Where Did the Time Go? : Part XXXIX

The movie reached its conclusion and the credits rolled. It hadn't been a comedy, so there were no funny blooper clips or hidden extra scenes after the credits yet it kept running right up to the very end, the screen switching back to the main menu.

Neither of the young lovers cared much to get up and find the remote.

They were lying on the couch in positions opposite from usual. Kim's back was propped up by the a pillow while Ron was leaned back against he chest. Her arms were draped lazily across his, every now and then brushing back and forth a couple inches. Reaching up, Ron took one of Kim's hands.

The weather had turned warm again and though it had been threatening rain earlier, the sun was out, making it a gorgeous Sunday afternoon. It was Perfect weather to be enjoying the outdoors. In fact, that's where the rest of the Possible family was. That's where Kim wished they were, instead of cooped up indoors watching movies. Granted, she never minded the chance to spend this kind of quality time with Ron but this seemed like a sort of waste.

If it had just been Ron and his moopy attitude, she would have bodily dragged him outside. The previous morning Kim's parents and brothers left to spend the night camping at Lake Middleton. The plan at first had been for the teens to follow that afternoon once Ron was done with his test. That would mean plenty of chances to sneak off into the deep woods for some nice private time and a night snuggled together beside the campfire (in separate sleeping bags of course, the weekend being a family trip after all.)

The moment Kim woke up Saturday morning she knew she wouldn't be going. Oddly enough for a Friday night she had been in bed by eleven so the way she felt had nothing to do with lack of rest. Her nose was completely stopped up, her throat was sore and her eyes were very slightly crusty. One look in her dressing mirror and she knew it. This hadn't happened to her in over a year and she was getting used to her unnatural healthiness.

Along with all the head symptoms, she had a fever, slight chills and her body ached like she had just gone two hours with Shego. There wasn't any question, she had the flu.

She had been fine when she went to bed. Even with a slight case of nerves she went right to sleep, thinking about the nice evening she had with Ron and her friends. They ended up having dinner at Felix's house since his mother was out on a date herself. Ron was as shocked as Kim was when they recognized the red convertible SUV in the driveway. Monique and Felix had to look at each other when the teens paused to actually have a conversation…with the truck!

Kim and Ron had to look at each other as well when they found out that the truck's owner, Dr. Freeman, was taking Mrs. Renton out on a date. They silently decided not to explain their reaction to the other couple, instead heading inside to begin preparations for dinner. The mission itself may have been a failure, but a deal was a deal and the other couple had played their part to perfection. That at least had worked and it was only because their opponent had invented new ways to use her suit and had obviously been practicing heavily with she managed to get away.

That left Kim seriously tweaked, at least for the next day. She had been learning how to compartmentalize, so once her stronger anger wore off, she was able to shove the rest aside and enjoy the rest of her life.

The evening ended all too soon, but Ron was scheduled for his last attempt at the SATs the next day, so they said their goodnights not long after nine, leaving the other lovers to have some of their own private time.

Ron was seriously stoked, though he was disappointed when Kim called to tell him she was sick and for him to go on to the test by himself. He was as ready for the test as he could ever be. Kim and Wade had been putting him through every drill, every preparation they could think of. Their tech guru had even devised a sample test, simulating the conditions he would face at the actual exam.

Hours later he came out of the classroom at Lowerton Community College a completely different person. His shoulders were sagging and his hair was matted with sweat. By the time he got to Kim's house, he collapsed in her arms, no longer caring if he caught what she had.

"Was it that bad, Honey?" She asked, holding him at the foot of her bed.

"I…I thought I was doing okay in the math part. I knew what I was doing but I swear I don't think I did any better than the last time." He let her hold his head to her chest as she kneaded his exposed ear.

"Ronnie, you did really good the last time, especially compared to the first time you took it."

"But KP, I needed better. If I don't have the numbers, I can kiss Middleton College goodbye…it means I can kiss going to school with you goodbye."

She pulled his chin up so their eyes could meet. "Ron, I've told you before. It doesn't matter where you are going to school because I love you. I'm going to love you no matter if you're going to MC or UU or even LCC. I'd love you the same if you got accepted to Harvard."

He lowered his eyes again. "I just wanted to keep it all going. We've been going to school together since Pre-K."

Kim laughed ever so slightly. "Baby, it's not like we're going to have very many classes together anyway. If you go to Lowerton, we're still going to have our evenings together." She pulled his chin up again. "There's also the weekends."

