Kim Possible: The Darkness Without: redux Chapter 4, a kim possible fanfic

Kim Possible: The Darkness Without

Redux

Pt 4

By Eoraptor

Now, on with the Story...

-KP-KP-KP-KP-KP-KP-KP-KP-KP-

There were ceremonies. There'd been a lot of ceremonies. There were also speeches… There were always speeches. He was asked to speak, as always he declined, but for this one he felt obligated to attend. The black granite slab with the bronze plaque on it was nice, he thought… She would have hated the statue they'd wanted to put up instead.

Finally, when everyone not in the immediate family had left the observation deck, he sighed heavily and yanked at the tie that felt uncomfortably heavy around his neck.

Ron felt a rustling along his leg and looked down as the hip pocket of the suit popped open and a little pink head popped out. Little black eyes were teary, and he handed Rufus the handkerchief he'd been dabbing his own eyes with throughout the evening. After a few more moments caressing the relief of KP's face on the granite monument, Ron sat heavily down into one of the folding chairs, careful not to jostle his cargo, and let Monique go to pay her respects.

He rubbed his calves a bit as he sighed… He was regretting climbing all one hundred and two stories, even in sneakers, but he'd taken one look at those silver elevator doors and nearly wet himself. Everyone understood, and the ceremony had been delayed thirty minutes for him to climb to the newly rebuilt 102nd floor observation deck.

Ron felt Rufus wiggling again in his pocket, and pulled his little mole rat out, setting him up onto his shoulder.

"I know little buddy… I miss her too. Hard to believe it's been a year huh?" Rufus nodded, and tried to stay balanced as he dabbed his eyes yet again with the large handkerchief clutched in his good paw. He slowly made his way down Ron's lapel and loped off towards the buffet that had been left for the few honored guests, after the memorial proper had broken up and the dignitaries departed. Poor little guy just didn't scurry as well with a half-paralyzed arm and permanent nerve damage…

Ron had balked at having Rufus put down. The Mole Rat was Family, not a pet! None of the veterinary staff said anything could be done for the rare rodent who had been crushed under him while hiding in his pocket that night. Thankfully, a zoologist who dealt specifically with rare subterranean predators had finally come forward, and his little buddy had been sewn up as best as anyone could have hoped.

"Ron… We're so glad you could be here today." A warm hand rested on his shoulder and he turned to look up at the faces of James and Anne Possible. He smiled back and squeezed Kim's mother's hand, and got up to turn and speak with them despite the burning in his thighs.

"Its no big Mr. P, Mrs. P. How are the twee- the boys?"

"They're well enough… finishing up school. They just…" Mrs Dr. Possible's lower lip quivered just a bit, and she obviously struggled to compose herself. "Ron they loved Kim so much, but they just couldn't stand to be here…"

He nodded and gave his best friend's mother a gentle hug. He'd agonized for days before deciding to make the trip back to Chicago. Of course, unlike the Dr.s' Possible, he didn't have a huge stipend from the government to pay his expenses. He had been offered obscene amounts of cash to write his memoirs, do talk-shows, speaking tours, recount his life and times saving the world… but he'd turned them all away… He didn't see fit to live off of Kim's ghost; and he was way too young, he thought, to be writing memoires anyway.

Besides, only two living people knew that he'd been the one to kill the alien invaders a few years ago, and he was much happier to have it that way. He wasn't going to turn the myth of Kim saving the world yet again into an outright lie by putting false stories in print in any memoire or recount, which gave a second convienient reason to turn down publishing offers and movie deals.

After a few silent moments, Monique had come back to the small knot of people, smiling warmly despite the tears in her caramel eyes. "Oh Mrs. Possible, I think Kim would understand. At least they didn't put up that G.A.S. Now that really would have made her spin in her…"

She stopped, not finishing the awkward gallows humor. No one really wanted to think about the empty grave back in California. After a moment, Ron broke the thick silence.

"G.A.S.?"

"God Awful Statue. Honestly, it's like they've all already forgotten how humble Kim is, erm was." She bit her lip slightly as everyone nodded in agreement with her.

"Really. I mean… Come on.." Wade stuttered after a bit of silence, wiggling in his seat. He'd been doing that a lot lately Ron noticed. He also noticed the small spare tire that was not-so-well hidden under Wade's jacket. He stared wondering if what Monique had said was true; that he'd spent the last three weeks locked in his room replaying all his old kimmunicator logs over and over. Ron didn't think Wade was that down, but then again, he was looking and acting more like the old Wade lately.

