Hello again! Considering I didn't expect too much of any support, I just want to give a warm thank you to everyone who already favorited and followed! It means a lot more than you know! Especially with me being new to the KP fandom. (I worry, okay? The characters all have such unique and vibrant personalities, and I want to make it as authentic to the show as I can.) I also would like to thank Data Seeker, Darkendlight74, and Or-lan-do626 (Stitch!) for leaving reviews! You all rock big! Hopefully you guys continue to enjoy the story. I promise to do my darned best to bring our favorite heroes to life. Now onwards to the story!

Kim was completely lost in thought as she stuck a fork in and out of her salad, sitting in the booth the two friends normally shared in Bueno Nacho. Ron, oblivious to his best friend's plight, scarfed a naco nearly whole, as Rufus took a swan dive into his own, emerging covering in gooey nacho cheese. Ron, having inhaled the remains, sucked the residual cheese off of his fingers, blissfully content, though not quite full. Oh, yeah, he definitely had room in the ole tank to devour, give or take, two more of his monstrous creations. He looked up at Kim, a frown immediately marring his features once he realized that her demeanor was at an all time low. He still had a chimarito with his name on it, but something seemed wrong. Chimarito's immediately lost all of their delicious flavor when there was a best friend named Kim in need of a Ron intervention.

"Hey…KP." He watched as she continued to poke her salad absently, all but ignoring his call for her attention. "Uh, Kim?" Still nothing. O-kay. This was bad. Welp, desperate times and what not. He reached over and snapped his fingers in front of her face. "Hello, hello! Earth to Kim! Come back, KP!"

"Oh!" Kim blinked as she finally gave him her attention, seeing the concern on his face. She was torn on how to handle the current dilemma. However, she hadn't meant to worry him. Not quite yet anyway. "Sorry Ron. Just lost in thought."

"Is that so?" He asked, eyes narrowing. She nodded, and he returned to the meal at hand. Better to do so before Rufus could make a go at it. "Well then, I guess I can assume it's nothing related to cheer practice itself," he said, biting into his chimarito. Man, there was no Tex-Mex in the world like Bueno Nacho. If he had a tail, it would be a-wagging!

She blinked, mulling his wording. "Why do you say that?"

"Come on, KP. If it were, you would have been venting it out this whole entire time, not stewing it inside of your brain," he said, bits of half-chewed chimarito flying out of his mouth as he poked the side of his head.

"Eww, so gross." She said, wrinkling her nose at his description, and his gordy ability of eating with his mouth open.

"Willing to talk about it?" He asked, turning to check on Rufus who was practically swimming in the innards of his half eaten naco, with a chip in paw he munched upon merrily.

"Not sure where to start," she admitted in a low voice.

Ron squinted at her for a moment, in a bout of consideration, then he gasped dramatically, his eyes widening as something apparently dawned on him. She frowned, wondering where his head was at now. With Ron, it was always a wild card pitch. "KP," He leaned forward, gripping the table with his hands, his voice a smidgen over a whisper. "Are you…crushing?"

"What? So not!" She said, immediately blushing, and feeling flustered.

"Well, from where I'm standing, I'm reading you as being in the throes of crushing!" He said, motioning up and down at her person with a flourish of his hand.

"You're def reading the wrong book…and you're sitting, Ron," she said, dryly, avoiding eye contact. The truth was, she was still jarred by the whole modulator sitch. She actually hadn't thought about crushing on anyone else. After all, she was still confused by some of the events that transpired that day. Having your emotions dialed up to one hundred, and basically living fully wrapped in just that one feeling alone…and reliving, what comes off as an out of body experience, of taking Ron, and smooching the ever-loving nacho out of him. She, Kim Possible, whose motto was, 'I can do anything', had…kissed…Ron Stoppable. Her best friend! But here he was acting completely and utterly normal.

He could flirt and ask out 'the ladies' even in the face of that. He had even broken up with her, and she wasn't sure what to make of that. Saving their friendship or just uninterested? The only hint she had was the look he gave her after her fireworks comment. That look made her want to—

No! Wade gave you a mission, Kim. No sense dwelling on the modulator one. Hopefully Dr. Bortel lost his license.

"Then what's up?" Ron relaxed, slightly. "You don't have to keep it close to your chest. Let the Ronman help you out."

"Okay, then. What's three plus three?" She shot out, bang, bang, and quickly pressed both hands to her mouth in shock. She hadn't meant to try to test him. Not like that. Well, not this early on anyway.

Ron blinked at her, and then he groaned, tossing himself back against the booth as if distressed. "Ugh, you know I hate math, KP. If you don't want to talk just say that. Ya don't have to scare me off the trail!"

