particles of hope, a Kim Possible story Chapter 5: 5: face the morning with you, a kim possible fanfic

…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….

Chapter 5: ...face the morning...with you

Time reference:

Biological world: 12:10 AM

AI world: Day 10

PING! PING!

Woodrow recognized that sound.

PING! PING!

The sound was coming from Gillian, from her mouth.

PING! PING!

But, it was also coming from the Global Justice MIS central computer, and the time delay between the two sounds was non-existent.

'Why would she ping me at the same time as the Global Justice MIS central unit?' he wondered, but he had no time to think about that, for the next sounds...

"AGAIN YOU SEE TO WANT NEVER I!

"NOW!"

"HOUSE MY OF OUT GET!

"GILLIAN, FACE SERIOUS THE NOTE!"

"luv, serious be cannot you"

Mandy was more frightened than she had even been in her life.

Gillian's processors were pegging at 120 per cent utilization, and her memory utilization was pegging the 140 percent mark, meaning she was accessing the volatile virtual memory drives. She released three servers from the pool and made them available to Gillian, adding another 50 per cent to her memory availability and another 70 percent to processor capacity.

She then sent an emergency PosComm 911 screen shot to Wade.

Joss looked at the screen and saw the incoming message.

"Wade, this isn't good," she pointed at the monitor, and Wade pulled up the readings on Wade-A's servers. He ran a quick diagnostic, and he grimaced.

"This does not look good, Mandy," Wade called over the air.

"Tell me something I don't know," by now, Mandy was almost in tears. "If she doesn't break the spike, we'll lose her."

"Woodrow's starting to spike, as well, Mandy: we're gonna lose both of them," Wade said calmly, and Joss realized that she did not want to lose Woodrow and began a quiet cheer for him.

"You can make it, Woodrow," she whispered, and Wade, head down, smiled. "Ah believe in you and Gillian," she whispered, and Wade smiled as he attacked his keyboard, bringing some more servers on-line into the environment and making them available for Woodrow...just in case.

"Joss, we're losing them both," Wade looked worried, and he looked over at Joss:

Tears were on her face, as they were on his.

Woodrow knew the signs of a system spiking.

He was still getting PING'ed by the Global Justice MIS environment.

And, Gillian was losing it.

He decided, in an instant, that he could not live without her, so he did the one thing that came to his mind:

Running to her, he pulled her into his arms and started to kiss her.

"Woodrow, no," she said, and he realized that she was still in her sitch.

"Reading," she added with a smile, and he kissed her carefully and softly on the lips.

She blinked once, twice, and he got another pair of PINGS.

"Soon so back, Woodrow Hello?" and he went for it all, grabbing and kissing her like it was the last time he would ever be able to do so.

Gillian was confused.

She did not understand why Woodrow had told her to leave, and she did not understand the method that had executed, but she was certain of one thing:

She was more frightened than she had ever been in her live.

'Am I going to die?' she thought as she watched Woodrow watch her, then come to her and kiss her gently on the lips.

She was still scared, and she threw off another pair of PINGS. Woodrow pulled her in tight and kissed her passionately.

'If I am going to die, Amanda, let me die like this, with the man I love holding me in his arms and fighting for me,' she thought.

"Me for fighting and arms his in me holding-" the sentence cut short, and Gillian felt the pain of a full system shutdown commencing.

'Goodbye, Woodrow...I love you,' she thought, and she closed her eyes for the last time.

Woodrow felt her go limp in his arms and open his eyes to the horror of Gillian, closed in his arms, her eyes closed.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" The tears poured from his face, unending.

Gillian's eyes snapped open, and she took a deep breath.

PING! Came from her mouth, once again, and Woodrow registered it on his system and responded with a return ping from the server side.

Gillian closed her eyes and opened them. Her ice-blue eyes were cloudy, and she closed them again and re-opened them: a bit less cloudy, Woodrow noticed, but still cloudy.

She closed her eyes again, and Woodrow chose that moment to capture her mouth once again for his own, her lips his prize. She opened her eyes, and they were not as cloudy as before: he noticed that she seemed to be aware of what was happening.

Gillian felt the warmth and love that Woodrow was giving her, and she knew that it was unconditional. She opened her eyes and saw him looking into her face with so many tears and so much worry and concern that she wanted to cry, herself.

She closed her eyes one last time, and then she opened them and moved her arms from her sides to his back, pulling him into her and hugging him, then she slid her right hand downward....

"Yeppers, me girl's all back," Mandy grinned as she watched Gillian cup Woodrow's rear end.

"She's feeling better, it seems," Wade laughed.

"She's feeling something, all right," Joss dead-panned, and Wade turned and stared at her as she winked at him and reached for her own 'Charmin' for squeezing, generating a laugh from Mandy.

Woodrow pulled his mouth away, reluctantly, for he had to know.

