Oh yeah, the OTHER exchange fic
Title: Return of an Old Friend
Summary: Billy ran away to Aquitar to find what he needed, but maybe he'd left it behind.
Rating: PG, maaaaaaybe PG-13
Pairings: Billy/Kim
Spoilers: Through the end of Zeo
Warnings: None
Author's Notes: Pinch-hitting FTW! Please note the timely posting of this fic as well. I am amazing.
“Wait, Cestria was a what?” Kim asked, not sure if she'd heard Billy properly. He'd managed to connect all the old communicators through the Aquitian Rangers' command center, but the signal was frequently less than ideal.
“She was - still is, I would assume - what the Aquitians call a Ranger Chaser. She gets obsessed over people who have, or have had, the ability to morph, like we're celebrities, and when she sees a chance to date one of us she takes it.”
“But it can't have taken you three years to notice that, Billy.” Kim said, confused. “If she really were, why would you have stayed together so long? Why only break up now?”
“I haven't been a ranger for years now,” Billy explained. “The Aquitian Rangers on the other hand were an active part of the final battle with Dark Specter. They're not just rangers now, they're war heroes. Cestria had 'better' rangers to chase, and while our relationship had initially been adequate, I no longer felt like I was gaining anything from it. It was decent while it lasted, but it was over, no hard feelings.”
“Billy, 'it was decent'? I thought you stayed on Aquitar because things were amazing there! Why would you have stuck around if things were just decent?” Kim asked, hoping that the answer wouldn't be what she was beginning to suspect.
“I fear you wouldn't appreciate the answer, Kim. I wouldn't want to burden you with-”
“So 'decent' really was better than here? Oh, Billy you should have talked to us! We would have helped and you wouldn't have had to run away for a life of decency.”
“I'm afraid that isn't as true as you believe. What could Jason, Zack, or Trini done from Switzerland? What could you have done from Florida? What-”
“I would have come back from Florida.” Kim said, almost too quietly for the communicator to pick up.
“What?”
“I would have come back from Florida if I'd known how bad things had gotten for you, Billy.” Kim went silent, what she just said having sunk in. After a moment with no reply from Billy, she made up her mind about what she was going to do to make things right. “Come back from Aquitar, Billy.”
“I've been away from Earth for years now, Kim, and nobody can know I was a ranger. How would I settle back in?”
“We may not publicly be rangers, Billy, but a lot of us are important people. We can make a place for you, just come back.” If Billy tried to courter-argue again, Kim was going to pull out the big guns.
“But-”
“Don't you miss us?” Silence. “Don't you miss me at all?”
“Of course I miss- That was part of- Yes. Yes, Kim, I miss you. All.”
“Then try coming home for a few days, at least?”
***
Kim had spent the day cleaning and re-cleaning her apartment. While it had been nice to find the Madonna cassette she had lost shortly after moving in, that had been three hours ago and she'd gone over the apartment twice since then. She was in the kitchen now, making sure (again) that she wouldn't have to make a last-minute run for any dinner ingredients. Billy was supposed to be arriving any minute now, and normally she would have dinner ready before a guest showed up, but things might be awkward and having to prepare dinner would be a good excuse to run away for a bit. Or, if things went the way Kim hoped they would, they'd be working together in the kitchen as they... Well, Kim wasn't sure what, exactly, they'd be happily chatting about as they worked, but that was the goal.
“Okay. Have all my food. Going to cheer up Billy. Should probably not be a nervous wreck if I'm going to do that. Right. Calm yourself down, Kim. At least get to where you aren't saying everything you think. Deep breaths.” Which is when Billy teleported in behind her, startling her enough to yelp and bang her shin on one of the legs of the dining room table as she tried to turn around. “Oh, that's going to bruise. I was expecting you to knock!” Kim sat at the table, nursing her shin.
“Ah! I'm sorry! I haven't teleported anywhere in so long-”
“Don't worry about it, Billy, I should have considered you'd be teleporting in. I've just had a lot of guests lately - they think that visiting me will get me to say nicer things about them when I write, even though my articles should prove otherwise - and was waiting for the knock out of habit.”
“Oh. Well, I'm still sorry, anyway. I should have made sure you were expecting that.” Billy said, sitting across the table from her. “So who else do I get to see tonight?”
“Oh, uh.” Kim paused, pulling the leg of her jeans back down. “It's just us tonight. I didn't want to overwhelm you.”
“Just us?” Billy asked. “What about, um, it was Andrew, right?”
“Oh, I dumped him about a month ago.”
“Really? You seemed to like him last I heard.”
