Chapter Eight

Power Ranger Punks

"Now remember, I'm just down the hall," Tommy said for the fourteenth time as he and Kira stood in the hallway. Trent, Conner and Ethan had been continuously nodding for the past five minutes, smiles pasted on their faces. "Kira's in room 640 and I'm in room 618. Everybody got that?" They continued to nod and smile. "I mean it. Behave." Nod and smile. "If for some reason you forget our room numbers, I'm with Zack Taylor and Kira's with Kimberly Hart." Nod and smile.

Tommy sighed, hoisting his box more securely into his arms and turning to Kimberly, Kira, Trini and Zack, all of whom were standing behind him and nodding and smiling as vacantly as Trent, Conner and Ethan were. "Oh, shut up," he muttered, fighting a grin.

"We never should have sent that Beldorf guy back," Conner whispered to Trent and Ethan, thinking longingly of the video game wizard who'd once removed Tommy's mouth.

"Can we go now, Mr. Overprotective?" Zack teased.

"Shut up," Tommy repeated, smiling. "Goodnight, guys," he said to Conner, Ethan and Trent. "I'll come get you in the morning."

Tommy shut the door to his former room and Trini, Kimberly, Zack, Kira and Tommy could clearly hear a roaring cheer go up from Conner, Ethan and Trent. Tommy closed his eyes briefly, suddenly feeling like banging his head against something.

He heard Trini and Kimberly giggling, and looked over at them. "What?"

"Nothing," Kimberly said, struggling to keep a straight face.

"I'm sorry," Trini told him. "It's just… it's so funny to see you being all… responsible."

"Wasn't he always?" Kira asked as Tommy rolled his eyes.

"Oh, no. Always late and forgetful. There was this one time when he—"

"Trini, try not to shatter her illusions, please?" Tommy pleaded.

"No promises," Trini said with a downright evil grin, which was mirrored by Kimberly.

"Come on, Kira," Kimberly said, taking her by the arm and steering her down the hall. "It's now officially girl time. Let's get some pizza, find some chocolate, watch some sappy movies and bitch about men."

"Sounds like fun," Kira said cheerfully.

Zack shook his head. "I always wondered what girls did when we weren't around."

Tommy rolled his eyes again, and the two of them headed for Zack's room.

Meanwhile, in Room 603…

"Uh, yes," Conner was saying into the telephone receiver, deepening his voice in the hopes of sounding more like Tommy. "This is Dr. Thomas Oliver in room 603. We… er, I mean, I want to get this Pay-Per-View movie. Channel 94. Bikini Babes Gone Wild 3? Yes, just charge it to the room. Yes, of course I'm of legal age. …What year was I born? Uh…" Conner looked at Ethan in a panic.

"1976," Ethan whispered.

"1966."

"1976! 76!"

"I mean 1976. Yes, ma'am. Of course I'm Dr. Oliver! What kind of question is that?"

"I told you I should have called," Trent said, shaking his head.

"Shh!" Ethan hissed.

"Look, lady, I teach high school science. I'm a boring old dinosaur fanatic and I had a mullet when I was a teenager. Please unlock the stupid movie!"

Ethan smacked his forehead. "I should have known better than to trust Conner with this."

Conner covered the mouthpiece with his hand. "Would you be quiet?"

Ethan rolled his eyes. "Look, tell her you're traveling with your younger cousins and they're out right now and you want to watch the movie before they get back. Maybe she'll buy it."

Conner repeated this and then smiled in relief. "Thank you very much, ma'am. …Anything else I want? Um… I'm kind of hungry. And thankfully I can afford to pay the tab on room service because I'm an old guy who has a steady job. Uh… how about three cheeseburgers with fries? Yes, three. I'm a big guy. I eat a lot. Probably going to have a beer belly one day. Plus, you know, this way I won't have to call again later. Food for the whole night. So, three cheeseburgers with everything."

"No onions on mine!" Ethan hissed.

"And get some hot fudge sundaes!" Trent added.

Zack's room was predictably quite a mess. Zack's suitcase sat open on one of the beds, which was still made but covered in clothes and Zack's CD collection. Zack cleared his junk off of the spare bed and gestured to Tommy to take it.

Setting his box down, Tommy looked around curiously. It looked pretty much the same as the other room, only slightly bigger with a balcony door over by the windows.

"You get a balcony?" Tommy asked. Remembering his thwarted hopes of throwing Conner to his death if need be, he added, "My windows didn't even open."

"I had to pay extra," Zack said. "Kim and I discussed what type of room we should get. I always liked these, cuz you could people watch and throw water balloons and stuff. All the even-numbered rooms in this hotel have balconies."

"You stay here a lot?" Tommy asked.

"Sometimes, when I'm visiting Jason in the summer. It's nice to use the hotel's pool." Zack scooped up a few things and headed for the bathroom.

