Disclaimer: I do not own Kim Possible or any of the characters, this story is for non profit purposes
Authors Note: When I first submitted this story, it was intended as a oneoff, but I eventually wrote a followup and wasn't too happy with it. I then wrote another which I also wasn't completely satisfied with, so I wrote a third. Each of these followups will be submitted as a separate chapter after this one, so don't expect them to make sense if you try to read them chronologically.
She only found the hidden vent by accident. Crawling through Drakken's air conditioning was an occupational hazard for Kim Possible even if it was Christmas Eve. It lead directly to his main control room as usual, and if not for an uncharacteristic stumble she would have crawled right on by. Instead, a hastily flung out elbow brushed a seemingly solid metal panel only to reveal a concealed mesh cover leading who knew where.
Kim hesitated for a second or two. Ron would be expecting her any second now, he always hated crawling through confined spaces and had entered the base through the service entrance, but this hidden passageway suggested a much more secretive location.
Wary of possible booby traps, Kim scanned the newly revealed tunnel with her Kimmunicator, revealing laser beam detection systems and hidden flamer defences protecting whatever lay at the end of this mysterious passageway. She sent a neutralizing EMP wave ahead of her, only to have to dodge the visciously sharp flechettes that suddenly filled the space she had occupied mere moments before.
Panting slightly with the raised adrenalin levels in her body, Kim looked askance at the metal shrapnel that had embedded itself in the metal walls of the air vent, whatever lay at the end of this passageway was more heavily protected than anything she had experienced before.
The tunnel ended in a standard air conditioning grill. She wasted a few more seconds checking for further traps, but whoever had protected this secret passageway had obviously expected intruders to be caught by the previously revealed defences. Kim listened for a while, and hearing nothing, kicked the grill away from its mounting and slipped into the room beyond.
It certainly wasn't what she expected. A small, utilitarian space with a hard slate floor, there was just enough room for a single bed, grey sheets neatly made up, and a few items of furniture such as a wardrobe and chest of drawers. What really drew the teenagers attention, however, was the dressing table.
Pushed up against the far wall, a large mirror mounted above it, there were only a few accoutrements evident on its surface, each tidily arranged to minimise clutter.
Around the mirror were a number of picture frames, each one showing a proud member of Team Go, with newspaper clippings detailing their achievements fixed beneath. Kim's mouth dropped open as she realised where she was. Carefully fixing the air vent back into its proper place, she approached what appeared to be a shrine to Shego's supposedly estranged family.
The cuttings dated back seven years, but some of the more recent ones were only a few months old. As she got closer, Kim also noted a number of pictures on the dressing table itself, of a young girl, long black hair already a feature, smiling and laughing while watched over lovingly by an older beautiful woman.
Kim could see the family resemblance immediately, and correctly assumed that these were pictures of Shego's mother. Suddenly feeling like an intruder, she almost turned away, but curiosity got the better of her.
As she walked up to the table, she was drawn to a number of glass bottles containing lightly coloured liquid. One in particular drew her attention, a distinctive shape, she picked it up and pulled out the stopper to be greeted with the unmistakeable aroma of Shego's favourite perfume.
Kim inhaled deeply, closing her eyes to better savour the scent that she knew so well. It was a smell she had never encountered anywhere else, exclusively belonging to the master thief. Taking one more appreciative sniff, she carefully replaced the stopper.
"Find anything in particular Princess?"
The voice caught Kim by surprise. Spinning round in shock, she flushed at the sight of her nemesis standing in the doorway, the expression on her face showing her displeasure at finding an intruder in her inner sanctum.
Embarrassed to be caught, she lost her grip on the bottle she was holding and it slipped through her fingers dropping to the floor before she could catch it.
Time seemed to slow as the bottle tumbled to the ground. Shego's eyes widened in panic as she saw catastrophe unveiling before her. She leapt, arm outstretched in a desparate attempt to save her precious prize, but she was too far away.
The bottle hit the stone floor, shattering into a thousand pieces, even as Shego's frantic dive ended in failure. Kim stood horrified at the scene before her. The knowledge that she had destroyed something so obviously precious filled her with shame.
