Power Rangers: The Alternate: A Zeo Beginning
Chapter 1: Back to School
Disclaimer: The Power Rangers belong to Disney. All things Carri belong to KJ, with many thanks for the loan of such a fabulous character. Everything else is from my imagination.
The story takes place in an alternate universe which diverges from accepted canon and follows the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie doxology of Phaedosian power coins and innate animal spirit totems. Bravo pour les différences d'opinion!
Life was just about perfect for the Alternate, that is, until her mother decided to get married again and move the family to France. Now the young Kim who had survived the death of her family and the destruction of her home world by the demon Kemora was being separated by an entire ocean from the only person in the entire universe she loved with all her heart. Worse, Zordon insisted she hand over her Ninjetti power coin to Katherine Hillard. It was only for a year, but she was well aware that in that short eternity anything could happen…
Kim was, perhaps, the most content she had ever been in her entire life. She didn't feel like the Alternate Ranger anymore. As Billy once pointed out, she had assimilated flawlessly.
Memories of her home world, of life before K had brought her to this world as a secret replacement for a dead Kimberly and a patch for an out of control timeline, only rarely floated through her vaguest dreams. She belonged now, this was her world, her team, and the knowledge that she had come from an alternate universe had faded into the recesses of her mind like the answers to a long forgotten history exam; surprising her when she remembered it.
She sighed deeply as she snuggled closer into Tommy's embrace, reveling in the warmth of the contact. It had happened again; that weird, almost psychic connection that only glimmered between them for the briefest of seconds, then disappeared, leaving an incredibly warm and content sensation glowing between them. Neither of them could define it. It wasn't as if they could actually hear one another's thoughts, it was more like a blending of their morphin energy, something that allowed them to just briefly merge with the other before fading and separating them again.
She adored those moments, but also knew Tommy was less than thrilled when they happened. If she had to actually describe it, it was like walking around naked; something to revel in if you're in a warm room all by yourselves, but disconcerting if you're worried a window's open and someone can see you.
The problem was, Tommy had secrets; ones he kept closely guarded and in check at all times, never admitting them to her or anyone else. Deep down, he was still very much defined by his inauguration into the world of Rangering as Rita's evil green. He felt hugely guilty and ashamed that he could never quite manage to fully overcome this darker side of himself and kept it under tight control in case it might accidentally slip and reveal itself again, like it had when he'd killed his teammate. It didn't matter that the resident Kimberly had been possessed by the demon Kemora and Zordon and everyone else assured him there was nothing else he could have done; he'd killed his world's original Kimberly and he'd live with that guilt his entire life.
He buried it deep inside, refused to look at it, to admit to it, but it was still there. It was a battle lust, the pure joy he took in a truly physical battle where sweat and blood and adrenaline twinged the atmosphere with just a hint of licentious fear and pain. Like an exotic temptation, it called to him with wicked, joyous anticipation each time he headed into battle; he loved it as much as he feared it.
She knew of it, of course. Just over a year before, the demon Kemora had taken her body hostage and ravaged the Ranger teams not only on her home world, but many, many others. She had been powerless to stop it, watching the carnage as one watches a nightmare that they can't wake from. She knew the lust, had experienced it via surrogacy, and still occasionally felt it in herself when the fighting was at its most intense.
It didn't bother her. She understood it in a way that he had yet to. It was part of him, part of what gave him an edge in battle that the other Rangers didn't have. He could understand and anticipate it in his opponent; counter it with equal intensity before it gave the enemy the upper hand.
It didn't in any way define him, at least outside of a battle, but he was still too afraid of that darker side to realize it. K had assured her that he would eventually come to grips with it like she had, so she waited patiently and simply loved both sides of him for what he was.
At some level, she was sure he sensed her acceptance, but that was still not quite enough for him to entirely expose himself in the light of that glorious coupling where it was just the two of them, their spirits dancing in perfect harmony. He didn't like it.
