…particles of hope…. a Kim Possible story
Disclaimer/Author's Notes: Kim Possible and all the characters of the show are owned by the Disney Corporation. The original lyrics to the songs referenced in this story and the music are the property of the respective authors, artists and labels. All original characters are the property of the author. This is a not-for-profit work.
Enjoy! Please read and review.
A/N Forward:
It's Christmas Eve, the final one before Wade and Joss are to be married…and several gifts are given, including one that truly is the 'gift of a lifetime'.
This is my entry to Zaratan's 2008 Christmas contest.
…particles of hope….
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Chapter 4: ...(you) walked away, when love was mine...
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Time reference:
Biological world: 12:06 AM
AI world: Day 6
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"Woodrow?"
The sleigh pulled to a stop, and Tornado looked back at the couple. They had been quiet on the trip back from the Bench, simply holding hands and smiling at each other.
Both were thinking about the kiss.
Gillian and Woodrow stepped out of the sleigh, and Tornado bid them a good night as he pulled the sleigh back to the garage. The two walked into the house, still smiling as they removed their coats.
"I was serious, you know," Woodrow finally spoke, and Gillian grinned.
"You did not think that my kiss was serious?" She asked with more than a hint of tease in her voice, then turned and walked toward her bedroom without waiting for a response.
Woodrow watched her walk away, and he now understood Ronald Stoppable's fascination with 'bubbles.'
"Kim's are nice, but Gillian's...as Ron would say, 'booyah, indeed,'' he grinned and walked into his study.
--
Gillian lay under her sheet, thinking about work and Woodrow. She had four agents engaged in current missions and was receiving real-time reports from them that were being forwarded to her superiors. There were no problems, so she dedicated most of her concentration to Woodrow.
'I do not know how to love him,' she whispered to the ceiling, then rolled over and stood next to the bed. "Does he love me because I am here, or does he love me because I am not Joss?
"GAACCCKK!" She shouted to the walls. "I do not know, but I know I have strong feelings for him.
"Just thinking about him makes me happy," she grinned as she looked down at her body. "I am glad he likes this shape," she ran her hands up and down her sides. "I am glad he likes me. Amanda, I think he is the one...and," she giggled, "he is sooooo cute! His dimples...I could squeeze them all day long, and his buns," she blushed.
"He is amazing...and," she smiled, "he has no idea what I do, so there are no preconceived notions for me to fight.
"I believe that I will enjoy this relationship," she stated, and she decided, totally out of character for her, to don a nightgown and go back to bed.
The idea of being in bed, with Woodrow, in her nightgown...'well, it certainly has my attention!' she giggled to herself before she went to sleep, thinking about Woodrow, Wade, and Joss...and, wanting to learn more about all three.
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The next two days were spent in more tours of the facilities, and some unexpected play, starting when Woodrow, walking from the Bunker to his home, was pelted unmercifully by multiple shots fired by a snowball sniper.
The first SCRUNCH! was on the back of his head, and he turned just in time to get a face full of a big, wet, slushy one accompanied by a rather boisterous giggle. When he wiped his face, he saw the culprit: Gillian had taken her extra-long scarf and turned it into a WSD: Weapon of Snowball Destruction, and she used it well as she flung snowballs, rapid-fire and unerringly, at her target. She was behind a snow fort wall she'd built, and she was going through her weapons cache of snowballs like Rufus through String Cheese.
"You wanna play rough, huh?" Woodrow called out, ducking behind a wall and hastily assembling a pile of snowballs. He peeked up and saw his target: the roof above and behind Gillian, filled with snow. He ducked down as two more snowballs flew over his head, grinned as he calculated the number of shots he would need, and came up firing 5 well-packed snowballs at a spot on the roof.
All hit the same spot, one after the other, breaking the ice dam, and the entire section of roof snow came down in a rush and buried Gillian.
"BOOYAH!" Woodrow yelled, jumping from his hiding place and running to pull her from her prison.
SPLAT! SPLAT! SPLAT! SPLAT! SPLAT!
Woodrow was slammed in the chest by five rapid-fire shots, and he looked up in surprise. Gillian was standing to the right of where he had dumped the snow, and she was twirling her empty scarf and grinning.
"Gotcha, big boy," she smirked, and Woodrow saw the Kimila in Gillian.
"The SnowMaster...admits defeat," he sighed, and Gillian rushed him for a celebratory hug.
Woodrow had no complaints.
--
They were warmer, now, back inside after the battle that Gillian had named 'Bunker no Hill', and Woodrow has provided more hot chocolate for warmth, when Gillian broached a question.
"Woodrow?"
