I wonder if my parents are disappointed in me. I mean, I’m a person’s pet and I know they don’t like that. I don’t know what to tell them or how to make them understand that I’m just happy with Shego and comfortable with her and she’s the same with me. We just had to take a weird step to make it to where we are. I want them to understand that there’s nothing wrong or even degrading going on. I don’t know, maybe I’m just asking too much.
Ann went to sit with Isabel in a study in the big house. She was not too sure why she went to go hang out with Isabel, but it seemed like the thing to do after speaking with Shego a few minutes ago. Isabel was going through the books on the shelves in the room. She was tossing the tomes carelessly on the floor as if they were useless garbage. Ann craned an eyebrow, curious as to what the graying woman was doing.
“Why are you doing that?” Ann inquired.
Isabel sighed. “The man had no taste in literature and must’ve known it since he didn’t take them with him. With luck, I can find someone dumb enough to buy them,” she replied.
“So, you actually traded houses?”
“It’s not the first time I’ve done it. One would think I’d learn better,” Isabel remarked with a light laugh.
“Who are you?” Ann asked in a slightly baffled tone. She had never heard of people trading houses.
“Just an eccentric old woman.”
“I remember Kim and her friend, Yori, speaking about you. Yori got all excited when Kim said your name, so I’m guessing you’re a martial artist of some kind, but how does a martial artist get all of this?” Ann wondered out loud.
The brain surgeon might have understood if Isabel was a martial artist and a movie star or something like that. But, she had never heard of the woman. She had never seen a movie or show or anything advertising Isabel Gooding. She also noted that when Kim and Yori spoke of the woman, they never said a thing involving the mass media.
“You have to be creative and pretend you don’t know the meaning of a lot of words, like ‘illegal underground tournament’ and things like that,” Isabel answered.
“Criminal activity?” the redhead guessed.
“When you’re young, it’s only a crime if you get caught and they prove it,” the graying woman replied with an amused smile.
Isabel was no saint, especially when she was younger. To her, if no one got hurt badly and she, along with either her little sister or Eleanor Director, made money then everything was all right. They participated in several illegal tournaments and when they were very young and extremely stupid as they looked at it, they even acted as bodyguards for all sorts of unsavory characters. When they were teenagers and in their early twenties, they used to do just about anything that involved showing off their crazy martial arts skills and allowed them to make money at the same time. They never really cared much about dangers and such. They eventually found a place that involved fighting and money without the serious dangers, Hollywood. They did a lot of training of action stars and fight choreography before branching out into whatever else their fighting or other interests led them to.
“How odd for your daughter to be a police officer, I suppose,” Ann commented. She did not think much of Isabel doing illegal activities. Everyone had a story or two from when they were young and swore they knew everything there was to know about anything.
“Yes, if only you knew the road that she had to travel to make it there. She’s a difficult one, doesn’t like to listen to anyone,” Isabel replied with a fond smile. She remembered trying to steer her daughter off the path that she had decided to walk when she was a teenager, but there was just no telling Shego anything. Shego was the type that had to find out for herself. “She likes to make her own mistakes and she makes plenty, but she bears through.”
“An independent soul…” the neurosurgeon said.
“Much like your daughter,” Isabel stated. She was fairly certain that there was no telling Kim anything either once she got it in her mind to do something. She more than likely just got different ideas on what to do compared to what Shego allowed to enter her mind.
“Kim is different,” Ann argued.
“I think they’re two sides of the same coin, which is probably why they need each other. Kim is a very independent, but a sweet girl. Shego’s independent, but cranky as hell. Kim uses her vast skill and power selflessly while Shego uses them selfishly, even as a police officer. They are two daredevils that lacked something in their lives until they stumbled across each other. They fulfilled each other, eased the loneliness they both undoubtedly felt before they found each other. After all, there’s no one in the world like them out there,” Isabel said with understanding that Ann wished that she could possess.
“Perhaps,” Ann conceded.
Kim had been with Shego longer than other potential partners that Ann knew of. In fact, only Kim closest friends had been in her life longer. She did take into account that Kim had brought Shego to the family cookout. It was like Kim was inviting Shego to join their family. Maybe she had to learn something more about Shego to understand and truly accept the relationship.
