Shego was having lunch with Doctor Director. She was glad for some company that she would not feel the need to strangle more often than not. She generally had lunch with Drakken because the chief was typically busy, but it was reversed that day. The sky-colored scientist was busy dismantling some bizarre ice machine that a man had been using to turn Go City into a winter wonderland a few days go; she was not sure if it was crazier that he was doing it in the winter or not. All she knew was that she was thankful that there were maniacs in the world.
“Are you almost smiling?” Betty inquired while sipping her tea.
“Am I?” Shego asked; she did not think that she was that relieved that her boyfriend was not sitting across from her.
“Really close.”
“Damn.”
“So, what’s got you almost smiling?” the one-eyed woman asked and Shego waited for a sex joke that she was certain would follow the question. The joke did not show up, much to the raven-haired female’s surprise.
“I don’t know,” Shego answered.
“Well, since you’re in such a good mood, let me ask you a question.”
“My mood is about to sink,” the emerald-eyed woman commented.
“No, I just wanted to know when does Pumpkin start school?”
“I don’t know. I never bothered to ask.”
“Well, could you find out?” Betty inquired.
“Why?”
“Because I need someone to walk that damn dog for me,” Doctor Director answered and her employee laughed.
“I told you that you shouldn’t have taken that drool monster. You’re way too busy for a dog,” the pale woman pointed out. One of the things that made having a pet girl so much better than a dog was that Kim did not need to go for walks.
“Look, I wasn’t going to let the little brat just get away with saying I couldn’t tale care of a dog,” the boss commented.
“So, you took the dog to spite my pet?” Shego inquired with a craned ebony eyebrow. She just wanted Betty to hear the reason out loud and in plain words because it seemed like it was her first time saying that aloud. The brown-haired woman frowned.
“Shut up,” the chief said bluntly.
“Whatever. I’ll ask Princess if she’s got time to walk that mutt. She probably misses the little noisemaker.”
“He’s actually a good dog,” Betty argued.
“Do you really want to have this conversation?”
“Forget I even said that.”
“I thought as much.”
Shego came home to a strange sound, rock music. She did not use her stereo often, but apparently it was putting in work at the moment; she was going to whomp her little monster if that girl blew her speakers. Before she could shut the door, Kim was hugging her around the waist.
“Pumpkin, what’s with the noise?” the pale woman inquired while closing the door.
“Ron gave me his old CD player,” Kim answered. She had once tried Shego’s stereo and it sounded like it was on its last legs, so she never touched it again.
“Did he give you this CD too?”
“No, this is mine,” the redhead answered. She had a CD player; unfortunately it was at her parents’ house. She lacked the proper funds to buy a new one.
“Did you ever consider that it was too loud?” Shego asked.
“Did you ever consider that you’re too old?” Kim countered.
“What was that?” Shego shouted and she grabbed her rude pest into a headlock to teach her a lesson.
“Pet abuse!” the eccentric hero whined while trying to get out of the hold.
“Now, go turn it down,” the green-skinned woman commanded as she released the little smart aleck.
Kim pouted, but she climbed up to her loft and shut the CD player off altogether. She then climbed back down to hang out with her owner as always. They lounged in the living room, watching television.
“Hey, Princess, how often do you have missions?” Shego asked out of the blue it seemed.
“I don’t know. There’s not really an average I can give you. They’re sporadic sometime. Besides, I do everything from rescuing kittens to giving speeches to saving the world, so I could always be busy if I took every mission that came up,” the redhead explained.
“That’s true. You really should charge.”
“I thought we decided already that I have no head for money,” the girl remarked with an amused smile.
“You certainly don’t. If you were on your own, you’d probably end up a bum.”
“Been there, done that,” Kim pointed out.
“Will do it again if you don’t manage your funds better. I don’t how you lived this long without learning how to handle your money properly. How’d you like to make some pocket change?”
“Doing what?”
“Walking Betty’s mutt every day at about noon,” Shego answered.
“Walking Leo? Hell, yeah. I’ll do it. I’d do that for free,” Kim declared.
“I figured you would, but I negotiated you a better deal.”
Kim smiled a bit; she had been wondering how Leonardo was doing. She bet that he was plenty big by now. She hoped that Betty was taking good care of him, but she was willing to bet that if Betty was anything like her good friend when it came to caring for a pet, Leonardo was doing just fine.
