Chapter 7- Buried
A.N: Take a deep breath, it is time for the long awaited talk. Any material you recognise is taken from the Dino Thunder episode Back in Black (there may be a lot of it because I think the script for the episode is rather spiffy how it is!) after this chapter I'll probably stay away from the DT storylines, whether White Ranger fits in yet remains to be seen, we'll see how we go! We've got a lot to get through guys, so hold on tight!
Enjoy!
"This is your final chance Dr. Oliver…free the gem from its resting place, reveal the carrier of the Power, or feel the wrath of my disappointment." Mesogog hissed, circling around the life force extractor to which Tommy was currently tied. It was the lizard's way of trying to unnerve him, and Tommy internally admitted it was working. Or perhaps it was just the threat of his brain being reduced to jelly in a jar for Mesogog to keep on a shelf and pop into for all sorts of useful information that had him a bit shaken.
"Aww, do I have to pick just one?" Tommy responded sarcastically. His eyes blazed with anger at Mesogog, but the villain didn't seem fazed.
"Your attempt at levity is as feeble…as your attempt at self sacrifice." Mesogog shook what passed for his head in derision and pushed the white stone towards Tommy, so that the table it was on bumped into his feet. Tommy felt a strange surge of power and a pull from the stone, as if his body was being yanked forcibly from inside towards the table. Luckily he was restrained and Mesogog didn't seem to notice a difference. Tommy shook his head to dispel the power surge and resumed glaring up at the creature.
"If you will not do it for yourself, perhaps you will do it for those precious students of yours." Mesogog said with a twisted smile.
"Elsa!"
"Yes my lord?" The dark featured cyborg who reminded Tommy strongly of someone familiar stepped forward to bow at Mesogog.
"The three teenagers, bring them to me." The evil lizard commanded and Elsa turned, just as alarms started to peal in the room.
"My lord, it's them!" Elsa informed him. Tommy's eyes widened as the video-screens displayed his three students on their Raptor Cycles approaching an invisi-portal.
Mesogog turned back to face the teacher with a smirk.
"Ah like obedient dogs, I command, they come."
Tommy stared angrily up at the creature; exploiting weaknesses seemed to be Mesogog's thing. But not knowing when to back down, and never giving up, they were his. Depending on a situation, they could prove to be good or bad things.
"I can save you some trouble. The good guys? They always win."
"I suppose that all depends, on who you believe the good guys…to be. Zeltrax, Elsa, go! And take help. I want no mistakes this time." The two nodded and rushed off as if Mesogog was breathing down their necks.
"Talk about your obedient dogs." Tommy muttered with a roll of his eyes.
Mesogog turned his beady gaze back to the former Ranger.
"They have proved to be far more intelligent than you, Dr. Oliver. They are ever eager to please me, for they have experienced the consequences of disappointing me…you would do well to learn from them."
"I think I'll stick to teaching. Far more fulfilling than being a lapdog to sickos like you."
"I look forward to having your essence in my possession. Perhaps I shall keep your drooling remnants on display as a lesson to those who dare… to court my displeasure. Though I think perhaps I'll wait to extract your life until your pathetic students are with us. That way I can watch you squirm… as I destroy them…ssss." Mesogog gave a sadistic chuckle at the expression on Tommy's face. With relish he lowered the point of the life-force extractor so it hung just over Tommy's chest.
Tommy could feel the energy radiating from it in painful sparks as it continued to gain power, and tried to remain still so that his body did not jerk into its point and really ruin his day. Mesogog watched his fear with delight and let out a growl of anticipation.
"Soon Dr. Oliver, very soon."
As the Dino Thunder Rangers engaged in battle with Elsa, Zeltrax and the rest of Mesogog's horde, Hayley and Kim kept a sharp eye on the battle from Tommy's lab.
"So, are these guys as good as they think they are?" Kim asked as Conner fired at Zeltrax and Elsa, and the other two pulled off some pretty fancy manoeuvres from the backs of their new rides.
"They're better." Hayley affirmed.
"Knew it." Kim smiled.
"Watch this!" They heard Conner call as he dodged blasts from Zeltrax's sword with a fancy spin on his bike, swerving easily around the attacks once he was back on the ground.
"You missed me!" Conner shouted tauntingly, then stood on his bike and delivered a powerful flying kick to Mesogog's henchman.
"Yeah! Come on!" Ethan crowed as the three met in the middle of the battleground and powered towards the crackling portal, leaving the rabble of monsters and bad-guys in their dust.
"No!" Elsa screamed in rage and fired a powerful blast at the racing Rangers, but her shot fell short and the Rangers made it into the relative safety of the portal.
Kim was watching all of this wide eyed, as if she was experiencing it herself and Hayley gave a small smile.
