Power Rangers 1. When She Enters a Room

Disclaimer: Still Saban's sandbox. I just play here because it's fun.  
  
Author's Note: This is really my way of keeping myself sane during finals without screwing up Conversations. Consider this also my apology for the lull in that fic. Short, sweet, pov fics. The title is based off of a movie that I've never seen, but liked the title of. I plan to do one for each male ranger with his respective female counterpart of my choosing. We're starting with Tommy.  
  
Acknowledgement: This one is for Ozymandayus b/c he has a long time to wait for his fav couple in other things I have in the works.  
  
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There are things you can tell just by looking at her. Before Kimberly Hart does or says anything, there are things you just know. Like the fact that you've never met anyone quite like her, and never will again. She's an original, just like those clothes she wants to design.  
  
I can still remember the first time I ever saw her, right down to the exact moment she walked into the room and smiled. Magic. She smiled, and somehow she was smiling for the entire world and just me all at the same time. I didn't even know her, and she was smiling for me. No one else smiles like that.  
  
Watch her long enough, and she starts to infect you. She believes in people, so you believe in people too, even yourself. When Kim looks your way you don't just want to be Superman. You *are* Superman, and you can do anything. You stand straighter. You fight better. You can leap tall buildings, and even make it to class on time.   
  
My life completely changed when I came to Angel Grove, and I'm not really talking about being a Power Ranger, although obviously that's not exactly something I get to separate out. Still, it was more ordinary and more extraordinary than that all at the same time.   
  
Before coming here, I got used to living my life a certain way. I didn't connect to people, didn't rely on anyone else besides myself because in the end I was the only person I could really trust to be there. It wasn't such a bad way to live, at least that's what I told myself, and I was prepared to get through high school that way --- no real friends, but then no real disappointments either.   
  
Enter Kimberly Hart.  
  
First day I see her she's meeting up with her friends. I get to honestly say they're my friends now, but of course they weren't then. They were just this group of teenagers sitting at a table, like every other group of teenagers I'd never been a part of. Then Kim walks over, and she throws her arm around one them. It might have been Jason or Billy or Zach . . . I don't really remember, not that it matters. The moment she did that the group transformed, like they'd just been waiting for their missing piece, like Kim was the on-switch. They were closer, livelier, stronger than any group I'd ever seen, and for the first time in a long time, I wanted to be a part of that, wanted to be the one she threw her arm around, or stole a french-fry from. Within three minutes of seeing her Kim had turned my world upside down.  
  
Then six years later, she does it again.  
  
I'm not going to lie to you and tell you I was happy to hear from her. I'm not going to tell you that I wasn't. Honestly, I didn't know what I felt.  
  
What are you supposed to feel when a part of your past, which although you never really let go of, you had sort of resigned yourself to it being that way, slams directly into your present? Especially when your present, isn't that bad? Anger, hope, apprehension, excitement? I think I felt all those things and probably dozen others.  
  
I wasn't in a great place, but I was in a good one. About six-months before, Kat and I had done what she calls parting on good terms, I call it finding out that some love just isn't strong enough to survive an ocean, time-differences, and phone bills that cost more than eating. Did I love her? Yes. Did I die a little inside when we broke up? No. I sparred with Jason. I hung out with Rocky. I called up Adam. I reminded myself of everything I still had.  
  
I had my friends, my racing, my family, a future. Over all, the balance came out in my favor. I wasn't looking for more. It always happens when you're not looking, doesn't it?  
  
You pick up the phone, on a day that starts out just like any other ordinary, not particularly significant day. You pick it up, you say hello, and you expect to hear your parents, or your friends, or at worst some incredibly obnoxious telemarketer. What you do not expect to hear is a slightly nervous, all too familiar, voice say your name in a way that it's never been said before.  
  
Bam, thank you, flat on your ass while you're still standing up.  
  
Next thing I know, I'm sitting in some restaurant that's nicer than what I usually go to looking around anxiously for a glimpse of her, all the while plotting Jason's death for not at least giving me a clue that she was back in town. I don't give a damn if she wanted to tell me herself, there are just some things you don't keep from your best-bro, especially if you want to live.  
  
I ordered a soda. I don't drink soda, but the waiter was standing there asking me if I wanted anything to drink, and water . . . too completely normal for my completely abnormal day. The soda came before she did.  
  
Okay, so I was fifteen minutes early. I was shooting for a half-an-hour, so technically I was still late. I just wanted to be there first. Maybe because I was anxious to see her, maybe because I wanted to scope out the nearest exit before she got here, maybe because I was afraid my knees would go out when I saw I her again, so sitting down seemed a better option.  
  