"Yes, beautiful?" he replied, and Gillian blushed.
"Thank you…why do you Yanks have a problem with mixed race relationships?"
Woodrow stopped for a moment and pondered before replying, "what about the Aussie's issues with people of color?"
"Point taken, Woodrow, but I still do not understand the issue for you Yanks. After all, your country is over 200 years old; I would have thought that this would have been worked out by now."
"Some people have a problem, Gillian. The Possible, Stoppable, and Load families are very fortunate in the fact that they don't have a problem in this area. The election of President Williams to back-to-back terms has helped start the calm for some of the issues we have here, but that's all it's done: start the process. We're not perfect."
"Do you think that Wade ever had a problem with Joss?"
"No," Woodrow answered almost immediately. "Wade has loved her from the day he first laid eyes on her; his only fear was that she wouldn't like him-"
"Because of his color?" Gillian asked, and Woodrow shook his head 'no'.
"Because of his education, and the fact that he had PhD's before she had her high school diploma," he replied.
"Do you think Joss ever had any doubts about her relationship with Wade?" Gillian asked.
"Only before the Lowardian invasion: she saw Wade with Sarah, and she was sure he was leaving her. Dr. Adams came to the ranch to talk to her, and they spent some quality time fighting Lowardians right after Doc showed her the evidence; that's when it completely clicked with Jocelyn."
"Hmmm," Gillian pondered for a few moments. "Stephanie, Kim, Joss…Woodrow, do you have a 'need for red?'" She asked with a grin.
"Once, I did, Gillian, but now it's a hankering for ice-blue," he replied honestly with a Montana twang, and Gillian blushed and giggled as more methods, already running, moved to the forefront.
"Woodrow?"
"Yes, Gillian?"
"Would you like me better if I were different?"
"What do you mean, Gillian?" Woodrow was honestly confused.
"I mean, if I looked like this," and Woodrow was shocked to see Gillian change before his eyes.
--
"Would I be more acceptable if I looked like this?" Gillian asked. Woodrow stared at the statuesque and voluptuous blonde standing in front of him. "Happy Birthday, dear Dr. Woodrow," she sang, and Woodrow could not help but smile.
"Or, are you committed to red?" she asked, and she was now a second cousin to a 24-year-old Kimberly Ann Possible, the same longer auburn hair and figure to die for, with jet-black eyes instead of emerald green.
"Or, it is a particular 'red in your head', luv?" she grinned, and she was now a 19-year-old Andrea Jocelyn Possible.
"Well, two can play at that game, Gillian: are you looking for movie star Aussie?" Woodrow changed into the latest movie heat-throb from Down Under. "What do you think, luv?" he had the accent, and Gillian giggled.
"Or, are you thinking of someone a bit older, perhaps?" Woodrow changed into one of the American movie stars that he had heard Jocelyn talk about, and Gillian gasped and smiled.
"Or, perhaps, you want tall, blond, and MMP, eh?" Woodrow changed into a doppelganger of Ronald Dean Stoppable.
"I prefer the original, Woodrow, if it's all the same to you, luv," Gillian smiled, and Woodrow changed back into himself.
"I really like the original, as well, Gillian: that's who I saw and fell in love with, but it's up to you, my dear," Woodrow smiled, and Gillian reverted back to her original form. She stepped over to Woodrow and hugged him tightly.
"Does it matter what we look like, Woodrow?" she said into his neck.
"Not to me, Gillian: I love you, not the image," he replied, and he felt tears on his neck.
"I may just have to keep you around, luv," she whispered, "that is, if you will not send me away," she whispered so softly that Woodrow almost didn't hear what she said.
--
The next day, Woodrow was walking from the Bunker when he realized that Gillian was lying face-up in the snow.
"Are you all right?" he asked, standing over her.
She reached out a leg, tripping him, and brought him down into the snow. "It is time to create snow angels, Woodrow," she proclaimed. "I do not get to do this Down South: Brisbane is not exactly known for massive snowfalls," she explained with a smile.
After a couple of failed attempts, he managed to make a snow angel that passed Gillian's muster, and she rewarded him with a kiss that warmed his insides at least 10 degrees C.
--
Kim and Ron Stoppable flew back, still wearing their Santa and Mrs. Claus outfits; Ron had, at least removed the extra padding so he could sit comfortably in the cockpit…
Well, as comfortable as one could be with Kim's Mrs. Claus outfit: she had given most of the male and some of the female villagers a very Merry Christmas, just smiling at them and being there. Ron didn't understand her explanation of why Mrs. Claus' skirt was so short, but he liked the idea of KP in boots ('maybe it's a Possible trait, but now I know why Wade went gaga all those years when he saw Jocelyn in tall boots,' he grinned as he snuck his hand over to squeeze her thigh, eliciting a sharp 'Ronald! Keep your eyes on the sky!' from her).
