Chapter Ninety

Song Sung Yellow

Hayley sighed as she passed the sign—Angel Grove 30, Stone Canton 42. She really wasn't up for crashing Tommy's nostalgia party, but if there was one thing she had never done during the course of her friendship with Tommy, it was desert him when he needed her.

Still, that didn't mean she was looking forward to rolling into town when he was dealing with one of his largest unresolved issues—Kimberly, and relationships in general. She felt beyond obligated to be there for him right now—especially since she knew his other friends, his Ranger friends, didn't get it the way Hayley did. There were only two things that had been hanging over Tommy's head since high school—Kimberly and all the issues that came from being a Power Ranger. His other friends could share his feelings about the things being a Ranger had cost him—how he didn't have any friends left from high school who hadn't shared the secret, how he still had a fighting instinct programmed into everything he did, and so on. But the Rangers never got to sympathize or empathize with him about Kimberly. They all knew Kimberly, and they had stopped bringing her up in his company long ago. Yet Hayley had never met her, and until this Power Rangers Day mess she'd figured she never would—which was why Tommy had confided in Hayley. She had been his first and only extremely close friend outside the team, far closer than Smitty or Anton and Elsa. Moreover, Hayley was very perceptive when it came to people, and she'd begun to see how it had affected Tommy to a level that his other friends were missing.

They hadn't shared a house with him for almost three years. They didn't see him spending every Sunday determinedly calling everyone he cared about who wasn't in the same zip code. They didn't see the look on his face that time he came home to find her folding paper cranes. They didn't see that Tommy refused to date casually; every girl was a somewhat-desperate quest to find The One. They didn't hear Tommy's confessions about blaming his breakup with Kat on Kimberly and wondering what else it had cost him. They didn't spend two weeks convincing Tommy that even if Hayley did follow her dream to Massachusetts and attend MIT for grad school, she wasn't going to leave him behind.

They'd met on Tommy's first day at college, and Hayley had managed to keep the boy afloat and teach him all the survival instincts a college student needs, such as how to make sure the cafeteria pop is safe to drink without gagging, how to avoid getting stuck in the dorm elevators, and how to properly time the amount of hours safe for procrastination before actually doing schoolwork. They'd become incredibly good friends, rarely arguing, hanging out almost all the time. Tommy moved her furniture and other heavy objects, helped fix her car, and even taught her a few self-defense moves. Hayley helped him do his homework, kept his disorganization at a minimum, and showed him the best places to order takeout (technically, in order to be a truly good crutch she should have taught him how to cook, but even Hayley had limits). After two semesters of friendship, they'd decided to rent a small house together, which was when they'd become freakishly dependent on each other. They acted as though they'd been married for thirty years and somewhere along the way the romance had died and left them just best friends. All that was missing was a few grown kids who didn't call often enough, and Tommy's friends being scattered all over the world kind of took care of that, come to think of it.

Tommy had met Smitty in a chemistry class during his second semester of college. Smitty had been a spoiled rich kid, too lazy to make it into private school and studying science just because his parents wanted him to be a lawyer. In spite of his flaws, Smitty had become a close friend of theirs, though he was never as close as Hayley and Tommy were to each other, and they never let him anywhere near the Power Rangers secret. He had, however, seemed to sense that they were leaving him out of something, and it didn't help that Smitty always wanted to be the best at everything but was always a runner-up to Tommy. Tommy was smarter, more athletic, more charismatic, better-looking and closer to Hayley; in fact, the only things he could do better than Tommy were dance and hold his liquor, neither of which were hard to do.

They'd been an odd trio—arrogant, goofy Smitty; spastic, secretive Tommy; and perceptive, nurturing Hayley. It wasn't until Tommy and Hayley had decided to get a place together that Smitty's jealousy began to spiral out of control, when it had started to seem like maybe Hayley ignored his flirting because there was something going on between her and Tommy.

That was when Tommy's relationship issues began to suck Hayley into a place she really hadn't wanted to go, when Smitty's envy had pushed the wrong buttons and Hayley had gotten caught in the crossfire.

Flashback

"What's wrong?" Hayley asked as Tommy sat down beside her on the couch. She didn't even need to look up from the movie she was watching to know that he was brooding about something.

"Nothing."

"Uh-huh. Sure."

"Well… it's just… Smitty said something odd after class."

"That was five hours ago, wasn't it?"

