Wednesday Afternoon – a quiet beach in Mexico
Shego let out a deep sigh of contentment as she felt the Mexican sun warm her back. She was exactly where she wanted to be: face down on the beach, drowsing slightly and soaking up enough solar energy to thoroughly kick a blue idiot’s ass the following day. She hadn’t been able to relax like this for quite a while, what with school and a bossy team leader to deal with, so it was a treat to be lying there doing nothing. She sighed again, ready to slip from drowsing into full-on nap when she felt movement on the sand beside her. She waited, and whoever it was promptly flopped herself beside her on the blanket. Knowing that Stoppable would never in a million years be that bold, she flipped over. “Hiya, Princess,” she mumbled, not even bothering to open her eyes.
“Hey Shego,” Kim answered. “Mind if I share your blanket?”
Shego cracked open one eye to see Kim settling herself more comfortably. “Yeah, like I have a choice,” she muttered. “And what will you do if I say ‘no’?” she challenged.
“Probably something like this,” Kim offered, her eyes growing wide and her lip creeping out into a puppy-dog pout.
“All right, all right,” Shego protested. “Put it away, Pink. You can stay.”
“Thanks!” Kim replied perkily and settled down on the blanket. Shego sighed and closed her eyes, hoping that Kimmie would just lie still and be quiet. But it was not to be, for just a few moments later, Kim broke the silence by asking a question. “Um, Shego?” she asked. “How long have you been out here?”
“Couple hours, I guess,” Shego mused. “Why?”
“Because you aren’t burned or the least bit darker,” Kim said. “I am so jealous. I can’t even eat lunch outside sometimes without burning.”
“Well, some of us got it and some of us don’t, Pumpkin,” Shego rejoined sleepily.
“Why do you wear a one piece suit?” Kim asked unexpectedly. “I mean, I’ve seen you in a two-piece evening gown, why not a two-piece bathing suit? Since I assume you don’t burn because your skin does something with the energy, it seems like you could absorb more energy with more skin showing.”
Shego’s eyes remained closed, but her mind snapped to full attention as it tried to process and translate Kim’s odd statement. After last night, Shego was fairly confident that something was brewing between her and Kimmie, but was Kimmie actually flirting? Or was she being her normal inquisitive self? Shego couldn’t decide, and so didn’t really know how to respond. “Um, I never really thought about it?” she answered tentatively, hoping that would work and give her some indication of the direction that Kimmie was taking this.
“Fair enough,” Kim said reasonably, and Shego breathed a sigh of relief. She expected Kim to ask another question, but Kim remained blessedly silent. They lapsed into companionable silence and Shego found herself beginning to doze off once again. She had almost dropped off completely when, once again, a charmingly annoying voice cut through the silence. “Hey Shego?” Kim piped up.
“What now, Princess?” Shego muttered exasperatedly.
“You were like seven when Mim and Sheila died, weren’t you?” Kim asked innocently.
Shego’s eyebrow rose as another oddball question came zooming out of the wild blue yonder. “Um, yeah, I was. Why?” she asked suspiciously, not liking that look of innocence.
“Well, I was wondering how a kid younger than seven could even understand some pretty detailed microbiology much less remember it fifteen years later,” Kim said, the look of innocence melting into a cheeky grin.
“Shit. Busted,” Shego thought. She looked at Kim, whose smile got wider and wider the longer she took to respond. “You are too damn smart for your own damn good, Pink,” she grumbled morosely. “Okay, so I admit it: I know more about microbiology than I should know for being an apathetic former villain,” she admitted. “But Nana Mim was right; I was fascinated by their lab when I was younger, and when I got to high school and took biology, I realized that I still liked it a lot. So, I have taken a few classes here and there. It doesn’t make me a nerd,” she concluded defensively.
“Well, maybe not,” Kim allowed, “but from what I see you are good at it. And as soon as I tell my parents you are good at it, you are headed for a four-year college and maybe even grad school,” Kim informed her.
“You wouldn’t,” Shego declared, then looked at Kim’s face. “Scratch that. You would.” Kim smiled and Shego glared at her. “Don’t get too smug, Pumpkin,” she warned. “Threats aside, I did catch you playing at the N-Bohrium. Looks like Cheerleader has a few secrets of her own.”
