Goodbye To You
Written by:
Pink-Green-White-4ever
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I don’t own Power Rangers or the song Goodbye To
You. Saban and Disney own the Rangers and Michelle Branch owns Goodbye To You.
You can find it on her cd, The Spirit Room.
Summary: Sometimes, you just have to let go of the things that
mean the most to you.
AN: My mom has always instilled in me that if something’s meant to be,
it’s meant to be; it’ll work itself out. She’s also taught me that there are
times when you have to let go of the things that mean the most to you. If you
let something go and it returns to you, it’s yours; if not, it wasn’t yours to
begin with.
This story is dedicated to all the people who’ve had to let go.
-------------------------------
The crowd gathered inside The Miami Arena in
Miami, Florida for the Pan Global Games gymnastics competition, roared in
disappointment as a little girl’s dreams of gold went up in smoke as the final
gymnast for the Romanian team dismounted from the uneven bars. The poor girl had
taken a nasty fall halfway through her routine, capping off a terrible evening
for her team. It seemed that the Romanian, Russian, and Canadian teams, all in
the top four heading into the final round of the team competition, had fallen
apart under the pressure of the Games. The crowd roared in suspense and homeland
pride as it learned that if the final US gymnast performed well on the balance
beam, the US team would clinch the gold.
“The final gymnast for the United States, Kimberly Hart!” the announcement was
made to the judges and the crowd as a short, young woman with golden brown hair
stood from her seat on the side of the balance beam. She quickly shrugged off
the red, white and blue jacket emblazed with the letters USA and started for the
apparatus.
Dark brown eyes focused on the four-inch wide, fifteen-foot long wooden beam as
she tried to block all thoughts but her routine from her mind. She had performed
the minute and a half gymnastics feat countless times in the past; it was a
piece of cake for her. However, this was still the most important moment of her
life. If she succeeded here, her team would win the prestigious gold medal, and
some of them would go on to the all-around competition to compete for individual
medals. Once this last routine was performed, it didn’t matter if she went to
the all- around. She knew with certainty that she could walk away from her
gymnastics career without regret. Absently, her mind started to wander, despite
the fact that she was trying to focus on the task at hand.
It had been a long road, these last few months. She’d given up everything,
including her home, but especially her friends and duty, to pursue a childhood
dream. She was on the verge of fulfilling that dream, but as happy as that
thought made her, she regretted one thing in her personal life – that her
friends would not be present to share this moment with her. They had been the
ones to give her the courage, the confidence, to leave home and train with the
world famous Gunther Schmidt. And to pay them back for it, she unconsciously cut
them all out of her life, her mind focused on one single purpose – victory at
these games.
Shaking the thoughts from her mind, Kimberly approached the springboard she’d
use to mount the beam. A quick glance at Coach Schmidt showed he was watching
her carefully, a small smile replacing the frown that had been on his face for
the last week. Taking a deep breath, she signaled to the judges she was ready
and then mounted the balance beam.
Kim started with some displays of her upper body strength, performing a one
handed walk over as well as a one-handed handstand. She performed three tumbling
passes, each one more difficult than the last. As she came out of another set of
handstands and choreographed rotations, using the beam completely as was
requirement, she took a deep breath and prepared for her dismount from the
balance beam, which would be a tumbling pass down the length and then off the
end.
As she began to flip forward, across the length of the beam, she punched her
arms and legs to the wood beneath with every ounce of power she could pull from
them, leaping off the end in a triple twist, full layout position.
Of all the things I’ve believed in,
I just want to get it over with,
Tears form behind my eyes,
But I do not cry,
Counting the days that pass me by.
I've been searchin' deep down in my soul,
Words that I’m hearin' are starting to get old,
It feels like I’m starting all over again,
The last three years were just pretend,
And I say
She stood with her arms raised over her head in the correct pose for her
dismount as the arena around her went deathly silent before erupting into a
standing ovation of thunderous clapping and roaring voices. Tears pricked at her
eyes but she shoved them back down. It was over. She’d finally done it; she’d
finally accomplished her long cherished dream.
Turning to look over at her coach, Kimberly’s expression was one of shock.
Though she saw Coach Schmidt smiling at her, it was the group of people he was
standing just in front of and clapping along with that made all the color drain
from her face. Her friends were standing there, just behind the barricade,
smiles lighting all of their faces, tears in their eyes. They’d come to share
this with her, whether it turned into her moment of failure or her moment of
triumph.
