The telephone rang at almost ten minutes after 4:00 AM that Tuesday. The sleeping figure nearest to the bedside table rolled over and lifted the receiver from its cradle; the figure on the opposite side of the bed spun around, became entangled in the sheets, tried to sit up, failed, flopped twice, rolled over and promptly fell off of the mattress and down onto the carpeted floor.
“Hello? This is Kim Possible speaking…”
“… ow… son of a bitch…”
“Mom?” The voice on the line was shaking and slightly anxious.
“Kasy?” The redhead’s eyes, still matted with sleep, opened wide at the sound of her daughter’s voice. “Oh, is it time?”
“Time? Kimmie, we’ve got to go!” The entangled figure thrashed hopelessly. “Our baby needs us!” Kim looked down at the shadowed floor and regarded the trapped shape lovingly. She also looked to their window at the pale silvery glow in the pre-dawn sky.
“Shego, calm down. It’s Kasy… let me talk to her and get some details and then I’ll help you, Ok?” She placed her ear back to the receiver. “Sweetheart, are you still there?”
“Yes, Mom. Is Momma Ok?”
“Of course, she’s fine.” Kim grinned at the sound of ineffective motions behind her. “She’s a little tied up right now…”
“… oh, no you didn’t…”
“… but she’s knows that it’s you on the phone.” Kim forced herself to remain calm. “So, baby, what’s the sitch?” Kim listened as her child took a deep breath before answering.
“Well, the first real contractions seem to have started, so Anna and I are going to take Sheki to the hospital while Alexander stays here with the kids.”
“How is she?”
“WHAT? WHAT’S WRONG?”
“Shego, nothings wrong, now just lay there and be quiet!” Kim ignored the vulgar mumbles. “Kasy, how is your sister?”
“She’s fine, Mom.” The anxiety was replaced by humor. “You can tell Momma to relax!”
“Kasy says for me to tell you to relax.”
“Bullshit! Get me out of here unless you want these sheets incinerated”
“Whatever… Kasy?”
“Right… she’s Ok and I’ve called ahead so her doctor is already waiting for us to arrive. Alexander will feed the kids breakfast when they get up.” The sound of another breath was heard. “He’ll bring them over after a few hours and meet us there.”
“How are you doing, Kasy? Are you alright?”
“We’re having a baby! How do you think I’m doing?” The words were mixed with laughter and tears and a whole gamut of other emotions.
“Ooh, sweetheart, your Momma and I are so happy!” Kim felt warmth spread throughout her body and she unconsciously laid her free hand across her own belly, thinking of that day so long ago when she had felt the first stirrings of life within her, and how it had eventually yearned for release. “We’ll get awake over here…”
“NOW! WE HAVE TO GO NOW!”
“… and I’ll make your Momma presentable…”
“NOW! NOW! NOW!”
“… so that she DOESN’T SCARE THE CHILDREN…”
“…”
“… so look for us in about an hour and a half.”
“Ok, Mom.” The young woman on the other end of the phone sounded as giddy as she ever had when she’d been a child. “Oh, this is SO the drama! We’ve planned and waited for this for so long and now… it’s finally happening!”
“How about you relax, baby, and sneak a quick kiss to those sleeping grandchildren of ours!” Kim’s alarm had been set for 6:00 AM so she turned it off and swung her bare legs out of bed. “Give them a great big kiss from Nana…”
“And Grammie! Don’t forget an even bigger kiss from Grammie!”
“… and an even bigg…”
“I heard, Mom, I heard!” Kasy was laughing. “I’ll say goodbye for now and get some food out for Alex to make his job easier.” There was a moment of silence and the voice was much calmer when it returned to the phone. “I love you two so much.”
“We love you, too, baby.”
“See you at the hospital!”
“We’ll be there! Bye!” Kim waited for the sound of the connection being broken at the other end before hanging up her own telephone. She smiled and stood up from the bed to locate something to wear between her first cup of tea and her shower.
