Chapter 102

Forever Friends

"So. Did any of you guys think, when we pressured Dr. O into letting us come on this trip—"

"'Pressured?' You sat on his foot and stole his cell phone, Conner."

"—that we would be here," Conner continued, ignoring Trent, "watching our science teacher and his buddies tie his ex-girlfriend to the front seat of his car?"

Ethan, Trent and Kira thought this over for a moment as they watched, from a safe distance, while Rocky toss another loop of rope around Kimberly's torso and the passenger seat. Zack was holding her head still—or as still as it was possible to hold something determinedly attempting to both bite his forearm and insult his character. Billy and Trini had removed the passenger door and were fiddling with it, presumably trying to disable its ability to open without doing permanent damage, while Adam attempted to secure Kimberly's feet and Tommy discussed the next phase of his plan with Jason. Hayley leaned against the wall of the gymnastics center, arms folded and eyes glaring daggers, swords and throwing stars at Tommy's back.

"I would have thought it would've taken fewer people," Ethan said.

"She's never kicked you into a goat," Kira pointed out.

"Nothing surprises me anymore," Trent said with a weary smile.

"It's been a hell of a trip," Kira mused, frowning. "Maybe you could write a comic book about it, Trent."

Trent smiled. "Nah. It's too outrageous. Even for the comic book world. Boy meets girl, girl's a superhero in disguise, boy becomes a super villain, boy switches sides, boy falls madly in love, she dumps him, and eight years later he…" Trent trailed off, thinking. "I could give it a shot."

They watched for a moment longer in silence. Then Conner cleared his throat, looking uncomfortable. "I… I have to say something. Something that's been worrying me since Ethan told us Dr. O and Kim were an item way back when."

"What's that?" Trent asked.

Conner rounded on him, looking almost angrily down at him. "This doesn't ever happen with you and her, Trent."

"What?" Trent asked blankly.

"This isn't going to be you and Kira!" Conner growled vehemently. "I won't let it. You two break up, fine. You're together forever, even better. But I won't let this happen to us. To me and Ethan. You two break up, you damned well better find some way to stay friends and preserve this team."

Trent stared at him, eyes wide. "Conner…"

"I mean it, man. I've been thinking about it a lot, even before this mess with Dr. Oliver. You're going off to art school in the fall, Kira's going to New York soon, and it's not like it's impossible that one day you two aren't going to be together anymore. I know that, and I've been worried about it, about what'll happen to me and Ethan and Dr. O and Hayley if we have to divide our time between you and Kira. Kira sings in the café where you work, for crying out loud. What happens if you two break up?"

"We've never talked about it," Kira said quietly, disturbed by Conner's foresight. "We've never really had to."

"You've never wanted to," Conner told her, turning to face her. "And neither have I. I didn't want to give you anymore grief about your relationship, especially since I was the one who had to open my big mouth when Trent was evil, who pressured you to stop caring about him and prepare yourself to kick his ass." Kira flinched at the memory and Trent looked away. Ethan shifted awkwardly. "I don't want you guys to break up, you know. I never have, really. Trent was evil, that was one thing. We didn't know if there was a cure or a… if we'd have to destroy him. It wasn't healthy for you or the team, and I was scared about that. I'm not… I don't want you to think I don't support you guys. I do. But know this—if you guys break up, if you ever have problems and need to call it quits, that's fine. I'll be there for you, for both of you. I'm not gonna take sides or get angry with you. I am not, however, gonna watch you guys tear our team apart the way Tommy and Kim damaged theirs."

"We won't, Conner," Trent said, swallowing. "I can't speak for Kira, but—"

"You just did," she interrupted. "I won't, either. Trent and I break up, we'll leave Ethan and you out of it."

"And Dr. O and Hayley," Trent agreed. "There won't be anything like what's gone wrong for Dr. O. We'll work it out, somehow, no matter how bad it is."

Conner nodded and started to say something else, but Kira spoke up in a voice barely above a whisper. "It will be bad, you know," she mumbled. "If Trent and I break up. It'll take something major to do it. It won't be like last time he and I were on the outs; we were all on the outs with him. He was evil, end of story. But if it happens for real, without Dino Gems involved, it'll be all kinds of awkward, and probably all kinds of horrible."

A long moment of tense silence ensued. "Yeah, it will," Trent said. "But we'll make it through."

"Damned right, we will," Kira said fiercely, looking up. "Conner, Trent went evil, tried to kill us, and then even after he joined the team he lied to us and kept Mesogog's identity from us. I doubt something worse than that will happen."