Almost an hour later, after everyone had reluctantly paid their respects to the effigy of their fallen daughter and friend, they were still sitting in the enclosed observation deck talking, now remembering some of the better times and sharing news.

"I hope I look as good as you do when I'm three months along and forced to fly 3,000 miles Misses P." Monique smiled easily, her folding chair turned backwards as she straddled it. Her black Capri's strained against the motion, being dress pants and not meant to be so casually strutted about in.

"You're so sweet Monique… but you look great… what is it your doing again these days dear?" Anne self-consciously covered her faintly swollen belly with one hand as James smiled in the way only an expectant father could.

Monique shifted in a way Ron found to be a bit uncharacteristic, but he let it go as she responded smoothly. "I'm working as a fashion designer. I get to live in Middleton and commute all over the world, its way beyond!"

"Well, you always did have a fabulous eye Monique." Mrs. Possible, the retired brain surgeon smiled warmly again.

Ron had to agree. Despite the formal occasion; Monique's fun capri's and rose colored shirt, with its frills at the cuffs, were a breath of fresh air among all the suits and gowns. They were obviously expensive too, which is probably why they didn't raise as many eyebrows as one would have expected for the ostentatious and staid memorial ceremony.

"And speaking of three months along," James kissed his wife on the cheek and squeezed her hand, "I think we'd better be getting back to the hotel. It's been a long night and it's going to be a long morning tomorrow packing and catching out return flight."

Hugs were exchanged, along with phone numbers, facespace pages, and email addresses and promises to keep in touch.

"Hey Ron…"

"Yeah Monique?"

"Where's your spleen?"

The blond boy shook his head and chuckled ruefully. Monique and he had crossed paths more often in the past few months. Despite her civilian life becoming even more conventional in Kim's absence, Monique had picked up on the existence of an ever-present Asian woman always in proximity to Ron. He had refused to tell the African American girl who she was or who she worked for, but Monique seemed to take great joy in pointing out her existence.

Eventually she had affixed a nickname to the phantasm about two months ago, declaring her to be Ron's spleen. No one seemed to know what she did, and she was not visible unless one knew where to look; yet she was always there, working away in some unknown capacity.

"She has a name, Mo." He laughed softly and glanced around for the aforementioned vestige of his old life. "Yori… and she went back to Japan."

"Hmmm, spleenectomy… Must have been painful."

Ron sighed a bit more heavily and ran his hands over his face. "Yeah, it wasn't pleasant. I don't think 'get the fuc-' erm… 'get the fudge out!' loses much in translation."

"Yeah, probably not." The fashionable mourner shook her head and smiled as she considered this. "You want to grab some drinks? It's been a while since I've been in Chicago, and I think KP deserves to be toasted."

"Sure! Hey Wade, you in?" he turned to look, but Wade was already in the elevator with the retired surgeon and the semi-retired rocket scientist. Ron hadn't realized until just that moment that they had been standing there a few feet away, waiting on the lift as he and Monique spoke.

"Doesn't matter, he's only seventeen, remember?" Monique chided him gently. "Besides, I think he's probably on his way back to that damned laptop. Old habits die hard you know."

Ron and Monique headed for the fire door, without his even asking her if it would be okay to again avoid the elevator.

After a few minutes of silence in the subdued lighting of the now abandoned observation deck, the fire door opened again. A security camera was turned just a bit to one side so it could no longer focus on the center of the room.

"I can't believe they're really using pedestal cameras. Honestly, haven't they seen one heist movie?"

A shadow fell across the stone panel set into the wall, and a set of fingers settled onto the burnished relief laid into the bronze plaque. The fingers were long and slender, and tipped with metallic green nails, each one filed to fine a point.

"Hey Princess, it's been a while." The voice was soft, quiet, and even approaching respectful. It didn't quite get there, but it approached it. Shego wasn't smiling with her lips, but there was a sad sort of smile in her eyes as she addressed the monument. After a moment, she removed her hand from the outline of Kim's cheek and tugged at the pocket of her long, deep green alligator-skin trench coat.

"Doctor D says hi… or he would if he could chew solid foods yet…" she smirked a bit, wondering if Kim would enjoy knowing that her inept nemesis was finally out of commission. The smirk faded a bit when an inner voice that sounded suspiciously like a certain cheerleader's reminded her who had put him there, and how; and most importantly, that it was for the wrong reason.