A very petite woman of forty-four years of age, Kimberly Ann Possible was just as lithe and slender as she had been as a girl, her weight never varying more than five pounds in either direction from her college graduation weight of 110 lbs. With toned and solid muscle lying across an agile frame, she was very fast and far stronger than she appeared to be. Her emerald eyes were large and bright and her animated features were quick with a smile or frown as the sitch called for it. She raised her hands to her head and ran her nimble fingers through her short red hair, still fiery in color with the barest hints of gray starting right at her temples; she refused to color or dye her hair because neither her mother nor her Nana had ever done so and they had always been, in her eyes, beautiful women, even Nana right up until her passing many years ago.
Turning on a table lamp and looking around the room, she was reminded of a trapped figure down in the shadows over the opposite edge of the bed. Shego was being unusually silent.
“Sweetheart?” There was no reply and Kim was compelled to walk around the bed to stare down at the wrapped body of her spouse. “Shego, what’s wrong?” She knelt down and looked into the large, damp eyes of the woman lying on the floor.
“Sheki’s going to be Ok, isn’t she?” There was a quavering in her voice. “Isn’t she?”
“She’s going to be fine. They’d both be fine.” Kim loosened a corner of the sheet and tugged, allowing Shego to squirm free.
The slender redhead helped Shego to her feet and the raven-haired woman immediately grabbed Kim up into her strong arms. Shego was much larger than her wife, taller and carrying more muscle, making her a statuesque beauty of erotic proportions. Her skin was almost dead white with pale green tones and her hair was long and midnight black with only two streaks of white strands to mark the passage of time. Her eyes also happened to be an identical emerald hue as Kim’s. Her curves were much more pronounced and voluptuous than those of her mate and she moved with both power and grace in equal measure.
“Ghaa! Put me down!”
“So?” Shego’s eyes were shining. “So, so, so?”
“Yep!” Kim let Shego twirl her around the room for a few seconds. “We’re having a baby!”
“BOOYAH!”
A joint shower and a quick breakfast later, the senior members of Team Possible were on the road and driving across town to Middleton General.
“And you wonder why the hot water bill is always so high?” Kim lounged in the passenger seat and smiled across at her partner of almost twenty-six years.
“Well, I just don’t understand how that could be, Kimmie.” Shego’s expression of concern was precious. “That’s why we share, isn’t it?”
“No, I believe that after all this time you still think that… if you try hard enough… you’ll succeed in knocking me up on your own.” Her eyes glazed over at the memories of just an hour ago. “And that your natural mating environment is in the water.”
“I resemble that remark!” Shego’s ‘pout’ ability had vastly improved over her years living with Kim. Her eyes never left the road as she navigated the streets of Middleton at speed, the vehicle keeping just below ‘book ‘em, Danno’ velocity.
“Do you think that Alexander will wear his birthday present from Sheki to the hospital?”
“Maybe. It makes him look like ‘Indiana Jones’.”
“Well, do you?”
“I’ll bet you ten bucks that he does.”
“You’re on, Possible.”
“No, you’re on, Possible!” Shego grinned for a moment before a question popped into her head. “So, are you still Ok with the name?”
“The name? Oh… yes. Yes, I am.”
“You’re sure? Because you seemed a little… you know… at first.”
“Awkweird?”
“Yeah, you could say that.”
“Well, I was. But no more than you, I’d bet. It’s not like it a bad name or anything. It just caught me off guard. Didn’t it you?”
“Doy. You can say that, too.” Shego glanced at her passenger. “So we’re both Ok with the name?”
“Yep.” Kim replayed in her mind the other activities of that morning, jump-started so early with the much-anticipated telephone call. The only reason that she had been able to make any time to eat a quick breakfast was because it had taken her a few minutes to make the necessary calls to her family, notifying them of the blessed event.
“Were you able to reach your folks?” Shego must have been reading her mind.
“Yes, and they’ll be there later in the morning.”
“Kim, you know that I would have liked to have your Mom in the delivery room.”