"Do you miss it?" She asked softly, not expecting Kim to be paying attention.
"Every day." Kim responded, not taking her eyes from the screen.
"Hayley, we're in." Conner's voice came over the communicator network.
"Good, I'll recalibrate the bikes for your exit, you should have about five minutes." Hayley responded.
Kim glanced at her, "How do you do it, I never understood all the complex computer stuff." She shook her head.
"Areas of gifting my dear." Hayley said with a smirk as she typed on the keyboard. "It comes naturally to me, just like gymnastics comes naturally to you I expect."
Kim nodded at this but gasped when the Rangers unexpectedly ran into Mesogog on their way to find Tommy. None of them had been expecting that.
"…Obviously, you are in need of some discipline." The creature snarled at the Rangers and it was then that Kim got her first good look at the enemy.
"Looks like the 'Miss World' runner up has an attitude problem." She quipped, relieved when Mesogog's henchman luckily appeared right in front of the Rangers and blocked the monster's mind energy blast, allowing them to dodge around him and run towards the lab.
"I should've known you'd try to rescue me." Tommy addressed the Rangers as they undid the straps holding him to the life-force extractor.
"Is that your way of saying thank you? Because if it is, it needs some work." Ethan frowned.
"I'll thank you for real once we get outta here." Tommy said, inputting a command on the keyboard and pulling a lever down. "We can use the main invisi-portal network. C'mon we need to get away from this place." Ethan put a hand on his shoulder to stop him.
"We need to talk."
"Go, I'll explain later." Tommy waved them off.
"We already know everything!" Conner cut in with a grin.
"We found your video diary, we know you're a Power Ranger." Ethan explained.
"Was Ethan, not anymore." Tommy reminded him starting for the portal.
"And we met Kimberly." Kira added, causing Tommy to almost trip over one of the wires ahead. He turned wide eyed and opened his mouth, about to try and attempt some excuses but it was at this moment Mesogog and his entire rabble managed to fit through the doors to the lab.
"An old friend of yours Dr. Oliver? Ranger or not, you're mine now!" Mesogog leered.
"Man, I hate it when he gets like this." Tommy shook his head.
"We'll take it from here Dr. O." Conner nodded to the other two.
"Dino Thunder, Power Up! Ha!"
"Attack!" Mesogog commanded and chaos erupted inside the lab. Tommy made a run for the gem but his way was blocked by Mesogog. The teacher launched a flying kick at the lizard, who swayed to the side at the blow but recovered surprisingly quickly. He blocked Tommy's punch then lifted and hurled him to crash painfully into the control panel. Tommy staggered up and called to the Rangers,
"Hurry, head for the portal, there's something I've gotta get!"
"But-" Kira began to argue.
"Go!" The three glanced to each other and nodded, before jumping through the vortex.
Tommy pushed Mesogog aside and grabbed the stone, rolling over the table that had held it. He glanced up to the portal, nodded at Mesogog with hard eyes and then jumped in to follow his students.
"Do not let him escape with that stone…go!" Mesogog snarled at Elsa and Zeltrax who followed at once into the portal.
"Where's Dr. O?" Conner asked in concern as the three got off their bikes to wait for their mentor in the empty park area the invisiportal had led to.
"Here he is!" Ethan said in relief as Tommy landed in a crouch on the ground in front of them and straightened. He turned as Zeltrax, Elsa, the Pollinator monster and a batch of Tyrannodrones appeared from the portal too. Zeltrax, thinking he had caught Tommy unaware let out a blast of bright blue energy at him.
Tommy quickly put up the crystal stone to catch the force of the blast, but Zeltrax did not relent and the intensity of the blast soon forced Tommy backwards, before he disappeared in a flash of white light as the crystal shattered.
"Dr. Oliver!" Conner shouted.
"No!" Kira shook her head and fell to her knees. The rangers remained frozen in disbelief, aware of Kimberly's scream and Hayley's gasp ringing in their ears through their helmets.
Kira stared at the ground in shock. "This can't be happening." She murmured.
"Such negativity." Elsa smirked. "Haven't you learnt that in our world, anything's possible?"
"-Even the destruction of the great Dr. Tommy Oliver." Zeltrax finished laughingly.
"I heard my name, you missed me didn't you Zeltrax?" Tommy said with a smirk as he appeared out of nowhere where he had been standing before the blast.
"Dr. O!"
"You're okay!" Kira and Ethan cheered as the three rushed to join him.
"Dr. O, what's this?" Conner lifted Tommy's hand in which something was glowing black.
"A black Dino Gem, let me guess, with the power of invisibility?" Ethan estimated.
"Looks like it." Tommy nodded.
"That gem belongs to my master!" Elsa called. "Hand it over, and we might make your end a little more painless."
