The 3rd Law

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction

-Sir Isaac Newton

How did I end up here? He wondered.

Last week, he was on his way to buying a copy of Dungeoncraft. He had just found a book of still-valid coupons for Bueno Nacho. And, lest he forget, his best friend had never at any point broken his nose.

Not on purpose, anyways.

Seeing as it would take a while till his body was up for this whole "standing upright" fantasy, Ron Stoppable decided he'd run over the course of events that ended up in a puddle of various bodily fluids on the ground.

Maniac Polar Bear

"The 2nd Law"

A not-at-all-pretentious action/drama/comedy/tragedy

This made no sense. Ron Stoppable, the living embodiment of coming in under the wire, was on time, and Kim Possible, the world's most punctual person, was late.

By twenty minutes.

This was a lot like Steven Hawking clearing his throat: not possible by any stretch of the imagination. She was never late, she was early. Incredibly early. Like, on the first day of school, she's unlocking the door for the principal early. It was a quality that had saved the world more times that he bothered to count, and yet here Ron was, faced with an anomaly that threatened to rend reality from its very moors.

Granted, it wasn't as if there was some large, madly quivering bomb Kim had to diffuse, or a quickly-fleeing villain she had to catch. She was just supposed to meet him out here in front of the bus almost a half-hour ago. They were both going to walk to Kim's house and study, and then Ron was going to walk home about the time his family finished eating dinner. It was a ritual as old as time. Well, really, it was a ritual as old as Kim's cheerleading carrier, but the fact remained that, up till now, it had run like clockwork. SHE was usually the one looking out on the parking lot, while HE ran from some unspecified spot in the school to meet her.

That this was just the latest example of uncharacteristic lateness only irked Ron more. Not more than a week ago she had promised to meet him in the mall food court, only to show after Ron had drowned a full milkshake. She claimed Tweeb-related room de-gooing.

Then, when she called him up at his house to go on a mission to the Amazon, she was almost two minutes late to the chopper. There she had claimed simple transportation difficulties. Never mind that he had walked there, while she had biked, or that the helicopter had been further from his house.

But, like any good friend, Ron Stoppable hadn't brought it up. After all, they were both teenagers, and both prone to flightiness. He admitted-nay, pleaded-to that fact last month, as he and Kim were flown away from the site of Drakken's latest lair-come-smoldering crater.

But then, who rigged an entire island with a self-destruct mechanism, one activated by an unfortunately butt-sized button?

Still, no amount of super-idiocy could account for this. Kim Possible might be late for greasily prepared fast food, she may even be late for an instant jetlag-inducing flight, but she was never, ever, late for the sacred end-of-day wind down. It was at this time that he would say something about one of his classes, or possibly some social event at the school, and she would give a witty reply, to which he would return a pithy counter, and so on and so forth!

Ron resolved that some force would keep Kim from both so on AND so forth. He started back towards the school doors.

Of course, chimed in a not-altogether helpful part of his mind, she could be avoiding you.

Argh.

This again.

It could have been that famed Jewish paranoia stand-up comics were always talking about, or the fact that when he had went to Japan he had literally been replaced, and by a cute guy no less. Whatever the reason, Ron was developing a marked distrust of just about any circumstance that challenged the status quo of their friendship. He had known Kim since before they even went to real school, so he logically assumed that their bond would remain a constant, a bit like breathing. She'd been doing that since Pre-K, after all.

However, with the onset of puberty, and the concept of the social ladder, Ron learned that there was a good chance that his best friend wouukd grow apart from him due to more "serious" relationships. Serious meaning anything involving physical contact outside of cheek-pecks or intimacy outside of "not now Ron, womanly time." It was due to this knowledge that Ron often found himself outright worrying that Kim was involved in some manner of "romantic" situation, leaving him in the undesirable position of being by himself. More to the point, not being around her.

And it was precisely that train of thought that was running him over. What if she was making out with someone under the bleachers? What if she was in the middle of some asinine "you hang up/ no, YOU hang up" trade on the phone? What if she, for whatever reason, uttered that most dreaded, hateful, destructive of statements?

"It's only Ron."

