Kim dodged another emerald bolt of energy, flipped up and over Shego's head and planted a kick in the small of her back that sent her sprawling. She dove after the idol as it rolled towards the edge of the catwalk and her hand missed it by barely an inch as it rolled off.

"Ron!"

"Gotcha covered, KP!" he shouted, dropping into a seat slide and catching the priceless artifact neatly in the crook of his arm. He popped up and held it in the air triumphantly. Just as neatly, Drakken swung in behind him, standing on the bottom rung of the rope ladder, and plucked it from his hands.

"Thank you, sidekick," he said as the helicopter lifted him quickly out of the reach of Ron's arms. "Shego!"

"Right behind ya, Dr. D." She loosed two blasts at the far end of the catwalk, shearing its supports. She vacated it as it fell, tossing Kim to the floor.

Kim pulled herself from under the fallen catwalk and looked up as Shego jumped on the ladder dangling from the helicopter and was carried away, along with Drakken and the idol. She felt her face flush with anger and embarrassment and turned her icy gaze to Ron, who was wearing an expression of utter mortification.

"Gotcha covered?" she mocked. "Is that how you've 'got me covered'?"

"Kim, I-."

"Not another word, Ron."

"Kim-."

"Not. Another. Word."

And without another word herself, she turned and stalked off.

The silence in the car was as uncomfortable as it had ever been in the twenty years they had known each other. Ron tried to puzzle out what was going on but could not. He mentally checked off possibilities. The mission went sour, not the first time that had happened. Drakken got away, not the first time that had happened either. He had messed up, certainly not the first time that had happened. The mission went sour and Drakken got away because he had messed up, rare but also not a first. In fact, it had been quite a while as he had come into his own in the last few years.

Perhaps that was it. Kim's expectations of him were much higher than they had ever been, especially now with the start of the Kim Possible Foundation, but that still didn't sound right. Her reaction was extreme considering it had been a simple mistake, and wouldn't have been a mistake at all were it not for the unbelievably lucky timing of Dr. Drakken and the skill of the helicopter pilot.

What it boiled down to was simple bad luck. So really it wasn't even his fault. How could he be expected to be responsible for bad luck?

He wanted to say something, but Kim was still fuming behind the wheel like a volcano building up pressure, and he worried that any word from him would release that pressure. Still, risk was a part of every day life for both of them, and they would be pulling up to the apartment building in only moments. He didn't think it wise to part company this way, citing the "don't go to bed angry" principal. He picked what he judged to be the lesser of two evils.

"Look, Kim, I'm sorry-."

"You're sorry?"

uh oh, thar she blows

"You do realize that's the first high-profile mission we've had since the Foundation was started. You do realize just how much we had to lose on this one. I mean, you can be dense sometimes, but I figured that you couldn't possibly be clueless on this one."

"Kim-."

"But apparently not seeing as how you literally lifted the idol right into Drakken's outstretched hands. I mean, someone who walked in on that moment would've thought you were on their side."

She punctuated this statement by swinging the Sloth into the parking slot at alarming speed, eliciting a squeal of tires and slamming the gear selector into PARK.

"Kim, it didn't happen that way."

"Strange that our different vantagepoints caused some sort of parallax problem because that's what I saw. Right before I was thrown off a twenty foot catwalk."

She climbed out and slammed the door. Ron was out just as quickly.

"Now, hang on, how is that even my fault?"

"It's all your fault, Ron."

"You were the one who dropped the idol in the first place."

"Hello! Fighting with Shego! But that's not what I meant. I meant that it's all your fault. Every single mission, screwing up, getting in the way, dragging me down. I mean as sidekicks go...even Shego at least helps Drakken."

Ron felt his knees nearly buckle as this accusation was hurled at him from a face he had never seen before. She looked...ugly.

"Kim..."

"I don't know, maybe now that the whole non-profit thing is going on, Kim Possible Inc. should just be Kim Possible."

She stomped off, leaving Ron leaning against the car feeling like a deflated balloon.

"Kim...," he said, but with barely enough force for his own ears to hear it, much less enough force to stop Kim Possible.

Kim tossed and turned in bed, in the grips of some dark dream. Suddenly she sat bolt upright and looked around, breathing hard. As the waking world asserted itself on her senses she realized that it had not been merely a dream.

"Ron," she whispered.

She spent the next five minutes trying to convince herself that the last two minutes in the car had not really happened. She spent the five after that wondering where the woman who was capable of saying those things not only to a valued and trusted partner, but to a lover whom she would be lost without had come from, and if she had gone or was merely hiding in some deep dark corner of her soul.

