Special thanks to MrDrP, campy, SassMasterGeneral, conan98002, AtomicFire, JimVincible, surforst, mattb3671, and Brother to Vorlons for their reviews of the first chapter of "Freckle."
Additional special thanks to mattb3671 and surforst for their reviews of "Second Date."
I would also like to apologize to everyone when I claimed I would have this second chapter up last Friday. My only excuse is that I had a potato in my pocket.
Thanks to everyone for reading!
Note: You'll notice that this "chapter's" sections do not begin with "I." This is because I don't see this story broken down into chapters; rather, I see it as a series of continuous and contiguous section. "Chapter 1" ended with section "VIII.", so this "chapter" begins with "IX." And so on.
IX. Friday, April 29th 9:40 p.m.
When Kim awoke she found herself cradled in Ron's arms on the living room couch. She absently reflected on what a strange picture they made: she in her Middleton cheer uniform, he in his silly costume. One of his arms was beneath her, gently crossing her midriff, the other was draped over her bent legs, hugging them to his.
Ron's arms. Zorpox's arms.
She smiled to herself. Why had she never noticed how strong Ron's arms were? He wasn't muscle-bound, no, but she didn't like that anyway. They were wiry, and then there were his large hands. She felt so safe within his embrace. In addition, the Zorpox gloves felt warm and cozy against her bare skin. She did so like her bad boy. She smiled again.
Ron's mouth hung open and a dribble of drool was coursing down his chin and pooling on his tunic; his breath was not the best at that moment. Yet Kim could not help but think eagerly about some time in the future when she could wake up every morning in his warm embrace and look upon his goofy, sleeping face. And then they wouldn't limit themselves to "Ron Factor" caresses and "KP Five Alarm" kisses.
Or to tickle fights.
Making as little commotion as possible, she fished the Kimmunicator out of the special pocket her mother had sewed for it in her cheer skirt. She checked the time. Nine forty-five! She double-checked and, yes, it was still p.m., not a.m. They had been asleep for less than half an hour. The night was still young. Not that it really mattered. Her family wouldn't be back until sometime Saturday afternoon. Maybe she could still convince Zorpox to cook her something. The thought of one of Ron's dinners made her stomach rumble slightly, yet she didn't make any motion to wake her boyfriend. Although she could never say no to one of Ron's meals, she so wanted to stay put because she knew this was exactly where she wanted to be. He shifted position slightly and both arms tightened their embrace upon her.
Oh yes. Right where I belong.
In less than five minutes, however, Ron's eyes shot open. "We fell asleep! Oh no! What time is it!" He started to get up, but immediately stopped when he caught the annoyed look in Kim's eyes.
"Amp down, Ron," Kim said slightly peeved at having her peace disturbed, "it's not even ten."
"Really?" he immediately calmed down. "It seems like I've been sleeping for hours!"
"Mm-hmm," she said snuggling back into him, trying to arrange his arms back in their original positions on her body.
As long as we can snuggle together afterwards, Zorpox can capture me anytime.
X. Now
Kim has no clear idea which direction is up. All she knows is that it is not the direction she is headed.
Stubbing her toes against unseen boxes, she stumbles and catches herself in the darkness.
Funny--so not "ha-ha funny"--she can't help but wonder in which direction she would fall if she did. And then … what would come afterwards?
A sense of vague familiarity envelopes everything. Something akin to the hallway outside their sixth grade classroom door hangs in the air. The gritty sense of the sand from their pre-K playground etches the lines of her palm. She can't decide if this feeling is in her left or her right hand, but it is there.
Everywhere is the unmistakable stench of rotting bananas. Gor-chy.
It is getting more difficult to move, the path is cluttering exponentially with these unseen "boxes" and shadows. Even without enough light to see, she knows instinctually that this path is so not "a disentanglement from" but rather "a knotting into" wherever she is.
Reflexively, she reaches for her Kimmunicator in her back pocket. The feeling she has tried this earlier many, many times washes over her. It is not there. She is not wearing her cargos but her cheer skirt. How? Even so, it should still be there.
Light?
Coming from overhead? The room readjusts, and she realizes that, no, it is coming from below—what, until a second ago, was overhead.
