Kim Possible was a very orderly person: her homework was always turned in on time; the cheerleading squad that she captained ran like clockwork; the committees and extracurriculars that she volunteered for were organized and smooth-running; and her missions were systematic, well-planned, and efficient.

Of course, there were times when she was forced to improvise. Especially in her missions, but not just. This was because she was not just an orderly person, but a very busy one. Some things were missed as she hurried to the next thing on her agenda.

For example: although she took her birth-control pills as surely and regularly as she brushed her hair and teeth in the morning (and, indeed, at the same time), she'd been too busy over the past few days to pay attention to which pills she was taking. She'd just popped the next one out of the package, took it, and ran out the door to her first appointment or her next mission. Usually, that wouldn't have been a problem. But she was halfway through the green sugar pills that made up the final week of the cycle, and she hadn't even thought about what that meant.

In fact, she didn't think about what that meant until the first cramp struck her during third period math. It was only then that she realized that the Dreaded First Day was upon her, and all she had was a few panty liners. What was worse, she had a yearbook meeting between the time school let out at 2:30 and cheerleading practice began at 3:10.

Time to improvise.

Improvisation

"I need you to go right after school," She said, handing Ron a piece of paper. "And get these. Accept no substitutes. If you can't get option one, I have a two and a three on there for you." She handed him a few bills. "This should cover it."

Ron knew better than to ask if such choosiness was really necessary. Instead, he asked: "Don't they have these in the Ladies' Rooms?"

Kim made a face. "Or, I could just fold up a piece of sandpaper from the Shop classroom until it's the right size and stick that in my pants instead."

"That uncomfortable?"

"And only slightly more absorbent. I swear, it goes beyond bulk-rate cheapness. I think they might've done actual market research to get the worst pads possible, to encourage us to make sure we bring our own."

"Evil that even Drakken wouldn't dare."

"I can survive the sandpaper pads if I have to – if I'm not moving around much – but I can't cheerlead like that. So please get back here before practice."

2:45 PM

"Up there, Rufus. On the top shelf. No wonder Kim is such a good jumper…"

Crash! Thumpthumpthumpthumpthump!

"Avalanche! Run, Rufus!"

3:00 PM

Kim stood in the gym, outside the door of the Girls' locker room, fidgeting uncomfortably. In five minutes, she'd have to go into the locker room, change, and just cope with a practice worth of the sandpaper pads.

Like she needed that (literal) pain in the ass on the Dreaded First Day.

"Come on, Ron," She muttered desperately. "Get here, get here, get here!"

Almost as if answering her summons, Ron entered the gym.

She felt a moment's twinge of anxiety. In her desperation for him to get there, she'd forgotten his usual manner of entering…well, anywhere. Fortunately, he didn't come running, shouting, and waving his arms (and their contents) this time. She breathed a sigh of relief as he started to cross the gym quietly and directly, her package carried like a football under his arm.

Two mistakes and a bit of bad luck undid them.

His first mistake was to enter the gym by the nearest door to where he'd parked his scooter. That was the door by the Boys' Locker Room, so he was forced to cross the whole gym, walking past the boys' teams, on his way to Kim.

His second mistake was to carry the package under the arm that was toward them.

The two mistakes would have meant nothing, if it weren't for the bad luck:

Darren Edwards.

Darren Edwards was a recent arrival in Middleton, and he was a male version of Bonnie Rockwaller: amazingly nasty, yet absolutely gorgeous (in point of fact, he looked like a dark-haired rogue from the cover of a romance novel), and somehow charismatic enough to attract a following. He wasn't on any of the teams; he just happened to be in the gym that afternoon, holding court. That was part of the bad luck. The other part was his uncanny ability – much like Bonnie's – to sense vulnerability. Although he had a cheerleader (Barbara Lawrence) on his knee and several others gathered 'round (along with a member or two each of the field hockey and girls' soccer teams, not to mention the male members of his posse), he noticed Ron walking by, noticed the package Ron was carrying (even though it was wrapped in a bag from the drug store – the thin plastic concealed little), and started making whipping sounds. His posse quickly joined in, followed shortly by most of the football team.

