Where Did the Time Go? : Part X
Kim and Ron were both dressed in long flannel pajamas. They were huddled together under a thick wool blanket, had monster mugs of hot cocoa (Kim was on her third) and they were sitting in front of a raging fire her father had been tending since earlier that evening and they were still shivering, though by this point it was more from the fresh memory of being so cold rather than the core temperatures of their bodies.
Ron felt colder than he had been when he was stranded with Drakken above the arctic circle.
The storm had gotten so bad outside Kim was thinking of calling Wade again to run a scan for weather machines.
The first thing they did once they accepted the van wasn't going to start was to call Wade on the Kimmunicator. That proved more interesting than they expected at first. For the first time ever, when Kim pulled her relatively new Mark II hand-held out the batteries were completely dead. Not just weak, they were gone. She'd dealt with nearly drained batteries in her original Mark I before but it always seemed to have just enough juice in it to get by, even if it only had power for an audio call. No luck this time, making her wonder if the new unit had a manufacturing fault in it somehow, or it was inordinately affected by the cold.
Ron, of course, didn't think to bring his. In true Ron Stoppable fashion, he had also left his cell-phone sitting in its charger on his desk. Kim didn't have hers because she was carrying a tiny clutch purse, with just enough room for her usually dependable Kimmunicator.
They shared a little laugh about that. If they had been on a mission, they would have either been wearing their thermal outerwear or their super suits, or in this kind of weather, probably both. They would have had their ultra-lightweight thirty-below sleeping bags and they both would have had their Kimmunicators with them, not to mention various and sundry other gadgets.
Now they were within five miles of their home. They were both underdressed, had virtually none of their equipment and had gone out into a storm that, while worse and faster than anticipated, was still nothing particularly unusual for the region. They got single snow events like this about once every three to five years.
"Well, we have two choices that I can see." Kim said. "We freeze out butts off in the van, or we freeze our butts off trying to get home on foot."
"I don't know, KP. It seems like we'd be a little warmer in here."
She had pulled her knees up into her coat, but her teeth were already chattering. "This has been some more day, hasn't it?"
"Same old, same old." He favored her with a hopeful smile.
"No, it's not. If we'd been this ferociously stupid on a mission, we could get ourselves killed." She shuddered again. "I so don't like being cold."
Ron got up and sat down on the bench seat behind the bucket seats up front. "Come back here, KP."
She sat down with him and he unzipped his coat, drawing her head down to his chest, sharing a little bit of his warmth with her. They sat that way for about half an hour, a little more comfortable than they had been before.
"Stupid cell-phones." Kim muttered, snuggling a little closer to him, trying to stay in his sphere of body heat.
"I'm sorry I forgot mine, Kim."
"That's not what I'm talking about. Even a couple years ago we could have found a pay phone nearby and we could call Dad to come get us. Did you notice they even took the one outside Bueno Nacho down?"
"Yeah, I know what you mean." He shuddered just a bit, and not from the cold. The last time he had used that particular phone was to call Bueno Nacho headquarters to bless them out for dropping Naco Night and bendy straws, only to have Doctor Drakken himself answer the phone.
"Maybe for once your curfew will be a good thing. If I don't have you home by eleven then your father's going to come looking for us." Ron said hopefully.
"No good, Ronnie. When was the last time Dad mentioned a curfew? He's up and decided you're so trustworthy he doesn't even set one. Not to mention, when was the last time he went out looking for us?"
He didn't have to think long. He remembered the bronze Jaguar S-type rolling up right at sunrise. "Prom night." They said in unison.
"Jinx, you owe me hot chocolate." Kim said, closing her eyes and hugging him tighter.
"What time is it anyway?" He said, pulling his glove back so he could see his watch. "Just after nine. Even if he did get antsy I bet he wouldn't even leave the house until around one. We'd be popsicles by then."
"That's just it, Ron. I'm getting colder by the minute, no matter how warm you are. This is downright dangerous." She glanced at the thermometer on the dash. It was reading fifteen.
Something was tickling the back of his mind. Then it hit him. "Hey, there's an emergency Kimmunicator built into my watch. That's how Wade got a hold of me in Japan!"
Kim sat up and helped him pull his glove back again. "So, how does it work?"
"I, uh…heh…I don't exactly know. He called me."
Pulling his glove completely off he stripped off the watch and examined it closely. "Uh, Kimmunicator on." He said into the crystal.
"Here, let me try." she stripped her own gloves off and started pressing buttons at random. After managing to do no more than screw the time settings up a little she handed it back to him and hastily put her gloves back on.
"Maybe if we backed over it he'd get an emergency signal." He offered.
Kim lightly rapped on his forehead. "If we could start the van, then we wouldn't need to call him, now would we?"