"I won't let it. Right here, right now, if I ever screw things up with Kira, I swear to you guys it's never gonna be like it is for them. We're friends. All of us. And that comes first, before my relationship with Kira. We're a team. Forever."

Kira nodded. "Nothing to worry about, Conner." She smiled. "You've driven me crazy enough to know that if one of you, Trent or Hayley or Dr. O or Ethan or you, does something to bug me there's no chance I'd cut you out of my life."

Conner smiled. "Yeah. Good. I know." He breathed a shaky sigh of relief. "Well, that's settled, then."

Ethan nodded, relieved at the upswing in the mood. "Yeah. Something goes wrong with Trent and Kira, we don't wait seven years before we lock them in a closet."

They all snickered and returned to watching the spectacle created by Tommy and Kimberly. "So what do you think happens next?" Trent asked. "We've got them talking now, sort of. Dr. O's committed to trying again. Now what?"

"No idea," Conner said proudly, "but I'm sure Dr. O will thank me for it."

Across the parking lot, Zack started screaming. Kimberly's teeth had found purchase on his arm. Rocky, who had moved on to duct tape to supplement the rope, hastily abandoned his task and pinched her nose while Adam shoved a finger into her sandal and started tickling her feet. Between the tickling sensation and the need to breathe Kimberly was forced to let up, allowing Zack to yank his arm free. She sucked in a deep breath and resumed shouting and cursing at them as they returned to restraining her.

"Dr. O might thank you," Kira said dryly, "but somehow I doubt Kimberly will."

It took a while—especially once students began arriving for the next class and people stopped to ask questions about what they were doing to Kimberly, most of which they kindly referred to Leslie inside—but eventually they'd gotten Kimberly secured and the door replaced. She was still shouting, but it was muted now; they'd locked her in the Jeep.

"So," Tommy said, "that's all agreed, then. We take her back to Zack's house. Cut her off from her car, so if she escapes she can't go far. I'll get her to talk to me once we're away from the center, and Jason, Trini, Zack and I will—"

"No."

Tommy closed his eyes, and when they opened he was rolling them. "Hayley," Tommy began impatiently, "I don't have time for—"

"For what, Tommy? For my negativity? For my opinion? To tell me the truth?"

Tommy turned to face her and the expression on her face killed the angry retort before it could escape him. She didn't look angry, or annoyed, or anything he would have expected. She looked hurt.

He could count on one hand the number of times he'd seen her look that way. Hayley was a strong girl, a smart girl, and someone with a lot of perspective. It was hard to hurt her; she was too busy understanding motives and the big picture to let inconsequential things slip through her armor. Given how close they were, it said something about her that the only time he'd ever seen her cry was at Smitty's funeral.

He felt sick suddenly, certain that he was the cause of whatever was wrong with her but unable to see what he'd done. Why was she hurting? Angry, confused, exasperated, concerned, sure. Those were things he could deal with. But hurt?

"You know," Hayley said softly, now that she had his attention, "I used to think that I had a better handle on you and Kimberly than most. I was there for you, and you could tell me things about her that you couldn't tell them." She waved a hand at Jason, Trini, Billy, Zack, Rocky and Adam. "I wasn't her friend, had never even met her."

"You do," Tommy said, confused. "I mean… sort of. You had. That's true. I could talk to you. I always—"

Hayley shook her head. "You lied to me, Tommy."

Tommy frowned. "No, I—"

"Yes, you did. You lied to yourself, and in doing so you lied to me. You made you believe that the cure was to get over it. I should have seen it. I would have seen it, if I'd been one of them." She waved her hand at the assembled Rangers once again. "That's what you do, Tommy, whenever there's a problem. Fighter or not, Ranger or not, you accept things when they go wrong."

Tommy shook his head. "I do not. I—"

"Yes, you do. I've seen you. You accept that you have a bad memory, that you're chronically late, that you get lost a lot."

"I've tried to change."

"No, you haven't. You've made an effort to accept your shortcomings. That's not the same thing."

Tommy was starting to feel worse. He knew he had issues; everyone did. What was so wrong with that?

"This isn't the time—" he began.

"Oh, yes it is. It's definitely the time, Tommy. You see, that's your problem, and I didn't get that at first. I was used to the idea that Kim wasn't coming back because that's what you were used to. I didn't question what you always told me—and you always told me that you just needed time. You just needed to get over it."