They landed before midnight and taxied back to their hanger ('our personal hanger: how cool is that!') Ron thought as he pulled the plane into the location guided by the Wadebots and powered down.
He was glad that there was no one else in the hanger when Kim stepped off the plane: the WadeBots were bad enough with their catcalls and whistles. Kim blushed, and Ron laughed: they were Wadebots, all right….
He took a moment in the plane to take care of some business, and then he came out.
"Ron, what happened to your hair?" Kim looked at his disheveled mop of blonde, and Ron grinned.
"KP, you should know by now: without the LeGoop, the Ron-hair is its own worst enemy," he replied, and was rewarded with a kiss that got the WadeBots going again.
--
The next day, Gillian woke to the smell of coffee. She pulled out the large fluffy pink robe she'd brought with her ('just in case,' she had grinned when she packed it) and headed out into the hall for the kitchen.
Woodrow was sitting at the kitchen table with his holographic keyboard in front of him and several holoscreens of data surrounding his head. He looked up, smiled, and the screens all disappeared.
"You do not have to stop working on my account," she chided him.
"I don't have to; I want to," he explained. "Work will always be here. You may not, if I make a fool of myself, so I have to pay attention whenever you are here."
"Very well," she smiled, "then I will leave the room so you can work."
"No, stay, please: I want you here while I work," he admitted, and Gillian smiled. The data re-appeared, but one entire screen was now flashing red.
"Gotta go, luv," he stood, the data disappeared, and he gave her a kiss on the forehead. "Duty calls," and he ran out of the kitchen and out of the house.
Gillian sat back and smiled, then went back to her room, got dressed, and headed back for her favorite place: Woodrow's study.
--
She had debated for several seconds whether or not this was an off-limits site, but she decided that, as long as she did not go into material that was tagged confidential or tagged private, she was safe. She had started small, pulling one book off the shelf and reading, at length, about Wade's encounter at the swimming hole from someone that Wade had interviewed named Rebecca Jane Casey, and she had then gone, over the next few days, to the technical specifications of Tornado and of the Bunker construction itself.
She was curled up on the couch, reading the notes on the residential level, when Woodrow opened the door.
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"We're gonna need to buy that house we've talked about, Will," Lindsey grinned and rubbed her stomach.
"Why? Are you having a stomach-" Will was smart, and his jaw dropped open and a grin overtook his face, the likes of which Lindsey hadn't seen since their wedding night.
"Yes, I'm having a stomachache, and it's your fault," she chided, and Will pulled her to him and hugged her tight.
"Thank you, Lindsey: this is the best Christmas present I've ever had…well," he grinned, "not counting that one Christmas we spent together, snowed in, in Scranton, Pennsylvania, when even the GJ jets couldn't get in." Will grinned even more. "I especially liked the outfit you decided to sleep in that night, and I really liked-" and Lindsey shushed him with her lips in a kiss promising so much more if he just be quiet….
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Gillian looked up and smiled. "Hello, Woodrow: back so soon?"
"What are you doing in here?" he asked, and Gillian had never heard his voice like this before.
"Reading," she replied honestly and giggled.
"I can see that. You just couldn't wait until I got out of the house before you started spying on me...and on BlazeIT and Team Possible, as well? Who are you working for, Gillian?" Woodrow's voice was cold.
"Woodrow," she started, but Woodrow was beyond angry.
Woodrow was now speaking very, very loudly. "Are you working for Australian OSI, Gillian? You and Amanda, sent here to infiltrate Global Justice, Team Possible, and BlazeIT, not to mention Montana DCI? Is it Chinese hackers, or did drug dealers send you?"
"No, Woodrow," Gillian started to stand, but Woodrow's glare kept her in her seat.
"Who, then, Gillian?" he yelled, and then he stopped and looked through her.
"Get.
"Out.
"Now," he said in a cold, calculating voice, and Gillian felt daggers enter her heart.
"I never want to see you here again, Gillian," and the last dagger entered and twisted, and she wanted to scream at the pain.
Gillian stared at him in shock.
"You can't be serious, l-" she started, but he would not let her finish.
"NOTE THE SERIOUS FACE, GILLIAN!" Woodrow yelled.
"GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!"
"NOW!"
"I NEVER WANT TO SEE YOU AGAIN!"
Woodrow turned and stormed toward the door.
One solitary unexecuted method started, and Gillian made a sound.
Woodrow stopped when he heard the sound, and he turned and looked at her....
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