Hi everyone,
So... after far, far too many years, I've finally finished Dark Secrets. In the process of trying to finish it, I did do a bit of minor editing on previous chapters and have gone through and fixed that in the copy here online. It's not enough that you have to re-read to catch the changes to understand where we are now; with the exception of the previous chapter. I had somehow not gotten a copy of the wedding on my personal copy of the story; so I rewrote the wedding thinking I hadn't done it before. Then I discovered it on lol. So I have taken the two, and combined them into one new version, and reposted it as chapter seventeen. That's the only chapter I recommend going back and re-reading for sure.
Thank you to everyone who has reviewed over the years. I'm incredibly sorry it took so long. On the other hand, I'm back to writing, so who knows what might happen in future, there may be new PR stories yet to come :-)
Day
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Epilogue
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Tuesday, July 4th, 2017
Jacksonville, Florida
Jacksonville Ranch Club
Peterson Residence
4:25 p.m.
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"Here you go," Tommy spoke as he leaned over the back of her chair around the pool, glass dancing in front of her line of sight temptingly.
"Thank you," Kim spoke, reaching out for the glass of tea even as she tilted her head back to look up at her husband of ten years.
"You're welcome," he grinned, stealing a quick kiss before slipping away to rejoin the guys gathered around the grill.
"So, do you completely approve of my insane idea?" Bev's voice drew her attention to the chair to her right.
"How could anyone not?" Anne asked from the chair just past Bev, where she sat carefully painting her toenails. "Two weeks, fun in the Florida sun, a few of the Orlando theme parks, nothing but the insane group that somehow that one roped us into a decade ago…" she turned her head to wink in their direction. "Eighty percent of it covered under the guise of a Christmas gift that only our lovely big sister's rich and famous, multiple Oscar winning husband could give…"
Bev shook her head, looking over at Kim and rolling her eyes, at the rambles of the youngest of their little trio. Kim shook her own head, glancing around once more and just smiling at the sight of all the friends that meant the most to her gathered in one location, she didn't even bat an eye when Anne shrieked a moment later after Bev threw an ice cube her way, twenty years of friendship left her long used to the antics of the two of them.
It had been John's idea to have a grand gathering of the 'tribe' as Anne had deemed the group at her wedding to Rocky back in 2011 after a speech about how you needed cherish the people who tolerated your quirks and shouted 'me too!', because those weirdos were your tribe. Back then, most of the newly deemed 'tribe' members had shared looks, and been reminded again how crazy a pair Rocky and Anne made; six years on, they embraced the term, and looked forward to 'gatherings of the tribe' as they'd been titled. Kim was fairly certain the latest one was partially John's way of ensuring Bev was completely distracted from the fact her former stepfather was being released from prison the week before, having served his time, but Kim certainly wasn't about to argue. It was also a nice distraction from the fact her own father would be released later that year.
John's bit of insanity, that included paying for park tickets that Bev had spent months plotting, and food and board for two weeks, meant all any of the rest of them had to do was find a way to Florida the last week of June and to have made arrangements to have time off until after the Fourth. It had been a pretty good deal, one far too sweet to pass up in the minds of any of the group. The last time they had managed to gather together had been Justin's wedding two years before. The youngest of the former rangers had finished his degree, then returned to California; eventually ending up in San Francisco area working for Google. In the City by the Bay, he had met Rebecca Morgan, an animator at Pixar, and they had wed in Sonoma in 'fifteen. Rebecca had been welcomed with open arms by the group, but with people spread not just across the country but the globe, visits were sporadic. Billy and Trini were still in Texas, both still busy with their chosen careers and raising two children. Zach and Aisha had moved out of New York City, settling down in the Carolinas where Aisha worked at a large cat rescue and Zach had opened his own dance school, their family having expanded to four as well. Adam and Tanya still lived in L.A., Adam having become a stuntman on many of John's films actually. After Contact ended back in '08, Bev had opted to walk away from acting to focus on their family, expanded to two girls, while John had transitioned to feature films; and he had gotten Adam involved in his second film once he had enough pull to do so. Then there were Rocky and Anne, who were living in England now, thanks to his work, and she had become a stay-at-home mom to their two sons.
