(S)

Kim moaned as she slowly woke to the sound of her fiancé snoring softly beside her. As she came fully awake, Kim was briefly confused by her surroundings. When she remembered that she was in the guest bedroom of her counterpart in another dimension, Kim had to stifle a giggle. The very notion was so absurd that she briefly wondered if she wasn't really still asleep in her own bed and just having an incredibly surreal dream. Beside her, Ron shifted slightly and made a soft, grumbling sound. He must have been on the verge of waking up as well. Kim gave him a fond look. Ron had a small, satisfied smile on his face. Kim made a mental note to give his parents a really big hug when they got home. She silently eased out of bed and went to her things to pick out an outfit for the day. The weather today was supposed to be sunny but somewhat cool. That suited Kim just fine, since she wouldn't have to explain long pants and a long sleeved shirt. That in turn meant she could wear her mission togs under innocuous civvies, instead of carrying them in her backpack and having to don them in the field if such became necessary. Moving quickly, Kim donned the famous blue and red uniform with its yellow highlights, then pulled jeans and a flannel shirt on over top of it.

"So when are we going to tell the other us 'bout you?" Ron's voice asked, causing Kim to start in surprise.

"Ron, I hope I didn't wake you …" Kim said sheepishly.

"It was time to get up anyway, so it's cool," he assured her. Then he gave her a frank look and repeated his question. "So, when are we going to them?" Not waiting for Kim to answer, Ron sat up in bed and started stretching.

"When they fess up on their Ron's flying rodent obsession," Kim declared. "Unless they need to find out sooner," she allowed. "But for now let's keep it under wraps. As long as Lehrman doesn't know we're here, we'll have an advantage. Let's not throw that away too soon."

Ron nodded once in understanding and went back to his bed-bound stretching.

"Wakey-wakey!" Bonnie's voice sounded as a pounding on the door to their room echoed. "Hands off Ronnie's snakey, Kimmie!"

"At least one thing's still the same," Kim said, her voice tinged with irony. "Bonnie's as shameless here as she is in our world." She smiled before turning to the door. "It's unlocked and neither of us are naked," Kim called. The door opened to Bonnie's disappointed face.

"You are … dang it." Bonnie pouted before opening the door the rest of the way and walking in followed by the three children. "Morning!" she said in a sing-song voice as the three girls parroted her.

"Morning, Bon-Bon," Ron waved before a feisty redhead jumped up onto the bed straddled his lap. "You even got Unka Ron's morning bed-hair."

"You must be Barbara, right?" Ron asked, smiling at the little girl.

"And you're the other world's Ron, and that's the other world's Mama." Barbara said pointing to Kim, who was leaning against the wall, watching the two. "Is there another me in your world?"

"Sorry, kiddo," Ron smiled sadly, "You're a one and only. For the time being, anyway," he amended at the disappointed look on Barbara's face.

"That means you never left your version of Mama, did you? You never stopped being together?" she asked, her green eyes sparkling hopefully, and pushing Ron's disappointment in his other self that much higher.

"That's right, I didn't, and I don't plan on leaving her if I can help it," Ron smiled, glancing at his fiancé.

"Even if it would help her?"

"Huh?" Ron and Kim looked at each other perplexed.

"It made Mama sad when Unka Ron left, even sadder when she lost my big sister before she was even born," Barbara stated solemnly. "She doesn't know I know, but that doesn't matter. Even though it hurt, Unka Ron left so he could learn to make things better again, and since he's come back, he's made a lot of things better."

"Maybe you're right, kiddo …but I don't think that'll be a problem for us." Ron said, unsure what to say. "That sounded really smart for a little kid."

"No big, my grandpa is a rocket scientist, my grandma is a brain surgeon, and my mama is a police detective," the little girl shrugged in a very Kim-like manner. "It's all genetic."

"I'm seeing visions of the future, KP," Ron laughed as he hugged the little girl.

"And who said anything about us having a little girl?" Kim retorted, a sly smile on her face.

