Disclaimer: I own nothing. The song is Sympathy by the Goo Goo Dolls who I will be seeing in concert on Thursday! Squeals

Author's Note: Thank you and sorry to Mandi. I'm hoping she doesn't kill her Jason clone by hugging him too hard when the last part comes out. Scott and Oliver are telling me to say thank you for knocking, they've never had to get dressed so quickly before in their lives!

There is going to be one more part to this but don't count on a happy ending. It will continue to be angst fest 2003. Don't you hate it when your muse decides to get dark?

Edited to add: Another songfic where the lyrcis have been removed. The song it was is listed above.

Killing Myself from the Inside Out

When he's sleeping, sometimes, I can forget what we've become. I can think that we're still just friends, that I didn't screw myself over by getting involved with my best friend just because I wasn't strong enough to live with the loneliness anymore.

But then his bare skin will brush against mine and I can't pretend anymore.

I miss what we were more than anything sometimes. I miss my friend. When we became lovers, everything changed. I had to change because Tommy deserves so much more than what I could give him, still grieving. I tried to stop, but I may as well have tried to stop breathing. I can't seem to do either.

I can't seem to do anything right anymore.

Every moment I spend with Tommy now seems like a betrayal of Billy's love. And every moment I spend thinking of Billy seems like a betrayal of Tommy's love. I know intellectually that it's really neither. Billy wouldn't want me to be like this, he'd want me to move on, or so I've been told by everyone, including myself, dozens of times.

Well Billy's dead. He left me and he's never coming back so...

Oh God. I didn't just think that. I didn't just think that. I didn't. Please, I didn't think that.


I hate myself sometimes, scratch that, most of the time. If only everyone knew what was going on in my head now. They wouldn't believe it. How could they? Strong, sensible, big brother Jason, I'm not exactly a candidate for self-hatred. I doubt any of my friends, my family, could have seen this coming. None of them ever thought anything except that I was holding up well, being brave, after Billy... died, how is it still hard to say that?

Guess they didn't know me as well as they thought they had. I managed to keep it together for awhile. Billy... died for the Power Rangers, at least I could keep going, keep fighting, for him if for nothing else. I was already dying inside then, but I had a reason to wake up in the morning, there was a reason I wasn't dead yet, with him yet.

They say I had some sort of breakdown when Trey had to take back the powers. I don't know. I don't remember anything past collapsing in the Youth Center until I woke up three days later, feeling like I'd been run over by a truck and that my head was stuffed full of soggy cotton. The general weakness I was feeling was from the loss of the Gold Ranger Powers. The grogginess was because I'd been pretty heavily sedated.

I don't know what I did to warrant such heavy drugging. No one talks about it. I asked Zordon about it once, he insisted on monitoring me even after I ran away from Angel Grove. He wouldn't tell me much except that whatever he had picked up about my internal state had justified knocking me out until any and all backlash from the powers was gone. And we're not talking physical backlash here, that didn't go away for nearly a year, emotionally I was a mess.

Guess what? I still am.

I don't think anyone understands that yet. I'm not healing. It's been years and I still can't seem to function without him. I get buy alright, I guess, but most of the time it feels like I'm sleeping walking and, sooner or later ,I'm going to walk myself right off a cliff without knowing it.

Oh, I'm not suicidal. I think, for awhile, I may have been but now... I just can't find the drive to even really think about it. I know I'm not going to go through with it so what's the point of pretending?

I might have, earlier but...Billy and I hadn't been dating long when we became Rangers, just a few weeks, but I had loved him for a quite awhile before that and I'm pretty sure the feeling went both ways. It was the first time I had ever gotten injured in battle and for awhile no one was sure whether the injury would prove to be fatal or not. I only regained consciousness that day because the equipment of the Command Center was very, very advanced.

After I had been awake for a few hours what had nearly happened hit Billy. There is always that initial reaction when a Ranger realizes that yes, we can die doing this. We're not invincible, only mortal, and Rangering isn't a game. It hit me the first time an attack drew the blood of one of my teammates.

I threw up everything I had eaten that day, it felt more like I was losing everything from the past week, and spent a few hellish nights watching myself each and every one of my team mates in my dreams. Eventually, it doesn't hit you as hard and you start to understand that just because there is a chance of death doesn't mean it has to happen.

Billy's reaction was to hug me hard enough to bruise my bones. You would never guess just how much strength he had in him unless you've been on the receiving end of an embrace like that. He told me that he wasn't sure he could have kept going if I had left him and we made a promise, then and there, to keep living if one of us died in the fight.

I promised to keep living and I'm half glad I only promised that. Anything but living, breathing hurts too much now.

Death came for only one of us in the end and my beloved didn't die a hero's death. Didn't die in battle. He died an old man, his body failing him, in my arms as he tried to comfort me. Sometimes all I can ever see is that wasted body, the still young eyes trapped in that shell as they fizzled out. Fuck, that memory hurts more than swallowing glass and I haven't stopped bleeding inside since it happened.

I'm not sure the bleeding will ever stop. That's what everyone doesn't understand. I'm not healing because I don't want to, I would do it, only because I know Billy wouldn't want me to be stuck in this cruel form of purgatory. I'm not healing because I can't. I just can't.

For such a long time I believed I could. I thought that maybe, someday, I could be happy again. Part of me still hoped that that part of me was still alive.

There's no hope left for me anymore.

But there is hope for Tommy and I won't hurt him anymore. I won't let him die inside. He'll stay with me, try to help me, heal me, until... forever, I guess. I just know he won't leave me. If a Ranger knows anything it's how to sacrifice yourself for someone else. He loves me; he thinks it will be worth it in the end.