When they were both ready for bed, Zack sat down and gave Tommy an expectant look. "So…" he said slowly.

"So," Tommy said uncertainly, not liking the new tone in Zack's voice.

"Sure is nice to have the gang all together again," Zack said lightly.

Tommy groaned inwardly, knowing perfectly well where this was going. He pulled his clothes out of his box and headed for the dresser, knowing Zack would have left his clothes in his suitcase or on the floor. "Yeah, it's great. Mind if I use a few drawers?"

"Take 'em. I never bother using 'em. So—"

"Could we leave the door open a little? In case Conner, Ethan and Trent get into trouble?" Tommy interrupted, trying to find things to distract Zack from the coming conversation.

"Sure," Zack said impatiently. "So… what was it like to see Kimberly again?"

"Like… seeing Kimberly again." Tommy crossed to the door, opened it, and turned the stopper to prop it open.

"Uh-huh. I see."

"What did you expect me to say? That it was like something out of a cheesy romance novel or something? That it was gut-wrenching? That all my past feelings came rushing back, blah, blah, blah?"

"Yeah, that'd be nice."

"Oh, come on, man. It's not a big thing." He started shoving his clothes haphazardly into the dresser, giving himself an excuse not to meet Zack's gaze.

"Is too."

"Is not!"

"Is t… okay. Remember Angela?"

"Yeah. That was the girl you were obsessed with, the one you gave those earrings to and started the Oysterizer mess. I never got that cake stains out of my pants from that double date at that French restaurant, you know."

"Hey, that was Skull's fault, not mine! Anyway, we broke up eventually, not long before I left Angel Grove for the conference. Like a week later, I saw her in the produce section of the grocery store and the next thing I know she's chucking fruit and vegetables at me and screaming. My point is—breakups are never easy."

Tommy laughed. "Well, I don't know what you were expecting from me and Kim, but it's been ten years, not a week. And there were no fruit or vegetables around. …There was ice, though."

"Ice?"

Tommy winced. "I saw her yesterday. Bumped into her while carrying an ice bucket. Not my finest hour."

"Dude, you saw her before today? Alone?" Zack leaned forward, looking excited.

"Yeah. I was trying to get away from Conner and Ethan and Kira and Trent, and the next thing I know I'm dumping ice all over Kimberly." Tommy sighed and straightened up, his stuff now unpacked.

"You threw ice at Kimberly?" Zack yelled, looking quite outraged on her behalf.

"No! Well, yeah… but it was an accident."

"Oh." Zack's anger faded. "So… what happened? What did you say?"

"Come on, Zack…"

"Tell me!"

"Nothing, really. We stared at each other, she commented on my hair—"

"She always liked your hair. Thought it made you look all manly." Zack said the last word in a very goofy macho voice.

Tommy rolled his eyes. "Funny. You and Jason can't stop joking about how it made me look all girly."

"Well, it did."

"Ha, ha," Tommy said, going over to his box and locking it, which would ensure that no one found the White Ranger suit inside it.

"So what happened next?"

"I asked how she was, she said fine, she'd been teaching. I told her I was teaching."

"And then?" Zack prompted.

"She said she missed me."

"HA! Score!"

"What d'you—"

"She said she missed you! That's a big thing."

"No, it isn't."

"Yes, it is! She misses you. You miss her. Next thing you know, you're back together!"

Tommy gave him an exasperated look. "I doubt it."

"Why? You do want her back, don't you?"

Tommy paused. "I don't know."

"What do you mean, you don't know? Tommy, we've been tip-toeing around you and Kimberly for years. You two were so in love. It was disgusting."

"Hey!"

"What? It was. Like watching a chick movie."

Tommy rolled his eyes. "Well, I don't really see us getting back together. It's been years, you know? We haven't talked since Divatox… we really didn't even talk then. Said hi. That was it. Small talk."

"Which seems to imply that you still want each other."

"Your logic is off."

"Not according to Trini!" Zack stood up and stared earnestly at Tommy. "Trini seems to think that since you guys couldn't bring yourselves to talk to each other since freaking high school, you guys must still care about each other and you can't manage to deal with seeing each other now that it's over."

"You mean to tell me… of course. This is some bizarre psychological bull bred from conversations you and Trini and Jason have been having."

"No, it isn't! …It's mostly just me and Trini."

"Just you and Trini?"

"She's not sure how to broach the subject with Jason," Zack said somewhat apologetically. "Kim's like a little sister to him, and you're his best bud. And Kim's her best friend."

"So… what?" Tommy said, slightly pissed off that Zack and Trini had been discussing his love life for all these years, trying to make sense of the mess that was Tommy and Kimberly. "You rationalize it? Talk about how I should—"

"Hey, cool it, man," Zack interrupted, holding up his hands in a classic peace-making pose. "Whatever's with you and Kimberly isn't our business. We don't talk about who should do what. We just sort of… wonder what went wrong."

