The Con's the Thing

Saturday Afternoon

She found herself at the head of a great crowd, eyes raking over the tumultuous, heaving mass of humanity. The air was filled with excited voices, each vying to be heard over the rumble of those around them. The air was hot and thick with the sharp scent of too many people in too small a space. She squared her shoulders and stuck her chin out.

Once more, into the breach.

Kim Possible’s eyes narrowed as she adjusted her glasses, peering at the program she’d been given, scanning the schedule carefully. If she wanted to hear the writers’ question and answer session, she’d have to hurry. Figurative loins girded, she made her way through the convention centre, eyes sharp as she went. She knew, deep in her heart, what people would say if they were to find out about her dirty little secret. The shame would be complete were they to open the box in the room hidden behind the one she kept her super suit in.

She’d never live it down.

So lost in her reverie was she that she didn’t notice the woman in her path. Their elbows collided, sending two armloads of books and leaflets flying.

“Oops,” Kim said, immediately kneeling to scoop up the other woman’s dropped papers, her glasses sliding off her face as she bustled about.

“I’m so sorry! I didn’t see you.”

“Yeah, well, watch where you’re going,” the woman groused, scooping her dark sunglasses into her hand. Who the hell wore sunglasses inside, Kim wondered. She handed the autograph book back to the woman and lifted her eyes in sheepish apology.

She froze, her eyes wide in her head. Her jaw dropped. “You!”

The thief kneeling beside her was similarly apoplectic. “Princess?” It took her a moment to convince herself that the red head before her was indeed Kim Possible. What would Kim Possible be doing at a place like this? Wearing glasses, as well.

“What are you wearing?” Kim asked, blinking in amazement.

Shego, possibly one of the most notorious criminals in the world, scowled. “At least I don’t look like the poster girl for military knockoff chic, Kimmy.”

Kim stood slowly, watching her enemy carefully, ready to pounce. “What are you doing here? Did you follow me?” she accused. Trust Shego to try and ruin XenaCon, she thought, spitefully.

“Follow you?” Shego asked, standing and smoothing her trousers. “Please, I have better things to do with my damn time.”

Kim eyed her warily, sliding her glasses into her breast pocket, hoping they wouldn’t be damaged if they fought. Shego put her sunglasses back on grumpily, folding her arms over her chest. “Look, stay out of my way today, all right pumpkin? I’m not in the mood.”

“Good,” Kim said, folding her own arms, somewhat awkwardly. “Neither am I. In the mood.” Shego lifted an eyebrow. “To kick your ass. Again.”

Shego turned on her heel and left Kim to frown after her. The heroine glanced at her no longer immaculate program and pouted sadly. She’d been planning on keeping this one. She even had a mylar bag ready at home. She forced herself to follow the dark head through the crowd, saying good bye to her carefree weekend. She trailed the other woman, watching with mounting dread as she made her way through a set of double doors. She had a horrible feeling that she knew exactly why Shego was here and it sickened her slightly.

Her suspicions were confirmed when she saw the dark haired thief lounging in a chair near the back of the dimly lit auditorium. She made her way over and glared down at her, watching Shego examine her nails. Shego, for her part, was hoping that if she ignored Kim she’d leave her alone.

“What are you doing here?” Kim demanded after a moment, a hand fisted on her hip.

“I was hoping to steal the priceless gems and jewels that these Xenites are no doubt concealing about their persons,” Shego bit out, sarcastically.

Kim scowled at her enemy, sitting beside her. “How do you know that word?” she asked, furious indignation in her voice. How dare she! That was their word for themselves. Kim was not best pleased.

“What word?” Shego asked, innocently, “I’m speaking plain English, thought I suppose I could dumb it down for ya, Kimmy.”

“Shut up and get out,” Kim replied, angrily. “You have no right to be here, you, you criminal!”

Shego whirled, her glasses slipping down her nose, one eyebrow making its way up her forehead. “Excuse me?” she asked, incredulously. “I have no right to be here? Oh, you are so full of it!”

“Well, it’s not as if I don’t have good reason to not want to be in the same state as you, never mind the same convention centre.”

“Oh, that’s rich,” Shego sneered, “like I’d want to be around you after all the crap you’ve put me through.”

“Me?” Kim gasped, jaw dropping. “You brought it on yourself, Shego. And you hurt me,” she said, irrationally angry.

“Huh,” Shego muttered, pulling her glasses off, “You left me black and blue more times than I can remember, you sanctimonious cow!”

Kim boggled. “You, you absolute-”

Kim’s tirade was cut off when a bespectacled young woman leaned across the back of their seats, glaring. “Listen, fascinating as this is, do you think you two could put your little dyke drama on hold until after the talk?” she asked angrily. “Seriously, you two make Hothead Paisan look rational.”

Kim and Shego wore identical expressions of shock and turned bewildered stares to the woman behind them, watching her settle back into her seat. The woman beside her, apparently embarrassed, shook her head and shrugged.

“Dyke drama? With her?!”

Shego felt, in that silent moment, rage build within her. She was about to leap over the back of her seat and rip someone a new arse hole. Anyone would do. A sound from the front of the room startled her and she felt a firm hand grip her elbow.

“Shego,” Kim hissed, “shut up and watch, OK? Truce for the next hour.”

Shego frowned and turned back around, tossing one last venomous glare at the couple behind her.

Just wait, she thought. Destroyer of Nations? Destroyer of the Convention Centre.

Dyke drama, indeed.

---

“My god, that was so cool,” Kim gushed, clutching her new book to her chest. A signed copy of Tropical Storm. Not bad for a day’s work.

Shego smiled lazily and tried not to nod in agreement. “It wasn’t as dull as I’d worried it would be.”

“You should have got a book too,” Kim admonished.

“I’ve got an autograph book, right? And besides, the whole thing’s on the Internet.” Shego would never admit, neither under imaginative nor erotic torture, that she already owned the book, as well as its follow ups. “What’s next?” she asked, trying to divert the attention from herself.

“Um,” Kim muttered, absently, flipping through her program, “there’s a screening in the same room in an hour, music videos.”

“As long as we don’t have to sit through any Bette Midler,” she muttered. “You want a drink?”

Kim blinked and threw a sidelong glance at her arch enemy. “You’re kidding?”

“I never kid about alcohol or Xena,” Shego said, uncharacteristically solemn. “Truce, right?”

Ten minutes later found them in the bar, a couple of beers in front of them.

“Funny,” Kim said, “I would have figured you for a Martini person. Or something.”

Shego raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, at three in the afternoon. I like my Martini’s after six, preferably in an evening gown.”

Kim shrugged, silent for a moment. She cracked a small smile and sipped from her bottle. “Funny, I thought they came in glasses.”

“Oh, ha ha, princess,” Shego muttered. “Your timing stinks.”

Kim shrugged, wondering if she was imagining the tiny smile on Shego’s lips. “So. Missy Good was cool. Really articulate.”

Shego agreed. “She was interesting to listen to. It was kinda cool hearing about the episodes she wrote, too, huh?”

“I always thought that she’d written When Fates Collide.”

“Nope, Legacy and Coming Home. You’re not up to scratch on your trivia,” she said, “no way I’d have you on my team for the table quiz.”

“There’s a table quiz?” Kim asked, peering over the top of her glasses. Shego chuckled and shook her head, earning a pout. “Damn, you got my hopes up.”

---

The screening of the music videos was a riotous laugh, with more audience input than an average screening of the Rocky Horror Picture Show (if such a thing exists). As the official events began to wind down, Kim and Shego meandered through the merchandise stalls, flicking through comics and bickering with unusual geniality.

“God, that was good fun,” Shego said, grinning, “that one was nearly as good as three years ago.”

“This isn’t the first one you’ve been to?” Kim asked, eyes wide once more. “You’re seriously a Xenite, you’re not here for some nefarious purpose?”

Shego raised an elegant eyebrow. “Such as? Stealing action figures? Robbing one of those cheap Xena cut outs?”

Kim stared back at her, clearly sceptical.

“Oh come on, princess, those things are so tacky,” she muttered, wandering to a stall selling upmarket Xena costumes. “Like, if I wanted one of those outfits, I’d go to the guy who made my suits.”

Kim blinked. “I always assumed you just spray painted those on.”

Shego rolled her eyes and clucked her tongue. “You know, I realised half way through the talk that if we start fighting here and now, there’s no way they’ll let us back in tomorrow to see Lucy Lawless.”

Kim nodded slowly. “Yeah, I guess. Um, so, you know anyone else here?”

Shego shook her head. “Nope, I was just going to sit around the bar, they’re a friendly enough crowd.” She smiled in quite a sinister fashion. “Lemme guess, you don’t know anyone else here, either?”

Kim blushed slightly and was quite annoyed to find herself feeling like a teenager again. Shego always made her feel so unsophisticated and immature. As if she was a country bumpkin in the city, uneducated and ignorant. Shego still had her knack, she thought, for getting under her skin.

“You never struck me as the solitary type, Kimmy,” she drawled. “What, no sidekick?”

The red head scowled, glaring at Shego for a moment before taking an angry breath, her frustration building at Shego’s superior attitude. “Ron and I aren’t attached at the hip, you know.”

“I thought you two’d be married by now,” she said, leaning against a wall, “with you barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen.”

Kim’s flush intensified and she looked away. She didn’t have to put up with this kind of treatment. “Just leave me the hell alone, Shego.”

Kim stalked off, making her way to the exit of the convention centre, joining the long line for taxis, surprised at how chilly it was. She listened to the excited rabble around her, people chatting loudly and joyfully about the convention all around her. Her grip tightened on the books in her arms and she wished she’d brought a jacket.

A hand on her elbow made her jump and she fought years of well-honed reflexes and instincts, making an effort not to lash out. She turned angrily.

Shego. The one person she had carte blanche to knock around.

“I said leave me alone,” she hissed. Shego sighed and stood with her weight on one foot, releasing Kim’s elbow.

“Look, we’re on a truce,” she muttered. “No point in you storming off in a huff, is there?”

Kim looked away from her, clutching her books to her chest, lowering her face. “I just wanted to have a good time,” she said, quietly. “Thanks for showing up, Shego.”

Shego’s heart thumped. Hurting Kim had been her primary form of entertainment for years, for longer than she’d care to admit. Their repartee and their fights had been more exciting than anything else she’d done, back in the day. Kim had kept her interest like nothing else had.

Nothing, she admitted to herself, except Xena. She remembered her own first trip to a convention. She’d borrowed the Go Jet and set off on her own, delighted to be away from her brothers and ecstatic to be surrounded by people who liked the same thing she did. She’d walked on air for weeks after that convention, she remembered. Added to the excitement was the fact that the show had still been airing at the time. Kim, she realised, would never know that joy.

Suddenly filled with a nagging unease, she rolled her eyes. “Don’t be such a drama queen,” she commanded. “You’re made of sterner stuff than that. Come on,” she said, smirking, “if you weren’t dying to see Lucy tomorrow, you’d be attempting to kick my ass right now.”

Kim smiled, still not looking at Shego. “I’d be succeeding in kicking your ass, old woman.”

“Yeah, watch out for crocodiles out there in De Nile,” she teased, “I hear they’re nasty critters.”

Kim puffed out a mouthful of air and cocked her head to one side. “Bitch.”

“Priss. Come on back, I’ll buy you a drink,” Shego said, as casually as she could manage.

“Ooh, trying to get me liquered up?” Kim asked, smiling again.

Shego just rolled her eyes and said nothing.

---

Later, nestled in a booth in the bar, a large plate of potato wedges in front of them, the pair found themselves in a deep discussion of all things Xena.

“OK,” Kim said, curling one foot under her and determined to make at least a token effort to be civil, “favourite ep?”

Shego shrugged, thinking for a moment. “Um, right, you’ll think I’m a complete dork, but I loved Been There, Done That. You know, the groundhog day one?”

Kim smirked, shaking her head. “That was such a dumb episode.”

“Hmph,” Shego huffed, taking a sip of her beer, “what’s yours?”

Kim blushed slightly, although it wasn’t very noticeable in the dim light. “I really, really liked When Fates Collide. It was just so, you know,” she shrugged tipsily. “Romantic.”

Shego stared at Kim for a moment before snagging a potato wedge. “I hardly need to ask your opinion on subtext, then.”

“They’re married, man,” she squawked in her best imitation of a New Zealand accent, earning a fit of laughter. Shego, she noted, actually hooted.

“Oh, princess, don’t give up the day job, OK? Don’t ever try and go into espionage or anything.” She wiped an eye and smiled at her partner in geekdom. She hiccupped suddenly, her face falling in dismay. Any ire that she’d evoked in Kim vanished and the red head laughed heartily.

“God,” Kim said, shaking her head, “I haven’t laughed like this since forever.” She reached up and pulled her scrunchy off, running her fingers through her hair a few times before gathering it back up.

“You got a hair cut,” Shego mused, putting a hand over her mouth as she hiccupped.

Kim shrugged. “I’m busy in college. I didn’t have time for it.” She ran a hand through her fringe, adjusting it. “Besides, I didn’t get that much taken off.”

Shego hiccupped again. “I’ve spent so much time growing mine, I’d hate to lose any of it.”

“I just wanted a change,” Kim shrugged. “At least it wasn’t done by chakram.”

Shego lifted her beer, acknowledging the truth of the statement. “Amen to that. I dunno, I preferred early-” hiccup “- Gabrielle. The chipmunk face did it for me.”

Kim giggled. “No way, later Gabby kicked ass! With the sai and everything.”

“I’ll admit it was good to see the end of that bilious green sports bra. I mean, where did it keep vanishing to?”

Kim shrugged. “Maybe they needed it for bandages. It’s not like they could use Xena’s stuff. Except maybe for splints.”

“Splints?” Shego stared incredulously and hiccupped. “You’re drunk, Possible.”

“You’re the one with the hiccups,” she pointed out, reasonably. “But you are right about the green bra. The Amazon bikini was far better.”

Shego stared at Kim askance for a moment. “You’re a strange girl, Kimmy. But still,” she lifted her beer bottle, “here’s to Gab and her abs. We miss them both.”

