Oh, and I own squat, whatsoever. Even these early chapters are not mine. Disney owns the characters, Scoutcraft Piratess owns the story concept, I'm just posting and playing with them. The early chapters will just be tweaked for some minor mistakes from the original (for some reason, the apostrophes and quotations got doubled in the copy she sent me).
Arbiter, by JimVincible, is a must read. A gritty, darker tale that stirs the mind. Check it out, won't you?
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The Ronless Factor – Chapter 6
The Possible residence. Ron gazed up at it, almost in awe. It was so strange. The house that had been like a second home to him since pre-k, and now... now he wasn't sure if he even dared go inside. And after that huge hike from the cemetery. But Kim, no doubt, had to be in there.
He still had no idea how he was going to warn her. Though if the lady and the little girl had been able to see him, maybe he could somehow make Kim see him. And he could talk with her, and warn her about the jerk guy, and talk with her... He grimaced. And in all ignorance of the fact that he had been dead for three days.
Oh, well. Summoning all of his courage, he marched up to the door and prepared to knock. His hand was just barely going through the surface when he remembered the truth. Well, it was back to door walking again. Strange how excited he was by this, by the sheer fact that he could slide right through a solid door. It couldn't be that fun. And yet it was.
He didn't see anyone as he left the door and came into the house. Lights were on, coats on a hook. The sound of video games circling from the living room. Ooh, video games. He wondered if Tim and Jim had gotten anything new as of late... He almost hit himself. Video games. He couldn't play video games anymore. Never, ever again. And that wasn't why he was here, anyway.
No more just hanging out with Kim's little brothers.
He made a weak attempt to shake the feeling away. Kim would probably be upstairs in her room. Slowly, afraid for who knew what disaster might fall upon a haunted staircase, he made his way up, praying Mrs. or Mr. Dr. Possible wouldn't suddenly appear and walk right through him––that was so not comfortable. But they didn't appear, and he made it to the second floor, lights all dim, an empty hallway of nothing. He stopped before her door, once again considering knocking.
What for? It wasn't like he was going to disturb her or anything. So he went right in––leaving the door intact.
Kim's room, the same room he had seen more times then he could count. Her bed, her desk, her phone. Everything just so and so... Kim.
But no Kim.
He blinked, sure he had to be seeing things. Or not seeing things. He had not just come all this way for nothing. But, no, there were signs she had been there. The black dress she had worn to the funeral lying crumpled on the carpet. And Rufus, curled up on her pillow, sleeping.
""Rufus!"" Ron exclaimed, darting to the bed. So nice to see the naked mole rat here. Kim knew how to take care of him, sort of, in the methods she had gleaned over the years. So the little guy probably couldn't hear him, but that was okay. Ron could at least see Rufus.
Rufus looked terrible, even in his sleep. Little whiskers drooping. He looked like he hadn't even tried to eat in days. And Rufus was always up for eating.
Ron sighed, placing his hand as close to Rufus as possible. ""Look, is this because I'm gone? Are you blaming me, buddy?"" Wow, more guilt. So easy to bring it on one's self.
Rufus stretched drowsily, eyes blinking under sleep before solidly closing again.
"Well, at least you're going to be okay," Ron muttered. "You had better be."
The door opened, and Ron fell back from the bed. Kim.
She drifted into the room, draped in a pink bathrobe with a matching towel wrapping her hair. Her eyes slid completely past Ron to land on the still-sleeping Rufus.
"Sleep," she muttered. "Sounds nice. Better than trying to drown yourself in the bath tub. Lucky Rufus."
This was it. Ron had to warn her. Now. Find some way to. "Kim," he began.
No response. Just as he had thought. Okay, so new tactics. He darted right in front of her. "KP!"
Nothing. Of course it was nothing. As if he hadn't spent the past three days trying the exact same things and more with his parents.
What was he going to do?
Maybe he could write a message. Yes. After all, he had managed to lean against that gravestone. There were pencil and paper at her desk. Yes, that would be perfect. He ran to the desk and attempted to pick up a pencil. It didn't look like it was going to happen.
Maybe he just had to be really loud. Maybe it would eventually work. "Kimberly Anne Possible!"
All she did was whip the soggy towel out of her hair and throw it violently on the floor next to the dress.
Kim never treated her stuff this way.
She was clearly in a bad mood. Maybe he shouldn't be...
Oh no. The bathrobe. She began to untie it. If she had just come from taking a bath...
She would kill him if she knew he were here! If... if he could be killed again. He turned to the door.
Apparently she had a habit of wandering while she untied things. He couldn't get to the door.
"Oh no," he said aloud. He had no right to be watching this kind of thing. All the years of good manners and decency that had been drilled into him were taking their toll. Of course, she couldn't see him. She had no idea he was here.
The robe was now untied... Her back was to him, but...
No. Kim did not deserve this. He clapped his hands over his eyes before he could see anything. She would hate him forever. And he respected her way too much for this. If he could just blindly make his way to the other side of the room, maybe he could sneak around her... Trying desperately to avoid her, he carefully made his way. Next to the dresser. At least, he thought he was by the dresser. Very hard to tell when you couldn't see or feel. Now if she would just move away from the door, all would be well.
