"Andros, who is that man?" Jenny asked as she slid down his body and walked over to the door, trying to hear something from the hallway.
"You're gonna have to let your mama tell you that one little bit," Andros said as he laughed at her. He knew that unless Kim and Tommy were having the fight of the century, only a few inches from the door, that Jenny was not going to hear a thing. That was the nice thing about this place, it was pretty much sound proof.
"I hate these doors," Jenny pouted as she walked over to her make shift bed and sat down. "Why is that Mama has to do this anyway? We have a new house in Reefside and she still chooses to live here."
"It's not really a choice…" Andros began as Jenny glared at him.
"It's a way of life," Jenny finished as Andros just shook his head. The kid had had it rough, what with Kim becoming a permanent ranger and her having to go around the world to be with the various teams, it hadn't made much of a home life for Jenny. Kim wished with all her heart that she could change that fact, but she couldn't. "You and my mama are too much alike."
"Yeah," Andros said, that was the understatement of the century. They were the only two rangers that were still going strong, years after their service was terminated. Tommy had probably been on the most teams, but the two of them had a unique ranger bond and it was something that none of them could destroy.
"Jenny," Kim said, tentatively, as their daughter snatched her head away from the door and Tommy couldn't help but laugh. It was just the type of thing that Kim would do if she was curious about something. "This is Tommy."
"You didn't say if he was my father or not," Jenny said as Tommy looked away from Kim. She had gotten herself into this mess and she could get herself out of it.
"I think it's a toss-up between me and him," Andros joked as Jenny's eyes brightened. She knew that Andros was not her father, so this man must be.
"You're my dad?" Jenny shrieked as she caught Tommy by surprise as she threw both of her arms around him in a tight embrace. She had waited so long to meet him, but he didn't look anything like the pictures that she had once looked at. "Where do you live?"
"Reefside," Tommy said, simply, as Jenny gave her mom a critical look and Tommy could tell that the two of them were battling about whether or not she would keep her mouth shut. "Yeah, your mom told me that you just moved there."
"And we still come here, I don't know why," Jenny said as Tommy looked over at Kim and she half shrugged her shoulders. She hadn't exactly explained to their daughter what was going on, but she didn't have much of a choice about that. She didn't want her to get hurt by it.
"God Kim," Tommy half moaned as she walked away from him. She knew that Tommy wanted to wrap his arms around her and take it away, but there was no way for him to do that. She had made a mistake by letting him hug her in the hall, she knew that now. "Andros, please explain this."
"I can't tell you anymore than she can. Trust me, when it's time for you to use what you have, she'll be there," Andros said as Tommy picked Jenny up and she laughed as he gave her a tight hug. He was more than she had expected as a father, but she didn't think that she needed to say that to her mama.
"Mama, can I go home with him?" Jenny asked as Kim snatched her head around and saw the lost puppy face that Jenny was making as she elbowed Tommy to join her. "Just for the night?"
"I guess that would be fine," Kim said as Jenny smiled and Tommy couldn't help but smile too, although he knew he didn't have any groceries. He wasn't such a great cook and lived on take-out most nights, but he was sure that Jenny would be fine with that for a night. "We can get everything of yours back to your house for you,"
"Okay," Tommy said as he and Jenny disappeared in a shimmer of light, with the last thing Kim heard was their daughter's giggling. She always did that when they teleported her somewhere.
"It's already beginning Kim and you are not much better than he is," Andros said as Kim looked away from him. She didn't want to hear that from him. She knew just how true it was, but she had hoped that he would not notice and politely keep his mouth shut about the matter.
"Please Andros, it's just because he knows about her. He knows we can't be together," Kim said as Andros shook his head.
"And I know that I can't be with Cassie, but it doesn't stop me from trying. He's never going to quit trying for you Kim and you are going to give into him some day. You're not strong enough to do all of this without him. We've known that from the beginning. That's why you always prayed that he would never get another set of powers. You didn't want to have to face the reality," Andros said as Kim let out a frustrated sigh and she pegged him with a hard stare.
"Don't tell me what I am going to do," Kim said as she wiped the tears that had leaked out of her eyes and walked further away from him.
"Kim, I'm not telling you anything that you don't know, we both know that," Andros said as he put his arm around her and looked at her tear streaked face. "Oh, Kim, why do you do this to yourself?"
"To protect them. Do you know what it would do to Jenny to find out that the both of us live this kind of life? She wants him to be just an ordinary person and I'll be damned if I don't let her have that," Kim said as Andros gave her a hug. She was certainly taking this rougher than she would have in the past.
