Invitation

XX

Most of the Possible family was gathered in the living room. Kim and Ron curled up next to each other on the couch, the twins sat on the floor directly in front of the television, and Kim's mother relaxed in a rocking chair with a red and green Christmas blanket draped over her. The Possible patriarch, however, was nowhere to be seen.

Kim, leaning against Ron with her arm draped around his shoulder, felt him twitch as a piercing metallic crash came from the kitchen. She rolled her eyes and knew exactly where the sound was coming from. "Dad, why don't you give it a rest and come sit down with us?" she yelled.

"Just a minute Kimmie!"

Ron yawned and asked, "What's going on in there KP?"

"He's making cookies."

"Cookies!" Ron sprung out of the couch like he was on fire and ran to the kitchen. "Hey Mr. Dr. P, you're baking cookies?"

James Possible was standing in the kitchen, holding a pair of pliers and wearing an apron and a nonplussed expression. Next to him squatted a clunky device topped by a transparent glass dome, which sprouted an open glass chute from its side that reminded Ron of a proboscis.

"Not exactly Ron. I'm not baking cookies, but I am making them. I'm testing out this new cookie-making device."

"You mean an oven?"

"No. This is the Cookutron 2000. All I have to do is insert some cookie dough into the side, right here, and then you can watch the cookies being made in the glass viewing area, and it spits them out onto your plate through the chute when you press the button! Right now it takes about thirty minutes to make the cookies."

"Isn't that the same thing as an oven then?" asked Ron, scratching his head.

James chuckled. "Oh, you teenagers are so cheeky. This will be much better once I get the kinks worked out!"

He leaned over and poked at the machine with his pliers, when suddenly a glob of uncooked dough shot out of the glass chute with amazing speed and flattened itself against the kitchen wall. Several more globs of dough coughed out of the chute, almost as an afterthought, splattering on the kitchen tile.

Ron frowned. "What happened to the Eggnog machine?"

James glanced around sheepishly and did not respond.

"James agreed that it was a good idea to get rid of it," came Anne's voice from the other room. "Cookie dough is much easier to clean up than raw egg."

James wiped the cookie dough from the wall and picked up the dough that had fallen on the floor. He placed the pliers back in a drawer and leaned against the counter, apparently giving up on the Cookutron 2000, at least for a moment. He turned and crossed his arms over his chest as his face changed into an expression that made Ron feel slightly uncomfortable.

"So, Ron... tell me, how was your first semester of college?"

"Oh, you know, classes, missions, parties I mean not parties just classes, just the same old same old!" gulped Ron, who had a vague premonition as to which direction the conversation was about to turn.

"And Kim? I hope you two have been enjoying yourselves?"

"Yeah, I guess so."

"I assume you've been keeping her out of trouble and making sure those frat boys stay away from her, right Ronald?"

"You know it Mr. Dr. P!"

"That's very good Ron," said James. "And I hope that you two haven't been up to any funny business while you're off on campus with no adult supervision? What is it that you kids say? Hanky panky?"

"Of course not, Mr. Dr. P! I wouldn't dream of it!" Ron was lying, of course – he had dreamed of it on many occasions – but he and Kim had actually been taking it slow when it came to physical stuff, especially compared to the wild stories he often heard from his fellow students. However, knowing his innocence did not make talking to James any less harrowing.

"I'm glad to hear it Ron. I didn't think I had anything to worry about. You're a very trustworthy young man." James stared at the Cookutron 2000 with a glimmer in his eye. "Of course, if I found out I was wrong... well, I've been thinking about making this machine a little bigger, so it can make more cookies at a time. Maybe I could make it big enough to hold a teenage boy."

"Dad! Leave Ron alone!" Kim yelled from the living room.

Ron laughed nervously. "Alright Mr. Dr. P, well, I think I'm going to go back to the couch with Kim. Good luck with those cookies!"

James smiled as he watched Ron dart out of the kitchen. He liked to pull Ron's chain and keep him on his toes, and on a rational level he knew that Kim could probably keep herself out of trouble better than Ron could, but he was being honest when he called Ron trustworthy. Well, maybe James wasn't going to be trusting Ron with large cash sums anytime soon, but he knew Ron was trustworthy when it came to his daughter.

James knew that he had trouble accepting the fact that Kim was growing up – and not just growing up, but growing up faster than almost anyone else her age. She had the world at her fingertips, and had even saved it on a few occasions. Even though she was far more independent than he was at her age, James could not help but worry when Kim went off to college. Knowing that Kim was in a close relationship with Ron instead of going out with strange boys went a long way in checking his fears. Ron still had some growing up to do, but James couldn't think of anyone he trusted more with Kim.