"Yeah. It kinda… stuck with me."

Hayley groaned inwardly. Great. He'd had way too much time to think. "Odd how?"

"Well, he asked if I was sleeping with you."

Hayley laughed. "Has he met us?"

Tommy smiled faintly. "Yeah, I know. But when I told him no, he started… well, kinda ranting."

"Ranting? Ranting how?"

"He said that we would be. That no guy could be friends with a girl for long without having feelings for her. That if we weren't together yet we would be eventually. I told him you and I weren't like that, that we didn't want each other that way, and he said there was no way we didn't. He said there's no way a guy could live with a girl like you—"

"'A girl like me?' Excuse me?"

"You know—a hot girl." Tommy gestured vaguely. She rolled her eyes. That was Tommy for you—Hayley's hotness factor was irrelevant to him, so it barely registered in his rather addled brain that she was pretty. "Anyway, he said a guy couldn't live with a good-looking girl for long without wanting her. And I told him he was wrong."

Hayley frowned at him suspiciously. "And?"

"And… well… we don't like each other, right?"

Her frown deepened. "Of course not. I mean, I don't. Do you?"

"No." Hayley nodded; she could tell he was being truthful, and it was quite the relief. "But… why don't we?" Tommy asked.

"We're just not that way."

"Smitty thinks we should be that way."

"Well, if we did everything Smitty thought, you'd have set the burned down the chemistry lab. Just because Smitty has some preconceived notion about the way we should act towards each other doesn't mean we should be dating."

"Yeah, but… I mean, it is pretty weird. Me, you, living together, hanging out together, practically being together. Except for, you know, anniversaries and roses and chocolate and sex and teddy bears and expensive jewelry. That sort of thing."

"I'm not a big fan of roses or teddy bears, expensive jewelry is a waste of money, I can buy my own chocolate, you couldn't remember an anniversary day to save your life—did I miss anything?"

"Um… sex, I think."

"Well, there's no need for that, either, is my point." Hayley struggled to fight off a blush. "Just because we're not having sex on the kitchen counter doesn't mean there's something wrong with us! We're just… not like that."

"It's still kind of weird."

"I guess," Hayley said uncomfortably. "Let's talk about it after the movie."

"Okay," Tommy said, looking slightly relieved that she had created an out in the conversation, but still troubled.

Hayley shifted on the couch, wondering if Tommy was now thinking the same things she was. Smitty was dead wrong. There was absolutely nothing odd about her relationship with Tommy. They were friends. Plenty of girls had guys for best friends. Just… not anyone she knew personally.

Hayley felt rather than saw Tommy glancing at her. Yes, he was probably thinking about it too. Especially given the fact that their current body language was totally unnatural for them; usually when they sat on the couch to watch TV, she had her feet in his lap while his were up on the coffee table, or else she leaned against him because he made a surprisingly good pillow, despite his lack of cushioning. Now they were sitting at opposite ends of the couch, Hayley hugging a pillow against herself defensively, Tommy with one arm flung over the end of the couch and the other on his lap, as though making sure no part of him was closer to Hayley than necessary.

"Hayley?"

She jumped. "What?"

"D'you… do you think he's right?"

"Who about what?" she asked carefully.

"Smitty. About us. Should we be dating?"

Hayley forced herself to put the pillow down and turn towards him slightly. "Of course not. We don't have feelings for each other, do we?"

Tommy shook his head. "I don't."

"Me either. So why should we date?"

"Yeah, but… why don't we want to?"

"I don't know, Tommy. It's just one of those things."

"But it doesn't make any sense!" Tommy exclaimed in exasperation. He turned towards her. "Think about it. We like each other as friends. We're best friends. Hell, we can't survive without each other. And we're both attractive. So why don't we want to date?"

Hayley sighed. "I don't know. We just don't."

"Am I destined to always be the guy that girls see as their brother?" he burst out suddenly.

Oh, god. Not this again. "What—no! Just… to me."

"…And to Kim."

"Tommy, let the past die."

"But… but… it's not fair!" Tommy ranted. "I mean, after all the good times we shared, all the romantic things we did, she thought I was like a brother to her. A brother! I'm not… I'm not defective, am I? You think I'm hot, right?"

She stared at him incredulously. "Did you just ask me that?"

"Hayley, I'm serious."

"Well… yeah, I guess. For a… for you."

