Title: Outside the Spotlight

Author: Alex Foster

Feedback: I love to hear what you think so drop me a line or leave a review.

Category: General

Rating: PG

Summary: Ron Stoppable knows what love is...thanks to Shego. One Shot

Disclaimer: Disney owns all. I just play.

Author's Notes: While I know I should be working on my latest Zelda fic, this little plotless wonder popped in my head and wouldn't leave. So here you have it. As always, I thank you for reading. Now onward to pointless fluff and all that other good stuff.

Clarity of mind means clarity of passion, too; this is why a great and clear mind loves ardently and sees distinctly what it loves.

Blaise Pascal

For the first time in his life, Ron Stoppable couldn't sleep.

By all rights, he should be sound asleep because it was dark outside the plane's windows, his watch read two in the morning, and because without his required nine hours school would be even worse than normal.

Kim was asleep beside him—had been for the past few hours—and even Rufus was quiet in his little pocket home. After making sure his young cargo was safe, the pilot had vanished into the cockpit and left them alone ever since.

Still, though, Ron was awake. He stared unblinkingly out the tiny window at the pitch blackness they were flying through. His reflection looked back, and Ron could see streaks of dirt still on his face and clothes. Most of it from when Drakken's latest lair blew up.

The airplane that Wade had arranged to take them back to Middleton was a ramshackle cargo plane that was old when Hitler was young. The passenger area was a massive space with a couple of seats with springs and foam oozing out strapped together. Due either to the fact of no in-flight movie or that no sane person would ever ride in the death-trap-with-wings, he and Kim had the plane to themselves. The metal paneling rattled with the rumbling of the engines and wires that Ron was sure shouldn't be seen hung down from exposed conduits.

It was freezing in the cabin and Ron was sure frost would start forming soon on the walls. Every once in a while he would give a big huff trying to see his breath.

Ron couldn't remember what Kim had done for their crusty pilot that earned this favor, but hoped it didn't involve some sort of emergency landing.

Although the plane had carried them most of the way over the ocean—straight into yesterday once they crossed the international dateline. That joke never got old, no matter how many trips he and Kim took around the globe.

The only light in the cabin was from an overhead bare bulb near the cockpit entrance, casting a long shaft of light down the middle of the plane. It was dim and the shadows that wrapped around the few passenger seats were thick so it wasn't the light keeping Ron awake.

He didn't know what it was.

Staring into the quickly passing darkness, at two in the morning, on a school night, made him start to think. His thoughts were actually keeping him awake. Wow. He'd read about things like that, but never really experienced it before. Ron had always thought that was the stuff of legends.

Thirty-five thousand feet in the air he tried to remember when he was young—well, younger—when a day with Kim Possible didn't involve flying halfway around the world to stop a supervillain bent on destroying the world, taking over the world, or a mixture of both. Before hard parachute landings, busting into lairs, and scrambling to stay alive while making sure Kim remained unscathed, too.

Not that she needed much help, he thought ruefully. Most of the time, Kim was just fine without him. For as long as he'd known her, Ron always admired the way she could look at a problem and instantly grasp it. That impressive brain would go into action and come up with a solution. Even when there wasn't time for thinking, she always knew what to do. How many times had he seen her fire the grapple gun and jump into a situation blind?

Shego was right earlier, Ron realized. That was also why he couldn't get to sleep. Damned green girl. Didn't she know he had school tomorrow or today however that international dateline thing worked?

Earlier that day, while Drakken's latest and greatest ray canon that would lead to his complete world domination blew up around them, Kim and Shego had danced through their usual routine. As fists, kicks, and green plasma flew through the air with the greatest of ease, Ron had tried desperately to stop the self-destruction sequence on the canon. His strategy had been sound: push every button within reach and hope for the best.

One of the flashing doodads high overhead had exploded, sending sparks and hunks of metal raining down. Kim jumped one way and Shego the other. The corner of a beam grazed Kim, however, and spun her around, stunning her.

Smiling, Shego had moved in for the kill.

Ron, watching from the corner of his eye, saw that and decided to join the fray. Never thinking that he might not win, Ron jumped from the control platform and assumed his best Kung Fu stance in front of Shego, ready to defend Kim.

"Well, well, the Buffoon," Shego had mocked. "Going to save our little Kimmie?"

"Oh, yeah. Bring it on, lady."

Shego was fast. Very fast. He had managed to duck her first blow but never saw the second. Her boot met his ribs with enough force to empty his lungs and double him over. Her follow-through spun him around and dropped him to the ground.

Like a cat playing with a half dead mouse, Shego had circled them. "Tell me, Buffoon, does this ever get old with you? Being nothing more than second banana to her? The sidekick, the forgettable one.

"Never knowing what you could be if, just once, the spotlight shifted your way. How does that feel?"

In their years together, Ron had learned some things from Kim. One of them was to stay defiant right to the end. Maybe it was a hero thing...but probably it was just a Kim thing.

He had met Shego's eyes and responded with the best comeback he could think of. "Why don't you tell me? That sounded a lot like you."

True, it wasn't the best comeback of all time, maybe not even in the top twenty, but it was enough to halt her momentarily. It took only seconds for her shock to transform into anger, but it was enough for Kim to come around.

In a blur of brown, black, and red Kim tackled Shego and sent her sprawling. Drawing her grapple gun, Kim helped Ron up. "Thanks."

"Anytime, KP."

Doctor Drakken suddenly appeared overhead in his hovercraft. "Shego, let's go!"

Stealing one last glance at Kim and Ron, Shego jumped into the air, caught the undercarriage of the craft, and quickly climbed into the cockpit.

As the lair exploded around them, Drakken and Shego had flown off in one direction while Kim and Ron rode the grapple line in the other.

Now, hours later on the cold and dimly lit plane, Ron's ribs still hurt and he wondered about what Shego had said.

It wasn't a surprise to him that he lived outside of Kim's spotlight. It had always been that way, even before the start of jetting halfway around the world on missions. What gave him pause, however, was the fact that he really didn't mind.

While he did really, really love attention, it didn't hold a candle to seeing Kim getting due praise. It was a unique feeling standing in the background and seeing others finally realize what he had known almost his entire life...

Kim Possible was a girl above all others anywhere. Period.

In the window, his reflection smiled. Ron looked over at Kim as she slept in the seat next to his. Like him a couple layers of plaster, dirt, and whatever else they used to build lairs these days covered her. Stray red hairs stuck out of her ponytail like sparks from a campfire frozen in time. Her head had rolled from the back of her seat and now rested against his shoulder. A small wet spot on his shirt testified to a drooling issue he had always known and she had always denied.

No spotlight could compare to this, he knew.

Kim shivered slightly and pushed deeper into her seat. Ron looked at her, gauging how heavily she was in dreamland, and put his arm around her. A small happy sound escaped her throat and she nestled against him. Yeah, she was in a pretty deep sleep.

Ron listened to the rumbling of the plane. His watch now read three in the morning. It didn't look very good for any sleep at this point. Oh, well, he thought, that's what history class was for.

Surprisingly, though, Ron didn't feel tired anymore. He felt...happy. Far from home, on a plane that would make its landing only if the spit and bubblegum held, covered in things that frankly didn't smell so good, Ron was happy.

He glanced at Kim's sleeping form again and knew he wouldn't want to be anywhere else. The funny thing was, he realized, that Shego—and for that matter Kim—would never fully understand why.

Yeah, Ron Stoppable knew what love was.

End.