He found so much of his life to be a mystery, even the simple but profound question: who am I? Yet, for all of the confusion surrounding him, he knew there was one element, one concept that he embraced with all of his being, loyalty. He didn't know why he took such pride, put such importance in this trait but he knew, somehow, that it was at the core of his very soul. The only problem with loyalty was that, once someone betrayed it, the betrayer found it next to impossible to earn again. He had accepted Tiff…Kim Possible's word on faith, and maybe a little schoolboy lust, that she belonged in his life. She had introduced herself as his lover and, despite the fact that some part of him screamed a warning; he had accepted her explanation and had given her his loyalty.
When she invited herself into his voyage of self-discovery, she had offered to be the guide and he didn't even think to question her motives. Ever since he saw her lying there, in a strange bed that he owned, he had dedicated his actions to her and Marie's well being. He didn't question it, he took it on faith that the survivor's code; 'You watch my back and I'll watch yours' would automatically apply. When she joined Marie and him, she had allied herself with them, or at least that was what he had thought at the time. Now, after the news broadcast, he saw her for what she really was; a wolf in the fold or a viper clutched close to his heart. The only thing he had ever asked of her was the truth, however painful it might be. However, she had rationed that truth to him, providing it only when prompted and only when he had already recalled most of it already. He had accepted her deflections and her denials, thinking that she must have some reason for doing so. After all, as long as she accompanied him, she had tied her fate to his. While he didn't enjoy the fact that she was withholding information, he felt that she must have been doing it for his benefit and, by extension, her own. Now, however, he knew her motivation, or he was at least close enough to take action.
Some strange voice, deep in his head had been whispering to him for nearly half of the day, telling him not to trust the redhead. Now, that same voice was laughing maniacally, gleefully, over what his failure to heed it had done to him. He could feel rage at being played for a fool, but his greatest rage wasn't over his bruised ego, it was over the possible consequences for Marie. Even though he didn't know why so much chaos and insanity had found him since he woke up on a less than legal fishing trawler, he knew enough to guess that whoever he had been before…whatever happened… that he had invited at least some of it. Marie, on the other hand was just an innocent bystander, a would-be Good Samaritan, caught up in his drama. If he was being set up or taken down by this famed, former teenage adventurer, he could accept this as a part of his unremembered life. But there was no way he was going to let innocent, loyal Marie share in that fate.
Unlike this Kim Possible, Marie had never looked him in the face and told him she was somebody else. She never withheld information; she spoke her mind and didn't sugar coat her words. She had honestly tried to lead him down routes to painful self-discoveries. In addition, she looked to him to make the calls, the hard and crucial decisions, because she trusted him. How could he live with himself if something happened to her, because Kim Possible decided to take him down? The answer was that he wouldn't be able to, and that brought him back to the here and now. What he was going to do, what he HAD to do, was not for him, it was for Marie. He had to know the why's, the what's, the how's and the when's. He had to know how much the other side knew and who the other side happened to be. There was only one way he could discover all of this, and that was to let that whisper, that elusive phantom of him…before…take over.
The only problem was, he had no idea how to do it. Jason Bourne, the REAL Jason Bourne, only showed up during crises' that he, the pretender in his own skin, couldn't handle.
Jason Bourne must have been one cold-hearted bastard, he knew that much with certainty. And although he had given Marie the impression that it was some kind of voyeuristic thrill to watch another person operate his body now and then, the truth was that he found it both disorienting and terrifying. When the real Jason showed up, he found himself sucked into another place with no emotions. There was no hate, no love, no joy, no sorrow, and no guilt. What could have made him this kind of a person? What happened to Jason Bourne that made him willingly turn his proverbial back on wanting to feel like a human being? Why didn't he want to feel a connection or a sense of attachment to another member of the human race?
Slowly, the blonde man closed his eyes and, for the first time, tried to 'slip into the back seat.' Unsurprisingly, nothing happened. He was still Jason, or, more to the point, the current Jason. It would be much easier if he could just faze out and let the dark stalker take the wheel. But then again what part of his life had been 'easy' over the last several days?
He clenched his fists, resigning himself to actually doing, himself, what he had to do, what he needed to do. He stared at the door, the thin barrier that was separating him, the reluctant predator, from his quarry. The door also dampened the sound of running water, prompting a fantasy of naked flesh that almost blocked his resolve. Just as suddenly, the news report came back to his mind. Heaving a last sigh, he forced his feet to carry him towards the door.
***
How could she have done it? How could she have just left, knowing that…whoever Jason was…was about to do…whatever he was about to do…to Kim Possible? Somehow, this was even dirtier, even worse than actually taking part in what was probably happening right now.
The vagabond stumbled into the hotel lobby and discovered, to her pleasant surprise, that it boasted a small café, sheltered from the hormone-crazed riffraff outside. She found a table and sat down to think. First of all, there was no doubt in her mind that 'Tiffany' was, in fact, the famous redhead. Since Marie refused to believe that one of her cherished childhood heroes could be doing something as vile as set Jason up for a fall, whatever she was doing must be both right, and necessary.
Secondly, whoever Jason had been, before waking up on the fishing boat, had made some powerful enemies. Marie was no economist, as the state of her checking account could attest, but she realized that whomever had set his sights on Jason must be large and wealthy. Any organization that could afford that…sick assassin, influence the Metro Police to attempt to apprehend them and put the story on the evening news had to be a dangerous foe. Somehow, Jason had wound up on its bad side. Did that make Jason a hero or a villain?
