Author's Notes: Today is September 25, 2005… the one-year anniversary of the day Freyja and I first rediscovered our repressed obsession with Power Rangers. Three days later, on September 28, 2004, this particular fic would begin to blossom in our minds like a really really big Venus fly trap of really funny doom. It was originally about making fun of Mary Sues… but as you can see, it has absolutely nothing to do with that anymore; it's funny how once we let our inner children out of that closet they completely stampeded over us.

And finally… and this IMPORTANT: Kat will never be anything important to the plot of this fic. I know we're doing something about The Letter here, and, given all the clichés running around, I wanted to go ahead and make it clear that Kat has absolutely nothing to do with that letter or anything else in this fic. From what I can tell, our spin is so completely bizarre in our own special way that no one has ever done it before. Kat will be featured eventually, but we're keeping this story completely Kat-friendly. We're trying to avoid clichés as much as possible (but, unfortunately, there's no easy way to do a Tommy-Kim fic set post-Ranger-days without explaining The Letter). So I hope you enjoy this new chapter… please review!

Chapter Nine

Something Fishy

Conner, Ethan and Trent nearly collapsed in relief when they saw Kimberly's blue Mustang pulling up to the curb on the corner of Elm and Sixth. Trini got out and held the seat forward so Kira could climb out.

"What happened?" Kira demanded. "Why aren't you guys in the hotel? Are you insane? Wait until Dr. O finds out! …Did someone beat up Conner?"

"It was horrible!" Conner yelled, launching himself at Kira and throwing his arms around her. "I was attacked by this crazy old lady who thought I was a mugger and then this homeless guy started chasing us and yelling about giving him sugar!"

Kira glared over his shoulder at the other two guys, the look on her face obviously saying "Get him off me before something bad happens to him."

"It's okay, Conner," Ethan said in a sarcastically sympathetic voice. "The crazy people are gone. You're the only one around us now."

Conner straightened up quickly as though only just realizing he was hugging Kira. "Sorry," he said, then squinted at her. "Hey, what's with the girly look?"

"What's wrong with it?" Kira demanded. "I can be feminine if I want to!" She reached up to touch her hair self-consciously, her toes curling reflexively to try and hide the nail polish under her sandal straps.

"I think it looks pretty," Trent said sincerely, whacking Conner upside the head.

"Very," Ethan added, nodding vigorously.

Kira sighed. "I've had a really rough night, guys. Just… just get in the car."

"Um…" Kimberly said tentatively, "I think there might be a problem with that."

"Tommy! Calm down!" Zack yelped as he cowered before the menacing form of Tommy, who looked like a tiger moving in for the kill.

"Calm down? CALM DOWN? I have to have a conversation with TRINI now!"

"Trini's a perfectly nice person to talk to!"

"She can drag anything out of anyone! Always the person you go to when you need someone to listen! Always the person who knows what to say! Always the person who could get a murder confession out of an innocent nun!"

"Come on, Tommy! At least we're still alive!"

"In a second, you won't be!" The tiger sprung on its prey.

"AHHH! TOMMY! I'M SORRY!"

"Stop it Conner."

"I'm not doing anything."

"Touch me one more time and Trent will kill you!" As if to confirm this, Trent flashed Conner an intimidating smile.

"I have to touch you. You're sitting on me."

"You know what I mean! Stop poking me!"

"I'm not poking you!"

"Yes you are!"

"No, I'm not!"

"Yes you are!" Kira grabbed his finger and bent it back. At the same time, Trent reached over and yanked Conner's hair, hard.

"No, I—ow! OW! Okay! Okay! I'll stop!"

"Wow, you never struck me as the hair-pulling type, Trent," Ethan remarked.

"I couldn't kick him, so…" His grin widened. "A Ranger should always have a fall back plan." There was the sound of muffled laughter in the front seat.

While rushing off to rescue the three guys, Trini, Kimberly and Kira had overlooked one very important fact—Kimberly's car was on the small side.

"See, this is exactly what I mean," Kira said as she shifted slightly, trying to get comfortable. She was lying across the three guys in the backseat, her head in Trent's lap and her feet in Ethan's. The guys themselves were squashed together with their heads bent beneath the convertible top, so that they were practically folded over Kira. "If the rest of the vacation is this weird, I'm packing up and going home!"

