Chapter Twenty-four

Another Song and Dance

"I can't hear anything!" Zack complained.

"Shut up and you might!" Jason snapped. Just then, however, someone knocked on the door, seriously upsetting Jason, Billy and Zack's eardrums.

Disentangling himself from the other two, Billy pulled the door open to reveal Ethan and Trent. "What's up, guys?" Billy asked, casually sticking his head out into the hallway and turning it this way and that to look for Tommy and Kimberly.

"Um… Dr. O and Kim just locked themselves in our room," Ethan said. "We were hoping you could do something about it."

"Conner said something about them using my bed," Trent added desperately.

Billy, Jason and Zack looked at each other, then as one unit they burst out of the room and ran down the hall to Conner, Trent and Ethan's room; three muted thunks sounded as they pressed their ears against the door.

"They're totally making out," Conner said with a smirk. "Why else would they kick us out?"

"Will you stop saying that?" Trent fairly wailed. "It's sick!"

"What? They're not your parents," Conner said.

"Close enough," Trent groaned, wrinkling his nose.

"What? Dr. O could use a good—"

"SHH!" Jason hissed. "We're trying to eavesdrop here!"

Conner clammed up, mostly because he was still striving to impress Jason. They all leaned a bit closer to the door, but all they heard was someone behind them ask, "What are you doing?"

There was a loud chorus of "OW!" as the six guys bumped heads while trying to lean away from the door, followed by an even louder chorus of "SHH!" "Shut up!" and "Be quiet!"

"Honey! Kira!" Jason nervously greeted the two yellow-clad girls, who were staring at them in confusion. "You know, this might look kinda odd, but I can explain—"

"Dr. O threw us out of our room so he can make out with Kimberly on Trent's bed," Conner interrupted.

Jason sighed. "Dude—training. Get some."

"What?" Trini demanded, pushing Jason and Zack aside and shoving her head against the door as well.

"Are you serious?" Kira demanded.

"Kimberly came in and told us to go to the pool," Trent told her. "Dr. O was with her. That's ALL we know," he added defiantly to Conner.

"Uh-huh. Sure," Conner replied, smirking as hard as ever.

Kimberly sighed as she heard the commotion in the hallway. "Maybe the balcony would be best," she said thoughtfully.

"There isn't one in this room," Tommy said.

She sighed again. "Great."

"What did you want to talk about?" Tommy asked carefully, figuring he might as well get it over with.

Kimberly looked down at her feet, almost wishing for another distraction (almost, mind you). Now that the moment was here, her courage was rapidly leaking out of her expensive sandals. "I… I realized something today."

"That Vanilla Ice had some sort of mind-altering capability to make us think he was cool?"

Kimberly blinked, then grinned, but the moment was short-lived. That was just the sort of sarcastic comment that she wouldn't have expected from the old Tommy, but the new Tommy seemed to make them all the time. Where had his cynical side come from? Had it always been lying dormant only to be pulled out by one too many Power Ranger colors?

"No—I already knew that," she replied. "I meant… I realized something… about you."

Whoa, Tommy thought wildly. SO not ready for this conversation.

Before Tommy could choke out a response, she continued. "Today… when Hayley called…"

"She's not my girlfriend," Tommy blurted out, to his complete and utter horror. Where had THAT come from?

"I know. Trini said… it's not important. It's not about that. It's… things never should have been this way. Even if we…" She exhaled sharply and started over. "I want to be friends, Tommy. I'll understand if you don't want that, if you laugh in my face and storm off and knock over all of our friends on your way out the door. I'd kind of expect that, really. But Tommy… things never should have been this way!" She twisted her hands together, regarding him pleadingly. "I miss you. Not you the boyfriend—just you. I miss having you around. I want you in my life. I want to bury the past and be what we should have become when we broke up—friends."

Tommy stared at her, fully aware that every second he stayed silent was making it all the worse for Kimberly but unable to come up with anything halfway intelligent to say. Out of nowhere, out of nowhere, out of nowhere with this! What am I supposed to say? What am I supposed to DO? Damn it, if only Jason, Zack and Billy weren't blocking the door right now!

Think, Tommy. Tell her what you want. What do I want? Come to think of it, now I kind of want to make out with her on Conner's bed, just to—no, no, no, FOCUS. What do I want? What the hell, friends? NOW she wants to be friends? She couldn't have said that in the stupid letter? No mention of friends in the letter. Just I will always care about you sorry for ripping your heart out you'd love my new boyfriend if you didn't want to kill him slowly and now friends?