She took a deep breath to steady herself and picked up the phone. Not surprisingly, he didn't answer. Appalled and feeling unclean, she put on her slippers and ascended the two flights of stairs to Ron's apartment. Again, she was not surprised by his failure to open the door.

"Oh, Ron," she said to herself.

Back downstairs, as she opened the door to her apartment, she heard her Kimmunicator beeping. Hoping against hope, she vaulted the sofa and dashed to her bedroom, snatching the device from the nightstand. She couldn't quite conceal her disappointment when Wade's face appeared.

"Kim, got a lead on Drakken."

The mission that had seemed so vital only hours ago now seemed dismally unimportant.

"Where?"

"Tibet." He noticed Kim's expression and tone that indicated something was wrong. "Are you okay?"

"No."

"What's wrong?"

"Look, I can't go after Drakken right now. I've got to find Ron."

Wade's hands stroked the keyboard, homing in on the signal in Ron's Kimmunicator. "He's at home."

"I wouldn't count on that, but I'll check. Back with you in a bit."

She switched off and dressed quickly, then again stole upstairs. She felt like a criminal when she unlocked his door, even though he had given her the key at the same time that he received a key to her apartment. She opened it enough to just stick her head in.

"Ron!" she called. No answer. "Ron, are you in here? Babe, I'm so sorry." She entered the apartment and it took only moments for her to confirm that he wasn't there. Rufus however was, and he sat up from his perch on the sofa and gazed at her with a worried expression.

"Rufus, where's Ron?" She asked.

He chittered nervously and shrugged.

"His Kimmunicator?"

He pointed to the kitchen counter. The Kimmunicator lay atop it, along with his cell phone and pager. So much for tracking him.

She also noticed that there was at least several days of dry or non-perishable food suitable for Rufus, as well as plenty of water, laid out on the counter. He was obviously not planning on being back any time soon.

She sighed. Rufus made another series of worried noises.

"Worried," he said.

"I am too. Don't worry, I'll find him.

She turned and headed out the door, locking up as she exited and called Wade.

"He's not here, Wade. Can you find him?"

"What's going on, Kim?"

"We had a fight." She thought better of that explanation and corrected herself. "No, that's not right, he...he didn't do anything. I just...Wade, I was awful to him, just awful. I don't know where it came from. I said he was worthless and that I didn't need him anymore." She could not keep the quiver out of her voice, or the tears from welling up. Wade had never seen her cry. None of her friends had. Except Ron, but he wasn't really a friend. He was family. At least he had been a few hours ago.

Wade was both appalled and uncomfortable at seeing a vulnerable Kim Possible. He hadn't thought she existed. "What do you want to do?"

"I couldn't possibly care less about Drakken right now. The world's not worth saving if Ron's not in mine. Keep tabs on him if you can. I've got to find Ron. If you think of anything that might help, let me know."

She signed off and ran out the door on the most important mission of her life.

Two days later she stood outside one of the rooms of a small, seedy, discount motel just outside of Upperton. The place gave her the creeps, and was almost certainly chosen as a hideout because she would never think to look in such a place, indeed would instinctually block out its very existence from her mind, without evidence pointing directly to it. She was glad to be wearing gloves when she knocked.

Getting no answer, but convinced he was in there, Kim resorted to what she liked to refer to as B&Ecause, breaking and entering for a good cause. It took only moments to jimmy the cheap lock and she entered the room cautiously. Sure enough, he was sitting in a beanbag chair she recognized as being from his apartment (she didn't blame him for not wanting to use the furniture here), watching television. He registered only mild surprise when he saw her and raised his drink.

"Kim Possible strikes again," he slurred. It was obvious the drink he saluted her with was alcoholic. Not only from his words, the evidence was literally all around him. Nearly a dozen empty bottles swam the floor around the chair. A cooler was in arms reach.

Relief at the sight of him flooded her, but now she was unsure how to proceed. She had been obsessed in the search for him and hadn't given much thought to the words that needed to be said when she finally found him.

"You're a pretty hard man to track down."

"Didn't honestly expect you'd be looking, KP," he said, a note of resignation in his voice.

She knelt in front of him and reached out to touch his face, but he flinched away from her.

"Oh, Ron. I am so, so sorry."

"Are you really?"

She felt a brief surge of anger at the barb but pushed it down, reminding herself that after what she had said, he pretty much had a "Permission to Speak Freely" card, and the full authority to use it.