She sighed again as his strong arms tightened around her. They were stealing time. Her mother was out to dinner on yet another date with her famous artist boyfriend, Andre, and her little brother was locked in his room ogling over another set of pilfered nudie magazines from their dad's house. They very rarely took blatant advantage of an empty bedroom and no parental supervision, but it was the last day of a perfect summer and by the morning school would once again dominate their lives and restrict their freedoms; besides, the lake had been too crowded for the kind of fooling around they had in mind.
One thing had led to another and, before they'd known it, they were under the covers of her small double bed locked in a type of exuberate passion play that only teenage hormones and the general sense of forbidden naughtiness could inspire; not that either of them minded. Before they had known it, time had slipped by and both had fallen into an exhausted stupor; content to simply lay in each other's arms.
"Well isn't that the cutest thing I've ever seen." Her own voice echoed sarcastically through her mind. Kim stifled the urge groan and willed herself to stay completely still. Tommy had begun to snore softly and she knew any sudden movement on her part would jar him instantly awake.
The ghost of the resident Kimberly had become an almost constant fixture in her life since taking over the other girl's identity the previous year. She usually didn't mind, it came in handy sometimes, but other times, like when she was lying naked next to her boyfriend, it was an complete annoyance. She smashed her eyes tightly together and willed the specter to hear a telepathic "go away" although she knew the image of the other girl would ignore her.
The ghost only laughed at her and she swallowed a growl of frustration that ignored her internal command to be silent. Tommy shifted and she stilled herself once again, eyes open and searching his face to see if he was waking up. Tommy couldn't hear the soft echoes of his former teammate's voice, but he'd seen her shimmering image on more than one occasion and it never sat well with him. For her part, the ghost was adamant that she didn't blame Tommy anymore for her death and completely understood that the loss of her life had saved their entire team and the world at large, but he wouldn't hear any of it. He was still convinced she was hanging around and haunting them out of some sort of revenge.
Although he and the former pink Ranger hadn't been romantically involved, in fact she'd flatly turned him down when she'd been alive, he still blamed himself for being unable to save her. No amount of reasoning or cajoling on Kim's part could convince him that the only way to save the other Kimberly from the demon Kemora's possession was to kill her. Her bloody death at his hands had nearly destroyed him.
The ghost, for her part, found it humorous that her replacement was so enamored with the Ranger's fearless leader. When she had been alive, she hadn't found him all that fascinating, in fact considered him rather goofy, and had made it known more than once that she felt the other Kimberly could do better for herself.
"I just thought you might like to know that mom's home." The ghost added drolly, then disappeared in a shower of transparent, sparkly dust. Kim sat bolt upright, scattering the dust, and then literally jumped off the bed, scaring her boyfriend more thoroughly than any sudden monster attack could have.
"Mom's home." She announced in near panic, forgoing her underwear and shoving her legs almost simultaneously through a pair of pink capris, then snatching her shirt from the floor and yanking it over her head.
No one had to tell Tommy twice. He flew off the bed, sparing a precious second to glance at the clock, thinking at the same time both that her mother was hours early and wondering how the hell he'd allowed himself to go to sleep, then joined her in a frenzy of simultaneously dressing and straightening the covers of her bed to make it look as if the two hadn't been doing what they both knew they'd been doing.
It wasn't as if they always took such blatant advantage. In fact, they tried really, really, hard to be good. The problem was though, they could only manage to be good for a few days before they couldn't be so good anymore.
They tried to rationalize that Rita had legally married them in the Intergalactic Community, so they considered themselves entitled to a little more than the rules of dating at their age, but it was a rather lame argument and they both knew it. It had been a joke; a wedding prank. Rita had thought she was bonding her former green to the one female in the galaxy that would drive him insane. Unfortunately for her, or fortunately for him, the team's original pink Ranger had already been replaced by the Alternate; a girl more precious to him than life itself. It chaffed him a bit that he'd always be a little indebted to the old witch for bonding him to Kimberly, but not so much.
But just because the two Rangers were considered legally married and all grown up in the eyes of the Intergalactic Community didn't mean they had those same rights and privileges at home. On their home world, they were just kids with schoolwork to complete and parents to obey; it was really frustrating for them when they stopped to think about it.
