I get to go on a trip. Well, I could go on the trip. There might be one or two problems with it, but I’m pretty sure those can be worked out and I can go. I really want to go, but I do keep thinking about the problems that could pop up. Well, I’m sure we can talk things over. I mean, we can do stuff like that now.
Kim flipped through a thick stack of papers while walking down the street. She was reading through the documents, even though she should have been paying attention to the street. She dodged people and objects without a problem without bothering to glance up. She was on her way home and she was going to have a lot to talk over with her mistress. She really wanted to do something, but she was a little worried about what came along with her desire.
“It should be all right now,” Kim told herself.
The redhead made it home before her master as usual. She tossed her book bag up in the loft without climbing up there. She heard her papers rustling as her bag landed and she silently hoped that she had not ripped any of her things in the loft. She flopped down on the sofa and continued reading through all of her papers. She focused on that so much that she failed to notice her owner enter the apartment.
“Hey, Princess,” Shego greeted her pet as she leaned down and kissed Kim’s cheek.
“Oh, hey!” Kim replied and she grabbed the older woman around the waist.
“What’s that you’re got there?” the pale woman asked while rubbing her girl’s head. She was looking at all of the papers that her pet holding.
“Oh…a proposal and things…” Kim answered cryptically.
“About?” the older female pressed.
“Well…Shego, what would you think if I went off for about two or three weeks?” the redhead asked.
“Go off?” Shego echoed in a confused tone.
“On a field trip of sorts,” Kim explained. She had a lot of apprehensions of leaving her mistress alone for so long. She believed that Shego would get cranky and lonely if she was gone for so long. As a good pet, she did not want that to happen to her mistress.
“On a field trip for two to three weeks?” the moss-hued woman parroted. She disliked the sound of that. Something inside of her objected to her pet being gone for so long. What was she going to do without her munchkin around?
“Yeah. Are you okay with that?” the olive-eyed girl inquired.
“Well, do you want to go?” Shego countered. She was not going to stand in the way if her brat wanted to leave. Besides, it was not like she was going to tell Kim that she would miss the little monster or anything like that.
“Uh-huh,” Kim replied while nodding enthusiastically. She really did want to go, even though her master would be alone for a fortnight. It was not like she was leaving forever or anything. She would be back and everything could go back to normal when that happened.
“What about your classes?” the pale woman asked. She tried not to get on the kid about her school work too much, but she did want Kim to do well in school.
“It’s all right. I’ve already talked to my professors and everything. As long as I get good marks on the midterms and finals, I’m in no danger of failing if I miss a few classes,” the redhead answered.
“Where would you be going on this trip?”
“A rain forest.”
“Well, what would you be doing?” the green-skinned female inquired.
“Helping out at a clinic and collecting reptiles and things like that,” the younger woman explained.
“And where will you be staying?” Shego inquired.
“In the village that the clinic is in.”
“What about food?”
“Well, I’m packing plenty of ramen noodles, but they’ll have food and I’m sure they’ll share,” Kim answered.
“Who will you be with?”
“Well, Big Mike for one, Doctor Lurkin for another. I think that’s about it, but I’m not sure,” the slender hero said.
“Guys?” Shego asked and her pet nodded. Kim then realized that her mistress might be a little put off by her being gone for two to three weeks alone with two guys.
“You know…you could come,” the redhead suggested with a hopeful grin. She just thought of that out of the blue, but now she agreed with impulsive thought. She would like to spend that time with her master, but she doubted that her mistress would go along with it.
“Come to a hot, smelly jungle?” Shego deadpanned.
“Well, yeah. You don’t have to come for the whole time. But, it would be nice if you did. You could come see me in action,” Kim declared with a proud smile.
“Why would I want to see a squirt like you in action?” Shego teased and she plucked her pet in the nose.
“Ow!” Kim covered her nose with one hand. “Fine, you don’t have to go.”
The pale woman left her pet alone to go take a shower and she thought about the offer to go with her munchkin to the jungle. It was weird because Kim was inviting her to be a part of her life. It was not something that she was accustomed to, except for when they went to Kim’s parents for that barbeque. She was flattered that her monster wanted her to be a part of her life, so much so that after her shower, she accepted the offer to go to the hot, sweaty, nasty jungle for a week. Kim, of course, cheered loudly to that.
