Chapter 10

GJ Jet 8 pm

Present day Kim was sitting in her seat in Dr. Director's private jet on her way to visit an extremely dangerous prisoner in Location 78. It was another fifteen hours until they reached their destination and she was thinking about what they were going to do when they finally talked to Eclipse. All of the crimes he commits in the future haven't taken place yet, so they can't exactly try him for them. She let out a heavy sigh.

"I know exactly what you mean," said a voice next to her. Kim jumped a little, not knowing that anyone was by her.

"Oh, it's you. What do you want?" Kim asked bitterly, glancing away from the present day Shego.

"I...well, I just wanted to—" Shego stuttered, and then stopped to take a deep breath.

"Spit it out, Shego," Kim said impatiently, but she was wondering what the villainess was doing. She never stuttered.

"Look, I'm not very good at the whole apology thing, so give me a second, will you?" Shego said, scowling. Kim froze. She blinked once. Twice. Three times.

"You—you want to apologize? To who?" she asked, completely dumbfounded

"Santa Clause, I wrote him a pretty nasty letter last year when I didn't get what I wanted," Shego said, rolling her eyes. "Who do you think, Kimmie? I'm not sitting next to anyone else."

"You want to apologize to me? For what?" she asked. She was still shocked. Shego was a cranky, bad ass villainess. Kim always figured that she looked at apologizing as a weakness. It would be saying that Shego wasn't perfect, which Kim thought that's what Shego believed she was.
"For last night," Shego replied. She ran her fingers through her thick, long black hair. "You—" She stopped again and gritted her teeth. "You were right. I went too far. I'm—I'm...sorry."

Kim just sat there, shocked. She didn't really know what to say.

"Now would be the time for you to say 'it's all right. Don't worry about it,'" Shego said.

"Oh, right. Uh, sorry, I'm just surprised you're actually apologizing," Kim said.

"Well, don't get used to it. It won't be happening often," Shego muttered.

"Right, uh...it's okay, I guess. I forgive you," Kim said.

"Good. Thanks."
There was an awkward silence between them. Kim was still slightly taken aback by their conversation and she was guessing that Shego was as well, even though she was the one who came over.

"So...do you have a boyfriend?" Shego randomly asked. Kim looked at her enemy with a raised eyebrow.
"What?" she asked.

"Do you have a boyfriend?" she repeated.

"Why do you want to know?" Kim wondered suspiciously.

"No reason, just trying to make conversation," Shego replied. There was no annoyance or sarcasm in her voice.

What the hell happened to the Shego I know? Kim asked herself.

"No...I don't," she answered slowly. She was still weary.

"What?" Shego asked, noticing her stiff body frame and cautious expression.
"Nothing; I'm just wondering who you are and what have you done with the Shego I know," the teenager said calmly. Shego smirked.

"It's all me, Pumpkin."

"No, the real you is sarcastic, nasty, and teasing. You only made one sarcastic comment in this whole conversation," Kim pointed out. Shego rolled her eyes.

"Do you want me to tease you?" she asked. Kim was silent for a moment.

Well... she thought. I've kind of grown used to the teasing, even looking forward to the exchange of wits during out clashes. It's as challenging as the fight itself; both keep me on my toes. I suppose I would miss it if Shego stopped teasing me... ... ... I can never tell her that.

"No," Kim said. Shego raised an eyebrow.

"It took you about a whole minute to respond, Princess. Are you lying?" Shego asked.

"No," Kim replied, her cheeks reddening slightly. Shego smirked.

"Very well, I won't tease you anymore," she said. She grabbed a magazine from the compartment on the back of the seat in front of her and began reading it absentmindedly.

Damn it. What did that accomplish? Kim asked herself, glaring out the window. She snuck a glance at the villainess. She was still reading the magazine. Whenever Kim saw Shego reading a magazine, she looked very bored. However, at that moment, Shego had a small, knowing smile on her face and amusement in her eyes.

She's knows I was lying Kim realized. This caused two feelings to erupt. One, she was happy that Shego was most likely not going to stop teasing her; and two, was frustration. Shego knew when Kim was lying. That wasn't an advantage you want your enemy to know about.

But is Shego really an enemy? I mean, she is helping us out Kim told herself. And she did apologize, even if that was very out of character. Maybe...maybe Shego is coming around.

Kim discretely glanced at Shego again, just in time for her to see the plasma wielder's head eyes to turn from Kim back to the magazine. Their eyes locked for a split second, knowing that they had both been caught.

Kim felt a blush rise up on her face and she couldn't figure out why. She shook her head to clear it and looked out at the window to the ground thousands of feet below her.

Unknown

"Princess? Princess where are you?" called out a familiar voice that Kim couldn't place. She recognized the nickname, but was confused as to who was using it.

"Hello?" Kim called out, looking around her. She was in an unknown forest surrounded by thick trees. It was dark out and she could barely see her hand in front of her.

