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While it was never explicitly discussed - and despite Zack’s best attempts at getting Angela’s attention - none of the Rangers ever dated. They had enough trouble coming up with believable lies to tell their parents - why make things more complicated? But then Tommy became one of them, and while he has lost his powers, he still knows their secret. And since she won’t need to lie to him when Rita sends a monster, Kimberly decides that it’s worth the risk. While she knew it was inevitable that some of their dates would be interrupted, she didn’t expect it to be their first date. While part of her wants to just ignore her communicator - to not let Rita ruin this - she knows that she would never be able to forgive herself, nor would Tommy let her anyway.
“Go,” Tommy says, “Pick this back up when you’re done?”
“There won’t be enough time before I need to be home for dinner,” Kim laments. “And unless you want the rumor mill in overdrive at school tomorrow, you might want to walk out with me.”
While Kimberly can tell that Tommy doesn’t care what people think as much as she does, he does walk out with her and provides cover as she teleports to the Command Center. Once she gets there, she realizes that her friends attempted to fight the monster without her so as not to interrupt her date, for which she is incredibly grateful, even if nothing went according to plan.
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Kimberly thought that dating would become easier when Tommy got his powers back, but unfortunately, she was wrong. She’s grateful that her mother never asks what her plans are immediately after school, because this is the fifth day in a row that she and Tommy are attempting to complete a date, and for the fifth day in a row, Rita has sent down a monster.
“I swear she’s doing this on purpose,” Tommy mutters, before answering his communicator, while Kimberly hurriedly packs up their picnic.
The sympathetic look they get from Jason when they teleport to the Command Center only makes things worse.
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Kimberly and Tommy have had a string of good luck on their dates lately, and they both had this feeling of dread that their luck was about to change. And while they were right, this time it wasn’t due to Zedd. They’ve taken to making the majority of their dates picnics in the park because it makes it easier to run off in the middle, and even though the forecast called for clear skies, right after they get everything set up, it starts pouring. Kimberly’s first thought is that there was another bad-luck monster, but fortunately in this case, it was just an unexpected rain storm. They retreat to the Youth Center, meeting up with their friends, who are also seeking an escape from the weather.
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Given what happened the last time they went on a double-date, they really should have known better, though Kimberly naively thought that since this time the double-date was with fellow Rangers, it couldn’t be worse than the last time. Not only did they have to walk out of the restaurant because the waiter was incredibly rude to Adam and Rocky, they then got stuck in a crowd being herded away from a monster attack and every time they tried to slip away, they ran right into another police officer, which forced Billy and Aisha to fight the monster solo for almost 20 minutes.
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Given that Kimberly wasn’t sure that she would be able to return to Angel Grove over the holidays until the last minute, she didn’t say anything and decided to surprise Tommy instead. While he was thrilled to see her and they made plans for their first date in months, everything went wrong from there. There was a monster attack every day and she barely got to see Tommy at all. They did finally manage to attempt a date on her last night in town, but Tommy was distracted the entire time and Kimberly walked out, leaving him there. When she returned to Florida, she realized why none of them ever dated civilians, and since she was a civilian now, their relationship wasn’t going to work.
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Kimberly hadn’t felt this nervous in years. She’s had a handful of boyfriends since Tommy, but none of them lasted very long - especially not the ones that popped up after the Pan Globals. Her Ranger days are long behind her and the same is true for most of her friends. All except that one that just lost his fifth set of powers while simultaneously mentoring a group of teenagers. The same one that called her out of the blue and invited her out to dinner. She was hesitant about accepting, but for Tommy to be the one to reach out, she decided that she should at least listen to what he has to say.
“You look stunning,” Tommy says when they meet at the restaurant.
“You clean up nice yourself, even if I’m still not sure about the hair,” Kimberly teases.
“It was an attempt to look more professional and half of my students still don’t take me seriously,” Tommy complains.
“That’s because you’re only seven years older than them,” Kimberly responds amused. As she takes in the vibe of the restaurant, she starts to realize that this might not be just two old friends catching up. “Is this supposed to be a date?” she asks.
“I’d like it to be,” Tommy admits. “But I understand if you don’t feel the same way.”
“Tommy, I never stopped caring about you,” Kimberly admits. “And every other guy I’ve ever dated got compared to you. But if you’re going to keep doing this…. I can’t put myself through that again.”
“If there’s one thing that the past year taught me, it’s that I’m too old to keep doing this, which is a really sad thing to be saying in your mid-twenties,” Tommy replies. “I can’t guarantee that there won’t be the occasional one-off, but no more full time Rangering for me.”
“In that case, I think we can call this a date and see where things go from there,” Kimberly says with a smile. And when they reach the end of dinner with no interruptions and no distractions, she thinks that maybe this time it can work.