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Revelations of Destiny	By : Kellendros Category: Kim Possible > Threesomes/Moresomes Views: 63461 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I do not own Kim Possible, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 54
- 55
- 56
“Hey Kim, what’s up?” Wade greeted Kim with his usual cheer a moment after he appeared on screen. “I was planning on calling you after lunch.”

The final part of Wade’s greeting sidetracked Kim from her initial intention, causing her brow to furrow slightly as she asked; “Why, did you find something on Corscan?” Almost as an afterthought she added; “Or did something come in on the site?”

“Well, no, not precisely.” Wade’s expression fell, a reluctant hesitancy entering his tone. “I wasn’t able to find anything more on her exactly, but I did figure out how she was able to manipulate the data from the Summer Springs facility and, most likely, every other place it was as well.”

As Kim looked at him expectantly, Wade continued without having to be prompted.

“There’s an extremely advanced computer virus embedded in the data that activates whenever it’s copied or transferred. Just reading the code into buffers or active memory allows it to begin operating, and its sole function other than remaining hidden is to eliminate all traces of the data it was attached to—including itself once it’s done. The reason there’s no trace of the information on the hard drives even if you use precision magnetic tunneling scans on them is because the data never got to the drives; the virus prevented the transfer at the source, so to speak. After that, it broke itself down and scattered the fragments through the system buffers and active memory, blending in with all the other data fragment garbage. If it weren’t for all the redundant system backups on the Summer Springs computers, there wouldn’t have been enough bits of it left to identify, let alone reconstruct.”

“Anyway, now that that mystery is solved, I don’t think we’re going to be able find her anytime soon Kim—unless we get lucky that is. The only way left to get more information—assuming there even is any more information out there to be found—is to use data mining, and even if I start with the most likely sources, that’s a lot of information to collate and process—years’ worth.” Wade paused for a second, then, with a hint of self-satisfaction, added; “Well, years for anyone who didn’t have my skills and systems anyway.” Wade sobered, his tone serious once more; “Even so, I’m going to have to use my good system for this, and it’s going to take some time—a few weeks at least, if not months.” The young boy’s gaze was deeply apologetic. “Sorry, but that’s the best I can do without my own supercomputer Kim; you can only process data so fast, even on my good system.”

Across the table, Kim could see Shego nodding slightly in agreement, having heard the same thing from the various computer hackers and data specialists she’d hired. Despite that minor distraction and her disappointment over the news, along with the greater distraction of her reservations over telling Wade about Shego still looming in the back of her mind, for a moment, just for a moment, Kim almost thought Wade’s reluctant manner seemed to be something more than it was.

It’s almost as if… Kim shook her head, dismissing the thought. Naaah, it can’t be; I’m just imagining things…

“All right Wade, I understand. You’ve already done more than anyone else could have; it’s not your fault there’s nothing there to be found. We’ll just have to be patient and hope we get lucky then.” Kim gave a soft, resigned sigh. “Anyway, the reason I called was I have to tell you a few things.” Wade looked at Kim expectantly while taking a drink from a nearby can of pop, and the redhead continued; “First, I’m in Italy right now, and I’m pretty sure I’m going to be here for the rest of the summer unless something unexpected happens.” Kim looked across the table at Shego while she spoke, the faint smile on her lips infecting the other woman as well, curling her mouth despite trying to resist it.

“Really?” Wade’s expression was somewhat surprised and equally curious. “Well, I was planning on asking you why were there, since I know Ron’s still in Middleton and nothing involving Italy has come in on the site recently. What’s up Kim? Why are you going to be in Italy for the summer?” Wade’s expression shifted to a wry grin as he couldn’t help but add; “Don’t tell me you got admitted to a cooking school too?”

Fortunately for Wade, Kim was too preoccupied with how he was going to take what she was about to reveal to take exception with the teasing.

“Well, I told my parents I was offered a spot in a cultural studies program, but… that’s not the real reason I’m here.” Kim sighed reluctantly while Wade looked on expectantly. “This is probably going to freak you out and be a little hard to understand Wade, but I’m here because something really unexpected came up recently—I mean, besides what’s going on with Corscan. Something I’ll be the first to admit is a fiercely freaky ten on the weird-o-meter, but something I’ve decided I want to explore, see where it leads. So, that’s why I’m here, to try and work it out.”

Across from Kim, Shego’s grin twisted into an amused smirk, though she certainly didn’t disagree with the way Kim had labeled the situation; the sentiment pretty much echoed her own confused acceptance of what the two of them were dealing with.

“Oh come on Kim… I don’t know what it is, but after everything that’s been going on with you lately do you really think anything could throw me anymore? I mean seriously, there’s no way you’ll ever be able to top the shock value of telling me about you and Corscan.” Wade gave a self-assured grin before taking another drink of his pop.

“Oh I don’t know, I think this has a pretty good chance Wade…” Kim’s voice was high and light with nervous cheer as she slid her left arm out to the side, twisting the Kimmunicator so that the camera lens could take in most of the room, including Shego sitting across from her.

Wade jerked up for a split second before hunching over, choking on his pop not quite bad enough to spew it over his precious equipment, but certainly enough to send him into a brief coughing fit. After setting the pop can down once he’d recovered somewhat, for the second time in his life Wade found himself asking; “Is that Shego in your kitchen?”

“Well ahhh… actually… it’s more like I’m in her kitchen Wade.” Across from Kim, Shego smirked as she greeted Wade with an irreverent; “Hey nerdlinger, how’s it hanging?”

“But… how… why…” Wade’s eyes were practically bugging out of his head as he gaped at the image displayed on the screen before him. “I mean… you can’t… you don’t mean… with Shego?”

Shego snorted. “Yeah, I can really see why you keep him around. He’s real quick on the uptake there.”

“Shego,” Kim’s tone was warning, “cut him some slack. It’s not like you reacted any better when you found out.”

Shego’s eyes widened in surprise—as well as no small measure of apprehension—and she decided that it just might be a good idea to back off a little, given she’d really rather not have an angry Kim bringing up things she didn’t want anyone other than the two of them knowing about.

Turning her attention back to Wade, Kim said; “And yes Wade, I do mean… well, something anyway. There’s something going on between Shego and me… maybe has been for a while now, but we only really noticed after a few… things, happened recently. Or maybe it was more like we already knew, but it took that to make us accept it…” Kim shook her head in frustration. “See? It’s complicated; I’m not even sure what the sitch is and I’ve been dealing with it for a while now. The point is, however it happened, however crazy it might seem, there’s something between us now,” Kim looked up at Shego, “both of us, and we both want to try and figure out what that is, and what it means, so that’s why we’re here, to do that.”

Between the brief respite, his remarkable mind, and the fact that given all the other bizarre situations involving Kim he’d dealt with over the years, what she’d just told him wasn’t particularly that extraordinary—shocking and highly improbable, yes, but for Kim Possible, not exactly atypical as things went—Wade was already starting to recover his equilibrium.

“So then… you and Shego are…” Wade scratched the back of his head, “what? Dating?” Wade swallowed nervously. “Or ahhh… more, than that?”

“Well, first of all, that is none of your business Wade,” Kim responded in a stern, no-nonsense tone before continuing in a more normal one, “and second, well… sort of. I guess. Close enough that you could call it that anyway.”

“Sorry.” Wade looked suitably chastised for a few silent moments before rallying his courage and looking up again. “Ok, so, you and Shego… not exactly something I ever thought I’d be saying.” Wade tugged at the collar of his t-shirt nervously. “It’s just that… do you really think that’s… wise? I mean this is Shego we’re talking about.” Wade shifted his attention to Shego for a moment, adding; “No offense intended, but just a couple of months ago you and Kim were fighting tooth and nail in the Bermuda Triangle club and you are still a super villain, right?”

“Damn straight…” Shego’s black-painted lips twisted in a wicked grin as she enigmatically added; “and we were fighting tooth and nail a whole lot less than a few months ago.”

Kim ignored Shego’s banter, focusing on Wade as she answered; “I’m aware of all of that, believe me. There’s no one who understands that better than me Wade, which is why I said it’s complicated, and why I came here to work all of that out, along with a whole lot of other things too. But I am here Wade; I wouldn’t be if I didn’t think it was worth trying, now would I?”

Wade sighed deeply and then nodded reluctantly. “All right Kim, I guess you know what you’re doing, however crazy it seems. There is one thing though,” Wade looked up with a resolute gaze, “if you want me on board with this, I want something in return.”

Kim’s eyes widened in surprise as Wade’s demand noticeably threw her, and her incredulous tone was high as she asked; “Really? What?”

“A level three full-body scan along with blood and hair samples if you please.” Wade crossed his arms with a surprisingly uncompromising air for a twelve-year-old.

“You can’t be serious…” This time Kim’s tone was dryly exasperated and her eyes narrow. It didn’t help that across the table from her, Shego was laughing and grinning broadly with genuine mirth.

“Oh he’s got you there Princess.” Shego giggled some more. “You can’t argue with that logic.” Shego sobered somewhat as she shifted her attention to Wade, though her tone was still light as she said; “Though you’re damn lucky I think this whole thing is just as screwy as you do nerdlinger, or you’d be in real trouble having the stones to insult me like that.”

“Hey, like you said, you can’t argue with the logic, and you are who you are Shego. Not to mention Drakken’s tried mind control schemes twice now, including the most recent plot we put him away for. The fact that we still don’t have a clue as to what he’s currently working on doesn’t exactly help either.”

Shego gave a single snort, shaking her head and dryly muttering; “You’re not the only ones…”

Kim just shook her head, not quite glaring at Wade, but certainly not happy with him either. “It’s not too flattering for me either Wade.”

Wade looked at Kim placidly, back to his usual self once more. “You’ve been under mind-influencing effects three times before Kim, so it’s not like it’s without precedent. For that matter, so has Shego. I really don’t see how wanting to make sure neither of you are under the influence of anything is insulting when I’m willing to accept what you’ve told me otherwise.”

“I guess…” Kim conceded reluctantly, while across from her, Shego sat up sharply, demanding; “Hey wait a minute! What’d’ya mean ‘neither of you’? I’m not part of this little deal.”

“If you don’t want me calling every law enforcement agency I can think of along with Kim’s parents you are.” Wade responded without hesitation. “As far as I’m concerned you being under the influence of something is just as bad as if Kim is—maybe even worse.”

“Oh yeah? And how do you figure that?” Shego snapped, glowering.

“Well, aside from the fact that I wouldn’t even want to be on the same continent as whoever was crazy enough to mess with you like that, I really don’t want Kim finding out whatever ends up going on between the two of you wasn’t real and then having to deal with that when I can test for it now.”

“Thanks Wade.” Kim said with a soft smile, unable to resist being touched by the sentiment, however it was delivered. Across from her, Shego was equally at a loss in her own way, grumbling; “Yeah, well… I guess.” A moment later she shook her head sharply. “Anyway, you don’t have to worry about me; I already got myself checked out, all right? So you just deal with Kimmie here and leave me out of it.”