Third point, Kim claimed a…somewhat intimate…past with Jason, even going back to their high school years. Marie should be able to puzzle out Jason's identity from this piece of information, since she had been a proud member of the Kim Possible Fan Club. The club had its own newsletter and some of the articles had become almost paparazzi-ish, claiming a romantic connection between Kim and any male with whom she spent more than a half-hour in close proximity. The newsletter made the same claim about a couple of females, as well.
The young woman wracked her brain, trying to come up with anyone with a teenaged, romantic connection to the heroine, but she only had some vague images of that guy who used to go on the missions with her. Marie didn't have any solid picture of his face, since the cameras never paid much attention to him. Could that be Jason? The answer was that it didn't matter; whoever Jason had been, he was about to, or maybe already was, torturing Kim Possible.
Finally, there was the news report that linked Kim to that assassin. While Marie didn't know the man, something she was very grateful for, she couldn't picture Kim Possible either associating romantically with an assassin, or helping someone else kill her lover. It didn't make sense to her, but if it was on television…
Wait a minute! Did it become reality just because it was on the news? She had just been contemplating the fan club's newsletter, which had Kim connected, romantically, with dozens of young men. Most of these were either blatant falsehoods or some teenaged writer's wishful thinking. In addition, most European tabloids, and their televised counterparts, made American tabloids look like children's books.
Marie put the pieces together in her mind. For a moment, she set aside Kim's alias and went with the available facts. One; Kim Possible came to France, searching for Jason. Two, Kim Possible claimed a romantic relationship with whoever Jason used to be. Three, Kim had risked her life to help Jason fight the assassin. What was the conclusion?
Marie had no idea, but she knew that torturing and murdering Kim Possible wouldn't accomplish anything for Jason. The real conclusion was that Marie had to do something, and now.
Unfortunately, she was in no way prepared to confront Jason. Now that he was ready to resort to violence, she had to be ready to match his violence, or force him to rethink his plan of action. Looking around the small shops, she realized that the…entertainment items…for sale wouldn't be much help. Then her eyes fell on one of the burly doormen, in reality a bouncer who was 'encouraging' the passers-by to leave the hotel's paying patrons alone.
A desperate plan came to her mind, one she tried to complete even as she hopped off of her chair and considered her reflection in a nearby window. There was no real help for her disheveled hair and clothing, but she decided that the 'scruffy but sexy' look would be more convincing. She palmed some of the money she had taken from the room and approached one of the bouncers.
"Pardon me," she said in her halting French. "I have a certain…need…for a burly young man." She flashed both the cash, and her most alluring smile. "If you could…assist me, I will make your efforts most…rewarding."
***
The water cascaded over her body, the tender droplets massaging her and offering a momentary reprieve from her stress. The thin curtain of water formed a moving veil between her and the world, shielding her against her current, harsh reality. Thus shielded, she sent her mind back to the most horrible moment of her life, when she had given up her dream of either finding Ron or discovering his fate.
It had been the hardest decision she had ever reached; that the boy who grew up with her and had stood by her side through so many perils, the boy who, through some extraordinary twist of fortune had become her first and greatest love, was gone from her life. She hadn't accepted this passively. When she had discovered that he was 'missing' and not at some GJ Agent academy she had hunted for him with every resource at her disposal. Friends and rivals, heroes and villains, government agencies and headline-hungry news organizations, she had called upon all of them and all of them had responded. To her happy surprise many who had been her foes, people who she believed would revel in her misery, had been sympathetic to her plight and had devoted whatever resources they could rally to the search.
From Drakken to Team Go, from her former cheerleader teammates to the Robot Rumble crowd, everyone she asked was more then happy to offer their time on this mystery. Their zeal made it clear that they all held Ron in pleasant regard, even though he had always downplayed his own influence. Even Drakken, who could never clearly remember the 'Buffoons' name, fell into a depressive state from the 'kindred social outcast' sympathy he had towards Ron.
Senior Senior Sr., who had looked appreciatively towards Ron ever since the teen had suggested villainy as a retirement hobby, had made the most generous offer of all. The generous octogenarian offered the highest reward ever recorded in human history for any information that could lead to Ron Stoppable. Unfortunately, the staggering offer only generated false hopes in the form of reported sightings all over the globe, sightings that after Wade investigated them, never produced a solid lead. Over time, the bounty disappeared from the headlines and entered the realm of popular, urban legend but Kim still held onto hope.
It wasn't until long after she had cashed in all of her favors that Master Sensei, of the secret Yamanouchi Ninja School, summoned her. She had avoided pestering them as they had a strict code of honor and they had assured her that they would contact her immediately, if their extensive network of agents and informants discovered any news about Ron. Recalling the trip, she could only use the term 'fateful'. It was only when she arrived at the ancient school's entrance that she learned that Master Sensei had reached his long life's final hours. The old man's chosen successor, Yori, ushered her into the aged teacher's room. There, the master that Ron had always revered, the ninja who had always had a twinkle of humor in his wizened eye now looked old, frail, and tired. Wracked by guilt, the old man had made a confession to her, hoping to bring peace to her mind.
