Author's note: Ok, this is gonna get tricky…

I read captainkodak1's fic "Tunnel Vision", and was so moved by it, I couldn't get it out of my head. And, the idea formed to work off his fic to create an alternate take.

This fic diverges from chapter 9 of the captain's fic. If you haven't read it, do so. I'll be waiting here for you when you come back.

The characters aren't mine, neither are they the captain's. Except for maybe one or two.

So, a special thanks and a right-hand salute to captainkodak1 for being ok with this.

Happy reading.

Bridging the Gap

"Eng! Eng! Damnit, can anyone hear me?" The shouts of Dr. James Possible echoed thru the hall. He coughed from the smoke that billowed out from the room he was approaching. He reached the door, and while attempting to cover his mouth, punched in his combination on the keypad next to the door.

His eyes widened when he saw the devastation in the room. The flames had engulfed most of the room. Everything that wasn't made of metal was burning, and everything made of metal had either buckled from the heat or melted outright.

He made his way in, stumbling towards the control panel. Dr. Eng, his colleague and friend was lying on the floor unconscious. His hands and face were covered with burns and James winced when he saw them. If his wife had been there, she most likely- scratch that, she would have known what to do. James acted on instinct, throwing Dr. Eng over his shoulder. The walk back towards the door was painful, with Dr. Eng's weight added to his back, and his own lungs screaming bloody murder. James reached the door, and punched the keypad again, making sure the doors closed.

He tried to remember whether or not anyone else was supposed to be in the lab, and found that no, Eng was alone in there. Or, should have been. Obviously, Shego had gotten in. Another coughing fit sent him kneeling to the floor. Just as he thought he was going to pass out, he saw the emergency fire team approaching.

If it hadn't been for the fact that he was headed towards the lab at that point, they would have beaten him there.

If it hadn't been for the fact that he was late, he would have been in there when the explosion occurred.

If it hadn't been for his wife demanding a few extra minutes of his time before he left his office, he wouldn't have been late.

Once again, Ann saves my life, he thought, as he passed out from exhaustion.

The fire was put out swiftly by the fire team, who promptly continued on to other parts of the Middleton Space Center which had been set ablaze. Only two members of the team remained to make sure the fire wouldn't erupt again. After a few minutes, a diminutive figure entered, and surveyed the situation. Grimly, he realized what all this meant. He swallowed.

"They're gone…", he whispered. Wade Load usually didn't panic, and he didn't this time either. Instead, he slowly walked back out the door, dejected. As he walked to the outside of the center, he had to stop himself along the way, either to vomit or to catch his breath.

James removed his oxygen mask in anger. "Damnit, I've had enough of this! Unless you get my wife down here right now to physically restrain me, I'm going back in there!" The EMT beside him sighed, wondering if he was going to have to tie the man down or just sedate him.

"Mr… James. Calm down." James turned to face the voice. He saw Wade standing two yards away.

"Wade, have you seen it? Is there anything left? I could make out-"

"They put the fire out, but…" Wade sighed. "Shego must've hit the liquid nitrogen tanks we used to cool the computer… The explosion… The computer is gone." James stared at the twelve year-old standing in front of him.

"What about the Kerr hole, do we still have it? Is there still a connection?"

"No, James, we lost that too." Wade let the implication set in.

"I've got to get in there. Eng must've tried to transfer to back-up-"

"I've already checked. We got less than fifteen percent. She was… Shego took us all by surprise and… And it was too much data to transfer. I'm not sure that even would have worked."

"Wade, there must be something left in there we can use! We got to get the Kerr hole open again! If we can do it before we lose the temporal connection, before they were supposed to jump, we might get it back on track!" Wade brought his hand up and wiped away some tears that were pooling in his eyes.

"James… Everything's destroyed. We can't get anything from the back-up Eng tried to make, the back-up we had is useless without the Kerr hole and… and we won't be able to get anything from the original drives."

James breathed heavily, taking it in. "Wade… that means that Kim and Ron are stranded in North Carolina a hundred years ago. I won't… accept that. Now get me to the biggest computer you can find, the specs for the Kerr hole inducer and every bit of hardware you can find. The reconstruction starts now." With that, he tore off the mask and started to walk towards the center doors.

"James, you can't possibly… The Kerr hole inducer alone would take at least two weeks for a crew of fifty to build! And even then, to match the exact temporal calibration…" James was walking away still, and Wade was having trouble keeping up. "Dr. Possible, listen to me!" He tried.

"NO, YOU LISTEN! I am NOT leaving my daughter stranded in Kitty Hawk! If you don't think I can do it, CHECK MY NAME! Just get me the cough biggest coughcough damn computer cough that…" With that, James collapsed to the ground for the second time on the same day.

"James… please open the door. It's Ann." Ann waited for a response. None came. She took matters into her own hands and opened it herself instead. Any attempts to bring him the door seemed doomed to fail.

Inside his office, James sat by his stationary computer, staring as lines of code ran by on the screen. "Ann…", he said softly.