Like pushing through coats in her Nana's closet when she was four, like trying to find her way from under the layers of comforters and blankets piled high on her six-year-old bed the night the snowstorm caused the blackout, Kim struggles and inches her way toward this flickering beacon.
Just as she can make out surrounding shapes and the slightest hint of color to the still far-off light source, it goes out. The wretched banana smell is overwhelming.
Burst of flame. The green-tinted outline of an unmistakable figure erupts into view not ten feet in front of her. The eerie pulsating glow that enfolds and backlights the figure is echoed in the figure's eyes. They are pitiless, reptilian and without pupils. Jade slices of evil cut out of the surrounding darkness.
Disembodied, Kim watches as the haunted flames jet out from the figure's extended arms and enshroud her own helpless being.
The lights flicker and all goes out.
Only the cloying stench of rotting bananas remains.
XI. Saturday, April 16th 11:35 a.m.
"Kim? Kim?" Ron mumbled seconds before shaking his head and blinking open his eyes.
Kim's head shot up from her lap. Although she wanted to scream, the emotional rollercoaster she had been on for the last hour had left her completely drained, so her exclamation came out just above a whisper. "Oh Ron, you're okay!"
"Y-yeah. Never better." He smiled weakly at her and tried to sit up. "Well," pain erupted on the left side of his face, "maybe not 'never.' Whoa!" He dropped his head back on the pillow, his face twisted in pain.
"Mom!" Kim had just found her voice and called for her mother, who should have been no further than just outside the hospital room in the ER's hallway. When she turned back from the door, she just caught the remnants of a major wince leave her boyfriend's features. "Oh, I'm so sorry, honey!" she said in a hushed, if still frantic, voice.
The pain Ron felt was ridiculous, but, fortunately, Ron had something to occupy his mind. She called me 'honey'!
He wanted to raise both fists and shout "Booyah!", but the pain radiating from his skull told him that yelling anything would be a seriously bad mistake. Besides, it seemed that his right hand was currently spoken for at the moment.
Kim had been clutching Ron's right hand for the last half hour. During that time she had absently reflected on how large his hands were and how odd it was she had never noticed that before.
For the better part of that time, she had been trying to keep herself under control and not cry. Bursting into tears in front of her mother earlier had been awkweird enough, but Kim really didn't know how she could handle breaking down in public. Well, as public as a room in the ER could be. Her mother had told her that most of Ron's signs had looked good on the ride over—the swelling wasn't too bad, his pulse was strong, his breathing not erratic; in fact, the only sign that suggested anything was out of the ordinary was that he wasn't conscious; but it was still all Kim could do to keep the tears from pooling down her cheeks in front of her dad and her brothers in the car.
Watching Ron "sleep" in the hospital bed had been a very strange experience. On the one hand, she couldn't help but see him as the hapless friend she had known for the better part of twelve years, the friend she had always been able to protect. That something potentially fatal had happened to him without her even knowing had been devastating. The fact that it had been an accident had only made her feel worse. Without question, as she sat next to Ron's bed, a major part of Kim's self was cloaked in the same paralyzing dread that her nightmare had inspired in her earlier. Dread was not something Kim was accustomed to, so she channeled it into a much more comfortable feeling, anger.
The Tweebs! Of all the stupid things! Arrr! When I get my hands on them! However, she did have to admit that Jim and Tim had seemed genuinely upset about what had happened to Ron. Jim had even tiptoed into the hospital room a few minutes earlier and quietly told her how sorry he was. She had nodded, without looking up; she knew that looking at him would have only fanned her anger again.
Now that Ron's one bad "sign" had apparently taken care of itself, Kim brought his hand to her lips and was giving it gentle kisses.
Ron's smile grew a little wider but a puzzled look flashed in his eyes. "What are you wearing, KP?"
"Oh," she looked down at the rather obnoxious Otter-fly slippers Tim had given her last Christmas. They so clashed with the dress that the term "clash" wasn't really adequate. "Well, I grabbed whatever I could when we were leaving—I know they look really silly." In fact, during the last thirty minutes as she had been busy staring at either Ron's hand or the floor, she had noticed that the left Otter-fly's eyes were crooked, making them look all the more ridiculous.
"Huh?" Ron asked, even the sound of his own voice—soft to anyone he was speaking to, yet booming within his own skull—making him wince slightly. "Th-they're beautiful."
