Shego hadn't stopped muttering under her breath the entire time she'd been using her newly purchased lint roller to remove monkey hair from her outfit. Kim's curiosity had evaporated when she overheard Shego say something about getting her special claws on Monty's head and finding out what chilled monkey brains really tasted like. Kim had grimaced and found somewhere else to be.
This had enabled her to make a very important decision, however, and when Shego held up the green and black outfit and pronounced herself satisfied, Kim just had to break the news to her without setting her off.
“Shego.”
The other woman turned her head. “What?”
“I've been thinking about some of the things you said before - about my future.”
“Uh-huh.”
“The first thing I've decided is there's really no point in me staying here.”
Shego looked quizzical. “Here?”
“In this town,” Kim clarified. “I'm not attending classes any more. The only thing I need for my studies is my Kimmunicator. Staying here is just tying me down.”
Shego smiled slightly. “Be on the move, don't stop. Stay aggressive. Don't just wait around for your enemies to make a move.”
“Yeah, well, I think my first stop is in Middleton,” Kim replied.
“Why the hell would you want to go there?”
“Because that's my home, Shego,” Kim said. “Here, I'm cut off. There, I'm strongest.”
“Oh, please,” Shego muttered. “Like you need a freaking suburb and your parents to be strong.”
“I've never walked alone, Shego. I've always operated as part of a team. Okay, maybe the leader of that team - but that's my comfort zone. Shego,” she said carefully, “if I'm going to fight these guys, I need my team around me, not a thousand miles away.”
Shego frowned at her. “So what am I? The bad guy you teamed up with for that one special episode, only to go back to being enemies the following week?”
“This is life and death, Shego, not a TV show!” Kim retorted, but she stopped before saying anything more and took a deep breath. She'd known that Shego might feel slighted or offended by the suggestion that the two women couldn't be fine on their own, or threatened by Ron and the other “goody-two-shoes”. “I need you to be able to come with me, Shego. I'm the only reason you came to this town in the first place, so there can't be anything keeping you here.”
“You're so full of yourself,” Shego snapped, shaking her head without looking Kim in the eye. “Like my world revolves around yours. I can go wherever the hell I want, stay as long as I want, and have a great time doing it. And if any idiot with a gun or a doomsday device thinks he can take me down, he's got another thing coming!”
“I'm sure you're right,” Kim said quickly. “But when the two of us fight together, there's very little that can stop us.”
“Then why do you need your school pals?” Shego demanded, as Kim had known she would. “Why are they so important?”
Kim could have said that she had a bond with people like Ron, Wade, and Monique that her tenuous relationship with Shego couldn't even come close to. Or that they, unlike the brittle, sarcastic Shego, “played well with others”. But that would be counter-productive. “Can you hack into any computer on the planet?” Kim asked. “Build technological marvels? Get me any information, any data, like this?” She snapped her fingers.
Shego folded her arms and glared at her.
“Have you been an important part of a hundred past successes of mine?” Kim asked.
“Yes!” Shego insisted.
“You weren't exactly trying to help those times, Shego,” Kim reminded her.
Shego's eyes were bitter as she looked away again.
“Ron, Wade - even Rufus - are part of a winning formula. I have no doubt that you and I could be a winning formula as well, but I don't see why we can't all work together.” Kim sighed. “Besides, you were right when you said I had important decisions to make, and I can't make them by myself. I need to talk to my family first. And for that, I need to go home.”
“Nobody's stopping you,” Shego shot back.
“You are,” Kim said.
“Me?!”
“I can't go without you. I need Team Possible, but I need you too.” She leaned forward and stared directly into Shego's eyes. “This is not about rejection or competition or who's better or who's more important. This is about, among other things, seeing how you fit into my life. But my life isn't here. There's nothing for me here either, except a crummy apartment and a college campus I may never set foot on again. My head tells me to go home. So does my heart.” Kim spread her hands. “If you can't understand that…”
Shego fell back and looked at the ceiling. “Damn, damn,” she whispered.
“What?”
“Nothing. I - just don't feel like sharing you. They can't understand you like I can.”
“Oh, they understand me,” Kim replied, sensing yet another success. “They just understand a different part of me than you do.”
Shego grunted. “At least I'm traveling light.”
Kim beamed. “Then you're coming?”
“Only if you realize that I'm leaving the room whenever things get too lovey,” she sneered, waving her hand.
