KP – One Oh One : Part XVI
The Medical Center ended up keeping Ron overnight for observation even though he was really just bruised up. Kim had a strong suspicion that was just her Mom's strong overprotective streak coming to the fore, but she didn't put up any fuss. In fact, it was her who ended up convincing Ron not to insist he go right home, especially since she owed him one for siding with her Mom about getting an MRI last winter. Unfortunately, she wasn't able to work in his line about her needing her head examined.
He was discharged Saturday morning. Neither of them were quite sure when it had started, but for some reason when Ron was sick, or injured as he was in this case, he would recuperate at Kim's house. There didn't seem to be any particular reason for it, unless it was the fact Kim's Mom was a doctor, though in the wrong specialty. The only time there was good, practical reason for it was the last time he came down with the flu (his 'fortress of immunity' not being all it was cracked up to be.) Then, his Mom had been pregnant with his sister and he was quite contagious.
Jean Stoppable talked to Kim briefly on the phone, concerned that her child had not slept in his own bed since Monday night, but Kim explained to her she needed a chance to have a long, private talk with Ron and keeping him in the house to nurse him was just about perfect. Besides, the guest room had pretty much become his anyway.
Kim smiled softly at her lover as he rested, propped up with a pile of pillows in his long pajamas. There was really no reason he couldn't be up and around, but she knew from experience the kind of injuries he had would heal quicker with a day of real rest in a real bed. Still, he threw a little fit at being cooped up inside when it was an absolutely gorgeous day outside. There had been a light frost in the morning when she drove him home, but it was warming up quite nicely as a warm front brought in an official Indian Summer.
She sat cross-legged on the end of the bed, just watching him as he dozed. He might have wanted to be outside, but here in the guest room they had the most privacy they could get in the home, including her own room. It would have been nice to be out on the deck, laying side by side in the chaise lounges, but the rest of the fam kept trooping by. They needed to be alone for this.
Ron's eyes fluttered open as Kim pulled herself up beside him. As gently as she could, she kissed him on the lips. His mouth parted and merged with hers, the tenderness and joy overwhelming the pain and discomfort he felt. Neither wanted it to stop, but she eventually broke away.
"You're funny, you know that, Ronnie?"
"I do my best." He said, not quite knowing where she was going with that comment.
"I you had been okay, I would be having a ferociously hard time getting you up out of that bed. Next thing you knew, you'd be sleeping past noon and if I was with you, you'd be trying to make me do that too."
Smiling must have been just as uncomfortable as kissing, but he managed to do that too. "Like I said, we should be out doing something. Heck, if you wanted to be alone, we could go to that clearing at Lake Middleton. This late in the season, with the beach closed, it should be pretty quiet there."
"Just listen to yourself, honey. You're talking at half speed. Healing takes a heck of a lot out of you, especially as fast as you heal." Amazingly enough, most of the swelling around his face was gone and some of the lesser bruises were already starting to fade. He really had some amazing recuperative powers, but it still left him drained. He should have remembered that from the time they both got sunburned. They tried to go out and have a full day, but they ended up sacked out by lunch time.
He closed his eyes for a few minutes. She could tell he was tired. Kim hadn't been there to see their fight, but considering the punishment the two men dealt to each other, it must have been a doozy. Their opponent really didn't have much left by the time she got into the fray, though it did feel good…really, really good to do what she did to him. It felt every bit as good as it did to kick Shego into that tower, only this time there were no regrets or second guessing involved. Her fury then caught her by surprise and it was only later she realized that such a blow would have killed any normal woman.
This time, if Carrion ended up singing soprano for the rest of his life, she didn't care. He was already on his way to one of the maximum security super-villain containment centers. This time he wasn't going to slip away by somehow manipulating computer records to say he didn't even exist. At least they were finally taking seriously just how dangerous he could be.
Kim scooted a little closer to Ron, pressing up against his side. With her fingertips she brushed back his bangs. His eyes remained closed and his breathing was regular. He was sound asleep. She frowned slightly, but the frown turned to a smile and she gently rested her head on his shoulder. She was wearing her sweat pants and a t-shirt, so she was just as comfortable as he was, so it didn't take long for her to drift off as well, though she really wanted to enjoy just holding onto his arm that way.
It really was close to noon when she opened her eyes back up. Ron had rolled onto his side and threw and arm over her waist, the same way they usually tended to sleep when they were together. She gave him a little nudge in the shoulder, carefully avoiding the bruises. She took note of where most of them were when she helped him get into his pajamas.
Getting up, Kim went to the kitchen, returning with a pair of sandwiches on plates. Ron eyed his suspiciously.
"Mom made it, it's safe." She said in a mock snarl.