Tommy opened his mouth to argue and realized he didn't actually have an argument at the moment. While he struggled to come up with one, Hayley plowed on.

"It's there, but I didn't catch it before. When something goes wrong, you find a way around it. You always have. If you think it can't be fixed, you just deal with not having it. No matter how much it tears you up. Your power losses, Kimberly, Smitty, the island. You figured she wasn't coming back, that the most you could do would be to let her go. So you convinced yourself it was doomed and you told me—over and over again—that that was just the way things were and you just needed to work on dealing with the pain."

Confusion was starting to settle in. "What's your point?" he asked, trying not to sound rude about it. The last thing he needed right now was to do anymore soul searching, especially not right now, with Kimberly looking like an irate kidnapping victim in the middle of a public parking lot and his sleepy, strung-out friends rallying around him.

"My point," Hayley said dangerously, anger seeping back into her tone, "is that you've sabotaged most of my ability to be there for you and I don't appreciate that, Tommy."

Tommy blinked at her. "Huh?"

"You always told me that getting her back wasn't what you wanted. That it was over and you were okay with it but it still hurt. I wasn't scared you would come here and try to get her back. I was worried you would come here and pretend that was what you wanted!"

"It is what I wanted," Tommy said, completely stumped.

"Of course it is, you idiot!" Hayley shouted. "And you never told me that before! You never even hinted at it! It was obvious to them, to you, but not to me! You kept that from me! You told yourself it was over and you were okay and you never once admitted to me that if the opportunity arose you'd do anything to have her in your life again!"

"Hayley," Jason interrupted quietly, "he never admitted it to anyone. He couldn't bring himself to do it."

"It was obvious to us," Zack said, "because it was obvious to anyone who ever saw them together. It's not your fault you missed it."

"You came late to the party, that's all," Trini added gently.

Hayley shook her head and gave a short, bitter laugh. "Oh, I get that now. I missed it, all along. I believed the crap he was feeding himself." She looked Tommy in the eye. "That doesn't make it okay."

Tommy swallowed and nodded. "You're right." He let out a shaky breath and said, "We'll talk about it, Hayley, I promise. But not now. I might not get another shot like this. I want her back, and I'm sorry I wasn't honest with you about it. I was so used to not being honest about it, for a lot of reasons, to a lot of people, that I forgot you had no way of knowing how I felt. And… well, I didn't even like the fact that they knew." He gave her a pained look. "I couldn't handle you knowing, too."

That mollified her a bit, he could tell. Relief washed over him for a moment before he added, "Is that okay? Can we… can we put it on hold for a while?"

"We're going to have to," Hayley said, "because right now I have to pull you out of the fire before it reaches the explosives."

Tommy tilted his head and frowned at her. "Huh?"

"You big idiot," Hayley said in an affectionate tone. "I can't be sure, because I don't know Kim, but I'm willing to bet this isn't the best way to handle this."

Tommy was somewhat offended by that, and from the looks on everyone's faces, he wasn't the only one.

"Maybe not," Rocky said, "but it's the best plan we've got."

"That's about to change," Hayley told him determinedly. She stepped forward and looked up at Tommy. "You want Kimberly back?" He nodded. "Then give me ten minutes alone in the car with her."

Tommy gaped at her. "Are… huh?"

"Seriously?" Jason asked. "You're going to help him get Kimberly back?"

"I'm serious," she confirmed. She smiled tiredly at Jason. "I've never not wanted to help Tommy, you know."

"You've been against him and Kim all week," Jason pointed out.

"No I haven't. I've been against him being stupid all week," Hayley replied. "I thought he was just caught up in the past and having an old unresolved issue thrown in his face. Look at it from my point of view—if you thought Tommy came back here and didn't really want Kim back, but saw her again and hung out with her again, what would you be worried about?"

Jason grinned. "I'd be worried that he'd try to get her back out of sheer nostalgia. He'd see an old flame, know it was over, but want to try again because he missed the old days. It wouldn't be healthy for him, and I'd try to stop him. I'd know nothing good could come from it."

She nodded. "I had bad information, people—that doesn't make me a bad friend." She locked eyes with Tommy again. "Let me in the car with her. Give me ten minutes, tops. I can point her in the right direction. Guaranteed."

Tommy blinked and thought it over. "I don't know. Hayley, Kimberly might… you don't know her like we do."