(New day)
The redhead stared down at the very specific directions that had been given to her, which was good as she was prone to getting lost if left to her sense of direction. It was not that she could not find her way around; it was just that given the right conditions, she was easily distracted. Shego had informed Betty of that fact, so Kim was given detailed instructions on how to proceed to the chief’s house and what to do once there; several things were underlined or written in all capital letters in the two pages worth of directives for her to keep the idea in her head of what she was supposed to do.
Kim turned onto the block that the directions told her to and she looked up. She was stunned to see a row of houses instead of apartments. She would have been certain that Betty lived in some swank condo like her mistress did. She wondered which of the lovely homes belonged to Doctor Director.
As the hero searched for the address that was on the paper (there was also a detailed description of the house to avoid and all confusion on Kim’s part), she wondered what would be inside of the house. She entertained plenty of ridiculous thoughts; the first being that the house would be covered in bondage equipment. She though that the house being swamped in black leather and ball gags would be funny, but also a bit expected since Betty was such a control freak. Second, she thought that the house would be dirty and cluttered from top to bottom with all kinds of junk because Doctor Director was an extremely busy woman. She then considered that the woman might have all sorts of a technological knickknacks lying around her house, which would be very fun to mess with.
“Is this is?” Kim asked the air as she walked to the door of house and there was a paper that answered her question. It read: Yes, Princess, this is the right house.
The redhead laughed a bit; Betty must have thought that she had rocks in her head for that paper to have been there. She banged on the side of the door as she was instructed to do by the all-knowing paper. A passage opened under the step of the door and there was a key there. She picked up the key and entered the house. The lobby was clean; yes, there was a lobby. There were stairs leading up to the second floor. She noticed a paper on the banister and went to see if the message was there and waiting for her. It was for her.
“Don’t even think about going upstairs,” Kim read and then she glanced up at the upper level. She looked back down at the note and saw that there was more at the bottom. “Stop thinking about it!” the paper commanded.
“So many rules everywhere,” the redhead sighed. Shego and Betty were both control freaks, her mind commented.
The girl continued down the entrance hall of the house and glanced to the right of her when she passed an arch opening that led to the kitchen. She was tempted to see what was stocked away in the refrigerator, but she was willing to bet that there was a note waiting for her that ordered her not to eat or drink anything. She did not feel like bothering with it at the moment; she just wanted to see Leonardo.
She made it to the living room, which was sunken and carpeted a deep burgundy. She noticed that Doctor Director had a monster entertainment system. She was starting to think that maybe more people than Betty lived in the house. She glanced at some of the pictures around the place and there were a bunch of people that she did not know, but she knew that did not mean the people lived in the house.
She then spied a door on the side with a doggie door in it, so she guessed that Leonardo could come and go as he pleased to the side of the house and maybe even into the backyard. She bet that there was an enormous backyard.
“Leo!” Kim called as she continued through the orderly, large abode of Betty Director. The pup stuck his head out of a room and barked when he saw Kim.
The redhead went over to the puppy and hugged him; apparently, he still remembered her, even though they had not been separated for more than a few of weeks. She was glad that he still knew who she was; pets had to stick together, her mind joked. He looked rather all right; she figured that she was lucky that Betty decided to take him in. She scratched his ears for him.
“We’re going to be seeing a lot of each other, boy. I’m here to take you for a walk and I’ll be doing that every day,” Kim reported and Leonardo barked as if he greatly approved of that notion.
(New day)
Kim walked Leonardo every day for a week. He seemed to just want the company more than needing the walk and Kim considered that maybe Betty really just wanted her to be with him everyday at about noon for him to have someone to be with. It gave him a break in between the eight or more hours of loneliness, which was something that Kim could understand because there were some days when she just waited for her mistress to come home. One day, she was returning Leonardo home, a man stopped her.
“Excuse me, Miss,” the man called.
“Me?” Kim asked because she was not accustomed to being addressed as “miss” unless she was out on a mission or something like that.
“Yes. I was wondering how much do you charge?” he asked as he caught up with her to speak with her face to face.
“Charge?” she echoed in a puzzled tone.
“To walk dogs. I noticed you walk my neighbor’s dog everyday. I was wondering how much you charge.”
