Post by wk88 on Feb 14, 2009 11:53:32 GMT -5
Title: Left at the Altar
Summary: It was supposed to be Kimberly Hart’s perfect day, but as she learned a long time ago, perfect days are rare for Power Rangers, even former Power Rangers on the day they are to be married. Luckily, there’s someone out there who’s more than willing to help her at her time of greatest need.
Dedication: To jps1926, both for the idea for this story and for being the absolute best reviewer a writer could ask for. This one's for you!
Chapter 1 - "Stranded"
Original posting date: February 14, 2009
--
The bland, white walls of his shared hotel room surrounded Tommy Oliver as he lay atop a king-sized bed, staring up at the ceiling with his hands behind his head and a thoughtful expression on his face. He was shirtless, wearing just his black dress slacks and a pair of equally dark socks. The television played in the background, but Tommy could not make out what was being said; it was like white noise compared to everything else that was currently running through his mind.
Thoughts of what would be happening in the next few hours pierced his psyche as he tried to contend with the flurry of emotions he was currently experiencing: sadness because it was actually happening; joy because he was genuinely happy for her; confusion because he still did not understand why; and hurt because, out of all their mutual friends, she had picked the one closest to him to walk her down the aisle.
“Tommy?” a soft, accented voice belonging to a female called out from the bathroom, snapping him from his thoughts. When he did not immediately reply, however, she continued, “Tommy, can you come in here and help me with this necklace, please?”
Closing his eyes to prevent himself from rolling them, Tommy let out a quiet sigh, heaved himself back onto his feet, walked into the bathroom, and froze on the spot. Katherine Hillard, his on-again-off-again girlfriend of the past seven years had rendered him speechless, just as she had done so many times before.
Her normally straight blonde hair had been done in soft, bouncy curls and what little makeup she wore perfectly accented her gorgeous face, especially her piercing blue eyes. Then there was the dress: pink; strapless; knee-length; highlighting her hourglass figure in ways that would have turned the average man into a babbling fool. Luckily for Tommy, he had moved on from babbling to speechlessness a long time ago.
“Wow,” Tommy breathed, stepping up behind her. “You look amazing,” he continued, tracing his hands gently across her shoulders then, up and down her arms.
“Thanks, love,” said Katherine, smiling as she winked at him through the mirror. “Oh no you don’t,” she admonished when Tommy began kissing her naked back. “Any more of that and we’ll be late for sure.”
“Aww, come on, baby, I promise I’ll be quick,” said Tommy, grinning while ignoring Katherine’s protests. She just wasn’t having it, though, and as she whirled around to face him, Tommy knew his only remaining line of defense was pouting his lips, which always seemed to make Katherine’s frustration disappear no matter how big or small the issue.
Sighing, Katherine shook her head. “Later, love,” she murmured, pressing a kiss to his lips before turning back around. Carefully pulling her hair up with one hand, she retrieved her necklace from the counter with the other, and handed it back to Tommy. “Now be a good boy and help me put this on, okay?”
Taking the necklace from her, Tommy gently clasped it in place around her neck, admiring Katherine’s reflection as she let her hair fall back into place. She had looked stunning before, but Tommy had to admit there was just something about the necklace that made her look even more gorgeous whenever she wore it. The chain was white gold and held a matching cat, the feline’s eyes made of the tiniest pink diamonds. It had been his gift to her on their third anniversary; or maybe their fourth; or their fifth; they had broken up and gotten back together so many times that Tommy’s already-poor memory made it damn near impossible to keep track of things like anniversaries.
“You should probably finish getting ready too, you know,” said Katherine, once Tommy had had sufficient time to take in her appearance. “The others are leaving in fifteen minutes, and Rocky has already said he won’t wait for us if you’re late.”
Tommy rolled his eyes and, laughing, said, “Rocky’ll wait as long as he has to if he knows what’s good for him. I know I don’t need to remind you what happened the last time Rocky left me behind somewhere.”
Joining Tommy’s laughter, Katherine shook her head. “No, I’m still scarred enough from the last time you reminded me. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get over the image of Rocky hanging by his boxer shorts on the Angel Grove High flagpole.”
“Like I said, he’ll wait,” said Tommy. Pecking a kiss to Katherine’s cheek, he gave her behind a playful swat and then headed back into the bedroom. Retrieving his light-green dress shirt and white-and-green striped tie from their resting spot atop one of the room’s two chairs, he carried them into the bathroom, took up the open space to Katherine’s left, and proceeded to get dressed. “How’s that?” he asked a few minutes later, pushing the knot of his tie into place.
Turning towards him, Katherine looked Tommy up and down for a few silent moments and then smiled. “Very handsome, love,” she murmured, fiddling with the tie’s knot even though he had tied it perfectly, simply because she thought it was the type of thing that girlfriends were supposed to do for their boyfriends. “Makes me wish it was appropriate for men to attend weddings shirtless.”
“Hey, you had your chance a few minutes ago, remember?” said Tommy, seizing her wrists and preventing her fingertips from exploring his chest any further. Smiling down at her, he pulled Katherine in close and kissed her warmly.
The kiss, which lasted quite some time, seemed to have sparked something inside Katherine, for when they pulled apart, what escaped her lips was not what Tommy had been expecting at all. “When are we going to get married, Tommy?”
Oh great, Tommy thought, forcing himself not to roll his eyes. “Kat, how many times are we going to talk about this? Marriage isn’t something I take lightly, and I won’t commit to it until we can go for any significant amount of time without us yelling at each other and breaking up over something stupid.”
“Maybe if we actually committed to each other we wouldn’t be breaking up over stupid stuff,” said Katherine. “Maybe if we committed to each other we’d—”
Tommy sighed and interrupted with, “I am committed to you, Kat. If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t be here right now, but dating and marriage are two entirely different beasts. Until we’ve both proven that we can really make this work—”
“It’s been seven years, Tommy,” Katherine whispered. “Either we’re meant to be together or we’re not.”
“You make it sound so simple,” said Tommy, almost cynically.
“That’s because it is that simple.”
Tommy shook his head; the last thing he wanted was another argument with Katherine, especially on this of all days. “Look, is now really the right time to have this conversation, Kat? Can’t we talk about this later, when we don’t have a wedding to get to?”
Katherine rolled her eyes, the frustration evident on her face. “Fine,” she muttered, starting towards the door. “Let’s go.”
“Kat,” Tommy began, not wanting to leave for the wedding on bad terms. She did not stop, though, so Tommy did the only thing he could think to do. He reached out, took her by the wrist, and pulled her in so that her back was against his chest; Katherine fought to escape, but Tommy held her tightly through her resistance, lowering his lips to her ear, whispering, “I don’t want to fight with you baby.”
She could not help the quiet moan that escaped her just seconds after Tommy had begun nibbling on her ear lobe. It was hard enough resisting the urge to shed her dress and jump him right then and there.
“I don’t want to fight either,” said Katherine, sighing as Tommy’s hold on her slackened, enough for her to turn around and face him. Smiling, she brushed the back of her hand along the side of his face. “Let’s go, okay? We can worry about us later.”
With a great, internal sigh of relief, Tommy smiled and nodded, allowing Katherine to lead the way back into the bedroom. Once she had retrieved her handbag, and Tommy his wallet, keys, and suit jacket, they were off. Downstairs in the hotel lobby, Rocky, Billy, Zack, and Zack’s date were already waiting for the pair.
“Remembered what happened last time, I see,” said Tommy to Rocky, grinning as he and Katherine approached the small group.
Rocky rolled his eyes. “Come on, or we’ll be late.”
“Lead the way, monkey boy,” said Tommy, laughing.
With a shake of his head, Rocky turned on his heels and started towards the door. Behind him, Tommy was certain that he heard Zack’s date asking the former Black Ranger about Tommy’s monkey boy comment. Tommy had to chuckle when he caught Zack’s laughing reply of, “Babe, you wouldn’t believe me even if I told you.”
Oh, how true that was.
Compliments on attire were made amongst the rest of the group as they all stepped out into the warmth of Southern California in the middle of April. The Los Angeles sun was mild, perfect for an outdoor wedding. Alas, the day was not going to be spent outside; instead in a church, per the request of the supposedly more “traditional” groom.
Thinking of Jeff Reynolds as traditional made Tommy laugh out loud, for Jeff was about as far from traditional as possible, when not playing the role of Eddie Haskell of course. Tommy had seen Jeff interacting away from his fiancée, enough so to know that Kimberly Hart was about to make quite possibly the worst decision of her life by marrying the man who had cheated on her numerous times.
Sadly, though, Kimberly was oblivious to all of this. She had downright refused to believe it when Tommy had told her that he had spotted Jeff making out with another woman at a nightclub six months back; or that he had seen Jeff leaving a restaurant with yet another woman just two weeks before the club; or that Jeff, on another night when he and Tommy had happened to be in the same nightclub, had drunkenly stood atop a table and declared to the crowd, “I’m engaged and still looking!”
As he climbed into the backseat of Zack’s black Chevy Suburban, Tommy thought back to the night shortly after Kimberly had announced her engagement to Jeff, when Tommy had finally decided that enough was enough and had gone to her with everything that he had seen. She had flat out called Tommy a liar to his face, told him that Jeff was a good man who would never even think about cheating on her—thank you, very much!—and that he, Tommy, needed to keep his lies to himself from now on if he still wanted to have a place in her life.
And though Tommy knew that he was not lying about Jeff’s cheating ways, he did as Kimberly had requested, maintaining his silence even when it practically killed him to do so. It had taken them a long time to get back to being friends, nearly three years following their breakup and so—perhaps a bit selfishly, he would admit—Tommy decided to keep the remainder of his observations to himself from there on out, not wanting to run the risk of losing her friendship for the second time.
“Man, I can’t believe that Kim, our Kim, is really getting married,” said Zack as he navigated the streets of Los Angeles en route to the church. Tommy, however, was nowhere near as surprised; Kimberly had spoken vividly of her fairytale wedding when she and Tommy had been together. “Any more of you assholes in the group decide to get married and I’ll have no choice but to do the same thing.”
“Aww, come on, Zack, it’s really not as bad as you make it sound,” Rocky supplied from the middle row of seats, slapping Zack on the shoulder. “In fact, it’s actually pretty nice…most of the time, anyway,” he added with a laugh.
“I must concur with Rocky,” said Billy. “The feeling one experiences when you find the one person with whom you know for certain that you are meant to spend the rest of your life with is simply indescribable. I can only assume that there is no other comparable feeling in the world quite like it.”
Tommy immediately turned his gaze towards Katherine, who for a moment looked poised to strike up another marriage conversation only to apparently think better of it, something Tommy was eternally grateful for.
“Yeah, but I mean, come on!” said Zack, shaking his head. “One person for the rest of your life? It’s just not natural; goes completely against nature.”
Either the red-haired beauty occupying the seat next to Zack firmly agreed with her date’s logic—or lack thereof, perhaps—or just did not want to run the risk of losing out on a night with the Zack-man by voicing her disagreement. Tommy simply smiled; if Zack had his way, the words “Zack” and “marriage” would have been legally prohibited from being spoken within three sentences of one another, while committing said offense would have been a crime punishable by death.
“Speaking of marriage, where are the girls, anyway?” asked Tommy, finally noticing that Aisha and Trini were nowhere in sight.
Staring at Tommy in the rearview mirror, Zack rolled his eyes. “You’re joking, right? Man, the way you forget things is ridiculous,” he laughed, though Tommy did not see what was so humorous. “Tommy, they’re bridesmaids, remember?”