Kim’s Pan Global teammates looked on as a genuine smile burst across her lips,
something they had not seen before. In the year that she’d been training with
them, she’d always seemed so focused, so hidden, so unlike the perky girl her
oldest friends knew so well. Abandoning all protocol, Kimberly sprinted from
where she’d landed to where her friends were.
The first person she hugged was, ironically enough, Tommy, followed by Jason,
Trini, Zack and Billy. Aisha, Rocky and Adam pulled her into a four-way hug
before letting her go to hug Tanya and Katherine. “You came,” was the choked
response at seeing them.
Jason laughed. He couldn’t help it. “Come on, Sis, you think we’d miss this? Not
even all the bad guys in the universe would have kept us from being here!” Jason
told her as she smiled a brilliant smile and laughed with him.
“You’d better get going, before they start the medal ceremony without you!”
Tanya pointed to Coach Schmidt, who’d gone to stand with the US team, and had
started signaling for Kimberly to join them.
“I’ll see you guys after, right?” Kim asked. The group nodded then watched her
bound over to where her team stood.
“I am so proud of her,” Trini murmured as the group stood together and watched
the medal ceremony start. Several feet away, Kimberly’s parents stood together,
watching their daughter stand with her teammates.
Zack looked thoughtful as the teams stepped up onto the podium. “You think
she’ll come home now?”
Trini shook her head. “I don’t think she really knows what she’s going to do
just yet. I talked to her Mom at dinner earlier and she said something about
Kimberly being afraid to go back to Angel Grove.”
“Why?” Rocky asked as Aisha rolled her eyes at him.
“DUH!” Aisha hissed. “How much do you think Angel Grove has changed in her eyes?
Not to mention, how much do you think Kim’s changed? Angel Grove isn’t home for
her anymore, not after everything that’s happened.”
Rocky’s face showed his realization, just as the group looked over at Tommy and
Kat, who were watching Kimberly and completely oblivious to the conversation
going on around them. When the arena roared, the group turned to watch the
president of the World Gymnastics Federation hand out the final medals to the US
team before the national anthem was played.
Goodbye to you,
Goodbye to everything I thought I knew,
You were the one I loved,
The one thing that i tried to hold on to
“Are you alright?” Kat’s voice was so soft Tommy almost didn’t hear her. They
were watching Kimberly receive her medal, so when it was placed around the
petite brunette’s neck, the arena erupted into applause and a roar of approval.
“Yeah, I am. How about you?” Tommy smiled over at her. In her eyes, he could see
everything he’d ever dreamed of as she smiled up at him. He had known it would
hurt coming to the Games, seeing Kim perform, knowing this is what she’d
sacrificed them for. What Tommy hadn’t known was that he’d learn where his heart
truly lay – and at this very moment it was with Katherine.
“I’m happy for her. Her dream came true,” she whispered. Tommy watched the smile
on Kat’s face turn wistful.
“Kinda jealous?” he asked, referring to the fact that her own Pan Global dreams
had gone up in smoke after she’d hit her head diving.
“Yes and no. I wonder what would have been, but then I think, if it had come
true, what would I be missing right now?”
Tommy nodded. “Everything,” he whispered before he bent down and kissed her
softly.
I still get lost in your eyes,
And it seems that I can't live a day without you,
Closing my eyes,
And you chase my thoughts away,
To a place where I am blinded by the light,
But it's not right.
Goodbye to you,
Goodbye to everything I thought I knew,
You were the one I loved,
The one thing that I tried to hold on to.
Kim kept smiling as she watched her two friends kiss from where she stood on the
podium, knowing that there were several hundred cameras on her, but inside she
felt herself die a little more. ‘That part of your life is over and done with,’
she thought as congratulations, hugs and kisses, requests for interviews and a
million other things bombarded her senses.
“Ms. Hart, will you be returning to your home in Angel Grove now that the Pan
Global Games are nearly over?” the interviewer from one of the major television
networks asked as Kim turned her attention to him.
She mulled over that for a moment before replying. “Probably not. Now that I’m
out of high school, and the games are pretty much behind me, I’m going to look
into other options.”
“Will you continue on with gymnastics? Perhaps train for the upcoming Olympic
Games?”
Kim didn’t even pause as she answered. “No. The Pan Globals will be my first and
only go at a major gymnastics career move. I gave up a lot last year to come
train here, and I’ve fulfilled my childhood dream of winning a medal. Now it’s
time for me to move on with my life. Excuse me.” With that, Kimberly turned and
moved with the rest of the team to hit the showers.
