TOMMY

From what I heard on the call Zedd made to his parents, I think dealing with his mother might be the easier of the two. At the very least I think I can hold off on killing her, whereas his father I can't really make any promises about. I follow Talic through the seemingly endless hallways until he halts in front of a set of double doors. He knocks and I hear Zedd's mother call out for us to come in. He opens the door and waves me in before closing it silently behind me, apparently not joining us for this little meeting. Taking in the rather grand parlor it doesn't take me long to spot Zedd's mother. She's sitting on a small couch near what I would almost call patio doors, which are wide open and letting in a pleasant breeze.

I take a deep breath and cross the room, stopping several feet away as Dar instructed me to do when I met her or her husband…although in fairness he also told me to feel free to kick her husband in the crotch if the desire should strike me. Hm, we'll see how well his meeting with Zedd goes. Refocusing on the here and now though, I bow deeply to the rather stunning woman and greet her in formal Eltarian.

She smiles broadly at me and answers in Iotian. "Welcome to our home, young one. However, let's dispense with the formalities shall we. I'm sure that my son has led you to believe that we prefer them, but I assure you it isn't so - at least as far as I'm concerned."

"Quite frankly, my lady, your son has told me very little about his parents - except that you do not get along."

"Mara, please." Her eyes are sharp but not unkind as she studies me closely. "Come sit by me and we'll talk about my eldest offspring - and his mates." Once I'm seated, she says, "My, my, you are quite handsome, aren't you now. Though that's not truly surprising I suppose as Zeddic has always had very good taste when choosing things of importance."

"I suppose, though I still say Zedd's appearance surpasses mine by a good bit."

"Maybe, but then again I am a tad biased given he is my child."

"I suppose it's just a mother's nature to find all of her children the most attractive out of anyone else" I agree, earning a slight laugh from the woman.

"Well in fairness I suppose that is true, though you do know Zeddic didn't always look as he does now, don't you?"

"What do you mean?"

Smiling and moving over to a shelf on the far wall, she removes a framed picture sitting among several others before handing it to me.

Looking at the photo and smiling, it only takes me a minute to realize just what, or rather who I'm looking at. Sitting in front of a fountain, a very pretty little toddler in his arms, is my mate at what must have been around ten years old. Doing my best not to laugh at his rather goofy smile, sun bleached hair, and mismatched clothes I in the end can't help myself as some current behaviors and obsessions of his suddenly make much more sense now.

"That was taken shortly before his younger brother was born. His sister Serena was feeling a bit upset that she would no longer be the baby, so Zeddic spent the day spoiling her rotten."

"He definitely looks… different."

"He took a while to grow into himself" she agrees with a smile.

"That may explain why he's now a tad focused on his looks I suppose."

"Growing up he got teased more than a bit by his sisters and brothers I'm afraid. They didn't truly mean any harm, however certain things tend to stick with a person throughout the years, so while you and I both agree he is indeed a sight to behold now, I'd wager in his mind, he still sees himself in closer resemblance to what you see in that picture."

"That does actually explain a lot about how he behaves at times, as well as why he constantly compliments my appearance when I'm feeling down on myself."

"Trust me, if Zeddic were only concerned about looks, I could see why he chose you, but I know that's not the case. Powers knows how many attractive young women and men his father paraded before him to try and get him away from Annwyl before that all blew up in our faces."

"Yes, well- wait, I'm sorry, what?" What the hell is she talking about?

"Oh you know how things are, dear. Young ones rebel against their parents when they reach a certain age, Annwyl was just part of Zeddic's rebellion I suppose. I told his father to let it be, that it would work itself out in the end as the harder he pushed other suitors on the boy the more Zeddic would fight him on it, however my husband is a stubborn man and doesn't tend to give his eldest son enough credit where things such as integrity and love are concerned."

"So, his father disapproved of Annwyl, and instead of explaining why he disapproved he instead rounded up a bunch of attractive men and women to try and convince Zedd to trade up so to speak." Oh that's just lovely.

"Oh, I'm sorry. By the look on your face, I'd say that you didn't know about any of that."

