Feb 2006 Kim Possible Short Fanfiction Contest

[taechunsa]

Big Mike,

Don't count yourself out. You might not win, but you never will if you never participate. Besides, this isn't all about winning. It is just a method to try and keep the community active and creative.

So thanks for participating.

[Artificial Moose]

Old Trails
by Artificial Moose
Rated: G

---

Junior year of college. The turning point, the time where a student moves past the required basic classes to real meat of his or her major. The coursework gets a lot busier, but it also gets a lot more fun... and for the most part, she was having a lot of fun.

She was also alone. On Valentine's Day, no less.

Not that she didn't have any friends, quite the contrary. In fact, she had many friends, for she had that sort of open and warm personality that allowed her to make friends with anyone and everyone she met. She got along well with her two roommates, and had even dated a few of her guy friends.

Even so, like clockwork, she always wound up alone on Valentine's Day.

Somehow or another, except for one, none of her boyfriends had ever lasted until the 14th of February. She never had a hard break up with anyone, and she remained good friends with each of the guys she had dated. Not that they maintained full and regular contact, but there were no hard feelings involved. They had each agreed that they were friends, and wouldn't be anything more.

Except for one. That one, oddly enough, had occurred her Junior year of High School. In the later half of the fall semester of that year, a nice, quietly confident young man had, out of the blue, come up to her and asked her if she would like to get dinner a movie that Friday night.

His name was Josh. Her name was Tara.

He had recently parted ways with Kim, his on-again-off-again crush (or, at least, she crushed on him, and his opinion on the whole matter was never fully explained to anyone), and had done so quite amicably, despite the rumors of strange ninja involvement. Besides, as he would later explain, he'd figured that her heart already belonged to someone else, she just didn't know it yet (since Tara knew the someone else, she wholeheartedly concurred with that statement).

Still, she figured that he was just rebounding; even so, she agreed to go out with him that Friday night.

It was the best date she'd ever had. One way or another, throughout the course of the evening, Josh and Tara managed to completely and utterly charm one another, and were instantly smitten.

Within a week, they started going steady. Shortly after that, Ron saw them walking arm-in-arm at the Middleton Days preparations.

The holidays came and went, and then it was the New Year, and school began again, and still they were together. January passed, then came February, and for the first, and so far only, time since she began to care about such things, Tara had a boyfriend on Valentine's Day.

He had given her chocolates, a randomized assortment of Lindt truffles.

She had violated Barkin's PDA code.

A week later, he brought her chocolates again, this time with bad news. His father had been transferred out-of-state; they had tried, but there was nothing that could be done about it, and so the Mankeys were going to have to leave Middleton. And Josh was going to have to go with them.

Two weeks after that, he was gone. They tried to keep the relationship going through e-mail and phone calls, but by the time of the Junior prom, the distance had put enough of a strain on them that they decided to move on.

But she couldn't. She dated one of the basketball players for a short time, and attended the prom with a few friends, but nothing ever stuck, nothing ever stayed. It was that way throughout her Senior year, and on into college.

Until now, Valentine's Day, her Junior year of college.

---

She had spent most of the day in classes, and what free time she had was spent doing on homework, or sitting on her dorm room couch, thinking of the day he'd brought her chocolates. They were great chocolates, especially the ones with the raspberry centers.

She missed him terribly; they'd lost touch a few years earlier, when they both started college and she managed to loose his new e-mail address and contact information. It had really gotten bad after the last Christmas Break, when she could have sworn she'd seen him at a 'Welcome Back, Students' party.

That had been an odd moment, but she figured it was the Junior year coincidence playing tricks with her mind.

She rolled over on her back, and stared at the ceiling, and wondered if she would only ever have those memories, and nothing more. A depressing thought, to be sure, but Valentine's Day can bring that out in the perpetually single. She let out a brief, wistful sigh.

Then a piece of waded up notebook paper bounced off of her nose.

“C'mon, Tara,” said Patty, her first roommate. “You just gonna lay there sighing all day, or what? There are things to do, people to see.”

“I told you, Patty, I don't want to hang around with you and Charles tonight. The two of you should have Valentine's Day to yourselves.”