After lunch, Kim took up a spot on the foot of the bed, sitting cross-legged and facing Ron. He was starting to feel much better and emulated her posture, though he did tend to lean back on his pillows slightly. That was probably more because of his innate laziness than the lingering effects of his injuries.
Kim took a deep breath. It was time to start. "Ronnie, we've both apologized and we've forgiven each other for what has happened, but we still need to talk about it."
His pleasant expression slowly morphed into a frown, but he still nodded his head in assent.
"First off, I want to ask you something really hard, and I want you to take your time and give me an honest answer. Do you think we should be engaged to be married? Did we move too fast?"
Ron looked like he had been punched in the gut, but just like she said, he considered that for a few minutes. "Kim, are you saying that, given what we feel about each other, what we've gone through together, we might not be meant to be together?"
"That's what I'm asking you, Ron. Are we making a mistake?"
He looked away from her for a moment, but when he spoke again, he was looking her straight in the eyes. "Kim, I love you."
"I love you too, baby. But are we too young? Were we ready?"
"KP, I don't think anybody is ever completely ready. What I think matters, though, is that I love you. I love you so much it makes me hurt. I want to be with you every hour of the day. The thought of not spending the rest of my life with you makes my head spin, worse that all this knocking around I got. If that doesn't mean we should get married, I don't know what does. I mean, it's not like we're running back to Gatlinburg or to Vegas to get married tonight. It's still more than three and a half years away."
"Guess it's not that hasty anyway, is it?" She half smiled at him.
"Kim, we're just eighteen, but like you said, we've gone through so much together. It's like we were really dating for years, though I never got to kiss you until the Prom. We've got more history together than some people who are married. Actually more history than a lot of people who are married. If you really think about it, we've been engaged for a lot longer than just last August. You said it a long time ago, I was supposed to ask you when we turned eighteen and you were going to say yes. That means we've been planning to get married since the first time we brought it up."
She sighed again. "But are we doing this because it was just the plan?"
Ron shook his head. "Throw all that mumbo-jumbo, yadda-yadda out the window, Kim. The only question that matters right here and right now. Do you want to get married? I don't care what we were thinking two months ago, I don't even care what we were thinking seventeen months ago. Today, sitting here on this bed with me. Will you marry me?"
"Yes." She said without hesitation.
"Then there you have it. That's all the answer you really need."
She smiled broadly at him. It really was that simple. All the pain they had both gone through the last few days, in the end, really didn't try to drive them apart. The fear that she might have lost him on served to reinforce just how much he meant to her. Just, in a moment of pain, she lashed out at him.
"Ron, tell me, why didn't you tell me that was…him?"
He slumped back against the pillows a little harder. "I was afraid of how you would react and all. I wanted to tell you, but it got to the point I felt like it would all blow up, and I guess I was kind of right. Plus, I was kind of being selfish."
"Selfish? I don't get it."
"When I came back from Japan, that time when you told me everything that happened, and then made me kiss your neck like he did, that scared me. It made me think that I could have you, but you would pull away from me every time we had some private time, even to the point when we finally decide to make love. I thought if you started getting afraid of him and stuff, all that would happen again.
Kim put her hand on his knee and squeezed it. She nodded slightly. "Honestly, baby, sometimes when somebody comes up behind me and touches my shoulder, I do jump a little. But when I'm with you, when I know it's you, I want your touch. It feels so good when you touch me, when you kiss me. It was you who drove his face out of my mind, it was you I clung to when things were the worst last winter. You don't know how much it meant to me to have you then. You were the lifeline I was clinging to when I could have drowned in fear."
She scooted over next to him, re-crossing her legs. "I want you to promise me something, and I'll promise you the same thing. No secrets. None. Don't ever let anyone make you promise to keep anything from me ever again. I don't care if it's something at Yamanuchi or something like you lost my best nail file or something. We are a couple and we're a team. We can only function when we both know everything the other does. Yes, I probably would have had a moment if you told me…it…was loose, but I would have known. It's very likely I would have recognized him at school right off the bat and he wouldn't have ever had the chance to do what he did. Keeping me in the dark meant I was going to stumble eventually. Now, do I have your promise?"
Ron took both her hands and looked her straight in the eyes again. "I promise. I won't keep any secrets from you ever again."
Kim let go of his hand and touched the ring hanging from his necklace. "I wish I'd never done that. I wish that was back on my finger. Somehow it just feels incomplete that all I'm wearing is this promise ring, but I understand what you must be feeling. You did what you did because you thought you were protecting me. You did something wrong and foolish, but you did it out of love.
