April 2006 Kim Possible Short Fanfiction Contest

[Ashley Benlove]

The Black Out
By AshleyBenlove

Rated: T
---

It was a dark, stormy night in late March. Kim Possible's home, her living room to be exact. The beautiful, strong redhead with extremely expressive green eyes was sitting on the couch next to Ron Stoppable, her best friend, mission sidekick, and boyfriend. As a thunderstorm raged outside, Kim and Ron were watching a movie in which emotions were raging as well. Ron's arm was around Kim's waist tightly.

"This movie always gets to me," Ron said as he paused the movie for a moment's break. He sniffed. "I mean, Darth Vader, he becomes. Er... sorry, Yoda-speak."

Kim chuckled.

"That's okay. I know what you mean," Kim said. "Star Wars: Episode III- Revenge of the Sith is a very rough movie. And it's about to get rougher..."

"Oh, yeah, the Mustafar battle is coming up!" Ron said. "That's the only reason to watch the movie!"

"Eh?"

"Well, it's a great movie, but that's the coolest part of the movie, a lightsaber duel to the death!"

Rufus, who was on Ron's shoulder, nodded and squeaked in agreement.

"Almost literally," Kim said. Kim grabbed the remote and pressed play. After doing so, she sat closer to Ron. He felt so warm to her, so comfortable. She smiled at him and then turned her attention to the movie. She sighed. "We saw this as a date movie, didn't we?" Kim asked softly.

Ron paused the movie. "Sith doesn't count as a date movie. I mean, it does. But, this was a 'kinda had to see it' kind of movie," Ron said. "I mean, you see the other five and you have to see this one."

Kim nodded and Ron started the movie again.

The two sat in silence as the pivotal scene in which Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker (actually known by that point as Darth Vader) have a ferocious lightsaber duel when a loud thundercrack sounded and in a quick moment the television, the lights, everything went out.

Ron let out a yelp of shock.

"Ron!" Kim said.

"Kim, where are you?" Ron said, unable to see in front of his face. "Something's touching my face."

Kim's right hand was touching Ron's face.

"It's me! I'm touching your face. I am right here. I'm not going anywhere," Kim said in an exceedingly calm voice. Kim pulled out her Kimmunicator, pressed a few buttons, and then said, "Power must be out at Wade's house too."

"Wade must be pitching a fit," Ron said. "I feel the same way! Right in the middle of that great fight scene!"

Kim pressed a few more buttons on the Kimmunicator again and a small light turned on. She calmly looked around with the light: Rufus was asleep on the couch and Ron was looking right at her. Kim gently picked up the pink naked mole rat and and set him in Ron's hands, who promptly set him in his cargo pants pocket.

"So, what should we do?" Kim asked.

Ron pulled Kim closer to him and kissed her gently. When the kiss ended, Kim said, "You wanna make out?"

"That sounds good, maybe more," Ron said grinning.

"Not in the living room of my house. Just because my family is out of the house for the evening doesn't mean a thing," Kim said.

Kim gave Ron a quick kiss on the lips and then Ron actually tried to push her down onto the couch.

Kim wouldn't budge.

"I'll tell you what, since we are missing Revenge of the Sith, we can talk about the movie," Kim said. "Or act out a lightsaber fight."

"Ooh, that sounds like fun," Ron said. "But, lightsaber fight acting out in a black out isn't really safe."

"Was that Yoda-speak?" Kim asked.

"No. This is Yoda-speak," Ron cleared his throat and then said with a Yoda-like voice, "Fear is a path to the Dark Side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate... leads to suffering. I sense much fear in you."

"That was a great line by him. But, then again Yoda has very wise lines," Kim said. "I love the look of pain that he has as Order 66 is being carried out."

"I know. He felt their deaths. Kinda like the older Obi-Wan Kenobi did when the Death Star blew up Alderaan in the original movie," Ron said.

"What's the saddest part in Sith for you?" Kim asked.

Ron thought for a moment and then said, "Obi-Wan's speech to Anakin as he's burning. You know, 'You were the chosen one! It was said you would destroy the Sith, not join them. Bring balance to the Force not leave it in darkness!' and then Anakin screams that he hates him to which Obi-Wan says, 'You were my brother, Anakin. I loved you!' And then..." Ron sighed.

Kim nodded.

"What about you?"

"That part gets to me as well. But, for me, seeing Padme's intense pain and then death right after childbirth. She's literally crying. It's really sad," Kim said. She sniffled.

Right at the exact moment that Kim sniffled the lights turned back and the television turned back on. Kim grabbed the remote and then found the scene selection screen and said, "So, where were in this movie?"

"In the middle of the Mustafar battle scene. Go to the part where we see Padme leave for Mustafar though," Ron said. Kim nodded and then did so.

"You know, we would have been done with the movie had the blackout not happened," Kim said. "But, that's okay. No big."

"It was fun," Ron said.

The End.

[Ezbok58a]

And I'm once again struck by writers block, I had a good idea, now I don't know what happened to it!

[Ashley Benlove]

That really sucks.

[Ezbok58a]

I seriously doubt I'd be able to write something for this contest in time, Classes just started (again) and I actually have less time to write than before. However I use the free time I have at school to catch up on the unread fanfics out there.

[drakkenlover]

Hmm, I think I'll whip up something.

[Ashley Benlove]

I actually had fun writing mine. I watched the scenes in which Kim and Ron discussed.

[RavenStar]

A follow-up to a story that we've previously written outside of the fic contests is fine, right?

[The Marvelous Me]

Happy Blackout to You
by The Marvelous Me

Rated: Teen
---
The luxurious style two-story home of the Possible family was decorated in a very festive manner. Streamers and balloons were hung about all of the downstairs rooms and above the mantle was a banner with three simple words on it “Happy Birthday Ron!!”

Up in her attic turned bedroom, Kim lay across her bed. Beside her was a rectangular shaped cardboard box, much like the type you would receive from a clothing store with the words Cold Subject decorated across the top. Inside was Ron’s birthday present or presents.

Lying there, measuring how just how much wrapping paper and ribbon she would need to properly wrap the gift she had so much trouble picking out. She could remember how much she fretted about the task of finding for Ron a gift for his birthday. Everything that she had thought of was out of the question. The Complete Series of The Fearless Ferret? Got it. Video photobook? Yep. His own Bueno Nacho? If only she could afford it.

The t-shirts though were the perfect gift and she knew it. Ron loved those types of shirts with their funny sayings on them from “She’s With Me” to “I Have Just Kidnapped Myself. Give Me $1,000,000 or You’ll Never See Me Again,” that were so overpriced.

Twenty-five dollars for a t-shirt and you don’t even get the Club Banana style. Oh Well Ron loves these shirts and if it makes him happy then its money well spent.

The present finally wrapped in green wrapping paper which had the words ‘Happy Birthday’ printed all over it and a red ribbon around it, now sat on her desk as Kim got ready to take a quick shower.

******
Downstairs in the living room Jim and Tim finally finished on their latest invention. It was nothing extravagant or anything just a simple laser-light projector. The twins knew that as soon as Ron stepped inside Kim would rush over a plant a big sloppy kiss on him. Thus they then calculated just where exactly this most disgusting of events would occur so that the laser-light projector could shine the word “cooties” all in capital letters on the wall above them. They of course had told their parents that it would say “Happy B-Day Ron!”

Meanwhile in the kitchen, Mrs. Dr. Possible was busy working on dinner, a special one that she had not made in quite awhile. At least not since Kim and Ron had started going to their favorite hangout. The meal in question was chicken parmesan with fettuccini and alfredo sauce. It was one of Ron’s and Kim’s favorite meals growing up and a regular guest of the weekly Possible family dinner, most notably on Friday nights, even before they officially became K/R nights.

Meanwhile, Kim had just joined her father and brothers out in the living room. Her hair was still wet as she had decided to let it air dry since she knew she wouldn’t be leaving the house that evening. The fact that Ron had once told her that she looked very sexy with wet hair might have also had something to do with her reason for not drying it.

“Okay everybody dinner should be ready in about ten minutes,” said Mrs. Possible as she entered the room.

“Good,” started Jim.

“’Cause we’re starved,” finished Tim.

“Now boys this is Ronald’s special birthday dinner so don’t go hogging all of the food,” their father warned them.

A couple of puzzled faces all looked at each other and then at the patriarch or the Possible family.

“Wait,” said Tim. “We’re talking about a meal in which Ron…”

“Don’t forget Rufus,” interrupted Tim.

“Right and Rufus are going to be partaking in and your telling us not to hog all of the food,” Jim asked in a rhetorical tone.

“Well what I meant was,” their father began.

Kim laughed lightly a little and then put her hand on her father’s arm to stop him. “Dad, I think it was a rhetorical question,” she said.

Timothy James Possible was about to mutter an “oh right” when the doorbell rang and the door began to open.

“Quick get the lights,” said Mrs. Possible.

“Hola Possible family” Ron called out as he opened the door to enter the suddenly darkened house.

“Surprise,” yelled everyone as the lights were flipped back on. “Happy Birthday.”

Just as Tim and Jim had expected Kim immediately rushed over to Ron and jumped into his arms. Hers’ wrapped around his neck and her lips pressed up firmly against his.

“Hit it,” the twins both cried out in unison.

The laser-light projector worked to perfection, displaying their desired word on the wall just above the heads of the two teenaged lovers.

“Boys,” said Mrs. Possible.

“You boys told me that it would say “Happy Birthday Ron,” their father said.

It was at this time that Kim and Ron finally noticed the special message the twins had written for them.

“Tweebs,” yelled Kim as she started to pull away from Ron to chase them.

Ron though held her close. “Don’t worry about it KP. Besides I love my Kimmy cooties,” he said with a patented Ron Stoppable grin.

“C’mon everybody the food’s ready,” said Mrs. Possible.

******
Dinner had been fantastic, well at least to those who actually got a reasonable portion. Mrs. Possible mentally scolded herself for not remembering to make triple what she normally would, especially considering the guest of honor and his little companion.

After dinner everyone retired to the living room where Kim was eager to give Ron his present. Ron though had decided to put off presents for a while, his decision since he was the birthday boy, and instead have everyone partake in a rousing game of SawThat! The Fearless Ferret Edition.

They were now almost done with their second game and Kim was getting more worried by the moment. So far Ron had gotten every single question right and in explicit detail.

“Alright everyone next question,” said Mr. Possible as he pressed the button on the remote, signaling the DVD to display the next inquiry.

“Timothy North received the opportunity to play the Fearless Ferret after this person had to resign from the position. Who was it? Richard Farnsworth, Adam Ward, Burt West, or Cesar Gorshin.”

“Umm… umm… umm… I don’t know,” stuttered Ron.

As Ron finished getting out his completely baffled sentence the power suddenly cut out, leaving the house in total darkness and everyone quickly jumped to their feet.

“Oh great,” moaned Jim. “We finally get a question that birthday boy doesn’t know the answer to and the lights go out.”

“I think that’s called irony,” Tim chided.

Ron though was thinking about something entirely different. Specifically the red-headed beauty who he believed was next to him.

This blackout would be a perfect time for a quick make out session with KP.

Reaching out Ron grabbed a hold of a firm tight tushy, one that he believed belonged to his girlfriend.

“KP,” he whispered. “Your butt seems to be a lot bigger and not that tight.”

“And just how would you know how tight my daughter’s butt is Ronald?” asked Mr. Possible in a stern voice as the lights came back on.

Ron’s mouth dropped open like he had just seen Kim in a little black dress, his hands immediately pulled way from the behind of one Timothy James Possible.

******
Outside on her front porch, Kim’s amusement slowly turned into frustration as her father repeatedly chased her boyfriend about the front lawn with a shovel in his hand.

[Ashley Benlove]

Haha. That a very... interesting fanfic. LOL.

[Commander Argus]

A Night of Darkness

by Nelson Binch AKA Commander Argus

Rated: T (PG)
---

The weather in Middleton always seemed to be very fickle, almost freakish at times, especially during the winter.

