Author's Note: It's an interesting thing, fandom. At the time of this writing, "The Fallen" is at 3084 hits and 58 reviews, "Aftermath" is at 218 hits and 9 reviews, and "College Days" is at 371 hits and 7 reviews. In contrast, my Star Wars stories have a combined hit total of 19, and exactly one review between them. Go figure.
Campy: Good. I was going for creepy. More to come with this guy. Though I would say he's Mephistopheles, though comparing him to Prince Xixor wouldn't be too far off.
RamaFan: You are quite right. The 6800 count reflects only the number of undergraduates who live on campus, either in the residence halls or ROTC barracks. This number does not included fraternity/sorority housing, off-campus students, non-traditional students, or graduate students. The total number of students is approximately 18240, give or take. Not quite AU levels, but it more than doubles my alma mater. Chalk it up to imprecise wording on my part. I'll probably go back and fix that once the story is finished.
Aimtbj: Not telepathy, no. You'll find out what in this installment.
MrDrP: The sole reason why I set the driving time at four hours was because that was how long it took for me to get from home to college. No other reason, just drawing on my own experiences, as I did for a few of the slice-of-life parts. There is method to my madness, though I'll grant that it ain't exactly the best method... Still, thanks for pointing this out. It actually helped me to figure out how to play something in this chapter.
On to Chapter 3, then. Funny, this was originally conceived as a three-parter, and now it's expanded to four, along with a possible coda.
"Love... is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth..." 1 Corinthians 13:4, 5-6
Chapter 3: Remorse
They spent most of the drive to Middleton in silence. Mr. Dr. Possible attempted to engage his daughter in conversation, several times in fact, but Kim didn't seem to be in the mood for talking. All he got out of her was a confirmation that, yes, the pictures in the papers were real, and no, she had no idea why she had kissed the guy in the first place. She then declared the subject to be closed, and retreated into silence to brood over what had happened.
A time of silence can be incredibly useful for pondering an issue. It can also be incredibly dangerous, for in a silent mind bereft of external counsel our worst irrational fears can come to the fore, and turn ruminations to unwarranted darkness. By the time they reached Middleton itself, she had nearly convinced herself that Ron was so upset that he would want nothing more to do with her.
The radio didn't help. Mr. Dr. Possible had tried to lighten the mood by changing from the news station to a few music stations, but it seemed like every single pop song, country song, and rock song in existence was about someone breaking up with someone else because the else was a cheating liar.
In frustration he switched to NPR, figuring he had a fifty-fifty chance of catching either political commentary or classical music. Turned out they were on their classical segment, and were in fact running a "Mozart Week", and were beginning that day with a playing of his famous Requiem, which was already in progress..
"Dies irae! Dies illa! Solvet saeclum in favilla, teste David cum Sibylla! Quondos tremor est futurus, quando judex est venturus, cuncta stricte discussurus!" came forth from the speakers.
"Oh, for crying out loud!" Mr. Dr. Possible cried as he shut the radio off. Kim just started laughing at the absurdity of it all. Not only were the 'O Boyz' apparently on her case, but now she was practically being mocked, in Latin, by a dead Austrian composer! Or maybe that was just her own fears talking.
Day of wrath and impending doom indeed.
It seemed to her, as at last they entered Middleton and reached the Possible residence, that her fears were confirmed. Her mother, the tweebs, even Nana Possible, were there to great her.
Ron was nowhere to be seen.
Kim felt herself deflate some, but then she gathered up her courage and buried her fear, and put on a brave face with which to greet her family.
They all hugged and told Kim how much they had missed her (even the tweebs did this). Nana Possible explained that she had decided to come up from Florida a few weeks early, so as to welcome Kim back from her first semester of college. She also made Kim promise to tell her everything about it.
Mrs. Dr. Possible, for her part, reported upon being asked that she hadn't seen Ron all day. Kim nodded, quietly, and the party began to walk towards the house. So that was it, then. Ron was upset enough to where he needed a few days to-
RRRRRRRRR.
Kim turned and looked down the street. A single motorcycle, old fashioned but stylish, colored black, was heading towards the house, its rider's face obscured by a black helmet. She didn't need to see his face, though, as she'd recognize that jersey anywhere.
He pulled up to the bottom of the driveway and parked the bike, waiting until the engine had stopped before he dismounted. He looked a little bit sheepish as he took off the helmet, and his hair was a bit more mussed than normal, but all that Kim noticed was that he was smiling, brightly, as he looked at her.
"Hey KP," Ron started, "sorry I'm late, but- mmmph!"
He was cut off when Kim crossed the distance in the blink of eye, pounced on him, and kissed him. Hard, and with much passion.
Nana Possible laughed quietly and then began to steer the rest of of her family into the house, declaring that it was obvious that Kimberly Anne and Ronald needed some 'them' time. Jim and Tim followed her in, declaring that they needed to get away from the sight before they hurled.
"Your mom's right, dear," Mrs. Dr. Possible said, taking her husband's arm and leading him towards the door. "They need some alone time."
She leaned her head against his shoulder.
"It's hardly alone time, honey, they're snogging in the driveway," Mr. Dr. Possible grumped as they passed through the entrance. This was said just for old time's sake, as Mr. Dr. Possible being grumpy about Kim and Ron had taken on the form of an inside joke. Not that he was entirely pleased about them getting with the kissy-face in the driveway, out in public, but given how worried Kim had been, he decided to let it slide.
At last, well after everyone else was inside, Ron pulled away from the kiss and took a single, ragged breath. Her arms were around his neck and shoulders, and his hands were resting on her waist.
"Warn me next time you do that," he said plaintively.
"Why?" Kim asked, with an impish smile.
"'Cause if I get the chance to take a breath beforehand, I'll last longer," Ron declared. "Y'know, I had this whole big speech prepared, but I seem to have forgotten it."
"Gee, I wonder what could have caused that," Kim whispered. "You must getting forgetful in your old age, Stoppable."
