Ron Stoppable awoke with a jerk, his eyes widening and his chest heaving as he strained to fill his lungs with air. He gasped, coughing and heaving as his stomach convulsed. He curled into a fetal ball, barely noticing the rough texture of the blanket lying beneath his cheek. When his breathing slowed, and approached a semblance of normality, his muscles relaxed, and he slumped flat onto his back, panting as he stared up at a ceiling that he knew he had never seen before, but seemed weirdly familiar.
"Where am I?" Ron wondered, blinking in surprise. Above him was a featureless grey slab with a recessed light fixture that could only be described as institutional - and secure.
With a muffled groan as his head throbbed dully with pain, Ron tilted his head to the side. "I'm in jail?" Ron thought in wonder, "Wait... why doesn't that surprise me?"
Trying not to move his head much, Ron lowered his eyes, looking down the length of his body. His feet were elevated, and as a result, he had a good view of the high visibility orange jumpsuit he was wearing. "I can't believe I'm goin' commando... How'd I know that?" he wondered, his mind awhirl with confusion.
He turned his head, resting his cheek on the blanket again and tried to examine his surroundings without irritating his headache. The cell was plain - bare concrete and steel, painted a grimly monotonous shade of grey on walls, roof, and floor. Three of the walls were featureless concrete, with the wall above his head as he lay on the cot a crosshatching arrangement of thick steel bars. It smelled vaguely of old urine and bleach, particularly from the direction of the lidless, seatless, stainless steel toilet that graced one corner. The small room was clean, but still had as a general atmosphere a sickly miasmic conglomeration he could only describe as "depression" that lingered as a legacy of the many previous tenants. The cot he lay on boasted recently laundered sheets, but the blanket he could see from the corner of his eye as he gazed across the narrow expanse of his room was fading and grey - barely darker than the walls of the cell. "Whoa... Major deja vu."
"I'm not manacled to the wall," he noted, his head aching as he wondered if that was a good thing or not. He tried to remember what he was doing here - or how he'd gotten here, or... Well, much of anything else; his mind was sort of hazy, and details were sparse, but an occasional mental image rose before his mind's eye as he sought enlightenment for his current condition.
"We swam to the base..." he remembered, closing his eyes to help him focus and ease his head. "Gemini hit the self-destruct..." Red light. "Yes... I remember those..." Blank wall. "We were blocked..." Pod. One. K.P. "She's safe... and so is Rufus... Good..." He found that thought comforting. And then... "Running..."
Ron winced, as a throbbing pain lanced from his temples through his head like a pair of icepicks. A faint, barely audible whimper escaped through his clenched teeth. "Maybe I'll think about that... later."
Foregoing his mental excursion, Ron simply lay on the bed, inverted from the normal position, (with his head turned closest to his cell door, and his feet resting atop the cot's pillow) and stared down his orange-clad body at the undecorated wall above his feet. "This is thoroughly freaky," he mused, closing his eyes.
"Up and at 'em," a voice called. Ron blinked, opening his eyes, but didn't move from his prone position.
The sound of rusting hinges squealing as metal was drawn across metal scraped at Ron's ears as the door to his cell swung open. He winced, but the assault on his hearing was mercifully brief, and his instinctive move to shield his ears halted before his arms had done more than twitch.
"Now's when I need to move, huh?" Ron thought. Swinging his legs over the edge of the cot, Ron rose unsteadily to his feet, wincing at the stab of pain emanating from the back of his skull as the cool cement underfoot leached heat from his toes. He turned to face the door to his cell while scratching at an itch on the back of his neck, directly above the point of the greatest pain, trying to ready himself to confront whoever had imprisoned him, despite his poor condition.
"RON!"
Ron blinked, but before he could think or move, he was engulfed by a redhead. He staggered back a pace as she encircled his ribs with a hug that seemed powerful enough to shatter them if she exerted even the slightest additional pressure.
Ron froze, his back stiffening and his breath beginning to come in short panting exhalations as blind, unreasoning panic and fear began to overtake him. "No, no, no, no, no..."
Kim pulled back from the embrace as Ron froze, stiffening unnaturally. Her brow creased in confusion as she watched the blood drain from his face as he turned to stare at... "The toilet?" she wondered silently.
She chuckled, her relief at finding him ("He's alive! Alive!" a tiny voice crowed triumphantly in her mind) so complete and overwhelming that she could forgive him anything at this moment. "Want us to come back in a few minutes?" she asked, gesturing with her head to the facilities as she smirked at him.