When most people think of Colorado, they think of mountains. Places like Denver or Durango always come to mind. Middleton was at a much lower elevation, though it was surrounded by foothills and close enough to one mountain that it also shared its name.

Normally in February one would expect snow to blanket the land and quite often it did. Then again, the city was noted for its fair weather, at least most of the time. Both the summers and the winters could be considered fairly mild. To some it seemed the sun was almost always out and the sky was always blue.

That wasn’t really the case. Into each life a little rain must fall. Or, in some cases, a whole lot of it.

The rain had been coming down for three days now. Not only was it raining instead of snowing, it was warmer than it should have been for that time of year. For that, at least, Kim was thankful. Snow she could deal with, but freezing rain was a shade of miserable she wouldn’t wish on her worst enemy.

She closed the blinds of the balcony window at the end of her second floor hallway. In the back of her mind she started griping all over again that her room always seemed to be upstairs. That never seemed to matter when she was a little girl or a teen. Her loft bedroom had essentially been on the third floor of her childhood home. Childhood? She had been twenty when she finally moved out, into a second-floor apartment with Ron during their senior year of college.

The stairs didn’t bother her then, either, though Ron did gripe about hauling his mountain-bike up and down those same stairs. At one point he finally gave up, leaving it chained up in the basement instead, to the point he brought it out less and less, especially considering they found fewer and fewer chances to run up to Mount Middleton that last year of school.

Then they bought this place. It was a two-story townhouse condo with three bedrooms, plus another room downstairs that could easily be converted into a fourth. When they had gotten married seven and a half months earlier the place wasn’t quite ready, taking a full month before they were finally ready to get out of the cramped little apartment that had seemed so cozy when they first moved in eleven months earlier.

The condo, by comparison, was huge. It was really a tad smaller than the house Kim had grown up in and maybe a bit bigger than Ron’s, but for a young couple alone, especially two relatively small people like themselves, the place seemed like a great empty mansion.

The whole idea was for them to have a home they could live in for many years. The extra bedrooms provided space they would use when it came time to start a family. In the mean time, one of the smaller bedrooms had been claimed by Ron, purportedly to serve as his home-office. Indeed there was a desk in there with a very modern computer console, tied directly to an entertainment center. The monitor itself would have made a graphic artist squeal for joy.

Ron, of course, spent many hours at that desk playing the latest version of Zombie Mayhem, or occasionally renewing old friendships in the world of Everlot. Kim didn’t mind. It made him happy and it was certainly better than him spending late hours at a bar or doing some other ‘married guy’ sort of thing.

As much as he had a hand in setting up his office, which he had jokingly dubbed ‘the Swamp’ after the tent shared by three officers in an old Korean War sitcom, Kim took firm control of their bedroom. The room, though larger in floor space than their whole old apartment, was rather cozy. There was a fireplace in front of a small sitting area, including a nice, large over-stuffed couch. It wasn’t the prettiest couch on the planet, but it was warm and soft and oh-so comfortable. The pretty furniture was downstairs in the formal living room. That couch had been dubbed ‘the rack’ by Ron, who almost refused to sit on it. He called the whole room a museum piece and only used it to entertain guests for business. Considering what he did for a living, that didn’t happen terribly often in their home.

Besides the comfortable furniture, there was also an extremely large bed. It was a custom-built extended length King Sized four-poster bed that sat almost three feet off the floor. While neither of them were very tall they had gotten in the habit of sleeping with a large pile of pillows and even on the ‘California Queen’ bed they used in the apartment, Ron’s feet tended to hang off the end by morning.

Kim made the comment the bed had a lot of wasted space the first couple months after the wedding, considering they only used a space smaller than the full-sized bed she had grown up sleeping in. Then, like most married couples, they found themselves using more and more space, staking out their own particular territory when it actually came to sleeping in the massive bed.

All of those things were picked out by both of them. Ron wanted comfortable and Kim agreed wholeheartedly. The room was stylish and beautiful but all that was secondary. No, the one thing she had put her foot down about was how the room was equipped. There was no television in there. There was no radio, though music could be piped in from the main entertainment center downstairs. There wasn’t even a telephone, though for safety reasons there was one right outside in the hallway. The room was their own inner sanctum, a place where it was just Ron and her and when they spent time together in there they would turn the ringer off and let it go to voice mail. It would only ring if certain people dialed a special number, and then only in emergencies.

She rubbed her lower back as she walked down the hall. Her back was hurting more and more often lately. She was also spending more and more time on her side of the bed, for the same reason she was now lamenting having her room upstairs.

Opening the door to the bedroom closest to hers, she peered inside the darkened room. Strangely enough, the little occupant did not like sleeping with a night-light. At four years old she was singularly unafraid of the dark. She supposed that she would have felt secure at that age if she was able to blast any potential boogie-men to smithereens.

The child had lived with them for a few months now. She called her ‘Aunt Kimmie,’ though they really weren’t related by blood, any more than the child’s mother, who had once been her worst enemy, could be called her sister. All that aside, she had not hesitated for an instant to take care of the little girl, at least until her mother returned.

When that would happen, she had no clue.

It seemed amusing to her that, at twenty-two and a half, she had never held any steady job except babysitting, and here she was doing it again.

Gently closing the door, Kim sat down on the parson’s bench in the hallway, resting her back just a little. She checked her watch, wondering again where Ron was. It was getting late, but the meetings at Bueno Nacho had been known to run late and she was loath to call him just in case he was still in the meeting.

Those meetings had been getting tense of late. Ron was thankful for the open-ended job the fast food chain had given him, allowing him the flexibility to serve on Team Possible when needed but as he settled into a routine there he started realizing his hard-won skills in the culinary arts were not being put to use. He was a glorified mouthpiece and even after just a few months he was bored with it. He was qualified to be a chef, not a regional manager for a company that sold pre-fabricated food at more the thirty thousand locations worldwide.

Much as he wanted to, though, he couldn’t just up and quit. There were contracts involved. Some would go on as long as the company existed. His father had seen to that after the royalties debacle when he was fifteen. It was the job he accepted later, right after graduating from college that was the problem. They had their hooks in him and weren’t about to let go.

What he really wanted to do was to take part of the thirty-eight million he had in the bank and open his own restaurant. In fact he’d started down that road already, purchasing a building and starting to formulate plans, just as he had been trained to do in culinary school. The main problem came when the legal boys at Bueno Nacho started getting concerned about corporate secrets and the like, not to mention opening a restaurant in direct competition with them.

The fact he was planning to serve haute cuisine and not fast-food tex-mex notwithstanding.

They were close to hammering out an agreement. Ron would still be featured as the inventor of the Naco and several other dishes at the chain, but his responsibilities would be shifted to the man who usually did all the real work; Ned. That was fine with her. A restaurant would demand long hours, but they would be long hours close to home, not at a corporate headquarters a hundred miles west that seemed to call on him more than every other day.

Kim sighed, wishing he was home. She ran a hand over her abdomen, her fingers crossing the slightly shiny decal printed on the sky-blue t-shirt she wore. It was a single large arrow pointing downward. She had just about reached the point where the four-letter word inscribed beneath the arrow was another kind of four-letter word. That particular shirt she most def would not wear out in public, no matter how cute Ron or her mother thought it was. In fact, as small as she was she didn’t even start showing until she was about four months along, at least if she wore the right kind of clothing.

If you had told Kim Possible Stoppable on the day of her wedding seven months earlier that she would be pregnant at twenty-two, she would have called you crazy.

It was her own fault, really. Well, Ron did play a part, a very big part, but it was her own goof-up involving her birth control pills that had a little boy growing inside her. She wasn’t upset, in fact, the whole prospect of being a mother excited her. It was just that she thought she would have a few years of it just being her and Ron before this kind of responsibility set in.

At least her cravings were of a completely pedestrian sort. They tended to rotate between Fudge Ripple Ice Cream, Muy Caliente Cheesidillas and fried chicken and fortunately not all at the same time. The first two were simple enough. There were probably four quarts of the ice cream in the freezer at that moment, she could text Ron to pick up the Bueno Nacho but the fried chicken, that was a bit tougher…

…she absolutely could not stand fast-food fried chicken. Not the kind that came in a bucket, not the kind that shared its name with a cartoon sailor. No, not even Ron could make it the particular way she preferred, though his examples were quite fine when she wasn’t in her current condition. He tended to get a little fancy with it, using pecans in his crust along with No, she craved her Nana’s fried yard bird. Even more than her famous lemon-squares she wanted that deep-fried creation only her Grandmother could make.

Considering she was in the foothills of Colorado and Nana lived in Fort Summerdell Florida, the only craving she was going to sate at this particular moment involved vanilla ice cream shot through with sticky, gooey chocolate fudge.

Grabbing her sore back again she clumsily got up off the parson’s bench. She had only gained about twenty-five pounds at this point, but she somehow felt like she was twice as heavy as the hundred ten pound she weighed at her wedding. How could the same woman who could leap more than her own height straight up suddenly be so weighed down?

Halfway down the staircase lightning flashed, followed instantly by thunder that would have blown in the windows if they hadn’t been made of special bullet-proof glass. She didn’t like the thought of having to armor her house that way, but over the years she had made some pretty nasty enemies and Global Justice had almost insisted. It didn’t help that Ron agreed.

By the time she opened her eyes and uncovered her ears she noticed it was now pitch black in her home.

Closing her eyes again she counted to ten. It was no use getting angry or upset. The only other person inside the house was a soundly sleeping four-year old who was for all intents and purposes now her foster-child and she was not about to yell at her (not because Amethyst had powers strikingly similar to her mother’s but because she dearly loved the child and never wanted to raise her voice to her in anger.)

No, there was no use getting angry, but couldn’t this have waited five minutes so she could get a quart of ice cream out of the freezer? She’d been taught since she was little never to open a freezer in a blackout.

Kim had been grumpy before. Now she was just plain ticked off. She sat down in the middle of the stairs and rested her chin on her fists. She felt bloated and huge and was wearing a floppy legged pair of jeans that were a couple inches too long, considering they were borrowed and she just hadn’t been able to bring herself to go out and buy actual maternity clothing just yet. On top of all that she was wearing that stupid T-shirt with its stupid arrow that pointed to her stomach and said “Baby” as if anyone who looked at her couldn’t tell she was pregnant. She was too petite for anyone to mistake her for chubby once she really started showing, so the shirt was dumb and she made sure to let Ron know how dumb it was at every opportunity.

Interestingly enough, she still wore it.

A tiny voice reached her. “Aunt Kimmie?”

She turned around and in the pale momentary light of the storm outside she could make out the small figure standing at the top of the stairs, holding a well-chewed Super-Star Edition Pandaroo. Ron had pulled some strings to buy the ultra-rare Cuddlebuddy for his then-fiancé not long after they got engaged but once Amethyst was born (in Kim’s room, no less!) she thought it would make a good gift. Her own normal Pandaroo really meant more to her since she had slept with it since she was tiny so making a gift of the other felt really good. It didn’t matter the toddler had destroyed most of its special value, the girl loved the doll and just about couldn’t be parted from it.

“Stay right there, Ammie. It’s too dark and you might fall on the stairs.”

At that, the little girl held up her free hand. It was surrounded by what looked like glowing purple flames. Wade and Global Justice did every test they could think of on her DNA and nothing indicated she would have any of those powers, but they were still there. It created quite enough light to see by, though she still minded her ‘Aunt’ and stood her ground there at the top of the stairs.

“Thank you, Ammie.” Kim said as she carefully climbed up where she was. “Let’s go find a flashlight and a couple candles so you don’t burn anything.”

“I’m just glowing, Aunt Kimmie. It’s not my burn light.”

Kim shook her head slightly. Amethyst spoke a lot more like an eight-year old than a four-year old and had already learned to read. She often wondered if she got that from her mother or her natural father or if the child was just naturally smart. She knew the mother was extremely smart, though a touch on the lazy side.

