This is the product of a combination of things. Boredom, two threads at Zaratan's forum, no real computer access (writing from a public terminal) and a wonderful story that I am ripping off called "No Comebacks" by Frederick Forsyth.
This story is funny or dark depending on how seriously you take things. You might say the characters are a wee wee wee wee bit OOC from the universe of the show. I'd say "yep you're right."
I also fully expect this story to bomb horribly
BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY
"This is a test. This author is conducting a test. This is only a test."
A moment might not be enough to change a heart, but it can be enough to change a life or two, or even three. That's how it started, with a single moment.
Ron had spent the better part of a year in Japan as Kim ran through the motions of graduate school. They say that distance makes the heart grow fonder; but they did not mention what would happen if that distance held two lovers hostage on the opposite sides of the world. To make matter worse the staff at Yamanouchi were sticklers about secrecy, so there weren't many calls coming in or going out
A lack of villainy didn't make things any easier for Kim. After the Lowardian invasion, Global Justice beefed up on overall security. Most of the villains decided to just call it quits, the lifestyle just wasn't worth the hassle anymore.
One villain however couldn't stay retired for long.
With Drakken dabbling in the fast pace world of muffin top franchises Shego didn't need to commit crimes. She didn't need to yes, but that was what made things fun. Leaping out of the hazy fog of loneliness, lectures and essays Kim confronted her nemesis. This fight would settle things once and for all.
It ended up making things more complicated.
This fight between them was like no other, it was angrier, more aggressive, and it was raw.
It had a moment.
Shego was in agony.
The words "till death do us part" rattled the walls of her mind. She had never really cared this much. It was the first time in her life that she had felt so desperate, so lost. The world just didn't make any sense anymore.
"May I ask how you found me?"
Shego looked down at the lone samurai who knelt in the middle of a dirt trail before a tiny broken statue enveloped in a thick bush.
"Brotherson, he owes me a favor" she replied quickly
The samurai simply nodded.
Shego reached into her pocket and fished out a piece of paper. "Brotherson said you enjoyed a nice challenge, and it's a local job."
She handed him the paper and he stared curiously at it for a moment. "I have heard some things about you Miss Shego, even in my small circles. Why do you need my services?"
"I can't take any chances of this coming back to me. It would complicate things...further."
The samurai crumpled the paper into a small ball and swallowed it whole. "As you wish."
Shego exhaled loudly. Doubts began to run through her mind. Did she really miss it all that much?
"No witnesses ok?" she caught herself saying.
Her doubts had little impact in the end. She found herself instructing the samurai; staring from outside of her body as it happened. It was as if she were watching a film.
Yes, it had to come to this. It was the only thing in the world that she wanted and she couldn't have. How could she let everything slip away without a fight?
If anyone deserved………..
The samurai nodded a second time. "There is a temple at the end of this road. I will meet you there in a month."
The Past:
She knew he had returned a few weeks ago. It was a brief reprieve from his Japanese studies. He was back, but the idea of him and Kim being together again didn't bother Shego because Kim was still coming to her. Less frequently sure but she was still coming.
She felt bad for Ron on some level. But it was just a matter of time before Kim would reveal what she had kept repressed for all these years, and Ron would simply have to move on. It'd be a hard break of course, but time heals all wounds. He was a good guy; it wouldn't be too messy, maybe she and he and could become friends. She could see herself growing to respect the boy.
"You're not really as bad as your reputation is. Underneath all the cynicism, you're really vulnerable, and that was surprising" Kim told her.
"Why not leave him then? Then you can discover more about me."
"I couldn't, I can't."
Shego stared at Kim who was sitting at the edge of her bed. The loft they had shared a few intimate moments in was now tomb silent, and there was a biting chill in the air.
"Y'know this isn't just some passing fling. I'd do anything for you. I really care about you."
Kim gazed forward, towards the dark tinted windows of the loft "yes I think you do. Maybe you think you do too. We shouldn't have gone this far. I should have noticed what was happening earlier and stopped seeing you."
"Just leave him, he'll understand eventually."