Kim looked up at Shego, meeting her gaze with a peculiar look in her big fern-green eyes. After a moment Shego gave her an irritated look in return, saying; “Yeah, like you wouldn’t have done the same thing if it happened to you.”

Kim’s demeanor shifted to rueful, and she nodded a moment later, a hint of an embarrassed smile on her lips. Meanwhile, a thoroughly mystified Wade didn’t even try to follow the enigmatic exchange, instead addressing Shego. “Be that as it may, I’d still prefer to run my own tests to make sure nothing was overlooked.”

Shego gave a sharp laugh. “Nothing was overlooked nerdlinger, unless you seriously think you’re better than DNAmy when it comes biochemical analysis.”

“Oh, well… I guess in that case it’s ok.” Wade wasn’t paranoid enough to suggest DNAmy might be responsible for messing with their heads. He knew the bio-geneticist was certifiable, and she might be twisted enough to be inspired to create some sort of “love potion” or something like that to make the world a “nicer” place, but even if she had, using it on Kim and Shego would make no sense whatsoever.

Kim, on the other hand, had an entirely different reaction, gruffly accusing; “Wait, you’re the one that broke DNAmy out of prison a few weeks ago? Well thanks a lot; like I didn’t have enough problems already…”

“And again, you would have done the exact same thing in my shoes.” Shego responded with dry, unapologetic composure.

Kim shook her head and gave an annoyed grunt, but didn’t push the matter any further. Eventually she calmed down enough to turn her attention back to Wade, who was studiously ignoring the whole exchange, apparently concentrating on a side monitor instead.

“Well? Let’s get this over with already.” Kim grumbled brusquely.

“All right, you know what to do then.” Wade replied, setting up the scans on his system with a flurry of lightning fast typing across two keyboards.

Shego looked on with detached interest as Kim used the Kimmunicator to perform a slow, thorough sensor scan of herself from head to toe—a scan that was still much quicker than the one she’d had earlier thanks to the device’s advanced technology and programming. After that she winced for a moment as she pulled out a few hairs and then carefully laid them onto the Kimmunicator’s sample slide. Once that was done, all that was left was a hiss of pain as she jabbed the ball of her thumb for the blood sample Wade wanted.

“There, are you satisfied now?” Kim asked testily while sucking on her thumb to stop the bleeding.

Wade waited until the molecular scans were complete and checked for errors before nodding. “As long as I don’t find anything strange in these scans, yep. And if I do, well…”

“If you do you won’t be the only one that wants to know what the hell is going on.” Kim responded irritably, before adding with absolute surety; “But you won’t…”

Shaking her head, Kim threw off her mood to a degree, calming somewhat.

“Anyway, now that that’s over with, I’m trusting you to keep this to yourself Wade. The only other person in the world that knows what’s going on with Shego and me is Monique, and I want to keep it that way until I decide otherwise.”

Across from her, Shego’s eyes widened in genuine surprise as the pale beauty was taken completely off guard by the wholly unexpected news, amazed that Kim had actually told one of her friends about them before now—though she didn’t have a clue who “Monique” was. Meanwhile, Wade was having a somewhat parallel reaction, though for wholly different reasons.

“You mean you haven’t told Ron yet?”

“Of course I haven’t told Ron yet; he could barely understand why I was dating Josh Mankey—and even though it’s probably my imagination, he didn’t seem to be all that happy with Corscan either. Can you imagine what his reaction would be if he found out about this? He’d go into major meltdown worse than he’s ever gone before, and frankly, I don’t need to be dealing with that on top of all the other problems I’ve got right now. I want to figure this out on my own, for myself first. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I want to tell him—at least, if it weren’t for that—but it’s not like I need to tell him; we both know exactly how he’d react and what he’d say…”

“Well, I suppose…” Wade paused, considering—or perhaps, weighing the merits of continuing—then asked; “But if that’s true, why are you telling me? And for that matter, why did you tell Monique?”

“C’mon Wade, you know I’m telling you because I have to.” Kim gave a wry smile. “With you coordinating everything I do and calling in whenever something comes up, it would only be a matter of time before either I slipped up or you just figured it out on your own.” Kim snorted dryly. “And given the way you just reacted, it’s a pretty good thing I did, or you’d have Global Justice raiding the place as we speak in order to ‘rescue’ me.” Kim smirked. “I really don’t think Shego would appreciate so many uninvited guests dropping by unannounced.”

“Damn straight…” Shego muttered quietly in the background.

“Well, there is that.” Wade replied with a hint of smug satisfaction over the not-so-veiled compliment. “But that still doesn’t explain Monique.”

Kim sighed. “I didn’t tell Monique on purpose Wade, it just sort of came out along with everything else a few months ago. Believe me, if I could have kept it to myself, I would have. But at the time, well… let’s just say the way the sitch went down with her, I really didn’t have any other choice.”

Wade nodded, accepting Kim’s admittedly cryptic explanation without prying further. “All right Kim, I can’t say I’m that happy about it, but I won’t tell Ron anything if I can help it. It’s not like this is the first time we’ve kept things from him I suppose…” Wade ventured a halfhearted smile.

“Thanks Wade.” Kim resisted the urge to mutter; or that the two of you have kept things from me either. “Now that that’s dealt with, I need one more thing as soon as you can do it.” As Wade looked on attentively, Kim continued; “I need you to make some Kimmunicators for my parents and Monique—not full versions like mine and Ron’s though. You can leave out all the scanners and other stuff if you want; all I need them to do is receive signals from our units and be able to have information like pictures and text transferred to them. I don’t want them to be able to call our Kimmunicators directly either; I still want you to have to relay the signals through your systems just like you do now with phone calls, all right?”

“Ok, can do Kim. I should be able to get that done in just a few days.” Wade said confidently. Without all the extensive remote scanners and concealed micro-robotic technology, a Kimmunicator was essentially nothing more than an encrypted videophone, and he could build that in his sleep. With one hand tied behind his back. He wouldn’t even need to use the experimental Trilithium batteries to power them.

As a hesitant afterthought, Kim added; “If it’s not too much trouble, I guess you’d better make a pair for Ron’s parents too. With him going to Paris for so long I’m sure they’ll appreciate them.”

“All right, but it’ll take me a little bit longer to do so many. Since Ron’s not leaving for a few more days, I’ll do the other ones first, and then do theirs last, ok?”

“Please and thank you.” Kim agreed readily. After a moment she added; “And thanks for everything Wade, I really appreciate it.”

Wade gave a sheepish grin at the praise, responding; “No problem Kim.”

“Well, unless something comes up, I guess I’ll hear from you in a few days then.”

Wade just managed to get out; “Ok Kim, I’ll talk to you later.” before Shego interrupted. “Hang on a minute there you two.” Both Wade and Kim turned their attention to Shego, equally puzzled by the unexpected interjection. “Gimme that thing for a minute.”

Kim raised an eyebrow as Shego held out her right hand and flicked her curling middle fingers in an insistent gesture. After a few moments she silently acquiesced to the demand, handing over the Kimmunicator with only a hint of wariness.

Wade gazed at Shego with a raised eyebrow of his own while the pale woman looked down intently at the device in her hands, softly muttering; “Ok, now how do you work this thing?”

“Is there something I can help you with Shego?” Wade couldn’t believe he’d just said what he dryly said.

“Help me help you help me maybe,” Shego’s distracted, confusing, enigmatic statement only remained so for a few moments before she finally figured out the Kimmunicator’s simplistic controls and turned her attention to Wade instead of the device, elaborating; “Kimmie forgot to mention that I’ve been helping her track down her girlfriend for my own reasons, and to that end I put together my own team of diggers along with a freelance hacker I’ve used before.” Shego paused for a moment, then continued. “Now I’m all for double-checking things to make sure nothing slips through the cracks, but there’s only so much redundancy I’m willing to pay for, either in time or cash, so I figure it’s better to put you in contact with them so you can all coordinate your efforts in one big techno-geekfest, right?”

“I guess.” Wade responded warily.

“Exactly. So, here’s the contact addresses, encryption keys, and verification codes for the data-grunts…” Shego quickly input the information and sent it to Wade, “annnnd here’s the clean operating account I’m using to pay them, along with the access code for it, so I don’t have to deal with being Ms. Middleman if you need them to do something I haven’t told them to do.” Again Shego transferred the information as soon as she’d double-checked it to make sure it was correct. “As for Neon Spyder, here’s the double-blind address he gave me, but you’ll have to handle him on your own if you use it nerdlinger, however you compugeeks compare your digital dicks with one another, because he’s not interested in ‘working well with others’ no matter how much I pay him.”

Wade’s eyebrows rose noticeably at that name. “Neon Spyder? He’s good. In my league actually… Not quite as good as I am,” he stated matter-of-factly, “but close. I should be able to work something out with him, though I can’t say for sure.”

“Whatever, just so long as I don’t have to referee I really don’t care.” Shego said dismissively, handing the Kimmunicator back to Kim.

“Thanks Shego.” Kim said with gratitude as she took the device back from her, though Shego didn’t acknowledge the appreciation one way or the other. Turning her attention to the Kimmunicator, Kim asked; “Anything else you need Wade?”

“Nope, that’s everything Kim. I’ll give you a call once I’ve sorted all this stuff out.” Just as he finished, for the second time that day Wade found himself breaking into a sudden coughing fit, as he’d made the mistake of taking a drink while glancing up to check the readout on the operating account Shego had given him access to.

“Are you ok?” Kim asked with concern before adding; “Is something wrong?”

“No, no… nothing like that… just went down the wrong pipe.” Wade wheezed, deciding it probably wasn’t the best idea to tell Kim that Shego had seemingly casually turned over control of close to three-quarters of a million dollars to him. Continuing in a raw voice, he finished; “Anyway, like I said, I’ll talk to you in a few days unless something comes up, all right?”

“Ok, talk to you soon then.”

“Bye Kim.” Wade croaked before severing the connection and vanishing from the screen.

“Well, that went better than I expected.” Shego said as she watched Kim from across the table.

“Told you so.” Kim grinned back smugly as she put her Kimmunicator away.

Shego opened her mouth to respond, but before she could, a buzzer went off in the kitchen behind her. Closing her mouth without speaking, Shego got up and headed into the kitchen, summoning her power and twisting the energy to a jagged “hot” after she opened the oven door. Reaching inside, she pulled out the sheet of crispy, bubbling, golden-brown garlic fingers and quickly set them on the stovetop before her power could singe the edges of the dish, the energy harmlessly turning away the lesser heat of the searing metal from her hands as she did. Then she reached in again and moved the cast-iron pizza pan to the top rack before closing the door with her knee.

