Chapter Eighty-eight

Mirror of Regret

Kimberly sighed as she opened the trunk of the Mustang and saw that the Spencer's merchandise had spilled out of the bag. "Go on," she told Kira, who'd ridden with her. "I'll be up in a second." Kira shrugged and headed over to the Escalade while Kimberly began gathering her stuff.

"Hey, Kim."

Kimberly jumped and turned around. "Hey, Tommy," she said. "Something wrong?"

Tommy shook his head and leaned against the Mustang's bumper as she returned to stuffing the bag. "Listen… I think we should talk. About… stuff."

Kimberly grimaced. That didn't sound good… but she couldn't avoid him forever, and she wasn't sure she wanted to. "Stuff, eh?" she said, trying to sound nonchalant.

"Yeah. Just you and me. Zack said he was going to try to hook up with that Harriet chick; she gets off work at midnight. Come by my room about twelve-thirty, okay?"

Kimberly checked her watch. It was eleven-forty. "Okay."

Tommy nodded and walked away. Kimberly exhaled sharply, trying to ignore the sense of foreboding stealing over her as she slammed the trunk lid and turned to follow the others inside.

"Hey," Jason called to Conner as Conner came out of the guest bathroom, showered and ready for bed. "I just got off the phone with Billy; Rocky and Adam are on their way to drop him off. Trini and I are going to turn in."

"Aw, come on," Conner complained. He was finally staying in The Red Ranger's house, and Jason was going to sleep a few minutes after everyone else left? "The night is young!"

"I know," Jason said dryly. "That's why Trini and I are turning in."

Conner gave him a blank look. Then he snickered. "Oh. I gotcha."

Jason smirked. "Hey, when Billy gets back, tell him Hayley will be here about two, okay?"

"Sure thing. Good night," Conner told him, heading for the guestroom.

Jason chuckled and started to head for his bedroom, but then his cell phone rang and he groaned and pulled it from his pocket. He didn't recognize the number.

"Please don't let me regret this," Jason muttered as he pressed the phone to his ear. "Hello?"

"Um… Jason? Jason Scott?" It was a woman's voice that sounded somewhat familiar.

"Yes?"

"This is Carrie. Jeffries."

"Carrie! Hi!" Jason exclaimed, then clamped a hand over his mouth. He'd finally gotten Trini back in the house; she wouldn't be too happy if she found out he was chatting to Carrie at midnight. "What's going on?" he whispered, heading safely for the kitchen.

"You tell me. Jenny called."

"Jenny from the hotel?"

"Yes. Not only has Harriet been talking about nothing but your friend Zack, but Jenny had quite a few… shall we say… rude words for me regarding a monkey and the Black Ranger. And a friend in Stone Canyon said Adam Park set his pants on fire in a movie theatre…"

"Oh, god." Jason rubbed a hand over his face wearily, then glanced down the hall towards his bedroom. Much as he hated to miss an opportunity to talk to Carrie, he was looking forward to an end to the weirdness and he had an appointment with his wife to keep. He sighed. "Listen, do you have a pen?"

"Yeah…"

"Take this number down. It's Adam's cell." He gave her the number, and she repeated it back to double-check. "Tell him who you are; I've mentioned you. The pants fire was actually part of the monkey incident—"

"Was Adam the one in the Black Ranger suit?"

"No, no, but he… it's hard to explain. He'll give you something on the pants fire and explain a bit more about the whole monkey incident—I assume you're looking for something you can print?"

"Would be nice. I can survive off Jenny's comments and so on, but a little insider info wouldn't do me any harm, and I was thinking I should consult you before publishing anything Ranger-related, to make sure I'm not making any mistakes regarding your secret."

"Adam can take care of that; he helped Rocky and Billy sneak the monkey back into the zoo. Adam will help you."

"And if he won't?"

"Remind him that he was in a movie theatre while we were dealing with an illegal chimpanzee."

She chuckled. "One more question… who is this villain, Kaziargh?"

"Kaziargh? Oh, he's a real evil bastard. That was an epic battle right there." Jason chuckled, then added, "Trent made him up."

"Trent?"

"Yeah—he was masquerading as the Black Ranger. We needed Zack to calm Harriet down. But there was no evil villain—we were at the mall all day."

"The mall? You wouldn't happen to know anything about all the vandalism there today, would you? It's not my piece, but a friend of mine's thinking of spinning something about the defacement of the fountain being an anti-Power Ranger statement…"

"Whoa, hey, stop him from that. It was an accident. Pure and simple. And the rodents were a nervous breakdown. And the roof of Spencer's was… okay. As much as I'd love to tell you about it right now, I have plans. Some really, really important plans. I can't talk at the moment; I'm sorry."

"Ah. Well, I'll let him elaborate. See you on Saturday?"