"I'm sorry, Kira," Kimberly said. "I knew I should have gotten a bigger car… but I saw the pink upholstery on this baby and I couldn't resist. It's so hard to find a car with any pink in it."

Kira sighed. "Not a problem, Kim. I'm going to get some great song material out of this."

"I don't know what you're complaining about, Kira," Conner told her sourly, rubbing his finger. "We had a much worse night than you did."

"Yeah! Conner got us all lost!" Ethan complained.

"I did not—"

"And I had to rescue Conner from that old lady," Trent added.

"I didn't ask you to—"

"And we both had to run all over town because Conner bears a remarkable resemblance to some chick named Carol Anne!" Ethan ranted.

"The guy was a drunk!"

"…I saw Dr. O in his underwear."

There was a long pause as everyone thought this over, making various grimaces of disgust (save in Trent's case; he looked rather enraged).

"Okay, Kira," Conner conceded. "You win."

Kira immediately went to sleep upon returning to the hotel, muttering that she planned on being unconscious when the next weird moment rolled around. Everyone else followed suit gladly.

Come morning, Kimberly talked Kira into dolling her up again while Trini withdrew into her own little world, carefully planning her upcoming conversation with Tommy. She knew this was an important part of reuniting two of her best friends, and she didn't want to screw it up. She kept only a vague part of her brain tuned into Kimberly and Kira's chatter, not wanting them to suspect anything. She smiled slightly at the sight of Kimberly; Kimberly looked perfect, hair and makeup and all, and Trini couldn't help but hope that the extra effort was for Tommy.

"So what are we doing today?" Kira asked as Kimberly braided her hair.

"The beach," Kimberly said cheerfully.

"Um… so this makeup crap's pretty pointless."

"Nonsense! Makeup is never pointless. Not until you're eligible for senior citizen's discounts."

"Okay, but this is the last time."

"Sorry," Kimberly said sheepishly. "It's just so fun to have someone to make over."

Kira giggled, suddenly remembering that old picture of Dr. O from his high school days. "Did Dr. O ever let you do anything with that weird hair he used to have?"

Kimberly paused. "Once or twice," she admitted, sounding rather guilty. Without warning, Trini began laughing hysterically. Kira shot her a look, but no one explained. "Now, he won't let anyone but a 'trained professional,' as he puts it, touch his head."

"Why?" Kira asked curiously.

"…It's a long story," Kimberly said, looking twice as guilty.

Trini continued to laugh. "Oh, god, I remember that," she gasped. Kira thought she heard Trini say something about little pink bows, but Trini was laughing too hard to be intelligible.

Kimberly finished Kira's hair and narrowed her eyes at the hysterical Trini. "Hey, Trini, can I do you next?" Trini could no longer even attempt to speak. Kimberly grinned mischievously and forced her into a chair.

At quarter to eleven, Zack knocked on their door, offering them a sheepish smile. "Hi," he said, a little timidly.

Trini arched an eyebrow at him. "Tommy made you come alone, didn't he."

"Yeah, well… for some reason, he blames the whole… thing… last night on me."

"Wonder why," Kimberly said dryly, picking up her beach bag. "Are we ready?"

They met up in the lobby, the guys piling into Zack's SUV and the girls into Kimberly's car. Ten minutes later, they were arriving at Jason and Trini's house.

"This is a nice place," Kira said as Trini let them in.

"Thank y—"

"My wife!" Jason yelled, hurtling out of nowhere and flinging his arms around Trini. "Oh, thank god. I tried to use the oven last night to—"

"You did what?"

"Not to worry, Trini," Billy said, grinning at her. "I found the fire extinguisher in time."

"WHAT?"

"I'm joking," Billy explained. "No fire. Just an extraordinarily large amount of smoke. Your dog was quite distressed."

"Oh, poor Tommy," Trini cooed, seizing her dog's collar as the enormous black beast sought to charge her friends. "Down, boy!"

"You're coming back tonight, right?" Jason said worriedly.

"Honey…" Trini began with a sigh.

"Jason, if she comes back tonight, who will protect me from the balcony boogeyman?" Kimberly asked innocently.

"That's right," Trini said mock-seriously. "Hmm… I suppose we could ask Tommy to do it, though, right?"