It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her to go to hell… but he held back. He knew that if he shot her down now, he'd never see her again… and that was far too sobering a thought. He'd lived over ten years without Kimberly, and that was far too many. He wanted her back in his life. He wanted her to be there, like Hayley, like Trini, like all his other friends. He missed her. He missed her laugh, her shopping obsession, her wicked grin whenever she conned him into something by playing the Damsel Card. He missed her cheerfulness and her glib puns and her caring nature. He did want her in his life… and yet "friends" wasn't nearly the word he wanted to use to describe her relationship with him.

He had a sudden urge to grab her, to shake her, to kiss her, to hit her. He loved her. He was furious with her. He hated her. He wanted her. Every emotion he'd ever felt for Kimberly was unresolved and still there, threatening to burst out at the mere thought of what she was asking. He wondered what she'd do if he did try to make out with her, if he did break down and start screaming. Would she let him kiss her? Would she scream back? Would she—?

"Tommy I'm having a panic attack here, say something."

Tommy jolted back to reality with a start. Kimberly, who'd been watching the emotions flicker in his eyes like the TV stations when someone accidentally sits on the remote control, was staring at him desperately. It occurred to him suddenly that she was sorry. She was sorry for every bit of pain she'd ever caused him. Despite how much she'd apologized in the letter he'd never thought she might actually have regrets.

"Okay."

"Okay… what?" Kimberly asked carefully.

Tommy tried to respond, made a noise that sounded sort of like "Kuth-put-thh," and tried again. "I want you in my life, Kim. I want your friendship. I want to start over. I want you around again. I've always wanted you around again," he said in a rush, as though his thoughts would extinguish if he didn't get it all out in one breath.

The next thing he knew, Kimberly had thrown her arms around his neck; startled, he hugged her back, and abruptly realized how good it felt to do so. They'd found closure, at least a little. For the first time, something about the mess with Kimberly was really and truly over.

He pulled back, frowning thoughtfully. "Kim—I want to move on, I really do. But I don't know if it's possible."

"What's the harm in trying?" she asked desperately. "I mean, hey, we can't hurt each other any worse, right?"

Tommy nodded, grimacing slightly. "I suppose that's true."

She smiled wanly at him. "Look, let's just try. Let's just ignore the past and get on with life. Catch up. Pretend I've been living on an alien planet for the past decade, okay?"

"Shouldn't be that hard. I've already studied the role of friend-to-resident-of-other-planet."

She grinned and stood up. "So… I'll see you in the morning?"

He nodded. "Absolutely. We should talk more, soon as we get the chance."

"You can tell me what happened to your hair," she said, giggling.

He was torn between smiling and wincing. "Don't like to talk about it. There was fire involved. And tomato sauce."

She laughed. "Sounds like you."

"Yeah," he said long-sufferingly. "Yeah, it really does."

Kimberly headed for the door; they heard a scuffle from the hallway, as though their friends were scurrying to find hiding places. She shook her head and reached for the handle.

"Wait," Tommy called. Kimberly paused, looking at him questioningly, but he turned away and looked down at Conner's bed, which was littered with random objects (which Ethan had thrown at his head all night in the hopes of getting the snoring to stop even for a moment), while the blankets were in a pile at the end of the bed. Tommy reached over and swept the objects from the bed, threw one of the pillows across the room, and then grabbed the blankets, shook them out and put them back on the bed in a more haphazard line.

Kimberly, realizing what he was doing, arched an eyebrow at him. "Protecting your manly reputation?"

"Nah," Tommy said with an apologetic shrug. "Just messing with Conner."

She laughed, and Tommy felt his spirits lift. She had shared in the joke—she hadn't admonished him for it or acted embarrassed. Maybe there was hope, after all.

It appeared that their pause had made their friends think that they weren't going to come out of the room after all; they were in the process of creeping slowly back to their posts at the door. Kimberly didn't make it two feet before she found herself surrounded by the other Rangers, and she didn't have time to warn Tommy before he stepped out into their midst. They all gave him casual smiles, their eagerness to hear the dirt barely contained.

"So," Jason said.

"So," Tommy replied coolly.

"What's going on?" Trini asked Kimberly off-handedly.

"Nothing, you?" Kimberly returned challengingly.

"Were you two really making out?" Zack blurted out, utterly destroying the finesse of the verbal sparring match.

Tommy grinned. "Of course we were," he replied. Trent's eyes widened in horror and he dove into the bedroom to see if Tommy had indeed been using Trent's bed, thus creating a gap in the air-tight enclosure of ex-Rangers around Tommy and Kimberly, which Tommy stepped through and casually sauntered away. Tommy's mood improved even more when he heard Kimberly laugh and fall into step behind him, passing him on the way to her own room as he stopped at Zack's. He turned to look after her for a moment, and suddenly his good mood shattered. For some reason, he couldn't shake the feeling that this hopeful new friendship was just that—hopeful. Hope, it seemed, had never been a wise thing to have in matters regarding Kimberly.