Grabbing a stainless steel spatula, Shego quickly made sure the garlic fingers weren’t stuck to the bottom of the sheet anywhere, then slid them onto the big cutting board next to the oven. Setting the spatula on top of the now empty sheet, she picked up a knife and forced her power down into the material before the heat could do any damage to it, then cut a single line down the center of the big rectangle of garlic fingers as quickly as she could, the cheese and bread hissing and crisping as the energized knife slid through it. After that she used equally rapid cuts to score the cheese along the join-lines of the individual “fingers.”

Once she was done, Shego set the knife to one side and then, with two deft moves and only a faint hiss of burning grease to show from the brief contact with her energized hands, neatly tossed the twin lines of garlic fingers onto a large tray. After that, she set the lid on the tray and moved her hands over it for a few moments, heating the metal so it wouldn’t leech as much heat from the food while keeping it warm.

When she was satisfied with the state of the tray, Shego released it and turned, flaring her power to “unbelievably hot” for a moment to make sure there was no grease residue left on her fingers—which would burn her for sure without her power protecting her—before dismissing the lime-green energy, dusting off her hands out of habit afterward. A second later she raised an eyebrow faintly as she noticed Kim was nowhere to be seen.

Wandering out into the dining room, Shego glanced to the left and found the subject of her search—such as it was. Kim was in the living room, all the way over by the far wall, her back to Shego as she inspected the wall of DVDs and CDs filling the shelves of the entertainment center around the huge television.

Shego padded forward softly on bare feet, curious about the redhead’s curiosity, only to be slightly disturbed when Kim turned and looked back over her shoulder for a moment just as Shego was rounding the couch, still over ten feet away. It wasn’t like she’d been trying to be particularly quiet, but she was usually naturally so, even without the advantage of bare feet on carpet.

“Having fun?” Shego asked wryly in order to cover being thrown, however little it was.

Kim quirked a hint of a smile and turned back to the CD collection. “You could say that.” After a long pause she continued; “MC Honey… Brittina…” Kim listed several other popular artists, “y’know, I have a lot of these albums.”

“What’s your point?” Shego growled dryly, sensing Kim’s sly smile even though she couldn’t see it.

“Oh, nothing…” Kim responded with serene nonchalance. “Though I’ve gotta say some things are surprising…”

“Oh yeah, like what?”

“Like all the Country for one…” Kim fired back in a dry tone that carried just a hint of distaste.

“Excuse me? All the County?” Shego objected stridently. “There’s some country. Some.”

“ ‘Some’ is still more than I expected…” Kim commented idly as she fingered a Shania Twain CD. “And no Classical either. For some reason I expected Classical…”

“I don’t do Classical.” Shego’s tone mimicked Kim’s earlier one regarding Country. A second later she clarified; “Well, most Classical anyway. I don’t do Opera either. Or Show Tunes. I like music with a good beat, something you want to move to.”

“Mmhm…” Kim acknowledged as she continued scanning Shego’s collection. A minute or so later she came across a series of titles that stood out from the others. After sliding a few out and examining them further, she asked; “And where exactly do these fit into that?”

Looking at one of the CDs, Kim’s brow furrowed in faint aversion and bewilderment as she studied the angled headshot of a slightly gaunt man with stringy black hair and inky black greasepaint covering his eye sockets and the area around them, with a sharply tapered line trailing down each cheek and up either side of his forehead. The most disturbing thing about the image wasn’t the shocking contrast between the whites of his eyes and the makeup however, but rather the small boa constrictor that was coiled around his neck once and then across the left side of his face, only to enter his wide-stretched mouth and then exit on the other side, where the lean wedge of the snake’s head was coiled back with its black forked tongue extended.

“Who or what is Alice Cooper?” Kim asked skeptically.

“Hey, hey, hey, don’t mess with those; you’ll get them out of order.” Shego chided as she hurried forward anxiously, taking the CDs from Kim and carefully returning them to the rack exactly as they’d been, the air of possessive reverence surrounding her fairly obvious to the redhead.

Kim snorted faintly and smirked. “Fangirl much are we?”

“So what if I am?” Shego snapped defensively, coloring slightly.

“No big, no big; don’t get all bent out of shape over it, just making an observation…” Kim soothed.

“Yeah right…” Shego muttered under her breath.

“So who is he then?”

Shego turned around and stared at Kim with an assessing gaze for a moment before skeptically questioning; “You seriously don’t know who Alice Cooper is? Really?”

“Not a clue.”

“Oh come on. I mean, ok, so you were probably born around the same time as his resurgence with Trash, ten years after his first heyday, but even so, he was the father of Shock Rock; he helped shape the sound and look of the entire Heavy Metal genre; you have to have heard something about him! School’s Out For Summer? He’s a freaking cultural icon; the man was on the Muppet Show for Christ’s sakes!”

“Ahhh… the Muppet Show? Was that anything like the Muppet Babies cartoon I used to watch when I was a little kid?”

Shego groaned and pinched the bridge of her nose, shaking her head slightly before sighing and looking up, grudgingly conceding; “Ok, ok, dated reference, even for me, I can admit it… but seriously, how can you not know who Alice Cooper is?”

“Ummm, because I’m not into Heavy Metal for one. And for another, it’s way before my time don’t’cha think? For that matter isn’t it way before your time too?”

“Well, maybe for the earlier stuff, but I was around your age for the tail-end of the second wave in the early nineties, which was when I started getting into his stuff.”

“Oh no way you’re that old.” Kim shot back skeptically.

“Oh yeah? And just how old do you think I am?”

“I don’t know… twenty, twenty-one? Maybe twenty-two?”

Shego fought the pleased smile threatening to claim her lips. “Well you’re wrong Pumpkin; I’m twenty-four, so there.”

“Shego?” A faint, displeased scowl marred Kim’s features. “I’m nearly seventeen. Twenty-four does not make you my age in the early nineties.”

“Around. I said around.” At Kim’s exasperated look Shego added; “What? Thirteen is around sixteen; you’re not seventeen yet.”

Kim shook her head and rolled her eyes to the high ceiling. “All right, fine. So, how exactly does someone just going into junior high get into a ‘Shock Rocker’ who was old before they were even born?”

Shego paused, unexpectedly sobering, and then proceeded with an assumed nonchalance. “Well, it’s not hard actually. It was about a year after… the accident. New home, new school, new super powers… I was still on the hefty side and a lot smarter than most kids… not exactly like I was ever going to be accepted by anyone approaching the ‘normal’ crowd. So, I ended up slipping into the abnormal crowd. The really abnormal crowd.” Shego grinned irreverently as she added; “Though I can’t deny that part of the reason was probably because it drove Hego and Mego up the wall so much, for entirely different reasons. Hego couldn’t stand me not trying to fit in like I was supposed to, and Mego… heh, he just didn’t like anyone standing out more than he did, even as a freak.”

“So… you’re saying you were a Goth then?” Kim wasn’t completely sure Shego was implying what she thought she was implying, but it certainly sounded like that when taking the other clues into account.

“Right in one Princess.” Shego smirked. “I mean come on, seriously, between the hair and having the makeup built right in it’s not like I had much of a chance of being anything else.” Shego held up her hand and summoned her power, waving it back and forth gently and trailing wafting tendrils of lime-green energy. “The witchy powers were just icing on the cake.”

“So anyway, I had the nonconformist attitude down pretty good, but I never really bought into the whole ‘woe is me the world is a dark pit of despair’ emo crap. I mean don’t get me wrong, I knew that life was hardly fair and sure likes to kick you in the nuts a lot, but I was more into intellectual cynicism than being a whiny little bitch. Unfortunately, that didn’t leave me with much in the way of options when it came to music. It was Dreary Emo and the Gloomy Gustones or Seriously Sick and Twisted featuring the Go Kill Yourself orchestra. Either way nothing I could stomach.”

Shego smiled disdainfully, shaking her head at the memories.

“Anyway, one day I was looking at a Marilyn Manson CD and it reminded me of something I thought I saw in a box of stuff that used to belong to my parents, so I went home and dug through everything in the attic until I found a stack of old Alice Cooper CDs. I was kinda curious, so I gave one of them a listen and it wasn’t half bad.”

“I mean don’t get me wrong; he pretty much single-handedly started the whole occult creepy twisted deranged gimmick, and some of his stuff is pretty warped on the surface, but you could always tell that despite the twisted lyrics and how fucked up his stage shows were, it was all just for fun. On top of which, he had range; he went outside the macabre image and did a lot of songs that were more traditional rock, or ballads. Even when he was doing the morbid stuff he’d usually slip something in that was way deeper than you’d expect.”

“So there you go. The moral of the little tale of how Shego got into something that started over ten years before her time is: ‘good music is good music’, plain and simple. And for all the freaky flash, Alice Cooper’s music has always been really, really good underneath.”

Kim smiled faintly, amused by the unexpected normalcy of Shego venerating a rock star. However, before she could respond Shego spoke again, a peculiar mixture of whimsy and chagrin on her features.

“And now it’s your turn Princess.”

“Hunh?” Kim’s grunt echoed the confusion in her head.

“Ever since I got up this morning I’ve been telling you one thing after another—things only my family and the people I grew up with know about. I’ve told you more in one day than most people find out in years.” Shego raised her palms in a placating gesture. “Not that it doesn’t make sense. Me, my home, all this stuff lying around to bring up questions; perfectly understandable that you’re asking them… annnnd we did agree to be honest with one another—though I suppose I could just keep my mouth shut instead of actually answering you, but I’m not. Why? Don’t know, don’t care. The point is I am telling you, whereas you have told me precisely squat in return. Shego no likey one-way streets, so pony up some information Possible—preferably juicy.”

As Shego crossed her arms beneath her breasts and watched Kim with a firm, expectant look, the redhead blinked several times while processing the demand. After a few moments of silence she finally found her voice, speaking in an equally amused and incredulous tone.

“What? You want me to just blurt out a bunch of random intimate or embarrassing things about myself? You can’t be serious…”

“As a heart attack.”

“Shego, I’m not going to stand here reciting a bunch of secrets to you just because you feel that things have been a little one-sided today.”

“You are if you expect me to talk to you about anything else anytime soon. You just ask Drakken how good I am at ignoring what people are saying…”

Kim opened her mouth to retort and then paused, studying the familiar, stubborn gleam in the depths of Shego’s dark green eyes. Realizing that however ridiculous it was, the pale woman meant every word she was saying, Kim sighed and decided to try another tack.

“Well what do you want me to say? I mean you pretty much know everything anyway.” At Shego’s look Kim elaborated; “No, seriously. You know I’m Gay, you know about Corscan and my other… friends, and how I’m about as far from being a virgin as you can get without being a porn star or a hooker… hell, you are two of my biggest secrets, what with me being into you and moving here and all. Really, there isn’t that much left to tell.”

“It doesn’t have to be big earth shattering revelations—it’s not like most of mine were. I just want something to even the scales is all.”

Kim shook her head and sighed again. Shego obviously wasn’t going to let this go. After a few moments considering, Kim reluctantly decided to give in to the woman’s stubborn demand, however ludicrous she felt it was. After all, relationships are all about compromise… she thought to herself snidely before trying to come up with something to satisfy Shego.

