Usual disclaimer note: So don't own the rights, so want them, so dealing with it.
I want to thank my wife, my mother and my beta for reading this, making suggestions where the were needed. Much of this was written in my spare time while I was away from home.
This chapter comes with a warning. The romantic sap is a little thick. Those on sugar reduced diets should reach for their insulin now, please and thank you.
Morning Sickness and the Cure for Insomnia
Plans were indeed rushed for the Stoppable-Possible wedding. With a window of only a few months, there were decisions to be made, compromises to be worked out, and deadlines to be met. No sooner had Kim moved into the bedroom set aside for her at the new house in Middleton, than the world became a blur of fabrics, flowers and food samples. All of the girls from the old cheer squad days were dying to be a part of the big day, and nobody pulled punches with their opinions.
When it came to choosing a bridesmaid, it was no contest. Monique Jenkins was the go-to girl. From the day that they had met over the counter of Club Banana, it was BFF. Who else was Kim going to get to stand by her side on the most important day of her life? It helped that the woman was a fashion diva, and would be able to alter a gown to suitably hide the bride's "condition". Mrs. Possible was also counting on Monique's abilities in this regard. Clothing had to be made ready to alter, depending on how advanced her pregnancy was by the time of the ceremony.
It was in the middle of all of the planning that the less than pleasant symptoms of the Possible pregnancies began to make themselves apparent.
Promptly each morning, there was a mad dash for the bathrooms. It was not uncommon for James to be holding a cloth for his wife to use after being violently ill, and for Ron, who always managed to be there before Kim woke up, to be holding her long auburn hair out of the way. Fortunately, the guest room that she occupied had its own en suite bath.
After that first bout, Anne had begun doing some research through the hospital records, searching for the best available remedy. The pharmacuetical options were almost endless, but the potential side affects were a little unnerving to both women. Fortunately, there were a number of homeopathic and herbalist doctors on staff at Middleton Memorial Hospital. They had recommended an herbal tea, but it was taking time to have the desired affect. When that blessed day came, there would be sighs of relief all around.
After a particularly harrowing morning, Kim had turned to Ron (having rinsed her mouth out thoroughly) and suggested that the current arrangement wasn't working. "You know, I'd really feel better if you were right here with me. I mean, so that I could snuggle up to you when I can't sleep at night. You always manage to get here for this part, but I need you." She had put on her best puppy-dog-pout. While the weapon was devastating enough on its own, the hormonal changes she was experiencing made it deadly. Who needs sixteen kinds of kung fu?
"KP, I thought your dad was going to have me shot into space when we told them about your being pregnant. Can you imagine what will happen if we even mentioned the possibility of our sharing a bed under his roof?" He mimed an explosion. "There wouldn't be any roof."
In point of fact, all the while that he had been choosing his best man and the ushers from among his best male friends, Ron had been missing his KP cuddle. It was so much the usual end to the day, that the lack was most sorely felt.
"Let Mom and I work on Daddy. I think that the dangerous part of our being together is pretty much a moot point anyway." She patted her belly significantly.
Kim and Anne cornered Mr. Possible at supper that night. Ron had chosen to follow the proverb that discretion is the better part of valour, and hadn't strolled in the kitchen door just before supper, as was the tradition. That alone had confirmed James' suspicions that something was up. Anne had put together his favorite meal, and Kim had asked him about his day, not once interrupting his diatribe on the joys of rocket fuel chemistry.
Tim and Jim, like most teen boys, had been shovelling back copious amounts of food, oblivious to everything but the act of putting as much in their mouths as possible. They had been warned to vacate the premises at the appropriate time, but were only told that their father was likely to be less than happy.
When James had put down his fork for the last time, Anne looked over at the twins. "Don't you boys have a big date or something this evening."
"Date? I don't have a..." Tim began.
"date tonight." Jim finished.
Kim pointed at the door and scowled.
"Whoops, gotta go!", came from both boys simultaneously, and the napkins they had been holding both drifted to the table as both of them seemed to vanish.
"James, we need to talk. All three of us."
'Here it comes!', James thought to himself. 'Fire in the hole!'
"Kimmie is really not feeling well in the morning, and isn't sleeping too well at night either. I mean, you are always here to make me feel better, and you look after me so well." She put a little bit of a purr into her voice. "I don't know how I'd deal with my pregnancy if you were away on business or something."
"Daddy, I know it's hard for you to accept, but I'm having Ron's baby, and I need him here to help me. Please, Daddy." She put on the PDP again for her father, just as intensely as she had for Ron earlier in the day.
'Must not look!', James chanted to himself. 'Must not look!' In fact, he looked everywhere but at the women sitting at the table with him. In desperation he searched for the paper he had started reading at breakfast. Inevitably, he looked up, and was confronted by a puppy-dog-pout, in stereo. 'I knew she learned it from somewhere.' He sighed and took the only sane option. He rolled over and begged for mercy.
"Alright! Ron can move in over here. I guess he's family now for good, and the deed has already been done. Just don't expect me to be happy about it." With all of his might, James tried to look as surly as he could. It didn't work. If they hadn't come to him by morning, he was going to drive over and just pick up all of Ronald's clothes himself, and move him into his daughter's room.
He'd been watching his Kimmie-cub, looking in on her when she did finally get to sleep. She tossed and turned all night, clutching her Pandaroo for dear life. Ron had given the plush to her when they were thirteen, and she was in a depressed mood. She needed to hold the real thing now. Anne was right, that a pregnant woman needed the man she loved, even if all he could do was cuddle her at night and hold her hair back in the morning.