“Geez, of course I know, but she’s a brain surgeon, for the love of Mike!” Kim grinned and rolled her eyes; why did everyone want Dr. Mrs. P. present to oversee medical procedures for which she was not trained? “And a retired brain surgeon, to boot. What did she say when you asked her?”
“Something about ‘too many cooks’ and then it was ‘I don’ know nothing ‘bout birthin’ no babies’.”
“Told ‘ya.” Kim reached into her purse and fished out her Kimmunicator. “Let’s see if Wade was able to track down Doc Betty and Motor Ed yet.” She thumbed the activator and the characteristic chirping filled the vehicle as Shego idly sang to herself.
“… oh… yeaaahh yeah… I'm your basic average girl and I'm here to save the world…”
“Will you please cut that out?” Kim blushed and Shego gave her a serious nod of agreement, mouthing the words just below the level of audibility.
“… you can't stop me ‘cause I'm Kim-Poss-i-ble…” The tall woman even made a point to punctuate the verse by placing her finger to her lips.
“I’d sue the networks to stop running that goofy show if every rerun didn’t mean money in the bank for our grandchildren to go to college.” Kim wondered why she’d ever made that agreement with ‘the evil empire’ for a cartoon show about her life in the first place. Shego blithely ignored her and the singing became audible once again.
“… there is nothin’ I can't do… when danger comes just know that I am on my way…”
“Shush! He’ll hear you!” Kim composed herself in time for a dark brown face to appear on the miniature screen and a deeply sonorous voice spoke through the tiny speaker.
“Hey, Kim! Shego!”
“Hey, Wade!”
“Congratulations are in order, I hear!” From the timbre and tone of the voice, it was obvious that this was not the same shy, young boy that had been her close friend once upon a time. If anything, his friendship was stronger than ever and the small child had grown into an enormous giant of a man. Wade Load had long since left the security of his room at his families old home and made a life for himself as the premier data network and communications infrastructure consultant at Global Justice. The word around the water cooler was that if he ever decided to swing his training towards the executive division, he might achieve the status of the directorate some day.
“…doesn't matter where or when there's trouble… if you just call my name… ‘Kim Possible’…”
“Is that Shego I hear singing?”
“…call me, beep me… if you wanna reach me… when you wanna page me, it's okay…” Shego’s volume became considerably louder and she began to bounce happily around in her seat.
“Please ignore her.” Kim swatted the shoulder of her wife’s dark green jacket and scowled. “She just wants attention.”
“…whenever you need me baby… call me, beep me, if you wanna reach me…”
“Kim, did you know that I have all of the episodes on DVD? If you’d ever want to borrow them…”
“You never told me that you actually watched that show!”
“Hey, it’s a cute show!” His grin was enormous. “Who did you think coined the term ‘KiRon’?”
“… doesn't matter where, doesn't matter when…”
“Shego, stop!”
“… I will be there with you ‘till the very end…” His rich voice harmonized perfectly with that of the pale green woman.
“Geez, Wade, not you, too?” Kim had no further recourse than to lean back in her seat and cover her face, the skin hot against her fingers, as two of her most trusted companions in the world brought their song home at full volume. “Shit! You two are so dead!”
“…DANGER OR TROUBLE, I’M THERE ON THE DOUBLE… YOU KNOW THAT YOU CAN ALWAYS CALL… KIM POSSIBLE…” Shego howled with laughter and pounded a tattoo on the steering wheel as Wade’s voice called up to Kim from the plastic housing of the Kimmunicator.
“In anticipation of your question, no, I haven’t been able to reach them yet.” The smile was clearly present in his tone but he did manage to sound serious. “I promise that I won’t stop trying to get the news to them.”
“Please and thank you, Wade.”
“And, Kim…”
“Yes?”
“There’s even a commemorative gift box with all of the episodes that I’ve pre-ordered for you via the Internet as an early birthday present!”
“Ghaa!” She giggled and covered her ears. Wade waved his hands at the camera from his location and she lowered her own hands to listen to him once again.
“Really, Kim, I will keep trying. And please say ‘Hi’ to everyone from Uncle Wade, will you? I’ll swing around to see them the first chance I get.”