"And I think you're hot."

"Um… thanks." She fought the urge to roll her eyes, given the fact that less than ten minutes ago she'd noticed he didn't register her looks at all.

"So why don't I want to sleep with you? And more importantly, why don't you want to sleep with me?"

Hayley glowered at him. "Tommy… have you ever asked yourself how my mind works?"

"Often."

"Have you ever figured it out?"

"No."

"Well, let me explain something to you—when I am given a question, I can't rest until I've got an answer. So please don't ask me something as creepy as why we don't want to have sex with each other. Because I will start thinking about it. And I won't stop thinking about it until I have an answer."

"And that's bad?"

"YES!"

"But I don't get it!" Tommy whined, thwacking the back of the couch in frustration. "Even Jason said he thought Kim was sexy once. And they were just as creepy as you and I are on the friendship plane. Almost. So what exactly is our problem? Why don't we feel attracted to each other if we're both attractive?"

"I don't know, Tommy," Hayley repeated with a sigh. "But I really don't care. We're friends. That's enough for me."

"Well, it's not for me, not anymore." Tommy flung himself back into the couch cushions, then brightened and sat upright, looking at her eagerly. "Hey, maybe we should kiss or something."

"What?" Hayley demanded, recoiling at the thought.

"No, seriously! Maybe if we try to see each other in a romantic light, we'll become attracted to each other. Practice makes perfect and all that."

"I don't want to become attracted to you!" Hayley fairly wailed.

"Why not?" Tommy demanded, somewhat wounded by that.

She sighed again. She couldn't really explain it. Tommy was… Tommy. They didn't work that way. They just didn't. He was Tommy. Half the time she didn't even realize he was a guy until he checked out another girl in front of Hayley, or did something macho or stupid or started raving about cars or sports. Even those moments she took in stride, thinking of them not as "guy things" but as "Tommy's personality," as though he were a female friend who liked stereotypically "male" hobbies. Thinking of him as something datable was just… wrong.

"Come on," Tommy cajoled. "Aren't you curious?"

Not really, Hayley thought grimly. She didn't feel a need to prove what she already knew. Well, okay, now she did wonder what it was about Tommy that shut off her hormones. Logically, she knew he was a great catch, if you overlooked his tardiness, ego and memory issues, and plenty of other guys had worse issues than that. So why wasn't she into him? She didn't know. But she wasn't willing to experiment with him on the off-chance they might end up figuring something out. They acted like an old married couple as it was. She'd hate to think of them actually lasting in a relationship; they'd be the most boring couple alive.

"Tommy," Hayley said sternly, "I don't think us making out is the answer to your question."

"Is it me?" Tommy demanded.

Oh, great. No wonder he was freaking out; he couldn't make his relationships last and Smitty had just implied that he was screwing up a relationship with Hayley before Tommy had ever so much as felt like asking her out. Now Hayley was going to have to convince him that he wasn't doomed to end up alone while Tommy babbled about ludicrous things like kissing her. "No! It's not you. Well, okay, yeah, it is you, but not like that."

"Like what, then?" Tommy asked petulantly.

"Well, see, when I look at a guy whom I find physically appealing, I think, 'Hey, I'd like to… um, date him.' And when I have a conversation with a guy whose personality I enjoy, I think, 'Hey, he'd be a good guy to date.' But when I look at you, and when I have a conversation with you, I think, 'La, la, la, I'm looking-slash-talking to Tommy.' I don't know why, I just do, and to be honest I like I that way!"

"But… but… but… Hayley, this is seriously bugging the crap out of me."

"I noticed," Hayley grumbled.

"We should, by all rights, be dating, instead of living together and spending time together and never even once thinking something other than what we do think." He scooted over to her on the couch, Hayley leaning back slightly. "Come on. One kiss? Just to see if, you know, anything changes?"

"No!" Hayley insisted firmly. "Tommy, we're friends. Best friends. Good friends. You're probably the best friend I've ever had, and I'm not going to start questioning that connection because Smitty's an idiot!"

"But—"

"No."

Tommy sighed heavily and turned to face forward, looking utterly deflated. "Fine," he said glumly, with the air of one who has just been told they were about to have their legs amputated.

Oh, no you don't! Hayley thought irritably, realizing that he was trying to goad her into it by looking pitiful. I'm not gonna do it. There's no way I'm kissing Tommy. That's kinda gross. That's way ABOVE "kinda gross." He's like a brother to me. I'm not kissing him. Nope. Nope.

