A/N: Merry Christmas everyone, I am taking a break from my other stories to try to get this story done for Christmas, hopefully I can make it.

Disclaimer: I do not own Power Rangers.

Dedication to my friend SpecialK92 and my sister SkyTalon.

…

Chapter One:

Kim limped determinedly up the steps of her new apartment building, with her brother following close behind her. "What if you fall, or get hurt, or sick? Are you sure that you are ready to move out on your own?"

Kim slowly turned around, leaning against her cane as she faced her brother, "Kenny, I'm thirty years old; I can't live with you for the rest of my life."

Kenny snorted, "Yes, I know that, but why take a job here? There were plenty of job openings in New York you could have taken."

Kim rolled her eyes and opened the door to the apartment building, "I told you I wanted to return to California, you know that the winters in New York are hard on me."

"Why couldn't you move to Angel Grove, you would be close to Uncle Steve and his family then?" Kenny demanded as he followed her into the building with a stack of boxes.

"Yes then you could have Uncle Steve and the others check in on me. Kenny, I can't live off your charity. I need to make my own way in the world. Besides Adam and his wife Tanya live in Angel Grove, if he found out I never made it to the Olympics he would be so disappointed."

Kenny froze, bristling, he hated it when Kim seems to blame herself for what had happened; "You not making the Olympics team has nothing to do with you. It has everything to do with that jerk who thought tampering with your brakes was a good idea. If I ever see that guy again…"

"You'd do what Kenny? The police claims that the mechanic worked alone. Only the two of us know that he was hired by Him." Kim limped down the stairs to the basement and opened the door to her apartment, her cane echoing in the emptiness.

Kenny looked at the dark, empty apartment, he just couldn't imagine his happy go lucky sister living in just a dark and dismal place, "Are you sure you can handle this place, sis it is awfully dark and dingy."

Kim looked around the grimy apartment, "It's all I can afford with my doctor bills. Once I pay off a few of them I will move into a better apartment, maybe even get a house of my own."

"If you want I can give you a loan."

Kim slammed her cane against the floor, causing a loud thudding sound, "I've told you once; I told you a hundred times, I don't want to live off charity. I can make it myself. I've pulled myself through college and I can pull myself through grad school."

Kenny shook his head; Kim can be so stubborn sometimes. "Okay, fine, now where do you want stuff?"

…

Kim entered the high school on her first day with her cane in her left hand and her briefcase in her right. She hadn't gone too far when a voice called out, "You must be the new history teacher."

Kim slowly turned around, remembering a time she could leap into a fight in less time than it took to blink, "Yes, I'm Miss Hart." She introduced herself, shifting her briefcase into her left hand and then stuck out her right hand, while leaning heavily on her cane.

"Mrs. Mercer," the dark haired woman stated, shaking her hand, "I'm the Principal, please call me Elsa though, all the other teachers do."

Kim transferred her briefcase back into her right hand, "Is there anything special that you expect from me?"

"Just make learning as fun as possible." Mrs. Mercer instructed. Just then the secretary arrived and infirmed Mrs. Mercer that her husband was on line two, "I'll be right there," she told her secretary before turning back to Kim, "Let's get you settled."

Just then a tall teacher with short spiky hair walked by, "Dr. Oliver," Elsa called out. The teacher turned around and came forward, "this is Miss Hart, her room is the one next to yours, I have a phone call I have to get; do you mind getting her settled."

"Not at all Elsa." With that Elsa left and Kim found herself face to face with Dr. Oliver, of course she knew him as Tommy Oliver instead.

"Tommy," she gasped out in surprised, "Please tell me I'm hallucinating."

Tommy laughed, "And here I was going to tell you not to wake me up if I'm dreaming. Beautiful is that really you?"

"It's me Kim, if that's what you are asking. I don't know what you mean by beautiful though. How can I be beautiful with a metal rod in my leg?"

"What do you mean a metal rod in your leg?" Tommy demanded his eyes huge, what had happened to Kim since they had seen each other last.

"I don't want to talk about it." Kim insisted, "Now which way is my classroom."

Tommy sighed, as he led her to her classroom. What had happened to Kim to make her so distant? "Why don't we meet for lunch? We can catch up."

Kim stood in front of her classroom, should she accept? The invite seem innocent enough but so had his initial invite and look at where that left her. Years in and out of hospitals and physical therapy just to get it so she could walk again. On the other hand this was Tommy, who had served with her as a power ranger so long ago. He wouldn't do anything to hurt her on purpose. "I don't know, I'll think about it." Kim said before entering her room.

