Disclaimer: 'Kim Possible' and all related names and ideas belong to Disney. I claim no rights to anything; make note though - I would love to.
Summary: Lightning never strikes twice, except in the vicinity of Ron. Suddenly he's uber-popular - again. It's Tara to the rescue when Ron takes 'coolness' to his head and forgets Kim's birthday. (For choco penguin; RK one-shot.)
A/N – This is much longer and much more detailed than I ever expected it to come out. However, I rather like the way it ended up, so if you're a fan of K/R, this is something you might want to read. Thanks so much to my beta, the Dragon Mistress! This one's for you: and may Ron never 'pull lout a comforter'. Also, this is dedicated to 'choco penguin', who requested a very long while back a K/R where something happens and Ron becomes popular, and blows off Kim for Tara… with a happy ending, of course. And I loved the idea, so I obliged: I'm only sorry that it took me until now to finish the fic. I hope you're reading this, and I hope you, especially, enjoy!
Of Losers and Lilacs
He might have had red hair; he might have been a brunette. For all Ron knew, this anonymous high schooler was, in fact, in the early stages of balding. That wasn't important – to him, or to anyone. What was important was the Sunday that mysterious kid decided to hitch a ride with some older friends and go to Upperton for the first-ever skateboard competition. That… and he took pictures.
The pictures weren't exceedingly good, and the taker obviously shouldn't have slept through his film classes. Most of the snapshots were only of feet, or the occasional torso, when he had been aiming for a headshot. The only picture that looked halfway decent was the one of the first place winner, a tall, skinny, pale boy with a blonde cowlick, wearing worn cargos and a thrift-store shirt that had probably belonged to some obscure soccer player. He was, summed up in a word, hot.
Needless to say, the girls loved this boy they had never seen before, and the boys were envious. Never mind that skating in Middleton, up until then, had been the lowest "sport" that could even be considered a sport. Never mind that only Club Banana held "passable" attire for the upper-crowd. This skateboarder was cool.
And, in Middleton, Ron Stoppable was even cooler.
Okay, so he knew he couldn't skate – fair enough. Even more than that, everyone in the high school knew he couldn't play any sport; Ron staying upright on a moving board was impossible to comprehend. What mattered was that he had the "skater boy look", as Tara had squealed during their Geometry class earlier in the afternoon. Thus, he was dubbed "popular".
He was loving it.
Ron had only to thank this unknown stranger, this kid who had decided to ride into town and see a skate competition and had ended up promoting Ron from "uncool weirdo" to "Tony Hawk".
-
"What's up, cutie?"
"How you doin', good-lookin'?"
"Are you busy Friday night?"
"Ron!"
Ron snapped out of his fantasy – which, by extremely odd coincidence, was reality – and looked up from his triple-sized burrito to grin across the table at his best friend. Rufus took the opportunity to get his tiny hands on pita and shredded cheese. "What?" he asked, albeit rather defensively.
"You were staring at the girls, and wallowing in the attention of popular people. Again." Kim rolled her eyes and took a sip of her diet soda, trying hard not to sigh.
Picking his wrinkled rodent up by the scruff of his neck and berating him with his eyes, Ron took another bite of his food. "Yea… because I'm pop-u-lar too!"
Kim bit her lip to keep from smiling. "It's not a big thing, Ron. It's status. Just status."
"That's easy for you to say. You've always been in the zone! I'm just now realising the benefits from this."
"Like Tara eyeing you, right?"
"She is? Where?"
Ron stared around the crowed Bueno Nacho, mouth full of bread and meat, while Kim outright grinned and threw a napkin at him. "At practise, Romeo. When you were doing your cheer." Deflated, Ron slumped back in his seat.
"I always miss the looks women pass my way."
"Right, because they're always looking."
"They are?"
"Ron," Kim sighed, balling her wrapper and getting up from the table. He followed suit automatically, plunking Rufus into his pocket and hustling to keep up with his friend. Several heads turned to watch them interestedly; it was almost like watching the generic boyfriend follow the girlfriend after a fight. More than a few of the heads were girls trying to catch a glimpse of Ron, and they wilted when he rushed after Kim, grabbing her hand.