No matter what the reason, in the end it was worth it because now I have second picture perfect memory of her walking into the room. Time stopped, I swear time stopped. She scanned the room, shifting slightly so that her profile is surrounded by the sunlight coming through the windows, like a halo. Then she found me. I must have smiled because after a flash of nervousness she returned it. Magic.  
  
This time Kim wasn't smiling for the whole world, just me and that was ten times better. After signaling to the host that she had found her party, she started to make her way over, and suddenly I realized that despite all of my preparation against having my knees give, I had forgotten about standing and pulling out her chair for her. There are just things you forget when you haven't been out on an actual physical date in a little over a year.  
  
And it wasn't a date. Although I'm a little fuzzy on the details, I definitely remember that once she sat down it was very undate-like. Awkward and tense, we tried for a short while to pretend that we could act like two old friends who had dropped out of touch. By the time the main course came, we'd given up on that and moved into a very painful discussion of everything we had left unfinished. With dessert came not understanding, but . . . I don't know . . . some sort of truce. We'd see each other at gatherings, and around town, but I wasn't going to be the first person on her speed dial, and she wouldn't be the one I called with news of my latest win.  
  
At least that was the plan. I think some how when I passed on the Ranger powers. I also passed on all of my abilities to make any plan I made succeed. How else do you explain the fact that I could defeat monsters, but couldn't make something as simple as this work?  
  
Crash and burn. The plan crashed and burned. I kept seeing her everywhere. Okay so maybe I started to suggest to Jason that we stop by the coffee shop that she frequented, a little more than I used to, and maybe she suddenly seemed to always have the yoga class right before the advanced class I taught at Jason's athletic center. Angel Grove is not a large town, things happen, and they lead to larger things happening.   
  
Until one day you wake up and you're in love all over again.  
  
In the end, I'm pretty sure the plan never stood a chance. No matter how many tense moments we had over the first few months, or how much she hurt me with that letter, I think the moment she walked into the restaurant I knew. I knew that I wouldn't have to kill Jason. I knew that this time it was going to be amazing --- fresh and new, and comfortable and old. I knew that eventually it would all lead up to this moment, standing here waiting for the doors to open, waiting to make another perfect memory of Kim entering a room and changing my life forever, and hoping desperately that my knees don't give out as she walks down the aisle. Maybe I even knew it the first time I ever saw her.  
  
After all there are some things you can tell just by looking at her.  
  
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Thanks for reading.  
  
Comments, criticism, and suggestions appreciated as always. 


	2. On Third Glance

Disclaimer: Still Saban's sandbox. Still play here because it's fun.  
  
Author's Note: These pieces all take place within the same universe (meaning if I mentioned it happening in one fic, you can assume it holds true throughout). However we're jumping timeline all over the place, so this piece occurs way before the last one. I'll jump timeline again in future parts.  
  
Also, for those of you who might have had some sugar shock from the last part, break out the insulin for this entire fic. Something about finals and free-writing puts me in a rather sacrine mood. Zach's turn.  
  
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Trini Kwan doesn't take crap from anyone. There's something really attractive about that.  
  
It's not exactly something you get about her at first glance or even the second. After all, when you see her the first thing that comes to your mind is patience. The girl's got it in spades. An unwillingness to put up with people's B.S. doesn't seem to fit with a fuse that long, but somehow she makes it work. Iron fist. Velvet glove. That saying was made for her.  
  
There are some people who never get it, like Eric, Trini's old negotiation partner. Man, am I glad not to be that stupid.  
  
The peace conference is supposed to be all about 'teaching appreciation of other cultures through positive interaction', but they're not above a little friendly competition, especially when the ones they organize are all centered around 'life-skills'. Someday I'm going to get them to explain to me how speaking for three minutes on random topics I pulled of a hat is a life skill, or any kind of skill at all. I've been doing that since I could talk, but hey, not complaining.  
  
So Trini picked negotiation, and she got paired with Eric. The two of them were pretty good together. Good as in everyone who went up against them practiced an extra day just so they wouldn't embarrass themselves. You know, scary good.  
  
But Eric never got it. He never got that they were winning because of Trini, or maybe he did and his ego wanted to prove that wasn't the reason. I don't understand the boy. I just know I don't like him. He went into this huge fit about how she was always giving too much away, how she was like a reed that just went whatever way the wind did. You idiot, you're winning! I wanted to pull him into a dark alley somewhere and channel Jason and Tommy. Trini just stood up, looked him in the eye and said, "Thank you for the compliment, it's been nice working with you."  
  