"Exactly. That's why I should go in there. She's not going to scream and rave at a perfect stranger. She won't see me as the enemy, one of the crazy people who did stupid things like locked her in a closet and duct-taped her to a Jeep."

"You've got a point there," Rocky joked, trying and failing to keep a straight face.

The more Tommy considered it, the smarter it seemed. Hayley would be able to get more than a word in edgewise—she might even be able to get her point across. It would confuse and distract Kimberly if they sent Hayley in first. She might be willing to listen to him if Hayley greased the skids. If nothing else, it would make things a whole lot easier.

Still, that didn't quiet the deeply-ingrained instinct against locking two of his ex-girlfriends in a confined space together, even if the better fighter was currently bound to her seat.

"Are you sure?" Tommy asked finally. "She's… well, I doubt she's in a very good mood right now."

"And you did clothesline her," Rocky added.

Hayley winced at the reminder and rubbed her shoulder. "I know. I still think it's for the best, though. And if I'm wrong, well… she's still tied up in there."

"Can't make anything worse, could make something better," Jason agreed.

Tommy nodded thoughtfully and turned to Trini. "I think it's worth a shot, too, but you're the criminal mastermind who knows Kim, so I'd like your input."

Trini smiled. "If I was in Hayley's shoes? I'd say the same thing. She does probably have the best chance, better than the rest of us. As a first act, anyway. You're going to have to get in there eventually—and you could use more prep time."

"I can get that without sending Hayley in."

"Yes, but if you don't send someone in there to distract her now, Kimberly's going to get some prep time too. You don't want her to have too much more time to think. She's frustrated, too, and angry, and hurting—chances are if she starts dwelling on this she might start crying." Tommy cringed and they all turned to check on Kimberly's progress—she was still screaming. Trini sighed. "Kimberly bursts into tears, it'll be a lot harder to make this work. She needs to go straight from anger to discussion without having time to get depressed. Or time to realize that if she cries there isn't a single one of us who wouldn't untie her." Jason snorted.

"I agree with Trini," Billy spoke up. "Kimberly isn't going to listen to us as readily as she would listen to Hayley. The probability that she'll agree with Hayley is still low—but the probability that she'll listen to Hayley is exponentially higher."

"We don't have much to lose," Adam agreed.

"There ain't much that Hayley can't handle," Zack added.

Tommy exhaled sharply. "Yeah. Okay." He gave Hayley a strained smile. "Go for it."

The day had decided to only get hotter as it waned on. Whether it was because it was summer in southern California or because there was a private joke being played on the Time Force Rangers still stuck outside Adam and Tanya's mansion remained to be seen. Max and Danny had disappeared inside the house gate some time ago and hadn't been seen since. Lucas was getting whiny and had decided it best, due to the heat, to divest himself of his shirt. Katie was getting sulky, Jen was getting angry and Trip was now napping, appearing to be piled up against both vehicle and Kat as Kat continued to look cheerful—something about her home planet being mostly tropical. Marcus was also cheerful, but annoyingly so. Boredom and summer heat had taken him into the shade of the van and he was now singing little songs, both out loud and to himself, consisting of their fair share of hey-ho's, sha-na-na-na's and blithe repetitions unto infinity, making it hard to tell the songs apart. Jen was about ready to kill him.

So when the front gate opened seemingly of its own accord, there was want to just run inside before they could close again. But utter suspicion and pessimism stopped them—after all, no one had said anything through the speaker, which had remained silent since Max and Danny asked for admittance. Trip was shaken awake gently by Kat, and Marcus was smacked into silence not too gently by an over-eager Katie. Presently a car tore up the driveway, the driving itself giving an aura of utter disbelief and not a little irritation.

Arriving at the gate, the driver crammed on the brakes. Tires squealed, the car fishtailed and the distinct smell of rubber burning met the Time Force Rangers. Lucas was forced to flee in order to avoid the flailing, enraged car before it came to a full stop. The window rolled down, and out from the depths glared a very harassed-looking woman. Appearing to stop herself from saying something she had just thought of, she schooled her features and looked like she had been forced to suck thirty limes. "You're still not allowed in!" she burst out, then slammed her foot down on the gas. Tires squealed and the smell of burning rubber flared once again as she shot off down the remainder of the pavement, nearly running down the still half-awake Trip. "Move, you tup nezakonit!" she yelled as Katie just barely managed to yank him out of the way. Soon only the odor of rubber and angry tire marks on the driveway were left.

