Chapter Nineteen

Missing Green

Tommy's phone started ringing; he jumped at the sudden buzzing and beeping. "Must be Billy's father, calling back," Tommy said. Knowing that Mr. Cranston had an excellent long-term memory (just a poor short-term one, like Tommy), he deepened his voice in the hopes that Mr. Cranston wouldn't recognize him.

"Hello?"

"…Tommy?"

"Oh, hey, Hayley."

"Hi, Hayley!" the four teens called cheerfully. Conner even waved. A passing customer who couldn't see Tommy's cell phone from her angle looked at them oddly, wondering why they were calling a man "Hayley" and waving when he was sitting two feet away.

"Ooh, I want to talk to Hayley!" Trini exclaimed. "Let me talk!"

"The gang says hi," Tommy said, fending off Trini's groping fingers. He was getting overly protective of his cell phone.

"Tell them I say hi back."

"Hayley says hi, guys. Jesus, back off! Jason, could you restrain your wife?"

"Gladly." Jason pulled her to him. Tommy made a disgusted face.

"By the way, why were you trying to disguise your voice? Doing something illegal at the moment?" Hayley asked.

"When have you ever known me to do something illegal?" Tommy demanded with a snort of laughter. He was far from a law-breaker. Well, except for the occasional traffic violation. And it probably wasn't exactly legal to fight crime without some sort of license, like the sort bounty hunters and private detectives had to get, but it wasn't like anyone complained about the Power Rangers when aliens attacked. Even though they'd—somewhat illegally but still accidentally—destroyed a lot of property in the line of duty. And, okay, some of those experiments he'd done with Mercer were probably pushing the envelope. Just a small envelope, though. But that's why they'd had that remote island lab. And Mercer had plenty of connections to keep them out of trouble. Of course, using those kinds of connections was probably illegal, come to think of it. And it probably wasn't too legal to go—

"Tommy, I went to college with you."

"Oh." Tommy grimaced. "All right, point taken." The teens, wondering exactly what was going on, gave him funny looks. Tommy gave them a stern Teacher Look and they backed down.

"Well, I was just wondering if you were okay. You said you'd call and tell me you made it okay, and I figured it slipped your mind, but here it is two days later and I thought I'd make sure you weren't dead or wandering around Seattle and wondering why you can't find the Angel Grove Inn."

"Ha, ha," Tommy said. He cleared his throat. "Actually, we did get pretty lost. We got here around eight or nine."

"Wow. How did you manage that?"

"Five people in a Jeep and not one of us could properly read a road map."

"Ah. Guessing you have a lot of new bizarre fears? Like how you won't use umbrellas after that trip we took to the Grand Canyon?"

"No! Well, McDonald's. But that's it."

"Oh, well, plenty of people fear McDonald's."

"…What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing, nothing. McDonald's is a scary place. It's the clowns. Clowns are terrifying. Not to mention those other costume characters. The big purple guy always freaked me out."

Tommy decided to let it go, though he could practically hear her smirking sarcastically through the phone. "How's Reefside without us?"

"Blissfully quiet. I could use Trent's help, but on the other hand I don't have to keep sneaking off to help you save the world, so it's evening out."

"Gee, thanks."

"Welcome. Having fun on your big vacation?"

"Pretty much. Well, there is—"

"Do you guys have to do that at the table?" Zack demanded of Jason and Trini, drowning Tommy out. Knowing your friends are married and watching them make out are two different things.

"Yes," Jason said. Trini pushed him away, looking embarrassed.

"Anyway," Tommy said, "as I was saying—"

"Hey, here comes our waitress!" Ethan said.

"It's about time," Conner muttered sourly

"Hang on a second, Hayley," Tommy said, setting the phone down until the waitress had taken his order. "Okay, I'm back. Now, where was—"

"Hey, Dr. O, will you get me a margarita?" Conner asked suddenly.

"I'm on the phone, Conner," Tommy said. "And no."

"Tommy! Let me talk!"

"I'm talking, Trini, do you mind?"