"We broke up and I moved on, that's what went wrong," Tommy snapped.

Zack started to say something, then closed his mouth and tried again. "We all decided that we weren't going to take sides. That it wasn't for us to judge who should do what. We never really talk about the breakup, about why it happened or whose fault it was… but we still wish you were together. You were good for each other. Yes, Trini and I still talk about you two getting back together sometimes, same as we talk about finding a way to get Billy to stay on Earth. So we could have the gang back together. You know?" He smiled thinly. "We want things to be like they were… I mean, Trini was in a panic about having you both at her wedding, for crying out loud."

"But we weren't both at her wedding. Kimberly was in France visiting her mom and there was a problem with her passport and she couldn't get out of the country."

Zack gave him an odd look. "Yeah, I know. But Trini was worried about it, up until she became devastated that Kim wasn't coming. Jeez, do you listen to yourself?"

"What?"

"You talk like you miss her. Like you still love her. You can rattle off exactly what happened when you ran into her yesterday and every other Kimberly encounter in the past. You really sound like you aren't over it."

Tommy sighed. "Sometimes I'm not, I admit it. I do still miss her. I do still love her. You don't just stop loving people. But it's over, Zack. She ended it. And we went our separate ways. I'm not holding on to some delusion that one day we'll be married and living in a house with a white picket fence and three-point-two kids and a dog."

"Dude, you're full of it."

"I am not—"

"Oh, come on! If Kimberly wanted to get back together, what would you say?"

Tommy stopped. He had thought a lot about that over the years. He'd imagined seeing her again so many times… sometimes welcoming her back with open arms, and sometimes spitefully telling her to get the hell away from him. He missed her. He did love her, but he wasn't lovesick. He did want her back, sometimes. And sometimes he was okay with it. Sometimes he realized that even the things that were bad in his life had to happen. After all, if Kimberly hadn't left him, he probably would have never gone to college, met Hayley and Anton Mercer, become a paleontologist and a science teacher and started the Dino Ranger team.

"I don't know, Zack," Tommy said wearily. "Sometimes, I would say yes. Sometimes I want to get back together too. And sometimes I wish I never met her. And sometimes I just want to be friends. And sometimes I want to find whoever she met in Florida and beat him to death or run over him in a zord." Zack laughed and Tommy smiled. "But it's over. Can't fix the past. And I'm okay with that. I'm sure she is too, anyway. I seriously doubt she's spent the past few years pining for me."

A mischievous glint appeared in Zack's eye. "Want to go find out?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, there's only one way to find out what Kimberly's thinking."

"And what's that?" Tommy asked cautiously, knowing all too well that Zack's current mood could be dangerous.

"Spy on her!"

"Zack…"

"Come on! She'll never know."

"That's ridiculous. Besides, she's in a locked hotel room with Trini and Kira. They're probably asleep by now, and I don't think we're going to be able to sneak in and eavesdrop."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Okay, that movie was so not worth the money," Trent said. "It wasn't even that long."

"Good thing we didn't pay for it," Conner said sulkily, toying with the remainder of his room service meal.

"I can find a lot better stuff for free on the Internet," Ethan said, flipping through the TV channels irritably.

"Do you have your laptop?" Conner asked eagerly.

"Yeah," Ethan replied, "but my Internet blew up three days ago and I didn't have time to get it fixed before the trip."

"Well, what do you wanna do now?" Trent asked.

"There's nothing good on," Ethan said with a sigh, throwing the remote on the bed.

"I'm bored," Conner whined. Then he brightened. "Who's up for sneaking out and prowling the town?"

"Yeah!" Ethan and Trent shouted, jumping up.

"Zack, this is insane."

"Come on, Tommy! You want to know what Kimberly's thinking, don't you?"

"I swear, if I fall to my death, I'm coming back to haunt you."

"It's only six floors. You'll live. Now be quiet, or we'll get caught."

Tommy sighed heavily. Somehow, Zack had convinced them that they did indeed have a foolproof way to spy on Kimberly—her balcony was only eleven over from theirs. So now they were hopping from balcony to balcony like master cat burglars, praying that they didn't fall off or get caught.

"This is total lunacy, you realize that, right?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah."

Tommy sighed heavily and looked down at himself. He was barefoot and in his boxers, and quite paranoid that one of the residents of the rooms whose balconies they were climbing on was going to call the cops on them. "I should have gotten dressed," he grumbled. "I always hoped that if I ever fell to my death, I'd at least be clothed."

"Can't have everything you want," Zack said cheerfully.