Fighting down the urge to take the child’s hand, just in case she wasn’t in as good a control of her glow-power as she said, she led her back to the master bedroom. Right outside the room was a small table with a land-line telephone. She picked up the receiver and frowned. Normally when the power went out the phones still worked, even the advanced cordless ones like this.

Amethyst waited patiently at the door of the large bedroom. Normally they had a very strict rule she wasn’t to come into the room uninvited, mainly so they wouldn’t have to have any uncomfortable conversations with the precocious youngster. She may have been incredibly intelligent for her age but she was still only four years old.

Kim opened her nightstand and took out a tiny but powerful flashlight. It was a military model, meant to be attached to an assault rifle but she had a much more benign use for it. The battery could run for several days, but she didn’t want to waste it. She opened a couple more drawers and found her candle lighter.

Smiling a bit, considering the usual reason she lit candles around her bedroom, she wandered around lighting a few of them. Once the room was bathed in a comfortable orange glow she doused the tactical light and waved for Ammie to come on in.

”Be really careful around the candles Ammie and don’t touch any of them. You understand?”

“Yes ma’am.” She nodded.

She sat her down on the end of the never-made bed just as a thought occurred to her. This was the first time the power had gone out since they had been in their new home, so she had momentarily forgotten the fact there was supposed to be an emergency backup generator that would automatically come on during a blackout.

Why didn’t it come on?

She glanced over at Amethyst, who was already curling up with a loose pillow. Kim was relatively confident she would mind where it came to the candles but years of taking care of children that age made her loath to leave her with such a potential hazard. The problem was the controls for the backup power system were in the basement. It was one of Wade’s creations, a tiny cold-fusion power generator identical to the ones that powered their cars. In fact, it could generate enough power for the whole row of townhouses and still have juice to spare and could run for months. The only reason they didn’t rely totally on it was that it was supposed to be a secret.

The fact the phones were out too bothered her. Enough that she decided on another course of action entirely. The controls were easy enough to work, but if something was wrong with the system there was nothing she could do about it.

Taking her cell-phone out of her pocket Kim touched a control. The picturesque fountain on the display screen disappeared, replaced with a green and yellow “KP” emblem on a black background. One more touch of the hidden button and the call went out.

She waited a minute, then another. The battery meter read full. The signal indicator was completely off, but the call she was making didn’t rely on any nearby cell towers, which might have been knocked offline by the blackout.

Frowning, she folded the tiny phone back up. Using the flashlight she took one more look at the once again sleeping child and made her way down the hall to Ron’s office. She found what she was looking for quickly, choosing a hand-held Mark II model instead of her newer bracelet style Mark III. Something was tickling the back of her mind and if it were true, either one would have been better protected against it than the backup built into her phone.

The old Kimmunicator still had a full charge on it and lit up instantly when she hit the power switch. She was about to try calling Wade again when she heard the front door open.

“Ron?” She called out.

There was no answer.

Cold fear bit at her gut. Her mind flashed through a list of her worst enemies, trying to recall which ones were accounted for and which ones were not. She hit the emergency call button on the hand-held and waited a couple seconds. Nothing happened.

There was no sound coming from downstairs except for the driving rain. She could tell from the sound the door was still open, especially considering she had not heard it shut. A slight bit of panic surged in her. She could certainly still fight if it came to it, but she was frightened about what may happen to her baby.

A voice that didn’t belong to Ron drifted up to her from the foyer. “Kimberly.” It said softly. The voice was a man’s and it sounded oddly familiar. For a heartbeat she was frozen in place, crouching beside Ron’s desk, uncertain what to do. She was even starting to lament the fact they owned no firearms.

”Kimberly?” The voice came again, still coming from downstairs. Frantically she pushed the button on her Kimmunicator again. Where was Wade? He had the same kind of backups on his mainframe and if he was still at the Space Center his workstation there was completely shielded and connected to its own power supply.

Then the voice said something that sent chills down her spine.

“Here kitty, kitty, kitty.” He said softly.

Suddenly she was seventeen again, trapped in a warehouse that had since been demolished. Only one person had taunted her like that and it was the one time she had been in fear of more than just her life.

Carrion!

He knew how to jam communication signals, even such carefully protected systems as her Kimmunicators. It was also very likely he had set off some kind of electro-magnetic pulse to disable the power systems of her home.

Slowly she got to her feet. This time it wasn’t just her and her unborn child to think about, there was also Amethyst. Anger started replacing some of the fear that gripped her. How dare he threaten her family this way. There might have been no blood-bond between her and that child, but she was still family.

With measured, silent steps she walked out into the hallway, dousing the light in her hand. She put the useless Kimmunicator on the hall table and stood at the top of the stairs.

A flash of lightning briefly backlit the figure standing in her doorway. It was the shape of a man, one who stood roughly six feet tall, slender but muscular. Even in the darkness she could see his features clearly in her mind. Dark blonde hair, fair skin, a square-cut jaw and brown eyes that were a mockery of the beautiful eyes of her husband.

He held up his hand, displaying something that started giving off a faint white glow. It was a crystal and she knew what it would be capable of doing. Slowly the light grew until she could see those same hated features that had been in her mind’s eye.

“Hello, kitty.” He said softly. He reached behind him and quietly closed the door.

“Get…out…of…my...house.” Kim growled through clenched teeth.

“Is that any way to greet an old friend?” He asked in the same mockingly pleasant tone. Smiling, he held the crystal forth. Light jumped from it, reaching for Kim. There was no way to avoid it, the beam struck her.

Kim’s eyes snapped open. She was sitting on the Parson’s bench in her upstairs hallway. Cold sweat was running off her forehead.

She looked around. The hall lights were off but she could see the lights downstairs. The door was open to Ron’s office and she could see the screensaver playing in there, bathing the room in the soft glow of the monitor.

Jumping up, she ran to her bedroom. The small lights on either side of the bed were one, but none of the candles were lit. Carefully she checked each one. The wax was cold and hard. They hadn’t been lit for hours, if not days.

Slowly she let a breath out. Could that have just been a nightmare? Did she simply doze off when she sat down?

Almost running, she went back to Amethyst’s room. The child was still sound asleep in her bed, tightly clutching her Pandaroo.

She went back to her room and slowly sat down on the bed, tears running down her cheeks. It was a dream, just a dream, one she hadn’t had now in years. Still, she pulled her phone out of her pocket and switched it over to Kimmunicator mode.

“Hi Kim.” Wade said cheerily. It was late, but he often didn’t go to bed until the wee hours of the morning.

“Wade, run a check on Colorado State Prison for me.”

“Anyone in particular?”

“Him.” She said softly.

Wade knew instantly who she was speaking of. “He’s still there Kim.”

“Thanks, Wade. You rock.”

“Kim, are you alright? Do you need me to come over or anything?”

”Thanks, Wade, but I’m okay. Just a bad dream, that’s all.”

“You sure? I mean, if you’re asking about him?”

“It’s okay. I’m just a little worked up over the storm, that’s all.”

“Okay, but I’m going to leave the line open, just in case. Yori and I can be there in five if you need us.”

“Thanks. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” She shut the screen off and closed her eyes.

Kim about jumped out of her skin when she heard the front door again. Only this time, it was the sound of somebody turning a key in the lock. Moments later a totally soaked Ron stepped inside, a small shape jumping out of his pocket and bounding toward the kitchen.

“Kim? You home? I brought you some Cheesidillas!”

Heedless of her stiff back she ran down the stairs and grabbed him in a crushing hug.

All of her grumpiness was gone, replaced with an overwhelming feeling of safety and love.

______________________________________

Kim Possible and all related characters © Disney

[rsr]

Whoah! Wasn't expecting it a dream.
Good Job.

[Ashley Benlove]

That's a darn good fic, Commander.

[cloudmonet]

Doing Time
by cloudmonet
rated PG-13


Kim Possible, Ron Stoppable, Rufus, and Monique are characters from the Kim Possible show, created by Mark McCorkle and Bob Schooley, owned and copyright © by the Walt Disney Company. The story takes place in April of Kim and Ron’s sophomore year of college, nearly three years after “So the Drama,” and not long after my earlier story, “Orinoco.” This story © 2006 by cloudmonet.



“Okay, here’s the deal,” Belinda Brockmeyer told Kim and Ron Stoppable, who were sitting on the edge of the double bed in their dorm room while she sat in the upholstered swivel chair, playing with a green plastic ruler. “Dr. Hurlbetter of the psychology department has developed what more or less amounts to a telepathy machine and needs suitable test subjects.”

“I don’t know,” said Ron. “We’ve heard rumors about that machine supposed to make people go mental in a big way.”

“Uh huh,” agreed Rufus, Ron’s pet naked mole rat, who was perched on his shoulder.

“That’s exaggerated,” said Belinda.

“I don’t want to get major mood swings,” said Kim.

“Ah, no,” Ron agreed. “No offense,” he added quickly.

Kim smiled at him.

“Yeah, okay, people have had problems,” Belinda admitted, “but let me explain why you two would be ideal subjects.”

“Okay, but I’m not looking at your eyes while you try to persuade me,” said Ron.

Rufus closed his eyes and covered them with his front paws.

Kim gave Ron a raised eyebrow then turned to Belinda. “Go on,” she said, crossing her arms.

“Well, the idea behind the machine is it gives a direct brain-to-brain linkage through a noninvasive interface,” Belinda explained. “You could use a machine like this to communicate with someone in a deep coma, for example. All those people in hospital beds with tubes in their arms who can’t talk or move, you could find out if their minds are still functioning. If they are, this gives them a way to communicate.”

“Sounds like a great idea, if it’s used that way,” said Kim. “I can think of some pretty terrible misuses for it.”

Ron mimed putting on a helmet and affected a sinister voice. “And now, Dr. McDuff, I will learn everything you know about the photon phaser antimatter cruise missile! Booyah ha ha ha ha!”

Rufus gave a squeak of fear, scampered across the bed to his nest box, and burrowed under the shredded paper towels.

“Just kidding, little buddy,” Ron said, and Rufus cautiously looked at him.

“Yeah, and how about this one?” Kim said, dropping the pitch of her voice, “Resistance is futile, Miss Brockmeyer. I will now learn everything about your conspiracy against the Eternal Benevolent Government, and, uh—” She went back to her normal voice, “I’ll also learn everything about your sex life, and spill the details to your mom.”

“Very funny,” said Belinda. “The reality is, the contact is total, both ways. And that’s our problem, finding two people who can handle the intimacy.”

“Oh!” said Kim, turning her head and meeting Ron’s brown eyes. “Hmm—”

“You two have been best friends and constant companions since you were four years old. You know each other so thoroughly, you can’t have many barriers.”

“I like to think we don’t,” said Kim.

“You want to do it, don’tcha?” asked Ron.

“I think it could be a really beautiful experience,” said Kim. “You’re scared it could be weird.”

“No duh.”

“What do you think I don’t know about you?”

“Well—”

“You think this is some kind of mad science,” said Kim.

“Not all mad scientists have henchmen and lairs. Some have grad students and National Science Foundation grants.” Ron affected a Gollum-voice. “Publissh! I mussst Publissh paperss! Seriously, Kim. And you know how I feel about psychologists. Taking the course is evil enough.”

Kim looked at Belinda. “When Ron was traumatized by his summer at Camp Wannaweep, his mom made him see a child psychologist. I don’t think the psychologist helped him.”

“So— not— helpful—” Ron said slowly and emphatically.

“Ron, this isn’t about changing who either of you are,” said Belinda. “It’s about fine-tuning a potentially important medical tool. It’s either too amped up, offering total oneness to people who don’t want it, or tuned so low it doesn’t work. We need two people who can handle the total contact so we can figure out how to make the adjustments.”

“You’re not gonna have some psychologist in your head, Ron. You’ll have me.”

“Well—”

“I really want to do this,” said Kim. “Whatever we share will be good.”

