Chapter Text
Location: Reefside High, Tuesday morning. POV: Abigail/1st person
“Have fun, Abigail. I’ll see you during your science class,” Dad said as we split off; I had to head to my homeroom and Dad had to handle his own homeroom, which included the handing out of our schedules as well as locker combinations. While it was rare that the locker combinations actually changed, we still had to hand back our slips with our locker codes at the end of the school year. I suspected that it was more so that the janitors could properly clean out the lockers once summer started; not all the students were as careful with the insides of their lockers as they should be.
“See you then,” I replied, grinning. I wouldn’t know my schedule until homeroom, but I didn’t have as many books this year as I normally did; neither shop nor art class required them.
“Nervous?” One of my classmates said as we chit-chatted before the school day officially started.
“Not really,” I replied. “More excited; signed up for one of Dad’s AP science classes.”
“They let you do that?”
“It’s not against the rules; I checked ahead of time when signing up for this year’s classes. While some of the counselors try and discourage it, there’s nothing preventing me-or any other staff member’s relative-from taking classes that their teacher relative might teach. Not the first teacher’s kid at the school and I doubt I’ll be the last. Sanderson’s known youngest graduated with Conner, Ethan, Kira, and Trent and Trent’s Principal Mercer’s…stepson? I know there was an offer for her to adopt him as well, but I’ve not heard if he said yes or not.”
“Not to mention Mr. Caplan’s granddaughter going here.”
“Yep.” She was in a different homeroom; while there were some students in mine with surnames that started with the letter C, Caplan was pretty far down the line when it came to surnames starting with ‘Ca’. My homeroom already had quite a few students with surnames starting with A in it and that wasn’t that unusual; it just varied by year. I didn’t recognize some of the students in my homeroom, but knew that they were likely the ones who’d transferred in from L.A. after Uncle Billy closed the L.A. office, which probably shuffled some of my classmates into different homerooms than they’d been in the past couple of years. I’d heard some of their names being called ahead of the school day starting and I had a few ideas as to why.
My classmates and I continued quietly chatting as the room filled up, with a couple of stragglers coming in after the warning bell. I shook my head; it was always the same students and a couple of them lived right across the street from the high school, so I knew that they didn’t have any excuse to be late.
Some students, I knew, didn’t get to see a lot of each other during the summer as they and their families went away on vacation or they went to summer camp that was overnight if not working somewhere. My friends, Jennifer, and I hadn’t been the only ones among our classmates to be gone overnight for a couple of weeks this past summer. Many of my soccer teammates had helped out with the soccer camp, which had been fun; Coach Daveed had asked me to be assistant captain this year, with the option of having Francine, Karan, or Jennifer as my co-captain next year; they’d be unofficially helping this year, allowing Coach to figure out who would be my co-captain. I promptly accepted the role and had begun coordinating with Ashley about everything; she was going to be showing me the ropes of what being team captain was about before we actually got into even the official tryouts. That was when our captaincies would be made official as well; unofficially before then, we helped figure out tryouts as well. Freshman year’s had only been on a Saturday because that had been the only time Coach could make it work due to the weather. Last year’s had been held after school like tryouts normally happened.
“Who’s the guy that looks like Dr. O, but older?” Jasmine, one of the other girls in my homeroom, asked as we headed to our lockers to put some of our books inside. She’d evidently seen him when she’d come in; both of us had.
“His birth father,” I quietly replied. “And no, I don’t know why he applied here, but his wife works for my godfather and he just shuttered the L.A. office now that the Reefside office is fully set up.” I wasn’t entirely sure that Dad’s birthparents were actually married, but I suspected that Mr. Trueheart’s wife and Dad’s birthmother were one and the same.
“Why’d he do that?”
“He was moving the base of operations here,” I explained; thankfully, we had the same 1st period class. “Not enough of his staff wanted to stay in L.A. to make it feasible to run both offices. It’s expensive to live in L.A.; Uncle Billy pays well in part because of that and I know he’ll probably continue to do so even though the cost of living in Reefside’s a lot lower than in L.A.”
“How well?”
“Well enough that even the interns can afford to rent a multi-bedroom apartment without needing a roommate.” That had been what Ethan had said, but I didn’t know if multi-bedroom apartments were a lot cheaper here in Reefside due to it being a Ranger city compared to cities like L.A. and San Francisco.
“Does he take high school seniors as interns?”
“That, I don’t know yet; college, yes. We should find out by the time our senior year starts.”
“Going to apply for one?”
