"Flight Two-Zero-Eight from JFK International, your baggage is now available at Carousel Three."
Yori scratched at the collar of her jacket, longing for the comfort of her stealthy, skintight uniform, or the familiar feel of her schoolgirl guise. Still, judging by the unmistakable male interest she drew as she glided through Middleton Airport's baggage claim, she found it hard to argue with the silk blouse and black miniskirt that Naru had chosen as her civilian apparel.
Lumpy duffels and suitcases paraded around the conveyer belt of the claim as she waited patiently for the rubber curtain to vomit up her checked luggage. Her thoughts were far from the spinning bags, already across town with a freckled visage that filled her with conflict. Just the thought of him weakened her knees, and elicited from her the memory of watching him light the First Temple of her homelands as a corona of golden brilliance.
Sensei's instructions burned in her ears still. Were it any other target, she would not doubt her ability to complete her mission. Even Yamanouchi's governors, who disapproved of her greatly, had given her the full support of the school, including an open line of credit to use as she deemed necessary. Such a consensus from the mysterious leaders of Yamanouchi happened rarely, and should be considered a peerless honor.
Her large and ornate bag passed before her on the carousel. As she pulled the bag from the belt, a clumsy hand tapped her on the shoulder. She set the bag down and turned to find a fat, oafish, officious-looking security guard looming behind her. From the way his eyes shot up to her face, she guessed correctly that he had been staring at her legs.
"Excuse me, miss. Do-you-speakee-English?" he asked slowly.
Fluent in three different languages, Yori offered him a vapid smile and nodded eagerly. "Yees," she squeaked. "I speakee littel." She could already guess where his inquiry would head, and decided to keep the upper hand on the conversation with a little harmless role-playing.
Smiling back, the guard pointed down at her bag and the long, black sheathe wrapped in cloth and secured with rope to its side. "I'm a little concerned about that big honkin' knife you've got there. May I see your passport?"
Yori could smell the bag search that was sure to come, which would unearth a plethora of ninja accessories she didn't have time to explain away. She decided to turn her efforts up a notch. "Yees," she said again, and drew her passport out of her handbag with a giggle. After handing him the passport, she bent down slowly, letting him 'sneak' another good, long look at her smooth and perfect thighs. She unfastened the ornate sheath and held it up for him to see. Her hand slid deliberately over the weapon as her eyes grew half-lidded. "Ees geeft foh frend," she said, and giggled suggestively.
"A gift, hmm?" The guard barely glanced at her passport, more interested in the unbuttoned apex of her blouse. "Well, Miss…Akamatsu," he said, "We're not accustomed to people carrying swords around here in America."
Why would they, when any fool who couldn't be bothered to master the perfect arts could simply go down to a corner store, purchase a gun, and become an instant barbarian?
"Sord geeft," she said again, and widened her smile until it hurt.
The oafish guard looked her up and down again as he returned her passport. "Well," he said, sticking his thumbs in his belt, "Just be sure to give it to him right quick so you don't get in trouble."
Yori's smile hid her despair. Shouldering her sword, she said to the guard, "No trubble. I geef gud."
She walked away, dropping her expression into the depths of her guilt. A murmured prayer pleaded her ancestors for the strength and certainty to do what she had to.
Elizabeth had expected this day for years.
She sat in her office, shuffling through reports that she had no desire to read. Status reports on this new Middleton project held nothing pertinent; her departments would come in late and over budget for the second quarter in a row. It had been hard enough to convince her superiors of the project's importance with her guarantees of being on time and on budget. It would only be a matter of time before one of those old buzzards tried to shut her down. She knew that reports from her other facilities worldwide would have no surprises either. Her subordinates could handle the status quo her other bases suffered from.
Elizabeth hated paperwork. It was her greatest nemesis, which meant a lot when your job revolved around protecting the free world from its greatest and most garish threats. Paperwork kept her behind a desk while the world's evil ran amok. Paperwork made her long for the days before her promotions, before she had shattered the glass ceiling of a global old-boys club to become its alpha. Paperwork stole from her the thrill of chasing down villains with nothing but a half charged plasma pistol and three-to-one odds against her. And paperwork, worst of all, played favorites; she lived with the awful certainty that men like Duff Killigan and Señor Senior Senior did not have to fill out three reams of forms whenever they shot someone.
But she would gladly have buried herself in paperwork to avoid the dull, frosty voice at her door that said, "Hello, Ma'am."
A lone eye lifted from the mountainous manila folders on her desk. "Hello, Cameron," said Elizabeth. Her stomach dropped two stories at the sight of the strapping man filling her doorway. His dark brown hair nearly brushed the top of the door frame as he stepped through. She eyed the taut muscles stretching his black jumpsuit and said, "You're looking well. When did you get back? You weren't due for another three weeks."
"Only last night," he replied, circumnavigating the small office. The forced courtesy in his voice strained both of their patience. It was an old dance of theirs, one that both had mastered and neither liked. A thick line of dust collected on his fingertip as he ran it across her bookshelf. "I decided to cut my sabbatical short. I needed to get back to work."
A glimmer of the affection she had once held for this man sparked in Elizabeth as she heard the pain lurking beneath those words. It took a concentrated effort on her part to remind herself that Cameron was a man suffering a great loss. For that, if nothing else, she forced her voice to resemble something warm and caring. It wasn't easy for someone who lived as she did. "There's no rush," she told him.
He pretended to examine the dust on his fingertip. "I'm not here to discuss my situation, ma'am. I have no situation, save those my department gives to me, which I then give to you. Or rather," he added with a touch of smugness, "which I usually give to you."
Elizabeth's eyebrow quirked as her guest pulled a book from its shelf and flipped idly through its pages. Her patience and kindness, shallow pools to begin with, had run dry. "This clearly isn't a social call, Commander Du. So why don't you put the poetry down and tell me why GJ's Director of Intelligence is dropping by unannounced."
Cameron Du ignored her clipped tone, running a hand across his borrowed book as though deep in thought. "He took his vorporal sword in hand," he read aloud, "Long time the Manxome foe he sought. So rested he by the tumtum tree, and stood a while in thought." Snapping the tome closed, he looked up at Elizabeth and asked, "Why do you suppose he wasn't afraid of the Jabberwock? Everyone else was."
"You'd have to ask Lewis Carroll," said Elizabeth. She stood and gestured to the chair opposite her desk. "Now sit down and tell me what this is about before I shoot you."
He chuckled stiffly. "Always direct," he said, sitting as she had requested. When she did the same, he reached into his uniform front and produced a small manila folder. "I'm here because your little pet project just went rogue, and the Joint Chiefs want me to clean it up."
A short breath froze in her lungs as Elizabeth pulled the new folder from the top of her mountain. She opened the folder, careful to keep her gaze on Cameron. True to his training, the agent revealed nothing. "I wasn't aware that I had a pet project," she said coolly, and let her eye drop to the folder's contents.
Grainy photographs flashed past her gaze as she flipped through the folder's pages of damning evidence. They were security photos taken from a GJ facility surveillance camera. It didn't take her long to recognize the facility as one of the special warehouses used to contain "special" material. After all, she had set them up herself. But the facility itself wasn't of interest in the photos. Rather, the gaping hole blasted into its armored wall caught her attention first. As she flipped through the photos, she created her own clunky animation of a daring heist: large, burly helmeted men poured into the warehouse, subduing the GJ guards therein with embarrassing ease, and then securing a plethora of boxes. Central among those burly thieves were two figures, smaller than the rest, standing in the jagged hole and directing them with crisp gestures.
Never one to tip her hand, Elizabeth kept her tone skeptical and cool. "You came all this way to show me blurry pictures? I could go to a supermarket checkout for those."
"Jokes?" Cameron smirked and steepled his fingers. "I've never heard you utter a joke in your life. I can't say I like it. Besides, jokes won't save that after-school club you've been relying so heavily on."
The frigid breath lodged in Elizabeth's chest released slowly. Cameron didn't know everything, or so she suspected. Not the whole truth. Out loud, she asked, "If you're referring to Team Possible...?"