"Oh, yeah."
"I just can't believe he'd go to the trouble of installing something like that and not have some way to call him with it."
"Maybe he just put it there for emergencies." He said, shrugging.
"Ron, we're the ones who have emergencies and need to call somebody, not the other way around."
He took the watch and started trying other things. First he tried stretching the plastic band. Then he tried mashing the protective rubber ring around the crystal.
He hit pay dirt. The right edge was softer than the rest. He pressed a little harder and the LCD display changed to a color screen showing Kim's logo.
"Woo hoo, the Ron-man came to play!" He shouted. He passed the watch back to Kim, who knew better how to work the unmarked buttons of their regular units.
Assuming the five buttons on the watch emulated the main cluster on the hand-held, she pressed the one that should call Wade directly.
The holographic projector didn't come to life, but they were rewarded with a familiar voice. "Ron, is that you?"
"Wade, this is Kim but Ron's right here with me."
"Where's the hologram?" Ron asked, leaning over to look at the watch, which was still showing the "KP" screensaver.
"I'm in the dark over here. My power's been off for an hour. I'm talking to you on an old Mark I Kimmunicator I've been tinkering with."
"You mean you don't have back-up?" Kim asked.
"I've got the main-frame on a really advanced UPS, but I'm conserving the power since my monitors really drink up the juice. Dad's outside right now trying to get the gas-powered generator started, but he's not having much luck. Where are you guys anyway?"
"We're stuck in the parking lot over at Muddrakker's and the van's conked out."
"Ouch. You guys got a way to keep warm?"
"I'm sure Ron has some things in mind." Kim said, shooting her boyfriend a slightly wicked grin.
There was silence on the other end for a few moments.
"Wade? You still there?" She finally asked.
"Oh, sorry, I had my hands over my ears."
"I'm just pulling your leg, Wade. It's too cold to even hold hands right now. By the way, my Kimmunicator bailed on us. It worked earlier, but now the batteries are completely gone."
"Hmmm. Might be the cold. If there's a flaw in the battery it can conk out when it gets below twenty. I'll take a look at it the first chance I get. So that's why you're on the number four unit."
"Yeah, uh Wade, it'd have been nice if you told me how to use it." Ron said.
"Sorry, I kind of forgot you had it. Look, there's not a whole lot I can do on my end with the mainframe down. Do you have any of your equipment with you?"
"No, we've got a sum total of a dead Kimmunicator and Ron's watch with us. We're out on a date." Kim said, a little petulance creeping into her voice.
"You two went out in this storm? You two are more lovesick than I thought. Look, if I remember the map right, you're only three point six miles from your house. Maybe you can make it on foot."
"That's what I was thinking Wade. This van's already like an ice-box." She said, pulling her knees back up into her coat again.
"Okay, you two get started and I'm going to call your Dad. Stay on the main road so he can see you."
"Thanks Wade. You rock even without your computers." She pressed the ring, sending the watch back into its normal mode.
"You ready?" She asked.
"Almost." Reaching up, he pulled his stocking cap off and shoved it down on her head.
"No, Ron, you had the foresight to bring a cap."
"Forget it, KP. Besides, I've got a hood." He unzipped his collar and pulled the thin hood up over his head.
She grabbed his cheeks and kissed him. "I love you Ronnie."
"We better get going, I think our lips are about to stick together." He laughed. "Think my tongue would stick to the van?"
"You are so not trying." She said, opening her door and stepping out into the now foot deep snow. Ron had to give the door on his side a good swift kick to get it open.
The visibility was awful and they immediately realized they had one other problem they hadn't counted on. Kim had been born in this city and Ron had lived here since he was three. Yet none of that intimate knowledge of their surroundings was of any use in these conditions. It would likely be morning before the snow-plows started and only then if the snow had let up enough. Hopefully the storm was still moving faster than expected and would end sooner as well. Even so, the roads were completely white and they were having a hard time picking out landmarks.
They looked back over their shoulders, picking out the lights in the parking lot. In thirty minutes they had managed to go about a hundred yards. The snow was wet and sticky and hard to walk in, making them pick their feet up and down constantly. They were very likely to take the rest of the night going a distance they could normally traverse in half an hour at a brisk walk. Only that was in good weather and in clothing that wasn't downright dangerous to be out in.
There was a slight crunching sound coming up behind them. They turned to see a police cruiser, it's tires encased in chains, pulling up beside them.
"Kim Possible?" The hooded officer queried with a mild Irish brogue.
"Officer Hobble?" She asked, recognizing the voice.
"What on God's green Earth are the two of you doing out in this?"
"We were on a date and our ride broke down."