The room somewhat pulled back into semblance of innocence, both of them bolted out of her bedroom and jumped for the family room couch, flipping the TV on to an old re-run of "The Love Boat" just as a parental key slid through the lock and the deadbolt flipped into the open position.
"Hey mom." Kim chimed innocently as her mother and Andre walked in. "You're home early."
"André and I noticed there's a carnival going on down on the boardwalk." Molly answered, sharp eyes taking in the disheveled appearance between her out of breath daughter and the long haired puppy she was obsessed with. "We thought we'd come pick you and Michael up for one last hurrah before school starts tomorrow."
"Oh…that sounds…uhm…"
"Awesome!" Her little brother chimed in. "Is there a roller coaster?"
"I believe there are enough lights crammed into the tiny waterfront by the Youth Center to accommodate many favorite rides." Andre answered good humouredly in his heavy French accent.
"But Tommy and I were just…."
"Saying goodnight?" Her mother suggested, deciding that she had spent too much time outside the home indulging her own romantic interests. Her daughter's hair looked like she'd been tumbling around in a windstorm and the boyfriend didn't look much better.
Kim blanched and gave Tommy a hesitant look, but he only nodded in agreement with her mother. It had been too close a call and while he wasn't happy about ending the last night of summer vacation early, he wasn't about to get on her mother's bad side again.
"Sure…I'll, uhm, see you at school tomorrow." He answered, standing nodding like a guilty as sin idiot between his girlfriend and his mother, then cautiously edged around the sudden invasion of parental authority and towards the blissful escape of the front door.
Kim made a frustrated and disgruntled sound, but didn't argue. She's spent all morning and all afternoon with Tommy, returning to her house and saying goodbye only long enough for her mother to go out and give at least give the appearance that she was willing to babysit a twelve year old sibling who didn't want to be babied. Tommy wasn't supposed to have come back, but Michael had sequestered himself in his room and she'd been bored and a little resentful she'd had to call their date to a halt early. Now though, she wouldn't argue. She rose without protest and followed him out of the room.
"You're shirt's on inside-out." Molly advised in her best parental tone as her daughter's boyfriend passed her.
"Oh…uh…" Tommy stammered, not exactly sure what to say. "Wow…thanks…I uh…guess it's been like that all day."
His hesitant eyes met those of his girlfriend's mother and he swallowed nervously. He wasn't sure what it was about Molly Williams, she'd dropped the last name of Hart after her divorce, but he was outright terrified by her sometimes. It was stupid if you really thought about it. He'd been Rita's evil green Ranger, he'd seen all kinds of horrors as the white Ranger, faced off against Goldar and Zedd and even Ivan Ooze, but Kim's five foot five tiny little art dealer of a mother could send shivers down his spine and make his legs tremble.
"Right, well…uh…have fun at the carnival." He continued in a rush as he backed out of the family room, then stopped cold, realizing he was barefoot and his shoes were still in his girlfriend's bedroom in the opposite direction.
"What is it?" Kim asked, unaware of the situation that was about to get them both busted.
"Oh man…my shoes." He murmured quietly. "I dunno what I did with my shoes."
"They're by the front door." Michael chimed in helpfully, giving his sister's boyfriend a look that clearly said Tommy totally owed him and payment would be due very soon. He liked Tommy, which is why he'd helped them out when he'd seen them scramble in panic out of his sister's bedroom, but that didn't mean he was above a little blackmail.
"Oh right…" Tommy stammered, "The door…they're by the front door. I'll just go…I'll get them on the way out…by the door…"
"Good night Tommy." Molly said sternly, arms crossed unsympathetically across her chest.
Tommy stopped again and grinned at her sheepishly, then turned and bolted for the freedom of a warm southern California evening.
----
"I can't believe I don't have one class with any of you." Aisha complained, looking once again at her class schedule which had been amended at the last minute for about the third time. Junior year was supposed to be one of the best, yet she was almost completely on her own with a class schedule that would ensure she didn't see any of the Rangers until after the final bell.