She's gone up against Eric four times since then, and still hasn't lost. Fist. Glove.  
  
I asked her what the compliment was, and she explained it to me. Some time watch a reed in a storm. You know the kind that breaks tree branches. The reed goes this way and that way, but at the end of the storm it's still standing. After other things have been destroyed, it hasn't moved.  
  
So Eric did get it. He just never knew it.  
  
So when did I? Third time I looked at her. We're not talking about ever day looks. Not, hello Trini that's a nice shirt you have on, and oh, I finally realized you cut your hair looks. No, we're talking take notice and alter your thinking looks.  
  
Like when I realized she might be pretty cool to know. We'd been in classes together for as far back as I can remember, probably since the beginning of school, but I never really noticed her. After all, she always sat in the first row and didn't say anything. Me? I sat in the back and said too much. There was a whole playground between kids like us. Then I broke my leg in the fifth grade. They don't let you go out to recess with a broken leg, and I don't care how many friends you have, when it's between you and tag . . . tag wins. Usually Jason would stay in with me, and we'd play cards or something, but he was sick that day, so I was facing a long half-hour of quality library time. Yup, just me and old Mrs. Simmons in the library.  
  
'Cept Trini stayed behind, sat down across from me and asked whether I'd like some company. She didn't know anything about me, except I got my name put on the board for talking a lot, and I won out over tag. So she wasn't just the quiet girl who sat in the front of classroom anymore. She was the quiet girl who I wanted to invite to my next birthday.  
  
Then one day you look up and realize your friend's a girl. At least that time, I had two other guys to help get me through that startling realization. Nothing like spandex to hit you over the head with that obvious fact, although Billy and Jason were probably a little bit ahead of me there. Still, being friends with a girl in high school is sort of different from being friends with one in junior high. Guys start asking you whether she's available, you have to be careful where you put your hands when you tickling her . . . your best friend confesses to having a crush on her. There were days when I wished Trini had remained the girl at the front of the class.  
  
Right now, I'd just settle for Jason having stayed in Geneva, firmly planted between her and me, like some great brick wall. Yeah, okay, so I was definitely the odd man out when those two were together, but at least I got to sit back and watch Jason make a fool of himself. It's much funnier when you're not an active participant.  
  
I am definitely not laughing now. Well, except for that odd strained sound I made when she teased me about this being a date. It wasn't supposed to be one. I swear! What else is a guy supposed to do for his friend's birthday in the middle of Europe? You go around, you see all the sites that you haven't had time to see yet because the program's so tough. You buy her that ugly gnome she was admiring in a shop window. It's her birthday.  
  
It's not a date! I've been out on dates. I know how dates work. Lots of careful planning about how I will impress her with my charm and wit, and great jewelry *not* bought from putties, followed by four hours of prayer, and a moment at her front steps when I seriously think this must be what jumping off a bridge feels like.  
  
There was no planning to this, other than trying to find out which sites she hadn't seen, and picking a good restaurant. But really we were just hanging around, until over dinner we got into this discussion about nuclear disarmament. That's one thing I'll say for being here, my conversation topics have really changed. Warning bells should have started to go off in my head when I heard myself talking more than her.  
  
It's this thing she does. She starts to agree with you on little things, makes you think your winning the debate. All the while she's asking these questions that as you come up with answers to them, you start to move away from your position. Next thing you know, you find yourself arguing her side, and she's just sitting there nodding. Give a man enough rope . . .   
  
Only this time, when I realize I'm now completely supporting her side, I look up to find her smiling at me with that triumphant, amused sparkle in her eyes and it strikes me how nice that expression is. Suddenly the fact that I can't breathe has absolutely nothing to do with the verbal noose around my neck.  
  
Why is it that nice restaurants always dim their lights at dinnertime? And why did I have to spend the rest of the meal thinking about how the candlelight makes her skin glow?  
  
What am I doing? She's nothing like Angela or any of the other girls I've ever been attracted to. If she was, I'd know what to do, but she's not . . . she wouldn't be impressed by all those things. Remember what I said about not putting up with people's crap? That still applies.  
  
Why am I even thinking about this? I'm not Billy, who she seems to have a special frequency for. I am definitely not Jason who would keep her safe, but only if she let him. Intellect, leadership . . . I can't match her in any of those things. I'm just Zack, the guy who reminds her to get out and sometimes gets lucky enough to make her laugh in a way that sounds like wind-chimes.  
  