“Here here,” Kim said, solemnly clinking the necks of their bottles together. They sat in silence for a moment, only slightly uncomfortable.

“So, you’ve not been around for a long time,” the heroine said, “I mean, not that I want you to be committing crimes, or anything.”

“Miss me, Kimmy?” Shego asked, quietly. She shook her head. “No shop talk, OK? I don’t want to hear about you and your heroic exploits.”

Kim nodded slowly, the silence uncomfortable again. She realised that she wanted to rectify the situation, that she wanted to reclaim the comfortable banter. She hadn’t realise how much she wanted to simply talk to someone about something she enjoyed discussing. She hadn’t had the luxury in quite a while. “So, The Bitter Suite. No hint of a shark?”

Shego smiled at Kim’s very unsubtle efforts to change the topic of conversation. “Kimmy, there was never a hint of shark jumping in Xena, you could be lynched for even implying it at a place like this.”

“Oh, come on, you didn’t find that episode so weird?”

“Camp,” Shego agreed, “it was camp. But then, so was Lyre, Lyre and like, Old Ares. The show had its camp moments. It knew how to take the piss out of itself, which is a good thing.”

“Shark Island!” Kim exclaimed, suddenly, “there was that prison, on Shark Island, where that freaky one handed crab lady was crushing on Gabrielle.”

Shego narrowed her eyes. “Yes, but there weren’t any actual sharks. Or motor bikes.”

“In that episode,” Kim allowed.

“Anyway, as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, “ she groused, “it had its moments of comedy.”

Kim nodded, draining the last of her beer. “True. Like the one with the lice.”

“That was just gross.”

“It was. More beer?” Kim asked, getting up.

“You buying?”

---

“So,” Kim drawled, slightly the worse for wear, “Bruce Campbell’s chin: sentient being or centre of a small gravitational field?”

“Both, obviously,” Shego said. “You ever seen the Evil Dead films? So hilarious.”

Kim frowned. “Aren’t they horror movies?”

“Oh come on,” Shego scoffed, “the guy cuts his own hand off with a chain saw and then he’s like, now who’s laughing?” she said, holding a fist up and glaring at it, movements exaggerated.

Kim giggled, flushed and warm. “I bet you laughed during Kill Bill.”

“I laughed my ass off the whole way through the first one,” Shego said. She took a long, speculative look at Kim and grinned. “I bet you did too.”

“It freaked Ron out,” she admitted, picking at the label on her beer bottle. It occurred to Shego to take a shot, to annoy the other woman, but she decided against it. She hadn’t had this much fun in a long time, truth be told.

“OK, so,” Shego said, “evil Gabrielle. What do you think? Now that Xena’s gone, will she be a worse tyrant than The Destroyer of Nations ever was?”

Kim frowned for a moment. “I don’t think she would, you know. I don’t think she had it in her. Has, whatever.”

“I bet Xena’s family thought the same thing,” Shego mused. “I mean, she tried to be a hero and got her brother killed. That’s nothing compared to all the horrible shit that’s happened to Gabrielle. I reckon she’d be a fiend.”

Kim shook her head vehemently. “No, the thing is, is that Xena was betrayed and left alone. Again and again. Gabrielle still has family and friends. The Amazons, Virgil, her sister and niece. Eve.”

Shego sighed, lifting a droplet of condensation off the side of her beer bottle. “Wouldn’t that just make it worse? I mean, trying to keep up a pretence. You can’t lose your soul mate and keep on going. You can’t just have your heart broken and keep going as normal.”

Kim was tempted to agree, in an idle, drunken way, but frowned instead. “Wait a minute, no. They’d look out for her.”

“But they wouldn’t be Xena,” Shego said, morosely, “they wouldn’t get her.” She lifted her face and smiled at Kim. “I mean, if you met your soul mate and had them all to yourself for so long, what would it be like losing them? It’d never be the same.”

Kim took a deep breath and lowered her eyes, lost in thought for a moment. “She’d have the knowledge that they’d meet in another life, though.”

Shego sat up and drained a mouthful of beer, eyes bright. “Yeah, what a plot hole! I mean, if Xena can’t come back to life at the Fountain of Mumbo Jumbo, then what about for her next life? It doesn’t make sense.”

Kim blinked. They were changing topics of conversation faster than she was accustomed to. “I never thought about that. What about on the boat?”

“All a dream, Kimmy. It I’d been directing that one, I’d have ended with Gabrielle waking up in the hold, and realising that she’d never see Xena again.” She mimed pulling back from a close-up, a melodramatic pout on her face as she went.

Kim looked as if she’d been slapped. “You really would? If it had been up to me, Xena wouldn’t have stayed dead!”

Shego waved a hand dismissively. “Oh, that goes without saying! If it had been me, there’d have been a last minute save at the Spring of Whatever and then, another episode afterwards, with a comedy Amazon wedding. Like after the crucifixion.”

Kim laughed. “A comedy Amazon wedding? Are you high?”

“Not yet, Kimmy,” Shego said, waggling her eyebrows. “Not yet. But think about it. The perfect way to end the show. Xena and Gabrielle riding off into the sunset on Argo Junior, trailing tin cans.”

Kim laughed. “You’re nuts. The horse would trip!”

Shego’s eyes widened and she sat up straighter, suddenly dying to get Kim’s opinion on the whole horse thing (specifically, how many damn horses did it take to play Argo) when three shadows fell across their booth. Shego glared up at them and Kim blinked.

“Um, hi,” one said, a young woman with a back pack slung over one shoulder. “Listen, the bar’s really busy and we were wondering if we could kinda perch in your booth,” she looked slightly embarrassed.

“We’ll buy you two a beer to make up for disturbing you,” one of her companions piped, “what are you drinking, Miller?” he asked, smiling hopefully.

“Um, thanks,” Kim said, sliding around towards Shego. “Come on, this thing is huge. Sorry, we didn’t realise the bar was so busy.” Indeed, the bar was filled with slightly drunken Xenites. Someone was even attempting a battle cry.

Poorly.

Shego turned and glared at Kim, annoyed at being forced to scoot over in the booth. “Kimmy, what the hell?”

Kim shrugged and patted Shego on the shoulder. “You said that people here were friendly.”

“Yeah, me excluded, obviously,” she muttered. She mellowed slightly when one of the interlopers dropped a Miller in front of her. Kim thanked the three and they grinned back. They seemed well oiled, Shego thought, for people who hadn’t been able to find a seat.

“Aw, mate,” the third person said in a thick English accent, shaking her head ruefully as she eyed Shego and Kim, “we’re fucked tomorrow, guys.”

“I know!” the first one said, banging her fist playfully on the table. “I spent so much time on the costume, too. Aw, it’s not fair!”

Kim blinked. “Excuse me?” Had she missed something?

“Well, we thought we were a shoe in for the fancy dress tomorrow,” she explained. “Thought we’d have an edge, having a Joxer and everything,” one of her companions grinned and lifted his beer in a salute. “But man, no way we’re going to be able to stand up to you two!”

Shego twitched. Fancy dress?

“Oh, we’re not getting dressed up,” Kim said, laughing. “No way.”

“Are you mad?” the English woman asked. “You two can’t lose! I mean, you’d have to go as BGSB Gabby, but you two fit the part perfectly.”

“The sidekick?” Shego smirked. “Oh, that is rich! Hey, Kimmy, you can walk beside my horse anytime!”

Kim fumed at Shego, lost as she was in a gale of laughter. “You’re an evil woman, Shego.”

“Man, you two are mad,” ‘Joxer’ muttered. “I mean, there’s a chance to win an afternoon with Lucy Lawless up for grabs! You’d get to hang with her, even help out with an interview for Whoosh.”

Shego’s laughter ceased suddenly. “Wait, what?”

“The winners get an afternoon with Lucy Lawless, lunch included,” the English girl said. “You didn’t know?”

Shego’s eyes widened and she turned to Kim, raking her eyes up and down the slim red head. She put her hands on the student's shoulders and stared at her for a moment, biting her lower lip. She turned Kim until they were facing each other in the booth and tried to remember what she’d looked like with her hair down. She released her shoulders and Kim sat rigidly, frozen in the seat. Shego took the opportunity to lift the bottom of Kim’s shirt and vest, eyeing her belly critically.

“It’ll have to do. Come on, cheerleader. We’ve got work to do.”

The pair vanished in a flash, Kim’s yelp echoing in their wake. The three Xenites shared a long, pained stare and, as one, let their heads hit the table in defeat.

---

“Shego!” Kim cried, fidgeting slightly. “There’s no way I’m getting up on stage in that get up!”

Shego crossed her arms and glared. “You’re getting out easy, princess, I’ll be in leather in California. All day.”

Kim glared right back. “You usually wear leather all day, anyway! I’ve seen you in the desert in leather!”

Shego rolled her eyes. “My suit doesn’t count; it breathes. Come on, you stubborn brat, what bra size are you? Thirty two A? B?”

“Shego!” Kim scolded, crossing her arms over her bust.

The vendor looked between the pair of angry, tipsy women. Ten minutes later and he would have been gone, too. He didn’t need this kind of trouble at this time of night.

“Shego, I mean it. No.” Kim folded her arms and pouted. “Have you forgotten that we’re enemies?”

Shego shrugged. “Truce, right?” She was quiet for a moment before inspiration struck. Her eyes lit up. “Hey, you’re right. I’ll call Drakken and see if he has any of those mind control chips left…”

“You wouldn’t dare!” Kim said, eyebrows shooting up. “No fair!”

“Way fair, princess. Haven’t you ever wanted to meet one of your heroes?” she asked, a smirk on her face. Something stopped the sharp retort from leaving Kim’s mouth as she spotted a tiny, minute hint of sadness floating beneath Shego’s usual acerbic visage.

“You’ll probably just kidnap her. I’d need to be there to keep an eye on you,” she muttered.

“Oh, ever the hero,” Shego muttered. “Like you don’t want to meet her.”

“Ladies,” the tired vendor said. “Could we please get on with this? I’ve been up since five this morning!”

Kim scowled and leaned over, whispering in his ear. He pulled out two bundles and handed them to Kim. He asked Kim for her shoe size and handed her a pair of boots, smiling as he did. When Shego pointed out his most expensive, most carefully constructed Xena outfit he had, he nearly cried tears of joy. He suspected he’s be giggling the entire way to the bank.

Shego paid the man after an angry glare from Kim made her pretty sure that she wouldn’t get away with stealing the outfits. She cringed at the price but swallowed stoically. A few things (very few) were worth paying actual money for. Xena was one of them.

Shego grinned at Kim and winked. “Come on, princess, don’t look so pissed. It’ll be fun. People have seen you in less, after all. How many years did you spend cheerleading in that tiny skirt?”

Kim scowled and Shego rocked on the balls of her feet. “I mean, it’s not like you have to back flip over the judges, or anything.”

Kim slid her books in the bag the vendor had provided her with and made a moue of annoyance. Shego, giddy and exhilarated, suddenly felt the need to see her partner in cosplay crack a smile.

“Come on, Gabby, you’ve got to be perky! Chipper. If you had blonde hair, now, then you could be a bad ass,” she grinned. “I’ve got to be the big, grouchy warrior.”

Kim, not terribly keen to sink into a sour mood, let Shego’s enthusiasm buoy her. “As long as you don’t make any fish or soap jokes, OK?”

“Deal. But you’ve got to learn the Gabrielle song.”

Kim’s eyes widened and she swallowed convulsively.

“You’ve got to be joking.”

---

One jug of Margaritas and a few shots of tequila later, Kim and Shego were holding court in the bar. Neither woman was shy by nature or lacking in confidence and the potent combination of silliness and general joie de vivre that seemed in no short supply saw them creating an axis around which other Xenites were happily revolving.

“OK, OK,” one young man said, holding his hands up, “I still don’t think that that stupid cannibal episode made any sense! It was fan service, seriously.”

“Yeah,” Shego said, grinning lecherously, “but who wouldn’t want Gabrielle covered in barbecue sauce?”

A raucous round of laughter followed and Shego leaned back. “Ere, Tapert,” she said, affecting an even less accurate Kiwi accent than Kim had, “throw another shrimp on the barbie, mate.”

Kim folded her arms in mock displeasure. “The Abyss was a really romantic episode. It showed that Gabrielle was always thinking about Xena, that she wanted to be with her forever.”

“Oh god,” a voice popped up, “not the subtext!”

“Ah, shut up,” Shego drawled.

“Yeah, it is so not the subtext,” Kim piped.

“That may be,” a fan beside her muttered, “but if either you or Xena Junior there starts quoting Fallen Angel at each other I swear I’m gonna puke,” he said, without malice. Kim blushed. “I mean, Joxer ended up with Meg, for crying out loud! The poor guy.”

No one argued with him.

“But seriously,” someone else said, “we deserve a movie! One with, I dunno…”

“Hookers! And blackjack,” Shego said.

“Ah, screw the blackjack,” Kim followed, grinning widely before bursting into laughter.

“Oh my god, you are such the nerd, Kimmy,” Shego said, her head in her hand.

“Hey, you started it, with your hookers,” Kim said, nudging Shego with her shoulder. Shego laughed and was about to come back with a brilliant retort when the bar lights flickered and the manager called for everyone to drink up.

“Damn, it’s late,” someone said, and people made to leave, splitting into small groups. Shego frowned and looked at the clock behind the bar. “It is not! why are they kicking us out so early?”

“Probably because we drank the place dry,” Kim replied. “But yeah, way early.” She looked at Shego, noticing the flush on her pale features, smiling at the way strands of hair were escaping her low pony tail to float around her face. Shego returned the smile, surprisingly gently and nodded.

“Where are you staying?”

“Oh, way across town,” Kim said. “A friend of mine helped me find a place near her parents’ house. You?”

“Not too far away. And I can guarantee the bar where there will still be open,” she said, a lazy smile on her face. “Come on, the night is young.”

Kim grinned at the glint of challenge in Shego’s dancing eyes. “OK, lead the way, Xena.”

“Get moving, sidekick.”

---

“So, did you ever see that strip in Strangers in Paradise, where Francine knocks Katchoo out and she dreams that she’s Gabrielle?” Shego asked, nestled into a corner of the bar of her hotel, Kim opposite her, elbows on the table. The walk had sobered them slightly and they’d ordered yet more food.