He nodded. "What you have there are last night's surveillance images from one of your new 'Evidence Lockers,' this one in Boise." Leaning forward, he added, "Boise was responsible for housing the centerpiece of that Lipsky debacle six weeks ago."
"I'm too old for doublespeak, Cam. Lipsky called it an Entropy Cannon."
Cameron's voice grew smugger with every page Elizabeth flipped. "According to our intelligence, it was actually one of Demens' inventions."
"Mm-hmm."
Cameron lifted a brow, teetering on the edge of his seat. He craned his neck so that Elizabeth could see his expression over her backlogged paperwork. "Demens escaped from prison almost a month ago," he reminded her.
"I'm well aware of that," she said in a bristling tone. "But unless he grew three feet in prison, this isn't Demens in the picture. Now," she said, rising in volume and in stature, "Since you handed me this file, I assume you knew this. Stop wasting my time and get to the point."
The blustery bluff failed to crack Cameron's façade. "Turn to the end," he told her. "I saved the best one for last."
Elizabeth flipped to the last page in the folder, and lost her breath all over again. The security camera that captured Cameron's concerns had zoomed in for a close shot of one of the directing thieves' face. His hard scowl thrust unwelcome familiarity deep into Elizabeth's roiling stomach.
Cameron misread the horror on her face, and leaned over her desk to smile arrogantly. "I take it you recognize him," he said.
More so than Cameron did, she was certain of that. "You had better be able to explain that smile, Mister. This is no laughing matter."
The smirk on his face flipped. "No," he said, settling back into his chair. "And neither is Global Justice's reliance on a couple of children and their rodent sidekick to do our dirty work. The Joint Chiefs of Staff weren't happy to begin with," he warned her.
"The Joint Chiefs of Staff know where they can stick it if they don't have the gumption to speak with me directly," Elizabeth replied. She kept her face taut, stuffing down the strange surge of maternal panic she got when she looked at the picture. For all appearances, Ron Stoppable looked back at her from the folder, wearing a fearsome frown that chilled her blood. Snapping the folder shut, she said, "I assume you have more than a folder full of pictures."
The smug returned to his face. "The GJ Intelligence Division has been given full tactical clearance to apprehend the Stoppable boy. We also have orders to bring Possible in as a collaborator." He pointed to the photo in her hands, to a specific corner, where a woman drove her fist into the face of a GJ sentry. The woman's features were hidden behind an unmistakable mane of hair.
Cocking a brow, Elizabeth struggled to maintain the remainder of her mask. "You're arresting Team Possible," she said.
"I thought that obvious from the photo," he replied stiffly. Then, with a twisted smirk, he added, "I also thought you might like to know before I effectively cripple your ability to do your job."
A grunting laugh escaped the tight line of Elizabeth's mouth. "How nice of my subordinate to keep me informed when he's taking over my tactical units."
"Naturally, Director," he said, returning her sarcasm with a little bow. "It's my pleasure. I know you'd be interested in your favorite little freelancers' betrayal. I'm expecting a simple operation to effect their capture."
Doctor Elizabeth Brant, the director of Global Justice and Senior Officer for Tactical Operations, ignored her subordinate's prattling as she wondered how it had come to this. For Cameron's sake, she hoped he was prepared; Team Possible wouldn't go down easily. Nor would they go down alone.
"Nothing about this is simple, Agent Du," Doctor Director told him. "Least of all containing Team Possible. I hope you're ready for a war, because that's exactly what you're about to start."
"The first meeting of the Middleton Council of War will now come to order," Ron Stoppable announced, and banged a hard-shell taco on the tabletop in lieu of a gavel. A handful of eyes in the campus Bueno Nacho turned his way, and then turned away with disinterest. Ron took no note of their notice, turning instead to the lovelier half of the council seated across from him. "We will now read the minutes from our last meeting."
Monique's brows mashed together. She exchanged glances with Kim before turning an annoyed look back at Ron. "How can we have minutes from another meeting if this is the first one?" she asked snappishly. Her lofted arm waggled in the air, held up by a pasty plaster cast and brace attached to her body. The souvenir from her epic battle with Duff Killigan was covered in signatures and doodles, courtesy of the rest of her world-saving cohorts.
Ron's taco gavel shattered in another round of banging. "This court will not tolerate dissention!" he barked. Then he pulled a face as he examined the syrupy beans and Grade-D meat dripping from his hand. "Ugh. Mister Joint-Chairman of Committee, if you please?"
A pink blur slithered down Ron's arm and engulfed his hand, burbling contently. Both girls cringed with disgust as the taco remains vanished into the blob. Kim listened to Rufus's slurping and Ron's giggling, and suppressed a shudder. "I don't care how long it's been or how useful it is," said Kim. "That gooey, morph-thing trick will always be way gross."
"Sticks and stones can't break my boy's bones," Ron razzed her, and tickled the shapeless rodent covering his hand. "Not that he has them anymore."
"Can we get on with this?" Kim asked more impatiently than she meant to. The reason for their meeting struck a raw nerve within her she had long since forgotten about, and it bothered her to no end that such petty considerations still bothered her at all. She tugged the strap of her sling, remembering her other annoyance with a twinge of her elbow. Between the two problems, she had more than she could stand, and didn't need Ron dragging out this ridiculous meeting he had called.
Clearing his throat, Ron drew himself upright and hardened his expression. Rufus dropped to the table and reassumed his rodent shape, saluting as Ron said, "Right. For this Council's first and only order of business, I hereby present my evidence as grounds for a full-blown Category Five Red Alert."
He pulled from his pocket a small, stiff square of paper. Its ornate embossing glinted as he laid it upon the table. Their annoyance fell into stony resolve in the face of this awesome dilemma.
"The Middleton High School's 'Where Are They Now?' Reunion," said Ron, speaking their collective fear aloud. "The bastard brainchild of one Bonita Q. Rockwaller."
Kim regarded the invite like it was radioactive. True to her expectations, she had received her own "lost" invitation the day after her encounter with Bonnie. A quick call had confirmed the same for Ron and Monique. Ron had decided that they would meet at the Bueno Nacho to concoct a plan of attack for dealing with Bonnie's shrewd social posturing. "A one-year reunion," she uttered. "I still can't believe it."
With a shake of her head, Monique said, "I can. If there was ever an ego big enough to organize a school function just to brag to her old clique…"
"So then it's agreed," said Ron, taking the invite in hand. He passed the invite to Rufus, who straightened its crease, brushed it clean, and then devoured it in a single bite. In the meantime, Ron announced, "We each find one obscure, non-terminal illness with which to 'suffer' for the duration of the crisis. I, myself, will be going with dysentery."
Monique made a wry face. "Charming," she said, watching the cardboard invite stretch and warp Rufus's head before he compacted it into his bizarre biology. "But won't your folks be a little concerned when you start pretending to have a gold rush era disease?"
"Not an issue," Ron assured her, leaning back in the booth. He laced his fingers behind his head and sighed. "Dad went with Mom to her seminar overseas. Thought he could get some networking done for whatever it is he does. Actuators, or whatever."
A devious sparkle lit Monique's eye, igniting mischievous flames behind her smile. "So," she purred, glancing between the couple, "Your parents are out of town for the rest of the week. You've got a whole house just for you…"
Kim caught the suggestive tone and colored her cheeks accordingly. Ron circumnavigated Monique's innuendo with masterful density. "With one annoying exception, yeah," he said. "Brief reprieve from the humiliation of living with your parents again after giving up the single, independent life by way of explosion."
"Plenty of privacy," Monique stressed. She leaned forward, drilling her gaze into his listless eyes. "In that big, cold, empty house." Kim's blush worsened as Monique added, "Nobody to keep you warm at night."
Inspiration lit in Ron's eyes as Monique slid back. "Oh, hey!" he said, glancing between his ladies. "Why don't you guys come over tonight for dinner? I'll whip up a Stoppable Special guaranteed to delight the buds."
Rufus pratfalled into a pile of empty taco wrappers as Monique slapped her face with her one good hand.