“You know, if you’re still bothered by the relationship, maybe you should just watch them tonight. You don’t know Shego as well as we do, so you probably won’t be as shocked by her behavior. But, if you watch them, you get an idea of how happy they are together. I wish I could just assure you that Shego loves Kim more than anyone else ever will and she’ll always take good care of your daughter,” Isabel said to the doctor.
“Why can’t she just say that?” Ann inquired.
“Because Shego likes to be difficult and she likes to be the bad girl. A bad girl can’t fall in love with a little sweetheart like Kim,” Isabel remarked with a small laugh.
Ann nodded. She silently admitted that from what Kim had told her, Shego was almost always good to her. Her daughter never really had anything bad to say about Shego or, if she did, it was rare and often done in a jokingly fashion. Whenever she reported on Shego, she seemed to try to control herself, not looking to get too excited, but Ann could almost hear it in her voice, like she was jumping up and down on the inside as she spoke. So, she wondered why it seemed as if she could not trust Kim’s word.
Kim was a person that only did good in anything that she touched and, yet, Ann and James seemed to have trouble believing that Kim would be all right making her own decisions outside of their care. It was just because Kim was so…all over the place. They were actually frightened with what she might do with herself on her own, especially since they knew that she had once been a hobo. It was so hard to trust on her own, even though she seemed to do just fine.
Dinner was delivered to the house. They did not have enough food to prepare dinner for so many people. Isabel was planning to go out shopping in the morning for breakfast when she woke up. She thought that maybe she would be able to sucker Shego into helping with the morning meal. Maybe Ann could help out and they could all get to know each other that way. She would enlist Kim too, but she had heard that Kim’s cooking skills were questionable unless noodles were involved.
There was a feeding frenzy over dinner as usual when the Gooding offspring were involved. The Possible twins were right in there with them, having a good old time trying not to lose a limb in grabbing for some boneless buffalo wings. Kim was trying to join in, mostly because she wanted to have three biscuits, but Shego was keeping her at bay while telling that she did not need that much bread. Kim begged to differ and began whining about it, much to her parents’ surprise.
“You can cry about it well into the night, but you’re not having that much bread,” Shego informed the slender hero.
“Why not?” Kim inquired while trying to fight her way back into the mess, but her owner was holding her back. Damn it, she really wanted those biscuits.
“What do you mean ‘why not’? Because I said so,” the green-skinned female replied. Kim puffed out her cheeks. Shego was not affected. “Fix your face or I’ll only put vegetables on your plate,” the master threatened.
Kim went from inflated cheeks to puppy-dog pouting to the extreme. Shego did not seem to notice and fixed herself a plate along with her pet’s plate. The redheaded hero eventually stopped moping since it was not getting her what she wanted for once.
The mistress and pet retreated to a nearby sofa in the adjoining room because Shego was not interested on sharing a table with her brothers or Kim’s brothers. It was just too many brothers as far as she was concerned and Kim concurred. They sat down and then Shego realized that they did not have anything to drink with their meals. Kim knew that and requested the one thing that she knew she was not going getting, soda.
“What time is it, Princess?” Shego inquired.
“Hmm…not after nine,” Kim replied.
“If I get you some soda, you’re sleeping in the hall tonight. I’m not sitting up with while you’re buzzing around the room all night,” the pale woman commented.
“Don’t I buzz around even when we enforce this rule?” the redhead pointed out.
“Now, you’re having orange juice,” Shego said.
“Why?” Kim whined as if she was in utter pain.
“Because you want to be a smart-ass,” Shego pointed out.
“But, I was just pointing out a fact!” Kim slid off of the sofa. A tantrum was almost certain.
Shego fought the urge to laugh at her pet’s behavior. She went to go get some drinks and noticed Kim’s parents looking at her. She ignored the looks from them, thinking that it was nothing important. She retrieved a couple of sodas because she silently conceded that her pet had a point. No matter what she did, the little adventurer was wired all day. The only way that she could think of to get Kim to stop bouncing was to get her girl to stop taking naps, so she did not have the chance to recharge her batteries. If Kim stopped taking naps, it would mean much less petting, which was not an option in her opinion.
Ann and James did watch Shego interact with Kim when she returned to the petite scientist; the room that the pair was in was not really closed off from the dining room because of the wide entrance to dining room. They did not see anything really terrible between the pair. Shego did tease Kim a bit while they were eating, but it was nothing too harsh. They watched as Kim whined to Shego in a way that they knew she would never do with anyone else. She probably would not allow a person to tease her as she let Shego did either. Kim obviously had no clue that her parents were watching and she was just enjoying being with her mistress, even if the woman was being evil at the moment.
