Looky looky! An update already! I hope you enjoy this and I most definitely value your reactions and reviews. On that note, thanks to BlueEyedBrigadier, CajunBear73, Danny-171984, Drakonis Aurous, The Enduring Man-Child, King in Yellow, MrDrP, noncynic, RobinofYJ, Samurai Crunchbird, screaming phoenix, Sir Sebastian, and spectre666 for reading and sharing their thoughts.

Thank you to Ultimate Naco Topping for the crackerjack beta work.

Kim Possible and Ron Stoppable © Disney.

By the way, if you want some good laughs, go check out newcomer RedBlueGreen - his oneshots do not disappoint.

Chapter X

Proximity Talks

I.

Kim sat on the edge of the bed, looking through the sheer curtain at the bright lights of Hong Kong. From the bathroom came the sound of Ron gargling. A small smile rose briefly to her lips, but vanished immediately.

Hong Kong was certainly on the list of places she had wanted to visit with Ron while on her assignment in Asia. However, she wished it was as tourists, rather than as Team Possible, after being airlifted there by Global Justice from the site of a deadly encounter with an arch-villain.

She sighed deeply and did her best to appreciate the view. The strikingly modern skyscrapers glowed against the night sky, and thousands upon thousands of multi-hued lights shone from every direction - from high-rises across the horizon and from boats playing on the water far below. It was stunning.

It should have been stunning, anyway.

But Kim didn't feel it.

She didn't feel much of anything. Just numb and disconnected, as she had since watching Yapsby die hours earlier at the hand of his own monstrous creation.

She didn't want to think about it, but she couldn't keep it out of her head.

There was something so shocking about what had happened. Of course people die, all the time, in many ways: in natural catastrophes and car accidents and alien invasions. She didn't need Barkin to tell her that. But those kinds of things were different. They were impersonal, distant, media events, without a direct connection to her. Kim Possible's sitches involved helping people, recovering stolen artifacts, making things right, preventing disaster. Life or death was never the issue. There was always risk, she supposed, always the chance of serious injury or even death, but it just never came to pass. She was so good, and Ron so lucky, and Wade so smart, and the villains always so incompetent, and, and, and….

She lay back and stretched out on the bed, staring up at the abstract patterns in the ceiling.

"Kim."

Ron, wearing a fluffy white hotel bathrobe and with his hair wet from the shower, looked down at her. He leaned over and gave her a gentle kiss, then stood back up and crossed his arms.

"Kim…what are you doing on the bed in your grossness? We've gotta sleep in there tonight!"

"Since when are you hygiene boy?" Kim tried to sound a little irked, but couldn't really work up the energy. Ron smiled down at her.

"Since my wife laid…lay? Lied? Uh, reclined on my side of the bed in her bug-spattered glory. Now are you gonna move or am I gonna have to move you?"

"Big words, Mr. Clean. Big words," Kim said, and did not budge.

He frowned at her for a moment, then sat down next to her.

"KP, not that under ordinary circumstances I wouldn't try to wrestle you into submission," he said, blushing a little. "But it's been a pretty weird 24 hours and…, well, you are actually covered in spider yuck."

"Yeah, yeah." Kim sat up, stretched, and made her way into the bathroom. "I'm gonna take a shower." She craned her neck back out the door so she could see Ron. "Wait up for me, okay? Don't fall asleep."

"You bet," Ron replied. He gave her the warmest smile he could, hoping to wipe away the nervous look on her face. "I promise."

She smiled back. "Okay. Be out in a jiffy."

Now Ron lay back on the bed, admired the ceiling, and took a minute to rest his bone-tired body. Even with the hoverjets it had taken a couple of hours to get there. He hadn't really been keeping track, but figured it had to be two or three in the morning. He glanced over at the bedside clock. 3:19 blinked back at him. Long day, he thought. Rufus was already fast asleep, nested in some of Ron's clothes in one of the dresser drawers.

Uh-oh¸ he thought, as he felt himself settling into the bed, relaxing into the soft embrace of his exhaustion. Gotta stay up! With a supreme act of will he stood and wandered over to the balcony door. He pulled aside the curtain and stepped out.