(New day)
Shego and Kim were strolling down a muddy road. The pale woman was looking around, quietly noting that they never showed what she was seeing now in a brochure. She wondered what the village that they were headed to would look like. Usually, when she went some place, she stayed in a city or at least a resort. She had only seen small towns and villages on television. She was a big city gal through and through.
“So, how long until we get there?” Shego inquired. She did not know why she agreed to walk when there had been plenty of cabs when they exited the airport.
“Like an hour,” Kim answered.
“And you’re sure you’ll be fine for two to three weeks?” the elder female inquired. She could not picture her munchkin being able to stay some place for two or three minutes if there was no electricity, which the girl had informed her that there was none in the village.
“I’ll be fine. You’ll see. It’s a nice place,” Kim answered.
Shego did not argue, but she was not too sure if she was all right with her monster being there for a fortnight, on her own. Who knew what her pet would do alone. She might only eat ramen noodles. She might gorge on soda and cookies and bounce around for all hours of the night. After all, no one would be around to stop her and she had already shown that she had some trouble with properly taking care of herself.
“I bet you’ll like it,” Kim declared while latching onto her mistress for no reason that Shego could see; not that the older woman was going to complain about the affection.
“Why do you say that?” the moss-hued woman inquired.
Kim laughed. “Just wishful thinking, I guess,” she replied with an adorable smile.
The green-skinned officer laughed too. She did wonder what the village would be like. She wondered how many people would be in the place. She actually felt curious and she was already a bit happy that she had joined her girl on the journey. She needed to broaden her horizons, she thought. After all, her pet was worldly, so maybe she should attempt to be a little more open and get out of the big cities.
It did take a good hour to make it to the village; Shego finally understood why her pet told her to pack light. As soon as they got there, Kim dashed off, shouting words that should never go together in Shego’s opinion. Kim had yelled “Doctor Big Mike!” while running toward the person. That was what higher education had come to, Shego sighed. Boy, she was glad that she had not gone to college.
“Hey, lil Doctor Kimmie!” Big Mike greeted her with a crushing embrace.
“Hey!” Kim grinned, even though the hug was bordering on painful. He did release her quickly, so it was cool.
“Good to be hanging out with you for close to a month,” he commented.
“Yeah, what do they have you down for?” the redhead asked.
“Mostly lecturing and demonstrations. Of course, I’ll be working in the clinic a little bit too,” he answered.
“Cool.”
“And what do they got you doing?” he inquired.
“Well, I’m mostly going to be locked up in the clinic. They want to know more about my antivenin,” she replied.
“I heard about that. You’ve got to explain that one to me when you get the chance,” Big Mike said.
Big Mike and Kim went back and forth for a couple of minutes before they were interrupted. Their attention was turned from each other to a young woman as she cleared her throat. Kim thought that the young woman looked mighty familiar.
“Kim, you remember Zita, right? You two were in the same grade for like a second in high school,” Big Mike commented.
“Zita? Oh, yeah! Hey,” Kim greeted the girl.
“Hey, Kim,” Zita replied.
“You’re working here too?” the redhead asked curiously.
“Oh, no. I just came with Mike because he doesn’t speak a lick of Spanish. I didn’t want him to be lost for so long,” Zita explained.
“Doesn’t she take good care of me?” Mike inquired with a smile and he put his large hand around Zita’s waist. It then dawned on Kim that she was standing before a couple.
“How long have you two been together?” Kim asked curiously.
“Almost a year,” Mike answered with a smile.
“That’s great. It’s cool how she supports you by coming out here too,” Kim said and she looked around the village. “Is Doctor Lurkin here yet?” she asked.
“Yeah, he’s in the clinic and everything. Checking on all of the antitoxins and stuff. C’mon,” Mike said.
Kim nodded in agreement and grabbed her mistress to enter the clinic, which was a one story stone building. Kim introduced Shego to Big Mike and Zita. Shego did not seem too thrilled, but she did shake their hands.