“Nope, I saw a scan on the cover art on the internet, but I never saw the actual comic. Is it good?”

Shego shrugged. “It’s OK. How about that episode of The Simpsons?”

“Oh, come on,” Kim scoffed, “who hasn’t?”

“I bet she can fly, you know.”

“Probably.”

They trailed into a companionable silence, the bar subdued around them. Shego grinned suddenly and began singing softly, trying to recite the Gabrielle song from memory. Kim laughed and folded her arms on the table, resting her chin and peering at Shego.

“You’re a nut. Seriously. I thought that Drakken was the mad one.”

“Shh,” Shego said, trying to be as stern as she could, “that’s shop talk.”

“So, apart from Xena, what isn’t? Kim asked, smiling softly.

“Lemme think. Cartoons. Comics. Fan fiction-”

“Fan fiction? Tell me you don’t!” Kim said, sticking her tongue out. “That’s sad.”

Shego glowered as best she could, trying to cover her grin. “Yeah, well, Missy Good? That novel you just paid hard-earned dollars for is fanfic.”

“Uber doesn’t count!”

Shego rolled her eyes. “See any more crocs, Kimmy?” Shego grinned lecherously. “Besides, I thought you’d be keeping an eye on your own fandom.”

Kim squirmed slightly. “That’s shop talk. And, more importantly, it freaks me out.”

Shego shrugged. “OK, so not fanfic. The weather?”

“California doesn’t have any weather,” Kim said, slightly morosely. “It’s just hot and sunny. Sometimes it’s foggy.”

“Colorado has weather,” Shego pointed out.

Kim shrugged. “I live here now. I mean, it’s college, but I stay down during vacation,” she fiddled with a beer mat. “It’s easier than dragging my stuff back home.”

Shego shrugged. She’d spent plenty of time in various universities. She’d never actually enrolled, truth be told. “So, where are you in college?” she asked.

“Berkeley,” Kim said, shyly.

“Cool,” Shego mused. “I mean, I hear it’s got a good party scene. Good weed.”

“Shego!” Kim hissed, eyes wide. She scanned the room to make sure no one was listening. “What the hell?”

She shrugged. “What? Don’t tell me you’ve never… No. On second thoughts, don’t.” She sighed wryly. “Kimmy, you’re such a priss. You’ve probably never done anything remotely rebellious, have you?”

Kim avoided Shego’s eyes and studied the beer mat in her hand for a moment, serious again. Shego sighed and watched her for a moment, regretting once again putting her foot in it. She reached over and took Kim’s small hand, running her thumb over her knuckles gently, staring at them.

“Look, I’m sorry,” she said, amazed at how easily she apologised. “Forget I opened my mouth.”

Kim still wouldn’t meet her gaze, the alcohol suddenly taking its toll on her, pulling her down and sapping the strength from her limbs. “I, I don’t know if I want to talk about it, Shego,” she said softly. Her need to prove herself against Shego, to confirm that she wasn’t such a straight laced prude, was strong. It was also warring with her intense desire to not lay her personal life in front of one of her enemies.

Enemy…

She lifted her face, watching Shego carefully. She’d not fought the woman in nearly a year, possibly more. She could probably count the number of times they’d fought since the Diablo Incident on one hand. What had changed, she wondered. Why had it stopped? Suddenly angry with Shego, frustrated with herself, she pulled her hand back.

“I’d better go, Shego,” she said, awkwardly.

Shego shook her head. “No way, princess. You’re drunk and in a city you don’t know.” The thief sat up straight in her seat and shrugged. “I mean, I need you so I can win tomorrow and there’s no way I’m risking losing because you wandered under a bus in a stupor.”

Kim huffed. “I’m not that drunk,” she complained. “I just want to go home.”

Shego curled her hand into a loose fist, the first time she’d moved it since Kim had taken hers away and sighed. “Home isn’t a motel in L.A. princess.” She lifted her eyes again and studied Kim, the student sad behind her fashionably thick-rimmed glasses. “It probably isn’t Middleton, either.”

Kim’s shoulders drooped and Shego felt a pang of pathos for the girl. She was going to chalk it up to the alcohol.

“Look, truce, right?” she asked, “if you do want to talk, I won’t throw it back in your face, or treat you differently because of it, OK? I mean, it’ll have some kind of amnesty.”

Kim sighed and her head once again fell to her arms. “You so will,” she muttered miserably. “You do it with everything. Even the good things. Especially the good things. You’d have a field day with this,” she said turning her head and looking out over the bar, her glasses skew ways on her nose. “Everyone else did, throw it back at me, I mean.”

Shego moved on her seat and slid down to match Kim’s position, staring at the top of Kim’s head. “I don’t care that you’re gay, Kim.”

The red head turned teary eyes to Shego, miserable. “Am I that obvious?”

“It’s called Gaydar,” Shego said, conspiratorially, “obviously yours is pretty shitty.”

Their heads on the cool marble table, they studied each other for a moment. Shego shrugged. “I mean, what’s the drama? To borrow one of your more asinine phrases,” she enunciated carefully, tripping around asinine. “It’s not like it’s a disease or anything.”

Kim frowned. “My parents are really uncomfortable with it. I mean,” she sighed, “I get it. My mom said that you have a baby and you have all these dreams and hopes for them, from the minute they’re born, and being gay doesn’t fit in there. They think I’ll be lonely.” She closed her eyes sadly. “They asked me not to tell the tweebs, or to ‘be out’ in Middleton, until they’re finished High School.”

“The tweebs are your brothers, right?” Shego asked.

“Yeah. I get it, I do. They get enough crap, I guess. I know that mom and dad still love me but it’s just as if there’s now this big thing we can’t talk about and everything I say around them might have some other meaning to them. It’s awkward.”

Shego nodded softly and closed her eyes, sighing inside. She hated these kind of conversations.

“Come upstairs, Kimmy,” she said quietly. “You don’t want people over hearing you, right?”

Kim’s eyes widened. Shego stared back, tiredly.

“Come on, princess, grab your Gab bag.”

---

They sat on a sofa on the terrace of Shego’s balcony, watching the city and probably inhaling a good deal of smog. They were curled under a soft throw at opposite ends of a couch. Shego had handed Kim a large glass of iced water and was sipping one herself.

“It’s kinda pretty,” Kim said.

“It’s awful,” Shego replied. “I hate cities.”

Kim curled into the cushions, sleepy eyes looking out over the city. “I’d never have pegged you for a country girl.”

“I like stars,” she said, softly. “Imagine Xena and Gabrielle, right? They’d have all night to watch the stars, if they wanted. No city. No smog. No light pollution.”

“No indoor plumbing,” Kim pointed out.

“The Romans had flush toilets, after a fashion,” Shego muttered. “It’d have been great, though. Like freedom.”

“Hmm,” Kim hummed, sleepily. “You know that my Kimmunicator has coverage in more than 96% of the world?”

Shego was quiet for a moment. “That’s a lot of world. I take it Pasadena’s a black spot?”

Kim smiled. “Just for a day or two.”

“I hate cell phones.”

Kim nodded and stretched her feet out, bumping into Shego’s legs. She drew them back and sighed, trembling softly. “I wish I could just go somewhere that no one knew me, start over.”

Shego nodded absently. “I wanted that too, once. Look where I am now,” she said quietly. “I don’t want to change anymore, even though everyone would say I should.”

“I’m just like early Gabrielle, stuck in a village filled with sheep,” Kim said, sadly.

Shego shook her head. “You’re Xena, running the gauntlet against her own men.”

“I haven’t seen the Hercules Xena episodes.”

“The one with Xena the Conquerer is cool. But I wouldn’t buy the DVD. I fucking hate Kevin Sorbo.”

“I like him. He’s like who Ron thinks he could be, is only he worked out a bit. But Iolaus? Who plays him. I hate him.”

“Dunno. You ever think Callisto could do with a good square meal?”

“Yup. I loved the ones where she was Xena,” Kim said tiredly. “Hudson Leick rocks.”

“That she does. Heh, she was Eve’s daddy.”

Kim giggled and wiggled under the blanket. “I bet Eve's head explodes when she finds out.”

Shego nodded and turned her gaze from the city lights, over to Kim. She was glad the slight woman couldn’t see her. They were silent for a moment before Kim sighed expressively.

“What did your parents say, Shego?” she asked carefully. “I mean, you are, that’s what you meant earlier, right?” she asked, studying the blurry lights beyond the railings.

“I am queer, Kimmy,” she said softly, resting her head on the back of the couch. “But I never talked to them. They died when the comet hit. A long, long time ago.”

Kim was quiet for a long moment. “I’m really, really sorry. I had no idea.”

Shego nodded. “It’s OK. I don’t know if I would have told them. Honesty never mattered much, to me.”

“You’re honest with me, tonight,” Kim asked in a small voice, “aren’t you?”

“Yup,” Shego said. “No reasons to fib tonight. Not to a fellow Xenite.”

Kim whistled the first bar of the opening theme and Shego laughed. It was so hard to keep on one train of thought around Kim, she thought. Her mind was flitting from one idea to another and she felt radiant, brilliant; as if she was at her most charming and eloquent.

She was sober enough to realise that it was probably the alcohol, making her think like that, but drunk enough to not care. She hoped she wouldn’t regret anything in the morning. She stretched her legs out in front of her and yawned, reaching under the blanket and squeezing Kim’s big toe.

“Yo, Kimmy, you awake?”

“Mmm?”

“You’re drunk and crashing,” she said. “Go to bed. I need you at your sexiest tomorrow.”

“Mmm,” Kim responded. Shego rolled her eyes and pulled the comforter off her, expression unusually gentle.

“Come on, princess, you can have my bed.” She lifted Kim’s glasses off her nose and laid them on the coffee table before scooping the slim woman up and loading her into the large bed in her room, sliding her shoes and scrunchy off before covering her up.

“Sleep well, Kimmy,” she murmured, heading to the mini bar and grabbing a bottle of whiskey and a glass, heading for the balcony again. She sat, her legs propped on the coffee table in front of her and her eyes on the city lights, wondering how drunk she’d need to be before she could make the constellations out.

---

Sunday Morning

Bright light shone in through the open balcony door, slicing through Kim’s eyelids and directly into parts of her brain where it wasn’t particularly welcome. Inhaling deeply, she rolled over and buried her face into the hotel pillows, pain lancing above her eyes. The sheets around her felt stifling and twisted and her jeans were digging into her uncomfortably. Much less comfortable, however, was the urge to visit the bathroom.

She kicked her blankets off and looked around mussily. Her mind dragged up flashes of the previous evening and she inspected the room for Shego, her mind plodding through her memories of the cursed event. She staggered to the en suite and slammed the door shut behind her, bracing herself against the sink. At least she didn’t feel like puking.

Yet.

Out on the balcony, Shego jerked awake at the sound of the door slamming and opened her eyes fully, blinking in the sun. What had she been thinking, letting herself be put in an east facing hotel room?

More importantly, what had she been thinking when she’d decided to spend the night on the balcony?

L.A. bustled ten stories down and the drone suddenly seemed very loud. How, exactly, had she managed to sleep through that? So many questions, she mused, so few remaining functioning brain cells. The bottle of whiskey in front of her had been nipped at, it seemed, but not pillaged. Thank god for small mercies.

She lifted Kim’s glasses and held them at arms length in the morning sun, idly watching the early morning haze through the smudged lenses. She hooked them onto the front of her t-shirt before heaving herself up, picking up the bottle and the empty tumbler as she went.

The bed was empty and the bathroom door closed, she noted. She left the glasses on the night stand beside the messier side of the bed, yawning as she did.

“Heh,” she croaked, wondering exactly what had crawled down her throat and died. “Princess, there’re drugs in there, in the wash bag. You might want to take some of them.”

“What kind of drugs?” Kim moaned back, muffled by the wall.

“Legal ones,” Shego answered, replacing the bottle with care. “Bring me out some, will you?”

Kim emerged a moment later with a blister packet clutched in her hand, looking much smaller and more delicate than she usually did. She handed Shego the paracetamol and inadvertently got a whiff of her own clothes.

“Oh god,” she complained, miserably, “I smell like an ashtray.”

Shego yawned again and popped two pills into her mouth. “I can smell you from here.”

“What time is it?” Kim asked, unbuttoning her blouse and laying it over a chair, nose wrinkled in disgust.

“Six thirty,” Shego said, surprised. “What the hell am I doing awake at six thirty?”

Kim moaned sleepily, throwing herself into a chair. “This always happens, I wake up at some god awful hour needing water.” If it had been anyone else’s room, she would have apologised.

Shego glared at the other woman. “Our truce only covered last night, pumpkin. Your ass is mine.”

Kim laid her head back against the arm chair she was curled in. “Oh, shut up. I’m feeling delicate.”

She wasn’t the only one.

Shego stomped into the bathroom, peevishly slamming the door after her. Kim sat in the armchair and watched motes of dust float around, slightly spaced out. A few moments later Shego emerged, looking slightly less poorly. “Right, so it covers today too, until we win the fancy dress and get to meet Lucy Lawless?”

“I’m afraid so,” Kim sighed. “I should get back to my room and get changed. I really need a shower.”

Shego crossed her arms. “Oh no, princess, your gear is here. No need to go getting lost in L.A. Not when I’m so near to winning this!” She stalked back into the bathroom and emerged with a white, fluffy robe.

“Look, they left extra stuff out. And I never use the hotel toiletries, so knock yourself out.” Shego threw the robe at her and Kim let it land in her lap, her hands clasped between her knees. “Now, go do whatever it is you do to get yourself presentable.”

“Competitive much?” Kim groused. “No need to be such a bitch,” she muttered, making her way to the bathroom.

Shego stood agog, feeling slightly wounded. She’d been making a genuine effort to be nice!

---

Half an hour later, the pair of women were washed, wrapped in fluffy dressing gowns and feeling slightly more human. Shego was towelling her hair and brushing it carefully. Kim was curled back in the chair, slightly nervous. She hadn’t taken the time the previous evening to examine the room. It wasn’t a suite, or even excessively large, but little luxuries were scattered around. She suspected it would probably cost the same as a month’s rent for her apartment, utilities and broadband included.