“Ok, fine. I can’t believe I’m doing this but… I had to wear braces from when I was ten until I was fourteen—I got them off just a little before I met you for the first time actually—and… my very first kiss was with a boy named Walter Nelson, who… had braces too.”

“And the two of you got all locked up while you were locking lips?” Shego grinned in amusement, though not particularly cruelly.

“Yeah.” Kim colored ever so faintly and looked down at the floor for a moment. “Actually it was so bad Ron had to get his mom to drive us to the orthodontist.”

Shego gave a soft, nasal snort, her grin twisting to just shy of a smirk. “Heh, so your little friend was sidekicking for you even before you started doing the hero thing, eh? Well, at least you didn’t have to call your parents; count yourself lucky.”

“Yeah.” Kim looked up again. “So, you happy now?”

“Not by a long shot. Keep ‘em comin’ Princess.”

Kim felt her irritation spiking; this was not the way things like this were supposed to go. That irritation most definitely influenced her next choice as, with a faintly growling undertone and slightly narrowed eyes, she snapped; “All right, if that’s the way you want it; I really hate it when you call me that while we’re fighting.”

Shego actually looked somewhat taken aback by the aggravated declaration. “What? You really don’t like me calling you ‘Princess’?”

“No, I don’t like you putting that snide little ‘you’re-a-sheltered-little-over-privileged-brat-who-doesn’t-know-anything-about-the-real-world’ bite to it you sometimes do. Same goes for the dismissive twist you put on ‘Kimmie’ for that matter.”

“Well ahhh, in my own defense, it’s kinda my job to do whatever it takes to get you off our backs Kimmie, and you showing up to try and stop us doesn’t exactly put me in the best of moods either.”

“Hey, you’re the one that asked for anything that came to mind, not me. You don’t like what I come up with that’s just too bad; we can always stop whenever you want.”

“No, no, that’s fair. Annnnd I suppose if we end up on opposite sides of the field again I can try and rein in the attitude a little.” After an instant’s pause, Shego hastened to firmly clarify; “Not that I’m promising anything, just that I’ll try…”

Kim relaxed slightly as some of her simmering irritation dissipated with that unexpected and unsolicited concession from Shego. “Really?” the redhead asked, unable to keep the surprise completely out of her tone. At Shego’s nod Kim smiled softly, then, a few moments later, as the pale woman kept looking at her, raised an eyebrow and dryly inquired; “More?” At Shego’s second nod and slight smirk, Kim sighed resignedly.

“All right, let’s see…” Kim pondered for several moments, then offered; “Well, sometimes—just sometimes mind you, not often—I ahhh…” Kim’s voice dropped to a near mutter, “I fantasize about pounding the living crap out of Bonnie Rockwaller—and not just hitting her a few times; I mean really taking her apart until she’s a bloody mess they’d have to cart off to Intensive Care.”

“Whoa Kimmie,” Shego gave a wicked smile to go along with her low, impressed rumble, “I’m impressed. Looks like there’s some Bad Girl in there after all if you’re dreaming about maiming one of your helpless little schoolmates.”

“Bonnie is anything but ‘helpless’…” Kim muttered more to herself than Shego. A moment later she met the pale woman’s gaze as she continued more loudly; “And I’m not as much of a good girl as you think Shego.”

“Oh really?” A sable eyebrow rose to accompany the dry, skeptical tone.

“Yes, really.” As Shego continued staring at her with a look of dubious amusement, Kim felt her competitive instincts rising to the fore, the urge unexpectedly twisting in a particularly wicked direction, compelling her down a path she would have never considered otherwise. “I…”

Despite the instinct, Kim faltered. Notwithstanding her recently… broadened horizons, regarding certain things, what had been on the tip of her tongue was a deep, dark, dirty little secret she hadn’t told anyone. Not Corscan, certainly not Monique; not anyone. She wasn’t exactly ashamed of it per se, but given its origins and nature it certainly triggered that reaction when it came to talking about it. Still, as she continued to meet Shego’s amused, indolently challenging gaze, Kim found herself speaking again, unable to resist the driving impulse to rise to that provocation, her voice steady and eyes bright with resolution despite the hot crimson flush that involuntarily blossomed across her cheeks.

“I like taking it up the ass because I get off on how it makes me feel dirty when I’m doing it.”

As she stood there bouncing on her proverbial tiptoes with several radically differing emotions spiking through her in an erratic cascade, Kim wasn’t exactly sure what she was expecting in response to what was most likely an… imprudent, revelation on her part, but it certainly wasn’t what she got.

“Well… gotta admit, I certainly wasn’t expecting that.” Shego stated matter-of-factly with placid composure—though admittedly, there were a few seconds of dead silence and blinking beforehand.

Shego was only able to react as she did through a combination of half a lifetime’s experience dealing with ludicrous and shocking events—most notably and recently in the form of the day-to-day expositions and machinations of Drakken—an unexpected instinct that gave her a vague sense of forewarning as to the nature of what was coming, and a massive expenditure of willpower as she fought tooth-and-nail to avoid giving Kim the reaction she was sure the redhead expected from her—a reaction she came very close to having despite the aforementioned advantages.

Unfortunately, Kim didn’t have a clue as to any of that.

“That’s all you’ve got to say?” The words practically exploded from her.

Shego raised an eyebrow, hiding her humor—mostly—over turning the tables on Kim, and calmly replied; “I should say more why? So you like getting your ass reamed because it makes you feel like a naughty little girl, big deal. There’s about a gazillion other people out there into a whole lot more twisted shit for the exact same reason, and I bet if you ask anyone if they’ve ever been turned on by something that made them feel all dirty and degenerate, there’s a fifty-fifty chance they say yes. You’ll have to come up with something better than that if you want to impress me Pumpkin.”

“I— well— you—” Kim’s incoherent, faltering stammer and the high-pitched, aggravated huff that followed it stemmed from her overwhelming sense of frustration and astonishment over Shego’s mild-mannered demeanor—and, strangely enough, buried deep underneath all that, a very small, unexpected sense of… comfort, from the pale woman’s nonchalant acceptance of her admission—but mostly it was just boiling frustration.

Kim could—barely—handle losing a confrontation with Shego. She might not be happy with the result, but at least she could deal with it. This wholly unanticipated lack of conflict or negative reaction was something else entirely. Kim had expected an adverse reaction; wanted that reaction. Without it, she was left completely disarmed, with no way to resolve all the tension and pent up emotion that had arisen in anticipation of it—well, no way that didn’t turn her into a total bitch anyway.

Shego, on the other hand, had managed to recover from her covert astonishment quite nicely, and was now taking considerable and considerably smug satisfaction in having confounded Kim so completely. She really did enjoy getting the girl’s goat like this—especially since it happened so rarely, despite her regular attempts. Still, despite the indulgence, she supposed she really should give Kim a way out—for some strange reason it didn’t seem quite… fair, to her otherwise.

“Anyway, I think if you come up with one more that should put us about even—assuming it’s something a little bit better than that anyway.”

Shego fully expected Kim to pop her cork at being prodded for yet another divulgence—it wasn’t like she was unaware of the fact that her initial demand had been a little… well, demanding to begin with. Pushing the pent-up redhead for even more clearly took it to totally unreasonable and unacceptable levels by anyone’s standards, let alone Shego’s. That was why it took her completely off guard when the girl made a few inarticulate sounds and then sighed morosely—those honestly, it was really more of a growl than a sigh—before gruffly complying instead.

“All right, fine, whatever.” Kim shook her head in a fast, irked manner, making a little face as she did. Looking off to the side, she thought for a few moments, and then her demeanor suddenly shifted to self-conscious as something came to mind that caused her to blush even more than her previous confession had. After a brief pause, Kim mumbled something that Shego could barely make out, and certainly didn’t understand as anything more than a vague semblance of words—or at least, she thought they were.

“Ahhh, come again?” Shego wasn’t intentionally trying to goad Kim with the query, though if it had that effect she’d take it.

“I said I still sorta… collect… Cuddle Buddies.” Kim’s voice was—just—loud enough to make out this time. “Sometimes I ahhh… even need my Pandaroo to get to sleep.”

Shego gave a half-constricted sound that might have been a laugh—or a cat being strangled—before clamping down on her mirth—and her tongue, hard enough to make her eyes water. Even though she wanted to provide Kim with an opportunity to vent, Shego wasn’t so foolish as to believe laughing in the girl’s face over this was the way to do it. She needed something largely immaterial as the sticking point, which could be easily dismissed afterwards, not something so obviously part of the teenager’s identity—a part that she was apparently deeply embarrassed by as well. Besides, in all honesty, Shego didn’t think Kim collecting cute little stuffed animals was that funny. It had been the teen’s self-conscious demeanor that had sparked her laugh-reflex more than anything else.

Well, ok, maybe it’s a little funny. Shego thought to herself an instant later, prompting another painful clampdown on her tongue. It’s just so cute…

Tensing her stomach muscles and controlling her breathing, Shego bought herself the smallest scrap of time by carefully asking; “Y-you mean those little fad stuffed animals that— that went out of style a few years ago?” She only just barely managed to avoid mentioning DNAmy at the end. Reminding Kim about her again—especially in this context—would have been imprudent to say the least.

Not knowing Shego had endured an indirect double earful of Cuddler raving and Cuddle Buddy lore last year, when Drakken had pursued DNAmy for her genetic engineering expertise, Kim was so shocked the pale woman even knew what Cuddle Buddies were that she overlooked Shego’s ill-concealed mirth, instead nodding bashfully as her eyes widened slightly in surprise.

“Ok, well… I guess I can see how you wouldn’t want that advertised too much. They were kind of overly cutesy even when the craze was everywhere. Now that most people barely remember what they are you don’t even have that excuse. Plus, y’know, really out of fashion except for hardcore fans… makes it even worse.”

Shego couldn’t believe she managed to make it through that without a catch and with a mostly straight face. A moment later the sound of the oven timer going off drifted out from the kitchen, and she breathed a soft sigh of relief as she turned her head in the direction of the faint buzzing.

Oh thank god, saved by the bell, she thought gratefully before saying; “C’mon Kimmie, food’s ready, let’s go eat.”

“Soooo… what? You think it’s weird I still like Cuddle Buddies then?” Kim asked as they headed towards the kitchen, and Shego could tell the redhead was still a little wound up, so she decided to give the girl one last opportunity to vent before she gave up and left her to her own devices.

“Well, I won’t lie; it’s a little funny, but given that I’ve got a couple of collections of my own, one mostly just as pointless and the other just as embarrassing, I don’t really have much room to talk.” Shego’s smile twisted to a wry smirk. “What I do find amusing is that you told me about it after you told me you were an ass freak. That says something. Not sure what, but it says something…”

“I’m not an ‘ass freak’ Shego.” Kim growled with dry irritation.

