In all, the elders chose five Rangers to make the winter supply run. Somehow, despite his newness and his low rank, Tommy really did end up on the list of Rangers slated to make the trip. He was somewhat surprised to see that Jason, Kimberly, and Zack had also made the list, and Adam rounded out the group. There were Rangers in the 'Hold he didn't recognize from his previous life in Angel Grove, but by chance he always seemed to fall in among the ones that he did know. It was odd, but thinking about it too much gave him a powerful headache, so he didn't think about it often and figured he was just drawn to anything that seemed remotely familiar.
When he mentioned his surprise at the group's makeup to Kimberly as they were helping stock the airship for the trip, she only laughed. "Trini gave up her spot for you, you know," she told him. "She and I make this trip just about every year…"
Seeing the perplexed and mildly horrified look on his face, she patted him reassuringly on the arm. "Trini believes every new Ranger should make this trip at least once," she said. Making a face as Zack passed by, she added playfully, "Though why she sent Zack along instead of coming herself, I'll never know."
"She's just jealous," Zack teased, eyeing Kimberly meaningfully. "With me around, she won't be the center of attention."
Kimberly rolled her eyes. "What he means is, he's a terrible flirt."
"Hey, I have to take my opportunities where I can find them," Zack protested. "This is the only chance I get where the elders aren't looking over my shoulder the whole time."
Kimberly gave Tommy a knowing look, but he just shrugged. How was he supposed to know what was normal for a trip like this?
They set out at dawn the next morning after a sleepless night. Tommy hadn't thought much about just how fast the airships could travel, but he was surprised to find out their flight would take all day. The nearest city of any size had seemed much closer on the maps back at the 'Hold.
Tommy's dismay amused the other Rangers, from which he gathered his ignorance was unusual. Then again, new Rangers had to come from somewhere, and most of them came from the various cities and towns well beyond the Ranger safe zone. Kimberly and Zack fell into that category; they'd come to the 'Hold as children like so many others, orphaned or otherwise forced by circumstance into taking the risk of becoming a Ranger. Jason's circumstances were more unusual. He'd come to the 'Hold later, as a rebellious teenager, and his wealthy family had never forgiven him for it. Or so Kimberly said.
Tommy didn't feel comfortable asking for more information. He and Jason had been managing to coexist peacefully and he didn't want to do anything to jeopardize that. Still, he had a hard time picturing Jason rebelling against any kind of authority, especially that of his family. The Jason he knew was… not this Jason, he decided.
Unfortunately, he had plenty of time to think and wonder during the flight. They took turns piloting the airship, but in the meantime they had very little to do. Leisure was a luxury the Rangers seldom had, and they weren't very prepared for it when they got it.
Watching the countryside pass lazily by beneath them was fascinating at first, but Tommy could only stand to look at so much empty desert before it lost its charm completely. Distant mesas and dull brown sand all started to blend together, punctuated occasionally by stands of cacti that didn't quite look like anything he was used to from back home.
Then again, whatever apocalypse had created the End had also created monsters in the desert, or so he'd been warned. Why couldn't it have changed cacti, too?
The boredom that led him to wonder about possible magical mutations in cacti wasn't the worst part, though.
The worst part was Kimberly.
When he signed on as a Ranger, the Elders had made it perfectly clear that romantic relationships between Rangers were not just frowned upon, they were outright forbidden. Any Rangers that did not obey would be retired from service and sent back to civilization.
But what the Elders didn't know couldn't come back to haunt anyone that happened to break their rules. And now that she was out from under their watchful eyes for the next few days, she seemed determined to make sure Tommy knew just how interested she was in getting to know him better. Much better.
Whether he chose to lounge on one of the benches that sat in rows near the center of the airship's hold, or to lean against the railing near the windows and watch the countryside go by, she always managed to be conspicuously near him. He would have enjoyed it if it weren't so unnerving.
