Disclaimer: If I owned Power Rangers, I wouldn't be writing fanfiction. I'd be writing scripts for Power Rangers that go way beyond what is appropriate for children.

Author's Note: It has been forever since I updated this and for good reason too. I was 17 when I started this and to be completely honest, my writing style has probably changed a lot; Hopefully for the better. However a recent review is the reason this chapter got posted. Just don't expect rapid updates. I have other fanfiction projects I'm working on. Also I will be reformatting the previous chapters since over time, this site has screwed up the chapter formatting so many of us used in years past and continues to screw with anything I've written with the intent of making it look good on the screen.

Life of Lies

Chapter 4: Delving Deeper

Tommy's Point-of-View

Why in the heck did I ask if I'd see her at lunch? That should have been the last thing that came to mind. Maybe I'll disappear off to the Cyberspace for lunch… No, on second thought Kim might just end up following me there, besides, I don't think I'll have enough time to eat if I have to watch my back while driving there… Why did Jase have to tell her? Somebody please tell me why my best friend has to betray my location to my EX-GIRLFRIEND, not to mention the one who dumped ME in a lousy letter… Oh God, now I'm starting to sound like… never mind, here comes Kim…

"Hey, Tommy!" Great, now she's exclaiming it just like old times… Can't she get it in her head? These aren't the old days. I'm Dr. Thomas Oliver PhD in Paleontology. Sure, I also double as the black Dino Thunder ranger in my spare time but hey, Kim doesn't know that and she'll never know if I have anything to say about it. Even Jase doesn't know about me being a ranger again…

"Hey Kim… " I say trying not to sound awkward like I would if I were in college and in the same position with her…

"God, I was hoping that there would at least be something similar to Ernie's. Don't you miss his smoothies?" Quite honestly Ernie's smoothies never quite won me over.

"As long as I have coffee I'm settled, Kim…" I say just before I take a bite out of my sub sandwich.

"So, you seemed really close to that… woman at that café." Oh god, now she's going to force the truth out of me, make me tell her that I'm still single and that I've never properly had a date with a woman since her…

"She's a friend, we met in college." I reply truthfully.

"Just a friend?"

"What, I'm not allowed to have female friends?" Hopefully I didn't sound too pissed off. I must be turning into Jason or something. Whatever happened to my calm demeanor?

"Dr. O?" Yes! Saved by the Yellow ranger!

"Yes, Kira?"

"We kind of ran into a little problem with our Science experiment. You might want to take a look." Oh no, why do I get the feeling Connor went ahead and tried to do everything himself…

"Sorry Kim, I gotta go see what's going on." I grab my food and rush to see what was going on. "Kira, exactly what happened?"

"We have a little problem with um… Mesogog." I notice Kira checked behind us before continuing."

"Thanks for not saying anything about that around her." I say just as we get to the jeep and take off.

"No problem Dr. O, besides… isn't she the…"

"Original pink ranger?"

"Yeah…"

"I kinda figured she didn't need to know or at least you didn't want her to know." Kira replies just as we get to the scene where Connor, Ethan, and Trent are all busy fighting a bunch of Tyrannodrones.

Kim's Point-of-View

"Where the heck is he?" I mutter to no one in particular as I look into Tommy's classroom. "That one girl did say there was a science experiment that they needed Tommy's help on didn't she?" Giving up on finding Tommy in his apparently empty classroom, I head to the faculty parking lot to look for Tommy's jeep.

All I find in the parking lot is Principal Randall.

"Kimberly, you wouldn't know where Dr. Oliver has gone to would you?" she asks in her creepy way.

"Actually I was looking for him…"

"He must have gone off to that Cyberspace café for lunch." The woman suggested. "He often does."

"Um… yeah… maybe that's what he did." Gosh, I feel like such an idiot. He probably cleaned up the mess really quickly and gone off to that café for coffee.

By the time lunch is over, I'm already in my office by the girl's locker room. The question of where Tommy went is going round and round in my mind. I wonder where he went and why he didn't tell me. It all brings back memories of when I first met Tommy when he was the evil green ranger. He's keeping secrets… and I know, he has every right to. It's been years since he and I have been in touch. Oh if only I had never sent that letter…

A loud alarm of some sort throws me out of my thoughts and I find myself running to find out what the matter is, only to find myself out on the soccer field with hundreds of students all staring up, watching as some sort of monster fights with Reefside's very own Power Rangers.

I stare as the team battles. The Red, Blue, Yellow, and White Rangers are most definitely young but the Black Ranger... My heart begins hammering within my chest as I watch the Black Ranger in action. Whoever he is, he seems to have the most experience out of the entire team. His style is all too familiar. I'd know it anywhere. Could it be that Tommy is secretly the Black Dino Thunder Ranger? I can't help but think about all the times Tommy has had a color change. The one memory that sticks tight my mind is when he lost the Green Powers and Zordon didn't tell anyone that he was making the White Powers. I feel so light headed and dizzy... I think I'm going to...

"Miss…Hart?" I open my eyes to see several students circled around me. Gods, I must have fainted… I haven't done that since…

"Yes?" I ask. The girl in front of me looks worried.

"Are you okay? You kinda fainted… we almost thought…"

"I'm fine… " I force myself up off the ground, my whole body feeling like lead. "What just happened?" I realize that the fight that I swear I saw earlier must be over.

"The power rangers beat the monster, like they always do." She looks at me strangely and my previous revelation comes back to me I suppress a shiver as my mind flashes back to the "good ol' days" before I sent that stupid letter.

"Oh..." I mutter. "Thanks, I guess I just wasn't expecting Monsters around here." It is a lie, but what can I possibly say instead without raising the girl's suspicions? That was the number one thing I hated about being a ranger. I had to lie to everyone except the other Rangers.

"Well get used to them because it doesn't seem like they're going away anytime soon. This is pretty much a daily occurrence."

"I think I can get used to it. I grew up in Angel Grove, after all..."

"The town otherwise known as Ranger Central? I would think Reefside's Monster problem would have made it on National News by now." Darn it, won't the girl let up?

"I don't pay much attention to the National section of the News much."

Tommy's Point-of-View

"Tommy, Ms. Hart was looking for you earlier. In all the commotion of the Monster Attack, she apparently fainted during the whole thing. Seeing as the two of you are such good friends, I think you ought to ease her worries. I suspect the whole fiasco had something to do with you not being on school grounds at the time." Randall's voice grates on my nerves the moment I walk into the classroom. How dare she practically order me to visit Kimberly. For a moment I feel like I'm going to punch something until I realize just what the damned woman said about Kim fainting. My heart clenches painfully as I think back to the day Zordon decided it was time to reveal the White Ranger. I do not want to think about that. I wish I could banish that memory from my mind.

"I'll check in with her later. Now if you don't mind, I have a class to teach." I give Randall as serious a look as I can manage.

"Of course, Tommy." I close my eyes and sigh the moment she leaves the classroom, the door closing behind her with a soft click. If I was alone, I would probably hit my head against the wall or something. Instead I turn to the class.

"Okay you guys, pass the homework forward."

Author's Note: Okay that was about 3 pages in OpenOffice, in TNR-12, which makes it longer than previous Life of Lies Chapters to date. Even without the Disclaimer and the Author Notes... So yeah. I think I went above and beyond the call of duty for this particular beast of a chapter. I think I know what I'm going to do for the 5th chapter so I will try to work on that as well as the other stuff I have sitting around on my hard drive... Anyway, you read it, so please do me the favor of reviewing. Ugh I hate checking for changes in how it's formatted by this darn site.