"I can't" Kim repeated.
"What are you afraid of? What people will think? Society? Hurting his feelings? Are you afraid he'll stop being your friend?"
"No"
"Then what the hell is it?"
"I need him" she said simply. "And he needs me."
"I need you!"
"No, not really….You want me, but you can make it without me. For Ron and me it's something different entirely….Shego I'm going to confess, and I am going to apologize and if he still wants me too, when he gets back from Japan, I am going to accept his proposal."
"You're fooling yourself; he's not what you want. He's boring, he's --
"Stop it."
"--He doesn't satisfy you."
"You're wrong on all counts."
Shego moved across the bed, her body tense and coiled "I've never been more right about anything in my life, and you know it, deep down you do."
"You don't know Ron; you don't how I feel when I am around him."
"Yes I do, and so do you, that's why you're here. That's why you were here last week. That's why you were here the week before that. Your body moved on before your mind did. How long do you think a relationship like that will last?"
Kim pulled a ring from her pocket and placed it onto the bed. "How about till death us do us part?"
Shego felt a sudden surge of blinding rage at the blonde obstacle that stood in her way
"He proposed awhile ago" Kim said with a sniff. "I was surprised I asked him to wait; I said I needed to figure myself out. Then he smiled, it was a sad smile but it still had that trademark goofiness to it. He said 'I'll still be here when you do."
Kim wiped the back of her hands across her eyes as Shego stared at the shining ring. She had never been so angry in her life. He knew, he had to have known, yet he still proposed. He was trying to take it all back. She could see it in her mind's eye, him dropping to one knee, muttering annoyingly nonsensical things that Kim somehow found endearing. Stupid things such as 'Kim you'll be blinging with twenty four carrots of Ronshine on your finger."
Shego knew for the rest of her life no word would ever irritate her more than the word Ronshine.
"What did you figure out?"
Kim picked the ring off the bed and slipped onto her fingers "my destiny."
Shego laughed, a hollow desperate laugh "wow how wonderfully Disney of you. Do you not see how corny that is? That's your destiny! Taking care of the sidekick and your two and a half sidekicklings for the rest of your life?"
Her hands clenching at her side, Kim stood up. "You don't understand. He's seen all my light, he loves my dark...and vice versa" she said after a pause. "I guess it's time for me to go."
"What does he got that I can't offer you."
Kim chuckled sadly "you mean besides the obvious?" she joked.
"You think this is funny?"
"I am sorry, I was trying to….I don't know...I'm sorry."
"Don't you see what this is, he's trying to guilt you into this. You don't want to break his heart so you're just going to accept it, sticking with status quo."
Kim shook her head "when our sitch' started I wondered for awhile what I really wanted. I thought about it long and hard when he came back to visit. I remember now, I want the same thing he does."
"Our sitch'?" Shego mocked. "What sitch', oh you mean the sitch where you cheated on the one you supposedly love. Or is it the sitch where you suddenly started batting for the other team?"
Her eyes cast on the floor Kim said "I am starting to come to terms with all that. I understand what I did and why."
Shego pounced, catching Kim off guard. She pulled Kim into a rough embrace and pushed her against a nearby wall. Then she clamped her mouth onto Kim's. It was not a soft kiss by any means. Not one filled with love or longing, but a forceful kiss. One meant to right a perceived wrong.
Shego breathed in Kim's breath and moaned "It happened, don't try and deny it."
Kim pushed her away "I am not denying anything, it did happen. It was strangely exciting at first--
Shego shook Kim by the shoulders "don't try and rationalize your way out of this. I won't let you."
Kim continued "--Like any uncharted territory--"
"Stop lying to yourself! You never felt more alive than when you were with me, remember that; remember those feelings?"
"I don't need feelings that aren't there when I open my eyes in the morning. I have something deeper, something more satisfying."
"I can give you that feeling and more! It's not just that I want you Princess, I adore you, I desire you, I love you more than anything else that's every happened to me."
"Shego, you know what I thought about when you kissed me."
"Don't you dare…."
