Where are you?
Kim sat outside the last escape pod, "Where are you, Ron?" She asked herself aloud.
Kim sat there for a few minutes, her mind was racing, 'Six escape pods, all empty.' The math was inescapable. Does that mean he never got on one? But Wade said that the ship had exploded in the stratosphere. Kim closed her eyes, tears formed.
"No, he's alive, and I will find him," She told herself.
Kim climbed down to where her family was awaiting with their jet.
"Kimmy?" Mrs. Possible asked. "Where's Ron?"
Kim wiped the tears from her eyes, "I.. I don't know. He… He wasn't there." Kim sobbed.
"Oh, well, there are other pods right?" Mrs. Possible asked.
Kim didn't answer, she couldn't. She slumped to the ground and wept.
The atmosphere surrounding the Possible Family, died in an instant. Jim and Tim turned off the Kimmunicator, "X-treme X-mas" no longer seemed to matter. Mrs. Possible knelt at her daughter's side and tried to console her.
"Oh, honey, I'm sorry," She put her arm around her, "I know how much Ron meant to you…"
Kim pushed her mother away, "Don't say it!" Kim screamed. "He is alive!"
"Kim, honey, we only want to help…" Mrs. Possible replied.
"I don't need any help, because he's not dead," Kim cried defiantly, "now leave me alone."
Kim ran off into the brush, grabbing the Kimmunicator from Jim, ignoring the cries of her parents to return. Kim pulled out her grappling gun and fired it into the tree next to the last escape pod. Then she pulled herself up and climbed back into the escape pod, where she sat in one of the seats and pulled out the Kimmunicator.
"Wade, come in." Kim said.
"Hi, Kim," Wade started, then he saw Kim's expression on his computer. "Uh, Kim, what's wrong?"
"The pod, it's… it's empty," She sobbed.
"But that was the last one, he had to be in there," Wade responded.
"Maybe you missed one," Kim choked out hoping for a positive reply.
"I'm sorry Kim, those were the only ones," Wade said in a somber tone.
Kim thought for a few moments. "Wade, can you run through each event leading up to the explosion?" Kim asked, after pulling herself together.
"Well let's see. The signal from the Kimmunicator Ron had was inside the ship as it took off. I show it still on…" Wade stopped in mid-sentence.
"Wade?" Kim asked, "Then what?"
Wade didn't answer.
"Then what? Wade answer me!" Kim cried.
"Well, I show that the Kimmunicator's signal was still onboard after the escape pods had been launched, in fact, I was receiving a signal, right up to the time… that the craft exploded." Wade said, unable to look at his screen.
Kim dropped her Kimmunicator, and closed her eyes. The gravity of the moment hit her, she put her face in her hands and cried. She refused to answer Wade's attempts to console her.
Wade activated the remote feature on the Kimmunicator and flew it down to Mr. Possible, to lead him to his daughter.
Mr. Possible, picked up his daughter and carried her back to the ship as she cried on his shoulder. No words were spoken, for he knew that no words could help now.
Meanwhile in the Arctic. Ron and Drakken sat outside the crashed garbage container they'd used as an escape pod. The two were arguing about whose fault it was that they were in this position.
"This is so not my fault Drakken," Ron spouted, "I can't just let you take over the world."
"Well why not, it's Christmas, isn't it?" Drakken replied.
"Yeah it is, which is why I can't let you ruin it for everyone else Drakken," Ron retorted.
Ron blasted Drakken with a snow ball. "Oh, you want to throw things now, that is so immature." He said, belting Ron with a pair of snowballs.
"Like you're one to talk about maturity," Ron yelled, tossing a few more balls back at him.
"Cut it out!" Drakken yelled, continuing the fight.
"You started it!" Ron said.
Drakken pulled out his cell phone, and wound up. "Dude that's a cell phone!" Ron exclaimed.
"Damn right it is, have a closer look at it!" Drakken yelled as he hurled it at Ron.
Ron ducked and the phone shattered as it collided with the garbage container.
"Hey, why'd you do that, we could have called for help with that. Now what are we going to do?" Ron yelled angrily at Drakken.
Drakken didn't have time to reply, a large polar bear appeared and roared. Drakken and Ron froze in fear. As the bear approached them, their shock finally broke and they bolted in opposite directions. The bear's focus turned to Ron as it took a mighty swipe at him with its huge forepaw. Ron was struck in the chest and knocked back hard as he flew until he crashed into the garbage container. Barely able to breathe after the blow, he managed to crawl into the pod. The bear pounded on the pod until it rolled off the cliff. Ron bounced around in the pod as it came crashing to the ground about 100 feet below.