"Somethings I wish I could forget," he said quietly. Kim lowered her eyes and leaned in, resting her forehead against his, and her arms tightened around him.
"Are you upset about that picture?" she asked, hesitantly.
"Maybe a little," he conceded. "At least, I was when I went to bed last night, but I realized something when I woke up this morning."
He shifted his head a bit, and she lifted up her eyes to meet his gaze.
"I realized," he said, "that today was the day that you were coming home, and I was really, really, looking forward to seeing you again. The picture didn't matter, last night didn't matter, all I knew was that I hadn't held you since August, and that wild monkeys, much less some picture, couldn't keep me away from you."
"Have I told you that you are a wonderful man?"
"I have my moments," Ron said modestly. "KP, listen... I won't say that the picture doesn't bother me... but if you say that you don't know what happened, then... I believe you."
Kim closed her eyes and smiled, and leaned against him, letting his body and arms support most of her weight.
"Ron, take a breath."
"Why?"
"Because I'm going to kiss you again," she declared. He complied, and she did so. When they were finished Ron looked past her and grinned.
"I think they want us to come inside," he observed.
"What makes you say that?"
"Your dad is glaring at us through the window," Ron said, pointing. Kim turned her head just in time to see the curtains fall back into place. She shook her head and turned back to Ron.
"What if I want to kiss you more?"
"Normally there'd be no argument here," Ron said, "but if your Nana brought lemon squares..."
"You goof," Kim laughed, kissing him on the cheek and then moving to his side. "Walk me in?"
He offered her his right arm, and she linked her left arm around his elbow, and wrapped her right around his upper arm and pulled herself close to him, and Kim leaned her head against his shoulder as he lead her into the house.
Nana Possible had indeed made lemon squares. All was right with the world.
Ron had explained, over lunch, that he'd been late to Kim's homecoming because his mom had asked him to run a short errand that morning, and he'd gotten caught in traffic. Some nut had apparently forgotten how to park a stick-shift on hilly terrain, and his empty car had wound up backing into traffic, causing a T-bone and secondary three-car pileup that had stalled traffic in downtown for the better part of an hour.
At about that point in the conversation Rufus, who had been asleep in Ron's pocket, finally woke up and crawled out. First he scampered over to Kim and up her arm, and gave her a little hug.
She patted him on the head.
Rufus then scampered back down her arm and over to Nana Possible and gave her a hug. Then he ran back onto the table and started 'attacking' the lemon squares, thus explaining the reason for the hug.
Ron admonished him to save some for the rest of them. He was one to talk, of course, having already devoured five.
He also explained his big news: he had gained admittance to the Lowerton School of Culinary Arts, starting that next semester. He was already a very talented cook, but figured that he could use the training to expand his repertoire of recipes and techniques.
"Besides," he added with a laugh, "I can afford it."
Kim gave him a congratulatory kiss on the cheek. The rest of the family stuck with handshakes and verbal affirmation.
It took a while before they figured it out, but Kim and Nana finally realized that the Commandant of the NROTC cadets at BAU was one of Nana's old mates from BUD/S. Kim promised to look him up when she returned to the campus.
Wade called during lunch, both to welcome Kim back and to tell them that he hadn't yet discovered who the man was in the picture. Not even a search of the databases of the FBI, CIA, Mossad, GJ, NSA, MI6, MI5, DGSE, BND, FSB, GRU, and SVR yielded any information, much less a name. Wade even took the unconventional and risky approach of hacking into HenchCo's database, but even that turned up short.
The man in the picture was a cypher. Nana Possible especially looked uncomfortable about that; of all them she knew best how dangerous an unknown player could be.
He couldn't even get the name of the person who took the picture in the first place, but he promised to keep looking. Kim and Ron thanked him, though Kim pretended to be offended that he hadn't been there to greet her in person.
Wade explained that he had a cold, or the flu, or something like that, and really didn't need to leave the house. He even sneezed a few times, for their benefit. They told him to get better, and then signed off and returned to lunch.
By that time, Rufus had eaten the last of the lemon squares, and was lying immobile at the bottom of the pan. Ron just shook his head in wonderment, while the rest of the Possible family stared at the swollen mole-rat.
They were much relieved when Nana revealed she had another batch waiting in the oven.
All was fine, for a week or so. Oh, there was the occasional undercurrent of tension, a few furrowed brows that could be taken in any one of a hundred ways, about half of them bad. But the fact that Kim and Ron were indeed in love with each other helped them through any rough spots.
The only major rough spot they had during that first week was Ron's reluctance to let Kim ride with him on his new motorcycle. It would safely seat two, but Ron, for some reason, didn't trust himself to carry Kim on it. She pointed out that this was quite ridiculous, as he had balanced the scooter just fine with rockets attached to it, and this could not be any riskier than that had been. Finally he consented and spent that Saturday driving her around town.
She let herself rest against him on the bike, trusting him completely. No harm could come to her when Ron was around.
She was not the only one who shared in this opinion.
They went on a date the next Friday, which was the sixteenth of December. It was nothing fancy, just another trip to Bueno Nacho. It was six P.M., and already dark due to the early sunset, when Kim and Ron entered the fast-food restaurant. They made their customary order (two naco-chimmerito combos, grande sized, and an order of cheesy nachos for Rufus), and sat down at their customary booth. Some would say that they were stuck in a rut.
Perhaps that was true. Still, they enjoyed the familiarity. As one can imagine, they spent the entirety of the date talking and trading stories of the past four months (and change). They talked intently, and listened intently; in fact, they were so intently focused on each other that they missed two things.
The first was when Monique entered the restaurant, looking for a late-night snack (her parents were out on a date of their own). In fact, she sat down right behind Ron, and didn't catch either's attention until she thwapped Ron on the ear. That exchange was quite humorous to behold.
The second thing they didn't notice was that the man who was sitting behind Kim had been reading the same two pages of his newspaper for the past hour.
