I Miss
You
By:
Pink-Green-White-4ever
Last
Revised: June 11, 2008
Summary:
Written for the Perfect Chemistry June Fic Prompt. Kim finds herself on memory lane, and gets
more than she ever expected.
Rating: T
for language
Ship:
Mentions of TKat and TKim
Dedicated
to: All those TK romancers out there;
maybe one day we’ll get our fairytale reunion!
--
Angel
Grove
May 1997
Three
very simple words defined their relationship much more than any other
could. I love you didn’t come
close. Their nicknames for each other –
Beautiful and Handsome – didn’t hold a candle, not even a sickeningly green
one, to the three simple words she’d uttered to him once upon a time. I Miss You.
It summed up everything. Three
months ago, those words could have fixed everything that had gone wrong. Now, it only served to remind them both of
what they’d lost.
She only
spoke when she was directly spoken to, choosing instead to hide between Jason
and Rocky. It hurt, seeing him wrapped
around Kat, but she’d come to expect it; after all, she’d made her choice,
hadn’t she? Stress and international
gymnastics had taken a front seat to being a Power Ranger and having him by her
side. For a moment, she felt sick all
over again. How far had she fallen in
seeking this childhood dream? Life would
never be quite the same, and she could only wonder how it would be now that
those dreams she’d dreamed when he’d first walked into her life were dead.
--
UCLA
1 Year
Later
“I’m
serious Kimber, that hot guy is in the stands again!” her teammate, Lori,
giggled as they got ready for the last home meet of the year.
“Lori,
every time you’ve ever said that, you point him out and he disappears before I
can get a good look at him,” she huffed.
Her focus needed to be on the beam that she was getting ready to mount,
not on some hot guy in the stands who may or may not be a figment of her
roommate’s imagination. To top it off,
she felt sorta sick. There had been
reports coming in all morning from Angel Grove about Astronema and the Space
Rangers. The part of her she’d long
buried was clawing its way to freedom; something was happening, something
major, and she knew she should have been there to help stop it.
All that
was forgotten, or pushed aside, as she was told to mount the balance beam. Taking a deep breath, she mounted and began
the complicated routine; her body balanced four feet in the air on a narrow
piece of wood. It wasn’t until she got
ready to do her final tumbling pass that she spotted a familiar figure, wearing
green and white, and sitting eye level of where she was at. Nor was it until she saw him that she felt
like her insides were ripping apart.
Shaking her head, she began tumbling, flipping off the end of the beam
when she felt the familiar, mournful cry of the bird who had been her animal
spirit. And that’s when she knew. Even as she hit the mat head first, she knew
– Zordon was gone.
--
It
smelled like a hospital. She hated
hospitals; hated the fact that to her, they represented the beginning of the
end of her tenure as the spirited Pink Ranger, and that they represented the
fact that she’d almost lost her life. It
took her a few seconds to remember why she was in the hospital, and then it all
came tumbling back. Tommy in the
stands. The tumbling pass. Feeling sick.
Zordon. The tears came then,
burning her skin as they sliced their way from her eyes. The sobs bubbled up, wanting to escape only
to get caught in her throat. He was
gone. Not just gone away to visit, but
dead gone. Zordon was dead. He couldn’t be dead! He wasn’t supposed to die! He was the guardian of peace, justice and the
power; he wasn’t supposed to lose his life!
She felt
him then; right next to her, just like before, watching over her, taking care
of her, just like he’d always done. But
this time, the healing balm of his presence couldn’t mend her shattered
heart. Enough was enough, and Kimberly
Hart had finally had too much. “Hey
Beautiful, it’s time to wake up.” The
words were whispered so softly in her ear that briefly wondered if they were
real. When her eyes opened, she saw him
sitting on the bed beside her, one hand extending toward her cheek, and she
knew they were real. “Welcome back.”
Clearly
confused by the affection in his eyes and doped up from the medicines, she did
all she could do – leaned into the palm of his hand. “What happened?” she whispered.
“You
don’t remember?” he softly asked. “The
beam?”
“I fell
again,” she uttered, her eyes filling when she saw the emotions in his
eyes. “Zordon.”
Tommy bit
his lip, nodded his head and squeezed her hand.
“Kim….”
“He can’t
be….” she uttered, the tears she’d been forcing back finally breaking
free. “Tommy, he can’t be gone. Please, tell me that isn’t what I felt, that
isn’t why I heard her cry out.”
His eyes
narrowed for a brief moment until he remembered something Ninjor had told him
during one of their talks after Kimberly had left – no matter that Kim had
passed her Ranger powers to Kat, or the ability for the blonde beauty to use
the Ninja Powers, the Crane was Kimberly’s animal spirit; a physical
representation of her soul.
