A/N Alright, I dunno where this idea came from but hey it works! Technically I'm supposed to be working on my Danny Phantom fic but I'm so out of it right now I can't think of a dang thing to write (not to mention this years writing course is zapping my creativity) but I did think of this! Its kinda a little less…wordy then my usual stuff so please, if you have read my stuff before and you read this tell me what you think of it! I might tone down my DP fic. Anyway, I hope you enjoy my angsty goodness!
Oh, BTW, I wrote this in, like, an hour so please don't comment on grammar because I know it sucks and, truthfully, I don't care. If you can read and understand it then its good enough for me. I apologize to all you grammar nuts out there but I prefer plot pickiness for period pickiness and the like! I hope you enjoy it anyway
Disclaimer: I do not own Kim Possible so do not sue.
While you were sleeping
"Um, hey KP long time no see. Sorry I have come to see you much, been busy…I guess you have too, I mean I just got the news and…and I had to see you before…" Running a hand through bedraggled dirty blonde locks, a reedy-bodied man closed his eyes to avoid eye contact with the redhead sitting silent as death. A life long friendship was not preparation enough for this. No past sitch could quite top this, leaving the coolheaded twenty-eight year old with quite a bit more then a nervous tic.
"This isn't easy, good God is this not easy but I've gotta do it, I have to say this before time runs and out and I lose you forever I can't….I can't wonder forever KP, I'm just sorry this took so long in coming. No, don't say anything just listen; it's my turn to talk." Piercing the echoing silence, the sharp metallic scrap of an old, ratty chair placed the furniture piece right beside his best friend, the blank look he received enough of a message to signal continuation. All that could be hoped was some small amount of understanding and acceptance on her part, if only for the mental welfare of the man nervously twiddling his thumbs.
"There's this girl Kim, and I know what you're thinking and your right, I screwed everything up with her, pulling out every stop from loosing my pants to endangering her life. Topping it off I was to damn scared to tell her the truth when she was still able to listen, when it counted most I got cold feet and convinced myself I wasn't worth of her. No matter what you say it's true, a nobody sidekick doesn't deserve better then end of the line." Silent consideration punctuated this, drawn out endlessly until the tall blond paced to avoid the maddening quiet infiltrating ever anxious, panicked nerve. Why was it so hard? why did it have to be so quiet and she so unresponsive? Damn it! He was a coward and fool to come here, talking to a person quiet as a statue and cold as ice, mocking him with every light lift of a thing auburn hair. Fury, cold and harsh, exploded from a well twenty-six years in the making, all the pent up feelings of rejection, of loneliness, of abandonment, of self disgust overflowing. With a crash, an empty chair flew across the room into a wall covered in foul wallpaper roses, the hotel like décor as disgusting as the plainness of the style and blankness of her face. Fists clenched, teeth grinding against each other, Ron counted haltingly to ten as the anger boiled just beneath the freckle peppered surface.
"Damnit all KP! Look at me, open you eyes! I know what you're thinking, that I'm such a loser for not saying it! For not telling her! You always thought I was a loser, always ditching me, ignoring me, and look where it got us! I'm not like you Kim, I can't be like you and damnit you've got to realize it! You always got your man, catching the hearts of unsuspecting victims in a tantalizing web and its not fair because half of them were low on the food chain, not worth a star cheerleaders time of day. How many hearts did you crush? How many hopes did you dash during your rein of cosmetic dating and self-image obsessed boyfriends? Never once did you look at what was right in front of you!" Collapsing once again, the blonde's head fell into his hands in an attempt to keep a grip on some semblance of sanity even if it derived inwardly. Everything was so wrong, this place, this situation, these words. And the fucking blank look! Sighing and trying to drain the anger out, understanding that nothing would hurt more then knowing this would be how she remembered him. Yelling would only destroy the already stretched friendship beyond repair, something he would go to the grave regretting.