"Hey, could you ask her if I could have Monday off, too?" Trent asked.

"It's awfully loud in here," Zack commented. "Oh, look, guys—desert menu!"

"I'm on the phone!" Tommy repeated irritably.

"Is this a bad time?" Hayley asked in amusement.

"No, it's okay, I'm—hang on, they're doing that thing where they sing for people's birthdays." A group of singing and clapping waiters and waitresses went by with a birthday cake. "Sorry about that. Okay, I—"

"They have balloons!" Conner yelled as a group of little kids walked by with them.

"Would everyone just SHUT UP!" Tommy roared.

This would have ordinarily worked. However, it worked a little too well, and the entire restaurant turned to stare at him, dead silence prevailing.

"Oops," Tommy said, chagrined, and the noisy chattered filled the room again.

"Sounds like everything's going well," Hayley teased. "Hey, is that Trini I hear in the background?"

"The one yelling 'I wanna talk to Hayley' the loudest? Yeah, that's her."

"Put her on."

Tommy sighed and handed Trini the phone reluctantly. "Hey, girl!" Trini said cheerfully.

"Hey, how's it going?"

"Great. It's so great to have the gang back together again. You should come down for the big day on Saturday, you know."

"Thanks, but I've lost enough business from hanging out with the Power Rangers, unfortunately," Hayley replied, almost apologetically. "Maybe next time. So Billy's back?" Hayley had chatted to Billy over Tommy's Aqua-phone so often that Billy had eventually sent her one of her own. The idea of another friend that they could talk to about Power Rangers business appealed to just about everyone, because it was very difficult to constantly be careful of what they said. However, none of them had ever told anyone anything; Hayley was the first to uncover the original team's secret since they'd left Angel Grove. Thus Hayley had met and befriended nearly all of Tommy's friends.

"Yep, everyone's here. Billy, Jason, Tommy, Zack, me and Kim."

Hayley nearly dropped her phone. "Kim? THE Kim?"

"Yeah," Trini said slowly, holding very still. There was a lot to be learned from Hayley's reaction and Trini knew it.

"He failed to mention that," Hayley said dryly. "Wow. Has he had a panic attack yet?"

Trini laughed. "No, not that I know of. Well, maybe a small one. But that was my fault."

"How's he holding up?" Hayley asked anxiously.

"Fine," Trini said. "I've got plenty of good stories to tell you about when I get a chance."

Oh, no, Tommy thought, realization dawning as he stared at Trini. He knew that look and that tone. They were the warning signs of a Yellow Conspiracy. Whenever Trini was up to something, that look appeared on her face and that tone entered her voice. Both Aisha and Tanya had had their own versions of this, and he had come to dread its arrival with a passion. I'm imagining it, he told himself desperately. Please let me be imagining it.

"Hey," Conner said suddenly. "She's doing that thing Kira does right before she sneak attacks me."

"Oh, yeah," Ethan said, nodding.

"I'm doomed," Tommy muttered.

"What thing?" Kira demanded.

"That little overly nice tone in your voice and that evil gleam in your eyes," Trent said. Kira glared at him. "I love it when you do that," he added hastily.

"Wow, he's really well-trained," Jason said.

"Scary, isn't it?" Zack remarked.

"I do not use an overly nice tone right before I sneak attack Conner. Nor do my eyes gleam," Kira said with a sniff.

"Not all the time, no," Conner conceded. "Only the times when I see it coming right before it's too late."

"Someone needs to fix that guy, though," Jason said to Zack in a stage whisper. "Before he gets himself killed."

"Be my guest," Tommy said with a grin. "I tried, I failed."

"I'll train him," Kimberly said, trying to get back into the conversation without being awkward about the fact that she'd been sitting out since Hayley called. "Conner?"

The moment she leaned across the tables to the easy-going, currently cheerful Conner, he leaned back hurriedly with a glance at Tommy, a noise that sounded suspiciously like an "eep" issuing from the back of his throat.

"Conner, Kira's about to smack you," Kimberly said in an exaggerated kindergarten-teacher voice.

