ZEDD - THREE DAYS LATER

Back at Thomas' house, my thoughts wander back to the reunion. On the day of the actual event, I was my most charming and well behaved. I talked business with Trey, had a rather pleasant chat with Karone and Andros, kept Zhane from face planting on a table after he'd had a bit too much to drink. I even managed to hold a decent conversation with Kimberly and not join in when several of the past male Rangers attempted to drown Justin in the fish tank. Sighing to myself I realize that maybe I have gone a little soft, but Thomas always tries so hard to make a good impression for me when I need him to and I wanted him to be proud of me and to know I would do the same for him. Plus if his behavior in the hotel room that night was any indication, I succeeded.

"Pay attention, Zedd!" Dar's admonition gets my attention. We're helping Thomas pack up some of his things that he wants to bring home. Dar's handing me things from the top shelves of the bookcase so that they can be wrapped up. As boring and time consuming as it is, I must admit I'm more than happy to do it as it means we're just that much closer to getting back home. Not that I mind it here really, well for short bits of time, however never getting really any time throughout the day to be alone with my mate is making me a bit testy at times.

Thomas comes downstairs with a box seeming surprised by the amount of progress we've made. "Wow you guys are fast."

Nodding at the almost empty shelves and then to me, Dar however is less impressed. "We'd be faster if your mate would stop daydreaming and actually help."

Smiling and giving me a quick kiss, Thomas shakes his head. "Focus on mating later Zedd, help Dar now." How well he knows me. "Oh, by the way guys, there's a heart shaped paperweight on the top shelf. It's heavier than it looks and please be very careful with it. It's special to me, okay?"

"Don't beat Zedd over the head with it, got it" Dar comments absently.

Smiling, he disappears even as a small surge of jealousy hits me. Which of his girlfriends gave him such a token of affection that he's so protective of it? Surely not one of the civilian ones I've met. It would very likely have to be Kimberly or Katherine, though I can't see either of them giving him something like that. Dar shifts the object in question to reach something behind it. As he pulls the other object forward, his elbow hits it and it flies through the air. "Shit!"

There's only a split second of thought to let the thing shatter before I'm diving after it. I hear Thomas gasp just as my hand closes on it, preventing it from hitting the floor. In a minute, he's at my side. "Zedd, are you okay? Is the paperweight okay?"

At least he asked about me first. "I'm fine, Thomas and I think it is too." He helps me to my feet before taking it from me and checking it over carefully. No really, no thanks or kiss needed love, perfectly fine here. Annoyance spiking a bit at his focus being more on the item than myself, I can't stop the words that come out of my mouth next. "So which of your prior mates gave you this?" It's only after I speak that I realize the tone I said it in.

I feel his hurt as he holds it out to me. "It's engraved. Why don't you see for yourself?"

I take it and he walks away. I find the engraved place and read it out loud. "Happy Mother's Day to the best mom ever. I love you. Tommy." Oh hells. This is one of the things he kept after his parents died. And now I feel like a complete and total ass.

Dar sighs. "For the love of - go find him."

I find him in the office area, carefully wrapping some of his fossils. "Love, I'm sorry. I never thought that-"

"Stop." He doesn't turn around. "I understand, Zedd. I felt your jealousy when I said that it was special. I was coming back to explain when everything happened."

"Still it was unfair - and unkind. It shouldn't matter who gave you something. If it's important to you…"

He draws a shuddering breath. The last time I heard him do that when I wasn't teasing him during mating, he'd been crying, and that thought in mind I now feel about a hundred times worse. "It's okay, mate. It really is."

Once more he has a tight hold on himself - not quite shutting me out or shutting down, but almost. "It's not, I upset you."

"I'm not upset, just…stressed, okay?" Recalling his past claims of not wishing for me to see him cry or give me a reason to think him overemotional or weak I know I should let him be, but…

"You are upset. If you aren't, then why won't you look at me?"

His hands still and I hear him draw in another calming and unsteady breath. "Because - because if I do, I'm probably going to fall apart and I don't have time for it or want to do it right now. I didn't keep a lot of Mom and Dad's things. Well, not a lot of things from either set of parents, but the things I do have are important to me."

"Of course they are. With as close as you apparently were to your adoptive parents, they should be. And the things from your biological parents are a link to your heritage. It makes sense."