The group in Angel Grove had found themselves with few changes over the years, aside from added children. Both the Scotts and Olivers had three children each, and neither Kim nor Kat planned on having anymore. While Kim adored her youngest son, his birth had been far from easy and Tommy hadn't argued when she admitted to not feeling up to a repeat performance. His reaction had been that three kids was enough in his opinion, and she had already given him three; the legal adoption of Landon and Jamie came through only weeks before their youngest had been born. Kat had merely declared she never planned on having more than three kids, so with three daughters, they were done and Jason would have to deal being surrounded by women. Jason hadn't balked at the idea any, so both their families were complete. Kim still worked at the high school and Kat still worked at the hospital, while the two men had their dojo and the new project they'd been conscripted into a year or so after her and Tommy's wedding.
While none of them had ever been called back to serve, the ever growing number of Ranger teams had led to Andros coming to talk to Tommy and Jason one day about starting a group. More and more often as the years had passed, the later teams had a mission after they finished their own time, helping a newer incarnation. With Zordon gone, all of his contacts in the universe seemed lost, until Andros realized they couldn't just let it all go. Somehow, and Kim still often shook her head and swore it was because Tommy couldn't fully walk away from being a hero, Jason and Tommy as the first two Power Ranger leaders had created a Ranger network. The leaders of the subsequent teams were the contact, though she and Kat had met every ranger that followed them through the years. As each new team had it's seemingly requisite meet-up with a previous team, their leader was informed of the organization. Help was made available if needed while the team was dealing with their big bad; though none of them ever took the organization up on it, yet. Instead, the typical response was to reach out after their battle was done, the team would finally reach out through Tommy and Jason, learn all of the history that came before them.
It boggled her mind, to be meeting Rangers younger than her eldest children, seeing what she'd been blind to as a teenage superhero herself. She didn't know how any of them had truly done it when they were serving, mixing high school and protecting the earth. Of course, she knew from first hand experience, that high school had been easier back then in the late nineties, the things that teenagers today were studying made her own high school experience look like some strange older version of middle school. Today's rangers were better suited for the technology of being a Ranger, but they also seemed to have to deal with more devious villains than their's had been. Though, Kim personally suspected it was due to the fact Zordon's wiping out of the infamous villains of untold eons past had created an imbalance in the 'Force', as those who had grown up on Star Wars had taken to calling the balance of good and evil in the universe. Zordon's death and purifying wave had resulted in such a drastic difference in the two sides, that the 'Force' had felt the need to level the playing field. The villains that followed had still been as incompetent in the end, but had done more damage before the team fighting them had succeeded in defeating them.
Shaking away her mental wanderings, Kim settled back in her chair, opting to focus on the here and now, the good around her instead of the questions of good and evil, black and white. She turned out the familiar bickering that only Anne and Bev could get into, and once more let her eyes wander over the poolside area. Most of the other 'moms' were lounging about the pool, enjoying time to relax and chatting with friends; while the 'dads' were pretty much divided into two groups. Group A, the cooks, consisted of Tommy, Jason, John, and Adam; group B, the pool gang, consisted of Billy, Zach, and Justin, who were in the swimming pool playing Marco Polo with the majority of their gaggle of children. Currently eleven-year-old BJ was Marco, while the rest of his 'age mates', consisting of Amanda, Anna Maria, and JJ were taunting him to catch them as Billy watched over them.
There had been a running joke about how the kids came in waves: the first wave had been the four born the year after Kim had first re-entered the lives of her former fellow rangers. The second wave had been started with her own son, named after his father, who went by TJ. Well, TJ along with Bev and John's eldest Brianna had been the start of the second wave, both were nine, as was Zach and Aisha's youngest, Anton. Billy and Trini's youngest, Alisse and Jason and Kat's middle daughter, Odessa were eight, while Adam and Tanya's youngest, Daisie, finished out the wave at seven. The six were caught up in their own game of Marco Polo, that had branched off from the original game, and were having great fun spending more of the time splashing Zach than dodging him as he played the part of 'Marco'.
The third wave had been started almost five years ago, with Jason and Kat's youngest, Amelia, and Bev and John's youngest, Mackinzie. Rocky and Anne's Antony, named after his maternal grandfather and uncle, was four and the third member of the wave. The three had dragged Landon and Emily out of a diving game with Jamie and Adam, and into a splash war where the shallow end met the deep end, leaving Jamie and Adam time to themselves in the deep end of the pool. The latest wave consisted of just two at the moment: Rocky and Anne's second son, Matteo, had turned nine months just the day before and was sleeping in his father's arms while Rocky sat near the grill chatting with the guys. Justin and Rebecca's son, Andrew was six months old, and was sleeping in the shade near where Rebecca, sat talking with Kat and Tanya.
