Note: I've always had a love-hate thing with the episode "Fan Appreciation". I love it, because it's a slight break from the formula. And I hate it, because it's stupid. Not all of it, mind you; just big chunks of it. (Pretty much all of the chunks that deal with Kat.)

So here's a re-imagining. It's done with love. I hope you don't hate it. :D

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Still she's a danger girl
Insane far beyond her years
On some things she's very clear
She's a wild adventurer

from "Silver Girl" by Fleetwood Mac

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Kat's mouth hurt.

It wasn't because she'd been punched or kicked in the jaw. It wasn't because she'd been injured in a car or motorcycle or plane crash. It wasn't even because she'd been screaming herself hoarse at her partner.

It wasn't any of those things, although she would've definitely preferred them. Even the kicked-in-the-jaw one. No – her mouth hurt because she'd been smiling like an idiot for the last six thousand hours.

"How much longer are we supposed to do this?" she asked Berto under her breath, taking a moment to rub at her aching cheek muscles.

"Five minutes less than the last time you asked," he said. He was clearly unimpressed; he had on the stern, because-I-said-so face she had never seen back when was he still a tech stuck at a computer desk. She eyed him with a touch of suspicion until he sighed and pushed up his glasses. "Come on, Kat, it's just signing autographs. I'd do it, except no one wants a manager's autograph."

"Yeah, come to think of it, my hand hurts too," she said, still low enough that the line of adoring fans couldn't hear. "This was a stupid idea. Whose stupid idea was it?"

"Jefferson's."

"Oh yeah." Couldn't argue with the big boss. She put her smile back on and accepted the next glossy publicity photo of herself and Josh. Made a scribble that began with a K and had an R in there somewhere, then passed it back and took the next one.

Occasionally she remembered to ask who she should make it out to, and to say something nice while she was signing, but the whole sports celebrity thing was just – argh, it was like flying a Hawk with a broken gyro. Frustrating beyond belief.

And her mood wasn't improved by Mr. Personality sitting next to her. Josh was in his element, making friends and glad-handing, swapping stories, posing for photos and laughing uproariously. To judge from his behavior, signing autographs under a tent with poor air circulation in the middle of a blazing South Florida summer day was like a party that never ended.

Josh got a charge out of other people. She herself? Not so much.

She kept the smile on and held out her hand for the next photo, but honestly she wasn't paying attention. "Okay, who's this for?"

"Me!" a little voice said.

Kat looked up and saw a girl, maybe seven or eight, standing on the other side of the table. Tiny little thing. Curly brown hair. Freckles. And sporting a huge band-aid on her forehead. "So… What's your name?"

"Meghan Preston," the girl declared. "I ride motocross just like you. The girls at school say only boys can do it, but they're stupid."

"Yeah they are," Kat said. She held out her fist and Meghan bumped it with her own small one. "Do whatever you want. Ignore those jerks. You any good?"

A tiny-shouldered shrug, embarrassed or ashamed. "I won second in regionals."

Kat wrote TO MEGHAN - PRACTICE, PERSISTENCE, POWER - ROCK ON! KAT RYAN – easily the longest thing she'd scrawled all day. "Awesome. Next year number one, right?"

Meghan took the photo back, glowing. "Yeah!"

"Kick some butt," Kat called after her as the little girl walked away, waving. Then she turned and glared at the two guys she called her best friends, though she wasn't always sure why. Like right now. "What?"

Josh was smirking at her. "I just think it's kind of cute, how you're popular with the younger demographic."

Berto chimed in with, "Yeah, you should have your own Saturday morning cartoon."

"Shut up." She shoved Josh's shoulder, hard, and he nearly tipped sideways out of his chair. He laughed at her anyway and went back to signing autographs.

They were stuck there in Autograph Hell for another twenty minutes before the park security staff shooed the remaining line away. Kat and Josh got up and stretched while Berto, ever the mother hen, hovered over them and repeatedly asked if they had everything.

"Yes!" they told him, in unison. Then and only then did they hop into the generously provided (and chauffeured) golf cart and leave for the main event.

Kat was looking forward to the next part with even less enthusiasm than she'd had for the autograph session, because the next part involved being on a stage. With TV cameras. And a microphone.

To cover her apprehension, she complained. "Tell me again why we had to come all the way across the United States to help open a sports park? Like, doesn't N-Tek already have one?"

Josh shrugged. "This place isn't trying to compete with the DOX. And it's good publicity for Team Steel. I mean, we don't get out to the East Coast a lot."

"Thank goodness," she said, barely audible, but of course the Nanoprobe Boy Wonder heard. He flashed her a swift, confused look, which she ignored. Confusion was the price of eavesdropping.

The cart deposited them behind the main stage, which, the overly perky PR guy had told them that morning, would be hosting various musical acts in the near future. Today it was hosting a ribbon-cutting ceremony and one team imported from Del Oro Bay, California.

People were scurrying everywhere, dodging the usual backstage chaos and some surprisingly conspicuous construction stuff.

"Kind of jumping the gun, aren't they," Josh said as they veered around the base of an enormous yellow crane, "opening the park before they're done building it -?"