Ron looked into Kim’s moist green eyes and embraced her. “Okay babe, okay,” he whispered. “Why the watery eyes? You almost never cry.”

“I don’t know,” she whispered back. “This is really ’portant.”

She said that the way she would have when she was a small child.




“You’re really gonna do that?” Monique asked Kim and Ron. They were sitting in the Student Union Cafeteria together, eating sloppy joes. “After hearin’ what Yvonne told me ’bout trying that machine, uh-uh, no way, too weird, never gonna try it.”

“So what kind of weird are we talking about?” asked Kim.

“All kinds of stuff in your head just gets exposed, you know, stuff you’d never want to tell anybody. Don’t tell me you two don’t have secrets from each other. I know better. I’ve watched you not tell each other so much obvious stuff—”

“Recently?” asked Kim.

“No, but that don’t matter. Anything that ever happened is recently when you’re looking in each other’s heads with that machine.”

Rufus ate a couple of Ron’s French fries and looked toward Monique.

“You think you got yourselves fit together perfectly, gold rings and all. Beautiful wedding. But you know, you make it work by hiding stuff that doesn’t fit so well, forgetting other stuff you might have done. Should Ron be a freelance commando for truth and justice, or a world-class chef baking ‘seven layers of heaven’ for cable TV?”

“Hey, I’m good at cooking, but I never wanted to be a cook,” said Ron.

“You sure?” asked Monique. “Cause Kim’s gonna interact with that, maybe some part of Kim that doesn’t like you so well, and then what happens? What about cheerleader Kim? She’s gotta be frustrated ’bout how life’s goin’ now.”

“No big,” said Kim. “Ron, world-saving, school, cheerleading— something had to go. College is a lot harder than high school, if I want to be serious and do well.”

“No duh,” Monique agreed. “But you hear what I’m saying. You’re gold now. Why mess with what works? How you gonna handle feeling each other crush on other people?”

“We’ve talked about that stuff,” said Ron.

“Talking and reexperiencing, so not the same!” said Monique.

“It’s my hero thing,” said Kim. “Making it possible to communicate with comatose people? That’s beautiful.”

Rufus licked the last bit of ketchup from Ron’s empty plate of French fries.

Monique looked around the room to make sure nobody was paying attention. Everyone else was talking at their own table, and the jukebox was playing pop songs. “Yvonne won’t get on a motorcycle now,” Monique said, dropping her voice. “I promised I wouldn’t tell, but I gotta tell you.”

Kim and Ron looked at her, puzzled by this remark.

Rufus looked longingly at Monique’s French fries, but she was guarding then well.

“You get creeped out when Belinda makes prophecies? How you gonna feel when you make your own?”

“What do you mean?” asked Kim.

“I guess there’s some part of a human mind that knows what’s gonna happen, but it’s blocked off, hmm? This machine unblocks that. Yvonne remembered her future, came out of the session thinking she was in a hospital with casts and all that from a bad motorcycle accident, thinking she had a head injury and couldn’t talk.”

“That is pretty freaky,” said Ron.

“She didn’t tell the doctor, didn’t tell no one but me, and you don’t say nothin’ to no one either, hear? She figures the less she talks and thinks about it, the less energy she feeds it. She loved her bike like you love yours, but she sold it, won’t get on a bike ever again. What if you learn you get killed savin’ the world? Would you still save it?”

“Sure,” said Kim. “I’d appreciate the warning and change my tactics.”

“She can do anything,” Ron said with a smile.




A gray-haired, goateed professor in a white lab coat opened the office door. “I am Avrum Hurlbetter, professor of psychology,” he said, with a slight accent. “You would be Mr. and Mrs. Stoppable?”

“Yes,” said Kim.

“You’re Jewish, aren’t you, Mr. Stoppable?” the professor asked Ron. “Not that this is relevant, but so am I.”

“I’m not, like, orthodox or anything,” Ron replied.

Dr. Hurlbetter chuckled. “And you’re childhood sweethearts who got married.”

“Something like that,” said Kim.

“Such marriages are the happiest and most durable, for those who are lucky enough to make such a match. Often close association in childhood causes the relationship to become more like that of a brother and sister.”

“We’ve experienced that,” said Kim.

“Fortunately, we got over it,” said Ron, briefly clasping her hand.

“Yes, fortunately,” she agreed.

“Well, that’s good,” said Dr. Hurlbetter. “I don’t know how much Miss Brockmeyer told you about our telepathy machine, so I hope I don’t bore you.”

“It’s all about communicating with people in comas, you need to adjust the sensitivity so it’s not overwhelming, and you think Ron and I can handle it till you get it set right,” said Kim.

“I should have you write abstracts for my professional papers,” said the professor. “You have a talent for summary.”

“Comes from years of interrupting and summarizing rants,” said Kim, “not that I would put you in the mad scientist category, of course.”

Dr. Hurlbetter smiled amiably. “There are understandable fears and concerns about how my machine could be misused, but really it does give both parties quite equal access to each other’s minds, which should reduce the chances of this.”

“Belinda suggested we might get, um, course credit for participating—” said Ron.

“Well, yes, assuming you can handle the first session and are willing to come back for more. I have yet to find any experimental subjects who weren’t disturbed in some way by their experiences. Volunteers are getting harder to find.”

“All the more reason to give us what we want,” said Ron. “It’s only fair. The time we spend here is time we can’t spend on regular studies.”

“Let’s try one session and see how it goes. I’ll get you credit for writing a paper or something, if you’ll give me a full account of your experiences. Some people flat out refuse to tell me anything.”

“We’ll tell you everything we can,” said Kim. “You understand that some of my missions involve classified or top secret information, and if we reexperience stuff like that, I’ll have to tell you there’s stuff I can’t tell you.”

“Kim Possible, if I may still use your famous maiden name,” said Dr. Hurlbetter, “ordinarily, I wouldn’t want such an extraordinary subject for experimental work, but I’ve failed completely with ordinary folks.”

“We’ve still got the KP logo on all our vehicles and gear,” said Ron, “but I started calling her KS after the wedding and she likes that.”

Kim smiled and said, “Oh, you!”

“This is so refreshing,” said the professor. “I usually get to see couples who’ve gotten themselves in some kind of trouble. You take genuine delight in each other.”




Kim sat down on a reclining chair in the middle of a small room and placed the lightweight helmet on her head. A bundle of wires led to some electronic gear and a computer.

“Can you record thoughts with this gear?” Kim asked.

Dr. Hurlbetter chuckled. “Now that would be a breakthrough! But, fortunately perhaps, no. There’s way too much going on. Only another human mind can possibly sort through all the noise to perceive a signal. It’s be like recording the sound from fifty televisions tuned to different channels and trying to sort anything out. But if you’re actually in the room with this, with concentration you can hear what you want to hear.”

“Ron would probably get confused. He’s easily distracted. Oooh, I hope he can make sense of my thoughts. I’ll try to stay focused.”

“Does Ron have an attention deficit disorder?” Dr. Hurlbetter asked.

“He can focus when he really wants to,” said Kim.

“No, for your work it’s good for him to be that way. While you’re fighting, he’ll notice things off to the side that you don’t notice, things that might threaten your lives.”

“That’s so true,” said Kim. “You are perceptive, aren’t you?”

“If you’re ready, I’ll darken the room. You may want to close your eyes as well, to focus your attention inward.”

“When the blackout starts, the fun begins,” Kim replied.




Ron heard Kim’s voice in the dark, calling his name.

“Kim?” he asked.

“Hey,” she said. “I guess it’s working.”

“Big whoop! This is just like a phone call in the dark, only I think we’re not actually talking.”

“babe, it’s more than that. I’ve been here before.”

“Oh yeah, in my body, when the brain switch machine switched our brains.”

“I don’t think it actually did that,” said Kim. “I think it did something like this, only instead of being together, we switched places. I’m feeling the shape of your body from the inside, the strength in your muscles. It’s familiar.”

“Really?”

“I didn’t say this back then, but you’ve got a pretty good body. I mean, I had little trouble making it do most of my usual stunts, though it hurt some afterwards. You feel quite a bit stronger now.”

“All that martial arts practice with you,” said Ron.

“Mmm—”

“Kim?”

“I wish we could, you know, get sweet, hooked up to this thing. Wouldn’t that be fun?”

“Kim!”

“You agree with me. I can feel you.”

In a warm softness under blankets and sheets, skin against skin.

“A memory, sweetheart?” Kim whispered. “I’m liking the way I make you feel.”

“No duh. I love you, Kim.”

Suddenly Ron was tumbling through space, no, flying through the air with his jetpack, catching a falling Kim under her arms.

“Nice,” she said, and Ron felt the warm glow of her happiness. “Be careful, sweetheart, it’s still a long way down,” she added.

Ron was standing in the shadows of the trees in the park, upwind from Kim, who just sneezed from the pollen of the special orchid he was holding, which somehow ended the terrible gradual disappearance of her body. She was back, she was whole, she felt like herself again. She was embracing Josh Mankey, but looking over his shoulder at Ron, who was trying to smile away the tears he felt like weeping.

“Excuse me,” Kim told Josh, pushing him away from her and running toward Ron, wrapping her arms around him and looking into his eyes. “This is what I should have done, sweetheart,” she said. “I never should have caused you any pain.”

“Wow, KP, I’m confused.”

“I’m KS now, your wife!”

“But we’re in high school.”

Kim suddenly felt uncertain. “I want to be with you always,” she said. “I don’t want to be with him or anyone else. I know you love me, and I love you, and I don’t care what anybody thinks. You should be my boyfriend.”

Kim and Ron were children sitting in Ron’s backyard on plastic chairs, with a tablecloth spread over a cardboard box, and two paper plates with cheese sandwiches and sliced apples, pretending they were on a date.

“Um, okay, I guess, sure,” said Ron.

“Now you need a ’gagement ring,” said Kim, handing him a keyring with no keys on it. “This could be the ’gagement ring.”

Ron looked at the empty keyring dubiously.

“We should eat our sandwiches first,” said Kim.

“Okay,” said Ron, and took a big bite.

“And I say stuff like, ‘This is a nice rest’rant,’ and you say stuff like, ‘You look nice, Kimmie.’ ”

“Mumple murph,” said Ron.

Kim made a face. “Don’t talk with your mouth full,” she said. “That’s so gross.”

Ron swallowed. “Sorry,” he said.

“That’s ’kay,” she said, with a smile. “So you wanted to ask me something?”

“What am I spozed to do?” asked Ron.

“Well, you kneel on the floor, or the grass, and show me the ’gagement ring, and ask me to marry you.”

The little boy kneeled on the grass beside the little girl’s chair, holding her right hand with his left. “Like this?” he asked, looking into his friend’s beautiful green eyes.




“Ron, how old are we?” asked Kim, in quiet darkness.

“I know I’m bad at math, but this is ridiculous,” he replied. “I can’t get my mind around how numbers work, or what a year should be.”

“Kinda dreamlike, as though the touching parts of our minds are timeless.”

“I’m thinking the cheese sandwiches, the keyring, that was a long time ago.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Kim agreed.

Kim was with Monique in the terminal of an airport, probably Middleton International, but it was hard to be sure. She saw Ron with his suitcases and ran to embrace him. It just was a brief hug but she felt—
No, it was a much longer hug. She was wearing a thin blue dress, practically melting into his arms while the lights changed color and swirled. He was slightly taller than her now. She didn’t care that he was wearing that ill-fitting light blue tux with the ridiculous ruffled shirt. She looked into those deep brown eyes.

He looked into those emerald green eyes, seeing all the love of his childhood reflected back at him.

One kiss merged with another. The clothes they were wearing changed, the setting changed, the position of the rest of their bodies changed, but the kiss was one kaleidoscope of love.

“So we’re in love,” said Kim. “Or is this your imagination? Is this how I look to you? I’m overwhelming you, flooding your senses with smooth, warm, wow!”

“Can I feel how you feel it?” Ron asked.

“Welcome, sweetheart.”

