Meet the Rockwallers
The sequel to Redeemable?
Bonnie was not looking forward to it. Not in the least. Not one little bit.
It wasn't as if she could actually avoid it any longer, though.
Not that she didn't try, mind you, it was just that she eventually came to the point where too many questions were remaining unanswered. Too many subtle, and some not so subtle clues were there.
She was going to have to tell her parents she had a boyfriend.
It wasn't only that. Before, when she had been dating Brick Flagg, her parents took a very hands-off approach to their daughter's relationship. For one thing, her mother and Brick's were actually quite close friends and neither could quite come up with the notion that either of their beloved children would do anything untoward and, as fate would have it, their faith in their children actually was somewhat well founded since the two of them never actually ventured past second base.
Bonnie never intended mentioning that it was only at her insistence that things never progressed beyond that point. Brick was a good guy, she had to admit, but he was a normal straight male and being such was not totally responsible for his actions. That he abided by his then-girlfriend's wishes proved that he was ultimately a good kid.
He learned very quickly that she did not find begging very sexy in a man.
The main problem now was that her mother still thought of her as the little fifteen year old ice-princess she played when she was in high school. That had come to an abrupt conclusion when she met her current paramour, in fact on the very day they first introduced themselves to each other. Perhaps it was something chemical between them, or some force that brought the two of them together. More likely it was just giving into the feelings and sensations that were always there, but had been shunted aside when she was home, and therefore in the emotional control of her family.
They were together for most of her freshman year at Go City University, having met not long after the first semester started. It was easy to keep things just between the two of them at the time. She still lived in the Freshmen dorms and he was just a guy she happened to be dating. That didn't bear any special reporting to her family, which, at the time, suited Bonnie just fine. The last thing she wanted was to have her private life put under a microscope by her mother or put up to ridicule by her older sisters. For a time she was able to pretend that she was making a new life for herself in Go City, away from the smothering embrace of her closest relatives.
The summer that followed was far tougher than she expected. He took her on a trip to the west coast for a couple weeks and that at least she could explain as being a trip with 'friends,' but once that was over there was only the choice of actually moving in with him or heading home since students couldn't stay in the dorms all summer unless they were attending a summer session. The decision was made more difficult when he actually offered to let her move in with him.
That was tempting…very tempting. Only, she was just nineteen at the time and despite the rather physical nature of their relationship, she just wasn't quite ready for that at the time. She wasn't quite ready for the relative finality of actually living with him.
Then too, there was the problem of where he lived. It wasn't that it was a bachelor pad. Well, actually it was, right down to the beat up, duct tape patched couch in the den, but that really wasn't a problem. Nobody would ever see them on that couch and it was actually pretty comfortable. No, a twenty-one year old rising senior could be expected to live like that.
Bonnie just didn't want to live in a tower shaped like the word "Go."
Maybe if she was dating a normal guy, one who couldn't shrink himself and anything in contact with him down to on centimeters tall, one who lived in an actual apartment, one who had normal colored skin when he wasn't using a special holographic projector to look like an average, if rather tall young adult. Maybe if he was simply Mervin Godfrey, and not he purple clad hero know as Mego, then she would have actually considered it. His place, as cluttered and…male as it was, was a darn sight better than her shabby single dorm room.
In the end, she decided she was secure enough in their relationship that she could return home, perhaps for the last significant amount of time. It turned out she was just plain wrong about the whole thing. Almost from the moment she put her bags down in her old room things reverted back to how they had been before. Her mother, as if she possessed some uncanny sense for such things, immediately started going through her belongings, ostensibly to help her daughter put her things away, instantly finding her birth control pills. That launched her into another lecture about how young women were supposed to act with boys, and that her youngest daughter should have no reason to take such things.
It really was like she was just fifteen all over again.
The worst of it, though, was missing Mervin over that span of almost three months.
When school resumed that fall, she started working on him. It was subtle things at first, like getting him to get a decent haircut. That turned out to be a more significant hurdle than she first thought, since his shaggy mop was tied into his image as Mego. To that she just rolled her eyes, since his 'secret identity' was probably one of the worst kept secrets in the history of Go City.
That done, she set herself on the path for her next goal…getting him out of that tower and into a proper home; one she could live in as well.
It turned out that phase was much easier than the first.
Mervin and his brothers (and technically their sister as well, but she didn't figure into the equation) still owned their childhood home. It was the same place where there had once been a treehouse, the one they had all been in when the rainbow comet hit. For the family, that was the last straw for them in that home. Only two years earlier they lost their adoptive parents, leaving them in the care of the oldest sibling, Herman, or as he was better know, Hego. When they were given the chance to move into the "Go Tower" they didn't have to be asked twice, leaving the rather nice home vacant in the intervening years.
Bonnie had already been there once, back when she was trying to figure out where the mysterious young man lived. Somebody apparently had been maintaining the place, or at least the main part of the yard. The part of the yard where the tree still stood had been let grow wild, letting it merge back into the small stand of woods the property butted up against.
Mervin tended to be a little better adjusted emotionally than his siblings, so it didn't take much convincing for him to take the old house over. With his couch safely tucked away in his 'personal space' upstairs, Bonnie was more than happy to set up housekeeping with him. She officially moved in with him on her twentieth birthday.
The only problem was, her keeping such a major change in her life a secret from her parents was something she never was able to truly consider. It was clear that one of two things was bound to happen, at least eventually. Either she was going to have to bring him home to meet them, or they were going to show up on her doorstep unannounced one day. She even, at one point, considered maintaining a dorm room at the school, though such an idea was quickly discarded since they would eventually come to see their daughter and find an empty room, plus the campus housing authority would not allow it if they discovered she was maintaining a home off-campus. The university was one of the largest in the country and on-campus housing was at a premium.