“Like I'm gonna leave you here alone,” Patty said with a grin. “Marcie is off with Pierre tonight, and I'm not gonna let you spend yet another Valentine's Day moping around in your dorm room. Up! Up!”

Tara sat up and grinned.

“Why do I get the feeling that you won't let it be until I get up and go?”

“Because I won't. Don't worry, I'm won't drag you around too far; I'm meeting Chuck at the campus art gallery tonight. Some new kid is showing his stuff off; seems to be pretty good.”

“So?”

“Well, better to be mopey while surrounded by artwork than in a dorm. Change of scenery, if nothing else.”

---

Tara had heard of the art show; a new guy had transferred into the Art Department that semester, and had managed to wow his professors right from the get-go. As such, they'd allowed him the right to showcase his work in the campus gallery, even though he'd only been with the school for a month.

She had never actually caught the boy's name. But apparently the rumors of his skill were true, as she found herself wowed by the quality of the works as she entered the gallery. While Tara studied the paintings, Patty stood on her tip-toes and looked around, as if she was trying to find something.

Two things, actually. One was Charles, whom she spotted rather quickly, and the artist who took a bit longer. She finally found him leaning against one of the far walls, conversing with some of the students. She waved to get his attention, and called out to Tara at the same time.

Both of their heads turned, and Patty had positioned herself so that Tara and the artist would make eye contact when they turned to look at her.

Which they did.

'...and my work here is done,' Patty thought, quite satisfied. She walked over to Charles, took his hand, and left the gallery to go find dinner.

Both Tara and the artist stood still, and quiet, completely ignoring everything except for each other. For a long moment, neither of them could believe it. Then they did, and began to move towards each other, a slow walk that turned into a desperate rush.

They met in the middle. They met in each other's arms.

“Hey,” Josh whispered as he held her.

“That was you at the party, wasn't it? How did you get here?”

“Just... happenstance, I guess. This school has a pretty good art program, I wasn't happy where I was, so I transferred. I saw you at that party, and I would have tried to find you, but we haven't talked for so long that-”

She cut him off by again violating Barkin's PDA regulations. Not that Barkin was actually there to complain, but that's how she'd always thought of it.

She finally pulled away, so they could both breath.

“I'm sorry it's been so long, Josh.”

“Nah, it's cool,” he said with rakish grin. “We've found each other again, right?”

“Right.”

“Good. C'mon, I've got something for you,” he said suddenly. Then he grabbed her hand, turned, and led her laughing across the gallery to his backpack. He opened it up, reached in, and pulled out a box. It was wrapped in red tissue paper.

“I didn't know if I should try to find you,” he explained quietly, as he handed her the box, “but ever since I glimpsed you at that party, I was kind of hoping you'd find me.”

She removed the tissue paper, and smiled.

“Happy Valentine's Day, Tara.”

He gave her chocolates, a randomized assortment of Lindt truffles.

THE END

[mattb3671]

AW. Dude. Nice! ;D

I have the biggest soft spot for Tara. If I was ever going to write Ron with (GASP!) somebody else, it'd be her.

[Aers (That Writer Chick)]

Tara never gets enough loving or respect, imo... she's a darned sweet girl.

seriously.

[Artificial Moose]

A sweet girl indeed.

Tara, for one reason or another, reminds me of most of the girls that I've ever been attracted to.

But that's a whole 'nother story.

[mattb3671]

Seriously?

[Ashley Benlove]

YAY! It's a Tara/Joshie story! LOL.

[Ezbok58a]

Nice entries, and yet I'm still surprised that I'm the only K/R story on here.

Did we enter a time warp or something? Is this another dimension?..........


Dear God its another Dimension!!!!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!


Wait, no...........My clocks set for pacific time again.

[zaratan]

Personally, I'm happy to see other pairing catch the spotlight for this one. K/R gets done to death, and it's nice to see a bit of variety. Though I am surprised there has only been the one K/R story.

[Ashley Benlove]

That is strange...

[Deleted]

Mine'll have to do with the K/R relationship, so there'll at least be two.
*looks toward clock*
Gah, gotta get to bed, have ACT tests tomorrow...

[bigmike (aka:whitem)]

Quick question: Can we enter twice?

