Chapter 1

Kim Possible felt numb, unfeeling, nothing. It wasn't like what she expected, getting her heart broken, and she certainly didn't expect it to be so soon. A junior in university, and she was already a widow, or as close to one as she could be. They were engaged, she and Ron, and were beginning to talk about wedding plans. She hadn't yet decided if she was going to keep her name or be Kim Stoppable, seeing as it just didn't roll off the tongue well, but she knew that she wanted to spend the rest of her life with the boy, the man she had spent most of her life beside. And now, with his family beside her own, they were burying him in the ground. As she followed her late fiancé's family to their car, she noticed someone with the most familiar colouring walking back to a car some ways away. She wanted to follow the figure, but thought better of it. She had promised Mr. and Mrs. Stoppable she would observe Shiva for the three days they were able to before the beginning of Rosh Hashana, and felt it would be wrong to even seem like she wasn't ready. Which meant she would have to investigate the blue visage she believed she saw leaving the funeral at a later date.

Drew Lipsky didn't know why he had even gone, knowing how they felt about him, even if those feelings had diminished over the years. The once mildly fearsome, yet comical Doctor Drakken had, with their help, turned over a new leaf and then, they went separate ways. But, overall, they were still both a big part in his new, revived, and law-abiding life, and he couldn't help but feel some sadness at Ron Stoppable's passing. Especially after all the times he had been so hard on the boy, pretending half the time to forget his name, when somehow, every time he saw the blonde hair, the name came to mind. At least, when that blonde head was following a certain redhead. As he got in his car, he noticed said redhead looking in his general direction. He wouldn't be surprised if she noticed him, what with his abnormal skin colour, but he was mostly interested in why she wasn't marching right over to question him. It wasn't like her, and he supposed that in her grief, she was doing many things out of character. He understood what it was like for one's life to be drastically turned upside down, and in that moment he sympathised with her. Not that he'd admit it.

Kim tried getting back to her normal life, really she had. She even thought about meeting up with a certain melancholy scientist, but once she got back to university, she had no time. There were exams, and she was still a world-saving hero. but she had lost her spark, her energy, her heart. People, slow but sure, started to back off from her. Even the teachers tried being nice and giving her some grievance, although she didn't allow for that. She couldn't, her morals wouldn't let her. But she was interrupted less and less by Wade for missions, and she noticed that even the super villains whom she and Ron regularly had scuffles with were giving her space. It was a kind of respect she didn't know they'd earned and when a few of them informed her, almost two months later, that they were following her once arch-nemesis' footsteps and turning themselves in, she was reminded that she needed to see him. It wasn't hard to find Drakken these days, although he now preferred to by called by his given name, something she was rather stunned to hear about. He was allowed to keep the home he had in Middleton, and since all the other lairs he owned were taken back by the government, there wasn't much question to where she would find him. She was expecting his astonishment at her uninvited arrival, but he startled her back by calmly inviting her in. It was a difficult meeting for both of them, two people who used to constantly fight one another, one trying to kill the other, while said other just wanted to do the right thing.

Drew showed her into his living room, noticing with mild satisfaction that Kim was taking in all the changes to his once under-used lair that made the place a nice, cosy home. Motioning her to take a seat, he offered her a beverage, which she turned down. Not having anything else to offer, coupled with his lack of experience in having guest, he could do nothing more than sit down and wait for her to make the next move.

"I can't stand to see or hear anything 'Bueno Nacho' any more." That was the last thing she thought she would say, but it just came out.

"I would expect so." He tried remaining passive, still wondering when and if she would get to the point.

"Why did you come to the funeral?" She swallowed hard, not knowing why she was so nervous.

"Because Stoppable had long ago earned my respect." He had to be honest, couldn't help it.

"Now you remember his name, that's rich," she scoffed.

"Actually, I've really remembered his name for some time now, even before we saved the world." His throat was strangely dry.

For Kim's part, she didn't know what to say next. This was the oddest situation she had been in recently, and no matter how much she felt nervous, she also felt comforted. Being around someone she knew so well, who wasn't showering her with apathy and pity, made her feel ten times better than she had been. For the first time in two months, since Ron's funeral in fact, Kim Possible smiled a genuine smile and Drew noticed it.

"How have you been?" He tried taking care of the awkward silence that was beginning to give him the creeps.

"Before the accident, or since?"

"Both. It's been some time since we talked last."

"Yeah," she realised, "it has," and she began to tell him about everything. University, Ron, crime-fighting, Ron, moving to the campus, Ron, getting new jobs, Ron, a new overhaul on her car, Ron—almost as if they had never been enemies. But that didn't take away the unease she had, a feeling she could tell Drew had as well.

"That doesn't tell me how you've been," he looked at her expectantly, and she noticed that her mind seemed to have wandered.

"Sorry. Right now, I've been better, and I guess I'm still recovering from the shock."

"I've heard shock takes a long time to recover from."

"That's what my father told me," she paused, not able to hold off this question any longer. "Why did you change your name back from Drakken?" It was something that had been on her mind since she heard about it, and now that she had his undivided attention, she wasn't going to let the opportunity slip by.

"Remember my mind-control shampoo?" She nodded. "I've been haunted by it, and all my other heinous schemes, since we saved the world. So, I thought, if I gave up the pseudonym, then maybe this 'new leaf' thing would work out better."

"Has it?"

"Yes, and no."

"What's that mean?" She was interested, honestly, and that somehow surprised her.

"Well, I wanted to be respected in the community, now that my research is actually being taken seriously, and as long as people still relate my villainous exploits to the name Drakken, I realised that it was time to shed that persona."