Wow. What a view! They'd been to Hong Kong on missions several times during high school and college but they'd never stuck around to take it in. Now he just stared down at the city, smelling the sea air,and marveling at the bustle in the streets far below at this hour of the night.

For a while he just stood at the balcony railing, not thinking about anything, just feeling the breeze and watching the lights move around and wink on and off.

Ron shook himself out of his reverie. Man, I was marinating on my feet. How long have I been out here? A quick look at the clock showed that a half hour had passed while he was gazing into the distance. He could hear the water of the shower still running, which was kind of unusual for Kim, who was typically in and out. He rapped on the bathroom door, but there was no response. Slowly he eased it open and looked inside.

"Kim?"

Through the billowing steam, he could see her silhouette in the shower. Despite his exhaustion he couldn't help but admire her figure. He stepped a bit closer.

"Kim?"

She was standing against one side of the shower, facing the wall, forehead resting against her crossed arms, the water beating down on her.

She must've zoned out too.

"Kim?" Ron asked a third time, wanting to nudge her into action without startling her. This time she seemed to have heard him. She lifted up her head and looked over, blinked a couple of times, then looked around and down at herself.

"How long have I been in here?" she asked through the door as she turned off the water.

"I dunno. Half-hour?" Ron answered, and handed her a towel. She wrapped it around herself and stepped out onto the bathmat, grabbing another towel for her hair.

"Um, privacy?" Kim said, giving him a little half-smile which Ron was very glad to see.

"Yeah, sure. But check that out!" He pointed to the bathroom mirror, in the exact center of which was a completely fog-free square about four feet on each side. "They must heat it to keep the steam off." He reached out with a fingertip and felt the warm glass, before heading out into the room. "Hong Kong rocks."

Kim emerged from the bathroom after a couple of minutes to find Ron sitting up in the bed flipping through channels on the TV.

"Finally. Can we go to sleep now? I'm wiped out." He clicked off the TV.

"Soon," Kim said. She crawled into the bed next to him and looked at him expectantly. With the ease of long practice he hooked out an arm and slouched down a bit while Kim leaned into his side and rested her head on his chest. His arm wrapped around her and her hand came to rest on his stomach.

She yawned deeply, and looked up at him. "Were you scared today?"

He looked down at her, a little surprised by the question.

"Kim. I'm always scared. And, you know, they were horrible giant spiders." He shuddered at the memory. "Were you scared?"

She didn't look up at him. Instead, she just stared at the wall.

"No, not really… Not until, well, Yapsby…. It didn't feel like being scared, but it was just so shocking. I couldn't get it out of my head."

She closed her eyes, then opened them again.

"When I shut my eyes I see him – and that thing – and… it's… you know. You were there. Pretty awful." She closed her eyes again, and buried her head into his side. "That's why I stayed in the shower so long. I could feel the water, and listen to it, and kind of breathe the steam, and just think about being there in the shower, and not think about…"

"Shhhhh…," Ron said, reaching to stroke her hair. "It's alright." He looked down at her tenderly. "You know, we're probably not gonna sleep very well tonight. But that's okay, okay? If you wake up in the night, just give me a squeeze. And I promise I'll do the same."

Kim gave him a half-smile, her eyes tightly closed, and snuggled into him.

"Okay," she said, as he reached out to turn off the light.

II.

He woke with a start. He had been shaken out of sleep by a nightmare. He couldn't remember the dream itself, but his heart was pounding. The collar of his t-shirt was soaking wet and the sheets were all twisted around.

Kim was not in the bed.

He looked around in the darkened room and could see a gap in the curtains at the balcony door. He got out of bed and padded over, making as much noise as he reasonably could so she would hear him coming and not be startled.

"Hey, Kimila, I'm coming out… Better put out that cigarette!"

Kim glanced over at him from her perch on the balcony chair. She was sitting with her knees up to her chest and looking out at the harbor.

"Very funny, Ron. Maybe I should take up smoking… Would I look cooler?"

"Well, until your teeth turned yellow and your skin got all creagly."

"Creagly?"

"Yeah, not a word – but try and tell me it doesn't work!"

Kim rolled it around in her head for a minute, then nodded in defeat.

"Yeah, okay, score one for you. No smoking, lest my skin get creagly."