Tommy closed his eyes and hung his head pitifully… then jerked his head up to glare at Zack, who edged away nervously, rubbing at a recently acquired bruise on his arm.

"Balcony boogeyman?" Billy inquired curiously.

"Long story," Zack said quickly.

"Not that long," Trini teased with just a hint of threat.

"You're so dead," Tommy muttered at Zack.

"Please come back?" Jason whined pathetically.

"We'll see," Trini laughed. "Did you pack up everything for the beach?"

"Yup. Got everything."

"So you got the towels?"

"…Um, be right back."

After spending some time going over Trini's mental beach checklist, the group decided to grab fast food on their way ("Anything but McDonald's," Tommy begged, fairly certain he would never be able to equate that restaurant with anything but his traumatic road trip again) and they set out for their favorite beach. They'd discovered the almost-always-deserted beach many years back, and had frequented it ever since, whether to battle evil or hang out. Before long, they were setting up their gear out on the sand.

"Water," Billy said dreamily, looking downright homesick as he gazed out over the waves.

"Head on out, man, if you want," Zack told him as he busily set up his boom box, popping in some "old-school" hip hop music.

"Yeah," Billy said, "I will. Anyone want to come with me?"

"Me," Ethan said quickly. "I want to hear more about the planet you've been living on. Is it all water?"

The two of them headed into the waves, and Kira and Trent wandered off hand-in-hand for a walk.

"Who's for Frisbee?" Jason asked, pulling one out of his bag.

"Me!" said Kimberly, Zack, Conner and Tommy, the last of whom found Trini blocking his way, a stern look on her face. "Um… maybe later," Tommy amended lamely.

The Frisbee group moved off down the beach, leaving Tommy and Trini alone with the gang's stuff. They sat down on a blanket together in silence, watching the Frisbee players.

Tommy turned to look at Trini, who had a distant look in her eye as she watched her husband. He felt a small twinge of sadness, and his gaze turned to Kimberly, who looked amazing in her pink bikini, as usual. He watched her smile and laugh as she ran around with the others, suddenly jealous of what Jason had with Trini.

"You know," Trini said at length, still watching Jason, "I had a crush on Jason since the third grade. My very first crush."

"And you married him," Tommy remarked. "How… frighteningly monogamous of you."

Trini giggled. "It took me until high school to finally get up the nerve to say anything, and even then I barely managed it before the Peace Conference. You know what finally gave me the guts?"

"What?"

"You," she said simply. "I wanted me a Tommy."

Tommy stared at her profile, trying to make sense of this odd statement and finally deciding to laugh it off. "Well," he said, waggling his eyebrows in a highly exaggerated and suggestive manner, "if you still want one…"

Trini socked him on the arm, laughing. "You goon! What I meant was… I saw you and Kimberly, all lovey-dovey, and I wanted that. I wanted that happy little grin that Kim always had whenever she was around you."

"And here I thought you were just going to yell at me for sneaking onto your balcony last night," Tommy said, trying not to sound annoyed.

Trini gave him a look and he sighed, looking away from her and from Kimberly. She waited patiently for him to open up, but he wasn't ready to, not just yet. Unfortunately, he knew that Trini was going to wait until he was.

Trini had always been the problem-solver when it came to emotional things. Everybody went to her when they were upset, because she always knew just what to say and she always knew when you had something you needed to talk about. Tommy wasn't at all sure why, but something about Trini made you want to pour your heart out to her… but he had spent too long trying not to pour out this particular part of him. So he struggled for something to use to distract Trini from him, his mind wandering back to Angel Grove all those years ago…

Flashback

The doorbell rang, and Tommy sighed as he headed over to open it. Billy was still trying to pull him out of his horrible depression… which meant that Billy knew that Tommy was still horribly depressed. The others were starting to believe that Tommy was fine, though they gave him funny looks and whatnot when they thought he wasn't looking. Jason and Zack had rolled into town like any two good friends would, and they'd helped him feel a whole lot better… but now that they were leaving soon, Tommy realized that he'd feel worse when they did. Nothing had been resolved, nothing had been fixed, and oh, yeah—now he was reminded of the fact that all of his first real friends, save Billy, had run off into the sunset just like Kimberly, and look how that had turned out. So Tommy had been trying to struggle on while suddenly feeling very old and tired, as though his entire world was changing around him. Jason and Trini and Zack and Kimberly had all started themselves down the post-high-school path and even Billy had graduated, and Tommy would have to move on soon. He was now wondering if he was going to end up moving away from Angel Grove and forgetting everyone, if his calls and letters and e-mails would be as infrequent as everyone else's, if he'd just forget the world that he'd been living in for the past two years and how happy he'd been since the moment Jason asked him to join the Rangers.