"Ah-so! You two are expecting then, huh; that's that big secret you two are hiding, huh?" Bonnie accused, pointing her fingers at the pair.

"No, we're just engaged, that's all," Kim said, flashing her diamond ring. "Though," she added demurely, "it doesn't hurt to plan for the future."

"Holy crap, that's a nice rock; you can't even see where the Titanic hit it." Bonnie said, staring at the ring, "You got a good hunk of change like our Stoppable, huh?" she said to Ron.

"I've got a little put back," Ron shrugged bashfully.

"Only because you let your father manage your money," Kim reminded him. "Otherwise, you'd spend it all on grandé sized chimerrito combos," she teased gently.

"Would not!" Ron denied firmly. "I'd spend some on nacos, thank you very much!"

At that moment, Dexter, who had begun to rouse from sleep at the mention of two of his favorite foods, emerged from the small bed Ron had brought along for him.

"Naco, chimerrito, breakfast!" he chirped enthusiastically. Barbara and her friends squealed with delight at the sight of him.

"We'll feed you, Dexter," Barbara exclaimed. "Do you like cheese?"

"Cheese!" Dexter echoed, a huge grin on his tiny face.

"Come on then!" Barbara urged, and the four of them swept out of the room like a miniature tornado.

Bonnie watched them go, not quite able to keep herself from smiling, then returned her gaze to the other Kim and Ron, who were sharing 'A Look'.

"Before you two get into a knock down drag out, I thought I'd tell you breakfast is ready on the table," Bonnie said, shaking her head at playfully silly expressions on Kim's and Ron's face. There was only so much sappiness she could stand in one day, and it was too early for such things. "Ron, our Ron, fixed it before he and Kim left this morning."

"Ron was here last night?" Kim asked, blinking in surprise.

"He usually sneaks in for a booty call every few nights," Bonnie shrugged, "though, since we weren't awoken by Kim's wails of passion they probably just cuddled."

"Oh really …" Ron observed slyly.

"Whatever," Bonnie waved him off. "I'm going to drop the kids off at Anne's, and then I'm going to work. You two can do whatever you want, but if you touch any of my stuff … this cat has very sharp claws."

"Where'd Kim and Ron go?" Kim asked curiously.

"They told me not to tell you …" Bonnie said, biting her lower lip. A moment later, she broke into a grin. "So, of course, I'll tell you!"

(-V-)

Detective Kim Possible felt like she was looking in a window to the past. Since his return, Ron Stoppable had been a rock, wholly dedicated to his Mission. Watching him as he stood beside her in the parking lot of the old, closed down Middleton Movie Theater, she decided she hadn't seen him this vulnerable looking since the night she and her parents brought him home from the police station.

Ron was dressed in a long dark trench coat and sunglasses, in his hand were two red roses.

Ron went down to one knee and placed a rose on the very spots his parents fell. The two stood a long while in respectful silence before Ron finally spoke. "My dad's last words to me were that he was proud of me. I wonder if he still is?"

"You've made mistakes, but you're only human," Kim said, placing a hand on his shoulder. "You're doing, and you've done, what you felt you had to do."

"They're here." Ron said standing up and turning toward the shadows.

"You can come on out; we've been expecting you," Kim smiled as their doppelgangers walked out toward them.

Detective Kim glanced at her Ron and then at the Ron of this world, wondering if she could see the difference as easily as Kim did. Both Rons were well built, though her Ron was a bit bigger, probably a result of more free weight training than the other Ron indulged in. But what Kim noticed most were their faces. Her Ron's face was almost exactly the same as the other Ron's, except there was no goofy smile, and the laughter and child-like wonder in the other's eyes was replaced by a cold sadness.

(S)

"You knew Bonnie wouldn't be able to keep a secret, didn't you?" Kim guessed, and the Kim of this world nodded. "She also told us why this day is important to you, Ron," she went on, speaking to this world's version of the man she loved. "Please accept our condolences."