“Of course, big guy!” Kim kissed the blue plastic casing. “Love you, Wade!”
“I love you, too, Kim!”
“Back away from my woman, you Lothario!”
“I love you, too, Shego!” Grinning, the man gave them a salute. “Peace! Out!”
The parking lot of Middleton General was mostly empty, the hour being a little too early for most visitors and thankfully short on folks needing to drop by for treatment. They took a parking space at the far end of the lot and carried their steaming cups of ‘Fastbucks’ coffee with them as they walked towards the building. Kim had opted for something light and comfortable to wear throughout the long day of waiting, her long fawn-colored coat tight around her against the chill air of the early morning.
“It seems like just yesterday since we were here for the last one.” Shego eyed the building with a mixed look of nostalgia and distrust. A simple pair of black jeans and a dark green sweater, always her preferred color combination, Shego’s long black coat was more for show than the cool air; her body temperature was considerably elevated compared to the human norm.
“And the one before that.” Kim blew into her cup and too a quick sip of the hot liquid. “Do you remember how scared Sheki was when she told us that she wanted to start a family?”
“Yeah…” No longer inspecting the building, Shego watched her own feet as they neared the entrance.
“And how she believed that we thought that she was throwing away all of the years of training and physical conditioning by becoming pregnant.”
“I swear to God that I never thought that!” Shego glared down at the petite woman from beneath furrowed brows.
“Baby, I know you didn’t. Neither did I.” Kim was quick to stand beside her and place a calming hand on her arm. “But she was so terrified of having ‘disappointed’ us. It was a long time before she finally believed that we supported her decision.” Kim waited while her wife let that sink in. “But you also recall that she was terrified to let us know that she was even interested in dating a boy.”
“Well, they were both too young, in my opinion.”
“No.” Kim glanced at the taller woman thoughtfully. “I mean that she was interested in dating a boy.” She sipped more coffee. “Considering that you and I are her parents and how Kasy and Anna found each other… it was as if she felt that she was betraying some kind of expectation.” Kim reached the outer vestibule doors first and grabbed the metal handle, pulling it open and moving aside to admit her wife; Shego didn’t walk through and Kim looked around to see the other woman standing several paces behind.
“What?”
“Kim?”
“What, sweetheart?”
“Was I too rough on her? Was I too rough on either of them?”
“Why are you asking?”
“Well, what you just said, ‘betraying some kind of expectation’. Did we… did I… push our girls too hard to be heroes?” Shego didn’t move from her spot in the middle of the lane and she would have been knocked flat had an ambulance sped by. “Or did we push our lifestyle at them too much?” Her tone was curious but even, leading Kim to believe that the question was serious and not particularly angst-ridden; the redhead let the door close and she moved to a side bench usually patrolled by smokers.
“I don’t think so, no, to either question. We are… whatever we are. We’re… each a woman in love with another woman who believes herself to be just a little less crazy of a thrill-seeker than our spouse is.” Kim patted the empty space beside her and this prompted some movement in those long legs. The tall form joined her and sat.
“We only wanted them to be the best.” Shego was gazing off across the lot.
“Uh, huh.” Kim nodded.
“At whatever they decided to do.”
“Right.”
“They became members of Team Possible…”
“Correction… they were born into Team Possible but they decided to become adventurers in the field by their own free will. They’re our girls. They were likely to do that, regardless. You and I made them strong.”
“Correction… you gave birth to them strong. You and I made them stronger.” Shego sighed and lowered her gaze. “Thanks. I have doubts sometimes.” She looked askance at the redhead. “What about their lifestyles?”
“What about them? They’re both well-adjusted girls and they were damn fortunate to find someone nuts enough to love them!” They both paused to watch another car drive across the mostly bare lot. “They had discipline and they had choice and they had free will. Sheki found a wonderful boy…”
“Amen!”
“And Kasy found a wonderful girl… who just so happens to share some unfortunate history with our family. If you consider the concept of ‘nature versus nurture’, they comprise the perfect experiment.”