A tiny smile blossomed out of Kim's blush. She reached forward and grasped Ron's hand, squeezing it. "Sounds like a plan," she said, and brought his enormous knuckles to her lips. Rumbling from her stomach broke her kiss, calling her gaze past her green tank top to the bare midriff below. "But I think I'll find something to tide me over in the meantime. Anything?" she asked them. At the shake of their heads, she rose from the book, giving Ron a wink. "Back in a flash."
Kim floated away, letting her eyes linger on Ron's grin. Her feet hardly scraped the floor on her way to the counter, where she ordered a random salad combo on autopilot. Her thoughts were firmly locked back in the booth with her boyfriend.
Boyfriend. If someone had told the Kim Possible of two years ago that she'd be dating her best friend, she would have laughed herself into a coma. But there she stood, with a secret smile that baffled the Bueno Nacho staff as they handed her a new tray. Her smile came courtesy of the very best boyfriend she could ask for, a kind and gentle soul that intuited her needs and desires before even she realized them. A boyfriend and more, because it meant she no longer had to choose between a love life and a close relationship with her best friend. She had her cake, and she ate it in bliss.
On her way back to the booth, Kim caught sight of her friends deep in conversation. The expression on Monique's face piqued Kim's curiosity, fueling the teen spy in Kim. Crouching low, Kim crept along the opposite row of booths behind a low divider wall, intent upon surprising her friends in the event that they were talking about her.
"—really heating up," she heard Monique say snidely. It was all Kim could do to choke down a giggle. "That hot lip-on-hand action was a little too racy for public. My word."
Ron's reply came as a breezy, "Things are going great, Mon. KP an' me are vibing better than ever."
Another giggle clawed at Kim's throat. She could hear Monique rolling her eyes. "And which base is 'vibing' at?"
"Base?" Kim heard Ron say with patented confusion.
"First base. Right." Kim listened to Monique lean against the table. There came a subtle squeak of buttocks on vinyl; Ron was fidgeting. "So what's the holdup, Ron-meo? Your Juliet awaits!" said Monique.
More squeaking. More fidgeting. "C'mon, Mon. It's not like that," insisted Ron.
Kim felt her face fold at the quiver in his voice. She knelt closer to the divider in the empty booth, forgetting her playful plan to surprise them.
A brief pause. "Everything okay between you two?" Monique asked, this time without snide or teasing tone.
"Everything's hunky-dory, Mon. Couldn't be dorier or hunkeir, actually."
Kim listened as Monique's disbelief became tangible. She could taste it on the air as she heard, "You think all that karate crud could save you?" A sharp knock rang out; Monique had rapped her cast on the table. "I can still whup you one-handed, Blondie. Now stop fronting and spill."
Empty laughter answered her, tugging the corners of Kim's mouth down further. "Okay," said Ron, "okay. I guess…" He trailed off, probably checking over his shoulder. Kim bit back a stale breath, listening. "I'm kind of wishing the other shoe would just drop already."
"Other…" said Monique. The temperature in their booth dropped, sending a chill through Kim. "Other shoe? Okay, this isn't fun anymore. And you are thirty-one flavors of crazy, boy!"
The leaden air in Kim's chest grew stale, but she held it. "C'mon," Ron said again. "Look how much crap we had to go through just to get this far." His voice dipped, just a little. "I'm a little surprised the shoe's taking so long."
The brief, localized cold snap gave way to the intense heat rolling off of Monique's snappish tongue. "I take it back," she said. "You aren't crazy. You're just dumb. Kim is the crazy one. She's crazy about you!"
"Sure, now," Ron retorted with false cheer. "But that's just how rebounds work. You have fun with them, and then it's back to business. And I… I'm cool with that," he said.
"You've been together for a month, stupid," Monique said, exasperated. "Nobody rebounds for a month."
One final pause hung I the roiling air. Kim lost her breath in a sigh. Luckily, Ron did the same simultaneously. "All I know," Ron said, "Is that, as good as I've got it, that other shoe has to be on its way. But hey, at least I've had Kim for this long. Who am I to complain?"
Kim crept away, leaving her tray behind on the floor. Once back at the end of the row, she stood and straightened her tank top, and smoothed the wrinkles from her brow. Groomed, Kim walked back to their booth in a controlled gait. She tried not to grimace as Ron and Monique cut their argument short to smile at her.
"Hey, KP," Ron said. He gave her empty hands a glance, and asked, "Where's the snackage? I changed my mind, and was gonna nosh off of yours."
She returned his smile wanly. "Not so hungry after all," she replied, sliding next to Monique. Her girlfriend shot Kim a sidelong glance that went ignored. "So," she said with forced cheer, "Dinner at your place tonight?"
Ron nodded, and then checked his watch. "Only if I get a move on," he said. "You wanna come with? I need to swing by your place anyway, and take care of your intruder problem."
"I've got some…things to do," Kim replied lamely. "Go on ahead. I might catch up to you at my place." The brush of his lips on her cheek barely registered with Kim. "Thanks."
As Ron left the restaurant, Monique watched his airy meanderings with a shake of her head. "I swear, there's no lab on Earth that could measure the density of that boy's head." She brought her smile back up to Kim, where she lost it in the redhead's stunned silence. A moment of confusion worked through Monique's face, paving the way for dawning clarity. "Oh no," she uttered. "No, no, no, no, no, I know that look. I know that look, and you are not even gonna start with me. Nu-uh. Not gonna happen."
"Other shoe?" murmured Kim. Her face darkened with the coming storm of her shout: "Other shoe!"
"Oh. My. God." Monique's forehead struck the tabletop, which muffled her moan. "I blame myself," she said into the table. "I showed an interest. I thought that the drama was over, and the gossip would be juicy. Bad Monique. Bad, bad Monique. You need to learn from your mistakes, not recycle them."
Kim ignored her theatrics. "Monique, Ron thinks I'm going to use him and lose him. He thinks… How could he think something so horrible? Am I a bad girlfriend? I think I'm a great girlfriend! Aren't I a great girlfriend?"
Monique sat up with her eyes crushed shut. Her fingertips worked at her temples as she chanted, "Calm blue ocean. You're on a calm blue ocean where nothing can bother you."
"Monique!"
"Stupid, obnoxious seagull," muttered Monique, her eyes still shut.
Kim pulled Monique's hands down. "Monique," she said with a pleading look. "Help. Please. What's going on that Ron can talk to you about that he can't talk to me about?"
The hurt in Kim's eyes left Monique no other alternatives. Defeat rang in her sigh. "Okay," Monique said in a hollow voice. "Fine. You're going to listen and not talk. Understand?" At Kim's nod, Monique steeled herself with a deep breath. Two more breaths just like it preceded her speech: "Kim, I know you're totally all about Ron now. Far as I've seen, you have the girlfriend thing down pat." She pierced Kim's eyes with her own, and said, "But you have no idea what Ron was like before."
"But—"
"Ap-bup-bup-bup-bup!" said Monique, thrusting a finger up to cut Kim off. "Talking. You shush." Once Kim had settled back, Monique ignored her irritated look and continued, "You weren't there for all the agonizing, and the poetry, and the pining, and the critical, critical sad."
The woe of the thought weighed Kim's eyes to the table. "I never meant to… Wait." Looking up, she asked, "There was poetry?"
Monique shivered. "Look," she said, "The point is, Ron's spent a lot of time thinking that you don't think of him the way he thinks of you. He thinks that you think of him as a placeholder, and that you're thinking about guys that he thinks you think are more your speed. Do you understand?"
"I think," said Kim. She scratched her head.
"Ron trusts you as a friend," said Monique. "And he trusts you as a partner. But you've broken his heart a dozen times without ever realizing it."