She twisted around, hand on her hip. "What did I do this time? I didn't do anything, I was just commenting on my adoring fans!"
Her upper lip twitched and she turned again, tugging at his fingers until he followed, hand occasionally brushing against hers. It wasn't one of the usual Ron-and-Kim moments, but they didn't happen much anymore anyway. Ron was Ron, and Kim was Kim: best friends on parallel sides of the universe.
"So, no saving the world today?"
"No saving the world today," she agreed. In the late September dusk and uncommon stale air, Kim pulled out a rubber band and wound it around her hair, while Ron fanned himself with another Algebra D. "It's too hot to save the world anyway."
"Yeah, I think all the 'bad guys' are taking a break."
Kim just glanced over at her best friend and smiled as he checked his pocket for his naked mole rat. They stopped at the end of her driveway, Ron running a hand through his hair, pale yellow in the moonlight; Kim grinned, hands behind her back. "I'll see you tomorrow, okay, Ron? Remember, it's my birthday dinner."
"Mm, tomorrow," he murmured, looking preoccupied about something. Kim waved a hand in front of his face, and he looked up, brown eyes wide. "Yeah, tomorrow, definitely."
She shifted from foot to foot: this was definitely not Ron-and-Kim behaviour. This was more standard girlfriend-boyfriend-type waiting for the proverbial 'kiss at midnight' before the girl's father flipped the porch lights on and off. Kim fiddled with her ponytail. "You do remember what we're doing, right?"
"Fancy restaurant- your family- six. Meet here at five-thirty, black tie optional," he recited, taking a step closer to her.
She rolled her eyes. "You just added that last part."
"Yeah, but it sounds cool, huh?"
She cocked an eyebrow, felt her feet move her forward. "Yeah, well, I'd better get back to the house, school tomorrow and all…."
He tilted his head to the side, studying the sharp contrast of her pale skin against the purple sky, and almost took her hand but decided against it. "Right, I'll see you, um, first class of the day tomorrow…" He trailed off, unsure of what to do, then, out of no where, brushed his lips against her cheek.
She blushed; he blushed back. He knew they had just crossed that infinitesimal chasm between 'friends' and 'more than friends', and he hopped back into the safe zone, sprinting down the street and calling out, "Tomorrow, right, I won't forget!"
She stood there, rooted to the spot, confused as she touched her cheek: then started to her house, looking back over her shoulder at the retreating dot that was her best friend. That kiss was so not black tie optional.
-
Ron could almost feel the drool puddle beneath his chin, in the crease where his Geometry book changed from the end of Chapter 3: Proofs, to the beginning of Chapter 4: Proving Triangles Congruent. He truly didn't understand the reason behind working out the tedious proofs, dubbed evil and unnecessary by more than a few of the students, and he was sure there was some underlying, Satanistic message hypnotically encrypted within the words, 'If the hypotenuse and leg of one triangle is congruent to the hypotenuse and leg of another triangle' and, 'then the two triangles are both congruent and equilateral.' Honestly, who cared?
Kim was in the class, and he could have just thrown a note or two her way, but things were getting too out of the 'friend-league', and notes would be pushing that even further. Besides which, Kim was on an errand for the teacher, which made sense because she actually understood this stuff.
His head was dangerously close to the ocean of drool, but he kept it up, for fear he would drown. What he really needed was one of those water reeds they used in movies when people were hiding in ponds.
Thwack. He felt a ball of something hit him in the back of his head, and he turned to catch a wadded-up piece of lined paper. Tara was giggling and nodding her head, so he 'nonchalantly' opened the crumpled note, trying to look suave and debonair, while actually beaming stupidly; he had never gotten a note from anyone but Kim before.
'You hate Geometry, too? This class is just so boring.'
Trying to look like he was taking notes, he scribbled, 'I know, I hate it. Can you believe we're going to have about two hours of homework we don't understand?' before rolling the rumpled paper into a ball and tossing it underhand when his teacher's back was turned.
He stole a quick glance at the clock: ten minutes left. This could be an awesome way to pass the time.