But Ron didn't move or respond to the joke. He simply continued to grow progressively more pale and stiff. She touched his arm, but he didn't react.
Kim took Ron's face between her palms as she forcibly turned his gaze from the toilet to meet hers. His eyes were unfocused, staring through her as if she wasn't there - or as if he wasn't. She snapped her fingers in front of his eyes, then waved her hand before him, but he didn't react to either.
"What's wrong with him?" she demanded, turning away from her catatonic partner.
Her police escort looked at each other in confusion. The guard answered for them, "We think he's been sleeping off a bender. Like I said, he's mostly just been asleep."
"K.P.?" Ron's sudden whisper in the total silence was breathy, almost inaudible.
"Ron?" Kim asked, hopefully, moving close to him to look into his eyes. Their usual warm chocolate color was subdued and muted, but at least his pupils were slowly returning to a more normal size, rather than being fully blown.
"You're really here... I thought you were dead... I thought I killed you," he whispered, all but silently.
Tears filled Kim's eyes, and she impatiently brushed them away with the back of a gloved hand. "No. You saved me, Ron. You saved me. Everything's fine. You ready to come home, hero?"
"But I..." he stammered, his face slowly regaining a bit of the color and animation he had lost as his mind partially returned from wherever it had retreated when she'd greeted him. "What happened?" he asked.
"It doesn't matter," Kim told him firmly. "C'mon, let's get going." She tugged his arm and led him past the boggled knot of guards who'd watched the reunion with wide eyes and curious expressions. Ron didn't resist her, but neither did he make an effort to move without her compulsion.
Kim stopped in the prison corridor, disconcerted by his continued fugue. "It's like he's sleepwalking or something. Why isn't he waking up?" But then a sudden thought brought a quick smile to her face. "I know someone else who'll be happy to see you," she told him, ignoring the lack of response to her comment - it just reinforced the need.
Reaching into her pocket, Kim drew out a small pink lump. As her fingers curved around him, Rufus slowly stretched, rising to his full length perched atop Kim's palm. He scratched his belly, yawned, belched, then noticed Ron.
"Ron!" Rufus screeched, loud enough and clearly enough that the trailing policemen actually heard him. They looked at each other, trying to figure out if they'd really just heard the rat talk, then just shook their heads in bemusement.
Rufus leaped from Kim's palm and ran across the cement floor. He climbed atop Ron's bare foot, slipped into the leg of his jumpsuit, and began to climb.
Ron began to unconsciously giggle and squirm, blinking all the while, until the naked mole rat popped from out of the neck of his jumpsuit. Rufus spread himself out and hugged Ron's throat powerfully with all four limbs plus his tail, chittering and frantically pouring out a stream of words that Ron couldn't really understand, but he could tell were heartfelt. His meaning and intent were clear enough that he didn't need to understand them.
"Rufus," Ron breathed. His hands lifted and wrapped themselves around the little pink animal that had attached himself to Ron's neck, and gently squeezed, hugging his whole body.
Ron had felt confused, out of sorts, thoroughly weird, and like he was trapped in a dream even though he thought he was awake - and unsure which was worse: the reality or the dream. But in the midst of his confusion and uncertainty, Rufus was like a breath of fresh air washing away the funk that had encompassed him, leading him back to full wakefulness and awareness of himself.
Rufus was real; his warmth on Ron's neck was undeniable. His high-pitched words, tiny claws, and the emotional overload he was generating grounded Ron like not even Kim's presence had. What it said about him that his lifeline to sanity was a naked mole rat, he neither knew nor cared; it worked, and that was what was important. They clung together in the prison hallway, dancing and laughing in relief and the simple joy of being alive, and reunited.
"I hear you buddy," Ron answered his pet's glad ranting. "I hear you."
"Stinky," Rufus noted, but didn't let up on his grip, rubbing his bald head against the underside of Ron's jaw.
"I know," Ron chuckled, "I do smell pretty bad, don't I?"
He looked up from his pet's eyes, and met Kim's shining green ones as she watched the reunion - and Ron's returning awareness of self - with happiness. "Hi there, Kimmeleh. You look terrible. Have you tried getting some sleep? I hear it's good for you."
Kim laughed and hugged both Rufus and Ron, and everything felt right again. "Good to have you back, hero," she breathed in his ear.