“I don’t know,” I honestly responded. “Probably not, though, and not even to Mercer Industries given that Dr. Mercer’s son Trent is a friend of mine and Karan’s staying with him and Principal Mercer while her parents are overseas. Too easy for someone to say I got the job there because I know the boss and not on any real merit.”
“Nepotism happens all the time, though.”
“Doesn’t mean it’s right,” I replied. “It’s one thing if they’re actually good at what they’re doing and whatnot, but I’ve heard too many horror stories of people appointed to a position that they weren’t qualified for and had no training in simply because they were related to someone in management, including the CEO.”
Jasmine made a face as we took our seats in our history class. I knew that she was thinking of some of the athletes who’d only made the team because they had a parent for a coach. Coach Daveed was pretty fair, though; I knew that I’d only gotten the assistant captain position because Coach felt I was best for the job out of all of his Varsity players in my year. I had good working relationships with most of the team save any of the girls who were going to be coming in from JV or any of our transfer students, most of whom had come in from L.A.; their parents worked for Uncle Billy.
I kept getting what Jasmine had asked about Mr. Trueheart from many of our classmates by the time lunch came around; I’d told my friends and Jennifer ahead of the Labor Day parade and the others on Homecoming court the day of when we were all getting ready to get on the float.
“How much are you willing to bet that Dr. O and Mr. Trueheart are getting the same questions from the rest of the staff that you’ve been getting all day?” Jennifer asked as we got our lunches and sat at what was now our usual table, Logan joining us. I’d invited Ethan’s sister Leah to join us, but she’d declined, preferring to sit with her friends.
“Sucker bet,” I replied, scowling.
“What’s with the scowl?” Logan asked. “Mr. Trueheart looks a lot like Dr. Oliver.”
“His birth father,” I told Logan. “First time I met Mr. Trueheart was back in May, when Uncle David and Aunt Melissa got married.”
“Ah.” Logan, like everyone else within earshot, picked up on what I wasn’t saying, mainly Dad’s lack of a relationship with his birth father. “Well…I hope it doesn’t come to fisticuffs like what I’ve heard happened between Dr. O and Principal Mercer back when she was still under Mesogog’s control.”
“How’d you hear about that?” That had been before either of us had started high school. I wasn’t surprised by Logan’s term for a fistfight; the kid liked to read and was often found to be using odd language in place of the more common terms that we all knew; in this case, he’d meant a fistfight or some other hand-to-hand fighting.
“Some of the kids that frequent CyberSpace showed me the footage,” he replied. “Is he a Power Ranger or something?”
“Just a really good martial artist who lived in Angel Grove when Rita, Zedd, the Machine Empire, and Divatox were all attacking,” came my automatic response. “Besides, even if he was a Power Ranger, he wouldn’t be able to tell anyone.”
“Because of the treaty. Does that apply to family members, too?” I could tell Logan didn’t believe me, but understood why I couldn’t say anything.
“Yep along with anyone else who finds out, accidentally or otherwise.”
“Like you?”
“Yep.”
My first class with Dad was right after lunch; my 7th hour class was AP art and that had been a fun class. While it had started, like most of ours did, with going over the syllabus, we’d been allowed to start figuring out our first projects. Unlike the first two art classes I’d taken, we were being given a lot more freedom in choosing what we were going to make. While we still had to study certain techniques, we got to choose how we were going to put them in action on each project. I was ecstatic; this was going to be fun.
I hadn’t seen Dad during lunch, nor Mr. Trueheart, but I also knew that it was likely that Dad’s 7th hour class had the first lunch period instead of the second one; I’d not gotten a chance to ask him which lunch period he had before we’d left for school. I knew that he usually knew before school started; his year’s schedule got given to him at the staff meeting the same day that I picked my books up.
“Everything okay, Dad?” I asked after getting to class; he had a look on his face that meant that he was stressed.
“I’m fine, Abigail.” I just raised an eyebrow, but didn’t press, knowing that he wouldn’t likely want to talk about it in front of my classmates. I knew that I’d probably hear about it after I got home. Dad soon started the lesson; we’d all been excited enough that nobody came scrambling in at the warning bell. While this hadn’t been the only class I’d been excited for, I was glad that I had Dad’s class right after lunch, followed by Vietnamese and shop.
Location: Reefside High, same day. POV: Tommy/3rd person
Tommy smiled to himself as Abigail and her friends left his classroom after their class with him. They’d had fun and had helped keep questions on track. He had no doubt that she’d been getting questions all day about his birth father being the new vice principal; he felt bad that she’d been put in that position, but also knew that she’d likely not given a ton of information. She knew him well enough by now to know that there was little about his personal life that he wanted to be made public, especially to her classmates.