"I suppose I could claim offense at being referred to as 'no-one'" Billy chimed in.
"You're student teaching my chem lab." Aisha fired back. "That doesn't count."
"My college curriculum dictates that I spend so many hours in a mentoring position." He defended, but she only rolled her eyes at him. "It's also been determined that I still need a great deal of emersion into my peer groups in hopes of developing better social interactions." He added.
"That's not gonna happen with you teaching Billy." She answered in a scolding voice.
"Mentoring, not teaching." He amended. "Your academic performance, especially in regard to the evaluation of adequate absorption of the curriculum is still the sole discretion of the accredited faculty."
"You know what? That doesn't help." She returned, then shooed him away as he turned one way down the long maze of hallways and she and Adam turned the other.
"It's gonna be weird with Billy not being a student here anymore." Adam added as they stopped briefly at his locker to collect a notebook and then turned down another hallway where they had pre-arranged to meet Kim and Tommy at their lockers.
"Well that's what you get when you do summer school, voluntarily, every summer, every year of your life." She replied in an aggrieved tone. "You graduate early and leave all your friends behind you."
Adam gave her a look that silently agreed with her, but stifled a come-back that it was still going to strange not to have their pack together all day long. Angel Grove High was huge, with thousands of students, and it was inevitable that the five Rangers would have to separate at one point or another, but it was still odd.
Kim was finally joining them after a year of home schooling to bring her back up to speed on their world's curriculum, but Tommy was in all advanced classes, hoping to graduate early like Billy had so that he could concentrate full time on the Rangers.
Rocky was in two of Adam's six classes, but so was his new girlfriend Carri, which meant he'd be ignored and was pretty much as good as not having a friend there at all. Aisha and he had study hall together, but he was in the process of trying to get that switched with a free morning period so he could get extra baseball practice in; providing he made the team.
They slowed as their friends came into view and Kim greeted them cheerily. She was thrilled to be back in school, even if she knew that enthusiasm wouldn't last half way to winter break. She had a biology lab and lunch period with Tommy and three classes with her friend Carri, so she was fairly happy with her schedule. Besides, anything beat sitting at home with a tutor who watched your every move and reported on you to your mom and teams of doctors trying to "cure" you.
"If your schedule's that bad," She replied as Aisha once again bemoaned that she was on her own, "Then why don't you go to the guidance councilor and get it changed?"
"Because if I'm gonna get into a good college and then into a good vet school, I need to take certain courses senior year and all these classes are the prerequisites to those classes." He friend responded.
Kim gave her a genuinely sympathetic look, then closed her locker door to reveal Rocky and her friend Carri enthusiastically making out between what had been a private space between two open locker doors. The site immediately reset the mood from one of frustration to amusement.
Carri and Rocky had hooked up the previous Valentines' Day, but their relationship hadn't really started rolling in earnest until school had let out for the summer; partly because Carri's parents had pulled her out early to vacation in Cannes.
Rocky had tried to be good, to take things slowly. Carri Hillard was special to him, she was like no other girl he'd ever known. He was painfully aware of the discrepancies between her life as the spoiled daughter of a film and TV producer and his tenuous position as head of his household of six siblings after his dad had left. He wanted the budding relationship between them to last, to take things slowly and bond, but Carri wasn't about to sit still for delays. Unlike her sweet and mild tempered cousin, Carri's was a personality knew what she wanted, when she wanted it, and Kim hadn't been one bit surprised when their association took a physical turn over the Fourth of July holiday.
Rocky had thought it was a complete accident, a spur of the moment indulgence that consummated their relationship, but Kim suspected there was nothing accidental at all about it. Carri had decided before she left for Cannes with her parents that she was going to lose her virginity to the red Ranger before the summer's end and she'd been far too smug that the deed had been accomplished less than a week after her return from Europe.
She actually felt a bit guilty about that, worrying that her own decision to carry on a physical relationship with Tommy had influenced her friend, but she tried to tell herself that Carri never did anything without thinking it through… well… mostly; kinda. Still, she and Tommy had a bit of a different situation. Even though it wasn't legal on their home-world, they still considered themselves married. It worried her that Carri was making her decisions without that caveat, but again, there was very little she could do….and they seemed happy.