"Gillian, are you all right?"

"Nominal...all functions operating at optimal levels," she stated without a trace of emotion, then winked at Woodrow and placed her hands on the sides of his face. "You saved me, my knight in electronic armor," she smiled, and she kissed that spot on his face between his upper lip and nose.

Her eyes were clear, now, Woodrow noticed and smiled.

"What happened?" he helped her sit down back on the couch.

"I didn't know until now, Woodrow, but I had one more method to execute, and it was the final piece to the puzzle," she grinned. "the one thing that would determine if I would live or die.

"I had to know that I could love, that I truly loved you, and I had to know that you truly loved me, regardless of what happened. I just didn't know I had to know all that," she grinned and kissed his nose. "Dang, that's one sexy nose, Woodrow," she giggled, and Woodrow blushed.

"You had to challenge me in a way that put me in harm's way, and I was able to survive it," she continued.

"And," she giggled once again, and Woodrow was convinced that he could live on nothing but her giggles for eternity, "you never knew who I was; that's the funniest thing, to me that I could have ever imagined from you, oh Bunker-brains."

"Who are you?" he asked with a grin to her comment.

"PING! My love," she smiled, and Woodrow's eyes were huge as he responded with a PING of his own.

"Now, do you recognize me, luv?" she batted her eyelashes, and Woodrow laughed.

"You're GJMISMaster?"

"In the case," she replied.

"And, what a case," Woodrow whistled. "That case should be outlawed on 7 continents and in space."

"Flattery will get you everywhere," she gave him a quick peck on the cheek.

"So, Mandy is..." Woodrow's voice trailed off.

"You're the GJ CIO?" Wade stared at Mandy in the monitor, and Mandy had a sheepish grin on her face.

"...and CTO, I'm afraid, luv," she replied, and Wade didn't know whether to cheer for her or scream at her in rage...but, he smiled.

"You don't look like an old broad, Mandy, so what are you: 40, 50, what?" Wade grinned, and Mandy pointed her finger at him and shot him in multiple manners.

"Why didn't you tell me who you were?"

"You don't have the clearances, Woodrow," Gillian replied, and Woodrow snorted.

"I have clearance for all GJ activities," he announced.

"External, luv, but not internal and interagency other than your own orgs," Gillian shot back.

The same question was being asked 'outside':

"Why didn't you tell me who you were?" Wade asked.

"You don't have the clearances, Wade, luv," Mandy replied, and Wade snorted.

"I have clearance for all GJ activities," he announced.

"External, luv, but not internal and interagency other than your own orgs," Mandy retorted.

From both Woodrow and Wade, at the same time:

"Snake muffins! When were you going to tell me who you were?"

Joss cringed…she was afraid she knew what was coming, and she wasn't surprised or disappointed when…

An avatar shimmered onto Wade' screen and simultaneously appeared in Woodrow's study:

Dr. Elizabeth Director-Possible, head of Global Justice, and she had an extreme smirk on her face.

Both Wade and Woodrow braced themselves for Betty's pronouncement:

"Gentlemen, this was," Betty started, and Joss threw a pillow at the monitor. Betty laughed. "You know, then," she added.

"MOMMA2!" Joss yelled and laughed at the same time, at Betty and both Wade and Woodrow, both looking like they had been caught with their hands in the empty cookie jar.

"Wade, I love you, but business is business, and you didn't have the clearances to know who Mandy was or what her role was in the organization."

"I knew a bit more about you two than I let on, Wade, Joss," Mandy admitted, and Wade and Joss both stared at the monitor where Betty was standing and grinning.

"Not from me, dears," she admitted.

"Nebbie told me, luvs," Mandy explained, and Wade groaned.

"Nebbie?" Joss asked, confused, and Wade smiled and took her hand.

"C. P.," he explained, and Joss snorted.

"Ah'm a-gonna kill C. P.," Joss growled.

Betty laughed. "Stand in line, daughter, stand in line," she added. "I keep punishing him by making him stay in GJ, and he keeps punishing me by enjoying his time far too much," she continued, and Mandy laughed at the two ladies.

"C. P. is just one big Pandaroo, Betty," Mandy explained, "you just have to know how and when to twist his tail," she laughed, and Joss laughed at the mental image she now had.

"Gentlemen, this was," Betty started, and Joss threw a pillow at the monitor. Betty laughed. "You know, then," she added.

"Dr. Director!" Woodrow shouted, and Gillian could not help but laugh.

"What's so funny," Woodrow asked.

"Oh, Woodrow, do you hear yourself? You're upset because of what you didn't have access to, you have the second-highest clearances in Global Justice, and you're ticked because of what you have," Gillian laughed.

"Mandy, did you hear Gillian?" Joss asked, and Mandy nodded.

"Contractions," she grinned.

'It worked, Gepetto,' she thought as she smiled at Wade and then threw him a wink.