“Sir,” he said as his birth father entered his classroom during his free period; his had been changed to after Abigail’s science class.
“What did I tell you about that?”
“I’m not calling you dad; that’s out of the question. It’s either ‘sir’ or ‘Mr. Trueheart’ like the students call you. You made your opinion on me calling you by your first name abundantly clear.” His birth father just sighed.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Ignore me except for when you can’t. You seem to have been doing a good job at that over my life.”
“Before you met Dad and David, I didn’t even know how to get in touch with you.”
“You could have called the Scotts, especially after I turned 16; Jason’s mom told me at one point that she and my birth mom were in the same hospital room after giving birth and I know that they kept in contact, though it took a while before everyone figured out everything about you and my birth mom. Jase and I met before we even started high school together.” That had been fun to find out; they’d gotten some teasing for it from their friends, but more of the ‘fated to be best friends and brothers in spirit’ type than anything else.
“The Scotts?” Tommy had pulled the appropriate photo out of an album just in case of such a conversation, placing it in his briefcase; it had been from just before Jason, Trini, and Zack had taken off for the Youth Peace Summit, with them and their parents. Abigail had gotten a copy of Trini’s copy; it was in the handful of photo albums that were specifically about Trini and her life. “They don’t look familiar at all…are you sure you guys were in the same room?”
“That’s what Mrs. Scott said; said that she’d remembered both you and my birth mom in the room after both she and my birth mom had given birth, though you were busy talking to some lawyer or other.” His birth father didn’t speak at that and Tommy had an idea why; his birth father would have been speaking to a lawyer to give him up for adoption. Mrs. Scott had said that if she’d known that his birth parents had been planning on giving him up for adoption, she would have spoken to her husband about adopting him and raising him and Jason effectively as twins, given their shared birthday. That, he was saving for a trump card if needed.
“I’d ask how she got a photo, but I have a few ideas.” Tommy had gotten a photo from Sam not long after they’d met. He’d showed it to Jason and his parents not long after, knowing that it would have been a long shot that he and Jason were born in the same hospital; L.A. had a ton of them, as was expected of any big city. Angel Grove just had the one, as did Reefside, though both cities also had urgent cares. While he also knew that it had been possible that Mrs. Scott had been mistaken-to some folks, one Native American looked like another-he highly doubted it, especially since he’d compared the baby photos that his parents had taken with the photo Mrs. Scott had quietly taken of him and Jason in the hospital. He and Jason had been looking at each other a lot while they’d been in the hospital together, according to Mrs. Scott. It was entirely possible that they’d sensed their connection to each other even when hours old.
His birth father eventually left, seeing that he wasn’t going to get anywhere with a still-pissed Tommy; they’d both effectively ignored each other during lunch, though Tommy wasn’t looking forward to the staff meeting after the school day ended. He still managed to get through his last 2 classes of the day without incident, for which he was grateful. While he’d not had many issues on his first day of classes, he didn’t want to press his luck or jinx things. The last time he’d had any significant issues on the first day of school, Elsa had saddled him with Conner, Ethan, and Kira for detention and had encouraged him to take them to the paleontology museum.
“I’ll come get you at CyberSpace,” he told Abigail after school was over. “Looks like you had fun in shop class, though.” Despite her cleaning most of the grease off, he could still spot a few bits. It looked like they’d got right into making some stuff this afternoon-and that was if they’d not used the class period to familiarize themselves with the various tools instead.
“Did; got a few questions for you, but they can wait,” she replied. Tommy gave her a smile as she and her friends headed out the door, with them splitting up to head to CyberSpace; neither Francine’s car nor Steve’s could fit all 7 of them, as Jennifer was also joining them, though Jennifer was driving her own vehicle there.
The staff meeting was hell though; his birth father wasn’t the only teacher there questioning why the Silver Guardians had taken over security for the school.
“Abigail was present at 2 different explosions, one of which had been her godfather’s car that had been rigged to explode when it was started,” Tommy reiterated; not only had he had this conversation with the school board, but they’d hashed this exact topic to death at last week’s staff meeting. “It’s better to have the Silver Guardians, who know what’s going on and are familiar with both Abigail and Billy’s backgrounds to guard the school instead of a retired cop who spends more time on his phone than he does doing actual security work. They’re also providing security for Billy’s company and for the same reason. Even if I took Abigail out of school, having her homeschooled until we can be sure that everyone involved in the last couple of explosions have been caught and sentenced, her friends are here. From what I’ve been told, folks like the ones involved or possibly involved in the two explosions won’t care that she’s not here; Jennifer and I are her family and she’s got a lot of friends here and that’s if she’s the actual target. The BAU team doesn’t think she is, but they aren’t ruling out that someone who wants to hurt Billy and his partners won’t go after her, her friends, or any of Billy’s friends.”