She took him by the hand, and led him off again. But this time was different; this time he walked with her, rather than being pulled by her, and it was like the difference between night and day, and all was right with Kim's world once more.
Agent Kendall watched Kim lead the prisoner in his orange jumpsuit out of the depths of the station. She noted Kim's grip on his hand, and the ecstatic naked mole rat perched on his shoulder and nodded at two of the signs Dr. Director's covert instructions had told her to watch for.
The boggled escorts that Kim had followed into the jail were now following Kim as she led the strange procession. They shrugged at the odd looks on the other policemen's faces. They were as mystified by the strange behavior as the others were.
Kendall nodded to herself, and drew the last piece of paper from within her armor. "Sorry about this captain," she repeated, a regretful smile on her face. "Orders."
"Hmm," the captain frowned as he took the paper. "You couldn't have given this to me earlier?"
"This one was situational," she explained. "We needed - and need - to verify that the prisoner is who we think he is."
"A gag order?" the captain read, then looked up as his eyebrows shot up towards his receding hair line. "Why?"
"It's only a short term one," Kendall soothed. "I think Dr. Director wants to tell the family personally."
"Oh." He visibly considered that, then shrugged, accepting the reasoning. "That's alright then. Frankly, I don't think we'll be able to keep it quiet for long, even with this," he waved the paper in emphasis. "It's obvious Miss Possible knows him, so that's going to cause talk. Too many people, too much interest - too much weirdness - in this whole thing to keep it quiet."
"I know," Kendall acknowledged the point tiredly with a rueful shrug. "But like I said, it doesn't have to be for long."
"Good enough," the captain nodded his understanding and acceptance having voiced his protests, then shook her hand as he rose to his feet. "Have a nice flight, Agent Kendall. It's been... interesting."
"That it has," she admitted, then thanked the sergeant who had approached as he somewhat surreptitiously handed her a videotape. "And thank you."
Ron sighed as he sank down into the plush comfort of the GJ hoverjet's passenger seat. "This feels almost too good."
"Strap yourselves in," Agent Kendall ordered from the front of the craft. "We're taking off."
Kim and Ron obeyed, clicking the harness into place. Rufus tucked himself inside Ron's jumpsuit, snuggling down into the shoulder area and stretched himself out, keeping as much of his body in contact with Ron as he could. Ron grinned down into the gap in the neck of his jumpsuit at him. "All set?"
"Whoa-kay," Rufus acknowledged sleepily.
Once they were ready for liftoff, Kim stripped off her gloves, grabbed Ron's hand in hers and held it tightly. As the engines whined, she abruptly leaned back in her seat, and fell instantly asleep, his hand still clasped in hers.
Ron smiled as she slumped against her headrest and tried to free his hand, but her grip held fast. As the hoverjet flew into the west, Ron tried to put a little more effort into it, but Kim just mumbled unhappily and tightened her hold. As the aircraft settled in at cruising altitude, Ron sighed and finally gave in, letting her keep hold of him, no matter how uncomfortable the requisite position made her look.
"She looks tired," he sighed, leaning back in the chair. Ahead of him, the pilot had settled in, crossing her arms across her chest, and looking distinctly uninviting as a conversational partner.
Ron didn't want to sleep - what little he could remember of his dreams made him glad he didn't remember more - but with the cabin lights low, the view outside the windows shrouded in darkness, and no one to talk too, he doubted he'd have much choice. "Or maybe not," he realized, looking down at Kim's leg.
Ron awkwardly reached over towards Kim, trying not to disturb Rufus or Kim as he did so. For a second he froze, still reaching across the aisle, having the odd feeling that he was being watched, but Kim was asleep, and the pilot - whose name eluded him ("Did we get introduced?" he wondered) - was looking out the front window.
Agent Kendall's eyes watched every move Ron made in the technicolor display of her sunglasses. The feed from a hidden camera in the roof of the craft let her watch every move he made, every breath he took, despite the dim lighting and her seeming inattention.
As Ron reached for Kim, unobtrusively, her fingers twitched minisculely closer to the butt of her sidearm - a cold steel revolver, not the fancy ray gun or stunner she usually carried on missions, but a simple killing tool designed to stop a human - or human-like simulacra - and put him, her, or it, down hard and fast. "What are you doing?" she asked him silently, watching for the slightest indication of harmful intent on Ron's part as Kim slept happily and innocently beside him.