[surforst]

bigmike said:

Quick question: Can we enter twice?

No. That would be a very bad idea after all with writters like Zaratan who can spam the contest. Heck if I felt like it I could produce a story a day too so I think we should avoid that. So again no more then one entry as for changing a story to another one just as Taech I don't know what his policy is on that one.

[zaratan]

I would not spam the contest. I mean, sure, 10-15 entries in a contest might seem a bit much, but I wouldn't call that spamming!

[surforst]

zaratan said:

I would not spam the contest. I mean, sure, 10-15 entries in a contest might seem a bit much, but I wouldn't call that spamming!

Oh that's all. My bad I'll commit seppuku to make up for my wrong. I think it'll hurt but the devil on my shoulder says it'll be fine. After all the little guy with the horns has stuck be my so far so shouldn't I true him in this?

[surforst]

bigmike said:

So no one wants to guess who I might be on FF.net Kim Possible boards?? I should probably move this to a different area, but I don't know how to do that...

I thought you might have been momike because he/she asked me the address. Then you said you've got works already posted so that means your not momike. That means I'm still wondering what happen to momike. I worry you know.

[Raptor™]

Wow.....9 stories already and it still 3 days to the deadline.....this has got to make T happy.... ;D

[zaratan]

I've got one coming from Pwn Master Paladin, I just have to beta it for him. Be there later.

[taechunsa]

bigmike said:

Quick question: Can we enter twice?

Sorry, no. One entry per contestant.

surforst said:

as for changing a story to another one just as Taech I don't know what his policy is on that one.

I am not sure what you mean by this. Do you mean changing a Valentine's story into another type? If so then that is okay.

renz said:

Wow.....9 stories already and it still 3 days to the deadline.....this has got to make T happy.... ;D

Very happy. I know of at least one other that is planning on entering, if time permits, and one whose story ballooned beyond the size limit.

Good work all.

[Scoutcraft Piratess]

Cooties
By Miss Piratess

Rated: PG


Whatever vibe of high-class professional snobbery Middleton University managed to pretend to keep up every other day of the year (save for those weekends of finals, but those were often ignored by everyone but the gossip columnist in the campus newspaper) never managed to survive the few, otherwise ordinary, days surrounding February the 14th. The hallowed halls and grounds and cheesily solemn music pouring from the bells were drowned in a rush of pink and red balloons, empty chocolate boxes, flowers—both trampled and adored, and, of course, the insidious sound of boy band music. No career fairs were ever held during this time—professors hid even their most promising students in shame. In short, it was high school all over again. No, middle school. Any educational level that would hold the epitome of giggles and hormones and romance in bloom—multiplied to the horror that college students had access to money.

Wade Load didn’t get it. And he was humble enough to admit that he probably never would. The past few weeks at the university had been quite enough of an experience for him as any he could ever hope to get; it wasn’t up to him to discover the hidden ways of the young adult mind. Not yet, anyway—he was still eight. Yes, he was here, taking classes in desks where his feet didn’t touch the floor, taking tests so he could skip past the said classes where his feet didn’t touch the floor, and wandering the campus as little more than a speed bump—he had already managed to accidentally trip the star quarterback. That had earned him some respect. That is, until they found out that the guy’s ankle was sprained and probably would not be playing in the then upcoming game.

They had won, anyway. But no one had been too happy with Wade.

Fortunately, everyone had forgotten about that.

Well, with any luck, in a few more months he would his degrees and be out of here. But then what? He still wasn’t sure what he planned to do with his life. Most kids his age were suffering through third grade. He climbed from the back of his mom’s Volvo and waved goodbye.

“Have a great day, sweetie!” she called. “Say hi to the dean for me!”

Wade had yet to meet the dean of anything, so he wasn’t sure exactly what sort of response his mom wanted from this. Oh, well. She was probably handling the child genius thing to the best of her abilities. He stared past the mess of heart-shaped balloons and people carrying stinky bouquets and wondered how he was supposed to get to class on time. Maybe he should hop back in the car and see if his mom wouldn’t just cut across the grass. He was probably the only college student in the world whose mother dropped him off, so why not take full advantage of it?