“It’s why the school board and I agreed to have them here,” Elsa added. “Dr. Cranston’s not the only one out there with enemies and while I can reasonably take the time off without needing to dip into my savings, not everyone here can. Dr. Oliver’s right, though; even if he and Abigail stayed away until the BAU and Silver Guardians are sure that everyone’s caught, they might still target our students due to our association with both Dr. Oliver and his daughter and their association with Dr. Cranston.”
“These attackers aren’t like normal Ranger villains, though; they would likely attack a school.”
“So would Ranger villains,” Tommy pointed out. “Mesogog and Ivan both attacked Reefside High, either with one of their monsters or by themselves at least once each; it’s not out of the realm of possibilities.”
The meeting was soon wrapped up, but the school superintendent pulled him aside as he got ready to leave. The man rarely came to staff meetings except for once or twice a semester; Mr. Furnace usually dealt with Elsa and the school board.
“I heard about what happened at last week’s staff meeting. Is your birth father being the vice principal going to affect anything?”
“It shouldn’t unless he tries causing problems for my students, including my daughter. My issues with him are, right now, purely personal and I honestly hope that he doesn’t try bringing them into work like he did last week. I understand Elsa laid down the law in that regard after last week’s staff meeting.” He elected to not mention this afternoon’s conversation unless it became a regular issue and even then, he’d go to Elsa first.
“If I had known…”
“There’s not much you would have been able to do; from what I understand, the other applicants either didn’t pass the background checks or had attitudes towards minorities that wouldn’t fly here. He seemingly was the only applicant that didn’t have either of those issues as well as had the required experience needed, having both taught and had been in a position of leadership at his last school. Both Elsa and I have adopted children who belong to minority groups.”
“Miss Burton-Oliver, the soccer player, though I understand that both she and Mr. Fernandez-Mercer are both talented artists.”
“Yes,” Tommy replied, smiling. “I don’t know how long Trent’s been drawing, but Abigail’s been taking art lessons as soon as she was old enough to do so.” And scribbling long before that, if the album of her early drawings was any indication.
“I went to the last couple of art shows; she’s got some talent, I’ll grant you that much. She thinking of making a career out of it?”
“She might be,” Tommy admitted. “She hasn’t decided one way or another yet; she wants to get through college first before she decides.”
“Smart decision on her part; she may find something she enjoys more to make a career out of, or that she’s good enough to do so. Wouldn’t surprise me if she gets a job offer from her godfather’s company.” Mr. Furnace was the second adult to say that to him; the first had been one of his coworkers who was familiar with Billy’s work.
“Don’t know if she’ll take it unless it’s one of those blind box selections,” Tommy replied. “Pretty much going through resumes without names and going that way. Unfortunately for her, she’d also have to include a sampling of her portfolio and Abigail’s fairly certain that the folks in charge of hiring in the art department all know her style.”
“I can see where that’d be an issue; I’ve heard she’s not fond of nepotism. My daughter was in one of her classes last year and asked about that when they had some free time before the bell rang. From what I’ve heard about her getting the assistant captaincy for the soccer team, that was purely on merit.”
“It was,” Tommy confirmed. “Coach Daveed’s reasoning was sound for picking her over the other girls who’d been on Varsity with Abigail since day one. He wouldn’t have picked her if he didn’t think that she could do the job.”
What Tommy wasn’t saying-and likely wouldn’t to Mr. Furnace-was that if Coach Daveed did what some coaches did and have the players pick the team’s captain and assistant captain, Abigail would still end up with the position. Tommy knew that Abigail would have hated getting it that way, but also understood why she preferred doing things on merit. Her classmates who were only nice to her because she was a teacher’s kid, she’d said once, reminded her of some of her early peers who’d only been nice to her because Ernie owned and ran the Youth Center, but they treated other kids like crap, especially other minority kids.
