Kim awoke to an arm draped over her waist and looked over her shoulder to see Tommy cuddled against her. She vaguely remembered trying to sprint up the stairs away from him and him easily capturing her sometime yesterday afternoon. After that- it all went blank, but one look under the covers let her know that she was naked. She pressed back against Tommy and let out a sigh as she realized he was still partially clothed. Drunk her had definitely made out with him though, she could feel the stubble burn on her cheeks. Thank goodness Tommy had been sober enough to stop them before they had sex. She might not hate him anymore, but she also was not going to dive back into…well…them.
"You done staring at me like that?" Tommy whispered as she jerked her eyes up to meet his and he offered her a smile. "You wondering what we did?"
"I know enough," Kim whispered as she leaned up, aiming to claim a morning kiss but stopped herself right before her lips pressed against his. She wanted this, she wanted him and that was something she had never thought she would say again. "Ughhhhhh."
"So you're back to hating me?" Tommy asked as he rolled over onto his back and she immediately wanted him to roll back. She desperately wanted just a bit of his warmth back.
"No. Well…not exactly. I don't know what to think anymore," Kim confessed as she scooted in closer to him and placed her ice cold feet against his legs as she felt him jump a bit, but he soon sandwiched her feet between his legs in an attempt to warm them. The house felt colder than it had been the last couple of days and she was thankful when he started rubbing her body to warm her up. "Why do you take care of me? Why did you still take care of me when I pushed you away so hard? Over and over again?"
"Because I did hurt you so much and because I still love you so much," Tommy admitted as he stared at the ceiling. He had said this to her before, on countless missions like this. He couldn't look at her again when he said it though. He knew how she would look at him and he couldn't take that. He couldn't bare his soul and have it shoved in his face that he had made this bed for himself. "Look- I know. We both got drunk yesterday. Nothing happened. Nothing will ever happen again."
"Tommy, that…that's not where I was going this time," Kim said as she propped herself up to where she was in his line of sight and she watched as he slowly turned to face her. The pain in his eyes hurt. It had always hurt, but she had calloused herself towards hurting him. For the first time in years, she felt a pang at what she was causing him. "Thank you for always being there- especially on nights like last night. You…I…"
"Don't force it," Tommy muttered as his eyes fluttered closed and she snuggled closer to him as he rolled to face her and draped his arm over her again. She felt her body relax as his fingers worked their way into her hair and she let out a content sigh. She couldn't remember feeling this at home in years.
"You good?" Dean asked as Tommy walked into the kitchen and went for the coffee. He paused as he took in how dark it was. Wasn't it at least midday? "Lost power last night. Coffee is gonna have to be over the fireplace."
"I'll be right back," Tommy muttered as he jogged back up the stairs and Dean shook his head. He heard Tommy return and found that he had scooped Kim up, blankets and all, before he put her in front of the fire and then went back to making himself coffee.
"Don't…my head is killing me," Kim whispered as Dean plopped down next to her and then passed her a bottle of water and some advil. They had bet that at least one of them would have a horrible hangover and she was the more likely one of the two. "Thanks."
"Here," Tommy said as he passed her a cup of coffee and she looked up at him with a smile. "You getting warmer?"
"I could have walked…" Kim started to argue as he sat down next to her and she just leaned into him. There was no use arguing about him carrying her down here, she could tell he felt equally shitty. He was just better at hiding it.
"How smart are you?" Bobby asked as he walked in and Tommy jerked his head towards him. What did his smarts have to do with anything? "We've got…someone…we need to monitor."
"And you're just now mentioning this to me because…" Tommy trailed off as Sam dumped more wood next to the fire and then sat down on Kim's other side, huddling as close to the fire as he could. She was suddenly appreciative for how large all of these men were and the body heat they were throwing off as they surrounded her.
"If you haven't noticed- we're up to our eyeballs in weird around here. Sorry that we didn't think to ask about your smarts before now, cupcake," Bobby retorted and Kim tried to hide a laugh at the look on Tommy's face. In their world, no one spoke to him like that. In their world, it was all too often him that made the sarcastic remarks.
"Oh I don't know. He's more than just a pretty face. He built an entire teleportation grid for the Dino Thunder rangers and well…he was a bit responsible for the tryannadrones. What do you need his smarts for?" Kim asked as Tommy looked down at her and he shook his head. Had she just complimented him? Like given him a genuine compliment? "What?"
