"Does anybody have an aspirin?"
Kim could think of nothing more coherent. She'd just been in an underground top-secret lab in Iowa, watching Shego blast a machine she'd been sitting under, and then she was... home. Confusion was written across Kim's face, her thoughts spinning wildly, her head, chin, arm and back aching.
Impossibly, her parents were hovering solicitously, the same parents who were long fallen. Her room with its blue walls, bright sunlight streaming in the picture window, and everything else familiar, homey. Unsure of where, or even when she was, Kim blinked and tried to form a question that wouldn't concern her parents. "So, um, how long was I out?"
Kim's mother smiled, reached onto the table by her daughter's pillow, and produced two pills and a glass of lukewarm water, which Kim swallowed gratefully.
Sitting on the edge of her bed, her father gently held her hand. "About 12 hours. They brought you back by emergency jet, and we convinced them to let you recuperate at home, in familiar surroundings."
It felt as though Kim had been unconscious for 12 seconds, rather than 12 hours. Her body ached, her mind was churning, and her heart was both bursting on seeing her long-gone parents, as well as aching for the loss of Ron and the guilt of her failure to stop Dementor from releasing his anagathic spray.
Kim pinched her eyes shut for a moment, tried to focus. OK, she should be back in her time, not the past. She looked for her watch, but her wrist was bare. What if the techs were wrong? What if she didn't leave? It certainly looked as if she was in the early 21st century, and her parents looked the same...
Well, on closer inspection, maybe not exactly the same. Her father always wore polyester. This shirt was linen. She looked around the room with a more critical eye, and picked out discrepancies. The computer was a much more modern model than she'd ever used; the color of the walls was a bit more robin's egg blue than before; and some of the things strewn about her room were unfamiliar or well out of place. If it was a fake, it was an excellent fake... but it wasn't exactly the same.
Patting her father's hand, Kim pulled herself to a sitting position and slowly levered herself out of bed. Her mother put a small hand on Kim's arm. "Take it easy, honey. You've had some nasty knocks."
Judging by the light streaming in, it was late afternoon. Kim hobbled over to the window and looked out at the world. She gaped at the sight. Rather than displaying the suburbs of Middleton, as it always had in Kim's youth, her window looked directly over Lake Middleton, with Mt. Middleton in the distance. A few houses sprinkled the landscape, but not nearly enough for the Middleton she remembered. There were no roads.
"They said you might be a little discombobulated," her father told her, smiling to take the sting out of his words. "Travelling through time must be disorienting, at the very least."
Kim's eyes widened. He knew about her travels through time? How?
"Daddy, I have a weird question... but what year is it?"
He smiled again. "The same year you left not quite three days ago. AD 52,215."
Oh boy.
Her mother pulled up a chair for Kim, helped her relax into the cushions. The three Possibles sat, knees nearly touching, in the close reproduction of Kim's childhood bedroom, and tried to bring each other up to date.
"I know you're tired, honey," her mother began, "but let us know when you want to talk about it. You'll be debriefed by the technicians, of course, but I'm sure we can help you get re-oriented." She took a deep breath when Kim nodded for her to continue. "First, let's talk about what went wrong, why nothing was changed."
"Nothing? Not nothing," Kim protested, then stopped. How could she tell them she saw them die?
She continued, "I don't know what you mean by things not changing. OK, I didn't foil Dementor's plot, but apparently I made enough of a difference in the past to make some changes. Things are definitely... different."
"Sounds like a temporal divergence. What's different, KC?" her father asked.
"Like... you guys." Her parents looked at each other, back at their daughter. "Wait, what was that - 'KC'?"
Her father looked puzzled, and a little sheepish. "When you told me you didn't like me calling you 'Kimmie Cub' I, ah, abbrev'd it, and you haven't had a problem with it since. That's been quite a few centuries, Kim." He looked at his daughter closely. "And what's different about us?"
Kim glanced down, muttered to her toes, and looked back up. "You're here. Alive, I mean."
Parental eyes met again. "I see," said her mother. "So in your timeline, we weren't here? What about Jim and Tim?" Kim shook her head.
Her mother stood, quickly strode to the top of the loft door, and called down, "Come up here, please." Dual pounding of small feet announced the arrival of twin whirlwinds, Jim and Tim Possible climbing over each other to get into their sister's room.
Kim smiled, genuinely happy to see the little terrors. As soon as they were in reach she pounced, hugged them both until they squirmed loose with cries of "Yuck!" and "Gross!" She watched them scamper downstairs again. Apparently her impromptu hug and warning about neutronium during her visit to the past had sunk in.