Kim turned and gave her boyfriend and amused yet knowing look and he grinned back at her. Both of them were just as bad as their friends, but they were far less inclined to public displays. They'd constantly be seen walking hand in hand, maybe sneaking a chaste kiss with the mood hit them, but public groping simply hadn't appealed to either of them. They'd sneak off, find someplace quiet, then simply enjoy one another.
"Get a room you two." Aisha snipped, but it was obvious she was as amused as the rest of her friends.
A few seconds later, realizing that the tenuous cover of locker doors had left them and they now had an audience, the two teens broke apart, giving the others sheepish looks, but completely unapologetic.
"Be good Babe." Carri piped up, patting her boyfriend's cheek. She turned on her heel and marched past the group, giving her friend a look that meant the pink Ranger should follow her.
"See you at lunch." Kim said with a bemused look, reaching up to kiss her boyfriend's cheek as she slipped past him, adding, "I love you." Then hurried down the hall to her friend. A soon as she reached the other girl, however, the two burst into a chorus of giggles, which proved to the watching Rangers that Carri wasn't nearly as ambivalent about being the center of a groping scene as she tried to make them think she was.
Rocky let out a huge sigh and leaned heavily against the wall of lockers. "How am I ever gonna survive the next three hours without her?" He asked dreamily.
"The way we all do." Tommy advised, "Every time you think of kissing her during class, just imagine Mr. Kaplan standing over you and threatening detention."
Rocky shot him a disgruntled look, but turned amiably to walk with them down the hall. He really had nothing to complain about this year. He had the classes and teachers he liked, a girlfriend to go to stuff with, and he'd been pretty much assured of a place on the baseball team again; life was pretty good.
As the warning bell rang, the group split wordlessly and quickly divided down different hallways in search of their home room classes. Adam stopped briefly, watching everyone go their different ways and was struck by a cold chill he hadn't felt before. Everything had suddenly changed this year. They were all unexpectedly going in different directions. It felt weird and he suddenly very much felt the odd man out. The bell rang again and all thoughts but finding his classroom flew from his head.
Tommy had to hand it to Zedd, ten minutes before the final bell their communicator's chirped followed almost immediately by the general alarm to take cover. Somehow, in the chaos of panicked students pushing and shoving toward the basement shelter, all five Rangers managed to find one another and transport en masse to Angel Grove Park.
At first Rat-a tat, seemed like your average tap dancing sewer rat hit by Zedd's staff at Rita's suggestion, but he was far smarter than they'd anticipated. He was fast, pretty good at anticipating them, and just plain mean. The sixty foot version wasn't much better and by the time the zords came together and put him out of his misery, the afternoon was nearly over and they all still had homework to do.
"This so isn't fair." Kim complained, head propped up by her hand as she leaned heavily across the table she shared with Tommy in the Youth Center. "First day of school and at least three hours of homework."
"Let's get it done, then we won't have to worry about it." Tommy offered sympathetically. Silently, he commiserated with her. You'd think the teachers would ease into the school year, but the homework loaded onto them on the first day seemed to suggest they wanted to get as much done as possible before the monster alarms closed school for too many days.
"It's already almost dinnertime." She moaned, tossing her pencil down and flopping her head against her open History book. "I'm barely gonna get done before I have to go. Mom and Andre are taking us out to eat tonight before Andre flies back to Paris tomorrow morning."
"Here, maybe this will help get you motivated." He offered, pulling out a white spiral notebook from his backpack. "I have news." He added, with a twinkle of excitement in his eyes. Immediately, she sat up, eyes brightening with anticipation.
The white notebook was their secret. They had started it early in the summer when they both realized that they loved each other and wanted to stay married past the minimum time required by Intergalactic law. Their marriage had been under duress, but Zordon hadn't been able to annul it and both had been informed they'd need to adhere to the bonding rules for the duration of the contract. However, they now no longer wanted to dissolve that union and if they were going to stay married in the galactic community, that meant they'd also need to formalize things on their own world when they were old enough. They hadn't told anyone, not even Zordon, but had started the notebook to make sure they were organized and ready for the resistance they knew they'd face from their parents once they graduated high school.