A fresh ball rolled onto his desk, but when he looked back at Tara, she was staring at the ceiling, whistling and twirling her blonde curls, seemingly innocent. Grinning, he looked down and read, 'I know, I was so hoping to do something else tonight.'
'Like what?'
He narrowly avoided the paper's mid-air collision with his teacher, and instead got up to 'use the pencil sharpener', dropping the paper on Tara's desk when he made his way back. She waited a minute to open it, and another to reply: she was obviously skilled. He looked at the clock again: four minutes.
Ron tapped his pencil on his desk nervously, not even sure why he was nervous, and watched interestedly while Tara made to flip her hair, and instead flipped him a neatly folded piece of paper. He unfolded it carefully, almost feeling her eyes burn holes in the back of his newly-coveted head of hair.
'Like, go out to dinner. With you. If you wanted.'
For a minute he just stared at the paper, then looked back at the blonde. She was nodding her head and smiling, and he started to half-grin like a maniac.
"Yes!" He pumped his fist in the air.
"Mr. Stoppable!"
And blushed. And raced out of class.
Saved by the bell.
-
This table had been reserved since the middle of May, since Kim had decided that the most expensive restaurant in nearby Lowerton was also her favourite restaurant, and therefore was exactly where she needed to go for her birthday. As it was her sixteenth, her mother and father said okay, but only for a small celebration, because even though they were a rocket scientist and a brain surgeon they were not made of money and it didn't just grow on trees.
So Kim agreed, and she was glad she did, because it was nice to see her mom and dad and the tweebs all dressed up in suits and pearls and stilettos, even if they were leftover from the sixties. And the table was beautiful, and the stained-glass windows cast little pools of red and yellow, blue and green dancing across their table, skidding around shadows. And the menu was full of things like filet mignon and baked sole and lobster, which was a personal favourite.
The only thing missing was Ron.
She had known he would forget, so she had called him that afternoon; no one was home, but she left a message on his answering machine. And she had called him before she got dressed, and they had even waited until the last possible second before leaving, as if he would be late and finally show up. But no phone call, and as she had tapped her heel-clad foot and folded her arms over her scoop-neck dress she remembered being faintly annoyed.
But now she was worried. Not just worried, but upset.
And Ron was her best friend, sure, but she wasn't sure why she was so upset.
Or why she missed him.
"Kim? Honey, are you all right?" Her mother laid a hand over hers and she tuned in to the twins blowing raspberries at each other. Kim shook her head, clearing her thoughts.
"I'm fine."
"Kimmie, it's time to order," her father told her, staring intently at the menu. "I think I'm going to have the roast lamb. What do you want?"
She swallowed the huge lump that was in her throat, unaware that it was even building. She wasn't one to cry, and she wasn't going to, but she almost couldn't stop herself when she saw the empty chair across from her.
"Kim, honey? What do you want?"
She shook her head again and bit her lip. "To go home. I think I feel sick."
-
Ron was a bit uncomfortable with the absence of one naked mole rat in his front pocket, but they just weren't permitted in posh restaurants that served you water before you ordered drinks. He could have tried to sneak him in, but didn't want to blow his first date with Tara.
He liked saying that, over and over. First date, first date. Definitely cool.
But he couldn't help thinking that he forgot something.
He leaned back in his chair as Tara bat her big blue eyes and twirled a curl absently around her finger, elbows on the table, the tip of her braid dangerously close to a lit candle. He was about to tell her to sit back when she sighed, "Ron, are you having a good time?"
"Of course I am!" He smirked, all the while searching himself for what he knew he had forgotten. Pants, check; shirt, check; black tie optional…
So that's what it was. He mentally slapped himself.
"Good, because I got the feeling that… Ron, are you okay?"
He nodded, trying to cover up one huge, stupid mistake that could quite possibly ruin his best friendship since before grade school. "Yeah, I just… it was Kim's birthday, and I was supposed to go to this restaurant and I forgot… and they've probably left without me…."
Tara frowned: she was going to berate him for two-timing. It wasn't like the thing with Kim was a date, because her family was going to be there, but still. He was meeting another girl, and he blew her off, and then he told Tara. Stupid, stupid Ron.