"James... Talk to me. Please. You've been holed up in here for a week now." Silence. "I know… I know how you feel, but you have to stop. Everyone says that it's hopeless. And I know it's hard, but… We can't bring them back." James paused the sequence that was running.

"What are they saying, Ann?"

"I can't even begin to understand this James, you know that." Silence. Ann sighed. "To make a new Kerr hole with the same frequency as the first is practically impossible. And even if you do, you'd still have to have a computer with the matching data, which can't be done. You told Dr. Eng so yourself, if you tried to reset the computer, they would be stuck. That's what Dr. Eng said anyway. He says hi, by the way, he's out of danger."

"Well, I have to try." Ann hung her head.

"We need you, James. I need you. Jim and Tim need you. I know why you have to try, but… You have to face the fact that we're not going to see them again."

James looked at his wife, then back at the computer. "Tell Jim and Tim that I'll be home later. I just have too see if I can figure out a way…" Ann frowned. Slowly, she walked back out, tears forming in her eyes. As she stepped out, she was met by Jean Stoppable, the woman who would most likely have become an in-law if not for… Jean saw Ann's distress, and quickly embraced her.

"He's never been like this before", she said in between sobs. "I mean… he usually gets caught up in his work, but he's never… He's never gone this far. I don't know what to do, and Jim and Tim need their father right now." Jean looked at her, then looked at the door.

"Go home, Ann. I'll see if I can reach him." Ann looked at the woman, who had in the last few days become one of her best friends. "Worth a shot", Jean concluded. Ann nodded, and watched as Jean proceeded to enter the room, as she herself started walking towards the exit.

"Take it from one who's lost her only child, James. Don't ignore the ones you still have." James paused the sequence again and looked away from the screen. He sighed.

"I know, it's just…. It's my girl, you know? I can't…. I can't abandon her. I won't abandon her. I know Ann's thinking of the twins right now, but…. She's my little girl."

"I understand, James. It's my little boy, too." James looked at her. "I think you and I are the same when it comes to Kim and Ron, respectively. We know that they're supposed to be able to take care of themselves, but, and they can, but…"

"But we still see them as kids." James said sullenly.

"Yeah. Perhaps even moreso because…" Jean paused for a moment. "Mothers and sons, fathers and daughters, that's what my mom used to say. Fathers try to impart their best wisdom and encourage their sons to stand for themselves, same with mothers and daughters. But fathers and daughters, mothers and sons… They're always gonna be our babies, no matter what. Biggest mistake I ever did in my life was to listen to Gene when he thought it would be good for Ron to tough it out at Camp Wannaweep. I know it would probably be for the best in long run if Ron learned to take care of himself… But every instinct told me to rush out and take him home. And I should have." James looked at her, remembering that summer. Things suddenly fell into place with Jean's words.

"My biggest mistake was not to trust Ron as much as Kim di-does. The whole teenaged boy thing… freaks me out. And I know", he said, sighing, "that Ron isn't like the other boys, but…" Jean smiled.

"You tell me. I feel so stupid right now. I don't understand how I could have nagged at him so much about finding a nice Jewish girl, when I damn well knew that everything he ever wanted was the Irish-Catholic girl down the street." James chuckled, and scratched his neck.

"So… you've come to tell me to give it up too?"

"Hell no." James raised an eyebrow. "That's my baby out there, and I'll walk through hell barefoot before I give up, and I don't see why you wouldn't do the same. But I do think you should take a break. See your boys." James took a sharp breath. "And when you've done that, you get some help. You can't do this on your own."

"I can't do this at all", James replied dejectedly. "The computations… astronomical numbers are as familiar to me as the back of my hand, but even I don't know if there's a word for how complicated these computations are. And I do this for a living."

"So, you get some help. People who have different ideas. I don't know much about this, but… Can't we just… ignore the frequency? Just grab them out of the time stream?"

Wheels began spinning in James' head.

"It… it could be done…. If we could figure out…. The exact space… and time… We would need… enormous data capacity…" He began rifling thru his desk for a pen and a piece of paper he hadn't scribbled some piece of code on.

"James? What… what are you saying?"

"If we can figure out the exact point in space they're at, at a given time, probably tack on a bit of space for safety…. We could use a Kerr hole to drag them out!" Jean gasped. "But it would take…. The computations are possible to do, but we'd have to do it practically by hand, and we'd have to have the largest hard drive in history, as well as some technology we'd have to invent all by ourselves." Jean grabbed him by the collar.

"But it can be done?" James pondered.

"Yes. I think so. But you're right; I'm going to need help." Jean smiled.

"Your word is good enough for me. Now, go home, see your kids, and get some sleep. We'll get the help you need." James stood up; almost fell over from the rush of blood to his head. He gave Jean a big hug, and kissed her on the cheek, before running out, as fast as his legs could carry him. Jean remained in the room, standing still and only breathing, trying to hold back her tears.

"Mommy's coming, Ron. Mommy's coming to take you home from that nasty camp."