"Everything I do makes things worse," Tommy moaned.

Kimberly was less sympathetic than he would have liked. "I don't know what you were expecting. Asking a bunch of questions isn't exactly the best plan for convincing someone you're not a spy."

Tommy glared at the table between them. "I've been here for months now. Shouldn't I know about this place and the people I'm going to be working with? It's like he doesn't want to be my friend."

"Have you considered that maybe he doesn't?"

He had not given that possibility much thought, largely because… He was my best friend! he thought indignantly. He wanted to shout it until everyone had to acknowledge it. But even if he did, where would that get him? Certainly no closer to cracking through Jason's shell.

Why was this so much harder than fighting Zedd and Rita had ever been? He almost wished there was an alien supervillain out there somewhere, so he could defeat it to prove his good intentions. That, at least, he knew how to do.

"You're making this harder than it needs to be," Kimberly observed. "If you really want to figure Jason out, you should talk to Trini. She gets him better than anyone."

"She hates me even more than he does!"

Kimberly chuckled as she gathered her dishes to return them to the kitchen. "They don't hate you. They just don't trust you."

She was already walking away when he thought to ask, "Why do you trust me?"

If she heard the question, she didn't answer it. He wasn't sure he wanted an answer anyway. He slumped back in his chair, wishing he could think of a quick solution to this dilemma. Maybe he just needed to get Billy to assign them to a patrol together. No, that wouldn't work. The patrol teams always consisted of a man traveling on foot and a woman using one of the gliders.

So why had Trini been on patrol with Kimberly the day he woke up here? Come to think of it, Trini always seemed to be assigned to ground patrol, when she was assigned to leave the 'Hold at all.

He gathered up the remaining dishes and dropped them off at the kitchen before making his way to the control room and Billy.

"Why doesn't Trini use a glider?" he blurted out, realizing too late that Billy wasn't alone.

Billy ignored the other Rangers and two Elders in the room, and took Tommy aside. "You finally noticed that, did you?" he asked.

"Well?"

"She's afraid of heights."

"That's it?"

"She crashed a glider once," Billy told him. "A long time ago. Remember what I told you? How she almost died getting me and Jason out of trouble? The Elders forbade her from ever flying again, since she busted up something as valuable as a glider, even if she did it to save us. I think she was more relieved than anything at that point, but she's been afraid of heights ever since. Even going up on the roof makes her uncomfortable."

Tommy felt a little disappointed; he'd hoped that this would somehow give him some insight into Trini's character, or Jason's.

"I am not sure that asking questions behind their backs is the best way to earn their trust," Billy told him gently.

"What else can I do? They won't even talk to me." He sighed. "I had thought that maybe I could go out on patrol with one of them, and then they'd have to talk to me… but if Trini doesn't use a glider that means she won't be paired with me, and neither will Jason."

Billy mused on that for a bit. "You're correct. Under ordinary circumstances, you would not be paired with Trini or Jason for logistical reasons. However, being a brand new Ranger, you will accompany existing teams for your first six patrols. I could arrange for one of those to be with Trini and another with Jason," he suggested.

Finally, this was hopeful news. "When might that happen?"

Billy shrugged. "The Elders don't trust you much more than Jason and Trini do, so it's difficult for me to make any pronouncement on when you might be approved for patrol." Something in Tommy's expression must have given away his disappointment. "Don't despair completely," Billy went on, obviously trying to be uplifting now. "Your skills make you indispensable. They would not have allowed you to stay on at the 'Hold, much less allow Kimberly to instruct you in the use of our airships, if they did not intend to make use of you in the future."

"You make me sound like a tool instead of a person," Tommy muttered.

"To them, you are."

He hadn't stopped to think of it that way. "All right, then. If I'm a tool, what would they want me to do?"

"Make yourself useful, of course."

Tommy frowned. "I don't know how to be useful here. I don't know anything about this place!"

"But you know things no one here does," Billy prompted. "You possess skills that make you indispensable, skills we desperately need. No raw recruit has ever beaten Jason in a combat trial before. Even most of the Rangers can't do that unless they get lucky."

Tommy weighed his options. Billy had given him an idea, but it felt downright ridiculous when he thought about it. He could think of a hundred ways this could go horribly wrong. But maybe his coming here hadn't been an accident. Maybe it really had been meant to happen—because he could show these Rangers the way to save themselves and their world. Maybe if he did that, if he accomplished whatever he'd been sent here to do, then he would find the way to get home to his own world.

With that thought in his mind, he threw caution to the wind. "What if I offer to teach Jason and Trini what I know?" Once he gave voice to the idea, he couldn't seem to stop. "I may not remember where I came from, and I may not be able to explain why I can pilot an airship like I've been doing it forever, but I can't be nearly as much of a danger to the 'Hold if I tell the others everything I do remember. I can teach them how to fight like me."

This earned a thoughtful smile from Billy, the first sign of approval he'd received all day. "I believe you may be on to something. Jason is likely to respond much more positively to an opportunity to challenge you in combat again than he is to any overtures of friendship."

That wasn't exactly the most comforting thing he'd ever heard, but it did reassure him that he was finally on the right track. Armed with a new plan and a new approach, he went in search of Jason—yet again.