As with all excursions to a fast-food restaurant, the time came when Kim and Ron ran out of drink. Ron, attempting to be the gentleman, took both their cups and went to the soda fountain to refill (Rufus rode along in his pocket, having eaten his fill of nachos). Monique, by excuse of her drink being empty as well, got up and followed him. She had already heard from Kim how things had gone with Ron, and now the she wanted to get the story "from the horse's mouth", so to speak.
Kim began to feel a sense of deja vu.
"At last, Ms. Possible," came a whispered voice from behind her. "I was thinking he'd never leave. Did you miss me? I missed you."
She remembered that voice.
'Ron, help me,' she thought desperately. She was feeling it again, the same bizarre subjugation of her reasoning mind to something... instinctive. No, not instinctive, she realized, that was the wrong word. Something sexual, an urge that she couldn't define, much less fight, for its source was external to her.
She wanted to turn and hit him, but found that she couldn't; she actually made a fist and reared her arm back, but found that she was unable to go through with the attack. She wanted to call for Ron, to get him to come running and help her... but she found that she didn't want to enough to actually do it.
"Who are you?" she whispered.
"Not really important, Ms. Possible," he replied, turning towards her. "You're going to kiss me anyway."
"No, I... look, I don't know what you want, but don't do this, not here, not in front of Ron..."
"My dear Ms. Possible," the stranger continued, "this won't work if it's not in front of Mr. Stoppable. Besides, you know you want to."
It was worse than last time. Then, she felt outside of herself, as if she was a mere spectator watching her own actions. Now, she knew what he was going to do... and she felt herself beginning to want it. She was fully aroused, now; she didn't know why, but she found it intoxicating.
'Ron. Remember Ron. Keep his face in front of you, remember his touch...'
"You never could resist the handsome men, could you, Ms. Possible?" the man said with a smile. He leaned over the back of their seats, towards her, and Kim began to lean towards him.
She tried to stop herself.
'Ron... remember Ron.'
She couldn't.
'Ron... I'm sorry.'
Their lips touched.
'Ron...'
The last facets of her will succumbed.
'Ron who?'
"Seriously, though, the two of you are okay?" Monique asked.
"Mon, I've told ya a hundred times already," Ron replied exaggeratedly, as he refilled Kim's soda. "We. Are. Fine. Gonna take more than some kissing bandit to get between the two of us. Besides, you know that if that guy turns up again Kim'll just go all badical kung-fu on him."
"I'm just making sure," Monique said. "Somebody's gotta watch out for the two of you."
"And we thank you for that," Ron said with a grin, as he put the cap on Kim's drink. "Seriously."
"What are friends for?" Monique replied as she finished refilling her own drink. She then saw Ron stiffen as he turned back towards the booth.
She turned to look.
'Not again.'
Kim and the stranger, the same one from Club Banana, were slowly pulling away from each other. Kim's chest was heaving, and the look in her eyes...
Monique had seen Kim and Ron kiss a few times before. The look she saw, that Ron saw, on her face was a look that she had only ever given Ron after they'd kissed. Now, it was given to another, to some random stranger.
"Monique," Ron said, his voice strangely calm. "Did you drive or walk over here?"
"I... I drove."
"Take Kim home, please."
"Sure... you got it..."
"Thank you."
Ron strode up to the table, his face still unnervingly calm and neutral. The stranger looked up at him with a smirk, while Kim looked at him with an expression of disinterest.
Ron placed her soda on the table.
"Here's your drink," she heard him say, and then she watched as Ron walked out the door.
Then the spell lifted, and the events of the past few moments came crashing down on her mind. She didn't bother trying to attack the stranger, she simply got up and ran out the door, intent on getting to Ron and sorting this out.
Monique, also ignoring the stranger, came after her.
His face had been so calm, so neutral, that only someone who knew him as well as Kim did could have seen what was beneath it.
She exited the building and saw Ron about to put his helmet on. She called his name as she ran, and he turned to look at her.
The look on his face was no longer hidden, and it was a look of such utter despondency that her breath caught, and she was brought up short in her approach. Suddenly, she had no idea what to say.
"Ron," she said quietly, trying to convey in her face and voice that what he'd seen had not been what it had looked like.
He looked at her for a long moment, his face never changing, though Kim could tell that words were warring with each other behind his eyes, each thought jockeying to be ones that he would utter to her.
"I believed you," he said at last, his voice bitter and sad, and very final. "If this is how it is, fine. But I figured you would have had the guts to just come out and say it, rather than lie to me and arrange this little demonstration."
She could tell that he wanted to say more, but he did not; instead he donned his helmet and mounted his bike.
Kim whispered his name as Ron rode off into the darkness.
She stood there in shock, frozen in place both by the look on Ron's face, the bitter sound of his words, and by the fact that her body was still recovering from its earlier stimulation. She remained there, standing in place in the parking lot, until Monique came up to her and took her by the arm. Kim then fell limp against her friend, and Monique turn to look back at Bueno Nacho, trying to get a glimpse of the person who had caused all of this.
He had already disappeared. The booth he sat in would later have to be replaced, due to a cell phone sized hole that had been burned into the seat.
"Ron!" Mr. Stoppable called from the living room, as Ron walked into the house. "Are you all right?"
"I don't wanna talk about it," Ron growled.
"But Ron-" Mrs. Stoppable began.
"I said I don't wanna talk about it," Ron repeated as he stormed up the stairs towards his room.
"Oh, hello Monique," Mrs. Dr. Possible said brightly as she opened the door. "I'm sorry but, Kim isn't- Kimmie!"
The last was said in surprise as she realized that Kim was standing there behind Monique. Then surprise faded to concern as she noticed the look on her daughter's face. She wanted to ask, right then and there, what had happened, but first she got Kim and Monique inside the house and seated on the couch.
Kim proceeded to tell them everything. Every detail, how how she'd wanted to fight the stranger off but couldn't, how she wanted to call for Ron but didn't, and worst of all, how at the end she'd actually wanted to kiss him, and even enjoyed it. She felt real shame at that, even though she knew she hadn't been herself. Still, that action had hurt Ron, and that was enough.