“You want to order some breakfast?” Shego asked, head to one side as she worked tangles out of her hair. “There’s no way I’m braving the buffet.”

“God, you international criminals sure know how to live,” Kim muttered sourly. She never got room service. Not even when she was saving the world.

“Hey, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, Kimmy. Or a free breakfast. You’re a student, right? You’re meant to take all the free food you can.”

“I do actually cook at home,” she shot back, picking up a menu. She didn’t add that she was practically surviving on cold salads and instant ramen.

Shortly afterwards, after Shego had decided that she was too tired to try and maintain a conversation, they were propped up against the head of the bed, watching Shego’s Xena Tenth Anniversary Special Edition DVDs and eating breakfast.

“I’m telling you, she grew after the first season,” Kim said, a bowl of cereal balanced on her stomach.

“Well, she’d kinda have to,” Shego sighed. “She’s such a short arse to begin with.”

“That’s one of the things I’m worried about,” Kim said, frowning, “you’re tall, but not quite as tall as Lucy and I’m not quite as short as Renee.”

“Yeah, barely,” Shego scoffed. “But you’re right, the height difference was always striking. Not as bad as Mulder and Scully, or anything. Or Scully and McMahon, for that matter.”

“McMahon? Was that her character in The X-Files?” Kim asked.

“Yup.”

“You are such the nerd,” Kim said. “God, it isn’t even eight in the morning and already you’re spouting trivia.”

“It’s a con,” Shego scoffed, “day and night aren’t important distinctions. It’s a case of minimising your hours asleep so you can get the maximum amount of Xena time,” she scoffed.

“You’re a cornucopia of useless information.”

“Shut it.”

“A font,” Kim giggled, “gushing unimportant facts.” She suspected that her healthy, nutritious orange juice had just acted on the liquor still floating around in her stomach, recharging it somehow.

Shego glared at Kim. “Here’s some trivia for ya, you’re in my bed, in my clothes eating food I’m paying for. I could have you naked, hungry and in the hall in seconds, if I wanted to.” She made a valiant effort to not peek down the front of Kim’s dressing gown as she said the word naked. She suspected that her earlier guess of 32B had been generous.

Kim huffed and took another bite of toast, caught up in the show. “If you wanted to. Yeah, right.”

“Shush, Xena!” Shego groused, pointing.

---

A few hours later, Kim was helping Shego with her costume, which was a lot more complicated than she would have thought possible.

“I think we need more talc,” Shego commented, adjusting her cleavage. “Seriously.”

“You’re like a walking Pampers advert, Shego,” Kim said, zipping her up. “There, how’s that?”

“Hmm, a breast dagger and I’ll be set to go,” she grinned.

“Oh, no way are you bringing anything even remotely resembling a weapon in there. Here, it came with a chakram and everything!”

“Princess, it’s made out of foam,” she said, snatching the (not very ) offensive weapon out of Kim’s hand and tossing it in the general direction of the bed. “You’re just sore because you couldn’t have anything worse than a stick.”

“First off, it's a staff and I could knock you senseless with it!” Kim shouted, crossing her arms over her bilious green sports bra.

“You could try, Little Miss Early Morning Pedantry,” Shego grinned, one leg sliding back as she shifted her weight. Kim glared at her and breathed deeply through her nose, trying to calm herself.

“Look, much as I can’t wait to kick your ass-”

“Hah!”

“-I want to win this thing too!” Kim shouted. “And we won’t do that if we’re constantly arguing.”

“Oh yeah? How about we act out the Rift? A horse, my hotel room for a horse!” Shego said, throwing her hands up melodramatically and turning her back to Kim. Kim resisted the urge to smack her in the back of the head.

Barely.

“We didn’t fight yesterday,” Kim groused. “You were actually nice to me yesterday! Sometimes! On occasion…”

“I was drunk,” Shego said, eying the mini bar speculatively. She shook her head. No, no booze before lunch. No matter how irritating Kim became.

“Odd, I always figured you for a mean drunk,” Kim said pettily, “given what you’re like the rest of the time!”

“Well, news flash, pumpkin, I’m evil! Evil,” she stepped into Kim’s personal space and glared at her from beneath lowered eyebrows. “Evil! Evil like Alti! Or Velasca or-”

“Or Xena?” Kim asked, a smirk on her face as she eyed Shego’s costume. Shego threw her hands up again and shouted in wordless frustration.

“My god, what the hell was I thinking?” she asked herself, heading for the balcony. “I should have stuck to the original plan.”

Which had involved watching as much of her new DVD box sets as humanly possible, getting drunk and possibly getting laid, she admitted to herself. She leaned out looking out over L.A., sighing. Her long hair was still slightly damp and chilly over her bare neck and shoulders.

“Damn, it looks even uglier by day,” she muttered, glaring out over the city. She threw herself onto the couch and resumed her glaring, fuming at no one particular target. After a few minutes of undirected anger, a mug of coffee appeared under her nose, held out by an apologetic young woman. Kim smiled a lop sided smile and took a seat beside Shego.

“It isn’t that bad, is it?” Kim asked, looking out over the city. “I mean, it’s not pretty but it’s not the worst place in the world.”

“You should see some of the places I’ve been,” Shego said, quietly, after a moment. “The most remote, beautiful places. Places where people just leave you alone. I’ve visited countries where there isn’t even a Starbucks.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah.”

They were silent for a long while, both trying to release their anger, their frustration. Each wondering when they were supposed to apologise, what they were expected to do. Kim took a deep breath and turned to look at the woman beside her, wondering why she was always so angry. Shego was wondering why the hell Kim wasn’t angrier. She didn’t think it was healthy to be so damn forgiving of the world and the idiots spinning with it all the time.

“So,” Shego said after a while, trying to remember what kind of thing they’d talked so easily about the night before, “you ever wonder what it’d have been like if Xena had started in 2001, instead of ending then?”

“Not really. I’d have seen it on TV. I wouldn’t have had to spend all that money on DVDs,” she said, frowning.

“Hmm, one way of looking at it,” Shego muttered. She grunted and leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. She fished around for a piece of trivia, a corner of a conversation or some way back to lever them back into the easy chat they’d indulged in. She kept coming up short. “How fucked up is it that we can only be civil to each other when we’re drunk?”

“Pretty messed up,” Kim agreed, missing the camaraderie from the previous evening as much as Shego was. She blinked and looked over at the thief, gathering her courage. “Have you got a girlfriend?” She’d been thinking about this while the other woman had showered and come to the conclusion that a new girlfriend could account for Shego’s diminished presence since the Diablo incident. Perhaps they’d met in prison.

“Have you?” Shego shot back, chuckling and shaking her head at the non sequitur.

“No, not really,” she said, fiddling with the hem of her brown skirt. “I, um, I dated a few times but never anything serious. It’s hard, you know,” she said, quietly.

“I guess. I mean, everyone wants to think that they’d come before the world, huh?” Shego said, as casually as she could. She had no desire for a deep and meaningful conversation this early in the morning.

“I don’t go out much on the scene, either,” Kim continued, “Like, I’m a member of the LGBT and I help out with the events and the mailing lists but…” she sighed. “So do some straight people. I feel so nervous going out to clubs and stuff. I worry about it getting back to mom and dad.”

Shego snorted. “You would. You’re only young once, princess. What’s the point in getting away from home if you act like a nun?”

Kim rolled her eyes. “Well, what about you? Do you have a girlfriend?”

“Why?” Shego asked, leaning towards Kim with a sly grin. “You interested?”

“Are you joking? You’re so not my type,” Kim said, sipping her coffee. “Evil, to begin with.”

“Everyone wants a bad girl every now and then.”

“Obnoxious and rude-”

“Incisive and ludic!”

“- violent and possible an alcoholic-”

“An enthusiastic party goer.”

“Evil! Very evil!”

“Aw, Kimmy,” Shego purred, nudging her with her shoulder. “I could pretend to be good.”

Kim sat primly, her legs crossed at the ankles and tried to ignore the fact that she was inches away from a scandalously attractive woman in a low cut leather bustier. “Yeah, right.”

Shego shrugged and settled back onto her edge of the couch, disappointed at not being able to raise a reaction. “Seriously though, you need to lighten up. Your little brothers aren’t going to get bullied because their big sister’s a screaming dyke.”

“A what?”

“I’d call you flaming, but you know,” Shego shrugged, “it doesn’t work if you try and extend it to diesel…”

Kim groaned and smacked Shego in the shoulder. “No more puns, OK? And I meant what I said yesterday about soap jokes. I never even got that damn joke!”

Shego blinked and decided not to go down that path until she had a few beers lining her stomach.

“Anyway, stop it and get into character. Try and act more butch.”

Shego blinked. “Xena isn’t butch!” she cried, indignant. “She’s just tough.”

“I reckon she’s pretty butch,” Kim said, chewing her thumbnail. “Look at the way she walks.”

Shego snatched Kim’s thumb and glowered at her. “First off, that’s a disgusting habit and secondly Xena’s no butcher than you or I!”

“Is that even a word?”

“Butcher? Of course. They make meat.”

Kim rolled her eyes and tugged her thumb gently. Shego’s eyes widened and she let go, inspecting her hand.

“You better not have left any Possible Pox on me,” she said, glaring. “It nearly killed me last time.” She shuddered. “That was the single foulest thing that ever happened to me, by the way.”

Kim flushed in shame. She didn’t like being reminded about that. “It was your own damn fault. Anyway, about all this,” she said, waving her hand between them. “Are they going to ask us to do anything?”

“They’re going to check to see if you’re a natural red head. Are you?”

“Shego!”

---

Shego stood with her weight on one foot, arms crossed and her patented ‘fuck off and die’ glare plastered over her face. It was her version of Kim’s puppy dog pout. Flame thrower toting puppies. Kim was busy signing them into the competition and the red head skipped back with their number, grinning widely.

“God, this reminds me of high school,” she said, pinning the entry number to the top of Shego’s skirt.

Shego narrowed her eyes and glared at Kim. “You dressed in leather in high school?”

“Of course not. High school kids generally don’t,” Kim admonished, bouncing nervously.

“I did.”

“Of course you did,” Kim replied absently, tugging Shego over to a chair outside the entrance to the auditorium and pushing her into it. She quickly ran her fingers through the long, dark mane and started adding in a couple of discrete plaits.

“Princess?” Shego asked, an eyebrow crawling higher than she thought possible.

“Xena sometimes has plaits. It’ll keep your hair out of your way.” She lifted a couple of small nylon bands from around her wrist, securing the plaits. “Would you stop squirming? You’re acting like I’m the one with the burning hands of doom.”

“I’ll give you burning hands, if you want,” Shego muttered darkly, earning a short sharp tug. “I even got you a present,” she said, nodding towards the staff she’d bullied the costume vendor into selling her. Apparently, it had been used on the show and was worth a pretty penny. Shego was quite confident that it had been bought in the local garden centre and then crammed up a turkey’s stuffing hole.

“Oh, cool,” Kim said, grinning. “Thank you. Did you get one of the swords?”

“Yeah,” Shego bit out. “They’re all made out of foam! Stupid health and safety laws…”

Kim shoved her shoulder and watched Shego drape herself elegantly over the chair she was in. On one level, she was delighted that Shego was playing the part of the moody, factious warrior. On another, she found herself missing the trivia spouting Xenite she’d spent the previous evening with.

“OK people,” an organiser called. “We’re starting up in five minutes. Can everyone please sort themselves into numerical order? I’ll be bringing the first twenty entries backstage right now.”

Kim shrugged and leaned beside the wall beside Shego, humming to herself. They had a while to wait before they had to go forward and Kim didn't particularly want to spend the entire time in the stuffy hall.

“You ready to play the part of the goofy sidekick?” Shego asked, grinning and sitting up. Teasing Kim would pass the time nicely, she decided.

“Gabby wasn’t goofy,” Kim said, smoothing her skirt. “She was young and enthusiastic. Idealistic.”

“Equipped with the power of imagination.” Shego drawled, her hands raised mockingly. Kim narrowed her eyes at the spiteful woman, taking a deep breath. How she longed to have Hego’s strength back for a moment.

“She was what made Xena a great hero,” Kim said, folding her arms. “Heroes need their sidekicks, you know.”

“Not when they’re brought in for comic relief,” Shego said, inspecting her nails. “I mean, sure, she became a kick ass fighter, but look what she went through to do it. It was pretty horrible.”

Kim was silent for a long moment, green eyes fastened on Shego. “She did it because she loved Xena, though. She made those sacrifices for a reason.”

Shego stared right back at her, unusually serious. “Heroes have to sacrifice something, right? Something important. They have to have their moment of catastrophe, their cathartic scene where they lose everything and then save everything. It’s fine if you’re a pure little paladin, brimming over with innocence and goodness. It’s when they see you’re human that someone else has to give all that.”

Kim frowned. “What? So when did Xena have hers, then?”

“The first episode. The very start, practically off camera, when she was about to kill herself and rid the world of a tyrant. Gabrielle interrupted and spent the rest of the show paying for it,” Shego said, eyes dark under her eyelashes.

Kim rolled her eyes dismissively. “That doesn’t make any sense. Why bother having the show, why tell the story if that’s the case?” Shego shrugged and Kim scowled. “You’re just messing with my mind, trying to make me feel like a kid.”

They stared at each other for a long moment, uncomfortable and curious, knowing that if they pushed a little bit, if they trusted each other a little bit, they might find themselves enlightened.

Shego snapped first, one corner of her mouth curving up in a grin. “Is it working, bard?”

Kim flicked her hair over her shoulder and made a sound of annoyance. Shego grinned at her from her seat, crossing one leg over the other.

“We need to have you all over the place for this to work,” Shego said, glancing at the wall clock. “Go and grab a drink or something, we’ve probably got hours before it’s our turn.”

Kim muddled her way out of her annoyance. “Good idea,” she sounded vaguely surprised. “I’ll be back in ten minutes.”

“Excellent,” Shego said, picking a comic out of her bag of purchases. “Grab me a still water, will you?”

Kim sighed and headed to the hall, quickly finding the vending machine. She had to try several times to persuade it to take her slightly battered five dollar bill.

