Kim Possible is property of Disney. Original characters belong to Author.
A fan fiction by Six String Samurai.
Make me Believe
Chapter One
The heavy bag thumped, swinging slightly under the barrage of punishment Shego was dishing out. The raven haired thief had been working herself for the better part of the afternoon, all but throwing herself into her training. Sweat stung her eyes and every so often she had to watch her footing lest she slip on the perspiration-slick floor. Another series of jabs, followed by a triplet of bone-crushing roundhouse kicks rocked the canvas bag.
Chest heaving with the long exertion, she reached out to halt the sway of the bag, resting a gloved palm against it as she sought to slow her breathing. Resting her sweat-slicked forehead against the rough material, Shego let her mind come back to itself, having been lost in purging the conflict that had been bothering her ever since Drakken's latest failure the night before. That had been the idea anyway.
Shego pushed herself up, stepping away from the canvas. Like her boss, it seemed she was doomed to fail in this endeavor, and rather than the blessedly drained state she'd been hoping to drive herself into, images of a confused, and later mocking, face rose up behind her eyelids, shoving her mistake right back at her for the thousandth time. So, she'd obviously misread the situation, gone in for the kill a little prematurely, and now she had to live with her heart permanently yanked out of her chest, no big deal…
The pale woman ripped the gloves from her hands, tearing at the Velcro with her teeth and flinging the pads across the little gym she'd insisted that Drakken include in his latest lair.
"Totally screwed the pooch on this one, didn't you," a smug mental voice that had been constantly deriding and mocking her ever since the 'Big Mistake,' as she'd come to think of it, little quotes an all.
"Honestly, what in the seven hells, made you think that was even remotely a good plan," it continued, bringing up the sore point for the hundredth time, and that was just in the last hour alone.
"I know, I know! God… Just shut up and leave me alone," the emerald eyed woman put a hand to the bridge of her nose to ward off another encroaching headache, grabbing for one of the small towels from the cabinet in the corner by the door. She pawed at the sweat on her face and neck, blotting it dry. An errant sniff told her she smelled a little less than springtime fresh, and a shower was in order.
Thirty-five minutes later, the thief was dressed and lounging in the common room of the lair, flicking through channel after commercial-filled channel. "Ooh, that one looks promising," the snide voice in her head chimed in as she flipped past a news channel. At the prompt, she reluctantly returned to the channel; the familiar shock of red hair and green eyes where obviously what had caught her attention on the first pass.
Shego turned up the volume, unconsciously leaning forward in her seat as the news anchor spoke against a backdrop of an industrial complex just outside of Middleton. In the upper corner of the screen, there was a headshot of the teen hero, with her name plastered under in bold white lettering.
"--and we have local hero, Kim Possible, to thank once more for the continued safety of our fair city, and perhaps the nation, as she prevented what appeared to be the theft of a good deal of refined nuclear product from the Middleton Power plant last night."
"That's bullshit lady," Shego spat, raising the remote to change the channel. "Dr. D was after the containment unit, not the damn nucl-," she cut herself off as the news anchor announced that they had a few words from the savior. It was enough to halt her thumb from pressing on the button.
The backdrop switched to a live feed from Middleton High School, the reporter on scene had apparently caught the redhead out during lunch. "Ms. Possible, how does it feel to know the city owes you a great debt?"
"Really, it's no big," the teen shrugged. "It wasn't as bad as people are making it out be." Kim replied with a smile that seemed a little too wide to the green woman watching.
"Word has it that you've dealt with the perpetrators before, on numerous occasions. Reportedly, these particular two criminals have been a threat to world security in the past. Do you feel that this latest attempt is cause for concern, especially given the recent threat of global terror?"
"I, um…you know this is probably a better question for Global Justice. I just stop the bad guys when I can. Drakken's attempts, well to be honest, they're pretty lame," Kim ventured, but Shego could tell she looked increasingly uncomfortable, far from her usual impulsive nature. Anyone else watching would probably either attribute the redhead's behavior to shyness in front of the camera, or stress from the recent mission. But, the thief knew better. Or she liked to think she did.
"As you pointed out, you stopped the crime from being carried out, but Drakken still remains at large. What is the likelihood that we'll be seeing another such attempt in the near future?"
Shego watched as Kim's eye twitched, just a little in the corner, it happened so fast she almost might have imagined it.
"Like I said, you should really be speaking to GJ, if you want I can direct you to one of their spokespersons," Kim turned away from the camera, clearly dismissing the interviewer. Shego would have smiled at the redheads little display, but all it did was bring up another face Kim had worn not twenty-four hours before. Cold eyes and a frozen mask that had twisted Shego's gut like a knife.
Suddenly, the last thing she wanted to see was anything dealing with the teen hero, and shut the tv set off lest she risk running into another version of the interview on some other station. Shego's mouth ran dry, and she just sat there, waiting for it. Her stupid conscious chose that one time to keep quiet, knowing full well that Shego was already beating herself up by now.
--
Kim dialed the combination to her locker, swinging open the door to switch out the books in her bag for the last half of the day. She couldn't shake the feeling of eyes on her that she'd been feeling ever since she'd crawled out of bed that morning. It was stronger now, but a glance up and down the hall showed only the regular sea of faces, and none of them particularly interested in her.
