Upon hearing that, Michael could only stare for a moment, his mind reeling, almost unable to believe what he had heard. "You what? Did you really find Kitt? How is he? Where did you find him?"
"...I haven't seen him yet exactly, I just have a location." There was something in Bonnie's voice that unnerved Michael, that started the same feeling of dread in the pit of stomach that he had once been well accustomed to.
Still, he forced himself to remain optimistic. "That's good! It's a great starting point. Where is it?" He was only met with silence from the other end, causing the terrible feeling he had to grow ever worse. "Bonnie?" He prodded after a few moments had passed.
"Please Michael, just come here." She didn't really give him any answers, which didn't help the growing knot in Michael's stomach.
"Alright, I'll be there, just tell me where you are right now." After getting the adress, Michael quickly threw some clothes in a suitcase before running to his truck and heading off to Arizona.
After arriving at his destination and meeting up with Bonnie, she didn't look very happy as she climbed into the passenger side of Michael's truck. After asking where they were headed, she seemed a little reluctant to tell him. After a little bit of prying, he finally got the answer: a junkyard. Kitt had, more then once, expressed his disdain for such a place, and thus it came as a bit of a surprise that he would be there.
"A junkyard, really? Are you sure that's the right place?" Michael asked, a bit incredulous.
Bonnie nodded. "Yes. After all, how often do you hear about a Trans Am with a modified dash?"
"Where did you find this out?"
"I overhead if from one of my co-workers when they were talking about their hobbies outside of teaching. Apparently she likes to go to junk yards and make jewelry out of the things she finds. She just couldn't seem to say enough about how facinated she was about finding such a unique car. I asked her for a description, and it shounds exactly like Kitt." Bonnie explained. "We need to get to him first before she decides she wants to try and salvage him for parts."
"Alright, lead the way."
Silence followed them on their way to the junkyard, save for when Bonnie had to give directions. Michael tried to strike up a conversation a few times, but it never ended up going anywhere. They were both two anxious for what they would find. After arriving at the junkyard, they got out of the truck and began looking for their lost family member.
"Did she say where in the junkyard she saw him?" Michael asked as they began their search.
"No, and I didn't want to press her for anymore information because I was worried she might think that I was competition and rush over in order to beat me."
"Is she really that bad?"
"I've seen he be competitive before, and believe me it's not pretty."
Silence fell over them before, only it didn't seem as awkward as before as they were both too busy concentrating on the task at hand to be bothered. It took a good hour before Bonnie finally shouted over to Michael as she began running towards a familiar, albeit beat up, car.
Once close enough, the sight that Bonnie was greeted with was heartbreaking. Before she let the sad state of the car to get to her too much, she checked the licence plate, part of her hoping that it would be the right one, while the other parted wanted it to be a false alarm only because she didn't want to see Kitt in such a state. Her heart sunk however when the plate did indeed read 'KNIGHT'.
"Oh Kitt..." She breathed through her fingers which she had places there to try and stiffle the horror the she could feel creeping up.
"Don't tell me that's him..." Michael came up from behind her, faceing the same disbelief Bonnie was still struggling against, even if the licence plate proved Kitt's identitiy.
Bonnie could only nod at Michael's statement, instead moving to gently trace her fingers through the thick layer of dust that seemed to completly cover the car. She couldn't seem to find her voice again, the scene enough to take her breath away (and not in a good way). The car's front scanner was broken, with many pieces of it having gone missing, the hood of the car was badly bent up, there were dents and scratches of varying sizes everywhere, and some of the windows were missing, with what few that did remain were completly cracked in a spider pattern.
Michael was the first to find he voice again. "Kitt, are ya in there buddy?" He asked softly, caustiously. No answer came. "Kitt?" He asked, a bit louder this time. Still he recived no answer. "C'mon buddy, say something, anything. Even it's just to complain about how long it took to find you." He sounded more and more desperate each time.
"Michael I...I think..." Bonnie began, finding her voice once more, "I think something must have gone wrong with his power souce. He isn't...I'm sure he isn't even on right now. We'll need to charge his power packs in order to wake him up. Then all we need to do is patch him up and he should be just fine."
