Chapter Thirty-nine

Forever Red

Kira smiled happily to herself as Kimberly brushed out her hair, Trini lying in front of them and reading a book she'd bought at Wal-Mart. The weirdness with Dr. O was over, and she had chocolate, and she was hanging out with just The Girls, which was something she hadn't gotten to do very often since the day she became a Ranger; she hadn't had many girl friends to begin with, but once she added Conner, Ethan and Trent to the equation she hardly ever got to interact with females, so she was grateful for the break, especially with two people as cool as Kimberly and Trini. Not only that, but Kimberly and Trini had decided to forego rehashing how funny their torturing Dr. O had been for Kira's sake, so she was free to ask them some of the things she'd been dying to know. However, before she could, Kimberly said, "Hey, Trini?"

Trini looked up and shut the book. "Hmm?"

"That bit you were saying about coming to Ashley's wedding late… because of you having to ream Jason out for that whole mission to the moon thing…"

"Yeah?"

Kimberly shifted. "You mentioned that mission in Jason's basement, too."

"Yeah…?"

"Well… how come no one ever told me about this mission to the moon?"

Trini blinked. "I… well. I guess, by the time things calmed down… Kim, that was a really bad time back then. Things just kept happening, one right after the other, as if that mission threw the entire morphing grid out of whack and flung weirdness in all of our faces."

"I see. So in other words, you didn't tell me because it involved Tommy somehow?"

"Well… that was part of it," Trini said sheepishly. "But the other part of it was that it was followed by Ashley's… um… almost-wedding, and within a few days of it we got the call that Tommy's island had blown up and no one knew if he was alive. We spent the next few days on boats and in submarines with Lightspeed Rescue, trying to figure out what was going on. Besides, every person who'd ever been a Red Ranger by that point, save Rocky, was on the mission as well, so we didn't have to tell anyone. All the other teams knew already…"

"And no one told me because they'd have to mention Tommy," Kimberly persisted.

"Kim, that entire week was stressful as hell. My wedding was a month later, my grandmother was sick… it was hectic even without all of that nonsense with the Red brigade. I didn't even know about the mission until it started, and like I said, Ashley's wedding, then searching for Tommy's drowned corpse…"

Kimberly grimaced, feeling a horrible twinge of guilt. She hadn't even known Tommy was in trouble, and her friends were all worried sick and searching the ocean… god, why hadn't she stayed in touch?

"How did Dr. O survive that, anyway?" Kira asked. "Did you guys find him eventually?"

"No. Some crazy woman ran into him in her decrepit rowboat and took him to shore. We didn't run into her during our search, and we weren't paying much attention to other boats anyway. She took Tommy to a marina and they hitchhiked back to Reefside. With the rowboat, believe it or not. Then Tommy calls Hayley to say what's up, didn't find Anton, by the way the island went boom, what do you mean just about every Ranger on the planet is searching for my dead body? Man, we wanted to kill him… anyway, point is, Kim, we didn't have much time to tell you a funny story, and it was a couple weeks before I wanted to talk about it, anyway. I was hurt, and I was mad, and to be honest we don't talk about it much. We make jokes about it sometimes, but it was upsetting that the rest of us didn't get to go. Rocky in particular was devastated."

"Why didn't you get to go?" Kimberly asked. "You still have your powers, same as Jason."

"Yes, but they wanted only Reds. NASADA was leery of letting so many people without clearance into their base, and T.J. pointed out that they were taking a huge risk by calling in so many Rangers whose identities weren't public. Reds are usually the leaders, usually have the most power, usually are the best fighters. So Tommy asked Jason to go, and Jason didn't tell me because he knew I'd insist upon coming even if it meant I'd have to murder a couple higher-up NASADA officials." She sighed. "He was right, of course. I'd either be worried sick the whole time, or I'd have forced Tommy to let me go. So he lied. Told me later that he was terrified to do it… especially since it wasn't long after we'd gotten engaged and I still had time to back out on the wedding. Plus we were living together at the time, so he had trouble sneaking off. Actually left while I was sleeping, just left a note that said he was going fishing with Tommy."