"There are two things you guys need to learn about Dino Gems. One- you can't choose them, they choose you." Tommy told her.
"What's the other?" Elsa asked disinterestedly.
"They go real well with Dino Morphers," Tommy replied with a smirk as he slammed the black gem into the morpher that appeared on his wrist, making it glow.
"Hmph. Aren't you a little old for this, Tommy?" Elsa taunted mockingly.
"I may be old, but I can still pull it off! Dino Thunder, Power Up!" Tommy called and transformed into the Black Dino Thunder Ranger, holding a long staff ready for attack.
"Dino Thunder, Black Ranger!" He called. "Just like riding a bike." He chuckled as the other three Rangers ran up to him.
"Awesome!" Kira grinned.
"Let's do it!" Tommy glanced at Conner, Ethan and Kira who nodded and charged towards Mesogog's assembled forces.
"I don't believe it. That's the fourth colour he's managed to pull off." Kim shook her head and laughed, putting her finger on the comm. link.
"You bastard Tommy Oliver."
There was a pause then a chuckle. "Hello to you too Kimberly."
"Don't do that to us again!" Kim chided.
"I'll try not to make a habit of it." Tommy responded. "Uh oh. Hayley?"
"Welcome back. I've got a little homecoming present for you. Found him on the north side of the forest. Meet the Brachio Zord, retrieving the black gem must've reawakened him. And wait 'til you see what's inside. I think you can handle it from here." The two women watched as the enormous Brachio Zord lumbered into the square where the forces of good and evil were battling and opened from the back and sides to reveal the Tyranno Zord, Ptera Zord and Tricera Zord inside.
"And you and Tommy built all this?" Kim asked with a raised brow.
"With a little help." Hayley smiled. "We couldn't have done half of it without Billy, and Andros and Zhane of course."
"The Red and Silver Space Rangers." Kim nodded, she had heard about them from Jason, but still how much work had gone into Tommy's set up here was easy to see, and Billy too had been keeping quiet about Tommy's activities. She laughed, no wonder when she talked to him he always sounded a little nervous, she had always thought that was just Billy being Billy. And Trini the little co-conspirator. She and Billy had been seeing each other for almost three years now, ever since he got back from Aquitar. She kind of understood why all her friends had been pushing for reconciliation now, she wondered if Zack was in the know too and that she was the only one of the original team out of the loop.
Well it was for my own good, I had no right to know and it wasn't their secret to tell. Tommy and I are both lucky for friends like them. She smiled to herself.
"Well, they'll be finished soon, I would've suggested a debriefing at the Cyberspace, but as we're already here, they can come to us. Plus I'd imagine you and Tommy are looking forward to that much postponed little talk you're supposed to be having." Hayley smirked at Kim's less than thrilled expression. Now that she had checked Kim's intentions, she saw no threat in her, but then again a part of Hayley was still convinced that Tommy would laugh in Kim's face and she'd be away from Reefside before the day was out. Still, it was enlightening to finally meet the girl that had always been on Tommy's mind.
"Yeah that's true. Let's make the weary warriors some coffee and order in some pizza, then me and the new face of Black can have it out." Kim smiled, back into perky mode. "I'll pay, as I kinda crashed your party." She added and jogged back up the stairs to locate the phone and the phonebook.
Maybe this won't be such a disaster after all. Hayley shrugged to herself as she monitored the remaining battle.
"Oooh, what do I smell?" Conner grinned as he came through the door into Tommy's hall.
"If you were where I'm standing downwind of you I'd say the overpowering stench of your bodily odour. But seeing as you're not I'm gonna say pizza!" Ethan grinned and pushed past the Red Ranger running towards the kitchen.
"Whose bright idea was this?" Kira raised a brow as she too came through the door. "Cause I gotta say, loving it."
"That would be me." Kim smiled coming out of the kitchen where the sounds of hungry teenage boys who weren't bothered with niceties of plates and cutlery could be heard.
"You should invite old friends round more often Dr. O!" Conner shouted through what sounded like a mouthful of pizza.
"Eww, I did not want to see that!" They heard Kira's moaned response to that as she joined them in the kitchen.
"Hey, less of the old!" Kim responded sternly.
"Pizza? Great, I'm starved." Tommy rubbed his hands together as he too entered the house.
"Nuh uh, none for you mister." Kim said grabbing Tommy by the elbow and -much to his surprise- leading him down the stairs towards the basement lab. "We need to talk."
"No pizza?" Tommy pouted with a glance back up the stairs.
"I figured it was a good diversion for your enthusiastic little friends." Kim laughed.
"Alright, you're right. We had better get this over with." Tommy nodded switching back to serious mode.
"And I'm somehow not surprised you're here and seem to have great confidence in the location of everything in my house." He shook his head.