"Just keep smiling, buddy. When we get arrested and thrown in jail with nothing separating us from a bunch of bikers but our underwear, don't say I didn't warn you."

"Oh, right, because we have absolutely no idea how to fight or anything. Now come on!" He continued to the next balcony, and Tommy sighed and followed.

"Been a while since I've had to do something like this," Tommy muttered as he carefully leaped onto balcony number nine.

"Spy on an ex-girlfriend?"

"Endanger my life," Tommy clarified dryly, glancing at the ground sixty or so feet below them.

"Shh!" Zack hissed. "I think she's left her door open."

"Great. Then she'll definitely catch us. Guess we can't count on her for bail money."

"SHH!"

Zack checked that the last room between them and Kimberly had their curtains shut so that they wouldn't be seen and then climbed up on the ledge. Then he easily leapt the four-foot gap, coming down gently on the balcony next to Kimberly's. He crept to the other side as Tommy jumped over as well.

They leaned over the last balcony's railing and peered in through Kimberly's window. They could see the three girls lounging on the bed closest to the window, all of them in various pajamas. Various pizza boxes, pop cans and candy wrappers were strewn about, much like any guy's room. Kira was sitting in between the two older girls, Kimberly painting her toenails. Trini was lying on her stomach behind Kira and across the pillows, a magazine open in front of her and a pen poised above a notebook. The balcony door was half-open and now that Tommy was listening for it, he could just barely hear them talking.

"Question nine," Trini was saying, apparently reading from the magazine. "'Your ideal boyfriend is a) the captain of the football team, b) a really smart, sweet guy, c) a class clown, d) a rebel, or e) rich and powerful.'"

Kimberly laughed. "These questions are so silly."

"Come on, Kim. We're almost through," Trini said, but she was laughing too. She made a mock-serious face. "Don't you want to know what your ideal dream guy is?"

"I can't believe you kept our old magazine quiz answers," Kimberly said.

"Yeah, I couldn't either. I was so surprised when I found them in the attic; they're so corny! I wonder if we'll get the same answers. Anyway… Kira, what do you say?"

She grinned. "That this is ridiculous."

"It's all in good fun," Trini insisted. "Now, if I could just figure out which one applies to Jason most…"

"He's the smart, sweet guy, isn't he?" Kimberly said.

"Well, by my standards, sure. But I'm guessing that the magazine thinks of him more as a 'captain of the football team' sort of guy."

"Well, I'm going with B," Kimberly said decisively.

"Me, too," Kira said.

"Yeah, might as well," Trini said cheerfully, scribbling in her notebook. "Question ten. 'Is the first thing that attracts you to a guy a) his smile, b) his hair, c) his butt, d) his eyes or e) his clothes?'"

"B," said Kimberly.

"A," said Kira.

"Hmm… C."

"Trini!"

"What? Jason has a very nice butt."

"Oh, ew," Kimberly said, wrinkling her nose. Kira giggled.

Tommy turned to glare at Zack. "Yeah, Zack. This was a great plan. We came all the way over here for this?"

"Well, it is pretty funny," Zack said defensively, smiling.

"I cannot believe I let you talk me into climbing over here and probably committing a few crimes just so we could listen to a discussion about Jason's butt!"

"Did you hear something?" Trini asked as Zack held his finger to his lips in alarm.

"No," Kimberly and Kira replied.

Trini got up and came over to the window. In a panic, Tommy and Zack flattened themselves on the balcony next to Kimberly's room as Trini came outside.

"Huh," she said after a few moments of looking around. "Must have imagined it."

"We're on the sixth floor, Trini—I doubt anyone's out there," Kimberly said. "It's probably just the TV next door or something.

"Yeah," Trini said uncertainly. She went back inside, leaving the door open but shutting the curtain across the window.

They could no longer make out the girls' voices; apparently they were trying to keep it down, perhaps wondering who could overhear them in the neighboring room. "Well, now what?" Zack asked.

"Now we go back," Tommy whispered firmly. "I'm not standing out on a balcony in my boxers all night listening to three girls fill out a quiz from a teen magazine!"

"They can't do that all night," Zack insisted. "Besides, we'll at least get to tease Jason about their opinion of his butt. Now, look—her curtain's closed. If we're quiet…"

"Zack, no."

"Come on, man!" Zack gave him an exasperated glare. "I did not come all this way for nothing. Where's your sense of adventure?"

With that, Zack jumped onto Kimberly's balcony as quietly as possible, then looked around and beckoned to Tommy. Cursing under his breath, Tommy followed.

"We are so lost."

"We're not lost, geek boy! We're just… confused."

"I gotta go with Ethan on this one, Conner. I can't even see the hotel anymore."

Conner sighed and glanced around, looking for a something he recognized, but he saw nothing but an elderly woman slowly walking down the sidewalk, leaning on a walking stick.