"When I took my rings off, all I wanted to do was hurt you. I wanted to slap you across the face, but that would have been nothing compared to what I actually did to you. Pulling them off and throwing them at you was nothing short of saying in my loudest voice that I didn't love you any more and I was breaking up with you. That's not what I wanted, but that's what I ended up saying. It still tears me up inside that I could do something like that to you."
Ron grabbed her hands again, holding them firmly. "Stop that, KP." She looked away from him, blinking back tears. "Stop it, Okay. You said when we got started, we've forgiven each other. Don't worry about this ring. As far as I'm concerned, it's still on your finger. I'm just saving it for something else. I asked you to trust me. It's not a secret, it's a surprise. Listen, we didn't break up. We've been together non-stop since the moment we kissed that night in May. Heck, we've been together since I saved you from those bullies in Pre-K.
Kim laughed softly through her tears. "I pulled those bullies off of you."
"Hey, we were four, the details are sketchy. All I know is I started the day as a nobody whose only friend was an imaginary giant named Rufus. I ended the day with a friend, and I've loved you ever since that day, though most of the time when we were little I really didn't think of you as a girl."
Kim laughed a bit harder. "You know, I think that's worked in your favor. Back in our mid-teens Dad got all 'no boys' on me for a while, but he never, ever said a word about you. You weren't a boy, you were just Ron." She pulled the collar of her T-shirt down, just a bit. "That's also got him used to you being in a room with me, even when I'm changing."
"You know, it's funny how many times I've actually seen you naked over the years, though it really didn't affect me until later."
"I figured you were peeking. So, when did it start affecting you? Was it when we switched bodies?"
Ron grinned sheepishly. "Actually, it was a little before that. Back when we were Freshmen and I went with you to that out-of-state swim meet. I kind of saw you changing into you swim suit and I sort of figured you didn't know I was there, so I didn't look away. That's when you really started looking like a girl to me, instead of just Kim."
Kim wrapped her arm around his. "Do I still look like a girl to you?" She waited a heartbeat, then another. Finally she let go of his arm. "Well?"
"I'm taking my time to give you a well considered answer." He replied with a smirk.
Kim punched him lightly in the arm, then immediately realized it actually hurt to do that to him when he winced painfully. "Oh, baby, I'm sorry!"
Ron grinned wickedly. He was banged up but he wasn't an invalid. Grabbing both her arms, he flipped her onto her back, landing on top of her with his hands still gripping her shoulders. He pulled her close and gave her a huge kiss. Kim tried struggling for a second, then gave into it, wrapping her arms around his chest.
"You are feeling better." Kim said with a grin.
Ron winced just a little. "Oh, it still hurts, but that was worth it."
"Is it worth it when I do this?" She pulled him down and started down his neck with a series of light kisses, while her hands found purchase at a lower point.
"You know, I think you've found the one part of my body that didn't get pounded on. Got my butt kicked without literally getting my butt kicked."
Kim kissed him again. "You know, we're supposed to be talking, not making out?"
"Who made that rule. Besides, after last Wednesday, don't I owe you some quality time?"
Kim let him sit up just a little. He rolled to the side, letting his body form to hers. "You know, that's another thing we have to talk about."
"Haven't we talked about that enough?"
Kim sat up, though not enough his hands slipped from around her. "No, I was being a real jerk. Just because we've done some things doesn't mean we have to if you're uncomfortable with it. We might have been moving too fast about…well, you know."
Ron sat up beside her, putting his chin on her shoulder. "KP, the only thing I was uncomfortable with is that I might be taking advantage, that's all. What we did…that was badical and I, uh, well…I can't wait until we can do that again, if you know what I mean." For effect his hand trailed down to her waist and he put his pinky into the band of her sweat pants.
"Whoa, not here." She protested, though she was enjoying his returning the favor with the kisses on the neck.
"Why not? Your brothers are gone to soccer practice, your Mom's still at the medical center and I think your Dad's going to leave us alone, since we're 'talking.'"
Kim closed her eyes. Honestly, she knew she really would like some 'enhanced' making out, but somehow it didn't feel right doing that in their home. Then an idea hit her.
"Come on, Ron. You're feeling better, get dressed."
"Huh? I thought I was supposed to rest."
"Well, you can rest riding in the passenger seat. We're hitting the road."
"Um, I don't get it."
Kim dipped her hand into her pocket, coming up with a shiny brass key. "Remember that cabin? The owner said he wasn't going to be up there until the middle of November, so I could use it any time I wanted." She scooted over next to him and whispered in his ear. Even though it still hurt a little bit to do it, Ron smiled broadly.
It didn't take him long to get dressed. They still spent a lot of time talking during the eighty mile drive, though they drifted into far happier subjects.
Both of them came home the next day, far happier indeed.
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