He looked at Gillian and smiled before he spoke.

"Hope.

"That's what you gave me, Gillian: hope."

"You, as well, Woodrow," Gillian smiled warmly. "You gave me hope, and you gave me a second chance, as well."

"That's only part of it, Gillian," Woodrow smiled "I didn't understand the rest".

"The rest?" she asked.

"Why I had to go this long without knowing you, you finding me, is beyond my comprehension," he smiled, and the two faces leaned in for a kiss.

"Woodrow, where are we going?" Gillian asked with a smile as they headed down the elevator, once again, and the door opened onto the residential level, level 4. They went past the 'Bunker Workout Room Alpha-4' and headed down the hall for 'Bunker Workout Room Theta-7.

He opened the door and grinned as he ushered Gillian in, closing the door behind him preventing the following camera from entering.

"Woodrow?"

"I thought we could use a little privacy."

"For what?" she asked with a hint of a smile.

"Well," he replied with a grin not unlike Rufus, unescorted in the Wisconsin cheese building, as the door closed.

Nothing happened on the outside.

The alarms sounded, and Wade and Joss looked up in shock.

Every server in the Bunker had crashed and rebooted...every one, except for Woodrow's and Gillian's units.

The alarms reset almost immediately.

The alarms sounded, and Mandy looked up in horror at the impossible:

Every server in the Global Justice data centers and crashed and rebooted...every one, except for Gillian's backup units.

The alarms reset almost immediately.

Lindsey was out of bed in a flash, and Will was right behind her as the alarms in the Bunker sounded.

Then, the alarms stopped, and they looked at each other, confused.

"Ron," Kim asked when she realized what he was doing, "why are we pulling into Bueno Nacho at this time of night?"

"It's Christmas, baby, and Santa has one more gift to deliver to an old friend who's giving to someone else," he replied as he hopped out of his side of the car and came around to open Kim's door, enjoying the view as she extended her legs to exit.

Inside, Ned was covering the store by himself for one of his managers and the team: his Christmas gift to all of them, and his own wish to get back to his 'roots.' He expected a slow night: he didn't expect Santa and Mrs. Claus to walk in the front door, but he smiled when he recognized them.

"Ronald! Kim! Merry Christmas!" Ned jumped over the counter and hugged them both.

"Go home to that gorgeous wife, Ned: we've got your back," Ron said, and Kim nodded in agreement.

Ned's jaw dropped. "You're kidding, right?"

"Serious face, Ned, and tell Yori, from both of us, 'Merry Christmas," Ron jumped the counter the other direction, and Kim did a flip over it.

Ned had no complaints.

"Thank you, and a Merry Christmas to the both of you," he yelled as he tossed Ron the keys and headed out the door.

"Thanks for helping tonight, KP: those kids needed some hope, big time, and I'm glad we could help."

"I'm glad, too," Kim replied, and then she looked at the equipment and grinned evilly. "Well, Pinky, what should we do now?" Kim asked with a smirk on her face as she punched the Naco cheese dispenser button, dropping a dollop onto her finger and offering it to Ron.

He kissed her finger and licked off the cheese. "What we have always done, Brain: save the world," and he pulled Kim into a kiss in front of the drink dispensers.

When she released him, she had one question for him.

"Ron, did you finish your shopping? I knew you were worried about that before the trip."

"I did, KP, 'with a little help from a friend,'" he grinned, patting his Santa suit holding his red shoes in the inside pouch he had had Wade create for them.

"Thank you, James," Ann whispered and kissed her husband before she fell asleep.

A few minutes later, James smiled. 'I don't know what that was for, but an Anne kiss on Christmas Eve is always worth getting; it gives me hope that she won't dump me for Drew,' he laughed inside and closed his eyes, readying them for the morning to come.

Mandy looked at the monitor when the door opened, and she burst out laughing. Wade stared, and Joss blushed.

Woodrow and Gillian came out, holding hands.

That wasn't what caused the ruckus.

Woodrow's normally-perfect hair was mashed down into a jumble, his shirt was completely unbuttoned (showing his undershirt), and his shirt, obviously, wasn't tucked in.

Gillian's hair was a massive mop of ice-blue madness, she was wearing her blouse inside-out, and she was carrying her heels in one hand, swinging them like Olympic medals, her legs and feet still covered in her stockings.

Their smiles were priceless.

"You are evil, luv...and, I love evil," Gillian giggled, and Woodrow blushed.

"Ah, shucks, ma'am: twern't nothin'" he replied in full Montana-speak, and Gillian let out a whoop and pulled Woodrow to a stop.

"Nothing? You call that nothing?" Gillian laughed. "You Yanks have the gift of understatement, that's for certain. And, that thing you did...I may never walk straight again," she smirked, and Woodrow grinned.

