?� he asked, watching the pup move his paws towards him. �OK, what is it?� he asked, bringing his large face closer to the tiny one. When he received wet kisses on his nose, Jason knew he had been tricked; he groaned.

He pulled the dog off his lap and placed him on the floor, allowing him to run free, but the dog scratched at Jason�s knee, in his own way telling the former Red Ranger to follow him.

�You want something?� Jason angled his head. The puppy spun in circles, then ran towards the room near the staircase. �OK, playing peek - a - boo, right?� Jason questioned after the dog was away from his sight, but he followed his tiny friend.

He was going to head upstairs when a soft bark from the dinning room got his attention. Giving an amused frown, he walked into the room and looked around. The room was decorated in a simple taste, yet it was rich looking in its own way with earthy colors to suit the dinning set in the middle of the room. He then walked around the table looking for the pup. �Come out from wherever you are,� the deep voice sang. He heard another soft bark, but this time he knew it was coming from under the table.

He pulled aside a chair and lowered himself. There stood the cute tiny pup with a rope beside him. When he saw Jason he gave out a delighted bark and again spun in a circle with a small tail wagging in excitement, seeming to welcome Jason into a club that only existed under the table.

Jason grinned; the puppy was getting to him. Getting into him like no one had done before, and he found the sensation a little odd. But he welcomed the new-found feeling. He looked at the dog, then at the rope beside his new companion and took a wild guess at the next game his friend wanted to play.

�I hope he isn�t getting grilled,� Ethan mocked, as he sipped his smoothie. It was late afternoon; he and Kira had been at Haley�s caf� for half an hour, waiting for Conner to show up.

�Grilled?� Kira raised an eyebrow when she looked up from her notebook. �Fried is more like it.�

�Come on, we�re talking about Conner here.�

�Really, I thought it was a fish we were talking about,� Kira responded, waving her hand in front of the Blue Ranger.

Ethan gave her a look, and then pouted.

�Not working.� Kira glared at Ethan.

�Darn.� He took a quick glance at the door. �He should have been here by now.�

�Let�s wait till morning, if he doesn�t show up we can march to Dr O and demand to know what happened to Conner,� Kira announced in a voice which got Ethan in giggles.

�Kira!� Haley, the red haired woman who ran the Cyber Caf�, called out as well as approached the Yellow Ranger. She looked older than her age, but still dressed in style.

�Yea?� The yellow Ranger whirled around to face the owner.

�You scored yourself a gig, next weekend,� she said as she joined the two rangers.

�Cool, what time and what day?�

�Saturday, 7 pm,� she told the young singer, �and it�s right here.� Haley answered the unspoken question.

�Way to go!� Ethan cheered and tried to high five, he lowered his hand when Kira didn�t respond.

Kira and Haley swapped glances and rolled their eyes as one, before Kira snickered.

�What?� Ethan asked, baffled, as he looked at Kira, then Haley, before fixing his eyes at Kira.

�Nothing.� Kira shrugged and watched Ethan go back to the laptop he was on. �Whatcha playing?� she asked after a few minutes.

�Wrestling.�

�Ewww.� Kira made a face.

�What�s so gross about it?�

�Please.� She rolled her eyes. �This game is for idiots,� she kindly pointed out, �and you might be one.�

Ethan shrugged, and paid attention to the game once more, it took him a few minutes to register what Kira had told him. �Hey, I�m no idiot!� He looked at her.

�Really?� She blinked. �You hang out with the you-know-who.�

�And so do you,� he told her, and laughed when she poked her tongue out at him.

�I�m only there so you two don�t bite each other�s heads off.�

�Sure, whatever,� he smirked, he had fed her the bait and he hoped she would take it.

�What�s that supposed to mean?� Kira exclaimed.

�Ohhhhhh, I�m going all...� he made a drooling face at Kira, �...over a certain Red,� and then batted his lashes.

�Oh, what?� she growled at him. �Me all droolly over Conner...� She made an urgh sound, and placed her two fingers in her open mouth, letting Ethan know what she though of his imagination.

�Yea, yea, deny all ya want, but the sparks are there, girl!� He shook his head and went back to his game, before cursing.

�Got beaten up?� Kira asked sweetly. Ethan growled in response.

Conner sighed again, once he was inside his car. He had got a handful of a woman�s anger and it shook him to his spine. Shook him bad and he wasn�t sure if he was capable of driving to Haley�s Caf� to meet up with Kira and Ethan.

He had dealt with the situation badly, very badly. But if he reasoned with himself, he wasn�t used to it, so he had no idea how to handle an angry woman. Or rather an angry friend.

What he had done to Mr. Scott was unforgivable, but there was something about the man he found strangely familiar, yet the man himself was a complete stranger to him. Just stood there near the door and gave him the creeps, even though he didn�t look creepy. At the sight of the man earlier he had though Meso-guy must have send him, but when Dr Oliver went to greet the stranger, he was shocked, but confused when he found out he was a friend of his teacher�s....that was a different story.

He had never met any of Dr O�s friends before and it was the first time he had met his wife. Conner frowned; Dr O never wore a ring, so he had thought his teacher was a single man nearing his thirties. But he was full of surprises. Conner smirked as he started his car; with a last look at his teacher�s house Conner drove off to Haley�s, with his thoughts trailing behind him.

Kat sighed as she left her husband�s embrace. �It�s almost time to feed Angel,� she told Tommy, as she opened the cupboard to get the dog food out.

Tommy glanced towards the laundry, and found the basket empty. �You might want to find him first.� Tommy walked over to Kat and wrapped his arms around her waist and nuzzled her neck. �Thank you,� he whispered in her ear.

Smiling, she angled her head slightly. �For what?� she asked him.

