Standard Legal Crapola:

I don't own anything associated with Kim Possible. (It would be nice if I did, but then I could say the same thing about winning a million dollars and having a date with Cindy Crawford. At some point we just have to face facts and admit that none of it is very likely to happen. But I digress.) Kim is the sole property of the Disney Corporation, as are any profits generated by her. I'm making no money whatsoever here. My creative motivation flows instead from my strong love for the characters, and the fact that I have no real life to speak of. (Fan-fiction is a great way to fill-up a lonely Saturday night, it turns out.)

So in review: I own nothing, make nothing, and date nothing. Are we all clear on that? Good!

On with the story…

- The Eternal Moment -

A moment is a strange thing. Unlike more formal measures of time, a moment has no specific definition. It cannot be subdivided into smaller units, nor multiplied into larger ones. Surrounded on all sides by its scientifically incremental cousins the second, minute and hour, it staunchly refuses to be defined by such rigid terms. Stubbornly digging in its heels, it will neither be reined nor contained, wandering aimlessly through the intangible depths of relativity's fourth dimension.

And within this realm of ambiguity, the lowly moment takes on a relativity all its own. Free from the restraints of boundaries and textbook definitions, it can mold itself to the situation, becoming at once all things to all people. A moment can be devastatingly quick, as fleeting as the beating of a humming bird's wings, or it can draw out in painfully slow fashion, like a blade, encompassing a seeming eternity within its boundaries and bringing all the incredulous horrors of the world in its wake. It can be at once both "forever" and "never," and all that lies between.

For an intrepid team of world-saving youths, this was just such a moment. It came unexpectedly, like a thief in the night, seeming to transpire both in the flash of an instant, and in a super-slow motion, worthy of any sports telecast.

The mission had been going smoothly, almost boringly so. Gemini and a few of his more loyal agents had holed up the craggy crevices of a jungle ridge, somewhere in the Amazon Rainforest. It was your standard doomsday plot that the group was working on, and with the details being characteristically sketchy, it had fallen to Team Possible to root the nefarious ne'er-do-wells from their hideout du jour.

The team this day was more impressive than usual, Kim had to admit. In addition to herself and Ron, the Tweebs had tagged along, adding their own brand of technical expertise and mischievous mayhem to Wade's own techno-skills. Her cousin Joss had come along for the trip as well, having been in town visiting when the call had come in, and fairly begging to come with when she had heard.

Looking back over her shoulder at the quartet trailing behind her, Kim couldn't help but notice how well everyone worked together. Each one of them brought his or her own special set of skills to the team. Her brothers with their knack for producing weapons-grade equipment from ordinarily innocuous items, Joss and her fiery "take-no-prisoners" spirit and cowgirl skills, and Ron's inexplicable "Ron-factor" luck: Each element combined with the others to make for a stronger, more capable assault force.

The thought of all this brought an involuntary smile to Kim's face. Although nothing had been spoken of it out loud as of yet, it was generally understood within both Ron's family and hers that at some point in the not-too-distant future, Ron was going to ask her to marry him, and she was going to say yes. And while in her heart and mind, that day could not come soon enough, she was somewhat saddened by the realization that such an occurrence would likely mean their retirement from mission work. As exhilarating as it was, saving the world would be something she'd have to walk away from, leaving behind all the globe-hopping and freak-fighting for a quiet future of settling down with Ron, raising a family of her own, and walking off into the sunset, hand-in-hand with her soul mate to enjoy the "happily ever after" that they both so richly deserved.

But now, in the scene playing out just a few yards behind her, she found no small measure of consolation. Her spirit was buoyed by the sight, for in the grimly determined faces of her cousin and brothers, she felt she was glimpsing the future: Another Team Possible, waiting in the wings, skills and spirits at the ready. They could pick up the world-saving banner and carry it forward, allowing the legacy that she and Ron had created to endure, even as they themselves slipped silently into retirement, and eventual obscurity. The name of Team Possible would still stand as a beacon of justice, long after Ron and herself had vanished from the world stage. This was the way in which she would have her proverbial cake, and darn well eat it too.