"I miss you. Not you the boyfriend—just you." Tommy frowned. Had she really meant it that way? Did she really feel absolutely no connection to him romantically?

No. Tommy had heard her say she still cared about him when he'd snuck onto her balcony. And that she still thinks I'm hot. Tommy put a hand to his hair contemplatively.

Tommy wasn't surprised to hear his friends break out into shocked whispers behind him; that meant he had less than two minutes to barricade himself in the bathroom with enough provisions for a few hours of hiding out from inquiring minds. Now was not the time for reflection; he'd have plenty of opportunity for that while hiding. He was now kicking himself for having his moment of fun; they were sure to blow his joke out of proportion and annoy the crap out of him and put him back in the awkward stage with Kimberly. His mood worsened—but it lightened considerably when, a few minutes later, he heard Conner's disgusted shout of "Oh, sick! I told him to use Trent's bed!" soon followed by Kira, Trent and Ethan's rancorous laughter.

Billy's eyes snapped open at approximately five a.m. the next day and suddenly he found himself full of trepidation. Today would be the first time he'd get to see his father since coming back to Earth to pick up his things… and he still hadn't come up with a strategy.

Billy winced as he climbed out of the bed. He and Jason had thoroughly enjoyed staying over with Tommy and Zack; while they couldn't get Tommy to talk about the Kimberly thing after Tommy emerged from the bathroom, they'd had a blast asking Tommy about being the Black Ranger and reliving the old days, swapping stories about after Jason and Zack had left with tales of the Peace Conference until roughly three hours ago when they'd started passing out one by one. It had filled Billy with a great longing for the past, as much as he had enjoyed it.

Billy had assumed, upon leaving Aquitar, that being on Earth would just remind him of all the things he loved about Aquitar. But it didn't. All it reminded him of was how much he missed Earth.

Billy looked down at himself ruefully as he headed for the bathroom. His old clothes had lasted a very long time, but he'd left seven years ago and few outfits lasted that long. He'd come to enjoy wearing Aquitian clothing, but he had never fully gotten used to the fact that Aquitians didn't wear underwear or pajamas. He'd brought a few pairs of very old, ill-fitting underwear to wear under his friends' borrowed clothes… and while he'd become accustomed to the alien attire he couldn't help but feel like singing at the feel of cotton. It frightened him to realize how badly he missed boxers and jeans.

And the food… now he knew how Rocky must have felt all the time. He was having trouble not making himself sick. Pizza, hamburgers, fries… what he wouldn't give for a good guacamole cheeseburger. Oh, and chili. And chocolate, chocolate was sinfully wonderful…

He couldn't help but be overwhelmed by all the things Aquitians didn't have. The smell of fresh-cut grass. Smoothies. Video games. Cheese. Denim. Contact lenses. Dogs. Coca-Cola. Showerheads. Toothpaste. Cartoons. Forests.

Trini, Jason, Tommy, Kimberly, Zack. Kat, Aisha, Rocky, Adam, Tanya. Alpha and Zordon and Ernie.

His father.

How had Billy allowed Aquitar to make up for it? Sure, he had many Aquitian friends. Sure, he had Cestria. Yet his contact with Earth was weakening. His work was demanding, and his friends on Earth were busy people.

"Face it," he mumbled to the bathroom mirror. "You were depressed when you left. That's why you stayed."

That was true. His powers were gone, and the realization that he couldn't become the Gold Ranger had made him think he would probably never have the power again. True, he had let go of the power. He had given it to Tanya and stepped aside, realizing that the fight against the Machine Empire would probably be better handled by the others, whereas he could be of real use to them in the Power Chamber. And it had been his senior year—the year he really needed to concentrate on his academics. Or at least, he would have, if he hadn't been practically kicked out of the school. He missed being on the team, and every moment when the others hung out without him was like a knife in the chest, a horrifying thought that "Billy isn't one of us anymore." Only Jason's return had kept him sane… but Billy had been so unhappy. No school to take his mind off things, no Ranger abilities, no Trini, no Kimberly, no Zack.

The sad thing was, one of the few things he'd looked forward to upon leaving the team was the end of lying to his father. That hadn't lasted either—he'd had to run off and help so often that he might as well have been a Ranger. He was terrible at lying, and it had bothered him immensely, especially because he and his father had gotten incredibly close ever since his mother had died. It tore him up every time he had to do it, which was one of the reasons that he'd often let Trini or the others make excuses for him when he had to.