“Gimme,” Kim cried while crawling all over Shego. The pale woman had stolen half of Kim’s biscuit just to get on the redhead’s nerves. It was working.
“Get off of me,” Shego complained while playfully trying to get her monster off of her.
“Give it back,” the younger woman whined while reaching for her bread.
“Get off or I’ll eat it,” the super-powered woman warned.
“Fine. I’ll eat yours,” Kim declared and she hopped off of the older woman to steal her biscuit.
“You’d better not,” Shego cautioned her brat, but Kim took the bread and shoved the whole thing right in her mouth.
“Ha, ha, ha,” the redhead taunted her master with her mouth full of stolen property.
“You little brat,” Shego huffed while grabbing her munchkin’s face and she began squeezing her cheeks together.
“Your brat,” Kim said and she surprised the pale woman by leaning in for a kiss.
“Hey, hey, hey,” Shego said while pulling away.
“What?” Kim asked.
“Don’t kiss me with food in your mouth. It’s just nasty,” the pale woman stated. She now had bread crumbs on her lips.
Kim only smiled impishly. She more than likely would have rethought her actions and expression if she knew that her parents were watching. She thought that they were a safe distance from everyone else and she was mostly right because no one else was paying them any mind. It was just Mister and Missus Possible and they were shocked to see how their daughter behaved with Shego. They were not sure what to think of it.
Day one was coming to a close and everyone retired to their rooms for the evening. Shego curled up into the huge bed in the room. She had changed the linen before lying down, not trusting her mother’s word that everything was fresh because she had hired a cleaning service to come through the day before they arrived. The bed was surprisingly comfortable.
Kim was staring out onto the beach from the balcony. It was quite the sight to see the white sand, especially when it was hit by the moonlight, which was also causing the water to sparkle. It seemed like a trillion diamonds in the sky and they met with the ocean to take her breath away. She had just shared that splendid view with her mistress a few minutes ago before the older woman went to lie down. The scholar was sitting on the guardrail and secretly scaring the crap out of the pale woman. Well, what if she fell?
“Pumpkin, come to bed,” Shego called to get her pet off of that rail. What if it was not stable and broke under her little bit of weight?
“Hey, Shego,” Kim said.
“What?”
“Let’s spar on the beach,” Kim suggested. They tangled in the apartment every now and then, but the beach was a nice open area and they could undoubtedly get in some good fighting.
“Not now,” Shego answered. She just wanted to go to bed to help get the weekend over with.
Kim thought that was good enough. She wanted to spar in a wide, open area to see what they could really do against each other. Besides, in the privacy of their own home, sparring more than half the time turning into at least a heavy make-out session. On an open beach with their families around, it was not likely that they would stray from fighting once they got started.
The slim scientist hopped off of the guardrail and slid into bed next to Shego. She debated with herself if she should just go to sleep or if she should try for some fun. Her question was answered when she saw her mistress was sleeping almost as soon as she cuddled up next to the older woman. Oh well, sometimes they should just go to sleep, she figured.
(Next day)
James and Ann decided to take in the view of the beach from the balcony in their room. It was a beautiful view of the water meeting the sky and the water being so pure, it was difficult to tell where the ocean ended and the sky began. The couple was not really taking in the view. They were busy worrying about their daughter.
They did not know what to make of Kim’s behavior last night with Shego, but they did silently conceded that she looked rather happy. There was also the fact that Shego fixed Kim’s dinner last night and even though she pretended to be rather huffy about it, she refused to let Kim do it. Then there was their actions after dinner, where they probably assumed no one noticed, but they curled up on the sofa together. Kim had leaned against Shego and they just quietly sat there, enjoying the closeness of being together. They had appeared so content together.
Before the parents could get to talking, they noticed two figures on the balcony on the other end of the house. The figures were Shego and Kim. The master and pet glanced at each other with smirks on their faces and then they leaped off of the balcony as if it was nothing; it was only two stories, they both figured. They were going to have a race to the beach. The loser was giving up control for their next session, so they were both looking to hit that sand first. They had to first land safely from the second floor of the house and then navigate through the woods before making it down to the pristine beach. They both recklessly went through the trees and landed on the sand at precisely the same time.