His voice is very soft. "Thank you, Zedd for saving it. I'm sure the temptation was there to let it shatter since you thought it was from an old girlfriend."

I really don't know what to say to this, so I go on the defensive. "Why would you think-"

"Because it would have crossed my mind too, if the situation were reversed" he admits. "And I know that if you had given in to the temptation, you would have felt beyond horrible once you found out the truth."

I can't even begin to imagine how badly I would have felt. Still, his understanding is more than I deserve for the disloyal thought. "Thank you for understanding, Thomas. It's better than I deserve for that."

"I love you, Zedd." The declaration is so heartfelt that it takes me a minute to realize something. He said it in English! Knowing how impossible that's been for him puts a lump in my throat and I almost miss what he says next. "Besides, I've been putting a box of things together from my exes. Things that we can destroy later."

"Only if you want to, love." After my almost stupid mistake, I'm not going to make another one like that again. I take him in my arms and press a kiss to his neck. "I love you, too."

He sighs. "As much as I'd like to get lost in other things, I really want to get as much of this done as possible today, lover."

"All right. I'll behave - for now."

I can hear the smile when he says, "I'm counting on you misbehaving later."

"You don't have to worry about that. I'll be the worst, most deviant, former evil overlord you've ever seen."

"Promises, promises."

Just about to try and encourage him to let me give him at least a taste of what he has to look forward to tonight I'm interrupted as the doorbell rings. "Damn it, if it's Connor I'm feeding him to a bear."

"There are no bears in the woods around here, mate."

I give him a parting kiss and say, "Then a carnivorous deer. I'll get it."

I hurry through and open the front door. It's barely open when Hayley dumps a heavy box in my arms. "Finally!"

"Hello to you too" I respond, slightly amused.

"Get out here and help me. There's more."

I set the box down out of the way and follow her. "I thought you weren't moving your things in until next week?"

"These aren't mine. They're for Tommy. Well Tommy and you guys."

"Woman, I'm fairly certain that we need empty boxes for packing, not full ones."

She rolls her eyes. "They aren't for packing, Eltarian." And that just amuses me more. "Tommy told me how much you all liked the coffee blend I sent him, so I made more for you to take back." She indicates the interior of the vehicle even as she opens the trunk and I can't help but blink at the volume.

I turn toward the house. "Goldar! Scorpina! Thomas!"

They all hurry out. "What's wrong, Zedd?" Dar asks.

I wave my hand at the car. "I'm not carrying all this in by myself."

"What the hell is all this, Hayley? I haven't finished packing my things yet so there isn't room for your stuff yet."

I speak up again. "Apparently, it's coffee." Their eyes all widen as mine had. "It's more of the blend that she sent to Thomas before."

"Ooh - that was good coffee" Dar admits. "I was going to talk to you about setting up a regular shipping and payment schedule so that we could keep getting it."

"Well, this should hold you for a while" she smirks.

"What do we owe you?" I ask, more than ready to pay almost whatever she asks.

"Nothing."

"Wait, what? Hales, I know this isn't cheap. There's no way-"

"Shut it, Oliver. I've done the math. You're saving me more than this in rent payments in a year." She is a feisty one. I can see why Thomas likes her and values her friendship.

He turns to me. "Zedd-"

She interrupts him. "Forget it. There's nothing you or your boy toy can do to change my mind."

Scorpina and Goldar are practically rolling on the lawn at her referring to me as a 'boy toy'. "Seriously, woman?"

"Seriously what? You think I didn't hear you two when I came back here last night with Jason for some coffee and dessert after our date? The way you were whining and begging for him to have mercy on you made us wonder if you two were playing or he was actually trying to kill you."

Face slightly red in embarrassment, I now think I know what Thomas goes through when Dar and Pina tease him about being loud. Speaking of which… I turn to the still laughing, now hysterically, pair on the lawn. "Could you two pull yourselves together?"

It takes some doing, and a few death threats, but my companions do eventually get a hold of themselves and after a bit of debate and bit more doing we settle on a solution to added cargo. Instead of moving the boxes Hayley brought into the house and then to the ship later, we just move them all straight to the ship. Once done, Thomas, Goldar and Scorpina return to what they were doing as I argue with the woman about payment. "Why do you have to be so stubborn?"