He waited for her to hit him, but the blow didn't come. Cautiously, he opened an eye. She was just sitting there, looking dumbfounded. Finally –
"You forgot her birthday? Her sixteenth birthday?"
"Erm, something like that." Blushing, he hung his head and ran his fingers through his hair. "But it was so date-like, and weird, because we're just best friends and all…."
She smiled and sighed. "Ah. Heard that one before."
"Heard what one before?" he asked suspiciously, raising his head.
She had tilted back in her chair, arms behind her head. "The whole not-going-to-ruin-a-friendship thing. But it does."
"What do you mean?" Now it was his turn to almost singe his hair. She abruptly clunked her chair to the ground and leaned forward, fraternizing like a couple of spies in a two-rate James Bond movie.
"You don't want to cross the friendship boundaries because you're afraid, right?"
"If you put it that way, maybe."
She nodded knowingly. "But as you push the feelings away, you push her away, right?"
"You're supposed to be my date, not Dear Abby."
"Not the point. Answer the question."
He leaned his chin on his hands. "Well, I guess if missing her birthday is pushing her away, then…"
"I'm right."
"Right."
"Wouldn't it be easier to let your feelings take you where you want to go, instead of this constant tedious-friendship thing?"
He considered this for a moment, scratching his head. "I guess. If it really is that easy."
"It's not. But it's not supposed to be easy." She leaned back and crossed her arms over her chest. "So…"
"So… what?"
"Go and find her! You owe her a birthday present!"
Ron didn't know what made him get up and push in his chair; or what made him throw down the bill and the tip and start out the door. But he did know what made him turn around.
"Yeah, I do owe her a present. And somehow I doubt the bracelet I got her is going to cut it."
Tara twirled her curls. "I figured that much. But I have an idea…."
-
Kim sat at her desk, head cradled on her folded arms, orange hair splayed across her weekend homework. If her eyes couldn't stay closed, she figured she might as well start on her History to get Mr. Barkin off her case on Monday.
Originally, she had planned to go to sleep. Her dad had insisted that the best way to stop a probable cold in its tracks was bed rest and honey tea, and she had agreed; but when she lay wrapped under her comforter, she couldn't nod off, no matter how hard she tried. Thoughts just kept rushing around in her brain, and although Kim Possible wouldn't ever sit around doing nothing, nothing was exactly what she wanted to think about, because if she kept thinking about one gangly, blonde sidekick, she knew she would go insane.
Her mother had warded off Jim and Tim and had come bearing the gift of Aspirin and a comforting shoulder: "Kimmie, I'm sure Ronald just forgot. You know how he is."
"But he'd never forget something like this, and I just don't..." She had downed the pill and a half glass of water, then flopped back onto her stack of pillows and sighed in frustration. "He's never done anything like this before."
Her mother just smiled in that infuriating way mothers always do. "But he's growing up, and so are you. Maybe he's just as confused with these things as you are."
"What things? If you think I like Ron… no-o-o way. We're just friends."
"Then if you're friends, you shouldn't be afraid to call him and find out what happened today."
When she left, Kim just pounded her pillow. And was still pounding it, hours later, when everyone else was, presumably, asleep, and she took to alternately lying her head on her desk and staring at the phone.
Her mom was right, and she knew it. She should be able to call Ron, find out what went wrong, ask him to explain what was going on with them lately. But instead she had to settle for wondering, because, despite her courage in dealing with routine villains and thugs, boys, especially her best friend, were a totally different story.
And she hadn't reached a conclusion to that story, because there was no diversion from the same round-and-round motions and whorls in her head, no diversion except for her mom's less-than-helpful heart-to-heart and-
Plink. Plink. Plunk.
And that. Whatever that was.
If she couldn't deduce, she might as well investigate.
-
The house was quiet, and the windows were dark: in fact, no cars were idling the curb or passing by in the street. Typical. At three-thirty A.M. Ron had already figured that he was probably the only crazy, might-be-love-struck person awake or moving in the quiet, chilly stillness of a now-Saturday-morning.
Similarly, he was probably the only crazy, might-be-love-struck person awake who would also be chucking pebbles at his best friend's window in a hopeless Romeo-and-Juliet-esque attempt at rousing the fair maiden. But then again, that was Ron.