Except we're standing at her door, and she's thanking me for a wonderful birthday and something about the way she's looking up at me makes want to look over my shoulder to make sure that Jason or Billy didn't just appear out of thin air. Nope just me here. Just Zack.  
  
Suddenly being me seems sort of cool. Pardon me ladies and gentlemen, I have to go jump off a bridge.  
  
If this were like the movies, especially one of those old movie musicals, there'd be a big musical swell, possibly a fountain that suddenly comes on, and we'd fade out on a great kiss.  
  
My life is not a movie.  
  
Did I even kiss her? It was so awkward and quick, that I can't be sure. Still her eyes are sort of opening, like they might have been closed, and now she's staring down at the ground.  
  
"Well, I guess I'll see you tomorrow."  
  
"Yeah."  
  
Idiotidiotidiotidiot. That's the problem with falling for a friend. With Angela, I could try try again. This is a one shot deal.  
  
"Trini!" Did I say that out loud? She's turning, so that would be a yes. Don't think this time Taylor, just jump.  
  
And cue the music. She has the softest lips, and her hair feels a little bit like silk. What perfume does she wear? I need to go buy her enough, so that she never runs out. I'll have to ask . . . later . . . much much later.  
  
Next time, I'm gonna try for a fountain.  
  
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It's amazing what you come up with when you're avoiding molecular genetics lab reports.  
  
Thanks for reading.  
  
Comments, criticism, and suggestions appreciated as always. 


	3. No Substitute

Disclaimer: Still Saban's sandbox. Still play here because it's fun.  
  
Author's Note: These pieces all take place within the same universe (meaning if I mentioned it happening in one fic, you can assume it holds true throughout). However we're jumping timeline all over the place, so this piece occurs shortly after to possibly simultaneously with the last one. I'll jump timeline again in future parts.  
  
The shovel is for cobalt b/c he seems to have a foundness for them, and I'm probably never going to write his favorite pairing. Rocky's turn.  
  
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A picture is worth a thousand words. Someday I'm going to hunt down the guy who started that saying and beat him to death with a shovel. Unless he's already dead . . . then I'll have to think of something else.  
  
Don't get misunderstand me, it's an okay saying, but it's just so wrong. When all you've got is a picture, you'd give anything for a couple words. Hello. How are you? I'm fine. See, six words . . . ten times better than a picture.  
  
Unfortunately, I'm stuck with just a photo, which is of course better than nothing. Better than forgetting how bright her smile was, how soft her skin looked, or the way she threw head back when she laughed. But a photo doesn't fill a horrible day with sunshine; it doesn't hug you and make all your pain go away, it doesn't tell childhood stories it promised never to share.  
  
A photograph is a very poor substitute for Aisha Campbell in person.  
  
Heck, everything is a poor substitute for Aisha, even food . . . even Adam.   
  
I swear, I did not just mean that the way it sounded . . .  
  
Those first few months after she left were awful. For the first time in a long time I felt completely alone. Everything was changing. Our powers, our colors, the line-up. Suddenly I was wearing a color that had been the signature of the smartest person I've ever met, and he's wandering around like he's in mourning. On top of that Aisha wasn't there to be the sunshine. I bet she could have made even Billy smile.  
  
Maybe that's why I tried so hard, like I had to make up for Billy's loss and 'Sha being gone. Like if I just kept trying to constantly lighten the mood, eventually it would actually get lighter. And if I just kept trying to fill other peoples shoes I wouldn't have to find my own. I don't know.   
  
I didn't even realize I was doing it until Adam told me to snap out of it. He didn't deserve the things I said in response. No one deserves what I said, least of all Adam . . . but things were pretty screwed up between us for a while. Not that we ever let it show around the others, or at least we tried not to.  
  
Adam didn't understand at first. Of course I hadn't figured it out enough to explain it to him. Now I can sum it up in one word: Tanya.  
  
Every time I looked at Tanya, I saw a poor substitute for Aisha, and every time Adam looked at her, well . . . lets just say poor was never a word Adam used to describe her.  
  
All I knew was Aisha was gone, it felt like a whole chunk of me had gone with her, and Adam didn't seem to care one way or the other. How was I to know that he kept a whole shoebox full of pictures of the three of us? And how was I to know that he spent his first couple of dates with Tanya telling her all the old stories until she finally asked whether something had happened between him and 'Sha?  
  