Anne and Kim assaulted him from either side, so that both cheeks wound up with smears of the same shade of lip gloss. Kim ran for the phone, to tell her love the verdict. As his wife was reaching for the keys to her car, James put a hand over hers.
"No, I'm going to go and get him, dear. Ronald and I are going to have a little... talk, before we get here. We shouldn't be too long."
While the Possible women had been working on his future father-in-law, Ron was having his own confrontation over the issue.
"Look, Mom, I can understand why you are upset with me. You brought me up to see this as something to come after marriage. I just didn't want to miss showing Kim how much I love her, not when I've come so close to losing her forever. Would you have not felt the same way if Dad were killed before you were married?" He looked down into his mother's eyes, realizing for the first time just how much he now towered over her. 'I'm not your little boy anymore.' he thought. 'Time to cut the apron string.'
Jean looked up into her son's chocolate brown eyes, realizing that he was very much a man now, and wanting to take responsibility for his actions. Maybe that was the point. He was a man with a man's obligations, and that meant caring for the mother of his child. 'Where did my little boy go?' she asked herself.
Gene stood by his son's shoulder and placed a hand on it. "Ronald, while we cannot approve of your timing regarding our grandchild, we always knew that you would be leaving our nest for one that included Kimberly. Take your proper place now. We are proud of the man that you have become." Letting go of the shoulder, he hugged his son. 'I knew this day was coming, and thought I would be ready.' Letting go, he stepped back to his wife's side.
As if on cue, the doorbell rang. Ron hugged his parents and went out to the front hall, picking up the duffel bag that sat at the foot of the steps. He opened the front door, expecting either Kim or his future mother-in-law. What he saw was James Possible.
There was a squeal from the top of the stairs. "Uncle James!" Hana launched herself down the steps, barely touching a single tread. She leaped at the visitor. Ever since the day of the alien invasion, the Stoppables had been the closest thing to family, sheltering the homeless Possible clan for several nights. Now Hana just thought of them as family. She jumped up and was caught by an overjoyed James. It was like having his Kimmie-cub at four years old again.
That just brought him back to what he was here for.
Ron's parents came out from the kitchen. Jean hugged her good friend and Gene shook his hand firmly.
"Well," Gene began. "I guess this is the way it has to be. At least he's taking the responsibility like a proper man." He looked James in the eye, and winked outside of his son's line of sight. The two men had been discussing this moment for a couple of days now, and had decided that it shouldn't be too easy on the young man they both adored.
"Believe me, I'm trying hard not to think about it. All the same, if Ronald is going to father this child, he's going to have to start right now."
Ron just gulped a few times, and didn't say a word. From the looks of things, it was going to be a long time before Mr. Dr. P was going to be able to speak with him without some resentment in his voice. A PDP only went so far.
When Ron had deposited his bag in the trunk, James put an arm around his shoulder and steered him toward the street. "Let's take a walk, son. I want to talk with you for a bit."
The two men strolled slowly down the street, neither one saying anything. They came to an empty lot, all that remained of the original Possible home. As if with one mind, they turned to look at the parcel of land. Shared memories came unbidden, and both ambled across the ground. Every now and then, one of them would look at the other and smile a little.
James remembered the time that Ron had spent the better part of two weeks at an odd job, to buy Kim the cuddle buddy that she so cherished. He recalled how it was Ronald, and not Eric that had brought her home from the junior prom, a dreamy smile on her face. Then he saw, in his minds eye, all of the photos that had lined the walls of the house, of two young people growing up, never knowing until disaster struck that they were in love.
Ron remembered how Mr. Possible had welcomed him into his home without question. He had allowed him to sleep over with his daughter, long after most fathers would have put an end to such things. When the missions had started, he had trusted Ron with the most precious thing in the world to him, his daughter's very life. 'I wish I hadn't let you down, Mr. Dr. P.' he thought to himself. He looked down at his feet, and saw a small piece of the kitchen tile, the tile he had walked over a million times, just waltzing into the kitchen like he belonged there.
"Ronald...Ron, you have been as much a son to me as the twins have. Back when you and Kimmie were young, the week she got her braces, I knew that the two of you were going to wind up together." James looked around at walls that weren't there, at the steps to a loft that would never be climbed. "I knew that day that I was going to lose her, to you. What I didn't realize was that I wasn't losing her. I was getting more of you, and now, an extra bit of both of you."
Ron looked at James, and suddenly realized that they could see eye to eye.
"Son, I may not be too happy about the sequence of events, but I cannot think of anyone I would want to have as the father of my grandchildren more." He held out his hand to the younger man, and pulled him into a hug. "Thank you for looking after my Kimberly, Ron." he whispered into one of the large ears he leaned into.
Letting his new son go, he turned from the land that represented the past, and looked toward the new house on the edge of Middleton. "Let's go home, son. Let's go home."
That night, James held his sleeping wife. He breathed in the sweet smell of strawberries and vanilla. He leaned in and kissed her on her cheek, and smiled when she pushed toward him in her sleep. Throwing back the covers, he got up and left the room. The doors to the boys' rooms were closed, and there was silence behind each. Farther down the hall, Mr. Possible came to the guest suite door. It was open a crack, and the light of the moon shone through.
Quietly pushing the door open a bit more, he peeked in at his daughter and her love. Ron was just in the act of brushing back the hair from Kim's cheek, breathing in the sweet smell of strawberries and vanilla. As he leaned in to kiss her cheek, he looked up and saw James. He paused.
James nodded at the young man, and Ron finished the gesture. A smile crept across the sleeping woman's face, and she settled more comfortably into the pillows beneath her head. Ron looked up and James saw him silently mouth the words "Thank you." Dr. James Possible shook his head and whispered, "No Ronald. Thank you."