But at that moment a furious honk sounded from behind the Volvo. Wade almost screamed as he whirled around.

A truck was waiting for his mother to move the car. A delivery truck, from Middleton Chocolates. Supposedly the worst chocolates ever made. Ick.

“darn it!” Wade’s mother stuck her hand out the window to display a very inappropriate sign. “Wade, pretend you didn’t hear that. But if this jerk wrecked that new bumper, I swear I’m going to torch that shop.”

“Move it, lady!” the truck driver shouted, along with a few other choice words—Wade was getting quite the vocabulary lesson. “I have two dozen deliveries to make here!”

“I’m dropping off my kid!” Another term of dubious meaning. She sighed, and then smiled at Wade. “Once again, have a wonderful day, place nice with the other students, and I’ll pick you up at three. I’m going to go slash some tires now.”

She finally drove off, leaving Wade to somehow pathetically make his way through the Valentine sea.

The delivery guy marched from the truck, arms piled with boxes of chocolate. “So are you here for the El Ed majors to work on, kid? One of those children that need to be saved from a destructive home environment? What’s the term… at risk?”

The Elementary Education majors. Wade was often associated with them. No, one time it had been the Early Childhood students. That had been embarrassing. He wasn’t short enough to pass for a preschooler, was he?

“Well, sorry I yelled at your mom, but I have a busy day. The sex drive of this campus. I hate Valentine’s Day.”

So did Wade. The pink-and-red sea was terrifying. There was something about it, something he hated to say.

Cooties.

He shivered. That’s what the problem was here. Those horrible, horrible things called cooties. Girls and kissing and girls and hugging and girls and those stupid romance movies his mom made his dad take her to and girls… Girls were beyond disgusting, and he didn’t want anything to do with them.

But this campus… today it was a celebration of girls. Horrible, horrible. That would one of the benefits of going to a normal school. Third grade. At least at that age, all the boys agreed that girls were gross and carriers of the cootie virus. But here, at college, all this classmates were always talking about girls. Some were even married. Kissing was not an uncommon thing to see. Eww.

Well, Valentine’s Day did not change the fact that he had a class to get to. He glanced at his watch. A class to quickly get to. Somehow he had to get past all these flowers and chocolates and hugging and kissing and hearts. Without getting cooties. Oh, he had been told there was no such thing. His medical research had all but proved they couldn’t possibly exist. But science was not concrete. It still possessed many mysteries, and cooties were included there. He took a deep breath. He’d take it at a run.

The run didn’t go far. Two steps and he was on the ground. Great. Now he had tripped. That football player wasn’t seeking revenge, was he?

No. No angry football player in sight. It was a heart-shaped box of chocolates, red and tied with a clashing pink bow. The delivery guy must have dropped it. That armload had been so much…

Wade picked up the box, climbed to his feet, and scanned the grounds for the guy. Barely any human could be seen in the pink and red mess, let alone a guy whose face was blocked by the disaster. Would the guy get in trouble for losing a delivery?

Wade’s mom would find that most outrageously funny. Wade grinned. Oh, but this could be a possibility.

Besides, it was free chocolate, lousy in taste or not. He crammed it into his backpack for later.

But by the time he reached his class, the chocolate was the furthest thing from his mind. Normally he wouldn’t be the one to pass up free candy, but the association… it was too much for him. Perfectly good chocolate (or as good as that place could get) all tragically wrapped up in a heart-shaped box! With a pink bow! It was awful. And though it had taken only ten minutes to get to his class, he had already seen too many of the things being passed between nasty couples, opened by high-pitched squealing girls, and forgotten when a guy popped out a ring. Yes, in ten minutes, Wade had seen four proposals. And that would do him for life.

Furious and sick, he climbed into his chair at the front of the class—otherwise he wouldn’t be able to see over anyone’s head. Maybe he should have brought ear plugs. Everyone was still giggling and talking about love and Valentines. So, so gross! Why couldn’t they stop?

If this is what love was like, he was never going to fall in love. When he grew up, he would never fall in love with a girl. He wouldn’t be like this on Valentine’s Day.