"No, no I didn't. However if Zedd didn't find it important enough to tell me about, I'd wager it's because there was nothing really to tell. I did however know about Annwyl as in addition to making an uninvited visit to our home and calling me a pet, he then felt the need to challenge me in combat, which he lost by the way, retaliated by abducting Zedd, and then nearly killing him when Zedd refused to give in to his advances." Didn't know about that, did you?

She shakes her head slowly. "Annwyl was a good boy once." Really? I tell you he almost killed your son, and that's your response? Starting to see where Zedd gets a lot of his behavior from now.

"He almost killed my mate" I protest, refusing to see said 'good' in any part of that vile little demon spawn.

"It wouldn't be the first time, my dear."

Looking at her in shock, I can barely find the words to ask. "When-"

"Oh you know how boys are." Seriously? Just seriously? "That aside though, the last I had heard he was still in a permanent comatose state. How did he recover from-"

"He was never bonded to the other boy" I tell her, still trying to grasp her easy acceptance of Zedd's near demise. "Apparently, it was a ruse to break things off with Zedd, that's why he picked one of Zedd's rivals to do it with."

The flash of anger on her face is truthfully more than I hoped for, considering what the others have told me about his parents and again her almost dismissive take on what I've already told her. She switches to Eltarian and lets out a string of curses that, I'm sure, are quite improper for a lady of her standing. "Oh my. Such language, Mara" I scold lightly, pretending to be shocked.

"I assumed you didn't understand Eltarian."

"I've discovered that swearing sounds remarkably similar regardless of language" I grin at her. "Besides I've heard Zedd use those words enough that it didn't take long to figure out what they meant." It's somehow not all that surprising that Zedd's mother can curse like a sailor, a truck driver and a soldier all in one.

Smiling she shakes her head. "Well now, aren't you the insightful one."

"At times. Truthfully I think we have a lot we can tell each other."

"Perhaps you could start by telling me how you met Zeddic."

"The first time we 'met' he was trying to help Rita take over Earth and I was a Ranger assigned to stop him."

"Oh dear. So I take it that the courtship didn't begin there."

Smiling, I shake my head. "No, but apparently we bonded at the time and just didn't know it. In fact, we didn't know anything about it until fairly recently. You see, I've held several different sets of powers as a Ranger and I had yet another set until a few months ago. Forgive me if this is jumbled a bit. I was mentoring the newest team of Rangers when our enemy somehow found a morphing gem. Once we retrieved it from him, I had to take the powers of the Black Dino Thunder Ranger to keep him from being able to use the gem for evil."

I take a breath. "The Rangers and I were out battling a monster. The kids - I mean the Rangers - had just morphed and I needed a few seconds before I could." I pause in my story, suddenly feeling a strong spike in Zedd's emotions through the bond. I wait a moment to see if it gets any worse and I'm just about to excuse myself to go and check on him when I feel him finally calm himself down enough that I can return my attention to Mara. "Sorry. Zedd distracted me."

"Is he all right?"

"I don't know, he's calmer now. I think he got agitated about something."

"Hmm, that's nothing out of the ordinary when he and his father are debating I'm afraid. However if he has calmed enough that you feel it through the bond, perhaps things aren't going as badly as I had expected."

"I hope not. Either way he seems settled now, at least for the most part. Um, okay right, so back to the story then. Just as I was about to morph, the monster shot me in the head with a laser. I almost died that day. I was so badly injured that the powers abandoned me."

"You'll have to ask Zedd his side of it, but he told me that he felt like something was very wrong. While he, Goldar and Scorpina were working to find out what, I was in the hospital. The doctors determined that I had brain damage which would affect my memory, grasp of language, and fine and gross motor skills to a degree. Since there was nothing they could do to repair the damage they sent me to another facility, with the intent of furthering my recovery as much as they could there. Instead, the staff there took it upon themselves to abuse and molest the patients as well as keeping them heavily drugged. I wasn't even allowed to see my friends and family. The staff told me that they didn't want anything to do with me and told them that I was refusing to see anyone as that made it easier to do what they wanted with me without any repercussions."