Inside, both had written down all their plans for the future. They had discussed what they wanted to study in collage, what collage would accommodate both their intended majors, what their budget was for school and books and housing, and what both of them would have to earn to support them as their own family.
The reality was that they weren't going to have very much money at all and things were going to be very tight, but Tommy had always been good at planning things out and Kim already had years of experience living on her own as an orphan on her home world. She was able to think of contingencies he, who had lived with his parents all his life, had never considered, and he was able to come up with a plan that seemed to make it doable. They saved every penny they could, carefully putting it all away in a savings account no one else knew about.
"Alright." Tommy began as he flipped through page after page of notes and figures. "As of this morning, we have just over fourteen hundred in the account, which is pretty good when you consider that we've only really been adding to it for a few months….and we had decided that Angel University has both an Art and a History program, but USC is the better school."
"Yes, but what about the cost of living in LA versus Angel Grove?" She asked, leaning closer and looking at the book to see if he'd added any new figures.
"Well, here's the thing." He added hesitantly and she looked up at him. "You know my uncle's into Nascar right?"
Kim frowned and looked up at him. Cars really weren't her thing, but she knew he enjoyed working on them with his uncle and that his uncle had helped him to fix up his jeep inside a garage at some sort of racetrack.
"Well, he let me drive one of his cars…not the good one, the older one that he used to use a few years ago."
"Alright…" She said, when he paused. He looked like a kid about to ask for permission to do something he knew he wasn't going to be allowed to do.
"It's just that…I dunno, I guess all that zord flying paid off." He said quietly, leaning a little closer to her and lowering his voice. "I was just having fun, I mean, nothing serious, I was just playing."
Kim crinkled her forehead, trying to figure out what he was trying to say and wondering what it had to do with their notebook.
"My uncle and one of his sponsors was watching." He continued. "The sponsor says my uncle should train me to be a real driver. I mean I'm too young now." He continued in a rush, "But in a couple of years, they both think I could be really good."
"So you're not interested in being an archeologist anymore?" Kim asked slowly. That changed everything, but she wasn't sure by how much. She assumed that meant he didn't think he wanted to go to college anymore and if he didn't go to college, did that mean she'd have to wait too?
"No, no, I still want to study it, but here's the thing." He paused and thought about how best to explain it to her. His uncle had only approached him and his mother about it the night before and he was incredibly excited. "My uncle's starting his pit crew off at forty-thousand dollars a year with full health insurance and everything, the good drivers can earn sometimes six figures or more. I mean, the top drivers get ten sometimes thirty percent of their winnings." He explained excitedly. "I mean, I'm not an experienced mechanic or driver or anything, but my uncle's the owner, he's got like three or four cars, even though he doesn't run them all at once. Anyway, he told my mom he'd start me out and teach me everything I need to know."
Kim's eyes widened, but she wasn't sure what to say. Forty thousand dollars a year seemed like an enormous amount. They had been trying to budget getting through college on a little more than half of that.
"This changes everything Beautiful." He rushed on. "We'll have more than enough for an apartment, eventually a house, we'll have health insurance, be able to start a savings plan, pay for school, it'll make everything so much easier for us right from the start."
"But is it what you want to do?" She asked. She wasn't sure if she was happy for him or not. It seemed so far removed from what he had originally said he wanted. He'd wanted to be a school teacher like his dad, to have a quiet life once the dangers of Rita and Zedd were past them. Racing cars was dangerous. Tommy liked risked, loved to sky dive and take his bike off road, but racing?
"I…" He paused and his shoulders deflated a little as he thought about it. "Yes." He answered, turning to look directly at her. "I really do Kim. Driving that car, it was so…" He paused, thinking how to explain it. It wasn't like a zord, nothing compared to that, but it was pretty close.