Kim sank into her booth, collapsing into her folded arms. The tabletop hid her angry pout. "So I'll just sit back and watch the best relationship I've ever had spiral down the tubes because I wasn't the one that fell in love first, and because it—"
She flinched at the sharp rap of knuckles on her skull. Monique drew her hand back and glared. "Who are you? Who are you?" Before Kim could answer, Monique told her, "You are Kim-Effing-Possible! You climb mountains and surf lava flows for the hell of it. You have a body that makes supermodels purge with envy. You…" She pulled a lilac device from her pocket and shoved its screen into Kim's face, thumbing its main switch. "You have a fifteen-year-old fixer who can get you anywhere in the world in three hours or your pizza's free!"
"Um, hello?" Wade said, staring quizzically at the enormous nose occupying his own screen.
Monique stuffed her Kimmunicator back into her pocket. Her casted arm jabbed its hand at Kim, widening Kim's dumbfounded eyes. "You want Ron? You fight for him."
"Yeah?" Kim asked hesitantly.
"You make him see how much you care about him!" cried Monique.
Kim's expression coalesced into confidence. "Yeah," she said again. "Yeah!"
"You take him," said Monique, clutching and twisting an imaginary Ron in her good hand, "And you break him. You grind him down into a shadow of his former self, and then you rebuild that shattered psyche into the perfect boyfriend. One who leaves the seat down, and who will finally bring me flowers on days besides my birthday, and—"
"Mon! Monique!" Kim snapped her fingers, ending Monique's tirade. "I think I'll just stick with the 'fighting' thing." Biting her lip, she eased back and asked, "So how do I do that?"
Blinking away her tangent, Monique got herself back on the subject. "Oh. Right. Well, you could always…you know."
Kim frowned at the coy expression creeping across Monique's face. "You can't be serious," she said flatly.
"Come on," Monique said again, giving her a look. "Seal the deal. Take the plunge."
"You are serious," said Kim. "Then you must also be crazy. Ron and I don't do that!"
A waggling finger punctuated Monique's rebuttal. "Yet. You and Ron don't do that 'yet.' But c'mon, what's the big deal? Guys are simple!" She erected two of her fingers and thrust them at Kim with repetitive jerks. "It's as easy as one, two—"
Kim tackled the fingers and slapped them onto the tabletop. Traces of red crept down from her scowl and into her cheeks as she glowered at Monique, and cast a self-conscious glance around the restaurant. "Mon," she hissed, "Will you just cut that out? This isn't a topic I want to discuss in a Bueno Nacho. Or anywhere."
A new smile dawned on Monique's lips. She rested her good arm on the back of her bench and stifled a laugh. "You are such a prude," she sniggered.
"I am not!"
"Oh, puh-leaze," scoffed Monique. "Can you even do this?" Monique twisted around and tapped the bald head of the man sitting in the booth behind her. The dour man turned, his scowl quizzical. "Hey, pal," she said, smiling brightly. "Sexual intercourse."
His eyes darted back and forth. "What, is that an offer?" he asked, confused.
Monique rolled her eyes. "Turn yourself around, Jack," she said, and did just that herself. To Kim, she opened her hand as though offering the secret of the universe. "You see? Welcome to adulthood, Kimmie."
Every ounce of blood that Kim possessed pooled in her face, flushing it a deeper crimson. The vinyl seat beneath her squeaked with her squirming. "That isn't it at all," she hissed into her hand, feeling a thousand eyes swarm around her in the restaurant. "I just…I'm not…I won't…"
"Pru-ude," sang Monique.
"I am not!" Kim snapped. Then she shrank back as the eyes around her closed in. "Monique, I am not going to seduce my boyfriend to solve our relationship problems. That sets a seriously dangerous precedent," she said.
Monique leaned forward and rapped the table. "Mmm, okay. Barring the fact that 'seduce my boyfriend' is the dumbest phrase to ever come out of your mouth, I have four good reasons for you to get horizontal with Ron." Her casted hand waggled a finger for every one of Monique's points: "One, it's the surest way to prove your fidelity to Ron. Two, you've known Ron since dinosaurs invented dirt. Three, you're a grown woman capable of making her own decisions…too bad for the rest of us that I have to make them for you, but whatever."
Kim felt certain that her blush would never fade. "How charming," she drawled, and blew an impatient breath. "Do I want to know what number four is, or should I skip to the end, where I tell you how wrong you are?"
"Because you love him."
The trump card stole Kim's voice, leaving her to seethe and gape simultaneously at Monique's smug look in helpless silence. Breath hurtled into her lungs to answer Monique, only to rush back out through flapping lips. She drew another breath with the same intent, to the same effect. All the while, Monique's cheshire victory infuriated her.
"Oh, sheathe those dagger eyes, girl," said Monique. "They won't work on me. The fact of the matter is, you aren't a kid anymore, and neither is Ron. You're both adults, and you both love each other." She shrugged. "What could be more natural? Besides, have you sized that boy's feet?" A ferocious smile spread through Monique's face as she leaned conspiratorially toward Kim. "They're huge! Let him put those big shoes to use running a couple of the bases. You might actually enjoy yourself," she added in a mutter.
Kim's glare continued as she found her voice again. "Monique, you just don't get it. Ron and I aren't like that at all. We're in a good place right now, and I don't want to mess it up, okay? I mean, we've never even been on a date. I haven't even thought about…"
She trailed off. In one perfect verbal blunder, she had discovered the root of the problem. Her thoughts lined up. Her vision cleared. Kim knew what she had to do.
Kim rose in a rush, her slung arm bouncing painfully as she scrambled out of the booth. Such was her hurry that she had to double-back for her purse. She offered Monique an apologetic look as she did so. "I gotta go, Mon. Sorry," she said.
"What? Where?" This sudden rush was unlike Kim. Monique watched the usually calm and collected hero fumble with her purse. "Where are you—"?
"You were right," Kim said as she juggled her purse onto her one good arm. "Actually, you were wrong, but kind of right. Just right enough to get me to see…well, never mind. I just need to get to the mall before dinner tonight."
"Oh." True, Monique was confused. But at least she knew that Kim had found the right path; through the Mall, all things may be made clear and right. "Want me to—"
"Solo thing. Sorry. Make it up to you? I'll see you tonight at dinner!"
Kim compressed the four thoughts into a blur of speech as she disappeared out the door. Bobbing in her wake, Monique just scratched her head and slurped her soda. "Do you see what happens when you get involved, Brain?" she said. "Are you really so deprived of romance that you need to butt into Kim's, even though it's always, always, always a pain?" Groaning, she collapsed back in the booth, knocking the man behind her with her cast arm. "Girl, you need to get laid something awful."
The bald man turned. "Huh?"
"Not you," she groused.
There had been a time in the distant past when Ron Stoppable had knocked to gain entry to the Possible household. He had once asked shyly, politely, if he could stay over for meals, or watch television, or search (oh so respectfully!) for a snack in the refrigerator. He had minded his Ps and Qs with the utmost care. Those salad days had come to a close on the momentous occasion he and Kim had removed the training wheels from their bikes.
Now, as he had for over ten years, Ron walked through their front door without so much as a shout of greeting. He didn't need to call out to know where the action was. The steady stream of digitized explosions and muttered curses led him to the living room.
"Well, if it isn't Scarface and Scarface," he said as he walked in. "Carrying on your sister's proud legacy of babysitting with violent videogames and almost-swears, eh?" The television behind Ron belched up shrieks and splatters as a wave of pixel blood struck the other side of the screen.
Jim and Tim blushed at Ron's nickname for them, flooding the scar each twin carried on his cheek with red. The pride they carried for their scars, the superhero souvenirs of their battle with Duff Killigan, had been so great that Ron couldn't resist teasing them for it. "Shut the crap up, Ron," Jim snapped.
Leaning opposite his brother on the couch, Tim angled his wireless controller around the blond bother. "And move your dang head. We're already getting killed here."
Ron chuckled and sat down on the floor next to the game's third player. She lay on her back with her stubby legs propped against the couch. The controller she wrestled in her tiny hands clicked rapid commands to her avatar in the game. Her almond eyes glinted with focus, but she grinned as Ron settled beside her and gently teased her stomach. The golden pudge protruding from her blue 'Team Go!' T-shirt contrasted sharply with his pale skin. Ron didn't notice the differences anymore, and hadn't noticed since the first week the girl had barged into his life without warning.