Therrrre you go Pumpkin. Shego’s smirk twisted deeper. “Hey, nothing wrong with being an ass freak Kimmie.”

“I’m not an ‘ass freak’!” Kim all but shouted this time.

“All right, anal enthusiast then, or backdoor girl if you want.” Shego smiled as she passed through the dining room.

“I am not an ‘ass freak’ or an ‘anal enthusiast’ or a ‘backdoor girl’ or anything else goddamnit!” Kim shouted forcefully. “It’s just one thing I like out of a lot of stuff! One! And if you don’t drop it I’m going to end up dropping you, got it?”

Shego snorted softly and came to a stop a few steps into the kitchen, turning back to face Kim. “Ok, ok, but I want you to tell me one thing first,” Shego paused for a moment, one sable eyebrow rising slightly, “do you feel better now?”

“What? I— hunh?” a second later the realization finally hit her, and Kim’s eyes narrowed dangerously as she growled; “Tell me you did not just do what I think you did.”

“Answer the question first; do you feel better now?”

“I don’t—” Kim faltered, unable to resist assessing her current state of mind despite her annoyance. A moment later her brow furrowed a little and then her eyes widened slightly in surprise. “I… well, yeah. Maybe. A little…”

“Well, there you go then.” Shego turned and resumed heading for the oven. “Next time you’ll know better than to keep it in.”

“What? You want me angry with you? Because I can sure as hell tell you that’s what’s going to happen if you keep doing things like that.”

“You needed a push, so I gave you a push.” Shego stated calmly as she summoned her power while opening the oven door, twisting the energy to heat and then reaching in to retrieve the cast-iron skillet. “And what I want is for you to be yourself Pumpkin. If that means getting angry or arguing or whatever, then be angry and shout and argue all you want…”

“But, I don’t…” Kim’s voice dropped, growing hesitant and soft, “if we argue, then we might end up fighting.”

“Then we end up fighting.” Shego closed the oven door and moved over to the counter, where a large tray was waiting to receive the pizza she was carrying. After transferring the thick, golden-brown and reddish dish from the skillet to the tray, she set the cast-iron pan down on the stovetop just in time to hear Kim say; “But I don’t wanna fight you anymore.”

Turning to Kim, Shego dismissed her power and, in a soft, solemn tone, responded; “Look, Kimmie, if it happens it happens, and there’s nothing we can do to change it. It’ll suck, but y’know, that’s the way life is sometimes. The only other choice you have is to roll over and take it, because I’m sure as hell not going to change who I am—and I don’t think you can do that; it’s not in you.” Shego smiled warmly. “You and I, we’ve got… ‘strong personalities’ Princess, and they’re bound to clash from time to time, but we’re both big girls; we can take it, right?” Shego’s smile twisted to a smirk. “Might not like it, but we can take it; so just let it out…”

Kim couldn’t help smiling at the end of Shego’s little speech, raising an eyebrow wryly as she said; “What you mean is we’re both bitchy as hell when we wanna be, right?”

Shego snorted ever so faintly. “Meh; one man’s ‘bitch’ is another man’s ‘strong personality’. The point is, you need to be who you are Kimmie; otherwise this isn’t going to work, one way or another. I mean hey, you don’t see me acting any differently than I usually do, right?”

Kim’s eyebrow drifted up further. “Well actually, yes, yes I do.” Kim gave an irreverent grin at Shego’s look of surprise. “Not counting all the unexpected things involving your private life, that still leaves the fact that I don’t seem to recall you apologizing to anyone for anything; ever.”

Shego took a moment to process, then rolled her eyes and shot back; “Just because I don’t like apologizing doesn’t mean I can’t, and just because you’ve never seen me do it before is… really more a statement towards the company I keep than anything else.” Shego ended with a depreciative grin, turning back to the counter and picking up a pizza cutter.

“Oh really?” Kim’s tone was dryly amused as she walked over to watch Shego work.

“Hey, don’t get me wrong, I’m well aware I can be… difficult, at times.” Shego paused for a second before amending; “Ok, most of the time. Thing is, I just don’t care.” Shego grinned as she started slicing up the pizza with just a little difficulty due to its thickness. “If something ticks me off or I think someone’s being an idiot I’ll tell ‘em straight up; I don’t hold back. On the other hand, I can and do give compliments when someone deserves them, and I have—occasionally—apologized for jumping the gun with unwarranted harsh.”

“I guess so.” Kim’s statement was a straightforward acknowledgement, and the redhead smiled as she accepted Shego’s self-analysis—she certainly knew the first half was true, and as far as she could tell from the last few days, the other seemed to be as well, however little experience she’d had with it so far.

“Oh yeah. You should have seen me with Junior. Started out worse than Drakken. I lost track of how many times I was this close to ripping his lungs out.” Shego held up her left hand for a moment, her thumb and forefinger less than an inch apart. “But eventually, when he finally started to shape up and straighten out, we started to really get along—aside from his bouts of needy, narcissistic self-indulgence anyway. If it weren’t for the old man’s jealousy we’d probably still be working together; kid’s got talent—when he doesn’t have his head up his ass anyway.”

“Junior?”

Kim’s query was more a declaration of shocked disbelief than an actual question, but Shego answered it all the same as she put down the pizza cutter and moved over to the stove.

“Hey, took me by surprise too.” Shego picked up a ladle and dipped it into the pot she’d made the donair sauce in, stirring it around a few times, and Kim handed her one of two deep metal bowls without being asked. “But Junior’s actually got some serious talent. I mean, don’t get me wrong, he’s still got years to go before he’s in our league, but he could be.” Shego sighed as she finished filling the bowl with sauce and set it down, taking the other one offered by Kim. “Too bad it’ll never happen. The old man is going to screw his head up about villainy just as bad as he did about life in general.” Shego gave a wry grin and soft snort as she turned to Kim for a moment. “Bad news for villainy, but good news for you hero types at least.”

Kim just shook her head faintly, still amazed that Shego thought Junior was remotely competent, let alone had the potential to be in their league.

A few moments later Shego finished filling the second bowl, and then she and Kim brought all the food into the dining room, pausing only to collect a big glass of milk for Kim and orange punch for Shego. In no time at all the pair were sitting down at the table, with Shego removing the cover to the tray holding the garlic fingers and setting it aside a moment later.

“Heh… ‘finger food’.” Kim grinned as she watched Shego split a line of garlic fingers in half with her hands before putting both pieces on her plate.

“Ugh, don’t… please, not with the puns.” Shego groaned as Kim followed her lead, breaking the remaining line of garlic fingers in two and placing the halves on her own plate.

There was a brief period of silence as the pair concentrated on quickly separating all the warm lengths of cheesy crust from one another. Then, after dunking a thick garlic finger in her sauce and just before biting off well over half the coated end, Kim said; “So, you collect something embarrassing, do you?”

“Geh…” Shego rolled her eyes and gave her head a little shake, “must you remember everything I say?”

Unfortunately, the pale woman’s complaint was lost in the simultaneous, much louder near-moan of delight Kim gave when she got her first taste of the crispy garlic finger she’d bitten into, the tangy-sweet sauce a complimenting counterpoint to the salty mozzarella and savory garlic flavoring the inner chewy-soft bread.

One of Shego’s eyebrows drifted higher, and she gave Kim a look of mildly amused, dry assessment. “Ennnnjoying yourself are we?” she asked wryly a moment later.

Kim grinned and nodded, chewing contentedly for several seconds before swallowing and replying; “This is great! You can actually taste everything besides just the garlic, and the sauce is so smooth—not gritty or chunky like from Pizza Hut.” Kim dipped the remaining piece of garlic finger in sauce and then popped it into her mouth immediately afterward.

Shego snorted, her lips twisting in a wry smile. “That would be because it isn’t months old and wasn’t in a freezer until this morning.” She took a bite of her own food, chewing and swallowing before stating more than asking; “I take it you don’t get much in the way of stuff like this very often? Homemade I mean…”

Kim shook her head. “No, not really. My mom’s more into ahhh… traditional? food. Y’know, ‘American’ food like meat and potatoes, casseroles, that kind of thing. Though she does make pasta and lasagna too. But nothing like this.”

Shego nodded, and the pair sat and ate in quiet enjoyment for a while before Kim finally prompted; “So, you were saying about your collection?”

The older woman sighed, her hopes of the subject having slipped Kim’s mind dashed.

“All right, all right… I like action movies, ok? B action movies. Especially the older stuff like Mad Max, the Ninja series, anything with Van Damn, Segal, Dolph Lundgren, Cynthia Rothrock, or Bolo Yeung in it, the early stuff from Schwarzenegger and Stallone… those kinds of movies.”

Kim raised an eyebrow, recognizing a few of the names, but not many. “You have got to be kidding me. You like to collect bad movies?”

“They’re not bad, they’re just… not… good.” Shego floundered awkwardly, her cheeks coloring slightly. “I don’t know why I like them, I just do.” This time her tone was petulant. “I guess it’s just nice to be able to put your brain in neutral, sit back, and enjoy the ride. They might not blow your mind, but on the flip side, for what they are they usually deliver every time too.”

Though she was still able to pay attention to it, Kim was far more interested in the fact that Shego was actually blushing slightly than her explanation. It was just so remarkable to see the usually predominantly self-assured Shego… well, so very not, that she couldn’t help but fixate on it.

Heh… she’s kinda cute when she’s all self-conscious like this. Kim thought to herself with a mental grin—she knew better than to let that smile touch her actual lips. Even so, faint traces of it curled her mouth as she said; “I can see where you wouldn’t want that getting around, but it’s not nearly as bad as me and Cuddle Buddies, sorry.”

“Oh I don’t think so.” Shego shot back. “At least you’re a teenager collecting cute fuzzy little critters that just happen to be out of style now, but weren’t at one time. Only thing embarrassing there is it’s a bit cutesy for your age and you’re behind the times. I have taste,” Shego swept her right hand in a vague arc, taking in the décor of the room around them, “I know that B movies have never been in style, except for, y’know… geeks who like B movies.” Shego colored again. “Believe me, out of the two of us, you’re the one in the better position.”

Kim raised an eyebrow and smiled in faint amusement. “How ‘bout: separate but equal?”

Shego blinked for a second, then smiled, nodding her concession—though not without a hint of reluctance.

Returning to their meal, the pair found themselves talking about movies—mainly from Kim’s curiosity about Shego’s tastes, which, aside from her… peculiarity, regarding B Action movies, were actually fairly similar to Kim’s own, though they did differ in a few key places. Mainly fantasy and science fiction, which Kim didn’t care for and Shego didn’t mind as long as they didn’t get too ‘technical’, and legal drama, which tended to put Shego to sleep. Both agreed that they’d rather beat their heads against a brick wall than be subjected to brain-dead schlock comedies like Soul Plane and Dude, Where’s My Car?