"We'd stay in Angel Grove then?" She asked, eyes twinkling as she watched his face.
"Stone Canyon." He answered, although it was pretty much the same thing.
Kim sat back and pretended to think about it. "I supposed I could make do with Stone Canyon Academy of the Arts." She mused cheekily and he grinned. They both knew she could commute to Angel University if she wanted to.
"It's ok with you then?" He asked hopefully.
"I'm totally fine with it if that's what you want." She answered, smiling and reaching out to take his hands.
"This is gonna be good for us Kim, you'll see." He said, squeezing her hands back.
She smiled back in return, but swallowed hard against the feelings of unease she felt. She didn't like change. There had been too much change in her life already. She wanted things nice and safe and planned out, but somehow, she didn't think the Power was ever going to let that happen.
"Molly, please hurry, we're going to be late picking Kimberly up." Andrea coaxed in his thick French accent.
He was the happiest he had been in a very long time, but there was also a good deal of trepidation in the pit of his stomach. He loved Molly, loved her children, but he simply wasn't sure how their news would be received.
"I'm nervous." She admitted, slipping past the bedroom door while trying to fit the loop of her earring through the tiny hole in her earlobe.
"This is for the best." He replied seriously. "We both know it. Today's monster attack proved it. You were so fearful, it's not good for you right now. You must think about…"
Molly placed a finger to her lips in a gesture for him to be quiet, then peered across the family room to where Michael was playing video games on the television set. She hadn't told her children and wouldn't until later that evening.
She doubted either of them would be very happy; her daughter the least. She knew they both liked Andre, but they also thought he was permanently based in Angel Grove. Nervousness settled in the pit of her stomach; it was for the best, she reminded herself.
"Where are you headed in such a hurry?" Carri asked as Tommy raced past her toward the exit of the youth center.
"Gotta get ready for my karate class." He answered, swinging his backpack up over his shoulder. He raised his hand in a quick goodbye gesture, but didn't turn back around.
Having just been ditched by her boyfriend in favor of baseball try-outs, she shrugged, ready to comment on men and their obsession with their respective sports, but, seeing Kim at a far corner table, didn't dwell on it. "Can I interest you in a fifty percent off sale at the mall?" She offered, sliding into a chair next to her friend.
"I wish." Kim answered, closing her history book and tossing the pencil back down. ""My mom and André are picking me up in a few minutes."
"Celebrating the first day of school?" Carri asked, bummed that she had no one to hang out with and really not wanting to go home.
Home for Carri wasn't exactly fun recently. Her mom was convinced that she needed to be packed off to a European girls school somewhere far removed from the temptations of a Latin boyfriend, her dad was almost nonexistent now that he'd been devoting his attentions to a pretty blond actress starring in his latest TV drama, her brother had supposedly made the tabloids again with his college frat partying, and her cousin was handling the strife at home by striving to become the perfect nineteen-fifties "Sandra Dee" gum drop poster child. Personally, Carri felt it was all bullshit on all their parts, but she was distinctly in the minority on that one.
"I think they're going to get married." She answered, omitting that the ghost had already informed her that her mother was actually several weeks pregnant and Andre had proposed.
"Really?" Carri asked, waving Ernie off as he approached; if she was the only left, she wasn't staying. "Are you ok with that?"
Kim paused and thought for a moment. She was actually far more ok with it than the ghost was. The ghost of the other Kimberly had been very upset, but the two had stayed up until the early hours of the morning talking through it. "I like Andre." She replied.
"Like him enough to call him daddy?" Her friend asked.
"Yes," She answered with a smile. "He makes my mom really happy."
Carri chewed her lip as she thought about her friend's response. The marriage between her parents hadn't been a happy one for a very long time. She wasn't sure it was going to last now that her dad was making an idiot of himself with a girl only four and a half years older than she was, but she was pretty sure he didn't exactly make her mom happy. Then again, her father's "toys" had always been a staple of their very unconventional marriage. Her mother had always turned a blind eye, so who could say?
"What's this?" she asked, changing the subject and picking up a notebook with what looked like financial stuff scrawled all over it.