"I'm not asking for advice, though that's what it seems, just answers to questions I've been to scared to ask." Pausing for thought, honey eyes looked up to scan the familiar face, pain screwing up the usually calm features as old ones tore open at the sight of the dark bags and pale, grayish skin. Ten years, so short a time and yet long enough for so much to go wrong and so much pain to manifest. "How do you do it KP? How do you capture so many hearts and turn them all down without breaking them irrevocably? Yes, some were broken…especially this one boy's. Oh, such love he had for and you, even with eyes that can spot a plot miles away, were to blind to see it, dazzled by all the diamonds and not the diamond in the ruff. Sometimes I think that snobbishness was your social downfall. Not like it matters now thought.'
"What a pair we've made over the years KP, you to blind to see the great guy with in an arms breath and me to cowardly to take the girl I loved into my arms. No wonder this friendship has outlasted the ages, it seems that idiocy is a selling point in relationships, because foolishness certainly ingrained itself into ours." Slim and easy, a hand possessing five cold fingers found its way into Ron's warm, calloused palm bearing a heavy load of memories intertwined with those slight digits. Everything about the woman's scent to the fiery mass of red hair brought back past events long gone and short in passing, good and bad.
"I did love you Kim; going the rest of my life without saying was not an option and I only say it now because, well, it won't make a difference tomorrow save for in my own conscience." His chocolate eyes settled firmly on the spidery lines spreading out across her face, a testament of how much time had truly passed. It seemed like only yesterday they were sixteen, fighting pathetic villains with idealistic views of right and wrong without sparing a glance at the future. Times like that were precious, sometimes reveling in it made old pains ache just that much less and eased the taut scars embedded deep in his chest. Thinking about how this would be the last time they would ever see each other, ever speak was more overwhelming the Ron would give credit to. Things between them were not supposed to end so suddenly, so violently, if only….
"Your mom called me, she'd really great you know telling me and all I'm…I'm glad she did, if I had walked in here to find you gone…." How Ron longed to see those emerald eyes one more time, to see the sparkle of adventure and determination once again pouring from their depths, from their owners heart. A whoosh of air went through the iron lung and the sluggish, steady beep of a hear monitor reminded him of a slowly dying clock, its tick growing longer between each second until at last it gave out. What bothered him the most wasn't the tubes and wire filling every orifice and pore, nor the machines keeping her tied to the mortal world, but the weak way in which the greatest teen hero was going out. Hardly a fitting death for Kim Possible but then her motto was always braggy.
"Their unplugging you tomorrow Kim, you'll finally be free of this hell…I know you wouldn't want all of this just to keep you alive, not if it kept you from living life the way you would want. It just took everyone a little time to accept it, to realize you were never coming back…to move on from the pain." Was this wrong telling his dying best friend the real reason for his ten-year absence? This was Kim, she would listen comatose or no, and where ever she was Ron hoped she could be happy for him no matter how much it hurt him to admit it.
"Seeing you, still as death with all these wires attached…you must understand how difficult that is! I couldn't come back Kim, I just couldn't face the heartbreaking reality of it all, that the accident was my fault, I almost…Kim I almost joined you a lot sooner then anyone liked. Nothing we'd ever done…Drakken never acted so cruelly and if I had only moved a little faster…I'm sorry KP" Glittering in the afternoon sun pouring through the open windows, fat tears welled up and poured down his paled cheeks, hand clutching his friends tightly as though willing her to stay tied to him. Nothing lasted forever, reality got in the way. The concepts violent strike nearly cost Ron his life at his own hands…looking back, the blond knew that apology was to long in coming, that having said it right after the fact could have said those most important to him a lot of grief. Luckily, not everyone turned a blind eye to pain like KP had.