The bear lost interest in the falling pod, and turned to go after Drakken. He had managed to get a 50 yard head start while the bear attacked Ron. The bear was much faster than him, and soon it had him in its sights.
"Get down!" A voice yelled at Drakken.
Drakken looked in the direction of the voice and was staring down the barrel of a shotgun. He fell to the ground and covered up. The gunman fired a pair of shots, sending two darts at the polar bear. The darts contained a powerful animal tranquilizer and the bear was soon subdued and netted by the gunman's party members.
"What the heck are you doing out here, especially dressed like that?" the gunman asked Drakken.
"My ship crashed," he said still cowering.
"Well you are quite lucky, our little research team found you in time, or you'd been bear food." he said with a little chuckle.
Drakken didn't like the joke, but he was quite happy to be rescued. The team was doing research on polar bears, and was placing transmitters on the local population to track them later. They gave Drakken a warm coat and took him back to their base camp with them. Later the next day he was on a boat back home. But he neglected to mention his fellow survivor of the crash to the researchers, feeling that the sidekick was already dead, plus he didn't want them to find out that he was a villain bent on world domination.
At the bottom of the cliff lay the garbage pod, inside Ron laid trying to regain his bearings. The strike from the bear hurt him. His chest was very sore, and it was difficult to breathe. He was alone, injured, and he knew he'd freeze to death if he couldn't find help. He sifted through the trash, looking for anything which might aid him. He found an old Christmas stocking that he used for a hat, and he stuffed old newspapers inside his shirt and pants for insulation. Last he emptied the trash bags and wrapped them around his body, hoping that they would provide him some protection from the cold arctic winds.
"I sure wish KP was here, buddy," Ron said to Rufus. "If she had been with us, we'd probably be eating turkey at her house right about now. Heck she's probably doing that right now anyway." he chuckled to himself.
Ron began his trek. He chose to walk northeast, not that he knew, it was just the direction that the wind was blowing, and it was easiest to move in that direction. His right leg was very sore and he limped noticeably. When the pod had crashed down, he fell onto a large wooden chair and his knee made solid contact with the frame. His trek was a slow one, he'd only walked about one mile, in one hour. As he reached the hour mark, his knee collapsed and he fell face first into the snow. Even though his body was cold and numb, the pain in his leg and chest burned sharply.
'I will not die here, Kim, I will make it home to you.' Ron thought to himself. With that he pulled himself back on his feet and began trudging forward again. He walked for another 30 minutes, when the rumble of a loud engine came up behind him. A snowmobile rode up to him, the rider tried to speak to Ron, but he was too weak to understand anything. He collapsed again. The rider got on his radio and called for help. A tractor pulled up just a few minutes later and a physician put Ron on a stretcher and loaded him into the tractor.
Ironically, Ron had been rescued by the "X-treme X-mas" crew and their doctors. The same people he'd cursed the other day for canceling "Snowman Hank." The doctors wrapped Ron's bruised ribs, and put a brace on his right knee, and gave him a big shot of morphine to dull the pain. Ron did not awake until his plane back to Middleton began its final approach, the doctors had determined his place of residence from his school ID in his wallet, and they flew him back on the team jet.
Ron caught a cab home. And he arrived to a set of stunned but overjoyed parents.
"Mom, Dad? I'm home!" Ron called out as he walked in.
His dad, who was on the phone trying to make arrangements for a funeral service, looked at his son in disbelief.
"Oh my god, thank you, Ronald! You're alive!" Mr. Stoppable cried, rushing to his son. "Honey! Come down here! It's Ronald!"
"What?!" she exclaimed rushing down the stairs. She looked at her son, he limped over to her and gave her a big hug. "I don't understand, Kim said you were dead. You were in a spaceship that blew up, and you didn't get out with the escape pods."
Ron embraced his mother, and sat them down to tell them the whole story of his adventure. Drakken, the garbage container/escape pod, polar bears, not to mention his rescuers "X-treme X-mas."
"Honey, we should call the Possibles, Kim really needs to know Ron's ok." Mrs. Stoppable told her husband.
"Oh, my yes, she's been absolutely inconsolable since she got home." Mr. Stoppable agreed, as he thought of the scene where Kim tried to explain what happened.
Kim wanted to tell Ron's parents herself of his fate, she thought it was her duty as his best friend and partner. But when the time came she could barely get out the words between sobs. Her father had to fill in most of the information to the grieving parents.