'…and there's a part here that I don't remember installing…' Those words, in the voice that grated on her nerves to this day, drifted through her mind as unbidden. She didn't feel guilty about turning Drakken in.. if you could call leaving him on the doorstep of a hospital turning him in. She certainly didn't feel guilty about the condition he was in. He hadn't planted that particular bomb, but he'd tried to hurt Kimmie so many other times… She'd thought when she came out of retirement to help him in San Francisco that things would be different, better, more exciting!

No such luck. They'd rapidly fallen back into their old patterns and rolls, only to find much of the rest of the world had moved on past them… and he'd grated on her nerves over the past year. Oh how he had! Well, lesson learned, and it'd only taken about seven years.

"Did a lot of searching while you've been away… think I found the bastards who set us all up." Shego winced slightly as the memory of an orange fireball came unwelcome into her mind. She bit her darkly painted lower lip until the moment passed.

After a moment of shaking still, the hand fishing about in the deep pocket of her trench coat was brought back under control as well, and fished out what it had been searching for.

"Here you go kiddo, a souvenir. The first batch of many, I'm hoping." After long pause, Shego made her way back to the fire exit, long coat swishing theatrically in an imaginary wind. The doofus and the dark skinned girl were right, she thought… Drinks did sound good tonight, so did dancing, and criminally loud music…surely there would be a club open in Chicago, even on Kim Possible Day.

She paused and looked back at the memorial from the door, and the small fabric patch she'd stuffed into one corner between the bronze and granite. It was dark blue and one edge was ragged. The words Global Justice Enforcement were clearly visible despite the singed condition of the cloth badge, and legible though spattered with blood.

'Oh yes,' she thought to herself as she let the heavy fire door close behind her, 'the first of many, many to come.'

-KP-KP-KP-KP-KP-KP-KP-KP-KP-

The mansion was lovely. The staff was very polite to her, and always showed respect and called her by some title or other. She was civil to them, in deference to her elderly host. The bed was luxurious, and the satin sheets were fabulously comforting and cool on scarred and thickened skin.

Yet, she still thrashed about, as she did most nights. Sleep always came to Sara Smith, her body weary of another day of training, forcing atrophied muscle and scarred lungs to do things that they weren't entirely ready for. Sleep was an unwelcome visitor, though, because of the baggage it brought. Nightmares came and went, and she thrashed violently trough all of them, occasionally crying out loudly enough to wake her patron or the staff. At least there weren't any trains here to keep waking her up. Her hand reached above her head, pantomiming clutching something as she jerked in slumber.

-One year earlier, the night Kim Possible died-

Kim could taste copper. It was all she could taste and smell, in fact. It was harsh, and she knew it was from a wound on her face. She couldn't hear anything, save for a tinny ringing that refused to go away no matter how many times she shook her head.

She was hanging from her grapple-dryer, but she had no idea why. Nor where for that matter, except that there was a lot of wind. For some reason she couldn't see that well. Must be blood in her eyes, she thought. Her forehead was probably cut. It'd happened before and it always bled a lot.

She needed to move, she was still in trouble. They could be coming back any second. Whoever blew up that machine must be coming back!

She reached for the kimmunicator in her hip-pouch. It didn't appear. She blinked and reached for it again. God it hurt to even blink!

Still, the smart phone didn't appear in her grasp. She flipped the switch under her thumb, and began lowering towards what must be the ground. She couldn't really tell what it consisted of, except that it was that big dark patch with no lights around it.

She tried again to reach for the kimmunicator for help. Wade could get her a ride out. It stubbornly persisted in not appearing before her eyes. She grumbled and tried to wipe the blood out of them. That too, failed. Something was very wrong, a part of her brain said.

Kim ignored that part, because it only ever said the very obvious. She finally felt the ground under her sneakers and pushed the retrieve switch on the grapple-dryer. She didn't hear it winding up. Damn why wouldn't the ringing stop already? Finally, after what felt like an eternity, she felt the hook click up against its body. She dropped it onto its handy hook on her left hip. She didn't hear it hit the asphalt and then bounce over the edge of the roof and into oblivion beyond because there was no loop for it on her pants any longer.

Once again she tried to pull out her kimmunicator. Once again it persisted in its absence. She looked down as she made her way to some kind of glass door. Through the red haze that she was insistently trying to wipe away, she saw that her pants had been torn away on that side of her hip, no pouch, no kimmunicator. "Darn… I can't afford to keep buying jeans like this."

That obvious part of her brain again tried to tell her something was wrong. It insisted that her hip should not be red and black like that. She ignored it again.