He pulled his arm back, steadied the pebble, aimed for roughly three feet above the sill and two to the left of the pane, and hit the middle of the window dead center; he wasn't an athlete, but Ron Stoppable was skilled at missing, and someone who could always be counted on for hitting something that wasn't the original target. Which, in this case, was Kim's window.
It was amazing, too. Ron would never have pegged Kim for someone who could sleep through World War Three.
He reared again, ready to send another rock flying: whatever it took to get her awake. He steadied his 'aim', made sure he had a nice rock, not too big, not too little-
And promptly fell on his backside, distracted by someone hissing, "Ron, what are you doing?"
"Kim, is that you?" He dropped his stones and peered into the darkness; the alleged cheerleader came from in the bushes, ponytail-ed head cocked to one side, hands on her hips, frowning. "You're supposed to be upstairs, sleeping."
"I was." She shivered, and put her arms around herself, pulling at her pajama tank to make it cover her midriff. "But I came out to see why someone was chucking rocks at the tweebs' window."
Ron grinned haphazardly and shrugged. "I tried for yours."
"Just like you really tried to make it to my dinner tonight," she stated dryly. Kim didn't usually hold a grudge, and Ron didn't like where this was heading.
"I know, I screwed up. Tara told me. But I'm here now, and I have something to show you."
Kim narrowed her eyes. "What does Tara?"
"Never mind." Deftly Ron took her hand and pulled her toward the driveway; she shuffled beside him in her slippers, anger ebbing away; she wanted to make a big deal out of how worried she was, but wasn't quite sure how.
"Ron, you had me so worried, I thought something was wrong! This was a big night, and-"
He sighed and dropped her hand, looking uncharacteristically serious. "I know. And I'm sorry. And I really don't know what to say. But I still have my present for you, and I have to tell you… something."
Now she was more curious, and pulled him along after her, instead of vice-versa. "Okay, fine. So what're we doing?"
Ron smiled widely, and pulled his bicycle from the shrubs beside the gravel. "Hop in the basket, and I'll show you."
Kim almost smacked herself. She forgot Ron couldn't drive.
-
If there was one thing Kim could say about her best friend without him denying anything, it was that he was such a klutz that he couldn't ride a bike very well during "Ride for Cancer" and "Pedal for Hunger" races in the middle of the park on Saturday afternoons.
Needless to say, he was even worse trying to steer in semi-darkness down unfamiliar roads with a sixteen-year-old perched on his basket, gripping tightly to the handlebars, and, in turn, squishing his hands. Plus, her hair was big. It was beautiful, and he loved having her sitting in front of him, her shampoo an intoxicating scent that drove his mind crazy, but he just had to admit that her hair was big, and it blocked a normal view of the road. Because of this he was apt to hit ditches now and then, and swerve and almost crash his bike if Kim didn't shout things like "Branch!" and "Rock!" and "Cat!" every so often.
"Ron!" Kim squealed as he narrowly avoided colliding with someone's mailbox, "Are we almost there yet? I value my life."
"Ha ha," he replied, with a sniff of the air. Yes, the smell of salt lingered in little pockets between Kim's smelling like lilacs. "We've still got a few more minutes." Mischievously, he added, "Close your eyes."
Kim laughed. "I don't trust you to steer this thing, Ron. If I close my eyes, we'll crash."
"Kim, close 'em."
"No way."
Desperate times called for desperate measures. He took his hands off the bars; they wobbled on the bike, but stayed up. Wiggling his fingers in front of her eyes he teased, "Then I'll have to cover them myself, and 'Look Ma, no hands!'"
"Ronald Stoppable, steer, steer!"
"Then close your eyes," he whispered in her ear. As he laughed, she grudgingly obliged.
They sped on that way, Kim asking 'Are we there yet?' and Ron shaking his head and laughing (though his shaking of the head made no sense, as her eyes were still closed and he refused to let her open them). They'd hit bump after bump, and Ron would reach a hand out to steady Kim every minute; and as they went the houses got larger and further apart, and the smell of salt was more an odor than just lingering. And the two said less and less the longer Ron got used to pedaling, and they fell into a rhythmic sense of on and on for somewhere near an hour.