“Oh, I did, until I found out he was cheating on me with my boss. Best blind item I ever wrote.” Kim chuckled. “Only blind item I ever wrote, of course. I don't intend to leave the sports desk anytime soon.”
“Gosh, that must have been upsetting.”
“It was, a bit. At least we hadn't been too serious. Sometimes I think that my terminally awful love life is karma for that stupid letter. It wasn't supposed to get delivered to the Youth Center, you know. I was an idiot sometimes back then, but never that stupid.”
“What are you talking about,” Billy joked, “you dated Tommy to begin with!”
“Oh come on, he wasn't that bad. And besides,” Kim continued, “that's excusable. Nobody picks the right partner the first time. And I'm willing to bet that the ones who luck into it picked for stupid reasons.”
“Out of curiosity, what excuses Andrew, then?”
“Well, you can't see that a person's a cheater. And what I could see reminded me a lot of... You know what, this week isn't about me. Why don't we start working on dinner and you can explain why you thought that decency on Aquitar was better than what you had here.”
“It's been a while since I cooked anything. Aquitar doesn't really foster the development of stoves.”
“That's alright, you should still be able to help prep things and put together the salad while I cook. You can start with washing the vegetables if you want something simple.” The two worked in mostly silence for a few minutes, with Kim giving Billy instructions every now and then. Finally, Kim grew tired of waiting. “Billy, spill. The salad's done except the dressing, which takes like thirty seconds to mix. The rice cooker doesn't need help to do its thing, and the chicken has a while to simmer. We haven't got anything to do right now. Stop avoiding the question.”
“It's not an easy answer, Kim.”
“I know, but I can't properly make up for it if I don't know what I'm making up for.”
“You all abandoned me, Kim.”
“What? No, we-”
“You and Jason and Trini and Zack. You all just left me in Angel Grove! You were my friends. And you left. And everyone just seemed to expect that I could replace you with a bunch of people who I'd just met! Nothing against them, but they're not you guys. I'd been friends with you all since elementary school, and suddenly I'm surrounded by a bunch of people I barely knew. When you left, my oldest friends became an alien head in a tube and a robot. Until you said you'd have come back from Florida I thought you all were done with me.”
“Why would you think that, Billy? We're friends. Good friends. Why would I stop caring about you just because I was across the country?”
“But... you moved away.” Billy said, still confused and looking almost childish to Kim. And then it hit her.
“Oh, Billy. I'm sorry, in all our excitement about the Peace Conference and the Pan Globals, I bet none of us ever directly said to you that we would still be friends, am I right?”
“You're correct, as far as I can recall.”
“Billy, tell me if I'm wrong, but you never really 'got' social skills, right? You learned them more by copying us on purpose than by just instinctively picking them up, didn't you.”
“I think I'm starting to understand now. I just assumed that because we were no longer proximate that the friendship was over-”
“And nobody had any idea they needed to correct you. And by the time we all started catching up with you on Aquitar-”
“The assumption had so long to take root I didn't notice it was being contradicted. I feel rather unintelligent right now.” Billy said, sheepishly.
“Oh, don't worry about it. Emotions do that.” The rice cooker beeped. “I think the chicken will be about done now too, if you want to start on the salad dressing.”
***
After a dinner full of reminiscing and catching each other up - Kim had a number of stories that would have suffered in the telling over the communicators - Billy touched on a question Kim had hoped she'd deflected earlier.
“So,” Billy said, rinsing off his plate in the sink, “You said you dated Andrew because he reminded you of someone? It wasn't Tommy, right?”
“No. So very much no. Tommy very good for a first boyfriend, but honestly? To remind me of him a person has to be kind of bland. Do you really think,” Kim asked, taking Billy's plate to dry, “I would date bland?”
“No,” Billy chuckled, “I suppose you wouldn't. If you don't mind my asking, who did he remind you of, then? Anyone I know?” Kim set the plate down and paused for a moment, debating whether to say it and, if she didn't, how long it would take Billy to work it out on his own.
“I suppose that would depend on how well you'd say you know yourself.”
“On how well... You dated him because he reminded you of me?”
“Yes,” Kim said, not daring to look at Billy. “To be honest, I didn't quite realize how important to me you were until I found out that you wouldn't be there when I came back to Angel Grove.” Suddenly Kim found herself in one of the tightest hugs of her life.
“I really want to kiss you now, but I still have ingrained doubt that you'd still care for me. How awful is that?”
“More awful than I can put in words,” Kim said, before kissing Billy like it could undo all the pain in the world. “But,” she said, between smaller kisses, “I think I can help with getting rid of that.”