The family was quiet for a time, once Kim had finished her story. Mr. Dr. Possible looked about ready to go for someone's throat, Nana Possible just looked saddened, and Mrs. Dr. Possible had a hard, yet thoughtful, expression.
It seemed as if she was mulling something over in her head, though her eyes never left her daughter. At last she rose to her feet and walked over to the telephone. She picked it up and called the hospital.
"Claire?" she said when the operator answered. "It's Dr. Possible... well, it could be better... anyway, who's on call for the chem lab tonight? Greg? Do you know what his workload is... great. Tell him that I'll be there in ten minutes, that we'll be coming in the back way, and that he had better have the lab ready when I get there. Thanks, Claire."
She hung up and turned back to Kim.
"Okay, Kimmie, time to get to the bottom of this."
"You have something in mind, dear?" Mr. Dr. Possible asked.
"Just a hypothesis," she replied with a smile.
The rear entrance to Middleton Hospital was only for use of the staff. Its intent was to allow the doctors and nurses fast access to the facilities without having to wade through vast crowds of incoming and outgoing patients, distraught and nervous family members, random crowds, and the occasional bit of paparazzi. Kim knew the entrance well; her mother was not above taking advantage of it to get family in quickly, and Kim herself had been brought through that entrance no less than three times prior.
Dr. Greg (he had a last name, but insisted that everyone call him Dr. Greg) didn't ask too many questions about the breach of procedure, but quickly and professionally took a blood sample from Kim and set about performing the analysis that Mrs. Dr. Possible requested. He informed them that it would take a few hours, maybe more, to finish the tests, so Mrs. Dr. Possible and Kim left the lab and made camp, so to speak, in the doctor's lounge.
It was well after seven P.M., but the last half-hour had left Kim so emotionally spent that she felt like it was nearly midnight. Her heart was tired, from shock and sorrow, and shear confusion.
How? How could he have just turned away and ridden off like that?
'Okay, think this one through, Possible,' she thought to herself, through closed eyes. 'You know perfectly well what it must have looked like from his point of view... 'sides, you know what face you made when whoever that was kissed you.
'And let's face it, you could have come home anytime you wanted, especially during those long weekends. Got a lot of studying done, but maybe if you'd been here with him instead of on campus being little miss studious...
'You know how Ron feels about you: he'd rip his own heart out before he'd let anyone hurt you. Didn't he do that much when you went all ga-ga over Erik?'
And there was the crux of it, she knew. Her running off and leaving Ron behind for Josh, or Erik, or whatever other cute guy came along and caught her eye was far more in line with her past behavior than the past year and a half had been. Even though she knew that she would never do such a thing now, she understood why, and how, Ron had jumped to that conclusion. The stranger had been right: she had never been able to resist the handsome men.
Until she found something more worthwhile to love: a beautiful heart, and a noble soul.
Her being gone for the whole semester, even when she could have come back at any time, someone sending the picture, Ron's natural skittishness, and then the attack at Bueno Nacho... all had combined to lead up their current situation.
'It's not his fault. What he saw... gosh, Ron, it must have felt like I locked you in that closet again, never mind that the first time was an accident. You told me once-'
"Penny for your thoughts?" her mom said from the seat next to her. Kim smiled and opened her eyes. Better to talk to her mother than keep it all bottled up inside.
"Just worrying about Ron, that's all."
"Oh really?"
"Yeah... you sound surprised."
"Well, I would have figured that you'd be mad at him for having left you at Bueno Nacho like that."
"I probably could be," Kim said as she leaned her head against the wall. "But he was mad, Mom. I could see it, and I guess that he decided he didn't need to have me on the bike while he was angry. Besides, he was the one who asked Monique to take me home."
"He did?"
"He did. He was madder than I've ever seen him, but according to Monique, his first thought was to take care of me. How can I stay mad at that? Besides, if I stopped talking to him every time he misinterpreted something and got some whack notion stuck in his head, then we would have never made it this far."
"You really love him, don't you?" Mrs. Dr. Possible quietly asked.
Kim nodded, and then leaned forward.
"Yeah. Which made the hurt in his eyes really, really hard to take. Mom, we've been mad at each other before, and I've thrown some stupid stuff at him before, but this..."
'He feels like I stabbed him in the back.'
"Kimmie..." Mrs. Dr. Possible began when she grew silent, but Kim started talking again before she could get any further.
"Did I ever tell you," she began, "that I locked him in a janitor's closet once?"
"You what?"
"It was the big Spirit Dance our freshman year. You remember, the one where I was constantly trying to get the courage to ask Josh Mankey to go to it with me. Well, I did... and in the process I locked Ron in a janitor's closet at school! He'd been there encouraging me the whole time, and I completely forgot about him when I was having my fun. Didn't even think about him until after the dance was over and I'd gotten back home."
Mrs. Dr. Possible was looking at her daughter in surprise. She remembered that dance, but she hadn't heard this particular story.
"What did you do then?"
"What else? I snuck out of the house, broke into the school, and got him out of there... Dad doesn't have to know about that, by the way," she added, sounding embarrassed, but nowhere near as much as she had been when confessing to the deed in the first place. "Bought him a naco, took him home, snuck back into the house, and went to bed. I'll never forget his face when I opened that door...
"The thing is, that was pretty much the pattern till junior prom: Ron would be there for me, risking his life on occasion... and I'd shove him aside when he became 'inconvenient', and then try and smooth it over with cheap Mexican food. Yeah... some times, I really stank as a friend."
"You both had your moments, Kimmie," her Mom said soothingly, "and still he loved you through all of it. Oh, don't be surprised; I had that boy read the first day he came over to visit. All that surprised me was how long it took the two of you to figure it out."
"He was afraid," Kim said quietly, staring at the floor. "By the time it mattered... we'd gotten so close as friends that he was afraid of what might happen if - we had a talk about this, after the junior prom, and he told me - if we tried to take it the 'next level' and it tanked. That's what took him so long; he was afraid if he went any further, then he might lose me.