“Oh yeah,” said Tommy distantly, not surprised at all that he had forgotten this detail. Much had changed since his days as a spandex wearing, teenaged superhero—or a mid-twenties superhero if his last stint in black was considered—but his memory, unfortunately, was not one of those things.
Some twenty minutes later Zack’s SUV swung into the church parking lot, pulling into the empty space in between Jason’s red Dodge Ram and Billy’s blue Ford Explorer, the latter of which had been used by his wife to transport Kimberly and the rest of her bridesmaids. Not seconds later Adam’s black Camaro appeared, taking the empty spot across from Zack’s vehicle.
As he climbed out of the Suburban, Tommy did a quick headcount: Jason and his date were already there, as were Kimberly, Aisha, and Trini; including his own party and the simultaneous arrival of Adam and Tanya—who were married, lived in Los Angeles, and thus had no need for a hotel—they were all present and accounted for. The time had finally arrived, the time for Tommy to face that which he had been trying to avoid ever since he had received the invitation in the mail last year.
Swallowing hard, Tommy looked to the church entrance where a few clusters of people were slowly making their way inside. And that’s when it hit him, really and truly hit him; Kimberly, who he had loved for so many years, even after she had broken up with him and shattered his heart, was actually getting married. It was real, a very hard and painful truth that Tommy had not at all expected to effect him like it was. Within the hour she would be married, the final piece of doubtless confirmation that she had really moved on.
If only Tommy could have said the same thing.
--
In a small, almost hidden room, Kimberly sat in an old wooden chair, staring at her reflection in the mirror, her mother and bridesmaids surrounding her on all sides. Kimberly could hardly believe that she was about to be married; it was a surreal thought, and though this wedding was far from the way she had envisioned it in her youth, both in setting and groom—(stupid Brad Pitt falling in love with someone else!)—it was nonetheless just as exciting and nerve-racking as she had anticipated.
Looking herself in the mirror, Kimberly had to admit that she looked far better than even she could have imagined, mostly due to the immense beautician skills of one of her bridesmaids, all of whom looked stunning in matching, soft pink dresses. Aisha and Trini had argued endlessly about being forced to wear pink, but Kimberly had firmly and defiantly refused to back down. It was her wedding after all, and if she wanted her bridesmaids to wear pink, then dammit, they were going to wear pink!
“I’m really doing this, aren’t I?” Kimberly murmured, more to herself than anyone else.
Catching Kimberly’s eyes in the mirror, Aisha smiled and nodded. “You sure are, girl. You’re not having second thoughts, are you?”
Kimberly hastened to shake her head. “No, not at all, it’s just…I don’t know really. I can’t explain it. Everything just feels weird all of a sudden, like this isn’t really happening.”
Caroline Dumas, Kimberly’s mother, laid a comforting hand upon her daughter’s shoulder and said softly, “That is a perfectly normal feeling, Kimberly. I felt the exact same way on my wedding day.”
“Which one?” Kimberly countered, sharing a knowing laugh with her mother who, ever since her divorce from Kimberly’s father, had steadfastly considered her first marriage akin to one’s first car or apartment—temporary, until something better eventually presented itself.
For quite some time, it had broken Kimberly’s heart to know that her father would not be present to see his only daughter married, but Kenneth Hart had had very little contact with Kimberly since shortly after the divorce: her high school graduation, her three-gold medal performance at the Pan Global Games, the car accident that had nearly claimed her life and caused her to spend a month in the hospital; looking back on the last nine or so years of her life, Kimberly could not think of a single major event that her father had been there to witness.
“I wish Daddy was here,” Kimberly admitted, blinking back tears. Despite their lack of contact and the way he had treated her mother, Kimberly had never stopped loving her father, nor had she stopped wanting him in her life. She had simply grown tired of all the lies and excuses, and had ceased trying altogether.
“I know you do, sweetie, but Pierre is here; and so is Kenny; and Uncle Chuck and Aunt Terry; Nana, Poppa, Oma, Opa, and all of your friends, too,” Caroline supplied with a soft smile directed both towards her daughter and to Aisha, Trini, and Adriana, the latter of whom had been Kimberly’s closest friend in Florida as well as the one responsible for the bride’s stunning appearance. “There are so many people here who love you and want to be a part of this very special day, sweetheart. Please don’t let one person ruin it for you; especially not your father, of all people.”
“You’re mom’s right, Kim,” Adriana interjected. “Everyone here is so happy for you.”
“Tommy’s not,” said Kimberly, her mouth hanging open in an expression of shock when she realized what she had just said.
Behind her, Aisha and Trini shared a knowing look. It was common knowledge between the trio of female ex-Rangers that Kimberly had never truly gotten over Tommy, that the untimely demise of their relationship plagued her still to this day, just as much as it had the day she had sent him the letter.
“You don’t know that, Kim,” said Trini, almost admonishingly. She had always had a way of putting Kimberly in her place when need be, and apparently now was one of those times. “Tommy has never wanted anything for you except what you want for yourself. As long as you’re happy with being married to Jeff, then Tommy will be happy for you.”
Though she was poised to do so, before Kimberly could argue there was a knock at the door, followed by the voice of Jason Scott reaching her ears through the wooden barrier, asking, “Can I come in?”
Kimberly nodded, which Aisha took as the signal to let Jason in.
“Damn girl, look at you all fancied up,” said Jason, grinning at Aisha.
“Oh hush up, boy,” said Aisha, laughing, shaking her head as Jason pulled her in for a careful hug, the former Red and Gold Ranger certain that messing up Aisha’s hair, even in the slightest, would in turn earn himself a lifetime’s worth of scorn.
“Jason, I’m sure I didn’t just hear you use a swear word, am I correct? What would your mother think if I told her?” said Mrs. Dumas.
Jason looked to the elder woman and smiled. “Oh, I’m sorry, Caroline. You look so natural with the rest of these young ladies, I thought you might have been a last minute addition to Kim’s army of bridesmaids.”
Mrs. Dumas blushed at the compliment, while Kimberly, through gritted teeth, muttered, “Three is not an army, Jason.”
“Hey now, short stack, you know I’m only teasing,” said Jason, winking at Kimberly who looked none too impressed with her oldest and closest male friend. Seeing her disproval, Jason added, “Come on, Kim, you gotta turn that frown upside down. It’s your wedding day, kiddo!”
“Thanks, Jase,” said Kimberly, rolling her eyes. “I hadn’t noticed.”
“Forgive my daughter, Jason,” said Mrs. Dumas, casting as harsh a glare at Kimberly as she could manage on this special day, which meant it was not very harsh at all. “She’s just feeling a bit anxious, that’s all.”
Jason smiled and nodded. “There’s no need to apologize, Caroline. After watching most of my friends get married, I’ve gotten the impression that pretty much everyone gets nervous right before they take the big plunge.”
“Speaking of marriage, Jason, when are you going to finally settle down?”
Laughing, Jason shrugged his shoulders helplessly. “I dunno really. Whenever I find a woman that’s worth marrying, I guess. Back when we were seven or so, Kim and I made a promise that if neither of us was married by the time we were thirty that we would marry each other, but that one’s looks like it’s about to fly right out the window, doesn’t it? I’m hopeless, I swear!”
While the others laughed at this, the look on Kimberly’s face upon hearing Jason’s public recollection of their ultimate and sacred, pinky-sworn and spit-shook, sandbox promise was horrific at best; in fact, after twenty-plus years of friendship, Jason was entirely certain that he had never seen Kimberly looking like she wanted to do him severe bodily harm more than she did at that very moment. It was the least he could do to shoot her an apologetic smile from across the room.
“Oh my, the time!” said Mrs. Dumas, after several more minutes of casual chatting; none of which, Kimberly thanked the heavens above, had involved any more childhood revelations from Jason’s front. “I’ve left Pierre out there by himself for almost half an hour. Oh, and his English!” she declared, hurrying towards the door without a word of goodbye. “I just hope he hasn’t said something silly to the wrong person.”
Kimberly stared at the place where her mother had just been with a slightly stunned expression. “Wow, thanks for wishing me luck and everything, mom,” she muttered to herself.
As if on command, Mrs. Dumas bustled back into the room as though she had forgotten her purse, and hastily approached her daughter’s side. “Oh, Kimberly,” she murmured, tears in her eyes as she swooped down and placed a kiss to Kimberly’s cheek. “You have no idea how proud and happy for you I am. I would wish you luck, but I know you don’t need it.”
“Thanks, Mom,” said Kimberly, smiling as she and her mother hugged one another warmly.
“I’ll be watching you, sweetie,” said Mrs. Dumas. She squeezed Kimberly’s hand, turned on her heels, and was off, muttering what sounded like a prayer that Pierre hadn’t embarrassed himself, or worse.
“I should kick your ass for that comment, Jason,” said Kimberly, once she was absolutely certain that Mrs. Dumas was gone and not returning. “I can’t believe you told my mom about that, of all people!”
Jason stared down at his feet, awkwardly fiddling with his red-and-gold striped tie. “It just slipped out. I didn’t mean to,” he muttered apologetically. He knew it wasn’t so much the contents of what he had said that had made Kimberly upset, but the fact that they had also promised on that day to never tell another living soul about their wedding promise. Promises, as anyone who knew Kimberly could attest, were not something the former Pink Ranger took lightly; and as far as keeping them went, Jack Bauer torturing her with Professor Snape’s Veritaserum would not have been enough to make her spill the beans.
Fictional characters, Kim, fictional characters, she silently reminded herself, the faintest hint of a smile crossing her lips as she looked back up at Jason. “It’s okay, I’m over it,” she told him, forming a full-fledged smile when Jason let out an exaggerated sigh of relief.
“Well then, we should probably get going too,” said Aisha, nodding towards the clock. In ten minutes time Ms. Kimberly Hart would be standing at the altar, on the cusp of becoming Mrs. Kimberly Reynolds. Eww, that so doesn’t sound good! thought Aisha, making a mental reminder to encourage Kimberly in the taking of a hyphenated last name once all of the wedding hoopla was over and done with.
“Okay,” said Kimberly, slowly standing up. “Thanks for everything, you guys,” she added, hugging each of her bridesmaids warmly. “I’ll see you out there, okay?”
“I sure hope so,” Trini replied with a laugh. “It is your wedding, after all.”
Kimberly rolled her eyes, and after a brief, shared laugh, waved goodbye to the disappearing trio. Once they were gone, she turned to Jason and smiled. “It’s almost time, bubba.”
Smiling just as brightly, Jason nodded. “Yeah, it is,” he muttered, choking on his words mid-sentence. Both he and Kimberly were equally surprised to find that he now had tears in his eyes.
“Oh, Jase, please don’t,” said Kimberly, striding across the room as fast as she could in high-heels while dragging the train of her dress behind her. “You can’t cry because then I’ll start crying too, and dammit all, I can not afford to start crying eight and a half minutes before I’m supposed to get married!”
Jason managed a hiccoughing laugh at that. “I’m sorry, it’s just…forget it,” he replied, shaking his head. “If I even try to describe what I’m feeling right now I’ll only end up turning into a blubbering idiot. Just know that I’m really, really proud of you, and absolutely honored that you asked me to be the one to walk you down the aisle.”
“There’s no one else in the world I’d rather have walk me down the aisle then you, Jase,” said Kimberly, smiling up at him.
“Not even Tommy?” asked Jason, chuckling as he dabbed at his eyes with the red pocket square that had been in his suit jacket moments prior.
