I wrote this story after reading Capainkodak1's 'Angels in Waiting', a beautiful and touching story I would recommend to read if you have no trouble with deathfics.
I do have some trouble with deathfics and I needed to put my mind off the story, that's why I wrote this story. I took the flood idea from 'Angels in Waiting' and built on from there, of course the ending is different.
Disclaimer: Kim Possible and related are the property of Disney which, contrary to common belief, I do not own.
Disclaimer2: I would like to give Captainkodak1 credit; without his story I would probably never have written this story.
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The flood
The rain poured down heavily and Kim was barely able to see Ron, who was busy securing the three children in the small rescue basket.
The children were obviously scared; the water was already pulling at their feet and it got deeper by the minute.
"I wanna stay here," one of the children cried, "I'm scared of heights."
"It's only for a moment," her mother insured her, "we'll be up with you in the helicopter within a minute. Besides, you don't want Kim Possible to see you're scared?"
Kim frowned for a moment, but then put on a smile, "Hey, there is nothing wrong with being scared. Tell you what, after we're out of here, I'll give you an autographed picture, okay?"
"Okay," the little girl snivelled.
"Thank you," the mother smiled.
"No big," Kim said, "now let's get this basket up, the flood is still rising."
"All clear," Ron called into the walkie-talkie, "pull 'er up."
The basket with the children quickly ascended to the helicopter, shortly after it came down again, this time empty.
"Your turn," Ron told the parents and they quickly stepped in.
"Hurry up down there," the rescue team member in the helicopter called, "there's a huge flood wave heading your direction."
"KP!" Ron shouted over the downpour, "Let's get on the roof before we get flooded here."
As the basket ascended for the second time, Kim and Ron climbed on the roof of the building whose previous occupants had just been rescued and waited for the basket to pick them up.
Suddenly the rain held up for a second and the teens could see the flood wave rushing towards them.
"No time to wait for the basket," Kim grabbed her grappling gun and aimed at the helicopter's landing gear. But the moment she shot, part of the house collapsed and her shot went wide.
Quickly, Kim put a new charge in, but the wave was already upon them; the mass of water swooped away the house as if it was nothing and took the teens with it.
The helicopter crew watched in shock as Kim's next shot got caught in the branches of a floating tree and the grappling gun was yanked from her hand.
The crew-member in the helicopter cabin jumped into the basket; "Let me down, maybe I can pick them up."
"We're running very low on fuel," the pilot told, "you've got one minute or we'll all crash."
The one minute became several minutes of frantic search, but the last the crew-member saw of Kim and Ron was them clutching together as the flood dragged them along.
The helicopter was forced to land on a higher point near the riverbank and it was already running on fumes when the pilot finally set the machine down.
The rescuers and rescued stepped out of the helicopter and watched over the mightily flooding river.
"They're gone…"
"Mommy, is Kim Possible going to make it."
"Of course she is, stupid. Kim Possible can do anything, right mom?"
"I don't know dear," the mother held her children tight with tears in her eyes, "I hope so."
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Kim and Ron fought the stream with all their might, but were still pulled under. Ron felt Kim's hand slipping out of his and grabbed on tighter and pulled her back to him. Then they broke the surface again and Ron saw the helicopter flying a short distance behind them, but he already knew the helicopter would do no good; the pilot had mentioned earlier to him that they were starting to run low and had to bail in a few minutes.
"He's not going to make it to us, is he?" Kim shouted to make herself understandable over the roar of the river, Ron shook his head, "I guess we're on our own then…"
They were pulled under water again, but managed to keep hold of each other. As the stream pulled them further down Ron felt an increasing need for oxygen, he didn't worry too much yet about Kim; even after she stopped participating in the swim team she kept swimming a lot, and Ron was always amazed at the distance she could travel underwater.
To his surprise, Kim pulled closer and started kissing him and tried to pry his lips open with hers. It took Ron a moment to understand what she was doing, but then he quickly cooperated.
Clutched together, in a literal 'kiss of life', Kim and Ron re-breathed each other's oxygen while they thrashed their legs hard to break the surface.
Finally they came above water again, and even though he was gasping for air Ron couldn't help but smile, "That was one badical…"
"Ron, watch out!" Kim shrieked, but it was already too late; two large tree branches twisted around and caught one of Ron's legs. Kim was sure the sickening crack was not one of the branches breaking. Ron cried out in pain and almost got pulled under again.
Kim wrapped her legs around Ron's torso and her hands around the branch and managed to keep both their heads above the water.
They floated for a while with the branch, until it slammed into an underwater tree and the shock pried the teens loose.
Kim dove under Ron, who was only semiconscious, and tried to keep him afloat even though swimming so low in the water meant she occasionally had to swallow a mouthful of water.
The flood continued to drag the teens further and further on the furious river, and the rain poured on.