“I got
the call just as you were falling,” he told her, watching her face scrunch
up. “I felt mine cry out too, the second
we lost him.”
“Wh-wh-what
ha-ha-ppened?” she sobbed softly, squeezing his hand.
“
Tugging
herself free of his grip, Kim rolled into a ball on her side and buried her
face in her hands. The last two years
had felt like an incredibly horrible dream, and this latest news wasn’t
helping. She didn’t budge when Tommy
leaned over to kiss her cheek. She
didn’t respond when he brushed her hair from her face. And her heart seemed to break even more when
he whispered in her ear. “I’ll see you
around.”
--
Angel
Grove
2 Weeks
Later
Two weeks
had passed since her fall, and Kimberly couldn’t be happier to be out of the
hospital (even if she only spent two days there for observation) nor could she
have imagined that the coaches and her roommate would be constantly looking
over her shoulder. She’d been a Power
Ranger for Pete’s sake! She could take
care of herself. That’s what this trip
was all about. She had taken a day away
from school and gymnastics, to come back to the only place she’d ever truly
known and called home – Angel Grove.
She
hadn’t seen hide nor hair of Tommy since that night in the hospital, nor did
she expect to. From what she knew from
Jason, he was racing for his Uncle’s racing team. He was probably on the road. Driving through the familiar streets, she
noted that despite the latest brush with Astronema and Dark Spector, Angel
Grove didn’t look any worse for wear.
Lunch had
been at the
It was
Angel Grove’s pride and joy, a park that everyone in the community had had a
hand in helping expand. She had hours to
kill before she needed to be back to UCLA and up for school, so she took her
time and traveled around the familiar paths.
Everywhere she looked were places where memories so dear to her heart
called out to her – the jungle gym where as Rangers they’d encountered
countless putties and Tengas, the pavilion where’d they’d had so many picnics,
the path leading down to the beach where again, as Rangers, they’d made some
tough stands, the park bench where she’d sat when she realized she was no
longer in possession of her power coin, and the spot by the Koi pond where she
and Tommy had kissed for the very first time.
She’d
made some agonizing choices the last two years, had made choices she wasn’t
proud of, had hurt people she never meant to; that was the kicker there. She understood that, in the end, you always
end up hurting the ones you never wanted to.
Her letter to Tommy was childish in so many ways she couldn’t begin to
count. Some days she wondered if Zedd
had invaded her body and made her write it, and then she came back to
reality. She’d been a coward, she’d
written him a letter instead of coming home to visit or call. There had been someone in
“If you
keep making that face, you’re going to have worry lines and wrinkles before
you’re twenty-one,” a familiar voice chuckled, causing her to yelp and spin
around. The sun was setting, so the
owner of the voice was cast in the dying embers of the sun. Staring at him, she wondered if she’d ever
seen him look as good as he did in the black boots, black jeans, white button
up and the green bandana. Gone was any
trace of red from his clothing.
“How did
you do that?” she asked, rubbing a hand over her chest where her heart thudded
against it.
He just
grinned and shrugged his shoulders.
Walking toward her, he tucked his hands into his pockets and stopped at
the edge of the pond, his eyes on the setting sun. “Still have the old school Ninja skills I
suppose,” he murmured, looking at her from the corner of his eye. She was standing so far away from him that
his heart ached even more. They’d always
been comfortable around each other, that their last couple of meetings had
sincerely hammered home the fact that they no longer were each other’s
everything. “What brings you out here?”
She
sighed and wrapped her arms across her chest.
“Trip down memory lane, wanted to make sure, really sure, that despite
everything, even Zordon’s death, that Angel Grove was still standing, that the
world hadn’t changed so drastically in two years that home was still here.”
Nodding,
he shuffled his feet and then turned to look at her. “Listen, Kim, I…”
Shaking
her head, the look in her eyes had him quieting. “It feels like forever since we stood here
last, not to mention that it feels like forever since those much happier
times. Why does growing up have to suck
so much?” she asked, looking down at their shoes before looking up at him.
“I don’t
know, laws of nature?” he joked. “We
could always call Billy and ask, he’s sure to know the answer.”
“Aquitar
is really long distance. I don’t know
about you, but I don’t have enough money in my bank account for the cost of
that phone call, at least not without some help,” she quipped, her smile bright
as Tommy cracked up laughing.
“I’m sure
Silence
hung between them again, each lost in their own thoughts, or in Kim’s case, an
inner battle for courage. She knew it
was time to bite the bullet, she had to at least apologize for what she’d done,
and maybe, just maybe, they could be on the road to being friends again. “Tommy?”