"Yeah, well I came here to check you were okay and met Hayley and the welcoming committee who threatened to beat me up. Then when they went off to rescue you Hayley and I had some time on our hands so she gave me the grand tour of the place and I ordered in the snacks. Sorry for intruding."
"It's not a problem, I'm flattered you cared…. I'm sorry I never met you last night, I guess now you may have some idea about where I was." He said sheepishly, scratching the back of his neck absently.
"Yeah, and while we're apologising, I'm sorry in advance for the fifty or so messages with nothing but a dial-tone that I must've left you on your machine between last night and today. I was a little worried about your whereabouts." She said with some embarrassment.
"Thanks for the concern." Tommy smiled shyly.
They both lapsed into an awkward silence and Kim looked down at the floor, tracing a figure eight on the ground with her foot.
"So…" Kim started slowly.
"So." Tommy repeated. When Kim worked up the nerve to look up at him, he was regarding her steadily, with the same chocolate brown eyes she had fallen into the first time she had seen him. And those kinds of thoughts would not make this any easier! She chided herself internally and returned his gaze. He had made his way to sit on one of the chairs near the consoles, with his back slouched, elbows resting on his knees with his fingers threaded together. It made him look very scholarly, she thought with some affection. Then he spoke, quietly, but there was no way she wouldn't hear.
"This, this isn't gonna be easy. For either of us. But let's make a deal. We tell the truth about everything. We don't leave anything out. Our reasons, our thoughts, our reactions. All out in the open. And we hear each other out. No interruptions, no matter how upsetting we may find it." He said. "Deal?" He held out his hand and Kim took it and shook it firmly.
"Deal."
With a wry smile and a shake of his head he nodded to her.
"I guess you should start."
"Oh yeah, of course." Kim perched delicately on the edge of one of the boxes and rubbed her hands up and down along her thighs for a moment as if this was building her up for something.
"I guess, I should start from when I left, getting to Florida." She said, looking back up at him and chewing her lip thoughtfully.
"In some ways, I was the happiest girl in the world. I was getting the chance to pursue my dream, I had the greatest boyfriend in the universe, the support of all my friends, I felt like I was flying. But it was bittersweet. Losing the Pink Ranger Powers, it felt like losing part of myself. I felt this…this hole inside me, like a big chunk of me was missing.
"But I had been scared. Those days, three near death experiences, it shook me up, though I wouldn't admit it. I was scared to do anything. I didn't want to do gymnastics in the state I was in- after the fall from the balance beam, but I didn't want to be a Ranger either after Zedd and Rita had captured me. But Katherine diving off that board at the pool, facing up to her fears of the water, it made me face up to mine. And you, when you lost your powers, you were so strong about it, I knew I couldn't wallow in pity when I wouldn't let you do the same. I had a fear of losing you too Tommy. If I left, I didn't know if we'd survive. But you were all so supportive of my decision to go, I figured we'd be strong through that too. That you and I would make it work because I believed in it so much." She gave a bitter laugh.
"Guess that didn't work out too well for me." Tommy smiled but looked down at his hands, his own guilt factoring in. He knew Kim had had insecurities when she'd lost her powers, partly because he had been through the same thing, so he knew the mindset she must've been in.
"And you helped me Tommy, you were so supportive, those last talks we had before I left were the most honest we ever had, I felt so safe with you. That's why it hurt so much to leave, I wanted to go to the Pan Globals so badly, but I didn't want to leave you and what we had. But anyway." She shook herself, unconsciously blinking back tears she wasn't aware had formed.
"Florida was amazing. The sun, the people, the atmosphere, you get caught up in it. I guess it's like the feeling when people go to New York City, it's infectious. But there wasn't much time for sightseeing. Coach Schmidt, well you saw him, he wanted the utmost dedication from his athletes. It was intense, he pushed us all harder than I'd ever been pushed, but I knew it would be worth it. I knew I was good, hell I knew I was great, and after everything I'd given up in Angel Grove to go there and train I wouldn't allow myself to fail there." She stood from the box and began pacing back and forth around the same area in front of it.
"But it takes its toll on you, intensive training. I was wiped, I'd never done so much gymnastics in my life! The same routines again and again and again. A hair out of place screwed the whole thing up, let alone a wobble or a step."
Tommy observed her with interest as she talked, her eyes taking on a faraway look, as if she were reliving it. She spoke with passion, but it was tinged with melancholy as she also remembered what she had given up. She had changed so much by leaving, he realised, but then again, he supposed they both had.