"What took me so long was that I was a stupid, shallow, teenage girl so caught up in social stature, food chains, and pretty faces that I couldn't see who was right beside me."
Kim started to tear up, and her mother placed and arm around her and drew her in close.
"He's always been there for me, Mom. No matter when I did something stupid, like going on a date with Josh Mankey when he was off in the Amazon trying to find the one plant that would save my life, he would always be there the next day. I'm not gonna loose him, Mom. There's no one in this world who can stand with me like he can. Actually, there's no one else who I'd want to stand with me. I love him..."
The last few lines had been said in a whisper, for Kim's weariness of heart had finally caught up with her, and her head sank into her mother's lap as she drifted off into a sudden and troubled sleep.
"Oh, yeah, great plan," Shego growled from her cell. "Spend a year building hundreds of world-conquering and generally evil devices. Who cares if we get thrown in jail then, we'll just break out and move on to the next ready-made plot! Wonderful plan, Dr. D."
"Do you have to keep harping on that, Shego?" Drakken growled back at her. "How was I supposed to know that they would put us in an escape-proof jail?"
"Don't look at me, you're supposed to be the genius around here."
"And don't you forget it!" Drakken replied imperiously. "True genius is always disrespected in its own time."
"I think you mean 'rarely respected', not 'always disrespected.'"
"But that was grammatically correct!"
"True. But the wording was somewhat awkward, and the whole concept was a bit off."
"SHEGO! Just for that, you don't get Iceland!"
"Right... and that changes my current situation how, exactly?"
Drakken just glowered across the hall at her, and then turned his back to her.
"Quiet, Shego. I'm plotting."
"New escape attempt?"
"Sixty-fifth time's the charm," he confirmed. "If I combine this ordinary drinking straw, which I smuggled in from the dining hall, with two washers from this ordinary toilet-"
"Dr. D!" Shego interrupted. "Hush a second."
"Shego-"
"I said quiet," she hissed. "There's something going on."
Her trained ears had picked up sounds coming from the guard shack: a ringing telephone, some kind of energy discharge... and then sounds of surprise, a struggle, and finally the muffled reports of two shots from a silenced firearm.
Drakken, trusting her instincts, had dutifully shut up. Shego listened hard, and heard the firearm make one more profound argument for the admission of its wielder... and then she saw the door to the guardroom open, and watched as an evilly handsome man stepped out into the corridor.
Had she, or Drakken, or any of the inmates in prison been paying attention to the news, they would have recognized the man with the gun as the one who had kissed Kim Possible at Club Banana.
He holstered the gun and walked towards Drakken's cell. Drakken stood up to face him.
"Dr. Drakken," the man began, "my name is Phillip Sparks. I'm here to get you out."
"Shego too," Drakken stated. It was not a request.
"Of course," Sparks replied politely. "We can use Ms. Shego's help as well. Hang on just a moment, and I'll have these doors open."
He had taken the keycards from the guards he'd killed, and just as he said was able to open their cell doors in the space of a breath. The cards, of course, were only half the equation, but not even a Wade Load-designed security system was hack-proof, and Panther had some very good slicers at its disposal.
A second keycard swipe removed the bindings that restrained Shego's meteor power.
When they were out in the hallway, Sparks handed Shego a cell phone.
"Press one," he instructed, "and then hit the dial button. Quickly, please, Ms. Shego; we don't have a lot of time."
Shego complied with his request, having already figured out what was going on. Drakken watched as she disappeared in a flash of green energy. Sparks caught the cell phone in the air and quickly pressed the hang-up button; it was programmed to self-destruct if left on for a more a few seconds.
"You found my teleportation device," Drakken crowed with delight, "and adapted it for use with a cell phone!"
"I think you mean that I found and modified Dr. Dementor's teleportation device," Sparks replied.
"NYAH!" Drakken said, scandalized. "I had Kim Possible steal it fair and square!"
"Right... here, same as Ms. Shego. Press one, then dial."
Drakken too vanished in a flash of green energy, and again Phillip caught the cell phone. Then he too dialed out, and teleported away from the prison. This time the phone hit the ground, and shortly thereafter was burned away by the activated thermite charge.
We stood on the hill next to his house. It had all come so sudden, so soon, there was no warning, and now we were being ripped apart by something beyond the control of two teenagers. We were best friends, as close as two people could get and not be lovers.
His parents had finished loading the van, and we knew then that this was really it. After a lifetime of running together, he would be gone, and I would be here. Not alone, of course, I had other friends... but it all seemed to be so empty without him.
I don't remember what we said, but I do remember clinging to him like a vise, and he to me with strength that I hadn't known that he possessed. Soon he would leave for Norway, of all places, and I did not want to let him go. Were the world mine to barter, I would have gladly traded it to keep him there, to keep the fun times rolling.
Then came the accursed horn, and his father's voice, and it was time. We pulled apart slowly, letting our fingers claim one last lingering touch as if to sear in our senses one last memory indelible. As if by doing so we could keep the moment of separation from occurring.
Then we no longer touched. I cannot remember what he said, for it never happened. I can only remember waving to him, and him waving to me, as they pulled away and headed for the airport.
It never happened. Yet I can feel as if a portion of me had been ripped away.
To Norway. I dream, but it never happened. So why?
'No, Stoppable,' she thought as she came to. 'Fine, so you had the Norway dream again, it doesn't mean- did I just call myself Stoppable? Not a bad thought, of course, but I'm still a Possible yet. But someday, I hope someday...'
She laughed slightly as she stirred and lifted and her head from her mother's lap.
"You haven't done that since you were a little girl," Mrs. Dr. Possible said with a smile.
"It seemed like a good time for it," Kim replied blearily. "How long was I out?"
"Nearly three hours. I was about to wake you anyway, since Greg should be done with the analysis by now."
"What do you have him looking for, anyway?"
"What I hope will be an answer for you," she replied, rising from her chair and heading towards the lab.
