A/N: Hey there! I'm back with another one-shot :) TO be honest, I've had a rough draft saved for a while, but I revisited it the other day and got inspired! So I finished it and figured I'd publish it.
Please place your trays in the upright and locked position, remember that I don't own Kickin' It, and enjoy the story!
Kim was not one who could be easily shocked, in fact, she prided herself on that. But when she found out Jack asked out her best friend, Grace, and Grace had said yes? Kim was shocked, to say the least. They dated far longer than she had expected, she had to give them that.
When they first started dating, she gave them 2 weeks, tops. She figured two people who barely knew each other wouldn't make it that long. And then it ended up lasting 3 months. A long, long time for two people who barely spoke before their mutual friendship in Kim.
But theirs was a healthy relationship and Kim was surprised when it ended as abruptly as it had started. While Kim had known they would break up she figured there would be some warning, be it they didn't talk anymore or one got bored, but again, there was none. The relationship had seemed healthy right up until the end. Seemed being the operative term.
For, when confronted, Grace admitted that she had been 'talking' to football player Zack Sherman and she couldn't very well catch his eye if she was still attached to Jack now could she? Kim, appalled by this revelation, made her way to Felafel Phil's and to the booth usually occupied by her rag-tag group of friends.
However, at that moment, only Jack occupied said booth, his eyes focused on an untouched basket of felafel-on-waffle, something Jack would have never ordered if he was in his right mind.
"What's shakin, bacon?" Kim slid into the booth and smiled at Jack, her fingers laced together with her arms placed on top of the table.
Jack's expression was one of cold anger, his eyes never left the food in front of him, "Lemme guess, Grace sent you here to make sure I'm not too devastated when she goes after Zack Sherman?"
"No, actually I found out what a jerk she was and was headed to the dojo to make sure the training dummies were still intact. You weren't there, so I figured I'd check here. And here you are..." Kim eyed the suspicious dish Jack was seemingly so captivated by, then back at Jack, determined to make eye contact and possibly coerce a smile out of him that every other girl had deemed "dreamy."
"Yeah well I didn't want to have to explain to Rudy why the dummies were all missing heads." Finally, he looked at Kim, and she could see his anger, it was written clearly across his face, but it was... Forced somehow, like a mask.
After a beat of silence, she stood up, gesturing for him to get out of the booth, "Okay mister, get up."
"What?" he straightened up with his eyebrows raised, and looked at her incredulously.
"You heard me, get up." Her hands were on her hips now, "You're obviously not eating your questionable choice in falafel and sitting here... All you're doing is internalizing your anger."
"I see no proble-"
"Now." And with her arms crossed, he could tell she's dead serious, he knew he had about 30 seconds to get out of the booth before she made him. So he found himself sliding out of his seat to stand next to her.
Now that he was walking alongside her and she's now shorter than him, only by 2 inches, she insists, he found her slightly less intimidating. But then he remembered she was a black belt as she lead him through the courtyard and around the mall, and he knew resistance was futile.
"Okay, so now what?" he forces venom into his words, anger is easier to deal with.
"Now," she says with contempt, hating this angry, bitter version of Jack that took up residence after Grace dumped him, "You're going to tell me what's wrong. And don't give me some vague 'we just grew apart' bullshit either. Talk. To. Me."
He scoffed, "Listen, Kim, I appreciate wha-"
She stopped by the leafy tree outside Circus Burger and looked at the brown haired boy, hands on her hips.
"No, don't you 'listen-Kim' me, I know you're upset and you need to talk about it," she glared at him, "Grace dumped you for her own selfish reasons that had nothing to do with you and now you are going to talk about why you're so mad. Bottling your feelings isn't healthy."
Satisfied with her rant she continued walking, and he followed her, past Circus Burger, past the fro-yo place and past the shoppers milling around the mall.
"It's just not fair." he admitted finally, "I didn't think I was that bad, but apparently still not good enough, if the possibility of Zack maybe asking her out was enough grounds for her to dump me."
His mask of anger gone, he's just disappointed in himself and his choice in a girlfriend, "I mean, all I feel like now is that these past three months were a waste of time and energy. Dating's just not worth it."
Kim smiled to herself, hands in her pockets, eyes set on the path ahead. "You're just saying that. You know you want a girlfriend. Someone to hang around you and adore you non-stop."
"Yeah," he conceded, "but all I know is I never want to fall in love."
At this Kim started to genuinely laugh, and with an almost knowing tone (but really, Jack couldn't be sure. Who could tell with girls, anyway?) and an almost sad look in her eye said, "You can never help who you fall in love with, Jack. It often comes with heartache, and you have to pick up the pieces more than once but, in the end?" he looked at her and she's staring straight ahead, focusing on placing one foot in front of the other, brow furrowed, "everything turns out okay."
"You're talking like everything's already worked out for you. Like you've already gotten it all figured out." He looked at her again, all negative thoughts of why this conversation had started banished to the far corners of his mind. Now they were just two best friends in a deeper-than-normal conversation, meandering past shops at an easy pace.
"You'd be surprised then, because things are kinda sucky for me right now. But you've gotta hold on to hope. Hope, and to know that everything happens for a reason."
"Not everything-" he begins to say.
"Really Jack?" she asks with a knowing smile, "Because I can think of a few reasons why it's good that things didn't work out with you and Grace."
The anger is back but not as large, though not fake this time, "Really? Oh All-Knowing Kim, pray tell, why is it a good thing?"
"Well for one thing, would you really want to date someone who would dump you at the drop of a hat like that? I mean she's still my best friend,a nd I wish she wouldn't go around breaking hearts and taking names like that, but that would mean changing Grace as a person, and that's not going to happen." She paused, taking note of his puzzled frown, "And really, were you expecting to marry her?" She smiled as he thought over the ridiculousness of the proposition and a smile grew on his face, too.
"Okay," he begrudgingly admitted, "I see your point." They round the bend, arriving back in the courtyard where they started, the two friends now facing each other.
"Feeling better?" she asks, a friendly smile playing on her lips.
"Yeah, thanks Kim," and pulls her into a hug, a friendly gesture that's over all too soon for Kim.
"Well, might as well go warm up before practice!" Jack cheerfully walks over to their dojo, calling over his shoulder, "You coming?"
"Yeah," she called, glad he didn't turn around and look at her full in the face, "I'll be there in a sec!"
If he had, he might have noticed the delicate bloom of pink across one Kim Crawford's cheeks, and maybe he would have been able to figure out that his first assumption of young Kim was right. She did have a crush on him- but it would take an army to get her to admit it.
So, let me know what you thought! I love getting feedback, but no flames please 3
Let me just restate what I said before: this is a ONE SHOT. Yes, I know Kim and Jack do not get together in this, but it's supposed to be just a little, tiny short story. Don't hate me for not continuing it, but I can't really see it going any farther than it already has. I'm just a one-shot girl, to tell you the truth! And I usually get inspired when I watch new episodes, but do you see any new episodes? No? Neither do I. That should change...
Anyways, thanks for reading, and please review!
PS: Can anyone guess what the title comes from? Hint: It's a song...