Chapter Twenty-three
Rangers in the Outfield
1994
"They've been gone a really long time," Kimberly said worriedly.
"Yeah… maybe we should, you know…" Zack began.
"Yes?" Billy prompted.
"Go home and wait for them to call?" Zack finished.
Kimberly rolled her eyes. "How brave of you, Zack. I'm going after them. Coming, Billy?"
"I would rather eviscerate myself than accompany you on an excursion to—"
"Billy, Trini's gone now."
"Sorry. …I… would rather rip my own guts out than… set foot?... in the Sentinel."
"Oh-kay… Zack?"
"Er… well…"
Kimberly sighed. "I'm sure nothing's going on. They're probably fine."
"Oh, good. Then you won't need us. You can go alone."
She rolled her eyes and pulled out her morpher.
Carrie stared in shock at the two brawling Rangers. It had happened so fast. One minute she was getting the Red one to open up like a can of dog food, and the next he had White Ranger in a headlock while White let out strangled gasps and drove his elbow into Red's stomach repeatedly and Red kept stomping on White's foot. The entire staff had given up all pretenses of ignoring the Rangers and was watching openmouthed.
"What the hell?" said a new voice, and everyone turned to see the Pink Ranger staring at them in confusion.
"Your fault somehow," Red was snarling. "Not sure how but yours!"
"You're just jealous!" White choked out.
"Guys!" Pink yelled, grabbing Red and hauling him off of White. Apparently she expected this to end it, because she was totally unprepared when White dove at Red. She squirmed between them at the last second and tried to force them apart, but her smaller size was no match for the two most powerful Rangers, especially given their acute rage. "Guys! Stop it! What are you doing? Now is not the time! YELLOW! BLUE! BLACK! HELP!"
Carrie half-rose from her chair, feeling helpless. She wanted to assist the Pink Ranger in breaking it up… but after all, if another Ranger couldn't do it, then Carrie would probably die trying. She sighed and simply watched, taking mental notes as best she could.
At that moment, Ex No. 2 came skidding around the corner. "Carrie! The features writers wouldn't believe me! And they want their toner back!"
Carrie smacked her forehead. "You didn't cave, did you? They always accuse us of taking their toner! We always deny it!"
"How was I supposed to know that?" Ex No. 2 demanded, wringing his hands. "Who's gonna write the story on them?" he asked, nodding at the rumbling Rangers.
Carrie's mouth set in a grim line. "Me."
"You?"
"Sit down and shut up," Carrie snapped, watching the Rangers carefully.
"Guys!" Pink wailed, getting crushed between the two men as they throttled each other. "I know life hasn't been very easy right now but come on! You're best friends!"
"You threw me to the wolves!" White choked out.
"You sent me out of my zord to wave!" Red retorted. "Never would have happened if you hadn't!"
Pink finally stopped pushing on their chests and jabbed at her left wrist with her right hand. "Blue! Black! Yellow! A LITTLE HELP, PLEASE!"
Two flashes of light appeared, and when it faded the Blue and Black Rangers stood next to their three teammates. Pink was now smushed in between White and Red, slowly suffocating.
"What the—?" the Black Ranger yelled, leaping at White. Blue grabbed Red and heaved, throwing him bodily towards the restrooms.
"About frickin' time!" Pink exploded. "Where have you been?"
"What are you talking about?" Blue asked. "You just now beeped us!"
"I was yelling for you for ages!"
"You know that the helmets' speakers only work when we're in morph," Blue told her.
Pink paused. "Oh."
"Guys," said Black, struggling to restrain White, "can we get out of here?"
With that, the five Power Rangers teleported away.
Present day
"Ah, the good old days," Zack said cheerfully as the team concluded the tale.
"You actually got into a fight with another Ranger in the middle of a newsroom?" Ethan asked Tommy incredulously.
"And they about crushed me in the process," Kimberly said with a playful glare at Jason and Tommy.
Tommy shrugged, embarrassed. "Yeah, well… it was kind of a spontaneous thing. I wasn't always Mr. Responsible."
"You're still not Mr. Responsible," Jason joked, pawing through the box of news clippings.
"Wait," Trent said slowly. "How, exactly, did that end things?"