Kimberly shook her head. “Not even Tommy,” she repeated truthfully; mostly because, from the time that they had met and even after they had broken up, until very recently Kimberly had always imagined Tommy as being the one in her fairytale wedding: wearing a white tuxedo; standing at the altar; waiting for her and only her.
“He’d kill me if I told you this, but I guess I kind of owe you one for earlier,” Jason muttered. “He was crushed when you didn’t ask him.”
“Really?” said Kimberly, her eyebrows raised curiously as Jason nodded. “Well, I can’t imagine why. I mean, we’re friends and everything now, but things have never quite been the same between us since…well, you know.”
Jason shrugged. “I think it’s only fair you know, Kim, even after everything that happened, Tommy never once stopped caring about you. I think it just took him awhile to learn to care for you as something other than his girlfriend.”
“Well I can’t change anything now,” said Kimberly, pretending to be unfazed by this revelation, even though inside it felt like her heart was being wrenched every which way imaginable. And suddenly her mind was flooded by images of Tommy; the boy he had once been and the man he was today. It took only a fleeting glimpse of a pony-tailed Tommy doing karate in the park to remind herself that she had never stopped loving him.
Alas, she was forced to banish these thoughts immediately, for despite her love for Tommy she knew that she could never act on her feelings, not after the damage she had already done once before. She could not be trusted with Tommy’s heart again, and so she had never once attempted to go after it, even on the many opportunities that she had been given to do so.
“I know, I know,” said Jason, somewhat defensively, “I just thought you should know, that’s all.”
“Thanks, Jase,” said Kimberly, a bit tightly. “Now, I have a wedding to get to. Do you want to walk me down the aisle, or do you want me to go out there and get Tommy to do it for you? Because I’m willing to if you’ve got cold feet…”
Jason laughed at that and shook his head. “Cold feet, my ass. I wouldn’t miss this moment for the world, short stack,” he replied, offering Kimberly his arm, which she took with a gracious smile. “And now, my dear, let’s go get you married.”
--
With Katherine on his arm, and the rest of the group in tow, Tommy quietly made his way into the church proper and did a quick scan of the spacious room to determine which side belonged to the bride as they made their way down the aisle. It just so happened that the woman in the aisle seat of the front pew on the left side chose exactly that time to look their way.
For a brief moment Tommy dared the thought of averting his eyes from Caroline Dumas, but he could not and felt his legs become rubber as a result. It took all his strength not to fall to the ground right there in front of everybody. When he looked into the eyes of Caroline Dumas he did not see Caroline Dumas; instead it was as if Kimberly herself was looking right at him, through the body of a middle aged woman.
Luckily, though, Caroline seemed not to have recognized Tommy without his ponytail, earring, and boyish face, because she had barely locked eyes with Tommy before returning her attention to her husband beside her. Nonetheless, the briefest of looks was all it had taken for a painful lump to form in Tommy’s throat as he forced himself to walk, leading the others to a pew in the middle section of the bride’s side.
Fully intending to take the aisle seat, just in case the urge to kick Jeff’s ass became too strong and he was forced to excuse himself, Tommy maintained his hold on Katherine’s arm and stepped back, allowing the others to file one-by-one in front of him. He took the aisle seat and allowed himself the smallest of smiles; it was a minor victory in a day that had been—and was still being—filled with major losses, the next of which came seconds later, as soon as he laid eyes on Jeff Reynolds.
There were such a myriad of reasons to hate the guy that Tommy couldn’t even think of a good one at the moment. Balling his fists as tightly as possible, all that Tommy knew for certain was that Jeffrey Reynolds had absolutely zero business marrying Kimberly Hart—no, no, no, hell no!—not his Kimberly Hart.
Unfortunately, crappy as it was, she wanted to marry him, Tommy reminded himself, and if that was what she wanted then that was what she was going to get. He would not interfere any further, no matter how badly he longed to do so. Lowering his eyes to the floor and slowly closing them, Tommy remained that way for quite awhile. Though he did not know how long it had been, when he opened his eyes a few minutes later a wide grin had formed on his face, for reasons that only he could understand.
But then the bridal march was playing and it was happening; it was really, truly, honest to goodness happening and there wasn’t a damn thing that Tommy could do about it except turn his eyes towards the entrance in anticipation of Kimberly’s arrival, just like everyone else in the church was in the process of doing.
Seeing Jeff on the altar, surrounded by his three groomsmen, had given Tommy plenty to keep his mind occupied with while waiting for Kimberly’s entrance. The smile, of course, had happened as a result of Tommy planning out elaborate fight scenes in his head, all of which ended with Jeff and his groomsmen laid out on the altar with their necks snapped. Forty-five seconds tops is all it would take, thought Tommy with a wry grin, though it could have easily been forty if he was not seated so far away from the altar.
The sound of the large oak double doors creaking open pulled Tommy from his thoughts of ending four relatively innocent lives; a chorus of “oohs” and “ahhs” reached his ears long before he had been able to see Kimberly, but when he saw her…Tommy was ever thankful to be seated, certain that he would be unable to stand for at least the next few minutes, perhaps even longer than that.
She looked so beautiful that Tommy felt the lump that had formed in his throat upon seeing Caroline Dumas return in full force, twice as painful as before. Indeed, even after all that had happened, there wasn’t a woman on earth who Tommy found more undeniably beautiful than Kimberly, a feeling that had only been further accentuated now.
The dress was absolutely perfect; strapless, pearl white, hugging Kimberly’s petite frame in ways that had Tommy’s mind spinning dangerously out of control. Her hair had been done in curls, curls so bouncingly perfect that they made Katherine’s look like the result of a long night’s sleep instead of three hours worth of careful work. Gripping the edge of the pew tightly, it was all he could do not to bum rush Jason, tackle his best friend, and seize his rightful place at Kimberly’s side.
And as Jason and Kimberly slowly approached the altar, the eyes of the former leaders met in a brief moment of clarity. Jason smiled apologetically and Tommy nodded his acceptance; even though they had had this discussion numerous times already, Jason still felt the need to apologize and Tommy still felt the need to accept said apology. Truthfully, though, selfishly even, Tommy was rather sure he would never be able to get over the feeling of not being the one to walk Kimberly down the aisle. If he could not be the one standing at the altar, he had at least hoped he would have been given the privilege to walk her, or at least some role in the wedding besides that of a mere spectator.
Reminding himself of how selfish that sounded, Tommy cleared his mind and attempted to capture Kimberly’s attention. He did, but only for a moment, and then she was looking elsewhere, obviously trying to pay some semblance of notice to as many of the two-hundred-plus people staring back at her as possible.
As his view of Kimberly quickly went from front to back, Tommy found that everything seemed to just sort of slip away into a blur of nothingness, like a deep sleep after an extremely long and tiring day. He could vaguely hear things in the background, and reasoned that it was the priest speaking to the congregation, then another voice he determined to belong to Kimberly, likely in the midst of reciting her vows.
It wasn’t until he heard the words “I do” that the blur suddenly became clear once again. The lump in his throat was back, only this time accompanied by an even worse pain, this one in the pit of his stomach. The only comparable pain that Tommy could liken it to was absorbing a full-powered blast to the gut from Serpentera while not in morph. It was, by far, the worst pain he had felt in his twenty-seven years of living; no power loss or defeat in battle came even remotely close to this.
Eventually the pain seemed to numb him to everything else around him, so that all he could focus on was Kimberly and the expression on her face as it went from beaming and misty-eyed, to a look of pure, unadulterated sadness coupled with a clear, gaping expression of shock. He heard distant phrases like “can’t do this,” and “met someone else,” but none of it made any sense to him. For the life of him, Tommy could not figure out why Kimberly was just standing there, staring at a wall with her mouth agape and tears streaming down her face.
“Oh my God!” Katherine exclaimed, her hand flying to her mouth.
“Is this some kind of joke? Where are you, Ashton Kutcher?” asked Rocky, a callous question that he and only he could get away with at a time like this. “Where’s the Punk’d bastard, so I can kick his ass?”
“What the hell just happened?” said Zack, his question just one of many being chorused by the many others in the church.
Tommy did not partake in their questioning, but instead remained silent, his tunnel vision still firmly locked onto Kimberly; and then finally, slowly but surely, it all started to fall into place. And the pain he felt upon hearing her say “I do” became nothing compared to the inexplicable shattering of his heart as he watched Kimberly’s legs give way, saw her fall down to her knees right there at the altar, her bouquet still firmly in her grasp.
He tried to get up: to help her, or comfort her, or anything else he could possibly do, but his legs simply refused to cooperate. There was nothing he could do except watch, watch as seemingly everyone else but him made to attend to Kimberly. Then, without warning, Tommy was up and on his feet; the next thing he remembered was being just feet away from a surrounded Kimberly, separated only by the arms-across-the-chest form of Jason.
“Not now, Tommy,” said Jason quietly, gently turning Tommy and guiding him back down the aisle.
Tommy did not know why he went, nothing that had happened in the last hour made any sense at all. Perhaps it was a dream. Perhaps it was all just one big, crazy dream, a dream he would wake up from any moment now.
The second Tommy’s eyes snapped open three hours later he knew that he had not been dreaming at all. Kimberly had really been left at the altar and the pain in his stomach was still as strong as it had been in the church. Pushing himself into a seated position, Tommy looked around to see that he was in his and Katherine’s hotel room, but was unable to recall how he had gotten back here. The mostly empty glass on the nightstand beside him led Tommy to believe that he had at least had once drink before passing out, though he knew it had likely been more than just the one.
“Oh, you’re awake,” said Katherine tightly from her seat in the chair across the room. “How are you feeling?”
“Terrible,” said Tommy, grimacing as he rubbed the back of his neck. “What the hell happened?”
“I don’t know, Tommy,” Katherine replied; more and more, Tommy could tell from her voice tone that she was angry with him, though he was not sure why. “I think you should ask the mini-bar that question. It seems to be missing all of the Jack Daniels and Absolut bottles that were in there this morning.”
“Relax, there weren’t even that many in there,” said Tommy, gingerly rubbing the bridge of his nose before moving to his pulsing head. Tommy knew his body well, and this full-body pain was not the result of an overindulgence of alcohol. No, it was the result of feeling his heart shattered into a million tiny little pieces all over again. There wasn’t a thing on the planet that could have prepared him for the pain he felt at seeing Kimberly crushed at the altar. “Do you have any aspirin in your purse?”
Katherine scoffed and shook her head. “You drank yourself into this, Tommy, now you have to deal with it.”
For a few silent moments, Tommy stared at Katherine in disbelief, and then let out a chuckle that was eerily cynical. “You know what, it’s not even worth arguing about so I’ll save us both the trouble,” he replied, throwing himself onto his feet.
He found his pants on the floor and pulled them on, then his shirt and did the same. He had only packed for two days, so throwing his clothes into his duffel bag was a rather quick process, one that Katherine watched with great amusement. Once he had finished packing, Tommy threw his duffel bag over his shoulder and started towards the door.
“Where are you going?” asked Katherine, just as his fingertips grazed the handle.
“I don’t know,” said Tommy, not bothering to turn around. “Away.”
“And you’re going to get there how, exactly?”
Tommy reached into his pants pocket for his car keys, fully intending to hold them up as a show of what a ridiculous question that had been, only to find that they were no longer there. He turned around and saw Katherine dangling the key ring on her index finger, grinning triumphantly back at Tommy.