“Those things are so sensitive,” a voice said from behind her. She turned and smiled sunnily at the young man dressed as Autolycus. Well, she assumed it was Autolycus. It was hard to tell without the chin.

“Yeah, I guess so,” she said, “great costume. You up soon?”

“Cupid and Ares are saving my place,” he said, smiling.

“I saw Cupid earlier on,” Kim said, bending to retrieve her water and gatorade. “Isn’t he cold?”

“Not too bad,” the man shrugged. “He stays away from the air conditioning vents. Love the classic Gabby look, it’s rare this year.”

“Thanks,” Kim smiled, “good luck in the contest.”

“You too.”

Kim made her way back to Shego, tossing the bottle of water at her. She caught it without looking up from her comic and glared at Kim. “Not near the memorabilia, Possible.”

“You’re welcome,” she said, bouncing on the balls of her feet. Shego grunted and went back to Xena’s struggles against a large, mucus dripping worm. Kim went back to leaning against the wall and waved at Autolycus as he entered the room. Smiling under his moustache, he made his way over.

“Hey, woah, you got a Xena too,” he grinned, juggling the spoils of his trip. “If you two joined up with our team, we’d be a shoe in, you know.”

Shego glared up, carefully sliding the comic back into her bag. Kim shrugged politely. “We’re already entered, thanks.”

“Aw, but the more the merrier, right?” he cajoled. “No chance?”

Shego stood and draped a possessive arm around the front of Kim’s shoulders, eyes dangerous over the top of her head.

“Absolutely no chance,” she enunciated slowly. “Scram.”

And scram he did. Kim wondered exactly what kind of expression Shego must have had on her face to scare the poor man so badly. She reached up and tugged at Shego’s arm, only to be pulled back into Shego. The thief frowned down at her, eyes dark.

“Are you nuts?” she asked, leaning down. Kim’s hair was spread over her right shoulder and her eyes were wide. “I do not share, princess,” she said, throatily, leaning ever closer. Kim took a breath, fighting the urge to break free as Shego’s arm tightened around her throat.

“It’s bad enough having to share Lucy with you, after all,” she hissed.

Kim blinked and tightened her grip on Shego’s arm, suddenly realising that she was bent over ever so slightly backwards.

“What? Lucy?”

Shego nodded and released her, shoving her back into an upright position, roughly but without malice. “Yeah. What did you think I was talking about?”

---

Kim was annoyed. She was seething in the wings. Shego, busy adjusting her cleavage, was oblivious. She wasn’t sure why she was so angry, but she was quite sure that it had something to do with Shego. It usually did.

“You never told me they were going to ask us questions!” she whispered. “Some of those people are doing skits!”

Shego shrugged. “Wing it. We’re up.”

“I swear, I'm never letting you talk me into something like this again!” she bit out as they were called on stage. Kim turned and presented the crowd with a toothy, cheer leading grin. They cheered. Shego scowled. The crowd went wild.

“Ah,” the MC laughed, “and entry forty two, Xena and Gabrielle. Welcome, welcome.”

“Thank you,” Kim said, her staff grasped in one hand. “Good to be here.”

“Yup, sure is,” the MC oozed. “So, what are you two going to do? A song, bit of the old Bitter Suite? Or one of our favourite scenes, hmm?”

“Well,” Kim said, grin still plastered over her face, thinking fast. “We were going to, um, we were-”

“Stand here and stutter all night,” Shego said, loudly. The crowd laughed. “Poor Gabby’s a bit nervous.”

Kim’s eyes widened. “Well, Xena, if you’d not been busy scaring people in the green room, we’d be fine.”

Shego yawned. “Ah, shut it, sidekick,” she said, inspecting her nails before lifting her head to the crowd. “I picked her up outside this little sheep herding town and I can’t seem to be rid of her.”

Someone in the crowd baaed. Everyone else laughed. Kim flushed a bright red and turned to Shego, stick clutched in her hand. “You really do think you’re all that. Talk about ego with a capital-”

Shego whipped her foam sword out, eyes wide and warning. “Just be careful what you say, kid.” She winked. Kim fumed. She puckered her lips.

Kim charged.

The stick was light and not at all well balanced. Shego’s foam sword bounced around every time they connected. If the pair of competitors hadn’t been so serious, it would have been laughable. Kim was still fuming and Shego was grinning like a shark. Swinging the butt of the stick towards her opponent’s belly, Kim watched in consternation as she back flipped away, earning a loud cheer. Shego stood with her hand on her hip for a moment before rushing back at Kim, doing her damnedest to land a smack.

Back and forth they went for a few minutes, to raucous cheers that seemed muted as the blood pounded through their ears. Kim, on her back after a sneaky kick, sent Shego flying towards the wings. The thief righted herself and landed softly, grinning before launching herself back into the fray. The crowd was in a frenzy; how were such stunts possible without wires?

Shego winced when Kim tagged her elbow, looking over at the MC and realising that it was probably time to finish it up. Much longer and Kim might actually start to get serious, too. Dropping to a crouch, she smacked Kim’s staff away with her sword and swept her legs out, pouncing and pinning her to the ground. She turned, elegant legs crossed at the knee as she perched on Kim’s back.

“Well, kid,” she sighed, watching Kim seethe beneath her. “You’d be good enough for sheep herding.”

The crowd erupted in laughter, clearly delighted. They’d sat through a fair few mushy scenes and one too many slapstick Joxer routines. Shego stood, pulling Kim up with her. They bowed once before the thief yanked Kim off the stage, lest they wear out their welcome.

“Shego!” Kim hissed, hair askew and face red. “What the hell was that all about?”

“Pumpkin they loved it!” she crowed, taking both of Kim’s hands between her own. “Oh, you should have seen the look on your face! You looked just like Gabby. Oh, it’s in the bag!” she released Kim’s hands and spun in a happy circle.

“Hello Lucy!”

Kim blinked, trying to get her breathing under control. “What? You planned that?”

Shego folded her arms, smirking. “I have been here before, I know what goes on. I’d have told you, but you’re a crappy actress.”

Kim looked wounded. “I’m not that bad, am I?”

Shego waved her hand, dismissing Kim. “Yeah, you’re awful.” She smiled widely and sighed happily. “Come on, let’s go get some seats and wait for our prize, Kimmy.”

Kim managed to crack a smile. Fangirl Shego was slightly contagious, she had to admit.

“You reckon we’re going to win?”

Shego paused and laughed joyfully, soggy with adrenaline. “Oh, look at us! We’re the hottest girls here and we just put on the show of the night. We can’t lose.”

---

Kim and Shego sat side by side, Kim’s head cradled in one hand, Shego’s forehead resting on the bar. Kim sighed miserably and pouted, wondering if her puppy dog pout was powerful enough to actually turn back time.

“We lost,” Shego said, morosely. “We were the two hottest girls in there and we absolutely kicked ass. And by that, I mean I kicked your ass.”

“Of course,” Kim muttered sardonically. She lifted her hand and asked for two beers.

“We lost!” Shego lamented, “we had a chance to spend this afternoon with Lucy Lawless and what did we get? A lousy couple of autographs and baseball caps.”

Kim shrugged. “At least you remembered your autograph book.”

Shego sat up straight and let out a howl of frustration, causing several people nearby to flinch. “That’s the worst part! If I’d been in anything other than this damn leather get up, I wouldn’t have needed it!”

Kim blinked in confusion. She cast a sidelong glance at Shego and found her staring into space, a lonely expression on her face.

“You wouldn’t seriously have asked Lucy Lawless to sign your bra, would you?” Kim asked, frowning.

“I’m not wearing a bra!” she muttered to herself. Kim took a moment to absorb that. Shego sighed. “At least my catsuit opens down the front.”

“Where the hell are those beers?!” Kim shouted, leaning over the bar, eyes wide.

---

“I still can’t believe we lost,” Shego repeated, twirling her foam chakram on her finger.

“I can’t believe that the couple who won actually made a little Eve suit for their baby,” Kim said. “And that they had his sister playing Gabrielle.”

“I remember her from last year. She was dressed as season five Action Maternity Xena with her husband and the sister as Argo.”

“Wow. That’s commitment.”

“That’s one way of putting it,” Shego allowed. “At least no one recognised us.”

Kim nodded, very grateful for that small mercy. Although, if she were to be honest with herself, if anyone recognised them she could probably just try and arrest Shego, or something. Make it look like she’d intended it that way all along. She looked at the woman beside her, longing to ask her what she’d been doing, where she’d been, for the past few years.

No shop talk, she reminded herself.

Kim cleared her throat, realising that she should probably hurry up and get back to her hotel and get ready for the next morning’s drive back. She was only slightly reluctant to leave, mostly because she was sick of having to adjust her top. Shego was oddly quiet beside her, perhaps realising that things were wrapping up, too.

“Excuse me?” a voice asked from behind them. Kim swivelled on her stool and recognised the Joxer in front of her as the same young man who’d told them about the fancy dress the previous evening.

“Oh, hey,” she said, “love the costume. You guys were a riot up there.”

Joxer grinned. “It was a laugh. But you two kicked ass, really. We were just wondering,” he pointed over his shoulder at a large group of costumed Xenites, “well, there’s a few of us over there and if you want to come over, hang out, it’d be cool.” One of his friends waved at Kim and she smiled back. The group was large and seemed friendly enough, a mixed crowd.

“Sure, we’d love to come over,” she said, twirling back to Shego, smiling as her seat spun. Shego glared at her and shook her head.

“Always ready to make friends, huh?”

Kim frowned. “You make it sound like a crime.”

“So not my scene,” she replied, inspecting her nails. “Besides, I’m so ready for this whole truce thing-”

Eyes widening, Kim’s hand shot out, grabbing Shego’s. The thief glared at her, eyes bright and venomous. “What?”

Kim sighed. Of course she had to do all the work, she thought to herself. Stifling her annoyance at  Shego’s reluctance she squeezed her fingers. “Come on, it’ll be fun. Unless you’re rushing home for something. Or someone.”

They sat side by side in silence for a long moment, knees not quite brushing. Shego pulled her hand back and flicked her hair back over her should moodily. “It’s none of your damn business.”

Kim almost apologised. She probably would have, if it had been anyone else. “Look, you dragged me back in last night. Think of it as repaying the favour. Or don’t, whatever.”

Shego narrowed her eyes at the red head beside her. The air of casual disinterest that the red head was trying to affect was slightly ridiculous and very incongruous. She shook her head and stood.

“Fine, a big table like that, someone else is bound to pick up my tab.”

---

Two Hours Later

“Come on, try some,” Shego urged. “You have to. It’s Lesbian ouzo.”

“No way!” Kim said, laughing, “there’s no such thing as lesbian ouzo. How can liquor be gay?”

“Oh doy,” Shego said, pouring a shot, “it’s from Lesbos, that’s how. Authentic, um, however the hell you pronounce that Greek. It’s made on Lesbos!”

Kim frowned at Shego and looked at the group around her, most of them laughing. “No way am I drinking that, it smells foul.”

“Oh, go on, Gabby,” someone called, “bottoms up!”

“Yeah,” a second Gabby (this one with cropped hair and a tasteful henna job) said, “go for it.”

“OK,” Kim relented, “but only if some of you guys do too!” she shouted, taking a shot from Shego and waiting for a few more people to collect glasses, “one, two, three, cheers!”

The table erupted in toasts in several different languages, and Kim downed the anise flavoured drink, shuddering as she did. “Oh, that’s awful.”

“It’ll put hairs on your chest,” Shego said, clapping Kim on the back in a friendly manner.

“It’s foul,” she said, reaching for a beer. “Lesbos makes crappy liquor.”

“Nice wine though,” a Xena remarked.

“Oh, yeah,” someone else piped up. “Really cheap, too. But no one speaks English.”

“It is Greece,” a visiting Dane dressed as Callisto remarked, “it’s not their national language. I mean, the EU’s just pandering to pressure…”

Shego rolled her eyes and leaned over to Kim, brushing her hair back from her ear. “How did you talk me into this, again? I swear, these people take things too seriously. I bet someone says the word globalisation in the next five minutes.”

Kim giggled and turned to Shego, flushed and happy. The thief’s eyes were dark and soft in the low light and awfully close to her own, although watching something happening over Kim’s shoulder. She was slightly fascinated; Shego had very long eyelashes and her eyes were a much more vibrant shade of green than her own. Like apple sours, or something. She giggled at the thought and Shego turned her attention back to her. Kim felt as if she’d laughed so much that her face was going to ache for days. It was worth it, though.

“You look like you’re having fun,” Shego said, propping an elbow on the back of the booth, resting her cheek in her hand and catching Kim in a lazy stare.

Kim shrugged playfully. “You’re not so bad, when you’re drunk.”

“You’re not so uptight,” Shego pointed out.

“And you’re not so defensive,” Kim said, “you’re not waiting to pounce every second, either.”

Shego lifted a graceful eyebrow. “You sure about that, princess?” she asked, very close to Kim now, every inch the warrior princess. Kim felt her mouth desiccate and she was filled with a pressing urge to either jump into a cold shower or jump onto Shego.

“That’s what I’m talking about!” a sixth season Gabrielle said to an Amazon. “When people start bringing globalisation into the issue, it’s only a matter of time before it all descends into name calling!”

“Oh, that is such bullshit,” the Amazon said, rolling her eyes. “God, you people are always on about globalisation and multinationals!”

“You people?! Why you filthy,” the woman was turning purple with rage, “you, corporate flunky, you!”

“Take that back, hippy!”

Shego would have been delighted to know that she was right, but she had far more pressing things to think about. Like the woman beside her, who smelled like liquorice and whose skin was softer and warmer than anything she could have imagined. She ran her thumb in circles over Kim’s knee and smiled when the other woman shuddered and reached out for her elbow, mimicking her. She had no right to feel so welcome, she thought to herself.

The thief smiled widely, looking younger and happier than Kim had ever seen her and Kim grinned back, resisting the urge to look away first. Shego leaned towards her, shifting slightly and Kim took an uneven breath, her heart pounding as she leaned up.