“Why?” she asked in a bemused tone.
“Well, I was hoping you’d walk my dog too. He’s not a very big dog. He’s just a beagle. He’s well behaved too, so I was wondering if you could walk him along with Betty’s pup,” he explained.
“I guess…” Kim answered tentatively. It seemed like something that she could do. How hard could it be to walk two little dogs, after all? Two dogs grew into four dogs, which grew into eight dogs. By ten dogs, the canines were walking her. “How’d I get into this mess?” the redhead wondered with a groan.
(New Day)
Shego was in the park, walking with Drakken. She was not sure who had given him the idea to take her for a walk in the park, but it was not the worse notion that he had ever had; hey, it was not even on the top-twenty list of bad ideas that he had. He was getting to be a bit of a better companion lately, she thought, but that did not say much. He had moved up on the companion ladder from a zero to a two in “being a boyfriend” in her opinion and that just could have been because she was in a better mood recently; not that she noticed that she was in lighter spirits than she had been a few months ago.
Drakken only noticed his girlfriend’s mood was brighter recently. He did not know why she was more pleasant to be around. He barely registered her mood, but he knew enough that he might be able to get away with some things without the usual extremely negative consequences. He was aware that it took just a little more to get on her nerves.
“Are you enjoying yourself?” Drakken inquired since the pale woman was being so quiet.
“I’m all right. I was just thinking about something, that’s all,” Shego replied.
“What?”
“Nothing important.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah,” she replied. It was things like him asking her if she was all right that led her to believe that someone might actually be coaching the doctor in how to be a better boyfriend.
Drakken tended to not think much of Shego’s feelings or what was going through her mind when he was with her. In fact, his philosophy toward her brain seemed to be “to hell with her thoughts.” He used to seem to like to hear himself talk most of the time, but now, he had started asking her about her and what she thought of what she guessed was supposed to be a date. Hell, she had to admit that the walk was better than suffering through karaoke.
Still, there was a small and bad voice in her opinion that argued a walk was even better when she was with her pet than when she was with Drakken. A louder voice in her head told the small voice to shut the hell up before Shego decided to get brain surgery to have it removed. A pet and a boyfriend were never to be compared; they were two completely different entities.
“You seem distracted,” Drakken commented.
Just distracted, Shego thought. She felt crazy at the moment thanks to her last few nerve impulses that raced through her head. She felt like the cerulean scientist was setting her up by taking more of an interest in her thoughts, but she considered that she might just be being paranoid. Maybe he was learning to be a better boyfriend and that was a good thing; it might even stop those bizarre thoughts of hers where she compared him to her little monster.
“I’m all right,” the pale woman tried to assure her man.
“How about we get some ice cream?” Drakken asked when he noticed an ice cream truck. It was a warm day for the winter, but Shego doubted that any normal human being would be eating ice cream that day.
The green-skinned woman felt odd being offered ice cream. She was used to asking her nutty runt that question, especially when they were in the park; Kim was one of those abnormal humans that would eat ice cream no matter what season it was. It seemed a bit childish, but it never seemed that way when she was out with her petite monster.
“Shego?” Drakken asked.
“Sure, I’ll take some ice cream,” Shego replied. She could eat ice cream all year around because it took quite a bit for her to feel cold.
While waiting on line for ice cream; yes, there was actually was a line, the couple noted a young woman a few yards away. She was being tugged by a dozen dogs. The young woman and one of the dogs looked mighty familiar, the raven-haired female noted.
“Shego, wasn’t that your cousin?” Drakken asked while pointing at the scene of the young lady being towed by the canines.
“Wha?” Shego replied in a puzzled tone and then she recalled that back when he first met her pet, the girl lied and said that she was Shego’s cousin to explain her presence. “Right, and yeah, that was my cousin,” she answered.
The pale woman watched as Kim was yanked off by the large pack of canines. How much trouble could her rascal get into walking mutts, Shego asked herself. Yeah, she should not worry about the redhead; she would be fine. They were just dogs, after all; her girl had done much more dangerous and crazier things. So, she should go back to enjoying her time with her boyfriend and not think about the redhead. Right, her brain concurred with the plan.
“I’ll be right back,” Shego told Drakken and she jogged off in the direction that Kim was being towed in.