Unfortunately for Katherine, however, this was nowhere near the hindrance she had expected it to be. Tommy slipped his hand into his back pocket for his wallet, fumbled around until he felt his thumb graze one of his credit cards, and then shrugged his shoulders quite nonchalantly. Again, it was one of the many places where Kimberly and Katherine differed; Kimberly would have covered all the bases and taken his wallet too, truly leaving him at whatever mercy she did or did not choose to show.
“Fuck it,” said Tommy, leaving Katherine looking absolutely stunned. “I’ll just rent a car. Better yet, I think I’ll buy a new one. What’s that Mercedes you’re always talking about, the two-seater, you know, your dream car?”
“The SLK55 AMG?” said Katherine, staring at Tommy in a way that dared him to say yes.
Grinning, Tommy snapped his fingers victoriously. “Yeah, that’s the one. I think I’m gonna go down to the Mercedes dealership tomorrow morning and see about getting one of those. Baby, I’m going to be the talk of the school when I show up Monday morning in my brand new Mercedes-Benz convertible.”
Tommy stayed behind just long enough to catch the disbelieving, shocked expression on Katherine’s face before he slipped into the hallway, smiling triumphantly to himself as he headed for the nearest elevator. He had no intention of purchasing the Mercedes in question, though he easily could have afforded to do so. No, instead he would simply rent a cheap vehicle tomorrow morning, just something to get him through the rest of the weekend and back to Reefside, and then he would retrieve his Jeep from Katherine’s house on Monday evening, after they had both apologized profusely to one another and agreed never to fight over something that silly ever again.
Yeah, right, Tommy scoffed inwardly, because that would be the first time I’ve ever heard that one before!
In the hotel lobby, Tommy decided to see about getting another room for the night before doing anything else. Luckily there were still rooms available, so after a bit of paperwork and a few lies to the concierge about why he was changing rooms, Tommy had a new key and a new room, one that differed with the old room only by the painting that hung above his bed; a Venetian gondola as opposed to an English clipper.
Tommy tossed his bag on the floor with little care, flopped down on the bed, stared up at the ceiling, immediately shot back onto his feet, and quickly started to pace around the room. It had taken only the briefest glimpse of the pearl white ceiling—the same shade of white that Kimberly’s dress had been—to be reminded once more of what had happened just a few short hours ago.
And then suddenly his heart was racing. For reasons Tommy could not readily explain, the air of nervousness he was now feeling was unlike anything he had experienced in quite some time, as if something big was about to happen, though what that was he did not know. The only thing that seemed to make sense in his mind was that Kimberly had been hurt in ways that Tommy could not even begin to fathom: his Kimberly; his sweet, beautiful, little Kimberly had been left at the altar by Jeff the Jerk, a notion that crushed Tommy’s very spirit more than it surprised him.
He had known that Jeff was a bad seed right from the get-go, from the very first time he had met the man, but despite his desire to see Kimberly in a better situation, never in his darkest dreams could he have wished this current scenario on her. It hurt him terribly to know that her pain was so very much beyond any semblance of imaginable comprehension.
“Kim,” Tommy murmured, rubbing the back of his neck, as though expecting her to reply.
Hearing her name on his lips was all it took, the proverbial straw to finally break the camel’s back. Before conscious thought could take over, his legs were moving faster than they had done in years. As he moved, the sounds he heard became more vivid then the sights he saw: the slamming of his bedroom door; the heavy thud of his feet as he ran through the hallway; the chime of the elevator, letting him off on the tenth floor; the soft whimpering from behind another door; and the pounding of his fist against said door.
“Who is it?” he heard Aisha call out after a few silent moments of waiting.
“Tommy.”
“Tell him to go away,” said Kimberly.
Tommy winced inwardly; just from the sound of her voice he could tell how bad it really was. Fortunately, it seemed Aisha had no intentions of following Kimberly’s instructions. The door swung wide open, revealing Aisha and Trini, both of whom wore grateful smiles at seeing their former leader.
“How is she?” asked Tommy, so that only the two former Yellow Rangers could hear him. Both women frowned sadly. “That bad, huh?”
Trini nodded and was the first to reply. “I’ve never seen her like this. She usually runs out of tears after a few minutes, but she hasn’t stopped crying since it all happened. Oh Tommy, I feel so terrible. Between Aisha and I, we’ve always been able to find a way to cheer her up, but now it’s just—”
“Do you think you can talk to her?” said Aisha, a clear hint of hopefulness evident in her voice.
“Why is he still here?” shouted Kimberly.
This time Tommy’s wince was outward, noticed by Aisha and Trini, both of whom looked at him apologetically. But Tommy didn’t need to hear it; he knew right away that Kimberly’s words were a product of her heartbreak and not just his presence.
“I sure hope so,” Tommy murmured to Aisha. “Can I come in?”
Aisha smiled, nodding as she said, “Yeah,” and then turned to Trini. “Come on,” she continued, taking Trini’s arm, leading the way out of the room. “We’ll leave you two alone.”
Tommy nodded appreciatively and quietly slipped passed them into the room. His strength, however, disappeared the moment he saw Kimberly curled up on the bed, still wearing her wedding dress; her normally soft, entrancing doe brown eyes—what little he could see of them, that is—were now a horrid, bloodshot shade of red, her face stained from running makeup after many hours spent crying those same eyes out.
“Hey,” he murmured, using the hallway wall to keep himself supported.
“What the hell do you want?” Kimberly demanded, not even bothering to look up at him. “Aisha, I told you to tell him to go away!”
“Aisha’s gone.”
“Trini—”
“So is Trini.”
“Traitors,” Kimberly muttered, still not looking Tommy’s way.
Covering his mouth, Tommy suppressed the urge to chuckle. Taking a deep breath, he quietly started to cross the room, his heart shattering more and more with each passing moment he spent looking at this crushed and broken version of Kimberly, so far away from the happy-go-lucky woman she usually was.
“Kim, I’m—”
“Here to say ‘I told you so?’” said Kimberly, shaking her head, laughing in such a hysterically saddened way that it made the hair on Tommy’s neck stand on end. “Well, newsflash Tommy, I already know what a complete idiot I am; Jeff made that pretty clear at the wedding. I really don’t need you coming in here and rubbing it in my face, so why don’t you do us both a favor and just leave, okay?”
“Kim—” Tommy tried again, only to be interrupted once more.
“Leave, Tommy, now.”
Folding his arms across his chest, Tommy shook his head. “I'm sorry, Kim, but I can't do that.”
At last, the former Pink Ranger raised her eyes to meet Tommy’s, but almost instantly he wished that she had not. The expression she wore…Tommy had never seen a person look at him with greater disdain than Kimberly was currently doing. Then she was on her feet, walking towards him faster than he had ever seen her move before.
“Dammit, Tommy, I said get out! Get out, get out, get out!” shouted Kimberly. Tommy flinched but remained firm. Even when she started hitting him, beating her fists against his chest and arms, Tommy stayed stoic, allowing her to take out her frustrations and anger on him. “I hate you, Tommy, I hate you! Just leave me the hell alone and let me be miserable! That’s what you wanted, right, me alone and without Jeff? Well you got your wish, alright! Go celebrate your victory somewhere else!”
“There’s nothing to celebrate, because I didn’t win anything, Kim,” Tommy whispered, grimacing when she connected with a particularly powerful blow to his right bicep. “You’re stronger than I remember.”
“You’re an asshole!” Kimberly replied through gritted teeth. “Just like every other guy: Jeff; my dad; all you men fucking care about if your goddamned selves! I hate you all, each and every one of you pathetic pieces of shit!”
“I understand you’re upset, Kim, but—”
“Awesome observation, Tommy,” Kimberly scoffed, rolling her eyes. “They teach you that one in geriatric Power Rangers’ school? How to overstate the obvious in situations where it’s completely unnecessary!?”
She cocked back for another punch, but Tommy finally decided that this beating had gone on long enough. When she swung the next time, Tommy caught her wrist and held it tightly; not enough to inflict pain, but enough to render her right fist useless. Then she tried the left and was met with the same result, only this time Tommy pulled her in so that she was but mere inches away from his chest.
He looked down at her angrily determined expression, heard her breathing heavily, and said in a near whisper, “I am so, so sorry, Kim. It’s common knowledge I didn’t like Jeff, but I never, ever, would have wished this kind of pain on you. All I’ve ever wanted where you’re concerned is to see you happy.”
Kimberly opened her mouth to argue, but found herself unable to speak as Tommy suddenly wrapped his arms around her, holding her against his chest. She fought the urge to crumble, to simply melt into his arms and allow him to take her pain away, but doing so was much harder than she had anticipated. His embrace felt so perfect, she just could not bring herself to push back any further. Her arms found their way around his waist and that was how they stayed for quite some time; Kimberly crying against his chest, Tommy refusing to even consider the notion of releasing his hold on her.
Her body relaxed considerably in that time, though her grasp on Tommy still remained firm, as if letting go of him would have surely spelled the end of her very existence. How long they stayed like that she did not know: seconds, minutes, hours; time made little sense at the moment, but soon enough she could feel herself slipping away. There was just something about being in his arms that felt right, even after everything that had happened, like no pain in the world could touch her as long as Tommy was there for her to hold on to.
He was really there, she mused silently as her eyes slowly fluttered shut, just like everyone had always told her he would be; but even as she smiled against his chest, she still had to know, needed to know more than anything else in the world.
“Why?” said Kimberly, breaking the long silence, her voice soft and distant.
“Why what, Kim?” said Tommy, his chin resting atop her head as he rubbed up and down her back as gently as he could manage.
“Why are you still here after everything I did to you? Why can’t you just—” Kimberly yawned loudly, “—leave me alone?”
Tommy’s brow furrowed and his eyes narrowed; that was a question he had not been expecting, one he did not readily have an answer to. He had to think about it for a few minutes, but Kimberly seemed content to give him as much time as he needed so long as he didn’t let go of her.
“I guess it’s because,” he started, pausing to regain his thoughts; this was harder than he had anticipated. “Because I can’t stand to see you hurt like this; because seeing you in any amount of pain, no matter how big or small, tears me up inside; because I never stopped caring about you; because I never stopped loving you.”
It felt selfish to say those words at a time like this, and Tommy waited with baited breath for Kimberly to pull back, knowing with absolute certainty that he had crossed the line; but it never came. Silence filled the room, interrupted only by the occasional breath from he or Kimberly. Then he heard the most glorious sound, one that made him chuckle very, very quietly; a snore.
Arms wrapped around his waist, her body slouched forward with her head against his chest, Kimberly was fast asleep. Smiling to himself, Tommy took the utmost care not to wake her as he gently lifted her off her feet and carried her to the bed. He thought about searching for pajamas, but decided that attempting to remove Kimberly’s wedding dress was a bad idea, no matter how good and platonic his intentions were. Surely Aisha and Trini would be back before long and they would be able to help Kimberly into more comfortable sleeping attire.
After she had been tucked in, Tommy remained at the side of the bed, unable to do anything but look down at her and smile. It hurt to know that she was still in pain, that she would likely be a shell of her former self for at least a little while, but it helped just a tiny bit to know that he had done some small amount of good, at least enough to calm her down into her current state of peaceful slumber.
Eventually, though, Tommy found himself growing tired as well. Stifling a yawn, he swooped down and placed a single, soft kiss to Kimberly’s forehead. “Goodnight, Beautiful,” he murmured. “Sleep well.”
He hit the light switch on his way out, leaving the room shrouded in darkness as he stepped back into the hallway. Inside the room, the lump beneath the bed sheets had just rolled over to face the closed door. Her first real, genuine smile since the wedding disaster crossed Kimberly’s lips. “Goodnight, Handsome,” she whispered sleepily. “Thank you for everything.”