"Dear old Carrie," Jason said. "Wrote a very moving article about the stress the public and the media were placing upon us. I'm pretty sure that it was her who persuaded those college kids to protest the constant news coverage, because she was the one who wrote the articles on that, too. She made the whole city realize how crazy they were driving us, and the apology was practically a boycott of all Power Rangers-related stories. Sales and ratings plummeted for anyone who covered us extensively. I couldn't stop grinning every time I walked past a newsstand and saw a whole bunch of articles that weren't about us."
"I caught Jason trying to write a letter to Carrie, thanking her," Trini said. "Made him stop. Figured it would just escalate things in a bad way."
"So, there's only one thing left you haven't told us, right?" Conner asked.
"No, I think that's everything," Kimberly said, frowning as she tried to recall.
"But… come on. Who won the fight?" Conner prodded eagerly.
Tommy and Jason looked at each other. Neither of them spoke, but they were both reminded of the end of that fight.
1994
"I give up," Zack said after the fourteenth time his attempt to pull the two apart had gotten him thrown halfway across the clearing. He limped over to the boulder Kimberly and Billy were sharing and plopped down in front of them.
They'd taken Tommy and Jason to the same secluded place in the park where they'd met up to go find Jason. They were all still in morph, because Tommy and Jason hadn't powered down and they were afraid of someone finding them all near the two battling Rangers; besides, they'd needed the power boost of morphing to try to stop them all.
"Trini's still not answering her communicator," Kimberly said worriedly. She'd been trying for half an hour now.
"Tommy hurt her arm, remember?" Billy said. "She would have taken it off to ice up her wrist. Melting ice could have damaged the wiring of the communicator, perhaps beyond repair."
Kimberly swore, then narrowed her eyes and stood up. She pulled out her Power Bow and took careful aim at Jason. They'd been trying to avoid hurting either boy while trying to break them up, but desperate times called for serious ass-kicking.
Kimberly's arrow knocked Jason away from Tommy and into a tree. Before he could get back up, Kimberly grabbed Tommy by the arm and shook him.
"You are both acting like three-year-olds!" she shouted. "I don't know what your malfunction is, but stop it! Now!"
With that, Kimberly marched off through the woods, demorphing as she went. Billy and Zack hurried after her. Tommy sighed. Great. Now he'd upset Kimberly.
Tommy turned to look at Jason and warily powered down. Jason stood up and did the same. They stared each other down for a long moment and then they burst out laughing.
"Red Pop?" Tommy asked Jason incredulously through his laughter.
"It's good stuff," Jason said defensively.
"Whatever, man," Tommy said, shrugging. "I prefer Rock and Rye, myself." They laughed themselves out for a while longer, walking over to the boulder and plopping down on it.
"You should have seen the look on Trini's face when I grabbed her arm," Tommy said.
"You should have seen the look on those people's faces when I started screaming at them," Jason said. "Here I am, ranting about how horrible the reporters of Angel Grove are, only to realize I'm talking to the sports department. The copyeditors of the sports department."
"Here I was gonna ask if you got to meet one of the sports reporters," Tommy joked.
"No such luck. Although I did make a new friend." Jason shook his head ruefully and laughed again. "Oh, life is so crazy. It's days like these I feel like pitching my morpher off a cliff."
Tommy frowned, suddenly troubled. "Did I ever tell you what Zordon said when I asked him why he decided to make me leader?"
Jason stared at him. "You asked him why he did it?"
Tommy nodded. "Before you guys even found out about the White Ranger. Zordon told me I was going to be leader and I panicked, thinking you would hate me. Things between me and you guys were kind of rocky as it was, what with me losing my powers and everything. I didn't want to upset anyone. So I asked. And Zordon told me that he did it because he sensed you were going to leave."
"Me? Leave? Are you insane?" Jason jumped up. "I would never leave the team!"
Tommy sighed. "Zordon says we all will eventually. He said he chose you as leader solely on intuition and mystic divination, or something like that. It was really confusing. Anyway, he said that he sensed it was almost time for you to move on, so he needed to ensure that there would be a leader once you were gone. And he chose me."
Jason stared at him. That made sense. After himself, without Tommy in the equation, Jason would have chosen Trini to be leader… but Tommy had shown amazing character during his time as the Green Ranger and his power loss. Tommy had proven himself. So Jason had forced down any doubts and upset when Zordon had referred to the White Ranger as the new leader. It had thrown him, and for a while he had wondered if he had done something wrong, but he knew that it wasn't very likely for Zordon to punish Jason for anything, and Jason couldn't recall a single instance of wrongdoing… well, wrongdoing major enough to take away his leadership, anyway. Jason had brooded a lot about the loss… though he hadn't ever begrudged Tommy the new role. He had simply wondered why. Now he knew.