Then, in the span of a moment, everything changed.

It was a faint noise that came to Kim's ears. So faint in fact, that most people would have undoubtedly failed to notice it. It was dull and muffled, its acoustic fingerprint muted by the dense foliage and damp earth of the forest floor, but to the highly-trained ears of a seasoned world-saving agent, it was as clear as church bells on Sunday morning: A metallic "click," followed by two dull "thuds," and it meant only one thing…

"Grenade!"

Kim's shouted one-word warning immediately threw the entire team into frenzied action. The twins clambered up a nearby slope, away from the shallow stream they had all been following, and dove behind a fallen, rotting log. Kim spun around to grab Joss by the shoulders and threw the two of them forward, pressing the younger redhead in the mud, partially shielding her with her own body. Rufus, who had been riding contently on his master's shoulder, scrambled to the ground and proceeded to set a record for digging the world's fastest foxhole: A feat made somewhat easier by his species' subterranean nature.

It all seemed to happen in slow motion, each and every tick of the clock echoing thunderously through Kim's mind. Each second became an eternity unto itself as adrenaline mixed with anxiety and uncertainty to form a potent cocktail of fear.

There was so much happening so slowly it seemed, and yet she was seeing so little. All she could catch were fleeting glimpses from the corners of her peripheral vision: A momentary flash of the Tweebs diving for cover, a glimpse of Rufus disappearing in a whirlwind of flying dirt, the blurry image of Joss's hair as she pressed the younger woman firmly into the muddy stream bank. There was so much to see, and yet so little that she was actually comprehending. It was as if the entire world had at once both sped up and slowed down, twisting time itself into a pretzel of paradox and contradiction.

And then… there was the waiting.

As seconds slowly ticked by, Kim scarcely dared to breathe. In her mind she knew what was coming, and the terror this knowledge caused her was almost palpable. It forced its way up from the depths of her gut, invading her throat and mouth with the stinging taste of bile. Her team had protected themselves as best they could, but the uncertainty of whether or not that would be enough to save them was downright unbearable. Her mind flashed to horrific images of the scene that may greet her when she finally dared raise her head. The sight of her brothers' bloody, lifeless bodies, Rufus torn apart by shrapnel, finding her own legs shattered by the blast: These images and a host of others flooded her mind, each one a mental snapshot more horrific than the last. They were images of her future and every conceivable hope for happiness blown to bits. Images of her entire family wiped out in an instant, and yet all of them strangely lacking in something. Images that were without…

"Oh my gosh!" she silently screamed to herself, her entire body turning rigid with shock. "Ron!"

In the flash of an instant, she realized that in all the commotion and the mad dash for cover, she had not seen her presumably future fiancé. He had been near the far end of the team's column, last time she had checked, dutifully bringing up the rear and making sure that no one fell too far behind.

Now, with a level of terror that to this point she would have never dreamt possible, Kim realized that his position most likely put him closest to the weapon they were all now desperately hiding from. For him to escape the blast radius in time to avoid serious injury would be a nearly impossible task.

Silently, Kim began to pray for a miracle, hoping against hope itself that by some stroke of divine intervention, her boyfriend's lucky streak would hold true: That he would somehow escape the grisly fate that now stared him straight in the face, and that he would find his way back to hold her in his comforting arms once again.

Thoughts of the future mixed with memories of the past as the seconds dragged on, each one bringing with it a reel of mental film clips containing everything that her life was and everything that she had hoped it would be. It was like waiting in the back of a dark movie theater, anxiously munching popcorn and waiting for the plot twist that would forever alter the lives of the main characters.

Except in this case, the movie was real, and the main character was none other than herself.

The seconds continued to drag by, each tick of the clock driving a thousand daggers ever deeper into her heart. She felt she would scream if she could find the breath for it, but the vice-like tightening of her chest prevented any such action. She was paralyzed and helpless, completely at the mercy of the sitch: At the mercy of time itself.