"Since when are you so cryptic?" Kim called out as she followed after her mother. They entered the lab just in time to see Dr. Greg peering into a microscope.
"Greg, how's it look?" Mrs. Dr. Possible asked.
"Just a sec, this is the last test... bingo."
He looked up at them and grinned.
"Love Potion Number Nine."
"This is one of my old lairs!" Drakken said in surprise. Indeed, it was one of the lairs that he had used as a storage facility for a part of his Legacy. Specifically, the part that was a high-powered death ray. It sat, partially completed, atop a raised dais at one end of the room. The room itself had a high, vaulted ceiling with prominent rafters, and was located at the top of a tower.
"That's right, Dr. Drakken," Sparks replied. "In fact, we're just a little ways outside of Middleton."
"Ah, yes, the mountain citadel," Drakken said nostalgically. "It did have a certain 'Gothic' feel to it. How did you find it?"
Sparks pointed to the boxes of parts for the death ray, boxes that bore the logo of the Panther Group.
"Let's just say I have good connections."
"Right, this is all very fascinating," Shego interrupted, "but what's the plan?"
"Simple, Ms. Shego. We are going to get rid of Ms. Possible. I'm assuming you want some payback for the past six months?"
Shego grinned evilly.
"What do ya have in mind?"
"I can deliver Ms. Possible to you," he began, "but I need Dr. Drakken here to finish assembling the death ray and to set things in motion. Full instructions are on the computer over there."
He pointed towards a laptop sitting next to the partially assembled death ray.
"Ms. Shego, I have some thirty old-model synthodrones waiting in the adjoining rooms. I believe you can use them to deal with any unwanted guests?"
"Depends on who you're expecting. If you mean Global Justice, then it might be a problem. Stoppable... not so much."
Dr. Drakken flinched at that. He still had a slight phobia of the 'serious face'.
"Anything is possible, Ms. Shego," Sparks replied. "Though in his case, I doubt it: I am quite sure that I have managed to drive a wedge between Ms. Possible and Mr. Stoppable; I seriously doubt that he will be coming to her aid. As for Global Justice-"
"Wait, wait, back up a sec. You split up Possible and Stoppable? How?"
"What do you mean, 'pheromones'?" Kim asked.
"Well, the existence of human pheromones has long been disputed," Dr. Greg explained, "but about a year ago a group of researchers at Johns Hopkins managed to identify an actual human sex pheromone, along with an easily identifiable chemical byproduct."
He gestured towards the microscope.
"You've got that byproduct in your blood, Kim."
"Explain," Kim ordered. "In detail."
"The basic idea is this: a pheromone is an airborne hormone that is normally used for carrying messages between animals of the same species. In the animal world they're used as territorial markers that say such things as 'dang kids, get off of my property' or 'come here to find food', alarm markers to say 'danger Will Robinson, danger!', as well as for a male whatever to say to a female whatever 'hey, baby, come over here and let's make a few more whatevers'."
"Greg..." Mrs. Dr. Possible said with a warning tone.
"Anyway, what you got hit with was a human variant of that last one. As near as we understand it, the pheromone interacts with the portions of human physiology involved in sexual attraction. Well, interact isn't really accurate; it's more like it knocks those systems into overdrive, producing a near-instantaneous attraction for the person who is emitting the pheromone, to the utter disregard of anything else. Think a schoolyard crush with the force of Mjolnir."
"The sort where you'd do anything just get noticed by the person," Kim whispered darkly.
"Exactly. Any of this sound familiar?"
"Almost... not exactly, though. The effect wasn't... that instantaneous, and the first time... I don't know. It was like my body was acting on it's own, without my mind being involved at all. The second time... well, it was worse the second time..."
Greg thought about that for a moment.
"Like I said, the pheromones produce a strong sexual attraction in recipient," he said after a time, "but only on the biochemical level. Call me an old romantic, but I believe that there are things far stronger than simple chemistry, things that could have protected your mind before he adapted the chemistry to your specific makeup. Real love, for one thing."
"Quoth the single guy," Mrs. Dr. Possible whispered with a grin.
"You hush," Dr. Greg replied. "I'll have you know I actually had a date two nights ago. She told me she had a wonderful time.
"Kim, if what you said is correct, then this guy is far more dangerous than you think. What happened would indicate that a large enough dose of these pheromones doesn't just override the superego, but can actually affect voluntary muscle control by bypassing the ego itself, leaving only the id in charge... please tell me you've heard of Freud?"
"The id is the instinctive urges, the superego is one's morality, and the ego is the conscious mind that balances the two," Kim replied.
"Close enough. The pheromones put your id in control the first time, and I'm guessing they came close to suborning your ego the second time around?"
"Not close: they did."
He had to duck, very quickly, to avoid Shego's plasma burst. She had pressed the issue of how, exactly, he had driven a wedge between Kim and Ron, so Sparks had demonstrated to her his special talent. A few seconds later she was in his arms and they were sharing a passionate kiss.
This had led to a harsh glare from Drakken, who spent the whole time clearing his throat. Loudly.
A few seconds after that he'd sent the deactivating pheromone, Shego had 'woken up', so to speak, and had proceeded to shoot the plasma bolt at him. After another few seconds she grinned.
"Nice trick. Pheromones?"
"Thank you, and yes."
"Some kind of mechanical system?"
"No, Ms. Shego, this is completely biological. Lab accident from college. I can release them from my sweat glands at will."
"And you did that to Possible..."
"Twice, actually, and I made sure Mr. Stoppable knew about it each time. Had a journalist friend of mine, one Aceta Lynn, take a picture of us in Overton, and make sure it found it's way to Mr. Stoppable and the New York Times.
"The second time was right in front of him. Love doesn't exist, it's nothing but chemistry... but jealousy and anger do exist, and violating what people mistakingly call 'love' can produce some very, very powerful examples of those two emotions. Such things divide, and work in our favor."
"You are evil," Shego said with appreciation, and a bit flirtatiously.