"I thought about R--
Shego drew in a sharp breath. Then moving swiftly she grabbed Kim just beneath the chin and pushed her head against the wall. "You disgust me."
She burst into a torrent of verbal abuse at Kim and Ron in particular before thrusting her face; a face distorted with passion; into Kim's.
"I never cared about you, not once. The truth is at first I used to laugh at you, I laughed behind your back every time when you left in the morning. I was making a fool out of you. I even tried to show you what the world is really like, but you stick to your naive, dreamy fairy tale world. I hated you……I still do. You and the sidekick deserve each other."
Kim grabbed Shego by the wrist, fire in her eyes she clutched it tightly, forcing the villainess to wince.
"Stop" Kim said firmly. "I can't turn illusion into reality Shego but let's try and salvage what little we have left, unless you want this relationship to come to a full circle."
Shego reflected on this for a moment and eventually released Kim.
"Right now I am not sure I wouldn't prefer full circle" she said with her voice dripping with venom. "Get your crap and leave."
Kim collected the little belongings she had in the immediate area and made her way to the door.
"Till death do us part" Shego grated when Kim had a foot out the door.
Kim remained silent.
"Let me ask you something princess" Shego blurted out when she had successfully regained her composure. "Could you ever love me, now or ever?"
"Maybe I could, no maybe I could have. In another time or another place, if we were different people, if I didn't find Ron….if we hadn't found each other. But I do have Ron, I love him and that's the end of it."
"Give me some time, I can give you the love you want"
"Maybe, but I can't do the same for you."
"Well, is this when you say we'll always have Paris?" Shego scoffed.
"This is when I say I'm sorry and goodbye."
Till death do us part.
She heard the words even now as she leaned against the cold temples walls. The words echoed, haunting her with their taunting ring.
Her nerves eased when the samurai entered her field of vision. A katana hanging from his hip, a sling on his arm, a black eye on his face, and a smile on his lips; he walked towards Shego with a swagger.
"I am guessing you've taken a peek at your account."
"The money means nothing to me. The challenge was the reward for this assignment. And what a glorious challenge it was."
"No problems at all? No one saw you?" Shego asked.
The samurai "the fight lasted longer than I had calculated. But the young man is dead; I slipped the blade into his heart to be sure. I also sprinkled the simian hairs around him as you instructed"
Shego let out a sigh of relief. The obstacle was now gone. Everyone would think that Monty Fist had returned, and had taken his revenge. Kim would grieve undoubtedly, but she would move on eventually. She would get Kim back, she knew she could. In time Kim would grow to love her and she'd forget, the world would turn like it always did.
"No one saw you?" Shego asked again. "No witnesses right?"
"No." The samurai ran his hands together "but there was an interruption as I was planting the evidence. Someone saw me with the body."
"Who?"
"A woman."
It wasn't possible; she couldn't have been in Japan. What would she be doing in Japan? Could she have come over to be with him?
Shego stared at the samurai in horror "red head?"
"Yes" The samurai confirmed. "It was interesting situation, when I spotted her she was furious, I anticipated another heated fight but it never came. She simply knelt beside the body and cradled the young man's head in her arms."
The blood pounding in her ears Shego felt all the air leave her body in one slow and excruciating whoosh.
The samurai shrugged "it was touching sight really. I am guessing they were a couple." That was when he noticed the pure expression of panic and terror upon his client's fate.
Shego was as pale as a corpse when she fell onto her knees. She was afraid to ask "but you said there were no witnesses?"
"Don't worry" the samurai said reassuringly as he patted Shego on the shoulder "there are no witnesses, I killed her too. But I won't charge you for it. She didn't put up a fight at all; she just wept quietly as I sank my blade into her chest."
A/N Leave a review tell me what you think (of the story not the pairings) and REMEMBER
If this had been an actual emergency, (a real kigo story) the Attention Signal you just heard would have been followed by official information, or news of the author backpedaling on everything he's said in the past five years.
This concludes this test of the Emergency Broadcast System.
Next up on out regularly scheduled program K/R goodness in Allot Like Love