My first FanFic! I like how it turned out. Suggestions welcome, and please, please, PLEASE R&R! I want criticism so I can improve my writing. But if you just want to harp on and on about how awesome I am, go right ahead. (Just kidding.)

I don't own Kim Possible or any of the other characters, nor do I own the show itself. (Darn it.) Too poor to be sued, so no point.

Kim had no idea what was going on inside her. Weren't arch-enemies supposed to stay arch-enemies? Weren't they supposed to hate each other forever? Wasn't that the way the world worked? Not to mention the fact that Shego was a woman, and both women were most definitely straight…or so she thought.

So why did she have feelings for Shego?

Right now, as she lay pinned down against the cold concrete floor by Shego herself, clad in her form-fitting green and black cat suit, beautiful face twisted in a snarl, she wondered how it had come about. If it was even real. How could she have fallen in love with a woman who, quite possibly, hated her more than she hated anyone else in the world?

Shego was on top of Kim, pinning her to the floor of the warehouse. A plasma-engulfed hand was less than an inch from her face. Kim could see the coldness in Shego's eyes, and she suddenly wished that Ron hadn't been sick today. If anything, she wanted his support, his constant cheering while slap-fighting Drakken. Facing Shego alone, utterly alone, with not even Wade or GJ to call on for backup, was something of uncharted territory to her.

"Give me a reason," Shego said softly, her tone laced with stiff resolve. "Give me a reason why I shouldn't wrap this hand around your throat right now."

Kim tried to speak, she really did. But the words just wouldn't come. She could only stare into Shego's vibrant green eyes. They were bright with anger, and…pain?

"Shego…" she whispered. "You're hurting…"

Shego didn't react immediately, and it was this that told Kim that she had hit a nerve. "Why do you care, Princess?"

"I don't…" Shego's weight on her chest was making it difficult for Kim to breathe. "…want you…to…hurt."

Shego glanced away. "It's too late for that." Suddenly, the plasma dissipated from her hand and she fastened it around Kim's throat. "I should kill you. I should've killed you the minute I first fought you."

"Why?" gasped Kim; though Shego wasn't choking her yet, the hand was definitely not helping the matter.

Shego looked around briefly to make sure that Dr. Drakken wasn't within earshot, and then she whispered –

"To save myself the pain."

The building suddenly started shaking, hard. Shego leaped up from Kim, who still lay gasping and coughing on the floor, and sprinted away. Kim sat up, but no sooner had she done so than chunks of metal and plaster began raining down from the ceiling of Drakken's collapsing lair.

To save myself the pain.

What could Shego possibly have meant by that? That was all Kim was thinking about as she sprinted left and right, trying to find an exit of some sort. Save herself the pain…save herself the pain of what? Kim's foot connecting with her ribs? Wasn't it her job, her routine to fight Kim? Why would she only mention that now?

Kim suddenly flashed back to the day before, when she was in this very same lair with Drakken and Shego. Held prisoner by the evil doctor and escaping had become almost routine for the young hero. Drakken had aimed some sort of ray at her, but she had broken free of her bonds in time to dodge it. In his haste to catch her, Drakken had accidentally set the ray on some sort of timer. When the timer ran down, though, Shego was the one inadvertently standing in the path of the beam. Kim had realized what was happening a split second before her nemesis; without registering what she was doing, she had pushed Drakken away from her and ran straight in front of Shego just as a beam of blue light shot out towards her. She had taken the hit for her worst enemy, and while she knew full well that she had done it on purpose she had no idea why. The beam was meant to be fatal, but because Kim had been wearing the battle suit it had absorbed the deadly energy. If it had struck Shego, she would have been killed. As it was, Kim was merely knocked out for about an hour.

Kim shook her head to clear her mind of this memory. Escape. Need to escape. Where's an exit sign when you need one? The young hero was quickly getting tired, and the only way out she had seen was blocked by fallen debris, too thick for her plasma to burn through. She had been hit on the head by more than one chunk of falling metal, and it was beginning to get to her. The bits of steel, concrete, and plaster raining down were ripping her clothes and tearing at her skin, leaving bleeding scratches all over her body. She knew Drakken's style in lairs well; she had been in more than enough of them. It was only a matter of time before the self-destruct mechanism would fully activate, and this shaking would morph into a full-on explosion. She had to get out before it did.

Yet another chunk of steel, this one larger than the rest, came down hard on Kim's head. She fell to her knees, her vision clouding and darkening. Just before she lost consciousness, she saw a flash of green and heard a panicked "Kim!"

Then all went black.