Trini was the only other person on the team that Jason felt could possibly be a great leader… Trini understood people, and was honorable, but even so Jason wasn't so sure she could pull it off. Zack was a good guy, but often rash. Billy was very smart, but tended to absorb himself in his work, and his dedication was to inventing, not to fighting. Neither was Kimberly's; she was fun-loving and spirited—the word "wishy-washy" just seemed to describe her perfectly—and Jason certainly couldn't see her calmly making life-and-death decisions. Kimberly let her emotions rule her actions, and the decisions Jason had been forced to make would have destroyed Kimberly. He knew that they would do the same for the cheerful Zack, the shy Billy and probably the (usually) peaceful Trini. Tommy, though…
"You are the best choice," Jason conceded. "You're the strongest. You're the bravest. You're probably the best person for the job, if I was going to leave. But I'm not going to leave the team. I would never leave."
"Jason," Tommy said in exasperation, "think about it. I know I have. Ten years from now, do you really want to be running around in spandex fighting evil in your spare time? Risking losing your job because you had to skip work to fight evil or because you got, I don't know,trapped in rockor turned evil or whatever? I don't know about you, but I'm not prepared to do this forever. I want to go to college, and I want to have a nice job, and I want a family one day. I want a life where my friends and family aren't jeopardized because they've got ties to a Power Ranger. I want to travel and eventually I want to be able to live without the knowledge that I may have to run off and fight at a moment's notice. You want that too, Jason, we all do. These past few weeks aside, we love being Rangers… but we're all gonna leave the team eventually. Besides, what exactly are we going to do with ourselves once Rita and Zedd are finally obliterated?"
Jason shifted uncomfortably, and Tommy plowed on. "As weird as it is to say, we're all kick-ass people, Jason," Tommy said. "Billy was probably accepted to Harvard by the age of two. Trini's almost as smart as him. Kimberly will probably be a great gymnast one day, traveling the world to compete."
"Or she'll become the Infamous Saks Fifth Avenue Bandit," Jason deadpanned.
Tommy paused. "Is it bad that I can actually see that happening?" He had a sudden vision of Kimberly, her Pink Ranger suit dyed black, kicking butt on high class department store security guards and running off with numerous shopping bags full of shiny things. He shook his head vigorously. "Anyway. Zack will probably run off soon enough, dancing through the world and making people laugh. And you are an incredible fighter, and a good guy besides; who knows where you'll end up? Me, though, I want to settle down one day. Live the quiet life. I'm not sure what I'll be doing when I do, but that's what I want. None of us will stay here in Angel Grove forever, going to Angel Grove Community College and forsaking all the opportunities we could have as civilians. Even if we wanted to, Zordon wouldn't allow it."
Tommy stood up and regarded him sadly. "Zordon's right, Jason. You're not destined to spend the rest of your life as a Power Ranger. Neither am I. These past few weeks have just emphasized how stressful the Ranger gig can be. We'll have to move on eventually. And I'm only leader right now because Zordon thinks you're going to move on first."
Jason bit his lip, suddenly thinking of the Peace Conference application he'd sent in. He had planned to turn it down if he got in, he'd just wanted to see if he'd be able to get past the selection process. Hundreds of thousands of people had applied. But in the back of his mind, it had sounded like a beautiful dream. Traveling the world, helping people, getting a top-notch education and having incredible experiences…
"Maybe," Jason said. "But I sure as hell hope not." He sighed and looked Tommy straight in the eye. "I'm not jealous, Tommy. I'm really not. I'm happy for you. In some ways… it's a relief, not to be leader. I'm so glad to be rid of the leadership that I feel guilty about it. Besides, the team's in good hands."
"I hope I do as well as you did," Tommy said quietly. "I know I haven't always been a model leader. But I'm working on it. I'm trying harder. And I'm going to keep trying harder, Jase."
Jason smiled. "Good. Cuz according to Zordon, I'm not always going to be around to cover your butt when you're making out with Kim."
"Hey," Tommy complained. "You're no saint yourself, buddy! I know there's something going on between you and Trini. And if you don't come clean, I'll just have to prove it."
Jason shrugged. "I've been dating Trini for months."
Tommy nearly fell over. "What?"
"I am dating Trini. I adore her. I've been madly in love with the girl for years." Jason gave him a playful glare. "So you can stop hiding in the bushes outside my house whenever she's over, okay?"