�For being you. For what you just did.� He kissed her neck.

Feeling the heat from him, her cheeks flushed. �Tommy,� she said almost in a song as she gently pushed him away from her. �Jason�s around,� she hissed, but her eyes told him differently.

�And so?� The former Green Ranger shrugged and tried to pull his wife towards him, and failed.

�What if he sees us?� she said shyly.

Tommy gave her his best wounded puppy look and then a pout.

�No way,� she said firmly, crossing her arms over her chest. �Now you be a good boy and find Angel, while I make dinner.� She shooed him off with a quick kiss on his lips. With a smile she shook her head as she watched him go.

Once he was out of her sight, she sighed. Jason�s pain was confusing. The change he had shown earlier was still fresh in her mind. She couldn�t shake the feeling that the Jason she knew was gone; in his place was someone else. But what caused it was a puzzle.

Yes, she had been told of Trini�s death, and everyone�s reaction to it. It had been Rocky who told her the news.

The phone had been ringing when she unlocked her apartment door. She sighed as she quickly placed the shopping bags on the sofa next to her.

�Hello,� she greeted the person over the phone.

�Kat, I�ve been trying to reach you all day!� the former Blue Ranger exclaimed over the phone.

�Rocky, what happened?� Her mind thought something had happened to Tanya and the baby; she knew Tanya and Zack had gotten married and all she could think of was the worst.

�I hate to be the one breaking this, but...� Rocky trailed off. She could hear Kim�s sobs over the phone.

�Rocky, is everything OK with Tanya?� she asked worriedly.

�Kat, it�s not Tanya,� Rocky said; Kat blew out the breath she had been holding. �But it�s Trini.�

She had met the original Yellow Ranger after she passed on the Turbo Powers. She had become instant friends with her. �Well?� she asked after what seemed to be ages.

�Kat...Trini died three days ago in a car accident. Jason escaped with minor injuries.�

�What!!� was all she could say. It wasn�t happening, a ranger died in a car accident. They had fought monsters and such a simple thing as an accident claimed a life. �No, that�s...that�s a lie,� she panted. �I...I...I spoke to Trini two weeks ago.�

�Kat-� Rocky began.

�No, that�s a-� She broke into sobs. When she finally came around, �So, how�s everyone holding up?� she asked as she wiped her tears away.

�We all are in shock, but Kim has it worst, she hasn�t eaten in three days and refuses to believe Trini�s gone.� Kat bit her lip.

�Please let her know on my behalf how sorry I am.�

�Yea, I will let her know.� He took a deep breath and sighed.

�So what do we do now?�

�We�d like you to come home for the funeral if you can.�

�I�ll see what I can do,� she said. �No promises, Rocky.�

�OK, very well,� he said before hanging up.

But there had been no indication that Jason took it even more badly. Or even how badly he had taken her death. But worst of all, she wasn�t able to attend the funeral. Sending her regrets along with the flowers seemed so little, but that was the best she could do at the time.

They all had kept in touch with each other; in one letter Tanya had mentioned that Jason was gone, no one knew where. It was like he had disappeared into thin air overnight.

No one even got a letter from him. Except he did show up for the mission on the moon � according to Tommy - then disappeared again till now.

What had caused the former Red Ranger to shut out everyone he knew, including his best friend? Why did he go without telling anyone where he was going? As the questions swam in her head Kat was forced to grip the bench top; she felt a headache coming.

Tommy whistled softly � as he paced around the lounge room - in hopes of getting the �baby� he and Kat parented to come running in his direction. The pup was only four months old and was already a tiny troublemaker.

Mischief glinted in his eyes, at the look he remembered on Kat�s face when he had brought the pup home. But the sadness behind the day never faded. He sighed and sat on the sofa.

She had lost it again, he thought as he looked up at the ceiling. It was the third miscarriage she had had in the last two years. She was into her fourth month when she lost the baby. And the pain of that loss he still felt today, and on a few occasions he also saw it in her eyes. The child they wanted so much, but were never able to have.

Over time he had convinced himself that a child wasn�t needed to complete their family. So he had ended up buying the pup which was now the apple of Kat�s eye. Their child. He sadly smiled and got up. He needed to find Jason and Angel. Both seemed to have disappeared; he shook his head, but as he was about to place his foot on the step leading to the second story of the house he stopped when he heard a bark from the dining room. Looking closely, he could see the hint of a red shirt and a tiny black spot across from him. He grinned. Jason was playing with Angel, under the table. Walking quietly he leaned on the door jam and cleared his throat loudly. When Jason cursed as he smartly hit his head on the table Tommy laughed.

�So this is where you two have been hiding?� Tommy smirked, with a glint in his brown eyes.

�Er...hello, Tommy,� the deep voice greeted sheepishly as one large hand rubbed the back of his head and the other held Angel.

When Angel saw Tommy, he was wiggling in the former Gold Ranger�s hand in order to get to him.

Shaking his head in amusement, Tommy gladly took the pup.

�You know,� he brought the pup close to his face, �Mommy�s been looking all over for you.�

Amused at the way Tommy was talking to Angel, Jason raised his eyebrow. �Mommy?�

�Uh huh,� Tommy said as he tucked the pup under one arm. �It�s time for his dinner and Kat would go nuts if we couldn�t find him.�

�Ouch.� Jason winced. �Well, we better get him to the kitchen then.� He watched Tommy put the pup down; as soon as his feet touched the floor he immediately ran for the kitchen, knowing his dinner was waiting for him.

Jason smirked. �He�s cute,� and turned to face his best friend.

�Yes he is.� Tommy nodded. �Now if we don�t get to the table, she might whip us,� he joked.

�Lead the way.� Jason motioned towards the door.

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