"But losing the Pink Powers, it wasn't just a temporary drain. Separation from the coin, it kept pulling at me, I kept on feeling that loss. I guess because the Crane was my spirit animal and Kat was using it at the time, it felt like I was in two parts. And after growing for three years with that Power inside me to balance me, to focus me, to strengthen me, being without that was utterly debilitating. I had no idea how much I had come to rely on my additional power. And although I was a great gymnast and I knew how to do it, I just didn't have the confidence or energy that I had when I was the Pink Ranger.
"So I had to push myself harder, work longer, put more time and effort in. And when you're mentally and physically drained all day every day, it makes it even harder to focus. So it was a pretty vicious circle." Kim ran a hand through her hair.
"And to tell you the truth Tommy, I didn't have time to find another guy, even if I'd have wanted one. But I'd noticed- as the months piled up- the space that grew between us. When you had the time you were as loving and caring and sweet as ever. But there was the thing, when you had time. And you didn't have a lot of it. And neither did I. And all our calls seemed to end up missing each other, or catching each other at bad times, and our letters ended up being from every week to every other week. Then every few weeks, then maybe once a month." Kim bit her lip again and Tommy thought about reaching out to hold her, but she looked so fragile that he thought she would break at the contact, and she needed to talk it out.
"We were growing apart right before my eyes and I hated it. But what I hated even more was that I didn't have the time to miss it, and that I didn't have the energy to care that you hadn't called or wrote. It hurt inside, that we were losing something so precious, but I was so drained I just tried to forget about it and push myself harder. That way the time didn't seem to be so long between calls and letters- everything was just a blur of routines, food and sleep."
At the mention of food Tommy's stomach growled. He coloured slightly and put a hand to his belly. "Sorry," He said sheepishly, "Go on."
Kim giggled.
"So, after a while, after observing gymnasts who were coping so much better than me, who were part of couples, I thought, 'I wonder how Tommy's doing. Does he even miss me? If he missed me that much he'd have called, or have written. I'm sure he's just busy. But I'm busy, and I miss him, but I haven't called or written either.' And then the doubts would creep in, that maybe you didn't miss me at all, that maybe you'd found someone else and was just keeping up this pretence of a relationship in your letters or calls because it would be too much effort to break up. Or that maybe you'd found someone else, but you were being kept from doing anything about it because of me. And I felt guilty then, that I'd been neglecting you so much, and that I hadn't heard from you, so I figured something must've been wrong with our relationship."
She turned away from him then, looking towards the rows of consoles, her voice wavering.
"So I did the selfish thing. The cowardly thing. Instead of calling you, making some effort to see what was wrong, to talk out our problems, to even give us a chance, I wrote that stupid letter! It seemed so easy, I'd seen so many other girls find someone on the male teams who trained at the facilities, it was simple to carve out this little story and fit into the niche. I told some of the other girls on the team that I was writing a break-up letter, I even had them going that I'd met another guy, so they helped me out, and a couple of them had also broken up with their boyfriends when they left to train, so I used their stories as part of mine. It was the most selfish, heartless thing I've ever done, and I don't expect you to forgive me for it Tommy." She finally turned to look at him and he had gone very still and quiet, his own eyes hardened and far off. The hurt of it had surged up inside him as she filled in the story, and the pain was as fresh as if it had only been yesterday when he had had Adam read the letter out to him in front of his friends at the Juice Bar.
"And I knew you wouldn't argue with it. That you'd want me to be happy so you'd accept it, and that you'd move on. Hell, I figured you already had. And with that letter, I thought I'd get closure, that I'd stop thinking about you and missing you whenever my mind was free for my own thoughts rather than thoughts of backward-handsprings and full-twist-layouts, but I was wrong. It made it worse, every morning I found myself checking the mail for your letters and then catching myself at the last minute knowing there wouldn't be one, or having my heart leap in my chest when I saw a message blinking on my answer phone even though I knew it couldn't be you. I just wanted the pain to be over, and I really believed I was doing us both a favour. I was just desperate to forget you because I couldn't have you the way I wanted and needed you. And it made me make a lot of bad choices."
Tommy looked up at her then, his eyes piercing, but somehow uncomprehending.
"Why couldn't you just…just take it back, admit you'd made a mistake, tell somebody? God Kim, you couldn't admit you were wrong, you didn't think I'd forgive you?" He asked bewildered.
Kim scrutinized him with narrowed eyes,
"Would you have? You really think that after saying what I did, and cutting off contact with all of you you'd just forgive me, after I hurt you so much?"
Tommy looked uncomfortable and raked his fingers through his hair.
"…I… I guess, well it would've taken some time, I'd have been hurt, but I'd have forgiven you. Everyone makes mistakes, you were under a lot of pressure and we weren't there for you. But I loved you so much, there's no way I could've stayed angry at you."
"But you're angry now." Kim pointed out.