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"Twelve dead, ten still missing," the fireman reported, "all the rescuers have been accounted for, except Miss Possible and Mr Stoppable."
The commander cursed, "Those two have saved five families and three other rescue workers, they are single-handedly responsible for half the rescues yesterday, and you're telling me they paid the ultimate price for it?"
"They could still be alive," the fireman said, though his expression told otherwise; he was experienced, he knew the survivor percentage a day after a flood, and it was not good."
"They were there since the beginning, they didn't even take a break. And now I have to tell their parents that… they…" the chief choked, a rare thing for him to do, "they were still minors…"
"Sir, we've got everyone available searching the riverbanks," the fireman said, "we also got lots of volunteers, we're going to find them."
"Yes, but I wonder in what condition."
For miles and miles along the riverbank search teams were looking, the Possible and Stoppable families were also largely present; Jim, Tim and Joss had almost gotten into a fight with one of the coordinators when he refused their help initially, seeing as they were just children. Eventually he had given in and the youngsters were allowed to help search as long as they kept under the supervision of at least one adult.
It didn't take long before the missing persons were found; three bodies were found tangled in tree roots where they had drowned trying to hold on to the trees. Two bodies were found flushed ashore on the riverbank and two more were found a day later floating in the sea. Amazingly, one person was found alive; a young man was slammed on the rocks alongside the river and had managed to hang on until the flood was over.
Although the teams were still looking, their hope of finding Kim and Ron fell as the search continued.
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Almost twenty miles from the point they were last seen, two bodies laid draped over each other where the flood had dropped them when the river started to get down to its regular level. The redheaded girl and the blond haired boy were still clutched together.
The first sign of life was a series of convulsions from the girl after which she barfed up an amazing amount of water. Coughing and choking she spit out more water before she gasped and inhaled a huge gulp of air.
Still coughing and occasionally spitting out more water and slime, she untangled herself from her companion and turned over to look at him.
"Ron? *cough*, Ron!"
She checked for a pulse and found a weak one, then she started artificial breathing.
Suddenly, Ron gasped and his eyes snapped open, "KP?"
"Right here," Kim said, tears of happiness rolling over her cheeks, then she had another coughing fit.
Ron tried to get up, "Are you alright… AAHH."
"Try to keep laying still," Kim pushed him back, "your leg is broken."
"But we made it," Ron said as he laid back, "I'm sure rescue teams will find us soon."
"In the meanwhile…" Kim smiled and bent down to her boyfriend.
Halfway the kiss Kim had another coughing fit and she rolled away from Ron.
"Are you sure you're okay?" Ron asked concerned.
"Yeah," Kim started to get her coughing under control, "I just got some water in my lungs. How is your leg?"
Ron shrugged, "Painful, but I'll live."
Kim checked his leg anyway, "It's a fracture, and it seems like it's about to break through the skin. We have to set it before it does, or it will infect."
"Alright," Ron said, "you know what to do."
"As do you," Kim grinned, "we both took the advanced first aid class. This is going to be painful."
Ron gritted his teeth as Kim grabbed hold of his foot, "Three, two, one…"
"AAAHH," Ron cried as Kim pulled. Fortunately, it took only a moment and then the pain settled to a dull ache. Kim took her and his belt and made a splint using some sturdy branches, "try to move as little as possible."
They checked themselves and each other for more injuries and except from cuts and scrapes they only found a huge bruise on Kim's hip.
"You haven't put any weight on that leg yet, did you?" Ron asked.
Kim tried to stand up and her leg immediately collapsed under her, "Wow, moving it didn't hurt at all, I guess I sprained some muscles as well." She moved her leg in a wider motion and winced when she damaged muscles were strained, "Well, that answers that question."
Ron took a better look of his surroundings; they were in a hole about ten feet deep, surrounded by rocks and covered by tree branches, apparently the flood had dug out the hole a bit more and dumped the branches above them. Downwards of the teens was a muddy slope that ended in a two feet drop into the still fast flowing river.
"How high did the river get anyway?"
"I guess the rocks worked as a bottleneck," Kim suggested, "pushing the river up."
"I hope the search teams will look here," Ron said.
"Me too."
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"It's almost dark, we have to report back."
"I know, we won't do any good at dark anyway."
The two search teams each stood at one side of the river and were about to get back to the base.
"Wow, look at that water line, the flood must have gone way up here."
"Yeah, those rocks really bottled the water in."
"Come on, let's take these rocks now and then return."
"Fine with me."
"Alright, we'll walk along with you guys for a moment, but we can't look for too long, it's pretty dangerous here after dark; you can't see where you're walking."
"Look at this pile of branches, they must have gotten stuck here when the flood couldn't get higher."
"You can watch natural phenomena later, we have people to find, preferably alive."