Her mother chuckled. "I guess that cinches it. Our daughter wouldn't hug her brothers unless she hadn't seen them in eons." Her face became more serious. "Do you want to tell us what happened in your timeline?"
Kim shook her head, sat back down. "Not yet. I need to get up to speed first." She took a deep breath. "So let me get this straight: I went back in time, made some changes, but not the big one I intended to make, and then came back here, only here isn't here, it's different. Better, so far," she beamed at the two adults. "I guess I need to know what else is different. Who else is here that wasn't before." Kim thought of who else might not be in the same place when she left, like Monique or...
Ron! He could be here, on Earth! If her actions changed the future enough to keep her family alive, the affection she showered on Ron should've made him stay with her instead of rushing off to another planet. She hoped.
"Where's Ron?" she asked, wide-eyed, hope lighting up her face. "Is he here, in Middleton?"
Her parents' faces grew somber. "Sorry, KC, he's stuck on an extraterrestrial colony 300 light years away, Outland. The ship broke, they ran out of fuel, and we can't get them back. I'm very sorry, honey."
Kim's hopes, raised to ecstatic heights just moments before, crashed down again, squeezing tears from her tired eyes. Some utopia. If only she'd told him point-blank never to leave her, or warn him away from the ship... but who knows what changes that may have wrought. She cursed herself for a moment for allowing her hopes to rise, but then tried to accept the situation.
"So. What happened, honey?" her mother asked gently. Kim quiety recounted her journey, hitting the high points, not leaving out the restaurant and dirty trick she pulled on her boyfriend, or his heroic rescue of her not once, but twice. The only major detail she omitted was the visit to Project Phoebus. She wasn't certain if anything would come of that, and besides, she'd obviously go over this again in more detail. She would add it then.
After she'd finished her tale, and condolences were spread for the failure of her primary mission, Kim's mother stood. "Only one way to be sure. Can I see your back?" Puzzled, Kim stood up, turned around, and lifted her shirt so that her mother could examine her bare back.
"Want me to cough, too?"
Smiling, her mother said, "Maybe next time. OK, that cinches it. Thanks, Kimmie." She looked at her husband. "No scar." He nodded agreement.
"What scar?" Kim had a generous assortment of small, white scars from her long life, but nothing major.
"The deep gash Shego gave you, a long time ago. You're better off not knowing."
Kim wasn't quite sure what her mother was talking about, but reserved comment.
Standing back up, her mother asked, "Are you hungry?" and Kim nodded. Her stomach growled emphasis.
"Do you mind?" her mother asked, pointing downstairs. "I don't want to presume in your house."
"My house?"
"Of course," her mother replied. "I love that you rebuilt your old room upstairs, it's so Kimmie of you. We thought you'd be more comfortable up here. Are you up for going downstairs?"
"Up for down, you bet," Kim said, intensely curious about what she'd see. They descended to the rest of the house, and the similarity to the home Kim grew up in vanished outside her room. This spacious home was mostly rock and wood, with a polished stone floor and throw rugs around a huge fireplace that dominated the living room. Pictures of Ron, the tweebs, her mom, her dad, grandparents, and others lined nooks and crannies, and large works of art were displayed prominently but blended nicely with the decor. Kim noticed Monique's signature on more than one painting. Finely crafted furniture carved the large rooms into islands of comfort. The overall effect was extremely satisfying to Kim's eyes; it was exactly the type of place where she would choose to spend her time, where she would've loved to call home after her long, lonely journeys in her previous life.
It dawned on Kim then that it was hers. She'd built it. Or her "other" self, the one who lived in this timeline, had built it. She'd have to ask what happened to that Kim. But one thing was starting to sink in.
She was home.
Stomach full, mind far more at ease, Kim leaned back in her chair in the dining room and looked around. Her family sat in their normal places at this unfamiliar table, which was apparently Kim's. The tweebs, barely suppressing their natural urge to bounce out of their chairs, eyed their sister eagerly. Her parents busied themselves with cleaning the table.
"Can you show us what you saw in the past?" Jim asked suddenly.
"We really wanna see how things changed since way back when," Tim added.
Kim considered. She was feeling especially charitable toward them at the moment. They'd actually listened to her when she'd told them to be careful! And the fact that they were here, and her mom and dad were here...
Extending her hand palm up, Kim invited her brothers to download a short burst of her experience. She carefully edited out any personal feelings, and gave them a tightly edited version of events. Their eyes bugged out in unison during the fight with Shego and Dementor, and they both breathed "coooooool..." when the tower released the anagathic spray. After the short transmission, they lowered their palms.