To Brick's credit, he didn't join in the Ron-mocking. In fact, his face was creased with one of his rare true frowns. He could tell that what the other guys were doing was wrong, but he couldn't quite figure out what to do about it. Josh Mankey, there to visit Tara before practice, wore a similar frown. Josh was much smarter than Brick, but some things were just plain hard to figure out.

Kim hurried across the floor to meet Ron halfway. Since their attempt at discretion had failed, she wasn't going to leave him standing out there alone.

She was too late, however; just as she started to move, Darren said the exact thing she'd been trying to prevent: "Hey, look, it's Possible's Pet! Go on, puppy, go fetch!" He whistled a few times, as if calling a dog. The members of his posse roared with laughter.

Brick finally figured out what to do. "Dude," he protested. "Not cool."

No one seemed to notice.

Ron was blushing fiercely when Kim met him, but still smiling as brightly as ever. "Here you go, KP," He said, holding out the package.

"Thank you," she said, taking it from him. Her voice was a deep sigh of relief and gratitude. Like him, she tried to act like nothing unusual was going on.

"Hey, thank Rufus. He risked his life for those."

"Risked his life?" She quirked an eyebrow at him, then Rufus. "These aren't especially dangerous, Ron."

"Hey, snow is light and fluffy, too. Still doesn't feel good when a whole mountain of it falls on you."

"Nnn-yeah," Rufus agreed.

"Aw, poor Rufus," Kim cooed, reaching down to pet the mole rat. "Thank you."

Rufus chattered happily at the attention, then said "Welcome!"

"She's stroking his naked pink trouser mouse!" Darren crowed.

Louder laughter, but less of it.

"Dude!" Brick protested, more strongly this time.

"Hey!" Josh added.

Darren ignored them. "Now that's a sign of gratitude," he finished.

The male members of his posse roared their approval of his wit. The members of his harem, however, didn't seem to think it was funny anymore. Most of the boys who had been making whipping sounds continued to do so, though some were starting to notice how Brick was glaring at them. Brick…and the cheer squad.

Kim, had just about had enough. She briefly considered kicking some Edwards Ass, but that would probably cause just as much damage to her permanent record as kicking Bonnie Biscuit. Instead, she grabbed Ron just as he was starting to turn away and "Well, I guess I'd better let you get to – "

Pulled him in close.

And kissed him.

Not the grateful, affectionate peck that she would have given him otherwise.

No, this was a kiss that broke every PDA rule ever written. In any school. In the world.

It was a kiss that would have forced Mr. Barkin to expel them if he'd been present…after he recovered from his heart attack.

It was a kiss that promised him vast rewards for a deed that she apparently considered more heroic than the times he'd saved her life and/or the world.

Most importantly, it was a kiss that shut up every single member of the peanut gallery, and maybe even got them wondering if they would receive similar rewards from their girlfriends for something that was really such a small thing…

Well, it shut nearly every single one of them up.

"Please! Could you get more pathetic? She's leading him around by his dick, even though he knows he's not even getting a knuckle in until next week!"

Okay, her permanent record could survive the damage.

But before Kim could move, Barbara Lawrence did. She swatted Darren's broad chest, got up sharply, said: "Neither are you," and stalked over to where the rest of the cheer squad stood.

"OooOOoohhh!" Suddenly Darren found the smirks and the laughter were turned toward him, and he didn't like it.

A wiser man would have left. Even storming off, muttering under his breath about how women always have to make a scene, would have been better than what Darren Edwards then chose to do. He didn't quite realize that, with the twin take-no-shit examples of Kim Possible, the Hero, and Bonnie Rockwaller, the Bitch Queen, the women – and especially the cheer squad – of Middleton High weren't quite what he might be used to dealing with from elsewhere.

"Hey!" He barked, pointing at Barbara. She stopped and turned to face him with an 'I can't believe I ever touched you' look on her face. If he even noticed the rest of the cheer squad forming a united front against him, he gave no sign. "You think I need you? I can get pussy whenever, and wherever I want." He sneered at Ron. "And I don't have to be some chick's whipping boy to do it!"

Having had the last word, he turned and stormed out.

Bonnie just grinned, showing her fine, white, even…sharp…teeth. "Wrong," was all she said.