The Time Force Rangers stared in the direction the car had gone, the screech of tires the last thing heard of it. Trip broke the silence, sounding awed. "Tup… nezakonit? Was that Croatian she was yelling?"

"Well, it wouldn't be a dead language in this century," Marcus replied offhandedly.

"She wasn't very nice," Trip said. "I don't think it was necessary to say things like that—"

"Guys?" Lucas called. "She left the gate open."

Kimberly would have liked to have been shocked by her current situation. It wasn't every day that one found one's self tied, handcuffed, duct-taped and bungee-corded to a Jeep seat. Especially not after being chased from one city to another and being more-or-less kidnapped. Yet somehow, as Kimberly struggled futilely against her bonds, she couldn't find it in herself to be surprised.

She could, however, find it in herself to be enraged.

She was running low on dire threats, particularly ones she was willing to risk shouting at the top of her lungs in the parking lot of her place of business, but that didn't stop her from making her displeasure known. She didn't have a whole lot of options, and she knew it. She was secured too tightly to break free without summoning what was left of her Ninja powers, and she couldn't do that in broad daylight in public. She'd have to wait until they moved her somewhere more discreet, which they must be planning to do soon; it wasn't intelligent to keep an obviously unhappy girl tied up in a car where other people might see and call the police, especially when the passers-by were all made up of people who knew and liked Kimberly.

So she hadn't given up hope of getting out of this, eventually. She would be patient and then, one loose, she would be terrifying. She would sit, scream, ignore whatever their next move was, escape, and then give them hell for this. If Tommy thought he could just slip into the seat next to her and manage somehow to get his way after everything she'd been put through, he had another thing coming.

"—and I hope Rita comes back and sucks your eyes from—" Kimberly stopped short, startled when the door opened. She hadn't taken her eyes off of Tommy since they'd shut the door on her, so she'd completely missed Hayley's approach.

Hayley slid into the driver's seat, her expression cautious and her movements beyond cautious. She managed to keep her posture from reflecting nervousness, but Kimberly didn't miss the fact that Hayley kept as much distance between them as the Jeep would allow and left a hand near the door handle.

Smart girl, Kimberly thought grimly. They hadn't even given Hayley the Jeep's keys, which at first seemed like a bad move—summer in California meant there was only so long two people could sit in a locked car with the windows up and the air-conditioning off without getting heatstroke—but at the same time, if Kimberly were to escape, or to convince Hayley to untie her, she wouldn't get far without the keys, not with Tommy, Jason, Billy, Trini, Zack, Rocky, Adam, Conner, Kira, Ethan and Trent outside. She wondered if they'd planned that or if it had just worked out that way.

Speaking of planning, why send Hayley in here at all? Hayley was the one who didn't want Tommy and Kimberly back together. She was a perfect stranger. What were they hoping to accomplish? Kimberly would have expected something more straightforward from Tommy and something sneakier from Trini. If they thought there was some good to be had from getting Kimberly one-on-one, Tommy or Trini should be the other one, or at least Jason, maybe Kira.

Kimberly stared at her in silence for a while, waiting for Hayley to make the first move. Hayley just sat there for a while before finally swallowing and speaking up.

"You know, we've never been properly introduced," she said in a calm, conversational tone. "My name is Hayley. Tate, Hayley Tate. I met Tommy in college. Undergrad, of course, before I transferred to MIT and he went off to work for Anton. We've been best friends since '98."

Kimberly blinked at her, at a loss for anything to say. Seeing this, Hayley plowed on.

"So you're the Kimberly Hart, huh? I've heard a lot about you. You're shorter than I thought you'd be." Kimberly's eyes narrowed and Hayley hastily continued. "Why don't you tell me about yourself?"

"I'm duct-taped to a Jeep seat," Kimberly replied flatly.

Hayley cleared her throat. "Well, it's not a deep, meaningful insight into your character, but I already figured out what your favorite color is."

Kimberly stared at her. "I would ask what the hell you're talking about, but I guess I shouldn't expect you to make sense, given how you did just help a bunch of crazy people chase, attack, and duct-tape me."

Hayley regarded her thoughtfully for a moment. "As far as I know, you were the first of six serious girlfriends Tommy's ever had."

Kimberly stiffened, feeling suddenly cold. Hayley paused to let that comment sink in before continuing.

"Kat," she said, and Kimberly flinched. Hayley did, too, and her face twisted with disgust, looking like she had just swallowed a slug and chased it down with three-day-old baking grease as she went through the list. "Me. Kennedy. Midnight. Maria."