"Yes, I really am." She put her hand on his knee, and he gently, but nevertheless forcefully, removed it. Choking back a mental sob, she rocked back on her haunches to give him a little space. He used the space to rise unsteadily from the chair.

"But you're the great Kim Possible." He gestured grandly, walking shakily around the room as he spoke, noisily kicking some of the empty bottles out of his way and nearly tripping over others. "How could wrong be you? You're the smart one. The pretty one. The sussescful one." He took another pull from the bottle, the action nearly upsetting his balance. "I'm just the sidekick, the distraction. Who would I to question Kim Possible?"

"Ron, I'm sorry I-"

"No, no." He interrupted. He held his hands up in front of him. "I know I don't understand, that I can't big the see picture. I'm just a klutz. The guy people trips over. Always screwing up, getting in the way, dragging you down. Hell, I'm the best player on their team."

"Ron, I had no right to say those awful things to you, and I didn't mean them."

"You know, that's pondering just what I've…no, wait…" He paused a moment, verbally regrouping. "…Just what I've been pondering these last couple days." He paused again and his eyes shifted left and right as his brain changed gears. He leaned toward Kim, wobbling, and fixed her with a one eye closed other eyebrow raised stare.

"Say, did it really take you two days to find me?"

She gave him a small smile and nodded. He righted himself and she got the feeling he didn't believe her.

"It really did take-."

He dismissed the statement with a wave and turned away from her.

"What I've been pondering is whether you did have the right to say those things, and whether you did mean them."

"Ron I would never-."

"Ah, but you did. And here's the thing. You did." He hiccuped. "Have the right, I mean. I know I bumble around some. And even if it was ninety-nine point nine nine nine nine nine nine nine nine nine nine nine nine nine nine percent not meant," he held up his free hand, thumb and forefinger a fraction of an inch apart, "There's still that little itty bitty eensie teensie tiny winy fraction of a percent that you did mean or you wouldn't have said it in the first place." He flopped (fell) backwards into a recliner and took another long pull from the bottle.

Kim's mind was working furiously to come up with a rebuttal but Ron's argument was not only probably true to a certain extent, but under the circumstances and in his current state of mind, that tiny fraction of a percent would seem to be enormous. It wouldn't matter to him that she had long ago accepted that fraction as part of his personality and had never even thought of holding it against him.

His eyes clouded and he waved at the TV. Kim turned and for the first time saw what Ron had been watching: His copy of their Video Memories DVD. It was paused on a medium shot of them dancing at their senior prom.

"How bad did it bother you? The jibes and pokes and prods you got from the "in crowd" about being with me? I mean, you were Kim Possible. You could've had your pick. Did you ever wonder, just for a second, why you weren't with a quarterback, or a point guard, or a goalie, or a pitcher? Or some hotshot with some other talent like Mankey? Do you still wonder?"

He had unknowingly cast her the tiniest bit of jetsam with which to try and pull her head above the water and she held onto it with her entire being. She fixed him with a fierce stare and let her eyes bare her soul. She slowly approached him as she spoke.

"No, the jibes never bothered me. I chose you. And yes, occasionally, I did wonder. But when I was done wondering, I was still with you." She felt hot tears running down her face. "And no, I haven't wondered in years. I've chosen you. And I love you." Her control broke to sobs and for once Kim Possible didn't care. She knelt in front of him again and looked up. She could see unshed tears in his eyes and knew she was getting through to him. She took his hand and squeezed it. He didn't squeeze back, but neither did he flinch away.

"And even if I had meant all those horrible things I said to you, and never wanted to work with you again, I would still love you, and I would still want to be with you. But I didn't mean those things, not even a little bit. I don't know what came over me. The best part of saving the world is that I get to do it with you. When I came to my senses and realized what I had said to you, and that it could be the end of us if we let it, I had to convince myself that it hadn't been a dream."

She was crying uncontrollably now, for the first time in her life, but she could see enough through her own tears that Ron's were now falling as well.

"I couldn't comprehend life without you. And then Wade called me and told me he had found Drakken, and I couldn't possibly have cared less. I told him that the world wasn't worth saving if you weren't in mine, and I meant it."

He stood pulling her with him and they embraced, and Kim squeezed him with every ounce of strength she had.

"Oh, Ron I am so sorry. I am so, so very sorry. Can you ever forgive me?"

He broke their embrace and took her face in his hands. His cheeks were as wet as hers.

"Hey, I'm dating Kim Possible. If I can do that I can do anything."

The kiss was the sweetest Kim had ever known.

And maybe ever would.