Tommy was soon able to make his escape from Mr. Furnace and headed out to his Jeep, briefcase in hand. While he wasn’t sure if his parents were still there, or Kat’s, he knew that Mike and June had been planning on stopping over at some point after breakfast. He wasn’t surprised that they’d found Archie and Tritonus adorable; the twin brothers had found the crowd at Ernie’s parents’ house fascinating, if not a bit noisy. He knew that Cestria and Kat both had been appreciative of Matthias and Alice allowing them to use the rarely-used upstairs bedrooms as a nap area for their children, though Andy had fought his nap the previous day, as he’d been having too much fun.
Abigail and her cousins more than the adults had weaved in and out of the house as they talked with friends or otherwise needed to translate for Ingrid during the day. That had cut down on the noise some and had also allowed the adults to mingle and relax on their own, as they didn’t have to worry about watching their kids outside of when it was time to eat. He’d not been surprised that Eric had watched Abigail interact with Professor Xavier from the open screen door; the Quantum Ranger had still been reeling from the knowledge that Power Rangers were technically mutants by the current time’s definition. Wes was a lot more fine with the knowledge, but out of the two Time Force Rangers from the current time period, he’d been much more accepting of mutants who didn’t want to cause harm than Eric had been. Tommy suspected that a lot of that was because he’d been with the team from the start; Eric had been hell to bring into the fold, according to the remainder of the team. Eric admitted as much when Tommy had asked after the Red Ranger team-up mission. He had no doubt that Eric was thinking, though, of what Trip had said once, when the Time Force Rangers were dealing with Notacon. It had been a gutsy move on Trip’s part to do what he did, but his actions had saved Notacon’s life in the end. Tommy had added Eric to the list of Rangers who could look at Cestria’s mom’s research; it had previously been limited to the Rangers based or living in Reefside or on Aquitar.
After Tommy got to CyberSpace, he took in watching Abigail and her friends play what was seemingly a game of 1,000 Blank White Cards with some of the younger patrons, including Ethan’s sister, who’d been in his second period science class. He’d not been surprised that Abigail had pulled her into a game; from what she and Ethan had said, Leah liked the game, but didn’t have many people to play it with.
“They’re having fun,” Hayley noted as he took a seat at the counter. “I don’t think the game’s going to be winding down for a while, though. They started playing…20 minutes ago, I think. Not sure where they got the dice, though.”
“Ethan gave her a set over the summer, I think,” Tommy replied. “I don’t know where he found them. Leah probably got her set from Ethan as a gift and I think the rest bought dice at some point.”
“He knows a few people that make custom D&D dice. Willing to bet that they were supposed to be a birthday present, but didn’t get done in time.”
“Abigail’s had a few gifts for Kat and me that have been like that,” Tommy replied, remembering the coasters that she’d had made the previous summer that had taken time to come in. The remainder of the Christmas ornaments that were Andy’s hand and footprints had been gifted as part of their Easter gifts; Abigail had been too excited about how they’d turned out to want to wait for Mother’s or Father’s Day-or even Christmas.
Abigail eventually noticed Tommy up at the counter, but it had been after the game had would down and she was bringing the various cups up.
“Dad! Why didn’t you tell me that you’d gotten here?”
“You were having fun,” Tommy assured her. “I didn’t want to get in the way of your game.”
“Thanks, Dad,” came her muffled response as she gave him a hug, garnering a soft smile from Tommy as he returned it.
“Ready to head home?”
“Yea…just let me grab my bag.” Abigail quickly dashed back to her friends, grabbing her bag and making her goodbyes. Many of the kids she’d been playing with were looking at their watches or cell phones if not the clock on the wall, all realizing that they’d been at the cybercafé longer than they’d expected. “Do you need a ride home, Leah?” He heard Abigail ask as they headed to the counter.
“No; Mom’s picking me up,” Leah responded. “Not sure when she’s supposed to be getting here. If she can’t make it, she’ll let me know and Ethan’ll pick me up.”
“And if he doesn’t, I’ll probably drop her off,” Hayley added. “Ethan’ll be here all day tomorrow; his Monday-Wednesday classes are all online this semester.”
Tommy wasn’t surprised to see Abigail grin; one of Ethan’s Tuesday/Thursday classes was one of Billy’s, who was only teaching a couple of classes every semester on campus. Both classes were on Tuesdays and Thursdays this semester so Billy wasn’t dragged away from his company for too long. He knew that his friend was enjoying the teaching, but not enough to do it full-time like Tommy did.
“What did you want to ask me earlier?” Tommy asked once they got on the road, Abigail driving.
“Oh! I wanted to know if it was okay if I took the class to get the motorcycle thingy for my driver’s license? We had our choice this semester of building a car or building a motorcycle and all he had in the way of cars were ones that I don’t feel comfortable driving. Too small.”