"I learned the fine points of stubbornness from your mate" she shoots back. "Why don't you just give up now?"

"Because no matter how stubborn you think you are, I have thousands of years of practice on you."

"Yeah, it's a shame that I'm still better at it. No."

"You could put it away as an emergency fund. Or save it for - what's the human term - mad money? A rainy day? You could redecorate the house to something more your taste."

"It's not my house."

"To all intents and purposes it will be."

"But it's not. If anything Jason has been living here more than I have. Hell he even reorganized the den a bit so he could work around-" She stops mid-statement and looks around suddenly. "Wait, where's Tommy?"

"I think he went back to wrapping up some of his breakables. Now, look-"

"No, wait. Where is he working?" There's a tone in her voice that has my full attention.

"In the den, I believe. Why?" After all it's not as if he'll care Jason reorganized some things so he could work more efficiently.

She scrabbles for something in her pocket. "Wait a minute, Zedd." She pulls out her phone and calls someone. "It's Hayley. You were working in Tommy's den while you were staying here, weren't you?" She must be talking to Jason. "What did you do with that file I gave you? The one about an inch thick? Yes, that one. Where? Gotta go."

She snaps the phone shut. "Zedd, his medical file from rehab is on the desk in the den. We need to get that before-"

"Oh hells." We both head for the den. Upon arrival, we find that Thomas is carefully putting things in a box - that seems to be sitting directly on the file we're worried about. Trying to be casual, I move up behind him, pressing a kiss to his neck, "How's it going, love?"

"Not bad. Done arguing with Hayley?"

"Not by a long shot. We just put it to the side for the moment." No need to mention, really, that I have an alternate plan. Returning my attention to the here and now, though, I hope my mate doesn't realize that I'm up to something. "Almost done with that box?"

"Not even close. You do realize that when I said you could misbehave later, I meant much later, don't you?"

"I do, I just came to check on you, that's all. Also I just thought that if you were done with that box, I could take it for you on my way back to help Dar."

"It's going to be a while yet, mate. There's a lot of small things I want to pack in here and I have to be somewhat careful so that they don't move too much but aren't too tight either." Damn it. Okay, fine, let's try this another way then.

"Good point, though personally I like when things are tight" I purr in his ear, making him snicker but still swat me away.

"Zedd, go behave please."

"I would, but I'm hungry, and if I can't have you, how about we have some lunch instead?" Catching Hayley's eye roll, I can't say I blame her as the words definitely felt absurd even as I said them, however my concern for his well being is currently interfering with my ability to be charming and sexy, so sue me.

Glancing at his watch, Thomas frowns slightly. "Zedd it's ten in the morning."

"So?"

"So we just ate breakfast an hour ago."

"I'm still hungry?"

Sighing and shaking his head, he returns to his packing. "Well then go ahead and make yourself a snack, but I'm good for right now." Okay, strike two.

"I would but…there's a squirrel in the kitchen?"

Pausing and giving me a rather odd look, I've no doubt that he's wondering if I'm suffering from brain damage at this point. "What?"

"Dar left the back door open and squirrel got in the house."

"Well then, go shoo it back out of the house."

"But-"

Sighing and giving me a stern look, he apparently is having none of it. "Zedd, love, please I would really, really like to finish this, okay?"

"Okay."

"Thank you." Returning to the task at hand, he apparently isn't going to leave without me physically removing him from the room, and yeah I already know that wouldn't go well.

I shoot a helpless look at Hayley. She thinks for a minute. "Hey, Tommy, I'm going to go help Zedd with the squirrel, just do me a favor and don't mess up the papers on the desk. Jason was using your desk to work from home on some things and I'm sure you don't want to mess up his files."

"I'm not doing anything with his papers, Hales" he says in exasperation. "I know better than to mess up his files, now will you two please go either remove the wildlife from my house, or go pack something so I can finish up here."

We exchange looks and leave the room. Once in the living room, I say, "I don't know what else to do, short of telling him and we both know that he'll want to see it then."

"See what?" Dar asks. Quickly, we fill him in. "Just tell him, Zedd. As much as he avoids talking about or even thinking about what happened there, I doubt very much that he'd want to see it." Wouldn't care to bet on that, would you, Goldar?

"If it wasn't for his stubborn streak, I'd agree with you" Hayley says.