The fading master spoke of the Lotus Blade and its chosen master, Ron Stoppable. He told her that the blade and its master shared a unique bond, forged of the Mystical Monkey Power and that Ron's purity of heart maintained this bond. For several months after the boy had vanished, the bond remained strong and Sensei had every confidence that the Chosen One would reappear someday. However, one day the glowing nimbus that surrounded the blade, celebrating its link to its rightful master, faded into nothing. There could only be two explanations, the old man gasped, desperate to complete his final mission before death claimed him. Either Ron's soul had become tainted or the boy was dead. Both answers had saddened the old man and he had maintained his silence, not wanting to destroy Kim's hope that she would someday see her beloved Ron, as he once was, again.
Kim left the School immediately after the ceremony that both interred Sensei's mortal remains and bestowed his former responsibilities upon Yori. Kim returned to Colorado still in denial and still refusing to acknowledge even a possibility of truth behind the former master's words. It took nearly a week before she was able to consider the truth of what he had told her, in an honest and logical manner. When she did, the emotions she had kept repressed flooded out, released at last. After that day, she had made a conscious effort to 'live' again, to 'move on'. The cliches had been abundant; Ron would have wanted her to be happy, he was gone but she was still alive, she would honor his memory best by living her life. She hadn't found a better life, but she stumbled forward not so much for her own sake, but for her collection of friends and family who had become increasingly worried about her.
She heard the TV in the main room shutting off, only realizing that she could actually hear the appliance when the unnoticed background noise was gone. She could hear Ron and Marie exchanging some words, although she couldn't make out what they were saying. She realized that the walls were probably the bare minimum that the building codes allowed, if that much. She made a mental note that if she could hear what was taking place in the bedroom, someone in the bedroom could probably hear what was taking place in the bathroom. This didn't bode well for anyone wanting to use the toilet at a later time.
Getting back to the matter at hand, Kim reviewed the selection of complimentary soaps, shampoos and conditioners available. While they weren't her usual, high-quality products, they were vastly preferable to nothing. Ignoring the conversation that she could hear, but not comprehend, she set about the business of cleaning herself up. While she didn't maintain the long hair that she had sported in high school, the term 'impressive mane' still applied. Washing such a head of hair, especially with the shot-glass sized bottle of shampoo provided, wasn't a quick task despite the fact that she was trying to hurry, to give her companions a turn to clean up, as well. She had just finished washing her hair when she caught the faint sound of the door closing.
For a moment, Kim remained concerned. Despite all of the random movements they had made, they faced the real possibility that someone had either followed or spotted them and that the report had reached Treadstone. After a few moments of peace, however, she allowed her anxiety to pass. Had anyone broken in, Jason would have made a great deal of noise resisting and Marie would have been screaming like a maniac. Panic, however, returned with another thought; had her two companions just abandoned her? She was certainly in no state to pursue them if they had. It made sense; Jason Bourne sense: wait until the unwanted tail was temporarily incapacitated and take advantage of the moment. She knew that Ron … 'Jason', was still holding back from trusting her completely, or at least not as completely as he trusted Marie. It was possible that he could have decided … NO. Marie wouldn't stand for it. After their private words earlier, Kim knew that she had an ally in the vagabond. If Ron had suggested abandoning her in the shower, Marie would have rejected it both vocally and decisively.
With this thought her body relaxed, it relaxed further when she could hear the footfalls of someone striding across the shag-pile carpet in the next room. Conscious of the fact that her companions would want to shower, she quickly began to scrub her body. She was just finishing when she heard a tap on the bathroom door.
"Yes?" She called out.
"Tiffany, we really need to talk," Ron responded. "It's very important."
"Okay, give me a minute," she called back. She wrapped one towel around her hair and wrapped another around her body. For a moment, she considered dressing but her panties were still damp from the sink-washing she had given them and she didn't feel like going commando. Clad in the towel, she opened the bathroom door. Ron was sitting in the room's only chair, his eyes downcast. Her heart nearly broke upon seeing the sadness in his expression when he looked up to meet her eyes.
"Where's Marie?" She asked, noticing the younger woman's absence.
"She's out to get a bite to eat," Ron answered. "I…was hoping that the two of us could…deal with a couple of items alone." Ron punctuated his statement with a gesture towards the bed, inviting Kim to have a seat. Kim did so, arranging the towel to provide her with at least semi-modest coverage.
Jason took a deep breath before starting. "Tiffany," he said. "I have to admit that I suspect that you're not telling me everything that you know about me. Am I correct?"
"Yes…Jason," she admitted. "But keep in mind that we haven't exactly had the chance to sit down and discuss things."
"Still, when I recalled…glimpses…of those three girls, you told me a little but not very much. You told me that I was a mascot, then a football player but where? There's so much you haven't told me."
"Jason, trust me, I'm trying to tell you what you need to know. The complete truth is so bizarre that you probably won't believe me if I tell you. I want you to know that, even though we were as close as two people can possibly be, there are things I didn't know about you, so I can't tell you everything.'
"But you can tell me more than I know right now," Jason insisted, standing up to pace in front of Kim. "Tiffany, I want to trust you. I want to be with you again. I…can't remember my life before the accident, but I have the impression that I was lonely; so very lonely. I don't want that but I need to know that I can trust you before I can…be with you, again."
