Chapter 46: Head In the Game.

Ron noticed that the low humming coming from the breaker panels around him had become louder, but he really didn't worry about it. He was more concerned with his partner. After releasing Rufus, Kim had grown more and more despondent. She refused to make eye contact with him, but he could see the tears and her lower lip quivering. This was so not the time for her to have some sort of a breakdown!

"I know that waiting can be hard Kim, but Rufus should be back before too much longer."

"That's not it and you know it." She sniffed. "I've been thinking. Why did Drakken release Eric the synthodrone before he released Dessie the synthodrone?"

"Because you're his chief foe and he had to keep you sidetracked."

"No, that's why he created Eric, not why he released Eric first." She looked up at him, tears pouring down her eyes. "He released Eric first because he wanted to break up Team Possible and he knew that I was the weak link! He knew that you would never, never abandon me unless I abandoned you first." Her head dropped again. "And that's exactly what I did."

She sobbed quietly for a time. Ron didn't know what to say. Finally, looking for a response, she said, "Ron?"

"Yeah KP?"

"Let's deal with something that we've both been dancing around for this past week." She gamely raised her head again. "We were close to getting together, you and I, weren't we?"

"I thought so." Ron started to feel the hurt and anger over it start to return.

"I knew we were. After we rescued that couple from the cabin, I started thinking about things. I thought about how shallow they were; they went out on a romantic getaway, ran into a little hardship, and turned on each other! I thought about how I never wanted to be like that, then I looked at you and I thought about everything we had gone through together! Stranded in a comfortable cabin overnight? HA! I looked at what we've been through together and realized just how tight we had become!" Then she dropped her head again. "And that's when I started to see you as a boyfriend, not just a best friend."

Ron continued to look at her, still at a loss for words.

She faced him again. "But I didn't know if you would feel the same way, so I started to flirt with you…When you started to flirt back, I was so happy! I knew we were about to get together and I knew it was just all going to work out!" Her tears started again. "That's when I had a chance conversation with Bonnie and a couple of her posse."

Once again, she seemed unable to meet his eyes but she still forged forward. "That's when everything I felt, everything I knew, just evaporated. The only thing that mattered to me was what they thought of me, what they thought of any boy that I dated. All of the feelings I had for you just didn't seem to matter anymore. I couldn't even realize that the whole thing just had to have been staged. Since when does Bonnie care about my life?" She buried her face in her hands. "But they didn't consider you proper boyfriend material for me, so I didn't consider you proper boyfriend material for me. That's why I brushed you off. I couldn't get the courage up to talk to you about it, because I knew that if I did, if we discussed it, I was going to say the wrong thing"

"Did it ever occur to you that not saying anything was doing the wrong thing?" Ron's tone dropped the temperature in the room.

Kim flinched but continued. "Yes it did, but I couldn't stand the thought of the look on your face if I talked to you. The thought of you looking hurt and knowing that it was my fault would have been terrible. Even worse, what if you had just shrugged the whole thing off? That would have meant that you didn't really feel anything and I couldn't stand facing that. So I just convinced myself that it was all for the best and brushed you off."

"The sum total is that I pushed you away and I shouldn't have. Then Eric showed up and he was gorgeous and everything that they said I should be looking for in a boyfriend and I just melted." Her distaste for her own actions her eyes. "He had me so wrapped up that I quit thinking! I even started to ignore you, throwing twelve years of friendship away for a guy who I didn't even know! But that's not the worst part."

Do I really want to know the worst part? Ron asked himself.

"He…he started to say things about you." Kim continued, starting to sob. "It-it wasn't all that blunt, at least not at first. But he started to hint that you…you weren't the sort of person I should be hanging around with. That Oscar, Cindy, Felix, and Monique weren't up to my status. I had an image to maintain, after all and while it was sweet that I was fond of you, I really should be grooming my public image. He told me that I was famous and if I hung with you guys it would bring me down and force you guys to deal with fame you couldn't handle. So I started to avoid you. He also told me that the missions were crimping my style, so I wasn't really listening to Wade when he called me." She cried, hard, for a few minutes before she could continue. "Then Monique confronted me after school on Wednesday. She asked me if I even remembered you! Then she brought up the chance that by completely blowing you off, by ignoring my best friend and the guy that I had wanted to be my boyfriend, I might have just hurt you to the point that you wouldn't be willing to be my friend anymore. I got mad at her and she stormed off but thank God she made me think."

Now Kim was able to bring her eyes up to meet his. "I had a little talk with Eric that evening and he went directly into damage control mode. He said that I had misunderstood him, he only wanted what was the best for me." She shook her head. "And I believed him. After spending twelve plus years with a guy, no the guy who's always wanted the best for me, I believed him. Because he was hot and I was looking for an excuse to stay with him." She leaned back against the wall and stared at the ceiling. "God, how could I have been so shallow?"