Summary: It was supposed to be Kimberly Hart’s perfect day, but as she learned a long time ago, perfect days are rare for Power Rangers, even former Power Rangers on the day they are to be married. Luckily, there’s someone out there who’s more than willing to help her at her time of greatest need.
Dedication: To jps1926, both for the idea for this story and for being the absolute best reviewer a writer could ask for. This one's for you!
Chapter 1 - "Stranded"
Original posting date: February 14, 2009
--
The bland, white walls of his shared hotel room surrounded Tommy Oliver as he lay atop a king-sized bed, staring up at the ceiling with his hands behind his head and a thoughtful expression on his face. He was shirtless, wearing just his black dress slacks and a pair of equally dark socks. The television played in the background, but Tommy could not make out what was being said; it was like white noise compared to everything else that was currently running through his mind.
Thoughts of what would be happening in the next few hours pierced his psyche as he tried to contend with the flurry of emotions he was currently experiencing: sadness because it was actually happening; joy because he was genuinely happy for her; confusion because he still did not understand why; and hurt because, out of all their mutual friends, she had picked the one closest to him to walk her down the aisle.
“Tommy?” a soft, accented voice belonging to a female called out from the bathroom, snapping him from his thoughts. When he did not immediately reply, however, she continued, “Tommy, can you come in here and help me with this necklace, please?”
Closing his eyes to prevent himself from rolling them, Tommy let out a quiet sigh, heaved himself back onto his feet, walked into the bathroom, and froze on the spot. Katherine Hillard, his on-again-off-again girlfriend of the past seven years had rendered him speechless, just as she had done so many times before.
Her normally straight blonde hair had been done in soft, bouncy curls and what little makeup she wore perfectly accented her gorgeous face, especially her piercing blue eyes. Then there was the dress: pink; strapless; knee-length; highlighting her hourglass figure in ways that would have turned the average man into a babbling fool. Luckily for Tommy, he had moved on from babbling to speechlessness a long time ago.
“Wow,” Tommy breathed, stepping up behind her. “You look amazing,” he continued, tracing his hands gently across her shoulders then, up and down her arms.
“Thanks, love,” said Katherine, smiling as she winked at him through the mirror. “Oh no you don’t,” she admonished when Tommy began kissing her naked back. “Any more of that and we’ll be late for sure.”
“Aww, come on, baby, I promise I’ll be quick,” said Tommy, grinning while ignoring Katherine’s protests. She just wasn’t having it, though, and as she whirled around to face him, Tommy knew his only remaining line of defense was pouting his lips, which always seemed to make Katherine’s frustration disappear no matter how big or small the issue.
Sighing, Katherine shook her head. “Later, love,” she murmured, pressing a kiss to his lips before turning back around. Carefully pulling her hair up with one hand, she retrieved her necklace from the counter with the other, and handed it back to Tommy. “Now be a good boy and help me put this on, okay?”
Taking the necklace from her, Tommy gently clasped it in place around her neck, admiring Katherine’s reflection as she let her hair fall back into place. She had looked stunning before, but Tommy had to admit there was just something about the necklace that made her look even more gorgeous whenever she wore it. The chain was white gold and held a matching cat, the feline’s eyes made of the tiniest pink diamonds. It had been his gift to her on their third anniversary; or maybe their fourth; or their fifth; they had broken up and gotten back together so many times that Tommy’s already-poor memory made it damn near impossible to keep track of things like anniversaries.
“You should probably finish getting ready too, you know,” said Katherine, once Tommy had had sufficient time to take in her appearance. “The others are leaving in fifteen minutes, and Rocky has already said he won’t wait for us if you’re late.”
Tommy rolled his eyes and, laughing, said, “Rocky’ll wait as long as he has to if he knows what’s good for him. I know I don’t need to remind you what happened the last time Rocky left me behind somewhere.”
Joining Tommy’s laughter, Katherine shook her head. “No, I’m still scarred enough from the last time you reminded me. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get over the image of Rocky hanging by his boxer shorts on the Angel Grove High flagpole.”
“Like I said, he’ll wait,” said Tommy. Pecking a kiss to Katherine’s cheek, he gave her behind a playful swat and then headed back into the bedroom. Retrieving his light-green dress shirt and white-and-green striped tie from their resting spot atop one of the room’s two chairs, he carried them into the bathroom, took up the open space to Katherine’s left, and proceeded to get dressed. “How’s that?” he asked a few minutes later, pushing the knot of his tie into place.
Turning towards him, Katherine looked Tommy up and down for a few silent moments and then smiled. “Very handsome, love,” she murmured, fiddling with the tie’s knot even though he had tied it perfectly, simply because she thought it was the type of thing that girlfriends were supposed to do for their boyfriends. “Makes me wish it was appropriate for men to attend weddings shirtless.”
“Hey, you had your chance a few minutes ago, remember?” said Tommy, seizing her wrists and preventing her fingertips from exploring his chest any further. Smiling down at her, he pulled Katherine in close and kissed her warmly.
The kiss, which lasted quite some time, seemed to have sparked something inside Katherine, for when they pulled apart, what escaped her lips was not what Tommy had been expecting at all. “When are we going to get married, Tommy?”
Oh great, Tommy thought, forcing himself not to roll his eyes. “Kat, how many times are we going to talk about this? Marriage isn’t something I take lightly, and I won’t commit to it until we can go for any significant amount of time without us yelling at each other and breaking up over something stupid.”
“Maybe if we actually committed to each other we wouldn’t be breaking up over stupid stuff,” said Katherine. “Maybe if we committed to each other we’d—”
Tommy sighed and interrupted with, “I am committed to you, Kat. If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t be here right now, but dating and marriage are two entirely different beasts. Until we’ve both proven that we can really make this work—”
“It’s been seven years, Tommy,” Katherine whispered. “Either we’re meant to be together or we’re not.”
“You make it sound so simple,” said Tommy, almost cynically.
“That’s because it is that simple.”
Tommy shook his head; the last thing he wanted was another argument with Katherine, especially on this of all days. “Look, is now really the right time to have this conversation, Kat? Can’t we talk about this later, when we don’t have a wedding to get to?”
Katherine rolled her eyes, the frustration evident on her face. “Fine,” she muttered, starting towards the door. “Let’s go.”
“Kat,” Tommy began, not wanting to leave for the wedding on bad terms. She did not stop, though, so Tommy did the only thing he could think to do. He reached out, took her by the wrist, and pulled her in so that her back was against his chest; Katherine fought to escape, but Tommy held her tightly through her resistance, lowering his lips to her ear, whispering, “I don’t want to fight with you baby.”
She could not help the quiet moan that escaped her just seconds after Tommy had begun nibbling on her ear lobe. It was hard enough resisting the urge to shed her dress and jump him right then and there.
“I don’t want to fight either,” said Katherine, sighing as Tommy’s hold on her slackened, enough for her to turn around and face him. Smiling, she brushed the back of her hand along the side of his face. “Let’s go, okay? We can worry about us later.”
With a great, internal sigh of relief, Tommy smiled and nodded, allowing Katherine to lead the way back into the bedroom. Once she had retrieved her handbag, and Tommy his wallet, keys, and suit jacket, they were off. Downstairs in the hotel lobby, Rocky, Billy, Zack, and Zack’s date were already waiting for the pair.
“Remembered what happened last time, I see,” said Tommy to Rocky, grinning as he and Katherine approached the small group.
Rocky rolled his eyes. “Come on, or we’ll be late.”
“Lead the way, monkey boy,” said Tommy, laughing.
With a shake of his head, Rocky turned on his heels and started towards the door. Behind him, Tommy was certain that he heard Zack’s date asking the former Black Ranger about Tommy’s monkey boy comment. Tommy had to chuckle when he caught Zack’s laughing reply of, “Babe, you wouldn’t believe me even if I told you.”
Oh, how true that was.
Compliments on attire were made amongst the rest of the group as they all stepped out into the warmth of Southern California in the middle of April. The Los Angeles sun was mild, perfect for an outdoor wedding. Alas, the day was not going to be spent outside; instead in a church, per the request of the supposedly more “traditional” groom.
Thinking of Jeff Reynolds as traditional made Tommy laugh out loud, for Jeff was about as far from traditional as possible, when not playing the role of Eddie Haskell of course. Tommy had seen Jeff interacting away from his fiancée, enough so to know that Kimberly Hart was about to make quite possibly the worst decision of her life by marrying the man who had cheated on her numerous times.
Sadly, though, Kimberly was oblivious to all of this. She had downright refused to believe it when Tommy had told her that he had spotted Jeff making out with another woman at a nightclub six months back; or that he had seen Jeff leaving a restaurant with yet another woman just two weeks before the club; or that Jeff, on another night when he and Tommy had happened to be in the same nightclub, had drunkenly stood atop a table and declared to the crowd, “I’m engaged and still looking!”
As he climbed into the backseat of Zack’s black Chevy Suburban, Tommy thought back to the night shortly after Kimberly had announced her engagement to Jeff, when Tommy had finally decided that enough was enough and had gone to her with everything that he had seen. She had flat out called Tommy a liar to his face, told him that Jeff was a good man who would never even think about cheating on her—thank you, very much!—and that he, Tommy, needed to keep his lies to himself from now on if he still wanted to have a place in her life.
And though Tommy knew that he was not lying about Jeff’s cheating ways, he did as Kimberly had requested, maintaining his silence even when it practically killed him to do so. It had taken them a long time to get back to being friends, nearly three years following their breakup and so—perhaps a bit selfishly, he would admit—Tommy decided to keep the remainder of his observations to himself from there on out, not wanting to run the risk of losing her friendship for the second time.
“Man, I can’t believe that Kim, our Kim, is really getting married,” said Zack as he navigated the streets of Los Angeles en route to the church. Tommy, however, was nowhere near as surprised; Kimberly had spoken vividly of her fairytale wedding when she and Tommy had been together. “Any more of you assholes in the group decide to get married and I’ll have no choice but to do the same thing.”
“Aww, come on, Zack, it’s really not as bad as you make it sound,” Rocky supplied from the middle row of seats, slapping Zack on the shoulder. “In fact, it’s actually pretty nice…most of the time, anyway,” he added with a laugh.
“I must concur with Rocky,” said Billy. “The feeling one experiences when you find the one person with whom you know for certain that you are meant to spend the rest of your life with is simply indescribable. I can only assume that there is no other comparable feeling in the world quite like it.”
Tommy immediately turned his gaze towards Katherine, who for a moment looked poised to strike up another marriage conversation only to apparently think better of it, something Tommy was eternally grateful for.
“Yeah, but I mean, come on!” said Zack, shaking his head. “One person for the rest of your life? It’s just not natural; goes completely against nature.”
Either the red-haired beauty occupying the seat next to Zack firmly agreed with her date’s logic—or lack thereof, perhaps—or just did not want to run the risk of losing out on a night with the Zack-man by voicing her disagreement. Tommy simply smiled; if Zack had his way, the words “Zack” and “marriage” would have been legally prohibited from being spoken within three sentences of one another, while committing said offense would have been a crime punishable by death.
“Speaking of marriage, where are the girls, anyway?” asked Tommy, finally noticing that Aisha and Trini were nowhere in sight.
Staring at Tommy in the rearview mirror, Zack rolled his eyes. “You’re joking, right? Man, the way you forget things is ridiculous,” he laughed, though Tommy did not see what was so humorous. “Tommy, they’re bridesmaids, remember?”