Tommy didn't bother to check to see who was on the other side of the door, assuming it was Zack, Jason, Billy or one of the Rangers… so he received the shock of his life when he opened the door and saw Trini standing there on the doorstep.

"Trini?" Tommy said blankly, unable to fathom this bizarre turn of events. Trini hadn't contacted him lately; for all he knew, she had no idea that Kim had dumped him. Now that he thought about it, he realized that Trini had been last on the list of people he expected to see, way down below the Ghost of Christmas Past. After all, no matter what Trini's ties to Tommy were, she was Kimberly's best friend.

Trini gave him a tired smile. She looked exhausted, like she hadn't slept in a really long time; her hair was messy and her clothes were rumpled. An unfamiliar car was parked in Tommy's driveway.

"Hey," she said softly. "I thought maybe you could use a hug."

Tommy stared at her, still trying to come to grips with the fact that she'd somehow gotten from Massachusetts to Angel Grove… and then suddenly he was hugging her, collapsing against her, and she was holding him up, her arms around him tightly.

This was exactly what he needed… and it was one of the few things that no one else on the team could give him. Kat had tried, but she was just a reminder of how he'd never have Kimberly at his side again. Tanya had stuck to mostly awkward pats on the arm. And the guys… well, guys weren't known for their hugging skills. The others weren't exactly homophobic or anything—they hugged and whatnot on occasion—but not spontaneously like this. It had never really occurred to them to give Tommy a nice big hug (and if it had occurred to one of them, no one had figured out how to do it without it being creepy).

"I was really happy," he said dully, a large lump in his throat.

"I know."

And that was it. No promises that it would be okay, no pep talks or distractions or what have you. She just hugged him until he stopped needing her.

Tommy wasn't sure how long he stood there on the porch, holding poor fatigued Trini like a drowning man clinging to a life preserver; he was only vaguely aware of insignificant things like weird looks from the neighbors and the sun setting and so on.

He had no idea what made him pull back; it was simply time to do so. He pushed her away gently and dropped his arms. She gave him that same, patient, Trini-the-psychologist smile.

"Do you want to talk about it?" she asked.

"No," he said.

"When you do…" Her offer was obvious.

"I will."

Then Trini shook her head and yawned. Just like that, whatever spell that had come over them was broken, and suddenly he found the entire event completely freakish.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded, ushering her inside. "You look beat."

"I drove here. Heard about you… figured I'd come do that thing I'm good at. What was it called?"

"Comforting your friends?"

"Yeah, that." Trini stumbled as Tommy led her over to the couch. "It's amazing how fast you can get here if you ignore those little signs with the numbers on them."

"…Speed limit signs?"

"Yeah! Those."

"Trini… did you drive all the way here from Massachusetts?"

"Well, I made a quick stop first off in that state that kind of looks like a butterfly net, but yeah, that's pretty much what I did."

"Butterfly net?" Tommy frowned, unable to think of which state that might be. "Um… maybe you should lie down."

Trini nodded and then simply passed out on the couch like a drunk at her favorite bar. Tommy chuckled, staring down at her in amazement. Here he was, moaning how horrible life was, when he had friends like Jason, Trini, Zack, Billy, Kat, Tanya, Adam, and Rocky. Friends who would do anything they could to make him happy, even if it meant springing for a weekend at a mountain lodge, renting out the Youth Center so he could have dinner with a famous snowboarder, rushing over from various other towns in California within three seconds of getting the news or even driving a couple thousand miles just to give him a hug. What on earth was the matter with him?

Tommy went to get Trini a blanket, picking up the phone to call Zack, Jason and Billy and tell them of the latest addition to the already large pile of crazy attempts to make Tommy feel better.

End Flashback

Tommy grinned at the memory. That had been the moment when he'd snapped out of his post-Kimberly funk and started healing—when his friends had finally made him realize that he had a lot of blessings left to count. His smile faded as he looked over at Trini now.