Frowning, she closed her bag and leaned back to lock up the rest of her stuff when a pair of green eyes caught at her peripheral vision. Shego, or at least, a picture of the villain. She wasn't even looking straight ahead in the photograph, but Kim could still feel her staring. It was the same feeling she'd been left with all day, emerald eyes that she knew, one's that had been much too close.
The redhead slammed her locker, breaking the awkward staring contest. She was going to be late to class.
The rest of the school day passed in the usual blur, the hero finding herself more and more preoccupied with everything but the teacher's droning lessons. It hadn't helped that Ron was scarce all day, and completely absent during lunch, citing something to do with the football team. If Kim hadn't thought otherwise, she would have been sure that her best friend was avoiding her for some reason.
After cheer practice ended, Kim waited around for Ron since they usually finished around the same time, but a quick check showed that football practice was going to run until pretty late. That left Kim with few choices, and she really didn't feel up to sticking around in the bleachers by herself watching the boys practice. Besides, Ron hadn't so much as glanced her way when she'd stopped by to ask Coach Barkin how much longer they were going to be out on the field. The redhead could take a hint when she saw one.
With Monique working the night shift, Kim decided to head home. She had her senior project coming up soon anyway, and she might as well get started, since who knew when another mission might come up and drag her half-way across the world at the last minute. Kim wasn't in the habit of procrastinating, not now when she was working so hard to get into a good college. Luckily, money wasn't too much of an issue.
When Kim pulled into the driveway, she didn't see either of her parent's cars, or any lights on in the house that would indicate the tweebs were home. Great, one of the few times she had the house to herself and she was going to hole up in her room to do research.
There was a note in her mother's handwriting on the kitchen table, telling her not to wait up late, and there was dinner waiting for her in the refrigerator in the Tupperware.
Kim stared at the note, then balled it up and tossed it in the trash. Apparently her mother had to go back to the hospital on emergency call, and her father was still out of the country for a symposium in Europe. The tweebs had been dropped off at a friends house for the night because her mom hadn't been sure when Kim was going to be home, and the hero's schedule was so random that it was hard to risk leaving them in Kim's care lest she had to go on a mission at last minute notice and leave them unsupervised. None of the adults in the family wanted that to happen, as the two were troublesome enough when under the watchful eyes of the Doctors Possible.
Either way, Kim was more than happy to have the place to herself. It was quiet and she could get some work done without the threat of the dastardly duo barging into her room to assault her with their stupid antics.
Grabbing a few cans of soda from the fridge she went up to her room to knock out her homework so she could get started on the research final.
Unfortunately, she found out not too much later that there was such a thing as too much quiet. It was distracting, and she kept straining her ears for the slightest sounds in the rest of the house. So far she'd made out the fridge, the water heater and the air conditioner humming to life. Ten minutes of near silence had been more than enough, and she had to fill the void with something.
Back downstairs, she turned on the entertainment center. Kim dug through the family CD collection, but nothing seemed to jump out at her. It looked like radio was the way to go. Going through the presets she found a decent 80's, 90's and Today station and cranked up the volume knob to eight so it filled the house, but wasn't loud enough to bother the neighbors. Satisfied, she returned to her room.
Sitting back down at her desk, she leafed through the pages of her math book, looking for one particular theorem that she needed to solve the problem she'd been picking at for the past few minutes. Downstairs the DJ announced the start of another hour long, commercial free block of music, and kicked off with something she didn't immediately recognize. Scratching notes into the margins of her paper, Kim worked as the song picked up, and lyrics wafted up the stairs. And the chorus hit…
It's the way you love me / It's a feeling like this / It's centrifugal motion / It's perpetual bliss /It's that pivotal moment / It's Impossible / This Kiss, This Kiss / This Kiss, This Kiss
The redhead's pencil slipped out of her fingers and rolled across the desk. The song continued, but Kim wasn't paying attention anymore, her gaze locked on something far away that only she could see. A blush crept over her cheeks.
Downstairs the radio continued to play, and eventually the voice of the DJ came back on, "and that was Faith Hill for our daily triple-shot folks, next up is a little something from the Cranberries," Kim snapped out of her daze as the music switched over. However, dealing with schoolwork was now the furthest thing from her mind, as the issue she'd been skirting around all day was unintentionally brought to the forefront by an three errant songs.
The teen caught sight of her face in the mirror above her vanity and realized why she'd been thinking it was just a little hot in her room. Right now her face was as red as her hair.
She knew why Ron had been scarce all day, and why she'd been feeling out of sorts. The news interview had only made matters worse, making her think about things that she'd rather not dwell on.
Tearing her eyes away from the fading blush in the mirror, she looked down at her notes. Homework, she still had a lot to do. It was important. Where was her pencil? There is was, on the floor.
Kim bent down, stretching to snag the writing instrument with the tips of her fingers. This was no big. So not the drama…
Unbidden, the memory of a pair of dark lips, and the faint heady scent of cinnamon tipped her balance and Kim fell out of her chair, crashing to the carpet.
Okay, so maybe there was a little problem, she admitted.
--
A/N: It's not my fault…the song came on the radio, I had to write this.
Mini-Disclaimer: Lyrics excerpted from Faith Hill's "This Kiss."