Kim blushed. “Maybe one or two,” she admitted with a self-effacing smile, knowing that one of those secrets had lured her out to the beach when she should have stayed inside the cabin with Ron. But she hadn’t and now she was out here, knowing why she was out there but doing an awful job of being out here. She could hardly believe she had actually suggested to Shego that she show more skin. She hadn’t meant it like that, and didn’t realize how it would sound until after it had come out of her mouth. Luckily for her, Shego gave one of her typical blasé responses and Kim figured she had escaped. Calling Shego on her I-remembered-this-from-way-back bluff had been intentional, however. Kim had done the math, and it didn’t make sense for a toddler to know so much about microbiology, lab in the basement or no. And she had gotten her answer, she thought proudly. But now silence hung between them, and after spending most of the last two nights discussing her feelings for Shego with both herself and her deceased confidante, she felt like she needed to fill it. Talking about what happened between them last night would fill the void quite nicely.
“So what’s the story with Mongkut?” Kim asked, figuring that was as logical as any place to start. “Was he your protection against the big, scary Mansion?”
Shego cracked a grin and sat up, obviously amused by the question and interested enough in it to give up any further lounging. “It was the opposite, actually,” she said, a wistful smirk on her face. “Mongkut was my protection against leaving the Mansion. When I was little, Nana Mim and Nana Sheila had a clouded leopard named Rama and he and I were best buds. He would follow me everywhere, he slept in my bed and basically together we got into as much trouble as we could. Well, anyway, Nana Mim and Nana Sheila knew I was going to miss him when I left for Chicago, so they had a stuffed animal version custom made for me and gave me Mongkut just before I left that summer. I have pretty much had him ever since.”
“Aunt Mim and Aunt Sheila let you play with a real, live leopard?” Kim asked, amazed and a little jealous.
“Yeah, pretty much,” Shego admitted. “And when I couldn’t have Rama, I had Mongkut.”
Kim thought about that for a moment. “And last night, you gave him to me,” she stated, her eyebrow quirking as she gazed at Shego
“Well, more liked loaned him to you,” Shego clarified hastily.
“Yeah, you are loaning him to me,” Kim said skeptically amused. “Just like you are ‘loaning’ me the amulet, which, as I have learned, was given to you by Aunt Mim, who told you could only give to someone who you loved very, very much.” Shego was stunned speechless; if what she was trying to say hadn’t been so important and serious, Kim would have been tempted to laugh at Shego’s expression. Instead, she scooted closer to Shego, who regained some of her composure but not all. When Shego did not back away, Kim inched closer and closer, testing the waters. Still Shego did not pull away, so Kim conjured up her courage, leaned forward, and kissed Shego softly on the lips.
Shego leaned into the kiss. She had seen it coming from at least four miles away, and she knew she should pull back, but the plain truth was she didn’t want to. She wanted to kiss Kimmie and she had wanted to since their first battle over the nano-tick. Kim’s lips were soft and sweet, and even after thinking about it for longer than Shego was comfortable admitting to, the kiss was better than she had anticipated. And with her body’s reaction, Shego knew she could throw whatever doubts she may have had that she wasn’t really attracted to Kimmie right out the window.
Kim, too, was realizing that her attraction to Shego was no longer in doubt, for though she had instigated the kiss, a few seconds in she knew she wasn’t really prepared for it. She thought she was; she had kissed Josh Mankey on several occasions and she and Ron kissed frequently. This was different though. Kissing Josh had never done much but make her proud that she was now old enough to be kissing a boy. Kissing Ron had moved past the pride, and when they kissed, she felt loved and secure. But kissing Shego was something altogether different and it made things happen in her mind and in her body that kissing Ron had never even come close to. This, Kim realized, was what being truly attracted to someone felt like. She wanted to do more than kiss, and it was a first for her.
The kiss was long and deep and even as they could feel it hastening toward its end, neither girl wanted it to. It was only after several long minutes that environmental awareness broke through and they realized that they were out in plain view doing something that could hurt a person that they both cared for. That thought caused them to slowly separate and they parted, Kim settling back on her heels as she looked at Shego sitting cross-legged before her.
Shego was the first to speak, and when the words came out, they were not what Kim had expected to hear. “Why did you do that, Princess?” Shego asked wistfully. “You have to know that it will do nothing but fuck everything up.”