The pale woman looked around the village to see what she was going to be dealing with for a week. She immediately noticed that there were no telephone poles, but then again, Kim had warned her about that. Her pet had told her that there was no electricity, just no real creature comforts. Shego was willing to try to bear with it, even though she had never done without electricity before. But, if her pet could do it, then she figured that she could do it.
“Kim, you made it,” Doctor Peter Lurkin greeted the slender redhead when he caught sight of her.
“Of course,” Kim replied.
“Oh, I want you to meet someone who you’ll be working with,” Doctor Lurkin said and he turned to a young man. He grabbed the young man around the shoulders and spun him around to face Kim. “This is my stepson and graduate student, Gilbert Moss,” the blonde doctor introduced her to the young man.
“Hi, I’m Kim,” the redhead replied with her typical politeness. She smiled and shook Gilbert’s hand, even though it had a clammy feel to it.
“Yeah, the famous Kim Possible. I’ve heard a lot about you,” Gilbert said with a smile of his own. It looked like he was forcing it, but only Shego seemed to notice.
“Good things, I hope,” she commented.
“Oh, yeah,” he replied.
Shego arched an eyebrow because of the buggy-eyed young man. She instantly did not like the kid, especially since he seemed a bit fake. There was something about him that was not right, but she could not put her finger on it.
Shego was sitting in a chair, leaning against the clinic building. Kim had been drug off by some kids to go play a game of soccer. She had been trying to explain the reason for the clinic being there to Shego before the children came along. Apparently, the nearest hospital to the village was over an hour away in the city and most of the villagers could not afford many of the treatments anyway if they made it to the hospital in time. The clinic was totally free, right there with a small, but competent staff, and it had saved plenty of lives, especially from snake bites and other toxins.
The pale woman watched Kim with the soccer ball for a while. Kim was not a soccer player and that was completely obvious. She knew the basics, but she was performing tricks thanks to her martial arts and not some great sport’s skill. She was then distracted from that sight by the fact that she felt a pair of eyes on her. She looked down to her left and was suddenly staring at a little brat.
The child was eyeing Shego with huge bright blue eyes. She appeared to be about five years old. She was dressed in just a long tee-shirt with some cartoon mouse on it, but it fit like a dress on her. She had rich caramel skin with long, dark brown hair with golden streaks running through her chocolate mane. Her hair curled slightly at the ends; she looked absolutely cherubic. She smiled at Shego.
“Yeah?” the green-skinned woman asked, even though she had already discovered that most people in the village did not speak English.
“You’re with Kim?” the child inquired, which almost floored Shego. The kid spoke English almost as well as she did.
“Yeah,” the older female answered in a grunt almost because of her surprise.
“What’s your name?” the child asked in a low voice. It was not that she was shy, but her voice seemed to be naturally small.
“Shego.”
“Oh, then you’re Kim’s master,” the kid said in an awed voice.
The pale woman craned an eyebrow. The brat was really starting to bother her. Why did the kid know about her being Kim’s master? That was just plain bizarre, more so than the fact she spoke such good English.
“And who are you, kid?” Shego inquired while trying to keep her attitude in check.
“Maddie,” the child answered proudly.
“Maddie, you aren’t bothering this woman, are you?” a woman inquired as she came over to the two.
Shego turned her attention to the woman as she came over. The newcomer appeared to be around her pet’s age. She was dressed in a sky blue sundress with some laced up sandals. She had long, dark brown hair, like the child’s hair, and very dark brown eyes. She was a rather pretty young woman with a healthy tan complexion, Shego noted. She guessed that the newcomer was the child’s older sister.
“I’m not bothering her, Mommy. That’s Kimmie’s master,” Maddie informed the woman. It seemed that Shego was a bit off in her guess as to who the woman was to the child.
“Really?” the woman said in a curious tone and she turned her attention to Shego.
“Yeah,” the raven-haired female confirmed.
“How lovely. It must be so wonderful to be around her everyday,” the woman commented.
