Chapter Ten

Zack started gagging on his pizza, and Adam patted him on the back a bit absentmindedly as he gazed intently at his two former teammates.

Trini was looking at Kim with approval on her face, while Jason stood up again in case Tommy really did lose it this time. Charlie was looking at Tommy with a hopeful expression.

But Tommy could only stare at Kim when she said this. His eyes were locked with hers, searching them to see if she was telling the truth.

Kim, meanwhile, was looking at Tommy resolutely, not backing down from Tommy's intense gaze.

"I can't believe you." Tommy said finally.

Kim looked taken-aback at these words, and her tears finally stopped flowing.

"You can't believe me?" She said, laughing hollowly. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It's supposed to mean that I can't believe you never told me that. If it's true, that is." Tommy replied.

"I can't believe you!" Kim retaliated, her voice level rising. "You think I would lie about something like this? What's wrong with you?"

"There's nothing wrong with me." Tommy said icily. "You're the one who never told me we had a daughter."

Kim took a deep breath as she glared at Tommy.

"And you're the one who never bothered to see why I had broken up with you." She said, softly now.

Tommy, who had opened his mouth to say something in reply, faltered now. "This…This is why you broke up with me? Because we were going to have a baby."

Kim's abandoned tears began to well up in her eyes again. "Yes." She said softly.

The glare returned to Tommy's face, now.

"You're unbelievable." He said in a disgusted tone, as his eyes seemed to flash green.

With those final words, he turned around once more, and walked off into the parking lot. This time, Kim didn't say anything to stop him from leaving.

Once Tommy had disappeared from sight, Charlie wrapped her arms around Kim in comfort. That was when she finally broke down.

Kim started sobbing softly into her daughter's hair. "He hates me." Was all she could say.

Jason made to go comfort Kim as well, but Trini grabbed his arm to stop him. She nodded her head in Charlie's direction, as if to say 'let her do it.'

"You'll be okay." Charlie was saying, as she hugged Kim tightly. "You'll see…Mom."

Slowly, Kim's tears disappeared. While still holding on tightly to Charlie, she looked up at Trini.

"I think we should go home now." Kim said softly. She turned to Jason then, a questioning look on her face.

"Charlie should stay with you two tonight." Jason said resolutely. "Tommy needs some time to calm down. Don't worry about him, Kimmy, he just needs to be able to understand."

Kim nodded, and with her arm still around her daughter, the two of them began walking back towards their car. Trini turned to Adam and Zack now.

"We'll catch up tomorrow." She told them. "You can get my number from Jason."

Adam nodded. "See you, Trini."

"Take care of Kim, Trini." Zack added in. "I don't know what Tommy was thinking when he said those things."

Trini smiled sadly. "Me either. Bye, guys, I'll see you tomorrow."

Then, she turned as well, and walked back to the car, where Kim and Charlie were waiting. As soon as their car had pulled out of the parking lot, Jason turned back to his two former teammates.

"We need to get back to the house. I don't even want to start thinking about what Tommy's going to do, now that he finally knows the truth." He informed them.

Both men nodded in agreement.

"I'll drive." Adam offered.

When they got back to Tommy, Jason, and Charlie's house, they found Tommy's car parked out front.

"At least we know he's home." Zack said.

"Yeah, he's home." Adam agreed. "And probably with a few more speeding tickets than he had before."

"It's was probably a bit more than a few." Jason said, examining the skid marks on the driveway. "But never mind about that, we should see what damage he did to the inside of the house."

Cautiously, the three former power rangers entered the house. They were quite surprised to find nothing out of place. It looked as if Tommy hadn't even been here. Except for the shoes lying haphazardly in the middle of the front hall and the jacket a few feet behind it, on the ground.

"This could be a good sign." Zack said hopefully. "He hasn't permanently damaged anything, yet."

"Don't jinx it." Jason hissed. "That's like saying nothing bad could possibly happen. And guess what happens next? The person who said that is suddenly dead."

"Did you hear that?" Adam asked suddenly, cutting off Zack's reply. "It sounded like it came from the kitchen."

Jason's face drained of all color. "The kitchen?" He said worriedly.

As Adam nodded, Jason took off running.

"Wait!" Zack called to Jason's back. "What's so bad about weird noises in the kitchen?"

"They weren't 'weird' noises." Adam said, as he, too, took off running. "They were the sounds of destruction."

"But it's just a kitchen." Zack protested, starting to run so he could catch up with his friends. "What's the big deal?"

He said that last part just as he was entering the kitchen. He stopped dead when he saw Jason and Adam standing over a gaping hole in the kitchen floor.

"Why does Tommy have a trap door in his kitchen floor?" Zack asked slowly.

"Remember earlier, when we were talking about Tommy being a ranger again?" Jason questioned as he slowly descended the stairs. "Their base is under this house."

"At least Tommy won't get lost going there, then." Adam whispered as he followed Jason down the stairs.

The three men remained silent as they descended the last few stairs, so Tommy wouldn't here them if he was down there. The sight that met their eyes when they walked into the darkened dino lair was a very unusual one…at least for Adam and Zack. Tommy was sitting in front of one of the computers.

"Tommy, bro', what are you doing?" Jason asked as he slowly approached Tommy.