“We are in love,” said Ron.

“It’s a very secure feeling,” said Kim, “your presence always with me, guarding me and protecting me. You seem uncertain.”

“I’m guarding you?”

“With you fighting by my side, I can do anything, or even with you just cheering me on. You protect me from my doubt.”

“I make you feel like that?” Ron asked, his mind wandering toward moments of skin against skin.

“Boys really do only think about that!”

“I just want to, you know, learn what feels best to you.”

“It’s not how you touch me, but how you love me.”

Ron was standing on the altar, watching Kim’s dad escorting her down the center aisle of the church. Now he was kissing her. They were dancing, somewhere, kissing again. That white gown, bare shoulders, and long red hair!
“See, we’re married,” said Kim.

Kim and Ron were sitting next to each other on a couch in an old room with pale striped wallpaper. Kim had a baby girl on her lap who was wearing a sleeper. “Daddy’s got your foot,” Ron kept saying, moving the baby’s foot around while she gave him a biggie grin.

“What’s her name?” asked Kim. “This is awful! I can’t remember her name.”

“Bye, Mom, bye, Dad,” the teenaged girl said, hugging them both before bouncing toward a yellow school bus.

“Bye, Marlena,” said Kim. “Okay, her name’s Marlena. Wait a moment, we can’t possibly be that old, can we? You’re going bald.”

“Well, I got strong male hormones, babe.”

“Oh, you!”

“I guess we must be this old.”

“What do we do?” asked Kim. “I don’t remember anything but being heroes. You know, kicking bad guy butt and saving people from natural disasters.”

“Oh, Kimberly, we haven’t done that for a long time,” Ronald said with a voice that sounded shaky and wheezy.

“Ronald, don’t try to walk without your cane.”

He gasped and collapsed on the floor. Kimberly cried and cried. “Ronald! Ronald! Don’t leave me all alone!”

There was nothing but darkness and silence.

“Ron?” asked Kim. “You’re not really dead, are you?”

“I’m trying to understand what we’re experiencing. Either we’re both dead now, and going over our lives together before, well, whatever comes next, or, I kind of remember we’re doing a telepathy experiment with Professor Hurlbetter’s machine—”

“Right. What’s real? I mean, all this stuff. Are we married? Are we lovers? Cause if we’re not, I want to do that.”

“Oh, that’s real!” said Ron.

“Are you sure? Cause you’re lying on a hospital bed, with tubes in your arms and bags of fluid, and I’m holding your wrinkled hand with tears in my eyes, and Marlena’s got her arm around my waist, handing me tissues and brushing my long white hair. You just had a stroke, I think. Maybe that’s where we are, why we’re using the telepathy machine. I’m trying to find you, trying to bring you back. Ron, it feels so real! Come back to me!”

“Kim, I haven’t gone anywhere. I’m right here. We’re in college at Northwestern State University, hooked up to Avrum Hurlbetter’s machine. Okay. I remember being the old dude in the hospital bed with the tubes. I don’t know how. I saw you crying, crying, crying, and tried to get up to comfort you, and found I was somehow out of my body, and you were crying even more, and— I blew it! I’m so dead.”

“Ron, no—”

“Ya got that right. I think I know what happens. Whatever part of your mind and my mind that are touching— it’s like timeless— not past, present, or future, but all there at once. That’s why we can’t figure out where in this continuum of life we really are. Unhook the machine, we’re back in college. Remember, some of his test subjects had strange reactions to the intimacy of telepathy? He wanted us because we spend our whole lives together.”

“But Ron— your stroke! We used the machine again. We really are old. If we’re not, everything that will happen to us is predestined. The future’s as real as the past.”

“Nah, I think you can change it.”




Ron opened his eyes. As Kim said, he was lying in a hospital bed, IV tubes taped to his wrinkled hands, a telepathy helmet on his head. He looked at Kim, who removed her own telepathy helmet from her long white hair and smiled through her tears. “Baby,” she said, pulling his head toward her breasts and covering it with little kisses. “You came back to me, you came back. I love you so much.”

“Kimmie,” he said with a wheezy whisper. “Will you marry me? I gotta a ’gagement ring for you.”

“Yes, Ron, yes,” she said, gently kissing the old man’s dry lips. “I’ll marry you every time you forget we’ve already been married for fifty nine years!”




Kim opened her eyes to the gradually brightening light in the room, and stared at her young hands.

“The machine’s off, isn’t it, doctor? This is real, now, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Dr. Hurlbetter. “What did you experience?”

“So far beyond freaky,” Kim said.

“You, too?”

“Ron and I remembered the future, really far in the future,” Kim explained. “We were nearly eighty, and he had a stroke, and we were using a machine like this one for me to find him and make him conscious again, and it worked, and, where’s my pack?”

She got off the chair, found it in the corner, pulled out her compact, and looked at her face in the small round mirror. To her relief, her skin was smooth, her hair red.

“I just experienced coming out of trance in Ron’s hospital room, as an old woman. It’s like I came out twice, and now I’m not sure how many times I’m gonna come out before I’m in the real reality.”

“This is extraordinary. Can you start at the beginning of your experience and try to recreate it for me?” The professor asked gently. “You can gloss over anything embarrassing or intimate if you wish.”

Kim gave him a quizzical look.

“You’re newlyweds. I’d be very surprised if you didn’t share some thoughts of a sexual nature.”

“Yeah, we did, a few times. It was all about our relationship, from childhood to old age, but it was kinda random, out of order, free-associated.”

“Can you start at the beginning, and—”

“Yeah, sure. My first thought was, I’m better at staying focused, so I went out in the dark calling Ron’s name, and he called back to me, and then we were together in Ron’s head. I know cause I could feel how his body feels from the inside—”

Belinda knocked on the door. “Dr. Hurlbetter, Ron wants to ask Kim a question.”

“I bet I know exactly what he’s gonna ask,” said Kim. “Better let him do it if you want to compare us.”

“Okay,” the professor told Belinda, who opened the door.

“Uh, Kim,” said Ron. “Should I tell Belinda any private intimate stuff?”

“It’s okay,” Kim replied. “This is important. This is gonna save lives. You don’t have to be, like, graphic, though.”

“Oh, okay, gottcha,” Ron said, and left the room with Belinda.

[Artificial Moose]

One Last Caper
by Artificial Moose

Rating: PG

---

One of the many peculiarities of BAU, and the McGinnis Culinary Academy, was that they began their academic year in the next to last week of August. This meant, much to the delight of the freshmen (all the students, of course, but especially the freshmen), that the student body had barely two weeks of classes ere their first three-day weekend. Due to the number of out-of-state students that the two schools attracted, both kept their housing facilities open for the duration of the holiday.

That arrangement was perfectly acceptable for Kim, Ron, and Monique. It was only Ron's second year in Overton, and Kim and Monique's third, so they decided to take the long weekend and just bum around town. Of course, with Kim there, 'bumming around' took a somewhat regulated definition.

What can be said, she liked to have some order in her life, even if some of Ron's spontaneity had rubbed off on her.

So it was, then, that they were seated in Kim and Monique's dorm room, planning out their weekend, when the call came.

Beep-beep-be-beep.

Kim just rolled her eyes and looked apologetically at Ron, who had been waxing rhapsodic about the restaurant he was going to take her to, and pulled out the kimmunicator.

“Sitch me, Wade,” she ordered, just a bit sharply.

“Let me guess,” the young man replied. “Bad time?”

“Not as bad as it could be,” Kim admitted, “but still... what's up?”

“Just a hit on the site,” Wade replied nonchalantly, “from Señor Senior Senior.”

“Oh yeah, they let him out of prison last year, didn't they?”

“Yup, thanks to the deal you made with the DA. Anyway, he says he needs to talk to you and Ron. Want me to patch him through?”

Kim looked at Ron, who nodded, and Monique, who just shrugged. Monique herself had never actually run afoul of the Seniors, so all she knew about them was that they were the eccentric old guy who wanted to take over 'nice tiny islands' and the somewhat dim-witted son who wanted to be a teen pop star, but who couldn't carry a tune to save his life.

Which would likely serve him well as a teen pop star, but that was neither here nor there.

“Sure, patch him through,” Kim said.

Wade vanished from the screen and then, after a moment's darkness, Señor Senior Senior flickered into view. Kim thought he looked a bit thinner than usual.

“Ah, greetings Kim Possible,” Senior said gallantly, “and to you to, Ron Stoppable-”

“He remembered my name,” Ron whispered soto voice. Kim shot a look at him, and Ron replied with a silly grin.

“-and who is this picture of beauty?” Senior continued, his eyes turned towards Monique.

“I'm Monique,” she replied with a raised eyebrow, and quietly added 'somewhat creepy' to her mental profile of Senior.

“A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Monique. I apologize for my rudeness, but I must speak with Miss Possible and Mister Stoppable...”

“Anything you need to say to my friends you can say in front of me,” she replied.

Senior's mouth twitched slightly.

“I see. You are a most self-assured young lady, Miss Monique. I suspect my son could learn much from you... but there is no time for such an introduction... I have not the time...”

Senior's voice trailed off for a moment, and an odd look crossed his face. But the moment quickly passed.

“But enough. Miss Possible, Mister Stoppable, I request your presence on my island, or I will plunge much of the western United States into utter darkness.”

“Say what now?” Ron asked.

“I said it quite clearly,” Senior replied, sounding somewhat perplexed. “You will either come to my island, now, or I will disrupt the power feed from the Mojave Cold Fusion Array.”

Kim stifled a gasp. The MCFA was a relatively new power plant, only a few years old, but its multiple cold fusion reactors fulfilled the power needs of every town and city from Los Angeles to Las Vegas.

“You wouldn't dare,” she hissed.

“Oh, I would, Miss Possible,” Senior replied coldly. “If you do not agree to come to my island, and face me, then I will blackout most of the American Southwest. Then the real fun will begin...”

“Fine,” Kim said after a moment, “you win, I guess. Same island as last time?”

“Of course. Oh, and leave the naked mole rat there. This is just between the three of us.”

Then Senior signed off.

Ron just looked a Kim helplessly, and then they both shrugged. He quietly transferred Rufus from his shoulder over to Monique while Kim finalized the transport arrangements with Wade.

“So much for dinner, huh?” Ron said as he stood up.

“Yeah... I guess we'll do something when we get back. Mon...”

Monique waved a hand in their general direction.

“Don't worry about me, girl. Rufus and I'll take care of ourselves,” she said confidently, as she scratched Rufus behind the ears. “You two just go and take care of business.”

Kim grinned and looked at Ron. She was already feeling a pre-mission adrenaline rush.

“Battle-suit time?”

“Eh, couldn't hurt,” Ron replied. “It'll make getting past the spinning tops of doom a lot easier.”

“Spinning tops of doom?”

“It's Senior, KP,” Ron said as he gave her a kiss on the cheek and turned to the door. “Of course he's going to have spinning tops of doom. The man knows how to take good advice. Anyway, I'm gonna go back and change. Meet you at the airport?”

“Sounds good. See you in a bit, Ron.”

“You too, KP. Rufus, you behave yourself, okay buddy?”

“Right!” Rufus replied with a salute.

“Mon,” Ron continued, “if anything happens to us... you take Rufus and you come and you rescue us...”

“What? And risk my naked mole rat?”

“I'm serious,” Ron continued as he walked out the door. “It can get cold on that island, and I don't wanna get left.”

---

“We're at the jump zone, Miss Possible,” the pilot called out from the front of the craft.

Ron just stood quaking in front of the jump door. Kim turned back to the cockpit.

“Thanks for the lift, Colonel Carter!”

“It was my pleasure,” Colonel Samantha Carter, USAF, replied, “after you saved that F-22.”

“Eh, that was no big. Anyone could have seen that video tape lying on the engine cowling.”

“Right... jump at your pleasure, Miss Possible.”

“Thanks! You ready, Ron?”

“NO!”

