One Saturday of a long weekend, the Rangers were hanging out in the
juice bar when their communicators toned. Jason opened communications.
"We read you, Zordon."
"Rangers, you must teleport to the command center immediatly. Lord
Zedd's Bombrain monster is attacking Angel Grove."
"We'll be right there, Zordon," Jason replied. The Rangers teleported
out.
In the command center, the Bombrain monster was shown on the viewing
globe to be in the warehouse district of Angel Grove, blowing up everything
in its path.
"We have to stop him! It's morphin time!" Jason said. The eight
Rangers found themselves confronting Bombrain.
"Ha! Don't blow your tops, Rangers, but you'll never stop me. My future
is dynamite!" It ran into a nearby building.
"He's trapped!" Blue Ranger yelled. "That building only
has one exit!"
"Somebody has to go in after him," Red Ranger said.
"I'll do it," White Ranger volunteered. "I have the strongest
healing factor."
"Are you sure?" Red Ranger asked. White Ranger nodded. "Okay,
then, Christina. Billy, you, Tommy and Jamie stand by as backup."
"Right!" The four Rangers made their way to the door. White Ranger
used her psybolts to blow the door open and slipped cautiously inside the
building.
"That was a very explosive entrance!" cried Bombrain as it jumped
into view. It swung its arms and flung White Ranger into a wall. "But
when I detonate, it'll be an even more explosive exit! Sayonara, White
Ranger!" A huge flash of light blinded the three backup Rangers just
before a huge explosion hurled them back. Purple Ranger felt flaming bits
of shrapnel pepper her body. Then, she slumped to the ground and didn't
feel anything more.
Billy woke up in the command center with minor burns, a major headache,
and a worried Trini standing over him.
"Trini?" he asked.
"Billy, you had us so worried. We didn't know if you were going to
wake up and we couldn't lose you, too," she gushed, throwing her arms
around him.
"Too? Trini, where's Christina? Is she all right?" Billy asked,
detaching himself from Trini.
"Billy, Christina was right next to Bombrain when it exploded."
Billy took this news calmly. "Can I see her?"
Zack shook his head. "The force of the explosion was intense. All
we found was Saba." Zack held up the scorched and battered tiger saber.
"Billy, I'm sorry. We searched everywhere."
"I know you did, Zack. Listen, is there anything you need me for or
can I go home? I need some time."
"Sure, man. We'll be sure to call if anything turns up." Billy
transported out.
"Zack, there's nobody home at Billy's. His dad's away at a business
seminar. Will he be all right alone?" Trini worried.
"Don't even think about it, Trini. Billy's a smart kid. He wouldn't
do anything stupid."
Billy sat in his kitchen, considering the prospect of life without Christina. He found it totally unacceptable. He went into his lab and locked up anything that was fragile or expensive. He then placed the keys in his dad's business safe. Returning to the kitchen, he searched until he found what his dad had hidden several years ago. He took the bottle of bourbon out to his lab, collapsed onto the worn out sofa, and began to drink, tears running down his face.
Back in the command center, Tommy had come out of unconsciousness and
been given the bad news. He had taken it fairly well, including the knowledge
that he would eventually lose his powers. He and Kimberly had gone for
a walk. Now the command center was focused on Jamie, who had felt the main
thrust of the explosion. Jason was almost out of his mind with worry. Finally
Jamie began to stir.
"Jason? Why is my arm tied to my side?" she asked groggily.
"You have a nasty burn on your shoulder and we had to pull a six inch
metal shard out of your upper arm. You're not supposed to move it until
it heals, which should only be a few hours with Zordon's equipment,"
he replied softly.
"Why not just have Christina heal it?" Jamie asked. Jason looked
at Jamie with a strange, pained expression.
"Jamie, she can't."
"How bad was she hurt?"
"Jamie, lay back down. You need to rest."
"Jason. What's wrong with Christina that she can't heal my arm?"
Jason had that expression on his face. He knew that Jamie would be as hurt
by this as Billy was. "Christina...Christina died in the explosion,
Jamie," he said as gently as possible. "I'm sorry."
"What?" she whispered. "No. No. She couldn't have. No!"
Jason held Jamie tightly as she who never cried soaked Jason's shoulder
with her tears.
The Rangers, minus Billy and Christina, sat in the park worrying. Christina
had been spending the long weekend with Jamie so the Rangers had three
days to decide what to tell the people at the Academy. Nobody knew what
to say, though.
"Guys, we haven't seen Billy in three days. I tried to call his house
yesterday but there was no answer. You don't think he did something..."
Trini asked.
"No. Billy's smarter than that. He'll know how much we need him,"
Zack told her.
"It's Jamie and Tommy I've been worried about. He's going to lose
his powers soon and she walks around like a zombie. I don't think either
of them have been sleeping well. Their eyes don't look right," Jason
said.
"Tommy says he's been having nightmares, but he won't tell me any
more than that," Kimberly told him. "It's like he's afraid to
talk about it."