“If this is going to be a rant, I’ll need either a magazine or my nail file.”
“SILENCE, Shego!” Kim adopted a raving expression that never failed to make the pale green woman giggle. “I’m ranting here!” Kim giggled back. “But they really are, if you consider that they’re twins raised together in the same household using the same methods. They understand love and found it on their own. The concept of sexual bias lies deeper than anything you or I have the power to influence.”
“How’d you get to be so smart hanging around Stoppable all those years?”
“Anyway… I can’t explain why either of them made the choice of partner that they did anymore than I can explain why you and I fell in love.”
“Ah, I remember it well…” Shego also swiveled around where she sat on the bench and crossed her long legs atop Kim’s own. “The moonlight, the music…”
“… Drakken shooting me in the arm with a Shego-DNA retro-virus cocktail that impregnated me.”
“Oh, Kimmie, you’re such a pooh!” Shego leaned forward and licked the petite woman’s cheek. “That’s how we got our little miracles. That’s not how we fell in love.” She flashed her shark’s smile. “So how did that happen?”
“I got nothing.”
“What? Really?”
“Really!” Kim nodded thoughtfully. “There are still some times that I wonder if you and I didn’t fall in love because of some weird ‘Love Potion No.9’ coating the dart from Drakken’s gun. I know that you laughed at my protestations way back then, but I really don’t accept that I’m gay.” She finished her coffee with a noisy slurp and tossed the cup into a nearby trash receptacle.
“It’s a little late for this now, isn’t it Princess?”
“What I mean is that I’ve never, and I mean NEVER, looked at another woman and thought, ‘Say, look at the cans on that bimbo. I’m not leaving the beach until I talk to her.’” Kim watched Shego’s expression alter. “I know what you’re thinking about and it wasn’t like that. You know it and I know it.”
“Yes, I know.” The reformed villain’s features softened. “And this so-called ‘Love Potion No.9’… you still believe that was the cause?”
“Don’t care, never really did.” Kim returned the lick with a kiss on a pale green nose. “You’re all that I could ever want in life.” Kim wrapped her arms around the woman. “Now… I realize that your ‘disco inferno’ body temperature probably doesn’t register that this bench is cold, but my butt is wet from condensation. Can we please go inside now?”
“Sure.” Shego stood, bodily lifting her slender wife right up with her. “I could even sneak us into an examination room and have your little bottom powdered for you.”
“I’ll have to think about that one. Scoot.” They left the bench and had to squint against the sun as it began to crest the distant horizon. Kim once again held the door open for her wife and they walked into the silent lobby of Middleton General. The attendant’s desk at the check-in counter was vacant and Kim walked past it to see if anyone was around to admit them to the elevators.
“We could just go up.”
“Nothing doing. We sign in like everyone else.”
“That’s crazy. Why else would we be here?” Shego leaned over the desk and saw no one lounging around the file cabinets or photocopying machine. “Except maybe a boob job for you, ‘Kim Flatable’.”
“Or even liposuction for you.” Kim walked back down along the empty hallway, smirking. “Lard ass.”
“Hag.” Shego turned, her face hard.
“Bitch.” Closer, close enough to reach out and grab.
“Shrew.” Pale eyelids hooded but the gaze beneath was sharp.
“Ska-nk” Kim drew out the word, never breaking their locked stare.
“Slll-ut.” Shego licked her lips.
“Ladies?”
“GHAA!” Kim closed the space between them and grasped at her wife’s coat, both women startled at the intrusive voice. They slowly turned to see an orderly walk from a nearby doorway and cross the room to the attendant’s desk. The young woman seemed almost as startled as they but her professionalism and more than a little confusion kept her from losing her cool.
“Can I help you?” She sounded more assertive than she felt now that she was behind the desk.