"Hey guys, look at this," one of the searchers on the other side of the river pointed to a small blinking light a little past the rocks.
The group quickly walked to the light, "That's that communicator devise Kim Possible always carried, I guess she lost it in the flood."
The Kimmunicator was destroyed beyond repair, but somehow the 'battery low' signal was still blinking, it died out moments after the search team had picked up the devise.
Unfortunately, the Kimmunicator provided the distraction that caused the search team to fail to check the branches on the rocks properly. Had they done so, they would have seen the hole beneath the branches and if they had looked into it, they would have spotted the two teens they were searching for, fast asleep.
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The next morning Kim woke up from her own coughing, Ron was still asleep. A slight drizzle was dripping from the branch cover, soaking the teens.
"This is not good," Kim thought, "I'm already developing pneumonia and I think Ron is starting to run a fever."
"KP?" Ron croaked, "You okay?"
"Yeah," Kim suppressed her coughing, "how about you?"
"Not too good," Ron admitted, "very thirsty."
"Me too," Kim tried to catch some rain in her mouth.
"Try this," Ron started sucking water from his soaked shirt, "taste could be better though."
Kim chuckled, suppressed more coughs and sucked some water from her own shirt, "I'm going to try to climb up those rocks and see if I can make a signal."
"No, you won't," Ron said firmly, "your leg can't support you and you have a terrible cough, you never make it."
"Check my name," Kim snapped, "haven't you noticed how well covered this hole is? Nobody will find us here."
"All right, but be very careful," Ron pleaded.
Kim crawled to the rocks and clumsily tried to climb them; her leg still wasn't working properly, she got halfway when another coughing fit hit her and her hand slipped. She tumbled down and slid towards the river when Ron grabbed her.
"I told… Forget it, I'm just glad you're okay, you are okay, right?"
Kim winced, "I just bumped my head once or twice. I'm sorry, you were right."
Halfway the day Kim had a terrible coughing fit; her eyes grew wide when she noticed she had coughed up blood.
"Is everything alright?" Ron asked in a strange voice; his fever was also getting worse.
"Yeah," Kim told, "I think I bit my tongue when I coughed."
Ron knew she was lying, but let it go, there wasn't much he could do anyway and he knew Kim felt better when she thought he didn't worry about her.
"KP?"
"Yes?"
"We're going to make it."
"I know."
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"It's been two days now and Possible and Stoppable still haven't been found."
"Worse yet, we found two other bodies in the sea. That means they could be anywhere by now."
"I know, we have to face the fact we will never find their bodies."
"Who is going to inform the parents?"
"I will. It's my duty."
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"Mr and Mrs Possible, Mr and Mrs Stoppable," Kim and Ron's parents sat before the commander of the search party, "although we have not yet found the bodies, I feel it is my duty to tell you there is little chance that Kim and Ron are still alive. I have seen many parents and relatives clutch on to a last straw of hope for too long and breaking down because of it."
"I am an actuary," Mr Stoppable spoke up, "I know chances."
"Kim and Ron always lived a dangerous life," Mr. Dr. Possible added, "We were aware of this consequence."
Mrs. Dr. Possible took a deep breath to recompose herself, "We would like the search to continue for one extra day, and whether or not Kim and Ron are found we want to hold a ceremony to honor the dead."
"I see," the commander said, "I admire your bravery. Might I suggest a ceremony be held at the place where the search team found Kim's communicator?"
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During the third day, at least Kim thought it was the third day, Ron was speaking incoherently and his fever had gone higher. Kim was pretty sure she was starting to run a fever as well, she was also coughing up more blood and even shallow breaths took an effort.
The teens laid on their back, still holding hands, covered in mud and still damp by the rain; Kim was seriously starting to wonder how long the human body could keep up in this wet, cold environment.
Eventually, night came and Kim huddled closer to Ron, who was only barely conscious and was shivering tremendously despite the heat radiating from him.
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"Dearly beloved, we are gathered here to put to earth the bodies of two persons who can truly be called heroes, they risked their lives to save others and eventually paid the ultimate price."
Kim floated over the large group of people and watched curiously what was going on. She saw two open coffins standing in front of the gathering and drifted towards them, an eerie sense of comprehension coming over her.
When she arrived at the coffins, Kim was shocked to see Ron in the one and herself in the other.
"Kimberly Anne Possible and Ronald Dean Stoppable, you were true heroes and your loss is a great loss to the world."
"I'm alive, I'm not dead," Kim tried to yell, but no words came from her mouth. Suddenly she felt a presence beside her; she looked up to see Ron floating next to her, "We're not dead," Kim cried, tears in her eyes.
Ron smiled, "As long as we don't give up, we live on."
"I don't give up, I never give up, I'm Kim Possible…"
Kim's eyes snapped open; she was still alive, she was also still lying in the hole next to Ron. Ron was still asleep, or unconscious.