A door slammed as the professor walked in. Immediately the class went silent. Professor Lockwood marched across the floor to her podium, heels somehow still clicking on the carpet. She deposited her stack of books and papers on the table next to the podium and slid a strand of loose honey-brown hair into place.

She was wearing the red skirt with the flowers on it. Wade liked it when she wore that skirt.

Professor Lockwood looked up, smiled, and adjusted her glasses. “Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone. I trust all these flowers will not provide a distraction?”

There was a low murmur as flowers and chocolates were relocated to the floor.

“Believe me; you’ll all have plenty of time for romance today.” She grabbed a book and flipped it open. “So let’s pick up our discussion on the practical nature of the quark before that lab of doom that I moronically scheduled for Thursday according to your syllabus, sorry about that. But I know we’ll make it! You should have read to page 217 last night. Any observations?”

Wade, of course, had observations. Plenty of them. He had outlined the book over and over again. With blue highlighter. Professor Lockwood had once mentioned that her favorite color was blue.

Someone in the back brought up a point—Wade didn’t hear it. Not over the click-click-click of Professor Lockwood’s nails on the book. A habit, something she did without thinking. Wade didn’t mind—he could usually pay attention in class. But today… today she had put little heart decals on her nails. French-tipped. What sort of college professor would get a French manicure? But she looked young enough. This was only her first year as a professor, someone had said once. So she had to be young. And she didn’t wear a wedding ring.

She smiled and nodded her head after the person’s comment. “Very good, which leads to an excellent point…”

Wade liked it when she smiled. She had a pretty smile. In fact, Professor Lockwood was just pretty all over. Prettier than his mom, prettier than his old babysitter, prettier than any of the teachers at the high school. He liked coming to this class. Sometimes she greeted him specifically. He really liked that. He just liked her.

Oh, no.

A second wave of sickness swept over him, bringing with it a terrible epiphany. This wasn’t right! He had always felt this way about Professor Lockwood! It wasn’t… it couldn’t be…

He glanced at the heart-shaped balloon bobbing near someone’s desk. That’s what Valentine’s Day was about. You have chocolates and balloons and flowers to girls you thought were pretty, that you liked. That had cooties.

Why hadn’t he seen it before? Had he been so blind to himself?

Great. So much for not falling in love.

But this was different. He was eight, Professor Lockwood had to be… older. Maybe even twenty-five. So much older than him. So it wouldn’t be like what he had seen all over campus. It wouldn’t be gross. She had already told him once how cute he was. That had been the first day he had entered that class. She liked him. He had minded being called ‘cute’ by her.

He would handle this romance in a more practical way. No flowers, no balloons, none of that Valentine junk.

Except… he looked around the room. Even with everything on the floor, every gift was obvious.

Fine. He had that box of chocolates in his bag. He would give it to her after class.

Never had a discussion of quarks gone on so long!

Finally, Professor Lockwood dismissed the class with a gentle wave of her hand. Wade pulled the box from his bag. Should he say something when he gave it to her? A mere, grumbled “here” probably wouldn’t cut it. Should he compliment her on the class? On her skirt? Should he say “I love you”?

Yes, that was it. Be forward, be direct. He was the only eight year-old on this campus, he deserved some respect! He had a right to speak!

“Mr. Load?” she suddenly asked.

Wade realized he was the only student left in the room. He stared up at her.

She fixed her hair again and smiled warmly. “Did you have a question?”

She couldn’t see the chocolates; his bag was in the way. Say something. To be manly in this case would be fighting the cooties, wouldn’t it? He could talk an awful lot, everyone said so. I think you’re pretty; I like your class, would you be my girlfriend? The phrases were all in his head.

He drew the box out and opened his mouth to speak.

Nothing came out.

He shoved the box into her hand and ran out the door.

Run away. Had he just run away? These cooties were really getting to him. How horrible! Was she going to come out? Wonderful. He couldn’t have her following him now.

He skidded to a stop and took a deep breath. He still could say something. Just not directly. The perfect way to avoid the cooties. His next class was one of his computer courses. He could connect to the internet and send her an e-mail. Yes, that was it. An e-mail Valentine. It would be happy and romantic and all those other dumb things girls liked.

He smiled. Oh, the plan was perfect.

Some things were just easier to say over a computer.