The Ron of this world inclined his head slightly. "Thank you," he said in a quiet voice. Looking up, he spoke again in a much firmer voice. "When Kim first told me about you guys, I was a little skeptical," he said, smiling faintly.

"She was, too," the other world Kim related with a grin. "We were more than a little surprised ourselves when we found out what had happened."

"I can imagine," the Ron of this world agreed. "I understand from my Kim that you guys are here to find a villain that fled your world?"

"That's right," Kim confirmed, working hard to act like she was unaware that the Ron facing her already knew all of this. It was a bit irritating to have to go through all this playacting when her aggressive nature wanted to spill the beans and get right to the point. "We're anxious to get on with our search, as you can understand, but we haven't the faintest notion where to start looking. We're hoping you can help us, even though you and your Kim don't do the 'Team Possible' thing anymore."

"I'll certainly help in any way I can," the other Ron promised, "although I don't know how much use I'll be," he added a touch self-deprecatingly. "You don't find many hardened criminals in corporate board rooms, after all."

"Well, the sooner we get started..." Kim began, but the Ron of this world cut her off with a raised hand.

"I understand your sense of urgency, Kim," he said, "but the criminals of Triton are mostly active at night. That, and I'd like some time alone with my counterpart," he added, giving his opposite number a somewhat cryptic look.

Kim and Ron shared a look, then Kim shrugged. "I guess that won't hurt."

The other Kim stepped up and took her arm. "C'mon, Kim, let's take a walk," she said and led her twin away.

(-V-)

Ron studied his counterpart carefully. The other stood quietly, obviously aware of what was happening and doing nothing to hinder the process. Despite Kim's assurances that these people could be trusted, Ron wasn't ready to commit just yet. He'd had too many people he'd trusted too quickly turn on him, and while he might have been a slow learner, he did catch on eventually.

So he took careful note of everything about his twin. He was relaxed, but watchful. His physique indicated a certain amount of weight training, but not as much as Ron himself indulged in. His clothing, while passable as civilian attire, was clearly designed for intense physical activity, and cut loosely enough to suggest that the activity in question required a lot of mobility. A belt fitted with pouches carried a number of devices, some familiar to Ron from the old days, such as the Kimmunicator and grapple gun, others quite mysterious. The dark green bracer on the other's right wrist had to be the Lotus Blade, camouflaged but available for immediate use.

Ron had been exposed to the mystical force known as Monkey Power more than a decade earlier in the castle of Lord Monty Fiske, and apparently his counterpart had as well. At Yamanouchi, he'd learned to use that power to instill fear in the minds of others. Had this other Ron done the same?

"You know," the other said, "If you want to know stuff about me, you could just ask."

The remark had the unaccustomed effect of startling Ron, if only slightly.

"How did you...?" he stammered.

"It's pretty obvious you're sizing me up," the other answered, "trying to form an opinion about me based on my appearance." The other gave Ron a meaningful look. "And we both know that appearances can be deceiving, don't we?"

"True enough," Ron conceded. Then he countered with, "I'll be honest. I don't quite trust you yet."

"I can understand that," the other said. "We might be a trick on the part of some villain who's out to get you, or maybe evil twins with sinister plans to conquer your world, or something like that."

"Exactly," Ron nodded.

"We aren't though," the other denied. "We're just what we say we are. Your Kim trusts us. Isn't her word good enough for you?"

"There was a time," Ron admitted, "When it would have been." His face went briefly thoughtful, then he added, "In most cases."

The other Ron blinked. "Oh yeah," he said sheepishly, his cheeks reddening. "The whole 'Drakken is going to steal Christmas' thing."

"Exactly," Ron agreed.

"What changed?" the other asked.

For answer, Ron just gestured at the roses lying on the ground behind him.

The other Ron looked intently at the roses, then returned his gaze to Ron's face with a distinct look of disapproval.

"So, your parents die, and instead of allowing people who love you to help you deal with your grief, you run off for eight years, leaving your pregnant girlfriend behind. That's very mature, Ron."