Tommy smiled, shaking his head. So that was it, then. The air was finally clear between them. For the first time since their friendship began, Tommy felt, deep in his gut, an overwhelming certainty that no matter what, he and Jason would always be best friends.
Present day
"Earth to Dr. O?" Kira said tentatively as he and Jason stared at each other.
Tommy shook his head as if to clear it. "Hmm? Oh. The fight." He told them an abbreviated version of the laughing fit they'd had, but he failed to mention the conversation about leaving the team. How odd it seemed now… Tommy insisting that they'd have to move on one day?
"Then I told him that Zordon had only made me the leader of the team because he felt Jason was about to leave. That was less than a month before the Peace Conference, by the way," Tommy said.
"How did he know?" Ethan asked.
"Remember how I told you that the power chooses you?" Tommy asked. The four teens nodded. "Well, Zordon was the power."
"When he first brought us to the Command Center, he talked like he knew us," Billy said. "He was highly intuitive."
"And he knew Jason was getting ready to move on," Tommy said. "That's what I told Jason after our spat."
Jason laughed. "You also said that, ten years from then, you didn't want to still be a Power Ranger." He shook his head and laughed harder.
Tommy also laughed at the irony. "Well, I learned my lesson. No more verbalized hopes for the future. Ever." They both cracked up, and the others smiled.
"Didn't you just tell me at prom that you wanted to continue teaching and live the quiet life?" Trent said suddenly, looking uneasy.
The others burst into giggles as Tommy stared at him. Trent shifted uncomfortably.
"Trent?" Tommy said slowly.
"Yeah?"
"Never mention that again."
"But—"
"No. If I don't admit it, it didn't happen."
"Anyway," Jason said as his laugher quieted, "that was the day I told him the truth about me and Trini, too. That was the last time Tommy and I ever had a serious fight."
Tommy nodded. That was why Jason had felt it was necessary to tell Tommy that he wasn't trying to take back the leadership when Jason had returned as the Gold Ranger—Zordon had done it because Jason was leaving, so what was Tommy supposed to think when Jason came back? Though he hated to admit it, that statement from Jason had filled Tommy with deep relief.
Jason unearthed three papers from the bottom of the box, two of the Sentinel and one of the Angel Grove Clarion. "Ah-ha! Here they are. The Carrie stuff."
"Oh, yeah," Trini said, snatching the Clarion article. "I was so offended by this!" She turned the paper around to show to everyone. Its headline read, "Who Is Carrie Jeffries?" and the subheading said, "Why Was Red So Friendly?" "Apparently the Clarion thought Jason's hanging out with this Carrie girl, combined with her yellow shirt, might mean she was the Yellow Ranger, because Yellow and Red were rumored to be dating. I pitched a fit. Didn't speak to Jason for two days after I saw it. First and last time I was ever insanely jealous."
"And this was Carrie's response," Jason said, holding up one of the other articles. "The second story she ever wrote—replying to the Clarion. She really ripped them a new one, wording it so subtly that it took you a minute to understand every line was an attack on the other paper. But this…" He set down Carrie's rebuttal and held up the other Sentinel article, with the title, "The Stress We Place on Our Heroes." "This was what she wrote about me. Stopped the crazed identity-seeking in its tracks. All about how much pressure we were under and how ungrateful the city was being to add other stress." He set it down reverently. "I have it framed at home." A wistful look crossed his features. "I wish I could've thanked her. I still read every article she writes."
"It was really nice of her," Trini conceded, though she looked at the picture of Carrie on the Clarion article with a distinctly unpleasant expression.
Ernie chuckled. "You know, back then, I always felt so privileged to know that I was probably one of the only people to ever figure out who you guys were. Now I realize I wasn't half as in the know as I thought. You were some amazing kids." He nodded at Conner, Kira, Ethan and Trent. "And I bet you four followed nicely in their footsteps." The four teens beamed at him.
Kimberly raised an eyebrow at him. "Ernie, we just told you about how Jason went crazy, got locked in a death match with Tommy, and then I had to shoot him with my Power Bow."
"That really did hurt," Jason said mildly.
Ernie shrugged. "Still, you guys amaze me."
"Thanks," she said, blushing. The others all nodded.
Ernie started to say something else, then caught sight of the clock on the wall and smacked his forehead. "Oh, man, I was supposed to close twenty minutes ago."