“After all, it might be contagious,” Kim said.
“Exactly,” Shego brooded. “How are you arranging transportation?”
“Oh, I have my ways,” Kim responded.
“Thanks a lot for the flight, Mr. Xanthos,” Kim said.
“If it wasn't for you, Ms. Possible, that burglar would have stolen a priceless diamond from the museum,” David Xanthos replied. “A diamond on loan from my own private collection, mind you.”
“It was no big,” Kim answered.
Shego looked at her and raised an eyebrow.
“Well, I'm sure it could have been a lot worse, but the thief chose not to put up much of a fight,” Kim added hastily.
“Too bad he got away,” Xanthos said. “Must have run like hell when he saw you.”
Shego's claws began tearing through the magazine she was clutching.
Kim chuckled nervously. “Um, yeah,” she said.
The jet intercom crackled. “David, honey, we're almost over Middleton Airport.”
“Thank you, Rachel,” Xanthos called out.
“Honey?” Kim asked. “Do all your pilots call you honey?”
“Only the one I'm married to,” he said, grinning at her. “Ah, skydiving. I remember when I used to skydive.”
“What happened? Too old for it?” Shego asked sarcastically.
“No, it got boring,” he sighed. Then he brightened. “I prefer flying.”
“Flying on a plane is more exciting than skydiving?” Shego said dubiously.
“Who said anything about a plane?”
“I think this is our stop,” Kim said before Shego could make a retort. “Thanks a lot,” she added as both women stood up and strapped their chutes on.
He smiled roguishly. “Alone on a plane with such lovely ladies - it was worth any price.”
Shego grabbed Kim by the arm and dragged her toward the hatch. “Yeah, uh-huh, charming,” she muttered as she turned the wheel and opened the door, exposing them suddenly to freezing, fierce winds. “Sleaze,” she added.
“You're just mad because we got free transportation through my good deed,” Kim said.
“And now he thinks you two are even,” Shego shot back. “He got off cheap.”
Kim frowned and took Shego by the wrist. “Just jump,” she growled.
As they rapidly descended, Kim was surprised when she looked over and saw Shego grinning evilly. “Feeling the rush?!” she called out.
“I was thinking how this is the second time you and I have gotten a ride from someone I tried to steal something from,” Shego said.
The other time being the submarine commander who dropped them off at Triple-S's island, Kim remembered.
“Maybe we should try that more often,” Shego continued. “Whenever you need a ride, I could steal something, and you bring it back.” She laughed. “The money we could make doing that!”
Kim just glared at her.
“Sheesh,” Shego said. “You're still no fun. I'll have to work on that.”
Then she reached over and pulled Kim's ripcord.
“Heeeeyyyyyyy!!!” Kim screamed as her parachute billowed out, leaving Shego to continue her descent.
“Just shaking you up,” Shego said to herself as she finally pulled her own cord.
Kim landed amidst the charter planes and two-seaters parked in various places near the Middleton airport, an almost perfect spot. “What was that for?!” she yelled at Shego, who was struggling out of her chute nearby.
Shego's eyes sparkled. “Last one down's a rotten egg,” she said naughtily.
“You know I'm going to get you back for that.”
“You can try. But I wouldn't have it any other way.” She turned her head at the sound of an approaching vehicle. “Either that's your folks, or we've managed to violate airport security.”
Kim was startled by the incoming SUV, which swerved recklessly between the planes. “My parents certainly don't drive like that. My brothers maybe but… “ She put her face in her hands. “Oh, no.”
“What?”
“Jim and Tim recently became old enough to take the driver's license test,” Kim said in a voice that suggested this scared her more than any would-be conqueror.
The SUV screeched to a halt just ten yards away, leaving long black tire marks behind it. The passenger window opened slowly. “Hey sis,” a sunglasses-wearing Jim drawled - or was it Tim? “We don't normally pick up hitchhikers, but we're willing to make an exception.”
“For her!” his twin brother said, wriggling out of the driver's side window and pointing to Shego. “Hello, nurse!”
“Excuse me?!” Shego snarled, her claws taking on an icy blue tinge.
“Puberty was the worst thing that ever happened to those two,” Kim said dryly.
