The Price of Being a Hero

Someone once told me that the world is full of brave people. People that do extraordinary things all the time. People that risk their lives for those around them…

"We are gathered here today to celebrate one of our own!"

Selfless people. People who put others before themselves. Honorable, valiant, and courageous people.

But when it's all said and done, that's all they are.

"A young girl… A girl born right here in Middleton!"

Remarkable, yes.

"A girl who…well. Who has made us proud."

Incredible, sure.

"I remember when she was just a wee little thing…"

People who should be given mucho kudos, without a doubt.

"She was -and still is- nothing short of amazing."

But they aren't heroes.

I know it sounds cold, and maybe a little conceited, but it's true. And let's face it, I am conceited. Hell, I'm outright cruel and uncaring when I want to be…

I'd like to think that maybe I'm a little less so now, but there's no denying I was...

"At such a young age… and still such an inspiration to us all…"

Especially to him...

…

I just wish I could have realized it sooner…

I would have been able to apologize to him… Fall down on my knees and just grovel. Beg hm forgiveness for all the hell he went through just to hang out with me.

For all the times I tried to pretend he didn't even exist.

For taking him for granted the way i did...

"Such a selfless and caring person..."

I can't stop the bitter chuckle that escapes my mouth. I was far from selfless...

Anyway, these people are not heroes. As amazing and wonderful as they are, they aren't heroes.

I want to be a hero... Apart from getting to cut class, it's the only reason I stuck with the save the world gig as long as I did... I have wanted to be a hero all my life. I dreamt about it. I wanted everyone to be able to see me and say, "Look! It's her the Hero!!"

...Well maybe not anything that corny sounding, but you get the picture...

"Even in the early days of preschool, she was a little beacon of sunshine. Our ray of hope…"

A heroine to be exact, I guess...

But I'm no hero…I realize that now…

I…did meet someone close to one, though. The closest thing to a real live hero I would ever meet…He was kind of old…well he was old. I did a project on him for U.S. History. He'd served in Vietnam. I remember the interview I did with him pretty clearly. All the interviews you see on TV, the former soldiers are usually pretty well composed. They'd shed a tear or two when they remembered the comrades that fell next to them, but otherwise, they were pretty cool. They told awesome stories and incredible adventures… They were people to be admired…

The man I interviewed…he…didn't really fit the description of a proud veteran. Nor did he fill the profile of a man to be admired. He had a drinking problem, something which he had no problem hiding during our interview. A problem that I can't help but think that was only exacerbated by the fact that his entire right leg had been amputated. I was only so lucky that I didn't think to videotape it. He was a real mess.

He was…incredibly angry during the entire interview. He only sat down for the first thirty seconds of the interview, spending the rest hobbling around the room on his crutches -far too proud to use a wheelchair- ranting and screaming throughout the interview. He spoke about the "g-damned" Vietnamese and Viet-Cong. Cursing everything about them, far too enraged to care about sparing anyone's mother, father, or god.

He yelled and screamed. He heaved and cried. He spoke about how he still heard the screams of both ally and enemy alike…and how he still felt the burning in the scars, left by bullets that had whizzed by his face and came within centimeters from ending his life. He told me about how he still felt the guilt from the people- better people, more noble and worthwhile people with wives and daughters waiting at home for them- who had dived in front of him, taking bullets meant for him. He told me about how he still felt the stones hurled from the hands of his former friends after he had returned home…and the hole in his heart that had never truly been filled after his wife left.

He told me things that I wouldn't have been told in a formal interview, but he didn't care. He told me horror after horror and nightmare after nightmare until sobs replaced his voice and he crumbled to the floor, a broken whelp of a man.

I eventually carried him to his room and tucked him in, though I don't think he would have liked it. He never got the chance to voice his opinion on the matter since he passed himself out crying. I did leave the light on in his room, I guess in an attempt to quell his nightmares. I've never returned.

But I'll never forget what he told me:

"Kid…In spite of all the great things you've done, you don't know shit about being a soldier. Or being a hero. A hero is someone who's given all they can give for someone, but keeps trying to give anyway. And I'm not talking about dying for someone. It's easy to die for someone. You have to live for someone to be a soldier. Or a hero, kid. You have to sacrifice! You haven't given a tenth of what you have to give to be a hero…"

The statement had pissed me off, but I withered the storm anyway. Besides, what did he know about being a hero? I was out there fighting people almost every day to keep his sorry hide comfortable. I was a hero!

Heh…fancy that.

He was right.

I played the hero. It was all a game. A fun game too. Hell, I even had my own bumbling sidekick…

"…The girl has done some much for us over the years. And just recently, she has stopped a calamity that could have very well brought the entire world under one man's insane, tyrannical power."

I closed my eyes. God not that. Any-freakin-thing but that…

I zoned out again, the mayor's excited and elegant voice not standing a chance against the memories that flooded over me.