"It's three plus three, Ron. Not an algebra question," she said, wryly. There. She had her own proof that it had to be some mistake. A simple, basic math question was making him tense up, sweat above the brow. There was no way, no how, he was, unconsciously at that, solving college level equations. Nope. It had to be a fluke. A ploy.

Ron fanned his hand at her. "Potato, po-tah-toe. All math's bad!"

"Ron, you do realize you utilize math when you order here…right? To pay?"

"That's the universal language of cold, hard cash! Everyone speaks it."

"Nevermind." She was getting nowhere. Did she just come right out and ask him? She was sure she wouldn't get a straight answer. No, she would have to go about doing this another way. That was what was driving her up a wall. What was the other way in discovering why your best friend could be a major brain freak under all the essentialness that made him, well, him? The thought just made her head hurt.

The hearty sound of laughter rang throughout Kim's head, as she pulled the phone from her ear and waited for her friend to gather her bearings. She expected it, sure. She just didn't expect it to carry on for so long.

"You wanna what?" Monique asked, voice a slight tease. Kim couldn't see her, but she would bet her newest pair of CB pants that there were tears in Mo's eyes. She had laughed that boisterously.

"I want to figure out if Ron's a…" She swallowed. Maybe this wasn't as good of an idea as it seemed. "Genius."

"Yeah, I thought you said that, but girl, those words, in that order, don't add up. Even if you flip it, I wouldn't count on a genius being able to figure out our boy! You just told me Wade's just as stumped."

Kim threw herself back onto her bed and groaned. "Monique! I hate saying I agree with you, but I'm right there with you! This is such an awkweird sitch, but Wade provided proof. I'm just following the evidence." She huffed. "Or rather I'd like to, but it's hard figuring out where to start."

"Did you come out and ask Ron about it?"

"So did not," Kim groaned, pulling pandaroo to her chest. "I chickened out. You know Ron. There's no way he'd say that he is."

"Because he isn't! Kim! Don't forget he would have let us fail that one time Barkin partnered me up with him. Not to mention all the times you got partnered up with him!"

"That's just…"

"Ron being Ron? Can't keep using that as an excuse."

"I guess."

"Look, I'm all for you Sherlocking it up around here, but I think you're gonna find a lot of dead ends, which will lead to you having a lot of split ends, and no Club Banana fifty percent off sale can help you then, girlfriend! It's a wild goose chase. I know, you know! So do yourself the ultimate of favors and give it up."

"Not until I at least try, Mo," Kim said, absently running a hand through her hair. She so couldn't afford split ends. There was also cheerleading to consider.

She could hear Monique audibly sigh. A sign that she had decided to offer a small peace offering. "Fine. Have you checked your boy's report cards?"

"Report cards?" Kim cocked a brow.

"Yeah, I mean obviously not the more recent ones. We can guess what those would be like, but I'm talking the ones from elementary and middle school. When did his grades become subpar? Maybe you should start there."

Kim sat up. Yeah, why hadn't she thought to do that? "Mo! You're a genius!" Kim said, feeling for the first time a bit of hope.

"Mmhm, now you're talking sense, Kim!" Monique said, her voice super ecstatic. "Sometimes the simple answers aren't the ones we think about first, which is why a second opinion is best. Like Bonnie in that skirt she had on yesterday afternoon. Girl knows it didn't flatter any part of her."

"Veering subjects, but you're right."

"Uh huh. Who's the fashion guru? Muah! I'm gonna wish you every bit of luck on this, Kim. I have to clock back in. Don't forget to drop by!"

"When it concerns Club Banana, not much can keep me away."

"Atta girl! See ya tomorrow!"

"Bye, Mo."

Having a path to follow, Kim decided to give Wade a call. He answered near immediately, and she quickly explained what she needed him to do, which he seemed eager to dig into. After a few moments, his smile began to fall, before a begrudging look befell his features.

"Nothing for it, Kim. I can't find a trace of any files involving you and Ron from when you were both in elementary and middle school. It's like the records don't exist."

"There has to be something, Wade. I'm sure they used a PC back then. Maybe nothing state of the art, but..."

Wade shook his head. "My guess is that all printing was done without internet. I did as thorough a scan as I could and nothing. Best I can supply is that you go to Ron's and see if he has the actual copies of his old report cards at home somewhere."

That was what she wanted to avoid. "Ugh! Aren't you supposed to do the impossible?" She asked, pacing her room, growing restless.

"Aren't you supposed to be able to do anything?" He retorted back. "I'll keep digging. In the meantime—"

"I should find a different way of getting what I want. I'm on it."

"Good. Wade out."

She pocketed the device and kept pacing for a while more. This was ferociously all Wade's fault really. She never thought about this stuff so seriously before. Ron was…Ron. He was reliable and dependable Ron. He didn't need to be smart. She knew she could trust him with her life, but now there was a part of her that niggled to know the truth. She felt uneasy. Like one of Shego's plasma blasts had caught her off guard. She didn't like the feeling, but the part that bothered her most was that she wasn't sure why she felt that way.