"But how does that not work out."

He smiled crookedly, pointed to his face, and said, "There aren't that many blue-skinned people in the world. Sometimes I feel like The Wicked Witch of the West, only I don't melt under water."

"I see your point."

For a moment, she thought they were going to be stuck in another uncomfortable silence, but then Drakken—no, Drew—started reminiscing about various schemes of his that Ron undoubtedly foiled somehow, and she truly started feeling better, she even laughed once or twice. Hours later, as Drew watched Kim back her car out of his driveway and begin the trek back to Middleton University, he couldn't help but feel somehow relieved. She understood, something he was worried she wouldn't, and she had confided in him things he knew few others knew. He hadn't felt that he could do the same, seeing as she was the one who was in need of comforting, but he had felt at ease with her, he didn't know why. And, in his mind, as long as she felt better after talking, it was worth it. Walking back inside, he shook his head in disbelief, wondering idly how he had gotten so sappy.

Weeks went by, and almost unseen by Kim, as she tried to find a new beat to life, a new rhythm to live by. She found it was a harder task than it appeared, and to help ease her transition, she tried focusing on things that were, relatively, familiar. With the drastic aftermath of The Accident, there was little she could rely on to be consistent. Monique was going to a fashion design university in New York City, and the cheer squad was all over the country. Rufus was with Ron now. Wade was the only one she really had left that was the same, but in a lot of ways he was different too. Yet something in her wanted the old high school days back, where things were simple and regular and comforting. That need caused her to travel to a place she never thought she'd go again, it found her driving back to a certain melancholy scientist.

She expected him to deny her, turn her away, and scoff at her neediness. But, like everything else about him recently, he kindly let her in, welcoming, and this time, they weren't plagued by any daunting silences. Even though Drew didn't understand why she had come back, and to socialize with him of all people, he let her anyway. He didn't really understand why he allowed it, but somewhere in her manners, he saw the hurt she felt, and couldn't resist the unexpected pleasure of giving kindness, even if it was uncharacteristic of him.

"Kimberly?" He still had the unfortunate habit of using her full name.

"Yes?" She couldn't call him Drakken anymore, and somehow couldn't bring herself to call him Drew either, so she used neither.

"Why are you here?" It was like him to be blunt.

"Because you're..." She didn't know how to put it. "Because you..." Suddenly, she wasn't able to speak, her throat dry.

"I've not really changed, have I?" He didn't know how he knew, but the look on her face when he said it confirmed what he had suspected. "That's one thing about me that I always liked, that I was constantly honest with myself and the world. Guess it's why I was always the outcast, why I got singled out from everyone else."

She didn't know what to say, and as she watched him pick up their empty glasses and go back into the kitchen, she wondered what the world was coming to.

"Kim... hey KP... you there?"

She knew that voice. She didn't know where it was coming from, where he was, but she groped at the fog around her, trying to find him, so she could hold him, hug him, keep him with her always. The sane part of her mind told her that all was impossible, but then her stubbornness bit back with her family motto, and she trekked on. Soon she came upon a coffin, one she knew, and she almost ran away. But then, that voice came back.

"Kim, KP... where are you?"

She could tell the voice was coming from the coffin before her, but her raging fears kept her at bay. Slowly, while she held her breath, the coffin lid rose, opened, and revealed her worst fears, and yet she felt some joy. Ron got up and out of the wooden box and walked over to her, a smile on his lips. She could feel the tears streaming down her cheeks now, and didn't want to hold them back. This was the one person who knew her as well or better than herself, and had seen her tears before. She had nothing to hide from him.

"Kim, are you okay?"

He sounded truly concerned, and as he held her in his arms again, she felt at home, and burrowed herself into the warmth and comfort. She never wanted to leave this embrace, a moment where she always felt the closest to him, where she could hear his heartbeat against her cheek. But that heartbeat wasn't there this time, and that was when it truly sunk into her that this was a dreamscape, and Ron was contacting her from the Afterlife. He told her this might happen before he had slipped into the coma, that if he didn't wake up again, he would still say a proper goodbye. This was it.

"You're wondering why I died, aren't you?"

She looked up at him, and noticed that he wasn't using his mouth to speak, that however he was communicating with her, it was more intimate than words. She wondered how to talk back, but couldn't think of how to phrase what she wanted to say, so she just nodded, hoping that was enough for him. It seemed as much.

"I was surprised myself, really, but this is a side effect of my mystical monkey powers. Apparently, I wasn't supposed to use them when we had the accident, apparently I wasn't supposed to save you from all harm. I took all the damage instead, because I used my powers selfishly, and an early death is the penalty. I'm sorry to have to leave Kim, but you know I would die for you, and now i have. I just hope you can move on with your life, find someone else, and I know they are right in front of you, if only you open your eyes to see. I don't want you to die of a broken heart on my account, because then my sacrifice would be for nothing. You know I'll always be watching you, and I'll always be waiting for you, for when it's your time. Just remember that I really do love you, with my entire being, Kimberly Ann Possible, and nothing in the vast cosmos will ever change that."

Then, ever-so-slowly, he took her head in his hands and brought her lips to his, kissing her tenderly.

A sheen of sweat was on her body as she jolted awake, the dreamscape still vivid in her mind. Ron had come to say his final farewell, and told her even why he had died. It explained a whole lot, really, but it wasn't any easier to deal with. Holding her Pandaroo tighter, she knew that everything he had said was true, and that it would all happen. She only wondered how soon, and with whom.

To Be Continued...