“Come on, guys, can’t we talk this over one pet to another?” Kim pled with the dozen dogs that she was currently tethered to as they dragged her through Go Park. She made a mental note to never bring the pack into the park ever again because as soon as they saw all of the open space was when they got seriously out of control. “C’mon!”
The redheaded hero could not believe that she had lost control of the situation so badly and so easily; if saving the world was anywhere near as difficult for her as walking twelve dogs, well, the world would have been screwed over a long time ago. She was aware that she was going to have to learn to say the word “no” one day soon. She was struggling to regain just a smidge of control over the canines, but there were just too many of them. Why did she agree to that twelfth dog? Hell, why had she agreed to that eighth dog? If fact, why did she not just stick to walking Leonardo and call it a day? Oh yeah, because she believed that she could do anything.
“Pumpkin, just what the hell are you doing?” Shego inquired as she jogged up next to her nutty twerp.
“Dog walking,” Kim answered.
“Looks more like Princess walking to me,” Shego remarked.
“Um…yeah,” the girl admitted with a sheepish smile.
“How did this happen?” the pale woman inquired as she grabbed the six of the leashes in Kim’s left hand and took control of six of the mutts. She yanked back hard on the lines to let her six dogs know that it was time to start behaving. They seemed to get the message well enough and stopped pulling on the leashes with all of their might.
“Well, it started with me walking Leonardo,” Kim answered as if her mistress did not already know that. Her dogs were starting to behave also because she could control the half dozen pooches.
“And?” Shego pressed.
“Suddenly there eleven extra dogs,” the girl replied as if the dog manifested themselves out of thin air. She had a sheepish half smile on her face because of the situation that she was in.
“At least I know who your laundry smells like kibble now. Whose dogs are these?” the raven-haired female demanded to know.
“People that live on Betty’s block.”
“And why in the hell are you walking their dogs?”
“They asked.”
Shego sighed; she supposed that she had just learned to not expect her pet to do anything right, even if she had not seriously messed the job up. She had made a simple matter very complicated. It seemed like something her little monster could screw up now that she thought about.
“You’re so damn gullible. What were you going to do if more people asked you to walk their dogs? Agree, even though you can’t even handle this bunch?” the emerald-eyed female inquired.
“Well…” the redhead trailed off, which pretty much answered the question for her master anyway.
“You’re starting to make me think I should be happy when you stay in the house all day. At least no one can take advantage of you if you’re knocked out on the fucking sofa,” Shego remarked.
“So, what should I do?” Kim asked.
“Take the dogs back and tell those people that it’s way too many of skinny runt like you to handle.”
“Okay…” the girl agreed in shaky tone.
“You’re not going to do it, are you?” Shego asked, understanding that out in the street, her pet was nowhere near as selfish as she was at home. She was kindhearted to fault. The pale woman would show her little monster how to handle parasitic people. “I’ll come with you,” she announced.
“You don’t have to,” Kim replied. She did not desire to interrupt the flow of her owner’s day just because she bit off more than she could chew for just about the first time in her life. She was certain that she could take care of everything if given the chance.
“No, I will. Come on, let’s take these mutts back.”
“Okay,” the redhead agreed. It was not like she could order Shego to not come or something like that. After all, she was the pet.
Kim and Shego returned to the neighborhood that all of the hero’s furry companions came from. The first door that they went to, Shego allowed her girl to handle things, just to get an idea of how Kim took care of business like they were doing. The redhead rang the doorbell while Shego stood in the background. When the door was answered, Kim smiled nervously at the man.
“Um….hi,” Kim said.
“Miss Possible, I trust that Toro behaved himself,” the man that answered the door commented.
“Oh…yeah,” the young woman replied.
“Same time tomorrow then?” he inquired.
“Well…” she hesitated.
Shego sighed; apparently, her rascal should just wear a “take advantage of me” sign to make things even easier on people. She was stunned that Kim had not managed to burn herself out often if she could do anything all the while not refusing a job. She decided to step in before the girl did something that she was going to regret, namely agree to walk the man’s mutt again.
“No, there will be no ‘same time tomorrow.’ Walk your own fucking dog or get rid of the little bastard,” Shego informed the man, who was visibly shocked by her words. One down, ten to go.