Time had helped to heal the wounds of his breakup with Kimberly in that other world he'd come from, but he still remembered every word of that damn letter. And it was hard not to connect those words with this Kimberly, and even harder to decide what he ought to do about her obvious interest in him. The loneliness and alienation he felt in this strange place made it tempting to find solace in a familiar relationship… but he was always aware that this Kimberly might turn around and break his heart just as painfully as the other had.
The rational part of him knew that encouraging Kimberly was playing with fire and that he ought to insist on being only friends.
The part of him that was homesick yearned for the kind of comfort that came from knowing you were loved. He knew Kimberly could give him that, though he couldn't let her know that. And he knew that she would. All he would have to do is let her.
Would the other Rangers disapprove? He wasn't sure.
Could they keep it a secret? That he was pretty sure they couldn't do. Oh, they'd try. But he'd been through this before and he knew the effect she could have on him. It would be written all over his face. Worse, it would wreak havoc on his concentration and memory and probably land him in trouble with the Elders. And then he'd have to explain, and he'd never been a good liar, not even when it came to his identity as a Power Ranger…
"What's that look for?" Kimberly asked suddenly. Her voice was sweet, and slightly amused. "You look like you just saw a ghost."
Tommy tried to pretend he hadn't just jumped a mile. He'd completely zoned her out, caught in his own thoughts. "Sorry," he said. "Just… thinking."
She leaned a little closer, almost touching his arm with her shoulder. "Bad things?"
He shrugged.
Her face betrayed a little worry. "Rethinking your decision?" she asked, her voice quiet so the others wouldn't hear.
That surprised him. He'd chosen to become a Ranger almost immediately, without fully realizing what that meant. And he hadn't really regretted it ever since, though the training hadn't exactly been exhilarating and there seemed to be no reward. "It's not that," he assured her. "I just… don't really know what to expect when we get to wherever it is we're going."
Kimberly smiled disarmingly. "It's not much. There are far bigger cities out there," she explained, "but Stone Canyon is where they send all the supplies for the Ranger teams. For us… it's the closest thing to civilization we ever get to see." She sounded a little wistful. He remembered a Kimberly that had liked nothing better than spending an afternoon at the mall.
She brightened. "But there's great food – actual, fresh food! And shopping, and…"
Tommy smiled in spite of himself. There was the Kimberly he recognized.
"You'll like it, I think," she concluded. "Don't ever tell Trini I said this, but I think she's right that every Ranger deserves a chance to get away and see what the rest of the world is like. Even if we'll never be a part of it…"
She'd never given him any particulars about how she'd come to the 'Hold, only saying vaguely that her parents had died and she'd been recruited sometime after. He'd always wondered, but never found a good time to ask. This didn't seem like a good time, either, but… "Do you ever wish you hadn't become a Ranger?"
She laughed quietly. "No. It was the only option. If I hadn't… I'd be out there somewhere, probably dead. Maybe selling myself for money. My parents were dead. I had no money, Tommy. I was nine years old. What else could I do?" She cut herself off, glancing in Jason's direction. "People like Jason, they're not the norm. Usually when people have money, they don't care what happens to the people who don't."
"I'm sorry," Tommy murmured. "That never should have happened to you."
She shrugged. "I was lucky. When they tested me, my arrow hit the mark. There were lots of kids who didn't pass."
Isolated at the 'Hold, it had been easy to pretend that the outside world would be just like the one he knew. Piece by piece, he knew that fantasy was going to be shattered in the course of this trip. Maybe that was why Trini had insisted he go. Or maybe she'd wanted to send him away for a while to get him out of her hair. Or maybe she'd been telling the truth, and she just wanted to give him a chance to choose another path before it was too late.
She probably didn't realize that it was already too late. It had been too late since they gave him the option to help.
It was doubly too late now that he'd seen Jason forced to kill and learned the truth of Kimberly's past. How could he leave them now?
He had to save them.
From what, he wasn't sure. Despair? Maybe. Or maybe something worse than that. He had to fix this somehow, no matter what. He was more sure of it with every day that passed.