Black Hole Deep: Three to get ready
Disclaimer/Author's Notes: Kim Possible and all the characters of the show used herein 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.
On their third anniversary of their first appearing as a couple, here are Jocelyn Possible and Dr. Wade Load… need we say more?
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Black Hole Deep: Three to get ready
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Wade was wondering why, for the umpteenth time, he had decided to pursue that fourth PhD, and in Supra-Molecular Chemistry, no less. He had enjoyed explaining it to the Area Math/Sciences Chairman, a Mathematician, primarily because the Chairman seemed to glaze over after the second sentence. 'He looks like a hot, just-off-the-line, Tim Horton's glazed doughnut,' Wade had thought with an evil grin.
He explained: the area of study would focus, quite literally, on going "beyond" molecular chemistry. Supra-Molecular Chemistry (SM-Chem, he thought, without the 'and') can be described as the study of systems which contain more than one molecule, and it aims to understand the structure, function, and properties of these assemblies. How are supra-molecular assemblies formed, you ask? Well the most straightforward method is to use self-assembly techniques: which is, to say, that you mix your components under a given set of conditions (solvent, temperature, pH etc.) and then cross your fingers and hope for the best.
That was why Wade loved the area: the mystery. And, he had a doozy on his hands, now.
His newest topic, the one he'd changed to after the invasion, was a challenge and a half: Impacts of Lowardian (Extra-terrestrial) Metallurgical Compounds on the Chemical Balance of Planet Earth. This gave him a chance to do what he had not done during his first three PhDs: some real, honest-to-goodness field study.
'I'm even starting to sound like CP,' he laughed. He continued to stare at the multiple monitors' worth of analysis of the chemical compounds recovered that had been confirmed as extra-terrestrial: specifically, Lowardian. There was a pattern in this madness, but he had not found it…yet.
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A soft knock at his door startled him from his monitor-gazing.
"Come in," he called, not turning to see who had entered. He had not expected anyone, and he thought that his parents were still out shopping. He smiled, though, when the reflection in the monitors revealed the visitor.
A pair of soft hands covered his eyes, and he smiled even more. Those hands, so soft, yet so powerful: he loved them, and her, so very much.
"Guess who?" the voice asked, and he grinned evilly.
"Bonnie? Is that you? You know you're not supposed to come here: we agreed on 'our' meeting spot," Wade said, and his humor was re-paid with a soft smack on the top of his head.
"Kim?" he decided to tease the issue to its ending. "You know, Ron's gonna be so jellin'," he continued, and this time he got a whack on the side of the head, was spun around in his chair, and was smothered by a tender pair of tasty lips that tasted of…'oh, I love that strawberry lip gloss of hers,' he thought to himself. He was certain that she was doing something to it before she put it on: there was no other reason that lip gloss should stir him so.
"Miss me?" Joss asked when she finally released his lips, having accomplished her goal of getting his mind off his work.
"Always, love," he replied honestly, and he was rewarded by a big smile followed by an even more passionate kiss which left him like a slushy Slurpster in his chair.
"Wade, what's been wrong wit'cha? You've been down in the dumps for a long time, and I wanna know why," she sat on the edge of the bed. He finally noticed what she was wearing: classic cowgirl jeans, a pair of her range-riding boots (as opposed to THE boots), and an Oxford button-down Meezod BlazeIT! shirt. The outfit brought a smile to his face: she was feeling comfortable enough, after their fight, to be herself, once again.
Not that he had minded the jeans but, in a sudden flashback, he remembered her in one of her black jean skirts. She had twirled in it, and he remembered the sight fondly…oh, those legs!
"I'm fine, Sweet Tea," he lied though his teeth.
She snorted. "I know you as well as your own Momma knows you, so spill," she commanded.
'It's Kim and Ron, all over again,' he thought for an instant, and the thought betrayed his emotion and escaped as a sigh of frustration.
"I knew it!" She said confidently, and she stood up and looked down on him, sitting in his chair. "Spill, BF-almost-F!"
"I don't know, Joss," he said, and his face displayed his confusion.
"What don't you know, Wade?"
"That's just it: I don't know what I don't know. I have no earthly idea why I've been feeling blue," he admitted.
"Drew been over lately?" she asked with a grin. Drew had come over and visited Wade once during the summer, ostensibly to apologize for everything he'd done, but Wade knew why Dr. D was really coming over…his mother had shown him the picture that Drew had commissioned her to paint. It was one of Shego as he saw her: an avenging angel with an attitude. Wade laughed a bit, but he realized then that this was just one more symptom….