It was as if the other had found the most fragile part of Ron's psyche and struck directly at it. Anger boiled up inside him, though he kept it as much in check as he could.

"You're judging me?" he growled, taking an involuntary step to his right. It was like a trigger. The other mimicked the move, and suddenly the two men were circling like wary prizefighters.

"My parents were murdered! Gunned down in front of me, because I wasn't fast or good enough to stop the gang that attacked us!"

"Strange," the other countered, "I'd put the blame on the guy who aimed the gun and pulled the trigger. Nobody made him do that."

Ron was reeling. The other certainly knew which buttons to push. That insight, coming even as it did in the midst of the fury coursing through him, convinced Ron that the other really was him, and not some trick. Who else, after all, could possibly know you as well as you could know yourself?

"It was my fault," Ron repeated. "If I hadn't fought, had just let Dad give them what they wanted..." he began.

"...that punk might have shot them anyway, out of spite," the other finished. The other stopped circling and dropped his guard. "Ron," he said, "you can't always save everybody. In my world, there are thousands of people dead now because Kim and I weren't fast enough to get there in time, or flexible enough to be in eight places at once, or smart enough to figure out the bad guy's plan and stop it before it even got started. If you let it eat you up inside...well, it can't be good for you."

Ron let the scowl fade from his face, replacing it with a cool stare. "Spare me the psychoanalysis, please. Whether the decisions I've made were good or bad, they're in the past now."

"Fair enough," the other conceded. "Just be mindful of how the decisions you've yet to make will affect your future."

-$-

Lehrman rubbed his temples, trying to drive back the headache that was creeping up on him. For all that Slade Wilson was an excellent business partner, he was irritatingly impulsive. What was it about villains, super or otherwise, that made it impossible for them to take their time, to think things thoroughly through? And why, why, why could they never be forthright with their allies?

Lehrman had gone to Slade to discuss his concerns about Batman and Kim Possible. Slade had reacted with his usual mix of condescension and circumspection, advising Lehrman to relax because he, Slade Wilson, had everything well in hand. Not, Lehrman conceded, that Slade had been totally unforthcoming. He'd admitted, however obliquely, that he had plans for dealing with both Kim Possible and Batman. In fact, Lehrman had gleaned from Slade's words that the plans were somehow related, though his efforts to gain clarification had been brushed aside. And then there was the impression he got, thin as it was, that Slade knew far more about Batman than he let on. The man had excused himself from Lehrman's company soon after and left the lair on an errand he wouldn't talk about.

"Well," Lehrman said to himself as he dug an aspirin bottle out of a drawer in his workshop and swallowed two pills, "I guess that in addition to Batman and Kim Possible, I'd better make plans against the possibility of Slade doing something stupid."

(-V-)

Barbara sat at the computer in her mother's bedroom, playing a game.

"Babs, let's go play outside!" Helena whined, peeking in the loft door.

"Let me finish this stage, Helena, and I'll be right out, ok?" the little girl said absently, not taking her eyes off the screen.

"Whatever," Helena shrugged before closing the door and stomping down the steps.

"You're a really smart girl, Ms. Possible, playing such a difficult video game." A voice spoke from behind the little redhead, causing her to spin the chair around to see a man sitting on her mother's bed.

"Who are you?" Barbara asked without a hint of fear in her voice. She looked over the man, who was dressed in an odd red and black costume with various weapons on his belt and a mask lying at his side. She took a good look at his face. He was an older man, probably around her grandpa Possible's age, with silvery gray hair, a small goatee and a patch over his right eye.

"Me? I'm just an old friend of your Uncle Ron," the man smiled. "My name's Slade."

"Oh?" Barbara asked still not breaking defiant eye contact.

"I need your help with something, sweetheart," Slade said with a soft smile, "Your mom said it was ok to trust me."

"No, momma would tell me," Barbara crossed her arms, giving the elder man a cold glare. "I think you're one of the bad guys."

"You're a smart girl," Slade smiled, then, faster than Barbara could react, shot her in the neck with a tranquilizer dart. "Too smart."