"How long was this before Ashley's wedding?" Kimberly asked, frowning.

"It was the day of. Know how she had a night service?" Kimberly nodded. "Well, if she hadn't, Andros wouldn't've had time to crash it. They didn't get back until sunset. So I was twice as pissed about it; all day I was wondering where they were. Tommy was in town on vacation at the time, partially because of Ashley's wedding, and all of us were planning to go. By the time I showed up at NASADA to bitch Jason out, we only had an hour to get there—that's why we were so late. We had to go home, change, pick up Hayley…"

"So… how'd you figure out that they were on some secret mission?" Kira asked, recalling what Jason and Tommy had said during their sparring match.

"Hayley was there when Tommy got the phone call about it. A couple of hours before we were supposed to meet up, I asked her where Tommy was, and she said he'd gotten a phone call and wouldn't tell her a thing about it and taken off. I was suspicious at that point, but then I saw the news report on the freak explosions on the moon… so I left Hayley at my place and went off to kick my fiancé's ass."

Flashback

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Jason joked amidst the chorus of similar "Shut up, T.J." remarks. Anyone who knew T.J. had heard just about every story he had—and most of the Red Rangers had hung with him at one time or another, as T.J., Carlos, Cassie, Zhane and Ashley were some of the only Rangers on Earth whose identities were publicly revealed, if not the only. Jason had heard the pizza story no less than six times.

"Jason!"

Jason jumped. He had assumed Tommy had left… but Tommy was now heading towards him at a dead run, looking panicked.

"Bro! What—?"

"She knows!" was all Tommy said before he leaped right over T.J.'s car and crouched behind it, obviously hiding.

"Uh-oh," Jason muttered, eyes wide.

"What is it?" Andros asked, taking up a defensive stance, as did T.J., Wes, Eric, Cole, Carter, and Leo.

Jason cast a glance at Tommy's hiding spot as though thinking about joining him as they heard the sound of screeching brakes on the other side of the building. A moment later, a car door slammed and a woman's voice roared, "Jason Scott!"

"It's my fiancée," Jason whimpered.

"Your… what?" Cole said, confused. This made no sense to Cole. Why was Jason looking so scared if it was just his fiancée? What was so frightening about that?

"It's my fiancée," Jason repeated. With a significant glance at Andros, he added, "A former Yellow."

"Oh," Andros said calmly, and then flew over T.J.'s car to hide behind Tommy, confusing Cole even more. Eric yanked open the door of the SUV and jumped into the backseat, slamming the door shut behind him; before Wes could follow suit, Eric locked the doors. Jason, however, held his ground, knowing it would be worse if she had to hunt for him any longer. T.J., Carter, Leo and Wes gave him sympathetic looks, nervously scanning the area for potential hiding spots, just in case they needed them.

A woman in yellow stormed around the corner, looking livid. The remaining Red Rangers backed up a bit as she approached, instinctively worried.

"How dare you!" Trini Kwan yelled angrily. "Going fishing, were you? FISHING with TOMMY?"

"I'm sorry!" Jason whined, inching behind the others.

"Did you honestly think I wouldn't find out? Huh? Let me tell you something, buddy, there's no discrete way to blow up half the moon! It's all over the news!"

"We didn't blow up half the moon!" Jason insisted. "Just… Serpentera. And actually, he—" he jerked his thumb at Cole as if trying to reassign the blame— "was the one to do it!"

Trini didn't even spare Cole a glance, for which Cole found himself extremely grateful. "You not only went on a mission without a zord, you went without me!"

"I didn't want you to g—"

"If you say 'get hurt,' I'm going to become angry."

"I'd hate to see her angry," T.J. whispered, edging backwards slightly so that Leo was in between T.J. and Trini.

"Well, I didn't! I'm sorry, Trini, okay? Tommy found out that the Machine Empire's generals had dug up Lord Zedd's zord and he said he was going to gather up all the Red Rangers—"

"Humph!" Trini snorted. "That's just like a Red Ranger—" there was a chorus of indignant protests from the others— "always trying to do everything himself, showing off like an idiot when there's several dozen other people who could come and help! How do you think this made me and Zack feel, huh?"