Shego was puzzled by the younger female’s words. She did not see what was so wonderful about being around Kim everyday. She had to put up with a bunch of whining and crying. She had to watch the little punk to make sure her brat did not eat all kinds of junk food and to make sure that she got the proper amount of sleep, not to mention that her munchkin had a good sleep schedule. She had to wash the kid’s hair, trim her hair, lotion her body, clip her nails, and a zillion other things. It was not so wonderful.
“So, you guys know Kim?” Shego inquired.
“Yeah!” Maddie answered with great enthusiasm and a giant grin.
“She’s a great person,” the child’s mother answered.
“Yeah?” the moss-hued officer asked in disbelief. As far as she was concerned, her brat was just a brat. She was an adorable brat, yes, but she was still a brat.
“Yeah,” the mother and daughter agreed.
The pale woman turned her gaze to look at her monster. Kim was still playing soccer. She made a move on one little boy and then did a martial art’s move to attempt to make a goal. She kicked the ball and most people might have thought that the game was unfair for the team that Kim was not on. And then they would have seen the goalie for the other team and changed their minds. Big Mike caught the ball with no problem as it rocketed toward his stomach; it would have probably been a goal if he was not there. He was big enough to cover two goals with room to spare.
“Ah, come on!” Kim groaned. They were never going to win as long as Big Mike was the goalie.
“Better luck next time, Doctor Kimmie,” Big Mike teased.
“She’s just a big kid,” Shego commented.
“Yes, but that is one of the great things about her. She’s a great person. You’re lucky to have her in your life,” the woman said.
Shego looked skeptical to that. She watched her pet and then noticed that young man, Gilbert, was watching Kim too. He was tucked behind a tree and frowning for whatever reason. He was an oddball, she thought.
Shego found herself staying in the house of the woman and the child that she met while Kim was playing soccer. It turned out that the woman, whose name was Rosa, knew Kim quite well. In fact, her child had embraced Kim like a sister when the hero finally got away from the other children. Rosa had been more controlled when she embraced Kim, but she had been the one that led Kim to the house, not that Kim needed any directions there.
At the moment, Kim and Maddie were sleeping on the floor of the living room in the small house. They had been bouncing off of each other as if they were on the highest level of a sugar high earlier. They had crashed only minutes ago. Rosa covered the resting pair with a thin sheet right where they dropped; it seemed that she was all right with leaving them there for the night.
“Maddie loves it when Kim comes by,” Rosa informed Shego as she sat down in the living room across from the pale woman. She sat in a rocking chair while Shego had the space on the small sofa that was against the wall.
“How often does that happen?” Shego inquired curiously.
“Sometimes every week, but at least twice a month,” Rosa answered.
“So often?” Shego stunned to hear that and it showed on her face.
“Yeah, she usually doesn’t stay too long because she has a busy schedule. She doesn’t say so, but I know she’s checking on me to make sure everything’s okay. She likes to act like she’s just looking for animals or she got called out here or something,” the young woman explained with a small, amused smile.
Shego was confused, as she had been most of the night while watching her pet with Rosa and Maddie. Kim seemed very close to the mother and daughter. It was almost like she was a part of their family. For a moment, Shego had even thought of an old saying; it was something along the lines of every cat having another home. She was too bewildered to get upset over that, but she was going to get the full story on it from her pet one day, she silently promised herself.
“Check on you?” the super-powered officer echoed. She noticed that the woman seemed to know so much about her pet.
Rosa laughed a bit and decided to explain the situation to Shego since it seemed that Kim had not done so. She went into how she met Kim. The petite hero had rescued Rosa and several other young women from lives of forced prostitution. She and the other girls returned to their homes in the village and they never spoke about their ordeal with anyone. They figured that they would be able to live normal lives now that they were away from such terrible circumstances. It worked out well for the others, but not her because she was unlike the others; she was pregnant. She had been ostracized by the village and left as an outcast, alone and very scared. And then came her hero, Kim, once again.
