Kim woke in the morning to find that she was oddly comfortable. She was still in the kitchen, so her current comfort was unexplainable to her mind. She looked around her to see if someone had moved her stuff and found that the only difference from her previous positioning was that her head was propped up on something. craning her head to see what it was she noticed something tangled up in her hair. It didn't even register that it was a hand, nor did it register that another was resting lightly on her side. She looked up. She stared blankly at her ex-boyfriend's face, finally registering that he had come back. Sitting up as slowly and quietly as she could, she managed to relocate the hand that had been in her hair to join the one at her side. She hugged him carefully, not wanting to wake him up. Finally, leaning up against him, she buried her head in his shoulder and immersed herself in the scent of nacos as she slowly drifted to the first peaceful sleep she'd had in a long time.

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Ron woke to find Kim wrapped around his midsection. He smiled as he watched her sleep. He'd talk to her when she woke up. For now, he thought with a grin, I'll make her something to eat. His grin was gentle as he glowed a soft blue and levitated the two of them up the stairs. He laid Kim down, careful not to disturb her slumber, upon her bed. Moving back to the kitchen he started cooking.

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Kim awoke in the best way possible: to the smell of fresh coffee and breakfast. Stumbling downstairs, she couldn't help but wonder who had made her food. Since she was still semi-asleep and incapable of remembering anything more than her identity and that food is good, she was mildly surprised to find Ron, pancakes, eggs, bacon, sausage, hash-browns, orange juice, and, of course, coffee awaiting her.

"Morning sleepyhead." Ron's voice pierced the haze through which she had been functioning. She stared at him, half wondering what he expected her to do, completely surprised that he had returned to her after all the damage she'd caused him. In her mind she admitted to herself that she wasn't done hurting him quite yet. He stood from his seat at the table, suddenly anxious. "Uh, if you didn't want me here I can go. I didn't mean to intrude."

Kim finally found her voice as Ron turned to leave. "Stop." Ron turned back to look at her. "Please, Ron. Don't go."

"If you don't want me to go, I won't."

She suddenly knew that anything he said would be true. Well, at least anything he said to her. "I thought you hated me. I thought... I thought that you'd never want to see me again after... after... well, after everything I did. I'm sorry."

Seemingly without taking a step, Ron was at her side. He embraced her. "Best friends forever, Kim. You can't get rid of me that easily." He lowered his head to look directly into her eyes; his stare piercing her soul. "What could you have done to make yourself think I hated you?"

Kim backed away and stared pointedly at the floor, obviously avoiding his gaze. "I dumped you," she almost whispered. "Then, when I saw you for the first time since then, I brought it up. I signed the order to bring you in. And I made you kill. Why don't you hate me? Why?"

Ron's eyes were mellow throughout most of this, but at her last confessed sin, he felt his blood run cold. "What do you mean you made me kill?"

"Huh?"

"I said, 'What do you mean you made me kill?'" Ron could remember clearly every murder he'd ever committed. Oh god, please don't know the truth. Please, please don't know the truth.

"I saw one of your memories. You killed the people who beat me. The people who threatened you. Thank you."

Ron worked to keep his body only slightly tense. "God, I'm sorry you had to see that. I never meant for you to see it. If we're sharing things, though, I geuss I should tell you which memory of your's I saw. I never knew what that bastard told you. I'm sorry I didn't stop him sooner."

"Oh, Ron. You did all you could. I'm grateful that I don't have to hide my feelings for you any longer. I love you, Ron." She watched, confused as Ron backed away, a sad look in his eyes.

"We can't be together, Kim."

Kim's eyes went wide. Her tears were flowing, unimpeded, when she finally managed to ask, "Why?"