After a moment's pause, Ron resumed his motion. "I'm just feeling twitchy," he reassured himself. He reached across the small gap between the seats and pulled the Kimmunicator from the side pocket of Kim's cargo pants.
Kendall slowly released a tensed breath, and relaxed the tension in her forearm, letting her fingers fall slack. Ron leaned back in his seat and lifted the Kimmunicator with his unoccupied hand.
Unaware of his watcher, Ron pushed a button on the front of the Kimmunicator.
"Sorry, Kim, no new..." Wade trailed off as he stared disbelieving into his monitor. "Ron!" he yelled.
Shaking his head frantically, Ron tried to quiet the surprised youth. "Shh... Kim's asleep."
"I can't believe it," Wade breathed, staring in open disbelief at the teen he had honestly believed was dead - dead and unrecoverable at the bottom of the ocean. "She found you! I thought you were dead!" His expression shifted from disbelief, to shock, then to happiness and surprise as he continued to stare at Ron, and he realized it wasn't a mistake or a dream.
"Apparently I was in Florida," Ron shrugged. "Go figure."
"How'd you get to Florida?" Wade demanded, his expression shifting minutely. "You were in the South Pacific." He began to type furiously on a keyboard, and suddenly the Kimmunicator erupted with a thin red beam that flashed around the cabin, running over anything and everything in a dazzling display of optical confusion.
Blinking, momentarily dazzled by the display, Ron asked, "What was that?"
"Oh, nothing," Wade smirked, as he began compiling the scan's data and searching for discrepancies.
"Okay," Ron shrugged, dismissing it as unimportant. "Whatever. Anyway, I'm glad I didn't wake you."
Wade's smirk shifted into a smile as Ron didn't question what he was told. "That sounds like Ron." "Are you okay?" he asked.
"I guess," Ron explained hesitantly, glancing over at Kim, then to the silent and seemingly inattentive pilot before continuing. "I just feel... strange."
Glancing away from the scan analysis, Wade asked, "Strange how."
"I don't know," Ron admitted. "Diffreaky, confrazzled, crazoggled, awkweird... all at once, you know?"
"Not really. Have you been hanging around Jim and Tim a lot lately? You're not exactly speaking proper English at the moment you know."
"Hoo-sha," Ron grinned, but the moment of humor quickly faded, and his grin disappeared with it. "I know, but I'm feeling... weird. But I can't really explain it, and nothing really seems to describe what I'm feeling. It just... is."
"Maybe you need sleep," Wade counseled, running a data miner routine before sending a subharmonic pulse through the Kimmunicator's dataport, and gathering the returns.
Shaking his head, Ron nixed that idea. "No way. I had some way freaky dreams." He paled as the feeling that had overtaken him in his cell when Kim hugged him began to return, but he quickly shook his head, concentrating on Kim's grip on his hand, and Rufus' warm, comforting weight on his shoulder. "I dunno if I ever want to sleep again."
The Kimmunicator sprouted a telescoping probe that patted him on the cheek comfortingly - and incidentally collected a genetic sample for analysis. "It'll be okay, Ron," Wade consoled him. "We just have to figure out what happened."
Ron winced as a stab of pain greeted the thought. "Maybe later," he gritted. "It gives me a headache to even think about it."
"Seriously? That is weird."
"Yeah," Ron gritted through the pain, before sighing as it began to diminish. He glanced over at Kim, still deep in sleep, and still holding onto him.
"What is it?" Wade asked.
"Kim's acting weird too. She's all... touchy. She won't let go of my hand."
Wade paused to compose his thoughts. All the scans agreed that this was Ron. No matter how impossible - or implausible - it was, he was there, alive, and had somehow managed to make it to the other side of the planet when by all rational thought he should have been long since dead on the bottom of the sea. "She thought you were dead," Wade began slowly. "I did too. We thought... well, it was bad, Ron." he finished simply.
A memory of thinking Kim was dead, and knowing both that he had done it, and had enjoyed doing it began to surface in Ron's thoughts. He closed his eyes and desperately told himself, "She's alive. I didn't do it. it's not real... it's not real... it's not real..." "it's not real... it's not real... it's not real..."
"Ron?" Wade asked worriedly.
"Majorly freaky dream," Ron panted, shaking his head and flinging a few droplets of sweat from his brow. "I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to even think about it."
A beep from beside Wade announced the completion of a processing routine. He opened a window on his console, and checked the display. "Genetic match: 100 - Identity confirmed."