"You don't think they're mad because my Intruder is beating them, do you?" Ron asked the girl.
Hana Stoppable grinned and giggled at Ron's tickle. "Nu-uh, Wana," she said. "I'm not beating them. I'm emasculating them in a digital medium."
He kissed her forehead, careful not to block her view as she crushed the in-game twins. "And I'm very proud of you," he said.
The twins groaned in unison as Hana's character laid waste to their health bars. Their digital masculinity and their first-person soldiers suffered grievous losses at her strafing attack. "You guys always said it was cute when I won," Hana said at their moaning.
"Yeah, back when we let you win," grumbled Tim. Then he cried out in tandem with his character's surround-sound death rattle. He tossed his controller aside. "Seriously, I call foul!"
Now alone, Jim gritted his teeth and sent his character on a desperate charge against Hana's. "Four-year-olds aren't this smart or this good," he barked. His brother wiped his brow for him, keeping his flashing eyes clear. "It's unnatural!"
Ron gave them both a grin. "Now you've got a taste of my pain, Scarface. Not always fun growing up around kids who are scary smarter than you, is it?" He sat there a moment, reveling in the poetic justice of Kim's genius brothers losing at their own game. His watch, however, reminded him that he had a meal to prepare, and no fewer than three hungry ladies who would ill tolerate delays. "Think you can finish him off, Hana? I need to get a jump start on dinner."
Even as he asked, Jim yowled and chucked his controller. His character knelt in the television, clutching a bullet wound the size of a basketball. Hana's character danced on the screen with a smoking rocket launcher while the pint-sized player grinned up at her big brother in real life.
"Just call me Hana Solo," she said. "I shoot first."
He stared up at the cold, otherworldly, gunmetal lines of the assembled Entropy Cannon with a deadened sense of accomplishment. The enormous weapon consumed most of the vacancy of the central chamber, yet it could not lessen the emptiness he felt when standing in its presence. His first, best achievement, the Cannon meant nothing to him. It was simply one more curio for his father's lair. His home.
Home. The word struck him as ill-fitting for the dim, cavernous building from which his father launched their mission. When he thought of home, a vivid image surfaced in his mind: a dingy, dim little hole of an apartment. He had never passed through its cracked and peeling door. He had never sat upon its secondhand futon, or been in either of its miniscule bedrooms. Nevertheless, this apartment of his thoughts instilled in him a sense of safety and belonging that his father's lair could not.
"Hey, Red!"
Shego's call drew his eyes out of the apartment and to the expansive room's catwalk above. She leaned over its railing, grinning down at him from the upper deck. That grin disappeared in a curtain of black hair as she rolled over the rail and flipped into the open air. Shego landed at his side in a crouch, rising slowly. Her eyes leered mockingly as they traveled up to his face.
He blinked, examining her in return. The curve of her body captivated him in strange new ways. He had seen her dozens of times before, both in the before-dreams and during their caper together, but he had been too busy or confused to notice her curve before. The swell of her chest, the glide of her hips, the grace of her neck, the sinew of her legs, all confounded and captivated and frustrated him in a way he did not quite understand. Wisely, he did not make mention of this confusion. Shego, he had discovered, had little patience for his questions or his attention.
"Lady Shego," he said, addressing her in the obsequious tone his father had instilled in him.
"Take a picture," she said of his stare, "it'll last longer." But her own leer lost its mirth, taking on a tiny glimmer of hunger instead. She shook the glimmer away and added, "And cut out that 'Lady' crap. It's bad enough that Doctor Dad calls me that. Maybe I can't stop him, but by God, I stole you into this world, and I can steal you right back out."
His gaze continued up and down her body as he thought it over. This time, his analysis was purely technical, not aesthetic. "I could beat you," he decided without a hint of modesty.
Shego's good humor rolled into a tailspin and slammed into the ground. She pushed imaginary sleeves up the skintight colors of her jumpsuit and stalked forward with fire in her eyes. "Why you cocky little piece of ugly," she growled.
"I would take care, Lady Shego," Dementor's thick voice echoed through the chamber. His two warriors looked up to see him lording from where Shego had jumped. "Our son has no pride or shame. If he said it, it is probably true." Rather than duplicate Shego's acrobatic feat, Dementor descended a spiraling staircase to the chamber floor. "An excellent job retrieving my Cannon, by the way." He ran his sausage fingers across the weapon's casing. Without turning, he asked, "Were you seen?"
Shego scowled. "I'm gonna make you pay for making me wear that wig. But yeah, Red here jumped up and down in front of the cameras while your goon squad packed the crates, just like you said."
"Excellent. Now leave us."
Shego's look could have melted steel as she stomped away, leaving Dementor alone with him. The boy watched Shego depart with rapt interest in her canting hips. His attentions did not escape his father's notice. The boy blushed lightly at Dementor's chuckle, feeling uneasy with this new sensation of embarrassment. He felt the need to explain himself, and said, "In battle, I couldn't help but notice the way Shego moves and…bends." Worriedly, he asked, "Is something wrong with me?"
Dementor's laugh filled the chamber. "No," he assured his brawny son with a slap to the back. "Nothing is wrong. Now tell me, how did the battle go?"
"I did as you told me, Father," the boy said, looking up at the spoils of his hunt. "The Global Justice agents could not match me. I…" He stared down at his own hands, remembering his surprise at the skill and dexterity he had wielded. "How can I fight like this, Father?"
The doting smile on Dementor's lips straightened. He reached up, taking his warrior by the waist, and led him around the Entropy Cannon. "You had very unique teachers, my son. Which is what I wanted to talk to you about. Do you love your father?"
The boy glanced over, startled by the question. In his three weeks of life, he had never even thought to question his love for Dementor. Sons were supposed to love their fathers. It was the way of things. "Of course I do," he said.
"Good," said Dementor, as he led the boy from the chamber. "Because your next assignment will be a difficult one, and also vital to our cause. My Cannon requires a certain device in order for me to modify it to its new purpose."
"What purpose is that, Father?" the boy asked.
A solemn look settled into the gaps of Dementor's helmet as he looked up at his child. "We are going to fulfill your purpose in life, my son. We are going to save the world from itself. It will not be easy," he warned the boy. "There will be those who will try and stop us. They will call us villains. But in the end, we must triumph."
"I am not afraid." The words left the boy's mouth without thought or pause. "I know I can overcome all who would stop us, Father. I can do anything."
His words quirked Dementor's brow. "You will," he said. "But there is something we must discuss first."
"What?"
"Your name," said Dementor, leading his boy down the hall.
"You okay, Wana?"
The question failed to pierce the fog surrounding her steed as Hana rode toward home on the sidewalks of Middleton. She traded glances with Rufus, who sat between her pigtails in lazy delight. The mole rat could only shrug at their shared steed's listless silence. Seated on his shoulders, Hana could practically hear the rusty effort of cogs beneath Ron's shaggy blond crown. Though his grip on her legs was sure and strong, his path seemed erratic, as though he were purposely walking home in a roundabout manner.
She rapped her pudgy knuckles on his head. "Ron, what's wrong? This is the third time we've walked past our street."
"Muh?" Ron looked up from the sidewalk and caught his bearings. His masterful sense of direction had missed the street by half a block. Chagrinned, he reversed course and started back. "Sorry, Hana. Got a little lost, I guess. Must be all this extra weight."
The second he turned around, he felt it again: a sharp, tingling sensation in the back of his skull. He had felt it unconsciously after leaving the Possibles' with his sister in tow. As they drew closer to home, the feeling grew from the barest mental tickle to an irrepressible buzz. Without realizing it, Ron had steered them around the neighborhood, keeping them from going home because of that tingle.
He had no idea what it meant. Experience taught Ron that anything he didn't understand could be very bad for him, which explained why his subconscious had kept them on the move. Now, confronted with the delay his subconscious had engineered, he couldn't think of a real reason to continue walking around, and so pressed ahead.
Hana wasn't fooled by his paltry jibe. "Something's bothering you, Ron. What is it?" she asked.