Ron returned her gaze completely sympathetic. "Because I love you, Kim. Last time, when you hurt me, I left the country for four years. Before you ask, yes, I know the records say I was there for five years. Oh, and if you want to talk to Rufus, he's the school's new leader. It seems the old MMP prevented him from aging. Anyway, I learned every form of known combat nearly immediately after seeing it." He paused here to cycle through several very complex stances. "I spent the time between meeting masters of styles focusing, meditating, and mastering MMP. And, yes, the rumors are true, I know the Black Mastiff. I taught him most of what she knows. He's the fourth known master of MMP." Seeing the look on her face he said, "No, I can't tell you her identity. I also won't help you to bring him in, but I can protect your strike forces if you want. But if you would stop distracting me, I believe I have a story to tell. Oh, yes. Well, eventually Sensei told me that there was only one more method of fighting for me to master. There's something you should know first. Sensei was Toshimuru's son. He was also my great-great-great-great-great...grandfather. And yes he was really old. He wouldn't give me his exact age but he was well over one thousand. So he taught me the secrets of primordial manipulation. I think you should see what I mean." Ron and Kim suddenly found themselves on the Astral plane. He closed his eyes and a door appeared. Inscribed along the sides of the door were the words 'Medius Vox'.

Grateful for taking Latin in college, Kim said, "The middle of Power? What the hell is this Ron?"

Ron laughed. "Always the scholar KP. This is the only place someone can really see. Follow me." As they walked through the door the world suddenly reverted to the normal plane. However, Kim could now see the relationships between certain things. Most notably she saw her monkey self as attached to her by a bright green line of light. She felt a tug on her arm and her vision returned to normal. "I'm sorry about showing you that, KP, but you needed to know. The world isn't actually like this. In that place, you can see anything. You can watch someone several continents away for example. And, if you know how, you can bend relationships to change the very nature of one or both of the objects. I didn't know it, but that is kind of similar to how the lotus blade works." His eyes turned sad. "Me n' Rufus are the only people who ever completely mastered it. Shortly after we did, though, Sensei died. I freaked out. I left with my apprentice, giving Yori and Rufus joint control of the school, and we came back to the states. I continued training her, and before I knew it he'd made a list of all the people who'd ever wronged me. I told her that if he ever hurt you, that I'd break my True Word Vow. Well both of the ones I've made actually. I told her I'd use my powers to both bring you back and to utterly destroy him and her line." Seeing the question she was about to ask he headed her off. "A True Word Vow is a magically sealed promise that incurs some strict punishments for any breach. The punishment for breach of my first vow is death. The punishment for the second is that every one I've ever met will go into a coma where they see everything I don't want them to. I'd rather die than have the second one happen, so don't ask me to help with the Black Mastiff operation more than I can. My activities managed to catch the attention of GJ and Betty hired us as a team. I'd convinced him to forgive some of the people whose names she'd compiled, quite a few actually. Let's see, you, Sheila, Drew, Killagan, all of our other villains and anyone who hadn't attempted something that would kill someone I loved. Oh, and that one guy who accidentally tried to kill us 'cause he thought that we were demons or something. He also promised not to kill anyone that could convince her, me, or you they'd reformed. I think those are the people who have just had evidence stacked up against them. I do know that some of my 'assignments' have been made to look like her work. I can tell you that he works for my section, though he does kill people who aren't assigned to her. Oh, and yes, that was him on the oil tanker. Sorry, but I was being watched and they would have tried to kill you and your team if they thought I'd been compromised. We eventually rose to scrutiny at the higher levels and were given high ranking positions in the ShadowCorps. Eventually I became the director. Me, my apprentice and some super geniuses became a new division of the UN forces. Level 0. Oh, and those pronouns were randomly chosen." Kim was nearly hyperventilating.

As soon as Kim had managed to regain her breath, she asked the question, "But why can't we be an item?"

Ron sighed. "A. We can't because UN has strict rules about inter-department relationships. If we started going out, they'd put a death order on you. B. If I retire they'll put death orders on both of us. I can't put you in that kind of danger. I'm sorry."

"No." Ron looked into her eyes. Kim pressed on. "I'm not letting you do this. You can't make the same mistake I did. We can hide what we feel for each other, but you're not going to walk away to protect me. You can't make me wait another five years while you pull your head out of your ass. We already waited too long for me. You can't leave me." She fell and, he caught her. She buried her head in his shoulder and cried. He slowly and reluctantly wrapped his arms around her and carried her upstairs again.

A/N: Sorry about the length of this and the next two chapters. I hope my quick posting helps to alleviate the anger the fanfiction gods feel at me right now. Before I started typing this I noticed I already had 20 hits. 20 hits in 2 chapters of uploading. Yay!

Thanks for reading.