Not that she couldn't convince her father to pay for it.
So, as the holidays loomed, she steeled herself for the inevitable. At least bringing him home to Middleton was going to be on her own terms, for the most part. She would simply show up at the front door, Mervin in tow, introducing him as her boyfriend.
Their living arrangements…including the sleeping situation, would only come up if it became completely necessary. The double standard she lived with regarding her two sisters was still in full force. They could have their boyfriends over all the time, or disappear for days with them and her mother never said a single word, yet when she suspected Bonnie had slept with her date the night of the Senior Prom…
Oh yes, it was going to be fun. Fun like a root canal. Fun like having to room with Kim Possible at cheer camp. Fun like being glued by the butt to the same one-time cheerleader. Her mother doted on her, at least on the surface. What nobody really knew was just how controlling the elder Rockwaller could be. She was the queen in her castle, the seemingly perky matron with her perfect little girls.
Somehow she figured she could deal with them. Somehow she could get past the point where they all figured out she not only was sleeping with Mervin, but living with him, perhaps permanently. Connie and Lonnie were going to be merciless on that point, perhaps being the first to actually put all the pieces together.
Her frown deepened as they crossed the border that separated Nebraska from Colorado. Sometimes she liked disconnecting her seatbelt and at least holding onto his arm when they drove together, but for the most part she stuck to her own seat. Driving all the way from Go City to Middleton was a pretty long haul, but somehow it felt like delaying the inevitable, at least for a little while. It took two days to cover that distance, so it was like a mini-vacation for the two of them.
Mervin was developing a sixth sense of his own when it came to Bonnie, though he really didn't have to rely on it to tell her mood, even in the darkness of his Scion. "You're being awfully quiet."
"Just thinking."
"Oh." He turned his attention back to the road ahead. The sides of the road had a blanket of snow, bracketed by gray slush, but at least it wasn't snowing at the moment. She glanced over at him and did manage a slight smile. He was so different than Brick. The big quarterback, bless his heart, would have simply plowed ahead, wondering what was wrong with her, or, more likely, would try doing something to cheer her up. Problem was, that was usually something along the lines of trying to kiss her, or worse. Mervin was so much more intelligent, to the point he knew when to say something, and when to shut up.
Still, they both had been quiet for a long time, perhaps since the sun went down on the second day of their trek. It seemed she needed more from his company than his close proximity, and not the kind they shared in the motel room the night before either.
"I'm just worried how they're going to react to you, that's all."
"Oh, come on. How bad can it be?"
"Mervin…" She put a hand on his arm. She learned the first couple months they were together he couldn't stand for anyone, including her, calling him 'Merv' for short. He was just one of those people put on the Earth who used whole names. At least he called her Bonnie, and not by her more formal "Bonne," or the detestable "Bon-Bon." "You haven't met my parents. You haven't even spoken more than two words to them on the phone." She rolled her eyes, a move lost in the darkness of the car. That took a little explaining as to why a male was answering the phone at her place.
He shrugged, a move that only registered since her hand was still on his arm. "I'm sure they'll love me. I don't have to let on what I actually do for a living."
"Well, that's the prob. They're going to want to know, and I don't think they're going to settle for 'full time student.'"
"Why not? It's the truth, isn't it? It's not like I planned on making a career of the superhero thing."
"No." She sat back in her seat again, releasing his arm. "You're not going to take Herman up on the offer to run the BN next to campus either. I am not going to spend my life with a fast-food jockey."
"Never said I was even considering it, though it seems to be okay with my sister-in-law."
"It's okay because she's not like me. I have higher standards, and Herman is a district manager now. Much higher on the food chain Food Chain, but that's not my point."
"I could always say I'm in Law Enforcement Support."
Bonnie crinkled her nose. "Like, not! That just sounds like you're a dispatcher or a jailhouse janitor…or worse. I said I have my standards."
Mervin gave the radio another twist, trying to find something in range besides a country-western station. To someone who had lived his whole life in one of the world's largest cities, he pretty much felt even Denver was a small town.
Bonnie, on the other hand, was a little ticked he hadn't sprung for a satellite radio.
"Look, Bonnie, it's just over Christmas, then we'll head back home. What's a couple nights anyway. If things get…awkward, I'll just get a hotel room nearby."
"Oh no. I've spent way too many years with Connie and Lonnie parading their air-headed boyfriends in front of the family not to show off the real deal."
"They can't be that bad."
Bonnie made a rude noise. "Oh yes they can. Sure, they're hotness, but they are sooooo stupid. I want them to see what a real guy is like, one who's good looking, smart and a hero to boot." She stopped, smiling wickedly. There were certain attributes Mervin had in common with those men, but she wasn't going to bring it up.
He was positively beaming. If there was one thing he loved as much as Bonnie, it was himself. Compliments could get you anywhere with Mervin Godfrey. There were more reasons he was called Mego than just using the first two letters of his names.
"Okay. Just hope they let us share a room. They're not old-fashioned or something, are they?"
"Mom isn't. No, her problem is she can't quite grasp the concept that I've grown up, but she's let my sisters carry on in the house all the time. I won't take no for an answer. Either we share a room at the house, or both of us are getting a hotel room, and I don't mean some dime-a-dozen room at Middleton Motor Lodge either."
"So noted. Uh, you said your Mom isn't…what about your father?"
"Daddy is a whole other issue." She said, the frown returning.
Bonnie Rockwaller, Mego and all characters from Kim Possible © Disney