Ron wished he knew. Whatever the tingle was, it vanished the instant he began concentrating on it. Bereft of its cryptic meaning, he shrugged his sister higher onto his shoulders and turned onto the right street. "Nothing," he said.
"Is it Kim?" Hana asked. "She's not mad at you, is she? What did you do this time?"
"Rest easy, Intruder-o'-My-Personal-Life. Kim and I are as square as can be."
"S'okay if things aren't all right," the four-year-old said sagely. "Relationships between two people as young as you and Kim are often rocky, especially when the couple is transitioning from a long friendship into a romance, like you guys are."
Ron shook his head as they reached the front door. He ducked to ensure that no one bumped her head on the awning. "Oh, no, Kiddo. I've had all the Kim-centric opinions I can stomach for one day. And no more daytime talk shows for you."
"Aww…" When they got inside, Ron swung Hana from his shoulders, turning her disappointed moan into a shriek of delight. She dangled from his arm, upside-down, with Rufus swinging from her pigtails. "I like Montel," she insisted. "An' I like Kim, too. So don't screw it up. She makes you more fun, even if you have to do all that yucky kissing."
"Yeah, well, you just wait. It's yucky now, but in ten years, it'll be all you can think about." He swung her again and began toward the stairs. "Now c'mon. You need a nap before dinnertime. I don't want you cranky when our ladies arrive."
Disappointment tugged Hana's lips down. But then she brightened. "Okay, but you gotta tuck me in with Monkey Feet."
Ron shivered and looked down at his size sixteen shoes. "Ugh. No way, Hana. I'm not in the mood for—"
"Monkey Feet! Monkey Feet!" Hana shouted at the top of her lungs, clinging to Ron's arm with her whole body. "I want Monkey Feet!"
Ron tried shaking her loose, but Hana's insistence was ironclad. "Hana, if you're super smart, you can be super mature too," he told her. "Yelling and whining won't get you anywhere. Believe me, I've done plenty of both with Kim, and I got nothin'."
Smug ingenuity dawned in Hana's face. She lessened her grip and dangled, giggling, as Rufus scampered onto her shoulder. "Fine," she said calmly. "If you don't tuck me in with Monkey Feet, I'll tell Kim." They both looked down, she in triumph, he in horror. When he returned his gaze to hers, Hana was every inch a smile. "I'll tell her about the tattoo on your palm that you hide with makeup. I'll tell her how you wax your arms and your back. And I'll tell her why your shoes jumped five sizes."
"Buh…zuh…yuh…?"
"What's the matter, Wana? Bullying and blackmail aren't mature enough for you?" Hana asked sweetly.
Grumbling, Ron shucked his shoes and peeled off his socks, all without the aid of his hands, while glaring at Hana the whole time. "The tweebs are right. You are too smart," he said.
"Monkey Feet," Hana commanded, grinning.
Ron flipped Hana into the air with a flick of his arm. Then he sprang onto his hands, inverting himself, and brought the ankle-bound banes of his existence up to catch his squealing sister and his excited mole rat. Both bothersome pests fell into the grasp of his feet, which cupped the pair in long, nimble toes.
One month ago, Ron had magically siphoned an immense amount of mystical monkey power out of Monkey Fist, forever severing the villain's connection to the simian arcane. That power, apparently possessed of its own sense of humor, had seen fit to transfer all of Monkey Fist's monkey qualities into Ron. The enhanced physical prowess and flexibility had come at a high price. Ron didn't mind the green silhouette of a monkey tattooed onto his palm (courtesy of the Amulet of the Monkey King), or his enlarged knuckles dusted with wispy hairs. But nothing could endear Ron to the fact that his feet had been transformed into fully dexterous hand-like appendages. He had hidden them from almost everyone with larger shoes and a sudden dislike of sandals.
Of course, Hana had loved his hand-feet from the moment she had barged into his room to discover him barefoot. She and Rufus sang with glee as Ron juggled them back and forth between his feet while he walked on his hands up the stairs. "Who's that walking down the street?" crooned Hana. "It's just Wana's new Monkey Feet! La-la-la-la-la, Monkey Feet!"
In spite of his podiatric misery, Ron couldn't help but smirk at the innocent delight his sister took in his curse. He was glad to not have to hide his part of himself from one of the two most important women in his life, even if that openness did come with a price. He only hoped that when Kim found out—when, not if, for he knew Kim to be far cleverer than he—she could look at them with a fraction of Hana's unconditional love.
"La, la, la," he sang.
Doctor Director watched the pair disappear into the house. An irrepressible smile surfaced at the waning sight of the little girl atop her brother's shoulders. Perhaps the Ron Factor hadn't provided Global Justice with the ultimate key to victory, but no one could deny that it was something special. Then her smile disappeared as she recalled what she was about to do to him.
She sat with Du in the back of a black, nondescript truck parked across the street from the Stoppable house. Any questioning glances would see just a delivery truck that was lingering a little too long in deep suburbia: odd, but not inexplicable. Surveillance monitors lined one entire side of the truck's interior, leaving precious little space for Doctor Director and the broad and brawny Du to move about. Still, Doctor Director would have made him twice as large if it meant she could do something about the man's abrasive personality.
"We may have a problem," Du said. He had switched one of his monitors to display a penetrating infrared image of the house, and had zoomed in on the entryway. Two blobs of heat lingered a moment before staggering up the stairs (was Stoppable upside-down?) and into the smaller bedroom. Du scowled at the image and rubbed his jaw. "The Stoppable boy is isolating his sister. He could be aware that we intend to engage, and is moving her out of the line of fire."
She sighed at the thermographic Ron bending over a bed to kiss the forehead of his thermographic sister. "Occam's Razor, Cam. It's afternoon, and he just got the girl home. It's naptime. Stoppable's clueless."
Du harrumphed and glared harder at the monitor. "That's 'Commander Du,' Madam Director. I hope you haven't forgotten that I invited you along on this mission as a courtesy."
"How generous of you," Doctor Director said dryly.
Together, they watched Stoppable wrest his sister into bed and then slide down the banister of the stairs. It was hard to believe that this young man had decimated and devastated their facility in Boise less than twenty-four hours ago. In point of fact, Doctor Director did not believe it at all, but the decision was out of her hands. Du had gone over her head. While she could make him pay for such a colossal insult professionally, it left her powerless to stop this impending disaster. The Joint Chiefs of Staff were behind Du in his capture of Team Possible.
She broke their non-staring contest with a sidelong glance. Du's face was hard, creased with new lines since last she'd seen him. They had never agreed professionally, but never before had she questioned his dedication to his work. She even admired the passionless focus with which he approached every problem. Now there was something new in his face, something that had broke his detached calm. It didn't take a genius to figure out what.
"Cam," she said, "there's no need to attack. You can contact Possible and ask her to surrender. If you explained the situation—"
His eyes never left the thermal image of Ron gallivanting about the kitchen. "Elizabeth," he said, with undue emphasis on her name, "I believe that an excess of trust and faith in these teenagers is where this particular problem originated from. I don't intend to repeat that mistake."
"You can't seriously launch a full-scale assault on a house on American soil. The collateral risk alone makes your plan unacceptable. And you haven't even explored diplomacy."
A snort answered her concern. "These two make your own soldiers look like rank amateurs, and you want to talk them down? They now possess one of the most formidable weapons of mass destruction ever conceived of. If they located a power source for the Cannon, they could wipe out entire cities with the press of a button. Maybe you feel comfortable letting a situation degrade to that point, but I rather like the thought of preemptive action."
Doctor Director tightened her jaw. "I realize that you're going through a hard time right now," she said slowly and evenly. "That's why I'm going to forget that you just insulted my entire Tactical Division, except to remind you that GJ already stops nine encounters out of ten before they ever escalate to Alpha Priorities."
"But it's that tenth time that everyone sees, isn't it? It's that tenth time you need your little heroes for. Now your little heroes have become what you always needed them to stop. Irony itself. And I'll thank you not to tiptoe around me as though I were a grieving widow," he added coolly.