She had truly meant what she'd said when she'd offered to be there if he ever wanted to talk about it… but he never had. Now, she was sick of waiting for him to decide he was ready… and he still wasn't ready, even though he knew he should have taken her up on that offer years ago. He returned his full concentration to the search for a distraction.

His eyes landed on Kira and Trent. Trent was listening closely to whatever Kira was telling him; she was talking animatedly about something that looked pretty deep while Trent nodded and glared over at Tommy. "Wonder what they're talking about," he commented, knowing it wouldn't divert Trini's attention for long but figuring he might as well try.

"I don't know. Probably if you're really getting it on with Hayley in the secret lair."

Tommy made a face that quickly turned into a glare at Conner. "I'm so going to kill him."

"Yeah, yeah. Come clean, Tommy. Why else would you have a secret lair?"

He laughed, enjoying her attempt to lighten the mood. "It's my own version of the Command Center."

"Uh-huh, sure. You're just trying to be Zordon, are you? No wonder Kira thinks it's so bizarre that you might have a social life. You're her giant talking head in a tube."

"Ha, ha."

"Actually, they're probably talking about last night. The guys were arguing over who'd had a worse night and she told them she'd seen you in your cute little boxers."

"That explains the funny looks Trent has been giving me all morning," Tommy said dryly.

"I think they call those visual death threats," Trini laughed.

"What did the guys say?" Tommy asked, rolling his eyes.

"They agreed that that had to have been horrible beyond belief."

"Right. Give it up, Trini. Like you said, even you want a Tommy."

"Dream on, 'old man.'"

Tommy laughed and gave her a playful glare before returning her teasing insult. "You can't fool me, Trini. I heard you saying I was hot."

"You mean when you were spying on us?" Trini growled.

"I prefer the term 'unapproved surveillance,' thank you. But don't try to change the subject. Been checking me out since high school, eh?"

"Oh, you wish," she said with a snort, laughing. "The hair was totally unappealing."

"Uh-huh, sure. I heard you swooning last night."

"Not on your life. Besides, no matter how hot Kim thinks you are, you're not nearly hot enough for me."

"That's right, I forgot. You prefer nerds, according to—what was it? Seventeen? YM? So tell me, when are you going to elope with Billy?"

She snorted. "Yeah, right."

"It's okay, Trini, you can tell me. That magazine quiz said it all. Jason's butt just isn't enough, is it?" Tommy deadpanned.

"No, it isn't, but thankfully he's got… other… attributes."

"Too much information," Tommy said, thoroughly disgusted.

"Well, that's what you get. No one makes fun of my man's butt." Trini folded her arms over her chest and gave him a smug smile.

Tommy grinned, his spirits lifted; he hadn't gotten the opportunity to have a good banter session in a while, as his Dino Ranger duties had cut into his visiting time with his friends. "You're a great friend, Trini, you know that?"

"And you're a great big idiot."

"It's not my fault that you have delusions about Jason's butt."

"…I meant about Kimberly."

Tommy sighed, his good mood evaporating. "I know."

"Tommy… what happened?"

"Florida happened," Tommy said with a sigh. Seeing her opening her mouth, he added, "And yeah, I really wish it hadn't, okay?"

"Why can't you tell her that?"

"She's moved on."

"She's 'moved on' about as much as you have. Probably less."

"You don't know that."

"I am Trini. I know everything."

A vision of Hayley snapped into Tommy's mind and he fought to focus on the conversation. "Trini—"

"Look," Trini interrupted. "I'm not telling you to go march over there and ask her to marry you. I'm asking you to try to patch things up. I'm asking you to try to fix whatever was broken. Just try. At the very least, maybe we'll be able to invite you two over to visit at the same time without wondering if something horrible is going to happen between you. It's been years since we've all been together."

Tommy looked at Kimberly, watched her joking with Zack as she tossed the Frisbee to Conner. Watched the girl who should have been his Trini, the way Jason had become Trini's Tommy.

"I'll try," he said quietly. "I'll try."

"All undersea, eh?" Ethan said. "That must be really cool."

"It's all right," Billy said, floating easily on his back in the water with his ankles crossed and his fingers laced behind his head. "I miss certain things about Earth, though. The food. The clothes. My tools. My garage. The RADBUG. My inventions. My friends. All of that. But still, it's a great experience. I'm working with all sorts of alien races, not just the people on Aquitar. And the technology is amazing."

