It was a dark and stormy night … isn't this how these things usually start? Well, not in my case, that's for damn sure. Of course it was dark, nighttime usually is. But stormy? No, tonight was far from it. In fact I would probably go as far as to say, environmentally speaking, that very few nights had been as perfect as this one was. Not too cold, not too warm, with just the slightest of breezes to let you know that the world hadn't somehow frozen itself in time.

Ha, time. How I hate the concept of it. Why does time always have to move forward and never back? My life, my reputation, my friendships, my family, my … failure's. All would be solved in a hummingbird's heartbeat if time could be reversed and I could return to the moment when it all came apart and stop what I had done. Even if I couldn't stop myself, I would at the very least be satisfied with the knowledge that I had tried. And as the saying goes, 'it is far better to try and fail then to not try at all.'

But instead of fixing what went wrong, I'm standing here, alone, with only my tormented memories to keep me company. Captured in a misery that I am working hard not to reveal to the outside world.

God, how I wished the weather tonight was a match to my feelings. It would probably make me feel slightly better if I was stuck outside with thick, tear-shaped droplets descending from the heavens and a bone-chilling wind cutting through my clothing and flesh. Now that would certainly be a night worthy of the prodigal's return.

Didn't Elizabethan Playwrights, like Shakespeare and Marlow, use the weather too reflect their hero's mood, decline from grace, or elevation of spirit? I wonder if the 'Bard of Avon' had ever placed quill to parchment and wrote of my tale, would he have turned me into a tragic hero? I greatly doubt it. I haven't been too heroic of late, and after what I had done I question if too many people will have any sympathy for the tragedy I have introduced into my life either.

But sympathy or not, hero or not, I'm still standing here at the front door. At the house that had used to claim as my home. It was a place that had heard my laugher and had seen my tears since my birth. It had been my sanctuary from all the abuse that the real world could throw at me, not that there was much in the way of abuse. I did live a bit of a privileged life after all.

So after so many days and nights away, I find myself once again, asking the question's that I had answered so long ago - Why did I flee such a haven, back when I needed it the most? Why did I run away from the one refuge where I could seek solace and support for what I had done? The answers to these questions always presented themselves easily. It was because I wanted to deny my life and I wanted to avoid the fear and disappointment that would obviously come from Mom and Dad's faces when they learned what had happened to … what had happened that night.

So many people owed me favors that it was a cinch to live and travel off of them for a while. But I couldn't live like that indefinitely; I knew that one day I would have to return home and face what had happened. And as the old saying went, I could run from my fate but I could never hide from it.

For seven and a half weeks, Kimberly Anne Possible had ceased to exist in the known world and had chosen to live in society's shadows. I had lived in dives that had required a tetanus boost just for looking at them. I had taken below minimum wages jobs too keep under the radar. I had dyed by hair black, then chestnut brown, then changed the styles. Now, I look more like a pasty, flat-chested version of Bonnie then the vibrant and perky redheaded cheerleader I was half-a-year ago. Even now I wonder if my decision to transform myself into looking Bonnie-esk wasn't some kind of subconscious desire to emotionally distance myself from what I had done.

In the end, it hadn't worked. Even though I had placed 'Kim Possible's identity on temporary suspension, the nightmares had still found me and haunted me in my sleep. Every morning I wake up panting, covered in a coat of my own sweat, stuck with the vivid memory of 'his' blood on my fists and the horror upon the many faceless witnesses to my crime as I ran past them. All my self acclaimed logic and rational thinking in a crisis had left me in this split moment, simultaneously remembering the past and trying to focus on the present.

I can't recall the horrified screams or the Ambulance and Police sirens approaching from opposite directions as I fought myself through the crowded parade route. So why can I recall, so clearly, the desperate gasping of a body clinging to life, leaving a sickening gurgling sound echoing in my mind? It was the sound of a boy … no, young man, drowning in his own blood. All I had done was stare down at him. Reliving a haze of flashbacks from the previous seconds over and over again in my mind. It had been a brutal and ecstatic burst of emotion, accompanied by the dull cracks of bone, all being administered in an irrational frenzy upon someone who had done nothing to earn it.

These sensations plague me, sicken me and I can not for the life of me suppress the memory of the sadistic rapture I felt as I stood for those brief moment above him looking down upon his fetal and contorted form. I had become a gleeful sentry to his pain.

But after months of denial and loneliness I have found a small piece of strength and resolve to confront what I have done. Even if this lead's to only more loneliness and estrangement. At the very least I will be able to provide people with closure to their hatred and disappointment. I will be able to discover what I had done to my bestest-best friend.

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With a heavy hand, the once vibrant teenager, pressed the white button and heard the familiar chimes echo within her former home. The seconds lagged to minutes in her mind, and then to hours within this same active imagination. Each millisecond she felt the need and the desire to depart and escape down the street. It was a sound strategy born from a coward's fear, but fear and terror lost out to the crisp opening of the door in front of her.

"I hope that this is something important. Nine p.m. is hardly a respectable time to make … Miss? Is everything alright? You're crying? Are you hurt? What's wrong? I'm sorry if I snapped but …*"

Kim offered a choking laugh at the sound of confusion and concern in her father's voice. A father who could not recognize his own daughter. Had she changed so much in the months she had been in hiding? The new hair style and color was a definite throw off, but surely he must have recognized some similar element shared between the teenager she once was to what she presented herself now.

"Daddy … I'm so sorry, daddy."

"K… kimmicub?"

Kimberly Anne Possible did not have the chance to offer an affirmative to her question as she was taken harshly into a bone crushing embrace.

Through her blurred vision, a sight obscured by flowing tears she could witness her own father's begin to pool in happy emotion.

Fiercely Kim pulled herself deeper into her father's chest to help hide her face. She could feel the coppery taste of her own blood seep from her outer lower lip into her mouth from where she had bitten down. This was how she managed her happiness now. Whenever she felt a swell of joy, whether it be minor or major, and for the past several weeks they have all been very, very minor she would balance it all out by inflicting upon herself a delivery of pain. This pain helped keep her grounded in what she had done and helped force her to remember the horror she inflicted upon her best friend. It was another 'punishment' that she now welcomed as her atonement to Ron. It was, in her opinion a small price to pay, and though she had worked hard to target regions of her body with small self-inflictions, area's that would not be visible. She found herself many times these past few days fighting the impulse not to extend her collection of small scar's and lighter burns from her zones of 'concealment'.

Though her voice was muffled she could not delay her question. The question hung as silent and as still as the night itself and she could feel her father tense as she had asked it.

"Daddy, what happened to Ron?"

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A/N:

Just a taste.

So what do you think?

To dramatic? To bland?

A little darker then most fic's. Yes, there was a reference to some 'self-harming' by Kim, and if any of you could catch the reference you will probably know that this is an alternative-shot of the Mood-ulator Episode where Kim kept going in flux between Lovey-dovey and Cybil on Ron. Special thanks to daccu for setting this out for me. Sorry I have been away for a while; found myself in Hospital for a bit, even now I am on monster Pain Killer's so everything is pretty funky …lol.

Don't forget to Review.

Oh and YES, Ron survived Kim's bashing, but he is hardly in the mind to readily forgive her for it …lol.

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