"Kim!" Tommy called out, Kim turned around, raising an eyebrow in question, and Tommy smiled, "Welcome to Reefside."

…

Kim hobbled into Tommy's classroom during lunch, wondering why in the world she was doing this, but needing a sympathetic ear to listen to her about the students in her classes so far. "Is that offer for lunch still good?" she asked.

"Sure," Tommy said, clearing some papers off his desk, "I hope you don't mind eating in my classroom, I like being here during lunch in case a student has questions on their homework."

"Don't tell me you gave your students homework on the first day of school." Kim joked with a little bit of a laugh.

Tommy laughed, pulling up one of the stools to sit on while offering Kim his chair, "No, I'm pretty sure that Elsa would put me in detention if I did that."

Kim kind of glared at Tommy, well aware that Tommy was offering her his chair because of her cane and inability to walk without it. If she thought she could get up on the high stool without embarrassing herself she would have, but seeing as she was smart enough not to try something impossible she accepted the chair. "She seems nice enough, believes learning should be fun, reminds me of Ms. Appleby with that."

Tommy nodded, before grabbing his lunch box, "If someone had told me my first year here that she was nice; I would have told them to get their head examined."

Kim opened up her lunch sack, suddenly feeling out of place with Tommy's container of leftovers from the night before compared to her peanut butter sandwich. "You didn't like her back then?"

"She told me if I a student smiled I was doing something wrong."

Kim snorted, "Are you sure we are talking about the same person?"

Tommy smiled, his heart pounding in his chest, if someone had told him yesterday that he would meet his high school sweet heart again he would have burst out laughing, "As much the same as I am with the Evil Green Ranger."

Kim's eyes went wide, "She was under a spell?"

Tommy nodded, "Yep, Mesogog placed her undercover here, probably to keep an eye on me. Once she was free of the spell she decided to stay on. She made this place great again, kids love going to school now."

Kim frowned, "I'm sorry, but who was Mesogog?"

"Mesogog, the main villain of the Dino Thunder Power Ranger Team," Tommy explained slowly, "Tried to return Earth to the time of the dinosaurs a couple of years back."

Kim shook her head, "I'm sorry, between being in and out of surgery, working full time at the local Wal-Mart and going to school I didn't keep up with the different power ranger teams."

"You're fine Kim; let me give you a run down on the team. I was the mentor and black. Conner McKnight was red, he's a professional soccer player, Ethan James was blue, he was your typical blue, super smart, and Kira Ford was yellow, musically inclined. Oh and there was Trent Mercer, he was white, poor kid, his father was Mesogog, he's away at art school now, doing good last I heard from him."

Kim nodded, if she just kept him talking, he wouldn't ask about her.

"So how is your first day of school going?" Tommy asked, studying her like she was an extremely rare fossil.

"Fine, I discovered that you can group the students into three groups, the ones who don't care that I have a cane, the ones that think that because I have a cane I'm senile and they can get away with anything, and those ones that are certain that I will hit them with the cane if they do anything wrong. The ones that don't care greatly outnumber the ones that do, but the ones that do care make more noise than the others."

Tommy laughed, "Has any of the boys asked if you were single. I think half my female students ask me that each year."

"No, but who wants to date somebody with a cane?"

Tommy smiled softly, cane or no cane he would love to go on a date with the beautiful Kimberly Ann Hart, "Oh, I can think of someone who would date you." He straightened up, glancing at the clock, lunch was almost over with, "In fact why don't we head to the gym after school and spar like we use to in high school."

"I can't," Kim stated, nodding towards her cane, "I don't carry this cane around just to scare off idiotic jocks you know."

Tommy's face felled, "Maybe we can go out for dinner then?"

Kim stood up, "Maybe another time, I still have a lot of boxes that need to be unpacked."

"I can come over and help unpack." Tommy offered.

Kim's eyes flashed in a way that Tommy only ever saw in someone being controlled by an evil spell. "Listen here and listen well, Thomas James Oliver, I don't need your help just like I don't need Kenny's help, so you just mind your own business." With that she stormed off, causing her cane to thud each time it hit the ground.

After she left, Elsa entered the room, "What was that all about?"

Tommy smiled at his friend, "Nothing I just forgot how proud and stubborn pink rangers could be the last team I served with didn't have one."

Elsa looked at where Kim had just disappeared, "Let's hope that it doesn't get as bad as the last time the school board hired a former ranger."

"Don't worry; I'll keep you informed, if I live in a town with power ranger activity I usually get dragged into it one way or another."

…

A/N: There you go Chapter one. What do you think should happen next I would love to hear your opinions.