"Huh?" Kim replied in kind. Before he could speak, she whispered, "No, no, Ron. Don't explain. Not until speaking doesn't hurt anymore. I mean, if we keep bantering back and forth, you'll never—I'll shut up now." They both smiled. After a few moments, Kim went back to soundlessly kissing his hand.
And she did so until Mrs. Dr. Possible entered the room.
Kim's mom was pleased that Ron was awake and satisfied after a few preliminary tests that he seemed okay. She called down to the nurse's station for some, as Ron termed them, "ridiculous-strength" headache pills. She then pulled Kim aside and informed her that they were going to run a CT-scan just to be sure Ron was "fit as a chimp." The non-plussed look this "Ron-phrase" elicited from Kim told her mother that the two best friends-turned-lovers still had plenty of little things to learn about each other.
After taking his pills and drinking a very large amount of water, Ron sat, without speaking, and looked at Kim with a faraway smile on his face. Kim desperately wanted to ask Ron what he was smiling at, but didn't want to say anything for obvious reasons.
Ron couldn't believe how beautiful Kim looked. He had always known she was pretty, and, over the past school year, he had begun to notice that "pretty" didn't do her justice. Yet he was flat-out amazed by how gorgeous she looked right this minute beside his hospital bed. Her hair was in these "tangled ringlets" that seemed to cradle her face. Her earrings twinkled when the fluorescent lights on the ceiling hit them in such a way that they echoed the stars in her eyes. Her eyes! Why had he never noticed how large and expressive they were? And their color when combined with the color of her hair made him think of the smell of oranges—which was to say they made him think of Christmas and since he was Jewish, Christmas always made him think of Kim. Her skin seemed to … glow. And the dress she had on made her seem like … Ron could only think of the words "angel" and "princess" but neither word seemed enough. Then it hit him, Kim looked like an angel princess. Or a princess angel.
After a few moments, Kim suddenly smacked herself on the head, gave Ron the "1 minute" signal with her hand, and then ran down to the nurse's station for a pen and a pad of paper. I can fly a space ship after seeing it done just once and yet it takes twenty minutes to remember how to pass notes to my boyfriend. Maybe if we had done it more oftenin class …
When he had handed her the first note, Kim couldn't decipher what Ron had written and was momentarily panicked that the Tweebs' rocket had caused him some degree of brain damage. However, she soon remembered how atrocious Ron's handwriting was and passed the note back to him with instructions: "In English not Ronnish."
After giving her a mildly perturbed look, Ron passed back a rewritten message.
"You're just so beautiful" was the more clearly written response to her original question --"What are you smiling about?" Actually, Kim wasn't one hundred percent sure that the last word wasn't actually "badical." But that didn't matter; the effect was the same.
Ron's breath caught in his throat when he saw Kim's reaction to his message. She absently brushed her hair behind her right ear with her hand. It was the same move she had done when (ick!) Eric (double ick!) had first sat down next to her in the caf on its first day of school. But there was one difference that made Ron feel extra grande-sized: Kim also blushed when she did the flip. In all the years he had known her, he didn't think he had ever made Kim blush. Eric hadn't even made her blush; at least he didn't think it had. He couldn't remember if even Mankey had ever made her blush – but then again there was that whole sitch where Kim almost blushed to death and she had been out with Mankey that night and … and who cared! What mattered was Kim had just blushed because he, Ron Stoppable, had told her he thought she was beautiful.
Maybe she does love me! Maybe Mr. Dr. P is right.
Whoah! Waitaminute!
Ron gestured for the pad and quickly began to scrawl a brief message to Kim.
"What happened to me?" she read soundlessly. Doi! Why had she or her mother not thought to explain to Ron why he was in the hospital. She scribbled down what she had learned from her dad and the Tweebs. And then she briefly explained that he was going to need a CT-scan before he could leave.
As Ron read the story of how he got where he was, Kim found herself staring at his ears. She had begun paying these features a great deal of attention over the past week. They had always been there, but now she was noticing them in a new way. For whatever reason, staring at them resulted in a slight flutter in her chest just below her throat. She didn't know exactly what this meant, but she did like the feeling. In fact, everything about Ron looked a little … different. For instance, she now realized that the freckles on Ron's right check were somewhat higher than those on his left.