Grinning in profound relief, Wade let himself sink back in his chair. Figuring out the how could wait; he had proved to his own satisfaction that this was really Ron, and the sheer joy and gratitude (to GJ, God, Kim, the universe in general or all of the above) for finding him alive was nearly overwhelming.
"So, if you don't want to talk about it, what did you want to talk about?" Wade asked, grinning as he leaned back in his chair.
"I dunno. Something. Anything. Keep me awake?" Ron pleaded.
"I can stream your homework," Wade suggested.
"I said keep me awake," Ron retorted. Then he began to laugh, and it felt good and normal as Wade joined in, and it banished some of the weirdness.
Despite the quiet conversation going on behind her, and the obvious acceptance that Ron Stoppable's closest acquaintances showed, Agent Kendall continued to monitor her prisoner closely. Team Possible - all of them - were young, and to an extent, naïve. This was in most things a benefit for them, but it also left them vulnerable to manipulation by unscrupulous and amoral individuals - and there were far too many of those in the world for anyone to sleep comfortably.
Dr. Director was neither young, nor naïve. Neither was Kendall.
Agent Kendall suspected that the possibilities inherent in the current situation that Dr. Director had shared during the briefing on the changed mission reflected only a fraction of the possibilities GJ's head had to consider. Even the few most likely ones that she had shared had been horrific in their implications, and those might be only the tip of the iceberg. Kendall settled in for the remainder of the flight, prepared to act at a moment's notice, and watchful lest an unfortunate necessity be required.
Ron and Wade continued to chat while Kim slept the sleep of the just and the innocent.
And Agent Kendall was prepared to kill to keep her that way.
As they neared the outer marker for the Middleton airport, Agent Kendall cleared her throat. "We're approaching Middleton," she announced. "Could you wake Kim, please?"
"Sure," Ron answered, looking up from the game of Fortress he was playing one handed on the Kimmunicator. He hit pause, and slipped the machine into a pocket.
"Kim," Ron whispered. "Kim," he said a little louder. "Kim!"
Kim shifted, but didn't move.
"Kimberly Anne Possible," Ron deepened his voice into an imitation of her father - a bad one, but recognizable in the attempt. "What's this charge on my credit card statement?"
"It was a sale at Club Banana," Kim shot upright, blinking wildly, "I had to..." she trailed off, her forehead knotting in anger, "Ron," she breathed, then the moment of anger warred with her relief that he was here - and alive - and the relief was easily the victor. "Ron," she sighed happily, the wrinkles in her forehead melting away. "It wasn't a dream. You're okay..."
"Yep," Ron grinned, feeling much better after talking to Wade for hours, playing some video games, and being held by both Kim and Rufus. "And we're nearly home."
Kim yawned widely, belatedly trying to cover her mouth mid- yawn with a hand, only to bring Ron's along with hers.
Ron grinned good-humoredly as she pulled him half out of his seat. "Nice one, K.P. - but I think you might need a filling in back."
"Cute," Kim grinned lopsidedly, and rested his hand against her cheek. To her surprise, Ron blanched, and she lowered the hand in surprise. "What?"
"Nothing," he smiled and tried to dismiss the weird moment, but he still looked wild-eyed.
"Hmm," Kim frowned, but couldn't maintain either the suspicion or sense of caution in the face of the overwhelming relief that filled her to the point of giddiness. She smiled, and Ron gratefully smiled back, happy that she'd let the matter drop.
The hoverjet set down carefully on a helicopter landing pad at the Middleton airport. As Kim and Ron looked out the windows, they were surprised to see a cordon of Global Justice agents surrounding the area - agents armed with the glowing blue shock sticks they were more accustomed to seeing in the hands of Drakken's and Dementor's henchmen. Outside the cordon, a few news vans and reporters were gathered, aiming cameras at the aircraft as it landed.
Rather than powering down atop the large "H" that had been the center of the landing zone, the hoverjet levitated slowly across the tarmac. The plane continued until it entered a giant hanger whose doors opened just before they arrived, and closed immediately after they'd entered. Unseen behind them, the cordon of agents shifted to enclose the hanger, and keep the press far away.
Still hand in hand, Kim and Ron disembarked from the aircraft, and into a blindingly bright light. They paused at the end of the ramp, shielding their eyes with their unoccupied hands. Without warning, Ron abruptly dropped out of sight as the ground beneath his feet opened up.
Ron yelped as his hand was yanked from Kim's and he was engulfed in darkness.
"RON!"
