The right cure

Disclaimer/Author's Notes: Kim Possible and all the characters of the show are owned by the Disney Company. All other characters can be blamed on the author (he, however, is not responsible for all of their actions at all times, being barely responsible for himself most of the time).

This is a strictly not-for-profit, just-for-fun work.

Enjoy! Please read and review.

A/N Forward:

A doctor makes a house call for a special sitch….

The right cure

Dr. Joshua Mankey turned off his Gourd Packer at the curb, looked back to make certain that there was no traffic coming, and stepped out of his car.

He smoothed down his fresh-off-the-runway-in-Paris, Fifteen-hundred-dollar US CocoB suit and stepped onto the sidewalk, heading down two doors for the local pharmacy and the one person that he knew that he had to talk to: his old friend and former flame from Middleton High School and M. I. S. T., Tara (now) Flagg.

He opened the door to the familiar 'ding' and headed for the pharmacy counter at the back of the store.

She was standing there, and she was as beautiful as he remembered, all those years ago. Her hair was still that absolutely, stunningly-gorgeous platinum blonde she'd had in college, and her figure belied the four children she had at home. Even in her 40s, she could still stop traffic: anywhere, and anytime.

Tara looked up and smiled.

"Dr. Mankey!" she exclaimed with a jump in her voice.

Tara Flagg wondered why the doctor had called and asked her for an appointment at her drug store. She remembered Josh, but she hadn't seen him in years since she and Brick got married and headed to Texas where he played college and pro ball, ultimately winning five professional championship rings and seven MVP awards before he retired. She continued to work as a pharmacist, that being what she had gone to school to do and what she enjoyed, so Brick's retirement, and their ultimate resettlement back in Middleton, allowed her to fulfill her dream and buy the old 'Doc Adams' Pharmacy' from the good doctor himself, allowing him to retire, once again, and relax with his wife, kids, grandkids, and the rest of the extended Possible family. He stopped in, now and again, for a Sweet Tea with Mint, and she always made it fresh for him…with a smile as they traded stories. They would talk about the old days…but that didn't happen as much anymore, ever since his wife had passed on….

Tara heard the door 'ding' and looked into the monitor, smiling.

'Snap, he's still got his looks,' she thought as he approached the back of the store. His boyish looks had grown into a ruggedly-handsome look, and his stature was rock-solid, 'just like his abs look,' she giggled inside.

'Oh, my, goodness, and he's probably still got those 'buns of diamond', too: he probably stopped traffic, both male and female, for a 10-block radius when he stepped out of his Gourd. I wonder what he wants…' she thought as he walked up and smiled after she spoke:

"Dr. Mankey!" she exclaimed, and he thought that she was happy to see him, once again.

"Ms. Flagg, you are a vision, even after your children, and, especially, today," Josh smiled as he stuck out his hand, but Tara would have none of that.

She came out of the secure area and hugged Josh, kissing his cheek and not hiding the huge smile on her face.

"Dr. Mankey, it's Tara, as if you didn't remember," she chided him with a smile.

"Only if it's Josh, Tara," he replied, and she nodded.

"How are the kids, Tara?" He continued, and Tara grinned from ear to ear as she told him about her oldest in high school on down to the youngest, starting cheerleading in the fourth grade.

"Do you see Kim and Ron much anymore, Josh?" Tara asked.

"Not since they 'moved up in the world,'" he grinned. "Kim's GJ job keeps her world-hopping, and Ron's restaurants keep him busy across the country, too," and he went on with a funny story about Ron's son inheriting the 'pants gene.'

"So, Josh," Tara was finally able to slow her laughter, "what brings you down to the store all filled with the 'mystery appointment' sitch?" Tara laughed as she used Kim Stoppable's favorite phrase from her 'mission work' days, and Josh's smile went away.

"Tara, I would like to buy some cyanide," he stated, and Tara's face went blank.

"Why in the world would you need cyanide, Josh?" she asked.

Josh steeled himself for the response he'd practiced over a hundred times in the car as he drove over: "I need it to poison my wife."

"Bonnie?" Tara's eyes got big, and she was aghast. She had thought that Bonnie and Josh were one of those 'forever couples', like Kim and Ron.

Josh nodded, and Tara noticed that Josh's face had been the holder of tears, now dried.

Tara reached behind the counter and turned off the monitors before she spoke. "I can't sell cyanide to you to kill Bonnie, Josh: that's against the law," Tara exclaimed quietly, glancing around to make certain that no one else had come into the store without her knowledge.

"I'd lose my license, they'll throw both of us in jail, Josh, and all kinds of bad things would happen."

Tara crossed her arms over her pharmacist's jacket, brushing back her long platinum-blonde hair with a finality of purpose. "Absolutely not: I will not sell you cyanide, Josh."

"Where is Brick, Tara?" Josh asked in a question completely from left field at a football stadium.

"He's in Go City on business: why?"

"No, he's not," Josh replied sadly as he pulled an envelope from his inside jacket pocket. Opening it, he pulled out a photograph and handed it to Tara, the picture facing him.

Tara took the picture and turned it around.

There was her husband, Brick Flagg, professional football multi-MVP, passionately kissing Dr. Bonnie Mankey, psychiatrist, both hands cupping Bonnie's shapely bottom. Brick had told Tara that he was seeing someone for some stress issues, but 'he didn't say how he was getting unstressed,' Tara thought bitterly as she felt her world fall apart. 'This explains the rumors during his career, and the trips he's been making the last few months,' Tara realized with a mental growl.

'And, after 20 years, he had to go back to eating 'Bon-Bons,' Tara thought with a sad smile. Bonnie was her friend, and Bonnie's kids were friends with her kids. Both sets of kids would be devastated, and Tara and Josh would be laughingstocks in their own home town.

'After 20 years,' Josh thought bitterly, 'she had to go back to pigskin, and she's even a vegetarian,' he smiled sadly inside. 'She's done it before, and she promised, the last time I caught her, that it would never happen again….'

Tara thought for a minute, and the store was eerily silent, only the sound of the machines on the counter, whirring in the background, and the air, coming out of the vents, breaking the silence of the devastated friends. Then, Tara decided -

"Well, now," she looked up at Josh with tears streaming down her face and a wicked grin on it, one that Josh had never seen on her before, reminding him of a look he's gotten, one before, from Shego.

"This is different, Josh," she held up the picture. "You didn't tell me you had a double prescription….

"I think I just might have the thing for this disease," she walked behind the counter and smiled as she remembered the line from the movie:

Revenge was, indeed, a dish best served cold.

Author's afterward:

This is storyreader 51's fault: he sent me the joke….

Thanks again for reading, and please review.

2008.03.22