"Oh, she does that all the time." Kira pinched him. "OW! That too."

"He's hopeless," Kimberly said, leaning back.

"I've been saying that for years," Ethan agreed.

"Hey!"

"There's gotta be a self-help book for it or something," Jason said. "Trini bought me some but I never got around to reading them."

"Funny, I've never seen them around your house," Zack said. He frowned. "Heeyyy, is that where you've been getting all my Christmas gifts?"

"Of course not," Jason said with a very straight face.

"Tommy!" Trini called. "Hayley wants to talk to you again!"

Tommy held out his hand for the phone, but Trini proceeded to say a three-minute goodbye before finally surrendering it. He finally grabbed it and pressed it to his ear. "Hello?"

"What the hell? Why didn't you tell me that Kim was going to be in Angel Grove?" Hayley hissed.

"It slipped my mind," Tommy lied.

"It did not! Are you okay?"

"I'm fine."

"Don't strangle her."

"I won't! I'm getting along with… um, with Conner… just fine."

"Conner?"

"I'm at a restaurant, you know…"

"Oh! Okay. I gotcha. You're in public. With her. You're sure you're okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine."

"And everything's going okay?"

"Will you stop worrying about me?" Tommy demanded, exasperated. He and Hayley were very close, but occasionally she had an overprotective-older-sister aura about her. Of course, he had an overprotective-older-brother aura about him every so often, so he couldn't complain too much, but still. "I'm fine. The trip has been great, except for the drive in and Trini catching me on the balcony in my underwear and Jason and Zack overhearing this goofy cheer and for some reason I let the gang talk me into getting on a tour bus driven by Skull and then they told that horrible story about the zord wreck and my temporary paranoia about crowds, but other than that, I'm doing just fine."

"…"

Sensing her disbelief, he hastily added, "I mean, I got to see Ernie. And the gang and I are having fun. We sparred today. That was… mostly cool. Er, and we went to the beach yesterday. That was… um, okay, you know what? I should probably get off here… our food should be out soon."

"I want to talk to Hayley!" said Billy, Conner, Kira, Ethan and Trent.

Tommy sighed and handed the phone to Billy, who was sitting on his left.

"Hey, Hayley. I'm good. It's great being back on Earth. Bit tiring, though—Earth's gravitational pull is much stronger than the conditions on Aquitar. I'm going to see my dad tomorrow, though; here's hoping I can explain everything away. Ooh, and Ethan had overalls! Yeah, I don't have any Earth clothing anymore… I love overalls, I'd forgotten how incredible they are…"

When Billy seemed about finished, Tommy held out his hand, but Billy passed the phone to Ethan without noticing Tommy. Tommy watched, squirming, as the phone traveled down the line, unable to help his flashbacks of the last time the four teens had "borrowed" his cell.

"Yeah," Ethan said, "it's really cool! Billy's awesome. The guy's told me all about alien technology. And he kicks butt at video games; Trini has this awesome collection—"

"Hayley!" Conner whispered. "Remember that time you told us a few funny stories about Dr. O? I swear he did that green-eyed thing on Saturday! All I said was—"

"CONNER!"

"Gotta go!"

"Hi, Hayley, how are you?" Kira said cheerfully. "It's great. Zack has killer taste in music, you know. I've been staying with Kim and Trini. They're both so cool! Kim showed me this new makeup technique—wow, did I just say that?"

"Um, Hayley?" Trent asked. "Could I have Monday off? I was thinking, I'm probably going to be exhausted when we get back… I fell asleep today in Jason's basement… yeah, long story…"

Tommy expected this to be the end of it, but Zack was sitting next to Trent and took the offered phone. "Hi, Hayley! The Dino Rangers are cool. Yeah, we're all bugging the crap out of Tommy. It's been a lot of fun."

To Tommy's horror, Zack finished his part of the call and passed it to Kimberly without thinking. Kimberly, who'd been trying to ignore the whole other-woman-calling-Tommy-while-his-ex-is-sitting-a-few-feet-away thing, was absorbed in a conversation with Jason, and as such she took the phone without thinking and said, "Hello?"

