A\N: Yeah, I'm gonna write this whole story today. Enjoy.

Tommy hadn't slept in a week.

The others had assumed he was afraid of Rita. Trini had, quite baldly, cornered him the third day and asked him whether Rita had hurt him.

He'd said no.

It was the truth. Rita had loved him. Not in a creepy way; Tommy nearly vomited at the thought. She'd seen a son in him. And, honestly, he'd seen a mother in her.

Tommy hadn't had a mother in a long time.

He hadn't had a parent in a long time. The Olivers had adopted him, but they were 'busy people' with 'important lives'. Too important for their child, as far as he could see.

When he'd realized that, he'd burned all his fairy tales.

They were full of lies, Tommy knew. In the books, the poor orphan was given a home and love and saved. But salvation meant nothing. It was just another lie.

And Tommy wanted truth.

So he rebelled. Drugs, sex, alcohol, whatever vice he could find. He'd raced cars a bit, gotten in bed with both boys and girls, trying to see which he liked, gotten high and drunk and finally spiraled into cutting his arms. The blade he used had been stolen from a Renaissance Fair, and when Tommy held it, he always felt a moment of beauty.

Mystery and magic wound around him.

Then he tore his arm open and it faded, and Tommy tried to tell himself he was glad because mystical things were lies.

Finally his 'parents' had discovered the marks.

Rehab, psychologists, and more lies later, he was free. Supposedly, anyway. He'd never really bothered to heal. He wasn't interested.

But Rita had healed him.

When he'd awoken from Rita's brainwashing spell, he'd cried. Just sobbed into her shoulder, as she held him, whispering soothing nonsense. She had let him cry himself out and then babble to her, a stream of words that he hadn't always understood, pain and darkness and death leaving him.

Tommy flopped down onto his bed, flicking the phone off. That was the one thing the Rangers didn't understand. If it weren't for Rita, he would be dead right now. He would have killed himself as soon as he left her.

But she had saved him.

She had loved him.

And he had betrayed her.

Tommy wanted to scream. But instead he shut his eyes. Think of Kim, he ordered himself. The Rangers. Anything. Don't think about her!

It still hurt.

He sighed and let his mind drift away. Sleep, then, he told himself. If you're going to wish yourself to her, dream of her. That might help.

So he shut his eyes.

The pain took him anyway.

He drifted through a sea of nightmare images, of his human friends laughing and torturing him, making him pay for hurting them. Of Zordon solemnly condemning him to a thousand horrible fates. Of Goldar in battle against him, trying to kill him for his betrayal. Of Scorpina's terrifying beauty...

Of his mother.

His lips formed her name, crying out for her, but in the darkness she couldn't hear him. She was chained and weeping, in a white gown, her hair loose and her body broken. She screamed his name and he screamed hers, trying to run to her, to save her.

And then she looked up.

Her gaze went through him, and he gasped. "Rita?" He whispered.

Then she reached out.

And then he woke up.