KP One Oh One Chapter 28: Part XXVIII – Transit, a kim possible fanfic

KP – One Oh One: Part XXVIII – Transit

There was something odd about leaning up against a cold metal bulkhead in the back of a cargo plane. Somehow or another, Kim found it almost as comfortable as being in her own bed. There was a certain natural 'rightness' about it that was hard to explain.

It was a good thing she could be comfortable like that. The plane didn't leave until almost midnight and it would take hours to cross the greater part of the country, even at top speed. Sure, she could have tried Wade's not-quite-complete supersonic flyer, but it had the drawback of only being built to carry two and the majority of the equipment was not properly tested. Her final decision was that it just wasn't ready to use in the field, and she wanted to get some short hops under her belt before she trusted it.

That meant their remaining options were either calling GJ for a ride, or relying on their old network of favors. This trip they had to be especially careful who they asked, since it all had to be 'off the radar' so to speak. That was why they had to wait so late for the plane to leave, they were merely hitching a ride on a plane who's flight plan took them over their intended target.

As she dozed leaning against Ron's shoulder, she thought he should be the one using her as a pillow, not the other way around. He really had a long day, sleeping on the couch, getting up early to help with meals all day long, then riding up to Sherry's house, back down the mountain, then riding out to the airport to wait for their plane to take off. Still, for a guy who normally guarded his sleep time jealously, he hadn't uttered a peep. Instead, he just assumed his accustomed 'mission travel' position, though since they were together he added wrapping his arms around her as she napped.

Joss didn't look as comfortable. So far, her idea of getting to her missions was either on horseback or at least easy driving distance. She already had a learner's permit and had been driving her father's pickup on their property since she was thirteen. At least she had the opportunity to learn that Kim never did. She just assumed when she went for her own driving exam that all her experience with high-performance vehicles would pay off. It didn't work out that way. She could jump a four-wheeler onto the top of a speeding train, but keeping a car under control at reasonable speeds? That was a whole other ballgame.

Kim woke up perhaps a couple hours into the flight and blinked a couple times in the near darkness. Her eyes met up with Joss'. The younger woman was sitting across the cargo bay from them, obviously giving them some semblance of privacy. She knew from the look in the girl's eyes she hadn't gotten any sleep. If it had been a cattle truck or a barn, then maybe she would have been able to rest, but the cool, bumpy aircraft ride was still alien to her. Well, this was what she wanted. It was all part of the package.

Ron was snoring softly, and that made her happy. At least he was getting some of the rest he deserved, though he was probably going to have a stiff neck if her stayed that way too long. She set the chronometer in her wrist Kimmunicator to go off about an hour before they reached their destination. That way she would have a chance to work the kinks out of his neck. It would cut into his sleep time, but she had other plans for later, and hopefully both of them would get some proper rest.

She felt Ron's hand tighten slightly on her waist. She was wearing her black commando sweater over the top of her mission clothes, but his hand had wormed its way up under it. She didn't mind that. In fact, she really enjoyed it and wished for a moment she hadn't extended the high tech material of her top over her midriff, even though it was a chilly late-November night. Even after dating for a year and a half, she still couldn't get enough of his touch, even when it was a simple, innocent thing like his hand on her waist.

"You awake, KP?"

"Mmm hmm." She responded softly, letting her head sink down into the crook of his arm. She could take on the world, as long as in the end she was able to be in his arms.

"Remember when we promised there were no secrets?"

"Yeah." She opened her eyes, a little concerned where that might be leading.

"Well, I think your cousin has a crush on me."

She closed her eyes again, smiling softly. "You can file that under 'duh' baby."

"You knew?"

"Honey, I knew that the first time you met her. Personally, I think it's kind of cute."

"Cute? You're the one who went all 'jell' over Yori. How's this any different?"

"I dunno. Maybe because she's family. Maybe it's because this time I know how you feel. You're telling me about it, aren't you? The whole deal with Yori was me getting worried that you found somebody and would be drifting away from me, and that was stupid because I didn't really have any claim on you, at least not that way. Besides, considering the talk we had last night, if Joss was really into you, we'd both know it. She's got a boyfriend, you know."

"Yeah, I kind of figured she might, but it just weirds me out when she looks at me like that, you know, the way she looks so much like you."

"She doesn't look that much like me. Her face isn't quite as round, her hair's a different color. Her ears are different from mine."

"You just can't see it since you've always known her, but for me, I'm still trying to reconcile seeing her now and the first time I met her. I still see her as a little twelve year old girl with freckles."