Oh right, I was supposed to talk to him . . .  
  
But that was Aisha's thing. She would always wait until the three of us were together, and then turn and ask point blank what was up with you. Blunt compassion, the girl had it down. Leave me and Adam alone together and we'll spend hours practicing martial arts, playing video games, telling dumb jokes . . . and absolutely never talk about what's wrong. We can do it for months, until finally something happens and then well . . . usually something gets broken.  
  
This time it was almost our friendship.  
  
I don't even really know how it started. One minute we're patching each other up after a battle. Who knows which one, they all start to run together. The next minute he's suggesting in his quiet, superior, all-knowing way that maybe I should work at finding my own style rather than trying to copy Tommy's.  
  
Looking back on it, my response of "I'll be sure to get right on that, Yoda" may not have been the most mature. Next thing I know we're yelling some really nasty things at each other.   
  
You've got to understand . . . it takes a lot for Adam to yell. We're talking threaten his family, insult his honor, his friends . . . his girlfriend.  
  
I bet you can guess which one I hit.  
  
He blew up. He's up off the infirmary table, advancing on me with how I never gave her a chance, never even tried to get to know her, always undermined her confidence by talking about how great Aisha was. And that was when he crossed the line.  
  
I wasn't even thinking by this point, just screaming at him how at least I still remember Aisha, at least I don't act like she was never here, and she could be dead for all he cares.  
  
Insulting his loyalty to his friends. I didn't cross a line. I leaped a no man's land.  
  
Do I think he doesn't care? He says good night to her every night in his prayers. He thinks about her in the English class they had together. He writes memories down in his diary because he's afraid that with the dual timeline he'll start to forget.  
  
Could have fooled me.  
  
"Well, you're the expert at that aren't you?" Adam and sarcasm takes me a moment to process, so I guess I looked pretty dumbfounded because he continued, "You're the genius at hiding all the important stuff from everyone, and going around like you could take it or leave it. You know, maybe if just once you had let on to Aisha how you really felt . . . she would have had a reason to stay!"  
  
Shit.  
  
I don't know how long we stood there staring at each other, trying to think of something else to say. Adam because he probably never meant to say what he just had. Me because my world had just done a one-eighty.  
  
There really wasn't anything else to say. Finally, Adam murmured something about maybe we should cool off, and he'll call me later. With that he just turned and walked out of the infirmary.  
  
A couple of times in Psychology, we talked about vivid memories and how there are moments that your brain will just take a snap shot of so you can remember every detail because something in you knows that this is *it*. Our teacher kept telling us about how there's no real solid research on it, but all of us didn't really care because we've had it happen.  
  
It happened to me again, standing there, staring at the scattered instruments, and trying to figure out how I fell in love with Aisha Campbell and never noticed. I can remember everything from the smell of the antiseptic that we had knocked over, to the too white fluorescent lighting, to the disgruntled, long-suffering look on Billy's face when he came in and saw the mess we had left.  
  
I must have looked as bad as the infirmary because he spun on his heal in this way that meant he was about to tear into me, but then he just stopped. Billy has a temper. Not a lot of people have ever seen it because he has a really long fuse, but when he finally reaches the flash point the only real option is to duck and cover. Adam thinks that's why he took to making little comments because it keeps him from reaching it as quickly.  
  
Anyways it takes a lot to stop Billy once he's hit that point, like a Ranger emergency and not much else, but that day he did. He stared at me for a long moment, and then he walks over, glances down at my arm for about three seconds, and says, "Your body is going to need a lot of strength to heal that. Go home and get some rest. If you like, I'll tell Adam that you can't train with him tomorrow."  
  
He's had me stay and help repair my Zord with worse.  
  
I think I would rather have stayed and helped him clean up. Once I got home, all I had to do was think. Think about Aisha. Think about Adam. Think about what he said . . . which led to more thinking about Aisha.   
  
Even after I patched up things with Adam enough that we could sort of go on, I kept having all these questions in my mind. How long had I felt this way? Did she feel the same? Was Adam right, and I could have kept her from leaving if I had just said something? That question brought this sick twisted feeling deep in my gut, like I'd missed an opportunity and I'd never get it back.  
  
All my memories started to become missed opportunities. Every time I tickled her and we wound up on the floor was a chance to steal a kiss I didn't take. Every dance was a date I didn't ask her on, and every late night goodbye was an 'I love you' I never said. It just got worse, so I tried harder to keep everyone laughing because I wasn't.  
  