By the end of the day, Shego felt that Kim had gotten a good, clear idea on how to decline things. The pale woman believed that she was a good teacher, blunt and right to the point; her philosophy in life was to spare no one when it came to her razor sharp wit. She hoped that Kim took just some of that away from the day and people would not be able to use her as easily as they used to. She was about to go home with Kim when she realized something that was slightly important.
“Shit, I left Drakken waiting in the park,” Shego groaned.
“Do you think he’s still there?” Kim asked while trying her best not to laugh. She had to admit that she was thoroughly amused that her master had forsaken the whiny inventor to run a slightly pointless errand with her.
“No normal person would wait that long and not call.”
“So, he’s probably still there waiting,” the redhead reasoned.
“High probability on that one. If only he was fucking normal,” the pale woman sighed. Why did the man not call and remind her that she had run out on him? Any other guy would call to see if she was all right or if her “cousin” was okay or something.
Kim could understand her mistress’ words. Any normal guy would have called after about fifteen to twenty minutes to ask what she was doing and let her know that he was not going to wait any longer. She could have told him that it was all right for him to go about his business had he called, thus she would not feel half as guilty as she did at the moment. It did not help matters that he had been trying to be nice, Shego realized.
“This is a nice fuck up,” the green-skinned officer commented.
“Not really,” Kim offered.
“Oh?” Shego asked in a skeptical tone.
“You can apologize and offer to do something special with him to make it up to him. Besides, at the end of the night, a guy will forgive you for damn near anything if he thinks it’ll help get him laid,” the girl remarked.
Shego was going to argue that, but she thought about all of her pet’s words and figured that Kim might be right. While Drakken was not so very eager to jump into the sack with her like most men would be, the cerulean lunatic would appreciate if she did something special with him. It just meant that she was probably going to have to sit through something that was gut-wrenchingly irksome.
“Maybe I should go see if he’s still in the park,” the pale woman commented.
“If you think he’s still there. Should I just go home or you want me to come with you?” Kim asked.
“You can go home. Don’t touch anything while you’re there by yourself.”
“But, I’m hungry!” Kim whined.
“I don’t want you in the kitchen messing with the stove or something.”
“We’ve got stuff I can microwave,” the girl pointed out.
“Still, you’ll spoil your appetite. I’m going to make dinner as soon as I come in.”
“You promise?”
“I promise,” Shego sighed. How childish was that? She could not believe she had actually said those words.
Shego trotted back into the park. She looked around for Drakken and was actually stunned that she did not see the onyx-eyed male anywhere. He was actually smart enough to leave without a written invitation. She was impressed for all of three seconds.
Since he was not there, that meant she was going to have to really apologize to him. She was going to have to do something extra special with him to make it up to him. She already had an idea of what she was going to have to do. She groaned; she could feel her ears bleeding already.
(New Day)
Karaoke night should be considered an assault crime, Shego thought. She would merrily arrest the entire tone-deaf audience of the club that she was trapped in if only it was; she considered that she might have to have a talk with Betty to see if they could make it illegal. She had unfortunately listened to her impish monster and offered to do anything that Drakken desired to atone for abandoning him in the park; of course, those were not her exact words when she made the proposal.
Shego thought that most men would have requested “special attention,” but the powder blue scientist seemed to think that he had enough brains apparently and chose Karaoke. To tell the truth, she would have preferred that he wished for the former and not the latter. She nearly had to slap herself to agree and his face had lit up; his expression was surprisingly similar to that of a man who would have been getting head, she thought.
The super-powered woman could not believe that she was trapped in a karaoke bar listening to her boyfriend sing a song that she had never heard of. She was glad that no one butchered a song that she knew or she might actually get violent. She could not believe that people were really enjoying themselves. They needed to go to real club and find actual entertainment in her opinion.
Shego had a couple of drinks and that did not help things sound any better to her. She also had to watch her alcohol intake; the last thing that she wanted to do was be drunk while in Drakken’s company because she was more than aware of how that could lead to disaster. She had definitely learned her lesson on that one, but she was sure that being a little intoxicated would have made the night more tolerable to her.
“I am on tonight,” the onyx-eyed inventor declared as he returned to his seat after singing his fifth song that night.