"You're my best friend, I should have been there to protect you like you always had me," the words came out strangled, grief lacing the already pained words, as tears fell onto their intertwined hands. "I failed you KP, I swore I never would and I. My blunder cost you your life. No amount of apologizing can replace what you've lost but…but I'm continuing where you left off with my…with my…." It never came so difficultly as now, the word lodged deep in his throat as though by saying it he would kill her. Driving down the sickening feeling of guilt gnawing at his innards, Ron sucked it up and said the word as proudly as he could, feeling no regret for it except maybe that he spoken to KP of sooner.
"With my wife." Their, the word came, easily and fluidly once the first syllable allowed itself leave from his vocal cords. Picturing that look of shock that should have taken residency on Kim's face, Ron laughed.
"Yes KP, I'm married. Shocking isn't it? I hope you can be happy for me even if…." A soft sigh escaped him, echoing among the silence and occasional beep of a machine. "I did love you Kim, more then anything in the world but…to live my life mourning something out of reach…I know that wouldn't be something you would wish on me. You would want me to fall in love with someone possessing a love of wrestling, nacos and naked mole rats, a woman with such a pure heart that she could understand what was between us and accept my need to continue our fight." Laughing softly, a feeling of closure swept through the tense body, releasing it and preparing the previously splintered heart for the next step. Kim could not rest in piece and leaving Ron with the closure to move fully from the past and launch head first into the bright future waiting just ahead.
"Lucky for me I found her Kim, a girl I almost passed over in my blind love for you; if ever there was a shadowed hero it was her, the girl behind the scene who back up both up and never took the praise for it. It took her removing a gun from my hand and easing the truth out of me for the realization of how much a part of me she was to hit."
"Ron?" A loud mouth, somber voice meekly rang out from outside the door and without having to even look Ron pictured the emotions chasing through the African American woman's face. Concern, hesitancy, love…strange how well you learned another person after seven years. Brown eyes met black as the blond turned toward the door and saw the bushy hair and dark eyes of his friend, his love, his wife staring at him with such intensity he just had to smile. Visibly relaxing at her husbands' goofy grin, a sad smile touched her lips and, almost regretfully, she said,
"Time to go Ron, visiting hours are over but Dr Possible says…she says we can come tomorrow if-if we want."
"I'll be there in a minute Mon," A soft cry broke the air in the hall and an exasperated look of exhaustion masked the feminine features of his wife's face.
"Well hurry your butt up, Kimmie misses her daddy and lord knows I can't quiet her down when she's like that!" A brief head nod was his response before she disappeared to tend to their daughter. Studying the peacefully sleeping face one last time, the man leaned over and placed a lengthy kiss on the cold forehead, the slightly worn skin beneath his lips no longer as appeasing as that of his wife's.
"She'll hear all about her Aunt Kim and all the adventures she had and maybe someday she'll be Kim Stoppable, following in her families footsteps and doing what's right. Monique and I will make sure she knows you, even if you'll never know her…we won't let you be forgotten KP." The whisper was soft against her skin, the end to a long friendship far harder then the beginning so long ago.
Monique always asked if he wished he could go back and stop what happened, change that future in someway so that Kim could still be alive. For along time the idea plagued him, would he trade what he had for Kim? To this point he had never had an answer, the implications to difficult and unimportant to suffer the emotional conflict it would inflict within his breast.
Hand on the doorknob, Ron paused and closed his eyes.
"I love you Kim and I hope you'll forgive me. Not for putting you in this bed," he paused and looked back briefly "But for not trading Monique and Kimmie for you." The door shut with a click, leaving the blond to face what would be with a smile and the baggage of nasty, painful memories. Seeing her husband lost in what looked like painful thought, Monique laid a tentative hand on his shoulder.
"Ron?" Strong male hand lifted a very young infant and cradled it, a soft pair of lips kissing his wife's dark lips with all the love he could muster; this was what Kim would want him to choose, life over death, new beginnings over false hopes.
'So much happened while you were sleeping KP, but I know that, where ever you are, you wouldn't have it any other way.' Looking at his family with a smile, gazed lovingly into Monique's dark eyes and murmured.
"Lets go home."