A/N: Another letter story. As a fandom, will we ever get over this? Probably not. I don't own Power Rangers and I will never forgive the writers for TommyxKat
Tommy sat on the shore, letting the wind whip through his hair, waves crashing against his feet so that his socks were soaking through his shoes. He noticed none of it. He was aware of his own ragged breathing. His vision blurred. He was alone, but he was still fighting crying. Why did people say that it felt like your heart was ripped out when the something happens? It didn't feel like it had been ripped out, it simple wasn't there. Each breath only exacerbated the pain. It was as if his head couldn't comprehend why his body would need to take breath when living didn't have a meaning.
He also knew that this line of thinking was overly dramatic. He had been in literal, life-threatening situations before. He had been put through actual torture at the hands of his enemies more than once. But that was just physical pain, he could always look past it by looking for the solution or the way out. Or by counting on his friends to save him.
His friends couldn't save him from this. Ironically, one of his closest friends had been the one reading the information when it came. Hearing Adam's voice catch and cut off before being advised to finish it himself was the moment he could no longer feel his heart beating, the moment that pushing oxygen in and out of his lungs became painful.
Kim had broken up with him.
In a freaking letter.
She had found someone else.
Kim had the audacity to say that she thought Tommy would really like him.
How could he like anyone that would come between them? He entertained for a moment that it might even be Jason or Zach. Neither had returned from the Peace Summit yet, but were done in Switzerland. They were touring around the world, Florida wouldn't be that big of a leap, but neither of them would do that to him, right?
Then again, he never thought Kim would do this to him either. He knew for damn certain that he would never have done this to her.
He could feel the pain sawing in and out of him. He, masochistically, brought up happy memories of the two of them, joyful, having fun, laughing, dancing, sparring, anything and everything, because they had always been happy. Even their arguments hadn't lasted long and those only brought them closer together, knowing that nothing was going to be pulling them apart.
At least that's what he had always thought.
The sun was setting before he realized how long he had been sitting in one spot. He needed to get home before his parents, or the other rangers, started to look for him. Making his way slowly up the hill to the youth center where he'd left his pick-up, he looked up and noticed Billy leaning against it.
"I thought you must eventually come back for your vehicle, Tommy. I must admit, I almost gave up as it's gotten darker." Billy straightened up and away from the side door he'd been leaning against, waiting. Tommy thought about apologizing for making him wait and worry, but he stopped himself. Billy had known him for years. As long as he himself had known Kimberly. They had an understanding.
Coming to stand face to face, Billy took a deep breath, "I want to ask how you're doing, but I realize the inadequacy of that query. Would you like to talk about it?"
Did he want to talk about it? He hadn't said a word since he had left the youth center earlier. He had mumbled a quick good-bye to his friends and had torn out of the room, barely remembering to grab his outer shirt and wallet on his way. He realized just now that he had forgotten his book bag, but saw it sitting near where Billy's feet had been a moment before beside his pick-up. He smiled slightly. His world may have just come crashing down, but he did still have supportive friends who loved him.
"I don't know, Billy. I just-" he cut himself off. He really didn't know was the thing. He had no idea how he was feeling. He was good at suppressing emotions. He had been doing since his Green Ranger days, suppressing when he felt fear, when he was angry, when he felt despaired, shock that someone might be onto them, joy and a little bit of pride whenever someone bragged about the Power Rangers of Angel Grove. But this was entirely new. He had never been heartbroken before and he didn't know how to handle it.
Billy nodded and held out his hand. They clasped hands and quickly leaned forward to thump each other on the back. It wasn't the most comforting of hugs ever given between friends, but it was their way. None of the Rangers were overly physical with each other. Years of conditioning of having too many bruises, he supposed.
"I have no idea how you must be feeling, Tommy. We're all shocked and we feel bad for you, but none of us actually knows what you're dealing with. We're all still here, though. I may be the one who stayed here to wait for you, but that was just because they all felt like I had known you the longest and I might know what to do the best. That assumption seems to be proven wrong as I haven't the foggiest idea how to help."
