Kimberly started sobbing as Tommy left the room during the stunned silence that followed her quiet question.

As he slid down the wall out in the hallway, he heard her tearful words to Jason. "Now I know he hates me."

Back in the room, Kim looked up at Jason with a futile hope in her eyes. "This was a really bad idea, Rex. Let's just go back home."

"Kimberly, you can't run anymore. He deserves the truth." Jason looked deep into his kid sister's eyes. "You both do."

"Whose truth, Jase? Yours? Or the real truth? That I never should have been a Power Ranger?" Kimberly hung her head with the last statement. Billy couldn't believe that his friend actually believed that she had been made a Ranger by mistake.

"Kimberly," he started softly, stepping forward as if to grant her some tiny bit of support. "You can't possibly think that you being made a Ranger was a mistake. If you weren't worthy of the position, do you really think the Zords would have responded to you the way they did? The Zords are more than machines. They don't allow access to anyone who doesn't have the heart of a Ranger. We learned that when someone thought it would be cool to steal one of the Turbo Zords."

"He speaks? And in small words?" Jason teased, turning to his long-time friend. Kimberly cracked a small smile as Billy blushed. "I didn't know that you knew that many little words, Billy."

"It was my defensive mechanism. After moving so many times, I was afraid to get close to anyone because I was afraid that I'd just have to leave them again. I was tired of losing friends that way."

"Oh Billy!" Kimberly threw off the covers and swung her legs out over the bed. Seeing that she was about to try getting up, Billy stepped over to the bed and leaned down to help her up. She wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged her friend.

"Kimberly, Tommy doesn't hate you. He never could. He's hurt that you think he does."

"Billy, he turned around and walked out when I asked why he didn't fight for me. What else should I think?"

"You and Dulcea were talking as if he wasn't here. Then you asked a question that he's asked himself numerous times over the past several years. Do you realize just how many nights he's sat up wondering why he didn't call you? Why he didn't go down there and demand answers?" Billy stepped back from Kimberly. "Your uncle sat with Tommy many nights when he was drinking. I remember nights when all we could do is settle him on the couch and cover him with a blanket."

"What are you saying, Billy?" Jason asked.

"Tommy has asked himself why he didn't fight for her for years. He spent many nights just trying to drown himself, trying to convince himself that he wasn't wrong." Billy shook his head. "There was more than one night that I woke up in my room to Andrew trying to haul Tommy up to his room. That was before we decided that leaving him on the couch in the den was the better option."

"Tommy got drunk?" Kimberly asked. She couldn't believe it. That didn't sound like her Tommy.

"He hasn't been the same Tommy since that damn letter came, Kimberly. He never truly got over it." Billy just had to make her understand how much she had meant to Tommy and still did.

"But why does he still care? After what I did to him, I wouldn't expect him to care for me at all."

"Tommy still loves you, Kim. You didn't see the look on his face when that creature knocked you out. He fought just like in the old days." Jason had seen it and was still more than a little amazed that he could read his old friend so easily.

"I think I better go talk to Tommy." Billy knew that his partner wouldn't be too far away.

Out in the hallway, Tommy had listened to Billy spill his shameful secret. He had been more than a little into the alcohol for a while. He had drank for the sake of forgetting.

FLASHBACK

Tommy sat on one side of the desk and lifted his bleary eyes to look at the picture he'd set there. "Kimberly, why did you dump me like that? What did I do?"

"Tommy, why don't you go to bed? It's really getting late."

"Billy, why did she dump me like that? What happened?" Tommy started crying and it truly unnerved Billy to see tears running down the face of a man who had always been the strongest of his friends. He hadn't cried when the letter first came but now, years later, the tears flowed freely.

"I don't know what happened, Tommy. I don't know why she did it. But she did and you have to accept it."

"I should have gone down there. I should have demanded answers from her. I was just too scared to go and ask for them."

"Tommy, you couldn't have gone anyway. King Mondo was keeping us busy with all the battles he kept throwing at us."

"I could have taken the time to find out what was going on. You guys would have understood."

"We would have but you and I both know that the whole reason you didn't is because you thought that that was what she wanted and you always thought about her before yourself."

Tommy looked up at the young man who had been his closest friend since the whole Dino Thunder thing. None of the others had known about Tommy's little stint as the Black Ranger and he didn't think they'd have understood. "I still love her, Billy. I'll always love her."

"I know, Tommy. I know." Billy had left Tommy there at that point. No one had known just how far into the drink he had gone.

FLASHBACK ENDS

"Tommy?" Billy asked as he stepped out of the room. He had had the feeling that his friend would be close by.

"How can she think I hate her? I was only giving her what I thought she wanted." His voice was shaky and Tommy didn't lift his eyes to Billy's face.

"I know that and I think that she knows that too. She wants to put that behind the two of you. I think she still loves you. No matter what she might say now."

"Do you think I can win her back?" Tommy said as he stood up.

"I think you should try." Billy draped an arm around the finest friend he'd ever had. "I really think you should try."