"I wanted to tell you," Jason insisted, "but it was top secret—"

"You don't get to keep secrets from me!" Trini raged.

"It was all Tommy's idea!" Jason wailed, his eyes darting sourly to the back of T.J.'s car… and unwittingly giving away Tommy's position.

Before Tommy was aware of Trini's presence, she'd grabbed him by the shirt and slammed him against the side of Wes and Eric's SUV; Eric let out a startled yelp from inside the car. "How DARE you ask Jason to go on some secret mission!" Trini shouted in his face. "You didn't even invite me! Hello, teammate of yours for a year and a half? It's not like I can't take care of myself! As I recall I can kick both your butts at arm-wrestling!" Still gripping his shirt firmly, she pulled him away from the vehicle and shoved him against it again for good measure.

"It wasn't about that!" Tommy insisted. "We couldn't bring everyone! NASADA was kind of nervous about getting all the Reds to come back! They were freaking out about letting all these people without proper clearance—me included—using NASADA as base! I would have brought you, really I would have, but then I wouldn't have been able to bring Billy and Kim, and—"

"Billy's on Aquitar and you haven't spoken to Kim in years!" Trini roared. "Besides, they don't have powers! Only me and Zack and Jason still have Power Coins! So do half a dozen teams, all ready and willing, and you drag Jason off to go blow up the moon and probably get killed without even giving me a heads-up?"

"I didn't say Jason couldn't tell you!" Tommy whined, obviously trying to divert Trini's attention.

"Oh, sure you didn't! You just dragged him off to fight without me! Next mission, you're taking me along, and you better pray I don't shoot your ass with my Blade Blaster when you do!"

"I didn't mean to upset you," Tommy said pleadingly. "It's just that… well, we needed the most firepower we could get with the smallest number of Rangers and the Reds are usually the strong—"

"I'll show you strong!" Trini bellowed, and drew back her fist. Without even thinking about it, Tommy dropped to his knees and rolled under the SUV. Trini's fist collided with the SUV's window, which promptly shattered, raining glass down upon a now-screaming Eric.

Trini withdrew her fist, which was now bleeding slightly. Then she vaulted onto the roof of the car; it swayed and rocked a bit as she landed on it in a crouch. By the time the SUV had settled back on its tires, Tommy was almost to the gate, his morpher in his hands, just in case.

"YOU CAN'T RUN FOREVER, TOMMY!" Trini shouted after him, shaking her bloodstained fist at his retreating back.

Tommy put on a burst of speed. "I can try," he muttered to himself, his grip tightening on his Zeonizer.

Trini hopped back down and paused, startled; only Jason was still in plain sight. The other Red Rangers had disappeared… no, wait, on closer inspection she could see the tops of some of their heads lining the far side of T.J.'s car.

"Oh, shut up in there!" Trini snapped at Eric, jerking her foot up behind her to kick the door, putting a dent and a nice long scratch in the side of the SUV. Eric promptly stopped yelling.

Trini decided that the other Reds needed to be taught a lesson, on behalf of all female Rangers who'd ever had to put up with stupid macho antics. She ducked down and rolled to the other side of T.J.'s car, popping up on the right side of Wes, who let out a small, rather girly scream of surprise and terror and fell over, toppling into T.J. and starting a domino effect—T.J. knocked over Cole, who knocked over Carter, who knocked over Leo, who knocked over Andros.

"I hope we've all learned something from this," Trini growled.

"Yes, ma'am," Wes said meekly, trying to back up but unable to do so with a pile of Rangers behind him.

"Is everything all right?" asked Aurico. He'd been resting in the shade, and was still in morph, trying to conserve his energy so he could make it back to Aquitar, as he wasn't sure he'd have a chance to rehydrate before he did.

Trini stood up and marched towards Jason; as she passed Aurico, she smacked him hard in the chest and said, "Treat women right!"