"Don't start, Ms. Shego," he said in warning. "I didn't bring you here for that; I only brought the two of you here because I needed your help, nothing more."
"Alright, you know, fine," Shego said, sounding a bit miffed. "Though I gotta ask... between me and Possible... which of us was the better kisser?"
He smiled thinly.
'As if I enjoyed it in either case..'
"Ms. Shego, I am not stupid enough to try and answer that question. Dr. Drakken, how comes it?"
"Almost finished," he said testily. "The death ray will be ready by the time you bait the trap."
"Well done, Dr. Drakken," Sparks replied. "I'll call you when everything in Middleton is ready."
He reached into one of the boxes and pulled out another cell phone, and a largish cylinder.
"Dr. Drakken, Ms. Shego... the next time I'm here, I'll have Ms. Possible with me."
He dialed a number on the phone and vanished in a burst of green light.
"Do you always have to flirt like that," Drakken growled when he'd gone.
"You're just jealous."
"SHEGO!"
"Dr. Greg... if he tries to hit me with these things again, is there anyway I can fight it?"
"I dunno," he replied with shrug. "Like I said, I don't believe that simple chemistry is the highest force in our lives, but I can't give you any empirical evidence for that, so... I just don't know. However... now you know what you're up against. 'One who knows the enemy and knows himself will not be endangered in a hundred engagements.'"
"First time I've heard a doctor quote Sun Tzu," Kim said with a raised eyebrow. She approved of his quotation, and understood what he meant. Some things just lose their implacable menace when revealed in light.
"That particular dictum is actually quite popular in medicine," Mrs. Dr. Possible replied. "'Know thy enemy' is applicable even if the enemy is cancer or a brain disorder."
Kim nodded.
"So, what are you going to do?" her mother continued.
"What else? I'm going to find Ron, tell him all of this, and then figure out what to do. Dr. Greg, can you be on hand to explain this stuff again?"
"I'll keep the samples on hand. I'm guessing this won't wait till tomorrow?"
"That would be a good guess," Kim replied. "Thanks for your help, Dr. Greg."
"Hey, it's the least I could do after... well, huh. Actually, I don't think I owe you for anything, so this one's on me."
"Right..."
"Thanks, Greg," Mrs. Dr. Possible said as they were leaving the lab.
"Any time, Dr. Possible."
"So, where to?" Mrs. Dr. Possible asked when they were out in the hall. She figured Kim would ask to go directly to the Stoppable home.
"Back to the house," Kim said quickly, already thinking through the situation. "Ron can get... incredibly stubborn when he's got some whack notion stuck in his head, and I may need my mission gear for this."
"The mission gear?"
"Well, mostly just the grappling hook. I swear, even if I have to break in his bedroom window, I'm not gonna let today end before we get this straightened out!"
The ride back was spent in silence, with both Kim and her mother ruminating over what they had learned. Well, to be specific, Kim did most of the ruminating while Mrs. Dr. Possible mostly paid attention to the road. No need to take any chances.
Kim, for her part, was fully awake. Whatever weariness that she'd felt had faded away after her nap and the subsequent revelations. Now she was just mad.
At herself? Maybe a little, as she wondered if she could have tried to fight the pheromones just a little bit more, and she wished that she had made more time to actually see Ron over the past few months... but she didn't spend too much time kicking herself for such things. There was no point to it.
At Ron? While she had been mad at him before, she had found that it was very hard to stay angry at the guy. Especially so in this case, since she knew that the attack had been direct at him as much as it had been at her. Getting mad at Ron and refusing to talk to him, or just generally acting nasty like that, would just play into the enemy's hands, and she was not going to start doing that.
Villains had to work for it some, after all.
No, her anger was directed right were it needed to be: at the mysterious guy with no name. He'd come after them both, trying specifically to drive a wedge between them. Well, she wasn't going to let him win.
She only wished she knew why, and couldn't help but feel that the why was incredibly important.
She was still wondering about the why when they pulled into the driveway, and then her thoughts turned to the mission at hand.
Go inside, get suited up, grab the gear, then head to Ron's house. Get to him by any means necessary. Then tell him the truth, and be reconciled.
They were just barely in the door when the kimmunicator (which Kim still kept on her at all times) beeped.
"Wade, can this wait?" she snapped as she answered the call. Mrs. Dr. Possible continued to her husband, to tell him what they had found out at the hospital.
"Sorry Kim, but I just got word from the prison. Three of the guards were murdered a few hours ago, and Dr. Drakken and Shego are missing."
"And they just noticed this now!"
"The perp did something to the security cameras, so they didn't catch it until a shift change," Wade explained. "The funny thing is, the MO matches that of your kissing bandit."
"What?"
"Suddenly appearing and disappearing out of nowhere, only evidence is the melted remains of a cell phone. There is no visible entrance or exit point."
"Oh, wonderful As if he hasn't caused me enough problems. Anyway, what do they want me to do about this?"
"Nothing right now. They just figured you should know."
"Please, thank them for me," Kim said dryly. "Listen, you still have Ron chipped, right?"
"Yes..."
"Can you tell me where he is?"
"Why?"
"Let's just say the kissing bandit has had a busy night."
"Gotcha," Wade said, working the keys on his computer with all the grace and aplomb of a classical pianist. "Looks like he's in his bedroom, or somewhere near-"
Wade raised an eyebrow.
"You just got a hit on the site. Live video, want me to patch it through?"
"Sure, go ahead."
Her mom walked up to her and peaked over her right shoulder. Her dad came over to peak over her left shoulder. Nana Possible just listened in from an armchair.
"Greetings, Kim Possible. Long time no see."
"Dr. Drakken," Kim growled. "You're the last thing I need to deal with now."
"I don't doubt that at all. You are a busy person, quite the social life, from what I hear. But I didn't call to chit-chat; rather, I called to announce your doom!"
"My daughter's doom, Drew?" Mr. Dr. Possible said with amusement. "Your track record on that is about as good as your track record in building robots."
