Chapter 1: A Rude Awakening
Middleton Hospital:
It was blurry. Everything around her was. Swirls of colored-fuzz began churning into familiar images. Images of her mother, father …even her brother (one of them, at least).
"Mom?"
All of the figures staring at her from above gasped at the same time. She felt pressure all around her body. Hugs?
"What is this? What is going on?" she whispered faintly.
"Honey, you were in a terrible accident." Mrs. Possible said to her child as her eyes began to tear-up.
Her father interjected in a low calming voice, "What your mother means, Kimmy, is that after your last mission, you were emitted into the hospital for a very long time. The odds for survival were against you, but you stayed with us as we knew you would."
"…as you knew I would?" Kim replied, still not knowing the reality of it all.
"You fell 25 stories during your last encounter with Shego. The impact your body took nearly cost you your life." Her father said.
Kim, her eyes only half-open, shook her head in disagreement, "Nearly? Nobody could survive a 25 foot fall… it just isn't possible."
"You forget two things, Kimmy-cup. First, you were wearing the white battle-suit your friend, Wade, had created for you. The suit was linked to his computer and updated him of your descending status. He activated the suit's circular force-field just before impact. He saved your life, Kim."
Kim smiled weakly before again attempting to speak, "And the second thing?"
Her father took her hand in his, "That anything is possible for a Possible." A tear rolled down both of their cheeks.
Kim managed to utter a few more words before drifting asleep.
"It's good to be back."
The Following Morning:
Light quickly flooded her hospital room, leaving Kim abruptly awoken and squinting into the brightness. A taller male figure was silhouetted by the sun's beaming light.
Kim was unpleased at such a rude awakening. "You know, if all you wanted to do was scare the daylights out of me you could have just yelled 'Boo." she said irritably.
"Would you have preferred 'Boo' or 'Boo-YAH'?"
Kim's sat up at once. "RON?? Ron, is that you?!!"
Stepping out from blinding light behind him, Ron appeared before her. "The one and only!"
Ron rushed to her side as they held each other tightly. Neither one of them could have been happier that moment.
"I thought I lost you, KP. I thought I lost you for good." Ron said.
"You'll never lose me, Ron. Never-ever!"
"Heh, well you scared the hell out of me either way. Out of ALL of us. Hah." Despite his playfully tone, he wasn't lying.
"It's going to take more than a few days in the hospital to get rid of me, heh" Kim replied in the same playful tone. Her tone changed as she saw the sudden seriousness in her boyfriend's eyes. It was then she noticed his solid chin and stronger jaw-line. As she looked him up it clicked how different he appeared. His frame was still rather small but Ron had become noticeably more muscular. He seemed to have matured and filled out before her very eyes. She found him suprisingly hansom. Then it dawned on her, "How… How long have I been in this hospital?"
"It's been 10 years since the accident. You aren't an 18-year-olf girl anymore, Kim. You're 28… a lot has changed here."
"28?! …I'm 28 years old?! Is this some sick episode of Punked of something?!"
"Punked' has been off the air for years. It's the show with that guy from 'Dude, pimp my car'… or 'Where's my ride' or whatever, right?"
"That doesn't matter! Just tell me this isn't real, tell me this is all just a big joke! Feel free to hit me with the punch-line anytime now! I'll laugh, I promise! " She wasn't laughing.
"I'm not going to lie to you, KP. I haven't waited by your side all these years just to lie to you, you deserve better."
"Ron, I hope you never leave my side." Kim said.
Ron smiled and took a knee by her bed and asked for her hand. As she lifted her hand from beneath the bed sheets, that's when she noticed a beautiful princess-cut diamond on her ring-finger. Her eyes widened, "Oh god. Oh my god, Ron! Is this for real??"
Ron had waited for this moment for nearly a decade, although the response he envisioned for himself didn't come out quite as he intended, "It's more real then pop-star Brittina, I can tell you that! Look-out! Badoom-TSS!!" His fingers performed an air drum-roll for comedic effect. Kim simply starred. "What I meant was… I have been waiting for this moment for nearly a decade."
Kim smiled at her recently-discovered long-time boyfriend turned present fiancée and caressed his hand. "I do."
The Possible home, Middleton:
"Welcome Home!" was the first thing Kim heard as she returned through the front door of her house.
Her family and friends were all gathered at her house for a warm and festive reunion. Many of the faces looked just as familiar to Kim as last she had seen then, while others, like Ron, had changed some in their appearance. Monique, for example, had short straitened hair and was wearing what appeared to Kim as a maternity shirt. Kim later found out that her beloved friend was not with-child, but was in fact wearing the latest trend in fashion; a 70's style spaghetti-strap seamed just below the breasts allowing the fabric below to puff outward, giving the appearance of a woman in her second trimester. This was a trend that Kim was proud to have missed out on.