"You don't need to be lonely," Kim insisted. "I'm here for you, no matter what! I've been lonely, as well."
"For a couple of weeks?" Jason asked.
"Okay, here's another item," Kim admitted. "We were…separated…sometime before your accident. We've both walked a pretty lonely road ever since, but that time's over now. Jason, I want to be with you again, I've missed you so much!"
"What caused us to be separated?" Jason asked, now stopping to look at her with an intent expression. "If we were as close as you claim, if we were as in love as you've been suggesting, what could have ever pulled us apart?"
Kim caught her lower lip between her teeth. How could she answer that? How could she tell this vulnerable, hurting man that she had served him up to such a vile organization, hoping to make him worthy of her?
"It's complicated," she said, at last.
"It always is, isn't it?" Was that a resigned sigh in his voice, as he made his last comment. "Tell me, was this … 'complication' …because of me? I know … what I mean to say is that I have had inner glimpses of the man that I was before now, he … I mean 'I' … was detached to things like sensitivity to others. Being with someone like that couldn't have been a picnic. Is it my fault that we stopped seeing each other? Did you break-up with me because I…"
"Jason, listen to me!" She insisted, catching his arm and guiding him to sit next to her. "I love you. I loved you with all my heart. I did then and I do now, but we didn't live a normal life. In fact, our lives were sometimes beyond believing and some of those…unbelievable things…are what pulled us apart. It has taken until now for us to get back together but you have to believe me, it wasn't you! Do you understand? It wasn't you. I don't blame you, I'll never blame you for what happened."
Tentatively, and aware of the bed's motion rocking her hips next to his, Kim placed her head upon his shoulder, inwardly dwelling on this intimate and happy moment with the man she loved. "There is nothing you could have done that would make me give up on you. I know you have more questions than answers and that you see yourself as a puzzle without a solution, but you aren't a mystery, at least not to me."
"I don't want to lose you again, Jason, but if I tell you everything, if we sit down for the hours it will take to just tell you the bare bones of it all, I fear I just might! I just can't risk losing you, not for the second time. Jason, you have to believe me that you're the most important person in my life and I can't risk losing you again!"
"I don't want to lose you, either," Jason told her. "I…I'm just so confused and alone. Other people at least have their memories to keep them company. I don't even have that! Where do I go from here?"
"Well for starters you can deep-six that 'alone' crapola. You aren't alone," Kim persisted. "I'm here now and I'm not going anywhere. Trust me, Jason, if you listen to me and work with me, we'll find you again. I promise. The REAL you."
"The … 'Real' me?"
Her hand had found its way to the side of his face, where her index finger reached up to play with the hair above his ear. "I don't want you to be alone and I don't want to feel as though you are, especially when I am right beside you."
His hand found its way to her waist, where it pulled the two of them closer together. "Will you stay with me, Tiffany? Truly?" He asked. "Will you help me with whomever it is trying to find me?"
"Of course," she breathed. "To whatever end we find, we'll find it together! I never want the two of us to be apart again."
The tips of his fingers found the gap in her towel wrap and made contact with her hip's bare flesh. The hand worked its way up her waist in a long, slow caress that took her breath away and made her sincerely hope that Marie was a slow eater. She pulled his face down to her, feeling his warm breath on her face as she closed her eyes.
"Tiffany?" He breathed. His lips so tantalizingly close to hers that she felt the question as well as heard it.
"Yes?" She replied, losing herself in the cascading warmth from his breath as he spoke her false name. Her mind dared and hoped that she had just answered an unasked question with her one-word response.
"Which of your names would you rather hear me shout out, 'Tiffany' or 'Kim'?"
Kim's eyes flew open and her mind lost the seductive thoughts from just a moment ago. Jason's face was mere inches from her own and she could see a snarl form on his lips. His gentle hands suddenly seized her and hurled her back onto the bed. One of the hands deftly caught and kept the towel, leaving her naked and vulnerable.
"We saw a news broadcast," he spat out, his eyes shooting daggers at her as he twirled the towel in his hands. "They showed pictures of you, with that killer who broke into my apartment. It seems that the two of you are 'close, intimate friends' and that you're not Tiffany Meadows, you're a former teenaged adventurer named Kim Possible."
"R…Jason, I'm not…" Kim began, only to have Jason's cold, harsh hiss silence her. Her arms lay outstretched and limply as the bed rocked back and forth, denying her the stability she needed to find her balance and escape the wrath she could see building in Jason.
"Seeing this, I decided that a little investigation was in order. I checked everything in your jacket and what did I find? I found two passports, one for Tiffany Meadows and the other for Kim Possible. I also found a rather impressive amount of money, a pristine key and a piece of paper with my phone number and address. Tell me, why would my lover need to record my phone number and address? Isn't that something that you trust to memory?"
"Jason, listen I…"
"Even with all of that, I gave you one, last chance to come clean. I asked you one, last time to tell me everything but what did you do? You claimed that I wasn't ready for the truth! Who's not ready for me to learn the whole truth, you or me?"
"Jason, please…" she pled. "I want to help you…"
"Help me?" He almost roared. "Or help yourself? I can just about read the headlines right now; 'famed heroine takes revenge on her lover's murderer by bringing the psychotic bastard to justice!' All this time you've been telling me what a sweet, supportive cupcake I used to be. Well, it seems to me that cupcakes don't make enemies that come rappelling in through their windows like that. Cupcakes don't know how to kill assassins or intimidate police with a subcompact. That means that I wasn't some little sweetheart and you've been lying to me!"