"As you wish," Aurico replied, confused.

Trini snatched Jason's arm and hauled him towards her car. "Come on. We're gonna have a talk."

"But… babe… what about my motorcycle?" Jason asked desperately, dragging his feet.

Trini didn't answer, practically throwing Jason at the passenger's side of her car. He waved sheepishly to the other Reds and climbed in; the moment the doors closed, they could hear a muffled explosion as she started screaming. Trini was still glowering blackly as she drove away.

"Man," T.J. breathed. "My whole life just flashed before my eyes." He got shakily to his feet. "She was always so nice every other time I met her."

Aurico looked at him, his head cocked to the side, apparently puzzled. Then realization dawned on him; figuring it must be some sort of Earth custom, he slugged T.J. in the chest and yelled, "Treat women right!"

End Flashback

"And the best part is," Trini laughed, "I got to meet Taylor not long after that. Yellow Wild Force Ranger. She told me she was dating Eric, and said he mentioned meeting me during that mission, and I thought about it for a minute and then realized he must have been the one hiding in the SUV. Apparently he and Wes had told her that the damage to the car had happened during some sort of battle!"

Kira and Kimberly laughed uproariously. "That's priceless," Kimberly choked out. "Oh, man. It's always so funny when one of us snaps; the others instantly cower."

"Conner does it all the time," Kira said. "I mean, he could probably kick any of our asses, except maybe Trent's, and yet when one of us glares at him he all stammers and apologizes."

"It's a Red thing," Trini said, shrugging. "They throw themselves at any and all problems with a vengeance. Give them a monster, they'll kill it. When their friend is pissed at them, they won't stop groveling until they've been forgiven." She winked at Kimberly. "Put a meal in front of them, they'll finish it or puke trying. In retrospect, I'm kind of glad I didn't get to go. It would have sucked to be the only girl in a group of ten Red Rangers. They'd have ended up going Tarzan."

"Huh?" Kira said.

"We call it the damsel-in-distress complex," Kimberly clarified. "Boys—particularly the Red ones—have some sort of deeply-engrained desire to… how should I put this…"

"Shield women with clouds of testosterone," Trini finished dryly. "They'd probably have been so busy trying to needlessly save me that I would've had to do everything myself." She grinned. "Jason's especially terrible about it. Not as bad as Tommy, though."

"He's not that bad," Kimberly insisted.

"Kim, he just beat up a purse snatcher almost before you knew someone was trying to snatch it."

Kimberly shrugged, slightly embarrassed. Tommy had saved her often enough… but sometimes she'd given him extra opportunities. Not in battles, per se; she was usually too busy and too smart to distract Tommy unnecessarily. But in everyday life… God, she missed Tommy. He really was fun to steamroll sometimes… and he was so… so…

There was the sound of someone tapping on glass. "Kim? They locked the balcony door." Pause. "I'm willing to negotiate."

…pathetic. Only in a good way.

Kira went very still. "You're going to take his pants, aren't you."

Kimberly let out a snort of laughter. "Probably."

"Right." Kira got up, went into the bathroom, and shut and locked the door. "Call me when it's over!"

"Okay!" Kimberly replied cheerfully, and went to torture Tommy some more.

Don walked dejectedly back through the precinct lobby, his gym bag in one hand (he'd had a sudden urge to take the Red Ranger action figure back home with him tonight, but he didn't want the guys to see it). The mayor had screamed, the police chief had screamed, and Captain Stone had assured them that as someone who used to deal frequently with the Power Rangers, he'd be taking the case from Abe and Don. Worst of all, Abe had rolled on him, insisting that the Walter kid had ranted about Tommy Oliver but had been very out of it, and the Black Ranger had been polite and kosher. He didn't want to get dragged into some mess about Power Rangers, which would mean sleepless nights and tons of extra work. Now, the mayor had decided that they'd ignore this bit about Tommy Oliver completely and play the whole mess off as "The Rangers will always defend Angel Grove, and this is proof." It was smart, politically; now the tourists and citizens would be excited about hearing that the Rangers were, indeed, still hanging around the city, and the mayor would be able to announce that not only was he keeping the city safe with cops but with Power Rangers, who were a hell of a lot cooler than cops.