Mara makes a sympathetic noise and sets her hand on mine. "I'm sorry you went through that – Oh my, I swear you'd think I was suffering from my own memory loss." Looking at her curiously, I can't help but smile at what she says next. "I'm sorry, my dear, what's your name? All this talking we've already been doing and I forgot my manners."

"It's all right. Everyone calls me Tommy, well except Zedd. He insists on calling me Thomas."

Her eyebrows go up. "Really? Then he must respect you indeed. But forgive me for interrupting. Go on with your story."

"Maybe, I think he honestly did it when I was younger because he knew it annoyed me. However, now, he explains it as pretty much you did. As for the rest of my story, well, the staff was - mistreating - me as well. I was so drugged up that there was nothing I could really do to fight them or stop them. They were about to - take things to a new level when Zedd showed up and got me out of there."

Her eyes narrow for a moment. "You mean they were about to rape you, don't you?" And I'd completely forgotten how forward they are about things like that in their culture. She pats my hand gently. "You don't have to mince words with me, Tommy."

I take another steadying breath. "Yes, they were. After Zedd got me out, he brought me to his home to try and undo the damage that had already been done. He said that he felt he owed me after all the trouble he and Rita had caused me when I was younger and battling them."

"The three of them cared for me and helped me get better. At one point, Pina discovered that I was still a power holder, but couldn't figure out what the power was as the signature was too faint at the time. Later, we realized that I still held the Ninjetti powers that I'd gained from Phaedos when I was younger. Once I was well enough, the powers reawakened and changed me into a Phaedosian/human half breed so that I can continue to hold the powers safely without them killing me."

She interrupts me. "How old are you, Tommy?"

"I turned thirty about three months ago. The average life span of a human is about eighty or ninety years."

She seems delighted by this information. "So you'll probably be very close to Zeddic's life span now."

I nod. "We think so. We're also hoping that if something happens to one of us that it won't automatically mean the death of the other since I'm not Eltarian in any way."

She looks puzzled. "Wait, please. Explain what you mean by that."

"When I was still human, Zedd told me that if something happened to me it would affect him as well because of the bond. If one of us died, then the other very likely would as well."

"Well, that all depends." What now? At my confused look, she elaborates. "If one of a bonded pair dies unexpectedly, then yes it does affect the living bond mate. However, if it's some kind of illness or slow death, then the bond actually begins to break down, reducing and then severing the connection to spare the other. Although we've seen cases where a bonded mating pair will still die almost together even with an illness, particularly when elderly. Like the bond knows that one would not want to live without the other and would be too old to take up another mate."

"I've heard similar stories on Earth" I agree. "It's very rare, but it does happen."

"And humans don't bond, do they?"

I shake my head. "Not the way your kind does, no. To be honest we're still not entirely certain how we managed to, however Dulcea seems to think it was just one of those things that is supposed to be."

"Perhaps she's right. So back to your story, you began to recover and Zeddic began courting you."

"It - wasn't exactly like that." I feel my face redden, gaining me a curious look. "He made a few comments and suggestions in passing, but…it was complicated. Because of what happened in the hospital on Earth I was a bit leery of getting involved in any relationship at the time and in truth before Zedd I really had no physical interest in being with another male."

"But?"

"But your son is highly persistent." Smiling slightly and shaking my head, I recall all too well how he can get when he wants something. "After being around him constantly and seeing how much he actually cared about me, it sort of helped to spark my interest in being mates with him. I was still leery of the physical aspect though until we had a slight setback in things."

"What sort of setback?"

Taking a breath I can only hope she's as understanding about this as she was about Annwyl. "I started my Ranger career as Rita's evil Green Ranger. Unknown to any of us, she'd put a spell on me when she feared losing control of me. The other Rangers at the time broke the spell that was controlling me and she didn't have the chance to trigger her backup spell to get me back on her side. It stayed dormant for many years. One day while I was at Zedd's castle, I had a migraine - an extremely bad headache. Pina's medical scan showed nothing so they decided to have Zedd do a magical scan. Not knowing the spell was there, he accidentally triggered it, reverting me to my formerly evil state."