"Hi."

"Oh, um… sorry. Zack just passed me the phone and I didn't realize…" Kimberly grimaced, not knowing what to say.

Before Kimberly could hand the phone to Jason, Hayley asked, "Trini? Is that you?"

"No, um, uh… this is Kim. The, uh… I'm… former Pink." The table fell silent and Kimberly struggled to not look panicked.

"Oh. I'm Hayley. Tommy's… friend… from college. We're really close."

"Yeah, um, Trini mentioned that. Kira said you helped the team a lot, too."

"Yes, I did." Hayley swallowed, trying not to sound as cold as she felt. She knew all about Tommy's past with Kimberly, and she didn't like it much.

"Well… ah… nice talking to you," Kimberly said and thrust the phone at Jason. Zack let out a pained shout a split-second later.

"What's up, Hayley?" Jason said, a bit too loudly and exuberantly.

"So that was Kim, eh?"

"Yeah." He paused, hoping no one would figure out what he was talking about, and added, "Zack's an idiot."

"Well. She doesn't sound like a total bitch."

"Hayley…"

"I'm sorry. That was out of line. I just… I feel bad for him."

"Yeah, I know. We all do," Jason admitted. Unlike the rest of them, Hayley didn't know Kimberly, wasn't friends with her, and therefore she had no cause to be forgiving about Kimberly's past, no opinion of her other than "girl who dumped my close friend." Jason hadn't talked with her much about Kimberly, but he did know that Hayley had spent a good deal of time talking about it with Tommy. She'd met Tommy not long after he'd broken up with Kat, and therefore he'd been rather sulky on the subject of ex-girlfriends during the formative stages of his friendship with Hayley.

Hayley, for her part, felt rather flustered and upset. Her friend was dealing with something hard, and she wasn't there to help him; worse, he hadn't even told her about it, and she could only guess as to why. Tommy had become far more introverted and sarcastic than he was in his youth. Not only were Tommy's actions a bit troubling, but she now felt embarrassed about her comment to Jason. She didn't know Kimberly's reasons, or anything about her character besides the fact that Tommy adored her and she'd dumped him, and sad as it was that happened all the time for a number of reasons. She also felt a bit bad about her standoffish tone and downright ashamed of the way she'd said she was his "friend" from college; she'd sounded like a possessive girlfriend warning another woman off of her turf. Hayley had no romantic feelings for Tommy whatsoever, but it was an old defense mechanism from college, used often when one of them attracted the wrong sort of people. Just the sight of the tall, muscular Tommy had been able to scare off many an unwanted person, and Hayley's patented glare and sharp wit had done the same. Hayley had unwittingly tried to chase Kimberly off, without any knowledge of Kimberly's intentions—or Tommy's, for that matter—and Tommy wasn't necessarily Hayley's to protect in anything more than a platonic manner. It had been instinctive, and part of her stubbornly insisted that it was the action of a best friend—but the majority of her felt like an idiot, and it wasn't often that Hayley felt like an idiot.

She needed to know more about Kimberly. She needed to know if she was playing the wrong game when all the players were watching TV instead. She needed to do a little recon.

"You know what, Jason?" Hayley said slowly. "Maybe I'll come up on Saturday after all."

"That'd be great," Jason said sincerely, though he privately couldn't help but wonder what that would mean for Kimberly. Hayley could be intimidating, and she felt she needed to be intimidating towards Kimberly, while—unbeknownst to Hayley—it wasn't necessary.

"Could I have my phone back, please?" Tommy said desperately. He now knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he should never have bought a cell phone, let alone let others borrow it.

"Listen, Tommy's whining. Talk to you later?"

"I want to talk!" Trini insisted, being last down the line.

Tommy reached out and snatched the phone without giving Jason a chance to pass it to her. "You guys are killing my battery!" he said, glaring at Trini before she could say anything. "You can all call Hayley on your own phones later!"

Hayley chuckled as he pressed his phone to his ear at last. "All right, you. Call me in a few days, let me know you're still alive?"