Kimberly frowned. "Midnight?"

"I think it was a nickname. Goth girl, mandatory poetry class, little too dark for Tommy's tastes."

Kimberly shook her head. "What's your point?"

"That he's gotten over every single one of them. Except you."

Kimberly stubbornly refused to acknowledge that. "I still don't see your point," she said sulkily.

"Like hell you don't!" That earned Hayley another glare, but Hayley was unfazed by it. "Tommy's in love with you!"

Kimberly jerked as if she'd been slapped. Hayley was suddenly glad that they weren't friends, because the pained expression on Kimberly's face made Hayley want nothing more than to let it drop. She hated to think how much harder this would be if she knew Kimberly well, and slowly she began to realize just why, exactly, none of Kimberly's friends had had this conversation with her themselves over the years.

Hayley figured it was time to change tactics. When she spoke again her voice was gentler. "I'm just here to help you figure out what you intend to do about it."

Kimberly went from pained to livid faster than Hayley would have thought possible. "Do about it? Do about it?" Kimberly blasted. "I already did something about it! I had a PLAN! I was going to get in my car, drive to L.A., and never see him again!"

Hayley recovered quickly from the start Kimberly's screaming had given her, and gave Kimberly a disgusted look. "Oh, really? Sounds like a plan. I hope that works out for you."

Kimberly started thrashing so hard against the restraints that Hayley was momentarily alarmed. Only when completely satisfied that the overuse of cord and tape was going to hold did Hayley relax and continue. "Not like he's going to chase you or anything," she taunted. "Who knows what he might do if he did find you. But it's not like you'll end up duct-taped to a Jeep seat or anything. Yep, that'll work. You'll probably never see him again."

Kimberly's struggles intensified for a moment before she roared, "Stop being FUNNY!" and promptly burst out laughing. The laughter went on for a while, expressing several different emotions, ranging from anger to disbelief to amazement before tapering off into strange giggles bordering on sobs. "I'm duct-taped to a Jeep seat," Kimberly lamented pathetically.

"Look at it this way—" Hayley began, but broke off when Kimberly flashed her darkest glare yet.

"If you say 'it could be worse,' then so help me, duct tape or no duct tape…" Kimberly let the threat hang.

Hayley nodded in acknowledgement. Suddenly something occurred to Kimberly. Hayley didn't want to be here any more than she did. She thought back to Hayley's annoyance with Tommy during the fair, the look in Hayley's eyes as she was clothes-lined, quickly followed by the look in her eyes as she was flung through the air. Hayley was as unhappy with the situation as one could get without being duct-taped, and she certainly didn't approve Tommy's antics (if one could call them that). Kimberly was willing to bet she had come along to talk Tommy out of it, whatever "it" was. Strange as it seemed, Hayley just might be a potential ally.

"You know," Kimberly said slowly, "I just realized something. You could help me." Hayley gave her a suspicious look, but waited for Kimberly to explain. "I mean, you weren't exactly helping with the duct tape. You don't want Tommy and me back together, so you're a voice of reason, right?" Her voice rose with a near-hysterical level of desperation. "You're supposed to be the voice of reason! Right?"

A pause ensued, and then Hayley favored Kimberly with a grim, chilling smile. "You're forgetting one thing."

Kimberly swallowed, wishing she could cross her fingers for luck. "What's that?"

"I also want what's best for Tommy."

Shock didn't even begin to describe what Kimberly was feeling. "I… I… you… I'm not the best for Tommy! He's deluded! He duct-taped me to a Jeep seat! I'm wearing a halter-top and shorts and he had his friends mob and duct-tape me! They used almost an entire roll and I'm mostly exposed skin here! He duct-taped me to a Jeep seat!"

"Well, that's the thing about Tommy," Hayley said in a tone that implied she was trying really hard not to laugh. "He doesn't do anything halfway."

Kimberly stared at her. "You're kidding, right?"

Hayley shrugged. "The way I see it, you've got two options. Option one: you can refuse to settle this. You can ignore it for the rest of your life, fail to achieve closure, deal with the pain it obviously causes, continue to force your friends to divide their time between the two of you, and hope there's no more duct tape in your future. You can tell him to piss off and he'll either listen to you or you'll spend the rest of your life stalked by a goofy-ass ex-Ranger who doesn't give up easily. And keep in mind, most of your friends? Will be on his side."