The back door opened, and Kim's heart leapt as a familiar face topped with sandy blond hair tumbled out. “Am I alive?” Ron Stoppable croaked. His legs looked decidedly unsteady, and finally he fell to his knees and kissed the pavement.
“Kimmie!”
Kim's mother circled the rear end of the car and quickly enveloped her daughter in a hug. Kim wrapped her own arms around her mother. “Welcome home,” Mrs. Dr. Possible said quietly.
“Thanks, Mom,” Kim replied. “But how could you let them drive?”
“Oh, don't pop a blood vessel, Kim,” her mother told her. “All they did was sit in front.”
“But - then who drove?”
“I did.”
Kim looked around. “Who said that?”
Before that mystery could be resolved, another set of arms appeared around Kim and her mother. “KP!” Ron yelled.
“Watch the ears, Ron,” Kim said, wincing.
“Oops, sorry,” he apologized, letting go. He backed up a few steps and almost ran into Shego.
The former villainess put her hands on her hips and leaned forward so that their noses were almost touching. “Try to avoid touching me, Stoppable,” she warned him.
“Shego,” Ron replied, stiffening. “Nice tan.”
“Ron,” Kim said.
“You're sure about this?” her mother asked softly.
“I'm not sure about a lot of things,” Kim told her. “But I am sure about giving her a chance. At least I was,” she amended when she saw Shego looking at Ron like he was a bug on her windshield, while not one but two naked mole rats popped out of Ron's pants pockets and blew raspberries at her. “So where's the driver again?”
“You're looking at her.”
Kim turned around and saw nothing but the car.
The SUV suddenly changed from black to red. “Has it been that long?”
Kim's mouth fell open. “Sadie?!”
“Long time, no see,” the self-automated automobile replied. “Well, okay, so I don't exactly see, but you know what I mean.”
“Still driving like you're on NASCAR, I see,” Kim said, smiling.
“Believe me, it's a big improvement over the boys. And at least I don't change the radio station twenty times a minute,” Sadie replied.
“A talking car,” Shego said sarcastically. “How darling.”
The car suddenly started up again, backed up, and drove towards Shego, stopping mere inches from her feet. Sadie's headlights turned on at full beam, almost blinding her. “I remember that voice,” Sadie said angrily. “You kidnapped my creator once. You shot me.”
Shego held a hand in front of her face and looked at Kim. “Mind telling me why I'm being harassed by a deranged motor vehicle?”
“Remember Doctor Freeman? Talking toasters?” Kim prodded her.
“Oh, right.” Shego grinned. “Smart guy, if you overlook his vulnerability to child psychology.”
The car rumbled menacingly and moved forward until it bumped against Shego's knees.
“Shego, please!” Kim pleaded. “Could you tone it down just a LITTLE?”
“Can I use the disintegrator ray, Sadie?” Tim asked.
Shego grumbled. “All right,” she muttered. “I'm (God, I can't believe I'm apologizing to a car) - sorry I shot you with a laser cannon.”
Sadie revved her engine again before backing up slightly. “I don't have room for all of you,” she said. “I'll have to strap you to the roof.”
“Now, now, Sadie, she did apologize,” Mrs. Dr. Possible said calmingly. “I'm sure you can manage the six of us. And Shego isn't going to do anything harmful to you or Dr. Freeman again.” She looked at Shego with the same look she used on her children when they'd done something particularly wrong. “Right?”
Kim's mother had to have a good glare to intimidate the likes of Kim Possible, and it worked. “Right,” Shego said nervously, backing up a little.
“Where's Dad?” Kim asked.
“At work with Dr. Freeman,” her mother said. “They're trying to make rocket ships that can fly long missions without astronauts. We're going to stop there on the way home.”
“Wait ‘til you meet their newest invention,” Jim said.
“Yeah. She's saucy!” Tim added.
“Saucy?” Kim asked.
“Mmmm, sauce,” Ron said. “Maybe we could stop at Bueno Nacho on the way.”
“Mmmm, hot sauce!” Rufus said brightly.
“Nacos!” Ruby chimed in.
“This is why I live alone,” Shego muttered.
To be continued…
Author's Note: One reader noted earlier that Chapter One paraphrased a quote (Shego's parting shot to her would-be attackers) from the classic sitcom Sports Night, which starred Dr. Director's Felicity Huffman. I just wanted to give credit for that. And if the Xanthoses seem awfully familiar, you're probably right. Kudos if you know why.