Title: Finding a Life Unknown
Story summary: The sequel to Slipgate's 'Losses' continues. Ch. 2 – Ron's awake. The man once said he was losing everything he ever cared about. He bounced back that time. Will he this time?
Disclaimer: This story uses characters owned by Disney Corporation but does not profit from doing so.
~*~*KP*~*~
Finding a Life Unknown
by Slipgate
Chapter 2: Lost in Memories
Ron looked expectantly at Kim and Bonnie. He was in the Twilight Zone as far as he was concerned, and he needed to understand how it was he could be dating Bonnie Rockwaller. Bonnie Rockwaller? Seriously? The same Bonnie Rockwaller that had irritated the crap out of him as a literal hanger-on and as someone who'd tried to get Kim's goat through kissing him back at Homecoming. The same Bonnie who just now had tried to give him a heart attack if it weren't for Kim reassuring him.
Unless there was some major moodulator or neural compliance chip issues going on, though, he didn't think Kim would be joining Bonnie in pulling his leg. And he knew all too well how painful doubting someone could be in matters of the heart. Now that he looked at her, he realized there was no way his halfaversary makeup date with Kim had just been last night the way he remembered it. And she also had a sad smile, which, if his Kim-reading was as good as it used to be, he interpreted as realizing just the parallel he was drawing. There had to be a gap here.
It was a gap that was freaking him out.
Bonnie was wringing her hands and Kim was biting her lip. Finally, Kim opened her mouth and…
"Hi everyone, how are you doing?" a most unwelcome voice interjected.
The two women turned in shock to the newcomer. "Dr. Cohan?" Bonnie asked.
Ron looked at this Dr. Cohan. His hair was brown and his forehead and cheeks stuck out a bit compared to his eyes. The effect was a little odd. His eyes seemed deep – in the literal way, not the oh darling way in the soaps Kim used to watch (and that only Ron knew about, under penalty of death by tickle, and more recently by kiss deprivation).
"Well Mr. Stoppable, the girls told me you were awake. Finally got done with another patient. Sorry if I'm interrupting… just need to check you out, see how things are." Dr. Cohan said.
Looking at the doctor and divining that there might be some evaluation questions here, Kim sighed and then said, "Ron, I have a feeling the doctor wants to talk to you for a bit. Bonnie and I will go get some drinks in the cafeteria or something. We'll be back soon."
Ron was groaning in his mind. He was still freaked out and now answers had been denied. He could read Kim well enough to know she also felt the frustration of needing to defer talking to him when she'd just worked up the nerve to spill. Bonnie's eyes had narrowed at Kim when she'd 'excused them' from the room, in a way that was a lot more familiar than anything he'd seen from her recently, but then he saw Bonnie's eyes lose the hardened cast and watched her sigh. Bonnie conceding Kim a point? Totally Twilight Zone.
Ron forced himself to calm down and shrugged. He wanted to know, but what were they going to do? Admittedly, even he'd needed to be patient when Kim had amnesia… he'd left her in the care of 'doctors' (literally) and didn't start letting the sitch bother him until the next morning. Well, okay, so it bothered him before that, but that depressing morning was the first time the idea that things might not all turn out okay pricked him.
It was almost like a cheat of a cliffhanger that they couldn't just tell him how in the heck he was dating Bonnie Rockwaller and getting engaged to Bonnie Rockwaller when Kim was right there and looking so beautilicious that it hurt. She was wearing a snug wraparound shirt, red, and some proper jeans instead of capris. He remembered she'd started dressing somewhat like this during senior year, but she'd effected a transformation enough to hit his uncanny meter just slightly.
Bonnie stalked over to him and there was something… unfamiliar? … in her eyes as she leaned toward him. His widening eyes and panicking face stayed the descent of her face to meet his. She looked him in the eyes, and then her eyes drooped as her shoulders sagged. After a moment, she resignedly pecked him on one corner of his mouth. Unlike the one other time he was familiar with kissing Bonnie, she didn't seem to be trying to make a big sloppy noisy time of it for reasons he'd only find out when he finally managed to pull away. This time, the kiss was more like practicing shoddy mouth to mouth on a rubber CPR dummy. Even weirder, Kim's eyes didn't even widen at seeing Bonnie kissing him.
Twilight Zone. Or weird fungus on the rock walls we climbed to our pick-up after the train mission. Something.