"Nothing." Her friend answered, quickly snatching it back and slipping it under her history book.
"Oh-kay." Carri responded slowly, gauging her friend's reaction with sharp eyes. It was obvious the book wasn't the nothing her friend insisted. "It had Tommy's scratchy penmanship all over it. I was just gonna ask if Mr. Perpetually Late had forgotten it in his rush to get out of here."
Kim fingered the sides of the notebook carefully, looking guiltily around the Youth Center to see if anyone was looking or could overhear her. "Can you keep a secret?" She asked. Carri responded with a look that she was offended her friend had to ask.
"It's a budget." Kim explained, pulling the notebook out from under her textbook.
"A budget for what?"
"College." Kim answered, "And other stuff."
"Other stuff like what?" Carri asked, sitting back in her seat and frankly a little disappointed it was something completely mundane. "Like buying a new sword to hang on the wall or video games?"
"Like…getting married." Kim whispered conspiratorially. She'd promised Tommy she wouldn't talk to anyone, but she couldn't help it, the only other person who knew was the ghost and she thought the two were completely insane.
"You are so not serious." Carri responded flatly, but when her friend nodded, her jaw dropped despite her best efforts to keep it shut. "First of all, you're both way too young, your parents will never allow it, second of all…are you completely out of your mind?"
"No, we've got it all worked out." Kim insisted, sorry she'd let the secret out. She had hoped Carri would be supportive. "That's what the notebook is, a budget, a plan…everything we need to think about."
"Did you maybe think about getting through college first?" He friend scolded. Getting married was preposterous. This was the time in your life that you played, that you enjoyed being big enough to do semi-grownup stuff with the stipulation that you're still young enough to be forgiven if you screw up. The time for serious stuff was decades away; at least for her.
"But don't you ever think about being with Rocky?" Kim countered, realizing her friend was not on the same page she was.
"Being with him, yeah…married?" She replied, making a face that could be interpreted as facing a fate worse than death.
"Not ever?"
"I dunno…" She answered, shrugging uncomfortably. "If things work out after high school, after college….maybe. I dunno, it kinda blows my mind thinking about being with the same person that long."
"Then why…never mind." Kim said and closed her mouth. She'd been about to ask why she'd slept with him if she didn't know she wanted to be with him forever, but that wasn't a fair question.
"Because I wanted to." Carri answered for her, already well aware of what the question was supposed to be. "I like him, I like the way I feel when I'm with him. I wanted the first time to be with a guy I like, who likes me, not some creep my mother thinks is appropriate for me to date because his mother goes to the same club she does."
Kim wasn't sure what to say. Sometimes, with Carri, there wasn't anything she could say. They were really very much alike, but also very different. Carri was on a mission to prove she was her own person and would live life on her terms, but Kim's mission was more to finally find a safe place to love and be loved.
"Look…" Carri offered after a few moments of silence. "It's not like I'm counting on it or anything, but if it happens…well, ok…and in the meantime, you know, good for you and Tommy if you can make it work."
Kim had a reply, but she bit down on it. Carri didn't spontaneously throw bones or peace offerings very often; that was about as close to an 'I'll consider your point of view' as she was going to get. It was extremely frustrating that no one seemed to understand. Then again, how could they?
Precious few beings knew that she was a transplant; that she wasn't the Kimberly that had started out on this world. Fewer knew what her life had been like before. She'd been all but an orphan, with no mom, no brother, and a dad that didn't want her. She'd lived in the Command Center, the Rangers had been her whole life, but yet she'd had no one. The Tommy of her home world had loved Katherine Hillard, not her, and firmly rejected and discouraged any idea that she should think of him in any terms other than that of a friend and team leader.
This world was so different. She had a home with a mom and a brother and a grandmother and aunts and uncles and cousins. Most of all, she had Tommy. She didn't ever want to go back; lose what was so precious all over again. She'd do anything to stay exactly where she was.
Carri looked up and she followed her friend's gaze to see her mom waving her towards the exit. "My mom's here." She said, although it was obvious. "I gotta go."