"They're probably a lot more advanced than Earth, right?" Ethan asked eagerly.

Billy stood up. "You wouldn't believe it. The Internet is a joke compared to the things they have. They rarely crash, too; the problems are almost nonexistent. And the daily lifestyles are a lot easier. They don't even have a single manual door left in the entire world; they're all automatic. Everyone can use a computer, and computer experts are the ones who are the most valued members of society. It's just… incredible, seeing the comparisons and contrasts."

"And you're seeing an alien woman?"

"Yes. Cestria. It's not as weird as it sounds," Billy added at Ethan's slightly disgusted look. "Her physiology is very similar to that of a human. It's no different than dating a human girl of a different race for me."

"So… if you've been with her all these years, why haven't you married her?" Ethan asked, remembering what Billy had told Ernie.

"They don't have marriage there, the way we know it. I explained the concept to Cestria once and she said it seemed kind of silly. The Aquitians simply acknowledge their love for each other; they don't feel that a ceremony is necessary to make love official."

"Weird."

Billy nodded. "Yeah, sometimes their culture is odd. But it's also really fascinating. Everyone on Earth has a lot of the same basic beliefs with a few simple variances. Life after death, religion, marriage, right and wrong. It's so fascinating to see a culture completely removed from all of that."

"I'll bet. It must be really cool."

"Yeah. Still… it's so completely strange, especially when I come back here. I can't stop looking back on my life, remembering what I thought would happen to me after high school."

"What did you think?"

"Lots of stuff. I mean, alien planet aside, I never thought I'd be respected by an entire world and have my own—for all intents and purposes—wife, who's pretty much a highly important government official. I certainly never saw myself as a Power Ranger before it happened. And I kind of thought that… well, by this point in my life, I figured that I'd be a leading scientist or computer engineer. I used to think we'd all end up doing what we were good at back then. Trini was headed for something like I was—computers and science. Or I thought perhaps Trini would be a diplomat; she was always very good at the Peace Conference thing, according to Jason and Zack. It took me a while before I ever saw her relationship with Jason coming. Zack… he's not really deviated from my old views of him. Kim's a gymnast, of course, and Jason's running a dojo. But Tommy… none of us ever saw the paleontologist thing. And we certainly never would have guessed that he and Kim would split up."

"Dr. O used to go with Kimberly?" Ethan asked, nearly falling over in surprise.

"Oh, yeah. She was all head over heels the moment she saw him. And of course she went straight for him—that was Kimberly for you. The next thing we knew, he was a Power Ranger and they were inseparable."

"Wow… that's so… bizarre. I never really thought about him having a girlfriend. It was just too creepy."

Billy smiled. "I can see how you would feel that way." His expression became distant, his eyes clouding as he sank back into his past. "Jason used to complain about it like nothing else. Tommy was often late to things, and on occasion he was late because he was with Kimberly. We caught them being late together quite a few times, and Jason always looked suspicious whenever we were hanging out and Tommy showed up late with Kim. After Tommy was made leader, it drove Jason even crazier; he missed being leader, but he didn't begrudge Tommy the title—they were best friends. I think he was quite pleased to be rid of the pressure, only to find himself having to deal with it anyway until Tommy actually made it to the field."

Ethan nodded. "Yeah. But… what happened? If they were so in love, why did they break up?" He was suddenly thinking of Kira and Trent, and how happy they were together.

Billy told him the abbreviated story of Coach Schmidt and the letter. "Man, that's cold," Ethan said with a low whistle.

"Yes… and it wasn't at all like Kimberly. She was usually very honest and forthcoming, especially when she knew someone could get badly hurt. None of us had heard a thing about the guy she mentioned… and that wasn't like Kimberly, either. She told us all about the people she was meeting, from the coaches to the teammates to the waiters at her favorite restaurants and checkout girls at the places she shopped—there were a lot of those—people she liked and people she didn't. She sent letter upon letter, especially to me and Aisha and Tommy, Jason, Trini and Zack, and she called regularly. Always raving about the people she knew, always asking about Angel Grove, always telling us how much she wished she could be with us. She got really bummed sometimes, especially when it came to Tommy. She wouldn't say 'goodbye,' only some variant of it whenever she had to hang up the phone. She usually signed her letters with 'see you soon' and so on, as if she was only on a weekend trip. I still can't figure out why she wouldn't have told us anything about a new guy she liked. She would have at least told Trini or Aisha; they were her best friends."