Newsflash: it won't be. I'm not worth it anymore. I'm past that point and I won't drag him down with me.

We were always on the same level as Rangers, I won't change that now. I won't be selfish like that; I love him, as my friend, too much.


I don't think anyone else will see it for what it is. No one will guess that I'm giving up my only chance at not hurting with every heartbeat to give him the chance to be happy. I want him to be happy and I can't give that to him. I can't be the person I was anymore.

It's hard enough just being most days.

People have always told me I'm so strong. I guess there must be some sort of strength in not following Billy but not much. He became my strength; Billy was my strength, my heart. Just like I was his.

I've never liked to do things in halves and neither did he. By the time Tommy had arrived in Angel Grove I had given my heart to Billy but that was okay because he had given his to me. Two people, two hearts, it worked still.

When he died I had nothing but the artificial, the obligation I was tied to until Trey saved me and condemned me by taking the Gold Ranger powers. You can't hold the heart of a dead man, and trying to explain that to people just makes them look at you funny. I wasn't about to take my heart away from him either, even if I knew how to I wouldn't.

I think that would be just as crippling to me as living like this.

God, I miss him. Sometimes I hate him for leaving me, for dying, for not being invincible but I've never stopped missing him and I've never stopped loving him with more of me than I think I can spare.

I dream of him. It's messed up to have dreams as your rock, your anchor to sanity, but I don't know what I'd do if I didn't dream of him. Half the time the dreams aren't even good. I'll dream of his death but I'll still relish it because at least for a few unreal moments I have him in my arms again.

I can still feel him against me, inside me, consuming me. I can still recall in vivid detail what he looks like, smells like, sounds like, and tastes like. My senses haven't forgotten him in the least. They are still consumed with him.

But what happens in twenty years when it's not so clear? What happens then?

Maybe I'll be lucky and I won't live that long.


I hate doing this. He's not oblivious. He knows that I'm not... right. I think he's heard me crying. I try not to, I try to hold it in but sometimes it's all I can do it keep breathing. The grief is overwhelming sometimes but I can keep it under control until I'm alone.

God, if I ever broke down in public I'd be shipped off to therapy again. Before I left Angel Grove I tried grief counselling. It didn't do anything but piss me off. I wasn't feeling half of what the counsellor said I should, just a gaping emptiness.

When I came back after two years of basically bumming around, doing very little, I tried it again.

I figured maybe it had been too soon, the first time. Maybe I hadn't been ready to, I don't know, deal with it I guess. Different therapist, same results.

Maybe I'm still not ready. I don't know but I've run out of time to deal with it.

I'm setting Tommy free. He should never have gotten into this. I should never have let this happen but I know how to fix it.

It will hurt. I don't doubt that, I know he cares for me in ways I wish I could return. It will hurt him, me leaving like this, sneaking off at night. I've been planning it for a few weeks now. An old friend from the Peace Conference found me an apartment in Maine. I've already shipped most of my stuff there; all that is left fits into my car. It's a bit drastic but it needs to be done.

Tommy will bounce back. He'll probably hate me for awhile, I'll become somewhat of a villain to all my friends for sneaking off in the middle of the night like this but eventually they'll forgive me, I hope. I don't plan on contacting any of them for a long, long time. I'm not sure when, or if, I'll see them again.

I know if I leave him like this everything will turn into my fault. I won't be able to come back here, not for a long time. Tommy will still have everyone but... It has to be this way though. It's better this way.

God, I don't want to do this. I don't want to lose them. I still need them...

But I don't know how this can work any other way. If I stay and break up with Tommy we'll either stay friends and fall into the same thing again or we won't stay friends. If that's the case I don't think I could see him occasionally around town or make our friends choose between the two of us. No, I won't let that happen.

I just wish it didn't hurt so much.

Maybe... Maybe I'll contact Trini or Zack after a few months. They'll hear me out, I think, and won't say anything to the others if I ask them not to. I shouldn't. I should leave entirely but I just... I still need them even if it's just to hear the voice of someone who really knew me. And who knew Billy too.

I wish I could talk to Tommy about this. I miss my best friend. I still need him too but I blew that because I missed being touched, held, so much. I just... I just wanted to know I could still be loved, that love still existed, that it hadn't died with Billy.

For me it had but I didn't want to believe that. Now I do, I know it, and it's too late. I've not only lost my beloved but everything else I had worth living for. Tommy will need them more than I do when he wakes up tomorrow and realizes I'm gone for good. It's a shitty thing to do but it's all I can give him. The chance to be happy.

I just... I can't help but wish that it didn't have to be this way. I don't want to leave them; I don't want to cut my ties to this place even if it no longer feels like home. Billy was home but... this was as close as I could ever get. Part of me still needs that.

But Tommy needs it more. He needs to be happy. I want him to be happy even if he never understands why I left, why I never said good bye. I had my happiness. I'd do this all over again, live with all the pain for the rest of eternity, if it means I have that time with Billy to remember, to cherish. I love him so much still.

Tommy needs to find a love like that. He deserves it and I can't, won't ever, be able to give it to him. My heart still belongs to a dead man and it will be his forever.

Love is truly the best and worst of times. I know Dickens wasn't talking about love but it fits. I just hope Tommy finds that, and learns how to appreciate it, take the good times and really taste them, cherish them. The hard times... They made the good times better, made Billy even more precious to me. Now... It's not over because I can't let go of him. It's not dead it's just... not complete anymore.

It never will be again. It can't be without him and I won't pretend anymore. It's not fair to either of us.

I won't let him turn into me, even if leaving just adds to my pain. He deserves more and I know he'll find it eventually.

All I can do is say goodbye to what once was.