Kat caught a glimpse of the ridiculously huge crowd milling around in the amphitheater in front of the stage and scowled. "Progress waits for no one."

"Especially not for billionaire real-estate moguls," Berto added, with a touch of disapproval. "I heard Richard Shine pulled some major strings to get this site approved for building. It used to be wetlands that border part of the Everglades – one of the most fragile ecosystems in America. Overdevelopment down here is a serious threat."

"Well, it's too late to stop them now," Josh said. "But maybe we can convince Shine to make the place more green."

"Have fun with that," Kat said. It wasn't that she didn't care about the environment – hello, there was only one planet Earth – but she was not in the mood to get righteous about anything, except maybe going home.

But that wasn't happening. The perky PR guy intercepted them, shooed them up a short flight of stairs, fussed over their appearances, and gave them a million instructions about what was going to happen.

"We got it," Josh told the guy eventually. Smiling and friendly. That was why Kat let her partner do the talking: she personally would have torn the man's nametag off and stuffed it down his throat.

Amazingly, the PR guy backed off and went to harass someone else.

"Bro, you sure you don't want to say anything?" Josh asked, and Berto shook his head emphatically.

"Not for all the free buffets on all the cruise ships in Miami," he said.

"Kat?"

"Forget it, McGrath."

He gave her another funny look. "You okay? I mean, I know to expect a few claws -"

"Ha ha."

"- but you seem, I dunno, extra snarky today."

She thought about the TV cameras and the thousands of people who were seconds away from seeing her and told herself that she was being stupid. The competitions on the circuit were almost always televised – what made this such a big deal?

Because the circuit coverage was local, or regional at best, and this was going to be national. The idea that she might turn up on CNN or SportsCenter made her a little sick.

"It's the humidity," she said breezily. "Hate what it's doing to my hair."

Josh wisely let that one go; he knew as well as anyone that the invocation of girl stuff meant he had zero chance of getting a real answer.

There were stage personnel dashing here and there. One of them shoved a microphone into Josh's hands and said, "Don't go out until you're introduced."

It was a warning, complete with glare, not a perky and overly friendly "suggestion". Kat found it refreshing.

Generic Top 40 pop-rock music had been playing over the amphitheater's speakers. Now it changed to something raucous and heavier, although still pretty generic and pop. The TV cameras panned over the crowd and turned to the stage.

A man in a slick business suit ran out onto the stage, waving and pumping his fist in the air. He was in his late thirties, dark-haired and tan, trying very hard to be hip - and partly succeeding. At least one of the cameras was broadcasting directly to the giant video screens hanging across the back of the stage, because the whole scene played out there, too, in real time.

The crowd cheered and clapped. The man clapped with them for a moment, then produced a microphone and said, "Welcome to the grand opening of the Magic City Extreme Sports MegaPark!"

Cue further applause.

"I'm Richard Shine. This park's my dream – and so is standing on this stage with one of the hottest extreme sport teams in the world, Team Steel!"

As obedient as the dogs and ponies they were pretending to be, Josh, Kat and Berto came jogging out into the public eye, doing (much to Kat's chagrin) the same sort of waving and fist-pumping as Shine.

Shine introduced them, as expected: "Josh McGrath, Berto Martinez, and Kat Ryan!"

Then he did something unexpected: he grabbed Kat's forearm and dragged her to center stage, where her face was instantly caught on film and projected on all of the screens hanging around the stage.

"I'm telling you, keep an eye on her!" Shine enthused. "She's gonna be a superstar!"

Kat's already iffy smile had devolved into a pained grimace. It took all of her willpower not to yank free, turn, and break Shine's arm. She could do it, in at least six different ways – two of which would probably result in severe compound fractures.

Luckily for him, Shine let go to applaud, and Kat eased back to stand beside Berto while Josh took control of the spotlight.

"Hey!" Josh said into the borrowed microphone, and got a delirious burst of cheering. "What's up? I want to thank Mr. Shine for inviting us out here, and N-Tek for sponsoring us. We're psyched to be here to help kick off the park's opening weekend, and I hope you guys are all gonna stick around to watch Team Steel annihilate the competition tomorrow!"

More love from the crowd.

Josh rattled off a quick promotional pitch for N-Tek sports equipment, waved to the world in general, shook hands with Shine in a very cool, macho sort of way, and returned to Kat and Berto.

The perky PR guy emerged from the wings to hand Shine a pair of giant scissors. Beaming a ten-thousand-watt smile that proved he spent a lot of money on cosmetic dentistry, Shine stepped up to the red ribbon stretching across the stage.

"Let's get this party started!" he announced, and snipped.

Kat dutifully clapped along with everyone else, but stopped when she saw Josh looking around in alarm. She leaned over and murmured, "What?"

He gave a fractional shake of his head. "Sounds like –"

It sounded like a ticking bomb planted at the base of the huge yellow construction crane. She figured that out a heartbeat later, when the bomb exploded and chunks of girders began to fall on the stage, with the crane right behind them.

She bit back a defeated sigh.

They were definitely going to end up on SportsCenter.