There was currently a 'baby pool' going as to who would have the next child to add to the latest wave; though Kim's money was on Anne if for no other reason than to annoy her friend and frighten Rocky. The former red and blue ranger loved his wife and children, but had developed a well earned fear of traveling from London with children in tow. On the other hand, Kim had been ready to find out who had thrown her daughter's name in the pot, and strangle them; until cooler heads had prevailed and distracted her.
Jamie and Landon had both graduated with the class of 2014, as had Adam back in Pennsylvania. Emily had graduated the following year, and while her brother had already been well into his first year in the Marines when she did; she had immediately traveled to L.A. where Bev and John had offered her a place, to start work on her engineering degree. For a moment in time, many had wondered if Landon and Emily would head into a relationship, with all the time they spent together now that they were living in the same city again. Landon was working towards a degree in law, while Jamie was studying the theater with the intention of following her 'Aunt Bev' and 'Uncle John' into acting. Except, it hadn't been her son and Anne's sister who fell into a relationship to everyone's surprise. Somehow, and Kim still often sat and jokingly blamed Anne for a drunken prediction when the kids were toddlers, Jamie and Adam had started up a long distance relationship while he was stationed across the country. Both had been ecstatic when Adam was transferred to San Diego six months before, while their parents had shared many, long phone calls over the whole idea.
Overall, Kim was actually okay with her soon to be twenty-one-year old daughter dating the boy she had watched grow up. It meant she knew exactly what to expect from her daughter's boyfriend, she'd known him since he was a toddler after all. And if he didn't have a healthy fear of her and Tommy already, his best friend was his girl's over-protective brother, and his own mother had threatened his manhood if he hurt Jamie. The only time it really bugged Kim, was when she stopped and considered the fact that she had a two children who would be twenty-on before the month was over, at which point, she'd stop and just wonder if she could really be that old to be the mother of full grown adults. In the end, when that feeling hit, she had learned to enjoy sharing the 'oh my god' moment with Tommy, who had taken it much harder than she when their oldest had started dating around the age of sixteen, then graduated high school and moved out to attend college over an hour away. Somehow, watching him pace and mutter about his 'baby' being too young to date 'that Perna boy' always helped her move from 'damn I'm old' to trying not to be caught laughing at his reaction. Of course, getting caught laughing wasn't exactly a hardship per se, and one thing often led to another and they'd spend an hour or so locked away in their bedroom.
TJ had taken to just shaking his head at his parents and wandering off to avoid the insanity of 'weird parents'.
Sighing to herself, she tunned back into the two next to her, before turning her head to look at them,eyebrow raised as she realized they had fallen silent. Which life experience had told her was never a good thing. Those two being silent had been precursor to many of life's crazy events: the shrimp caper of '09, the fiasco that resulted in toilet papering the Scott house at three in the morning in '12, the infamous karaoke night in '13 that had more than a few videos kicking around amongst the group, and numerous other lesser incidents through the years that were all epically capped by Halloween of '16. The morning after a drunken girls' night had led to Kat waking up with blue hair, Tanya and Aisha gaining a stunning shade of violet-haired, and Trini's hair had turned a pastel rainbow. All of which she had learned after they silently snuck out so Kim was left to sputter at the four women, as lost as they were, and discover when Kat had grabbed a mirror, that her own hair had become a stunning shade of red.
Needless to say, silence had become the feared weapon of the two, and she eyed them warily as she turned her head back towards them. "What?" she frowned as she stared at them.
"Kimmy has a grand idea," Bev announced with a grin.
"She does?" Kim looked between the two, even more wary than before, "Do I want to know?"
"Of course you do, it will be fun," Anne smirked.
Kim just shook her head, set her drink aside, and prepared to listen to the latest scheme her friends had come up with. Though, life was never dull, not when her friends and family got together, and she was actually grateful for the craziness after the years she had spent isolating herself from them all. Maybe they had some antics, but then she figured they couldn't top the Halloween hair caper of '16.
Two hours later, she learned to never doubt the truly devious nature of the minds of Perna women, as between Anne, Bev, and Emily, somehow a typical water balloon fight had taken on paint ball like tendencies, and she was surrounded by people covered in multicolored splotches of color. Kim merely blinked, and stood back as all out war was declared on the three by the rest of the gathering, and she quietly worked on edging away from the group who hadn't yet realized she was as color free as the three who had prepared the balloons.
Of course, when her husband turned, long curly hair splotched with yellow and half his face covered in pink, she'd known in an instant she was caught and darted away before anyone else could decide to break away from the pack with him.
Life was definitely never dull, and Kim was never happier, even if she knew Tommy was going to find someway to cover her in paint with the rest of them.