"Well yeah!" Tommy now stood too. "You come back, after almost a decade of no contact, no explanation and you drop this bombshell on me- that the greatest thing I ever lost was all because of a lie?" He shook his head. "You don't understand Kim, it's not the fact that you broke up with me, even in such a cruel way as a sugary little letter, but the fact that you lied. If you had admitted we'd grown apart, and that you couldn't maintain our relationship with all the pressure that was on you because it was stressing you out, if you'd at least let us talk about it, then I could've gotten over it. But you made some guy up? 'Cause you knew I'd only want what's best for you, and you wouldn't have to deal with me trying to contact you, try to change your mind when you had such a good thing that you'd break up with me for it? That's low Kimberly, and that's what I can't get over."
"But it worked didn't it? You didn't try and contact me, you didn't try and find out why, you were pretty satisfied to let what we had die!" Kim responded defensively.
"Don't try to turn this around onto me Kim, I didn't contact you out of respect, if you had it so good, what right did I have to come and interfere? You didn't bother to tell me to my face or even over the phone, why should I try and talk it out with you?"
"Respect, ha! Tommy you were scared. You didn't want to go up there or even make contact with me in case I told you all about my new guy and how happy I was, you didn't want to talk to me because you knew you couldn't handle it."
"Of course I couldn't handle it! How would you have felt if I had phoned you up and gone on and on about how good it was with Kat and how I didn't miss you at all? What if I had called and told you that I went further than I ever did with you and I slept with her, that she was my first and not you, and that for a while I really saw a future for us? Would that have been something you'd have left yourself open for Kimberly? Wouldn't you have been scared that you could hear that?"
Kim's eyes had filled with tears once more at this heated exchange and Tommy once again felt a stab of guilt.
"Oh God, Kim, I'm sorry I-I didn't mean to-"
"Yes, you did." Kim nodded, wiping away her tears, "And it's okay. We said we'd be honest, you were adults and in a relationship, why shouldn't you have…" She sniffled again.
"Yeah but I shouldn't have mentioned it like-" Kim held up her hand, she couldn't handle his apologies for something like that, she just wanted to block it out for now. Even though Tommy had used his relationship as a hypothetical, she now knew far more than she wanted to about Tommy and Kat's relationship.
"Let's, just get this over with, okay?" Tommy nodded and sat once more, pursing his lips and keeping his head down. This was more intense than he'd thought it would be. He couldn't bear to look at her after what he'd said. He'd really have to get this newly discovered vindictive side looked at, it was certainly not something he'd want to cultivate.
Kim took a deep breath to calm herself down. "So… once I'd broken up with you, and gone through all this crap about missing you, I got lonely, because while I was with you just the fact that I knew you were there kept me company, even when I was training and didn't know when I'd next hear from you. So without that buffer, I thought what the hell? And sure, I looked for guys at the training facility. Other girls did it, why couldn't I? I thought if I found someone else it would get you out of sight and mind and I could really replace you with someone equally as good." She shook her head and sat back down, her legs bored with her unending path back and forth across the floor. She picked at her nail polish and avoided eye contact with Tommy, her voice quieting, coloured somewhat with shame.
"But who was I kidding? There was no-one as good as you out there. All the guys were after one thing and one thing only, and once they'd got it they weren't interested in holding hands or long walks on the beach or dancing in the rain. I got burned. Many times. But it was like, for the one night, it felt like I was special again. I felt like someone. I felt…beautiful. Because I didn't feel that way anymore, I felt pathetic and weak. You always made me feel like I was the only girl in the world, I felt special because I was your Beautiful. Some of them even called me it. But it felt cheapened when some random guy said it, because he wasn't you. None of them were. And the more I looked for a guy like you, I realised there wasn't anybody else. That I'd let you go, so I didn't get another good relationship. I felt like I deserved it, I was being punished for what I'd done to you, for how foolish I'd been in letting you go. So after maybe the fourth or fifth guy I gave up. I felt cheap, I felt like a whore, and I still felt like I'd betrayed you." Her voice had become smaller and smaller, until it was almost a whisper, and the tears rolled down her cheeks now.
It cut him more deeply than he expected to see her crying and in such turmoil, and Tommy now stood and put a hand on her arm, noticing as he did with some surprise that he too was shaking.
"But you're worth so much more than that Beautiful." He whispered sadly, rubbing her arm gently to try and comfort her. She yanked her arm away from him and stood again, biting back the tears and hardening her voice.
"Don't say that Tommy, don't even say it! I'm not. I'm really not. I mean, I ruined what you had with Kat, and I wasn't even here. I hurt you so deeply and you never did anything to deserve it." She shook her head.