“Is there any other reason why you want to take that course and build a motorcycle?”
“I’d like to have a ride home that wasn’t dependent on you borrowing Katherine’s car when soccer season rolls around or me getting a ride home from friends when the weather’s nice. I won’t operate it when the weather’s awful or predicted to be such, I promise.”
“I’m not going to say ‘no’ right now, Abigail, but I want you to actually research this, including talking to Nick and Blake. Your reasoning is sound, but I want you to be doing this with an understanding of what goes into motorcycle ownership and maintenance, not to mention everything else.”
“I was planning on talking to them anyway,” she replied. “Just want to ask you first because we have to have our choices in by Friday. Not everyone in shop class wants a vehicle and they’re perfectly happy to help everyone else who wants one.”
“Do you want me to talk to your shop teacher, too?”
“Only if you think it’ll help you make your decision,” she replied, though not in her usual cheeky manner when it came to responses like this. “I’m not looking forward to telling Ba if you say yes, though. When David brought the subject up when he was taking shop, I thought Ba was going to have a heart attack or stroke. David never brought the subject up again and wasn’t able to bring home the bike he’d built. He’d also helped build a car, but the kid that got the car was someone who needed one and David had just gotten his SUV his sophomore year; he’d been able to take driver’s education the previous March and got his license not long after his sophomore year started; I think he had it by Thanksgiving.”
“What happened to the bike?”
“I don’t know; they don’t get torn down for scraps, though. Something about damaging the metal even more. Know Austin and Amy’s bikes…same thing, though they chose not to take the course to get the motorcycle license.”
“I think theirs got auctioned off; David’s probably did as well.”
“With the money going to the school; think that’s why the parents pay for the vehicles if they want their kids to have them.” He didn’t know where any high school that offered some form of auto shop class got the vehicle parts, but Tommy suspected that they simply hit up junk shops and that was if some folks just didn’t donate their old vehicles for the kids to fix up and buy.
Tommy definitely planned on talking to John, Abigail’s shop teacher and he had no doubt that he was the first parent to do so, especially when it came to motorcycles, and he doubted that he’d be the last. He also planned on talking to Nick and Blake himself, just to make sure that at least one of them would be fine also helping Abigail out with getting some of her practice in; Jason lived too far south to help on a regular basis. Outside of his-and the rest of Dino Thunder’s-Raptor Cycles, he didn’t outright own a motorcycle; that had always been a Jason thing, especially after Jason had graduated high school.
“Abby!!!” Tommy chuckled as Andy came barreling out their front door as they pulled in, Abigail coming to a hard stop.
“Buddy, let me park first and then I’ll give you a hug, okay? Stay right where you are, okay?” Andy thankfully stood still as Abigail maneuvered around him and got the Jeep into the garage.
“I’ve got your backpack, Abigail,” Tommy told her as she grabbed her shoulder bag; her backpack had fallen against the back of the passenger seat when she’d made the hard stop.
“Thanks, Dad,” she replied as she headed out of the garage and to her younger brother. Tommy went inside to check on Kat and everyone else that was still at the house; Andy shouldn’t have been able to get outside without someone-Kat or either of their parents-noticing and coming after them.
“You okay, Kat?” he said after finding her half-asleep and dozing on a chair in the library. She’d gotten tired somewhat towards the end of her pregnancy with Andy and this pregnancy was looking no different, especially now that she had a mobile toddler to take care of.
“Just tired,” she replied. “Mom’s out…said something about going to the store for something and I don’t know where Dad and your parents are.” She shot up. “Andy! He was down for a nap when I fell asleep.” Tommy hadn’t noticed Kat’s parents’ vehicle in the driveway, but he hadn’t been paying much attention either after Andy had barreled out the door, excited to see them. His parents’ vehicle was still in the driveway, if Tommy remembered correctly, but the Kwan’s wasn’t, meaning that they were out and maybe coming over closer to dinner.
“He woke up and ran out the door when we were pulling in,” Tommy told her. “Abigail stopped when he came barreling out the door and got him to stand still while she parked the car.”
“He’s okay, Kat,” Abigail added, Andy in her arms. “Gave him the lecture of not running out the door when there’s vehicles pulling in and out of the driveway, but…”
“Thank you, Abigail,” Kat said. Tommy knew that they’d be having that discussion with Andy for a while yet; at 17 months, he didn’t understand the logic and reasoning behind why you don’t run when there’s vehicles moving in the general area and you especially don’t run towards a moving car unless there was a good reason to and good reasons to move towards a moving vehicle were rare.
