Timon and Pumbaa were driving down the highway in their Winnebago, not a care in the world, when Pumbaa spied a body on the side of the road.
"Timon, stop!" cried Pumbaa, a large man with a pot belly and massive mutton chops, as they drove by the little body.
Timon slammed on the breaks and the massive Winnebago slowed to a stop a few hundred yards away.
"What's wrong?" said Timon, a man as small as Pumbaa was large with a bald head that had only a wisp of hair.
"I saw someone on the side of the road!" said Pumbaa, fiddling with the door for a few moments before he spilled out of the car and ran back to the body.
Timon groaned but followed his friend out of the car. Although there was a cornucopia of woods around them, if you didn't know what you were doing it could spell a death sentence for you.
Timon ambled back to Pumbaa, who was huffing and wheezing a few yards away from the little body.
"I think it's a kid," said Pumbaa between breaths.
"Yeah, I can see that," said Timon. The kid was burned a deep red from a long exposure to the sun, and he was wearing clothes that looked like they'd once been in much better condition than they were now, as if the kid had been running in them for quite some time. He had dirty blonde hair and he was covered with grime and muck. Timon began to reach for his phone to call the authorities that they'd found a dead body when he noticed the kid's chest take a few heaving breaths.
"Christ on a crutch, he's still alive!" cried Timon, jumping back from the little body. "Pumbaa, grab his legs and help me get him back into the Winnie."
Pumbaa took a deep breath and grabbed the kid's legs and helped Timon maneuver the little body into a bed back on the Winnebago.
They stood watch over the little body, averting their fans to blow onto him and patting him down with water to keep his temperature down.
Timon had just started to replace a water soaked rag when the kid finally came too, groaning as he woke up.
"You ok kid?" asked Timon, hovering over the kid as he sat up.
"I guess so," said the kid in a weary reply, still incoherent from his hours out in the sun.
"You nearly died," said Pumbaa, his eyes wide with concern.
"I saved you," said Timon, crossing his arms and grinning. Pumbaa grunted and Timon rolled his eyes. "Pumbaa helped," he amended. Pumbaa grinned now as well, while Timon added under his breath, "A little."
"Thanks for your help," said the kid, swinging his legs from the bed they'd laid him and struggling to his feet. He began to work his way to the door, wincing as he walked because of his severe sun burns, when Timon and Pumbaa moved to stop him.
"Hey, where're you going?" asked Timon, positioning himself in front of the door handle. He wouldn't stop the kid if he really meant to leave, but he did want to be there to give him an option.
"Nowhere," replied the kid, moving again to the door.
"Kid, what's eating yah?" asked Pumbaa, sitting down in a chair next to the door.
"Nothing, he's at the top of the food chain! Get it, the food chain?" said Timon, laughing at his own joke. Pumbaa glared at him and Timon chuckles died off. "So, where you from?" he asked the child, never moving from the door.
"Who cares, I can't go back," said the kid. The kid stood still, not trying to move past Timon but not looking him the eye either.
Timon's eyes lit up. "Ah, you're an outcast? That's great, so are we!" he said with a wave of his hands.
"What'd you do, kid?" asked Pumbaa, a concerned and understanding look on his face. Pumbaa'd had a number of run-ins with the law in his past and knew that things could seem more terrible to a kid than they might otherwise be.
"Something terrible. I don't want to talk about it," said the kid, still not meeting their gaze.
"Good! We don't want to hear about it!" said Timon with a shrug.
Pumbaa glared at Timon again, mouthing Come on, Timon, before asking "Anything we can do?"
"Not unless you can change the past," said the kid in the downtrodden voice.
Pumbaa's face lit up at that. "You know kid, in times like this, my buddy Timon here says 'You gotta put your behind in your past,'" he said, although his face wrinkled as he realized this wasn't right and stumbled over the phrase a few more times before Timon groaned.
"No, no, no. Amateur. Lie down before you hurt yourself. It's 'You gotta put your past behind you.' Look kid, bad things happen, and you can't do anything about it, right?" asked Timon.
"Right," said the kid, nodding as Timon spoke.
"Wrong!" cried Timon, pointing a finger in the kids face as he did so. "When the world turns its' back on you, you turn your back on the world," Timon said with a grand, sweeping motion that included the whole of the land outside the Winnebago.
The kid thought about this for a moment before saying "Well that's not what I was taught," he said.
"Well then maybe you need a new lesson," said Timon, clearing his throat before he went on. "Repeat after me. Hakuna Matata."
"What?" asked the kid, finally looking up at them. The fact that his face was cross-eyed as he took in what Timon had said didn't matter, since at least he was responding.
"Hakuna. Matata," said Pumbaa slowly, as if this might help the kind understand. "It means 'No worries.' Those two words will solve all your problems."
"Hakuna Matata," the kid said, sounding the words out on his own. He went and sat in one of the seats on the back the Winnebago, to take it in. Timon, meanwhile, moved back into the driver's seat and set the Winnebago into motion once again, continuing on towards their destination. He didn't know all of what the future held, but he was certain that whatever it was, this kid would be in it.