Summary: Billy ran away to Aquitar to find what he needed, but maybe he'd left it behind.
Rating: PG, maaaaaaybe PG-13
Pairings: Billy/Kim
Spoilers: Through the end of Zeo
Warnings: None
Author's Notes: Pinch-hitting FTW! Please note the timely posting of this fic as well. I am amazing.
“Wait, Cestria was a what?” Kim asked, not sure if she'd heard Billy properly. He'd managed to connect all the old communicators through the Aquitian Rangers' command center, but the signal was frequently less than ideal.
“She was - still is, I would assume - what the Aquitians call a Ranger Chaser. She gets obsessed over people who have, or have had, the ability to morph, like we're celebrities, and when she sees a chance to date one of us she takes it.”
“But it can't have taken you three years to notice that, Billy.” Kim said, confused. “If she really were, why would you have stayed together so long? Why only break up now?”
“I haven't been a ranger for years now,” Billy explained. “The Aquitian Rangers on the other hand were an active part of the final battle with Dark Specter. They're not just rangers now, they're war heroes. Cestria had 'better' rangers to chase, and while our relationship had initially been adequate, I no longer felt like I was gaining anything from it. It was decent while it lasted, but it was over, no hard feelings.”
“Billy, 'it was decent'? I thought you stayed on Aquitar because things were amazing there! Why would you have stuck around if things were just decent?” Kim asked, hoping that the answer wouldn't be what she was beginning to suspect.
“I fear you wouldn't appreciate the answer, Kim. I wouldn't want to burden you with-”
“So 'decent' really was better than here? Oh, Billy you should have talked to us! We would have helped and you wouldn't have had to run away for a life of decency.”
“I'm afraid that isn't as true as you believe. What could Jason, Zack, or Trini done from Switzerland? What could you have done from Florida? What-”
“I would have come back from Florida.” Kim said, almost too quietly for the communicator to pick up.
“What?”
“I would have come back from Florida if I'd known how bad things had gotten for you, Billy.” Kim went silent, what she just said having sunk in. After a moment with no reply from Billy, she made up her mind about what she was going to do to make things right. “Come back from Aquitar, Billy.”
“I've been away from Earth for years now, Kim, and nobody can know I was a ranger. How would I settle back in?”
“We may not publicly be rangers, Billy, but a lot of us are important people. We can make a place for you, just come back.” If Billy tried to courter-argue again, Kim was going to pull out the big guns.
“But-”
“Don't you miss us?” Silence. “Don't you miss me at all?”
“Of course I miss- That was part of- Yes. Yes, Kim, I miss you. All.”
“Then try coming home for a few days, at least?”
***
Kim had spent the day cleaning and re-cleaning her apartment. While it had been nice to find the Madonna cassette she had lost shortly after moving in, that had been three hours ago and she'd gone over the apartment twice since then. She was in the kitchen now, making sure (again) that she wouldn't have to make a last-minute run for any dinner ingredients. Billy was supposed to be arriving any minute now, and normally she would have dinner ready before a guest showed up, but things might be awkward and having to prepare dinner would be a good excuse to run away for a bit. Or, if things went the way Kim hoped they would, they'd be working together in the kitchen as they... Well, Kim wasn't sure what, exactly, they'd be happily chatting about as they worked, but that was the goal.
“Okay. Have all my food. Going to cheer up Billy. Should probably not be a nervous wreck if I'm going to do that. Right. Calm yourself down, Kim. At least get to where you aren't saying everything you think. Deep breaths.” Which is when Billy teleported in behind her, startling her enough to yelp and bang her shin on one of the legs of the dining room table as she tried to turn around. “Oh, that's going to bruise. I was expecting you to knock!” Kim sat at the table, nursing her shin.
“Ah! I'm sorry! I haven't teleported anywhere in so long-”
“Don't worry about it, Billy, I should have considered you'd be teleporting in. I've just had a lot of guests lately - they think that visiting me will get me to say nicer things about them when I write, even though my articles should prove otherwise - and was waiting for the knock out of habit.”
“Oh. Well, I'm still sorry, anyway. I should have made sure you were expecting that.” Billy said, sitting across the table from her. “So who else do I get to see tonight?”
“Oh, uh.” Kim paused, pulling the leg of her jeans back down. “It's just us tonight. I didn't want to overwhelm you.”
“Just us?” Billy asked. “What about, um, it was Andrew, right?”
“Oh, I dumped him about a month ago.”
“Really? You seemed to like him last I heard.”