An hour later, the arena sat empty. All of the equipment used in the competition
still stood, waiting for the individual competition that would take place in a
few days time. The crowds had gone home, or had gone out to celebrate. The teams
were all out celebrating, if they had reason to. She’d spent a good forty five
minutes hanging out with her friends before they had decided to go and see some
of Miami’s hot spots.
Silently, she moved toward the metal, wood and leather that made the balance
beam. A year before, when she’d had her accident, she had thought she’d never be
able to stand the sight of the apparatus again, let alone perform on it, but
through perseverance, determination, hard work, sacrifice and a stroke of luck,
she’d turned it into her best event, the one that had helped her team win the
all important gold medal.
Her fingers glided over the leather that covered the fifteen-foot piece of wood,
memories swamping her. She hadn’t been kidding earlier when she’d told the
interviewer that she wouldn’t return to competition gymnastics. This part of her
life, she thought with a mixture of sadness and relief, was finally over.
When her friends had left, she had felt the sudden need to say goodbye to this
last phase of her childhood, so that she could better embrace her future.
Hold on to...
And it hurts to want everything and nothing at the same time,
I want what's yours and I want what's mine,
I want you,
And I’m not giving in this time.
Goodbye to you,
Goodbye to everything I thought I knew,
You were the one I loved,
The one thing that I tried to hold on to
“How’d I know you’d still be here instead of heading off with the others?” she
asked the person standing behind her. It hadn’t been a shock to her that he had
stayed behind; since the day they’d met they’d both had the unique ability to
feel when the other one simply walked into a room.
He smiled as he watched her caress the balance beam. “I wanted to talk to you.”
She nodded, her face bare of any emotion. She knew what he meant by that; she’d
been preparing for this talk since the incident on Murianthias, but they had
never found the time to sit down and face what had happened between them. “I
know you want to ask it, so go ahead,” she started as she turned to face him.
“Why?” his voice was raw with hurt, a hurt that was nearly a year old and just
starting to heal thanks to Kat.
She nodded. It was only fair for her to answer his question, the one question
she knew he’d been asking himself since it had happened. “You want the real
answer or do you want the practiced one?” she half-joked as she looked up into
his eyes, the look there causing the ache in her heart to intensify.
“The real one.”
“Because I thought it was what was best for us, for what I was trying to
accomplish here and what you were accomplishing there,” she told him, her voice
even.
“Kim.”
She looked up at him. The tears she promised herself she wouldn’t show him
escaping her tightly controlled walls. “Because I loved you so much it hurt.
Because sometimes, you just have to let the things that mean the most to you go,
whether you want to or not.”
“We could have made it work,” he told her. She looked up at him. He hadn’t even
asked her if there had ever been another guy. When she saw the look in his eyes,
she knew he knew the answer to that without even having to ask.
“What’s meant to be will be. There’s a rhyme and reason for everything that
happens, Tommy. You’re with the person you were meant to be with, and I’m at a
point in my life where I have to decide who and what I want to be,” Kimberly
told him, her eyes pleading with him to understand what she was getting at. “We
would have just held each other back if we’d stayed together, no matter how much
we loved each other. You know as well as I do, love is not the cure all people
make it out to be. It’s taken me a long time to come to terms with what I did
and why I did it. I’ll be the first person to admit, I could have handled it
better, but what’s done is done.”
Tommy nodded. He understood her perfectly, even though the hurt was still there.
“Promise me something,” she started as his gaze moved from the mats to her face.
“Anything.”
“Grow with her, not away from her. Give her your all; don’t be afraid to get
hurt. Being afraid will only cause you to get hurt worse in the end. And above
all else, don’t forget to tell her you love her.” Tommy blinked and then let a
sad smile cross his features as he nodded.
“I’ll always love you, Kim,” he whispered as he drew her into a hug.
“I know. I’ll always love you too,” she whispered back, hugging him tightly
before stepping back as she felt Kat walk out onto the gym floor. “Now get
going.” She shooed him away from her, and watched with tears in her eyes as he
clasped Kat’s hand and led her off the floor.
Kim watched them go until they were out of sight before she took one shuddering
breath, looked around the gym at all the equipment that she knew like the back
of her hand, and walked out of the arena, or any arena, one last time.
Goodbye to you,
Goodbye to everything I thought I knew,
You were the one I loved,
The one thing that I tried to hold on to.
Oh, oh whoa,
And when the stars fall i will lie awake,
You're my shooting star.
The End