When is a pet not a pet? When the owner hates it.
Shego stared at the computer monitor in Ron’s office with an expression of sheer disbelief etched on her face. She had been to the website so many months ago, back when she first learned her pet’s real name. She thought that the wonder girl of the site and her pet could not possibly be the same person. They were exact opposites, yet that blonde boy wanted her to believe that they were one in the same. She just could not believe it, though because it just did not make any sense, what he wanted her to believe did not fit in with the facts that she knew.
“This just can’t be my Princess,” Shego insisted while practically gaping like a fish at the screen.
“This is a lot about K.P. Well, the surface of her anyway,” Ron informed the woman. He was well aware that the website did not captor any of the essence that made up his best friend.
“Excuse me, could I bring either of you anything?” Yori asked the pair.
“I think so,” her boyfriend answered when he saw the incredulous expression engraved onto Shego’s face.
Yori nodded and decided on tea and cake when she saw the look on the guest’s face too; the green-skinned woman obviously needed something to soothe away the shock. She walked off while Ron gave Shego the chair that he was sitting in. He retrieved another chair from the corner and sat down with her. He stared at the woman as she read through the site.
“How?” Shego asked.
“It’s what she does,” Ron replied smoothly, thinking that the raven-haired woman was referring to all of the adventures.
“She fucks around with people like this?” Shego demanded to know with a snarl deep in her throat.
“Wha? No! No! Whoa, you totally misunderstood me,” he argued.
“Then explain this shit to me. How in the hell is this perfect bitch my pet?” Shego demanded to know.
“I don’t know. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t call K.P a bitch too. I wasn’t there when it all happened. Really, you should know the answer way better than me. I mean, she’s your pet after all. Shouldn’t you be having this conversation with her and not yelling at me?” Ron pointed out.
Shego scowled; he made an unbelievably fantastic point. She should be screaming at that little freeloader while setting her on fire too. She should just beat the living shit out of that girl. She had been played, Shego thought heatedly.
“You’re right,” the pale woman agreed with Ron.
“I’m what?” he asked; he obviously was not used being agreed with. In fact, he thought that it might be one of the seven signs of the end of the world.
“This has nothing to do with you. This is all her fault,” Shego declared with a growl. Ron did not like the sound of that.
“Whoa, you’re mad at her, aren’t you?” the blonde boy asked.
“Great another genius of the obvious,” she muttered. “Hell, yeah, I’m mad at her. That little bitch took advantage of me for over a fucking year,” Shego replied.
“Okay, wait, timeout. She didn’t take advantage of you. So, just cool down a bit,” he suggested.
“Why should I cool down when I’m just going to burn the shit out of that little brat anyway?” she proclaimed.
“Hey, easy, easy. You don’t need to be mad.”
“Oh, I don’t?”
“No, because you’re looking at this all wrong. Hey, K.P really likes you. I mean, she likes you a lot. She didn’t take advantage of you. She just accepted your offer to be your pet. You have to admit that she did a damn good job if you kept her this long. You have to be cool if she stayed that long,” he reasoned.
“And what the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
“It just means that before staying with you, K.P stayed everywhere, but nowhere at the same time. She was a nomad. She’d only hang out some place for a couple of days before moving on to go some place else,” he informed her.
“And that’s supposed to make me feel better? That the little bum chose to stay with me for so long?” Shego snarled.
“She likes you. She likes being around you.”
“She likes free food and getting someone to do everything for her.”
“I don’t think that’s the case.”
“Then what the hell is the case?” she demanded to know. She was sick of having the argument when she thought what happened was obvious. It was plain as day that that little, possibly-going-to-die-an-agonizing-death-by-fire brat had taken advantage of her.
“You really should ask her,” he answered.
“I’m asking you.”
“If I don’t answer, you’re gonna do the freaky hand thing again, aren’t you?” he asked, even though he knew the answer.
“Damn right,” she assured him.
Ron sighed; how did he get caught in such a crazy situation? He knew that Kim did not want Shego to know who she was or anything about her really. He could not figure out why completely, but he was more than aware that at the end of the day, Kim liked to be able to go home and be Shego’s pet. He did not want to absolutely wreck things for her, even though he did think that Shego had a right to know just who she was providing food, shelter, and whatever else for.