"Shego, I'm so sorry." Kim began, but her apology fell on deaf ears. Shego scooped up a few of the larger pieces of crystal, a few drops of fluid remaining, but there was no saving it, the flask and its precious contents were gone.
"My mother gave me that perfume." Shego's voice was small and hurt, edged with tears that intensified the sickening sensation Kim was feeling.
"Why Possible? Why?"
Unable to face Shego's pain any longer, Kim fled. Rushing out of the room through the door Shego had opened only moments before, the last sound she heard were Shego's tears as she began to sob uncontrollably.
"KP, you OK?" Ron's cry went unheeded as the redheaded teenager sought to outrun her own shame. Drakken looked on incredulous as his nemesis fled his lair without destroying his latest creation, her sidekick looking on for a few seconds with bewilderment before hurriedly following his friend, leaving the mad scientist to stand alone in bemused confusion.
"Was it something I said?"
Hours later, Kim sat in her room in the darkness, her head buried in her hands. She couldn't get the sound of Shego's tears out of her head, her soul ripped in two by the anguish expressed by the usually brassy mercenary.
Berating herself for her own clumsiness, it took a while for her to realise that the scent she could smell was not a memory of the perfume she had destroyed but rather something tangible within her own room.
With a jolt, she realised that some of the liquid had splashed on her combat pants, and the aroma was still detectable. A plan formulated within her head, one that would salve her own conscience, and she wasted no more time before putting it into action.
Wade jerked awake when he heard the Kimmunicator alarm bleeping its emergency signal. Fearing the worst, he fired up his computer, only to see Kim's face staring intently at him from the screen.
"You OK Kim?" he asked blearily, stil half asleep, but Kim didn't have the time for him to wake up gradually.
"I need a scan, right now, and i need the results twenty minutes ago."
The intensity of her voice drove the sleep from his mind as he saw her hold the Kimmunicator up to what looked like a pair of her mission pants.
"OK Kim, results coming through right now." He looked at the printout on his auxiliary screen. "Alcohol base, various trace elements... looks like a perfume of some sort?"
"I know that!" Kim's voice as impatient as she cut through the computer genius' spiel. "I need to know what brand, and where I can get some more."
"Can't really say Kim." Wade sounded apologetic, he never liked not having an answer to anything she asked of him, he took such things personally. "I mean I can see the ingredients, but couldn't begin to speculate on which specific ... Oh hang on, he quickly ran a comparison over the web, it looks very similar to a Paul Gaugin recipe."
"Paul Gaugin? Didn't we save his factory from burning down a few years back?" Kim recalled.
"That's right, he's in Paris. You want I..."
Kim never let him finish. "I want a ride to Paris tonight, and Wade"
"Yeah Kim?" the boy's voice had a weary tone as if he knew she was going to ask something unreasonable.
"I want him awake when I get there OK!"
"I am sorry Miss Possible, I really can't help you."
The middle aged Frenchman actually sounded apologetic, even though he had been roused from his bed in the small hours of the morning. He sniffed once more at the set of pants Kim had given him a few minutes previously.
"I remember the scent of course, it was one of my earliest creations, my masterpiece in fact, but I was indentured to a perfume manufacturer at the time, they kept the rights to manufacture and they went bust many years ago. I very much doubt there are any remaining vials in existance.
Kim's face fell at the news. To think that she had destroyed the very last bottle of this perfume was too terrible to contemplate. So terrible in fact, that she refused to consider it.
"Someone must still hold the rights surely." She knew that business ventures rarely disappeared completely, there was always some value to be had from old lines, something an auditor would seek to sell on just to realise at least some return on the investment.
"Come to think of it, you are right. There was a company that was interested in diversifying into cosmetics at the time." Paul Gaugin was pathetically pleased to be able to help this young woman. The desperate look of hope that filled her face didn't go anywhere near to repaying his debt to her, but it made him feel happy that he could instil such a feeling in someone to whom he owed so much.
"Great! Who is it?" Kim's face fell when he told her. She stared at him for a few seconds before accepting that she had heard him correctly.