"While I can understand your upset over such a thing, it's hardly anything Zeddic hasn't handled in the past given his own time serving under Dark Spector's forces."

I bite my lip. "Yeah, it gets worse. While I was under the influence of the spell, I took advantage of Zedd."

Looking confused now, she shakes her head. "What?"

"As the spell grew in power, I went from feeling the need to serve him to more or less the desire to overthrow him and anyone else who dared get in my way. I- became more cruel and controlling." I stop, still thoroughly ashamed of my behavior even though I couldn't do anything about it. Finally, I blurt out, "I stole his power staff and when he didn't instantly meet my demands to submit to my rule I became dangerously abusive to the point I raped him, although he denies that's what happened."

I can't look at her. "So he was unwilling but you took him anyway?"

"He says that he was willing enough, but we both know that it was to avoid anything worse - like me hitting him anymore."

"So you hit him?"

"I punched him in the face when I realized he was trying to break the spell's hold on me."

"And?"

Looking up in surprise, I stare at her certain I've misheard. "And I threatened to beat the hell out of him unless he did what I wanted."

"And?"

"And…and what? How much more horrible could it have been?"

"Well, for starters you could have actually taken him against his will, however given the fact you even as a half breed do very likely not come close to matching his strength and power, staff or no staff I'd say it's fairly safe to assume he was indeed willing to give you what you wanted as otherwise he could have easily snapped your neck. As for punching him in the face, Tommy, my dear boy, I love Zeddic with all my heart, but my darling son has been provoking fights both verbal and physical since he was old enough to crawl."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning he has both given and received far worse injuries than a black eye throughout his life. Believe me, you leaving a bruise is hardly anything he is actually afraid of given his track record with fights both on and off of the battle field."

"Maybe, but that's not the same thing. He wasn't in battle and no matter what he's done in the past that doesn't justify me harming him in the present, spell or no spell."

"No? Tommy, do you believe in balance?"

"Balance?"

"Yes, you know, how when you do something there is always something else that occurs to supposedly balance that action out, be it good or bad." Recalling how I'd explained karma to Zedd and the others, I give a slight nod, seeing where she's going.

"I do, but again no matter what Zedd's done in the past-"

"When he was two he did not wish to be potty trained and announced this to us by peeing on the drapes, couch, his father's desk and several pieces of very expensive artwork." Note to self, make certain to hide all expensive and irreplaceable objects when I have a child.

"Okay but he was a toddler and-"

"When he was seven he decided he should not have to go to bed at the time we appointed for it and in turn broke every clock in the house so that we supposedly would not know what time it was." Dude, seriously?

"Uh, well, I mean…you got to admit that shows good deductive reasoning skills."

"At ten his oldest sister teased him about crying when he got hit in the head with a ball they were playing with so he in turn shaved her head that night."

"Siblings do have spats every now and again" I offer weakly.

"At fifteen he decided boarding school was not for him and somehow managed to not only glue the headmaster's butt to his chair, but also flood the entire dormitory while doing so."

"Okay, that one I can't defend."

"Neither could we, which is why we had to pay triple tuition to get him into a new school the following year. Tommy, I'm not trying to say that hitting my son is acceptable, no matter how much he may have it coming, however you must remember that you were under a spell and not in control of your actions. For you to even connect with him enough to leave a bruise he very likely had to have let you, and finally, he again peed on my brand new drapes and a five thousand credit painting, he had at least one of those punches to the face coming and if you didn't give it to him I very likely would have as a final request on my deathbed."

"Okay."

"That aside though, I can't imagine how hard that was for him - knowing that you weren't in control of yourself and not able to do anything to help you." Oh goody - a new guilt trip. "And even if you are determined to blame yourself for what occurred obviously he forgave you if you're together now."

"He says he has, although I've had a much harder time forgiving myself. I was so upset about what happened that I offered to let Goldar beat the hell out of me in return." No need to mention, really, that I assaulted Pina as well during that time.