“Look, I respect the freaky, fire hand thing that you got going. I really do, but I can’t just dime K.P out like this. All I can tell you is that she’s really happy being with you and it was weird seeing her that way. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her so calm, cool, and just happy. I mean, before you, she would smile and stuff, but this is different. You can just see in her eyes that she’s happy,” Ron told the raven-haired woman.
“How do you figure that she’s happy? She lied to me. She kept this whole ‘teen hero’ bullshit a secret,” Shego pointed out.
“I know. I can’t explain it. It’s not my life. You need to talk to her if you want answers,” he replied.
Shego was about to say something, but Yori returned. The ninja silently put down a tray that held two cups of tea and two slices of yellow cake. She did not say anything to either of them and left them to their discussion.
“What the hell is her deal?” the super-powered woman asked, nodding toward the door, referring to Yori.
“She thinks our conversation is private, so she’s giving us our space,” Ron explained.
“Fine. Tell me this, if my pet and Kim Possible are the same person, why in the hell isn’t she in school or something?” Shego inquired.
“That’s definitely something that you have to ask her,” the blonde boy replied. No one could really figure out why the girl that could do anything was out floating in the breeze and not going to school.
“The site said her home town is Middleton. Why isn’t she there? This is a long way from home,” the pale woman remarked.
“Yeah, she came here after me, Monique, and Yori all got accepted to G.U. It’s like a high school reunion for us over there,” he commented with a laugh. “Anyway, she thought she might stay with us for a little while, but she decided against that and became a nomad as far as we could tell.”
“Why? What’s the damn point in being homeless if she could be doing so much with her damn life and living with her friends?” Shego inquired.
“You really need to have this discussion with K.P. This is all of her and none of me. Are you scared to talk to her?” he asked curiously.
“Why in the hell would I be scared?”
“Well, once you bring all this up, she’s not really your pet anymore. You’ve acknowledged that she’s Kim Possible. Once she confirms, then she is Kim Possible, isn’t she?” he pointed out.
“She’s my pet.”
“Until you ask her.”
“I’m not scared. I don’t even give a fuck who she is. I’ll beat her ass no matter what and she’ll always just be a fucking pet,” Shego declared.
“Prove it,” he dared her, even though he figured it out. He could finally understand why Kim did not want her mistress to know anything about her. Being the Kim Possible came with so much baggage while being some punk kid came with nothing at all. Still, he knew that at some point in time she was going to have to confront who she was and do something with herself no matter how much she tried to dodge that fact.
The enraged green-skinned woman marched home and entered the apartment to be embraced by her jovial pet. Kim hugged her owner tightly around the waist like she always did and grinned like a happy child. The elder woman rolled her eyes and pried the girl off of her. She almost flung Kim to the floor, but she controlled herself enough not to do that.
“We need to talk,” Shego said in a very serious tone.
The teenager did not like the sound of her master’s voice. She had never heard such a serious, cut-to-the-chase tone before. She was more accustomed to be being yelled at or taunted in someway. She followed Shego into the living room and the older woman sat down on the couch. Kim attempted to recline across her mistress, but her keeper stopped her.
“What’s wrong?” the redhead inquired.
“I went to your website,” the green-skinned female informed the girl in a calm, yet tense voice.
Kim’s expression completely dropped. Gone was the sense of pointless enthusiasm and unfathomable joy just from being able to sit near her master that usually surrounded the teenager. It was replaced by a somber look accompanied by a single word that was really only a letter that encompassed the girl’s whole mood. “Oh,” she muttered in a grave, disheartened tone that she had never used in the apartment before.
“So, you are Kim Possible,” the older woman said in a rather neutral tone.
“I believe I said that a long time ago,” Kim commented for lack of a better response. How badly she wanted to deny who she was for the first time in her life, but she could not think of anyone who deserved more to know exactly who she was than her mistress did. But, she knew that once the cat was out of the bag, things would never be the same.
“Don’t be a smart ass,” Shego reprimanded her.
“Sorry.”