"We really should get going, anyway," Billy said with a sigh. "I promised my father I'd come by early in the morning, and I still have no idea what I'm going to say. Plus I'm kind of tired."
"Jetlag from an alien planet must totally suck," Conner said.
"It does. But… my primary concern is what I'm going to say."
Ernie gave him a sympathetic smile. "Say hi to him for me. Good man, Mr. Cranston. I'm kind of beat myself, anyway—but you guys will come back again, right?"
"Ernie, have you ever known us to stay away for long?" Jason asked with a wry smile. "If I'd known you were back, I'd have pitched a tent in the parking lot."
"Same here," Zack said. "We'll be back soon. Coming to Power Rangers Day?"
"Wouldn't miss it," Ernie said promptly. "Though I hope I don't get kidnapped again. That wasn't the best day ever. Oh, and by the way, thanks for the rescuing-the-entire-town thing."
"No big," Kimberly said with a shrug.
Ernie looked at her funny for moment, as though slightly offended by that, but then he just smiled and showed them out, and they headed for their cars. "Where to now?" Tommy asked.
"I was thinking me and Billy could stay at the hotel tonight," Jason said. "Party hard. Plus Trini's just down the hall." He smiled wickedly at her; she blushed. Zack, Tommy and Kimberly rolled their eyes, though Billy fought off a grin.
"Sounds good to me," Tommy said.
"You can regale us with all the fascinating stories of Reefside," Zack said eagerly. Tommy had yet to get a chance to tell the guys all the tales of his new Ranger days.
"The fossil stories?" Conner said. "Better than sleeping pills."
"Don't start, Conner," Tommy said good-naturedly.
They split up, heading for their two vehicles. As Kimberly climbed into Zack's SUV, she couldn't help feeling a twinge of panic. Did she really want to go through with her plans to talk to Tommy?
Don't you dare chicken out, she told herself firmly. I'm not letting him out of my life again without a fight. And I'm a damned good fighter.
Kimberly buckled up and leaned back in the seat, plotting her next move carefully.
"So are you guys showering tonight, or in the morning?" Kira asked as she, Trini and Kimberly entered their room.
"We just showered a few hours ago," Kimberly said with a shrug. "I can wait."
"I—er—kind of want to shower now," Trini said sheepishly. "I didn't get a chance to earlier."
Kimberly wrinkled her nose in disgust. "Too much information, Trini. Way too much."
Kira wasn't sure whether to grimace or laugh; she settled for ignoring the comment and shrugging. "I think I might go see what the guys are up to, if you guys don't care. Make sure they don't sneak out again and force me to rescue them in my pajamas."
"Good plan," Kimberly said casually. "I'm gonna go… take a walk."
Trini arched an eyebrow. "A walk?"
Kimberly nodded, praying that she could manage to fool Trini. "Yep. A walk."
"Okay," Trini said with a sly smile. Kimberly edged to the door, Trini watching her the whole time. Before Kira could follow her out into the hall, Trini grabbed her arm.
"What?" Kira asked, confused.
"Kim's up to something," Trini whispered. "And I'm going to find out what. Are you in?"
Kira grinned. "Of course." She paused. "Weren't you going to take a shower, though?"
Trini waved her hand dismissively. "Ah, details, details. Trust me, this is going to be much more important than cleanliness."
Kira paused, frowning slightly. "More important… than showering?"
Trini sighed. "I feel gross enough as it is. Can we not dwell, here?" Trini crossed to the door and propped it open with the door stop. She and Kira leaned as close to it as they could.
"So then I go, 'Can't help you there. I'm just a high school science teacher,'" Tommy told Jason, Billy and Zack with a grin. They laughed uproariously.
"Oh, that's great," Zack gasped. "I wish I could've seen the look on his face."
Tommy waved his hand. "He didn't really have a very expressive face. It was the snout. And the beady eyes. And he always had this weird spitting tongue thing when he… anyway, he was so pissed," Tommy recalled with relish. He started to continue, but a knock sounded on the door, and he got up to answer it. "Aww, man. I hadn't even got to the part where I said, 'Why can't you just want to take over the Earth like all the other sickos?'"
Tommy pulled open the door, still facing the guys, who were laughing hysterically at Tommy's last comment. "Oh, what I wouldn't give to say that to Ze—" Jason's words halted abruptly, and his eyes widened at the sight of who was in the doorway. Tommy turned slowly, a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.
"Hi." Kimberly gave him a small smile.