"Stop pouting," she snapped suddenly.

"I'm not pouting," Tommy said dully. "I'm just watching the movie."

Hayley rolled her eyes. Once Tommy got into one of these moods, there was only one way to avoid the days of sulking—cave.

"All right, fine. One kiss. And that's it. And nothing major. No tongue."

Tommy grinned and whipped around to look at her. "Great, you ready?"

She winced. "Now?"

He shrugged. "Why not?

"Okay," Hayley said shakily, taking a deep breath. Tommy started to lean in… and yet oddly enough he never seemed to get any closer, he just kept leaning and leaning and leaning and…

"Stop leaning back, would you?" Tommy commanded. "This is hard enough as it is."

Hayley giggled, and Tommy laughed with her for a moment before grabbing her shoulders without warning and throwing his mouth onto hers. Hayley's eyes widened, a giggle catching in her throat as she stared at Tommy in horror. Oh, god. What the hell were they doing?

A moment later, Tommy's eyebrows knitted in a frown and suddenly he decided to try harder. Realizing that she wasn't being very receptive, Hayley tried to react a bit more, finally closing her eyes and even putting her arms around his neck. He was a fairly good kisser, she had to give him that. And the way he moved his hands through her hair was very therapeutic. Still, it was kind of like a Hershey's bar—it was good, but that didn't mean she was going to go and buy Hershey's bars by the truckload and eat nothing but Hershey's bars. In fact, she could live without the Hershey's bar. Well, okay, to be honest, as far as the analogy went she definitely preferred Reese's Cups. Still chocolate, but drastically different.

The kiss seemed to go on forever. Tommy was obviously trying his hardest to impress her.

Hayley found herself popping one eye open and trying to see the TV screen.

At last, just when she was considering shoving him away no matter what the consequences to his self-esteem, he pulled back; she quickly shut her eyes and then opened them slowly when they released each other, so as not to let on that her attention had begun to wane. She found him regarding her hopefully through half-lidded eyes.

"Anything?" he asked desperately.

"Nope," she replied apologetically.

"Me either," Tommy said with a sigh. Then he brightened. "Hey, let me take you out to dinner!"

"No!" Hayley fairly shouted. "Tommy, it's over. We're not going to start dating or be together or have sex. We just don't like each other, okay? Get over—HEY!"

Tommy had grabbed her and kissed again. Hayley sighed irritably in his mouth but felt obligated to kiss him back. It abruptly occurred to her that this was a no-win situation; if she didn't have hearts in her eyes by the time he pulled back, he'd keep trying, probably thinking it was some defect of his causing her lack of feelings (the same defect that had cost him Kimberly and Kat). Now, however, she was starting to worry that this was going to become an obsession of his. She had a sudden vision of him hiding around every corner, waiting to ambush her with a kiss as part of some deranged mission to make her like him when he didn't even like her just to prove that he was normal and the goddess of love didn't have a grudge against him. Damn Smitty for starting this! Hayley raged. What a jackass!

Apparently, Hayley had a problem. And since she obviously wasn't going to fall for Tommy, she only had a few options. She could insist that he stop this nonsense, though she didn't see that working; Tommy was too driven and impulsive in general and once some bizarre scheme occurred to him he couldn't rest until he'd seen it through. He hadn't even listened about the "ONE kiss" thing, or—shudder—the "no tongue" thing. She could somehow find him a girlfriend—but of course she wasn't sure that it would actually help; if it ended badly she'd be right back where she started. Or she could pretend she liked him and go out with him until he finally got it through his head that this just wasn't going to work, but that didn't exactly sound like fun and there could be long-term damage to their friendship. She had to convince him that they just weren't romantically compatible. Otherwise, Tommy would continue to believe that he was doing something wrong. Unless… wait.

I'm such a genius, Hayley thought smugly to herself, and abruptly seized Tommy by the shoulders and flung him down on the couch. He stared up at her in shock for a moment before she fairly tackled him, making out with him like there was no tomorrow. Tentatively, as if poking a grizzly bear to make sure it was really dead and not just pretending, he put his arms around her and shifted beneath her to get more comfortable. Hayley gave it her all, making quite certain that Tommy got the picture that she was trying before she jerked upwards like a serial killer's knife.