“A tie?” Kim sounded baffled. She usually did not tie, so she was not accustomed to it and did not know the rules for when there was a draw in something. “Well, now what?” she asked curiously.
“We’ll let the sparring match decide,” Shego replied. She could not believe that it was tie either. Since when did she tie? She would usually cheat before allowing a draw to occur.
“Let’s raise the stakes a little bit,” Kim suggested.
“How so?” the pale woman asked in an interested tone.
“If I win, you’ve got to make pasta for the whole week.”
“And if I win, you’ve got to give me back massages for the whole week.”
“Deal,” Kim agreed and she ran at Shego.
The redhead engaged her mistress and quickly got the older woman on the defensive. They rapidly grew to appreciate the open space because Shego certainly would have backed into a wall in the apartment by now and Kim was pretty sure that she would have punched a wall with the way her master was avoiding her attacks. Shego was not defensive for long and they eventually started going back and forth.
Kim’s parents noticed the pair fighting from their balcony. They watched the sparring match for a while. They did not have to see the opponents’ expressions to know that their daughter was smiling. She just always liked competition, especially when she won, and it seemed that Shego offered her something to keep her on her toes. They were aware that was something that their child could appreciate.
“James, I think we might have to accept Kim being with Shego,” Ann said.
“Why do you say that? We can’t just let her go on being that woman’s pet. She’s a brilliant girl and she needs better than that,” James argued.
“She’s obviously happy with Shego. Maybe the whole ‘pet’ thing isn’t as bad as we think it is. I mean, we can see she’s not doing anything bad to Kim. She really seems to be taking care of Kim. Maybe it is just hard for her to admit that she’s in love Kim,” Ann replied.
The only bad thing that they had witness Shego do was tease Kim and that seemed more playful than anything else. They had not seen the green-skinned woman abuse their daughter or even her position if Kim really was her pet. They seemed like a couple actually, just that one was easily excited and the other was trying to be macho. There really did not seem to be anything logically wrong with the relationship or anything to disagree with, except for what Kim had been dubbed.
“Do you really think she’s in love with Kimmie?” he asked curiously.
“Well, according to her mother, she is and it’s just hard for her. She even admitted that she needs Kim, but it’s a hard thing for her to come to terms with. If you look in her eyes when she looks at Kim, she does look like a woman in total love. Besides, if you look at the way she acts with everyone and then with Kim, you can tell there’s something there. I mean, she’s been mean and curt with everyone, including her own mother, but she just cuddles Kim. Maybe we should give it a chance. Let’s trust Kimmie this one time,” she answered.
“We always trust Kimmie-cub,” he stated because of her using “this one time.” She made it seem like they never trusted Kim.
“No, we don’t always trust her. We wouldn’t let her go to the college that she really wanted to, we wouldn’t let her pick a career, we wouldn’t let her pick a graduate school, and now we’re second guessing the partner she’s chosen. She’s been doing fine handling things, so we should just let her continue on. We should just let her live her life and be happy that she’s happy,” Ann argued and it took a moment, but her husband nodded.
It was time to start trusting Kim with some of the bigger decisions in her life. She was doing quite well on her own. She was a freaking PhD holding herpetologist, published in several different areas, seeking more degrees in other fields, her photos were getting more popular by the day, and she was an international hero. They had to let her grow up, James finally admitted to himself. His little Kimmie-cub was an adult now.
“Admit defeat now,” Kim breathed out. Okay, it was way too much space, she thought. She was laid out in the sand, trying to catch her breath and ordering her legs to stand back up before her mistress.
“Never,” Shego replied. She was not fairing any better than her monster. In fact, she was in the same exact position as Kim. The only good thing about collapsing from too much fighting was that she landed on her back. She would have been pissed to be lying on her stomach.
“Then it’s a tie?” the redhead inquired in a baffled tone. They had tied again? That was too many ties in one day.
“To hell with that. As the mistress around here, I declare myself the winner.”
“As the bad pet around her, I refuse to accept that.”
They ended up lying there until they caught…they calculated it as their fourth wind. They went at each other again, only to fight to a draw yet again. They fell out into the pearly sand again, unable to move. Isabel came down to collect them along with the doctors Possible. Isabel stared at both of fatigued warriors.
“You two are just too much,” she commented in an amused.
“Shut up,” Shego replied because she felt like her mother was teasing her and there was no way in hell that she was taking that woman’s shit.