Ron shot Kim a confused look once he reached the end. Before he could write his question, Kim, sensing what the problem was, gestured for him to return the pad to her. He leaned forward and handed it to her (neither took notice that he had raised his head without any visible signs of pain).
She crossed out what she had written about the CT-scan and replaced it with "They are going to x-ray your brain."
Ron looked concerned rather than confused when he read her correction. She gestured for the pad again, replaced "They are" with "Mom is," and handed it back to him. This time he smiled and gave her a thumbs up.
He then flipped the sheet over and started scribbling another question.
"Why do you think your earrings look silly?"
It took Kim a few beats to realize where this question had come from. "No," she wrote back, "my slippers look silly. I had to toss them on when we left to bring you here. You like my earrings?"
He wrote back that "Cha!" he thought they were that word that was either "badical" or "beautiful." And then he wrote, "Slippers?"
It occurred to Kim that because of how he was laying on the bed Ron couldn't see her slippers. Maybe he had never seen them. They were a present she had opened Christmas morning, not on Christmas Eve when Ron usually came over for the Possible Christmas celebration.
She raised her right leg and gave her "Otter-fly" toes a twirl. Momentarily forgetting she was wearing a mid-length skirt, Kim had inadvertently given Ron a prime opportunity to look up her dress. However, her boyfriend's eyes, after noting the cross-eyed aquatic mammal-insect on her foot, became fixated upon her bandaged knee.
He gestured for the pad (again neither took notice that Ron was now sitting up in bed without experiencing any "ridiculous" pain), scribbled a bit and handed back this message: "What happened to your knee?"
After reading the pad, Kim took a deep breath and looked back at her boyfriend sheepishly. She then began writing her answer.
After a few pleasant minutes of staring at the cute crinkle between Kim's eyes, Ron realized that it was taking her a rather long time to explain a simple band-aid. He would have assumed the story behind why he was in the ER would have been a little more involved. The problem was that Kim kept crossing out what she had written and starting over. By Ron's count, she had already gone through three false starts.
"Mom!" he exclaimed suddenly as his parents materialized behind Kim's chair.
Before he or Kim had gotten over the momentary shock of his parents' appearance or of the fact that he had just yelled out loud without wincing in pain, Barbara Stoppable had brushed past Kim and smothered her son in a very tight embrace. Unlike the pitch of this new visitor's voice, her embrace was causing a painful reaction in the patient.
After flashing Kim a quick smile, Eliot Stoppable quickly rescued his son by saying, "Barb, when Anne said that Ronnie would be okay, she didn't know you were planning on throttling him."
Barbara gave her husband the stink eye, but released Ron and stepped back to survey the couple. "So, what are we writing, Kimberly?" she asked bending over to inspect Kim's notepad.
XIII. April 16th 10:25 a.m.
As Anne Possible hugged her crying daughter close to her, Kim's towel once again unwound and fell to the floor. Anne couldn't remember the last time she had been in this particular situation, the position of consoling her daughter. Sure, Kim needed advice and someone to vent to from time to time, but this break-down was definitely a unique moment in their mother-daughter relationship. What made it exceptionally difficult for Anne was that she had no idea with what Kim needed consoling.
Kim rarely cried, and when she did, it was never with abandon. The only time her mother could remember Kim crying profusely had been when Ron had lost it when Kim had skinned her knee when they were six. And then there was the time two Christmases ago when the entire family had searched the world for Ron and, for a few tense minutes, Kim had believed Ron might actually have died. Even now, Kim was not hysterical. She was not wracked with sobs, but Anne could tell the tears were flowing steadily if silently. It was as if, in spite of everything, Kim was still trying to maintain her control.
But, Anne reflected, that was the problem. Kim was trying to control how she felt and that is not always possible … even for a Possible.
After letting Kim cry into her shoulder for a while, Anne whispered that she needed to get up for a minute, but that she would be right back. Kim snuffled and righted herself. Her mother walked to her daughter's dresser, opened and shut one of the top drawers, and snatched a few tissues from off the computer desk. She handed Kim the tissues.
Kim wiped her still flowing eyes, but she soon realized that her mother was placing an earring into her left ear. Kim stopped crying and gave her mother a questioning glance. Anne returned a light smile and gestured for Kim to give her a minute. After fixing the second earring in Kim's right ear, Anne disappeared into the bathroom and returned with a small hand-held mirror. Holding the mirror out to her daughter in ways so Kim could only see her earrings (not her tear-stained face), Anne asked her how they looked.
