Fear

She was struggling keep her head above water, she was fighting the current of the raging river with all of her might; even when she had her head above the water's surface, she found it difficult to draw breath with the heavy rain falling from the skies above. Finally, she was able to grab on to a tree that had fallen into the river; she held on with what little strength she had left as the sound of thunder let out a massive boom....

Kim Possible awoke to find herself in her room, it was just a bad dream; she got out of bed and went into the bathroom. She turned on the hot water on the sink and splashed some water on her face; she took a deep breath, "It's okay, it was a dream, it was a dream."

That night, Kim and Ron were out on a mission; they were flying towards their destination in a jet that was on auto-pilot. Ron looked over at Kim who was clearly tired, "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Kim answered, "Just had a bad dream last night."

"You want to talk about it," Ron asked showing concern.

Kim shook her head, "No."

Ron sighed, he knew what the dream was, but he was hesitant to press her on it; finally he came out with, "Kim, there's only one thing that gives you nightmares."

"I don't want to talk about it," Kim exclaimed leading Ron to drop the subject.

Wade came on the intercom, "Alright guys, you're at the drop zone."

Kim grabbed her parachute, "Let's go."

Kim left the cockpit, Ron grabbed his parachute and followed; the two of them went to a door at the side of the jet. Kim opened it causing wind to start gushing into the plane; she and Ron put on their parachutes and prepared to jump from the plane. Kim looked at Ron, "You ready?"

"You know," Ron replied looking out of the plane, "I've never been comfortable doing this."

Kim just pushed him out of the plane and went out after him; the two of them free-fell for a while before releasing their chutes and landing on the roof of a warehouse that was used to store lab equipment like chemicals and such. Kim grabbed her Kimmunicator, "Alright Wade, we're on the roof; who are we looking for?"

Wade read one of his computer screens, "I just got the information from Global Justice...it's an old colleague of your dad, Dr. Jonathan Crane. He worked with your dad in college and went on to work for Global Justice."

"Doing what," Ron asked.

"Airborne Toxins," Wade answered, "He would study them and develop cures, three days ago Global Justice discovered that he was in fact creating toxins himself and selling them."

Kim and Ron looked at each other before Ron said, "Dare I ask...To Who?"

Wade shrugged, "To whomever would pay for it. Global Justice tried to bring him in and he vanished."

"Where are we now," Kim asked looking around.

"A Warehouse," Wade answered.

Kim rolled her eyes, "I can see that."

Wade typed something into the computer and read, "It belonged to Drakken, he kept lab equipment there. It's certainly a good place to get work done in secret, because Drakken just forgot about years ago."

"That so sounds like Drakken," Kim said before putting the Kimmunicator away and looked over to Ron, "Let's go."

The two of them went into the building and began looking around; the warehouse was large and filled all sorts of materials packed into large shelves, typical of Drakken's Lairs and storage areas. They heard someone in the distance, Kim looked at Ron who whispered, "Rufus."

Rufus came out of his pocket; Ron picked him up and said, "We need you to scout ahead for us."

Rufus saluted him and climbed up to the top of the large shelves and went on forward until he saw Dr. Crane doing lab work in an clear area with a lamp providing light for him. Rufus ran back to Kim and Ron and pointed what direction Crane was in. They split up, Kim went right and Ron went left to go at him from two sides.

In the meantime, Crane was mixing some liquid chemicals in a beaker when he heard a sound; it was Ron who had accidentally bumped into a box of beakers. Crane couldn't tell if it was a sound to be worried about, but he took no chances; he opened his briefcase and took out a burlap sack that he used as a mask and walked away from his lab equipment.

Ron reached the work area to see no one there, he looked up at the top of the shelves to see Rufus up there. Rufus was equally surprised to see that no one was there, he looked down at Ron who shrugged at him as if asking 'Where is he?'. Rufus just shrugged back as if to answer 'I don't know.'

In another part of the warehouse, Kim saw Crane walking from a distance; she went up behind him and yelled, "Hold it right there Dr. Crane."

"It's not Crane," He turned around wearing the burlap sack that was torn up into something of a face, "It's Scarecrow."

"Masks don't scare me," Kim said walking up to him.

"Oh," Crane threw his hand up as she went up to him and sprayed gas into her face from a device hidden in his sleeve, "Then what do you fear?"