"Look," Ethan said, pointing at the woman. "Let's ask for directions." He nudged Conner towards her.

With a sigh, Conner approached the old lady. "Excuse me, ma'am, but my friends and I—"

WHAP!

Without warning, the woman had swung up her walking stick and smacked it against him. "ARGH! Are you crazy, lady?" Conner held up his arms, trying to fend off the woman's cane as she whacked it against him a few more times.

"Hooligan! Get back! Get back! Lousy hooligans trying to accost an old woman—"

"Hey, you're the accosting one! OW! STOP!"

"Steal my purse, will you!"

"No, I—"

Trent surged forward and grabbed the cane as it sought to bruise Conner for a twelfth time. "Run!" he yelled, giving Conner a four-second head start before dashing off after him, Ethan at their heels.

"…What do you mean, my ideal man is a bad boy?" Kimberly demanded, staring at Trini in disbelief. "How did that happen?"

"Well… you did say you liked long hair," Trini said somewhat apologetically.

"So? Plenty of guys who aren't bad boys have long hair," Kimberly said with a sniff.

I can only think of one, Trini thought with a smile, then frowned and glanced at the window; she could have sworn she heard a snort of laughter, but the sound wasn't repeated. I'm losing it, she told herself, trying to shrug it off. "You also said you like a guy who doesn't run from a fight, and a guy who—"

"Well, who wants a wimpy guy?" Kimberly interrupted. "Come on. We all put the same thing on that one."

"Well… maybe it was that macho thing you put," Trini suggested, rifling through the pages to find Kimberly's previous answers.

"Don't worry, Kimberly," Kira said. "It did, after all, say my dream guy was a jock." She shuddered.

"Not a fan of them, eh?" Kimberly asked.

"Nope. Most of them at our school were complete jerks, too. Any attraction I felt towards jocks was pretty much killed when I became friends with Conner, anyway." Again, Trini thought she heard a stifled laugh, but she tried to ignore it; there was no way someone could have gotten on their balcony, and who would want to?

"What's yours, Trini?"

"Um… nerd. Wait, what? NERD?"

Kimberly let out a scream of laughter. "Oh, god, wait until I tell Jason!"

"Don't you dare tell Jason! He's freaking out enough about Billy. As if I would actually run off with Billy or something."

"Jason was always a bit jealous about how close you are with Billy. Guys are like that." She leaned back from Kira's toenails. "There! What do you think?"

"Awesome," Kira said, looking impressed. "You were right about the glitter."

Trini flipped to a new quiz and asked absently, "Did Tommy ever freak out about your friendship with Jason?"

"Not that I recall, actually. But—"

"You went out with Dr. O?" Kira interrupted, sounding shocked and somewhat mortified.

"Yeah," Kimberly said sheepishly. "Way back in high school."

"You, er… probably shouldn't tell him that you know," Trini said reluctantly. "If he didn't tell you, he probably didn't want you four to know."

"Wonder why," Kimberly said dryly.

"I'm sorry, Kim," Trini said quickly, an apologetic look on her face. "I didn't mean to bring it up. It just slipped."

"It's okay," Kimberly replied with a weak smile. "It doesn't bother me."

"So you don't mind talking about it?" Trini asked tentatively.

"No, I don't. Honestly, you guys should stop dancing around it; you could be on Broadway by now. I'm fine."

"So… I'm guessing it ended badly?" Kira asked curiously.

"Very," Kimberly replied dryly. "We… haven't really talked much since. But he seems like he wants to put it behind us, and I do too. So hopefully we will. It'd be nice to at least be friends again."

"Did you guys talk much today?" Trini asked, frowning. She hadn't seen them together at all.

"No. But last night he said he wished we'd stayed in touch. So, hopefully it's a step in the right direction."

"Last night?"

"We ran into each other."

"Oh, god! What happened?"

"Well, he accidentally slammed into me as I was leaving a room and dumped a whole bunch of ice down my shirt. Took me forever to get that stuff out of my bra; I was freezing."

"You know what I meant! What did he say?"

"Not much. It really wasn't a big deal, Trini. Between the ice, the fact that he chopped off his hair, and the general shock, I wasn't too articulate. We said we were both teaching, I said I missed him, he said we should've stayed in touch. I asked him to come get dinner with me, but he claims he didn't want to leave his students. Given the way he's been around them today, I'm starting to think it wasn't an excuse."

"I doubt it was," Trini assured her, but Kimberly still looked skeptical and shrugged.

"I don't know. It doesn't really matter if it was; I can't really fault him for not wanting to go. Anyway, he invited me to come back to the room with Kira and Conner and everyone and get pizza, but I declined."

"What? Why?" Trini demanded.