"Well." Jason decided, "We'd better do something about it
soon, or we'll end up losing four Power Rangers, not one."
Jamie's mom worked late that night and Jamie decided to just spend the
night fire gazing. She wasn't planning to search for answers, just calm.
The flames had just begun licking at the dry wood when a knock sounded
on the front door. Jamie looked through the peephole and let Jason in.
"What are you doing here? My mom's gone, but there's no storm. Besides,
I'm not in the mood," she added listlessly.
"Jame, I didn't come here for that. I just thought you might want
some company. You've been spending too much time alone. I didn't want you
to suffer alone. Besides, you look pretty bad. I thought I'd offer my shoulder
again." Jamie did look pretty bad. She hadn't brushed her hair recently,
so it covered her head in dull red kinks, disheveled from her dragging
her hands through it over and over. She had deep purple shadows under her
bloodshot hazel eyes and her skin looked pale and washed out under her
tan. In short, she looked like a prime candidate for the insane asylum.
Jason led Jamie to the couch where they sat in silence, staring at the
leaping, crackling fire.
"Tommy said he'd been having nightmares," Jason said softly.
"He's not the only one," Jamie whispered.
"Do you wanna talk about it?"
"It's weird. In L.A., with Snake, we experienced a lot of things.
It was rare that a week would go by where I didn't hear of someone I knew
being hurt or killed. None of them affected me the way this explosion did."
Jamie ran a hand through her hair, yanking at a knot. "It's not the
explosion I see in my dreams, but Chris. Just Chris sometimes, sometimes
there's some other people, but they're always in the shadows. I feel like
I should recognize them, but I don't. I feel like there's something I should
be doing, too, but I don't know what it is. I have these dreams about four
or five times a night, but I always wake up really agitated."
"Jamie, you don't blame yourself for the explosion, do you?"
Jason took Jamie's hands into his.
"No, no I don't blame myself. I know there's nothing any of us could
have done. Bombrain just exploded before any of us could have reacted."
"Jamie, you need to sleep."
"No," she said firmly. Her eyes betrayed the terror she felt
at the prospect of sleeping.
"Yes, and that's final."
"No."
"Yes." Jason picked Jamie up and tossed her over his shoulder.
In her exhausted state she couldn't fight back and decided to give in and
enjoy the, uh, view.
He got her upstairs and deposited her on her bed. "Jamie, try and
get at lest a few hours of sleep," he pleaded.
"One condition."
"What?" Jason prepared himself for the worst.
"Stay. At least until I fall asleep. Please?"
"All right." Jason sat down on Jamie's rocking chair. "I'll
stay until you fall asleep." She pulled the covers over herself and
closed her eyes. Somehow, knowing Jason was in the room gave her a sense
of comfort that hadn't been there before.
Around one a.m. Jamie sat up in bed choking down a scream. She caught
her breath and looked around the room. She saw Jason, still in the rocking
chair, fast asleep. Carefully, so not to disturb him, she gathered a jacket
and her shoes from the closet. Snatching a sheet of paper and a pencil
from her desk, she jotted a quick note:
Jason,
Had another nightmare and felt like I wasn't alone. I went to talk to someone.
If I'm not back by the time you wake up, I will be soon. I love you,
Jamie
She slipped downstairs and made a quick phone call. The person on the
other end answered with a groggy "We doan want any."
"Tommy, don't hang up! It's me, Jamie."
"Jamie? Whadda ya want? It's like the middle of the night."
"No, it is the middle of the night. I need to talk to you."
"Bout what?"
"Nightmares."
She could almost hear Tommy's eyes widening. "You've been having them,
too?"
"Yeah. Do you know where the Kravitz Bagel Shop is?"
"On Elm and Main, right? Want to meet there in about twenty minutes?"
"Yeah. See you then." Jamie hung up the phone.
At the Bagel Shop, Jamie saw Tommy sitting in a corner booth. She slid
in across from him and told him about her dream.
"It's the same as the others, but this time I recognized you there.
Someone else was there, too," she told him.
"I had that dream too. I didn't recognize you, but I did recognize
the third person. It's Billy."
"We'd better talk to him. He won't answer the phone, but maybe he'll
answer the communicator." She tapped the talk button. "Billy?
Billy, if you can hear me, pick up."
"What?" a sour, gravelly voice that only slightly resembled Billy's
answered.
"Tommy and I are coming over. If your doors are locked, we'll transport
in, but either way, we need to talk to you."
"Fine," he said and cut off communications.
Jamie and Tommy arrived at Billy's house. The front door was locked,
but the door leading to lab wasn't. Jamie entered gingerly, stepping over
a broken bottle of something clear and foul-smelling. "Uck,"
she said, holding her nose. "It smells like a wino convention in here."
Billy was sitting on the couch, grumpily contemplating a half-inch of something
in a bottle. "You're here. Talk," he grunted.