You never realize what you had until its gone.  
  
Great, my life is now sad enough that it can be summed up by clichés. Help!  
  
This is bottom. Lying here, staring up at the ceiling, and knowing that my life is about to change all over again. That I'll never wear the uniform again, that I'm going to lose my friends, because no matter how hard they try to keep in touch it changes, and there's nothing anyone can do about it. Compared to me right now, Billy was a court-jester.  
  
On top of that, my back hurts like crazy.  
  
"Can I come in?" Tanya's standing in the door with her backpack slung over her shoulder. Moving the little bit that I can, I look around for Adam. "He's not with me."  
  
"Oh." What else am I supposed to say?  
  
Not waiting for me to answer her question, she sits down beside me. "Listen . . . I know you don't really like me all that much."  
  
Nope I was wrong, this is bottom. I feel like scum, because the truth is I don't know her enough to like her or not like her. She was Aisha's replacement and that was enough for me . . . walls up.  
  
"Tanya . . . I . . ."  
  
Before I can even start to apologize, she just shakes her head and pulls something out of her bag. It's the photo I keep on my shelf with all my other photos so it doesn't look like it's special . . . but it is. It's the only photo I have of just her and me; Adam nowhere in sight. I'm carrying her piggyback, and she looks so happy. I get to imagine it's because of me.   
  
"I thought you might like it with you in the hospital." I must be giving her a really puzzled look because she goes on. "Adam told me . . . what he said to you a few months ago about Aisha . . ."  
  
Well, if I didn't like her before . . .  
  
"I told him he was a jerk"  
  
I certainly do now.  
  
"He might be right though. I mean he was right about how I feel. Why not about 'Sha?"  
  
"Rocky . . . shut up."  
  
Okay, right then . . . I think she was channeling Aisha.  
  
"Aisha left because the work with the animals was something only she could do. That she had to do. I don't know why, but we both felt it. She was doing something that I couldn't. It tore her up to leave all of you, especially you and Adam, but nothing you said or didn't say would have kept her from going."  
  
"How do you know?" Okay, so it sounds a little bitter, but really she knew 'Sha for all of three weeks . . . and they were ten. Who makes life-altering decisions when you're ten?  
  
"I don't know. I think it has something to do with the time stream and the parallel period, but I'm connected to Aisha somehow. There are things about her, and her feelings towards you all that I just know. I think that's why I fell so hard for Adam. I've got all of Aisha's positive feelings on top of my own."  
  
"Adam?!?" She didn't just say Aisha has positive feelings for Adam, not Adam. If this visit was meant to cheer me up, it's failing.  
  
"Hey, slow down. They're just as strong for you . . . I've got my own heart though. I'm not just an Aisha clone."  
  
Was it my imagination or did she just manage to tell me off?  
  
"Look . . . I came to give you this . . ."  
  
I look down at the piece of paper, she's pressed into my hand. "Teleport coordinates?"  
  
"For Aisha."  
  
"But I thought they were lost when the Command Center was destroyed."  
  
"Well, these aren't exact. They're as close as I've been able to get so far. I've been working with Zordon and Alpha, and when there's a little extra energy to spare we've been doing scans using my memories, but I'm fuzzy, the tribes have moved, and she's switched. But she should be in that area. I didn't want to tell you guys until I was at least sort of close . . . I didn't want to get you're hopes up."  
  
Clutching hold of the paper, it's like a whole new world of possibilities has opened up, and all I can do is nod. With no Ranger duties I'm free to go. They'd never be able to spare the energy for visits, but surely just one teleport . . .  
  
"Tanya? Does she have more positive feelings for me than Adam?"  
  
"When she left . . . she definitely did. I don't know about now."  
  
My hand tightens on Tanya's gift. Graduation's not that far away. Turning my head I look over at the picture of pure sunshine and my day is brighter.   
  
Maybe . . . just maybe . . .  
  
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All right, I know this was a slightly different angle from the first two but I'm trying to get back into the habit of writing, and overcome the Christmas inertia of extreme not posting. So I working in broad strokes, please forgive me. If anyone cares, yes I'm in the process of the next chapter of Conversations, but I'm rusty, so it's slow going.  
  
Comments, criticism, and suggestions appreciated as always.  
  
Thanks for reading,  
  
Panache 


	4. When the Music Starts

Disclaimer: Still someone else's sandbox. Other people have all the best toys

Author's Note: So in my endless quest not to leave unfinished stories, I decided it was high time to pick this up again. When I first started this story Dagmar left me a review that asked if Shawn got his favorite pairing, could she get hers . . .