"Billy, thank you. I know all of you just want to help. I promise that I'll reach out to you, any of you, if I need to. Right now, I think I just need to go home and be alone. I have a lot of thinking to do."
Tommy climbed into his truck and started it up. He drove home mostly in a daze. He had no desire to explain to his parents where he had been. They generally accepted whatever excuse for who's house he had been at studying, or being at the juice bar, when really, he was working on Ranger problems. He got good grades, his friends were good people with good parents, they had always liked Kimberly, and they never got into any trouble. Even if his parents didn't always buy his story of losing track of time studying, they never really questioned him. He couldn't even think of an excuse now.
The entire drive home, her words from the page kept echoing through his mind. "I've met someone else. I've met someone else." She kept saying that it was terrible to be hurting him, but how did she think he felt? How was it going to be for him to have to deal with the fallout from this? He was the one who had to deal with everyone they knew and tell them what happened. She was thousands of miles away, clear from it all.
If she wanted a clean break from her old life, he could almost understand it, but from him? They had never talked about a future of anything but each other. They were always so solid. They didn't need each other, but they wanted each other desperately when they could. When lives didn't hang in the balance, they wanted to be near each other and he knew that someone on the ranger team would always be following his line of thinking about the best way to defeat a monster because she was usually thinking the same thing too.
This, this was all messed up. He was still sitting in the cab of the truck, in his spot on the driveway, stalling going inside.
He knew what he was going to do. There was a phone in Kim's room. He had never called it, he always waited for her to call. She had a super crazy practice schedule, so he always let her initiate the phone calls. That might sound like he was getting lacks in his relationship, but he wrote to her so often and that had been their joint decision about the phone call.
He was going to go in and ask her to explain this better. If the letter was absolutely true, he thought he deserved to at least hear her voice tell him. And if there was any chance that it was a mistake, any chance that she had been coerced or pressured, well, he would be able to tell, right? Their connection was strong enough for that, right?
He got inside, mumbled a greeting that he hoped sounded half-way pleasant but also worn out in a please-just-let-me-go-to-my-room type of way and headed up the stairs. He grabbed for the phone and dialed the number. Just because he wasn't supposed to be the one to call her didn't mean he hadn't almost called her about a thousand times.
At the third ring, he reminded himself of the time difference. If it was 7 here, that meant that it was 10 in her part of Florida and she might already be asleep. Crap. Well, it was too late now.
As he was about to give up on the fifth ring, a sleepy sounding voice that did not belong to Kim picked up, "Hello?" Tommy was frozen for just a second, he had rehearsed parts of what he wanted to say, but he hadn't imagined having to say anything to her roommate before he got Kim on the phone.
He cleared his throat, "Uh, hi, sorry about the call so late, I know you guys train pretty hard and that your sleep is important." His nerves were making him ramble now. "Uh, anyway, is Kim there."
The voice, he couldn't honestly remember the name of Kimberly's roommate at the moment, yawned audibly, but then answered his question, "No, she's not here. She's been rambling about the big surprise date she's had planned, I'm pretty sure she already took off out of town to meet up with her guy. Is that all?"
It struck Tommy as both lucky and unlucky that teenaged girls would just volunteer so much information on so little prompting. He knew that Kim wasn't going to be coming back to the room for quite some time so he shouldn't try to call again, but he also had to hear that she was going on a date. Well, she had broken up with him, so she had that right.
"Yeah, uh, thanks." He pushed the button and shoved the antenna back into the handset in his frustration. He was kind of surprised he didn't break the thing. So, he had his answer. It wasn't a mistake. Backpack, shoes, the jeans he was in, even his bedroom light were all forgotten as he tossed the pillow over his head and tried to sleep for the next 12 hours until he would have to get up and deal with people again.