Kim smiled again. "Oh, the freckles are still there, she just covers them up, just like I do when the sun brings out mine. Listen, baby, why don't we get a little shuteye before we have to jump."

"Jump? Oh, come on, KP, I know I sound like a broken record, but can't we just land like normal people for a change?"

"No runways where we're going. But let me put it this way, we'll only be one ridge away from that little town in the Tennessee Appalachians we stopped at last summer. Remember the one with the hot tub?" She slipped a hand around his back and gently kneaded the spot just above his belt. "Maybe we could spend a little extra time here if everything goes okay and do some of the celebrating we originally had planned for tonight."

"Celebrating?"

Kim sat up a little straighter and pulled off her left glove. "Don't tell me you've forgotten what you did this afternoon already? After dinner we were going to load up the car and drive either to Durango or Mount Middleton. I was thinking Durango, cause we could dress up and ride the dinner train. Then we could get our own private little room." She leaned back into his arms and gently kissed the narrow area between his jaw and his turtleneck.

He tilted back his head. It was just dark enough on the plane to forget Joss was sitting all alone about fifteen feet away from them. He could feel her hand slip inside the back of his pants, lightly stroking the small of his back as she leaned into the kiss. Kim scooted a little closer, which to that point he thought was impossible, and moved down his jaw until their lips met.

"Maybe we should have let Joss go home with Slim." He whispered to her, his hands finding the bottom edge of her top and pulling it up just a couple inches so he could put his hands on her bare waist.

"Why's that? You thinking about joining the real Mile-High-Club?" She grinned wickedly before kissing him again.

"I don't know how much fun that would be. It's kinda cold in here."

"Hrk, chilly." Rufus agreed, poking his head out of Ron's cargo pocket.

"Mmmm, Rufus, why don't you be a good little Naked Mole Rat and go keep Joss company." Kim suggested. Thankful for the out, he hastily crossed the hold and curled up on the napping girl's lap.

Kim let her hand sink a little deeper towards his backside. "Now what were you saying about chilly?"

"KP, are you serious? In here? I know it's nice and dark, but…" She cut him off by kissing him again, throwing one leg over his and wrapping her arms even tighter around him, though that meant surrendering her grip on his butt.

"No, I'm not going to do that here, but I do like making out with my fiancé, at least when I get the chance."

"And if Joss wasn't here?"

"Then I think we'd be making this hold a lot warmer than it already is. Can I help it if you drive me wild?" She pressed her body tightly against his and he could feel her moving against him.

His own hands drifted down until they were resting on the curve of her hips. "You know, I was thinking about something, KP. We've always talked about our first time being some perfect, romantic setting, like that hotel you were talking about, or maybe our own place when we get married, but is that really us?"

"Honestly, baby? No. And I don't think we're going to make it almost four years either. I mean, we've really only left that last, little bit and the way you make me feel sometimes…" She sat up and slid off to the side. "You're right, it's easy to forget she's right over there, but yeah, I really kinda think this is just as romantic for the two of us as anything. Remember some of those times when we sort of made up our minds we were done waiting? A boardwalk park bench in Florida, the back of a dark bus on the way back to Wannaweep? Yet we're in a private room or a cabin and all we can think of is keeping out promise to wait."

"Wow, I never realized that. Is there something wrong with us?"

Kim shook her head almost violently. "No. There will come a day when we'll be together, I mean completely together in those situations. It's just when we're here, like we are right now, outside of the bounds of 'normal life' we're our complete selves. I think this is the sitch where we connect the most deeply and maybe that's why I get to feeling so…romantic. Then there was the other day at your Gram's. I was so close to asking you to…you know."

"Yeah. I was real close to asking you too, but I felt a little funny about it considering all the bad feelings that were flying around earlier that evening. If it'd just been the two of us visiting Gram…"

Kim slid back onto his lap, letting him wrap his arms almost double around her stomach. "I love you so much, Ronnie."

"KP, there aren't words to tell you how much I love you."

Kim's smile broadened. Where she was at that moment nothing in the world could harm her. She closed her eyes and concentrated on her lover's body pressed against her back, on his surprisingly strong thin arms wrapped tightly around her. She imagined what making love would feel like. She still had many dreams about the two of them together. Sometimes they would be like they were just then, sometimes the dreams were…hotter. She would wake up in the morning and somehow she knew that sometimes they both dreamed the same thing. The logical part of her mind kept insisting that was some sort of residual effect of Drakken's mind-swapping machine, but she felt it ran much deeper than that.