"I'm not that blue," he laughed. "At least, not that type of blue. I think." he began.
"What, then, oh Aggie?" she asked.
"What do you hear, Joss?" he waved his hands around the room, and she listened for a minute or two.
"I hear nothing," she admitted.
"That's what I mean," Joss could see him becoming excited…no, agitated. "This is the quietest that my room has been since I started graduate school, Joss. When I started, I was busy, I had study sessions, I met Stephanie," he got quiet for a moment before continuing, "and after awhile, Kim came over, and you know what happened then," he grinned.
"You got your second heapin' helpin' of redhead, huh?" Joss flashed a grin, and Wade laughed.
"Something like that," he replied, and Joss stood and walked over, plopping herself into his lap, her legs straddling his waist so she could look him squarely in the eye.
"So, guy," she whispered, "what are you going to do about it?" she purred, and Wade had an uncontrollable urge to pull at his collar. He seemed to be emulating Ron a lot lately, he thought, and he now understood why: they were both 'under the influence' of redhead.
"Well, I think-" he started, but she placed a single, manicured index finger to his lips.
"Shhh," she hissed.
"Joss, you know I can't think straight when you do this to me."
"Do what?" she gave him her best Georgia Southern-belle drawl.
"When you sit like that," he replied. "I can't think straight."
"Ah do declare: your problem, kind suh, is that you think too much," she whispered, nuzzling his right ear and nibbling on his earlobe.
Wade's eyes grew wide. He lifted Joss from his lap in one sudden motion. Surprised with his own strength, he carried her he two steps to his bed where he dropped her unceremoniously. Before she had a chance to complain about her treatment, he ran into the bathroom, slamming the door behind him and locking it.
"Wade?" Joss called out, honestly worried. "Are you all right?"
"I will be in about 20 minutes," he replied from behind the door. "Make it 25," he said, and Joss laughed as she heard the shower coming on full-steam.
'Well, probably not steam,' she giggled, and she hooted when she heard him yell "Great Garden Party, that's COOOOOOOOOOOOLD!"
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Wade came out 30 minutes later, dressed in fresh clothes and drying his hair with a towel.
Joss was nowhere to be found.
"Joss?" he called.
No answer.
He leaned out the door of his room and called out: "Jocelyn?"
"Yes?" a sugar-sweet response came from down the hall, and he laughed. "Are you done?" she asked.
"Yes, I am," he replied, going back into his room and tossing the towel into the hamper in the bathroom. He went back to his desk chair and sat down. He then unlocked the screensaver, a collage of his favorite people, and, with one command, unlocked all of the passcodes and released all of the systems, and went back to his analysis.
"Well?" came from the door and he turned.
Too fast, he thought, as his blood all rushed to his head at what he was seeing.
"Are you thinking, again?" she grinned, leaning against the doorframe like an actress from a movie in a very seductive pose.
Joss was dressed – dear Lord in Heaven, was she dressed- but there was no one thing that made Wade drool…yet the entire package had him seriously considering trying to get her to change her mind on their mutual agreements to wait. He started at the bottom: he remembered the heels and the hose, so that wasn't it. The dress: it was a royal blue dress that fell just above her knees, so that wasn't it. It wasn't the fact that she wore makeup, even though there was only a hint of it on her face that he could see. Her hair was a bit different, but she had been growing it longer, and it cascaded down the front of her dress and bracketed her- he literally gasped 'oh, my goodness' at the thought.
'It's them,' he grinned wickedly inside. 'Either she's packing padding, or she's packing the 'real deal,' he said to himself as he stood and walked over to her.
"Andrea Jocelyn Possible, you are a vision," he said, and he gently took her right hand from the door sill and kissed it.
'Why, thank you, suh," she turned on the Georgia accent once again, and then she giggled.
That broke the spell, and Wade's grin turned into a laugh. He pulled her toward him, and she fell into his arms as she responded with a laugh of her own.
They hugged, and he realized that she was pressing her body into him in a way that she had never done before…and, he liked it…a lot.
A whole lot.
Waaaaaaaaaay too much
He hoped, for a moment, that Kim's dad wasn't running a special parental discount on deep space probes this week.
"Jocelyn!" He pushed her back, and he saw her smile drop to a frown.
"What's wrong, Aggie?" she asked, and he would have sworn that he saw a hint of tears coming from her face.
"Joss, I thought we agreed that we would wait," Wade responded.
Joss waved her hand, and the room lights all went out. The only glow was that of the monitors.