"Because I still had a bunch of ice in my bra! Besides," she added quietly, "I felt a little weird. I had a sudden vision of a bunch of teenagers calling me 'Tommy's bitchy ex' or something."

"We would never do that!" Kira said. "And we didn't really know that much about you. I saw this video journal about Dr. O being a Power Ranger, and I remember thinking that maybe there was something up with you, but it didn't seem like my place to pry. It kind of slipped my mind after a while. But we never would have been mean to you."

"I know that now," Kimberly told her. "I just didn't know that then. Anyway, that was pretty much it. Not a big deal." She paused. "God, he really looks different with short hair."

Trini snorted. "You should have been there when he first cut it and showed us. Me, Jason and Zack… we all just stared at him. And it was a while after he cut it, so he'd kind of gotten over it and couldn't figure out why we were just all blank and stuff. A few months later he told us that Rocky, Adam, and Tanya had done the same thing." She gave Kimberly a devilish grin. "So… moment of truth, Kim. Is he still hot without the hair?"
"Oh, shut up," Kimberly said, glowering at her playfully.

"Come on, Kim! Hot or not?"

"Of course he's still hot—"

"Ha!"

"What ha? There's no ha. No ha at all."

"There is so a ha!" Trini rolled onto her back and posed as if swooning, the back of one hand over her chest and the other on her forehead. "Tommy's soooo hot," she drawled in a cheesy, breathy voice. "Even without his hair that was always longer than mine… just because I can't run my fingers through it doesn't mean I—"

"Oh, shut up!" Kimberly laughed. She seized Trini's magazine and reached around Kira to whack Trini with it a few times before Trini dissolved into giggles. "You know perfectly well he's hot. I know I caught you checking him out a few times in high school."

"I did not!"

"Oh, you so did," Kimberly said smugly.

"Oh, my god, this is so weird," Kira moaned, pressing the heels of her hands against her eyes.

"Weird? Why?" Kimberly asked, trying not to feel put out by that.

"Oh, I didn't mean it like that," Kira assured her. "It's just… he's my science teacher. And my mentor. It's strange to think of him having a social life. I tend to think of him as… well… old."

"He's not old," Kimberly said with a laugh. Then a nervous look came over her. "Trini, are we old?"

"No, Kim. We're still young and in our twenties," Trini said in amusement.

"But we remember the time before cell phones," Kimberly said, still looking worried.

"So do I," Kira said. "It wasn't that long ago."

Kimberly chuckled. "Thanks. Hey, can I try something with your hair?"

Kira shrugged and turned around to let Kimberly play with her hair. She wasn't usually much for messing around with makeup and stuff, but Kimberly and Trini were pretty cool, and sometimes it was fun to act girly. "He doesn't have a girlfriend, by the way," Kira said as Kimberly picked up a brush. "At least, according to public opinion and my few female friends. Most of the girls at school obsess about it. They all think he's hot."

Trini and Kimberly burst out laughing. Hysterically. Kira watched them, more amused at the depths of their laughter than at Tommy's young fans. "Oh, my god," Kimberly moaned, clutching her side.

"Can't you just see him wandering around obliviously with all these teenage girls following him all lovesick?" Trini gasped out with difficulty.

"I know!" Kimberly shrieked.

Kimberly and Trini spent a good fifteen minutes cackling over the idea of Tommy's students thinking he was hot, occasionally saying something to each other that Kira couldn't make out through their laughter. Finally, they were able to calm down, both of them red in the face with slightly watery eyes. "So were you part of the Dr. O Fan Club?" Kimberly asked Kira as she resumed fixing Kira's hair.

"EW!"

"I'll take that as a no."

"Like I said, he's a teacher. He's all right for an old guy, but not exactly my idea of boyfriend material."

"So why didn't all your friends just ask you about his single status?" Trini asked. "Shouldn't you know best, as you're Rangers together? People must have noticed you spending a lot of time with him."

"Um… I kind of tried to play that down. Not exactly a common thing, hanging out with your teacher all the time."

"Yeah, that must've been weird," Kimberly said. "I can't exactly imagine battling evil with Miss Appleby." She and Trini giggled.

"Come to think of it, though, we spent a lot of time in his house and in the lair and stuff, and we never met anyone but Hayley."

"Hayley?" Kimberly inquired, trying and failing to sound nonchalant.

"His friend. Well, we think they're just friends," Kira said. "Conner likes to joke that they're getting it on in the secret lair when we're not around…"

Trini sat up, staring suspiciously at the window. She was almost certain that she had heard someone on the balcony mutter "I'm going to kill him."

"…but the rest of us think that's just Conner being Conner. We've never seen them even hold hands."

"Tommy said they went out for a while in college," Trini explained, her eyes still trained on the curtains over the window and open balcony door. "They were never serious. Then they decided they were better off friends, and they stayed that way. She helped get him the job in Reefside. I think she's just sort of his Billy."