"Anything?" she demanded.

There was a long moment of silence.

"No," he replied, pouting dejectedly.

"You see, Tommy? Nothing is going to make us like each other. It's not you. It's not me. We're just not compatible, okay? At all! Any hope for the two of us having a romance was completely skipped when we started acting like an elderly couple on a sitcom. We're too comfortable with each other to like each other, Tommy, and it's nobody's fault, and it's not fixable, it just is. Now get your hands off me, because I need a shower and then I need to go buy a baseball bat to beat the crap out of Smitty with!"

Tommy let go of her with a sigh, which Hayley ignored as she tried to climb off of him; her foot got caught behind a cushion and she tumbled to the floor in an ungraceful heap.

Tommy held out his hand to help her up. "But, maybe if you let me take you out to dinner, we could—"

"NO! No, no, a thousand times no! I am going to kill Smitty!" Hayley raged, smacking his hand away.

With that, she grabbed the cordless phone, marched off into the bathroom, soundly locked the door and turned the shower on full-blast. Once the sound of the water filled the bathroom, Hayley shuddered violently and fought the urge to gag. She'd just kissed Tommy. EW!

Hayley dialed Smitty's number, actually shaking with fury and disgust. "Hello?" came Smitty's sleepy voice a minute later.

"You," Hayley growled blackly.

"Hayley?" He paused. "Are you in the shower?"

"Don't you ever make insinuations about me and Tommy again!"

"Whoa, calm down! What's—"

"Tommy and I are perfectly happy being friends! It's none of your business if we make out on the couch or go out to dinner or have sex on the kitchen counter and we most certainly never will!"

"Hayley, I don't know what—"

"NEVER mention ANYTHING about me and Tommy dating again, do you understand me?"

"Hayley, when I said that I didn't mean to upset—"

"Let me put it this way," Hayley interrupted. "Do you know how long it takes to drain the human body of blood?"

"…Uh, no."

"I do."

"…Oh." Pause. "Point taken. I'm really sorry if I—"

"See that it doesn't happen again." Hayley hit the end button, feeling a twinge of guilt, but it was buried somewhere deep down beneath the horror.

End Flashback

Hayley chuckled at the memory. What a horrible catalyst that had been. Tommy hadn't given up after that kiss. Or the dinner he finally convinced her to go to. In fact, Tommy had actively pursued her for the next few months for no other reason than the fact that he felt obligated to do so as a guy who was roommates with a reasonably hot girl.

Over time, the disgust had faded, leaving simple apathy and annoyance, which allowed her own doubts about the platonic nature of her relationship with Tommy to grow. She had begun to try and see what it was that Smitty had babbled about. They had dated. They had gotten rather physical. And yet they had never felt one tiny spark of chemistry.

Unfortunately, Hayley hadn't wanted to break it off, especially since she felt Tommy was trying too hard because he was worried every girl was going to be another Kat or another Kimberly. Finally, he had decided to give up. She'd been really relieved, but that had sent them into a huge awkward stage, and Tommy had ended up moving into Smitty's apartment. And then somewhere along the way Smitty admitted having said all that crap to Tommy because Smitty wanted Hayley for himself and Tommy had decided that it was far too difficult to function without Hayley after relying on her for so long and they'd agreed to go back to their friendship status under the condition that Hayley would never ever have to kiss him again.

Even so, Hayley had been forced to take drastic measures to repair their friendship, which hadn't been shattered but did have a few gaping holes punched in it. She'd hooked him up with a classmate of hers, Kennedy, who, as Hayley predicted, absolutely adored Tommy. Within three months, however, her annoying personality drove Tommy completely up the wall and he finally broke up with her. Understandably, Tommy had been a tad depressed by yet another failed relationship, but Hayley had pointed out that at least Kennedy proved that Tommy had been doing something right, because he had been the one who wanted out, and not for any reasons that could be traced back to Kimberly. Tommy had cheered up considerably, and from that point on he'd started believing that he could possibly find a decent girl one day.

Still, she knew a lot of that mess was still there, as evidenced by his terror when she got into MIT. All those months coming up with projects like the Tyrannodrones, taking a huge risk exposing his identity to Anton to gain Anton's financial and scientific assistance, and he was willing to give it all up and follow her to Massachusetts just because he was afraid to lose her. It had taken her nearly a month to convince him that three time zones wouldn't keep her from still being his best friend, his confidant, his Hayley. It had taken even longer before they didn't have to talk on the phone every other day just to convince him that nothing was going to change.