"O-okay. I guess," Kim mumbled.
"Just okay?" Anne asked, "I was sure they'd be perfect." Even with them looking slightly bloodshot from her crying, Kim's eyes still radiated and when accentuated by the earrings' stones, they were dazzling.
Kim absently shrugged her shoulders and blew her nose.
"In fact," Anne continued, "I know someone who would definitely agree with me. Most likely because he thinks you're perfect."
Kim gave her mother's stratagem a half smile. Anne could detect a small glint in Kim's eyes that might indicate the beginnings of happiness or maybe just relief. However, before Anne could continue down this path, the look in Kim's eyes changed completely.
"Mom, I need to tell you something."
"Well, Kimmie, I can see why that would be very upsetting, but I don't understand what that has to do with Ron. He wasn't even in it."
"Mom, that's why it is about him, because he wasn't there."
Anne frowned, "So you're worried that Ron might not be there for you someday?"
Kim shook her head. "Ron has always been there for me when it counted. There is only one reason why he wouldn't be."
"Oh, I see." Anne said finally comprehending. Before the unspoken statement had time to suffuse the moment in dread and melancholy, Anne brought the focus back to the problem at hand. "So," she began slowly, "you think that by being perfect for Ron you can somehow … prevent that."
"Well, … no," Kim admitted. "But, maybe, I can make up for everything … everything I've put him through. Everything I … might put him through in the future."
"Kim, you never forced Ron to go with you on those missions. You need to realize that he goes because he wants to."
"He goes because I want him to." Kim said firmly.
"I think you're being too hard on yourself. Wasn't it his idea to go on the first mission? Hasn't Ron gone on missions alone before?"
"Yes, but the time he went alone was to save me! And then while he was risking his life for me, I make all his sacrifices practically worthless by going out on that date with … Josh."
"Yes, that was not one of your wiser moments," Anne asserted, somewhat to Kim's surprise. "But I think you are forgetting that Ron was happy to do it. He never held it against you, did he?"
"No, but that's makes it so much worse!" Kim was practically in tears again.
Anne placed a gentle hand on her daughter's knee. "Kim, you are going to have to realize that you can't control everything. Not everything you do and, certainly, not everything you feel. Sometimes, you just need to pardon your heart."
Kim was trying to take in all the implications of her mother's words when Anne suddenly said, "Kim you're bleeding."
"Oh, yeah," Kim admitted, "I cut myself shaving. So stupid."
Anne got up and went to the bathroom.
Oops! I guess that wasn't exactly being easier on myself.
When Anne returned, she had a small band-aid. Kim was dabbing her knee with one of her damp tissues and when she saw what her mother had, she shook her head. "That's not necessary, Mom."
"And which one of us is the doctor?" her mother asked, brushing aside Kim's objection and her hand.
"Are you serious?" Kim said with an arched eyebrow as her mother applied the bandage.
"Ick!" Kim pronounced as she extended her leg and stared at the bandage that was off-color enough from her skin tone to be totally noticeable. "It's even uglier than the cut!"
"Trust me, Kimmie," Anne said with a slight smile.
Although Anne understood the serious nature of Kim's major concern with Ron, she could also see that her daughter was suffering from a slew of superficial concerns as well. She knew if Kim could somehow consolidate Ron-the-new-boyfriend with Ron-the-best-friend-of-twelve-years, these trivial worries would vanish and everything would come into focus. Only then would Kim be able to deal with her greatest fear.
"Honey!" James Possible's cry from downstairs startled both women. The urgency in his tone was palpable. The sound of the Tweebs' steps hurtling up the stairs left little doubt that whatever it was involved them. However, instead of running to their room, they stopped at the foot of Kim's ladder.
"Come quick, Mom!" Tim called up through the open hatch.
"Something's happened to Ron!" Jim explained.
Anne immediately looked at her daughter. All the blood had drained from Kim's face, and she looked like she was in a daze. This, however, was not preventing her was walking quickly to the loft hatch.
"No, Kim," Anne directed in her most firm and professional voice, "get dressed. I'll tell you when you can come down."
XIV. Thursday, April 28th 3:39 p.m.
She refused to look at Ron.