"She's really big on computers, if that's what you mean," Kira said. "She runs the cyber café we all hang out in and she helped us a lot with Ranger stuff."

"I see," Kimberly said. She felt a bit better upon hearing that… but she wasn't quite sure what to think of Tommy's love life at all. It was weird, after all this time, to wonder out loud if Tommy was dating someone. Mostly, she just thought about it, about whether or not he and Kat had six children or something, but she'd always tried to leave the subject alone. She'd never once talked about Tommy with anyone who'd met him, not since the sob-fest with Trini right after they'd broken up.

"I've never really even seen any pictures of any one girl in his house," Kira continued thoughtfully, frowning. "There's a bunch of pictures of different people, though. He said they're all mostly either Rangers or college friends or family. Oh! And I remember once, I was helping him sort through files and papers and stuff and there was a box marked 'Kim.'"

"He has a Kim box?" Kimberly asked, so startled that she nearly scalped Kira.

"OW!"

"Sorry!" Kimberly released her hair and then picked it up again gently. "You're almost done. This is gonna look so cute."

"Then it'll be the first time I've ever looked cute," Kira said wryly.

"A Kim box," Trini mused aloud, momentarily distracted from the balcony phenomenon. "That's interesting."

"Trini," Kimberly said warningly. "I know that look on your face. You used to get it when we were planning ways to get you together with Jason back in high school."

"Hey, that turned out well, didn't it?" Trini said innocently.

"Come on, Trini. Whatever you're planning to do to Tommy, stop it right now."

Trini smiled and held up her hands in surrender, but she had no intention of dropping it. She was determined to use Power Rangers Day as an opportunity to get the two of them to be friends, hopefully more. She knew they both still loved each other, but neither of them would get the guts to pick up the phone and bridge the gap.

"What?" Kira asked. "You want to set her up with Dr. O?"

"Yes, that's exactly what she wants," Kimberly said before Trini could reply, leaning back to examine her work with Kira's hair, which was now up in two loose buns with stray hairs sticking out stylishly.

"And you don't want her to?" Kira pressed.

"Yes, she does," Trini teased.

"No I don't!" Kimberly said defensively. Trini arched an eyebrow at her. "I mean, okay, yeah, I still care about him, but it was like ten years ago. I highly doubt there's going to be a reunion. It's of the past."

"I told you so," someone said quietly on the balcony.

Trini stood up. There was someone out there, and she had a good idea of who.

"Something wrong, Trini?" Kimberly asked.

Trini shook her head frantically and mouthed, "Keep talking."

"So… what about you, Kira?" Kimberly said, slowly getting up and preparing herself to fight if need be. "Are you dating someone?"

"Yeah," Kira said, doing the same as Kimberly and watching Trini warily as Trini snuck towards the window. "Trent. He's a really great boyfriend."

Trini made it to the window and gave them both significant looks. They nodded at her, and she yanked back the curtains.

There, standing on the balcony, were Tommy and Zack, both wearing black boxer shorts and expressions of pure horror.

"I'm not asking anyone for directions ever again!"

"Come on, Conner. You're not even bleeding."

"No! Let's just call Dr. O. How mad can he possibly get?"

"I don't want to find out," Ethan replied. "He might drag us all back to Reefside. Then our parents would kill us. And Kira would kill us. And—"

"Well, then you better think of something, smart guy, cuz I'm not getting my butt kicked by any more little old ladies."

Ethan and Trent looked at each other, sighed, and then glanced around, trying to find someone else to ask, but the streets were pretty empty.

"What about that guy over there?" Trent suggested, pointing at a skanky-looking middle-aged man in a tattered coat. "He doesn't have a cane."

"Is that a wino?" Ethan asked, wrinkling his nose and promptly changing his mind about asking for directions himself. He shoved Conner forward. "Go on, Conner. You're our fearless leader, remember? I'm just the nerd. You'll have to do it. You're the best."

The flattery, combined with an eagerness to get back to the hotel, worked just enough to get Conner into gear. Conner sighed and glanced around nervously for any sign of mean old ladies, before taking a deep breath and approaching the possible wino.

"Sir?" Conner asked tentatively.

The man turned and peered up at Conner with bleary eyes. "Carol Anne? Is that you?"

"Carol… what?"

"Carol Anne! That IS you! Come here, darlin'!"

The man flung out his arms and lurched drunkenly towards Conner, who backpedaled and turned tail, sprinting away like the gifted soccer player he was. Once more, Ethan and Trent raced after him as the wino stumbled towards them.

"Where ya goin', Carol Anne? Come back, baby! Gimme some sugar!"