"Nuh-uh. Not till I'm sure you're sober. Go take a shower and I'll
whip up something in the kitchen," Jamie told him. Tommy helped Billy
up and to the lab's bathroom while Jamie found the kitchen. Tommy helped
himself to a glass of orange juice while Jamie found V-8, raw eggs, Tabasco
sauce, and 7-Up.
"Does that work?" Tommy asked her.
"I don't know. I think it's called a red eye. I've never had to use
one, but Chris..." Jamie stopped for a minute, "Chris said that
her friend Johnny usually has one for breakfast Saturday morning."
They both stopped talking as Billy came in from the lab bathroom. He smelled
better, but was dressed in a pair of worn overalls and an old, slightly
ragged blue sweatshirt. His eyes were surprisingly clear.
"Here," Jamie said, pushing the glass of liquid towards Billy.
"Drink this."
Billy took one look at the glass and flatly refused. He opened the fridge
and pulled out from the back a florence flask filled with a clear liquid.
"I don't know what you made, but this is something my dad had me work
on for the pharmaceutical company he works for. Clears up hangover symptoms
within half an hour of taking it." He looked at them. "I took
some right after you called."
"How long had you been drinking?" Jamie asked.
"Three bottles of bourbon, one of vodka, and one of blueberry Schnapps."
"Why?"
"I wanted to stop thinking for a while. It worked."
"Billy, since you're sober now, I'm not going to harp on what could
have happened. Instead I want to talk to you about nightmares."
Billy stiffened. "I thought it was just me. Because of the drinking.
I just had one tonight which was worse than any of them." He looked
at them with sudden clarity. "You had it, too."
"It set me thinking," Jamie admitted. "I think that maybe,
Christina isn't really dead. We're the three closest friends she has. We
have the strongest link to her. If she was calling for help, we'd be the
ones to hear."
Billy's eyes lit up. "That thought crossed my mind, too, when I was
clear enough to think."
"Billy, you have an energy detector, right?" Tommy asked. "Maybe
we can find something out at the blast sight."
"Let's go," Billy said, tossing Jamie the keys to the Radbug.
At the blast site Billy's energy detector went crazy. "I thought
so," Jamie muttered. "Somebody teleported in and out under cover
of that flash, taking Christina with them. I can take us to the other end
of the spell with the vortex."
"Wait, shouldn't we call the others?" Tommy asked.
"They'd think we were nuts. We don't have any hard evidence,"
Jamie told him.
"Right. Let's go."
Jamie activated her vortex and they landed in a corridor of Zedd's stronghold.
"What a surprise," Jamie said wryly
"We'd better morph. Billy? Up to it?" Tommy asked.
"Sure. It's morphin time!" he called.
"Billy, you were closest to Christina. Can you sense where she is?"
Purple Ranger asked.
Blue Ranger concentrated, focusing on his emotional link with Christina.
"The throne room." The Rangers made their way through the twists
of the castle to the throne room. They stopped upon hearing Zedd's voice.
"The Power Rangers are falling apart!" Zedd boomed. "The
Blue Ranger has locked himself in his lab, refusing to see anyone. The
Green Ranger is drifting further and further into shock over the final
loss of his powers. My daughter is slowly alienating the Red Ranger. He,
the Pink Ranger and the Yellow Ranger are beside themselves with worry
and will be no help whatsoever. The rest can easily be crushed by a monster.
It would appear, dear White Ranger, that you are the glue that holds the
Power Team together!"
"Shall I dispatch the Blue Ranger, my lord?" Goldar inquired.
"No. He shall soon destroy himself with drink. He is of no worry to
us anymore."
"Not up on current events, is he?" Blue Ranger whispered. Shifting
position, he could see Christina trapped in a force field that was being
kept stable by a small generator. "Jamie, do you think you could drain
that generator and get Christina out?"
"No prob, Bob," she whispered, "But I need someone to watch
my back. Tommy?"
"One diversion, coming up," Green Ranger said, standing up and
rubbing his wrist. With a loud "Siquah!" he executed a tumbling
routine into the throne room that would have made Shannon Miller green
with envy. With Zedd and Goldar's attention focused on him, Blue and Purple
Rangers were able to retrieve Christina's morpher and communicator and
knock out the generator, respectively. Zedd heard the generator shut off
and whirled around to see what had happened.
"No!" he screamed with rage. As he began to glow, Green Ranger
joined the rest of the group. Christina gave the group a quick hug and
they transported out.
Back at the building, Christina engulfed Billy in a desperate hug. "I
had almost given up hope," she whispered into his neck.
"So had I," he replied, holding her even tighter. "So had
I."
Tommy and Jamie decided to save their part of the reunion for later and
left while Billy and Christina stayed locked in their soul-strengthening
embrace.
Jamie came back into her house and carefully climbed the stairs to her
room. The last--hour and a half, she checked her watch, had been so emotionally
draining. Jason was still asleep in the rocking chair. She smiled and placed
her extra blanket over him. Climbing back into bed, she resolved to sleep
until at least noon. She'd let Jason know about Christina when she woke
up.
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