"Didn't she say anything to anyone?"

"No, not even the people she usually confided in. We weren't talking as much as we had been, though. By then, Trini, Jason and Zack had finished high school over in Europe. Jason and Zack were back in California—Zack had gone to L.A., and Jason was visiting relatives before choosing a college. Trini was off at MIT. But we were all still in touch, chatting whenever we could afford the phone calls and writing whenever we had the stamps, e-mailing and instant messaging whenever we got online. I just… what shocked me most was that Trini told me later that Kimberly had never mentioned anything about breaking up with Tommy until the moment it happened. She said that it came as a complete surprise, both from Tommy's end and Kim's. And Trini was always… well, she was the first person to call when you had a crisis, always there with a shoulder to lean on or cry on. Trini would have let Kim pour her heart out and she wouldn't have told Tommy that Kimberly was thinking of breaking up if Kimberly asked her not to. For Trini to have heard nothing was unthinkable.

"Aisha was off in Africa at the time, but still able to stay in touch with Kim and us all. She and Kim were really close, too—Kimberly even lived with her for a few months. So if Kim's confidante hadn't been Trini, it would have been Aisha… but Aisha was just as startled as the rest of us. I don't see why Kim never confided in anyone. Really, any of us would have given her advice. But she should have at least told Trini."

"Are you sure she didn't, and Trini just wouldn't tell you?"

"I'm positive. Trini wouldn't have said anything directly, but once it had happened she would have at least said something to the effect of it being Kimberly's business. She wouldn't have said she'd known nothing. And… there was something else odd."

"What?"

"When Tommy first got the letter, I took him skiing to get his mind off it… and when we got back, I returned home to a bunch of frantic messages from Trini. Before I could return them, Trini called me again and begged me to find a way to teleport her to Florida. I asked why, and she said that she'd been on the phone with Kimberly for hours and Kimberly wouldn't stop sobbing."

"If she dumped him, why was she crying?"

"That's what I wanted to know."

"What did Trini say?"

"Well, at the time, I was kind of bitter on Tommy's behalf. I asked her how Kimberly was doing with her new boyfriend… and Trini snapped that Kimberly had just lost Tommy and wasn't exactly out shopping for replacements yet. That startled me, and I apologized; Trini said it was okay, that I didn't know. That was when she asked me if there was a way I could get her to Florida. I wanted to ask more questions, but Trini was panicking and desperate to get to Kim. I told her that the Power Chamber didn't have a lot of the same stuff as the Command Center and teleporting from beyond a certain range around the Chamber was impossible. She told me she'd find a way down to Miami and give me a call in a few days. I found out later that she rented a car and drove down all the way from Massachusetts to Florida, so Kimberly must have been a total wreck."

"So… wait. There was no other guy?" Ethan asked with a frown.

"I don't know. I only know that Trini said Kimberly had lost Tommy and wasn't seeing anyone. For a long time, I assumed Trini just didn't know the full story when she talked to me, or else that Kimberly had just fallen for some other guy and broken up with Tommy before dating the new guy, which is still perfectly plausible, but now… I'm not so sure."

Billy sighed, leaning back into the waves and letting them wash over him. "I could have been wrong. I'm a computer guy, not a relationship guy. But… I don't know. Trini and Zack still talk a lot about it. Trini and Jason… well, it's too much of a mess for them to talk about, I assume; it's too close to each of them. Trini and I don't really speak about it very much anymore… but I know that Trini still prays for a reunion. I just hope that this ends up being her chance to get them together, rather than a disaster." Billy nodded at the shore, where Trini was sitting alone with Tommy. "It looks like she's already set things in motion."

"So… you never asked Trini any more about Kimberly?" Ethan prompted.