"Dearly beloved, we are gathered here to honor two person who could truly be called heroes, they risked their lives to save others and eventually paid the ultimate price."
"No, No, No, Wake up Kim, please wake up," Kim thought frantically, but then she realised she had actually heard those words.
Her eyes grew wide when she saw people standing on the other side of the river, for a moment she wondered why they didn't see her but then she realised the hole was rather dark. And even if the hole was visible, they would only see part of Kim's head, and she was completely covered in mud.
Kim tried to scream to get their attention, but only managed a few weak coughs that didn't carry very far.
"Kimberly Anne Possible and Ronald Dean Stoppable, you were true heroes and your loss is a great loss to the world."
Kim listened to her own funeral words with tears of frustration in her eyes; she and Ron were dying not twenty yards away from where they were mourned.
She tried several more attempts of making a sound, but managed nothing more than a weak and soft squeak.
"Ron, please wake up," Kim shook Ron's shoulder, but he didn't react.
The ceremony went on and Kim became more and more desperate. Finally she decided there was only one thing to do; she felt sick even thinking it but couldn't come up with anything else. She kicked Ron's broken leg; it wasn't a very hard kick but to Kim it seemed she almost broke his leg again.
Ron cried in pain and Kim would have thrown up if she would have had anything left in her stomach, then he fell back again in his unconscious, feverish state.
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"The flowers represent the spirits of…"
The ceremony was interrupted by a loud scream of pain.
Everybody looked around, "That sounded like Ronald," Mrs Stoppable said, her eyes filling with tears again, "Am I imagining things?"
"No, I heard it too…" Jim told.
"It came from over there," Tim pointed.
Both Possible and Stoppable fathers ran over the emergency bridge to the other side of the river, closely followed by Jim and Tim.
Quickly they started to move branches away, making sure not to let any fall down. Soon more men started to help them.
"I see two bodies," one of the man cried out.
"Are they alive?"
"Yes, one is looking at us."
Kim looked up at the branches that were being removed, then she saw her father and brothers peering down.
"Not dead, alive," she mouthed before she closed her eyes and lost consciousness, a smile still on her face.
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Anne Possible sat in a chair in the hospital room and watched her daughter; Kim was cleaned up and stuffed with medicines. To her mother she looked so very fragile with an IV bag connected to her arm and an oxygen mask over her mouth and nose.
The doctor on duty had confirmed Dr Possible's suspicion that Kim had pneumonia in both lungs, but he had insured her the girl would make a full recovery.
Anne looked concerned as Kim's pale and fallen in face frowned and she moved her head wildly to both sides, her eyes still closed.
James Possible walked in, followed by Jim and Tim, "Ron is out of surgery, apparently Kimmiecub did a great job on setting that leg, because all the doctors did was applying antibiotics and fitting a cast."
"Tell me, is Ron also sleeping so restless?" Anne asked.
"Now you mention…" James frowned.
"They had to pry their hands loose in that hole," Jim said.
"Yeah, and it took two men, even though Kim and Ron were unconscious." Tim added.
"I thought so," Anne turned to a passing nurse, "could you do me a favor and help me out here…"
"Do you think this will work?" the nurse asked as they drove Ron's bed into Kim's room.
"Only one way to find out," After the beds were place next to each other Mrs Possible picked up Ron's hand and Kim's hand as well; the moment their hands touched, they grabbed on to each other and both teens seemed to relax immediately.
"That's amazing," the nurse gasped.
"You get used to it," James smirked.
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"Good morning KP."
Kim looked to her side and saw Ron smiling at her, "Hey Ron," she whispered into the oxygen mask.
"Miss Possible? Mr Stoppable?" a nurse peered through the door opening, "There are some people who wish to see you, I believe they are one of the families you saved last week."
Kim gestured to let them in, two adults and three children walked into the room carrying a fruit basket. "How are you?" the youngest asked.
Kim smiled and gave a thumbs up, Ron then answered for the both of them, "We're doing a lot better, thank you. How are you coping?"
The man shrugged, "We only lost material things, fortunately we were well insured, we're living with family now."
Kim gestured to the youngest of the children, "I believe I owe you an autograph," she smiled.
The girl's eyes grew big, "Really? I mean…" she looked at her parents, who nodded; "But don't take too long, those two look really tired."
The girl took one of her prized possessions out of her pocket; a picture of Kim Possible in mission gear helping with the rebuilding of a school after an earthquake, she handed Kim the picture and gave her a pen.
"To my number one fan," Kim winked, "never give up."
"Are you alright?" Ron asked after the family had left, noticing a few tears running down Kim's cheeks.
"I'm just happy to be alive," Kim whispered, "we will never give up, right?"
"Never ever," Ron smiled, "not even…" he noticed Kim had fallen asleep again. Still smiling, he settled down himself as well.
END