“Explain this whole thing to me,” the raven-haired woman commanded. She was still in charge no matter what. It was still her house and the teen was still hers no matter who the girl was. She was the mistress and Kim was still the pet.
“That’s a very heavy order,” the younger female mumbled.
“Humor me.”
“Could you narrow this down for me? There’s so much stuff to explain,” the teenager pointed out.
“What the hell are you doing here?” the older woman demanded to know.
“That’s still a lot. You need to narrow it down a bit more.”
“All right, little Miss Perfect, what the hell are you doing here being my damn pet rather than being at home or some big fucking university?”
“I thought this was home…” the teen muttered. It had felt so much like home and now it was being implied that it was not; it wounded her even more so than she already was. It injured her to the core of her being and that much could be seen in her olive-green eyes. It was taking all of her strength to sit up right because she could guess where her master was going with all the new information.
“You know what I mean! I’m sick of you doing this. Give me a fucking straight answer,” Shego commanded in a heated tone.
“It’s so hard. But, I’m your pet because you offered me the job.”
“Why in the hell did you take it?”
“Because…” Kim trailed off.
“Because what?” Shego pressed the issue.
“Because it was a chance to live without pressure or expectations of any kind. You didn’t know I was Kim Possible. I didn’t need to act so perfect around you. It was safe for me to make mistakes around you or to just act silly and relax without being judged,” the redhead explained.
“I did judge you. I thought you were a moron,” Shego pointed out.
“I know, but you didn’t mean it in a bad way. It was all right because I am just a pet. I didn’t mind what you thought.”
“Why are you here, though? You’re just mooching off of me,” the pale woman declared. She wanted it to sound like an accusation, but it came out for like a tease. She recalled the last time she said something similar, the girl was a leech or something, and that ended all communication between them for days.
“I’m not mooching. I’m just a pet…right?” the teen hero pointed out with hope in her voice.
They both had come to the same conclusion along time ago and it was that Kim certainly was not a leech or anything like that because she was just a pet. She was there for Shego’s entertainment like a cat would be and a cat was not a leech. By that logic, Kim was not a leech or a mooch. She was just a pet and she wanted things to stay that way.
“Why is what I don’t get. You’re fucking Kim Possible. What the hell are you doing?” Shego inquired. She was starting to remind Kim of her friends and how they just could not wrap their minds around why she could be a pet.
The teen looked away and sighed. She wondered what made her owner go and find out things about her. Maybe it was because of all the books, she considered. Everything was so perfect before. She was just a lazy pet before. She was able to rest her head in Shego’s lap without needing a reason. She was able to hug Shego and only get yelled at halfheartedly. She had been able to share Shego’s bed without anything really going on. She was allowed to be mischievous and in the process she was able to bring some bliss to another person, another person that she had grown to adore. It was perfect.
“Well, Princess,” Shego persisted.
“You know, I graduated high school at fifteen. I graduated college at seventeen with two degrees, biology and math…” Kim started.
“I know. It’s all on your website.”
“Yeah, but what’s not on the website is how I felt about all this. You know, it’s cool being smart and everything to me and to the couple of people I know, but the rest of the world just dumps shit on you. Adults want to go on about how smart I am and teens go on about what a freak I am. Everybody has crap to say and advice to give and they never shut up. Didn’t have that with you.”
“No, I didn’t know you were smart.”
“It’s not my thing to really broadcast it because of the family I come from. Everybody’s smart. It’s medical doctors on one side and PhD carrying engineers on the other. Everybody over the age of twenty-five is a card carrying doctor of some kind. My mother wants me to be a medical doctor and my father wants me to be a rocket scientist,” Kim reported with a sigh while shaking her head a bit.
“Let me guess, you don’t want to be either, so you ran away,” Shego reasoned. It seemed so cliché that she just wanted to hit the girl.
“No, I didn’t really run away. I let my parents know that I needed time to figure out what I wanted in life.”
“When was this?” Shego asked.
“Pretty much the day I graduated college and realized that they were going to be throwing graduate school applications in my face from every direction while trying to get me internships in places I didn’t want to be.”
“So, back when you were seventeen?”
“Uh-huh.”
“And you’re only nineteen now,” Shego remarked. Her pet might not have intended to run away from her problem, but she certainly had done just that.