She tried thinking back to when they were younger. Wasn't Ron always weird? Well...yeah, though it was a different kind of weird than current Ron weird. She could remember moment's, events that stuck out, but they didn't create a whole picture. There were times, lots of times, when he cried, and he had a phobia to a lot of things. That was just normal Ron stuff. She couldn't remember an unnatural time where he built something out of toys, or anything that would scream that he was wise beyond his years. Not being able to come up with anything more than what Wade had provided earlier was bothering her immensely.

"Kimmie," her mother's voice carried through her door, causing Kim to jump out of her skin momentarily. "Dinner's almost ready."

Kim suddenly felt like she was having a major lightbulb moment. Her mom! She might know something. The older Possible had witnessed their childhood with adult eyes, so her memory might have retained things Kim personally couldn't recall. "Hey, mom. Could you spare a few minutes?"

Upon being summoned, Anne Possible, actually poked her head into her room, concern etched in her features. "What is it Kim? Is everything all right?"

Kim decided to jump straight to the point. "How much do you remember from when me and Ron were younger?"

She watched her mother scrunched her face in thought. "Hmm, there was that one time you lost your underwear on the beach."

Kim groaned, feeling super embarrassed for her past self. "No, not deep, lock and key it in the dark recesses of your mind stuff. I'm talking about like…educationally."

"Hmm, let's see. You always did good in school from what I can recall. I think Ron did too."

"Did he really?" It was a start, though it didn't really explain much on the surface level.

"I think so. I'll admit I don't have the best memory where it concerns him there, but he used to have a broader vocabulary for one so young. Even more than you did, dear." Her mother smiled warmly, her eyes unfocused, as something came back to her. "Ah, I remember the first time I met him now. It was right as the two of you finished your first day of Pre-K. He walked with you over to us and, as he paced with an adorably serious face, he said, 'Did you know that Earth's gravity keeps us grounded? It's an outstanding phenomenon, but one day, I hope to fly.'" Anne chuckled. "He was so cute."

"Ron?" Kim couldn't believe it. "Ron Stoppable, my best friend, said that? At four?"

"Oh, yes. Your dad was quite impressed. I think that's how Ron initially won him over. Your response was, 'He's definitely weird, but I can't help but like him anyway.' I was really upset that I didn't bring my camera. You making your first friend. It would have been a great memory to have actually captured." Anne tsked at the loss of being unable to photograph the moment. "But at least your teacher took a class photo that day."

Kim knew what she was referring to. The photo where they were sitting on opposite ends of the classroom right before they officially met. She hadn't viewed it in a long while. It was amazing to her how much she had lived and forgotten as time continued on, but her mom's memory helped shed light on one small thing. Ron, at one point in his very young life, had an above average use of 'school words'.

"Did he always talk like that when he was younger?"

"Like he watched a lot of the Discovery channel? Actually, yes." Anne chuckled fondly. "Your dad used to enjoy when Ron would launch into a lengthy report right over breakfast. His little leg swinging merrily as he ate, and you nodding your head along with whatever he was saying. It was like he lived to learn and there was no limit to the things he understood. You really loved it when he babbled. He would speak about dinosaurs, dust bunnies, where babies came from. Ah, I think that's one of the reasons why the boys can be so fond of Ron. They heard his voice all the time during the last leg of my pregnancy."

Kim quietly took this revelation into heart. Ron still had a tendency to babble as her mom put it, but it was more...sporadic spewing of whatever emotion he was feeling in the moment. What had changed to make the boy who enjoyed learning about everything into the Ron she now knew today? She had learned a lot, but it didn't explain the here and now. "Thanks mom. I had forgotten about that." She wished she could remember it as vividly as her mother painted it. She had snippets of her time from Pre-K in her mind, but it was small pieces. It kind of made her sad that she couldn't recall something more during that time without aid.

"Oh, anytime, Kim. Ron is really like that third son I didn't have to give birth to."

"Ewww! TMI much!"

Anne laughed, getting up. "It really is almost time for dinner. Freshen up and come down."

"I'll only be a few."

Kim looked at a pic of her and Ron smiling as kids, his arm around her shoulders. She knew what her next objective would be. Checking out Ron's report cards. No big. She hoped.

I'm actually starting to really enjoy writing this piece. As I said last chapter, it started as my own personal agenda, and then I figured posting it would be fine. I know where I'm going with it and how it's going to end, but the lead up is where the adventure takes place. I honestly didn't expect to update this quickly, but I was super giddy realizing that some of you guys wanted more, so I felt a need to provide more. If interest continues, I'll probably try to update within a 4 day radius depending on what I have going on. Thanks again everyone. Until we meet again!