The lone serious pause came near the beginning, when Kim took her first bite of the gooey, heavily topping-laden deep-dish pizza, prompting a similar reaction to the garlic fingers. Otherwise, the two women talked through supper and then the subsequent cleanup afterwards. It was only once they finished rinsing off the last tray and putting it in the dishwasher that Shego abruptly changed the subject.

“All right Kimmie, I guess it’s time for a little good news bad news—well, more or less.”

“Hunh? What do you mean?”

“Well, the good news is, I don’t mind having to do most of the work keeping you from starving to death while you’re here. Bad news is, if I am, then I expect you to go on a full diet plan, just like me.”

“Ummm, diet plan?”

“Yes, diet plan. I wasn’t kidding when I said I was the only reason my brothers and I ate decently, and part of that was because I studied up on food and diet—a lot. Only reason I’m not a fully registered dietician is because I have precisely zero desire to clock the nine hundred hours of internship with an accredited program.”

“Really?” Kim was considerably surprised.

“Yes really; got a nice online Bachelor’s degree and everything.”

“Wow.” This time Kim’s surprise was competing with her being suitably impressed.

“What? You think you’re the only one who can keep up her education while going off on little adventures?”

“No, no, it just seems so… normal is all.” Kim grinned. “I mean, I could see an electronics degree, or security systems design or something like that,” Kim’s grin twisted even further, “maybe some kind of Henchco Master’s Degree in advanced stealth ninja studies…”

Shego gave a half-stifled snort and fought her smile with little success. A moment later she gave her head a little shake and said; “Anyway, like I was saying, I follow a diet plan—or at least, I used to before I started slacking off. Monday through Friday everything you eat is planned out to the ounce, calculated to give you the exact nutrition you need for your height, weight, and body type. You eat nothing off the plan, nothing extra, no exceptions. Saturday and Sunday are free days; eat whatever you want—within reason, obviously.”

“I don’t know… I guess I could give it a try. It doesn’t sound that bad…” Kim hazarded unenthusiastically.

“I’m serious Pumpkin. As long as you’re here and I’m cooking for you that’s the way it’s going to be. No cheating, no slacking, and especially none of that processed fast food crap you and your little chum scarf down nearly every day. Otherwise you can go into town and buy yourself a few dozen frozen entrées to live off of, got it?”

Kim considered seriously for several long moments—mostly consisting of recalling how good the food had been today and then weighing the odds Shego would sacrifice flavor on a regulated diet—before nodding decisively. “All right, I guess that’s fair, since you will be doing most of the cooking. I’m in.”

“Good. I’ll work out a plan for you tomorrow morning sometime. Speaking of which, that brings us to the second point I want to address. I assume you’re going to want to keep up with your training while you’re here?”

“Ummm, well, yeah. I mean you’ve got that great big futuristic gym and all.” Kim grinned.

“Ok. Well, unless we wanna waste a lot of time every morning waiting on one another, I’m thinking we could do it together—assuming that’s all right with you.”

Kim’s smile shifted to one of challenging interest. “Sure, we can do that. If you really want…”

Shego raised an eyebrow. “And why wouldn’t I?”

“Might get a little frustrating for you is all—you know, having to play keep up.” Kim grinned smugly.

“Hey, as I recall correctly you were the one that conceded to me just last week on the dance floor, not the other way around!” Shego groused.

“We weren’t fighting on the dance floor,” Kim countered with a confidant smile, “and just because you can outlast me doesn’t mean you can outperform me in the short term.”

“Yeah well, we’ll see.” Shego half-growled, then she shook her head and continued in a mostly normal tone; “Which brings me to my last point; for the next week or two, we’ll need to get up around sunrise if we’re going to be working out, because I sure as hell won’t feel like doing it after getting back from a day of sightseeing, and we can’t afford to lose half the morning if we’re going out and about like we did today. You ok with that?”

“Yeah, I think I can manage.” Kim responded with a sly grin and upbeat tone. A second later her expression sobered to thoughtful and she asked; “Errr, when is that exactly?”

Shego cocked her head slightly, looking off in the distance for a moment, then answered; “Should be a little after five o’clock this time of year, though we’ll say six for tomorrow if that’s ok with you, since we’re just getting into it and we’re not going anywhere.”

“We’re not?”

“Well, I’m not anyway; too much stuff to do. Introduce you to the staff, give them a rundown of what I need done over the next few weeks… I’m supposed to contact Big Daddy Brotherson and see what he’s come up with too…” Shego gave a deep sigh, “and most importantly, I’ve got to go through my closet and check everything I own to see if I can still wear it, which will pretty much take up the whole day.”

“Oh, well, I can help with that.” Kim offered agreeably before pausing, realizing her casual assumption, then shyly amended; “That is, if you want me to…”

“No, no, go right ahead.” Shego hastily accepted, briefly raising her palms toward Kim in an open gesture as she did, grateful for any assistance that would make the onerous task easier. “The more the merrier.”

“Ok then.”

“So, ah, I guess that’s everything then.” Shego concluded, suddenly at a loss for words. After a few moments of silence she glanced at the clock and then grumbled; “Humh. Nearly ten o’clock. Great. I’m not tired yet.” Turning back to Kim, she asked; “You wanna watch something for a little while, or are you off to bed?”

“Sure, I’ll be up for a while yet no matter what.”

Shego nodded, and the pair walked out into the living room. While Shego paused to turn off the lights behind them and then turn on the ones in the living room, Kim kept going, making her way over to the entertainment center just as the subdued overhead lighting illuminated the room warmly.

While Shego hunted for the master remote to the room, Kim looked over the large collection of DVDs that filled the majority of the shelves in front of her. After a moment she asked; “So how is this organized? And where’s your collection anyway?” A second later she gave a faint smirk as she added; “Or is all of this it?”

Triumphantly seizing the remote in her right hand, Shego looked up and grumbled; “No it’s not all of that. I’ve got a collection, not a problem.” Shego straightened and walked over to Kim. “Ok, first of all, each section is in alphabetical order. Top row is action adventure stuff from all genres.” Shego gestured to a long shelf running the entire length of the unit. “Then over here we’ve got dramas and thrillers,” Shego pointed to the strip of narrow shelves on the left side of the TV, “with a little horror on the bottom. These two sections down here,” Shego indicated slightly less than half of the first length of shelves running along the bottom of the unit, “are romance and comedy, and the rest…” Shego gave a soft sigh, “that would be my collection.”

Kim grinned as she took note that Shego’s B movie collection was close to being as big as all her other DVDs put together. As Kim squatted down to look at titles, Shego turned on the TV while heading back to the couch, not particularly interested in hovering over Kim while the teenager perused her collection—though as she flipped through the channel list, she found herself distracted by Kim after all.

Shego still hadn’t managed to find anything worth watching when, a few minutes later, Kim looked over her shoulder and said; “Ahhh, Shego? I think you’ve got something out of place here.” Kim looked at the DVD in her hands again. “This really doesn’t look like it belongs in romance.”

Shego sat up, a faintly concerned, puzzled look on her face as she asked; “What is it?”

“Some old movie called Best of the Best. I think it goes in your action movies… not sure which ones though.” Kim concluded with a grin.

Shego’s expression relaxed as she sat back again. “No, that’s where it’s supposed to be.”

“Really? Wow, I never would have guessed by the cover.” Kim was considerably surprised.

“Wait, you’ve never seen Best of the Best?” There was an intent look on Shego’s face as she sat up again when the realization finally hit her.

“Nope. Never even heard of it before.”

“Oh come on, I know you’re young, but how could you not have even heard of Best of the Best before?”

Kim looked at the case in her hand and then flipped it over, squinting at the fine print on the back. A moment later she dryly responded; “Shego, this came out a year after I was born.”

“Not an answer but still, TV, rental? Nothing? Never?”

“Not a one. Like I said, never even heard of it.”

“Ooh ooh, then put it in, put it in!” Shego encouraged eagerly. “You’ve got to see it! It’s one of the all-time best movies ever made!”

“No pun intended I hope…” Kim murmured to herself with a smile as she stood up. In a louder, slightly skeptical voice she said; “All right, if you say so.”

“You’ll see.” Shego responded with a knowing smile and assured tone as Kim moved over to the DVD player and put the movie in.

An hour and thirty minutes later Kim was pulling another double handful of Kleenex from the box on the coffee table, blowing her nose loudly, and then adding them to the ball of used ones she already had.

“W-why did you m-make me watch that?” Kim hiccupped plaintively.

“I know, ain’t it great?” Shego replied, a slight catch in her voice and surreptitiously wiping the corners of her eyes despite the fact that this was around the twelfth time she’d watched the film.

Kim blinked her misty eyes a few times and gave a sniffle before petulantly responding; “And that was not a romance!” Kim paused for an instant, her tone conceding as she then continued; “But yeah, it was great.”

“Told ya.” Shego said with a satisfied smile, getting up and heading for the DVD player. “And it was a romance…” Shego’s smile shifted to a sly grin, “in the… classical, sense of the word. Look it up if you don’t believe me.”

Kim just shook her head and blew her nose one last time while Shego popped the disk and put it back in the case. By the time the pale woman returned the movie to its proper place, turned off the TV, and made it back to the couch, Kim had regained her usual composure, with only slightly red-rimmed eyes to show for her previously emotional state.

As Kim got up from the couch, Shego gave a soft yawn, and the teen smiled as she inquired; “Tired now?”

“Gettin’ there.” Shego acknowledged—she really was feeling sleepy now that her supper had settled and she’d unwound from the day’s activities.

The pair quietly wandered out of the living room and headed upstairs at a sedate pace, with the only pause coming near the start, as Shego put the remote back in the control panel and turned out the lights before they left. It was only when they reached the door leading to Kim’s suite that the silence was broken.

“Well, thanks for the movie,” Kim paused, one hand resting on the door handle, an ironic smile curling her lips as she met Shego’s gaze with mischievous eyes, “even if it did make me cry.”

Shego gave a soft, amused exhalation, broke into a gentle smile, and cut her eyes down to the floor for a second. When she looked up again she said; “Yeah, sometimes the good ones do that. Glad you liked it. I’ll see you tomorrow morning, ok?”

“All right then…” Kim’s smile shifted to suggestive, “unless you wanna come in and we can make that first thing tomorrow morning… or I could go with you.”

Shego smirked. “I was wondering how long it would take before you started in with that.”

“Can’t blame a girl for trying.” Kim shot back with a wry grin.

“Sure I can.” Shego smiled playfully. For a second it seemed she was going to say something more, but then she turned and headed down the balcony instead. A few moments later a warm; “G’nite Kimmie.” floated back to Kim, and the redhead smiled to herself before pushing the door open and vanishing inside.

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A relatively short time later Shego had changed out of her clothes and was nearing the end of getting ready for bed. Looking at herself in the mirror as she went through the rote process of brushing out her thick mane, Shego’s mind wandered back over the events of the day.