Her footsteps seemed to fill the room. She was coming to the dresser now, by the sound of it.
This was not right.
He could sense her, so close...
He jumped the opposite direction, away from the dresser and Kim, leaving her to search for... whatever she was searching for. Clothes. Hopefully pajamas of some sort.
Though it was still rather tempting to... no! He squeezed his eyes shut behind his hands. Now he just had to make it to the door... carefully cross the room robbed, try not to see anything. It was good. He could do that. Behind him, now, the dresser drawers were rattling loudly.
It was so hard to move when he couldn't see where he was going. He had to be close to the door now, he had to.
"Pajamas," Kim muttered to herself. "Kitty pajamas. What did I do with the kitty pajamas?"
Please find the kitty pajamas, Ron begged silently.
"By the door," she continued, slamming a drawer shut. "Man, I really can't start throwing clothes everywhere now."
Ron peaked through his fingers. Pajamas with kitties on them were right at his feet. Dang it.
And she was coming right behind him.
There was only one thing left to do. Throw himself to the ground and hope for the best.
And hopefully he'd go through the door. If he just kept his eyes on the carpet and crawled for it. He opened his eyes. He already had one hand through the wall's baseboard. This really deserved a scream. So he could have gone through the wall the entire time. Walls, closed doors, okay. There really wasn't much of a difference.
Stupid stupid stupid.
He was half-way through the wall when the bed creaked behind him. Instinctively he turned around. Kim had jumped onto the bed, thankfully in her precious kitty pajamas, holding a picture frame gently in her hands.
He pulled himself back into the room.
"Ron, I can't believe you'd do this," she said softly.
He froze in panic. If she had seen him in the room she should have said something long ago. It wasn't his fault she had decided to start changing... but she couldn't see him. She was talking to some picture of him. With the blue frame.
That picture. A joke picture, one she had dared him to take in a mall photo booth. Completely unflattering.
"Do you have any idea how unfair this is to me?" She had wrapped a throw blanket around her, damp hair leaving water marks in the fleece. "What am I supposed to do now, huh? Did you even think!"
Whoa. It wasn't like it had been his fault.
A sob escaped as set the picture down in front of her, balancing loosely on the folds of the bed covers. "Ron, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I didn't notice you that way sooner. I'm sorry I wouldn't let you have shotgun."
"Shotgun?" he echoed. What was she going on about now? She––the memory of them clamoring into the Rabbit came roaring back. She wasn't worried about that, she couldn't be. It had been... a complete accident where everyone was sitting. "Kim, what does that have to do with anything?" It didn't matter that she couldn't hear him, he had to reply anyway. Something demanded it. If nothing else was demanded, this was. If there was anyway she could ever know that...
She was crying harder now, the edges of the blanket wrapped up into her eyes.
He hated it when she cried. He never knew what to do, what to say. And now there was nothing to say or do, and yet he was making his way across the room toward the bed and he couldn't stop himself. "Kim, it's okay." What good could he do? He couldn't even touch her.
A voice echoed this thoughts with a knock at the door. "Kimmie?" Mrs. Dr. Possible.
Kim didn't reply.
"How are you..." her voice drifted off in a change of thought. "Did that bath help with the soreness?"
"Yes," Kim replied weakly. "I... I think I'm just going to go to bed."
It was barely sunset.
Mrs. Dr. Possible hesitated. "I see. That might be best, for now. Did you take any of those pills the doctor gave you for pain?"
"Yes." Then, in a much softer voice only Ron heard, "Like they'll do any good."
"You really do need your rest right now, sweetie. Strange how it works that way, at these kinds of times. It's the only way you're going to get better. And I know you've hardly been sleeping. Don't try and deny it."
"Yes," Kim said, nodding and wiping at her eyes.
"Goodnight, honey."
Kim didn't move for a long time after her mother left, throwing the room into an even more awkward stage than before. Then, barely missing Ron, she climbed out of bed to and flicked off the lights, returning like a shadow to the bed.
Ron could see the faint outline of her hand as it gently pushed Rufus to the side of the pillow. He yawned, blinking at her.
"Sorry, Rufus," she murmured. "You get to sleep. I don't even know if I can. Too much to think about."
Rufus was back asleep within a second. Kim just lay there, staring up at the ceiling.
"Kim," Ron said. "You can't do this, just because of me. It's not healthy. You really should try and sleep. Please?" A wonderful addition to dumb requests. Asking someone to go to sleep?
To his amazement, she actually closed her eyes.
"Don't worry, Kim," he continued. "I'm right here. Your mom's right. You can't save the world if you don't recover." It seemed to be working. He half-wondered what else he could do with this new-found power. If she were actually hearing anything.
She finally fell asleep, he was almost sure of it.
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The tree house. What had brought him to this? In the same awe he had given to Kim's house, he stared up at it, wondering what bright idea had struck his brain and fried it like lightning in order to bring him to the tree house. The past few nights had been spent wandering around his own house, but... he didn't think he could bare to hang out there, not this night, right after the funeral.