“Yeah, I mean, whoa boy,” Shego concurred with very false enthusiasm; she even did a hand motion to fake like she was enjoying herself. Most people would have noticed that she was being sarcastic more than anything else, but that went right over Drakken’s head, especially since he was so hyped up.
“Do you want to try?” he asked her.
“No!” she answered vehemently. She knew her limits; singing was only to be done in her home, preferably in the shower to avoid embarrassing herself and paining others. No one deserved the fate of her hearing her sing.
“All right. What should we do after this?” he wondered aloud.
“Whatever you want. It’s your night, after all,” she replied. She had told him earlier in the day that she would do whatever he wanted for the whole because it was his night. She refused to acknowledge that it was an apology.
Drakken giggled like a little boy, much like he when she had right told him that it was his night; Shego was willing to bet her left leg that they just stayed right in the karaoke bar. She ended up bring right and the owner practically had to throw them out of the joint. Shego was stunned that the scarred doctor could stay awake for so long; it was going on five in the morning. She had been in that hell for about seven hours and that just made her realize something; they had to go to work and be there in three hours.
“Son of a bitch,” Shego groaned in a low tone. Why was it that every thirty seconds of her life was some new misery, she wondered.
“What’s wrong?” Drakken asked with a yawn.
“Nothing. Whose place are we closer to?” she inquired while looking around for her car. She could not even remember where she parked nearly seven hours ago.
“Yours?” he guessed. He did not know why she would ask that question. It had yet to register to his fogged mind that they had work, such things happened when he forgot to sleep.
“Probably,” she agreed. She actually knew that he would say hers because they never went to his place. She had, in fact, never been to his apartment. She had been near his place, but never in it. She was starting to doubt that he had a place, but then again, he did have to go some place when he left work.
When Shego came in, Kim was asleep, which the pale woman expected. As a matter of fact, had she come in and found her pet awake, she would have beaten the little monster silly with a pillow before ordering her to go to bed and never stay up that late again. She hoped that Kim stayed sleeping since she was not alone.
Drakken was practically asleep on his feet by the time that they got into the apartment; Shego knew that he could not really hang out. Only through some miracle did they manage to make it to the bed after getting out of their street clothes. It took another miracle to get them to work three hours later. Shego even managed to pull off an assignment, if mutant, killer rabbits counted as an assignment; yeah, she often had no idea what the mad scientists in Go City were attempting to accomplish.
When the green-skinned woman got off work, she did not stick around the place for anything. She just did not want to be there because she wanted to be home. She sped to her apartment like she had a time limit to get there. When she finally stepped through the door she was eternally grateful, even though it meant being greeted by a hug. Kim embraced her mistress the second that she was in the apartment.
“So, how’d everything go?” the eccentric hero asked.
“Can I get into the house?” Shego countered.
The redhead only smiled and released the older woman. She waited a while for her owner to get comfortable around the house before approaching the subject of Shego’s make up with Drakken. Shego thumped her pet in the nose for being nosy as soon as Kim brought the topic back up.
“You ask too many questions,” Shego stated plainly.
“You never tell me anything,” Kim pouted.
“You’re just a pet. I don’t have to tell you anything and you shouldn’t care,” the pale woman countered.
“But, I do.”
“Because you’re a nosy little brat.”
“Because I like you so much,” Kim replied with a smile.
Shego frowned at the eccentric hero. She really disliked how easily Kim said such words to her, especially with that sincere look in her olive green eyes. They were such simple words, but carried such conviction with them when they came out of her mouth; maybe they just carried too much certainty and that might be why she loathed them. When Drakken said those words or even deeper words, they never carried nearly as much weight as when the redhead spoke those words.
“Princess, what would you do if I was willing to give you anything you want? What would you want?” Shego asked curiously. She had already found out what Drakken desired, but she wondered what her petite monster longed for. She figured that the answer would help her understand the redhead better.
Kim grinned. “That’s so easy. I just want to stay with you.”
The green-skinned woman could not help smiling back; she still did not grasp the girl in the slightest. What was the creature that she had found in a box almost two years ago? She just did not understand her pet at all, but she somehow knew that did not matter. She did not need to comprehend the runt at all because Kim understood her owner. Still, it would have been nice to just grasp where her imp was coming from half the time.
Next time: Shego gets a promotion. So, it’s a celebration, bitches.