"I'm watching the video." Tommy said in an eerily calm voice.

"What video?" Zack asked curiously, inching closer to the screen so he could see.

"The video history of the power rangers." Tommy answered in the same voice as before.

Jason just watched Tommy for a moment, before speaking again.

"Bro' are you okay?" Jason asked in a concerned voice.

Tommy's whole body seemed to stiffen when Jason said this.

"Why wouldn't I be okay?" Tommy asked through clenched teeth. "There's nothing wrong with me. Nothing at all. I'm perfectly fine. I just found out that the woman I loved broke up with me in high school because she was pregnant with our daughter—which she neglected to tell me. And then my parents adopted that same daughter I never knew I had, and I've been raising her as my sister for over five years. No, nothing's at all is wrong with me. How about you?"

"Tommy." Jason said slowly. "Maybe she had a good reason for doing it. Think about it for a moment, will you? When she found out she was pregnant with your kid, she was training to become a Pan Globalist, and you were the red Zeo ranger. That's reason enough for her not to tell you. What do you think would have happened if Zedd, or King Mondo, found out that you had a kid?"

"But she didn't even try to tell me after I stopped being a ranger." Tommy stated. "She didn't have to break up with me. We could have worked it out. I could have given up being ranger. I would have done that for them."

"No, you wouldn't have." Adam cut in. "I was on at least three different teams with you, Tommy. I think that says enough right there. You're on what, your fourth color by now? You say you would have quit being a power ranger for Kim and your daughter, but the truth is, you have one of them right now, and you're still a ranger. I'm not saying I support what Kim did, but I can see how she did what she thought was best. And its not as if you missed out on anything with Charlie, is it? You were there for more than Kim was."

"I missed out on being a father." Tommy said softly. "I was Charlie's brother, not her father."

"But you were there for her." Zack insisted. "You might not have been there in the right role, but you were there for Charlie when she needed you. And being her older brother, you were probably closer to her than you would have been as her parent. When you were Charlie's brother, you were her equal; the person she could talk to whenever she needed it."

"All of that still doesn't change the fact that Kim never told me she was pregnant." Tommy said resolutely, still staring at the computer screen, which was frozen on the image of Kim when she first received her pink ranger powers.

"I was the first one to see Kim after she had the baby." Jason began softly. "It was a month after, and I'd had no idea Kim had even been pregnant. Heck, I didn't find out she ever had a baby until this afternoon. But Tommy, I could tell something was wrong with her. You saw her at Muranthias; she used to be so full of life, back before she had the baby. If you hadn't been so set on avoiding her, you would have seen her gain it all back as she coached Charlie-"

"I don't care." Tommy said suddenly. "None of it matters. Kim didn't tell me, and that's the end of it."

"Would you just grow up about it already?!" Adam suddenly exploded. "Yes, we understand that you're hurt Kim didn't tell you she was pregnant with your daughter. We know that you were heartbroken when she broke up with you. We get that you're in shock over finding out that your younger sister is really your daughter. We get all of that, Tommy; we understand. But you need to stop moping around and actually do something about it! It's not doing anyone any good with you sitting here in your secret underground lair, reminiscing about the past."

"Well, then, what do you want me to do?" Tommy said, finally turning around so that he was facing his three friends as he spoke to them. "Do you want me to go knock on Kim's door and demand that she explain everything to me?"

"That would be a good place to start." Zack reasoned.

"But not right now." Jason said quickly. "You just told the woman we all know you still love, that you hate her. You need to stay in for the rest of the night and cool down. You'll be able to have a nice little chat with Kim tomorrow when she drops Charlie off."

"Kim has Charlie?" Tommy asked suddenly. "Why would you let Kim take Charlie home with her? You can't do that."

"Well, we did." Jason said resolutely. "So get over it. Right now, Kim needs Charlie more than you do. And face it, would you really want to see Charlie tonight, after you just learned the truth about who she is?"

Tommy sighed.

"No." He said after a moment. "But I'll kill you if you ever do something like that again. Charlie is my responsibility." His face hardened then. "Kim gave that up."

Jason just shook his head in defeat.

"Whatever, bro'. We'll be upstairs." He said, motioning to himself, Zack, and Adam.

Tommy nodded and turned around again as the three other men turned and began to walk back up to the kitchen.

"Hey," Tommy heard Zack say, "Do you know how we can get in touch with Billy and the others? We really need to tell them about Tommy's sudden color change…"

Tommy shook his head slightly as he continued to stare at Kim's picture. How Zack could still think about what had happened earlier in the day was beyond him. Tommy was still having trouble processing the day's revelations.

Surprisingly, though, it didn't seem to affect him the way he would have thought it would. Somewhere, deep inside of himself, Tommy thought he had always known that he and Charlie were connected on a much deeper level. Kim, on the other hand, was a totally different matter.

Tommy thought to himself as he angrily hit the play button.

Tommy sat there unmoving for a while until the scene on the monitor shifted to show Kim giving up her pink ranger powers to Katherine. If only that had never happened, then maybe, just maybe, he would have known about Charlie from the beginning. And then they would have been a real family.

Tommy thought to himself. His face suddenly brightened. But if I do talk to Kim tomorrow, then maybe we will get that chance…

a/n-and so ends the day that has been taking place since half-way through Chapter Four.