Ron Stoppable sighed as he poured the contents of the bag out onto the Possible kitchen table. Kim gave him a weary-but-encouraging smile, and he sat down beside her.
It was Letter Day.
Kim had been world famous for a while now, and that meant fan mail. Hoping to avoid people tracking down her home address, she'd set up a P.O. box and posted it on her web site. Mostly, it worked.
Every week, on Letter Day (Saturday) she would go to the post office and empty the box. Once, there'd only ever been a few letters at a time: thank-you notes from people she'd rescued, the newsletter from cousin Jossie's fan club, the occasional "I-love-you-you're-wonderful-an-inspiration-to-young-women-everywhere" fan letter, fan fiction of varying quality, and the odd marriage proposal. That had changed since the Diablo incident. She'd saved the world before, but only a very few people had ever known about it. The mad scientist du jour, of course, Global Justice, and any bystanders she happened to rescue in the process. Usually, she was able to destroy the Doomsday Device just before it was activated. Never before had one of her enemies come so close to succeeding, and never before had the attack been so public. The entire world knew that they had nearly been conquered, and that they had been rescued by Kim Possible. As a result, the fan mail now came by the bale.
She hated to let her mail go unanswered – even the (sane-sounding) marriage proposals got polite refusals – but for a while it had looked like it would come to just that. Without Ron's help, it would have.
Finally, a few months after the Diablos had fallen from the sky, it seemed that the flow of mail was at last starting to slacken off.
"Looks like just a few dozen today, KP," Ron said, shuffling through the pile of envelopes.
"Oh, good," she said, grabbing a handful. "Let's open 'em up and sort 'em into piles before we start answering. Stories over here, creepy come-ons from guys who must know by now that I'm barely seventeen over there…"
"Hey!" Ron shouted with sudden excitement. "This one's for me! Looks like they're finally starting to realize that I'm here!"
"Ron, that's great!" She'd spent the last few months refusing to accept Diablo-related interviews unless he was invited as well, and telling every reporter who stuck a microphone in her face that it was Team Possible that had saved the world (and that, in fact, Ron – her partner, not her sidekick – had saved her at several crucial points). Maybe it was finally starting to get through.
Ron tore the letter open like a kid opening his Christmas…well, Hanukkah…presents. But the moment he looked at the letter, the smile dropped from his face. "Maybe not so great," he said.
"Uh, oh," she said. "Did Drakken remember your name well enough to send you some hate mail?"
Ron slowly shook his head. "No," he said, his voice quiet and choked. "I'm pretty sure that Drew Lipsky didn't send this."
A bit confused that Ron would use Drakken's real name, Kim tried again: "One of the other members of the freak parade?"
Ron just shook his head, his eyes slowly widening and the color draining from his face as he read further.
"Oh, no, Ron. I'm sorry. They're starting to realize that you're here, too, huh?"
Ron tilted his head at her questioningly, confusion barely marring the shock on his face. "They?" He asked.
"Your first letter, and it's from one of the crazies."
"Crazy…yeah. That's a good way to put it."
He handed her the letter.
Worried by now, she glanced at him one last time, then looked down to the letter.
"Oh, my God…"
Dear Christ-Killer,
You need to get away from Kim Possible before someone hangs you from a tree, like they used to do to niggers who did what you're doing back when this was still a Christian nation. You make me sick, trying to pollute a flower of white womanhood with your filthy Jew seed. Do you think that just because you can pass for white that you could get away with a racial crime like that? There are always ways to find out. You kikes are worse than niggers – the mud races may have forgotten their place, but at least they were made by God. They aren't children of Satan sent to infiltrate and destroy the holy white race. I wish the Holocaust Lie was true, so we could send all of your kind up the chimneys. I would be glad to turn on the gas myself.
Die, Jew.
The letter was signed only with a swastika.
"Oh, my God," she repeated, setting the letter down and looking back at Ron, who was staring at the table by now. "Ron, I'm so sorry. I never should have – "
"Don't say it, KP."
Ron looked up from the table. There was something terrible in his eyes…or maybe it was something missing.
Kim's mouth snapped shut.