It was very strange how the two of them reacted to certain sitches. How many times had they spent the night sleeping in her bed, only to hold each other in their arms and sleep the night away. Of course, part of that was 'behaving' for her parents, but on a deeper level they were doing what was right and natural there. Even though she had lived in that room her whole life, it was 'her' place. The same thing happened on the rarer occasions she slept in Ron's bed, though they did give each other their 'intense' backrubs in there from time to time. It was like those places weren't totally 'theirs.'

Maybe that was why she felt that way when they were on a mission. That sitch belonged to them. It wasn't her parents, it wasn't his. It didn't belong to either one of them alone. With very few exceptions, it was always Ron with her. She almost chuckled at the thought that maybe one day they really would have their first time on a mission. It wasn't what she had once envisioned, but as time wore on, it seemed more and more appealing to her.

Maybe Ron was right. Maybe they should have let Joss go home to Montana. Then again, maybe the sitch would have played out differently and they wouldn't even be having their 'romantic' moment. She could think that way, but outside of their embrace, she wouldn't have it any other way. There was an intense feeling of pride that first her brothers and now her cousin were becoming part of the team. One day, perhaps sooner than she thought, she would have to step aside. It could be school demanding too much of her time, it could be a real career or, most likely, it would be when they were ready to start a family. As strong and independent woman as she was, Kim would never endanger her child by going into the field like this expecting.

That made her think again of Sherry. Newfound respect aside, there was still a lot of bad blood between them, and it was likely there always would be. That didn't stop her from thinking about the unborn child, though. Sherry was trying to do the right thing, even finding a way to get proper medical care, of sorts. It wasn't fair to her or to her child that she was now taken away like this. True, this was the rewards for the life she had chosen for herself, but that didn't make it right. She knew by then that she was carrying a little girl and knowing Sherry, she would defend that child with her life if need be.

What Wade had found made her angry. He was probably one of only a few people on Earth that could have followed the trail he found, starting at her mother's laptop. Somebody had gone to great lengths, creating a multi-layered pathway. On the surface, it did look like a pro. Then, as the layers were stripped away like the skin of an onion, it started falling apart, like some half-baked hacker was doing the job.

That didn't fool the younger teen, however. That layer was as fake as the first. He was as shocked as the rest of them when he discovered where the files had been sent to.

They were on the Global Justice mainframe.

That alone was both upsetting and confusing. It meant GJ knew quite well where Sherry was and very likely that Drakken was with her. It also meant that they knew her mother was party to that secret as well. What was confusing was that the organization had not moved on the pair, or on Doctor Possible for aiding and abetting. For some odd reason they seemed content to just sit back and observe.

That meant something else was going on, something bigger.

Before Kim could dial up Doctor Director on her Kimmunicator, Wade found something else. Something even more upsetting. The mainframe wasn't the final destination for that packet of information. What was doubly upsetting was that it was not hacked from outside, it was sent on by somebody within.

That confused the issue somewhat. Perhaps it was possible the information had never been put into Doctor Director's hands. What most at the moment, however, was where it went.

Actually, it seemed to go almost everywhere.

That was where Wade's unique skill came into play. He had seen the scatter technique before. It took him a while, but he was finally able to trace the real path, through a chain of servers linked all over the world. The trail had been hidden by a master, but there was always somebody better. Wade had yet to find his, but there was always the possibility.

The packet was finally delivered to a mainframe located in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Just inside Tennessee on the North Carolina border. The park was large, with only one major road crossing it about the middle. That left large tracts of heavily wooded, rugged terrain. That was why they were parachuting into their target. The closest airport large enough for their plane to land was Knoxville, over fifty miles away.

She hoped that was where they would find Sherry. If not, she hoped they would find the next clue to her whereabouts. What frightened her the most was the familiarity with the sitch. The scattershot obfuscation, the rugged locale. There was only one known major player out there at the moment that used both.

The World Wide Evil Empire.

Wade did a quick check for her. Carrion was still in custody, this time under special surveillance. He wasn't going to sneak out of his prison unnoticed a second time. That still bothered her to no end, but at least the authorities finally realized just how dangerous he really was.

Kim sat up slightly. When the dust had settled the last time she went up against WWEE, it became clear the organization was actually using Carrion. While she battled him, they were busy breaking Gemini out. Was that the reason GJ had been so quiet on the mission front? Did they blame her for that failure?

Ron had dozed off again, so she settled back down into his arms. It was still a very comfortable place for her, but a lot of her good mood evaporated. She still had no idea where Sherry fit into all of that since WWEE and Drakken had always acted separately.

Hopefully all would be clear soon enough. She closed her eyes and willed herself to relax. Fortunately for her, the dreams that come with the sleep were pleasant…and included Ron.