"Didn't I?" Tommy asked, and Kim looked up into his eyes. "I hardly called or wrote, I knew I was neglecting you Kim, deep down. But you know how dense guys are, especially me. I figured you were having such a great time out there you didn't need me distracting you all the time, y'always seemed so happy when I heard from you. And I was so busy with Ranger duties, we'd been through so much with the destruction of the Command Centre and the loss of our Morphin' Powers, I figured you wouldn't miss me. And then you broke up with me…Man, I was so confused, this 'guy' just out of nowhere, you'd fallen in love with him! You worded it so hurtfully, though you said the last thing you wanted was to hurt me, and I couldn't understand it. Then Billy and Kat whisked me off snowboarding after I'd gotten the letter and tried to set me up with this girl Heather, it was just mind blowing.
"I was just so angry and confused for so long, but I couldn't focus on it or deal with it because there were so many problems and attacks from the Machine Empire, and I couldn't afford to be upset or talk it out with any of the guys because they were all so worried about me. Whenever someone mentioned your name accidentally they looked at me as if I would burst into hysterical tears, they were walking on glass around me all the time. It was so much simpler to bottle it up and not deal with it at all, though that was the opposite of what I should've done. It was just…so out of the blue I didn't know how to begin to deal with it, y'know? I felt like half of me was missing, for so long, I didn't really know how to handle it at all."
Kim nodded with a forlorn sniffle and steeled herself for what she was about to hear. It was like when you were a child and found a dead animal at the side of the road, or were watching a really scary horror movie, you didn't want to know but you couldn't help yourself from looking.
"So… what happened with you and Kat? How'd that get going?"
Tommy looked at her disbelievingly for a second, bewildered as to why she would ask him something like that about Kat when it would only serve to upset her, but when she gave no indication that she was joking, he sighed and frowned, trying to work out how to articulate it best.
"Well, I didn't really even look at her that way until after your letter. But when she set up this date for me with Heather, she was wearing a pink dress, I'd never seen her wear something like that before. It was like I noticed she was actually a girl, rather than a friend and team mate." Kim- to his surprise- gave a small chuckle at this.
"Typical guy, until we wear something hot we might as well not be there." She rolled her eyes.
"Hey, that's not true. I noticed you from the very beginning. And I told you even if you wore a trash-can liner bag, you'd still look great to me." Tommy reminded her, remembering fondly the day that everything went wrong for Kim, her hair was messed up and it had rained, and her perfect outfit had been burned, and she had told him later how worried she had been at him seeing her in that state- when he had thought she had looked radiant anyway, and that her wet look was just cute.
Kim grinned at his flattery. "Yeah, but you knew I'd kick your ass if you didn't pay me the proper amount of compliments, I'm sure Jase and the others gave you that warning. So go on, that's when you noticed her, what about your first date?" It was painful for Kim to picture Tommy with anyone else, especially Kat- her replacement in so many ways- but she felt she deserved the pain that it caused her for what she had done to Tommy, and she knew she owed it to him to let him get all of it off his chest too.
"God, it was…oh it was when Ernie hosted a luau at the beach club, I asked her out after a lot of stalling. But of course, as it was a first date things couldn't go smoothly and the Machine Empire attacked us and trashed the place. A guy can't get a break, is it any wonder I worried about asking girls on first dates with what I have to deal with?" Kim smiled at this.
"When was this, before Muiranthias?"
"Must've been yeah, a few weeks. Why do you ask?"
"Jason just said that, the way you talked to me when we were under the spell…ah never mind." She waved her hand dismissively. "So when did you break up?"
Tommy frowned, thinking back through that foggy memory of his. "Well, I must've been in college. Well at least just before I started. Did you know that she went to England to study ballet at the Royal Academy?"
"I do now." Kim said tightly.
"Well, it was another long distance relationship, and I was worried, seeing what happened between you and me. I think, she'd always felt like she was in your shadow, that we lacked the same connection that you and me had. She never hated you, she looked up to you in fact, but she was resentful I think that she couldn't replicate the kind of relationship I had with you. You and she were two different people, and I did love her. But I think that in the end even though you and I ended badly, ours had been the stronger relationship. So when the time came for her to move to London, we decided to break it off there, remain friends and keep in touch. It just meant she wouldn't have the pressure on her to maintain the relationship that you did, so that she could concentrate on the work. It felt like the right time I guess." Tommy concluded with a one-shouldered shrug.
"A mutual decision." Kim noted.
"Exactly." Tommy nodded.
They fell into silence once more. The intensity and weight of knowledge they had received in the past hour gave them both a lot to think about.
"Did you miss me, ever?" Kim asked timidly. She didn't want to push him, but after pouring out her heart she felt she needed a little reciprocation. "Y'know, after the letter?" She pushed her hair behind her ear and pressed her lips together in a meek smile.