"Your wetware is really out of date," said one brother.
"Yeah, it's ancient."
"We could upgrade it..."
"... in about five minutes..."
"... and you'd never know we were in there!"
Kim smiled. "Nice try, that's so not going to happen." But they were correct, Kim could tell their versions of internal hardware and software were more advanced than hers. She'd have to get that looked at.
While she was thinking about it, Kim decided to reconnect to the global network. She usually stayed off except to receive personal messages, but she'd shut all reception off when she visited the past. She was used to not being popular, and little of the chatter from the one million remaining humans was of interest to her. It was with some trepidation that she send a reconnect command, and waited to see if she had any personal messages.
Her internal voice, the avatar of her wetware, informed her she had incoming data. "Fourteen thousand, six hundred twenty three personal messages waiting."
Wow. Everybody must be pissed.
She wasn't up to dealing with specifics at the moment. And she still had very little storage capacity, she was still carrying around all the starship data she downloaded before leaving for the past (fat lot of good that did her) as well as her recording of her room (which was now kind of a moot point). She decided not to delete anything quite yet.
"Synopsis of message content, please," she subvocalized. Her mother and father quietly bussed the table around her and washed dishes, recognizing the inward-looking stare on their daughter's face.
A multi-toned beep sounded for Kim's ears alone. "Results processed. Query: display representative messages?" The software had picked one or more messages that reflected the tone of the rest.
"Sure."
Keeping it internal, Kim closed her eyes and watched as her system piped a visual message straight into her optic nerve. She didn't want her parents seeing just how much everybody still despised her for her failures.
Monique's face appeared. Contrary to Kim's expectations, her friend was smiling broadly. "Girl, I just heard you were awake. They wouldn't let me in, they said you were banged up pretty good, but they said I could send a priority message. Well, I can't tell you how happy I am - how happy we all are - that you're back safe. We knew it was kind of a long shot for you to go, but at least we're all still here. As soon as they turn you loose, give a shout and I'll be there faster than you can say 'time travel'. I can't wait to see you. Big hugs!" Monique grinned, waved a disembodied hand, and faded from Kim's view.
Confused, Kim sent a more specific query. "Detail number of messages like Monique's - ones that, uh, wish me well. Also detail the number of negative messages related to my mission."
The answer was quicker this time. "Positive messages: fourteen thousand, one hundred and sixty one. Negative messages: twelve. Unclassified or not related to mission: four hundred and fifty."
They were all positive? Why weren't they screaming for her head, since she failed? She didn't understand.
Kim's mother saw her confused look, sat down, took her daughter's hand. "What's wrong, honey?"
"I don't know. Things are just... way different. It's hard to explain." She squeezed her mother's hand. "Maybe Dad should hear this too."
With both parents present, Kim gave a more detailed description of her own timeline, in words and data bursts. How her failure to stop Dementor turned the sympathy of immortal humanity against Kim. How she spent decades, centuries, millennia, walking the planet, helping where she could or where she was allowed, the lonely centuries after Ron left. Even the painful memories of the lunar explosion that claimed her brothers' lives, and her parents' fall soon after. How she never had a home, a place of her own - nobody wanted her near. Only Monique, but Kim couldn't stay with her friend in Seattle forever. How she'd been manipulated into the mission into the past. How she'd hurt Ron. How she'd failed.
Her parents sat stunned. Tears flowed freely down her mother's face, and Kim's father looked as if he wanted to grab somebody by the throat. "How could they dare blame you? How could they treat you that badly?"
"Oh Kimmie, I'm so sorry you had to live through that, and for so long!" her mother said, hugging her. Kim felt her mother's tears on her shoulder.
Kim pulled back, looked at her mother's face. "So... it's not like that here?" She wouldn't get her hopes up, she wouldn't, not this time.
Sniffling, her mother stood and pulled Kim to her feet. "I think you need to see something. Can you walk a little way?"
Kim nodded. They left Kim's house and walked through a gentle path down toward the lake. There were no roads, as in Monique's Seattle, but this was certainly far more populous than the Middleton Kim had known in her own timeline. Soon they approached a small log cabin, which stood in an overgrown tangle of brush and unkempt trees. A footpath from the crooked front door led down to the lake, but it didn't appear to receive much traffic. Cobwebs fluttered from the eaves, the roof was badly in need of repair, and the windows were all tightly shuttered.