Kim shrugged; she wasn’t sorry for what had just happened, even with Shego’s seeming disapproval. “I was curious,” she answered truthfully.
“Curious,” Shego repeated incredulously.
“Yeah, curious,” Kim confirmed. “I have heard from a few places that I was acting like I had a crush on you. After last night, I kinda had to start agreeing with them, and after the last five minutes, I know they were right. I do have a crush on you.”
Shego didn’t respond but just sat there, looking at Kim silently. She was warring with herself; a part of her wanted to believe Kimmie and wanted to believe that they had some sort of maybe potential future together. The other part, however, was calling on her to be practical, and that side, at least for the moment, won out. “You don’t have a crush on me, Pumpkin,” she sighed.
Kim saw the war going on behind Shego’s eyes and decided not to be angry with her for being so presumptive. “Why do you think so?” she asked gently.
“Because I’ve seen it before,” Shego stated flatly. “You think you have a crush on me, so we’ll date for a while, and then you’ll have the big, dramatic coming out party with your parents and with the public, at which point I will be forever memorialized as the girl who turned the great Kim Possible gay. Then, after about six months, you’ll decide that this is an experiment that you are tired of and you’ll end it, telling everyone that I tricked you into it somehow and that now you are going to come back to right side and bat for the het team.”
Kim looked at her, her mind clicking all of the puzzle pieces together in an instant the way minds in her family tended to do. Shego had probably thought of a scenario where the two of them were together and coupled that with memories of a previous bad relationship, causing her to shy away. Or at least that was Kim’s theory. So, armed with this theory, teenage hubris, and some really good advice she had gotten recently, she decided to speak her mind. “I like you a lot, Shego, and I really want to have a relationship with you,” she said honestly. “And while it may happen that some time in the way future we decide to split up, so be it; I don’t care about that right now. All I know is that there is this person that I cannot get out of my head, a person that I want to get to know better, and I want to see if maybe after a few movies, dinners and a dance or two, that person and I might decide that we like being with each other and we want to do more of it.”
“When did teenagers suddenly become the voice of reason?” Shego muttered. Kim overheard and smiled.
“When someone reminds them that they are just teenagers,” she replied, with a smile. “So, dinner, movie, me, you, Friday night?” she asked with an impish smile. “I would ask you for tomorrow, but we have a mission tomorrow.”
Shego smiled and against her better judgment said yes. “All right, Pumpkin,” she acquiesced. “Friday night sounds nice.”
Kim’s face lit up and she leaned forward, impulsively kissing Shego for the second time. Unable to stop herself, Shego kissed her back, only to pull back suddenly when a thought crossed her mind. “We can’t do Friday, Pink,” she said regretfully. “What about Stoppable?”
Kim didn’t answer immediately, but instead smiled at Shego with a touched expression. That was a weird reaction, Shego thought, somewhat alarmed. Seeing she was freaking Shego out, Kim explained. “I am not smiling at the thought of hurting Ron,” she clarified. “And this is all something that I will have to work out with him. What I am smiling at is that you brought him up. You really do care about him, don’t you, Shego?”
Shego grimaced. This was the third damn time that Kimmie had busted her in one damn conversation. First it was the nerd classes, then it was the amulet, and now it was Stoppable. She would have no evil reputation left by the time this damn thing was over.
Shego didn’t answer and Kim knew she had got her once again. She chuckled and deciding to be a real pain in the butt, retrieved her Kimmunicator from the back pocket of her shorts and flipped it on.
“What are you doing, Pumpkin?” Shego asked suspiciously.
“Calling Wade to update your bio on the website. We need to add a line or something telling everyone how nice you are nowadays,” Kim taunted.
“Hey Kim,” came Wade’s voice, and Shego decided to act.
“Gimme that thing,” she ordered Kim. Kim laughed. “I’m serious, Princess. Give it or you are going to regret it.”
“Do your best, Junior,” Kim challenged playfully, holding the Kimmunicator just beyond Shego’s reach. Shego growled and sprung up from her sitting position, intent on pouncing on Kim. Kim anticipated her move and rolled out of the way, causing Shego to flop ungracefully on the blanket. Kim chuckled uncharitably, further irritating Shego, who took a deep breath, settled her anger and her hormones down and went after Kim in a professional manner.