Soon they turned down a narrower road and stopped in front of a rusty, locked gate. "You're not peeking, right?" Kim nodded, and he slowly got off the bike and helped her down from the handlebars; then grabbed a basket from the back of his bike, dropped it over the other side of the gate, and helped Kim over too.
"We're not doing anything illegal, are we?"
Ron swung her down from the top rung. "My parents would kill me if we were 'doing anything illegal'," he affirmed as they started down wooden steps, Ron leading her: "And I don't have a death wish."
"I can't help but be a little paranoid when my best friend shows up out of nowhere after midnight and whisks me away in my pajamas to an undisclosed location… and said friend has had run-ins with the law before."
"But that was only when you were with me," he joked, as they left the steps.
Kim stopped. "Ron, what are we walking through? It feels like… sand."
He grinned sheepishly. "You ruined the surprise. You can open your eyes now."
"Thanks, I-" She stopped. "Ron, you brought me to the beach?"
His face fell, and he tried to affix a smile. "I- I thought it would be nice. I mean you like the beach, and I had something… well…."
"No, I love it! I just can't believe you… oh…." She threw her arms around his neck and squeezed as Ron blushed a bright red.
"Yeah, well…" he began as she pulled away, smiling out at the water, a pool of red-pink under a lightening orange-and-gold sky. The ocean reflected and glinted off itself, and Kim moved closer to her friend and instinctively took his hand as the sun tried to right itself, a lazy ball sitting up from its night-time rest. "I wanted to give you the sun. It's not 'black tie optional', but…"
"But it's perfect. I'm so glad you brought me here, Ron."
"Really?"
"Really," she smiled.
He stole a quick glance at her, and moved away, reaching for his basket. "Wait, there's something else too… well, it was mostly Tara and Bonnie, they helped a lot, but… well…."
Confused, she mouthed, 'Bonnie?' but watched silently as he pulled out a giant, checked comforter and spread it close to the darkened sand made by high tide. Rufus made it his business to peer over the top of the wicker and rodent-grin; he put on the dignified air of being a butler and held up a blueberry muffin. Kim giggled as Ron excitedly took her hand and pulled her onto the blanket, smiling from ear to ear.
She settled herself as he pulled out a pitcher of something, blueberry muffins, bread, jam, and lilacs tied together with ribbon. He slid them over to her, along with a muffin, buttered by Rufus. The smell wafted into the early-morning light; she sniffed them and looked over at Ron, who was absentmindedly chewing something and pawing in the basket.
"Give me a second, there's one more…" Trailing off, he pulled out a small package wrapped in the comics from Sunday's newspaper: he blushed. "The wrapping's not great, we ran out of birthday paper. And I didn't think you wanted anything that said, 'Congratulations! It's a boy!' on it, so…."
Laughing, Kim took the present and fingered the paper, then set it aside. "Ron, you didn't have to do all this." She tried to meet his eyes, but he just looked down and traced the fabric of the blanket.
"I felt bad about missing your party today. It was stupid of me… and I wanted to make it up to you."
Kim smiled and shook her head. "Ron, we all make mistakes. You don't have to make anything up to me, or prove anything, or… well, it doesn't matter."
"Then what does matter?" he asked, rather unexpectedly.
She thought for a moment, trying to meet his eyes; and he looked up, and she took one of his hands. "Just that you're my best friend. And that you care."
Their eyes finally met, and neither said anything for a minute; and Kim smiled while Ron blushed. She didn't let go of his hand… he didn't want her to let go. And there just wasn't anything else that happened in that one moment while the two were busy wrestling thoughts of friendship and love and what mattered. It was really as simple as they couldn't have imagined: and Ron knew Tara was right when she said that things wouldn't be easy, because it took all he had to breathe in the morning air, for fear of not being perfect in her eyes.
But they looked away and their cheeks turned pink and they melted into the same imperfect friends they had always been. Awkwardly, Ron reached out to give Kim her present.
And he tried to kiss her, but all he got was some forehead and loose hair; and that's all that mattered.
It would take time, and he was willing to let things happen, strange as they always did.