And nothing had, not really. Somehow, Tommy had become the center of her universe from the moment she'd adopted him back in college. They were still best friends, she still kept all his secrets… even the ones his other friends couldn't. She was the one who threw his cell phone into the forest when vodka gave him the bright idea to call Kimberly at four in the morning. She was the one who convinced him that his previous failures didn't necessarily mean he'd end up alone and unhappy forever. And so she was the one who had to drive to Angel Grove at midnight to keep Tommy from doing something he'd regret.

She just hoped she wasn't too late.

"A brother!" Tommy bellowed. "A brother to her! A brother, Trini! Who makes love to their brother?"

Trini fought off a groan as she aligned the new doorknob and began to screw it into place. Tommy had done nothing but rant since she'd gone to get a spare doorknob out of the junk drawer, and while ranting might be fun for him, but it didn't give her an opening to start helping him. He'd grown steadily more infuriated as he related his conversation with Kimberly and his own feelings before moving on to ranting about the letter, and as Trini had never read the letter, she no longer had any earthly idea what he was even talking about.

"Huh? Who does that, Trini? No one I'd like to date, no sir!"

Then he paused to draw breath, and finally Trini was able to pounce. "Tommy, I'm sure she didn't mean it like that."

"Then how did she mean it, huh? 'Everything would be perfect if it weren't for hurting you,' well, that's nice, as long as that's the only thing standing in the way of your perfect life as a famous gymnast in sunny Florida!"

"'Dear God, please bless my friends with a sense of timing,'" Jason grumbled, staring up at the sky in mock-askance.

"We were everything to each other!" Tommy roared.

"And I'm sure that's exactly how Kimberly meant it," Trini cut in hastily. "You were everything to her, not just her boyfriend. Friend, confidant—"

"Why did it have to end, Trini? Why did it have to end?" Tommy wailed.

"Sometimes it happens that way," Trini said gently as she secured the screw and started on the next one. "You leave a person behind, and you lose touch. You start to lose common ground, and you can't find it again, so it ends. You can't change that, Tommy, so stop dwelling. That was just your fate, and I know it sucks, but you have to accept that and move on. You lost each other, but now you've found each other again. It happens, Tommy. All you can do is figure out where to go from here."

"And where's that? Huh?" he asked sulkily.

"Well, there are only two ways it can go. Either you'll realize that you and Kimberly are completely different people now or you'll discover that you have more in common now than when you drifted apart. Either you'll walk away wondering how it ever worked between you in the first place, or you'll patch things up and create a bond much stronger than the one you previously had."

"How can I, huh? She blames me, Trini. Me! She's the one who left!"

"You said it yourself—it wasn't working. You both decided to make an effort to stay together when she left Angel Grove and you both stopped making that effort. And did it occur to you that Kimberly was just admitting the same thing you did? You told her you blamed her on occasion. Maybe that's what she meant, too. Regardless, she was being honest, Tommy. What she said might hurt you and maybe it is unfair. I don't know; it's not my place to decide who's at fault. But she was trying to tell you the truth and you exploded because you didn't like what she said. Don't go to someone looking for an honest answer and then get huffy because they were giving you what you wanted." She finished the doorknob and motioned for him to step out of the way of the doorjamb; he backed into the hallway while she examined the damage. It wasn't that bad; she could nail the wood pieces back into place and everything would be fine.

"Hey, Kimberly has no right to blame me!"

"That's your opinion, Tommy. Maybe it's correct, and maybe it isn't, but screaming at each other and stomping off isn't going to settle anything. It's just going to—"

"Make Jason cranky," Jason threw in.

"She ran out on me!" Tommy ranted. "She ran out on me! I was trying to explain myself, I was trying to forgive her, and she ran out on me!"

"Because you were screaming at her. I'm not saying that makes it okay," Trini added hastily, seeing him about to object. "I'm just trying to explain why you are where you are. I'm trying to tell you how to settle this. If you want Kimberly back—"

"Who needs her?" Tommy roared. "I don't! I've gotten along just fine without her for the last eight years!"