It took Kim a few moments to realize there was somebody sitting in front of the house. The slight form was huddled on the ground, arms wrapped around bent knees, dirty and disheveled hair matted with sticks and filth. The woman was wearing poorly-made homespun, and there were scratches and welts along each arm. As the three Possibles drew closer, the woman's head lifted, empty eyes gazing at the trio. She said nothing, no greeting or warning, barely acknowledged their presence.
Kim approached slowly, horror on her face. How had this happened? Why? Even she didn't deserve this kind of life...
"Shego. What happened to you?"
Kim's father stood next to her. "She's been like this for a long time, Kimmie. Not long after she gave you the scar. People have avoided and shunned her - since it's her fault we can't have children. She's not quite all right in the head, if you get my meaning." His tone had an edge to it that Kim wasn't used to hearing.
This wasn't right. She never wished this on Shego, never meant for her to be so humiliated, to be brought so low, regardless of Shego's actions on that fateful day atop Dementor's lair. She squatted in front of the filthy woman, who tensed.
Kim wrapped her arms around Shego's thin shoulders, hugged her close.
The other woman remained tense for a moment, then the iron seemed to go out of her body, and she sagged against Kim, sobbing inaudibly. Kim stroked the once shiny black hair, now tangled and matted and filled with who knew what. She rocked the other woman gently, whispering reasurrances. When Shego calmed down and stopped her silent crying, Kim looked at her. "I know what you've gone through. Trust me. It doesn't have to be that way." Looking at her parents, she asked their help. "Let's get her cleaned up."
Her father looked trepidatious. "Are you sure, KC? I mean, she's the one who caused all this. And you've never wanted to help her before."
"That was before I went through what she went through. Do you think that's fair, even for her?"
Her mother looked thoughtful for a moment. "She's right, dear. We haven't been very nice to her - none of us have been. I always thought that her living so close to Kimmie's house was a cry for help, but I never personally wanted to help her." She looked back at her daughter, bit her lip. "I guess I was wrong." She put her arm behind Shego's waist, helped her stand and navigate back to Kim's house. Kim's father followed behind.
A bath did wonders, but Kim and her mother, who stripped an unresisting Shego from her ancient garb, were appalled at the gashes and untreated wounds she had suffered over time. They could also count ribs far too easily. Clean clothes from Kim's closet and a hot meal worked further magic, and some of the blankness washed from Shego's large green eyes. She spoke for the first time. "Why?" Her voice was a croak, unused for a very long time.
In response, Kim held up her hand, palm out, offering a data burst. Shego shook her head weakly. "Don't have." She didn't even have wetware!
Kim explained again, getting more adept at telling the tale. Shego looked puzzled through much of it; she hadn't even known Kim was to go back in time, nobody had bothered to ask her opinion, or even inform her. Shego sat still, uncommenting, throughout Kim's story. All she said at the end was, "Oh."
The sun was well down by the time Kim was finished. Her parents asked if they could stay the night, and Kim appreciatively said of course. There were several guest rooms - Kim was apparently quite popular in this timeline. Shego was placed gently into a small guest room, where she lay looking up at the ceiling as Kim sat next to her. Finally when Shego closed her eyes, Kim tiptoed out to sleep in her loft room, wrapped in soft comforters and warm memories.
The techs shook their heads, tsk'd several times, and asked her question after question. Debriefing took hours, and Kim found herself sending query after query into the recesses of her memories to find the answers. Nothing was overlooked: her initial appearance in Barkin's classroom; the conversations she'd had with everybody during her time in the past; the date with Ron; Bonnie's appalling theft of the injectors and stasis cuffs; her trip to Dementor's lair; and especially her time spent on his Mediterranean isle. Each response was checked, cross-checked, and re-referenced against this timeline's history to find what diverged, and from what point. They assured her it would take quite a while.
They were doubly interested in her use of the Project Phoebus device. Several scans found no unusual activity in her brain, and Kim certainly didn't feel smarter. After they were done, she sadly concluded that it simply didn't work. Perhaps her wetware interfered, maybe the time travel process itself negated whatever impact it could've had. Shego's blast could've damaged the device before it was done. But Kim was convinced she was no smarter than when she'd left. Several of the technicians tried asking why she decided to try using the device, but her steely glare made them back down. Only her mother's question about the subject made her respond at all. "Wouldn't you?" she asked succinctly.
At last, after all the poking and prodding was done, she was released into the afternoon sunlight where her family awaited. Monique was with them, and bounced into Kim's arms the second her redheaded friend strode out of the Middleton Constructorium.