Kim tried to skitter back on the bed, away from him. He had quit twirling the towel and now held a rattail, the favored tool of locker room bullies.
"I don't know where I've heard this expression before, but it seems very appropriate," he informed her. "What isn't given can be taken. I really didn't want to do this, whoever you are, Tiff … Kimmy, but you haven't given me much choice. You've decided to make this 'dog-eat-dog' and I'm tired of being the one getting bit, especially when my fangs are a hell of a lot bigger then yours."
Kim caught her breath as Ron held up the crude torture implement. In that moment before he flicked his wrist and released the twisted cotton, in that moment of thundering silence, they both heard a distinct sound.
The sound of the room's deadbolt unlocking.
***
During her short life, Marie had learned that hating was pretty much useless. Yet, she did have a few things she honestly hated and chief among these was leers. The young vagabond had been on the receiving end of those expressions all over North America and Europe, no matter the language, no matter the culture, there were always some people who could cast their dirty, sometimes obscene, thoughts onto another with a simple expression. Take the lumbering doorman, with that simple, hated expression he broadcast the fact that he had certain…expectations…about what was going to take place between the two of them as soon as they reached the suite. He wasn't only looking at her with that loathsome mixture of contemplation and self-satisfaction, he ambled with a swaggering strut as he accompanied her towards the room she had left only a few minutes earlier.
She did not know exactly what to expect to find when she and her temporary bodyguard opened the door. She only knew that having a large, mostly hairless gorilla with her would be preferable to going solo if she was going to stop Jason from doing what she suspected he was going to do, or maybe already was doing. Besides, she needed the master key that he slid into the lock while she prayed that they were in time.
With a deft twist of his thick wrist, the doorman unlocked the door. The deadbolt made a quiet, but distinctive click, a thunderous sound in the quiet hallway. With a deep breath, Marie turned the doorknob and pushed her way into the room, pretty sure that she didn't want to see whatever waited for her on the other side.
The door swung out of her path, revealing a scene that she wasn't expecting. She was expecting something from one of the classic noir movies that she loved as a teenager; the victim tied to a wooden chair, a single bare light bulb slowly swinging overhead and the interrogator standing over the slumped and battered victim. The fact that she knew Jason didn't have the resources needed to transform the comfortable, if kinky, hotel room to her dungeon fantasy hadn't impacted her imagination. The scene that waited her, however, caught her by surprise.
Lying on the bed, in all her naked glory, out-of-breath and with a startled expression plastered across her features was the woman she had revered as a young girl, Kim Possible. For a moment, Marie thought that the two of them had decided to indulge in a little fun, until her eyes strayed to the man standing over the former teen heroine. Not only was Jason fully clothed, his expression, at least before shocked surprise overtook it, was of rage. Not only that, but he was holding a twisted towel in his hands and Marie had been on the receiving end of a rattail on too many occasions to think that the two were indulging in some foreplay.
Even though the scene caught her by surprise, Marie didn't have the luxury of simply standing there, open-mouthed, like Kim and Jason. She had to take control of the situation before the 'Yeti' next to her became suspicious.
With her mind racing at warp 10, she could only think of one way to accomplish this. Sucking in a deep breath and drawing herself up to her full, less-than-imposing height, she offered a silent prayer to any deity listening in that she would be able to pull off the half-baked plan still forming in her mind. She put on her best 'outraged and betrayed' face and stormed into the room.
"YOU BASTARD!" She shrieked at the stunned Jason. "I knew you were going to try to screw her. I thought we had a look, play, but no insertion policy! "Did you think I would forget Rome? It was the same thing this time, 'dear, let's spice things up a little,' then you try to get me out of the picture long enough for a little, private party with the local street trash!"
Jason's mouth opened wider, then snapped shut as he tried to digest this latest development. His continued shock gave Marie the opportunity to stalk across the room and continue her verbal assault, planting herself directly in front of him and punctuating her tirade with finger-pokes into the blonde's chest.
"Do you think I am so naive that I couldn't see through your little excuse to get me to leave the room? 'Oh darling, why don't you go down to the lobby and arrange for some strawberries and Champaign to be sent up for us, get yourself a coffee, so you can stay awake longer, while you're at it.' Did you honestly believe I couldn't put two and two together? Did you think that I would forget your little game in Italy? At least that one came from a service! This one? We picked her up off the street. For all we know, she could be carrying a whole biohazard dictionary between her legs! That's why we set the ground rules we did! I'm not going to risk catching something because you had to try some forbidden fruit and couldn't keep your 'little friend' safely zipped up."
"Why do our 'no screw' agreements go out the window the minute you're out of my sight? Let me remind you, you can fondle, spank, tie her up, rub her down, massage, cover or smear her with anything your perverted mind desires, but you do not have SEX with her! I am not going to risk contracting a STD because you haven't figured out that your wild oats have been domesticated! For God's sake, she might have serviced half of Paris for all we know. I'm giving you a choice here, you can either follow our agreement and we can both share in a bit of fun with the whore, or you can go all 'I wear the pants and I fuck who I want to fuck.' Like you did in Rome. In case you decide to take the second choice, I bought up Jacque from the foyer to help teach you the error of treating your wife with such disrespect."