Kimberly gulped. She didn't like the sound of that. Ever since she and Tommy had broken up, their friends had avoided taking sides. Now that they had, they'd all come down on Tommy's side—or, more accurately, on the Tommy-and-Kim side. "I still have a few left," she muttered sullenly. "They haven't gotten to Tanya or Aisha yet."

"You mean Adam's wife and Rocky and Adam's childhood friend?" Hayley smiled sweetly and Kimberly cursed. "Kim, six intelligent, relatively sane people who love you just assisted him in this mad scheme to more-or-less tie you to a chair so he could profess his feelings for you. Did it ever occur to you that the law of large numbers says they've probably got a point?"

"Yeah, well… so? So what! So what if they did help him with his insanity? Great friends if you ask me. Not a single one of them asked how I felt about it. They just strapped me in here without pausing to think how I feel."

Hayley was quiet for a while. "And?"

Kimberly frowned. "Huh?"

"How do you feel about it?"

Kimberly blinked at her again, a bit startled by the question. "Pissed off," she replied finally, almost defensively. "I've got duct tape fusing to my skin and all of my friends are bent on getting me back together with Tommy whether I like it or not."

Hayley nodded, considering this for a moment. "Can you honestly say that you don't have feelings for him anymore."

Kimberly grit her teeth. "That's. Not. The point."

"Yes it is. That's the whole reason you're here, the whole reason I'm here, and the whole reason they're here. Kimberly, if you want me to help you get out of this, I'll do it. I really will." Kimberly's face lit up, but her expression quickly turned wary. "I will. I mean it. I'll untie you and I'll get Tommy to back off. No one can talk that boy around the way I can. Not Trini, not Jason, not himself. If you want, I can make this all go away." Kimberly tried not to look not too eager as she waited for the catch, which Hayley soon delivered. "I just need you to do one thing for me first."

"Yeah? What's that?"

"Convince me once and for all beyond a shadow of a doubt that you got over Tommy. That there isn't a part of you, a large one, that wants nothing more than to be with him again. That you don't love him. That when it ended almost eight years ago that really was the end."

Kimberly didn't respond. Once she was sure Kimberly wasn't going to, Hayley continued. "All you have to do is make me believe you. A perfect stranger who doesn't know instantly the moment you're lying. Just look me in the eye and tell me you don't want Tommy around you ever again. Then I'll get out of this car, talk everyone around, get them to untie you and drag Tommy out of your life." Hayley fell silent for a moment, once again giving Kimberly the chance to respond, but once again Kimberly didn't take it.

"But I don't think you can do that," Hayley said softly. "I think if you could, Tommy wouldn't have bothered. There's a difference between fighting a losing battle and fighting a hopeless battle, and Tommy's well aware of it."

Kimberly remained silent, and Hayley let her stew for as long as possible, keeping in mind her time limit and a number of other factors urging her to hurry—the public parking lot, the southern California heat, the Ranger kegger they were supposed to be attending in less than an hour, which most everyone had probably forgotten about by now. When she couldn't wait any longer, Hayley clear her throat and asked, "Know what I can't figure out?"

Kimberly didn't look at her, and her response was a monosyllabic grunt of askance, but Hayley took it as enough encouragement.

"Why, after all these years, you never duct-taped him to a Jeep seat."

Kimberly snorted and looked down at her handcuffed wrists, a faint smile on her face as she recalled the beginnings of her fight with Tommy in the Secret Chamber. "Well, he's not a fan of bondage." Hayley didn't bat an eye, refusing to let the mood lighten, but Kimberly tried anyway. "And he does still have his Zeonizer. Would have made things a little more difficult."

"I was speaking metaphorically," Hayley said, her tone disapproving.

"So was I," Kimberly replied with a sigh.

Hayley nodded slightly and figured she'd loosen up a bit. "Besides. He's always forgetting that thing in his sock drawer."

"You should have been there when Tommy first joined the team. I can't tell you how many times we heard, 'Sorry, my communicator was in my gym bag.'" Hayley chuckled. "Billy finally snapped and explained that there was a reason he'd made the communicator look like a wristwatch. Well, Trini said that was what he was saying, anyway."

Hayley smiled, watching as Kimberly's expression was tainted with fondness, a longing for times gone by. "Kim?"

"Hmm?"