She noticed also how much taller her brother had gotten. She wasn't sure which one of the Tweebs she was looking at… or where her other brother had gone to for that matter. She had only ever seen one of them since she rose from her coma. Kim then noticed Wade over on the couch. He was not much taller than how she remembered him to be. He seemed to have thinned out a little, but was still slightly over-weight. His hair was more of a small fro. Weird. Kim sat on the couch beside him and hugged his neck.
"Thank you. I wouldn't be alive without you, Wade." She said with a kiss to his cheek.
"It's nothing major, just protecting my friend… and my battle-suit." He gave the impression that his precious deed was at least 51 percent about keeping the technologically-enhanced super-suit he had slaved over for Kim from becoming some homeless man's hygienic-wiping material. This was a fact that Kim chose to ignore.
Kim was still wearing her Hospital get-up and left the party briefly to go clean up. Ron escorted her to her room to keep certain that she arrived up stairs safely after years of bed-rest. Upon entering her room, Kim pulled her gown off. Her jaw dropped as she realized for the first time that what once had been her signature flat abdomen had taken a shape a bit rounder then she was comfortable with.
"WHAT! How on Earth did this happen?!" In a fit of rage, she grabbed Ron by the collar to yank him in hoping it all to appear more dramatic. Regrettably, she had forgotten that he was now far more muscular then he has been 10 years prior resulting only in pulling herself into him face-first.
Ron wrapped his arms around her still relatively small waist. "Look, people who sink into a ten-year coma don't exactly have the luxury of doing sit-ups in their spare time so just relax and take a chill-pill."
"Don't you have to be a doctor to prescribe pills?" she said facetiously.
"Stay current, KP. Chill-pills are sold over-the-counter now." He was oblivious.
While scouring her closet, she discovered that most of her wardrobe consisted of tank-tops cropped at the mid-drift. Instead of taking the first train to Humiliation-Nation, she opted to change into a looser long-sleeved shirt and sweatpants.
It was sooner then she realized that her party had dwindled down to only a handful. It was now just Kim, her fiancée, and her family… or at least most of her family. They were all playing Apples to Apples when Kim finally brought up what had been bothering her, "So is Tim just so…"
"I'm Tim." her brother corrected.
"Right." She humored him with a smile. "So is Jim just so busy that he can't even drop in to welcome his long lost sister? I mean, that's not asking too much is it? You'd think that Tim…"
"I'm Tim." Her brother corrected again.
"Right… Sorry. Ahem." She wrinkled herface, "So you'd think that Jim would still have enough love and respect for his big sis to visit after narrowly escaping an unflattering death. He could have at least called!"
They all stared at her oddly.
She tried again, "I'm just saying, I'm glad that at least HALF of my siblings felt that my awakening from a 10 year come was important enough to concern themselves with."
They all seemed a little worried. Her mother spoke up, "Kim, Honey, you should probably get some rest."
"Rest? Isn't 10 years enough rest? I'm all rested out, mother. Why can't you just answer me about Tim?"
"I'm Tim."
"Jim."
"Jim?"
"Jim! I mean, what… did he join the military or something?" She suddenly felt that she was on to something, "Oh god, he isn't dead is he?!"
Mr. Possible stood up and looked at Kim with disappointment in his eyes, "No one here has died, Kimberly Ann. And you're scaring your mother and I with this talk of 'Jim'. Who is this Jim fellow?"
Kim was astonished. "I'm confused… is this a game? JIM! Jim… Jim as in twin to Tim. My only other brother; JIM! Jim-jimmy-jim-jim!!"
After a brief stare from everyone in the room, all but Kim began bursting with laughter.
"This isn't funny! I want to know where my brother is!" Kim shouted. She broke down crying.
"Honey we were laughing because we didn't think you were serious" Her father said as he sat and put an arm around her shoulder. "There is no Jim. There never was a Jim, we have family albums to prove that there was no one in this family ever named Jim. Look kimmy, I know you've had a hard past couple of days, but we are your parents. We love you and would never lie about a thing like this."
Kim shoved his arm off of her and shook her head in shame of her family. "I don't know what is going on here, but I'm not going to let it go. I'm going to get to the bottom of this!" she stormed off to her room and slammed the door just as she had as a teenager. Ron followed.
Ron found Kim curled up and weeping uncontrollably on her bed. He plopped down beside her and ran his hand softly up and down her back.
"It's going to be ok. Maybe there is a Jim out there; you might know something we don't."
"Might? I know my own brother, Ron! Something must have happened to him… a cover-up or something. Whatever happened, there will be payback!" she exclaimed.
"On that note, we should probably talk about all the expenses."
"What expenses??"
"The hospital bills, Kim. I'm just going to write a number down for you, ok?" He jotted for a bit on a sticky-note and placed the paper in her hand.