“Oh come on. I know for a fact you've done this before without a panic attack.”

“Two things, KP,” Ron growled as the jump door opened and the air started to whip and roar around him. “One, that was to save you. Two, I was wearing a paraAGHHHHHH-KPPPPPP!”

Kim didn't wait for the rest of his gripe; instead, she grabbed his hand and pulled him out the jump door with her. Whatever it was that he was yelling was pulled away by the roaring wind, although Kim was able to read his lips well enough to tell that he was just cursing generically, with none of it directed specifically at her.

She gave his hand a quick, firm squeeze, and then they traded glances and released each other. They each brought their legs together, and tucked their arms in against their sides, as if they were skydivers attempting to minimize drag. Then they both went spread-eagle, and a trio of membranes appeared on each suit, one between each arm and the torso, and one between the legs, which converted the battle-suits into perfect squirrel suits.

The idea had actually been Monique's, after she had accompanied Kim and Ron on a squirrel-suit-sky-diving jaunt. It was an extension of the technique that Ron had used when he'd gone to save Kim from Sparks and Drakken, which combined the ability of the suits to adjust their tightness and form new, extended edges, with the self-repair system (which was what actually created the larger membranes). Wade had pronounced Monique to be brilliant once they had informed him of the idea, and he immediately hammered out the firmware protocols and remotely updated the suits.

So it was that Kim and Ron glided in to a perfect night landing inside of the Senior's compound.

It hadn't changed much.

They commanded the membranes to melt back into the suits after they landed, and then Ron turned and fixed Kim with a glare. She smiled back at him, and made her eyes sparkle (he really wanted to know how she did that; it was almost as powerful as the Puppy Dog Pout!), and he suddenly found his mind almost empty of gripe.

Almost.

“Why is it that I can't stay mad at you for more than two minutes?” he groaned. She grinned, took his hand, and started leading him towards the Senior's house.

“Admit it, Ron. You enjoyed it.”

She tried to beep Wade on the kimmunicator, but she couldn't get a signal. That worried her... but not as much as it should have.

“What, being pulled from an airplane by my psycho, albeit beautiful, girlfriend?” he grumbled as he followed her lead. Tellingly, he did not let go of her hand.

“Yes.”

“Yeah, okay.”

Kim smirked as they reached the front door. She knocked on it.

“KP, is that-”

He was cut off when the trap door opened up beneath their feet and dumped them into a dark shaft.

---

“So where to, little guy?” Monique asked. “Bueno Nacho or McTrumps?”

“Hmmm...” Rufus muttered, as he gave the question serious consideration.

Then the phone rang. Monique raised an eyebrow and answered it.

“Hello?”

“Monique! This is Wade.”

“Wade? What's wrong, you sound kinda agitated.”

“Well... did Kim or Ron have a cell phone on them, by any chance?”

“Not that I know of, why?”

“Great... someone's jamming the kimmunicator frequency, and I really need to get through to them.”

“Why? What's happened?”

“I just got a call back from the MCFA. There are no power taps, or bombs, or henchmen, anywhere along their outgoing lines. No satellites, no odd cars, nothing. There's no way that Senior could shut down the power output.

“This is a setup.”

---

“AHH!!! TRAP DOOR OF DEATH! TRAP DOOR OF DEATH!”

“Chill out, Ron,” Kim said as they continued to slide towards whatever destination awaited them. The complete and utter blackout, coupled with the uncertainty of where they were going-

Well. While she wasn't yelling and screaming, Kim was very glad that they were still holding hands.

Ron quieted down, and he even managed to pull Kim just a little bit closer to him (something that they both appreciated). A few seconds later and they saw a bright light at the end of the black tunnel. They hit the light, and were quite unceremoniously dumped into a large, well lit room.

The room itself was completely smooth, with neither definable edges nor visible protrusions; the only change in the texture was a single door at one end of the room. Kim even had a hunch that neither the hair dryer nor the wrist grapnel would find purchase on the walls.

Ron, for his part, saw little more than the white cushion that they were falling towards.

They hit it with a fairly solid smack, and bounced up and down a couple of times, but the cushion absorbed the energy of their fall, and kept them from harm.

Then it started to deflate, rather quickly in fact, and in short order it had lowered them into an 10x20x12 (width, length, depth, all in feet) pit. They stood up, brushed themselves off... and then, with a groaning sound, the side walls started to close in.

“Okay, now, this is just wrong,” Ron grumbled. “KP? Any ideas?”

“Just one.”

Kim drew her grapple gun, set the range, and attempted to hook the top edge of the compactor walls. She fired, got a good arc, and then she tried to pull the hook tight.

Unfortunately, the grapple could not gain purchase on the wall: the corners on the top had all been rounded off, and the hooks couldn't quite pierce the metal.

So the grapple just flew back and landed at her feet.

“Ah. That's not good.”

The walls drew closer, and Kim was at a loss as to what to try next.

“Hang on, KP,” Ron said out of the blue. “I've got an idea.”

He flexed his hands and unsheathed the ferret claws (one of the many Ron-specific enhancements that Wade had built into his battle-suit; and the absolutely most badical one as far as he was concerned). Kim was about to say something, as she'd already calculated that while he could climb up to the top, neither of their arms were long enough for him to pull her up after him, but then she realized what it was that he was planning, and she moved unbidden to one of the ends of the pit.

Ron dug into the wall with his claws (his hands could exert more force than the hooks on the grapple could, especially after the training Kim was giving him), and he climbed to a point about six and a half feet above the ground. He hung there for a moment, waiting and watching, and then when the two walls were close enough he swung out from the wall, and pushed his feet against the other wall, and braced himself there suspended above the ground.

Ron adjusted his grip a bit, and then he released the wall with his right hand, and let it dangle. Kim took off running, and she reached up and grabbed his hand, and he lifted her up off the ground and swung her through the air. She released him, and with a half twist and a full flip, she executed a ten-point perfect landing on the wall right above him.

No small feat, that, on a wall with a rounded top.

She quickly crouched down and helped Ron the rest of the way up, but it was a near thing: no sooner had he pulled his left leg up and away than the walls closed together. They both sat atop the death-trap and caught their breaths.

“Ron, you all right?”

“Oh, I'm great, KP,” he replied with a silly grin. “I mean, that jump... with the twist and flip thingy... and that landing... do you have any idea just how much fun it is watching you move?”

She laughed and smacked him on the arm, though she was quite pleased with his observation.

“Okay, I think that earned you about three weeks worth of Sensitive Guy Points.”

“Boo-yah!”

“So c'mon, Fun Boy,” she said as she pulled Ron to his feet. “Door's this way.”

“Right behind ya, KP.”

They made their way over the trap and to the main floor, and then to door that led to the rest of whatever it was that Senior had waiting for them.

---

For the most part, the rest of the 'fun house' was a relatively simple affair, at least compared to the other stuff they'd run into on their many adventures. The piranhas were easily bypassed via a flow duct that connected their tank to the one with the irritable and underfed koi. All of a suddenly, both sets of fish had something more to worry about than Kim and Ron.

There were only two spinning tops of doom. The whole concept had never really caught on in the villainy world, so HenchCo had relegated the line to a 'custom order' area of concept purgatory, which did little more than drive the costs up. In the end, Senior decided that it just wasn't worth the money to maintain a full stock.

In any event, Kim and Ron were able to use the wrist grapnels on their battle-suits to redirect the tops, and send them crashing into one another.

The first trap that gave them fits was the laser room. This room had a series of tracked, motion-sensing automatic lasers mounted on the walls and ceiling; they kept Team Possible jumping around like a couple of frightened jack rabbits. At least, they were jumping around until Kim got fed up and stood her ground. She shifted the right arm of the battle suit into the jai alai glove she'd used against Shego, and in a series of almost supernaturally fast and graceful whirls and leaps, she destroyed each of the laser cannons by redirecting their own fire.

Of course, it took a moment for Ron to stop jumping around, as he'd been so focused on staying one random step ahead of the lasers that he hadn't noticed that they were all destroyed.

Kim took great amusement in that.

The next trap was an absurdly complex construct that looked like some sort of archaic siege weapon, one which was also drunk. They figured (correctly) that it was of Junior's doing, and so they just walked past it, since they couldn't quite seem to figure out how to trigger the trap.

This disappointed Ron, as he found himself strangely curious as to what the construct would have done.

The last trap also gave them fits; it was a giant mecha, which was armed with a machine laser and a rocket launcher. It wasn't made by HenchCo.

The mecha had another symbol on it, the same one that Kim had seen on the boxes at Drakken's last hideout. As a result of that event she'd asked Doctor Director to keep her informed not only of the hunt for Drakken's Legacy, but also of anything and everything GJ knew that had to do with the Panther Group.

She'd have to face them eventually, she knew, but due to their reputation... she hoped that encounter would be a long ways off.

They wouldn't discover it until later, but the mecha that they were fighting was another piece of Legacy Tech. Senior had purchased it, not knowing its provenance, from a Nacospeak he'd encountered in Barcelona.

The fight against the mecha went very badly. At the last Kim and Ron were separated by a rocket blast, and Ron looked up from the acrid smoke only to see the mecha aim its laser at Kim. This made him mad.

He began to glow blue, the Power began to flow through him, and through the tactical sight of the Power he identified his targets and stomped on the ground.

Two stone columns fell on either side of the mecha and crushed both of its weapon arms. Then, still glowing blue, Ron leapt at the mecha and drove his right fist into it. The mecha blew apart with a loud noise, and Kim had to shield herself from the flying debris.

When the air was clear she looked over and saw Ron kneeling on the ground, breathing heavily. She got up and rushed over to him; he heard her coming, and he stood to his feet and took her in his arms.

“Are you okay?” he whispered, his voice harsh and ragged.

“I'm fine, Ron,” she replied. “How... how did you do that? That was awesome.”

She was grinning.

“Mystical Monkey Power, KP,” he replied with his own grin. “It comes in handy.”

“I'll say.”

---

Though the mecha was the last piece of the trap, Kim and Ron were unaware of this, and so they opened the last door figuring they were about to encounter another giant device of doom, but not really knowing what to expect.

What they did not expect was the sight of Señor Senior Senior, and Señor Senior Junior, seated at a table that was covered by a sumptuous banquet. Senior was dressed in a fine, formal, old school tuxedo, while Junior wore a pair of black pants, a black sports coat, and an open-collar white shirt.

Kim confirmed her observation from the earlier communication: Senior looked thin and pale, as if he were slowly wasting... he even needed Junior to come over and help him stand.

Something clicked in the back of her mind.

“See, Junior, what did I tell you?” Senior said triumphantly. “They have made it through! Ah, that was most exciting to watch, my young friends, very clever, very clever indeed.”

He gestured at the table.

“Would you care to join us for dinner? I believe you may have missed yours on my account, and I do not wish to be an ungracious host.”

“Host? What are you-” Ron began, but Kim cut him off with a quick squeeze to his hand.

“You broke our agreement, Senior,” she said lightly. He chuckled in reply, and leaned heavily on his cane.

“Ah, but I did not, Miss Possible,” he said. “As your Mr. Load has no doubt already discovered, I have no plans to sabotage the MCFA, so I have technically committed no crime, except for luring the two of you here under false pretenses. As to the other half of our deal... I believe this is Labor Day weekend for you, yes? So, unless I have missed something, you have not had to 'skip class to deal with me'.

“I apologize for having interrupted your holiday,” he said gravely, “but I am short on time, you see.”

“You have cancer,” Kim said quietly.

A thin smile crossed Senior's lips.

“Quite correct, Miss Possible,” he said with obvious admiration. “Pancreatic cancer, to be precise. Quite terminal at this stage; I wasn't symptomatic until recently.”

“How long?”

“Six months,” he replied quietly. “They have me on a combination of chemo and immunotherapy, but the doctors are not hopeful. All I wish, now, is to last long enough to see Junior earn a recording contract.