Trini… her move had bothered him a lot. She was the only one who could understand him, not just what he said. She had a good grasp of a lot of the things Billy did—computers, science, math—and yet she also knew the rest of the world, helping him understand the outside world, encouraging him to develop other interests. Billy had also been forced to rework his entire speech patterns, which was distracting and difficult.

It also hadn't helped that his love life was nonexistent. Trini with Jason, Tommy with Kimberly, Adam with Tanya, Zack and Rocky cheerfully playing the field. Billy hadn't been able to keep a girl around long enough to become a girlfriend; most of the girls who liked him were just as smart as he was and had no other interests like his friends did, and somehow conversations with other "geeks" never seemed to last. There were only so many times you could discuss quantum physics before the subject got boring. All of his childhood friends had left Angel Grove. Then Kat had confided in him that she liked Tommy—and Billy had been crushed to hear it, having long-since harbored feelings for her.

Then he'd found himself back on Aquitar with Cestria. Cestria had been the first person other than Trini that he'd really related to—a genius, to be sure, but the culture barrier had ensured they'd have a lot to learn from each other, and she was also very active, very interested in his tales about sports he'd played with his friends and so on. Like Trini, Cestria had more to her than her intelligence. His recovery time had been the first really good time he'd had in a long time—and when it had come time to come home, he had been filled with dread.

So he'd stayed on Aquitar, returning for his things when he could, explaining to his father that he'd been given the chance to work for the government. He'd used Aquitar to forget how unhappy he'd become on Earth… and now he realized that he should have been using Earth to forget how unhappy he'd become.

"You don't appreciate what you've got until it's gone," he whispered. He looked around the bathroom sadly. Toilet, sink, towels, bathtub and shower. So different from the Aquitar system. So much better. Even the simple things like this.

Billy didn't want to leave Cestria. He loved her. He loved the Alien Rangers and his other friends. He had tried hard to bring them simple Earth things like basketball and video games, some of which had gone over better than others. They had been very interested in the concept of ice cream, for example, but without cows, goats or any other sort of mammals, Billy had been unable to find a way to get milk for the process. Popsicles were working out better, but they were still a prototype.

Billy hopped in the shower, wondering what he was going to say to his father today, what he could tell him that wouldn't be total lies and fabrications. He was going to have to be careful about his friends and the teens; he had absolutely no idea if his father would buy the cover story he'd thought up for Dino Rangers, and he couldn't very well explain the truth. How he wished he could tell his father everything in his new life…

How he wished he had his old life back.

End Notes: This story has won first place in the "Best Laugh" category in the Power Rangers Couples' Awards! Thanks so much to those of you who voted for us! I can't stop grinning…

Sorry for the angsty ending. Don't know where the hell it came from. Sometimes I think there's a colony of little demons that live in my fingers and type up whatever the hell they feel like. Anyway, hope you enjoyed the Tommy/Kim moment. Now that we've had that, the really funny torturous bits of—I mean, um, the rebuilding of the relationship, honest—can begin.

I'm probably going to do some minor editing for this story within the next few weeks. I want to take out all the mentions of dates—how long it's been, what year flashbacks happened, etc.—and change a few things. I'll tell you when and what I do.

The next chapter won't be up for a while, probably, because it's time for boys' basketball district tournaments at work, and that means I'm going to be busy as hell, with extra hours and editing and scheduling and all sorts of crap. I will probably only have time to sleep, work and watch Power Rangers until the 11th of March. I also need to do some serious editing on my stories in my other fandom so… hate to say it, but this story might suffer a bit for the next few weeks. Fair warning.

Hints time!

1) "It's not important," Tommy said. "I don't care where she is—as long as it isn't Florida—because I'm going after her. If you're coming with me, let's go."

2) Rocky held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. "Hey, lady, I have no idea what's going on. I just ran into them twenty minutes ago."

3) He hugged Hayley for a good long while, waiting as patiently as he could for her to pull back. When she finally did, she naturally began hitting him—hard.

4) "Don't mess with me, Trini," Tommy growled. "I'm not one of your little dolls you can toy with. Neither is Kim. What happens is up to me."

Trini smiled darkly at him, lifting both hands and patting his chest mock-consolingly. "That's right, Tommy. Keep telling yourself that."

5) "You do that, honey, and try not to get killed," Hayley said sleepily. A click sounded as she hung up her phone.

6) "Was he better-looking than me?" Tommy asked suddenly.

7) "Security system armed. You have ten seconds to deactivate primary countermeasures. Please enter one of the passwords now. Ten…"

P.S. All hints—these, previous and future—are from rough drafts of future chapters. They might change, but only slightly. Some of them are from flashbacks, by the way.