"Things happen sometimes that are out of our control, young one. If Zeddic has let it go, you should too." Before I can respond to this, she looks outside. "It's a nice day. Would you object to moving this conversation out to the garden?"

"If you like."

"I would. I'd also like to hear more about your time with Zeddic…you didn't punch him in the face any other times did you?"

"No, but I accidently destroyed one of the castle turrets when he was teaching me to use a power staff."

"Oh? He did that too, when he was seventeen, only it wasn't a turret, it was Zordon's summer home."

LATER

We're wandering through the garden and I've already told her about Annwyl, the client of Zedd's that tried to invade us and other little stories. Finally, she says, "So you've mentioned that you share a bed with my son due to the nightmares you've had."

"They're not so bad anymore, but yes, that's why we originally started to sleep in the same bed before even knowing we were bonded."

"That must have been difficult given your reluctance to be near another male like that at the time."

"It was and it wasn't. I mean…it was weird at first, but Zedd was always careful not to do anything to make me uneasy or feel threatened."

"Like trying to encourage mating." Oh lord.

"Yeah, like that" I agree flushing in embarrassment. "He knew I wasn't sure about it at the time and didn't push it."

"You are however sure about it now though, correct?" This is not going to be good.

"Um, well, yeah. Why?"

"I was just curious if you are currently mating as well as sleeping now or if that been put on hold due to what occurred during your time under Rita's spell?" Again, I blush fiercely. She did not just ask me if I was having sex with her son. "Are you all right, Tommy? Every now and then your face turns a bright red."

Now I know she's playing with me, as I've even seen Zedd blush. "I'm fine, just…Humans don't talk as openly about mating as your species does. Many of us find it embarrassing."

Puzzled, she says, "That makes no sense. It's a natural thing to do."

I shrug. "It's the way we're raised, but since you asked, yes, we are currently mating." Might as well get it over with.

Suddenly I see a look cross her face that I know I've seen on Zedd's and now I'm a little leery. "I see, well while we're on the subject…" Oh no. "Since you are a half breed now, I would assume you've adapted to compensate a male mate, yes?"

"I, uh…what?"

"I know a bit about humans, mostly due to Zeddic being reassigned to Earth for a bit a few years back. I must say it really must be difficult for human males with male mates to satisfy each other properly while having to constantly worry about finding some sort of lubrication to use." Oh God, kill me now.

"I, uh, the genetic changes took care of that problem when I became a half breed."

Seeming satisfied she gives a slight nod and I am almost tempted to think this topic done with when- "So are you performing well? Are you satisfying him as well as yourself?" And she did not just ask that.

Finally I manage to choke out, "I'm doing my best."

She laughs lightly and offers a halfhearted apology. "I'm sorry, Tommy. You see, Zeddic gets his mischievous, troublemaking streak from me." Of course he does. "But he's very sharp minded like his father - thus the reason his business is so successful."

"You know about that?"

Now she almost looks offended. "A mother does not simply give up interest in her first born just because he decided to follow his own path."

"I didn't mean- It's just that Zedd's under the impression that neither you nor his father want anything to do with him - that you're ashamed of him."

She sighs. "Kerch was heartbroken when Zeddic told him in no uncertain terms that he wanted nothing to do with the family business. It was one thing he'd looked forward to from the day we knew that I was expecting - his first born following in his footsteps. Zeddic had quite the champion in Kerch's mother, though, as she would always side with my son."

"Zedd's mentioned her once or twice and it certainly seems like he was very fond of her" I agree.

"He was. If there was one person he would ever listen to and mind, it was her. There's a portrait of her in one of the sitting rooms. Would you like to see it?"

"Definitely." She leads me back into the house and to a different room than we started out in. She points to a painting next to the fireplace. I blink in disbelief. "That's her?"

"Yes. She was very fond of Zedd."

I don't really hear her, as I stare at the woman in the painting. It's the same woman from the dream I had at Sam's! But how? I'd never seen her before the dream. It was a dream, right? I think back to what Sam had said about paying attention when the dead showed up in a dream, but I never would have thought this would happen. I'm going to have to call him.

"Tommy, are you all right?"