"Wade," Joss walked forward until there was only a hairs-breath of space between her and Wade. She waved her hand once again, and the room lights came back on at full strength. "Wade, I almost lost you once, and that was because I was s-t-double-o-pid stooped. Please, baby, don't do the same thing now and push me away.
"Do you realize what we've been through, Aggie?" she continued, and Wade heard her voice grow stronger and more confident with each word, each breath. "We both started off, so alone, so lost, and so full of hurt that there was no room for caring, let alone love. Then, a hunk of a man," she smiled.
"That's dark chocolate hunk to you, little missy," he laughed, and she nodded.
"A dark chocolate hunk of a man saw a lousy picture of me-"
"Hey!" he grinned. "I made the Kimmunicator that took that picture, and I happen to think that the subject far outshone anything that my cameras could have ever captured," he added, and she smiled.
"A picture of me, then," she changed her words, and he nodded, "and fell in love."
"I fell so hard, Joss, that it hurt for a long time," Wade admitted. "I was scared: after Stephanie, I didn't want to take another chance. After working with Kim for so long, I wasn't sure if I'd lose both of you if I even approached you, let alone tell you how I felt.
"Then, I went to Montana, after the Diablos," he laughed. "I guess I owe Drew a 'thank-you' for that," and Joss snorted back a laugh, "and I saw a goddess, standing in front of a house and, well," he laughed. "'I was doomed, but what a way to go!'" he repeated his favorite line, and he was rewarded by a kiss on the cheek.
"Wade, you saved me," she whispered. "I was digging myself a hole with my friends, and I didn't even realize it. What I was doing was so in total opposition to what I always wanted to do. When you stepped off that plane, I knew my life was never going to be the same, ever again."
"After that summer, I think that everyone wanted to hose us down," Wade said calmly.
Joss stared at him for a few seconds, blinking, and then she broke into a loud laugh.
"We were pretty sickening for awhile there, weren't we?" she was finally able to get out, and Wade nodded.
"The term that Kim used was 'an Orthodontist's dream come true': we were so sweet, we were rotting her teeth," he laughed.
"And, then, you came with me to Arlington, and I think that that was when we both realized that we had to grow up," Joss nodded with a sad smile.
"I think we actually got younger, for awhile: neither of us really had a chance to experience some things, and then we started to on that journey of discovery."
"Yeah, and I'm still gonna get you for that snowball," Joss grinned.
Wade gulped. He'd almost forgotten about the snowball. He scrunched up his face for a second, and then he spoke:
"And, then, you were with me when I found out what happened to Stephanie," he said quietly, and Joss could see the pain flash across his face for an instant. "I never could have made it that far without you," he added.
They both were quiet for several moments, realizing what they both had been through and just how far that they had come, and then Wade's face grew a huge grin.
"Do we sound like we've been married longer than Kim and Ron?" Wade laughed.
Joss concentrated for a moment, and then she closed her eyes. Wade watched as she seemed to go deep into thought, and then-
'What do you think, Aggie?' Wade looked up in shock as he heard Joss' voice inside of his head. It reminded him of those seconds in the Bunker that felt like days, and then turned into-
"How did you do that?" he asked, and she opened her eyes and smiled.
"You heard me?" she asked, and he nodded, dumbfounded.
"I concentrated, and I felt like I was sending you all my love in a thought burst. It must be a remnant of LB inside," she smiled.
"Indeed," they both looked up at the voice that surrounded them, seemingly echoing throughout the room and their heads, and then they heard multiple voices' worth of laughter.
"Are you back?" Wade asked, slightly annoyed and, at the same time, thrilled: he had some questions…
"Yes, Dr. Load, but only for a drive-by," one of the 'male' voices snarked, and the others laughed.
"And, no, we had nothing to do with what Ron did to the Lowardians," a second 'male' voice replied. "He called forth the Power, without assistance from us:"
"We could not interfere in the development of the Master," the voices announced in chorus, and they were silent.
"So, why here, and now?" Joss asked.
"We have been watching, and we have been in awe of your development," the chorus began. "Ones as young as you are in your race's physical and emotional development patterns should not be where you are, yet you are far beyond the norm.
"You have given us even more hope for your species," the first voice spoke again, "especially in your faith in each other. So, Dr. Load," he laughed, "are you going to tell her your fears, once again?"
'What fears?' Joss thought, but she had no chance to ask Wade before he slumped, then straightened up and reached forward, taking her hands in his.
"I had nightmares, Jocelyn: nightmares that vexed me to the bone because I could not stop them from recurring for so long. They're gone, now," he smiled.