Trini, Kira and Kimberly stared at Tommy and Zack, quite as mortified as the two guilty-looking guys. There was a long pause, during which no one moved; they all simply gazed at each other in disbelief. It was Kira who recovered first.

She'd already been having a very odd day, but somehow, the increasing weirdness took her by surprise. In later years, she would look back on the moment and realize that a sleepover of sorts with the first ever Yellow and Pink Power Rangers would be the perfect time for something this bizarre to happen. But no one ever really expects to be wearing their nightshirt and having their hair fixed by a friend late on a weekend night and then suddenly discover their science teacher on the balcony in his underwear.

Kira let out a little shriek and dove for her jeans, pulling them on under her nightshirt. The movement jolted everyone else back to life, and they all started yelling at once.

"Oh, my god, are you twelve?" Trini demanded.

"What the hell are you doing?" Kimberly shouted, torn between outrage and amusement.

"It was all Zack's idea!" Tommy insisted.

"So this is what girls do when we aren't around," Zack attempted to joke.

"You two are so dead!" Kimberly yelled, and she and Trini advanced on the balcony.

"It's not what you think!" Tommy said desperately.

"Yeah, right," Trini said, rolling her eyes.

"At least come up with something original," Kimberly added.

"No, really! We locked ourselves out of our room," Zack said hastily, backing as far away from the girls as he could without falling off the balcony. "We were out on the balcony and the door ended up locking behind us and so I suggested we climb over here and get you guys to help us!"

Trini snorted. "Likely story."

"It's true!" Tommy said, attempting to pull his face into a sincere expression. "Look, we left the door open a crack so I could listen for any loud noises, like Conner and Ethan and Trent having a party or getting thrown out by hotel security, so we figured that we could just cut through your room and we wouldn't have to be stranded on the balcony all night."

Kimberly and Trini exchanged knowing looks, the sort of looks two gang members exchange before best deciding how to mug a helpless victim, but they finally shrugged and stepped aside. Tommy and Zack sheepishly stepped in the room, being careful to keep a watchful eye on their two friends. The girls' mouths twitched, the funniness quickly overcoming the indignation of the situation.

"Better watch that door lock from now on," Kimberly said, trying to sound as intimidating as she could while wanting desperately to laugh. The two guys looked so… adorable, standing there all scared like little boys who'd gotten caught breaking a mean neighbor's window during a game of baseball.

"Out," Trini ordered, pointing at the door. Zack and Tommy obediently headed for it.

Tommy gave Kira a last embarrassed, apologetic glance on his way out and cast about for something to say to explain himself. "Uh… that's a nice hairstyle," he said lamely.

"Goodnight, Dr. O," Kira said weakly.

Trini glared at him and marched Zack and Tommy from the room, leaving Kimberly and Kira to stare after them.

"Well," Kimberly said, shaking her head and finally bursting into giggles. "Boys will be boys."

"This has got to be the weirdest day I've ever had," Kira moaned.

The phone rang just then, and Kimberly smiled at her sympathetically before going to answer it. "Hello?"

After listening for a second, she turned to Kira. "Um… I think it's about to get weirder," she said apologetically. "It's for you. It's Trent, and he sounds kind of… scared."

"I cannot believe you two little punks were spying on us!" Trini raged as she walked them down the hall.

"We weren't! We'd only been there for like two seconds when you pulled back the curtain!" Zack repeated.

"Uh-huh. Right. Just admit it! How long were you really out there? I know you were there before we started talking about you, I heard you, and I kept hearing things during our whole conversation! You're lucky I'm not going to tell Kim how much you heard! I can't believe it took me that long to figure it out!"

They reached Tommy and Zack's room and paused outside it. Tommy turned to Trini and decided to try one last time to get her to believe them.

"Trini, I swear, we weren't spying on you. I would never do that."

Trini's face softened and she gave him a small smile, leaning against the doorjamb. Tommy smiled back in relief, pleased that it had worked.

Then Trini shoved the door open and glanced inside the room before turning back to Tommy with her arms folded over her chest. Suddenly her smile turned into a patronizing smirk. "Your balcony door is wide open, genius."

Tommy smacked his forehead and glared at Zack. "How could you leave the door open? Way to cover. 'We got locked out,' right. You idiot!"

"Oops," Zack said in a small voice. He edged through the door and reached for the knob, as though preparing to slam it should Trini become violent.

Trini jabbed her finger into Tommy's chest hard enough to hurt. "Tomorrow," she growled in her best no-nonsense voice, "you and me are going to have a talk. You get me, Oliver?"

"It was Zack's idea," Tommy whined, then gulped at the look on Trini's face. "Okay, okay! We'll talk."

"And stay off our balcony," Trini added threateningly, then spun around, her long dark hair whipping over Tommy's face and torso as she flounced back to her room.

If her back hadn't been to him, he would have been able to see the wide grin on her face.