Dagmar, because you're not only a wonderful writer but also just a damn cool person who's stuck with my stories for a long time, I say to you . . . Merry Christmas. I hope you enjoy your present.

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Love is a funny thing. It makes people blind. It makes people crazy. It transforms people. I don't know why it did all three for me. Maybe it was just trying to get my attention.

Well it's got it, now.

Not that I didn't give it a hell of a fight. I fought. For two years, I fought falling in love with Kat. To be fair, I want it noted that she fought just as hard.

It wasn't that we thought of each other as off limits or anything. Yeah, sure, one of the basic guidelines for how not to plunge your well-ordered life into a complicated mess is don't date your best-friend's ex, and I'm definitely someone who likes his life ordered. But, let's be honest, by the time Kat returned from England, Tommy and Kim were already firmly headed to this wedding reception . . . where the DJ has actually just started playing _Thriller_ and turned on a smoke machine . . .

Okay, it's official. He's the worst DJ, ever.

But Kim's just laughing and trying to teach the moves to her sixty year old aunt. I think that's a testament to just how much those two love each other. If you can just laugh when your DJ is this obnoxious, it's only because you're blissfully happy.

So, as I was saying, Tommy and Kim already blissfully happy by the time Kat comes back, not exactly the set up for a big explosive emotional fallout. If anything, I think they were probably anxious for their bliss to rub off on others. Maybe that's why I was blind to it at first, maybe the first few times I looked up and saw the glow that lit Kat's face, I thought I was just catching reflected bliss.

It could have been that. It could have been a hundred other little things that made me blind, blind to the fact that the morning meetings we had prior to opening the Athletic Center were the best part of my day, or that I was finding a thousand excuses to stick around and offer to drive her home after we closed up. I think more than anything though it was the knowledge that she wasn't looking for us to be anything more than friendship.

Sure, Tommy always says that love happens when you're not looking, but there's a difference. Tommy hadn't been looking, but he was still open to the possibility. Kat was going out of her way to avoid it.

She never said anything, but I could tell. I could tell because I was in the exact same place. It's a quiet place. You can stay there for years, going through life like everyone else, but there's always this part of you that's walled off, safe and completely alone. You join a kind of club, whose membership is comprised of those who stay on the sidelines, who encourage others to get in the game and convince themselves the bench is too comfortable to leave. There's no active meetings for this club, would be too much like involvement, but you can always recognize another member. Your eyes will meet across a room crowded with couples, and you'll smile and acknowledge that you're both alone, but neither of you makes a move to ask the other to dance.

So when I picked her up at the airport when she returned from England, when our eyes met across the roomful of reuniting families that seems to always characterize international flights, but neither of us rushed to make our way to each other, I knew I'd found a fellow member.

I don't know what caused Kat to sign up. Independence I think more than anything else. She'd gone through a lot of life attached, identified by another person, but over in London she was singular, individual, and she wasn't anxious to give that up. What caused me to pay my dues? Complacency, fear.

I didn't get as lucky as Tommy. My high school relationship didn't fizzle out post-graduation. Instead it intensified, burning hotter and hotter until finally it blew up.

After losing my powers I fell into Emily, lost myself in her willingness to be everything to me, because I felt as though I didn't have anything else left. Leaving the team changes things between you, especially when you're still hanging around. Billy or Rocky could tell you. No one ever means it to happen, but it does—conversations start taking place without you, there's shared experiences you didn't share, and slowly but surely you sitting on the outside of the circle.

So I let Emily become my circle. She had this crazy exuberance for everything, no matter how wild or how frowned upon. It wasn't like when she ran with the gang. She never hurt people, but she still didn't care much about the rules either. I had never lived that way, so far at the edge that you couldn't even see the Road-Closed barrier, and for awhile it was great, but then we needed each other more and more, too much. I couldn't be around others without her because I couldn't take their stares, their concern, but with her it didn't matter. Then one day I woke up to find myself making out with her in the back-alley behind the bar where she worked, and she's whispering that she's got to go to her grandmother's funeral tomorrow, and I realized I didn't even knowEmily had a grandmother, let alone that she had died.

