Understanding
Kim sat up as the sun made its presence known by shining rays of light through the closed blinds. She yawned slightly and looked at her watch to see what time it was; eight in the morning. She glanced at the sleeping body next to her, knowing that Shego would see be in a dead sleep.
The redhead wondered if Shego had any idea how peaceful she looked when she was sleeping. It was almost as if she couldn’t harm a fly; she appeared so tranquil and content with everything. Kim guessed it was because she did not have to bother with anybody and she was not running that rather abusive mouth of hers; Kim did not mean that to sound as bad as it did.
Kim liked Shego’s wit and her willingness to say whatever was on her mind, no matter how insulting or crude it was. It was a rare thing to find a person that would always speak her mind; even the girl that could do anything hardly ever did that.
Actually, Shego’s mouth was one of the first things that the teen hero noticed about Shego; it was second only to the fact that she was certain that if the older female took her completely serious, Shego would more than likely kick her butt. The fact that Shego had nicknames for her was something that got Kim’s attention. She wondered why Shego would bother with thinking of names to call her other than to taunt her, which was what Shego used the names for most of the time, even now.
Kim knew from the start that Shego was going to be a person that received a lot of her attention just because of the skills that the thief possessed. Shego was obviously totally competent in what she did and she seemed to enjoy her work. She was not about to stop and Kim knew that, which was why she knew that she was going to be seeing a lot of the raven-haired woman from the moment that she met her.
The teen hero had not expected to grow to respect Shego through all of the time that they fought, but she did. She even admired the thief on some level. Before she even knew it, most of the time Shego was at the forefront of her thoughts; sometimes, she would even zone out thinking about Shego.
The thoughts had been innocent; well, innocent in the way that there was nothing sexual about them. She would go over their matches in her head. She counted her mistakes and Shego’s mistakes to improve herself. She often wondered why Shego did not exploit her missteps more often than the thief did.
Sometimes, Kim would do something and the second that she started the move, she would know that it was a rotten idea. But, Shego would not use it to her advantage. It was like the supposed evil-doer did not want to hurt her too much, Kim found herself thinking that most of the time. And that was when the intrigue began for her.
Kim wondered why Shego would not want to harm her too much; it would certainly make Shego’s life a hell of a lot easier. Shego claimed to be so evil and malicious, but she never did anything too nefarious. Shego hardly had anything on her record other than grand theft, a few assault charges, and resisting arrest. If she was really evil, she would have used her powers to kill someone at some point in time, Kim always reasoned.
So, Kim started to think about how there had to be more to Shego than the cranky villainess that she always showed. She began to wonder what was underneath the Shego that everyone saw. There had to be layers to her and Kim wondered what they were. She thought on it, believing that she would be able to figure out because, hey, she could do anything.
She started with thinking about when Shego was a hero, a member of Team Go. Shego did not like to talk about it. She usually grunted or something and left things at that; Kim had no choice but to leave things at that too. Well, she could always look into it, but that would not tell her much about what was going through the older female’s mind at the time. She would leave Shego her precious bad girl image.
To be honest, Kim could not picture Shego caring enough to save a bunch of people that she did not know. She did not mean anything by it, but she just could not see Shego saving a bunch of faceless people and having nothing material to show for it. Shego was definitely a bottom line type of person and Kim accepted that.
Kim could understand why Shego needed some kind of personal gain if she was going to do anything; it was because Shego was the most important person in Shego’s life. She had to take care of herself and she could not just go out of her to do something if it might possibly not only leave her injured, but unable to take care of that injury.
There was more to Shego than the selfishness that she liked to display, though. Kim knew that for a fact just because of the situation that they were in at the moment. Sometimes, she dared to think that Shego was lonely, not that she ever said that out loud.
The redhead recalled back when she went hunting for Shego’s phone number that faithful and excruciating week of midterms freshmen year. Kim had done everything possible to find a way to avoid losing her ever-loving mind that semester and nothing worked; she did learn to never take more than twenty-one credits a term after that, though. She had been down to her final option, which she had been so certain would fall through.
Kim had expected to call Shego and have her laugh at the idea of sparring for the fun of it before hanging up. The plan had been to go stark-raving mad as soon as Shego disconnected the call, but she had surprisingly stayed on the line and agreed. Obviously, karma either worked or there was more to Shego than she let on.
Kim had felt all of the tension that had worked its way into her body thanks to that hectic term just vanish as she battled with the older woman that day. She had been stunned that Shego took the sparring match just for what it was, a friendly fight. It was then that Kim realized there was more to Shego than even she knew and she wanted to learn more.