Kim inhaled the gas before realizing what was happening, she fell to her knees and then onto her back. Crane watched as she rolled backwards flailing her arms and legs almost wildly; in her mind, she was being pushed back by a wave of water. She eventually reached a railing to grab hold of and she forced herself up to her feet, fighting the current that was now existing in her mind. Crane walked up to her, "What do you See? Bats? Dogs? Ghost?"

Kim moved to her left until she was standing with her back to a set of stairs, still in a state of panic; Crane looked at her, seeing the fear in her eyes, and said, "I Guess Kim Possible is afraid of something."

Crane, who appeared to Kim as a wave a water, then pushed her down the steps; Ron, who had just got into sight, saw this and yelled, "Kim!"

Crane walked away as Ron ran to Kim's aid; Kim was flailing her arms upwards, trying to swim upward to the surface of the water she thought she was now drowning in, Ron got to her and tried to grab he arms, "Kim, Stop!"

He managed to get her arms under control and grabbed her Kimmunicator while holding her wrists with his right hand, "Wade, we need help here!"

Later, They were aboard a Emergency Transport from Global Justice, several doctors were trying to restrain Kim who was screaming and flailing about the bed she was in, "Ms. Possible, Please."

"I can't breathe," Kim screamed, "The water, the current is pushing me down."

"There is no water here," one of the Doctors yelled back at her.

Ron, who now realized what was going on in her head, grabbed her, "Kim, the tree, the tree that fell in the river; grab it."

Kim grabbed on to him with both arms, "I have it."

One of the doctors then gave her a sedative while she was holding still; as Kim began to fade out she had one last thing go through her mind. The memory from when she was in that river, holding on to that tree; she looked up and saw Ron reaching his hand out to her, "Grab my hand."

She did so and he pulled her out of the river......

The Next morning after their run in with Dr. Crane, Ron was with Betty Director who was explaining what happened to Kim, "It was a paranoid hallucinogen, a toxin that made her experience her worst fear in a very realistic fashion. The stress of it would of killed her if we didn't get her sedated, what was that whole thing with the tree and the water?"

"It was from our first mission," Ron explained, "Well actually our second mission, our first 'real' one. We were trying to save a baby bear that was stolen from a zoo. We got the guys who did it, but the bear had already escaped into the forest, so we went after it. It was raining, Kim slipped and fell into the river; there was a very strong current, and she nearly drowned."

Betty looked at Ron amazed that she never heard this story before, not even from her intelligence teams; Ron continued, "She managed to grab a tree that had fallen into the river and held on to it long enough for me to catch up and pull her out. Really shook her up, she still has nightmares about it every now and then; we never told anyone about it."

"I'm sorry about what happened last night," Betty said felling bad, "We thought we had all of Crane's materials. If we had any idea he had any toxin on him-"

"It's okay," Ron interrupted, "We knew he did things with toxins, we should have been more careful."

A few moments later, Ron was sitting next to Kim's hospital bed with Rufus when she woke up; Ron looked at her and said, "Are you alright?"

"I think so," Kim answered.

"He poisoned you," Ron said giving a simple explanation, "Global Justice was able to cure you with stuff they found Crane's lab."

"What happened to Crane," Kim asked.

"He got away," Ron answered not really concerned with that at the moment, "Betty said that his toxin made you experience your worst fear."

"It was the river," Kim said.

"I know," Ron said a bit confused about that fact, "We do scuba dives to get into lairs all the time."

"It's not the water I'm afraid of," Kim explained, "It's the current, the never ending force tearing away at my strength, pushing me beneath the surface, sucking the air out of me; that's what I'm afraid of. All these years and I still have a problem with it. I Never talked to anyone about it, not even to Mom and Dad"

"They're on their way," Ron stated, "G.J called them."

A tear went down Kim's face as she looked at her boyfriend, "Thank You for helping last night...and back then."

Ron smiled, "No problem."

Author's Note:

Here's the first of a series of One-shots where of which I give details about the early years of Kim's "Saving the World' routine. They will all be done in this fashion, a present day plot with flashback and references to the early days of Kim Possible. With this one I wanted to do something involving incident when Kim was still getting used to the job which led to me doing a 'What she fears most' scenario involving the Scarecrow from Batman.(Because I couldn't come up with a better villain to use)

Please Review, it's my first One-Shot and I want to know how I did.

The Next One-Shot is called 'The Assassin'