Ron stopped his father from picking up the phone. "Dad, let me go over there and tell them myself, it's the least I can do for making you all go through this."
Ron grabbed his helmet and scooter keys, and made the short ride to the Possible residence he'd made a thousand times before. He pulled up in the driveway and found Jim and Tim in the garage working on some piece of machinery.
"No way!" Jim exclaimed.
"Unreal!" Tim added.
"It's Ron!" They said together.
They ran out to greet Ron on his scooter, for once they actually seemed like real kids, and not annoying super genius little brothers. They showered him with questions wanting to know every detail of what happened to him.
"Hey, what's all the commotion out here, you boys know your sister just finally got to sleep! Keep it down, you know what she's been through!" Kim's mom shouted from inside the house. She stepped out the door and dropped the glass of milk she was holding.
"Ron, oh my goodness, you are alive!" Mrs. Possible proclaimed. Then in true motherly fashion, "Where have you been, you've had us all scared to death thinking the worst has happened to you."
And so for the second time in an hour, he told his tale. Explaining why he had been absent from the escape pods, his amazing rescue and his journey home.
"Oh my, you must be exhausted, and you should be taking it easy with those injuries, come inside there's no need to stand out here in the cold." Mrs. Possible said interrupting his account.
"If you don't mind Mrs. Possible, I'd really like to see Kim," Ron said to her.
"Oh, of course, she's upstairs in bed, she's been up the last two days, she's been a mess since you went missing, the only thing that will bring her back is seeing you alive. She'll be so happy." Mrs. Possible replied.
Ron entered the house and climbed the steps to Kim's room, Jim and Tim tried to follow, but Mrs. Possible stopped them, "They need to do this alone boys," She said to them leading them in the opposite direction.
Ron walked into Kim's room, the lights were off, but her computer lit up a portion of the room. Playing on the screen was the cyber scrapbook Kim had made for Ron, displaying images of them together over the years. Kim was asleep in bed, dressed in Ron's jersey, the one he'd left at her house when he'd changed into his mission clothes on Christmas Eve. Beside her was a picture of the two of them at last year's Middleton Festival. Ron walked up to the bed and sat down beside her. He gently stroked her hair and rubbed her back while whispering for her wake up.
Kim's eyes opened slowly, and as her vision sharpened the images in her view, a familiar face appeared before her.
"R- Ron, is that really you? Or am I dreaming again?" She stammered.
"No Kim, you aren't dreaming, I am really here," Ron answered softly.
Kim sat up and looked at her best friend, she was overcome by a broad spectrum of emotions. She slapped him weakly on the cheek, "What the hell were you thinking? Running off like that and not saying a word," Kim yelled at him.
Ron never turned his gaze from her eyes, "I'm sorry, I don't…" he began to respond. But he was cut off.
Kim threw herself at him, "I'm so glad you're here, I… I didn't think I'd ever see you again." She sobbed, with tears streaming down her face.
Ron held her close as she cried. "Don't worry Kim, no matter where I go, no matter what I do, I will always return home to you."
"Promise?" Kim asked without looking up.
"I promise," He said to her, kissing her on the forehead.
Kim looked up at Ron, their eyes met, both had tears in their eyes.
As Ron looked into Kim's big green eyes, he thought back to his darkest hours of the ordeal. It was the thought of being with her one more time that caused him to fight on.
At the same time, Kim stared at Ron, over the last two days, she felt alone in the world without him at her side. 'When I thought he'd died, it was like a big piece of me died with him' she thought.
'I'm in love with her,' Ron thought.
'I love him,' Kim thought simultaneously
Kim moved up to Ron, as he lowered himself down to her. Their lips met, and they kissed. They tightened their embrace as they continued to kiss. At last their lips separated, the two continued to hold each other. Kim motioned for Ron to join her in the bed. Ron pulled off his shoes, his knee brace and his jeans. Then climbed under the covers with Kim. They spooned together, with Ron holding Kim close to him. The two shared their stories of the last two days, but this time Ron and Kim told each other what they'd neglected to tell their families. They shared the deep emotional feelings they'd had towards each other that helped them fight on.
"I love you Kim," Ron said to her, squeezing her hand and kissing her neck.
"And I love you too, Ron," Kim replied, turning her head to meet him in another kiss.
She turned back, and they both sighed together, the tolls of the last two days left them battered and bruised, both physically and emotionally. But they both felt that it was all worth it, as they held each other now. The two drifted into a deep sleep, a deserved rest, together at last, where they belonged.