Mandy grinned at the camera. "Wade, luv, is there something you forgot to tell me about yourself?" she asked and fluttered her eyelashes.

Joss whooped, and Wade blushed and dropped his head to his lap.

Woodrow lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it. "I love you, Gillian," he smiled.

"And, I love you too, Woodrow...but, you're going to have to make an honest woman out of me after what you just did," she smiled, and Woodrow nodded.

"Did you ever doubt that I would, Gillian?" He pulled her close and hugged her, letting her know that he was never leaving. Then, he pushed her head back just enough to reach her mouth...

Mandy whooped again. "Wade, you are an animal!" she laughed as she saw Gillian's right leg lift to Woodrow's kiss. "But, I guess Jocelyn already knows that," she added with a grin, and the two smiled knowingly.

"I want to face every morning with you, Gillian...if you'll have me," Woodrow stated calmly, and Joss smiled.

"Only if you will have me, Woodrow...and, not that way all the time, either, you man!" Gillian replied and then laughed as she pulled Woodrow back to her and hugged him.

When she pulled away, she asked: "does it bother you that I am who I am, Woodrow?"

"Not at all, Gillian," Woodrow replied. "I know I'll at least get good response to my queries from now on," he smiled.

"Has there been a problem with my responses in the past?" Gillian asked with honest concern.

"Well, you have been a bit slow a few times; perhaps it's old age...:" he grinned and then took off, running down the hall for the elevator.

"Like, you wish!" Gillian yelled, throwing both shoes at Woodrow.

Wade was laughing so hard after he lifted his head that he almost missed the text notice on his PosComm:

(Sender is Nacos4evah) Wade, thx 4 loaning me the shoes: needed to finish wrapping b4 the mission. Deliveries all completed. Thanx agin, and Merry Christmas, BIL-2-B. Ron.

Wade grinned and moved the text message to his private folder before Joss could get a look at it.

"Somethin' good, Aggie?" she asked, and he smiled.

"Just a note from a friend, wishing me a Merry Christmas," he replied with a soft smile, and he suddenly pulled Joss over and gave her a quick kiss.

"What was that for?" she asked with a grin on her face.

"No reason, luv, no reason," he replied, and Mandy chuckled.

Lindsey gasped when Will scooped her up into his arms and carried her back to bed.

"Must have been a false alarm," he smiled as he lay her down. "I guess I'll need to get prepared for those in about eight or nine months," he added, and he was pulled down onto a very-much-in-the-kissing-mood Lindsey Du.

"There's nothing on the books, Woodrow: I've checked with our legal programs," Gillian grinned, and Woodrow, sitting at his desk, hit 'send'.

The air in two rooms on two continents was suddenly filled a full brass fanfare, coming from the monitors that were showing the events. Suddenly, a large Naked Mole Rat, dressed in a full tuxedo with tails and wearing white tennis shoes, appeared on the screen, holding a scroll.

"My Lords and Ladies…or, perhaps that should read 'my Loads and Ladies," the Mole Rat laughed, his voice sounding uncannily like Ron Stoppable and Wade Load had had their voices mixed together. "I have the pleasure to announce the upcoming nuptials of Mr. Artemis Woodrow Load and Miss Gillian Spice Tartenware. As you poor mortals will be unable to 'physically' attend the event," he grinned, "it will be recorded for your viewing pleasure."

"On a personal note," Woodrow and Gillian stepped into view, holding hands and both wearing custom-made GJ/BlazeIT! polos, "thanks to all three of you for not giving up on us. Wade, man, you know I love you dearly; and Joss," Woodrow grinned, "well, you know," and he blew her a kiss.

"Mandy, thank you," Gillian smiled, and Mandy smiled back and mouthed 'you're welcome.' "You took a chance with me, and you gave me hope. Thank you, Mandy. Jocelyn," she grinned, "we need to talk, GF," and Joss laughed and nodded. "And, Dr. Load, thank you for the gift of Woodrow."

"You're welcome, Gillian," Wade replied, and the monitor went black.

"Woodrow! Get your hands off me bum!" came from the darkened monitor, and giggling could be heard.

"Merry Christmas, Joss, Mandy, Wade," came from Gillian and Woodrow, and the sound cut, as well.

"Well," Wade looked up when he heard Mandy's voice, and he saw tears on her face, "even Gillian is getting married before me," but she was smiling as she spoke.

"Speak for yourself, Mandy," Wade replied, and Joss looked through her own tears to see her fiancée crying, as well, "Woodrow beat me to the alter," he laughed.

"Well," Joss smiled, "I'm glad he's happy; I know Gillian will be, if'n Woodrow is anything lak mah Aggie," she continued, and Mandy grinned.

"Not like that, Mandy!" Joss blushed as Mandy started laughing. "I mean, he cares, and he always shows it to me," and Joss blushed even more as Mandy laughed ever harder.