She started to kiss him on the tip of the nose, but was caught in a fit of coughing. Ron sat up, patting her back.

"So much for the camping trip." He said, rubbing his hand in circles between her shoulder blades. "I was looking forward to freaking out Jim and Tim with my ghost stories."

"Oh, Ron, not more tales of Wannaweep." She got out between coughs. Getting up, she opened a bag of cherry cough drops and popped one in her mouth.

"How many people can tell real monster stories? Hey, maybe you should take something stronger for that?" He reached for her nightstand drawer and pulled out a bottle of thick green liquid."

"No, Ronnie." She dabbed her eyes with a tissue. Her hair was ragged, her eyes droopy and her nose was fire engine red, a sure sign she was down for the count with whatever bug was ravaging her system. "If I take that stuff all I do is curl up and go to sleep."

He put a hand on the small of her back as she sat back down. "That might not be such a bad thing, KP. It's fine to push yourself to the breaking point when you're healthy, but right now the biggest thing you need is rest." He gave her a kiss on her neck, right below her cheek, making her smile softly. She wanted to kiss him like they usually did, but she couldn't breath through her nose and she didn't want to give him a full dose of what she had, though it was certain he had already been exposed plenty.

"I don't want to sleep right now. It's the middle of the afternoon and it feels so wasteful just to sleep."

Ron unscrewed the cap of the cold medicine. "That's what I want you to do. You take this and I'll just go on home and zap some zombies."

"No." She put her hand over the bottle. "I don't want you to go home. You're upset and all I've got is a bad cold." She hacked just a little and then popped another cough drop in her mouth, creating a slight haze of menthol scent around her head. "Let's go downstairs and pull out some DVDs and we'll spend the weekend together just like we planned."

In fact that's how they spent the greater portion of Saturday evening. Ron finally did manage to convince her to take a small dose of the medicine and that helped a lot, to the point they were able to spend some time kissing. He didn't care if he was exposed, if he was going to get sick anyway he might as well get it over with. Not long after their brief make-out session Kim did exactly what she said she would, she fell into a deep sleep. Not wanting to disturb her rest, he covered her up and stretched out in her father's recliner, quickly falling asleep himself, the phrase 'In Sickness and in Health' popping into his mind as he drifted off.

By Sunday morning Kim was feeling a little better. The head symptoms had mostly cleared up, letting her breath a little better but the cough was still there, to the point her ribs were actually hurting from the strain of constantly bringing up tons of gunk. After fixing them breakfast (which Kim complained she couldn't taste) he drove to the pharmacy and picked her up some cough medicine that wouldn't make her sleep. The rest of the morning and afternoon were spent watching movies, including one that was a full ten hours long. It was about Japan in the year 1600 and an English sailor shipwrecked there. On the whole it was enjoyable, though Kim had to tell Ron to quit criticizing the ninja fight scenes.

"Ron, that movie was made before we were born, I think they did pretty good for the time."

"Feh. That first ninja they showed was supposed to be the most deadly assassin in all Japan and what does he do? He goes right in the door and wakes they guy he's 'sposed to kill up. He would have flunked out of Yamanuchi inside of a day."

"You're the expert, Ninja-boy." She played with his hair a little bit. "Pew, somebody needs a shower."

"Is that an invitation?" he asked, giving her hand a slight squeeze.

"So not. In fact, for the moment, I don't care if you're hair smells sweaty, I'm too comfortable right now." She found that lying that way on the couch she had to cough less often and considering the way her chest felt, that was too good a thing to mess with.

"So how do you think you really did, Ron?"

He let go of her hand but snuggled down on her chest a little deeper. "I don't know. At least this time I answered every question. The last time I think I had maybe twenty to go, so I started filling circles in randomly. Guess it was better having a chance of getting some of them right than leaving them blank and getting them wrong automatically."

"See, if you answered them all, there's a chance you aced it."

He shook his head slightly. "No, now I remember some mistakes I made in the English section and I'm not at all happy with the essay portion."

Kim rubbed his ear. "Nobody ever feels good about the essay. Makes me wish it was like back in the days when the test was all multiple choice until they got scared some idiot would ace the thing just filling out pretty patterns on the worksheet."

"Been there, done that, never worked." He referred to the standardized tests they had been given in the fifth grade. Ron was utterly lost and passed the time trying to make a picture out of the dots on the answer sheet. The results were, predictably, bad.

"Baby, I just think you're stressing about it. We finally got your brain to wake up and you can do this now. Don't worry, if it wasn't enough it just means a little more driving each day."