But the tree house, now that had always been fun. He had always spent a few nights of summer sleeping there, especially during the summer right after he and his dad built it. The couch was always useful for that kind of thing. If he was reduced to haunting a place, why not the tree house?
If only he could figure out how to get into it. The ladder was definitely not following the same principles that stairs used. Every time he grabbed at a rung, his hand slid right through. Yes, it was definitely proving itself to be a difficulty.
Had he ever heard a story about a ghost haunting a tree house? Maybe he had better be sure of these things before... no! He was not reduced to looking up stuff about dead people!
"Having a little trouble?" A head poked out of the tree house.
Ron stumbled back. The one lady! She was following him. She was definitely following him, and it was creepy! How dare she be following him and... looking at him. And... being in his tree house! And never explaining anything! He fumbled through words for the perfect sentence, the perfect way to grip her attention. "You!"
She grinned down at him. "Hey, kid. I'll be right down." Then, with ease that should not belong to middle-aged ladies, she climbed down the ladder. "Nice place you got up there. Ron, isn''t it?"
And now she knew his name. He found himself nodding. "You can still see me?"
She opened her hand, revealing the palm where she must have stashed her cigarette. "Of course I can, Ron. I'm dead, not blind." She jammed the cigarette into her mouth.
The already dark and silent yard increased just so. "Dead?" It was so weird to say the word aloud.
"Yeah," she said with a nonchalant nod. "Dead. Ghost. Whatever you want to say."
He could practically feel the word jamming into his stomach. Okay, so the idea should have been obvious to him. If he had stuck around after dying, perhaps others had. "Really?"
A second nod.
In spite of everything, he laughed. For some odd reason he couldn't explain, this was a relief. "So you weren't just some crazy ghost-seeing lady!"
She puffed out a ring of smoke. "Well, I can see ghosts, and some might call me crazy."
"Did you die of lung cancer?" The words swam back to him. Why was he having this conversation?
She raised an eyebrow, face somewhat amused. "No, believe it or not."
"Then what did you die of?"
"A little personal, aren't we, kid? You ask me questions like that without even knowing my name."
She was right. But he had been a little curious; he had never met a ghost before. He took another step back, scratching nervously at his neck. "Oh, yeah."
"Okay, so you aren't going to ask. Pleased to meet you, Ron, I'm Rita Miller."
"Hey, that was the name on one of the graves I crashed into."
"Bees and flowers? Yup, that would be mine. Cute, ain't it? What does your headstone have on it?"
Ron stared. "Okay, this is a really weird conversation, lady. Ms. Miller."
"Call me Rita."
"Rita. Okay, Rita." He tried to force a smile. This could not be happening to him. "I, uh, actually haven't bothered to really look at my grave yet."
She smiled, a little too understandingly. Her lips stretched with dark pink lipstick. "Eh, you will. Everyone eventually gets curious. Heck, I'm impressed you went to your funeral. Not everyone does that."
So he had already managed to break some rule. "Look, I really don't like talking about this stuff. I was only killed a few days ago and I'm still not really used to this thing."
"What thing?"
She had to know what he was talking about. He flung out his arm, gesturing at everything around him. "I'm dead! I'm pretty sure of that! Saw my own body! And this is it? I just... hang around here?"
She shrugged. "Sometimes it takes awhile."
"Takes awhile for what?"
Rita closed her eyes for a moment, for all appearances meditating with the smoke scrawling from her cigarette. "Wow, I've never been too good with the newbies. Sorry about that. Of course this isn't it. But apparently you're stuck here for awhile. Why? I don't know. I'm just here to help.""
"Help?" Ron forced himself to step forward. "Why are you helping me?"
Another shrug. "Eh, I don't know if I really help, but... hey, you know how it goes."
"Not really."
She took a deep breath, knocking ashes from her cigarette to the grass. "Look, kid. Ron. You're stuck in this world for awhile. Apparently there is something you still have to do. So after seeing you in the hospital, I decided to check things out. And apparently your little Kim friend is up to be killed."
Ron felt sick. The way Rita said that, so naturally, in that discussing-the-weather tone. "Do you know who's trying to do that?"
"Hey, I'm not that good. But the way I figure it, you're really close to her. Still are. Attached, the word would be. Soul mates, perhaps."
"Kim? You're saying that I'm here because of Kim?"
"You catch on."
"But––" Ron threw his arms in the air. "But what I'm supposed to do? She doesn't... she can't see me or anything."
Rita shrugged. She seemed to do that a lot.
"I wish I could help you that much," she said, strolling off with smoke still circling from her cigarette. "But I'm afraid that you'll have to figure that out on your own."
"Wait, Rita!"
She just waved. "See you around. Nice to meet you, finally."
Perhaps he could run after her. Or something. But the shock of meeting her was still too much. She was going to come back, wasn't she? Wasn't she?
And what was he supposed to figure out?
He still had no idea how to get into the tree house. She could have at least helped with that.
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Reposters Notes – Well, a bit of levity mixed in with the angst, which is always good, especially after the last few chapters. Good to see Ron will still be Ron, even if he's dead.
As well, stay tuned for the newest chapter of The Darkness Within, set to be released this weekend.