“You know, if I was a deciding judge, I’d give the battle to Princess. You don’t seem to have a good answer for her aerial combinations,” Isabel said to be annoying.
“I win!” Kim cheered in an exhausted tone.
“Her opinion doesn’t count,” Shego argued.
“You shouldn’t say such things to your mother, especially when you require my assistance,” Isabel taunted.
“Like hell I need your assistance,” the green-skinned woman replied.
“Then how do you plan to make it back up to the house?”
“I’ll get my second wind in a minute.”
Isabel only smiled because she knew that Shego and Kim were done for the day considering how hard they were fighting; she had watched about half of the match and she was tired for them. She bent down to pick her daughter up and thought that it was funny because for a person that did not need assistance, Shego certainly did not resist in any way. She practically collapsed against her mother once she was on her feet.
Kim’s parents helped her to her feet. They were hardly surprised that Kim had sparred the day away, but they were a bit shocked that Shego was able to keep up with her. They all started the journey back up to the house. Isabel lagged behind the Possibles slightly, feigning as if it was because she was one person carrying another, but she really wanted to speak to her daughter privately.
“Firefly,” Isabel said.
“Mommy, don’t call me that,” Shego sighed.
“I have a suggestion.”
“That I don’t want to hear.”
“Maybe, just maybe, it’s time for Princess to graduate from pet to equal, if only to help ease her parents nerves about the whole ordeal. I’m not saying change your treatment of her or your feelings or anything like that. Just maybe that you should start considering her what she is and we both know that what she is goes way beyond pet,” Isabel stated.
“Why should I change for them?” Shego inquired.
“Not for them, for yourself. You should be honest with yourself, if no one else. And maybe you should be honest to certain little princess.”
Shego only made a noise. It was just so much easier to consider Kim her pet, even though she was obviously so much more than that. Maybe, just maybe in a small fraction of a fraction, her mother actually had a point, she considered as she looked at Kim, who was speaking privately with her parents.
“Kim, just what was that all about?” James inquired. He thought that there might be more to the match than just sparring because of how long it went in. He did not think that it was anything wrong since bother opponents still seemed friendly with each other, but still, they had fought for such a long time.
“It was just fun. Nobody fights like Shego,” Kim replied with a weary smile. Even though she was exhausted, she was glad that she had suggested they spar on the beach and she wished that they could do it every week. Unfortunately, they did not have any private beach property to fight on in Go City.
“It must be one of the things you two have in common,” her mother commented.
“Yeah,” Kim confirmed.
“You really like being with Shego, don’t you?” Ann asked.
“Love it, love her,” Kim affirmed in a rather proud tone. She was not going to apologize for who she loved, even if her parents had a problem with it. Yes, she respected them and loved them dearly, but she was how she was and she loved who she loved. They were going to have to come to terms with that, not her.
“That’s good. Hopefully…hopefully, you’ll always feel like that with her and about her,” Ann said, which caught her exhausted daughter’s complete attention.
Kim was incredulous to what she was hearing. Maybe she was more tired than she thought at first and it was affecting her ears because it sounded like she was getting her parents’ blessing to be with Shego. The last time something like that happened, she had to disappear for over a year and that was only about her choice in careers and graduate school. They were actually all right with her making a decision in her life without her having to practically run away to get her point across. She could hardly believe it, but it made her so joyous that she would never be able to describe it.
“Mom, Dad, you guys have no idea what this means to me,” Kim informed them.
“We have some idea. It’s time for you to live your life the way you want to,” James said. The words would have been shocking coming from her mother, but from him, it was a miracle that the world did not come to an end in Kim’s opinion because he was the one that always saw her as a child.
The slender hero only smiled; she was really too tired to do anything else. The rest of the weekend, which was not much considering everyone had afternoon flights to catch to get back to their lives, went as expected with the offspring going wild in the house together because it seemed that none of them could get along for more than a minute, unless it was the twins anyway. Jason quickly figured out that he was the only one now disapproving of Shego and Kim’s relationship. He could not believe that Kim’s parents were actually accepting that their daughter was a pet. The good doctors had come to understand that Kim was more than a pet to Shego. Shego just did not seem to want the rest of the world to know that. Now, the doctors just hoped that Shego could come out and admit that Kim was more than her pet soon because Kim did deserve more than that.
Next time: hmm…a certain blue scientist shows up at Shego’s front door. What does he want?