"It only takes one time, James Timothy," Drakken snapped. "And this time I've got all my bases covered, yo. I have placed an explosive device in the basement of the Middleton Public Library. Think something in the thirty megaton range."
"You wouldn't dare."
"To get rid of you, Kim Possible, there is nothing I wouldn't dare," Drakken said with conviction. "However, I am a sporting man, so I'll give you a chance. You have a half-hour to find the device and deactivate it. If you attempt to alert the authorities, state, federal, or local, then I will immediately activate the device. Best of luck, Possible. Use it well."
The transmission ended.
"Kimmie-cub, it's a trap," Mr. Dr. Possible said, unnecessarily.
"You're right, but I can't take that chance. Wade, start scanning the library. I want you to tell me exactly where the bomb is when I get there."
"You got it, Kim," Wade said, and set to work. Kim turned to head up to her room.
"Kimmie, what about Ron?" Mrs. Dr. Possible asked. That brought Kim up short. She paused for a moment, then turned back to her parents.
"If I don't take care of this, then there might not be a Ron left to make up with," she replied. "I'll have to deal with him once this is done."
"You need a ride?"
"No, I'll use the rocket pack. It'll be faster."
Then she turned away and headed to her room, to prepare for battle. Mrs. Dr. Possible looked at her husband for a moment, and then turned to head back out the door.
"Going after Ron?" he asked nonchalantly.
"Somebody's got to get that sorted out," she replied. "Kimmie'll stop the bomb... but I don't want him to stay mad at her any longer than he has to. Besides, it'll work better if Kim comes back to find him sitting here in the living room, happy and hopefully apologetic, without her having to give him a talking to."
"I'll hold down the fort, then," he said. "Drive careful, honey."
"Will do," she replied, and then walked out the door.
The paladin flew through the air, borne aloft upon stubby wings and propelled by harnessed fire. Her armor glowed in white and blue, and unlike the armor of old was purposed for both protection and augmentation. The battle suit of Kim Possible was partially cybernetic, for portions of it interfaced directly with her brain, and could be controlled by thought; other portions worked along side her muscles and nerves, granting her access to even greater feats of speed and strength. Her armor could repair itself, the hands could assume any shape at will, and it could even throw up a short-lived force field or a cloaking field around her.
Even better, it was sleek and form-fitting, and she looked dang sexy in it. At least, that's what Ron always told her. Just the memory of that made her blush, but in a good way. She liked blushing around Ron.
'Just another few minutes, Ron, and then you and I are going to have a little talk.
'What is that they do in movies, for the cheap tear? Oh yeah, have the romantic couple spend their last few moments in each other's arms, and then one or both of them die. Forget that, I'm gonna stop this device and then we can spend all our lives in each other's arms!'
She saw the library below her and angled down towards it, glad that her initial estimation of the speed of the rocket pack versus a car had been correct. She landed in the parking lot, switched off and removed the rocket pack, and drew the kimmunicator.
"Talk to me Wade. I'm at the library, near one of the side doors."
"Okay, it's after hours, so you'll have to the pick the lock. There should be a set of picks in your utility belt."
Kim picked the lock on the door and entered the library. Of course, she found herself in a small side office, so she had to pick that lock as well to gain access to the library proper, then she had pick yet a third lock to gain access to the basement. No alarms were set off; Wade had hacked the computers to shut them down, as they didn't want to take the risk of a burglar alarm causing Drakken to set the bomb off, but he discovered that the alarms had already been deactivated.
Unmolested, then, Kim descended into the darkness of the basement. It was climate controlled, for this was where the library kept their old archives: ancient editions of the Middleton Times, memoirs from citizens of note, and just a few odds and ends that would be of interest to local historians. Of course, the organization of the non-paper items wasn't the best in the world, which made it a good place to hide certain items.
Namely, a large bomb. Wade directed her through the maze of junk and filing cabinets towards where he had detected radiologicals; however, he warned her that he wasn't detecting enough radioactive material to constitute a 30-megaton device. She took that into consideration, but never deviated from her task; trap or no trap, she couldn't take the risk.
Finally she reached the device. It was a cylinder, about two feet in diameter and five feet long, stuck amongst a bunch of old trunks.
"It's kinda... small?"
"I keep telling you, something's fishy about this. But if you won't be denied... there should be an access panel somewhere on the outside. Find it and open it."
The panel was, conveniently, located on an area of the circumference facing towards her. She opened it and noted that the timer read fifteen minutes. Wade fed her instructions on how to disable the device (she did not ask, in fact she did not want to know, how he got them), which she followed to the letter.
The timer stopped, switched off, and the slight humming noise that was coming from the interior of the bomb faded away. Kim breathed a sigh of relief.
Then the timer started up again, this time reading one minute and moving at a much faster pace.
"Wade..." Kim said, starting to panic.
"I'm working on it!" he replied, sounding somewhat panicked himself. "I... I'm sorry Kim, I've got nothing."
"Get Ron on the line now," Kim ordered. "I'm not gonna die without-"
The timer hit zero (it was moving really fast), and then a buzzer sounded. An air horn blew, and confetti shot out of the 'bomb', and flew directly at Kim. She was so startled by the confetti and noise that she jumped backwards and lost her grip on the kimmunicator.
The startled moment didn't last long, for the fact that she hadn't died in sudden nuclear fire meant that the trap theory was quite correct. She went into immediate battle mode, senses hyper aware, and started scanning the room for the inevitable threat.
It was too late. He was already behind her, grabbing her around the torso and arms, and pressing a wet cloth to her nose and mouth. She caught a whiff of a liquefied anesthetic, and then her world began to fade to black.
Still, even as she lost consciousness, she realized that he'd crushed the kimmunicator with his foot, and that one of his hands clutched a cell phone.
He spoke to her, then, and she knew his voice; it was the man from Club Banana and Bueno Nacho, the nameless man, the kissing bandit.
"Don't worry, Ms. Possible," he said, his voice viciously pleasant and polite, "I shan't be kissing you again."
END CHAPTER 3