"Man, this is gonna cost me. Big time."
Thanking the Frenchman, she called up Wade, and organised a return trip to the States.
When Shego opened her eyes on Christmas day, she at first couldn't remember why she felt so low, but it only took a few seconds to recall the tragic events of yesterday, and tears welled up in her eyes once more.
She had tried to save what she could once Possible had left, but it was hopeless. Eventually she bowed to the inevitable and had thrown the broken crystal shards into the bin, and retired for the night, crying herself to sleep.
With a sob, she flung herself back onto the pillow and pulled the duvet over her head. Her lip trembled as a wave of misery threatened to overwhelm her, and she squeezed her eyes shut, tears leaking from her ducts despite her best efforts to restrain them.
Her foot kicked something at the end of the bed, something hard. Puzzled she prodded it with a toe, there was definitely something there that shouldn't be. Irritated, she flung the cover back of her head and sat up.
She stared at the stocking for several minutes, her brain struggling to comprehend what it was doing there. Certainly Drakken would never dare to enter her room unless invited, as if that would ever happen!
Eventually, curiousity overcame her misery and she pulled the small package towards her. Reaching inside, she pulled out a small present, wrapped in green paper. It was squat and round, and with trembling hands she ripped it free from the packageing to reveal a small crystal vial containing a familiar yellow liquid.
Still not believing her eyes, she tentatively pulled the stopper free from the neck and took an apprehensive sniff.
Tears welled up in her eyes once more, this time from happiness as the familiar scent worked its way into her nostrils. Her free hand found its way to her lips as she covered her mouth in an attempt to control her emotions. She failed miserably. Carefully replacing the stopper, she placed the precious vial safely on her dressing table, before sitting back on her bed and letting the pent up feelings erupt in a renewed burst of happy tears.
Senor Senior Senior sighed as he surveyed the room. Jack Hench's New Years Eve parties were legend, and as a renowned super villain, his attendance was expected, but they were such tedious affairs. After all, his fellow evil doers were such lowlifes in general, certainly not the sort of people he wanted to associate with. I mean, even that oaf Motor Ed was invited. Really.
The theme this year was typically lacking in class. The waitresses were dressed up in some kind of homage to the playboy bunnygirls, all corsets and stockings. Junior seemed to be enjoying himself, but as an eighty year old man, such pasttimes no longer held any attaction to him.
"Good evening, my name is Kim and I'll be your waitress for this evening"
The voice behind him sounded vaguely familiar, but it was Junior's gasp that finally made him turn his head. His mouth dropped open at the sight that greeted his eyes.
Dressed in a corset that left nothing to the imagination, enhanced only by a suspender belt, fishnet stockings and high heels stood Kim Possible. She was holding a notepad and looking very uncomfortable indeed. It took some time before his brain could assimilate the situation.
"Miss Possible. What are you doing here? Is this some trap designed to bring me into custody?"
Kim rolled her eyes, she had heard this on every table she had worked this evening, Hench must have done it on purpose. First Duff Killigan, then Monkey Fist, and now the Seniors. There was only one thing that could make this night any worse.
"Nope. Nothing to do with you, I'm just repaying a debt." Her voice was resigned as if this wasn't the first time she had had to explain herself
Every other villain Kim had explained this to had refused to believe her, it had taken Jack Hench's personal intervention to calm Monkey Fist down, and by the smirk on his face he had enjoyed every minute of it. Having the great Kim Possible waiting tables at his party was a massive coup. Senor Senior however was different, he respected the importance of keeping ones word. With a respectful bow, he placed his order and let the young girl go without another word.
It didn't stop his speculating, however, even as he noted how Junior appeared transixed by the sight of her scantily clad body sashaying across the room. Kim Possible forced to wait tables all night, this was going to be a most interesting night.
"Dr Drakken and his sidekick Shego!" The announcer proclaimed as the latest arrivals to the party walked down the stairs and were led to a nearby table. Senor Seniors eyes flicked from the newcomers to the direction Kim had disappeared to. Oh yes, this was going to be a most interesting night indeed.