~*~*KP*~*~
After the girls left, Dr. Cohan didn't say anything for a time. He looked at the readings on the equipment hooked up to Ron, wrote down what he saw, and busied himself straightening up the room as he hummed to himself. Ron waited for a moment for some sort of response, but instead the humming – which had seemed familiar – gained words as Dr. Cohan puttered around the room.
"Glory, glory hallelujah… glory, glory Hallelujah… Glory, glory hallelujah–"
"Doctor?" Ron interrupted.
"Hmm? Oh, yes?"
"Okay, one, I'm not exactly feeling really chipper right now, so I have to admit that I don't really want to hear that song right now. Second," he cut off the doctor's grimace and move to apologize, "Can we talk?"
"I am sorry. I guess I forgot that you literally weren't awake when I came by before. You can call me George… or Michael, I sometimes go by my middle name." Here, Dr. Cohan stopped and shook Ron's hand. "I'm the doctor on duty for this section right now. I have to admit I'm also a bit tired because I'm near the end of a long shift… the social mores may be escaping me."
"So, talk to me, doc. I'm missing some years of my life here. Will I get them back? Is there anything I can do to help get them back?"
"Well, I have a question for you, related to that." Dr. Cohan seemed to cross his arms as he tried to lean comfortably against a wall as they talked. "Kim Possible wasn't really clear because she commented on it too briefly when she and Miss Rockwaller explained to me that you were missing memories. But it sounded like you've dealt with this before?"
"Yes…" and at seeing the doctor's look of confusion. "I mean I've dealt with it before. I haven't been the victim before."
"Ah, you knew someone who was once amnesiac?"
"Yes. Kim lost all her memories once… but she… got them back?" Ron's face was suddenly brightening. "Doctor, have you heard of a Dr. Langford and his Memory Recovery Machine?"
"Dr. Langford? I remember that I think from a few years ago. The MRM? What about it?"
"I'm sorry, but first… can we use the MRM on me? Get me back my memories that way?"
"Ah, unfortunately, I don't think I can endorse that method of treatment."
"What? Aww, why?"
"The MRM's clinical trials were not as successful as they were hoping for. While it brought back memories, the clinical trials showed that more than 50% of those participating in the tests had serious negative consequences, enough that the treatment was scrapped as unsafe to use on people since you never knew if they'd be among the people to face those risks. Also, it worked much better – but was still dangerous most of the time – on people that had no head trauma or major accidents that would often lead to memory loss in the first place. However, in cases like the head trauma you experienced, it was shown to exacerbate a bad situation if you didn't let the injury heal on its own… like trying to do a shot of coffee to counteract some alcohol and just sort of cocktailing yourself into a dangerous situation."
"I wouldn't drink…" Ron said absentmindedly, not grasping in that moment that he wasn't still 17 going on 18. Disheartened, he said, "so that miracle invention didn't even turn out to be something that's still around?"
"The safety margin on all patients for serious negative consequences was too high… and the effects of making a problem worse when a patient had head trauma just skyrocketed on top of that." Dr. Cohan said with regret, then paused. "How did you know of the MRM anyway?"
"When it was first announced, Dr. Drakken tried to steal it. Kim and I were there and we got it back, but Drakken had put the power cell in backward and triggered the device somehow. It blew up in Kim's hands as she was trying to get rid of it. After that, Dr. Langford said something about how with the power cell in backwards Drakken had reversed the flow – had sucked up all of Kim's memories." Ron grimaced; he was recounting recent events like they were history.
"That would explain why Kim was so unspecific about this. You say it was total amnesia?"
"Her parents tried to use a penlight on her, and she said, I quote, 'light… bright!'" Ron recounted, imitating Kim's voice at the time near the end.
"Oh dear."
"After some pretty embarrassing things for her – like needing to cheerlead or go to school with not a thought in her head, and eating some flowers I gave her thinking they were food, she was starting to get her memories back bit by bit." Ron paused a moment, then decided to skip ahead. "Eventually they all came back. Actually, you're going to laugh… what I'm telling you about was just a couple days ago for me. My memory goes back to our date night where we were celebrating how she got all her memories back as if that was last night and I'd woken up after going to bed after."
"And that explains why you were so excited about the MRM. I am sorry about that. There are treatments always being researched, but I hesitate to suggest joining a clinical trial when you don't know what negative effects might come out of the testing. Keep in mind though that some wonder drug or device might solve your problem – this is just my cautious recommendation. In my professional opinion you shouldn't immediately jump to dire predictions… you may remember everything in a week, you may remember everything in a month, you may remember everything in two minutes. Although there may be treatments effective now that won't be later if this progresses, my professional opinion is to see if existing recall methods do anything for you before turning to last resorts."