"Sure. I'll be the one in red."

"Oh, by the way—Jenny wants those concert tickets as soon as possible."

Jason grinned. "Yeah, I bet she does. Tell her to pick a time and a place and let me know. Later, Carrie."

Jason hung up and headed back towards his bedroom, humming to himself. At last, the chaos was over.

"Hello?" Billy called as he stepped through the front door of Jason and Trini's house. The only sign of movement came from Tommy the dog, who was lying on the couch in the family room to Billy's left. The dog raised its head, snorted a bit, and thumped its tail, then put its head back on its paws.

"Hey, buddy," Billy whispered. He headed down the hall, past the study and bathroom, and was almost to the door of the guest bedroom when Conner poked his head out of the door.

"Oh, hi," he said. "Rocky and Adam with you?"

"No. They went back to Rocky's home; they said they'd come by about noon. I believe they were quite exhausted. The zoo was quite an ordeal."

Conner winced. "Sorry about that," he said sheepishly. "I didn't mean to, you know—"

"Chaos happens," Billy told him graciously. "Where's Jason? Asleep?"

"Having sex with Trini. She stayed here tonight." Billy made a face. "Um, I hope you don't mind, but Trini told me I should take the guest room tonight—she made you a bed on the couch, figured you'd want to stay up and wait for Hayley, and if Ms. Syrian Hamster and Mr. Mongolian Gerbil are in here the dog can't get them…"

"Oh, I forgot Hayley was coming," Billy said brightly. "I can't wait to meet her."

"She's pretty cool, for a computer geek. No offense," Conner added as an afterthought.

"None taken," Billy said dryly. "Let me grab a few of my things so I can shower and prepare for bed—did she say what time Hayley would be here?"

"About two," Conner said. He opened the door for Billy, who carefully selected an outfit from the new clothes Trini had put in the dresser for him. Then Billy headed off to the bathroom and Conner shut the door behind him, flopping on the bed.

Conner glanced idly around the guestroom. The rest of the house was so well-decorated that this room seemed like it should be part of another house, but Conner could see why it looked the way it did. The carpet and ceiling were blue, the trim and bedroom door green, the walls yellow, the curtains and desk chair pink, the bed frame and closet door black, the dresser and desk white, and the throw rug on the floor and arm chair in the corner red. Trini had changed the bedding from blue to red when Conner had moved in, and from what he'd glimpsed of the stack of linens in the closet she was prepared for just about anyone. Conner wondered how they explained the guestroom's décor to their normal friends, then quickly forced himself to focus. He had a mission, after all.

Now that he was staying here, he could finally implement The Plan. Conner, Ethan and Trent had been working hard on it all week, and now Conner was in position to work out all the kinks. All he had to do was get Tommy and Kimberly here, and everything would work out perfectly.

Conner was sure of it.

Tommy paced up and down the hotel room, trying and failing to figure out what to say to Kimberly. Even though he'd decided to talk to her, he still couldn't come up with anything to say. It was funny the way the brain worked, really. He'd come back to the room, taken off his shoes and plugged his cell phone into the charger, then sat down to start planning. But then Zack had taken a quick shower and headed down to the front desk to chat up Harriet, and Tommy had had an errant thought about why Zack had felt the need to shower first, and that had led to the most thorough shower Tommy had ever taken in less than fifteen minutes, and then he'd gelled his hair, and then he'd gotten dressed, and then he'd put on his shoes just in case, and then he'd decided to wear sandals instead because they were easier to remove, and then he'd sorted through his pockets and made sure he had his room key and wallet and fully-charged cell phone and car keys and Zeonizer and everything else that he might need should the world implode upon his head, and then somehow he'd ended up spending a long while spent trying to puzzle out where he'd gotten that slip of paper that said "Remember to feed dog" on it, and then he'd remembered what Trini had told him about Adam's pants and he'd put the Zeonizer in his sock drawer instead, and now it was twelve twenty-eight and there were only two minutes left to Kimberly's arrival and he hadn't come up with anything to say beyond "Hi" and "Come on in."

Two minutes, Tommy thought desperately. I can come up with a plan in two minutes. I'm a Power Ranger; I've done it before. This is battle time. I have to come up with something to say in the next two minutes or—

A knock sounded on the door.

Kimberly was early.

Tommy swallowed and stared at the door, his mind a complete blank. Then Kimberly knocked again and he forced himself to go to the door and open it. There she was, and he was only slightly comforted by the fact that she also appeared nervous and looked like she'd freshened up a bit. She wasn't wearing his shirt, either.

"Hi," Tommy said, his dry throat making it a croak. "Come on in."

Kimberly smiled awkwardly at him and stepped inside. "Zack out with Harriet?"