"Hey, Kim!" Zack and Jason chorused, far too brightly. Billy waved emphatically
"What's up?" Tommy asked her, shifting nervously. An instinctual sense of foreboding suddenly stole over him.
"I wanted to talk to you," Kimberly told him, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.
Tommy blinked, acutely aware of the fact that Zack, Jason and Billy were dead silent behind him; he didn't need to look at them to know they were all sitting frozen and holding their breath. "What about?" he asked, resisting the urge to take a step back. She wasn't being intimidating, but he suddenly felt like it was time to be afraid. Kimberly wasn't an "I want to talk to you" person. She was a person who said what she wanted to talk to you about with very little reservations or preamble. She tended to bring the word "ambush" to mind. Of course, that was the old Kim; who knew if she was still the same? Besides, it wasn't like their situation was perfectly natural.
Kimberly looked over Tommy's shoulder at the three staring guys, who promptly turned to each other and tried to look busy, talking to one another loudly but not loud enough to drown out anything juicy that Kimberly might say. "Let's take a walk," Kimberly said, grabbing Tommy's arm. Before he could react, she hauled him out into the hallway and pulled the door shut. They could clearly hear loud whispering from inside the room and the sounds of Jason, Zack and Billy piling up to listen at the door.
"Come on," Kimberly said, and yanked on his arm, dragging him down the hallway.
"Kim, what—"
"In a minute! Let's get out of the hall."
"Uh… Kim?"
She ignored him. A moment later, she pushed on the half-open door to room 603 and looked around at Conner, Ethan and Trent, who were having some sort of contest to see who could jump the highest on Conner's bed.
"Hey!" Kimberly called loudly, nearly killing them all; badly startled, it was all they could do not to fall off the bed as they crashed into each other.
"Jesus!" Ethan complained as Trent and Conner tried to disentangle themselves from him. "You scared us to death."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Kimberly said impatiently. "Everybody, out!"
"What?" Trent said blankly.
"Out!" she barked, and Tommy didn't need to see her face to know she was doing her patented Pink Ranger Glower. "Go do something. Go… go down to the pool. Go on!"
Trent and Ethan scurried away, eyes wide, but Conner remained behind, frowning. Kimberly put her hands on her hips, and his resolve began to quickly weaken, but most of his fear regarding Kimberly was all for Tommy, not for Kimberly herself. So he kept it together just long enough to give Kimberly and Tommy a suspicious look and ask, "Are you guys gonna make out?"
Tommy, who for the most part had been trying to catch up with Kimberly's odd behavior, abruptly returned to action. He lunged forward, seized Conner by the shirt front, and flung him bodily out into the hallway. Conner barely managed to stay upright, his arms wind-milling like mad as he collided with the far wall. Tommy pulled the door shut firmly, but not before Conner shouted, "Just try and use Trent's bed!"
Tommy closed his eyes, praying for the strength to fight off this new twist in the path of weirdness that was his life, which was hard to do when half of his mind was growling "Die Conner die" over and over and the other half was shouting "You idiot! You just locked yourself in with Kimberly! Are you insane?" After a long moment involving lots of failed attempts at deep breaths, Kimberly pulled him over to one of the beds (Conner's, but Tommy doubted they were going to "make out" and anyway it would serve Conner right if they did something much worse on Conner's bed) and sat him down.
Tommy waited for her to speak, wondering how on earth they were going to explain this impromptu meeting to their friends.
Trini gaped at the door behind which Kimberly had disappeared. Trini's vantage point was terrible for espionage of the romantic variety, but she'd been unable to risk moving any closer. The involvement of Tommy in whatever Kimberly was planning hadn't been a total shock, but it had been enough to risk peering out into the corridor with Kira. She couldn't believe it; Kimberly had just barricaded herself in a bedroom with Tommy! Yes!
"Did you see that?" Trini breathed.
"What was that about him using Trent's bed?" Kira asked, her face screwed up like someone who was trying to make the most disgusting mental image ever disappear. As far as Kira was concerned, Dr. O "using" Trent's bed was the ultimate horror.
"Come on!" Trini hissed. "We've got to hear this!"
Kira groaned. "If it's all the same to you, I think I'll cover my ears," she muttered, but she followed Trini anyway.
End Notes: That's right, folks, Tommy/Kim convo is next! Thanksto those of you who voted; no word on the results yet but I appreciate the sentiment regardless of the outcome. Sorry, no hints this time.