“I can see your point.”
“Can you really? So, the whole point of all of this was just because you don’t know what to do with your life?” the elder woman inquired.
“Partially,” the redhead answered. It went beyond not knowing, but not getting the chance to know. She was not even given the chance really to think on it. Everybody just kept telling her what she needed to do, as if she could not think on her own. Everyone swore that she had such a brilliant mind, but they were not allotting her the chance to use it; they were treating her like a toddler.
“Now explain that.”
“When I first left my parents, I thought I’d be right back. I thought it would be so easy because I could do anything. I truly believe that I can do anything. I figured I would know just what I wanted to do if given a couple moments of peace, but the more I stayed away, the more things grabbed my attention and the more I thought about it. The more I thought about, the more confused I got. There was just so much stuff. So, after a while, I actually just gave up on thinking about it. I figured it would come to me when I least suspected it, so I went on with my life. I did some missions and had a lot of fun, but it never came to me when I least suspected it because I couldn’t put it out of my mind. Everywhere I went somebody was asking me what I was going to do and they were offering me jobs for stuff that weren’t even near my fields. If they weren’t offering me jobs, they were telling me what I should do. It seemed like every time I turned my head there were a million things coming at me…”
“And?”
“And then I met you. You had no clue who I was, which isn’t surprising. I find that Go City is a great place to hide from people because not too many people know or care about who Kim Possible is. You were nice to me for no reason. And then you gave me a great excuse to stay with you and try to repay the kindness you showed me that first night. I really like being your pet, Shego,” Kim informed the older female.
Shego nodded to show that she understood and she really did; pressure and advice were bitches, especially from people that did not completely comprehend what was going on. The teenager did not know how to take the head movement, but she just did not like it. She nervously ran her fingers through her hair as she looked into Shego’s eyes. Kim then turned her eyes to the floor.
“You’re going to make me go home, aren’t you?” the teen asked in a whisper. She wanted to cry, really, she did want to. She desired to break down into a weeping body and beg her mistress to keep her, but she did not do those things.
“You can’t run from life forever and I damn sure won’t let you hide behind me,” Shego declared.
“Figured as much,” Kim muttered. “So, do I have to go now?”
“No, I’ll rent a car and drive you home personally. I want to make sure you get there and you don’t take advantage of anyone else,” the pale woman remarked.
Kim nodded. “You think I took advantage of you?” she asked in a low voice. She did not want her keeper to think such a bad thing about her. She honestly loved being with Shego just to be with her and nothing more.
The raven-haired woman did not respond right away. “Why’d you act like you were incapable of doing anything without almost killing yourself?” She did believe that Kim liked her, but she did not get why the girl acted so incompetent around her.
The redhead laughed a bit; it was more a sorrowful sound than an amused noise. “Around you, I can make mistakes. I mean, I am just a pet. You know, I’m not supposed to be perfect and there wasn’t any pressure to do that, which was great. After a while, though, you didn’t trust me to do anything to even be able to make a mistake on it. You treated me like a pet and that’s what I was.”
“You were a good girl,” Shego said and she patted Kim on the head.
“Thanks for everything, Shego. It was great being your pet. I mean, totally spanking,” the teen commented with a smile.
Shego laughed a little bit, but it was a forced sound. That night, Kim began packing her things to leave what she wanted to be home; in the back of her mind, she noted that when things counted, she rarely got what she truly wished for. She did not realize how much stuff she had accumulated while living with Shego until that night. She had so many clothes, books, and stuff animals without enough bags to put them in. She decided to use garbage bags because she was traveling privately and she was going directly to the Possible house.
Once she was done packing, Kim folded her mattress and blankets up neatly. She moved them into the corner of the loft. She was not going to sleep in the loft; if it was to be her last night in the apartment, then she was going to spend it just how she wanted. So, she climbed down from the loft and went to Shego’s room.
Shego knew that Kim would come and sleep next to her. The teen crawled into bed and snuggled up next to Shego, hoping that the older woman would not be angry with her just once. Shego actually embraced Kim and let her rest as close to her as she wanted. Kim smiled; she felt so warm and comfortable.
Next time: The end of the problems