"I guess I have a lot to think about. There is one method I've seen used that had some success; I might turn to that first." Ron said.
Dr. Cohan nodded. "Do you want to be on your own a few minutes or do you want me to go chase down the girls?"
"Yeah, if you could bring them here that would help."
~*~*KP*~*~
As Ron waited (the cafeteria must be a few floors down) his mind tried to construct fantastical scenarios that somehow ended in him not dating his best friend and instead dating his chief tormentor. As he kept theorizing, he couldn't find one that he could believe would happen in a thousand years… except for one possibility.
Once Kim and Bonnie came back, Ron knew he should let Kim get to what she was trying to say herself… he knew this… but he couldn't help but start himself.
"First, can I say something?" Ron asked seriously.
Kim bit her lip and nodded.
"All right…" he said, then turned to Bonnie. "All right, Bonnie, I know it would suck if I kept talking to Kim about this, trying to figure out where things came from because you're telling me that you have that role in my life right now."
Hesitantly, Bonnie nodded.
"And if you have that role in my life right now, it might not really help things all that much if I'm talking so much to Kim and not to you to get myself mentally caught up with how I can get from point A to point B in my life here. I realize it would tank for you if I'm sitting here talking to you about 'well what about this thing that happened with Kim?' or you know, 'what about this event in my relationship with Kim?' Or maybe you tell me something and I'd just not understand it, like, if Kim and I were calling each other less I might just ask 'How come we didn't call each other more?' Long story short, I will need to talk to Kim a bit at first to understand this, especially since asking you at first wouldn't be a fun conversation for either of us to have."
"But then I think, if I really am just friends with Kim now and I'm with you…" Ron paused in thought, then plowed on. "I mean, just like I hoped Kim wouldn't mind me saying you're a beautiful lady, I hope you won't mind me saying that I have to imagine that if things had gone south with Kim or just turned back into friendship again, that I would be kind of bummed and talking about it for a while to work my way through it. So for all I know, you might've, um, been my ear for this already. This is just a theory… that things ended with Kim and you ended up being the one I talked to about that. And, if not, whether your answer is yes or no, would you be willing to do that? If I didn't need that before on the road to us getting together I might now."
"Um, to answer your question Ron… it wasn't entirely like that but there are some similarities. You certainly talked to me about your relationship with Kim. And, I get your concern because you're worried it's going to take you a while here of mooning over Kim and you don't know that I'd necessarily be very appreciative of that… by the Bonnie you knew or by me for that matter. 'Though for different reasons maybe.' she thought.
"Yeah, that's what I'm going to say." Ron parroted uselessly.
Bonnie was quiet for a time. She was sitting in one of the chairs next to the bed, pulled up, and her eyes took on a thoughtful cast as she looked to the side for a moment. "Well," Bonnie said, "I don't know what… I love you, I'd have to be willing to put up with that mooning either way."
"How do you figure?" Ron asked, surprised.
"If you hadn't lost your memory, and you one day wanted to talk to me to get some closure about Kim if you hadn't already, we'd be having this conversation either way. I just have to deal sooner than I expected with one of those…"
"Vows?" Ron hazarded.
Bonnie grew silent.
Ron's face crumpled. "I'm sorry, Bonnie."
Not a muscle moved for a minute. Except the hearts of the three participants. Those were hammering.
"Also, Kim?" Ron finally ventured.
"Yeah, Ron?" Kim said, biting her lip and unconsciously bracing herself.
"Kim, how did I screw up?"
Both were taken aback and Bonnie frowned. "You didn't screw up, Ron." Kim said gently.
"But then, how did we break up? … Are you saying you screwed up?"
"Ron!" Kim snapped at first, but then stopped to think. Then, "Yeah, I screwed up."
"What! What do you mean? I can't believe you would've–"
"No, it's nothing like I cheated on you or anything. We were all at school and… I wasn't… I wasn't… really there for you when you were going through a rough patch."
"So… I broke up with you? Is that what you're telling me?"
"No… no." Kim took a cleansing breath. Then she sat. As she pulled her chair closer, the scrape of the legs along the floor seemed especially sharp and jarring. "Like I said, you were going through a lot. And I snapped at you when you needed some support… because I was going through a lot too. It didn't damage us – it was just normal Kim tweak – but it did mean that your emotional support for what you were dealing with at that moment wasn't me."