Just, she told herself, so she didn’t have to break eye contact. Not to kiss her. Certainly not. She gripped Shego’s elbow even more tightly when she felt her breath on her lips. Shego’s eyes slipped shut and Kim’s widened even further, the moment stretching out in fevered, frozen anticipation.

The moment, as perfect as it was, was ruined when Shego was smacked rather sharply in the back of the head by a plushy Ares. Her head jerked forward, her forehead connecting with Kim’s with a dull smack. Kim yelped and leapt backwards as if burned, eyes wide and fearful. Shego froze, one eye twitching and whirled around to face the now silent table.

“Who the fuck threw that?” she demanded, her heart beating like a jack hammer in her chest. She glared at the assembled Xenites and was about to start breaking heads when she felt the seat bounce as Kim fled from behind her. She whipped her head around and her face crumpled in dismay. She spied the plushy toy and grabbed it, tempted to incinerate it there and then.

“That’s it! When I get back, I swear to christ this thing is going up someone’s arse!” She stormed after Kim, demanding directions from various terrified Xenites as she went.

The table was silent. The bubbles bursting in peoples’ beers were nearly audible.

Finally, someone swallowed nervously.

“Serves you right for bringing ethnocentrism into it, mate.”

---

Shego burst into the woman’s bathroom, panting and eyes glaring. She froze as she saw Kim beside the sink, one foot propped up on a chair and a wad of wet paper towels against her knee. Whatever Shego had thought she was going to have to face, this wasn’t it.

“Kim,” she said, as calmly as she could manage. “Um, fancy meeting you here.” She tossed Ares over her shoulder.

Kim looked at the wild eyed woman and blinked. “Shego,” she said. “Um, everything’s OK.” She nodded in the direction of the occupied stalls and Shego frowned, making her way to Kim. She looked at the red mark on her forehead, only partly covered by the student’s hair and winced. She probably had one to match.

She looked down dumbly as Kim lifted the paper towels off her knee and inspected herself. Shego peered at the mark, dizzy when she realised what had happened.

“Um, yeah,” she said, “that hasn’t happened in years.” She bent and inspected the small burn. It didn’t look too serious and she resisted the urge to kiss it better. She stood up straight and shook such saccharine thoughts out of her head, wetting a new heap of towels in icy water and trying to surreptitiously let the freezing water run over the inside of her wrist.

“Damn them anyway,” she said, pressing the towels onto Kim’s knee, grateful when the red head took over. “It really hasn’t happened in years.”

“I guessed,” Kim said, almost shyly. “I didn’t want anyone to realise what had happened, you know?”

“I know,” Shego said, turning to the mirror and trying to fix her hair. “Don’t want to give people the wrong idea, huh?”

“Don’t want them to call the cops, more like,” Kim said, wryly. She met Shego’s eyes in the mirror and smiled. The moment was probably lost, she decided. Besides, she was of the opinion that making out in rest rooms was tacky. “Come on, it doesn’t even hurt, it never really did. I was afraid the skirt might catch fire.”

Shego chuckled and pulled a tube of lipstick out of some hidden recess of her costume, reapplying carefully. “Yeah, I know I said I didn’t want those knickers back but I don’t expect you to go around setting them on fire.”

Kim blushed a furious shade of red. “Shego! You agreed not to bring that up!”

“Heh, sucker,” she said, smiling widely.

---

Sunday Night

“So, you’re telling me with a straight face that they were just friends,” Shego scoffed at a Joxer.

“Man,” he sighed, “I get the idea of subtext, I really do. I just don’t feel it, man.” He sighed. “Do you get me? I just don’t believe it.”

Shego rolled her eyes and glared at the man, eyes flashing. “How about all the times they said they loved each other?”

“I love hot dogs.”

“The reincarnation thing?”

“You believe in reincarnation?” he asked, dubiously. “Reincarnation after spending time in heaven?”

“They believe in it, and that’s what matters,” Shego scowled. She noticed him gearing up for another round and simply turned to the person on her other side. Shego was neither a pedagogue nor a proselyter and she had no particular desire to continue talking to someone who was clearly both.

The person on her other side was, happily enough, Kim. She was in an excited conversation with several other Xenites, dissecting The Play’s the Thing. This quickly degenerated into a rousing and quite vulgar criticism of Will Ferrell, as these things are wont to do. Shego rolled her eyes and wondered how long before someone started impersonating Mel Brooks.

Kim was so pretty beside her, she thought idly. Seated, they were much the same height; it seemed that her advantage in stature was mostly due to her longer legs. She was quite proud of that, she decided. After all, they did make a very attractive couple; she’d noticed several envious stares aimed at them. She peered at the back of Kim’s red head, waiting for a lull in conversation and trying not to remember making an arse of herself in the bathroom.

The less said about that, the better, she decided. Kim had done so much growing up, she mused. Or rather, Kim was making a real effort to seem grown up. She was confident and self assured, no one could argue with that, but it rang with a slightly hollow ring, to Shego’s ears. She wondered if she’d been like that back in the day when she’d left Team Go. Assured that she was right and that everyone else was wrong, doubt had nonetheless been a very familiar companion. Shifting in her seat she realised that Kim probably felt exactly the same way and was going to put herself through half a million kinds of fuss before she figured it out.

Together they’d be unstoppable, Shego realised. Drakken had been onto something, for once, when he’d chipped them both. No one would stand in their way; they’d be a force of nature. They’d be Xena the Conquerer for the modern age, fighting together. Except Shego had never been at home to togetherness and she suspected that Kim’s opinions of the concept would be highly developed. Not a good combination.

And, of course, there was the whole good and evil thing. Probably. Shego wasn’t much at home to binary concepts of complex issues, either.

She was also very busy trying to forget that she’d been seconds away from kissing the other woman. She was busy reminding herself that just because two people appeared to be an attractive couple didn’t necessarily mean they should form an attractive couple (either for good or evil purposes). She swallowed thickly, trying not to stare at Kim’s bare shoulder.

Seconds.

Not keen to lose herself in introspection, Shego took action. She cleared her throat and affected a look of supreme indifference, trying to make it clear to all and sundry that she didn’t want anyone to strike up a conversation. It quickly had the desired effect, Kim turned to her and smiled.

“Hey there, where were you?” she asked, a light flush on her features.

“No where, talking to a man about subtext.”

Kim nodded, her expression on the knife edge of falling into a smirk she’d probably regret. “And you stopped? How could you pull yourself away?”

Shego rolled her eyes, taking a deep breath before elegantly draping herself back against the booth, making sure that nobody would think she was actually trying to make an effort to engage Kim in conversation. Play it cool, she told herself, and they could both forget all about it.

“He didn’t think it was there. He thought it was just a joke and that they’re just friends.” She scowled. Kim nodded and sipped at her drink, agreeing wholeheartedly. She looked up at the pale woman, bemused at the scowl on her face. Shego swallowed convulsively and tossed her hair over her shoulder, sitting up in the booth and, incidentally, further away from Kim.

Play it cool, indeed.

“My ass they were just friends.” She spluttered. When in doubt, get angry. “I mean, they went through hell and back for each other, a couple of times, raised a kid together, shared hot tubs, did each other’s hair… they were soul mates. It was just damn, restrictive, stupid TV that stopped them from actually being allowed to kiss each other. God forbid they actually show two women going through life without needing a man!”

Kim blinked. She hadn’t seen Shego this angry since the whole Moodulator incident. She opened her mouth to protest and Shego held up a furious finger, a tiny flame dancing on the end for half a second. She briefly considered conducting a search for one of the troublesome chips but decided to stay seated.

“Don’t you dare say that it wasn’t the network’s fault, Kimmy, it was! They can parade the saga of some acne ridden teenage boy getting his first pubic hair as a touching coming of age story and they can’t touch the topic of an ancient Greek shepherdess dealing with her sexuality! Unless, of course, it involves her marrying and shagging Perdicus or being raped by a demon!”

Shego was seething. Lesser mortals than Kim would have fled. The thief had a head of steam built up and was madder than hell. A small crowd was gathering, watching the furious diatribe with the same kind of guilty fascination that forces people to watch clips of sporting disasters. “I’m telling you Kimmy, they say hell hath no fury like a woman scorned but I say it hath no fury like a woman constantly under the assault of media that wants to tell her she doesn’t exist!”

Kim was sure that Shego was greener than usual and hoped that it was due to nausea due to the alcohol.

“It’s like, if we even try and do our own thing, we’re fucking criminals,” she spat, glaring at Kim for a moment. Kim, shaken by the bitterness in her gaze, reached out a hand.

“Shego,” she said, softly, hoping to head her off.

“Shut up!” Shego snapped at Kim, “I’m having a rhetorical conversation!”

Kim did shut up, for a second, before she burst out laughing. Shego, shocked into silence, stared in confusion at the giggling lump attached to her elbow. She lowered her head and shook her elbow.

“Princess, get the hell off me. This isn’t funny.”

Kim lifted teary eyes, still laughing, and grinned at Shego. “It’s hilarious, Shego. You were acting all cool, earlier, like you weren’t listening in.”

Shego rolled her eyes, realising what she’d said. Trust her subconscious to vomit something like that up at such an inappropriate time. Kim stopped laughing and let go, sitting back and fixing her hair.

“Listen, you shouldn’t be so angry all the time,” she said, eyes earnest. “It’s not good for your blood pressure.”

Shego folded her arms and scoffed. “It’s your round, pumpkin. Get a move on and get me something for my alcohol stream.” She glared at Kim, doing her best not to smile at the red head. Kim, ever gracious, shook her head and wandered to the bar.

---

Minutes later, Kim had forgotten all about Shego’s demands and was chatting to a lovely couple from the East Coast. They recognised her from when she’d been involved in the arrest of a fleet of criminal fishermen who’d been catching more than their cod quota allowed and leaving others in the lurch.

“Aw, it was nothing,” she said, waving her hand. “It was only seven tons of live fish, after all.”

“Seven metric tons!” one piped, smiling widely. “You saved my brother’s ass. He was really grateful,” she said.

“We were lucky,” her partner said, “the shell fish industry’s clean.”

“Excellent,” Kim said, nodding tipsily. “I love shell fish.”

A few more minutes brought them around to the subject of the pair’s subsequent marriage (which had involved an honour guard in oilskins), with Kim asking a good deal more questions than she would have, had she been sober. The pair, Mary and Shelly, were more than happy to indulge her for a moment before, quid pro qou, drawing her into a slightly difficult line of questioning.

“So, you a big fan?” Mary asked, grinning.

“Yeah,” Shelly agreed. “Never thought you’d be one for cons, somehow.”

Kim blushed prettily. “Nah, I’m a fan. Don’t tell anyone, though. It’s meant to be a secret. You’re the first two to figure out who I am. Or, the first two to mention it.”

Shelly shrugged. “We met before.” She chewed her lip for a moment, lost in thought. “I guess most people are just seeing another Gabby, you know? The bit of the brain that matches names to faces is trying to fit you in the Battling Bard bit,” she mused.

Mary nodded. “Yeah, trying hard. Still, you’re not being very secretive.”

Kim squirmed. “I’m not really meant to be, you know. It goes against the whole Team Possible vibe. If I was trying to break into here and thwart a villain, it’d be different.”

Mary shrugged. “We won’t tell anyone. But, if you’re in our part of the world, call in for lunch, OK?” Kim smiled widely and rocked on her feet. Somehow, seeing an older couple always cheered her up a bit. It reminded her that lesbianism, like some kind of odd pet, wasn’t just for college.

---

Shego sighed and wondered where her drink was. She was sorely tempted to go and see to her own alcoholic needs when a jug of cocktails attached to a man dressed as Autolycus slammed onto the table in front of her.

“Excuse me,” she said, calmly, “you seem to have made the fatal mistake of moving yourself into my space,” she hissed, glaring.

“Oh, don’t be so heartless, darling” he said, a hand to his heart. “You don’t remember little old me, from XenaCon 2004?”

Shego narrowed her eyes, trying to place his face. She stopped, when it occurred to her that she didn’t remember any of XenaCon 2004. Her eyes widened.

“Cupid!”

“That’s me,” he confirmed, sliding in beside her. “Do you like the moustache? It took ages to grow, darling.”

“I hate you,” Shego said, with real venom. “You set me up with that horrible woman!”

“All in the past, dear,” he said, pouring them a couple of drinks. “It didn’t last, then?”

“You dolt,” Shego sighed. She calmed and sipped the drink. Being given free alcohol tended to have a soothing effect on her. “She was awful.”

“She was a bit rough around the edges,” he said, nodding. “But she was very pretty. I bet she was a demon in bed.”

Shego took a long drink.

“She only had one leg.”

Autolycus blinked. He winced and bit his lip. Shego was watching him expectantly, waiting for a chance to pounce. He smiled his most winning smile.

“Well, it worked for Sir Paul, darling.”

“I abhor you.”

---

The bar was warm and stuffy, filled with people shouting drinking and arguing. Kim thought about going back to Shego but noticed that she was deep in what seemed to be a serious conversation with a young man. Seeing no hint of green fire, she decided not to investigate.

“Oi, Gabby,” a voice called moments before she was tapped politely on the shoulder. A tall Xena grinned at her, friendly and relaxed.

“Hey,” she replied, “love the costume.”

“Thanks, made it myself,” she said. “Yours is fantastic too.”

The woman smiling at her was friendly, guileless and cheerful and Kim felt herself grin widely in return. “Your first time?”

“Nah, not at all,” she said, “I’m here with my Ares. He’s trying to ring the baby sitter.”

“I see,” Kim laughed. “I’ll tell you what, sometimes it’s better for baby and sitter to leave sleeping dogs lie.”

“Really?” Xena asked. “You sound like you’ve got experience.”

---

Shego scowled at Autolycus/Cupid. She wasn’t in the mood to deal with overly camp, bored men. She’d only spoken to him at XenaCon 2004 because she felt that anyone stupid enough to keep their wallet tucked into the back of an adult sized nappy deserved to have it stolen. Unfortunately for her, she’d been drunk and not very subtle. One thing had led to another and, one shockingly expensive taxi ride later, they’d found themselves in an underground bar. She didn’t remember much of the con after that.