"No. You see… when Tommy first got the letter, all of his friends tried comforting Tommy as best we knew how. Zack and Jason drove in to visit, and the four of us had a sort of guys' day. Then we all got together—Kat, Tanya, Rocky, Adam, Zack, Jason, Tommy and I, and we tried to cheer Tommy up. Tommy eventually started to do this thing where he pretended he was okay when anyone who knew him remotely well could tell that he was completely depressed. And then, about a week or so after it happened, just before Zack and Jason were about to leave town, Trini magically appeared on Tommy's doorstep, snapped him right out of his trance—none of us have ever been able to figure out how—and then Trini, Zack, Jason and I got together to talk about it. We were all still shocked and confused and I asked Trini what Kimberly had said… and she told me that she didn't want to talk about it. She said that it wasn't her place to talk about it, and it wasn't our place to talk about Tommy. She said we should all leave it alone. We decided that from then on, no matter what happened, we would never judge either of them, never take sides. Trini was very adamant about that, especially. At the time, I thought it was because she didn't want to betray Kimberly when Jason, Zack and I were sitting by Tommy's side. Now… over the years I've started to wonder if it was because she felt that Kimberly had been slighted, and Trini didn't want us to feel like Trini was angry with Tommy."

"Was she?" Ethan inquired. "Did Trini ever act pissed off at Dr. O?"

"Trini isn't like that," Billy said. "She never mentioned it to him, either, unless of course it was when she first popped up in Angel Grove to talk to him about it, but none of us know what she and Tommy did that day. The closest they ever got to saying anything that I know of was at her wedding rehearsal dinner, and Trini had told Jason, while he was standing next to Tommy, that Kimberly wasn't going to be able to get out of France for the wedding. Jason told me about it. Tommy turned to her and asked 'how's…?' without ever completing the sentence. She'd just said 'fine.'"

"What did Dr. O say?"

"Just 'good.'"

"So… he probably hadn't heard her name at all before Power Rangers Day?"

"Oh, he'd heard it. Once in a while a few of us would be reminiscing about the old days and mention Kim, and then we'd all realize what we'd said and change the subject. Or someone would get a postcard from her and mention it when he was over on accident. Trini and Jason were the only two who could avoid it with perfection. Besides, Kimberly had a good run as a gymnast; Tommy heard about her on TV and in the paper, too."

"And you never asked Trini about why Kimberly was so upset that Kimberly had left Dr. O?"

Billy shook his head. "After that day Trini, Zack, Jason and I never spoke about how they broke up. We talked about how it was sad they'd broken up, and how we wished they hadn't broken up, and how we wished they'd get back together or start being friends again, but never how or why it happened. That was the first time—and last time—that our little group had ever been shaken up like that. I mean, sure, we left Angel Grove and lost our Ranger powers and so on, but we were always friends. None of us knew how to handle it."

"Why didn't Dr. O ever call her? Didn't he ever want an explanation?"

"I would imagine so, but he never called up and got one. We just tried to take his mind off of it and help him move on. We were all so hopeful they'd work things out when that kidnapping thing rolled around, but nothing spectacular came of it."

"Kidnapping thing?"

"Jason and Kimberly were captured and turned evil. Adam contacted me to tell me about it… and it was really a mess. Jason told me later that Kim had been so anxious to leave Angel Grove afterward that she would have ran barefoot over broken glass to get out. Apparently Tommy tried to reach out to her while she was under the spell by getting her to remember him, and she… well… continued to try and kill him. The first chance they had to patch things up just gave them both nightmares." Billy sighed heavily. "By then, I think it was too late. To see each other like that… it must have been a horrible blow. And Tommy was dating Kat, Kimberly was on her way to being an acclaimed gymnast, and they had both spent months without speaking to each other."

"Kat?"

"The second Pink Ranger. They got together not long before Jason lost his Gold Ranger Powers and ended up kidnapped. She adored Tommy from minute one."

"What happened to her?"

"She moved to London to become a ballet dancer. Tommy wasn't too keen on long distance relationships."

"I'll bet. So… do you think Dr. O and Kimberly have a shot anymore?"

"I don't know. It would be nice. It's hard to tiptoe around the fact that they aren't together, and tiptoeing around it is an even bigger reminder that the gang's not going to be the same again. It's really up to them, though."

Ethan smiled, turning to look at all the ex-Rangers on the beach. His gaze went from Tommy to Kimberly… to Conner, Trent, and Kira.

"Yeah," he said slowly, a smile fit for any evil genius like Ethan forming on his face. "It's all up to them."