"Don't you dare blame yourself for this," he continued. "You've spent the last few months trying to do something nice for me, let the rest of the world know I'm here, and this bastard is the first to notice? Well, shame on all of your so-called fans for not listening to you, and especially shame on him. He's the asshole, KP. Not you. Repeat after me:"
"He's the asshole," they said in unison. Then they fell silent. Ron looked back down at the table.
Kim had felt this helpless before, but not often: when Drakken had used the neural compliance chip to make her attack Ron, again when she'd woken up tied to a fake cactus in Bueno Nacho corporate headquarters. That was about it.
She hated it. Something was wrong. Worse, something was wrong for Ron. She wanted to fix it. She wanted to say something, or do something – apologize, tell a joke, buy some nacos – to make it right. She already knew that there was no making this right, but she had to try.
She reached across the table and took his hands. That brought his eyes back up to hers. "Ron, I'm sorry that your very first letter was from one of the crazies. But they're out there. I've gotten them, too."
"The marriage proposals?"
"Them…and the ones from guys who think I look really sexy in my mission clothes, and want to give me details on what they'd do with me – or to me – if they ever got the chance. Then there are the religious fanatics."
"Requests for donations?"
"I said fanatics, not televangelists. Some of it actually seems well-intentioned – warning me that I need to accept Jesus Christ as my Personal Lord and Savior because all of my Good Works can't get me into Heaven – but then there are the ones who like telling me that I'm on my way to Hell because I'm a whore and a temptress."
Normally, Ron would have been shocked, horrified – and then eager to hunt the senders of such letters down and give them a taste of martyrdom. Now, he just nodded. "Again because of the mission clothes?"
She nodded.
"You must've been tempted to go out on missions in a burqa."
"For a few minutes. Then I threw the letters in the garbage, remembered that the people who sent them are crazy, and did my best to forget about them."
Ron nodded. "Uh-huh, see, that's great advice KP. I'll try it when my few minutes are up. But first, I'd like to point out one detail that might've made it a little easier for you."
"What's that?"
"You know that you're not a whore. I am a Jew."
He had a point. Didn't make Kim happy that he'd brushed her crazy-mail aside like that, but it was about Ron right now.
"But that's never been a drama before," she said.
The look he gave her was unreadable as he let go of her hands. "Did you ever meet my grandfather, KP? My mother's father?" He asked.
"Once, for a few minutes at your bar mitzvah."
"Didn't hang with him for long, did you?"
"Um…no."
"That's because he's not a real friendly guy, especially not to goyim. I don't like going to visit him – it's always so tense. And the man hoards food! We're having tuna fish for lunch, you get one sandwich out of the five he made from that can. I'm hungry the whole time we're there. And I think he's starting to go senile. Sometimes, when we talk, he calls me Joshua. Or speaks to me in German. He'll probably start needing a nurse or something soon."
One word out of Ron's description stuck out, and Kim had a sudden, terrible idea where this was going. "German?" She asked.
"Yeah. See, my point is, you only met him for a couple minutes, and he was dressed in a suit. You probably didn't spot the number tattooed on his arm."
Kim went cold. "No. I didn't."
"Yeah, the Joshua he's talking to when he's talking to me is his brother who died in Birkenau. Along with the whole rest of his family." He paused. Then, as if it was just occurring to him: "My family."
"But…it wasn't just your dad's side that was filled in at your bar mitzvah."
Ron shrugged. "Yeah, Papa did his best to rebuild the family when got to the States. My mom has four brothers and three sisters – which is part of the reason that she only has me. That, and the fact that Papa didn't give her the best example to follow as a parent. I mean, you know my mom. If we were moving, she'd probably let the 'For Sale' sign be her way of letting me know."
"She probably would."
"So you can imagine…" He picked up the letter. "That hearing this Aryan – " He tore the letter in half " – Nation – " He tore it again. "Motherfucker…" He wadded the remains into a ball. "Calling it the 'Holocaust Lie' might hit me pretty hard."
He threw the wad across the room and into the trash.
Silence. He looked back down at the table.
Kim finally broke the silence after what seemed like hours. "I'd apologize, but you already told me not to."
