A/N: I've sort of had this idea in my head since the end of "Kenny Dies". Maybe this is why he was gone for most of a season.
That Time Forgets
Of course he's not dead.
After a month of prolonged illness and a grief he tries not to hold against the one friend who never visited his bedside, Kenny wakes in his own room a minute after midnight. The mattress feels foreign with disuse and he's happy to leave it in favor of staring at the star-dotted sky through a cracked window. Watching their distant twinkle, he thinks about the wider world, wonders what really lies beyond this small mountain town.
As his breath fogs the glass Kenny makes a decision. He'll miss his friends, even Stan, and he'll worry about his little sister, but this is a thing he must do.
The open window in his cold bedroom the next morning leaves his family mystefied. Carol closes it and can't remember if her second son is alive or dead. She cracks open a fresh beer and wipes the tears from her cheeks.
The first weeks are hard but nothing he can't manage.
Denver's grubby skyline, foreign and familiar all at once, unnerves him the longer he sleeps under it. When he can manage to get high enough off the streets, Kenny stares at the brown haze outlining buildings that block his view of the mountains. At night he can't see the stars.
The streets are cold and he is often hungry. It's nothing new, really, just playing out differently than he's accustomed to. He decides early on that he will be careful and try to stay alive.
When the wet, frigid spring snows come and clog the city with ice, Kenny finally wanders into a government building. He is still mistrustful of social services but he has nothing but his ragged, smelly clothes and bruised skin to keep him warm. Whatever childish fat he'd had before has long since evaporated.
The social worker assigned to his case is unexpectedly kind and surprisingly helpful. He assumes she is new since the work hasn't worn away her spirit yet, carving deep lines of worry and strain into her face like so many others he's met. She believes his story about not knowing who or where his family is, especially since the only Kenny McCormick in the state's records is reported as deceased.
In a crowded but warm home with an unfamiliar family, he pens a letter to Karen and prays to whatever might be out there that she is okay without her brother to look out for her.
They meet in middle school. Of all things, Kenny finds that he has a passion for math. Five years of uninterrupted, dull, relaxing education has enabled him to use his intellect in more conventional ways. She's in his geometry class and they strike up an easy friendship.
She's not attractive or popular or anything out of the ordinary. They share interests in history and sports. In ninth grade she asks him to a dance just for fun and they spend most of it deep in conversation about who was the better of the famous Broncos quarterbacks.
When she unexpectedly kisses him the night before her family moves to a different town, her lips are soft and warm in a way he almost remembers from a life he's mostly forgotten.
He still writes to Karen every now and again. In all the years, she has never responded. His heart aches when he thinks about it but he refuses to drink or do anything that would numb the pain in that awful, helpless way everyone in his old family turned to.
Kenny graduates with honors to the delight of his foster family and himself. There is a moment where he wonders if his natural parents would be proud. He decides they would be and smiles genuinely as he accepts his diploma.
To his total amazement, they meet again in college. He is surprised to see her there, having assumed that she would have made it to a university at least. She admits that she didn't want to go too far from home and lives in her parents' basement while she attends the little state college.
She's as happy to see him as he is her and they renew their old friendship over philosophy textbooks and coffee.
It's an accident, a stupid mistake, and he regrets everything as he holds her in his arms while she sobs. Of course he'll do right by her, even if it means quitting college for now.
On the day she graduates, he takes the afternoon off from work. No one cheers louder than he when she takes the stage, belly showing under her loose robes.
All the tears, the hardship, the shotgun wedding insisted upon by her family, is worth it when he holds his daughter for the first time. She thinks Karen is a beautiful name, too.
The house is small, but it's theirs. Little Karen is ecstatic at the prospect of a room all to herself, a place she doesn't have to share with her newborn brother. Kenny laughs as she pelts through the new rooms as fast as her toddler legs will go.
He cries in the car after dropping her off at school the first time because she didn't want him to leave. When the kid in her second grade class knocks out a tooth, his wife has to keep him from starting a fight with the little boy's father. And he tries not to think about the sleepless nights when she had her first sleepovers in the fourth grade. He's never been so happy.
Kenny stands in Karen's dark, empty room. Some distant part of him is waiting for her to reappear the way he used to after death took him away. But that was a long time ago in a life he barely remembers. Karen is gone, ashes spread over the mountains she loved to visit. He will lay flowers amidst the cluster of crosses along I-70 with a father's tears numbing his cheeks.
In the cold light of dawn, his wife crouches next to his huddled form in the doorway of their daughter's room and they cry again, together.
Karen's brother dedicates his valedictorian speech to her with tears in his eyes. His parents smile through their own tears and his little sister, just a few years away from graduation herself, hugs him so tight he yelps.
They name his first grandchild, a beautiful baby girl, after that lost sister. Kenny can't help himself and doesn't bother trying to hide his wet cheeks from the wide-eyed baby who looks so much like her father.
The restaurant is crowded with McCormicks at their fiftieth wedding anniversary. He still finds her beautiful and the sounds his kids and grandkids make when the kiss he gives her for the photo is more than just a peck on the cheek make him laugh.
She holds his shaking, withered hand in her warm, old fingers. Just this once he wants to do it at home.
Their faces are seamed with wrinkles, lines of laughter, grief, and lives richly lived. Kenny hates to leave her but it is inevitable. Eighty-seven years is longer than he ever thought he'd make it and he's loved them all. He even gets to say good-bye.
His last words are of love and he feels her warm lips on his forehead as his eyes close, a contented smile on his face.
A minute past midnight, Kenny wakes in his bed with a gasp, shaking. His cheeks are wet and he struggles to remember where he is. When the realization dawns on him, nobody comes to investigate the wracking sobs he can't hold in.
It's easy to sneak away from the rest of the class on their next field trip. Denver is still etched in his memory and the cemetery is where he knew it would be. The grave stone is beside his Karen's. It seems much larger now that he is so small. Kenny can't make sense of the dates inscribed on either one.
An old woman shuffles toward the stones with two bouquets of flowers and his heart stops. He watches in respectful silence as she lays flowers at the graves, his daughter's and his.
They talk and she shows him pictures of her new great grandchildren. His eyes are bright with unshed tears as he gives her a cheerful wave good-bye.
Two trips later, he puts together enough change to buy a fake flower to lay at her grave.
Kenny doesn't remember that he was ever upset with Stan.
The memories are fading but only because he wills them away. The knowledge of it all weighs him down any night he is alone. He falls to vice when he can't think of anything else and tries to remember what it is like to be eight years old.
He stands at a bus stop in a town outside of time, waiting for a bus that will always come with three people who will always be there.
On one cold night, his little sister creeps into his room, seeking sanctuary from the shouts down the hall. She is silent but her shoulders shake and Kenny can see tears in the moonlight. He hugs her in silence and thinks about a girl with the same name who was his world a lifetime ago and only yesterday. Whispering in the dark, he makes a promise to them both that he will do whatever he can to make the world safe, even if he can only do anything in one small mountain town.
Beginning.