XX

Shego's eye twitched convulsively.

The news channel she was watching on television was playing an old clip of Kim Possible and the Lorwardian invasion. Hearing the narrator fawn over Kimmie was irritating, although she smirked when he referred to Kim's sidekick as 'John Soddable', but that was not that caused her eye to twitch in anger. The news special was playing a clip of Doctor Drakken and herself accepting an award at the U.N. Assembly. Drakken had just snaked a flower tendril around Shego's waist and pulled her towards him.

"Excuse me, Miss Shego,"asked a reporter in the clip, "Would you mind telling us what the nature of your relationship with Doctor Drakken is?"

"Shego is my hot girlfriend! We're very tight." Drakken exclaimed before she could open her mouth. The segment abruptly ended and the narrator began speaking about the cleanup after the invasion.

Shego remembered how infuriated she was after Drakken's impulsive statement. Where in the world did he get the idea they were involved with each other? Why did he have to blurt it out on national television? Why did he have an uncontrollable desire to be lashed with hot green plasma fire? She had been angry with him for a long time after the incident at the conference, and for a while Drakken had kept his distance from her, but recently he was getting more and more explicit about his interest. She made it clear to him that she did not return his feelings, but as she reflected on it, she became more and more unsure of what she felt towards Drakken. When he first made the flowery gesture at the conference, she knew her reaction had been a positive one, even if things got awkward later. Was it just a professional relationship, or could there be something more?

Shego looked over the back of the couch to see Drakken fiddling with a computer terminal at the command platform of his lair. While the two other corners of the main room were taken up by the living room area and the laboratory, the third corner held the lair's command center, which was situated on a platform raised above the floor by a few steps. The command center held a variety of computer terminals and equipment, but its centerpiece was a giant viewing screen that loomed above Drakken for occasions when he needed to issue an ultimatum to world leaders, or speak to his mother. Right now the screen was black.

"Hey Doctor D! I thought you were going to find a Christmas show to watch. What are you doing now?"

Drakken glanced furtively over his shoulder. "Never you mind. Just making some last minute Christmas plans!"

Shego was across the room and leaning over Drakken's shoulder almost before he finished talking. He jumped in surprise as she swatted his hand away to prevent him from turning off the computer terminal. "What's this?" Shego asked, staring at a message on the screen.

Kim Possible -

I hope you've had a delightful Christmas Eve. You are corjully invited to come to my lair, stay the night as my guest, and celebrate a very special Christmas morning! I have something here that your buffoon of a sidekick cares very deeply about, so it is in your best interest to get here soon. If you do not come, or if you bring Global Justice with you, you will regret it. Best wishes, Doctor Drakken.

Shego laughed. "That's not how you spell 'cordially', Doctor D."

"Don't give me lip, Shego! I already sent the message anyways."

Shego looked puzzled. "How come you didn't want me to see this? I'm all for giving Princess a good hard Christmas kick or two." She cracked her knuckles in excitement. "What do you have planned, some kind of ambush? Does this have to do with that robot thing you were working on earlier?"

"What? No, of course not Shego. It's Christmas! I'm inviting Kim and the buffoon over so that we can celebrate Christmas together, in the spirit of the season!"

"Are you serious?" asked Shego, crestfallen. "Then why in the world did you write the invitation the way you did?"

"What way?"

"Durrr, I'm Doctor Drakken, I have something Ron Stoppable cares about, you'd better come over here! That way, idiot."

"But it's true! I have a present for him." Drakken pointed at a slightly disheveled looking box wrapped in newspaper under the Christmas tree. "It's a Snowman Hank Special Edition DVD!"

"Ugh. Okay, why did you tell Kim that she'd regret it if she didn't come over, or if she brought Global Justice along?"

Drakken shrugged. "It would ruin the Christmas celebration, wouldn't it?

Shego finally gave up trying to hack through the dense jungle of Drakken's thought processes and returned to the couch. She still wasn't convinced that Drakken wasn't planning something; perhaps he was just keeping it all a surprise. Surely the robotic creation he was storing in the lair's basement had something to do with it. Hopefully Drakken wasn't going soft. She knew they hadn't done anything particularly evil in a long time – whether Drakken was just lazy or was having some kind of mid-life crisis, she wasn't sure - but inviting those goody-two-shoes over for the holidays seemed like it was crossing the line. Regardless of what Drakken was planning, Shego decided she would be sure to give the Princess a good yuletide smackdown.