Tommy shook his head and sighed, "Of course I did. After what we had, and how abruptly it ended, every time I saw a flash of pink, like a girl wearing a pink top or someone on the balance beam with brown hair I thought it was you for a second. Sometimes in battle, when I called out to Katherine I called her Kimberly by accident. Force of habit I guess." He chuckled dryly. "Though I don't think she appreciated it."
"No wonder the girl had a complex about me if you couldn't get our names straight!" Kim laughed. Tommy nodded embarrassedly.
"Yeah, I know. But is it that hard to understand? I had fought by your side for two years, it was a big change. I got a little better after we lost the Morphin' Powers and received the Zeo ones."
"No, I understand, I did it to Rocky and Adam and Aisha sometimes after Jase, Zack and Trini left for the conference." She smiled.
"I missed you a lot Kim." Tommy admitted quietly. "We used to share everything. I had security with you, I would talk to you about things I'd never share with anyone else, even Jason. And then it was gone and I didn't know why. I couldn't understand how you could find a guy who… who gave you what I gave you, who could have with you what I did. Now I find out there wasn't one. It makes sense really." He shook his head and laughed bitterly.
Kim bit her lip. "And no matter how many times I apologise it will never make up for it, will it?"
"No." Tommy responded honestly. "I can't just forgive and forget on this one Kimberly. I wish I were a strong enough man to do that, but I'm not."
"I don't expect you to be. I don't think anyone could. And I don't deserve your forgiveness Tommy, I know that." She said gently.
"Kim, I can forgive you, I can see your reasons. They may have been really crappy ones, but I can see them. And I can't hate you. I never did. I was angry, yes, but it was never really at you. At, at this 'other guy' definitely, at the world, at Zedd, Coach Schmidt, even Kat in my weaker moments. But I never hated you, I cared for you too much for that. The hurt and shock, that's what fuelled the anger. But I can forgive you. Now that I know, it's like a weight that's been lifted. But I can't forget it, not that easily. I can look past it, but what you did will always be there. Maybe it won't be as important in the future but…" He shook his head.
Kim nodded, shaking herself so she didn't begin to cry again. This was all so huge, something she would never have guessed she'd ever be doing. But it was so freeing, Tommy was right that a weight had been lifted, there was nothing left to fear from each other anymore, the hurtful comments had surely been aired today. But there was still one thing she wanted to know from him, though she knew it would probably only make her feel worse, whatever the answer.
"Tommy, do…do you think, redundant and pointless though this is…do you reckon we would've lasted, stayed together, if I hadn't sent that letter?"
Tommy looked up at her, quiet for a moment and after some thought he nodded slowly.
"Yeah. Yeah you know, I think we would have."
It was exactly the answer she had been dreading.
Well, that was that, I'll be very interested in the feedback for this one, it took a lotta time, I'm not quite sure if I'm happy with it or not, I guess it all depends what you guys think! Please review and give me the low down, and please don't let my intense vulnerability become any sort of a factor here ;)
On to the reviews-
Nightwing 509- If you want to know the details about Mesogog's interest in Kim, next chapter should be rather enlightening for you, but I won't be giving everything away! Thanks for reviewing.
JTrevizo- Well, here it is, would you say out of the ballpark? ;) Flattering comments to be sure, I'm glad you liked the Hayley/Kim interaction, it may feel like I wrapped up their conflict a bit too fast in this chapter, but it's not quite over, I just didn't want to focus on it as there were more important things to deal with in this chapter! So I hope it didn't seem to easily resolved there! Thank you for the support.
Hartfelt- Yes I certainly understand not having the time to sit down and review, but I certainly appreciate it when you do have the time! Oh you and me both hope Kim and Tommy work it out, I hope their talk shed a little light onto their feelings and the issues between them, I tried to bring out their emotions and a lot of history between them up to this point, so I hope it's to your liking! Are you still saying you don't mind how long the chapters are, this one was pretty darn long! Thanks for the feedback.
Yami Kero- Yes the title of the episode Legacy of Power was the one recapping the previous seasons, I hope your fic is going well and you enjoyed this. Thanks for reviewing.
Luna98766789- Hmm, thinking about it I guess Hayley could be a little reminiscent of Kat's personality, and as I was drawing comparisons between them both I guess it's not that surprising! I sure don't like Kat and Tommy as a couple either, so this story is pretty much against that! Thanks for the compliments, I hope you enjoyed this too chapter too.
Tomgirl27- Your memory needs fixing? Was that brought on by something I wrote, hope I didn't make any mistakes! As for wondering what would happen if Kim did fight, well you might be closer to finding out than you think, but it won't be against Hayley lol. Thanks for the review!
Thank you muchly to everyone who took the time to review, I'm looking forward to your reactions to this (well, looking forward to with much dread XD) I hope you enjoyed and I'll see you next chapter!
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