“Ba, Sam, Uncle David, and Aunt Melissa get off okay?” Abigail asked after sitting down, Andy still in her arms.
“They did; they left just before 11. I know Ernie wanted to wait until you got home from school, but something came up at the Youth Center; I didn’t catch what it was, though.”
“Probably an employee or supply issue that David can’t deal with,” Abigail noted. “There’s some suppliers who are jerks towards David and not all of them are because he’s mixed-race; some just don’t like dealing with college students and young adults. Ba’s been looking for either new suppliers or trying to get the suppliers to not send the jerk delivery drivers. They’ve only got the one problem employee, from what Ba and David said; she doesn’t like changing out ingredients in recipes. I don’t know if it’s just that she doesn’t believe allergies are real or if she’s someone who thrives on predictability in things. Changing out ingredients in recipes could throw that off.”
“Both are possibilities,” Tommy acknowledged. He’d heard same as Abigail had that Ernie had put the problem employee through allergy first aid, but hadn’t had a chance to ask how well that had gone. He doubted it was the problem employee that he knew of, though; from what Ernie had said when he’d asked, the girl was starting her senior year of high school. Angel Grove High School had started today as well, meaning it was either a supplier issue or a building issue. He doubted that it was a building issue unless one of the college employees or guests decided to do something stupid like clog up a toilet badly enough that they would need to call a plumber. He’d had a few college classmates who’d done something like that and they usually fell into one of two groups: the ones who’d admit responsibility and the ones who wouldn’t. In the latter situation, a lot of them wouldn’t even alert someone to take care of it, leaving it for someone to find later.
“What’s the plan for dinner?” Abigail asked. “Game at CyberSpace ran a bit longer than expected and I’m starting to get hungry.”
“I don’t know,” Tommy admitted. “Is there anything you want for dinner?”
“No,” she replied, shaking her head. “At least nothing specific. Ba…he’d usually make something that David and I both liked and would eat and same for dessert; we never went out for dinner.”
“I was hoping Mike or June would be here by now and we could figure it out. Your grandparents on Ernie’s side of the family usually do something for their grandkids the Saturday after school starts, so Ingrid can join in and Trini’s parents always did something special for their kids the first day of school; don’t know if they continued that when Trini was still overseas with the Youth Summit. They might have for college, but I don’t know; I never asked.”
“What did Billy do?”
“It depended, based on his availability in regards to the first day of school,” Abigail replied to Kat’s question. “Usually ice cream and something fun that wasn’t science experiments unless it was food-related and it was usually the weekend after school started; Aunt Kimberly usually joined us. Jason and David did something similar, though I don’t think Sylvia joined them. She…most of the interactions with David that I knew of happened at the Youth Center due to her working there for so long. They never did anything specific together that I know of and I would have known; any time David was away from either home or the Youth Center, it was because he was at school or the dojo and that was if there wasn’t a school trip going on or time with Jason.”
Tommy tried not to show his reaction to hearing about what David and Abigail’s childhood had been like; it was one of the few things he didn’t like the reminder of, even 2 years later. By the look on Abigail’s face, he’d not quite succeeded.
“It’s okay, Abigail; I just don’t like being reminded about how sheltered Ernie kept you and David both, that’s all.”
“And chewing Ba out wouldn’t help either,” she noted, relaxing.
“No it wouldn’t,” Tommy agreed, though he knew that he’d had times where he’d wanted to. He wasn’t about to though; Ernie’s mental health had been too bad when Tommy had wanted to the most for Tommy to do so and to do so now? Still a bad idea; Ernie had started making amends for his past behaviors and Tommy knew that his friend had understood what he’d done wrong.
Leaving Abigail and Andy with Kat, Tommy started searching for his parents; he knew where they’d likely be, given the time of day. He found his dad and Mr. Hillard talking in one of the cabins, but hadn’t found his mom yet.
“She went with Hazel to the store,” his dad explained. “I think…Wes is it? He went with them.”
“Wes, yes,” Tommy confirmed. “Eric was the Silver Guardian who was on Billy duty today, from what I understand. The guest house needed stocked up?” His dad shook his head.
“I think they went to figure out dinner.”
“They should have waited until we got home,” Tommy replied. “I don’t know if Mike and June are doing something special or if we’re just going to go out to dinner somewhere. I need to check with Billy, too; Abigail confirmed that he used to do something special with Abigail on the weekends for the first day of school. He took her out one day August of last year because the weekend after school started was Labor Day and she was going to be busy. He came up to visit 2 summers ago, even if they didn’t go anywhere due to her being under her alias at the time publicly. Abigail was trying to lay low because of Stone and given that she’s known as Billy’s goddaughter…”
“That makes sense; need me to call your mom and Kat’s?”