Ron sighed. "No, I'm the one who should apologize." He raised his eyes to hers again. Seeing that her hands were held out across the table again, he gladly took them. "I didn't mean to yell at you like that, KP. It's not you I'm mad at."
She let go, long enough to wave it away. "No big, Ron," She said. He started to protest, but she interrupted, holding up a hand to block him: "I said, it's no big."
He gave her a weak grin as he took her hands again, then continued. "You know, my grandfather's European family is two generations back, and I never had to deal with this crap before, not in my whole life of living in Middleton. It's just that…getting this letter tells me that no matter where you live, or what year it is, it's never really safe. The bastards can always find you."
"Makes you wonder what we're fighting for, doesn't it?" She asked. Now she was the one to look at the table.
"No," he answered immediately, bringing her eyes back up to meet his. "I know exactly what I'm fighting for. Always have." The ghost of a smile crossed his face. "I've known ever since she first told me 'You're weird, but I like you'."
Kim did smile…smiled, got up, circled the table, sat down beside him, and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. "Okay, then, how does this sound as a plan of attack: we keep up the public appearances – the interviews, the magazine covers, everything – and not only are you always there with me, I PDA you as much as I can without getting grounded by my parents when I get home. Make it clear to the world that you're there because I want you to be."
The ghost of a smile disappeared from Ron's face. "All that'll do is get people like that sending you 'race traitor' letters."
"Let 'em. I decided who gets to pollute me. Me. Nobody else. And when the time comes, we'll decide together what to do about your seed."
It was a risk. The joke could have had one of two effects…but when Ron snorted and covered his mouth to hold in the hysterical giggles, she knew she'd gotten the one she wanted.
Twelve years will teach you some things about a person.
"I am so…" Ron choked. "So glad…that your parents didn't hear that." His sentence started to lose coherence as the laughter became harder and harder to control. "Your dad…next flight…Black Hole Airlines…layover in Cleveland…" With that, he burst out laughing, and all the tension, hurt, and anger of the past few moments poured out like pus from an infected wound.
Kim joined him, and the two of them laughed for almost five minutes – faces red, tears pouring down their cheeks, pounding on the table and kicking at the floor. Finally, they stopped, gasping for breath and clutching at their aching ribs. Then Kim wrapped her arm around him again.
"So are your few minutes up?" She asked.
Ron wiped the tears out of his eyes. "Think they just might be, KP. Letter's in the garbage – "
"The person who wrote it is crazy – " Kim prompted.
"And I'm doing my best to forget about it." He finished.
"Good," she said, pulling him closer. "Now, here's something I want you to remember. You listening?"
He nodded. His head was resting on her shoulder at this point, so she felt the nod more than she saw it.
"Okay, here it is: you matter. We matter. The person who wrote that letter? They don't matter. People like them used to matter, but they don't anymore. That's why they're so pissed. Can you remember that?"
Ron recited what she'd said back to her verbatim. Just like he always could.
"Good. You believe me?"
He nodded again. "Always."
After another moment with his head on her shoulder, he straightened with a sigh. "That's probably enough drama over one…thing that I have forgotten. Back to the letters?"
"Actually, I'm really not in the mood right now. Up for some Zombie Mayhem?"
He stared at her for a second. "Now you're just trying to arrange an extra-good day for me because you feel bad that my morning was so ruined."
"Is it working?"
"Absitively posolutely. Let's go."
"Spankin'."
Author's Note: Recently, I read an article on interracial couples – a topic of great interest to me for the simple reason that I, a fifth-generation-from-Ireland Amerimutt, am married to a wonderful woman who's first generation from the Dominican Republic. What's more, my brother is married to (and expecting his first child with) a woman who's first generation from Mexico. Anyway, there was a section of the article where they interviewed several mixed celebrity couples, and that's where I learned that Idina Menzel and Taye Diggs (look 'em up on the IMDB – they're currently starring in the movie Rent) have both received death threats, from both sides of the racial divide.
It may be 2005, but the bastards are still with us. I've never had the misfortune myself, but apparently I've been unusually lucky in that regard. That knowledge inspired me to send out this little reminder. We may have 'em on the run, but that doesn't mean we can let down our guard.