Trini rose to her feet as swiftly as she could without losing the sheet. "Stop it, Tommy. If you didn't want Kimberly back, you wouldn't be here right now. I'm tired of your little game of self-deception! You want her, so shut up. Just shut up! I'm not going to stand here wrapped in a sheet and fixing a splintered doorjamb while you lie to yourself! It takes two people to make a relationship work, Tommy. Yours stop working and neither of you were trying to fix it. It ended, and it doesn't matter whose fault it is. All that matters is that one of you steps up to the plate and takes a swing at making it work again. Maybe it shouldn't be you. Maybe it should be Kimberly. But if you're not willing to go after what you want because you're determined to pretend she wasn't the best thing that ever happened to you, then get out. Go back to the hotel, take a nap, and when you wake up in the morning pretend nothing ever happened. Slog through tomorrow and through Power Rangers Day and then go back to Reefside and teach your classes and hang out with Hayley and spend the next eight years as alone as you spent the last. I can't help you if you lie to yourself, Tommy; no one can. So if you're going to continue the way you have been, if you're not willing to fight for Kimberly, if you're willing to let it stay over, then go ahead. No one will stop you. Just don't stand there and tell me that Kimberly isn't what you want, because I'll never believe that."

Tommy stared at her numbly. Then he closed his eyes. "It is what I want, Trini," he said softly. "Kimberly's what I want."

"Then I'll help you get it," Trini told him, clasping his shoulder. "If you want my help, I'll give it to you. Just ask."

Tommy sighed shakily. He felt suddenly drained as his adrenaline level plummeted. He nodded. "I do, Trini. I want your help. And… and I'm sorry I didn't ask before. I just… I wasn't sure how."

Trini smiled and patted his cheek. "I know. It's okay. I'm going to take care of it, Tommy. I'll find a way. We'll all help you. I'll talk to Kimberly, and we'll… we'll find a way to make it happen. I'm not saying it'll work out, you and Kim," she added carefully. "Maybe… maybe it isn't meant to be."

Tommy thought that over. "Maybe not," Tommy said slowly, "but I'm willing to take that chance. I can't let her go again, knowing I did nothing to keep her around. I know I might not win… but I have to fight for her. I have to."

Trini gave him a quick hug. "Tell you what. Go have a seat in the family room. I'll get dressed and brew us up some tea and we can talk while I fix the front door."

He winced. "Sorry about that."

She chuckled. "Next time, try the knob," she teased, and went back into her bedroom, shutting the now-fixed door behind her. Tommy could hear Jason whining something about "go be a Yellow in the morning," and he felt a pang of guilt.

He really had been dragging his friends through some seriously rough spots because of him and Kimberly. Jason had been terrified he'd lose Trini for good when he found out about Tommy and Kimberly's breakup. Hayley had had to deal with numerous issues from Tommy's past. Not to mention he'd gotten them all into a fistfight with a bunch of clowns just so he could spend a few moments alone with Kimberly, which had somehow led Rocky, Zack and Conner to axe-murderers and Kira and Kimberly to goat injuring…

Tommy had just turned right into the family room when someone leaped on his back, sending him to the floor. Before he could react, something furry clamped around his wrist. He was still trying to puzzle this out when the person who'd jumped him yanked his other arm back and snapped the same furry instrument around his other wrist.

"What the hell?" He twisted his head to the side. He saw a pair of bare feet peeking out from beneath red-and-black plaid pajama bottoms. "Conner?" he demanded incredulously.

"It's for your own good, Dr. O," Conner said, taking a hasty step backwards. "We're only doing this because we care."

"Doing what? Who's we?"

Suddenly he was hauled to his feet by the back of his shirt. He struggled to free his hands and realized just what the furry restraints were. He went very still, fury beginning to seep through the confused indignation.

"Did you seriously just put me in fuzzy handcuffs?" he hissed.

"Sorry, Tommy," came a sheepish voice from behind him.

"Billy? What the hell?"

"You'll thank me later," Conner told him. He leaned around Tommy and handed something to Billy. Tommy kicked at Conner, but Conner skipped out of his way. "Lock him in," Conner said to Billy. "I'll stall Trini."

"What is going on?" Tommy demanded.

"No idea," Billy told him apologetically, shoving Tommy towards the basement door.

End Notes: By the way, Freyja's doing a Trent/Kira story called "Wow," posted under her account, Freyja SilverWillow. Please go read and review—a happy Freyja leads to frequent OLaB updates.