“Oh yeah,” said Tommy distantly, not surprised at all that he had forgotten this detail. Much had changed since his days as a spandex wearing, teenaged superhero—or a mid-twenties superhero if his last stint in black was considered—but his memory, unfortunately, was not one of those things.
Some twenty minutes later Zack’s SUV swung into the church parking lot, pulling into the empty space in between Jason’s red Dodge Ram and Billy’s blue Ford Explorer, the latter of which had been used by his wife to transport Kimberly and the rest of her bridesmaids. Not seconds later Adam’s black Camaro appeared, taking the empty spot across from Zack’s vehicle.
As he climbed out of the Suburban, Tommy did a quick headcount: Jason and his date were already there, as were Kimberly, Aisha, and Trini; including his own party and the simultaneous arrival of Adam and Tanya—who were married, lived in Los Angeles, and thus had no need for a hotel—they were all present and accounted for. The time had finally arrived, the time for Tommy to face that which he had been trying to avoid ever since he had received the invitation in the mail last year.
Swallowing hard, Tommy looked to the church entrance where a few clusters of people were slowly making their way inside. And that’s when it hit him, really and truly hit him; Kimberly, who he had loved for so many years, even after she had broken up with him and shattered his heart, was actually getting married. It was real, a very hard and painful truth that Tommy had not at all expected to effect him like it was. Within the hour she would be married, the final piece of doubtless confirmation that she had really moved on.
If only Tommy could have said the same thing.
--
In a small, almost hidden room, Kimberly sat in an old wooden chair, staring at her reflection in the mirror, her mother and bridesmaids surrounding her on all sides. Kimberly could hardly believe that she was about to be married; it was a surreal thought, and though this wedding was far from the way she had envisioned it in her youth, both in setting and groom—(stupid Brad Pitt falling in love with someone else!)—it was nonetheless just as exciting and nerve-racking as she had anticipated.
Looking herself in the mirror, Kimberly had to admit that she looked far better than even she could have imagined, mostly due to the immense beautician skills of one of her bridesmaids, all of whom looked stunning in matching, soft pink dresses. Aisha and Trini had argued endlessly about being forced to wear pink, but Kimberly had firmly and defiantly refused to back down. It was her wedding after all, and if she wanted her bridesmaids to wear pink, then dammit, they were going to wear pink!
“I’m really doing this, aren’t I?” Kimberly murmured, more to herself than anyone else.
Catching Kimberly’s eyes in the mirror, Aisha smiled and nodded. “You sure are, girl. You’re not having second thoughts, are you?”
Kimberly hastened to shake her head. “No, not at all, it’s just…I don’t know really. I can’t explain it. Everything just feels weird all of a sudden, like this isn’t really happening.”
Caroline Dumas, Kimberly’s mother, laid a comforting hand upon her daughter’s shoulder and said softly, “That is a perfectly normal feeling, Kimberly. I felt the exact same way on my wedding day.”
“Which one?” Kimberly countered, sharing a knowing laugh with her mother who, ever since her divorce from Kimberly’s father, had steadfastly considered her first marriage akin to one’s first car or apartment—temporary, until something better eventually presented itself.
For quite some time, it had broken Kimberly’s heart to know that her father would not be present to see his only daughter married, but Kenneth Hart had had very little contact with Kimberly since shortly after the divorce: her high school graduation, her three-gold medal performance at the Pan Global Games, the car accident that had nearly claimed her life and caused her to spend a month in the hospital; looking back on the last nine or so years of her life, Kimberly could not think of a single major event that her father had been there to witness.
“I wish Daddy was here,” Kimberly admitted, blinking back tears. Despite their lack of contact and the way he had treated her mother, Kimberly had never stopped loving her father, nor had she stopped wanting him in her life. She had simply grown tired of all the lies and excuses, and had ceased trying altogether.
“I know you do, sweetie, but Pierre is here; and so is Kenny; and Uncle Chuck and Aunt Terry; Nana, Poppa, Oma, Opa, and all of your friends, too,” Caroline supplied with a soft smile directed both towards her daughter and to Aisha, Trini, and Adriana, the latter of whom had been Kimberly’s closest friend in Florida as well as the one responsible for the bride’s stunning appearance. “There are so many people here who love you and want to be a part of this very special day, sweetheart. Please don’t let one person ruin it for you; especially not your father, of all people.”
“You’re mom’s right, Kim,” Adriana interjected. “Everyone here is so happy for you.”
“Tommy’s not,” said Kimberly, her mouth hanging open in an expression of shock when she realized what she had just said.
Behind her, Aisha and Trini shared a knowing look. It was common knowledge between the trio of female ex-Rangers that Kimberly had never truly gotten over Tommy, that the untimely demise of their relationship plagued her still to this day, just as much as it had the day she had sent him the letter.
“You don’t know that, Kim,” said Trini, almost admonishingly. She had always had a way of putting Kimberly in her place when need be, and apparently now was one of those times. “Tommy has never wanted anything for you except what you want for yourself. As long as you’re happy with being married to Jeff, then Tommy will be happy for you.”
Though she was poised to do so, before Kimberly could argue there was a knock at the door, followed by the voice of Jason Scott reaching her ears through the wooden barrier, asking, “Can I come in?”
Kimberly nodded, which Aisha took as the signal to let Jason in.
“Damn girl, look at you all fancied up,” said Jason, grinning at Aisha.
“Oh hush up, boy,” said Aisha, laughing, shaking her head as Jason pulled her in for a careful hug, the former Red and Gold Ranger certain that messing up Aisha’s hair, even in the slightest, would in turn earn himself a lifetime’s worth of scorn.
“Jason, I’m sure I didn’t just hear you use a swear word, am I correct? What would your mother think if I told her?” said Mrs. Dumas.
Jason looked to the elder woman and smiled. “Oh, I’m sorry, Caroline. You look so natural with the rest of these young ladies, I thought you might have been a last minute addition to Kim’s army of bridesmaids.”
Mrs. Dumas blushed at the compliment, while Kimberly, through gritted teeth, muttered, “Three is not an army, Jason.”
“Hey now, short stack, you know I’m only teasing,” said Jason, winking at Kimberly who looked none too impressed with her oldest and closest male friend. Seeing her disproval, Jason added, “Come on, Kim, you gotta turn that frown upside down. It’s your wedding day, kiddo!”
“Thanks, Jase,” said Kimberly, rolling her eyes. “I hadn’t noticed.”
“Forgive my daughter, Jason,” said Mrs. Dumas, casting as harsh a glare at Kimberly as she could manage on this special day, which meant it was not very harsh at all. “She’s just feeling a bit anxious, that’s all.”
Jason smiled and nodded. “There’s no need to apologize, Caroline. After watching most of my friends get married, I’ve gotten the impression that pretty much everyone gets nervous right before they take the big plunge.”
“Speaking of marriage, Jason, when are you going to finally settle down?”
Laughing, Jason shrugged his shoulders helplessly. “I dunno really. Whenever I find a woman that’s worth marrying, I guess. Back when we were seven or so, Kim and I made a promise that if neither of us was married by the time we were thirty that we would marry each other, but that one’s looks like it’s about to fly right out the window, doesn’t it? I’m hopeless, I swear!”
While the others laughed at this, the look on Kimberly’s face upon hearing Jason’s public recollection of their ultimate and sacred, pinky-sworn and spit-shook, sandbox promise was horrific at best; in fact, after twenty-plus years of friendship, Jason was entirely certain that he had never seen Kimberly looking like she wanted to do him severe bodily harm more than she did at that very moment. It was the least he could do to shoot her an apologetic smile from across the room.
“Oh my, the time!” said Mrs. Dumas, after several more minutes of casual chatting; none of which, Kimberly thanked the heavens above, had involved any more childhood revelations from Jason’s front. “I’ve left Pierre out there by himself for almost half an hour. Oh, and his English!” she declared, hurrying towards the door without a word of goodbye. “I just hope he hasn’t said something silly to the wrong person.”
Kimberly stared at the place where her mother had just been with a slightly stunned expression. “Wow, thanks for wishing me luck and everything, mom,” she muttered to herself.
As if on command, Mrs. Dumas bustled back into the room as though she had forgotten her purse, and hastily approached her daughter’s side. “Oh, Kimberly,” she murmured, tears in her eyes as she swooped down and placed a kiss to Kimberly’s cheek. “You have no idea how proud and happy for you I am. I would wish you luck, but I know you don’t need it.”
“Thanks, Mom,” said Kimberly, smiling as she and her mother hugged one another warmly.
“I’ll be watching you, sweetie,” said Mrs. Dumas. She squeezed Kimberly’s hand, turned on her heels, and was off, muttering what sounded like a prayer that Pierre hadn’t embarrassed himself, or worse.
“I should kick your ass for that comment, Jason,” said Kimberly, once she was absolutely certain that Mrs. Dumas was gone and not returning. “I can’t believe you told my mom about that, of all people!”
Jason stared down at his feet, awkwardly fiddling with his red-and-gold striped tie. “It just slipped out. I didn’t mean to,” he muttered apologetically. He knew it wasn’t so much the contents of what he had said that had made Kimberly upset, but the fact that they had also promised on that day to never tell another living soul about their wedding promise. Promises, as anyone who knew Kimberly could attest, were not something the former Pink Ranger took lightly; and as far as keeping them went, Jack Bauer torturing her with Professor Snape’s Veritaserum would not have been enough to make her spill the beans.
Fictional characters, Kim, fictional characters, she silently reminded herself, the faintest hint of a smile crossing her lips as she looked back up at Jason. “It’s okay, I’m over it,” she told him, forming a full-fledged smile when Jason let out an exaggerated sigh of relief.
“Well then, we should probably get going too,” said Aisha, nodding towards the clock. In ten minutes time Ms. Kimberly Hart would be standing at the altar, on the cusp of becoming Mrs. Kimberly Reynolds. Eww, that so doesn’t sound good! thought Aisha, making a mental reminder to encourage Kimberly in the taking of a hyphenated last name once all of the wedding hoopla was over and done with.
“Okay,” said Kimberly, slowly standing up. “Thanks for everything, you guys,” she added, hugging each of her bridesmaids warmly. “I’ll see you out there, okay?”
“I sure hope so,” Trini replied with a laugh. “It is your wedding, after all.”
Kimberly rolled her eyes, and after a brief, shared laugh, waved goodbye to the disappearing trio. Once they were gone, she turned to Jason and smiled. “It’s almost time, bubba.”
Smiling just as brightly, Jason nodded. “Yeah, it is,” he muttered, choking on his words mid-sentence. Both he and Kimberly were equally surprised to find that he now had tears in his eyes.
“Oh, Jase, please don’t,” said Kimberly, striding across the room as fast as she could in high-heels while dragging the train of her dress behind her. “You can’t cry because then I’ll start crying too, and dammit all, I can not afford to start crying eight and a half minutes before I’m supposed to get married!”
Jason managed a hiccoughing laugh at that. “I’m sorry, it’s just…forget it,” he replied, shaking his head. “If I even try to describe what I’m feeling right now I’ll only end up turning into a blubbering idiot. Just know that I’m really, really proud of you, and absolutely honored that you asked me to be the one to walk you down the aisle.”
“There’s no one else in the world I’d rather have walk me down the aisle then you, Jase,” said Kimberly, smiling up at him.
“Not even Tommy?” asked Jason, chuckling as he dabbed at his eyes with the red pocket square that had been in his suit jacket moments prior.