Kim turned her attention away from the confrontation and back to her boyfriend. "Ron, I'm so sorry that happened. I wouldn't have asked you if it hadn't been…" She trailed off. Ron wasn't hearing her. Rufus scurried up onto his shoulder and began rapping his head in an attempt to wake him, but to no avail. He hadn't noticed a thing that was going on around him since the kiss. He just stood there with a dreamy, ear-to-ear grin on his face.

The cheer squad started to gather around their captain. Tara brought Josh with her, and Brick joined the knot on his own.

"Sorry, Possible, I don't know where the hell he got the idea it was okay to talk like that…especially right in front of all of you…"

"You mean it would have been okay if we weren't here?" Tara interrupted.

"No," Josh explained. "But if you weren't, we could just shake our heads at how much of an ass he is, and change the subject."

Kim ignored them. "Ron?" She tried again.

Ron blinked and shook the butterflies and stars out of his head. "Sorry, KP," He said as his smile returned to normal. "Zoned out for a second, there."

"That's okay," she said. "I was just trying to thank you, and to say how sorry I was that –"

"Oh, hey, think nothing of it," he said, waving it away. "Anytime you need me to…" He paused, suddenly realizing he might have offered a bit too much. "Uh…operative word being 'need'."

Kim grinned up at him. "I understand."

"Good. See you after practice?"

She gave him another quick peck. "Of course."

"Okay, see you then." He wandered out of the gym, still a bit unsteady on his feet.

She turned toward the locker room, only to find most of the squad still standing around her. "Thanks for the backup, guys," she said. "But we'd better go."

So they went, most of them still making concerned noises at their leader and angry noises about Darren Edwards. Those angry noises included plans for spreading the word and calling in favors. The boy had no idea how hard it was about to become for him to "get pussy".

One of them went slowly, however, glancing over her shoulder as she walked.

"You okay, Babs?" Kim asked. In her worry for Ron, she'd forgotten about the ugly confrontation between Barbara and her now-apparently-ex-boyfriend.

"Oh? Yeah," Barbara said. "I'm fine. I just…" She pointed over her shoulder with her thumb. "Your BF?" She said. "I want one."

Kim paused, startled. She'd only recently come to see Ron's good-BF qualities herself. She'd never expected any of her fellow cheerleaders to notice (but hadn't Tara…? Don't think about that right now). But then, think of what Babs had just walked away from. Small wonder the opposite looked attractive.

But maybe it was more than that. She suddenly remembered something her mother had said once, something she'd told her about one way to recognize a good man when she found one. Maybe Barbara's mother had told her the secret, too.

Funny, she'd tried so hard to forget it at the time. But it came back to her now.

She glanced over her shoulder, just in time to see Ron stumble out the gym doors. "Sorry, Babs," She said softly. "Good luck in finding one, but this one's mine."

Boy: And I would do anything for love, oh I would do anything for love
I would do anything for love, but I won't do that, no I won't do that

Girl: Will you raise me up, will you help me down?
Will you get me right out of this Godforsaken town?
Will you make it all a little less cold?

Boy: I can do that! I can do that!

Girl: Will you hold me sacred? Will you hold me tight?
Can you colorize my life, I'm so sick of black and white?
Can you make it all a little less old?

Boy: I can do that! Oh oh, now I can do that!

Girl: Will you make me some magic, with your own two hands?
Can you build an emerald city with these grains of sand?
Can you give me something I can take home?

Boy: I can do that! Oh oh now, I can do that!

Girl: Will you cater to every fantasy I got?
Will ya hose me down with holy water, if I get too hot?
Will you take me places I've never known?

Boy: I can do that! Oh oh now, I can do that!

Author's Note: Okay, lest any of you think I have some odd obsession, I'm going to give KP's body functions the privacy they deserve from now on (well, mostly). However, to properly complete the Blood Bond cycle, I had to bring it back to its beginning, and fulfill Mrs. Dr. P's little moment of foresight in "Blood Bond, Blood Omen".

Besides, the Blood is still the source of the Bond.

This will be the last story with the words "Blood Bond" in its title, but the Blood Bond Continuum (as I call my personal little post-STD, KR universe) will go on. There will be short stories aplenty, many of which will be exploring the supporting cast (Interestingly enough, Bonnie is being particularly demanding of my attention lately. Did you notice how she was actually on KP's side in this one? There's more reasons for that than the obvious outside threat…).

But looking past those short stories…there's something on the horizon. Something big. And it's coming closer…