Shego’s tackle connected this time, sending Kim to the sand and knocking the Kimmunicator out of her hand. Shego gave a shout of triumph and dove after it. Kim grabbed her ankles and pulled her back into the fray. They grappled for a few minutes more until Shego finally broke Kim’s hold and made another lunge for the Kimmunicator. She succeeded this time, and not content with keeping it out of Kim’s reach, launched it skyward and sent a plasma blast after it, causing it to explode in midair. Satisfied and feeling smug, Shego put her hands behind her head and watched the little burning pieces fall to earth.
Kim watched them too, her mouth agape. She hadn’t actually expected for Shego to blow up the Kimmunicator. Take it from her, yes. Blow it up, no. Good thing she had a Plan B, though. She activated Shego’s wrist kimmunicator. “Hey Wade?” she inquired.
“Yeah, Kim?” Wade answered.
“I would start making two more wrist kimmunicators,” she informed him, noticing that Shego had realized that something was missing off her wrist. “Bye, Wade,” she signed off. “Missing something?” she teased, waving the kimmunicator she had surreptitiously removed while they were wrestling at Shego. Shego glared at her and Kim laughed once more, pocketing the kimmunicator before taking off at a dead run down the beach.
Shego gave chase. She wasn’t really pissed, but she had to at least pretend she was. Kim tried to fool her by stopping suddenly and flipping over her head, but Shego didn’t fall for it and the unnecessary move allowed Shego to catch up with Kim and tackle her to the ground. “This is mine,” she informed Kim, pulling her kimmunicator of Kim’s pocket. Kim struggled, but Shego’s grip was tight, and with Kim still pinned, Shego put her kimmunicator back on. She then leaned down until her face was mere centimeters away from Kimmie’s. “It looks like you lost this time, Princess,” she purred, a smug smirk firmly in place.
“Maybe,” Kim allowed sullenly before her own smug smile spread across her face. “I might have lost this battle, Junior, but I am winning the war,” she declared confidently.
“I wouldn’t be so sure, Pumpkin,” Shego warned her. “We might have a date for Friday night, but I have a few tricks up my sleeve.”
“Like what?” Kim goaded her, unable to resist.
“Like this,” Shego replied, crossing the minuscule distance between them and kissing Kim thoroughly on the lips. Kim responded in kind, and they stayed like that for a good while, blissfully unaware that they were being watched through the back porch window of the cabin.
Ron watched them from where he stood. He had been there for quite a while, the loud “BOOM!” of the Kimmunicator exploding having drawn him back here from the front room. He looked down at Rufus, who was also watching them from his usual pocket hideout. “‘Bout time they figured it out, right, Rufus?” he asked the mole rat as Rufus climbed on his shoulder.
“Uh-huh,” Rufus replied, nodding.
Ron knew he should be angry, or at the very least, upset, but in reality he wasn’t, for though he maintained a carefully constructed image as a buffoonish sidekick, he was actually quite smart and observant. He had known that what he was now seeing on the beach was going to happen sooner or later and he had been doing some reading up on the subject. He was a little sad, of course, but regardless of whether they were dating or not, Kim was his best friend, and all he really wanted was to see her happy. Although he would have preferred to be the one to make her happy, he had no problems relinquishing that to SG if that is what KP really wanted, especially since SG turned out to be a far cooler person than he thought she was. So, in his mind, there were really only a few things to do: 1) tell Kim that he still loved her and they were still best friends, 2) tell her that he was okay with her being gay and that he would stand by her, and 3) tell her that he was gonna tease her for a while about kissing Shego in broad daylight on the beach.
“So what do you say, Rufus? Should we go outside and tease them mercilessly?” he asked.
“Nuh-uh,” Rufus replied, shaking his head.
“Why not?” Ron asked, in disappointment.
“Dead!” Rufus exclaimed, raising his fist along the side of his neck and head in a noose-tightening imitation.
“Oh, they wouldn’t kill us,” Ron assured him. Rufus didn’t look convinced. “Okay. If they come toward us, we run,” Ron offered. Rufus thought it over.
“Okay,” he agreed and climbed back into Ron’s pocket. Ron quietly opened the back door and made his way down to the beach.