The massive doorman must have understood English, or he at least understood the situation. He played his part, cracking his knuckles and giving a menacing scowl that would have probably intimidated a shark. Marie had no doubts that if it came down to a fight that Jason would probably hand her French bodyguard his own ass. However, she was also certain that Jason wouldn't risk the confrontation, and the attention it would draw.
Jason regained his composure, unraveled the towel and contemptuously flung it at the naked redhead. Playing the part of a busted, naughty husband, he put on a chagrined expression, dropped his gaze and scuffed his feet like a schoolboy.
"You're right." He muttered. "I … I shouldn't have tried to start the fun without you, but you know how partial I am to redheads. I got greedy. Forgive me?"
Folding her arms across her chest, Marie appeared to study her 'husband's' sincerity. After glaring at him for a few minutes, she turned her attention towards Kim, who had just finished covering her nudity with the towel that Jason had thrown her way. "Whore," the vagabond said in her halting French. "Let's understand something. His man's part is my property. For you, it is not to be touched, whether it's covered or not. Do you understand?"
Marie prayed that Kim knew enough French, or understood the tone of the lecture, to pull off the ruse. Kim responded my nodding her head, her expression indicating that she, like Jason, understood what Marie was trying to do. Still, she looked apprehensive, clearly frightened about what was about to happen when Marie's little play came to an end.
Marie continued to glare at her companions, shifting her baleful gaze between Kim and Jason. After several minutes, during which everyone but the doorman held his or her breath, Marie dropped her stern expression.
"I have to admit that I'm looking forward to our little adventure," she murmured, allowing a predatory grin to claim her face. "And it would be a real shame to make due with a…damaged…man." She turned and approached her hijacked doorman.
"I am sorry that I gave you a false impression," she told the hulking man, in her imperfect French. "I did not think you would have come with me if I had been honest."
"It is nothing," the big man declared grandly. "It was a pleasure to assist one so charming and generous." He gently kissed her proffered hand and turned to return to his post.
Marie understood his attitude; she had given him what probably equated to a day and a half worth of wages, which he had earned tax-free by simply walking a few hundred feet. He might be a little disappointed that he hadn't provided a different service, but he wasn't about to feel resentful. As she closed the door, she overheard him mumbling a bit under his breath. She couldn't be sure but is sounded like he was commenting about this being the third time that this had happened to him this week.
With the door locked on the rest of the world, Marie turned and confronted her two, reunited companions. Jason was confused and angry, Kim was confused and frightened. For several, endless minutes the three just stared at each other. Finally, Jason broke the silence.
"I don't know what kind of game you're playing, Marie," he said. "But you…"
"Shut up and listen to me!" Marie snapped; jolted out of her momentary indecisiveness by Jason having the gall to even speak after what he had been doing. She marched across the room and confronted him in the same manner that she had done, for the doorman's benefit, moments before.
"What happened to the sincere man who honestly didn't know his past?" She snarled. "Where do you get off torturing another human being?"
Marie tried hard not to sound to hypocritical, after all it was only several hours earlier that she was willing to silently step aside and let Jason do whatever he had to do in order to extract answers from Kim Possible's boyfriend. And if Tiffany … Kim, hadn't stepped up and did the whole 'your better then that speech', she probably would have let Jason get as gruesome as he had to in order to find out about the fate of her big brother and how she had gotten mixed up in whatever was happening with Jason.
"What were you going to do after you had sweated the answers out of her? You couldn't just let her go, that's for sure! I don't care who you were or what you did before you woke up on the fishing boat; it's what you do now that matters. The Jason Bourne I traveled across Europe with would have never done that."
"But she…" Jason protested.
"She saved you life back in your apartment, and maybe she also saved your soul as well!" Marie snarled back. "She flashed that killer to distract him while I got the knife to you! If she had wanted you dead, she would have, literally, stabbed you in the back. And just before you were going to do an impression of The Grand Inquisitor Torquemada, she stopped you then as well."
"But the news…" Jason began again.
"Is it real because it's on television?" Marie demanded. "Is it real because it's in print? What have you seen, Jason? You saw her fight that hyena. If those two were close, intimate friends, do you think he would have roughed her up as bad as he did? If she was trying to set you up, do you think she would have been stupid enough to let you out of her sight? You could have broke and run when she was making that call or taking her shower. She trusted you to stick with her both times!"
Jason fell silent, reviewing the last several hours in his mind.
"Thank you, Marie," Kim said, full of sincere gratitude. "I hope…"
"As for you!" Marie cut off Kim's statement. "I can't tell you how disappointed I am that Kim Possible, the girl I idolized when I was a tween, could lead Jason on the way you have! I was a proud member of the Kim Possible Fan Club, Mole Rat Burrow 72 in Boston. I don't exactly understand why the fan club was organized into mole rat burrows, rather than chapters, but you get the idea. I expected better from you! You're not setting him up, but you aren't telling him the truth, either. Why did you introduce yourself as Tiffany Meadows, anyway? Why did you need someone to give you his address? For that matter, who gave you his address? I think we need to know this before we can do anything else."
"I don't even know where to begin," Kim told the angry young woman, feeling very humbled at suddenly discovering that the young woman she had been at emotional odds with throughout the bulk of the day, was infact a bonafide member of her Fan Club.