Michael nodded in understanding, but was still unhappy with the situation. Glancing over the whole scene again, he noticed something he hadn't before, causing his heart to plummet into his stomach. "Bonnie, tell me that isn't what I think it is..." He gestured through one of the missing windows at a small, rectangular lump that was laying on the driver's seat.
Bonnie came over slowly to the driver's side door, and reached over so that she could pick up the item, which turned out to be in four pieces. Her own heart sank and she could feel the lump in her throat return as she recognized the item as a CPU. Michael came over to join her inspect the item, dreading the outcome. Bonnie slowly turned the pieces of it around in her hands so that he could see the back. There, in the bottom left cornor were four letters that Michael had never thought that he would wish weren't there: K.I.T.T.
Denial followed. Kitt had been near destroyed a few times before, always with Bonnie there to fix him. The problem this time, however, is that before, there were backups of Kitt's data at the foundation. The computers there had been destroyed in the blast, causing the backups to cease to exist.
It was a hard thing to accept, the fact that Kitt was gone and never coming back. Bonnie had said that she might be able to recreate the data but it would never be the same without Kitt's memories. It would simply end up being either someone else or nothing but a shell of a former self, a ghost if you will.
Michael was stubborn, however, and insisted that they keep both the car and the remains of the CPU on the off chance that something might come about that would allow them to raise Kitt from the dead. Bonnie hadn't needed much convincing, as it was easier to belive in some crazy dream that would probably never be realized then to admit that Kitt was gone for good.
It was still painful, however, to be around the type of place that so many of their adventures had taken place, and it was eventually decided that it would be best to move someplace that was rarely ever visited and try to start over, which ended up being in Utah. Bonnie had asked once why Michael continued to stick around, especially since he wasn't overly fond of snow, and he had simply replied that they needed to stick together now more than ever. She had appreciated the gesture with how difficult things had been lately.
It was years later when the two of them had decided to go on a trip to visit a few places and honor memories of those that were no longer with them. It was when they were about halfway back home when Bonnie noticed that there were two kids sitting in the truck bed. It wasn't the safest place to be, and she had promptly told Michael about it, to which he pulled over and he got out in order to confront the other two.
"Hey what were you two doing in the back there?" Michael had asked of the two boys.
"Oh, um, we just need a ride out of town and decided to catch a ride since you seemed to be leaving at the time and all..." The taller of the two began to explain, "and we didn't think that we were bothering anyone just by staying back there and all...um...we'll just be going...c'mon Kat." He tugged on the shorter boy's sleeve, moving as if intending to leave.
"Wait, you look familiar...aren't you that kid from the computer store?" Michael asked, looking at the black haired boy, whose only response was a slight nod. Already Michael could tell he was the quieter of the two. "Ah, I never got your name. What is it?" There was something beyond the fact that he had simply seen him in a store before; no, it was more then that. He wasn't sure what it was exactly, but something about the boy just seemed incredibly familiar. Especially his eyes, such a striking crimson red, Michael found that he really should have been more unnerved about the unusual color, but wasn't. Instead, he found the color more reminisent of something else from his past, of a sweeping scanner...
The first boy nudged the other, prompting him to finally speak after a few moments. "...Kat." He didn't speak very loudly, muttering soft enough that Michael might not have heard it had he not been paying attention.
"Right. You can call me Michael," the former crime fighter introduced in turn, "Michael Knight."
The boy now knew as Kat stumbled back a bit, a look of surprised disbelief on his face. "It's not possible..." He muttered, shaking his head, which was a confusing reaction in itself.
"Kat are you alright?" The other boy asked, sounding somewhat worried.
"Kitt." Kat muttered quietly.
"Excuse me?" Michael asked, confused and surprised. It had been so long since he had heard that name, bringing with it memories that were both painful and pleasent. He found himself wondering if perhaps he had just imagined Kat saying anything.
"Kitt. I'm Kitt." He said louder, looking up at him.
"But you just said that your name was-"
Kat cut him off, suddenly and abrutly. "No I'm Kitt! Knight Industries Two Thousand KITT!"
Michael's expression darkened. "Don't joke about that. KITT died along time ago."
"Michael, is everything alright?" Bonnie had begun to wonder what could have been taking Michael so long and so had decided to check out the situation herself. She came around from the passenger side and stood next to Michael as he answered.