“Yeah?”
Turning,
they stood facing each other again, so much left unsaid between them. “I want to apologize to you,” she started,
watching him open his mouth before she closed the gap between them, her fingers
resting on his lips. “Let me get it out
before I lose what’s left of the courage I have. I’m sorry I hurt you; sorry I broke your
heart. I never meant to, of that I want
to be absolutely clear. I’m sorry I was
a coward for doing it the way I did, and if I could do it over again, I’d have
handled it all differently, but I can’t travel back in time and take it
back. I know it’s too soon to forgive
me, but I’m asking you, knowing the kind of man you are, if you’ll try to some
day.”
Those
pools of chocolate brown she loved so much stared into her own with an intensity
that she hadn’t ever seen before. It was
the look of a man who knew what it was like to live with shattered dreams and a
broken heart, what it was like to be asked to do something he wasn’t ready to
do. “Just answer me one thing,” he
started, taking her hand away from his face and holding it in his own. “Why?”
“I have
no excuse, and no reason, not one that would justify what happened.”
“Did you
cheat on me?” he softly asked the one question that had been burning at his
heart since he’d gotten the letter.
Tears
pooled in her eyes. “I fell for Bryce
before I sent the letter, but I never acted on it until after it was said and
done. You know me better than that,
after what happened with my parents, you know better than that. I may have been stupid in how I handled
everything, but I never cheated on you.”
He
hurt. He still felt betrayed beyond
words, but the sincere honesty in the eyes he knew so well spoke volumes. She was staring at him, allowing him to see
her answer in her eyes. Whatever had
happened between them, he could honestly say the qualities that made Zordon
pick her as Ranger were still there – honesty being one of them. He had his answers, however hurtful they
were.
“Thank
you for being honest with me.”
Kim
swallowed hard. “I’m sorry it took me so
long to apologize. I’m not as brave or
courageous as I once thought, even I have weaknesses, and confrontations are
one of them. I’ll see you around,” she
whispered before turning to flee the scene.
She got a
good thirty feet from him before he called out to her. “Kimberly!
Wait!”
Stopping,
Kim turned slowly to see him coming toward her.
“What’s wrong?” she asked him, looking up into his beloved face.
“If we’re
going to be honest, I have something to tell you,” he told her, watching her
sigh. “You hurt me, Kim. Losing you hurt like hell, to the point that
I wasn’t sure I would mend. Kat tried to
help, and for a while, she did. She’s a
sweet heart, and I’ll always love her for being there when I needed her.”
The
emotion in her eyes made him ache to reach out and hold her, to make it go
away. “Understandable.”
“I never
tried to replace you, you have to know that.
Kat’s her own woman, and so are you.
You may share a lot of similarities, but you’re both very different.”
“Why are
you telling me this?” she asked, finally too emotionally tired to deal with
everything.
He smiled
at her. “Because. After two years of having to live without
you, I’ve realized I lost me when I lost you; I miss you.”
Kimberly’s
eyes filled with tears so fast that her vision became blurry in an
instant. She had never expected those
words; hadn’t hoped for them, hadn’t wished for them at this time. To be given them was beyond measure. “Tommy…”
“Look,
I’m not ready to jump back into anything, especially right now. I like where my life is, I’m not looking for
any ‘romantic entanglements’ as Aisha would put it,” he grinned at her,
watching her laugh and blink away the tears.
“What I can use is my best friend again, the one who me better than I
knew myself. I have to believe even
after all of this, that hasn’t changed; you’re still my best friend.”
“You’re
an incredible man, Tommy Oliver,” she whispered, her voice cracking. “It’s why Zedd and Rita never understood you
– your capacity to forgive, to care, to be a good person, it’s beyond their
scope of understanding. Thank you.”
He looked
hopeful and bashful all at once. “So,
friends?” he asked, sticking out his hand to her.
“Friends.”
His smile
was the healing balm her heart desperately needed. “So, as friends, could I interest you in
coming with me to dinner? I’m supposed
to be meeting Rocky, Adam, Jason and Justin in about ten minutes.”
“I’d love
that.” At her words, Tommy reached out
and took her hand, giving it a good squeeze before leading her away from the
pond and toward his truck. Things may
have been settled between them, and Tommy may have had his answers, but it
wasn’t the end. In fact, it was the beginning,
all over again; a chance to nurture the friendship that had taken a backseat to
their love affair. Who knew, maybe at
some point they’d find their way back to each other. After all, their love was summed up in three
simple words – I Miss You.