A deep breath worked through Doctor Director's chest as she closed her eye. "Cam," she said, "you can't pretend that it isn't affecting your judgment. This is a snipe hunt. Team Possible didn't have anything to do with—"
"My judgment," Du snapped crisply, "is as sound as ever. Which is more than I can say for you, ma'am. You may want to note that, in selecting the men for this mission, I've chosen trained agents for the capture instead of amateur civilians. I'm confident that having professionals on this mission will preclude those nasty collateral deaths you are worried about."
Doctor Director froze as though she had just been punched in the stomach. Du might as well have struck her, for all that his insinuation did to her. Her sympathy turned to guilt, and silenced her for the rest of the wait. She wished she could argue, but in her heart, she couldn't. Du's pain was her sin, indirectly or otherwise. And right now, stripped of the power to stop Du's impending assault, it meant that she would have to let Team Possible bear the brunt of her two worst sins.
Ron eased down to the open mouth of the oven. With mitted hand, he tilted the lid of the scorched pot on the oven rack and peered into the bubbling mass inside. It congealed nicely. "Ha! Emeril, eat your heart out, you fat, spicy loudmouth. You can make a casserole using leftovers from five different meals," he crowed.
The back door of the house swung open and shut with a slam, admitting a set of footsteps into the kitchen. Ron's smile grew. He knew Kim took the same liberties he did with each other's houses, while Monique still felt inclined to ring the doorbell. "Hey, KP," he called, still halfway in the oven. "No worms for you, early bird. Dinner won't be for another twenty."
"Mmm, but I'm awfully hungry, Ron."
Something in her voice sounded off. Ron had heard Kim speak like that only once, though he couldn't quite recall when or why. The emotion dripping from her voice sounded like an odd combination of leisure, intrigue, and whimsy. "If you're hurtin' bad enough, Rufus should have the salad just about done. Rufus?"
A large salad bowl sat upon the island counter behind Ron. Tossing its leafy contents, Rufus turned and leaned on his salad tongs to offer Kim a greeting. Upon first sight of her, Rufus's jaw slackened and slapped the counter. His eyes became saucers. His voice became a ghost. He collapsed against the tongs, stricken.
Ron heard Kim moving closer as she answered, "I was thinking of something with a little more 'oomph' to it," in that strange voice.
Stirring the congealed mix of foods in the oven, Ron said, "Well, 'spicy' might be one of the flavors we get tonight. I haven't been very good with the groceries this week, so we're getting creative with dinner tonight. I'm thinking of calling it 'pot loaf.' What do you think? Catchy?"
An open palm answered Ron across the back of his jeans. Ron yelped as he felt an eager hand squeeze his butt. He jumped three feet in the air, turning on his way back to the ground. "KP!" he cried in mid-leap, "Wha—?"
All of Ron's higher brain functions ceased when he caught sight of Kim. She stood unbelievably close. Soft makeup touched her face into a stunning epitome of itself. Passionate red rimed her predatory smile. Her lustrous, strawberry-scented hair swept over one eye, casting her sultry gaze in shadow.
Ron's gaze dipped from her disquieting expression of hunger. A tight, silk blouse mimicked Kim's curves. Its collar hung wide open, with only a few of its buttons maintaining the mystery. The blouse ended above her waist, leaving ample space for her toned midriff before her skirt began halfway down her hips. Or rather, what little skirt she had. Traveling further, Ron's gaze discovered miles and miles of bare, smooth leg beneath the hem of the taut miniskirt. Towering heels capped the ends of her legs, making her calves do wonderfully shapeful things as she shifted her hips.
"Like it?" Kim's question snapped Ron's eyes back into safe territory, where her lingering gaze made him sweat. "I hope you don't mind, but I felt like dressing up."
"Heh." Ron chuckled humorlessly, tugged at the oppressive collar of his jersey, and tried desperately to find someplace on Kim for his eyes to go that wouldn't get him slapped. He flipped the oven door closed with his foot and backed away, giving Kim room to chase him to the stovetop. "Don't mind at all, KP," he said shakily. "Just wondering where the rest of your clothes got to, is all…"
I felt like dressing up. Hope you don't mind.
The words flooded into Ron half a step ahead of his realization. The Moodulators! Kim's voice had possessed the eerily husky quality it had now when she had been emo-tized by the modulator in high school. He felt immense relief wash over him, and reached into her coifed banner of red hair. "Don't worry, KP. We'll get you sorted out in no time. Just hold still, 'kay?"
Kim waited with cheshire patience as Ron's fingertips plumbed the back of her neck. His touch revealed nothing, save for silky red locks and skin that felt too good. His relief turned to speechless panic as Kim held him by the waist and closed the gap between them. "Not this time, Ron," she said. "This time, it's all me. All for you."
"Ha!" Ron tried to back away. Kim followed, her hands on his hips like velvet steel. They circled the kitchen together until Ron bumped back against the island countertop. The force of his stop nearly knocked Rufus onto the floor. "Okay, KP, joke's over. You got me."
"Not the way I want you," Kim purred.
Ron's question vanished into Kim's lips. Her mouth pressed his, kissing, nipping, licking, until he opened his mouth in sheer surprise. Her kiss grew deeper still. She ran a hand through his messy hair. Her other caressed his chest. Too quickly, her mouth left his, eager to explore his cheek, his jaw line, his neck, his collarbone.
Ron gasped at her forceful teeth and closed his eyes. His hands acted on their own, testing the bare skin at her waist. Fingertips braved the hem of her blouse, teasing the smooth skin of her back. His exploration found no strap at her shoulder blades. He shivered as she pressed her chest into his. He felt wonderfully overwhelmed, and buried his face in her strawberry hair as she ran her hand up the inside of his jersey.
The tight ripple of Ron's muscle excited Kim to nip his neck even harder. She heard him gasp and felt him buck, and wondered if she had bit too hard, until Ron's hand slid down her back and to the very edge of her miniskirt. Evidently, he had taken her slap earlier to mean a mutual invitation. She smiled at the possibility, but pulled away before Ron could get his hands on anything.
"I've got a surprise for you, baby," she said throatily.
Ron leaned back against the counter, panting. His hand rested against his face as he now drank openly of Kim's enticing visage, as though he weren't sure she was real. "I'm pretty surprised already," he said breathlessly.
Kim gave him her sexiest smile. Her fingers tugged at the next button of her blouse, the only button doing its part. "Close your eyes," she instructed.
Curious, nervous, excited to the point of explosion, Ron nevertheless obeyed. He straightened and slowed his breathing with visible effort. He clenched his eyes, like a child about to receive a gift.
Splat.
Ron stiffened under the deluge of lettuce, tomato, carrots, and ranch dressing. His eyes remained closed for several seconds after the mess had landed on his head. A plastic salad bowl hung against the side of his head, dripping dressing down his neck, onto and into his jersey. Then, after sending his tongue out for a tentative taste test, he opened his eyes and carefully wiped his vision clear.
A smirking Kim waited on the other side of the ranch curtain with her mouth hidden behind her hand. Her blouse had employed its buttons all the way up to Kim's neck. Her face had lost its predatory edge, now crinkling in impish delight.
Tight-jawed, Ron stared at her bemusement in silence. His tongue flickered out every few seconds to wipe away the dressing that collected on his lips. As the moment grew longer, so too did Kim's giggles grow stronger, breaking from silence until they became full laughter at his expense. He glanced down at Rufus, hoping for some rodently wisdom on the subject. Rufus could only shrug helplessly, hiding a small smile of his own.
"I'm hoping at some point you're going to let me in on the joke," Ron said flatly. He accepted a towel from Rufus and mopped up the gunk from his face. A tilt of his head slid the bowl back into his eyes, ruining his towel's efforts with a fresh smear of dressing that made Kim laugh even harder.
Kim took pity on Ron, and plucked the bowl off of his head. "No joke," she said between giggles, setting the bowl back on the counter. "Just giving you exactly what you wanted."