Kim stared for a while at an enormously large number. "What is this for, Ron? What am I looking at?"
"That's how much money it took to pay off all of your medical costs."
She turned white, "Even the combined salary of a rocket-scientist and a brain-surgeon isn't enough to pay off this much debt! Ron, what are we going to do? I can't make my parents pay this off alone! I mean, they couldn't if they tried. I don't even have a job and-" Kim was running frantic.
"Kim. Kim, it's ok. It's all been taken care of."
"Taken care of? But how?! You'd have to be a billionaire to handle a bill this large!"
"I know. That's what I wanted to talk to you about."
Kim was unsure, "I don't follow…"
"I did some digging of my own. I found the name of the man responsible for bringing you back to life." He wrote it down on the same sticky-note below what he had already written. "Does this name mean anything to you?"
She was handed the paper and read the same name over and over again. The name didn't mean a thing to her which she physically expressed by sharing with Ron a look of concern.
"Wayne?…who is Wayne?!"
The Load home, Middleton:
Though it was late in the day, Kim and Ron took the name to Wade Load who, fortunately for them, had retained his cyber-knowhow throughout the years and, fortunately for them, went straight home after Kim's 'Welcome Home' party. Wade searched his database with the name that Kim had just presented him with.
"Wayne, Bruce; billionaire and head of Wayne Enterprises. Resident of Gotham City. Former Legal Guardian of Richard 'Dick' Grayson, a child orphaned after his family of acrobats, formerly known as 'The Flying Graysons', were murdered during a circus performance sponsored by Wayne Enterprises. Richard no longer resides with Bruce and is currently living in the neighboring city of BludHaven." Wade looked away from his computer, "If that's not enough information, check the tabloids. It appears that Bruce Wayne is a something of a playboy, the media eats it up. Why he has any interest in you is beyond me though."
Kim bit her lip as she thought for a moment. "You said he had a child?"
"He was the kid's legal Guardian, yes."
"How old is this child of his?" she asked.
"Just a sec." his fingers danced across the keyboard. "He's… he is the same age as you, Kim. Does this picture look familiar to either of you guys?" Wade turned the computer monitor towards them revealing a head-shot of Dick Grayson.
Kim recognized him immediately. "Oh my… Ron, Ron we have to go."
"Go? But Wade's mom was just baking cookies-"
"We're leaving!"
"But they're Chocolate Chip!!"
"Thanks for the help Wade. We'll keep in touch!"
Kim bolted out of the room dragging Ron behind her just as Wade's mom was about to enter. Mrs. Load looked at her son as she carrying with her a tray of baked sweets.
"Where were they off too in such a hurry?"
Wade shrugged, "I guess they aren't fans of chocolate chip."
Possible Home:
Back in Kim's bedroom, she leaned over to Ron's ear and whispered to him, "I know that kid! I mean 'Man'. Whatever he is now!"
Her boyfriend wasn't the quickest to catch on.
"He's Robin!" she explained.
"He's Robbin' who?! What should we do?? I mean, do you really think you can fight robbers given your current physical…" Finally aware of his words, he cut his sentence short.
"For Christ's sake, I'm a little out of shape, not Kirstie Alley! And I didn't say 'Robbin' I said 'Robin'. You know... Robin? Jump-City?? Teen Titans??? Ringing any bells?"
Indeed bells were ringing; only not the metaphorical type. The ringing occurred from the Possible's front doorway where Mrs. Possible opened up to find not a person, but an envelope addressed to Kimberly Ann. Fearing her daughter was already in bed after such a long day, Mrs. P felt it best to wait for morning to hand off the letter.
The Next Day:
Kim woke up to the smell of pancakes and sausage. She threw on a purple bathrobe and headed downstairs. She sat in her usual spot at the table and was handed a letter along with her plate.
"It says it's for you, sweetie, but I don't know who would have left you a letter so late in the night." Her mother informed her.
"It's just a letter mom. Letters are perfectly normal."
Kim casually opened the envelope and began reading. She was not one word into the message before rushing from the table and retreating back to her room.
Mrs. Possible was a bit shaken by Kim's erratic behavior and gazed at her husband, Mr. Possible, who was had just picked up his coffee before headed out to work.
"Should we be worried?" she asked him.
"Nah. If I know my Kimmy she'll come to us with the letter in no time!"
His Kimmy, however, would do no such thing. She unfolded the letter once more to finish reading in private. Her eyes were wide as softballs as she examined the following message:
Sibling,
I will be standing beneath the Middleton Bridge at precisely
11:15 PM tonight. Come with no one. Come with no electronic
devises of any sort. If these guidelines are not met, I will forfeit
my presence. See to it that you are not followed. It is of utmost
importance.
-J
So much for Normal.