"Kim!" she squealed. "You are lookin' good, girl! Time travel must agree with you." Kim didn't think she looked good at all, she felt particularly bedraggled after hours of intense interrogation and physical testing. But she appreciated her friend's enthusiasm. The two ancient girls chatted like they were back in high school, much to the amusement of Kim's parents and siblings, who accompanied them back to Kim's house.
Shego was sitting inside, looking out the picture frame window. Dressed in a simple skirt and blouse, she resembled not at all the villainess that Monique was accustomed to seeing. Her eyes tracked the group as they entered Kim's door, but her expression remained passive. Monique stopped dead when she spotted Shego.
"What's she doing here?"
"It's a long story," Kim told her friend. She looked at Shego. "You OK?" The melancholy expression on Shego's face shifted slightly, to what might be the start of a smile. It didn't last long, but Shego haltingly nodded. She resumed staring out the large window.
Kim took Monique's hand and pulled her friend into her house. Kim was still exploring her own home, finding more and more delights. Monique was far more familiar with Kim's house than Kim herself, ignored almost everything and flung herself onto a couch.
"Tell all. Spill it, girl. I want dirty details, especially about Ron. Make it juicy, even if you have to make it up."
Kim talked with her friend deep into the evening, long after everyone else had retired, including silent Shego. They compared timelines, and Monique listened to Kim tell her about Monique's house in Seattle. It turned out to be not so different from her house in Middleton, a few miles from Kim's. When Kim got to the part about Project Phoebus, Monique quizzed her on what she intended to do with enhanced brainpower.
Sighing, Kim said, "I don't really know. I thought if everything went wrong, I could make myself smart enough to solve the problems I couldn't solve at Dementor's. Maybe come up with a way to solve the sterility issue. Or fix the starship drives. Or something, I don't know. But so far, zilch. To quote a certain long-distance lover: 'Nothing but air beneath the hair.'"
Monique laughed. "Right. You're not that bad off. Heck, you're nearly as smart as I am." Both girls laughed. "Let's test with a pop quiz: what's the sine of 52,169?"
"Minus point two eight three six five six nine," Kim replied promptly. Both girls dropped their jaws.
"Ohmygosh, it's working!" Monique cried. "Quick, tell me something smart!"
Kim, wide-eyed, did a quick lookup of what she had downloaded in her memory. "Um, the ramjet fuel equation they used to separate interstellar hydrogen from other matter looks like it has a small error, and I see a couple of other things they can fix, too... wow..." Kim stared at equations, schematics, mountains of text that flicked by her optical nerve input at lightning speed. And understood it all.
"I've got to get busy," she told her friend, bounding up. "I need some help. Come with me?"
Monique was by Kim's side in an instant. "Lead on, I'm with you all the way."
They ran through starlight and reached the constructorium in a few minutes. There was no need to lock the building, so the two girls rushed in, turned on the lights, and began organizing.
"What are you going to build?"
Kim looked up from a list of materials. "I'm not sure. But I've got some ideas. Bear with me." She placed her hands on a golden sphere, which sped up data transfers a thousandfold. Kim spent several minutes, eyes rolled up in her head, and finally exclaimed "Yes! That'll work." She started reeling off material requests, which Monique frantically started calling up through the local interface. Materials not stored locally were requested as priority items from other constructoriums, scheduled for rush shipment. Kim's status bumped up the priority, and soon diverse items were streaming toward Middleton on the world's small fleet of automated transports.
Other people, who discovered Kim's efforts, began staggering in before dawn. She put them to work fetching, fabricating, and constructing... something. She refused to detail what it was they were building, but since it was Kim Possible in charge, people obeyed.
Soon after sunrise, Kim's parents and brothers showed up, curious as to what their daughter was up to. They found her with hands still locked onto the transfer sphere, furiously sending and receiving data. The tweebs looked over her shoulder and snuck a touch of the sphere. It only lasted a second, but the twins' eyes widened.
"Wow."
"Ambitious."
"She'll need our help."
"Right."
"Gotta go!" the boys chorused, and sped out of the building before anyone could think to stop them.
As the morning wore on, Kim's eyes started sliding shut, but she snapped them open with fierce concentration whenever they threatened to close. Her time with Project Phoebus was limited. Finally, though, her parents found her slumped over the date transfer sphere, sound asleep. They gently laid her down for a nap.
When she awoke a few hours before sunset, there was panic in Kim's eyes. "I need to finish!" she cried, scrambling back to the main chamber deep inside the constructorium. When she arrived, the work was nearly complete. Despite having pieced the object together, nobody but Kim really knew what it was, what it was supposed to do.