"Tommy has never been normal Kim, not in the sense that Jenny thinks of. Do you know what is in his basement?" Andros asked as Kim nodded her head yes. She had been brought into the construction by some of the other rangers, although Tommy would never know that. He didn't need to know that most of the executive decisions that he made had been brought to her to be approved. That certainly would make things much worse than they already were. "Don't you think that should tell you that he's not normal?"
"I know, but it's not the same as me," Kim said as Andros just shook his head. Tommy was only a stone's throw away from becoming a permanent ranger and it was time for Kim to realize that or things were going to get much worse for the two of them. "Kim, it'll only take one more time as a ranger before his powers cement. You know that his Ninjetti powers are still strong, it's not going to take much more before he is here with us," Andros said as Kim shook her head in denial. She didn't want to hear this about Tommy. She wanted to pretend that he was just a normal person that had been a ranger once, a long time ago.
"Andros, for my sake, let's not talk about that. Come on, I've got something that we need to do," Kim said as she walked back out the doors with Andros only a few feet behind her, completely confused.
"I thought you were going to settle down for the night," Andros said as Kim shook her head no. If Andros was right about the amount of power that Tommy had, he must be a beacon to all evil forces in the universe and she had to find a way to camouflage that beacon.
"If my child is with him and he is really that powerful, I think cloaking his home would be a wise idea. There is a monster out there that is looking for a chance to go after those gems that he took," Kim said as Andros just shook his head. He believed that she wanted to protect Jenny, but deep down he knew that this was just one more futile attempt to not give Tommy any reason to use the gems that he had found over the summer.
"All right Kim, but don't bitch at me when he still winds up becoming a ranger again," Andros said as he began working alongside her. That comment would have been enough to earn anyone else a smack, but Kim didn't do that to Andros. She knew that would be exactly what she would be doing as soon as Tommy became one of them again.
"How did the younger rangers react to working with a legend?" Kim asked as she began pulling up information on Tommy's house and she knew that this job was going to take a little bit longer than normal. She wanted to cloak it immediately, but she could only get the bits of the house that were above ground. For some reason whatever was below ground refused to let her cloak it. "What the hell does he have in that house?"
"You want my honest answer?" Andros asked as Kim nodded her head yes. "He's already cloaked the command center from evil, he didn't see the point in cloaking it from good, just in case he ever did need help."
"Tommy wouldn't ask for help," Kim said as Andros shook his head that she was wrong. Tommy was just as likely to ask for help as the next person, especially considering how the last few months had gone for him. He knew that he was not the ranger that he used to be, no matter what all of his powers seemed to pale in comparison to the last pair he had truly shared with Kim and he didn't know why. "He wouldn't ask for my help."
"You're the one ranger that I think he would ask. He knows that you are stuck as a ranger and he trusts you, whether you like that is something that I have yet to figure out," Andros said as Kim gave him a perturbed look. She knew that their relationship was different from most friendships, but this was the type of thing she would expect for Trini, although Andros had been spending a lot more time with her friends lately.
"Please tell me that you and Trini are not plotting against me," Kim said as she stared at the house and saw Jenny and Tommy out in the yard. It was odd to watch the two of them get to know each other from a distance. Jenny was a little bit of the bot of them, she had known that from the beginning, but Tommy was new to being a father. She had been a mother since the beginning, but Tommy seemed to just slide into it. Why had she been so afraid of telling him?
"Not exactly. I just figured out some things today and I now know why Trini and all of them did that today. The two of you are miserable without each other…uh-uh, don't you dare lie to me," Andros said as Kim looked away. She hated when Andros went on one of these kicks, because it usually described her to a tee. "Kim, I don't care if you don't want him to become a permanent ranger, but guess what, either he will become a permanent ranger or one of you is going to die. You're no good without each other, trust me when I say that Tommy's motivation has been you for years, but with what is probably ahead of him, he's going to actually need you there."
"Andros please," Kim begged as tears streamed down her face. She couldn't bear to hear anymore of the facts that she had been denying for the past ten years. It was enough that she had denied their child the chance to be with her father, she didn't need it pointed out that the only reason she had done that was because she felt that she needed to avoid Tommy, no matter what the cost.
"Okay," Andros said as he reached over and put his arm around her. She was the strongest ranger that he knew and yet a few choice words about a special man made her disintegrate into tears. Why hadn't she told Tommy the truth when she had had a chance, before everything went to hell in her life?