"How about with the questions I just asked you?" Marie shot back.
"How can I know that I can trust her answers," Jason interjected, rallying and re-entering the debate. "She lied about her name, how can we believe anything else?" Suddenly, the blonde man's eyes widened, then narrowed at Marie. "For that matter, how can I trust you, Marie? It seems rather convenient that you spent all day with this former teenaged hero, but you didn't recognize your childhood idol until that newscast. Are you being straight with me, Marie, or did someone plant you in Zurich, hoping I'd latch onto you and lead you to something else? Dear God, how can I trust anyone?"
As these claims settled upon the ears, Marie's, eyes began well up in tears as disbelief creased across her features. She could not believe after everything she had endured that Jason was now turning his paranoia upon her now.
"Okay, I have an idea," Kim told them, squirming her way towards the edge of the bed. For a moment, she was tempted to let Ron's suspicions drive a wedge between him and Marie, but decided that it was more important to address his paranoia head on. "Does this little temple to fornication have internet access?"
"What are you getting at?" Jason demanded.
"The truth, and the proof you need," Kim told him. "If you think that I've managed to subvert the entire net, then you'll never trust me. On the other hand, if you can use some random search engines, that you select, to verify some of my statements, maybe we can get somewhere."
Jason gave her a hard glare but opened drawers and doors in the sparse furnishings. Sure enough, he located a keyboard next to the television. While he was reading the instructions, Kim came to the conclusion that modesty did not require that she cover her hair. By the time she had removed the towel from her hair and added it to her scanty body covering, Jason had figured out how to access the net from the room.
"Since I didn't have a credit card, I had to leave a fairly large deposit at the front desk," Jason explained as he turned on the keyboard and changed the television to the proper channel. "They'll deduct the access fees from the deposit if we don't pay up when we check out."
"We can afford it," Kim told him. "Now, do you know any search engines?"
"Yeah," the blonde replied. "I don't know where I recall them from, but I know how to find things on line."
"Okay, Marie and I are going to get out of line of site of the screen. I want you, and only you, to do these searches." In response to her request, Jason aligned the screen as far as he could towards the room's window while Kim and Marie walked towards the room's door.
"Now," Kim instructed, after everyone was in place. "I want you to do a search on the name 'Kim Possible'. I want you to find a picture of me so you know that that's my real name." Kim smiled a little wryly. "Keep in mind that almost all of the pictures will be from my teenaged years, so you may have to add age in your own mind."
Jason actually favored her with a momentary grin before his customary scowl returned and he went to work. "No search engines are under the 'favorites' tab on the home page," he reported. "I think you can guess what kind of sites are under the 'favorites' tab."
"I don't want any details," Kim flinched. "And I don't want you to tell me which engine you're using. You are going to have full control of this little exercise."
"Okay, I'm calling up some images now," Jason reported. For the next several minutes, Jason glanced between the screen and Kim. On occasion, he would ask her to turn her head, allowing her to view her in profile. He jotted down a few notes while doing so. Finally…
"Okay, I'm convinced," he reported at last. "You're either Kim Possible, her twin, or someone who has been altered to look like her. What now?"
"It's time for you to learn your real name," Kim told him. "Search the name 'Ron Stoppable'"
"Okay," Jason said. A few minutes of clicking from the keyboard told the two women that he was working. "There's no where near the number of entries for Ron Stoppable as there are for Kim Possible, but I've found a few."
"What do they say about Ron Stoppable?" Kim asked.
"There's a pretty wide range of reports," Jason told her. "Most seem to say that he was Kim Possible's sidekick during their teen years." Jason paused a moment. "You're claiming that I was Ron Stoppable, aren't you?"
"Yes," Kim told him. "And I'm going to be calling you Ron from now on. Why don't you find some images and compare them to the face you see in the mirror?"
"I have," Ron insisted. "And the pictures don't look very much like the mirror. I know that it's been a few years, but aging doesn't seem to account for the changes.
"Okay, you've undergone extensive plastic surgery," Kim told him. "I'm going to need you to visualize a little bit. Now, don't let me see the picture but I want you to look at that picture and imagine the chin strengthened and squared, and some more definition to the cheekbones."
"Okay," Ron complied.
"Now, look in a mirror," Kim requested. Ron complied, by looking at the ceiling over the bed.
"It just might be," Ron grudgingly admitted. "I could just be this person."
Marie, in the meantime, couldn't deny her curiosity. She looked at the picture on the screen and gasped.
"It's you! You're the guy who used to go on the missions with her! You were her sidekick!"
"Partner," Kim growled at the younger woman. "But yes, we were friends since before kindergarten. Finally, in our late teens, we both pulled our heads out and developed a romantic attachment."
"So what happened?" Ron asked. Kim thrilled to hear that it was really a question and not a demand. "If my real name is Ron Stoppable, then why am I going around thinking of myself as 'Jason Bourne'?"
"Ron, I'll give you the bare bones of it, but I'm too tired to spend the hours it will take to delve into the details, even the ones that I know." Again, Kim was heartened by the fact that Ron didn't become angry. Apparently, telling him his name had done a great deal to gain his trust.