"You haven't complimented me in close to a decade," Tommy muttered as she just shrugged and he tried to keep himself firmly where he was. He needed to get her home safe. He needed to defeat Lipretere to do that. His feelings for her would only get in the way of keeping her safe if they truly surfaced again. "But she's right. I've done all of that."
"So if we gave you a frequency to monitor…" Bobby trailed off and Tommy nodded that he'd likely be able to do that. It was just going to take him a bit longer because he didn't have access to his notes. "Whelp- I've got Ash's notes on Angel Radio stashed around here somewhere. Figure out what you need and we'll get it for you."
"I'm going to need some of that advil and a few bottles of water first," Tommy muttered as Dean held his hand out to Sam and Sam let out a groan as he paid up on the bet. They might be superheros, but tequila and whiskey still treated them the same.
"Holy shit," Sam muttered as he looked at the system that Tommy had rigged together and put on headphones to hear that he was tuned in to the right frequency. An afternoon and a handful of parts and he had put it all together. He had even managed to pull it together on a system that was battery operated, which had impressed all of them. "What are you?"
"Someone that had to learn how to set up complex monitoring systems to keep myself and the people I love safe. Each ranger has a version of this in their home and monitoring in the Dino Lab. Our family members also have monitoring, but it isn't as obvious. Once I read Ash's notes- it wasn't that difficult to retool something I've made dozens of times. I don't have a clue what we're listening to or for though," Tommy stated as he straightened up and rubbed his eyes. "I really wish I had my glasses, but it shouldn't explode on us or anything."
"There's some code…" Dean trailed off as he handed a print out to Tommy and he glanced at it before he entered it into the program he had built to scan the spectrum. He adjusted it a bit based on the differences in preferred coding languages and waited for the program to accept it. "Now we wait?"
"Pretty much," Tommy said as he glanced around the room and realized that Kim must have left them at some point. "Where'd she go?"
"On the porch. She said something about clearing her mind," Bobby said as Tommy shook his head. That was never a good thing to hear from Kimberly, no matter what she was clearing her mind about. "Snow is still coming in pretty hard. You're going to want to put on more than that."
"I won't be out there that long," Tommy said as he walked past Bobby, ignoring the coat in his outstretched hand. If Kim had been out there for any amount of time, he was probably going to have to carry her back in. "Kim?"
Tommy paused in the doorway as he saw her standing in the snow, staring up at the sky. A jolt of fear went through him, but as she turned to face him he felt himself calm. She must have just walked out into the open, but the snow was still coming down thick enough that her dark hair was covered in it. She started towards him and he found herself being pulled towards her, even if he hadn't planned to step out into the cold. There was something in her eyes that struck him.
"I forgot what it was like to watch you…to see this side…" Kim muttered as she reached up and cupped his face and he felt how cold her hands were. He reached up and placed his hands over hers as he tried to figure out what she was saying. "I've missed this."
"Missed watching me tinker?" Tommy asked as she nodded and he pulled her into a hug, vigorously rubbing her body to make sure she was warm enough. Her arms wrapped around him and she cuddled into his body. "The amount of times you threatened to throw out every tool that I owned…"
"I didn't get it then. I do now," Kim whispered as she pulled back and reached up to pull him down for a kiss. She watched Tommy freeze as something caught his gaze and he then shoved her behind him as he silently morphed. She followed suit as something slammed into him and she let up a yell to warn the Winchesters. She went under Tommy's arm and landed a few blows before she found herself being slung into one of the cars.
"Hit the ground!" Bobby yelled and Tommy slammed to the ground as they let off shots and she watched to see the animal let out a howl as it stumbled back. Dean jumped down the stairs and reared back a machete and quickly decapitated the beast, leaving the two rangers in shock. "That what I think it is?"
"Yup. So we know that werewolves have at least identified them as a threat," Dean said as he examined the claws and the teeth. "You okay?"
"I'm good," Tommy said as he demorphed and he waited for Kim to make some sort of snarky comment, but was met with silence. He looked over in the general direction that she had been thrown and saw blood pooling near her. "No. No. No. No. No!"