"Tweaked" didn't cut it. Neither did "five-alarm upset." Or "ferociously angry."
No, the only word that seemed to even come close to touching how Kim felt was "betrayed."
And she knew it didn't make sense—but that was how she felt.
At the time he joined the squad, Ron was just her best friend. The idea that they might become romantically involved with each other was probably the furthest thing from either of their minds. But romantic betrayal wasn't the type of betrayal she felt. The type she was feeling seemed much worse.
She had always thought of Ron as a really sweet guy. His large heart was part of the reason they had remained such good friends for so many years. His kindness to everyone as well as his ability to forgive her occasional periods of thoughtlessness had been a large component to the bedrock of their relationship. And, now, now after she had given him her whole heart, he tells her that he has been hiding some creepy agenda from her—that he wasn't who she thought he was. That he was no different than those scummy guys at the swim meet.
Although she tried her best to ignore its existence, for the longest time Kim had known there was a food chain of beauty. The fact that she sometimes felt inadequate around girls like Bonnie and Tara who were more … umm … "developed" than she proved it existed and that it had an effect on her. She knew where her "strengths" lay in this demeaning rat race--her most attractive features were her legs.
Although it had only happened once, Kim could never forget it. During a swim meet sophomore year—not a week after the Seniors' Pop Pop Porter caper, Kim had walked up to the diving board for her first dive, and two shrill whistles and a laugh had erupted from somewhere in the crowd. Since she was the only diver in competition at the time, she knew the whistles were directed at her. She glanced at her father before climbing the board, and the look on his face more than confirmed that he had the very same suspicions as to the meaning of those outbursts. This had never happened to her before—most likely because everyone knew that she kicked super freak biscuit on a daily basis. However, on the solitary occasion that it did, Kim couldn't help but feel very, very awkweird. For that brief instant, she had become a piece of meat to somebody, and it made her feel extremely icky inside.
And now Ron was admitting he felt that same way about the other members of their squad. About their friends!
Ron had been shielding himself from the onslaught he knew was coming for what seemed like forever. As soon as Kim had screamed "WHAT," he had covered his head with both arms and awaited the verbal tirade he assumed he was in for … but it never came.
Finally, he dared to look at Kim. He quickly dropped his arms to his sides. She was wearing a look he had never seen before. It was a depressing mixture of anger and sadness. It made her look old. Not "old" like Nana, but tired old.
"Kim?" Ron asked with more concern for her feelings than for whether or not he might be in trouble.
"Don't talk to me, Ron," she replied tersely. She hadn't turned to face him, and Ron realized that she actually seemed to be averting his gaze, as if she didn't want to see him.
"But, Kim," Ron began hesitantly, "I-I…"
"I don't want to be around you right now, Ron. Please go." She looked like she was about to start crying. Ron had not seen Kim cry in a very, very long time.
Ron shook his head in painful disbelief as he slowly obeyed his best friend girlfriend's request and inched his way down the bleachers.
What have I done? Oh, man. What have I done?
XV. Saturday, April 16th 9:59 p.m.
It was getting very close to Kim's curfew, and as Anne walked through the foyer, she was more than a little surprised not to see James peeking through the blinds for signs of Ron's car. Then she heard a truly amazing sound--snoring.
As quietly as she could, she followed the sound into the living room, and there, in front of the widescreen television showing the "hometown" Rockies beating the San Francisco Giants, was her over-protective husband sound asleep. She was so flabbergasted that the thought struck Anne that maybe she should check his pulse just to be sure he was "fit as a chimp."
However, the sound of the front door opening preempted this impromptu physical.
She turned and caught sight of Kim bounding and practically skipping into the house. Not only that, she was singing!
"I wanna live with a cinnamon girl—uh, boy, something something something cinnamon boy …"
As Anne entered the foyer from the living room, she found herself in an almost unimaginable position: having to warn Kim not to wake up her father after coming home from a date.
"Oh, Mom!" Kim exclaimed as quietly as she could. She was practically dancing around the tile entranceway, and trying hard not to giggle. Unless Drew had just zapped her with some sort of spaz-inducing laser gun, it was readily apparent that Kim had enjoyed her second date with her best friend boyfriend.