A teardrop-shaped chrome structure, about four meters tall by two meters wide, rested on a cradle in the center of the large room. A circular hole about a meter in diameter opened near the bottom, large enough so somebody could crawl in. Kim approached her brainchild, looked in at the nearly-completed object, and nodded in satisfaction.
"We'll be finished in just a few minutes," one of the burly constructorium workers told her. "Mind telling us what it is?"
"You'll see," she said, to the obvious disappointment of all. Kim whispered to Monique, who looked surprised, nodded, and walked briskly to an exit. Finding a data transfer sphere, Kim settled down and continued her work. Small plaques, each embedded with thousands of pages worth of information and drawings, were delivered to her at regular intervals, until a small stack was gathered at her side.
Several technicians stood on the sidelines and took bets to see who could name what the object was. Heavy bets were placed on "sterility reverser" but "starship repair" was a close runner up.
Nearing sunset, Kim's mother walked up to her. "Honey, don't you think you need to take a break?" Her concern was obvious.
Kim shook her head, disentangled herself from the data flowing to and from the huge repository in the constructorium. "I'm losing it, I can feel it going. I'm almost done, but I've just got to get this finished before it all wears off." She grabbed her mother's hand. "Please."
Reluctantly, her mother nodded, then said, "I understand. But first, somebody needs to talk to you." She beckoned for somebody standing behind Kim to come around.
Kim brushed a lock of red hair back impatiently, wanting to get back to work before her knowledge deserted her. But as Shego walked up to her, Kim's annoyance subsided.
The raven-haired woman looked more in control of herself, more poised. The blank look in her eyes had faded, and Shego looked around with curiosity, then at Kim. There was no hostility or sarcasm in her face, and her voice was even and sincere when she spoke.
"Thank you."
Kim looked back at the woman who had been her arch-enemy, and had been reviled by the world for millennia. "You're welcome." She took Shego's hand for a moment, and let go.
Shego turned away, then faced Kim again for a moment. "I'll be leaving tomorrow, my house needs some work. Some people offered to help me fix it."
"I'm glad. Call me if you need help."
Shego smiled for the first time since Kim spotted her sitting listlessly in front of her dilapidated cabin. "I will." She turned, her raven hair flowing silky once more, and left Kim to her work.
Kim turned back and wrapped up her final tasks. As she disengaged from the constructorium's nerve center, she heard approaching footsteps. The construction foreman, who had taken over from some of Kim's friends earlier in the day, presented his report. "We're all ready, even if we have no clue what it's supposed to be. Would you like to inspect the... thing?"
Smiling, Kim agreed and walked across the large, mostly empty space to where her creation lay. Fully chromed, the tall teardrop reflected the interior of the constructorium in a funhouse mirror fashion. The portal inside was dimly lit, and Kim peered in to check the interior. It was exactly as she'd specified. Touching the surface, she ran a diagnostic through the object's sophisticated computers, and she checked and double-checked all the systems. Even with her artificial intelligence wavering, Kim was confident all was in order.
Except for one thing. She had a feeling she knew how to solve her final dilemma...
"Where are Jim and Tim?"
Startled, her father looked around. "They took off earlier. Haven't seen them since, probably off getting into trouble somewhere." As he finished, two pairs of running feet could be heard barrelling through the hallways and into the construction bay.
"Right on time," Kim smiled. She knew her brothers very well indeed.
"Kim, you're gonna need..."
"... a special top-secret ingredient..."
"... to finish your project!" the twins alternated speaking in their eerie way.
Behind them, a four-wheeled automatic cargo hauler lumbered in, its large payload area looking even larger by the small chest placed in the middle. The chest was adorned with wires and what looked like hand-made circuitry.
"I knew I could count on you two," Kim said, ruffling their hair. "You sure it's safe and stable?"
The twins looked insulted. "Hey, who're the geniuses around here? The twenty-four seven ones, not the nine-to-five one?"
The crawler nestled up to the teardrop. Kim extended her hand, touched the teardrop, and ordered a panel to open near the narrow top. She then ordered the cargo crawler to extend the payload area to the top. The chest fit into the cavity with room to spare, and the teardrop's access hatch sealed, leaving no seam.
Kim's father asked the twins, "What's in the box, boys?"
"Neutronium!" the chorused.
"I thought you were told not to play with that any more!" their father began, but Kim waved him down.
"It's OK, Dad, I needed it."