"I know you don't want to be here. I know you don't want to face this. But I think you're smart enough to know that running and hiding won't solve anything. And even if you weren't smart enough to know that all these years, surely you've figured it out after showing up here this week and realizing nothing was behind you, nothing was solved, nothing was okay. I'm good with advice, Kimberly, I always have been, and the best advice I can give to you is to stop whatever you're thinking, whatever you're feeling, and focus on the big picture. Forget how upset you are, how much pain you're in, and put it aside. Focus on what you do want, on what would make you happy, and find a way to make it happen. As badly as he's handling this, as psychotically as he's handling this, that's what he's doing. He knows the road to happiness is whatever road you're on and I think that no matter how badly you feel right now, you know, deep down, that having him in your life is what will make you happy, too. I'm not saying that when he gets in this car you should ask him to drive you to the Elvis Chapel in Reno. I'm saying that when he gets in the car you need to put all the drama and the nonsense and the pain behind you and find a way to make what you want, happen."

Kimberly sighed. "I'm not sure what I want anymore."

"Well," Hayley said determinedly, "I'm not leaving this car until you figure it out."

Tommy hadn't been this tense in a long time. Every glare, every grimace witnessed through the windshield was agony. Hayley and Kimberly were two of the people he cared about most in the world; letting them hash it out without so much as a referee was difficult to watch.

He wondered if the others had felt this way when he was locked in the Secret Chamber with Kimberly, but he doubted it. Sound had carried much better through the Secret Chamber than it did through the locked Jeep to the spot on the sidewalk where the gang was huddling, and back then the atmosphere had been hopeful. Now, he just felt kind of nauseated. After all, they were fighting about him in there, and if they wound up alienating each other or hurting each other, it would be his fault.

"Don't worry about it, bro," Jason said for the fourth time. "They're big girls. They can handle it."

"We might have a fighting chance, now," Trini added. She had been mostly quiet the entire time, thinking through the implications and the options. "Hayley could really bring Kimberly around. She'll know what to say."

"Then how come you don't look happy?" Tommy asked her. She gave him a startled look. "You look like you just swallowed broken glass and chased it down with salt water."

She smiled faintly. "I just wish it could be me in there. I'm too close to the situation to do what Hayley could, but it bugs me, you know? I know it's the smart choice. I just want to be in there."

Tommy nodded. "I hear you." He exhaled sharply. "Look, guys… I know you've just been trying to help all week. And as crazy as you all are, I've got to thank you for that. Maybe you were right all along."

Jason smacked him none-too-gently upside the head. "Maybe? You're kidding me, right?" He shook his head. "Tommy, I don't care what we have to do. I don't care if this works or not. I'm going to make this happen if it kills you and they're all gonna help." He gestured around at the assembled ex-Rangers, who nodded. "We're not giving up on you. Or Kim. So wipe that worried-ass look off your face and stop panicking. We're not gonna let you lose Kim. Not anymore."

"Thanks, Jase," Tommy said with a weary grin. He sighed and returned to watching the Jeep. Jason was right. It didn't have to be today. It didn't have to be tomorrow. But it would happen. He had a team of great friends who'd accomplished great things at his side, things that were far more important, far more difficult and far more intricate than a guy going after an ex-girlfriend. Whatever happened in that Jeep, whatever happened in the next few hours, he wasn't going to stop until he could claim Kimberly as his again.

The driver's side door opened, and Hayley stepped out.

End Notes: Apologies once again for the long silence. This time, it was the fault of three authors with lives full of chaos and a lot of reluctance over the fact that after all this time we finally just have to deal with that stupid letter that should never have been in the show in the first place. We'll try to have the next chapter up soon, and maybe one day we'll finally get to have Power Rangers Day.

Since we haven't done this in a really long time, here are some upcoming hints:

1) "Okay. Be safe, y'all. And tell Adam to stop setting his butt on fire in public; it made Variety."

2) "Um…" Tommy coughed. "Did anyone ever actually bother writing a speech?"

3) "They were flirting. She said he was 'quite the charmer.' He had the patented guy-moving-in-for-the-kill face when we showed up. Tommy finds out, he's gonna have kittens."

4) "Tommy's… Tommy," Tanya said, uncertain whether she should chuckle or try to tackle Tommy before he could get very far.

5) "Conner!" Kira called. "Have you seen Trent?"

"Trent? Yeah. I think he's showering with that dark-haired girl."

6) "It's my turn!" Hunter yelled, knocking Shane bodily away, practically ripping Jason's fingers off in the process. "Hi. I'm Hunter. Bradley. Hunter Bradley. Crimson Ranger."

7) "Let's all calm down here," Ernie said soothingly as two of his customers darted out the door.