“So you must understand my sense of hurry,” he continued, his voice rising again. “I wished to see the two of you once more, just one last caper for old time's sake. Any hard feelings?”

Kim and Ron looked at each other, and without words or motion they read each other's heart.

“No,” Kim replied with a smile. “None at all, Senior... though you might want to call Wade. I couldn't get through to him on the kimmunicator, so he's probably about to call in the Marines or something.”

“He worries about us,” Ron added.

“It is already done,” Senior replied with a laugh. “I contacted him shortly after the two of you arrived in my... Fun House of Doom. Ah, I have waited all night to say that...”

His laughing turned into a pained cough, and Junior quickly moved to his side, whispering something. Senior waved him off, and steadied himself.

“But enough. Again, I've not much time, so... would the two of you care to join us for dinner?” he repeated.

Once more he gestured at the feast.

Ron quietly took Kim's hand in his.

“We'd be honored, sir,” he replied with a smile.

“Excellent!” Senior cried, and he indicated two chairs to them.

“Please, sit and entertain me.”

---

Despite his request, it was Señor Senior Senior himself who did most of the entertaining. Often he would regale them with tales of his exploits fighting, as a young man, for the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War.

“My family was originally on the side of General Franco,” he explained, “but then my father crossed Franco in a very bad way, and I watched him and my mother both dragged into the ainadamar and shot dead. From that day forth, my brothers and I fought against the Fascists.”

He also told them how he'd come across his wealth. During the Civil War he spent some time, for one reason or another, in Casablanca. During his brief stay there he wound up acquiring a sizable parcel of Arabian desert in a high-stakes card game. In the post-war era he sunk a couple of oil wells there, struck pay dirt... and soon he found himself able to buy his own island.

Talk veered into recent times, and to recollections of their many fights over the years. Many were hilarious in retrospect, and in that room laughter was nearly as bountiful as the food.

Junior even told them what his trap was meant to do. Ron was duly impressed.

For her part, Kim quizzed Senior on where exactly he had found the mecha. He informed her that he did not know that the symbol on it had any special meaning, but that it was all right, since as with all of the traps the mecha had a fail-safe: it would not have shot her, even if Ron had not intervened.

Kim wasn't so sure of this, but she let it go, and didn't pry any more. It didn't seem all that important, and they were all having too much fun.

But all things must end. Eventually the food was consumed, the table was empty, and their return ride had arrived.

Senior himself saw them out to the plane. Their company seemed to have revitalized him for a moment.

“Senior, my mom's a brain surgeon,” Kim began as the plane was landing, “but she knows some of the best oncologists-”

Senior cut her off with a hand wave.

“My dear, one of the sad truths of this world is that money can get you further than a good name, or a good word. I have already seen the best, and there is nothing more that they can do, except to buy time.

“What remains of my resources will be used to help Junior obtain his dream.”

Kim nodded.

“But that is enough of such talk. It was very good to see the two of you in action, one last time. Miss Possible, Mister Stoppable... I thank you.”

They said their goodbyes, and Senior watched as Kim and Ron entered the plane... and snuggled up against each other in the seats. He smiled as the plane taxied away and flew off into the air.

“Ah, to be young and in love,” he whispered as he turned for home. “Goodbye, my friends.”

THE END

[cloudmonet]

Nice one, Moose.

[Artificial Moose]

cloudmonet said:

Nice one, Moose.

Thanks

[Ashley Benlove]

Nice one guys. I love the way you guy, cloud. Always showing that intense connection Kim and Ron have together.

[surforst]

That Good Night
by Surforst (you know that guy!)
rated K+

Disclaimer: I own nothing! Someone else owns KP.

I.

Senior Senior Senior always considered himself part of a dying bred. A generation who knew how to play the hero and villain game when the stakes were at their highest. It was this game at the moment that he found himself taking part in though far from the stakes that had been involved in it during his younger days. For a man who had experienced a life full of excitement he still found the struggle he took part in against the young heroine Kim Possible to be a most thrilling enterprise. Like a true warrior it was not the goal that concerned him but the fight. It is in this struggle were one could truly feel alive and if the side effect was to give a young hero a little bit of training then all the better.

Smiling he lifted his head from the task that has previously consumed him. Brushing aside the small flakes of metal still littering the table he slowly raised himself up feeling his old age. “Ah to think that I was once able to move without feeling any pain at all. How one’s youth passes them by.” A small smile came to his face at the foolishness of these thoughts. A man did not contemplate his slow decline by Father Time’s hand but instead always strived to better himself without any complaints. That was a lesson he saw the younger generation ignoring but it was the way of things. The young never did put stock by what their elders thought.

Speaking of the young he had his own charge to be concerned about. “Junior!” Frowning he looked around for the young man wondering where he could have gotten off to. Grabbing his cane he set out to find him. “Junior I have a new scheme we must discuss about. One in which I feel you should have a chance on working on the basics of villainy with me. Son?”

Looking out into the hallway he saw the unfortunate lack of his son. Memories of when he was young and would listen with eager attention to ever word of his came to Senior mind. As with all such reflections he pushed it into the back of his mind choosing not to dwell in the past. A person should live in the present after all. “My son I have a new device here with which we can finally deny the world the lights they cherish so much.” Sighing he tired another ploy. “With it you can also have all the power you want to run that…’lamp’ of yours.”

There still was no response. Shaking his head Senior turned the corner deciding a search of the lower floors might reveal where his elusive son was. “I knew I should have put a tracking device…” Before he could finish his statement he suddenly found himself plunged into darkness as the lights went out. His foot still in the air prepared to start the decent down the steps went down as planned but went too far of its original target. With a startled cry Senior found himself plunging into the darkness with no control.

Drawing upon training long ago learned and never forgotten he allowed his body to fall forward till his hands were able to make contact with the stairs under him. Moving like he did in his youth he pushed himself forward so that his fall was interrupted enough to catch himself. Unfortunately he didn’t do a good enough job as his foot impacted with the step below very hard. Gritting his teeth he gained enough control to stay where he was panting heavily. Reaching into his jacket he dialed his doctor to fix what was probably a broken leg at this point. It didn’t pay to get old apparently.

II.

Senior smiled to himself as he watched the young doctor in front of him check his clipboard yet again. The way the man fidgeted you would think he was the one receiving bad news instead. Sighing Senior pointed down at his leg which was currently in a cast. “Well ignoring what we can’t fix how long do I have to wear this Doctor?”

The young man blinked at him as he ran his hands through his blond hair. Staring at the cast the doctor chewed his lip for a second before nodding his head. “Well considering your age it’s going to be on for a little while but I think we should be able to get it off in a month time. As for the ‘other’ thing I think we should probably run a few more tests to confirm and consider maybe some treatment options.”

“Doctor I trust your original findings and with all due respect I doubt even you could figure a way to treat this. I’m at peace with this and as you said I still have a few years left. That is enough for an old man after all.” Standing up Senior reached for his cane before nodding to the doctor. “Well I must be going I have a pressing engagement for later today.”

The doctor for his part just frowned and fidgeted more. “Sir, do you want me to inform you family?”

Senior paused at this as he looked up at the ceiling. Shaking his head he smiled back at the young doctor. “It is just me and my son these days and he wouldn’t understand what was going on. Better for him to just believe I passed away in my sleep when the time comes.”

“If you say so sir.”

With that Senior Senior was out of the very private hospital and back in his room within the hour. It paid to be rich after all. Looking around the room his eyes fell on the various photos placed on the assorted tables nearby. Grabbing one he stared at a picture of a woman holding a young baby boy in her arm. By her side was a man in his early thirties grinning like he had just won the lottery. A good memory. “Well Maria looks like I’ll be joining you sooner then I thought. No worries though I don’t intend on going willingly. Still have things to do after all.”

Setting the picture aside Senior made his way over to the computer and typed up the classic threat that all villains should use. He included details of causing a blackout for the entire world though he did not include the details of how. That would come after he managed to capture Kim Possible and not before. There were rules for this that must be followed when writing one’s threat. Sending the email out he hobbled over to the bed leaning heavily on his cane to support his now bad leg. To think in his youth he would have been dancing around like a young idiot at this moment instead of hobbling around on a broken leg. How times change.

He sank down on the bed grateful for the rest it gave his tired bone as he leaned back against the headboard. He wondered what his son was up to at this point but it was probably for the best not to bother him. Instead he found his eyes wandering to another photo of the same man who was in the previous one, a few years younger of course, standing surrounded by various companions. A gorgeous brunet stood proudly in the middle her arm draped over the younger man a smile on her face. Senior chuckled remembering how he had suffered a long crush on the older mature woman in the image and the amazing things she could do. It was a child’s crush though since it was common knowledge that she was not only married but with children. Still who could not help but feel something for an amazing woman like her so full of strength and confidence. “It is not hard to see where she got it from. I hope you’re proud of your granddaughter.”

Watching the shadows pass over the ceilings he couldn’t help but ponder the life he had led. As a young man he had been full of ideals and had joined up to fight the evils of communism. To this day he did not regret this choice but it was not an easy memory. The villains of today did not equal the evil of those long forgotten. Even some of those whom he and his companions had fought to protect had tried to kill them. All in the name of peace and love of course. The promise coming from the enemy then was a sweet one and Senior just couldn’t help but chuckle thinking of those who had succeeded them in an attempt to conquer the world. The likes of Drakken and Duff Killigan were far from scary. It was good to know at least that had also changed with this world.

“In the end I truly feel we made a difference. Wouldn’t you guys agree?” He looked again at the picture before settling back down for a nap. It would be a while before Ms. Possible showed up with her young companion. After all he had sent her an email which had to first be read by one of her young friends. It was a good thing to know she had friends who looked after her even as she did them. A person needed friends when they wanted to be a hero after all. It was your friends who helped you make it through the harder times when you wanted to just give up. When the evil you faced just seemed too large to fight and too cruel to stand. Luckily for Ms. Possible he doubted the current assortment of villains would ever prove to be that much of a test.

III.

“Ah Ms. Possible so good of you to join us this day. Junior…” Senior sighed as the red head in front of him smiled at the slight admission.

“Looks to me your all alone again Senior Senior. Now hand over the device and we’ll call this a day.” Senior couldn’t help but smile as the young woman in front of him stood there so confident. She was a worthy foe and the image reminded him of day long past.

“Dude you know your traps are getting easier and easier to defeat. You know you should try squirrels with lasers on their heads.” Senior looked over at the young blond boy by her side. A good companion.

“Sorry to disappoint you Mr. Stoppable I shall consider that for future plots. As for now I do hope I can keep you entertained for at least a while.” Raising his cane he pressed a button next to his summoning the robot ferrets that young Ronald had suggest last time.

“Ron what did we agree on about giving suggestions to the super villains.”

“Ah but KP…fine!” Senior chuckled as he looked at the two. Just friends indeed.

“Not to interrupt but I do suggest you deal with the…” Again he was cut off as the power went off in the lair. The robots of course would go off-line as well so that current trap was ruined. Not that it mattered though without power a fight would prove to be too dangerous for all involved anyway. It seemed fate was against this current plot.

“Forget to pay your electric bills Senior Senior?” The young girl did like to taunt. A trait she had in common with a certain former female hero.

“Father!” Sighing Senior turned towards the direction of the voice. “Father the power is out. Fix it! I’m missing my precious tanning time and if I don’t tan properly I won’t become a famous teen pop artist.”

“One moment Junior I’m currently busy here.” Turning back to where a now visible Kim Possible was, her communicator apparently acting like a flash light, he bowed slightly. “I must apologize for this Ms. Possible apparently I seem to be suffering from a string of such power failures. Now, as according to the rules, I must flee. It would do me a great honor if you would of course pursue and I do wish you luck in that venture. Till then.” Stepping back Senior hit the wall behind him disappearing from sight just as the power came back on.

IV.

Kim grunted with annoyance as she kicked open the door in front of her. Ron trailing behind her was currently throwing out helpful hints while Rufus nodded his consent. “You know KP we should probably get Wade to create a tracking device we can use to tag the villains. You know like they do with wild animals but less bulky.”