Kim called Shego again just to see if she would agree to another contest, which the older woman did. The teen hero was trying to figure out what it was about Shego that made her keep coming to spar and not use her plasma blasts while doing it, but she accidentally found out something about herself while trying to discover Shego’s secret. When Shego asked Kim why she had called really, Kim found that she could not answer the question. It was because she didn’t want the raven-haired woman to think any less of her for not being able to handle the number of credits that she had decided to take.
When Shego left after not receiving an answer, Kim thought that she wouldn’t care much about it; after all, it wasn’t like they were friends. She had never been so wrong in her life; even taking twenty-four credits had not been as big a mistake as allowing Shego to leave that day had been. Kim dwelled on it for a while, wondering which was worse: to have Shego think that she was not only a nerd, but not capable of doing anything like she claimed or to have Shego stay upset with her? It took her while to conclude that the former idea was easier to live with than the latter. It was then that she realized that she enjoyed Shego’s company.
The redhead had been thankful that when she throw Shego her explanation, the older woman had only been sarcastic, which was expected, but not snide. She accepted the explanation for what it was and nothing more. Kim was starting to see that Shego liked her company just as much as she liked being around the other woman. She doubted that it would be something that Shego would admit to, but when Kim looked at things, she could tell that Shego sort of liked being with her, which was why she had invited her to house-sit with her.
Kim had considered taking Ron with her, but when she called him and heard the way that he was seriously panicking over finals, she knew to leave well enough alone. Shego had been the second choice; she suspected that she would have to offer the thief some kind of excuse to come out. It seemed to be in Shego’s nature to be difficult and to make everything around her that way too.
So, Kim had to make it appear that there was something worthwhile to make Shego come out to the lake. She went with sparring on the beach because fishing on the lake or hunting in the woods just did not seem like they would make good sells pitches. Besides, sparring was about the only thing that she knew motivated Shego enough to move without money being involved and quite frankly, Kim didn’t have that kind of cash.
So, they sparred on the beach as planned and then Kim cooked. Why had she done that? Well, she just didn’t see Shego making the offer or taking the initiative. She had expected insults and snippy remarks about her cooking, knowing that it was mediocre at best, but the words never arrived. She even opened the floor to verbal abuse by asking how the food was. Still, the abuse never did show up, but what came out of her mouth was something about her ass of a boyfriend.
She never told Shego, but her boyfriend had reminded the redhead of her rival. He was like an inside out version of Shego to a certain extent. Where the raven-haired woman was mean and nasty when everyone was looking, he was polite and civil when everyone was looking. She did tell Shego about how the bastard thought so highly of himself; he seemed to think that he hung the damn sun in the sky. Shego wasn’t like that of course.
Kim figured that had Shego hung the sun in the sky, sure they would never hear the end of it, but she never walked around with a false sense of accomplishment. If she was confident about something, it was because she could actually go out and do it. Kim liked that about Shego.
The redhead liked a lot of things about Shego, even the things that she didn’t understand about the thief. She liked that Shego went after what she wanted in life; sure, sometimes those things belonged to other people, but Kim still thought it was an admirable quality. It was the fact that Shego went after what she wanted that made her bold, which was something that Kim adored about the villainess.
Shego made Kim come to believe that she was not so bold. Yeah, she could jump out of a plan thousands of feet in the air with no parachute or she could fight crime without a gun, but that was not necessarily bold. Being bold was about going after what she wanted and Kim knew that she didn’t do that very often. She usually did what was expected of her. Okay, they were insanely high and extravagant expectations that probably only a handful of people could deliver and she was included in that handful. That hardly made her bold, only extraordinary.
She guessed that was why she accepted Shego’s challenge that night with the tequila and ended up drunk. She found out that she was not one of those sloppy-throw-up-have-no-idea-what-is-going-on drunks. No, she was pretty clear on what was going on, clear enough to know what she was doing anyway. She just didn’t care. For one night, she knew what it was like to be bold and she was content with everything that happened.
Kim remembered waking up that morning and staring at Shego, like she was doing now. Shego slept late when she got the chance, like noon late. At first, Kim had panicked when she realized what she had done and then she realized that thinking hurt. She was hung over in the worst way, so she figured that she would make sense of everything the moment that being awake did not equal pain.
The redhead was able to come to a few conclusions once she was capable of thinking without her head throbbing along. She liked being with Shego, she easily admitted that to herself, and she wanted to continue to be with Shego. She didn’t care about the consequences. So, she was going to keep in being bold and she was going to be with Shego, even though she knew that the thief was going to be difficult about things.
Kim had learned that while Shego was bold, she didn’t like to say what she wanted when it came to things other than material possessions. Kim didn’t mind that because she could tell that Shego liked her back; after all, if she didn’t want to be with Kim, she wouldn’t be sleeping so soundly next to her with a small smile on her face. Yeah, Shego definitely liked having Kim around. So, all she had to do was provide the thief with an excuse.
Yeah, that’s pretty much it for now.