The glass door, which she could barely make out between the darkness this far up and the irritating red tint of her vision, refused to open for her. She pounded on it with both fists, and it finally gave way, shattering inwards. She jogged quickly through the office within, and got into the first elevator she could find. Ron had to be down the tower by now; he was already in the elevator when…

Her obvious-voice again demanded attention. It wanted to know why the glass had taken twice as long to shatter as it should have. Another part of her mind told it to shut up, it wasn't important.

Kim hurt all over, and finally managed to clear her eyes just a little. She still saw a huge white spot in the center of her vision though. She banged the proper buttons to get her down. They didn't seem to be working. She reached over and banged the buttons on the right-hand panel instead. This time, the lift moved. She wondered why she couldn't hear the fire alarms, even over the ringing in her ears.

She got to the bottom of the tower finally, and headed to the street. A brief question ran through her mind as she headed out into the street; why was the carpet in that elevator red, when none of the others was? No one was around on the street either. That was odd. She looked up. She saw the antenna masts atop the Sears Tower leaning.

"Darn, that's why no one's around, better move!" this time she listened to the obvious voice. Down the block, and to the right. Train yard! Bingo. Ron should be right behind her, if he hadn't got there already. She reached for her grapple-dryer, since being down there would be safer if the tower fell.

The grapple-dryer also didn't materialize. She looked at her right hip; damn, it wasn't there! Must have fallen off while she was running. Oh well, wasn't that far to jump, only thirty feet. She was up and over the fence with just an unaided leap, and then falling gracefully.

Kim hit the ground and rolled, using her hands to carry her momentum. Somehow she ended up on her side instead of her feet, flopping over awkwardly.

'that's not right, something is very wrong!' came the obvious-voice again.

"Shut up, need to hide somewhere. The tower could collapse, or whoever was in that black copter could come back."

'what black helicopter?'

The obvious voice and the tactics voice were arguing now, it seemed. She looked to her left. She looked to her right and found a train; Amtrak. She crawled into an open maintenance hatch and pulled it shut behind her. She should be hearing police sirens now… too much noise from the trains, too much ringing in her ears. She was safe for a moment though. Ron could find her pretty quickly via the kimmunicator.

'its gone, dropped, remember?'

"Fine… okay, inventory…"

She looked down her right side… Darn, she was a mess; pouch was missing, she was dirty… her purple tunic was nearly black, and where it wasn't crisp and smelling of sulfur, it was soaking wet with water from the tower's fire sprinklers, which had seemed to be working only intermittently. At least she still had her sneakers on.

She felt tired too, and cold… of course she was tired! Look at all she'd done tonight. And she was wet with whatever else was all over her tunic. No wonder she was cold. It was October in Chicago and she was soaking wet!

"That run and jump would have been a bitch in bare feet."

'language kimmie…' the subconscious voice of her mother chided her for even thinking with such words.

She tried to look down her left side. Damn this little locker was awkward! She turned her head further, and was finally able to see a little of her right leg. Damn she hurt. Her hip was still red and black. That was going to be a bad scar. Wait, why could she see her hip? She managed to turn her head more, but it was very painful, she tried to use her arm to pull herself around a bit in the confines of the locker.

"Oh god, that wasn't right! Shit that hurt!"

'language...'

She felt sick, and shook her head. Her vision had gone red again, and there really wasn't much light in here. She tried to pull the hair out of her face, touching her left temple, why did it feel like that? Without warning she retched, and was disgusted when the black, grainy vomit covered her chest and filled the locker with a horrid stench.

'that's not supposed to look like that.. doesn't that mean something's wrong inside?'

She finally managed to turn a bit more and get a view of her left side.

Was the door open, she couldn't see her hand? It must be sticking out. She tried to pull it in, needed to stay hidden. And where was Ron, why couldn't she here the police or the fire trucks by now?

'Its. Not. There.' obvious voice finally made itself known forcefully commandeering most of her consciousness.

'of course its there! this is just a really camped locker. with red walls... and really weird streaked red paint?'

"oh god!"

"Oh god no!"

"OH MY GOD WHERE IS MY ARM?!"

She vomited grainy black bile again all over the little locker, crying out and retching. After several long moments, the screams didn't come… She thought she'd should be screaming. She wasn't.

She was just so cold... at least the pain wasn't so bad.

'that's shock.' Said one cold part of her mind after what seemed like a long time.

'help isn't coming.'

'…'

'I'm vomiting blood… that's what that is.' Said another after she had gagged and coughed herself completely into one corner of the maintenance locker.

'I'm going to die aren't I?'

'…'

'yes, I am.'