It still didn't seem the proper time for Ron to speak, so he continued to wait. Finally, Kim continued in a much more Kim-like voice. "But there you were when I decided to reconnect with you... You didn't blow me off, or try for your pound of flesh. You just shrugged off my shallowness and were ready to be my friend, again. It was just like old times and it made me come to a decision. I was ready to break up with Eric." She let out a snort of self-disgust. "But only after my triumph over Bonnie at the Prom, of course. I guess I was still just too shallow to not get in my dig. But the fact was, he was demanding that I quit being friends with you, and he just wasn't worth it."

Now she looked him right in the eye, kind of the way a brave but condemned man might look at the firing squad. "So now you know the truth, Ron Stoppable. You're the guy I should have been at the dance with. You're the guy who should have had me distracted for the last two weeks. You're the guy I ignored and took for granted because I'm just so darned used to you always being there, I-I can't picture a time when you won't be. Can you f-forgive me? C-Can we go back? Can we take up b-being friends, or more?"

Suddenly it was time for Ron to speak and he realized that he had two real choices. She's trying to act in control but she isn't, he realized. She's fragile, emotionally, right now. If I want to, I can take my pound of flesh right here. Just a raised voice and a few choice words will have her crying on the floor. I could grab Rufus, go out the tunnel, and just head out and hide. After all, who'll be able to blame a sixteen-year-old kid for not stopping a worldwide conspiracy? Drakken's got a good plan but the armed forces will put an end to it. Of course, how many will die stopping him?

Or I can do the right thing. Take the most painful, least gratifying action. Rise above the fact that she dropped me out of her life for over a week, for a new guy, and act like her friend of twelve years. No, I'm not her boyfriend and I probably never will be. But if I'm not her friend, her partner, the guy who steps up when the bad guys need to be taken down, then I'm not much of anything at all.

So those are the choices, Stoppable: Petty revenge or painful, self-denying honor. God, maturity tanks!

"KP," he began. "I think that you're loosing sight of the fact that we're teenagers. If I understand my 'rents, your 'rents and Rabbi Katz, we're going to make stupid mistakes with relationships, because we don't have much experience and the only way to gain experience is to make mistakes. Yes, I'm hurt and confused right now but I can get over it, eventually. I'm willing to bet that you're hurt and embarrassed right now but, again, you'll get over it."

"I think that you're also loosing sight of the fact that we're dealing with a master villain." Ron continued, "we don't know how long Drakken has been working on this or how many people he's brought in on it. Back when I bagged Shego with Drakken's coat, I asked you if she was going to be mad at me. You told me that she was and that I should feel complimented by her hate. Well, I guess you can take Eric as a compliment. Drakken took the time out of this scheme to come up with a way to neutralize you. Sure you're embarrassed but doesn't that say something about how he fears and respects you?" He said with a grin.

"Bottom line up front," Ron concluded. "Is that we're still a team, we're still friends, we're still in the game, and we're in position to stop the bad guy. We've taken some lumps, both individually and as friends but as long as we learn from it, it's only going to make us better in the long run."

Kim had gotten to her feet during Ron's speech. While he spoke, her shoulders straightened and her chin came up. She wiped the tears out of her eyes and no more appeared to replace them. The tremble in her hands and lower lip had vanished. A slight smile formed on her lips as she spoke, "I have learned, Ron Stoppable. I've learned who's important to me and I've learned to make sure that they know it." She approached him. "I've learned what boyfriend material really is to me. To me, the best boyfriend material is-"

"Squeak!"

"Rufus!"

"Rufus?" Ron didn't quite know what to make of that last revelation, then he followed Kim's stare to where his little buddy had just slid under the door. "Rufus! Did you find anything useful?"

"Oh my God!" Felix had gone pale. The young man had been flitting through transmissions, trying to find more news from beyond Middleton when…

"What is it, Renton?" Mr. Barkin asked. In response, Felix manipulated the screen controls to show multiple scenes simultaneously.

"Those giant robots, they're everywhere." He answered, manipulating the controls and working through multiple feeds. "Rome, London, Paris, Tokyo, everywhere. Those things are running everywhere! This isn't just some local extortion attempt, this is a worldwide invasion!"

"Uh-huh!" The rodent said, pleased with himself. He then broke into a series of squeaks and chitterings that only Ron could understand.

Ron listened for a few minutes then looked up at Kim, smiled and said, "I think we have a plan."

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Thank you to everyone who has been reading this story.

A bigger thanks to everyone who has taken the time to provide reviews.

A special thank-you goes to Joe Stoppinghem for Beta reading, and smoothing out some of my rough writing.

I hope everyone has been enjoying the story.

daccu65