Ron sat down in the other balcony chair, stretching out his legs and putting his hands behind his head.

"Pretty neat view, huh?"

"Totally amazing, Ron."

"So… I thought you were supposed to give me a squeeze? Not sneak out of bed and hide on the balcony?"

"I know. But you were sleeping so peacefully, I didn't want to bother you. I couldn't get back to sleep, so I figured…"

"I know what you figured, KP. But it's not like I could sleep tonight without you next to me, anyway. I bet you were probably out of the bed about 12 seconds before I had a nightmare of my own."

She looked up at him sharply.

"What was your nightmare about?"

"Hell if I know, Kim. But if I had to guess, it'd probably have been about waking up in a bed all by myself, worrying about my wife."

He could hear her smiling in the dark.

"That's sweet, Ron."

"And you? What was your nightmare about?"

"What do you think? Giant monsters disemboweling people." She ran her hands through her hair a couple of times. "Hardly a surprise." She gave a big stretch and a yawn.

"So you came out here to stare at the lights?" Ron asked.

"Yeah. And to think," she replied.

"About what?"

Kim didn't reply, and they sat there in silence for a while, as the faint glow of the pre-dawn started to creep up from the horizon.

The long pause made Ron uncomfortable and he shifted in his chair. "C'mon, we should at least try to get a little more sleep, otherwise we're gonna be totally loopy all day."

"Tell me again how you felt after…defeating Warhawk and Warmonga," Kim said, suddenly.

Ron shifted slightly in his chair.

"Please," she said.

"You mean, after I killed them." He looked over at her.

Kim simply looked back.

"Do we have to talk about this again?" he asked.

"What do you mean, again? It's not like this is our nightly dinner conversation. We've talked about it, what, three times?"

"Yeah, but, you know, it's not like it changes. It's the same." He shrugged. "It's always been the same."

"Ron. Listen to me. I'm kinda struggling here. And I could really use your help," she said. She looked at him, half pleading, half defiant.

Ron considered carefully before responding.

"Kim – it wasn't your fault. You didn't kill Yapsby. He didn't die because of something you did or didn't do. You heard what Barkin said. Lo, though it pains me to admit it, he and I have finally found something on which we can agree."

Kim shook her head.

"I know that. Of course I know that… I don't feel guilty. Okay, maybe a little, but – and maybe this is weird – not much more than any other time when a sitch didn't work out and I asked myself if I could've done something differently. I wish I'd saved Yapsby. Of course I wish I'd done that. I was pretty freaked by his spiders, but I didn't want him to die."

She shrugged.

"It was awful. But I…I don't blame myself." She paused for a moment. "It's just got me down so much, and I don't know why it's having this effect on me. Maybe it's just that it was so horrible to see." She paused. "How can you sleep after seeing something like that?"

"You know the answer to that question, Kim." Ron's face was impassive. "But that's why you're bringing up Warhawk and Warmonga."

Once again, she just looked at him, waiting.

"Like I told you the last time we talked about this," he said flatly. "I didn't feel anything, Kim."

He spread his hands.

"They took over the world. Destroyed Bueno Nacho – again – and hurt you." He gazed out into the harbor, watching the first rays of sunlight sparkle off the water of the bay and the glass of the skyscrapers."They would have killed you."

He looked back at her.

"When Sensei told me I had control over my monkey powers, I just did what had to be done. I didn't mean to kill them." He stopped and rethought his last sentence. "Or maybe I did. At some level. Not consciously. But, they were dangerous. And deadly. And when I threw them into their own ship – I guess I must have meant to." His face grew distant. "It's not as if something like that happens by accident… What're the odds I pick them up and randomly throw them into the air straight into their own ship and vaporize them? Pretty unlikely…

"So anyway, it's not that I wanted to kill them. It's just that I didn't care. They weren't people to mourn, Kim – they were monsters."

He thought for a moment.

"And maybe…maybe I'm a monster too, for not caring." He turned and looked at her fiercely. "But I would do it again in a heartbeat to protect you."

He paused, and his expression softened slightly.

"Also, I didn't actually see them die. I threw them into the air but…I wasn't watching. And what would there have been to see anyway? They crash into the ship and then – boom. It's not like there was anything left." He scowled. "So I think – no matter what went through my head about Warhawk and Warmonga – you have a right to feel crummy about Yapsby; about seeing him die in such a horrible way."