Hardly mollified by the danger his children had put the planet in, the rocket scientist huffed and looked like he wanted to chastise someone. But his natural curiosity took over, and he asked, "How much neutronium?"
"Sixteen and a half cubic centiliters," Jim told his father.
"And that weighs..."
"About fourteen billion tons!" Tim enthused. "It's gravitically shielded, our own design."
The Possible paterfamilias looked up at the gleaming teardrop, and asked his daughter, "Will that be able to handle the neutronium? It's very dangerous."
"No prob, Dad. It should be just about enough."
While the final checks on Kim's device were made, she went back and put all the data plaques in a backpack. Monique arrived with another sack, which she handed to Kim, who then stowed both inside the teardrop.
"We need to move this outside for it to work properly," she told everybody. Several burly technicians pushed the teardrop, gravitically stabilized, onto the cargo crawler, which then brought the nearly four-meter tall object through a pair of large clamshell doors and out into the twilight.
A crowd gathered around Kim's construction, eager to see what she'd created. Whispers passed from person to person, each adding their own embellishment to the previous. Kim's parents watched anxiously, worried for their daughter, but also wanting to see what her temporary genius had produced.
Kim didn't keep them waiting long. She hugged her family and Monique, and briskly stepped up to the meter-wide hole and slithered up into the softly lit interior. It was just large enough for one person comfortably, or two people if they weren't claustrophobic. The interior was lined with data readouts, and was padded at an angle, so the person or people inside could recline somewhat. One sack and one backpack were propped in a small alcove.
Kim looked down through the knee-high portal and leaned out. Her family stood watching her, trepidatious, but proud. Kim felt pangs at cutting herself off from them, even if only for a short while; she'd just found them again. But this was important.
Straightening up, Kim touched a panel and a doorway irised into place, sealing her inside. A few more touches of her finger, and the program was set and running.
Outside, Kim's parents watched their daughter's starship silently rise into the sky, where stars were just starting to peek through the deep blue night.
Ron looked up at the bright alien sky. As usual, there were no rainclouds, and the dry air was harsh with dust. His shift at the agricenter was over, and he was readying himself to head home for some dreamless sleep, yet another long night on Outland. Turning back, he was about to go back inside when a commotion near the center of the planet's sole settlement caught his attention. Others were looking up into the yellowish sky and pointing. Ron followed their fingers and saw something that he couldn't quite focus on, something that reflected the ground and sky...
It continued descending and then stopped about a meter from the group, perhaps a hundred meters north of the agricenter. Ron, curiosity piqued by the unique craft that had just landed, loped toward it, along with most of the rest of the settlers who'd seen it land.
As he drew up to the odd chrome teardrop, a hole appeared near the bottom and a pair of shapely legs emerged. The legs were followed by a narrow waist, feminine chest and shoulders, and a cascade of red hair. Ron stood transfixed, not daring to hope, not even daring to breathe for fear of shattering the dream, waiting for the woman's face to appear.
Kim Possible's feet landed on Outland and she scanned the silent, scruffy crowd. Her gaze lit on one man in particular, and she walked slowly toward him, backpack swung off one arm. She stopped a foot away and everyone swiveled to watch what happened.
She lifted a hand and gently touched his sun-roughened cheek. "It's time to come home, Ron." Ron reached up, touched her hand, and gripped it, not willing to let go. Half fearing he was hallucinating, Ron let Kim kiss him gently. She backed away and pulled him toward the teardrop.
As if coming out of a dream, Ron stumbled, then disengaged himself from the freshly arrived redhead. He held up a finger, called "Wait!" to her, and rushed back to the agricenter. Kim, shocked, found her mind churning... he was with another woman, he detested her in this timeline for letting him leave, she couldn't tell why he ran away. She stood there for moments, unsure of what to do, but Ron emerged back into the bright sunlight before anybody else moved.
Ron trotted back to her, and took something out of his pocket. The small animal was pinkish, tinged with yellow, and if Kim squinted, she could see the resemblance to a naked mole rat... She smiled, and grabbed his other hand. This time, Ron didn't pull away, but willingly followed her.
One of the men in the crowd, seeing Kim and Ron approach the chrome starship, stepped up. "What's this about? Where are you from? How did you...?"
Kim stopped in front of the flustered man and handed him a backpack. "This contains instructions on how to fix your starship, and generate more fuel," she told him. "I figured you didn't want to wait another 300 years for it to come by radio."