"It's nothing Bon, just dealing with these kids that were in the truck bed. And get this-" Michael gestured to Kat, a bit frustrated now. Kitt hadn't been human, so it was impossible for this boy to be his old partner. "he claims to be KITT."
"I am KITT!" Kat near yelled, voice growing more desperate as he spoke, "How else would I know that you used to be Michael Long? And that on our first mission I told you that I wanted custody of me because you said that I was about as much fun as a divorce!" He ended in a yell, hanging his head once he was finished.
No one else had heard that conversation, so there would be no one else who could know about it...That meant there could only be one explaination, no matter how impossible. "KITT?" Michael said quietly, in a bit of disbelief, unable to stop himself from staring.
"Yes..." Kitt muttered weakly, falling to his knees. It was then that Bonnie rushed up to him, pulling him into a tight hug, trying her best (yet surely failing) to stop the tears from falling.
"We thought you were dead." Bonnie stated softly, pulling him tighter to her, afraid that if she were to let him go, he would dissapear forever.
"Whatever gave you that ridiculous idea?" Kitt asked just as softly.
"Well," it was Michael that responded, "after we found your body all beat up in that junk yard..."
Bonnie finished for him. "We had had hopes that you were still alive and we could repair you, but your CPU was...well, let's just say it was at a point of no return." She pulled away and looked at him. She was about to say more, but another voice broke into the conversation.
"Kat, what's going on?" The other boy finally spoke up.
There was then a few more introductions and it was decided that they should continue on their way back home while Kitt explained what was going on to the other boy, which turned out to be a friend of his who went by the name of Matt. As they drove, it was with a sense of cheerfulness, along with a bit of disbelief. After all these years they finally had Kitt back with them again, where he belonged. Bonnie couldn't help from glancing back to the truck bed every now and then just to make sure that the boys were still there and that the whole thing hadn't been some crazy, hopeful dream.
"Is this where you've been living, Michael?" Kitt asked as the aformentioned person got out from the truck's cabin once they had arrived home.
"Well ya, for about the last five years or so." Michael replied, walking around to open Bonnie's door for her as Kitt and Matt climbed out of the truck bed.
It was after Matt had left and the three of them had yet to go inside, did Bonnie decide to ask one of the many questions that had been swarming about her head the entire ride back home.
"So Kitt, why have you been calling yourself Kat?" Bonnie asked, coming to stand by Kitt.
Kitt just shrugged. "Matt actually came up with it, and I did need something to go by. It seemed as good as any, anyways."
"What was wrong with your real name?" Michael asked.
"You must understand," Kitt began, "just as you thought I was dead, I thought the same about you. It didn't help that my scans showed no traces of life. Everything that I had once had seemed to be gone, so I wanted to distance myself from it as much as possibe so I wouldn't have to think about it." He explained quietly, looking to the side.
Bonnie almost couldn't believe what she was hearing; it went unspoken, but she could tell that what Kitt had been through had been terrible, and very nearly unbearable. It was no wonder that he had decided to reinvent himself in order make it through. She could barely even imagine what it must have been like, all the the things he must have gone through. It made her heart ache just thinking about it. As such, she couldn't help but bring him into a tight hug once more.
"I'm sorry Kitt, you must've hurt so much..." She said softly, one hand resting on the back of his head.
"It-it's okay, I managed to survive..." Kitt managed out weakly, sounding as if on the verge of tears, but stubbornly refusing to let it out.
"You know, it is okay to cry and let it all out sometimes." Michael suggested.
It was if that one simple phrase did it; Kitt gripped onto the back of Bonnie's shirt tightly, finally allowing himself to cry, seeming to let out all of the pain that he must have kept bottled up over the past years. Bonnie only wished she could do more to comfort him then simply hold him tight. She didn't know how long it lasted, but eventually Kitt seemed to calm down, relaxing more against her. Looking down, it turned out that he had had fallen asleep.
Bonnie found that she couldn't help but smile softly as she stood up, holding the precious boy in her arms as she did so. There would still be some difficult times ahead as she was sure there would be mental scaring from the whole ordeal, but she also knew that everything would be fine in the end. For the moment, she allowed herself to be completly happy, as their tiny family seemed to be complete once more.
The rest, as they say, is history.