Well, we actually managed to make it through an entire day without trying to kill one another; that’s a start at least. Shego started pulling the brush through her hair with abrupt, jerky little strokes. Yeah, no thanks to you…

So, what? I should behave like Drakken does when he’s with his mom? I don’t fucking think so! The brush paused in mid-stroke and Shego sighed softly. A second later it resumed its journey, once again in long, even strokes. No, I don’t think so. I can’t stop being who I am and I won’t be someone I’m not—and if that means it tanks then it tanks, but I gotta be me…

Yeah, and apparently ‘you’ is someone who can’t keep her goddamned mouth shut to save her fucking life. Seriously, what the fuck was with you today? Put a fucking cork in it already, don’t tell her every goddamned deep dark secret you fucking have on day one for Christ’s sakes! And the full security codes? Seriously? What the hell was that? She did not need full goddamn security access!

Shego gave another sigh, barely a heavy exhalation, and set her brush down on the dresser. Strictly speaking she was right, Kim had really only needed the code for the doors in order to use the house, but given all the serious problems that could have arisen without knowledge of, nor access to, the full security systems, the only conscientious thing to do was tell her about them and give her that access—and Shego was nothing if not conscientious when it came to perceiving and preventing those sorts of problems. It was a matter of competency for her, and ultimately, she couldn’t have handled it any other way, however prudent it might have been to do so. But that still didn’t explain the rest…

Standing up, Shego walked over to the bed and crawled in under the covers, curling up and getting comfortable. Within a few minutes, she started drifting off to sleep—unlike last night, her mind relaxed and quieted without the need for a distraction. This was because despite her conscious mind avoiding it, deep down she already knew the answer. For some unknown, inexplicable reason, however it had happened, she trusted Kim. It was just that simple. Consciously she might deny it, reject it, and, though she’d never admit it, even fear it a little, so that she shied away from thinking about it, in her heart she knew it was the truth.

In that truth, she slept soundly, a faint smile on her lips as consciousness left her to her coming dreams…

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Kim trembled as she stretched all of her lean, naked, muscular body up toward the distant ceiling on tiptoes before falling back onto her sturdy bed. Sighing briefly, the redhead stared at that same far-out-of-reach ceiling for several long minutes before giving up trying to relax. There were just too many things buzzing through her head—and that wasn’t even taking into account she was still adjusting to the time difference. A moment later her abs contracted and rippled rock-hard as she rolled up off the bed and went over to one of her dressers to put on some pajamas.

Once she was decent, Kim picked up her Kimmunicator, called up the direct line to Ron, and hit connect. She wasn’t too surprised when her friend answered mere moments later.

“Hey, KP!” Ron’s enthusiasm came through loud and clear in both his tone and eager smile. “I thought about calling you a few times today, but what with the time difference and all I didn’t want to risk it. So, what’s up? How is it over there?” As Ron finished, Rufus scampered up his arm and perched on his shoulder, giving a wave and a toothy grin.

“Hey, sorry I didn’t call sooner.” Kim answered with an apologetic smile. “By the time I got settled in I had to go to bed in order to get up on time, and with the time difference we were out doing stuff way before you even got up this morning.”

“That’s ok. So, how is it?”

“Pretty cool Ron.” Kim grinned. “You wouldn’t believe all the awesome things I got to see today.”

“Never mind that; how’s the food and accommodations? They got you crammed in a little room with three other people eating cafeteria food or what?”

Kim snorted and shook her head in gentle, amused chagrin. “No, I don’t think you can say that…” Kim grinned as she turned the Kimmunicator in a slow pan around the bedroom. Ron gave a low, impressed whistle long before she finished, and she heard an appreciative “Ho-ho, nice” from Rufus as well. “And so far the food has been incredible.” Kim went on to give the details of breakfast, lunch, and dinner to Ron.

“Wow that’s awesome! I just hope I get half as good when I head over.”

Rufus nodded as well, his whiskers fanned enthusiastically as he mimicked his owner’s sentiments from his perch on Ron’s shoulder.

“So do you know when you’re leaving yet?”

“Yeah, first thing tomorrow morning.” Ron sighed, his enthusiasm dampened by the prospect of having to get up so early. A moment later he rallied. “Still, it’s going to be great, jet lag notwithstanding.”

Kim nodded, and then suddenly recalled her earlier instructions to Wade. “Oh, by the way, I told Wade to make a limited Kimmunicator for both your parents so you could keep in touch with them. You can call them directly whenever you want, but they’ll still have to go through Wade to get a hold of you.”

“Really? Thanks Kim.” Ron looked thoughtful for a moment, then asked; “Ahhh, what’re the time differences going to be again? I want to program them in so I don’t forget…”

It only took a moment before Kim answered; “Well, once you get over here, we’ll be on the same time, and there’s an eight-hour time difference between here and Middleton. When it’s eight at night here, it’s noon in Middleton.”

Ron looked down at the Kimmunicator, distracted as he input the information, then looked up again with a smile. “Got it.”

“So, anything interesting happen since I’ve been gone?”

“Not really.” Ron paused, a sly grin creeping across his features. “Actually, there was one thing.” On his shoulder, Rufus glanced at Ron for a moment, curiously puzzled as he studied the blonde’s face, then grinned evilly and nodded as he turned back to Kim, realizing what his owner was talking about.

Kim had been angling for and expecting information regarding Ron and Zita, having assumed the two would have gotten together again now that Ron was back from Florida—all the more so knowing he was leaving tomorrow—but, curious now herself, she prompted; “What?”

“Only that I happened to see something while I was at the mall today that you would have killed to be there for.” Ron replied smugly. Equal parts growing frustration and excitement played across Kim’s features, but just before she could yet again verbally prod him, Ron quickly spoke up once more. “I saw Bonnie blow her stack higher than Krakatoa—over you no less.”

“What?” Kim was surprised to say the least, but Ron simply grinned more broadly.

“Oh yeah. She and the rest of the squad were at Club Banana along with Brick and Eric when I dropped in to say hi to Monique, and she made the mistake of… ahem, ‘asking’ where you were, so to speak. Before I could figure out an… appropriate, response, Monique jumped right in with the full details of how you were going to be spending the whole summer in Europe—man you should have seen her face! It was like that time I thought I’d found out what was in the mystery meat! And it got even worse when I mentioned that I was going to Paris for a month too!”

Kim broke into a wicked grin that matched Ron’s.

“That wasn’t even the best part though—well, ok, it was pretty good watching Bonnie’s brain melt down and her sputter along as Monique fired a few more shots into her, but this was definitely the icing on the cake. Brick got the idea to try and back her up by mouthing off about you like he’s been doing, and Eric lays into him and Bonnie with some serious burns; it was like he was some sort of insult machine or something—a few of them were so smooth it took everyone a few seconds to really get them, but ma-a-a-a-n, once they did…”

Ron gave a gleefully evil laugh while, on his shoulder, Rufus nodded enthusiastically and gave a wicked, toothy grin at the recollection.

“Anyway, by the time Brick caught up, he was just fuming—seriously, I think I saw some purple mixed in with the red on his face. So he goes after Eric, but Eric just ducks and weaves and avoids, right? Like how you said that Hirotaka guy did way back when Brick went after him. Anyway, long story short, Brick gets hauled away by mall cops, with Bonnie following along behind laying into him now for being such an idiot, and he gets stuck with a three-month ban—that’s the whole summer!”

By this time Kim was laughing so hard she was nearly on the verge of tears. She could just see it all so clearly in her head. Eventually she managed to get a hold of herself enough that she could speak again.

“Oh, t-that’s just awesome! I so would h-have loved to have seen that.”

“Told ya.” Ron grinned.

Kim chuckled and grinned back. After a few moments she sobered, remembering her initial intent. “As great as that is Ron, and it is really great, I was thinking more about you and Zita. Didn’t you see her now that you’re back?”

“Oh, yeah.” Ron and Rufus seemed to sober as well. “That’s why I was at the mall; we got together for lunch.”

“And?” Kim prompted eagerly.

Ron sighed and Rufus’ whiskers drooped. “We decided it would be best to put things off until I got back.”

“What? You broke up? Why? I thought you two were doing really good…” Kim was equally concerned and confused.

Ron gave a single amused, depreciative grunt. “I wouldn’t exactly say we ‘broke up’, since we’ve only been on four dates—and that’s if you count the ‘accidate’ and that crazy Everlot adventure way back around when I first met her.” Rufus nodded on his shoulder, and Ron gave a smile. “Besides, it’s not like we’re done, we just thought since I’m going to be gone for so long that we shouldn’t, y’know, commit to anything. It’s not really fair for either of us.”

Kim smiled a soft, bittersweet smile and nodded. “You’re a good guy Ron Stoppable, you know that?”

Ron looked away, embarrassed, and mumbled; “Nahh, g’wan…” When he looked back though, he was smiling, and he gratefully added; “Thanks KP.”

Both friends shared a quiet moment of understanding, and then, equally seeking a change of subject, began talking about Kim’s day. In no time at all Kim was regaling Ron with stories of all the interesting things she’d seen in Maratea, complete with visual aids after she sent him the pictures she’d taken.

Soon though, something began to slowly dampen Kim’s enjoyment. The more she talked about her adventures of the day, the more she found she wanted to talk about Shego as well—had even come close to slipping up and mentioning her a few times. But of course, she couldn’t do that.

Aside from the fact that she didn’t want to tell Ron about Shego until she had a better grasp of what exactly was going on between them, there was also what had happened between him and Zita earlier. Even if Ron had of known about Shego, she could hardly have gone on talking about her when Ron had just… well, not exactly ended a relationship, but close enough anyway.

Still, that didn’t change the fact that she wanted to talk about her, so, after about a half-hour or so, once she’d done all she could to distract Ron from the melancholy she was sure he was feeling, despite his trying to hide it, Kim found herself saying goodnight and then contacting Wade so he could patch her through to Monique’s cell phone.

“Hey-hey girlfriend; how’s things on the Italian coast there?” Monique answered on the fourth ring, and despite not being able to see her, Kim could tell she was smiling broadly from the tone of her voice.

“Pretty good Mo, pretty good.”

“Yeah I’m sure they are.” Monique shot back with mock dry envy, and Kim giggled briefly. “So, anything up with you girl? Because boyyyy have I got something juicy for you on my end…”

Kim gave a wry smirk. “Lemme guess; the little dustup you Ron and Eric had with Bonnie and Brick this afternoon?”

“Awww damn! Tell me Mo was not scooped by the Stoppable Times!” Monique groused sharply, only to sigh lustily a moment later, already knowing the answer. “An’ here I was hoping to be the one to tell you…”

“Sorry Monique, Ron beat you to it. Still, it must have been awesome; wish I could have been there to see it.”

“Yeah, it was pretty sweet all right.” Monique broke into a full laugh for a moment, followed by a long string of chuckling over the recent memory, so infectious that Kim found herself chuckling as well, once more imagining Bonnie’s comeuppance in her mind’s eye.