"I assume so. I figured that if it hadn't worked out he'd be back by now."

"Well, lucky Zack," Kimberly said.

"Heh. Yeah. Lucky Zack."

They stared at each other. Tommy tried not to think about Zack, or Harriet, or hookups, or the fact that Kimberly had probably showered, or anything at all. Remember to feed dog, he reminded himself hastily, silently thanking whoever had put that slip of paper in his pocket, only to end up thinking about people putting their hands in his pockets, which wasn't a good idea when he was staring at Kimberly.

"So," she said suddenly, making him jump. "You wanted to talk?"

Tommy nodded and started to close the door, then thought better of it; cutting off the escape route didn't seem a good idea. "Yeah. I think… I think we should. I mean, we haven't… you know… mentioned… it."

"It," Kimberly repeated, nodding slowly. "Yeah, we should probably talk about…it."

"Yeah." Tommy took a few steps away from the door. Kimberly sat down on the edge of the bed closest to the balcony, looking up at him expectantly. "Look, about… it… I'm… well…"

Kimberly exhaled sharply. "Do you blame me?"

Tommy stared at her. "What?"

"Do you blame me for what happened? For us breaking up?"

Her tone was so matter-of-fact that it took a second for the question to sink in. He wasn't sure what she was expecting him to say.

After all, she was the one who'd ended it. But he hadn't challenged it, and what did that say about him? Could he really fault her for it? She was all the way across the country, busy with training and competitions, half their phone calls interrupted by the Machine Empire, their schedules never connecting, what with him struggling to pass his senior year in spite of the monster attacks and his own attention span and her struggling to perfect her gymnastic skills—never mind that annoying time zone difference. It hadn't been working. They'd still been in love, but the relationship was falling apart. And then she'd met someone she thought could make her happy and he'd let her go. They'd both been to blame, really. They'd both wanted someone todate, not just fifteen-minute phone calls or two-page letters in the mail—letters they had to severely edit because they couldn't talk about half their lives together.

They couldn't often write things like, "Remember that time when we were having a picnic together," because usually the next phrase was "and then that monster came out of nowhere." Between his parents and her roommates, they'd been terrified someone would uncover their secret identities. He could no longer share his fears and insecurities with her, because they all seemed to be related to their secrets. His fears were about Tanya's falsified school records and what Kat's parents would say if they ever found out that their "foreign exchange student" was really a Power Ranger who'd arrived via a time spell. His insecurities were about leading the team into battle and the fact that Billy was handling the power loss far better than Tommy had ever had; Tommy had sulked and floundered, while Billy found ways to be useful, which not only made Tommy feel bad but made him realize that if he ever lost the power permanently, he had no way to be useful to the team. So every time she'd confided in him about her hopes and worries, he'd become jealous, because he couldn't do the same, and his letters became dry and impersonal. The only things he could tell her were about school and his extracurricular activities, and it had begun to sound like he was writing to a pen pal rather than a girlfriend. It didn't help that Kimberly had gotten her GED upon leaving California and could no longer relate about school, or that she became so immersed in gymnastics that there wasn't a whole lot else for her to talk about, and Tommy's knowledge and interest in the sport were minimal. She no longer even talked about sparring or fighting at all; she didn't want the girls in her dormitory to know she had anything to do with martial arts, especially given all the questions they asked about her being from the hometown of the Power Rangers, and soon Tommy had decided it was best that he not mention anything about fighting, either, just in case.

He hadn't realized how much he would miss confiding in her until it was no longer an option. His parents had begun to worry about how distant he was becoming, how he jumped every time they came in the room and found him writing a letter to Kimberly or talking on the phone, and when that was added on top of the necessary secretiveness related to the team he'd started to seem like a completely different person to him. He'd caught them snooping through his things on more than one occasion and the fact that they were curious began to terrify him. He'd actually asked Kimberly to start addressing his letters to the Youth Center, so that he could pick them up from Ernie and not worry so much about his parents' curiosity.

He'd begun to think about the future a lot, his own future and hers. If she stayed a gymnast she'd be traveling and devoting herself to the sport and dedicating herself to it completely, and where would he be? He wasn't even sure how he'd go to college while still a Ranger and he'd had no idea what he wanted to do with his life. And then the jealousy had set in, because she was off living her dream and he was still fighting and leading, and if she failed, it would be only the end of her career, not the end of the world. He'd even begun to realize that he had no idea what he wanted to do with his life after high school, no huge dream to follow, and he'd started wondering why, wondering if everyone but Tommy was destined for great things after the Power.

Not only had he missed making out and going on dates and just being with her, but he began to feel like he didn't know Kimberly anymore. Soon he was second-guessing everything he said to her and everything she said to him and it became too much of a hassle to even write. She went from being his world to being a conversation or a paragraph once or twice a week. And he'd become the same to her. Was it any wonder she'd ended it?