"Yeah, but I had this fantasy about the two of us getting an apartment together, close enough to the school we could walk there and back together."

Kim lay her head back on the wing of the couch. "I don't think that would go over too well with Daddy, even after we're eighteen."

"Well, we could have separate rooms, like we do when I stay here."

She laughed slightly, trying to keep from coughing again. "I don't think even Dad would fall for that. It is a nice thought though. Maybe when we're Seniors again."

"Ug, don't remind me. We've got two and a half months left as High School Seniors then we have to start all over again as Freshmen. I like being the high man on the totem pole."

"I know, Baby. I've already met with the staff advisor for the cheerleading squad there. I won't even be qualified to be considered for captain until I'm a Junior. It's going to feel so whack not being in charge."

Ron sat straight up and stretched. "Maybe when they see your bon-diggity moves, they'll change their minds."

She sat up with him and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, squeezing him tight. "Thanks, Baby. It'll be okay, you'll see. I don't care about your test scores, if they pass on you they are the ones being ferociously stupid. Who cares if you can pass a pressure cooker test like that."

"That's just it, KP. If I ever wanted to be Sous chef or even head chef…heck if I wanted to own my own place, that is a pressure cooker. It may not be the same material but the stress is the same. I've got to come through in the clutch over and over and over and if you fail there, they don't just write an F on your paper, they come and repossess your car and your house."

Kim rubbed his shoulder. "That there is why you're doing so much better now. Before you didn't realize how important all this work really was. Otherwise you'd end up thirty years old working at Bueno Nacho, wishing you hadn't been such a slacker in school. Even if you do end up going to the Community College a couple years first, you're going to make so much more out of yourself. You'll see. Now, let's put that behind us until the scores come back. I'm getting in the mood for something."

Ron's eyebrows shot up.

"No, silly, not that. I want ice cream. Just hope I can taste it." She giggled slightly as Ron tried to emulate the Puppy-Dog-Pout.

"Fudge Ripple?"

"Do you even need to ask?" She held out her arms, wrapping them around him in a tight hug. Leaning back slightly she kissed him anyway, getting into it until she blew a tiny nose bubble, sending both of them into peals of laughter. At least until she started coughing again.

She watched him go. Being sick seemed terribly wrong. They had the house to themselves all night long and would for most of the rest of the day and even though she felt sore, weak and slightly groggy from the medicine she had been taking, she thought he was looking extra hot. He was so sweet moving to the chair when she fell asleep but she still preferred being right by his side when they had the opportunity to spend the night together. She still wouldn't take him to her room without permission but the couch had always seemed okay for them.

He sat back down beside her, handing her a bowl and a spoon. She eyed him for a moment, wondering why he brought her just a bowl and not the whole quart until she noticed there was steam coming from it.

"Chicken Soup?" She asked, holding it with both hands.

"I know, it's the oldest cliché in the book, but I'm Jewish so it works." He dipped the spoon into the bowl and held it up to her mouth. "This canned stuff isn't as good as I can make, but that would take all afternoon to simmer properly so this will have to do."

Kim took the offered spoonful, then held he bowl up to her face, breathing the steam in as much a she could before sipping directly from the bowl. She wiped a noodle off the corner of her mouth. "I'm starting to eat like you."

"Just make sure you eat it all, even the little dark meat bits. I'll be right back." She could hear him moving around in the kitchen, returning a few minutes later with his own bowl and grilled cheese sandwiches.

"This is what Mom makes for me when I'm sick. I swear the 'Jewish Penicillin' thing is really true."

She bit hungrily into her sandwich. He'd used real butter in the pan and the good American cheese and even though her sense of taste was severely diminished, it was wonderful. It was way past lunch time and she had no idea how hungry she was. Before he could even protest she took his bowl of soup and started downing it. He just smiled and cleared up the empty plates. Then he came back with the ice cream, though it was scooped out into bowls.

"If you want some more, I'll get it for you." He said, sitting close beside her.

"That's good, Baby. Tell me, since I told you I was in the mood for ice cream and got a whole meal instead, what would you have done if I'd been in the mood for something…fun?" She smiled wickedly at him, squeezing his knee.

"I always go all out for my KP." He flinched slightly when she touched his cheek. "Eep, ice cream fingers!"

Kim set her empty bowl down. "You know, I think your 'medicine' is working. Come here and let me warm my ice cream fingers up."

Ron shivered a little, but didn't flinch again as she did just that.

Kim Possible and all related characters © Disney