And time can be a very strange beast, after all: Little more than an illusion, as Albert Einstein taught us, woven elegantly into the temporal fabric by the forces of velocity and perspective. It is a relative thing, experienced differently by different people. As malleable as clay and as fluid as water, seconds and minutes quickly morph into hours and days, just as soon as one's perspective changes.

And it was this perspective that now changed for the redheaded heroine as she desperately attempted to shield her only female cousin. As the seconds continued to draw out in excruciating fashion, she began to realize that far more time had passed than she had, up until this point, thought.

What was even more intriguing, however, was the total silence that reigned over the jungle. There had been no explosion, no resounding "boom" to echo through the trees. Not even the firecracker-like "pop" of the detonator had been heard. The only sounds to come to her ears were the laborious breathing of Joss beneath her, and the drum roll-like beating of her own heart.

"Are we all dead?" she thought silently to herself. She had heard stories, after all, about soldiers in combat never hearing the bomb that hit them. Such tales often caused her to wonder just how it was possible to know such a thing, as anyone who experienced it would clearly not survive to tell the story.

Still, however, she seemed to feel fine right now, and her surroundings seemed unchanged. She could still feel the quivering form of Joss beneath her, and the coolness of the mud that covered them provided stark contrast to the omnipresent duo of heat and humidity that the jungle provided. Screwing on all the courage she could muster, she ever so slightly raised her head, and slowly scanned her surroundings.

There was a faint rustling in the bushes to her right, telling her that her brothers had come through okay, and Joss squirmed uncomfortably under the weight that Kim was placing on her. A few paces away, Rufus warily poked his head above the rim of his hole, resembling one of the cartoonish targets in a "Whack-a-Mole" game. She warily breathed a sigh of relief, seeing that everyone appeared to be slightly shaken, but otherwise unscathed by the experience.

Then her mind flashed back to thoughts of Ron.

Snapping her head around as though her neck was spring-loaded, she frantically scanned her surroundings, searching for any sign of the most important person in her life. Her gaze raced up the hillside, across the base of the tree line, and down to the stream once again. Finally, after several desperate seconds, she spotted a mop of muddy blonde hair, laying face down along the edge of the stream, unmoving and lifeless.

Kim's heart leapt into her throat and twisted itself into knots that would make any Boy Scout proud as she raced to Ron's side. The sickening sensation she had experienced moments before now suddenly returned, its strength multiplied ten fold by the gut-wrenching sight before her. Dropping to her knees and sliding to a stop in the mud beside him, she was only peripherally aware of Joss and the Tweebs taking up flanking positions beside her as she began to check Ron over, hoping for the best, but still fearing the worst.

Her fears were alleviated somewhat when she ripped off her gloves and placed a finger to his throat, checking for a pulse. In addition to the rapid, rhythmic throbbing that she quickly discovered, she took note of a violent shaking that had gone unnoticed until that point. It was obvious that Ron was scared out of his wits, not yet realizing that the danger of the moment had passed. She also took note of the strange way in which he was holding himself.

His arms were tucked underneath himself, tightly contorted against his abdomen, as if trying to contain some great, unseen force within him self. At first Kim thought he was protecting Rufus, but she quickly remembered that the tiny creature had found his own hiding place, and now sat perched atop Jim's shoulder, intently watching the developing scene before him.

Finally bowing to the twin forces of curiosity and relief, Kim reached down and gently shook Ron's shoulder, trying ever so delicately to gain his attention. He let loose with a startled yelp at the sudden intrusion, but quickly composed him self, gasping for air as he released the breath that he was unaware he had been holding.

"Are… Are we dead?" he choked out, glancing uneasily about. "Because if we are, then heaven is pretty whacked."

"No… no, Ron." Kim replied as calmly and reassuringly as possible. "Everyone's okay."

"But wha… what about the…?"

"Grenade?" Kim completed. "I think it was a dud."