Rosa told how she met Kim for a second time by sheer accident. The redhead had been chasing down a runaway leopard cub on a rainy day for a friend, who was studying the cats and raising orphaned felines. The cub ran into a hut that she had been staying for cover from the horrid weather. Kim entered, unaware that it was someone’s home, and discovered her, heavy with Maddie in her womb, barefoot, hungry, and cold. The leopard cub quickly became a secondary thought because Kim recognized Rosa and moved to aid her instantly.
Kim took Rosa to a hospital to get her some prenatal care. She brought Rosa shoes, warm clothes, blankets, and all types of food. She seemed to make everything better and while taking care of Rosa, she even managed to catch her runaway leopard.
“The house and everything in it was pretty much provided by Kim,” Rosa said with a fond look in her eyes.
Shego nodded; her pet was not only busier than she had ever assumed, but more selfless than the kid ever bothered to show. Maybe that was why Kim never had any money; she was trying to help Rosa. There seemed to be more layers to her lazy brat than she had ever bothered to fathom.
“So, she talks a lot when she visits, huh?” the pale woman asked since Rosa and Maddie knew that she was Kim’s mistress.
“She does. Maddie asks her all kinds of questions and Kim always answers. Plus, she likes being humble and we were acting like she was a saint at first. She didn’t like that, so she made sure to tell us about her life and how she was just a pet. We really didn’t understand, but she says no one understands. I didn’t see how she could be just a pet after all she did for us. I mean, she taught us English and she always makes sure we’re all right. She’s always looking to help, even though we’re good now. So, we didn’t see how she could be a pet. After all, a dog is a pet. Kim is no dog,” Rosa commented.
Shego could only roll her eyes. “Whatever,” she muttered.
“She’s been a great help, not just to me, but to anyone who needs help. She even bought a new leg for a young man after he lost his in an accident,” Rosa stated.
Shego glanced over at her sleeping pet. It seemed the kid was a bleeding-heart, just looking to help wherever she could. Well, talking with Rosa did help explain why her monster was always broke despite the fact that her photographs seemed to sell quite well and she had all kinds of research grants and things. Kim probably just gave her money away to anyone that she came across that needed it, which was pretty much what the redhead did because she always thought that a poor person needed the money a lot more than she did. She supposed what her munchkin did was impressive.
“She’s just fantastic,” Rosa said with a dreamy sigh.
“You talk like you’re in love with her,” Shego noted.
“I think I am,” the young mother admitted. “But, I’m pretty sure that I’m only one of hundreds of people if she’s anything like I think she is. I know she doesn’t feel the same and I know I’m not particularly special to her as more than a friend.”
“Then why hold on to your love?” Shego asked curiously. She surprisingly was not upset and did not feel any malice toward the younger woman, even though the brown-eyed female had just confessed to being in love with Kim. She was just so engrossed in learning more about her munchkin, trying to understand where her girl was coming from, but it always seemed that the more she learned about the girl, the more of a mystery her monster became.
Another reason that the super-powered female probably did not feel any ill will toward Rosa was because it was hard to do so when the woman had been so kind. She was letting Kim and Shego stay in her home. She had made them a great dinner and offered whatever little she had to her guests. It was difficult to be angry with such a person.
“It feels so good to be in love with someone like her, just to love someone like her. Someone that you’re certain will never hurt you, someone you know will make you feel better if she sees that you’re down, someone who cares about you wholeheartedly all the time, even if she’s not in love with you. You know that she loves you in someway and she always shows that. That’s why I think you’re lucky to have her in your life everyday. It must be great to have that feeling all the time,” Rosa answered.
Shego thought on that. It did feel good to love Kim, especially being loved in return as she was. Her girl always did try to pick her up whenever she felt down. Her pet never hurt her and she was confident that the redhead never would; sure, she scared her sometimes, but that was not the same thing. Kim did care about her all of the time. She did get to experience that everyday and it was great.
“You’re completely and totally right,” Shego conceded. She was already happy that she had made the trip with Kim on the first day. It reminded her why she wanted Kim around and it reminded her to not take her little imp for granted. She was lucky to have that nutty kid in her life.
Next time: strange happenings. Gil is nowhere to be found and Kim is called away for a mission while Shego sees furry grasshoppers? What the hell is going on?