No, it wasn't. But it still hurt.

"Sometimes," he said softly. "Things… weren't working, you know."

She nodded. "I know. I didn't realize… I didn't think about how bad it would get. I lost the Power and I couldn't even talk to you about it, because I didn't want to remind you of how you'd lost it once, or make you worry anymore about Billy. We could barely talk about what was going on with you, because it was always about the Power Rangers, and half the memories we tried to reminisce about were, too. And with us being so far apart… and I felt like I couldn't even come visit with Aisha gone and my mom in France and Dad way up in Sacramento and Trini running around all over the world, because not only would I have no place to stay in Angel Grove but everyone wanted me to come visit them, too. Plus I… I stopped feeling like I could tell you anything. Everything I tried to say had to be edited in case my roommates or your family got nosy and I didn't want to tell you all the bad things anymore, didn't want to lean on you because you had so much going on and I didn't want to make it sound like I left to go chasing after something that wasn't worth leaving the you and team…" She sighed. "Life was so crazy back then, Tommy. I know it wasn't working. Part of it was me and part of it was you, but…"

"I'm sorry it happened that way," Tommy said quietly. "I didn't want that. I really didn't. But… but as far as blame goes, it doesn't matter. It happened. And you know what? I'm… I'm glad it happened, in a way. I don't regret not being with you all these years." Realizing how that sounded, he hastily added, "Okay, that came out wrong," but Kimberly gave him an understanding look.

"It would have been nice if we hadn't ended," Kimberly agreed. "If we'd stayed that way forever, the way we were before Florida. But we didn't, and I think I know what you mean. I'm not sorry my life took the path it did." She took a deep breath. "I just… wish you'd been on the same path."

"Me too," Tommy told her, and he was surprised at how much of a relief it was to finally say it. "I wish we'd never lost each other."

"Do you… do you think…?" she began uncertainly.

"Do you think we've found each other?" he finished. "I don't know."

He wanted to add, "But I hope so." Yet somehow, he couldn't. He just wasn't ready for that.

They stared at each other in silence for a long while. Then Tommy looked away. "Do you ever blame me?" he asked softly.

She didn't reply at first. Then finally, she said, "Yes."

Tommy froze, feeling as if he'd just been hit with an energy blast big enough to take out Tokyo. He had always feared that Kimberly blamed him for their breakup. He had always feared it was his fault, for not calling enough, for not writing enough, for being too wrapped up in his own life—saving the world and making Tanya and Kat feel welcome and alternately sympathizing with Billy and avoiding him so he wouldn't have to remember those horrible months when he'd been without power and worry about what he'd do when the Power was gone forever. He had been dealing with his own problems, and though he'd never admitted it a part of him was angry that Kimberly could leave, could leave not only the team but him behind.

He had always feared that it was his fault—but he'd always told himself that the fear was irrational. He had fully expected that if he told her he was sorry, said that sometimes he blamed himself, that she would deny ever blaming him and take full responsibility. To be blamed was even worse than being dumped.

You know why you always thought that fear was irrational? said an internal voice that sounded a lot like Hayley. Because you knew it wasn't your fault. SHE ended it. SHE didn't try to work it out. She met someone else and left you and she can't blame you for that. Maybe you could have made things better eventually—but she never gave you the chance.

Fury and indignation suddenly replaced shock and hurt. "Excuse me?" he yelled. "How did I end it? You were the one who left me!"

Kimberly stared at him in horror. This was his response? He'd looked her in the eye and told her that sometimes, yes, he blamed her, but when she tried to honestly tell him that yes, she sometimes blamed him too, he acted like she was a heartless bitch for it?

"It wasn'tworking!" she shouted as rage welled up within her. "It wasn't working and you know it! We needed to move on!"

"You should havetalked to me!" he bellowed. "We should have tried! You made it impossible for us to try! You were the one who LEFT!"

"Oh, forget you, Tommy! First you tell me to follow my dreams and then you sit there and tell me that you knew it wasn't working out and now you act like it's my fault I left? FORGET YOU!"

Kimberly leaped up and stormed past him, shoving him out of her way and stomping out the door, slamming it behind her. Tommy watched her go, rage boiling in the pit of his stomach before he unleashed it upon the nearest thing he could find to kick. How could she? How could she blame this on him? He'd supported her. He'd sent her off to pursue greater things, and she had dumped him for someone in the same zip code, and she somehow thought it was his fault? So he hadn't called. Neither had she!

Go after her, you idiot, said a different internal voice, this one vaguely reminiscent of Jason. Go after her and sort this out. NOW.

Tommy marched to the door and flung it open. He might have let her go the first time. There was no way he was letting her walk out on him a second time without a fight.