"Sure thing. Sorry about not calling sooner."

"Not a problem. Love ya."

Tommy hesitated; he and Hayley had a tendency to say that before hanging up the phone, the way a brother and sister would, and he knew Hayley had said it without thinking. It wasn't just Kimberly's presence that made him not want to respond in kind—he didn't know what the teenagers would think.

"You, too," he said casually, and hit the end button with a strong sense of relief.

There was a momentary lull in the conversation. Everyone seemed to be darting furtive glances at one another.

"Well," Tommy said with an exasperated sigh, "how 'bout them Broncos?"

Kimberly suddenly burst out laughing; she was the only one to get the joke. Tommy couldn't help but smile, feeling a bit of the tension ease.

Everyone relaxed a bit, feeling a bit foolish. They had enough drama in their lives without imagining any more between Hayley, Tommy and Kimberly; until it went any further, they were willing to drop it.

"Dude," Zack said, leaning back in his chair, "where the hell is our food?"

"Anyone see one of the waitresses?" Jason asked.

"Don't call them over," Tommy said warningly. "They're kind of freaky. I swear they're staring at us from around the corner over there."

"Eh, you're just being paranoid," Jason said with a sniff.

"Well, maybe we can go find one or something, so they don't have to come to us," Zack suggested.

"I'll do it!" Conner said cheerfully.

"No!" Tommy, Kira, Ethan, and Trent yelled.

"I'll do it," Trini said quickly, standing up.

"Hurry back," Jason said with a smile. "I'm starved."

Dinner took a long time to complete, especially since Trini didn't come back very quickly and after a while they'd started to worry, which turned into panic before long. Jason got antsy, and then Zack had gone into a rant about how the waitresses might have kidnapped her and chopped her into tiny cubes and were now adding her to the beef stew and they'd never see her again and never find her body and then Tommy had kicked Zack in the shin hard enough to almost knock his chair over. That ordinarily would have helped, but by that point even Billy looked nervous and Kimberly wanted to go after her; it wasn't like Trini to wander off. Then Jason had stood up and it all would have gone very bad for the waiters and waitresses if Trini hadn't returned just in time with their numerous plates of food and the manager, who was apparently an old friend from the broomball team back in high school and she'd stopped to chat with him on her mission to find their meal. Unfortunately, they showed upright asTommy was coaching Jason in a calming chant ("I will not hurt waitresses for chopping my wife into little pieces without proof, I will not hurt waitresses for chopping my wife into little pieces without proof") and the waitresses pretty much scattered once their food was on the table; no one was able to get any more refills, extra sauces and so on for the rest of the evening, and Trini had to chase down the manager, who was a tad nervous himself, to get their bill. Jason insisted upon going with her but Tommy forced him to stay seated, knowing that by this point Jason could prowl for hours without ever seeing a single waitress. Tommy went with her instead, as much to escape Conner's complaints about missing out on getting the hot waitresses' phone numbers as to hurry along the process of leaving the restaurant.

After dinner, they all decided to head back to the Youth Center, the Dino Rangers in one car and Jason, Trini, Billy, Kimberly and Zack in his SUV. Kimberly was relieved when they all started chatting, leaving her free to sit back and have a good long think.

The Hayley woman had been nagging at the back of her mind for a while now. Kimberly didn't know where she stood with Tommy, but she didn't know where Hayley stood with Tommy, either. But it wasn't the relationship factor that was bothering her. She wasn't really expecting to regain what she once had with Tommy, even though part of her hoped for it. However, it bugged her to truly see how clean the break between her and Tommy was.