I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I

BEEP! BEEP!

The alarms continued to blare on, the underwater base very nearly ready to implode on itself.

Ron and I were running for our very live. We had just stopped a nuclear warhead from launching, saving thousands, maybe even millions of lives…

Unfortunately, the number didn't take into account our own.

We were the last two left in the complex, everyone else escaping while Ron and I diffused the bomb.

The plant had come with a fail-safe, however. In the event that the missile didn't fire, for whatever reason, the plant would self destruct, eradicating any possible evidence anyone could have collected against him. It was truly a diabolical plan.

We ran across the catwalks through the facility, getting ever closer to the escape pods…

…I suppose half-ran would be more accurate. I had a terrible limp in my leg. Shego had gotten a lucky with a kick that had all but broken my knee. Ron was helping me limp along the catwalks of the plant, although common sense I'm sure was screaming at him to leave me and go.

Then again, Ron never had any use for common sense.

He was gasping for breath. We both were. Ron wasn't the most athletic person in the world. I know he did some exercises for the sole purpose for being able to keep up with me, but I'm sure that his body every muscle in his body was screaming at him in pain. The closer we got to the pods, the more my knee began to give out. It got to the point where I was slowing us down too much, and Ron had to completely carry me the last one- hundred feet. I felt ashamed and weak, but there was nothing I could do.

I looked into his chocolate brown eyes, and I felt my heart swell…In all our years together, I don't think I ever really thanked him for all he'd done for me. For all the hell he went through just so we could be friends. All the times I had deniedeven being his friend... I buried my head in his chest, partly in shame, mostly in gratitude.

We finally reached the escape pods. Ron set me down right next to the last one before collapsing in exhaustion, his heart pounding and his chest rising and falling at insanely fast intervals.

I turned to activate the escape pod…only to realize that something was wrong. Terribly wrong. As Ron and I climbed into the hatch, we learned that the bay doors wouldn't open. The pod couldn't crash through the plant wall, so the wall had to be opened manually.

Someone had to leave the Pod…

I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I

Tears brimmed in my eyes as I sat on stage at Middleton High Auditorium, this site of our class's graduation.

As soon as Ron had discovered the problem with the pod, he tossed me Rufus and ran out the ship.

I yelled and screamed for him to get back into the pod, but he wouldn't listen…He never did…

The pod shot out of the plant just as the torrents of water rushed in. My face was glued to the window and we pulled away from the plant, but I still remember clear as day the expression in Ron's eyes when the water rushed towards him.

And just like that, Ron was gone.

I told his parents. They cried, I cried, though not nearly as hard. I had let loose most of my tears in the pod, leaving the doomed station.

Perhaps the more depressing thought, was that no one else really cared. There was my family, of course, and then Monique. Wade and Rufus were equally devastated as well. But outside of that…there was no one.

Not even a dedication in the yearbook.

The football team had won the State Championship that year, though. Naturally, they got a full ten pages of coverage.

People tried to in vain to console me. Mostly guys…Actually, it was all guys. Their lines were all strikingly similar, "So sorry about your friend, Ron. Can I buy you lunch?"

I…I actually got suspended for a day when I hurt a guy who had the audacity to get his name wrong…

But I was so furious…and to this day, I still don't feel one tinge of regret…

"Kimberly Anne Possible," the mayor continued, looking at me for the first time during his entire speech. I doubt he ever knew Ron even existed…

I stood, amidst the applause of the high school body and approached the podium, getting ready to accept the award.

He shook my hand and handed me the award, a plaque, taking his sweet time to make sure the photographers from the paper had ample opportunity for a photo-op.

The crowd died down and he spoke one more time, "Kim Possible…You are more than an inspiration to us…you're a Hero…"

The tears I had tried so hard to hold back finally slid down my cheeks as I walked off the stage.

I heard the chatters from the school body as I walked…

"Kim…she's so awesome!"

"Look! She's so happy she's crying!"

"Oh my God. A real live hero right here in our school!"

I put my hand over my mouth as I quickly exited the auditorium to the seclusion of the school hallway. I dropped the plaque on the ground and collapsed against the locker. The my shoulders heaved as the sobs escaped my body.

Then it hit me, in a cold moment of realization, that today was the first time I had ever been called a hero…exactly one week from the day Ron died. My sobs intensified.

I've wanted to be a hero all my life…

I chuckled bitterly through the tears ran down my face.

"And now I am one…" I whispered to myself.

You have to sacrifice to be a hero…

"Ron…"

I hugged my knees tighter to my chest, having no intentions of returning to the graduation ceremony.

"I'd give it all up, I swear..."

And there I spent my first moments as a hero, wishing with all my heart that I was anything but…And silently praying that Ron would forive me...

Since my sacrifice...

Was him.