She decided that if her clearest memory was trying hard to fight the dry heaves while getting Renee O’Connor’s autograph, the others weren’t worth recollecting.

“Look, piss off, OK? Go away.”

He scoffed. “No. My damn Jace ran away. He got into a snit earlier and stomped his little toes all the way back to the hotel.”

Shego rolled her eyes. Why, exactly, wasn’t she setting the man on fire?

“So, how about you, darling? Where’s your Gabrielle? You know it’s bad luck to wear that costume if you don’t have a bard, dear.”

“She’s meant to be getting me a drink,” Shego said, suddenly realising that her bard was indeed absent. She scanned the bar, quickly spotting her. Her face fell in shock. “Um, she’s the one with that other Xena.”

“Oh. I see.” Autolycus cringed at the look on Shego’s face. “So, did you ever find out why that nice woman only had one foot?”

“Yeah. DUI.”

---

“Yeah, we were lucky with the sitter. She knows little Aaron really well,” Xena cooed. Kim, baby sitter extraordinaire that she had been, was still cognisant of the first rule of dealing with parents. Ask about their babies and nod politely. An opportunity for escape would present itself sooner or later.

“So, what age is Aaron?”

“Five. He’s such a clever five, too!”

Kim nodded, her lips pursed as she tried to pull a question out of thin air. “Any sports yet?”

“No, but we think he’s left handed so we’re wondering about baseball or maybe soccer. We hear that soccer needs more left footed kickers.”

---

“So then,” Autolycus asked, “you must trip the light fantastic with that little red head, my dear.”

Shego rolled her eyes. “She’s a pain in the ass. I don’t know why I put up with her,” she muttered, drunk and sullen.

“I mean, look at her! She’s such a goody two shoes,” Shego groused, watching Kim be generally friendly to anyone who crossed her path. It might have occurred to her to be jealous, if she hadn’t felt so weary.

“When was your first con?” she asked Autolycus.

“Oh, 2003. You’ve been here for years, right? How long has she been coming to these?” he asked, nodding to Kim.

“No idea, man.” Shego sighed. “Ask her yourself.”

---

“So, well, that group that won deserved it,” Xena conceded, “but well, I just think that if we’d brought Aaron, we would have been a shoe in!”

Kim tried to keep her mind off farriers. Slightly drunk, she steadied herself against the bar. It seemed that a farrier could have done a roaring trade, considering the number of shoe ins present. She squinted up at Xena. There was an expectant look on the woman’s face.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“I was just asking if you’ve seen any of the Hercules episodes. My husband’s a massive fan of them. He has all the box sets.”

Kim shook her head and thought briefly about Ron. As soon as she had wondered about his location, her mind filed it away to be dealt with later. She smiled again at Xena and sipped her drink.

“So, did you and your husband meet at one of these?”

---

“Holy crap, she’s getting friendly,” Shego remarked. “Who’d have thought it, eh? Little princess picking up strangers.”

“You don’t sound bothered at watching some other Xena steal your girlfriend away,” Autolycus muttered.

“You’re the thief, aren’t you?” she asked, a nasty grin on her face. “Watch, collect pointers.”

The young man scowled and sipped his drink slowly. “Well, if I were you, darling, and I was watching some leather clad harpy steal away the woman I loved -heh- I’d be preparing for handbags at dawn.”

Shego’s eyes widened, her shoulders falling as she leaned forward.

“Love?” she demanded, too shocked to even glare. “You think I’m in love with her?”

---

“Oh, he was such a Joxer back then,” Xena gushed. “He was all elbows and knees, no poise or confidence. He was selling some mint condition action figures and I just had to have them. He posted them to me, but they were damaged in transit so I gave him a bad e-Bay review and he wanted to know why…”

Kim’s smile was frozen on her face. A rictus of polite interest. She was wishing that she’d had room for her Kimmunicator, or even a cell phone, in her bilious green sports bra.

“But we get on so well,” she gushed. “He’s such a nice guy!” She reached out and patted Kim’s shoulder. “Tell me, do you have a guy like that?”

---

“Sorry, love,” he said. “It’s just the way you look at her. I mean, it isn’t my place to say, darling, but it’s so sweet!” he gushed.

He leaned in conspiratorially. “Personally, I always thought that with the whole scene being on TV these days that no one actually had time to have sex any more!”

“Love?” Shego spluttered, furious. “I don’t love her! I don’t even like her.” She may have wanted to shag her, she conceded, but she also wanted to shag the female cast of Kill Bill.

Peering down his nose and over his moustache, which would have put a well kept privet hedge to shame, Autolycus shook his head in pity.

“Oh, darling, cut the shit!” he leaned in again, on hand on Shego’s shoulder. “You know, it isn’t just a phase. Don’t be such a drama queen,” he said, wryly. He wrapped an arm around her shoulder and grinned.

“And she’s such a saucy little thing! Look at her,” he prompted, his head beside Shego’s. He frowned and pursed his mouth. “She’s a bit shy, but confident. She takes care of herself, looks very nice, but doesn’t seem high maintenance.”

Shego tried to sit up, prepared to have a bit of a shout at the man beside her, when Kim began to turn towards them. She made a strangled sound and ducked back down beside Autolycus, pulling a cocktail menu in front of them.

“Shit! She looked this way.”

“Ooh?” Autolycus drawled, drawing it out, “did she now, ducky?”

“She’ll kill us if she finds out we’re gossiping about her,” Shego hissed. She lifted her head and peered over the top of the menu. Kim was busy chatting to the same Xena and Shego felt a flare of jealousy.

“You know,” Autolycus whispered, “I know about the college thing,” he said, sympathetically. Shego frowned and turned to him.

“What college thing?”

“The whole thing where a girl goes off to college and does the trendy bi thing for a semester,” he said, matter of factly. “I know all about it.”

“How do you know all about it?” Shego asked, peering over the top of the menu again. Kim seemed to be laughing at something the other Xena was saying.

“Oh, I pick up fags hags left right and centre,” he said. “Who do you think takes care of my bar tabs?”

“That’s-” Shego wondered what perverse, drunken sense of morality had been about to rear its head and berate the man. “That’s a brilliant idea. Does it work the other way around?”

“It’s working for you,” he shrugged. “Anyway. As I was saying, darling, I know all about the university lesbian. Now you don’t strike me as one,” he said, sitting back up. “I reckon you’ll be in the Castoridae taxidermy business for decades to come.”

Shego sat up too and took a long drink. “And?”

“So, maybe you’ve met her kind before and don’t think she’s worth the heartbreak,” he said, stroking his moustache in the same manner that some men stroked their goatees. The effect was, sadly, not the same. “So, I know it’s all about the heartbreak in this walk of life but fuck it!”

Shego frowned at the man as he bounced. “Fuck it?”

“She’s gorgeous!” he said, palms up and fingers spread. “You don’t get a chance like her every lifetime.”

Shego sighed and looked back at the bar, at the little shallow line running down the centre of Kim’s spine. She watched the play of muscle for a moment, remembering how soft and warm she’d been. How willing she’d been and the smile on her face. She remembered the joy and excitement in her eager eyes and sat up straight.

Fuck it, is right, she thought. Such opportunities did not often present themselves. Besides, she reasoned, she was a cold hearted, evil and mercenary doer of nasty things. Shagging naive co-eds was practically her raison d’etre. She finished her drink and fixed her cleavage, grinning at Autolycus. She turned, her prey in sight, and went to stand.

Seconds later, she was back behind the menu, Autolycus along with her.

“Oh, you ruffian!” he squawked, “what are you doing?”

“Oh, can the act!” Shego snapped. “I bet you’ve never even been to England, you poser!”

Autolycus sniffed. “I watch Bravo.”

“Oh, whoop de-fucking-doo,” Shego sneered, glaring over the top of the menu. “Having a moustache you could hide a badger in doesn’t make you Freddie Mercury, you know. That guy had class.”

Autolycus glowered. “Why are we back down here, anyway? Did she look this way again?”

“No,” Shego muttered, her eyes back on the table. “It was much worse.”

“Oh?” he asked, peering sideways at his companion, “what’s up?”

“Yeah Xena,” Kim chirped, pulling the menu down as she leaned over the table. “What’s up?”

---

Eventually, Shego and Kim made their way back to Shego’s hotel room. Kim had been falling asleep in a corner and Shego had gotten into a very loud fight about her bar tab. Autolycus had ushered them in the general direction of Shego’s hotel before running off to his own room and, he strongly hoped, his very own Jace.

Shego had a firm hold of Kim’s BGSB and was practically dragging her down the corridor, muttering obscenities as they went. Kim, for her part, was making an effort to appear more sober than she actually was. It was failing spectacularly.

Once inside, Shego made for the bathroom and Kim collapsed on the bed, burying her face into the covers and sighing deeply. The room spun around her and, using a trick she’d learned, stuck one foot onto the floor to anchor herself. It helped, slightly, and she closed her eyes against the lightness floating in her head.

The bed shifted around her and a gentle hand ran long fingers through her hair. She hummed in pleasure and turned her head, blearily looking up at Shego. The thief had changed out of her leather and was dressed in a pair of satin pyjamas. The sight of Kim sprawled on her bed had softened her mood surprisingly quickly and she grinned at the other woman.

“You, princess, are fucked,” she pointed out, reasonably. “You’re off your face.”

“You’re off your face!” Kim exclaimed, smiling. She shifted to one side, propping her chin in her hand, and watched Shego with interest. “And it’s a gorgeous face.”

“I know, pumpkin,” Shego laughed, moving her hand to Kim’s face. “But you’re still wasted.” There was regret in her voice and she suddenly wished for some way to sober the girl up that wouldn’t pull her mood down. She doubted saying ‘drink several pints of coffee so we can fool around’ would go down well. She sighed and traced the curve of her cheek carefully, sadly. “You’re wasted, Kim.”

Kim closed her eyes at the gentle treatment. “We fight when we’re not wasted.”

“We do.”

“Let’s always be wasted, OK?” she murmured, tilting her head to allow Shego better access to her. She’d admitted to herself earlier that night that she wanted the other woman. Who wouldn’t want someone who could have stood as the model for the warrior princess herself? It wouldn’t be as if she’d be losing a friend or anything, either. Losing an enemy, maybe. She opened her eyes to find Shego studying her carefully.

“Sure, Kim.”

Kim, her eyes wide and soulful, gazed up at Shego, enraptured by the elegant woman. Transfixed by her grace and lost in her bright eyes, she felt the room buck and spin beneath her again. Reaching out a hand, stroking her pale arm, earned her a smile. She didn’t want to sleep or to see the night end. It wasn’t even dawn yet, after all.

“Shego,” she asked, carefully, in the tone of one asking for a favour.

“Hmm?” Shego asked, gazing drunkenly at Kim.

“Will you do something for me?” she asked in a small voice.

Shego smiled widely and swooped down, kissing Kim’s forehead in amused affection. “What do you want me to do?” she asked softly, gentler than Kim had ever heard her before. Her heart gave a little thump and the room lurched again. She swallowed again and adopted a brave face. She hadn’t been expecting tenderness.

Kim’s eyes slid half shut as she sat up, propping herself against the headboard and tucking her hair behind her ears.

“Will you put on the next Xena DVD, please?”

---

Monday Morning

If asked, Shego would not have told you how she woke. If pressed, she’d have told you where to go and what to do when you got there. What had happened had not been pleasant and it took her months to realise why.

As it happened, she drifted from the brief, strangely lucid dreams borne of alcohol to odd fragments of memories and even snippets of old songs. Her mind touched on these things, somehow aware that she was alive, curled near Kim Possible and in a hotel room. Not quite conscious, she felt no need to waken fully yet.

Apart from the sensible reasons not to wake up, and she had many, one notion stood out; Kim was sound asleep. It scared her, in that not quite awake part of her mind. The loneliness of the eighteen inches between them on the bed (it seemed closer to eighteen miles) was terrifying.

A phrase from an old song, as cold and disjointed as her own mind, played itself over and over again. Sinister in the dark room, Shego felt as if the walls were closing in on her. The warmth radiating from Kim was comforting and inviting and she shivered in the cool air, inching closer. She made an effort not to touch the woman beside her but failed, laying her hand on the back of her arm. The red head didn’t even notice. What if she never woke up? What if she’d poisoned herself with alcohol? What if she’d stopped breathing in her sleep?

She tried not to order her thoughts, to keep from creeping closer to wakefulness, where she’d have to deal with this mess. How often was a person meant to breathe, anyway? She was terrified. Why wasn’t Kim awake? She remembered the last time she’d slept beside someone. She’d trusted her, perhaps even loved her. It had been a long time ago. The sleeping, silent Kim beside her made a tiny noise in her sleep and then stilled, as quiet as the grave again.

Nobody home.

Kim was all eyes and expression and movement, outspoken and loud. This stationary lump wasn’t her, Shego decided. She scoffed; since when had she had a clue who Kim Possible was? She fought against waking, but as the room around her resolved itself, she realised that her eyes were open, and had been for some time. How long had she been awake? When, precisely, had she arrived at wakefulness?

She’d been there all along, she realised.

Kim was breathing softly beside her and she sat up slowly, watching the bony shoulders rise and fall. She watched her for a long moment, feeling the pain building in her head and her gorge rising. Slowly, the thief adjusted the blanket around Kim’s back without earning a reaction. She traced the line of Kim’s shoulder and arm beneath the cover without eliciting the tiniest movement.

Sighing, she stood and made her way to the bathroom, lonelier than she had been for a long time.

---

The shrill beeping of Kim’s cell phone cut through her peaceful sleep, shocking her into motion. She tumbled onto the ground, searching for her trousers and still half asleep. She’d spent the night in Shego’s room, again. Damn. She answered the phone without looking at the caller display, making a supreme effort to not sound like something that had just crawled out of a sewer.

“Hello?”

“Kimmy!” her mother chirped. “Hey, sweetie, how are you? I didn’t wake you, did I?”

“Uh, no, of course not.” She pressed a hand to her forehead, squeezing her eyes shut and then opening them. “What’s up?”

“I’m on my way to San Fran, to assist in an emergency surgery. I was wondering if you had plans for this evening?”