“Oh, I did, until I found out he was cheating on me with my boss. Best blind item I ever wrote.” Kim chuckled. “Only blind item I ever wrote, of course. I don't intend to leave the sports desk anytime soon.”
“Gosh, that must have been upsetting.”
“It was, a bit. At least we hadn't been too serious. Sometimes I think that my terminally awful love life is karma for that stupid letter. It wasn't supposed to get delivered to the Youth Center, you know. I was an idiot sometimes back then, but never that stupid.”
“What are you talking about,” Billy joked, “you dated Tommy to begin with!”
“Oh come on, he wasn't that bad. And besides,” Kim continued, “that's excusable. Nobody picks the right partner the first time. And I'm willing to bet that the ones who luck into it picked for stupid reasons.”
“Out of curiosity, what excuses Andrew, then?”
“Well, you can't see that a person's a cheater. And what I could see reminded me a lot of... You know what, this week isn't about me. Why don't we start working on dinner and you can explain why you thought that decency on Aquitar was better than what you had here.”
“It's been a while since I cooked anything. Aquitar doesn't really foster the development of stoves.”
“That's alright, you should still be able to help prep things and put together the salad while I cook. You can start with washing the vegetables if you want something simple.” The two worked in mostly silence for a few minutes, with Kim giving Billy instructions every now and then. Finally, Kim grew tired of waiting. “Billy, spill. The salad's done except the dressing, which takes like thirty seconds to mix. The rice cooker doesn't need help to do its thing, and the chicken has a while to simmer. We haven't got anything to do right now. Stop avoiding the question.”
“It's not an easy answer, Kim.”
“I know, but I can't properly make up for it if I don't know what I'm making up for.”
“You all abandoned me, Kim.”
“What? No, we-”
“You and Jason and Trini and Zack. You all just left me in Angel Grove! You were my friends. And you left. And everyone just seemed to expect that I could replace you with a bunch of people who I'd just met! Nothing against them, but they're not you guys. I'd been friends with you all since elementary school, and suddenly I'm surrounded by a bunch of people I barely knew. When you left, my oldest friends became an alien head in a tube and a robot. Until you said you'd have come back from Florida I thought you all were done with me.”
“Why would you think that, Billy? We're friends. Good friends. Why would I stop caring about you just because I was across the country?”
“But... you moved away.” Billy said, still confused and looking almost childish to Kim. And then it hit her.
“Oh, Billy. I'm sorry, in all our excitement about the Peace Conference and the Pan Globals, I bet none of us ever directly said to you that we would still be friends, am I right?”
“You're correct, as far as I can recall.”
“Billy, tell me if I'm wrong, but you never really 'got' social skills, right? You learned them more by copying us on purpose than by just instinctively picking them up, didn't you.”
“I think I'm starting to understand now. I just assumed that because we were no longer proximate that the friendship was over-”
“And nobody had any idea they needed to correct you. And by the time we all started catching up with you on Aquitar-”
“The assumption had so long to take root I didn't notice it was being contradicted. I feel rather unintelligent right now.” Billy said, sheepishly.
“Oh, don't worry about it. Emotions do that.” The rice cooker beeped. “I think the chicken will be about done now too, if you want to start on the salad dressing.”
***
After a dinner full of reminiscing and catching each other up - Kim had a number of stories that would have suffered in the telling over the communicators - Billy touched on a question Kim had hoped she'd deflected earlier.
“So,” Billy said, rinsing off his plate in the sink, “You said you dated Andrew because he reminded you of someone? It wasn't Tommy, right?”
“No. So very much no. Tommy very good for a first boyfriend, but honestly? To remind me of him a person has to be kind of bland. Do you really think,” Kim asked, taking Billy's plate to dry, “I would date bland?”
“No,” Billy chuckled, “I suppose you wouldn't. If you don't mind my asking, who did he remind you of, then? Anyone I know?” Kim set the plate down and paused for a moment, debating whether to say it and, if she didn't, how long it would take Billy to work it out on his own.
“I suppose that would depend on how well you'd say you know yourself.”
“On how well... You dated him because he reminded you of me?”
“Yes,” Kim said, not daring to look at Billy. “To be honest, I didn't quite realize how important to me you were until I found out that you wouldn't be there when I came back to Angel Grove.” Suddenly Kim found herself in one of the tightest hugs of her life.
“I really want to kiss you now, but I still have ingrained doubt that you'd still care for me. How awful is that?”
“More awful than I can put in words,” Kim said, before kissing Billy like it could undo all the pain in the world. “But,” she said, between smaller kisses, “I think I can help with getting rid of that.”