Eventually the two friends sobered, and Monique asked; “So, seriously, how is it over there?”

“Well, I guess I could tell you if you want, but if you can just wait a few days until Wade finishes your Kimmunicator and gets it to you, I’ll be able to show you instead.”

“Aw hell no girl; you know how much I hate to wait on stuff when I don’t have to! Now spill with the details!” Monique demanded eagerly.

Kim snorted softly, grinned, and complied with her friend’s request over the next ten minutes or so, briefly describing the layout of Shego’s mansion and all the cool things about it, prompting a quickly repetitive stream of amazed “no way,” “get out,” and “you’re kiddin’ me” from Monique. Then, over an even longer period of time, Kim touched on all the sights she’d seen traversing the Italian countryside, the brief side trip through Sperlonga, and sightseeing in Maratea. Eventually though, the conversation began to drift more and more towards a certain green-hued older woman than anything else.

“So I take it you two are getting along then?”

“Yeah, I guess you could say that.” Kim ventured hesitantly.

“You guess? Either you are or you aren’t girlfriend.”

“Well, it’s not like we’re killing each other or anything, but it isn’t exactly what I’d call smooth either. I mean, she’s still Shego and all… at least, sort of.”

“Sort of?” Kim could tell by the familiar dry tone that Monique had one eyebrow raised.

“Yeah, sort of. It’s hard to explain, but she’s not exactly what I expected—not that I really knew what to expect I suppose, but still, it wasn’t this. I mean, she’s still Shego, but at the same time really, really not… It’s like… I don’t know, it’s like she’s some kind of bizarro cross between Bonnie and my mom…”

“What?”

“Well not exactly, but that’s the easiest way to describe it.” Kim went on to detail all the ways that Shego wasn’t quite the Shego she’d expected, along with all the ways she was certainly living up to those expectations.

“So, what? You want her to be some badass super villain bitch all the time then?”

“No!”

“Then you were expecting her go all one-eighty and become some lovey-dovey, giggly little sugar bunny?”

“ ‘Sugar bunny’?” Kim’s tone was bone dry. “And no, not really.”

“Well then what’s the problem? Sounds like you’re just finding out there’s more to her than you thought—which… there’d pretty much have to be, given most people have a whole lot more going on with them than you see while they’re working.”

Kim sighed. “I guess.”

“So what’s really bugging you then?”

Kim took a deep breath and let it out slowly before telling Monique about the… exchange, between her and Shego just before supper—leaving out a considerable amount of the specifics she’d revealed to Shego however, along with generalizing the things Shego had told her earlier in the day that had prompted it. After all, if she wasn’t going to spill her own secrets, she could hardly blab Shego’s—not to mention the fact that she’d rather not have to deal with Shego’s reaction if she ever found out.

“Well, I can see how that could get you all tweaked, but hey, it worked out well in the end, right? So what are you complaining about?”

“Excuse me? How exactly do you see that as working out well?” Kim’s voice was bluntly incredulous.

“Ahhhh, excuse you?” Monique’s attitude carried clearly through the speaker. “Girl tells you she wants you to be yourself and stand up to her if that’s what it means and you don’t see that as a good thing? Would you rather she get all huffy, uppity bitch like Bonnie does when someone calls her on her BS? Expectin’ y’all to just roll over and take it like a good little footstool?”

“Well no, but—”

“But nothin’ girlfrien’!” Monique paused for a moment, calming somewhat. “An’ on top ‘a which, you seem to have missed the other point too—though it isn’t nearly as obvious, so I can give you a pass seein’ as how it went down.”

“Other point? What are you talking about?”

“Did it ever occur to you think about why she started all that?”

“Ummm, she told me why Mo; to even the scales.” Kim replied with dry exasperation.

“No, that’s what she said it was; I’m talking about the motivation for it—because you’ve gotta admit, no one with an ounce of common sense would think that’s the way things usually work, and everything you’ve ever told me about Shego says the girl is most definitely not, lacking in that department.”

Kim was silent for several long moments, suddenly thoughtful over Monique’s question and the allusion there was something more to Shego’s actions that she was missing. Eventually she gave up though, unable to puzzle out what that could be.

“Sorry Mo, maybe I’m tired, or maybe I just can’t see it, but either way I don’t know…”

“Mmmmhmmm… well let’s try this then; way back when you went out with Josh for the first time, you told him about the hotdog thing, right? Now, how do you think you’d have felt if you somehow found yourself telling him about your Pandaroo and the rest of your collection, that thing with your mom calling you Bubble Butt, the nose picking, and all the stuff you told Shego tonight as well? Hmmm?”

“Ah, I don’t know… really, really embarrassed?”

“Well yeah, there’s that, but isn’t there something else you might be feeling after finding yourself suddenly blabbing all that stuff to someone?” Monique’s tone was heavily leading.

“No, not real—” Kim’s eyes widened in surprise as it suddenly clicked in her head and she got what Monique was alluding to. “You don’t mean? No way… you think she might have been freaked by it?”

“Girl be spillin’ all those secrets like that I can’t see how she wouldn’t be at least a little freaked, whether she realizes it or not. Now don’t get me wrong,” Monique hastened to add, “It is possible that it was what it was and she’s just a little weird like that, but if it isn’t, well, something to think about, right?”

“Yeah, guess so… wow…” Kim just couldn’t quite wrap her mind around the idea that Shego might have… panicked like that, even if it was just a little—or a lot, as the case might have been. She’d just naturally assumed it was a case of Shego being Shego—well, technically it was still a case of Shego being Shego, just not in a way Kim would have previously considered.

Kim spent several minutes lost in thought before coming back to herself as Monique finally spoke up again.

“So, things are looking good on those fronts, with you and your girl opening up a little, getting along and all—more or less anyway…” Monique’s voice shifted from dry at the end to smooth and suggestive as she continued; “How’re things goin’ otherwise? You gettin’ a little somethin’ somethin’ from Miss tall, spearmint, and sexy yet or what?”

Kim snorted, smiled faintly, and shook her head gently. “Not unless you count getting a hand up into a Piper Cub and seeing some bare feet as ‘somethin’ somethin’ ’, no.”

“Oh really?” Kim could tell Monique was grinning. “An’ why’s that? Your mojo not workin’ for ya? Little Miss ‘I can do anything’ having as much trouble getting her girl as… well, she usually does getting this girl?”

Kim snorted sharply and broke into a full grin at Monique’s teasing, dryly responding; “No, my ‘mojo’ is working fine thank you very much. I just haven’t been using it.” Kim gave a quick sigh. “Besides the fact that there wasn’t much in the way of opportunity today, what with everything we were doing and all, I want to give Shego a chance to make the first move—errr, next move… whatever.” Kim gave her head a single, sharp shake. “Anyway, she was the one that wanted to take it slow, so I figure I can wait and see.” Kim paused, then added; “But I gotta tell you, it ain’t easy.”

Monique chuckled deeply. “Havin’ a little trouble keeping it in our pants are we?”

“Yeah, you could say that…” Kim’s smile twisted sinfully for a moment before she sighed softly. “It’s just so hard to try and ignore it all when she’s right there next to me, so close I can smell her hair—it smells so nice Mo… and that soft, satiny skin… those deep green eyes… and her smile! When she smiles she’s just soooo pretty…” Kim sighed again, deeply this time.

“Oh yeah, you’ve got it bad girl…” Monique gave a soft laugh, and a moment later Kim added a like-minded chuckle of her own.

The friends kept talking for another twenty minutes or so, with Monique in turns teasing and encouraging as she was treated to a list of the many intriguing virtues of Shego by Kim, but eventually, despite her friend’s continued interest, Kim had to let her go. The redhead was getting tired to the point of yawning, and given she had to be up in a little over four hours, it was just common sense as well.

Kim crawled into bed immediately after ending the call, and it was only a matter of moments until she was out like a light, claimed by the oblivion of a deep sleep that quickly gave way to dreams that were anything but restful, though most definitely not troubling or disagreeable—indeed, not troubling nor disagreeable in the least…

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mount Davros, Alaska, several hours earlier…

“What? But… that’s not possible!” Drakken looked up at the image of Eric on the huge view screen before him, his face twisted with anxiety and confusion.

“I’m sorry father, but Monique was very specific with the details while taunting Bonnie, and Ron confirmed it as well. Kim Possible is going to be living in Italy for the rest of the summer, supposedly participating in a cultural studies program. She left yesterday afternoon.”

“Ron? Which one is Ron again?” Drakken muttered as he shot to his feet, beginning to pace rapidly.

“The sidekick?” Drakken was oblivious to the irritated undertone in Eric’s voice as the advanced Synthodrone reminded him who Ron was for the two-hundred-and-eighty-seventh time.

Drakken ignored Eric, lost in the depths of his twisting thoughts while he paced and muttered.

“Italy borders France… but why wouldn’t she just go there instead?” Drakken paused, still as a deer. “She knows! She has to know!” Another pause. “But she can’t know! If she did she’d be here now, or at the factories, or one of the corporate headquarters, or somewhere, doing what she always does and ruining my plans… but… she has to know something… why else would she be going to Italy, so close to where I sent the buffoon?”

Drakken fell to his knees, looking up and raising his arms to the heavens as he cried out; “Why does everything have to be so darn complicated? Is it really that much to ask for something to go the way it’s supposed to when I’m so very very close to achieving success? Really?”

Drakken dropped his hands to his head and dug his fingers into his hair, tugging at it and venting a tormented shout, but he quickly recovered his composure—more or less—and rose to his feet once more.

“No, no, she can’t know anything concrete. If she did, she’d be doing something more… annoying, for certain. At the very worst, she might have suspicions. At best, this is all just some sort of cosmic coincidence designed to torment me. Either way, it’s nothing that can prevent the fruition of my ingenious master plan so long as I’m careful.”

Looking up at the screen, Drakken addressed Eric directly once more.

“I want you to keep close to young Kimberly Ann’s remaining friends in Middleton; try and insinuate yourself into her family as best you can as well. You need to be alert for anything out of the ordinary, any signs that she knows more about my plans than she should. If you hear anything strange, notice anything unusual in the behavior of her friends and family, inform me at once, understand?”

“Very well father, it shall be as you command.” Eric responded faithfully before ending communications and disappearing from the screen.

Drakken returned to his padded chair, calling up multiple readouts and studying them for several long moments, his confidence and surety slowly returning as he did.

Nodding, he smiled grimly to himself. Production of the Diablos was in full swing, the advertising campaign was nearly finalized, and the retrofitting of all Bueno Nacho outlets to comply with the new kid-friendly format—as well as installing the control tower relays—was proceeding without incident. Everything aside from managing Kimberly Ann Possible was going smoothly and according to plan; there was no way he could fail this time.

Slowly, Drakken began to laugh. This time, he was going to win. The world was his for the taking; he was sure of it…
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Revelations of Destiny