"Listen, voice in my head," he grumbled, "I'll have you know that Kim has not dated a boy for almost two months, and even if she were, I would be perfectly fine with that." A strange thing, faking conviction as you talked to yourself.

Ron noticed Rufus perched on his shoulder, his pink brow furrowed with concern.

"No big, buddy," he assured the mole-rat. "I'm just being crazy".

No longer worried, or even mildly surprised, the rodent skittered down his shirt on back into his pocket.

Ron got all the way to the locker room doors without once asking what his treacherous subconscious thought about it, and for his trouble found himself at another impasse.

The locker room. The girl's locker room.

It wasn't as if he was a stranger to a few of Kim's personal details. More than once he had dipped unthinkingly into her purse for a mint or the Kimmunicator, only to awkwardly stumble across some hygiene product. Her fear of tinfoil contacting teeth was known only to him. And then there were the several times that, due to sword-wielding villain, dangerously close laser beam, or traitorous grappling hook, they'd caught glimpses of each other in various states of undress. Though mostly that was him in his underwear.

But there was a difference between personal and private, and this stood squarely on the side of the latter.

The impulse didn't strike her often, but this specific locker room was a de facto Fortress of Solitude for Kim. Every so often, she'd close herself up in it, to write or whatever, and then return to her day as if nothing happened.

It was weird for anyone, and it was very, very weird for her. Locker rooms, after all, were totally uninviting places, what with the constant dripping of untended faucets, the muggy but not quite warm atmosphere, and the terrible lighting. Any human in their right mind would want to be in there only as long as necessary, and one thought that would go double for Kim "yay, people!" Possible. Yet, here he was, inches from the door, and there she was, maybe, stewing in her late-ness.

He steeled himself. You're only exploring one possibility, he reminded himself. You've been tied butt-to-butt with this girl for hours before, you can damn well knock on a door she may or may not be in.

His hand was just half an inch from the door when there came a sound that he probably wouldn't have noticed in any other state of mind: a muffled, strained moan.

That wasn't a locker room sound, he thought. As a matter of fact, that was a different kind of sound entirely! All thoughts of whatever scandalous embrace she might be in were blasted from his head. The sidekick emerged from the neurotic, and he prepared for a fight. The sound could mean she was in danger, some evil menace knocking her unconscious! "I'm coming, KP," he catch phrased under his breath, pushing the door open without a second thought.

He flattened against the nearest wall, taking in the surroundings. There didn't seem to be any signs of battle. The walls were intact, as were the lockers he could see. But the room was absolutely choked with steam, as if a shower head had been broken off not to long ago. So that was it! Kim was cornered near the shower, and needed the help of a swooping distraction!

Stealthily, he crept to the edge of the wall, preparing to leap out and get the drop on his target. He stopped when another voice sounded. It wasn't so much words, as a brief chuckle followed by a satisfied…purr?

Something cold and hard dropped with a splat into Ron Stoppable's stomach. A cold sweat ran down his forehead, and it had nothing to do with the heat. It was so small a sound, really. Why did it suddenly distress him so much? Why did a part of him severely hope his best friend in the whole world was in mortal danger?

His adrenaline sapped, he opted merely to peek his head around the corner. His eyes opened some seconds later. His head went slamming back where it was a millisecond after that.

It distresses you, said the voice in his head, because you aren't that stupid.

He charged out of the room ungracefully, the door tapping oh so lightly on the rubber stop. He blindly tumbled to the floor. His train of thought collided with a brick wall. The voice laughed and laughed.

After a while, he sifted the real images from the ones he only thought he saw.

There had been a girl that Ron had not once wished to see naked.

She straddled a girl that Ron knew he shouldn't see naked.

And the lighting was very, very good.

"What was that?" asked one girl.

"What was what?" asked the other.

"There was a sound"

"There have been plenty of sounds."

"This sounded like a door."

Water sloshed as one propped herself up on her arms. "The janitor knew I was gonna be in here. And a strong breeze could've moved that thing a few inches."

"But if someone saw…"

The other sighed, and not in exasperation. There was more sloshing as knees took the place of elbows.

"I promise. No big."