Unbeknownst to Anne, there was a gun trained on her daughter. Of course, this was more like a crossbow than a laser gun. Instead of Drew Lipsky, it was Jim and Tim Possible manning it. Finally, instead of some emotion-distorting microwaves, this weapon was armed with fruit-juicy-red-gelatin-filled water balloons. All Anne needed to do was move four inches to the left, and the weapon's presence and destructive power would be made manifest to the entire Possible clan.
"What is it, Honey?" Anne found Kim's smile most infectious. She couldn't remember seeing her daughter this happy in a very, very long time.
"He loves me." Kim said, trying hard not to cry. Again with the waterworks, Possible? What is this? The thirty billionth time today you've nearly lost it? "Ron really, really loves me."
"What?" Anne said with a shocked smile she could not keep down. "Did he tell you—"
"No, but wait until I tell you!" Kim gushed. She bit her lip and whispered as best she could, "He … he looked at me … and …"
Anne smiled, "Took your breath away, didn't it?"
"So did," Kim beamed back. The fluttering sensation Kim felt right along her collarbone was still so strong.
Since the Ron-Factor-and-KP-Five-Alarm-Sauce pit stop had run a little longer than they had anticipated, Ron did not pull his mother's car up the Possibles' drive until the dashboard clock blinked 9:56. This, of course, meant it was actually 9:59, and Kim decided to sprint to the door alone to make sure she didn't breach her curfew on only their second official date. Just before she took off, she half-turned to smile and wave bye to Ron.
He was staring at her again … just as he had in line at the theater. Pure concentrated adoration. "Seeya, KP," he said quietly without blinking.
She let out a half squeal and ran to her front door feeling like her heart was going to burst. What is going on with me? I sound like a twelve-year-old girl crushing on some guy on the cover of Tiger Beat … oh, WHO CARES!
As she was unlocking the door (Ohh, this is going to be sooo close even if I do make it!), she heard a faint "Booyah!" and then Ron's mother's car stereo rev up. He was playing that "new" old song he had been obsessed with for the past week or so—"Cinnamon Girl." It wasn't until that moment that Kim realized the time frame was no chance accident, and that Ron was playing it because it made him think of her. Doi!
Jim and Tim could not make out half of what their mother and big sister were saying. Even still, it was obvious something was most definitely wrong. Kim had gone crazy. Either that or, what was more likely, she had been body snatched and replaced with some sort of space pod—an eight-year-old space pod. Whatever the case, this was probably not the best time to test out the Jello-Bow Mach ii.
Even though they practically shared the same brain, Jim, who was holding the device, still looked over to Tim to confirm the decision to scrub the mission.
Tim nodded, but then his eyes went wide with alarm. As he had turned to face his bother, Jim had inadvertently lowered the bow slightly, and, as a result, one of the gelatin-filled projectiles was wobbling down the scope of the weapon. Before either Tim could grab the balloon (which wouldn't have been the best of ideas) or Jim could right the crossbow, the jello grenade was already airborne and on its way to landing smack on top of Kim's head.
Fortunately, she was so giddily bouncing from place to place that at the last moment she stepped four inches to the right and the balloon hit the tile floor instead.
Unfortunately, the impact still sent wobbling, stain-inducing, artificially-flavored shrapnel all over her sneakers, socks, legs and shorts.
"Hicka-bicka-boo!" Jim nervously mumbled.
"Oosha!" Tim anxiously concurred.
They both took off for their room, only to freeze at the sound of Kim … laughing.
Their mother was most definitely not pleased with them, but their sister, splattered with cold, jiggly Hawaiian punch from the waist down, was clapping.
"Space pod," Jim asserted.
"Insane space pod," Tim corrected.
She was a sticky mess and her shorts and shoes were most likely ruined. But to Kim none of that mattered. As crazy a day as it had been, this ending made a crazy kind of sense. A perfect ending to what had become a perfect day.
To Be Continued …
Author Notes:
Thanks to Rich Sirois whose picture "End of Line?" served as the spiritual mother for the Shego in section ten. All of Rich's art (KP or no) hurricane rocks! Links to the pic and Rich's gallery can be found on my profile page.
A grande-sized booyah to MrDrP whose "Zorpox and the Cheerleader" story/concept inspired sections II and IX. More importantly, his Zorpox idea was what inspired me to try my hand at fanfiction writing in the first place.