Don couldn't believe it. They'd been so close, so close to discovering their true identities… now he was ordered to stay the hell away from anything connected to it. There would be no follow-up with Walter, no drive to Reefside with Abe… and Captain Stone had even gently suggested that Don take a few days off. Don had to agree that it was a good idea; after all, if he took a vacation, there was no more chance that he'd get in deeper trouble with people who could fire him with a snap of their fingers.

As he pushed through the doors and paused to take a deep, calming breath of the night air, two men marching towards the entrance drew his attention. One was rather fat, the other rather skinny, yet the thin one was having trouble keeping pace with his larger friend.

"Bulky, are you sure about this? Lieutenant Stone doesn't like when we visit him at work."

Lieutenant Stone? Don wondered. Could they mean Captain Stone?

"Someone has to tell these lamebrains the truth, Skull! Tommy a Power Ranger, ha!"

Don's face lit up and he blocked their way as they came up the path. "Out of the way," the one called Bulk commanded. "We've got important business to discuss with Lieutenant Stone."

"About Tommy Oliver and the Power Rangers?" Don asked.

"As a matter of fact, yeah. How could anyone think that loser was a Ranger? It's an outrage."

"Yeah, an outrage!" Skull echoed. "I mean, if anyone would know who's a Ranger and who isn't, it'd be us."

Don blinked. "Really."

"Yeah. We've been looking for the Power Rangers' identities our whole lives."

"Well, at least, since high school," Skull amended.

"Which Tommy Oliver also went to," Bulk continued. "We knew the guy for like five years. We even gave him and his friends a tour the other day. If he was a Ranger, we would have noticed!"

"Yeah," Skull added solemnly. "No one knows Tommy like we do! And he's not a Ranger."

Don stared at them thoughtfully for a second. He knew Bulk and Skull only vaguely. By the time he'd hit high school, their days as bullies had been mostly over. He knew they had a lot of freak accidents, and that Kimberly Hart had, for some reason, befriended Skull shortly before leaving California (the whole school had been so startled by this that they'd talked about it for ages). But Don was of a younger generation, one that didn't know the full extent of Bulk and Skull's persona. He did, however, know that back when Captain Stone had been a lieutenant, he had vouched strongly for Bulk and Skull, taking them under his wing and even sacrificing his job for them.

"Besides, we saw the Black Ranger last weekend. And the Red and Yellow. We drove them to the mayor's office," Bulk added. "We know Tommy's voice, and the Black Ranger wasn't using it."

Don's face lit up. He had heard that report, had forgotten all about the fact that Bulk and Skull had been a part of that scene… the part where all the reporters had thought the Rangers were attacking them had overshadowed all of that; it had been downright hysterical. When he'd heard Bulk and Skull on the news, he'd just snorted and moved on.

But Kimberly Hart was friends with Bulk and Skull.

Everyone in Angel Grove remembered that Bulk and Skull had led the citizens to battle side-by-side with the Rangers.

Don was fairly certain Tommy had something to do with the Rangers, but he wasn't sure what… and he had his doubts. He needed more proof, but no one in the department was going to help him, not even his own partner.

"You don't want to talk to Stone right now," Don said slowly.

"Uh, yeah we do," Skull said in confusion.

"No, you don't. You want to talk to me."

"Why would we want to talk to you?"

"Because no one in the precinct is interested in discovering who the Power Rangers are," Don said grimly. "I am. I have an amazing lead… and if you want to figure out who they are, I suggest we work together. With your history and my information, it just might be possible."

Bulk and Skull stared at him for a moment, then looked at each other, then back at him.

"We're in," Bulk said firmly. "Show us what you got."

End Notes: We're trying to break 1,000 reviews with this chapter. Come on, please? We're not holding the next chapter for ransom or anything, honest, we just… don't know when we'll post next, because… we need motivation… Please?