“Up to you,” Tommy told his dad before checking the clock on the wall. “We’re going to need to know soon; Abigail doesn’t really care one way or another.”
“If we go out, where are you thinking?”
“Probably Little Tokyo or the Indian restaurant Abigail likes,” Tommy replied. “We’ve gone there to eat a few times instead of getting takeout, mostly when we’ve either been picking Abigail up from work or meeting her there.”
“What did you guys do last year and the year before?” Kat’s dad asked as his own dad got a hold of their wives.
“Some of Abigail’s favorite dishes,” Tommy replied. “She’d not really felt like going out those days, though with last year’s, it was something light and healthy as she had a martial arts lesson that day, as the school week started the Wednesday before Labor Day weekend. We did something special the next day that wouldn’t interfere with her martial arts lessons.”
“They’re on their way home,” his dad said. “They did pick a few things up, but not a ton. Mostly some small things that we forgot to bring with us from Angel Grove.”
They soon headed back to the house; Tommy and Kat’s moms would be arriving soon, as the closest grocery store wasn’t that far and he’d shown his mom where it was one of the last times she’d come up, at her request. He wasn’t sure if his mother-in-law had been shown, but it wasn’t that hard to figure out where it was either.
Peeking into the den, he wasn’t surprised to find Abigail snoozing a bit; she’d had several early mornings over the weekend due to a mix of work and the Labor Day parade. While those had helped for her early mornings due to school, he knew that it would take a while before she adjusted and that she’d likely be sleeping in a bit once Saturday hit.
“Our moms are on their way home,” he quietly told Kat. “They did get some groceries, but I don’t know how much was for here and how much for the guest houses.”
“We didn’t need anything for here,” Kat told him. “I don’t know what the guest houses need, though; I didn’t get a chance to check after Sam, David, Melissa, and Ernie left.”
“I can check later,” Tommy replied. “Seeing as I have no homework to grade tonight, that leaves me plenty of time to check that guest house. What isn’t going to spoil can be put next door or brought into the house.”
That was their usual modus operandi whenever company that was staying in the guest houses left. Abigail more than Tommy or Kat tended to use the leftover fresh fruit in smoothies or as snacks in her lunches while the vegetables were used in salads or to make up different dishes that could keep for a few extra days or frozen, like pasta sauce. Eggs…they usually had to be used up fairly quickly, especially if there were most of the dozen left over. Abigail usually made either pizza dough or meatballs with the extra eggs if she was feeling up to it; if not, Tommy or Kat made egg salad with it and that was usually lunch one day for all four of them. Sometimes, desserts were made if it was getting close to a special event, but that was rare. Normally, if there was something special going on, they were usually getting groceries ahead of company coming up, not trying to get rid of them.
“Thank you, Tommy. Andy was running everyone ragged today after everyone else left.”
“That’s fine,” Tommy assured her. “He’s got some days where he’s more high energy than others and I know he had a lot of fun yesterday.”
“He did. I was surprised at how well Ernie did with some of the guys drinking beers yesterday.”
“I think he may have talked with Rocky about it, just so that he could deal. I think it helped that his dad didn’t make the beers accessible to him.”
In fact, anytime someone wanted a beer, either Mr. or Mrs. Burton went to get it instead of having it in an easily accessible cooler filled with ice. The only drinks that had been in the coolers had been soda and water, along with some Sunkist and juice for the younger kids-mostly Ingrid and Andy, but Abigail, Jennifer, Phillip, and Jackson had been dipping into that cooler as well. There’d been some other alcoholic drinks available-hard cider and some wine for those who’d not wanted beer-but they’d also been placed out of Ernie’s view.
“Hn?” Abigail asked after his and Kat’s moms had gotten back home from their grocery trip.
“Time to figure out dinner; nobody really feels like cooking, even Mike and June when I called. They’re willing to meet us at a restaurant. Where do you want to go?”
“Little Tokyo. Uncle Billy and them joining us?”
“No; Billy’s in the middle of a class still and wants to eat dinner with his partners tonight. He wants to do something special Friday with you.” Tommy had luckily called right before Billy was headed into his class; he’d forgotten to ask Billy’s class schedule this semester the previous day.
“That’s fine,” Abigail replied. “I don’t mind at all.”