"A dud?" Ron gasped incredulously, his face suddenly taking on a confused expression. "Well then if that's the case…"

Slowly, and with Kim's gentle assistance, he began to sit up, all the while keeping his hands and arms tucked tightly against his torso. His entire front side was now caked in mud, obscuring all but the most obvious of his features. After several moments he managed to achieve a kneeling position, and sank back onto his heels. Slowly, as if dreading what he might see, he chanced to look down, and gradually allowed his hands to fall away from his mud-covered midsection.

Green eyes grew wide and the entire team gasped in astonishment when they recognized what they were seeing.

There, cradled gently in folds of Ron's hands like an injured bird, was the grenade. The familiar form of its pineapple-like casing was still visible through the mud that covered it, and the safety lever that would normally adorn one side of the device was clearly missing.

It quickly became clear to everyone just what had transpired in the few chaotic moments that followed Kim's initial warning. While everyone else had dove madly for cover, giving free reign to the instinct of self-preservation, Ron had thrown himself onto the device, using his own body as a shield to protect his teammates. He had been ready and willing to sacrifice himself on a moment's notice, allowing himself to be literally blown in two so that those around him might live to see the sunset that day.

Staring blankly at the lethal weapon he now held in his hands, Ron said nothing. He simply continued staring at the small, egg-shaped object, as searching it for some sort of deeper meaning: Asking it for the reason why it had chosen to spare his life in this way.

The uneasy silence continued for several seconds, no one daring to disrupt its all consuming hold on the environment. Then, without warning or apparent reason, Ron began to chuckle nervously.

It was faint at first, barely audible above the flowing water of the stream. Then it began to build, slowly, changing first to a snicker, then to a chortle, and finally morphing into a full-blown belly laugh. It was the oddest behavior the group had ever observed from the tow-headed young man, which was saying quite a lot to be sure. But still, they couldn't help but respond with smiles of their own, and within the span of a few seconds all those present were joining in, giving themselves fully to the almost giddy display of laughter now unfolding.

Kim fairly fell into Ron's embrace, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and pulling him in tight against her self, paying no attention to muddy mess that now thoroughly covered both of them. Ron responded by slipping one arm firmly around Kim's back, keeping the grenade firmly cradled against himself with his free hand. Laughing hysterically like a couple of small children, they quickly lost their balance in the slippery earth and tumbled over together into the mud, neither noticing nor caring about the overwhelming mess they were making of themselves.

The powers of the universe had been kind this day to be sure. In a brief span of time, all the drama of life and the human condition had played out. Joy and hope, fear and anxiety, devotion and heroism: All had had taken center stage, laid bare to be experienced in all their gripping intensity…

Within the span of a moment.

Author's Notes:

This story just sort of struck me out of the blue today as I was riding a train into Sacramento. Fortunately I had my laptop with me, and Amtrak has power outlets on their trains, so here we are. (It's amazing what you can accomplish at 60 miles per hour when you're not the one driving.)

I do realize that this is a little on the short side by my normal standards, and is noticeably lacking in dialogue. For the purposes of this story, I wanted to focus primarily on the progression of events, and the way in which the characters both perceived and responded to them. I guess you could say I was trying to explore the ways in which people perceive time and motion in times of great stress. The characters themselves became secondary to the story in this approach, and limiting dialogue was an effective way (I thought) of diverting attention away from them and onto the intended point of focus. I hope that I didn't cheese too many of you off by doing this.

And besides… What the heck do you expect from something that was banged out in an afternoon? War and Peace? Sheesh!

In any case, I'm sure you all know the drill by this point in the game. Read and review to your heart's content, and if you're unusually lucky or eloquent, you might just get a reply. Take care, one and all, and be sure to vote in this year's Golden Fannie Awards over on Zaratan's forums. January 31st is the deadline, so vote early and vote often. (Remember me while you're there, and you just might find yourself getting a little somethin'-somethin'. Wink-wink… nudge-nudge… say no more.)

Peace out, and all that jazz!

Nutzkie…