Kimberly shook her head. “Not even Tommy,” she repeated truthfully; mostly because, from the time that they had met and even after they had broken up, until very recently Kimberly had always imagined Tommy as being the one in her fairytale wedding: wearing a white tuxedo; standing at the altar; waiting for her and only her.
“He’d kill me if I told you this, but I guess I kind of owe you one for earlier,” Jason muttered. “He was crushed when you didn’t ask him.”
“Really?” said Kimberly, her eyebrows raised curiously as Jason nodded. “Well, I can’t imagine why. I mean, we’re friends and everything now, but things have never quite been the same between us since…well, you know.”
Jason shrugged. “I think it’s only fair you know, Kim, even after everything that happened, Tommy never once stopped caring about you. I think it just took him awhile to learn to care for you as something other than his girlfriend.”
“Well I can’t change anything now,” said Kimberly, pretending to be unfazed by this revelation, even though inside it felt like her heart was being wrenched every which way imaginable. And suddenly her mind was flooded by images of Tommy; the boy he had once been and the man he was today. It took only a fleeting glimpse of a pony-tailed Tommy doing karate in the park to remind herself that she had never stopped loving him.
Alas, she was forced to banish these thoughts immediately, for despite her love for Tommy she knew that she could never act on her feelings, not after the damage she had already done once before. She could not be trusted with Tommy’s heart again, and so she had never once attempted to go after it, even on the many opportunities that she had been given to do so.
“I know, I know,” said Jason, somewhat defensively, “I just thought you should know, that’s all.”
“Thanks, Jase,” said Kimberly, a bit tightly. “Now, I have a wedding to get to. Do you want to walk me down the aisle, or do you want me to go out there and get Tommy to do it for you? Because I’m willing to if you’ve got cold feet…”
Jason laughed at that and shook his head. “Cold feet, my ass. I wouldn’t miss this moment for the world, short stack,” he replied, offering Kimberly his arm, which she took with a gracious smile. “And now, my dear, let’s go get you married.”
--
With Katherine on his arm, and the rest of the group in tow, Tommy quietly made his way into the church proper and did a quick scan of the spacious room to determine which side belonged to the bride as they made their way down the aisle. It just so happened that the woman in the aisle seat of the front pew on the left side chose exactly that time to look their way.
For a brief moment Tommy dared the thought of averting his eyes from Caroline Dumas, but he could not and felt his legs become rubber as a result. It took all his strength not to fall to the ground right there in front of everybody. When he looked into the eyes of Caroline Dumas he did not see Caroline Dumas; instead it was as if Kimberly herself was looking right at him, through the body of a middle aged woman.
Luckily, though, Caroline seemed not to have recognized Tommy without his ponytail, earring, and boyish face, because she had barely locked eyes with Tommy before returning her attention to her husband beside her. Nonetheless, the briefest of looks was all it had taken for a painful lump to form in Tommy’s throat as he forced himself to walk, leading the others to a pew in the middle section of the bride’s side.
Fully intending to take the aisle seat, just in case the urge to kick Jeff’s ass became too strong and he was forced to excuse himself, Tommy maintained his hold on Katherine’s arm and stepped back, allowing the others to file one-by-one in front of him. He took the aisle seat and allowed himself the smallest of smiles; it was a minor victory in a day that had been—and was still being—filled with major losses, the next of which came seconds later, as soon as he laid eyes on Jeff Reynolds.
There were such a myriad of reasons to hate the guy that Tommy couldn’t even think of a good one at the moment. Balling his fists as tightly as possible, all that Tommy knew for certain was that Jeffrey Reynolds had absolutely zero business marrying Kimberly Hart—no, no, no, hell no!—not his Kimberly Hart.
Unfortunately, crappy as it was, she wanted to marry him, Tommy reminded himself, and if that was what she wanted then that was what she was going to get. He would not interfere any further, no matter how badly he longed to do so. Lowering his eyes to the floor and slowly closing them, Tommy remained that way for quite awhile. Though he did not know how long it had been, when he opened his eyes a few minutes later a wide grin had formed on his face, for reasons that only he could understand.
But then the bridal march was playing and it was happening; it was really, truly, honest to goodness happening and there wasn’t a damn thing that Tommy could do about it except turn his eyes towards the entrance in anticipation of Kimberly’s arrival, just like everyone else in the church was in the process of doing.
Seeing Jeff on the altar, surrounded by his three groomsmen, had given Tommy plenty to keep his mind occupied with while waiting for Kimberly’s entrance. The smile, of course, had happened as a result of Tommy planning out elaborate fight scenes in his head, all of which ended with Jeff and his groomsmen laid out on the altar with their necks snapped. Forty-five seconds tops is all it would take, thought Tommy with a wry grin, though it could have easily been forty if he was not seated so far away from the altar.
The sound of the large oak double doors creaking open pulled Tommy from his thoughts of ending four relatively innocent lives; a chorus of “oohs” and “ahhs” reached his ears long before he had been able to see Kimberly, but when he saw her…Tommy was ever thankful to be seated, certain that he would be unable to stand for at least the next few minutes, perhaps even longer than that.
She looked so beautiful that Tommy felt the lump that had formed in his throat upon seeing Caroline Dumas return in full force, twice as painful as before. Indeed, even after all that had happened, there wasn’t a woman on earth who Tommy found more undeniably beautiful than Kimberly, a feeling that had only been further accentuated now.
The dress was absolutely perfect; strapless, pearl white, hugging Kimberly’s petite frame in ways that had Tommy’s mind spinning dangerously out of control. Her hair had been done in curls, curls so bouncingly perfect that they made Katherine’s look like the result of a long night’s sleep instead of three hours worth of careful work. Gripping the edge of the pew tightly, it was all he could do not to bum rush Jason, tackle his best friend, and seize his rightful place at Kimberly’s side.
And as Jason and Kimberly slowly approached the altar, the eyes of the former leaders met in a brief moment of clarity. Jason smiled apologetically and Tommy nodded his acceptance; even though they had had this discussion numerous times already, Jason still felt the need to apologize and Tommy still felt the need to accept said apology. Truthfully, though, selfishly even, Tommy was rather sure he would never be able to get over the feeling of not being the one to walk Kimberly down the aisle. If he could not be the one standing at the altar, he had at least hoped he would have been given the privilege to walk her, or at least some role in the wedding besides that of a mere spectator.
Reminding himself of how selfish that sounded, Tommy cleared his mind and attempted to capture Kimberly’s attention. He did, but only for a moment, and then she was looking elsewhere, obviously trying to pay some semblance of notice to as many of the two-hundred-plus people staring back at her as possible.
As his view of Kimberly quickly went from front to back, Tommy found that everything seemed to just sort of slip away into a blur of nothingness, like a deep sleep after an extremely long and tiring day. He could vaguely hear things in the background, and reasoned that it was the priest speaking to the congregation, then another voice he determined to belong to Kimberly, likely in the midst of reciting her vows.
It wasn’t until he heard the words “I do” that the blur suddenly became clear once again. The lump in his throat was back, only this time accompanied by an even worse pain, this one in the pit of his stomach. The only comparable pain that Tommy could liken it to was absorbing a full-powered blast to the gut from Serpentera while not in morph. It was, by far, the worst pain he had felt in his twenty-seven years of living; no power loss or defeat in battle came even remotely close to this.
Eventually the pain seemed to numb him to everything else around him, so that all he could focus on was Kimberly and the expression on her face as it went from beaming and misty-eyed, to a look of pure, unadulterated sadness coupled with a clear, gaping expression of shock. He heard distant phrases like “can’t do this,” and “met someone else,” but none of it made any sense to him. For the life of him, Tommy could not figure out why Kimberly was just standing there, staring at a wall with her mouth agape and tears streaming down her face.
“Oh my God!” Katherine exclaimed, her hand flying to her mouth.
“Is this some kind of joke? Where are you, Ashton Kutcher?” asked Rocky, a callous question that he and only he could get away with at a time like this. “Where’s the Punk’d bastard, so I can kick his ass?”
“What the hell just happened?” said Zack, his question just one of many being chorused by the many others in the church.
Tommy did not partake in their questioning, but instead remained silent, his tunnel vision still firmly locked onto Kimberly; and then finally, slowly but surely, it all started to fall into place. And the pain he felt upon hearing her say “I do” became nothing compared to the inexplicable shattering of his heart as he watched Kimberly’s legs give way, saw her fall down to her knees right there at the altar, her bouquet still firmly in her grasp.
He tried to get up: to help her, or comfort her, or anything else he could possibly do, but his legs simply refused to cooperate. There was nothing he could do except watch, watch as seemingly everyone else but him made to attend to Kimberly. Then, without warning, Tommy was up and on his feet; the next thing he remembered was being just feet away from a surrounded Kimberly, separated only by the arms-across-the-chest form of Jason.
“Not now, Tommy,” said Jason quietly, gently turning Tommy and guiding him back down the aisle.
Tommy did not know why he went, nothing that had happened in the last hour made any sense at all. Perhaps it was a dream. Perhaps it was all just one big, crazy dream, a dream he would wake up from any moment now.
The second Tommy’s eyes snapped open three hours later he knew that he had not been dreaming at all. Kimberly had really been left at the altar and the pain in his stomach was still as strong as it had been in the church. Pushing himself into a seated position, Tommy looked around to see that he was in his and Katherine’s hotel room, but was unable to recall how he had gotten back here. The mostly empty glass on the nightstand beside him led Tommy to believe that he had at least had once drink before passing out, though he knew it had likely been more than just the one.
“Oh, you’re awake,” said Katherine tightly from her seat in the chair across the room. “How are you feeling?”
“Terrible,” said Tommy, grimacing as he rubbed the back of his neck. “What the hell happened?”
“I don’t know, Tommy,” Katherine replied; more and more, Tommy could tell from her voice tone that she was angry with him, though he was not sure why. “I think you should ask the mini-bar that question. It seems to be missing all of the Jack Daniels and Absolut bottles that were in there this morning.”
“Relax, there weren’t even that many in there,” said Tommy, gingerly rubbing the bridge of his nose before moving to his pulsing head. Tommy knew his body well, and this full-body pain was not the result of an overindulgence of alcohol. No, it was the result of feeling his heart shattered into a million tiny little pieces all over again. There wasn’t a thing on the planet that could have prepared him for the pain he felt at seeing Kimberly crushed at the altar. “Do you have any aspirin in your purse?”
Katherine scoffed and shook her head. “You drank yourself into this, Tommy, now you have to deal with it.”
For a few silent moments, Tommy stared at Katherine in disbelief, and then let out a chuckle that was eerily cynical. “You know what, it’s not even worth arguing about so I’ll save us both the trouble,” he replied, throwing himself onto his feet.
He found his pants on the floor and pulled them on, then his shirt and did the same. He had only packed for two days, so throwing his clothes into his duffel bag was a rather quick process, one that Katherine watched with great amusement. Once he had finished packing, Tommy threw his duffel bag over his shoulder and started towards the door.
“Where are you going?” asked Katherine, just as his fingertips grazed the handle.
“I don’t know,” said Tommy, not bothering to turn around. “Away.”
“And you’re going to get there how, exactly?”
Tommy reached into his pants pocket for his car keys, fully intending to hold them up as a show of what a ridiculous question that had been, only to find that they were no longer there. He turned around and saw Katherine dangling the key ring on her index finger, grinning triumphantly back at Tommy.
Unfortunately for Katherine, however, this was nowhere near the hindrance she had expected it to be. Tommy slipped his hand into his back pocket for his wallet, fumbled around until he felt his thumb graze one of his credit cards, and then shrugged his shoulders quite nonchalantly. Again, it was one of the many places where Kimberly and Katherine differed; Kimberly would have covered all the bases and taken his wallet too, truly leaving him at whatever mercy she did or did not choose to show.