"So how come you seem so okay?" Kim asked. "That's why I wanted to talk about… I thought maybe…, maybe you have some coping mechanism that I don't…"

"I do, Kim."

She looked at him, surprised. "Huh?"

"You."

"What?"

"I worry about you. I try to be there for you. I'm the goofy sidekick, you know –"

"You're not goofy."

"Don't interrupt! And, yeah, sure I am," Ron protested.

"No, Ron," Kim reached over and took his hand in hers. "You're not. Don't try to deny it. I'm not telling you this in some kind of 'Oh, Ron, don't sell yourself short' good-spouse way. You know it's true, and you can't fool me any more. Sure, somehow a little bit you are goofy – you look at things so differently from everyone else I've ever met. 'Never be normal,' right? And it's really sweet and wonderful of you to keep up the act, or at least put it on from time to time for me. But I know. I know that under that goof – there's something very serious. Very, very serious. And…sometimes a little bit scary."

Ron's face showed surprise.

"Oh, not scary to me. I never worry about myself with you." She smiled, thinking of his mystical monkey power. "Very much the opposite – I know nothing bad could ever happen to me with you around. But still, what you're capable of – what you've done - I've trained my whole life to do what I do when we face villains or landslides or whatever. I have mad skills, but it's all very conscious. But you – you're a mystery to me. Think about it. You made hundreds of millions of dollars from inventing a fast food! Out of nowhere you rapped on national TV, plugged a pandimensional wormhole with monkeys, tamed giant mutant dachshunds with a totally whack squirrel call, inspired a clothing line –"

"So did you," Ron interrupted.

"Now who's interrupting?!" Kim furrowed her brow, trying to recover her train of thought. "Defeated a slime-spewing mutant, twice, and busted Drakken's whole atmosfreezer plot by yourself. And then when we were in university you got the Lamplighter to set his clothes on fire, and made Jack the Knife cut his own parachute strings, and tricked that guy – you remember, the one who was going to "stamp out" email? – what was his name?"

"The Alpha Mailman? Kim, that guy was a total loser…"

"Look, you get the point. Need I go on?"

Ron shook his head mutely.

"Don't try to sell me the whole goofy sidekick thing. Yes, you're that, but you're also a lot of other things too. I don't know quite what you are, Ron."

Ron sat silently for a moment.

"Okay, point taken. I don't know quite what I am, either. And maybe someday we'll find out. 'Ron Stoppable: Man or Myth?'" he said, in a deep, movie-voiceover baritone.

"But that wasn't my point," he went on. "My point, if I may review, Miss Know-it-All," and he smiled at Kim so she could see clearly that he was just teasing, "is that, when the going gets tough, I don't think about how tough it is. I think about you. 'Is Kim okay?' 'Is Kim gonna save me?' 'What's Kim's mom making for dinner tonight?' Sure, I spend a lot of mission time being terrified – but it always seems to work out, one way or another, and so why should I bother worrying about me?"

"But I worry about you, Ron. Especially after yesterday. Except for Warhawk and Warmonga, that's the first time anybody's actually died in a sitch we were part of. I guess I never thought it could happen. There have been so many times when someone could have died – but nobody ever did. Until now."

Her face grew troubled.

"So – whatever kept this from happening before – magical force, or perfect luck, or incredible talent, or –"

"Moonbeams," Ron interrupted.

Kim wanted to smile, but couldn't shake the gloom she felt.

"Yes, or moonbeams, or whatever, well, it's not there any more. Or it never was. And now – Yapsby's dead. It changes everything, Ron. Everything! How do I know the next person to die isn't going to be me?"

She looked at him, her eyes watering.

"Or you…"

She put her head down on her knees and began to weep.

Ron knelt on the balcony by her chair, put his arms around her, and stroked her hair while she sobbed against his shoulder. After a while her shaking subsided. She looked up at him, bleary-eyed, her cheeks stained with tears.

"I'm so tired, Ron," she whispered.

He carried her back to the bed, slid in next to her, and held her to him. She fell asleep almost immediately.

Ron watched her sleep as the sun rose over the harbor.