“Ron we’re not going to tag super villains.” Scanning the hallway she moved forward looking for any signs of the Seniors.

“I’m just saying KP it would make our lives easier. I mean if we know what their always up to we can even start foiling their plans before they even get started. It’s not like we’re putting tracking devices on friends and family you know.” Kim winced at that one.

“Still no Ron.”

“Hey all I’m saying is we could have avoided that whole incident with Shego a while back if we had put something on her.” Kim felt her resolve slip at that memory. She imagined after the beating he took Mike would be agreeing with Ron right about now. Though for less ethical reasons. “Oh I know we can even get Wade to put something on them to shock them if they do something bad. Like that invisible fencing thing.”

She heard a muttered squeak from Rufus at that one and looked back to see the little guy staring at Ron. “Hey buddy it wasn’t my fault it was the folks idea.” Kim shook her head and kept moving deciding not to get involved in that one again. You’d think a mole rat could forgive a person for siding against him once.

She ignored the rest of the chatter and they made their way to the end of the hall. Kicking open the next door in front of her Kim spun through checking for the Seniors. She found them waiting for her politely sitting aboard a boat. At least the older one was Junior was currently throwing a fit. “But Father I’m missing Pals!”

Kim blinked and cursed mentally for forgetting to tape the show. “Alright Senior Senior you’re coming with me!”

“Yeah or else…something! If I have to that something may even involve Monkeys dude so don’t test me.” Kim looked back at Ron and grinned. Always the funny one.

“Though I do not wish to show any disrespect I must humbly decline your invitation to be taken into custody. Though I assure you we will meet again.” The old man turned to move forward in the boat and Kim sprung into action. Before she could reach him though he turned back around. “Ms. Possible one last thing.”

Pausing Kim looked at Senior a frown on her face. “Yes?”

“I’d just like to say I would have been proud to have a Granddaughter like you. You have been a most worthy foe as have you Mr. Stoppable. It is good to see young people like yourselves these days. I wish you both the best of luck till we meet again.” Smiling Senior pushed the control forward on the boat sending it out to sea. “Ah yes and Ms. Possible please tell your Grandmother hello from me. It has been a while after all since I last saw her.”

With that he disappeared as Kim just found herself standing there. “Is it just me or was that odd.”

“Rufus thinks it was normal for our villains KP. If that helps.”

“Oh…let’s go home.”

The End.

[surforst]

Well there we go. Felt like writing a non-romance and also giving SSS some air time. Anyway this was my third story idea. The second one involved cross dressing...don't ask. Hope you all enjoy. ;D

[RavenStar]

This is a Kigo story, just to warn you people. It is also the one-shot sequel to this story. Rated on the high end of T for some mentioning of nudity (not in a sexual manner) but not a graphic description of it.

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Redivivus
A (Belated) Kim Possible Valentine’s Day One-Shot Sequel
by RavenStar

They made a deal: He picked her up, she dropped him off. She’d agreed, but hesitantly. It was normal to their relationship for them to do something like that, but she’d been wondering about…well, them. She knew he loved her, and she wanted to say she still loved him, but lately, it wasn’t feeling the same…

A branch was down in the front yard. Ugh…Stupid storm. Probably what those sounds I heard when we left were. Great, and it knocked the tarp off the other car, too. Splendi-

The branch wasn’t long enough to touch the tarp.

CRINK.

“Oh my god.”

---

It was so cold. She cursed herself for promising not to use her powers. It was beyond shivering now.

A car. From the other side of the road.

Was it-

It turned into the driveway.

It turned into the driveway.

IT TURNED INTO THE DRIVEWAY.

Her heart would’ve raced if it hadn’t been shivering.

K-THNK.

Footsteps.

“Hey! You! What are you doin’ on our - SHEGO?”

Look up at her.

Look up at her.

FOR S#@!’S SAKE, LOOK UP AT HER!

She could barely do it. So cold – everything was so blurry...

“Shego? What – Why are you – Why do you have a box of chocol – What are you doing out of jail?”

“Happy Valentine’s Day, Princess.”

At least, that’s what she would’ve said if it weren’t so cold. The blur began to go grey.

At least there’s a note in the box…

“Hrpy Vrntns D-…”

---

“SHEGO!”

She instinctively checked the unconscious woman’s pulse. Still there.

The pale green skin was freezing to the touch. And those normally black lips…so blue...

“Christ…” She had to get her inside. Enemy or not, Kim Possible helped those in need.

She nearly kicked the door open, it was taking so long to unlock it.

She picked up Shego and made sure to keep the woman flat on her back. She was so cold, there was absolutely no way she’d just been sitting there on the welcome mat for only an hour and a half.

Please, let it only be mild hypothermia…

She put Shego on the floor and covered her with a thick comforter for the time being. Running into the garage, she grabbed the lowest temperature-rated sleeping bag she could find, and bolted back to the living room. Carefully placing Shego in the sleeping bag, she zipped it up and scrambled to her feet. Running to the closet, she frantically checked the closet. “RES-Q-AIR…RES-Q-AIR…Where is it?”

She knew her mother had bought it recently. But where had she put it?

Her mother… She smacked her head. Of course!

She headed back to the living room to check on Shego, and fished out the Kimmunicator as she did so.

The lights went out.

And she promptly tripped against the table in the darkness.

CRUNCH.

“Oh no…”

She felt around…and found crushed Kimmunicator parts all over the ground.

“Oh, that just had to happen, didn’t it? Great…”

The RES-Q-AIR ran on a battery electricity was out, but it was more like a car battery - and she knew her mother had stored the battery with the RES-Q-AIR, but when she didn’t know where that was…

The phones!

Maybe the landline still worked. She got up slowly, and took out her keychain flashlight to search for the phone. Knew this would come in handy someday…

“Aha! There it is!” She bolted over to the phone, picked up the handset – and got nothing. She desperately tried again and again, but each time got the same thing: Nothing. Not even a dial tone.

For one of the first times in her life, Kim Possible was actually completely cut off from the world.

Well, not exactly, but there was no time to run to the neighbors. Shego needed her help NOW.

“Guess I have to do it, then…”

She found her way to the bathroom and frantically turned on the hot water in the tub. “C'mon, c'mon...”
She returned to Shego and carefully picked the now very pale woman up, keeping her flat on her back. “C’mon, Shego…Stay with me now! I may be your enemy, but you’re not losing to anyone but me!”

Returning to the bathroom, the tub was almost to the level she wanted. she unzipped the sleeping bag and took Shego out. The unconscious woman’s clothes were still wet – and still freezing to the touch.

There was no time for self-debating. Besides, Shego was a woman, and she was a woman. Why should she feel uncomfortable seeing another woman naked? There – No! No time for self-debating! Hurry!

She forced herself to remove Shego’s clothes. Then she took her laser lipstick, and putting it on the low section, she extremely carefully cut the sleeves and leg parts to pieces, so that she didn’t have to risk putting Shego in a vertical position in order to get her sleeves off. Once she got Shego out of all her clothes, she picked the woman up, carefully stepped into the tub, and kneeled until Shego was in the water. Stepping out of the tub, she dashed as fast as she could to her room and found the largest-sized sweatshirt & sweatpants she could find. Running into her parents’ room, she hastily grabbed a pair of sweatpants and sweatshirts from the closet there. Forget that they weren’t green. Forget if they were for her father. Shego was going to have to live with whatever they were when she recovered.

She raced back to the bathroom, having only been gone 10 minutes. She checked Shego. No change.

“C’mon, Shego…Fight it! You fight me all the time!” Kim urged. She huffed. “Fine! I’m gonna stay right here until you snap out of this and try beat me to a pulp for me trying to rescue you, okay?”

Shego made no sound.

She sat for 5 minutes, waiting. She had never become so desperate so quickly as she was becoming now. It made no sense. Shego was her enemy. But, then again, Shego was on the verge of doing what she did not want to witness anyone do. Yet – something still ate at her insides. She was Kim Possible. She kept control, even in the worst of situations. She didn’t become desperate like this. The only time she’d felt as desperate as she was feeling now was—

Eric.

Before she knew he was a synthodrone, when she’d thought Drakken had kidnapped him.

But…That would mean I –

“No! That’s Ron! Not her!” she argued with herself. “And none of this matters right now!”

She checked the battery-powered clock in the bathroom with the Indiglo light. 15 minutes had passed since she’d brought Shego in from the cold. She checked the unconscious woman again – still nothing.

Shego was breathing and had a pulse, though. That was good.

But she’s not gaining consciousness. She has to wake up. Her body temperature – I need a thermometer-

“Stop it, Kim!” she told herself. “Just…Go try and find the RES-Q-AIR!”

Resolving to do so, Kim checked the living room closet. It wasn’t there. The garage. It wasn’t there.

“Where is it? Where is it?”

Okay – Calm down, Kim…Think…Think…

“Mom and Dad’s room!”

She raced back to her parents’ room and looked everywhere – literally, as her little keychain flashlight didn’t really illuminate much. But then she looked by her mother’s side of the bed – and found it.

“YES!” And the battery pack was there, too!

She grabbed the RES-Q-AIR and the battery pack and bolted back to the bathroom. No change in Shego. Remembering when her mother had instructed her on using the device, she set everything up, poured the 70mL water into the RES-Q-AIR, hooked the machine to the battery, opened Shego’s mouth, and put the face mask on the woman. She held Shego’s mouth open so the air could reach Shego’s lungs.

She stayed like that for what seemed an eternity. But when she checked the clock again, it had only been 5 minutes since she’d found the RES-Q-AIR. 20 minutes since she’d brought Shego in from the cold.

And Shego still wasn’t responding.

“C’mon, Shego! You can do it!” she urged.

Another 5 minutes passed. And nothing was happening.

“Come on, Shego!” she protested in a sterner voice.

Another 5 minutes. 30 minutes since she’d brought Shego in from the cold.

And she lost it – partially.

“Shego! SHEGO! C’MON! I’M YOUR ENEMY! I’M NOT SUPPOSED TO CARE ABOUT WHAT HAPPENS TO YOU! I FIGHT YOU! NOT RESCUE! I’M NOT SUPPOSED TO CARE ABOUT—”

She pounded the bathroom’s tile with her fist, kneeling over as tears began to form in her eyes. “I’m not supposed to care...” she whimpered softly. She didn’t want to sob, but she was getting there. “I’m not supposed to care for you. I’m not supposed to care about why you had a box of chocolates when I found you. I’m not supposed to care about why you were spying on me, or why you’d been sitting on my porch waiting for someone to come home. You don’t attack me this way. You attack me directly. C’MON! This isn’t how you are! You always get back up! I wait for you to get back up! I know you’ll get back up. I want you to get back up. I want you to keep fighting me. I want…” She lifted her head and looked at the sleeping pale woman as it all began to settle in with her. “…you. I – I gu – I guess - I love you…”

At the reveal of the revelation, she felt like a huge burden had just been lifted off her shoulders forever. Nothing was happening to Shego, though. Leave the RES-Q-AIR alone…If it does its job, it will. Go…

“The chocolates.”

Kim dashed into the living room, found the box of chocolates Shego had been clutching when she’d brought her in from outside, and bolted back to the bathroom with them in hand. No change in Shego.

Kim opened the box – and her heart raced as she found that there was a letter contained inside the box. She excitedly picked it up and read it out loud. “Hey, Peach – You know who this is from. Sorry I kinda had to wait until you were, y’know – 18 – to do this, but I wanted to let you know that if we’re gonna keep fighting, I’d rather we fight over – oh, I dunno – who gets to hog the covers at night? –Shego.”

When the room lit up in a green hue and she felt cold hands wrap around her chest, she didn’t even jump up & down, or hug the pale-skinned woman out of joy. She just leaned against the tub’s side and smiled.

Ron’s gonna seriously hate me now…

“Happy belated Valentine’s Day, Princess.”

FIN

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