She hadn't known he was the Black Ranger. She had only found out about the Red Ranger thing because of that little incident where she'd gone evil, come to think of it. It was upsetting, to know that he had been risking his life for over a year with a whole other team and no one had been comfortable enough to tell her; she wondered if they would have even called her to help if Tommy had needed it. She hadn't heard anything about Tommy in years. Every chance she might have had to see him had exploded—Jason and Trini's wedding, for example. At the time, she'd been sorry to miss it, but grateful she wouldn't have to see him. Yet now she felt horrible. The Tommy she'd known had been replaced by someone with a PhD in paleontology, a life as a teacher, and a fondness for red and black in addition to green and white. All the things he'd gone through, done, accomplished… she should have been there. She should have seen him graduate from college, should have had a beer with him when he'd become a Ranger again, should have let him know that he just had to pick up the phone if he needed a former Ranger and she'd be there. Losing a boyfriend shouldn't have made her lose Tommy so completely.

And Hayley… it had really bugged her, to see the way everyone was chatting with Hayley. From Conner, Kira, Ethan and Trent to Jason, Trini, Billy and Zack. They knew her. They were a part of Tommy's life, still shared the same friends. Hell, Billy didn't even live on the planet and he'd talked to Hayley like she was an old friend he saw every weekend. She should be doing the same. She should be in Tommy's life. She should be his friend.

What hurt the most, however, was that he'd planned to give the Dino Gems to Jason, Trini, Zack and Hayley if they ever needed them. Not Kimberly. It wasn't that Kimberly was angry about Hayley's friendship with him and the others—it was that she wanted the same thing. She wanted to be the one the gang called when they needed a Ranger. (Even if she would have to be Blue.) It suddenly seemed horrifying to her that things were so over with her and Tommy that he hadn't even considered giving her a new Ranger power when he found one. She knew, of course, that Tommy was within his rights to give the Gem to a friend, but she wanted that friend to be her. It was totally understandable, maybe, but still devastating. It was like the more she had cut out Tommy, the more she had cut out the group. They were a team, despite the end of their powers, and while she still had a team with Jason, Trini, Billy and Zack, only with Tommy were they complete. Kimberly now felt a strong twinge of guilt towards Jason, Trini, Billy and Zack; they'd been forced to not only juggle their work, their families, their non-Ranger friends, and each other, but also find time to divide their time spent with fellow Rangers between Tommy and Kimberly.

She needed to talk to him. She needed to stop dancing around it and just ask if they could forget the last ten years and start over. She didn't want to go home at the end of the week and never see him again. She wanted to call him every other Saturday like she did with Jason and Zack, tell him funny stories from the gymnastics center and hear tales of his students at Reefside High. She wanted to hang out with him every so often, have fun with him. For the first time, any pang caused by a thought of Tommy wasn't about how much she missed their relationship—it was about how much she missed their friendship.

After we go see Ernie, she promised herself, me and that boy are gonna have a talk.

End Notes: Y'all are probably going to kill us for that cliffhanger, because we have a LOT to do at Ernie's before we can get back to it, but I promise the detour will be enjoyable. This fic is full of detours, and we're not planning to stop them. Ever notice how you can go on vacation and have a really nifty moment at gas station number four, or tell your friends the best story about what happened on the plane in addition to what happened once you got there? That's this fic.

A few notes about Jason's protectiveness—it may be over the top, but I think it's not at all out of character. His best friend and adoptive kid sister broke up while he was taking a break from his relationship with the girl he loved; he and Trini were having a long-distance friendship while leaving it open that they might get back together when Tommy and Kim, perfect couple in their friends' eyes, just fell apart. Jason is an overprotective guy, and he also broods a lot and wonders if things are his fault, as he did when Tommy lost his powers, for example. Plus Trini is a friendly person who probably chats/helps/enjoys the company of many people—and that is innocent on her side but bound to make a boyfriend suspicious. We play it up, but I don't think it's a stretch to have him be a bit of a jealous sort; he's classic Alpha Male. As far as this fic goes, he's thought a lot about the lack of certainty in love, and he's just spent the last week thinking a lot about Tommy and Kim's relationship (because they were both coming to PR Day) while Trini chattered about how nice it would be to see Billy and how much she missed him and the others nonstop for a week, then took off to hang out with her friend overnight while Jason stayed home, feeling their marriage was vulnerable. I don't care who you are, that does things to your psyche. Most of us fear the loss of loved ones a lot, without reminders that our friends have lost theirs.