She brushed past the mute man and crawled into the ship. Ron followed, squeezing into the narrow space. It wasn't claustrophobic, not with his other half occupying the space with him. Kim touched a few controls, the door irised shut, and once more the teardrop rose into the sky.
"... and that's when I built the ship to come get you," she finished telling Ron on the short journey through hyperspace. "I only had enough fuel and neutronium for one round trip, and for one small ship. Hope you don't mind the close quarters." Ron demonstrated - again - that he most certainly did not mind being squeezed into a small space with Kim.
"So you couldn't solve the sterility problem, but you could build a faster-than-light starship?" Ron was still trying to wrap his mind around all the fantastic things Kim had told him. Even her data bursts would take some time to digest.
"Yep."
"Badical." The couple spent more time getting reaquainted.
A short nap and brief snack later, Kim and Ron were refreshed as the ship emerged from hyperspace above the blue planet of Earth. Its pristine outline shone like a crystal sphere in the backdrop of the night. Kim guided it down, down to the terminator line near Middleton, and dropped to a gentle landing in a small clearing near her house. Although it was still before dawn, people streamed out to meet them once they heard on the netcast that Kim's vessel was back. Kim was tired, but happier than she'd been in a long time.
Ron stepped out first, drinking in the cool pre-dawn air, the moist freshness of the day. It was a dramatic change from the arid planet he'd spent much of his life trying to tame. His girlfriend emerged just behind him as the first people reached them.
Monique darted through the growing crowd, and grabbed Ron in a tight bearhug. He hugged back gingerly, hardly able to breathe. She turned to Kim, and said, "OK, points for a grand entrance. But we've got some other news, too." She chuckled at Kim's inquisitive look, and just said, "You'll see." Turnabout was apparently fair play.
The group ambled toward Kim's house by fading starlight, Monique in the lead. By the time they'd gotten to the front door, the crowd had spread out, forming a semicircle around Kim, Ron, Monique, and the front of her house. Monique came up behind Kim and covered her eyes. "Better prepare yourself for a shock," she told the confused redhead.
Sounds of the door opening and closing, and Monique's hands dropped from Kim's face. Bonnie and Brick were standing on the porch, looking shaky. Bonnie appeared looking for something suitably snide to say to Kim, but for once was at a loss for words, as was Kim.
"Wha...?"
Monique grinned so large Kim thought she'd hurt herself. "After your debrief, the nerds searched all records and found that our little friends," she gestured toward the two blinking teens, "had been put into a holding facility after Bonnie put on the stasis cuffs. The tech was too advanced, and they didn't want to hurt them. So they were shoved into a corner, and then another corner, and then another, until they were almost completely forgotten. Until we knew to look for them, that is."
Kim was astonished. "Did it work, then? Can they...?"
"Yep! The tests were normal." Monique turned to Bonnie and her boyfriend. "May I introduce Adam and Eve!" She turned back to Kim, ignoring the look on Bonnie's face. "They're mortal, and completely able to have children. They may not be my first choices as parents of the year, but girl, there will be children again!" Her fierce grin was soon echoed by Kim.
"What are you losers talking about? Why are we here, and what the hell is going on? Somebody better answer me or I'm calling the cops! Brick, tell them!"
The blond quarterback looked around, then at his fuming girlfriend. "I'm gonna miss practice. Coach is gonna kill me."
Kim's mother, who had come out during this exchange, took Bonnie aside and tried to explain things while Monique shooed the crowd away. A confused few minutes passed, and Kim and Ron found themselves no longer at the center of attention. Already, Bonnie could be heard whining. "But I don't want to have children, I want to be immortal like everyone else! Why do I get stuck being the only one not to get to live forever? It's not fair!" No amount of reassurances that Bonnie was the future of the human race seemed to penetrate the focused girl.
Brick, on the other hand, simply said, "Cool."
Kim and Ron walked a short way from the impromptu conference in Kim's front yard and waited for the sun to rise over Middleton. They held hands, never letting the other out of reach.
"Think Bonnie'll ever come around and accept her fate?" Ron asked casually as Kim snuggled next to him.
The redhead sighed, completely content. "It doesn't really matter. She'll deal with it, one way or another."
Ron snickered. "I never thought I'd depend on Bonnie to hold mankind together."
Kim smiled. "True. And she's important. Her descendents will take over from us someday." She gestured out at the pristine world before them. "But don't forget who'll be there keeping her kids and their kids on the straight and narrow, long after Bonnie's gone."
"Ooh. That's gotta chafe."
"I sincerely hope so." Kim gripped Ron's waist tightly and watched the stars fade into a brilliant sunrise.
The End