Ron scowled and set about cleaning himself up again. Salad and dressing had infiltrated every crevasse in his torso. He was certain his hair would smell like ranch dressing until he grew out and cut the current crop. "I don't even like salad," he said.
"Not that. Your other shoe." Her simple statement stopped him cold. Kim leaned on the counter opposite him and savored the guilty look spreading on his face. "Was that a big enough shoe, or do you need me to drop another one?"
He knew he had been busted, and busted good. Still, she had dumped an appetizer on him. He had to try and salvage something of the high ground. "Funny," he said. "I remember me being there, and I remember Monique being there. Were you there?"
Kim lifted her hands in surrender. "I was eavesdropping. Guilty. But that doesn't excuse you from the fact that you were hiding some serious hang-ups about us from me. If you'll recall, bottling stuff like that is what got us an entire year of drama before. Remember?" she asked pointedly.
"I remember the drama," Ron said. "Oh, do I remember the drama. I'm just still not making the leap between me being worried about our relationship—oh, and by the by," he added, flicking lettuce off his nose, "if this is how you wind up telling me I'm doing something wrong, I can already tell I'm gonna have a blast. But I'm a little fuzzy how you went from "other shoe" to 'dress real sexy and then dump food on Ron.' It doesn't strike me a 'straight line' kind of thought."
Red crept into Kim's cheeks at his mention of the word "sexy." She suddenly felt much less self-conscious in her scrap of a skirt. "I got mad when you couldn't come to me with something like that, Ron. I thought we were okay, and it made me mad to think that you didn't think we were okay."
"Is there a 'but' coming up anytime soon?"
"But…" Kim said forcefully, giving him an annoyed look. Her annoyance melted quickly, becoming quiet embarrassment. "Then I stopped to wonder if we really were okay. And I don't think we are, Ron."
Ron stopped cold. The towel dropped from his hand, forgotten. "Whoa, KP. Hold on. I don't—"
Kim waved him quiet and shook her head. "Ron, I don't know what I'm doing with you." At Ron's crushed expression, she gaped, and quickly amended, "I mean, I don't know how to act around you anymore. Now that we're dating."
"What's the big? We're just hanging out, and doing what we always do."
"Exactly," Kim insisted, earning her another confused look. "Outside of an occasional kiss, we're acting like we're still just best friends. And that's fine for the beginning, while we're still getting used to the idea. But it's been a month, and we haven't even been out on a date yet. We haven't done anything besides hang out. I think that's why you're worried, Ron. And that's my fault, too."
Confusion spread from Ron's face into the very core of his brain. The complex emotional concepts Kim described sounded foreign, even alien. He had been worried that Kim would get bored of him, or that she was already bored of him, and was just sticking around because she didn't want to hurt him. This sounded much more complicated. He did like the part where he wasn't fully culpable, though. "Your fault?" he asked with a tinge of hope.
Kim plucked a fresh towel from the holder next to the sink. She strutted up to Ron in her high heels, this time without slink in her step. "I gave you your other shoe," she explained, helping to clear the mess covering Ron, "to show you that there is no other shoe. You aren't a rebound. You aren't some placeholder. I'm not waiting for the better deal to come along. You're my best friend 'and' my boyfriend. My BF-squared. I just haven't been very good at indulging in the 'boyfriend' part of that." Kim smiled at him, and took his hands in hers.
The confusion lingered. "So, what? What does that mean?"
"It means that you need to learn to trust me, girlfriend-wise. And that I need to learn how to show you that you can trust me, girlfriend-wise. And," she added, pausing for an uncertain sigh, "it means that we both need to learn how to take chances."
Ron nodded. Then he said, "I have no idea what you mean."
Kim placed his hands on her bare hips again with care. His gentle touch made her shiver as she looped her arms around his neck, heedless of the mess she'd made on him. The torturous heels she wore made her as tall as Ron. Faces even, she rested her forehead on his. "We both took a huge chance with where we are now, Ron. Now let's take other chances. Touch me."
Taking his hands again, he slid them up her sides, bunching the fabric of her blouse until he reached her ribs. Then she took Ron by the face and forced him not to look away in embarrassment.
"Bring me flowers," she told him. "Write me a cheesy poem or a love note. Tell me I have eyes like the stars. Get fresh. Get frisky, even. Show me what you want from me. Do all the things you've ever wanted to do with a girlfriend, and trust that I'll let you know if I think we're moving too fast." With a wry look, she added, "We need to be moving at all before that can happen."
"Kim, I…I have no idea what to say. I don't… I mean, of course I want you. How could I not want you? Anybody would—"
"You've got me," she told him. Ron lapsed into silence, clearly overwhelmed. With depthless patience, Kim took his hands once more, moving them this time to the small of her back. Her face remained encouraging as she said, "That thing you were going to try before? Do it."
"Um…"
"It's okay, Ron."
Ron looked left and right as though he were about to cross the street. Then he locked his eyes into Kim's steadfast gaze, waiting for her loving expression to break for a "Gotcha!" grin. When she lifted an eyebrow expectantly, he swallowed hard, and let his hand drift down. His other hand followed suit, traversing the athletic curve of Kim's miniskirt. Ron swallowed again, cupping Kim's curve, and tried to smile.
Kim helped his smile with one of her own. "See? Just a butt."
"A nice butt."
She eyed him. "A spectacular butt."
Ron relaxed with a laugh, and found the courage to let each of his hands squeeze. Kim squealed and jumped into him, laughing as well. Her lips found his, and the nervous pair shared a short, passionate kiss, spurred by Ron's leverage over Kim. When it ended, her lips and chest pulled away from his. Their hips remained joined by his clammy grasp.
"So," said Ron. "Chances, huh? Can I—"
"No."
Ron looked a little disappointed. "You didn't even know what I was going to ask."
Kim's face transitioned from peach to ruby red with the blush she had been fighting for the past minute. It had been a hard battle, and she felt no shame in losing now; she had accomplished what she'd set out to do. "I know," she said. "But where your hands are now was a big step for me, too, and I think anything more is going to put me back into drama mode."
"You want me to move my hands before my little sister walks in on us?" he asked.
"Please and thank you."
Kim practically melted with gratitude as Ron slid away with gentlemanly speed. But she felt a sharp and thrilling pang of disappointment at the absence of his touch. When they had a moment and a place that had no threat of interruption (or the gaping mole rat still on the counter), she fully intended to see just how far she could push Ron, and just how far he could push back.
Her heart hammered and her stomach fluttered at the thought. She leaned forward and took another kiss from Ron for no other reason than her own desire. "I love you, Ron."
"Love you, KP." Ron grinned and took a kiss of his own. Then, looking down at himself, he shook his head and lifted his feet. Mashed salad waited wherever he looked. "Seriously, though, you should find a teaching method that doesn't involve tossing the salad."
"Sorry," Kim said, chagrinned. She crossed the kitchen and reached for the paper towels by the sink.
Ron shrugged. "Nah, s'okay. And hey, at least we got our seasonal drama out of the way early, right?"
Barking a laugh, Kim looked out the window over the sink. A whole summer of possibility waited for her on the other side of the glass, warm and long and without any distractions to keep her from this new adventure. "What on earth are we going to do to fill the drama void?" she joked.
That window Kim gazed out of darkened and exploded inward in two instants. Kim flinched reflexively, ducking out of the way of a living shadow that burst in through the hail of razor glass. Sharp shrapnel peppered her arms as they covered her face. She heard Ron shout, and stood again with fists already curled and eyes narrowed.
Yori stood in the kitchen on broken glass and crushed salad. Her face was a mask, her body, statuary, unyielding. A silvery katana extended from her hand all the way to Ron's neck, where it puckered the soft skin of his throat. Ron leaned back against the island counter with nowhere to go. Yori said nothing. She offered no explanation for the attack, and gazed impassively at Ron as though he were a stranger.
"Well, that solves the drama shortage," Ron squeaked.
To Be Continued
Once again, my gratitude to Isamu for the beta read. Y'all can thank him for keeping the drama to a minimum in this chapter. Personally, I'll never forgive him for it. "Constructive criticism" my fanny…