"What nightmares, Aggie?" she asked.
Wade leaned into her to speak. "It was you and I instead of Kim and Ron who were fighting the Lowardians," he started quietly, just barely loud enough for Joss to hear without straining a great deal. "They knocked me down, over and over again, and Warmonga was now preparing to pull your spine from your body when I felt this massive burst of energy course though my blood."
"What caused it?" Joss asked, and Wade smiled.
"You looked out and down at me, smiled, and told me that you loved me, and you would always love me, no matter what. I felt like Ron must feel when he gets hit with a full dose of MMP. I didn't know for certain," Wade waved his head to and fro, "but I knew that, if you loved me, I could do anything: even take out the Big Green Meanies from Outer Space."
"Wade," Joss pulled him to her, and they hugged for what seemed to be days.
"With you by my side, my strawberry goddess," Wade whispered into Joss' ear, eliciting a giggle, "I can do anything: even taking on all of the MIST Freshman Class in my computer courses."
"With you, my dark chocolate wonder, I can do all," Joss replied. "It was the thought of you that pulled me though that alien pod assault at the ranch," she continued, and she pulled her head back to look into Wade's eyes.
Ice-blue met dark brown, and they smiled before they quickly shared a peck on the lips.
"You'd better get changed," Joss released his hands. Wade turned to walk away and yelped as Joss pinched his bum. "Oooh, me like," she laughed, and Wade resisted retaliation as he headed first to the closet to pull out clothes and then to the bathroom to change.
"Who else will be there this evening?" Joss asked from the bedroom side of the door,
"Well, Sarah and Chip will be there, but don't expect to see much of them: Sarah's a Gloomy Gus since Chip is packed up and leaving for Go City after the party to start University
"Tim'll be in just as bad a mood: Hope left for college yesterday, and he hasn't even picked on Kim once since then," Wade continued, and Joss chuckled.
"Jim has resisted torturing his brother, however, probably because Olivia threatened to withhold her lips from him if he did," Wade continued, and Joss laughed.
"Joss, are you worried about me and Olivia? After all, she did use her 'bread warmer' on me, and I had it bad for her for a few hours," Wade asked.
"No worries, HDC," Joss replied. "She and I have already talked. Besides, she has excellent taste in men," Joss added, then looked over at one of the pictures of Jim and Olivia and Tim and Hope that Wade had on his wall. "Jim is the cuter of the two, though," she added. 'If we weren't related, oh boy!' she thought for a second, but the thought passed when Wade opened the bathroom door.
Joss whistled, and Wade grinned.
"You like?" he asked.
She walked over to him and put his head between her hands. She then pulled him forward and kissed him in a way that left no doubt in his mind that 'she liked.'
When he could breathe again, Wade smiled. "We'd better go, Joss: I suspect that they're waiting on us. After all, the party is for us," he smiled and held out his left hand.
Joss held out her right hand, and Wade took it in his left as they walked to the door. She waved once again, and the lights went out. Wade opened the door and motioned for Joss to walk through. She stepped in front of him for a moment, and he came to her side, reaching back and taking the door handle.
"Well, Lucky, do you think they're going to make it?" the first voice asked.
Lucky swam to the side of his bowl, looked intently in the direction of the voice, then jumped straight up and out of the water, waving his right fin before he dropped back in with nary a splash out of the bowl.
"I think he just told you to 'talk to the fin,'" the second voice stated with a chuckle. "I'd give that jump a 9.8," he added, and several voices laughed when Lucky blew bubbles to the surface.
Wade and Joss laughed as he closed the door, and they walked, hand-in-hand, towards the party and the future.
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Story now complete.
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A/N: This story is a direct request from Wade and Joss for their third anniversary. It's been three years together for them. As I said in year two, I never imagined that, when I released that first story, either they or I would have the reception that we've had. I've seen both of them, especially Joss, in more stories since I started than I ever expected, and for that I know they thank you.
You even honored Joss by naming her 'Best Minor Character' in the 2008 Fannies: I have to admit that the award was a shock and surprise to all three of us: Wade, Joss, and me.
People have realized that being 'Jaded' can be a good thing, and some folks even like being 'Taded.' I think the jury's still out on being 'Laded.'
To all my readers and reviewers: thank you for a wonderful three years, and I hope to keep your confidence in the future.
And, to my betas, thank you for everything seems like such a small statement, but I truly do appreciate all of your time and energy.
To Wade and Joss:
Happy Anniversary, you two, Like the song says: 'you're gonna make it, after all.'
...cpneb
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