Its sobering experience, finding out that what you thought was a relationship is really just a passionate affair. For awhile I tried to change it, tried to communicate, to get her to open up to me, but she wasn't interested, she wanted to deal with life the way she dealt with her grandmother's death, kiss me and pretend it didn't matter. But it did matter, it mattered to me, and soon I found myself wanting to be somewhere else. Still, you can't extricate yourself from a relationship like that cleanly. Everything about Emily and me was passionate, and in my effort to break free and her effort to hold on, we passionately destroyed each other.

I caused so much pain, felt so much pain, during that time, that when I had finally patched myself up, when I no longer thought of her every time a Harley drove by or had to physically stop myself from going into the bar where she worked, well . . . it was such a relief to stop hurting that I didn't care if I had to stop loving, too.

So when Kat came back, just as walled off as me, she didn't terrify me the way other women did. I didn't look at her and see the potential for gut-wrenching anguish because she'd never try to unlock that little corner of my heart. So it was safe to laugh with her, safe to offer her a partnership in the Athletic Center in return for her developing a dance studio under its label. And it didn't matter that she drove me insane with her insistence that I promote ballet in all my classes as a good way to gain flexibility and body control, or that we could fight about everything from the cost of the new floor she insisted her dancers needed, to my absolute refusal to set a good example by taking one of her ballroom dance classes. It didn't matter because we were just friends

We were friends and we were business partners, and we were each other's armor. We were each other's date to Adam and Tanya's wedding, to the annual Christmas party. We went with each other so neither one of us had to get someone's hopes up. We could just smile at each other, sit next to each other, and know we would never join the dance.

But eventually you realize the music's catchy, and the chair you've been sitting in is pretty hard, so you look over at the woman next to you and are just about to ask her whether maybe she'd like to dance after all, when she suddenly has to go get more punch.

It happened for me in the spring of our second year as partners. I'd been waiting around for her to finish up with a rehearsal for the dance recital. Having completely exhausted every possible chore, even to the point where I had balanced the accounts, I decided that if I was going to stay I might as well just watch.

She was just wrapping up teaching the eight-year olds, and when she has them cool down she likes to let them free dance, experience movement without worrying about perfection. So she had put on _Orange Colored Sky_ and was spinning two of the little girls around, and there was this look on her face . . .

This amazing, open, undemanding joy just lit her from the inside, because she was completely at home in her own skin, doing what she loved. In that moment the door to that back room in my heart opened, and I was the one who had turned the key.

There was just one massive problem. She was still closed, still wary. In those few weeks after, Kat started shying away from me. She would rush in, too late to discuss business over a leisurely cup of coffee, and always have an appointment somewhere after closingthat she needed to get to. It was obvious what was happening . . . she knew. She could look at me and know I wasn't paying my dues anymore, I had turned in my membership and abandoned the secret handshake, and if she was ever sloppy enough to meet my eyes across a room of couples I'd probably walk over and ask her to dance.

For awhile I told myself that was okay, that she had every right to be pissed, and to avoid me because this hadn't been part of the bargain. But then I decided that it wasn't okay at all. I hadn't asked for this spot in my heart to be unlocked, but it had happened just the same, and if I waited for her to ask it would probably never happen. So I took her on in the one place she couldn't avoid me.

I signed up for her ballroom dance class.

I learned to waltz and forced her to meet my eyes. I learned to polka and got her to laugh again. I stayed late and practiced in front of her without a partner until she finally admitted it wasn't any fun alone.

I learned to swing dance and proved that I'd always catch her. I learned to tango and stole a kiss. I learned not to be scared when the music starts and to keep dancing once it's stopped because it will always start again.

I learned a lot of things when Kat taught me to dance and I taught her to love, but more than anything I learned that I'm only any good with one partner, there's only one Ginger to my Fred.

So when the first strains of _Orange Colored Sky_ come over the speakers, and she meets my eyes from across the room, where's she's been dancing with Tanya and Adam's daughter, I don't hesitate.

"I fell in love with you to this song." I say, holding out my hand.

"I know."

And as she settles into my arms with sigh after I've spun her out and back in again, I whisper, "Dance with me."

"I am dancing with you, and you're pretty good."

"Forever. Dance with me . . . for the rest of our lives."

She pulls away, looking at me to make sure I know what I'm saying, and for a second I think she's going to put up walls again, but then that same open, undemanding joy lights her features, and after guiding me through a tricky turn, she grins, "You'd be rubbish with another partner anyway."

_I was walking along  
__Minding my business  
__When love came  
__And hit me in the eye  
__Flash, bam, Ala Kazaam  
__Out of an orange colored sky._

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Comments and Criticisms appreciated as always.

Panache


End file.

Power Rangers, Romance