"Heaven's sakes, child, of anyone in this burg I thought you would have had the sense to stay indoors tonight. Get it before you catch your death out there." He held the door open so both teens could get in.
Kim borrowed his cell phone and called her father, who was still in the driveway trying to put chains on the Jag. She could hear the relief in his voice when she told him Hobble was bringing them home.
It still took an hour to travel a distance that should have taken minutes.
Kim's mother hustled the teens upstairs to get them out of their wet clothes and then back downstairs to park them in front of the fire, handing them both mugs of cocoa that Ron could stick his whole fist in.
Stretching her legs out, Kim held her now-bare feet up to the fireplace, wiggling her toes to let the warm air into every space.
"You know what, KP? I just noticed something. You've got pudgy toes." Ron said, admiring her feet.
"Do not." She pulled them back under the blanket, curling them up under her legs.
"Do so." He said right back, sticking his own size twelves up to the fire just as she had done.
"Well, yours are gnarly," She squinted at them. "and you better have taken care of that fungus thing you were complaining about at Smarty Mart that time."
He pulled his foot closer with his hands. "What do you think?" He said, holding it a little closer to her.
"I think I'm in love with all of you, but not your feet so much." She giggled softly. He was still holding his foot up, so she couldn't resist. She grabbed it and started lightly tickling the bottom.
"Whoa, cut that out…tickles." He croaked out, setting his mug down on the mantle so he wouldn't spill any of it.
She held onto his foot and started rubbing it. "That better, Ronnie?"
"Much."
She let go of his foot and took another long draught of her cocoa.
"Better go easy on that, or you'll be getting up fifteen times tonight."
"So not. I've got an iron bladder."
"Yeah, right. So who was it again who got the squirms every time we passed a rest stop on the way down to Florida last summer?"
"Ron, that was you. You're the one who keeps getting super-sized slurpsters. I swear, sometimes I think you've got a bladder the size of a peanut."
"After three mugs of hot chocolate? I bet you've already got to go right now."
"So not." She said.
"Bet you do." He said musically, surreptitiously putting two fingers on her belly just below her naval.
"Meanie." She said, carefully getting up and heading for the stairs.
"Told you." He said.
Kim grumbled as she headed for her bathroom. She was always fine until she thought hard enough about it, then she really did have to go.
As she was coming out, her mother was just reaching the top of the stairs. "I guess I owe you an apology." She said, startling her daughter slightly.
"Huh?"
"My track record on advice took a pretty good hit tonight. I told you to wear that dress, you nearly froze to death. I told you to take my van and it broke down on you when you needed it most."
Kim stood there for a moment, speechless.
"Mom, I'm the one who should be apologizing. What I said earlier, that was just so ferociously mean."
"No, Kimmie, it was the truth. I walked you right into one of the worst situations in your life."
"That doesn't mean I had the right to throw it in your face like that Mom. I know that had to hurt."
"Not as much as it hurt to see you like that." She looked away for a moment.
"Mom…" Kim reached for her mother and pulled her in for a hug. "You gave me the single best piece of advice I ever had and he's sitting down there in front of the fire."
Anne held her daughter for a few minutes, not saying anything.
"I'm sorry." They both said at the same time.
"Jinx, you owe me…uh." Anne looked up, as in thought.
"Well, what is it, Mom. It doesn't count unless you spit it right out."
"Let's just say sometime in the next decade and I'll leave it at that."
Kim looked at her with a puzzled expression on her face. Her mother just smiled at her.
"I think it's time you kids got some sleep."
Kim yawned slightly. It was getting close to one in the morning and she had been up since five-thirty that morning. It had been an extraordinarily long day. "I'll get Ron some pillows."
"Don't you worry about that, I'll make sure he's good and tucked in. You just scoot on up there to bed, young lady."
She would have rather given Ron a goodnight kiss, but her eyes were drooping already. She slowly mounted the stairs into her loft, the pull of her nice warm bed already stronger than the desire for a quick smooch with her boyfriend.
She was just dozing off, clutching her old Pandaroo when she felt the bed dip slightly as somebody sat down on it beside her. She slowly opened her eyes to see Ron sitting there, rubbing the side of his head and yawning. Her eyes popped fully open as she realized her mother was standing in the room as well.
"Don't get too used to this." She warned Kim. "Your father is already sound asleep, but I want the two of you to behave, understand?"
"Yes ma'am." She said, smiling broadly. She glanced over at Ron, whose head was already on the pillow.
Anne made good on her promise and tucked him in. Kim realized she still wasn't getting her goodnight kiss, Ron was already fast asleep beside her. As the door halfway down the staircase quietly closed she wrapped an arm around him, as if he were a one hundred fifty pound Pandaroo himself.
Moments later she followed him into a deep slumber.
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