“Yes, well, um…” Kim cleared her throat. “I’m Kim Possible and my daughter…”
“Oh!” The orderly’s face brightened. “Mrs. Possible, I’m sorry that I didn’t recognize you!” She dropped all pretence of professionalism. “I was on the bus that got buried by that avalanche a few years back! You were so great… the way that you kept everyone so calm and how you treated the folks with frostbite and hypothermia…!”
“Well, thank you. It was no big!” Kim smiled and nodded, accepting the woman’s praise but wanting nothing more than to go upstairs and see her family. “Right place, right time!”
“I never understood how you were able to get through so many tons of ice and snow like that! It’s like it just melted for you!”
“Ahem.”
“Oh.” The orderly remembered the tall woman standing in the background. “I remember you, too. You were her… sidekick?” Kim saw the eyes narrow and she could hear the vertebrae straightening and knew that another rescue was necessary.
“We’re here to see our daughter.” Kim spelled out the name for the orderly. “She’s up on the seventh floor and she’s going to have a baby.”
“That’s wonderful! Congratulations!” The young woman set a registration book down on the desk and pushed both it and a pen towards Kim. “Please sign in here and you can go right on up!” Kim smiled and quickly did as she was instructed. She moved away and nudged the silent Shego forward, urging that she also sign in; her wife complied without a sound. Satisfied, the orderly took back the register and grinned.
“Wow, it’s been a pleasure to meet you again, Mrs. Possible!” Polite even if a little overwhelmed, the orderly also smiled at Shego. “And you, too, Ms…” She glanced down at the register, her eyes squinting. “Ms. Ethylene Glaucoma.”
“Shego!”
“How was I supposed to know she was going to read it?” Her expression was that of frustrated confusion but Kim just pointed back at the registration desk. Shego sighed and returned to the desk, sullenly accepting the pen from the orderly. She finished and backed away from the book, hurrying over to meet Kim at the elevator doors.
“Thank you again, Ms… Tyrone Shoelaces.”
Shego kept walking as her face collapsed into a disgusted scowl and Kim stifled a laugh and latched onto Shego’s coat again, this time to hide her amusement.
“What is so wrong about writing your real name?”
“I hate it.”
“Hate it? How can you hate a name like ‘Sheila Gordon’ It’s a good name!”
“Because that’s not me… not anymore.” The larger woman reached out and pressed the call button on the silvered plate mounted into the wall, watched the delta arrow glow red. “I’m Shego, or ‘The Mighty Shego’, or ‘Hot-ass Slinky-babe’ when warm, dripping caramel is involved.” She moved right up to her petite spouse and towered over her, bending down to run her black-glossed lips across Kim’s forehead; Kim could feel the heat of her breath and it made her flush. “But mostly I’m ‘Ms. Shego Possible’… and happy to stay that way.”
The elevator took its good old time and they couldn’t care less.
“Did you ever think much about this?” Shego’s voice was more than a little disruptive to their embrace.
“This what?”
“Grandchildren?”
“Doy!” Kim’s entire face lit up with a smile. “Ever since the day I first held the girls in my arms.” She looked up to face her partner. “Maybe I never spoke of it but when I used to look down into those little faces all I could see were more and more faces of their children and their children’s children… and on and on. It’s the closest thing to immortality that we get down here.” Kim reached up and pulled loose strands of black hair from Shego’s face. “I talked to my folks about it once and Mom said that she felt the same way when she first saw me, and again years later when the Tweebs were born.”
“Your Mom…” Shego caught herself and seemed to change what she had been going to say. “What did your Dad tell you?”
“That even though he always talked about shooting my boyfriends into black holes, he’d always wanted his children to have a family like his, with children and grandchildren.”
“I love your folks.” The ‘ding’ of the arriving elevator car prevented her from having to come up with anything more profound to say.
“Yup, me too.” Kim followed the larger woman into the car. “As I recall, you didn’t handle the sitch so well when little Alexander Rockwaller came knocking at our door.” Kim watched from the corner of her eyes as the taller woman stiffened a little and shrugged to loosen back up.
“I’m sure that I have no idea what you mean, Pumpkin.” Shego said nothing more as the elevator door closed.
To Be Continued…