"And… you're saying it was Bonnie?" Ron looked to Bonnie to confirm his question.
"Hard to believe, huh, Ron?" Bonnie said, with a small smile with crinkled eyes and… the sheen of tears? "Anyway, times changed for us. And with your influence and the three of us dealing, it helped us bury the hatchet in a big way. Now we're… gasp… friends… or something." The last she said with no heat, and with a smile and wink directed at the red-headed person in the room.
"So, this… blowup between us? That was the event that brought about our breakup?"
"An event? Not exactly, but I can tell you that you're trying to come up with theories, Ron, so we should probably just be straight with you."
"Um, yes, please… but, before we go deeper into that, I have a question."
Kim fell into her habit of a particular kind of shrugging shoulder that had come to mean 'shoot' between the two friends.
"I hate to spring this on you girls. But what happened with my relationship isn't the only thing I have to figure out here. But I don't know what the heck I'm supposed to do. I mean, I have a degree I don't remember getting, which means unless I get my memory back that all the education that gave me that degree is gone, and I've been admitted to an MBA but I'm probably not qualified for the MBA like I was when I applied to it. I mean… what do they do for amnesiacs in the school situation? I mean… what happens as far as people who have amnesia and the educations they had? I mean, am I stuck? Does that null everything you guys told me and I have to go get a GED or something? What?"
Feeling inadequate to the line of questioning, Kim finally forced herself to reply with some answer. "I don't know, Ron. I've never looked into it. Dr. Cohan or my mom might know, but that would be something we'd have to find out, yeah."
"If I had to do a GED and do the culinary program and the MBA admission all over again…"
Bonnie cut in. "If you'd have to do that, Ron, then yeah, that would suck. But we'd stick by you for it, okay?"
"That's the best I can do with the hand I have right now, I guess. Oh, wait, I almost forgot, I need Bonnie to talk to your parents."
"To my folks? Why?"
"Memory Recovery DVD."
"Um, oh! Hmm. It might help things, yeah. But wait, why Bonnie talk to my parents?"
"I'm wondering too, Ron." Bonnie said, rising stiffly from her chair on sleeping feet.
"It sounds like she'd have the inside scoop on the actual period of time I'm missing. I suppose I should be grateful for small favors that I do remember some things."
"Okay, that said, sorry about my tangents. Okay, Kim, you totally gave me that yellow and black book here, but I mean we've been friends since Pre-K and we were dating for at least six months… and it sounds like longer… I need more info than that to reconstruct, what, three years?"
"Two and a half," Kim and Bonnie instinctively replied. Ron wanted to be amused that they were in sync but given what he knew right now about both that was actually, inadvertently, bizarre or unsettling more than any other feeling.
And so Kim opened her mouth. No doctor interrupted her. No Ron tangent (though they were justified for the poor guy) interrupted her. Bonnie looked at her supportively. Ron was quiet and appeared to be hanging on every potential word of what she was about to say.
Taking a deep, cleansing breath, Kim began to speak.
tsuzuku
~*~*KP*~*~
Author's Notes: I'm interested in constructive criticism here. Am I maintaining the tight storytelling reviews seem to have been praising me for in the prequel Losses and in the first chapter of this story? Or am I getting too wordy? Also, are the characters still recognizably Ron, Kim, and Bonnie to you, dear readers? And is the situation feeling credible? I crave your feedback because this story is kind of an experiment for me in refining some of my skills and I want to make sure I don't fail to give it my all related to making that experiment a success. Reviews would be most appreciated and responded to quickly.
My thanks to Pinky Jo Curlytail. In addition to her friendship, she helped me tweak one iffy paragraph in this chapter, and assisted me on certain story details you won't see until a later chapter.
Also I need to break form slightly to thank Sharper the Writer, AnotherKPFan, Reader101w, Cajunbear73, Earl Allison, EnterpriseCV-6, Katsumara, SithKnight-Galen, AmericanGecko, and others for their reviews of either Losses or the first chapter of this story thus far. The first two I mentioned left me such glowing reviews that I was at a literal… um… loss in how to even say anything but thank you to them. The others have given me very enthusiastic, interested, and kind reviews and have seemed to take special note of this story in some way. This isn't everyone that reviewed me, and I still feel PM conversations with my reviewers are best, but I've received such encouraging reviews so far that I had to, just had to, say something. Thank you all and also anyone who hasn't reviewed – I hope the story continues to be worthy of the praise it's already received, because man would it suck if it didn't.