“Fuck it,” said Tommy, leaving Katherine looking absolutely stunned. “I’ll just rent a car. Better yet, I think I’ll buy a new one. What’s that Mercedes you’re always talking about, the two-seater, you know, your dream car?”
“The SLK55 AMG?” said Katherine, staring at Tommy in a way that dared him to say yes.
Grinning, Tommy snapped his fingers victoriously. “Yeah, that’s the one. I think I’m gonna go down to the Mercedes dealership tomorrow morning and see about getting one of those. Baby, I’m going to be the talk of the school when I show up Monday morning in my brand new Mercedes-Benz convertible.”
Tommy stayed behind just long enough to catch the disbelieving, shocked expression on Katherine’s face before he slipped into the hallway, smiling triumphantly to himself as he headed for the nearest elevator. He had no intention of purchasing the Mercedes in question, though he easily could have afforded to do so. No, instead he would simply rent a cheap vehicle tomorrow morning, just something to get him through the rest of the weekend and back to Reefside, and then he would retrieve his Jeep from Katherine’s house on Monday evening, after they had both apologized profusely to one another and agreed never to fight over something that silly ever again.
Yeah, right, Tommy scoffed inwardly, because that would be the first time I’ve ever heard that one before!
In the hotel lobby, Tommy decided to see about getting another room for the night before doing anything else. Luckily there were still rooms available, so after a bit of paperwork and a few lies to the concierge about why he was changing rooms, Tommy had a new key and a new room, one that differed with the old room only by the painting that hung above his bed; a Venetian gondola as opposed to an English clipper.
Tommy tossed his bag on the floor with little care, flopped down on the bed, stared up at the ceiling, immediately shot back onto his feet, and quickly started to pace around the room. It had taken only the briefest glimpse of the pearl white ceiling—the same shade of white that Kimberly’s dress had been—to be reminded once more of what had happened just a few short hours ago.
And then suddenly his heart was racing. For reasons Tommy could not readily explain, the air of nervousness he was now feeling was unlike anything he had experienced in quite some time, as if something big was about to happen, though what that was he did not know. The only thing that seemed to make sense in his mind was that Kimberly had been hurt in ways that Tommy could not even begin to fathom: his Kimberly; his sweet, beautiful, little Kimberly had been left at the altar by Jeff the Jerk, a notion that crushed Tommy’s very spirit more than it surprised him.
He had known that Jeff was a bad seed right from the get-go, from the very first time he had met the man, but despite his desire to see Kimberly in a better situation, never in his darkest dreams could he have wished this current scenario on her. It hurt him terribly to know that her pain was so very much beyond any semblance of imaginable comprehension.
“Kim,” Tommy murmured, rubbing the back of his neck, as though expecting her to reply.
Hearing her name on his lips was all it took, the proverbial straw to finally break the camel’s back. Before conscious thought could take over, his legs were moving faster than they had done in years. As he moved, the sounds he heard became more vivid then the sights he saw: the slamming of his bedroom door; the heavy thud of his feet as he ran through the hallway; the chime of the elevator, letting him off on the tenth floor; the soft whimpering from behind another door; and the pounding of his fist against said door.
“Who is it?” he heard Aisha call out after a few silent moments of waiting.
“Tommy.”
“Tell him to go away,” said Kimberly.
Tommy winced inwardly; just from the sound of her voice he could tell how bad it really was. Fortunately, it seemed Aisha had no intentions of following Kimberly’s instructions. The door swung wide open, revealing Aisha and Trini, both of whom wore grateful smiles at seeing their former leader.
“How is she?” asked Tommy, so that only the two former Yellow Rangers could hear him. Both women frowned sadly. “That bad, huh?”
Trini nodded and was the first to reply. “I’ve never seen her like this. She usually runs out of tears after a few minutes, but she hasn’t stopped crying since it all happened. Oh Tommy, I feel so terrible. Between Aisha and I, we’ve always been able to find a way to cheer her up, but now it’s just—”
“Do you think you can talk to her?” said Aisha, a clear hint of hopefulness evident in her voice.
“Why is he still here?” shouted Kimberly.
This time Tommy’s wince was outward, noticed by Aisha and Trini, both of whom looked at him apologetically. But Tommy didn’t need to hear it; he knew right away that Kimberly’s words were a product of her heartbreak and not just his presence.
“I sure hope so,” Tommy murmured to Aisha. “Can I come in?”
Aisha smiled, nodding as she said, “Yeah,” and then turned to Trini. “Come on,” she continued, taking Trini’s arm, leading the way out of the room. “We’ll leave you two alone.”
Tommy nodded appreciatively and quietly slipped passed them into the room. His strength, however, disappeared the moment he saw Kimberly curled up on the bed, still wearing her wedding dress; her normally soft, entrancing doe brown eyes—what little he could see of them, that is—were now a horrid, bloodshot shade of red, her face stained from running makeup after many hours spent crying those same eyes out.
“Hey,” he murmured, using the hallway wall to keep himself supported.
“What the hell do you want?” Kimberly demanded, not even bothering to look up at him. “Aisha, I told you to tell him to go away!”
“Aisha’s gone.”
“Trini—”
“So is Trini.”
“Traitors,” Kimberly muttered, still not looking Tommy’s way.
Covering his mouth, Tommy suppressed the urge to chuckle. Taking a deep breath, he quietly started to cross the room, his heart shattering more and more with each passing moment he spent looking at this crushed and broken version of Kimberly, so far away from the happy-go-lucky woman she usually was.
“Kim, I’m—”
“Here to say ‘I told you so?’” said Kimberly, shaking her head, laughing in such a hysterically saddened way that it made the hair on Tommy’s neck stand on end. “Well, newsflash Tommy, I already know what a complete idiot I am; Jeff made that pretty clear at the wedding. I really don’t need you coming in here and rubbing it in my face, so why don’t you do us both a favor and just leave, okay?”
“Kim—” Tommy tried again, only to be interrupted once more.
“Leave, Tommy, now.”
Folding his arms across his chest, Tommy shook his head. “I'm sorry, Kim, but I can't do that.”
At last, the former Pink Ranger raised her eyes to meet Tommy’s, but almost instantly he wished that she had not. The expression she wore…Tommy had never seen a person look at him with greater disdain than Kimberly was currently doing. Then she was on her feet, walking towards him faster than he had ever seen her move before.
“Dammit, Tommy, I said get out! Get out, get out, get out!” shouted Kimberly. Tommy flinched but remained firm. Even when she started hitting him, beating her fists against his chest and arms, Tommy stayed stoic, allowing her to take out her frustrations and anger on him. “I hate you, Tommy, I hate you! Just leave me the hell alone and let me be miserable! That’s what you wanted, right, me alone and without Jeff? Well you got your wish, alright! Go celebrate your victory somewhere else!”
“There’s nothing to celebrate, because I didn’t win anything, Kim,” Tommy whispered, grimacing when she connected with a particularly powerful blow to his right bicep. “You’re stronger than I remember.”
“You’re an asshole!” Kimberly replied through gritted teeth. “Just like every other guy: Jeff; my dad; all you men fucking care about if your goddamned selves! I hate you all, each and every one of you pathetic pieces of shit!”
“I understand you’re upset, Kim, but—”
“Awesome observation, Tommy,” Kimberly scoffed, rolling her eyes. “They teach you that one in geriatric Power Rangers’ school? How to overstate the obvious in situations where it’s completely unnecessary!?”
She cocked back for another punch, but Tommy finally decided that this beating had gone on long enough. When she swung the next time, Tommy caught her wrist and held it tightly; not enough to inflict pain, but enough to render her right fist useless. Then she tried the left and was met with the same result, only this time Tommy pulled her in so that she was but mere inches away from his chest.
He looked down at her angrily determined expression, heard her breathing heavily, and said in a near whisper, “I am so, so sorry, Kim. It’s common knowledge I didn’t like Jeff, but I never, ever, would have wished this kind of pain on you. All I’ve ever wanted where you’re concerned is to see you happy.”
Kimberly opened her mouth to argue, but found herself unable to speak as Tommy suddenly wrapped his arms around her, holding her against his chest. She fought the urge to crumble, to simply melt into his arms and allow him to take her pain away, but doing so was much harder than she had anticipated. His embrace felt so perfect, she just could not bring herself to push back any further. Her arms found their way around his waist and that was how they stayed for quite some time; Kimberly crying against his chest, Tommy refusing to even consider the notion of releasing his hold on her.
Her body relaxed considerably in that time, though her grasp on Tommy still remained firm, as if letting go of him would have surely spelled the end of her very existence. How long they stayed like that she did not know: seconds, minutes, hours; time made little sense at the moment, but soon enough she could feel herself slipping away. There was just something about being in his arms that felt right, even after everything that had happened, like no pain in the world could touch her as long as Tommy was there for her to hold on to.
He was really there, she mused silently as her eyes slowly fluttered shut, just like everyone had always told her he would be; but even as she smiled against his chest, she still had to know, needed to know more than anything else in the world.
“Why?” said Kimberly, breaking the long silence, her voice soft and distant.
“Why what, Kim?” said Tommy, his chin resting atop her head as he rubbed up and down her back as gently as he could manage.
“Why are you still here after everything I did to you? Why can’t you just—” Kimberly yawned loudly, “—leave me alone?”
Tommy’s brow furrowed and his eyes narrowed; that was a question he had not been expecting, one he did not readily have an answer to. He had to think about it for a few minutes, but Kimberly seemed content to give him as much time as he needed so long as he didn’t let go of her.
“I guess it’s because,” he started, pausing to regain his thoughts; this was harder than he had anticipated. “Because I can’t stand to see you hurt like this; because seeing you in any amount of pain, no matter how big or small, tears me up inside; because I never stopped caring about you; because I never stopped loving you.”
It felt selfish to say those words at a time like this, and Tommy waited with baited breath for Kimberly to pull back, knowing with absolute certainty that he had crossed the line; but it never came. Silence filled the room, interrupted only by the occasional breath from he or Kimberly. Then he heard the most glorious sound, one that made him chuckle very, very quietly; a snore.
Arms wrapped around his waist, her body slouched forward with her head against his chest, Kimberly was fast asleep. Smiling to himself, Tommy took the utmost care not to wake her as he gently lifted her off her feet and carried her to the bed. He thought about searching for pajamas, but decided that attempting to remove Kimberly’s wedding dress was a bad idea, no matter how good and platonic his intentions were. Surely Aisha and Trini would be back before long and they would be able to help Kimberly into more comfortable sleeping attire.
After she had been tucked in, Tommy remained at the side of the bed, unable to do anything but look down at her and smile. It hurt to know that she was still in pain, that she would likely be a shell of her former self for at least a little while, but it helped just a tiny bit to know that he had done some small amount of good, at least enough to calm her down into her current state of peaceful slumber.
Eventually, though, Tommy found himself growing tired as well. Stifling a yawn, he swooped down and placed a single, soft kiss to Kimberly’s forehead. “Goodnight, Beautiful,” he murmured. “Sleep well.”
He hit the light switch on his way out, leaving the room shrouded in darkness as he stepped back into the hallway. Inside the room, the lump beneath the bed sheets had just rolled over to face the closed door. Her first real, genuine smile since the wedding disaster crossed Kimberly’s lips. “Goodnight, Handsome,” she whispered sleepily. “Thank you for everything.”