"I don't know, in any detail, what you've been doing for the last eight years," Kim told her (former?) boyfriend. "But I know a couple of things. You wonder who you were before the fishing boat. I can tell you that there's another big 'before and after' in your life. Eight years ago, you were kidnapped by an undercover, government agency known as Treadstone. They turned you from Ron Stoppable to Jason Bourne. For some reason, a reason Treadstone didn't fully understand, you quit being Jason Bourne a week or so ago. They supported a 'worst-case' scenario deal and believed you had chosen to either defect or retire from service. Neither option particularly pleased them as they had invested a great deal of resources in developing your unique … skills. I suspected then as I do definitely now, that they would rather see you dead then have someone else benefit from the fruits of their training. When you vanished from Treadstone's radar, a representative tracked me down and told me about the truth of your fate. After years of believing you were dead, I was told that you were infact alive and were 'Missing in Action'. They thought my early familiarity with you might offer me an advantage in smoking you out into the open."
"I played along with them so that I could pick up your trail," Kim quickly continued, seeing Ron's expression start to darken. "They were hoping that I bring you back so that they could recondition you. They gave me your address and phone number, hoping that I would be able to get you to give yourself up peacefully." Kim snorted, "I'm idealistic but not blind. I knew that they were going to kill both of us once you reappeared. I didn't think that they would have an assassin waiting at your apartment building."
"That's why you called me Ron when he broke in," Ron whispered.
"I was caught by surprise and forgot your name was Jason," Kim confirmed.
"Why didn't you tell me all this before?" Ron asked.
"When have we had the time?" Kim asked. "And would you have believed me?"
"After you showed me my teenaged pictures, I probably would have," Ron answered, but not with very much conviction. Ron looked painfully long at the still image of the smiling Ron Stoppable upon the computer screen. "But Why? Why would I choose this life? Why out of everyone on the planet did they select me to be 'kidnapped'? You were the hero, why would they target your assistant?"
These were question's Kim silently wished he wouldn't ask, though it would have been naive of her not to have expected it. But she still hadn't though of a way to truthfully answer it without coming off looking bad, not only to Ron or Marie, but herself as well.
How do you tell someone that their life was turned upside down because of some sick and twisted vendetta by a Government Agency, all because of all the ill-planned good deeds and intentions you tried to carry out as a teenager? Or that you invited this pain upon the only person you ever truly loved because you were ashamed that he was content to working as a faceless drone in a Mega store, and you thought you deserved better then to be shackled to someone on minimum wage? Or even worse, that he embraced the lifestyle of a Government Killer out of spite because he believed she had betrayed the love he felt for her, abandoning it to have a raunchy and secret affair that ended up her falling pregnant?
None of these explanations settled her own heartache and she suspected that if she shared these truths now that it would probably be too much for Ron to take in. She didn't not want to look as though she was still hiding the truth, but she did not want to share this truth until Ron had settled into understanding the reality of his situation first. Fortunately, Marie was able to deflect the issue with a more pressing reality of current events.
"Okay, we have some answers and a whole lot more questions," Marie declared. "But the one that concerns me the most is this government agency that want's to kill Ja…Ron. If they run the Metro and Interpol, what chance do we have to get away?"
"I don't think that they run these agencies," Kim replied. "They are able to…influence and manipulate…them, as well as the news media, to a certain extent."
"Still, were in deep shit," Ron muttered. "I'm sure our pictures are going to be up all over Paris, all over Europe, before too much longer. What do we do now?"
"We have to find sanctuary, somewhere where we can work to get the rest of your memories back," Kim told him.
"But where?" Marie demanded. "If these people have infiltrated international law enforcement, there's no place to go. Okay, there are a few countries that don't cooperate, but I really don't look forward to living in any of them, even assuming we could get to one. I don't think the Pope is going to put us up in the Vatican. Do you happen to know anybody who owns and his own country and are willing to put us up?"
"Actually, I do!" Kim gasped, the obvious solution brought to mind by Marie's complaint. "And it's just a hop, skip and jump from here…from a world traveler's perspective."
"Oh," Ron interjected, half sarcastically and half hopefully. "And I suppose he has castle walls and a moat to keep out the rest of the world."
"I wouldn't call it a castle so much as a mansion on a privately owned island." Kim giggled. "And the moat is full of piranha, if he hasn't replaced them with koi."
"You're … you're serious, aren't you?" Ron shook his head. "What kind of person could be rich enough to afford his own nation but still childish enough to throw together some sort of movie lair of doom?"
"It isn't a nation, it's an island," Kim corrected him. "You won't recognize him, but I'm sure he'll recognize you. After all, he put the movie lair of doom together at your suggestion."
Kim couldn't help herself, she broke out into helpless laughter at Ron's and Marie's confused expressions.
"I hope you like the sun," she managed at last. "Because Senior's Island gets a lot of it."
I hope that this chapter helped settle some of the built up excitement.
Next Chapter : Ron meets one of Kim's old 'boyfriends'. And Kim finds her credibility and claim 'of only loving Ron' now in question as a result. Bon-Bon takes a liking to the new Hunk on the island with the aim of making Junior jealous (but how much of it is an act?), and he's not the only one who gets a visit by the green-eyed monster. All this and ninja's to ;-)…lol.
IMPORTANT : I say this with each posting, but I sincerely mean it. Over half of this story was written by daccu65, as I was the victim of writer's block. Any credit this chapter receives in your reviews are ones that need to also be directed towards my muse and inspiration …lol.
R & R