'…'

'I guess this is what happens when you try to help people, eventually, huh?'

'…'

'I guess it is… I'll miss everyone. At least things won't be so tiring now.'

The bloodied and burnt form of Kim Possible finally stilled, not having strength to retch, or cough, or struggle. One by one, the parts of her brain that had been discussing her predicament went quiet.

Six hours later screaming finally came. It didn't come from the body in the access locker, but from the woman who found it, and saw it turn over and stare at her with one green eye burning from the bloodied, charred face and matted, burned red hair framing it.

-Eight months after the death of Kim Possible-

'why am I hurting? dead people don't hurt.'

" ... around Doctor."

'who was that? I'm dead, I'm not supposed to be hearing people.'

'shit I hurt… at lease the ringing stopped.'

"Miss… can you hear me?"

Who was talking? She was looking up at a blurry room that was coming into focus slowly. She didn't see anyone standing over her though… however, there as a shadow across her chest.

Parts of her brain started connecting. One part… that damned annoying obvious part, reminded her that her left arm was missing, and so, apparently, was her left eye since she couldn't feel it blinking when the other one did. Another part told her that she was in a hospital bed, clothed in a dressing gown. She'd been in this situation many times. But she hadn't been dead before.

"Miss… can you hear me? When you came in, you're eardrums were blown out… tell me if you can here me?"

'I wish he'd shut up… I'm dead! Go away!'

She turned her head, and glared up at the doctor when he finally came round into view. "Yeah, I can hear you just fine. You couldn't stand over here where I could see you?"

"Oh! Sorry about that…" The doctor smiled at her and came around. He shined a light in her eye, took it away, shined it again.

"Damnit! Would you mind not blinding me?"

"Sorry… Do you know where you are?"

"…off hand, I'm guessing a hospital."

"Very good. Do you know where?"

"Sitting next to an idiot. Next question."

"and people complain about my bedside manner." The doctor smiled and wondered if she was so abrasive usually. "Okay, do you know what day it is?"

After her answer, it was confirmed that she was indeed dead. Living people didn't take eight month naps and wake up cranky in hospital beds.

'okay, I'm dead… where to next?' she thought to herself. Ironically, the next question the doctor asked her gave her the answer.

"And, could you tell us your name and date of birth?"

"I… I don't know…" If she was dead, she thought, she'd just have to be someone else; someone who wasn't dead. Someone who didn't get killed helping people.

'What a joke that was!' she thought, 'killed trying to help people!'

"Well, Jane Doe…" The conversation went on, and she was told about her injuries. She didn't cry, and they seemed surprised by this. They told her she had breathing trouble, and that because of this, she might be brain damaged. They didn't know how long she had been unconscious when they had found her in a maintenance panel filled with diesel fumes, on a cross country train called California Zephyr.

'I'm not brain damaged,' she thought. She knew how she'd gotten into that box. She could remember everything. Of course she wasn't brain damaged! In fact, she was an entirely new person… the girl in the train's locker was the one who had died. She was the one with brain damage, trying to save the world…

"Jane Doe… I don't like that. Couldn't I be Sara Smith? Yeah, call me Miss Smith."

-KP-KP-KP-KP-KP-KP-KP-KP-KP-

Author's notes: Okay, I bet this passage was pretty confusing… I wanted to describe what happens when a person is in shock. Obviously though, when a person is in shock, normal thinking doesn't go on.

The gruesome details about what happens to Kim in the maintenance hatch are somewhat accurate. When a person has internal bleeding, blood seeps into the stomach, where it coagulates and is then vomited up. (gross I know) Victims of blasts often die from concussion waves from a bomb. People will seem to walk away without a scratch, only to die later. It's called "the white butterfly" for the way massive internal hemorrhaging appears on X-rays.The rest of the confusion is Kim's mind compartmentalizing the fact that her let arm and eye are missing, filling in the absent details it thinks should be provided by missing arm and eye.

On the less gruesome sides.. California Zephyr is the wonderful Amtrak train that runs from Chicago, through Omaha and Denver, before terminating in San Francisco. Union Station is downtown, less than two blocks from the base of Sears Tower; so a stunned Kim could easily get to it and drop into the rail yard before it dives down under the Union Station building.

Every year, there is a charity "stair climb" at the Sears Tower where idiots, I mean volunteers, climb all 103 stories (this doesn't count the basement levels) in the fire escapes. So Ron, while probably well winded after doing this, could have done it without a huge problem. As, apparently, could the stealthy Shego while paying her respects.