“No…”

“Perfect! I should be finished surgery around six or seven. How about I pick you up at eight and we grab a late dinner?” Her mother sounded dreadfully cheerful for someone who’d presumably been shoved onto an emergency flight at an ungodly hour of the morning.

“Um, yeah, sounds cool.”

“See you soon, honey!”

“Bye, Mom,” Kim whispered, hanging up. She swore, softly and dropped her trousers to the ground dolefully. That was the last thing she needed.

“You look like someone just ran over your cat,” Shego said, leaning against the jamb of the bathroom door, her long hair wet and limp. She was idly patting it dry, tired but creeping back to life.

“Worse than that,” Kim muttered, “Mom wants to meet me for dinner tonight. I gotta get going.”

Shego frowned. “Where?”

“San Francisco, I guess. Home,” she said quietly, still half asleep. A stab of guilt flashed through her. If she was going to go off and drink herself stupid then she was responsible for pulling herself back together. She had no desire to see her mother, to be on the receiving end of the perceptive woman’s intelligent gaze.

Shego stepped forward and peered at the exhausted young woman. “You look like shit.”

“When did we go to sleep?” Kim asked, yawning widely.

“Three hours ago, princess,” Shego said, wincing at the mess in the room. It looked like it had gone three rounds with Keith Moon.

“I have to drive back home,” she muttered. “I need to go back to my hotel room and get my car.”

Shego smiled, despite her best efforts not to. She suspected that someone as athletic as Kim needed a lot of sleep. She stepped up to the slight woman, placing her hands on her shoulders gently. Kim looked up, dark circles under her eyes.

“You’re in no state to drive, you’re too tired,” she stated. “And you smell like a brewery. If you get pulled over, you’ll be arrested.” The thief had, during her ablutions, thought about the previous nights activity and come to the realisation that there was something about Kim, something about the way she was usually so brave and bombastic and yet so fragile, that confused her terribly.

“I have to go.”

“Cancel it,” Shego said. She had a sudden urge to cling onto this weekend as tenaciously as she could. She hated the idea that it was essentially over, that it would all be back to business before long. She wanted to show the other woman her second season box set! There were so many episodes to watch together, she thought morosely.

“No. I never told her I came here. I’m hoping they don’t find out,” she said, softly. Shego’s hands were warm on her shoulders and she was tempted to lean into the touch, to seek some comfort. She closed her eyes against the memory of leaning into Shego, of waiting to kiss her and thanked whatever forces had prevented them going any further. She shrugged away from Shego and hugged herself, waif like in the gloomy room.

“Whatever,” Shego sighed, stung by the movement. “You’re an idiot and you’ll kill yourself and someone else if you get into a car.”

“I have to go. I want to go. I want to be back in my own bed,” she said, turning to face Shego. “I’m so tired.” In the cold, hard light of a hangover the confusion was over whelming. What had she been thinking, she asked herself, to think that anything good could have come from herself and Shego? She just wanted to go home and forget about the weekend, about the mistakes she’d almost made.

Shego almost asked her to stay. She almost wrapped her arms around her. Instead, she lifted Kim’s trousers off the floor and fished her keys out, along with the keycard to her own hotel room.

“These cargo pants are good for something, after all, huh?”

“Shego,” Kim sighed, “I’m so not in the mood for this right now.”

“Shut up,” Shego snapped, “I burn alcohol off pretty fast, faster than normal people. I’m fine to drive. I’m going to head to your motel, grab your stuff and your car and bring it back here, OK? While I’m doing that, you’re going to sleep, or shower. Whatever. I don’t care.”

She tossed Kim’s trousers back to the exhausted woman and turned on her heel, not giving her a chance to argue with her. Kim sighed and bowed her head, weary beyond reason. She slid back to the bed and threw herself under the cover, burying her face into the pillows.

---

An hour later, Kim’s phone chirped again, this time a text message from Ron. She sighed and sent a quick reply, not in the mood for an actual conversation. Warm and soft in the blankets, she tried to sleep again but found it elusive. How much, exactly, had she had to drink last night?

She rolled onto her back and began to piece the night back together. She didn’t think she had any gaps in her memory, for which she was extremely grateful. Some moments, in fact, stood out as vivid and more lucid, clearer and sharper than most of her sober memories. Shego’s eyes sliding shut, her breath warm against her mouth, was foremost amongst them. Nipping on its heels, however, was the moment when Shego had sat beside her, make-up scrubbed from her face and clad in a dark pair of satin pyjamas, eyes gentle.

Kim swallowed, knowing that she’d been a second from requesting a different favour and that the only thing that had stopped her for asking had been a sudden insight into the enormity of the situation. She’d also realised she was wasted and in no state to rock anyone’s world and that, rather than any heroic moral code or sensible notions, had stopped her. The guilt was terrible. What would her family say? What would Ron say if he knew she’d been about to embark on a one night stand.

With Shego of all people.

The memory of other women, of other awkward mornings, came to her and she groaned, wanting the floor to swallow her. If people ever found out that Kim Possible was a lesbian, they’d probably do their best to be polite. They’d cope with it. If people found out that Kim Possible had embarked on a night of sex for the sake of sex with her most formidable enemy, they probably wouldn’t cope quite as well.

And it would have been a one night stand, one single night of fun. It wouldn’t have meant anything beyond that. Shego, she mused, probably would have brought it up the next time they fought. How would that look, she wondered? She actually cracked a smile as she imagined the look on Drakken’s face.

She sighed and stood, wandering through the suite. It wasn’t as if they could actually just drop everything and just go be girlfriends, after all. Even if they were united in their love for all things Xena. It wasn’t as if they had one of those big, star crossed fantasies. She wasn’t a shepherdess; she was someone renowned for putting criminals in prison. Shego wasn’t a gruff warrior with a heart of gold, she was a calculating, manipulative thief who’d been known to steal from babies, old women and was probably a fan of kicking puppies.

Kim shook her head and made her way to the bathroom. Time to get back to real life.

---

Shego pulled up to the front of the hotel in Kim’s car, tossing the keys to the valet and moodily making her way to the reception desk. She told the woman there that she’d need her room for another couple of days and demanded that some decent coffee be sent up.

Making her way into her room, she noticed an empty bed and a closed bathroom door. Shrugging, she pocketed Kim’s keys, tossed her bag on the floor and let out an explosive breath, waiting for the coffee to arrive.

She spied Kim's glasses on the nightstand and lifted them, frowning at the smudges and fingermarks. She cleaned them with a corner of her shirt, suddenly feeling very tired.

She was glaring at L.A. and sipping coffee when Kim emerged from the bathroom in a robe, paler than usual and looking slightly ashamed.

“Coffee here, clothes there,” Shego called, not lingering too long on the sight. The robe seemed shorter than they had the previous morning, somehow. Kim thanked her and made her way back into the bathroom, emerging moments later in clean clothes.

“You said there was coffee,” she said, quietly, still green around the gills.

“Yeah, real stuff. Not instant,” Shego said.

“I don’t get why people are so up in arms about having real coffee,” Kim muttered, adding milk and sugar. “They’re all pretty much the same, right?”

Shego rolled her eyes. “I bet you drink instant.”

“I’m a student. I don’t have the money for real coffee,” she said, tiredly. There wasn’t a crack in her tone where Shego could have wedged her talons and started a conversation. The camaraderie was gone, replaced by embarrassment. TV was all well and good, but had they really expected to put years of distrust and anger behind them because of a certain warrior princess? It was over, the thief realised. Something ephemeral had floated between them and they’d both been too unsure, to stupid to grasp at it. It had faded, leaving them both with the feeling that they’d both nearly done something very stupid.

“We need to get going soon,” Shego muttered. “Hurry up.”

---

“I’m feeling a lot better now, Shego,” Kim said as the car pulled up. “You really don’t need to do this.” She wasn’t looking forward to a car trip with the other woman.

“Look, just get into the car and put your belt on. You’re still fucked,” Shego growled.

“You’re the one who filled me with booze all weekend,” Kim groused, sliding into the front passenger side.

“You drank it,” Shego replied. “Look, who cares. You sleep, I drive.”

Kim nodded, grateful for the obvious opportunity to avoid conversation, and reclined her chair back as far as it would go, curling under her light jacket. “Thanks, Shego.”

“Yeah,” Shego said, sighing, “whatever.” She slipped her sunglasses on and pulled out of the underground car park.

It would have been great, Kim thought as she drifted to sleep. It would have been fun for the weekend. It would have been amazing. They would have made the most beautiful couple there. She suspected that Shego would have lavished her with attention, if she’d given her the hint that she wanted it that way. It would have been fun.

It would have ruined her career. It would have proved that her mother and father had a reason to be uncomfortable with the fact that she was gay. Shego would probably tell her, in some later fight, that she was crap in bed.

It would have been great.

---

Shego had woken Kim as they pulled off the freeway, asking for directions. Kim had been asleep since the petrol break several hundred miles previous, and yawned as she directed the thief. Soon, they arrived at her apartment building, Shego parking in the space marked with Kim’s licence plate number.

The thief followed the other woman, graciously carrying her bag and following her up the stairs, silent as she went. The door opened and she walked into the tidy corridor after Kim, taking the other woman’s home in.

Kim stood with one hand on her forehead, sighing tiredly. Shego set her bag down on the floor and turned back towards the door. She paused with her hand on the knob and smiled crookedly when she heard Kim inhale softly.

“I’ll see you around, huh?” Kim asked, quietly. She wished with all her heart that maybe they could just stop all the bullshitting, drop all their stupid pretences.

Shego nodded. “Sure, princess.” She sighed, her thoughts very similar to Kim’s. Remembering the scowl that had been darkening the red head’s face all day, she turned back to the young woman and grinned. “I had a really good time this weekend. Thanks. It was memorable.”

Kim’s scowl softened and laughed shortly. “I suppose so. Do me a favour and don’t tell anyone else, though. I mean, it’s such a clich.”

Shego stood quietly for a brief moment, studying Kim’s bloodshot eyes. “Yeah, the whole lesbians liking Xena thing kinda is,” she said, knowing damn well that hadn’t been what Kim meant. Knowing that it was what Kim wanted to hear.

“Your secret’s safe with me.”

“Thanks,” she said. “I’d um, invite you in, but Mom’s going to be here in an hour and I need a shower.”

“Some other time,” Shego said, earning an stiff nod. She frowned sadly at the carefully hopeful look on Kim’s face and stepped forward, embracing her firmly. Kim’s hands rested on Shego’s shoulders, her elbows between them and her forehead on the thief’s collar bone. Maybe, Kim thought to herself, she’d been wrong. Maybe there was more to this than a single, drunken weekend in Pasadena.

“God, you’re tiny,” Shego said in surprise, trying to inject some cheer. “Itty bitty little cheerleader.”

Kim was silent and Shego tightened her grip, her cheek on the crown of Kim’s head.

“This is the part where I lay my heart bare, isn’t it? Beg you to stay and reform.” Kim asked, her breath warm on Shego’s throat. She let her eyes slide shut and left herself be surrounded by Shego’s warmth and her solid, unwavering presence. “Take me with you, teach me everything you know. I’m not cut out for this life.”

She trembled in Shego’s arms, partly from exhaustion, partly from the DTs. Partly from the knowledge that she the fragile truce she’d established with the other woman was about to break. Shego felt a rush of pathos so great that she closed her eyes against it, rubbing Kim’s back gently.

“I could steal you away, but they’d find you. If they found out about this, they’d consider you a risk, compromised,” she sighed. “They’d never let you join in their little soldier games. You could always say you’d been chipped, or something,” she moved her face, burying it in Kim’s soft hair, “I don’t know.”

“I’m so tired, Shego,” she said, softly. “I hate the idea of having to face my mother, or anyone else. I keep having to explain myself to them and I’m so sick of it. I’m sick of having to justify everything I do.”

“It gets better, Kimmy,” she replied. “Or, it gets easier. You get used to it. Just hang in there and before you know it, they’ll all have forgotten about your personal life. The next monster of the week will show up, you’ll kick its ass, and they’ll move on. You’ll meet a fantastic girl who loves you, who you love back, and it’ll all be OK.”

Kim nodded silently, suddenly clutching Shego’s shirt in her fists. The thief sighed and kissed the top of her head softly, fondly.

“If we had an open road out there, and a horse, and no damn Internet or TV or cell phones or Kimmunicators we’d be gone in a flash,” she whispered into Kim’s hair, “but we don’t. So get your degree and get on with life.”

“It’d be so much easier if this was TV,” Kim said, morosely pressing herself against Shego. “You get me?”

“I do. But it’s not TV. Not everyone gets a happy ending.”

Kim laughed a dry laugh. “Get that stupid thing Drakken had, blast us into Xena.”

Shego laughed too, starting to sway with Kim in her arms. “Go on, get ready for your mother.”

“Will I see you again?” Kim asked softly.

“Who knows,” Shego murmured. “Probably not like this.”

Kim nodded and pushed gently against Shego’s shoulders, stepping out of the circle of her arms, already cold. Her eyes stung and she felt as if someone was crushing her lungs together. “Well, thanks for a good weekend, Shego.”

Shego wanted nothing more than to kiss her, to press against her and steal her away. To sit on the top of the world and tell everyone else to piss off because Kim Possible was hers and hers alone. She could see the hope in Kim’s soft green eyes and knew that she was waiting for a hint, for permission, to do exactly the same thing. Forcing a lopsided smile, she cupped her cheek for half a second before stepping backwards and out the door, not sparing a backwards glance.

“It was a blast, Kimmy,” she called over her shoulder, waving lazily.

Fifty minutes later, Mrs. Dr. Possible arrived and took her daughter out to dinner. They talked about her conference paper and about Kim’s grades; about James, Jim and Tim. Mrs. Dr. Possible asked about Ron in a careful, hopeful tone of voice and Kim smiled back stiffly. They talked about Kim’s missions to help people, but not about her efforts in the college LGBT society. They talked about friends, but not about girlfriends.

Her face aching from keeping a false smile plastered on it, Kim let herself into her dark apartment, sighing softly. She made her way into the kitchenette for a glass of water and spied a kilo of colombian coffee on the counter top, a glass and chrome cafetiere beside it, and broke into a wide, genuine smile.

The End