"Princess! Where are you?" came that voice again.

"I'm here!" Kim yelled.

"Kim!" the voice cried. Kim could tell which direction the voice was coming from and began to run towards it. She knew she'd be safe if she could find whoever that voice belongs to.

"Kimmie!"

The seventeen year old ran harder and harder, tripping over the roots from the trees on the ground. The voice was becoming fainter, but she knew she was heading in the right direction.

Suddenly, she came onto a clearing in the woods. She saw someone standing over a body on the ground. She went over and stood behind the one standing. The person's hair was long and fiery red. Kim didn't look at the body on the ground, afraid of whom it was.

"What happened? Who are you?" she asked. The woman in front of her turned around Kim was face to face with her future self. She was crying silently, but that wasn't what was bothering Kim. Her hands were covered in blood.

"You took too long," the future Kim whispered. "She was calling out for you, but you took too long. Why didn't you come? What made you wait?"

"What do you mean? I was lost in the forest and scared—"

"You still should have come. Now look what we had to do!" the twenty four year old yelled, pointing a bloody finger at the body on the ground. Kim looked down and saw present day Shego's still body and very, very pale. Her jumpsuit was no longer black and green, but a dark crimson color starting from her chest down.

"Shego! No!" Kim cried out, kneeling in the blood soaked ground and hugged Shego's body. She could feel her heart breaking; pain beyond anything she could imagine was forming in her chest and getting worse. "Why! Why did you kill her?"

"You took too long and because of that he got a hold of her! She's the villain. I'm the good guy. There was no other way," future Kim said. Suddenly, she was standing up straight and looked straight ahead. Kim followed her gaze and saw a man standing a few yards away, his face clouded by a dark veil.
"One down, one to go," he said, his gravelly voice sinister and cold. He started laughing and Kim lunged at him.

GJ Jet 7 am The Next Morning

Present day Kim Possible awoke with a start, her body covered in cold sweat and her heart beating frantically. She could still feel the remnants of her broken heart from her dream. She brought a hand to her chest and swallowed hard. She looked around and saw that they were still on the jet, flying over dark blue waters. Kim leaned back and took a deep breath, trying to still her beating heart.

"Hey, you all right?" came a soft voice next to her. She looked over and saw that future Shego had replaced her past self's seat beside the teenager.

"What?" Kim asked, still slightly confused as to what had happened.

"You look pretty freaked out. Is there something wrong?" the older woman asked, genuine concerned etched her face. Kim took another deep breath and closed her eyes, trying to get rid of the image of the younger Shego's dead body from her mind.

"Yes, yes I'm fine. Just a…bad dream is all," Kim replied. "I'm sorry if I woke you."

"I wasn't sleeping," the future woman said, waving her off. "I'm too nervous."

"Really? You get nervous?" Kim asked, surprised. Shego laughed.

"Of course I do. And scared and embarrassed and, very rarely, I'm shy," the short haired woman said.

"Wow. I just can't picture you being any of those things. All I've seen is the 'I'm so tough' side of you," Kim explained.

"Well, to be fair, that's all you've been exposed to," future Shego responded. "Your future self, however, has seen every single mood I could possibly have."

Kim looked curiously at her seatmate.

"We—present Shego and I—become very close, don't we?" the teenager asked, unable to reign in the question. The older woman didn't answer right away, as if debating whether or not to reply.

"Yes, but it took a long time. We had to get through the trust barriers we had naturally set up in response to our past interactions. It was a lot of trial and error; a lot of close calls to calling it quits," she explained. "You were used to working with someone like Ron who will do just about anything you say and I was not used to working as a team. However, we get through a lot of rough patches and eventually synced together to make an almost unstoppable team; just as I had predicted before we partnered up."

"It seems almost impossible. I know that Shego and I have a lot of similar qualities, but the differences we have are so big that I can't imagine us overcoming them," Kim replied.

"True, we are very different, but that also is what makes us a great team. The compromises we have to make are often better than the seemingly ideal scenarios that would have happened without our combined effort to make it work," future Shego said.

"Two heads are better than one," Kim simply stated.
"Exactly."

They sat in silence for a little while, taking in the dull roar of the plane and watched the fields of blue as they passed over the Pacific Ocean.

"What are you nervous about?" Kim suddenly asked.
"What?" asked Shego, unsure as to what the seventeen year old was referring to.

"Before, when you sat down, you said you couldn't sleep because you were nervous. Nervous about what?"

"Oh," Shego said. "That. Well, if this truly is Eclipse that we're seeing, then that's it. Future Kimmie and I can go home to a safe future, one we've been striving for for nearly three years."
"So why aren't you happy?"

"Well, it's just that we've been so busy with Eclipse for what seems like forever, and to get to the point where we finally have him at his weakest, it's just a little overwhelming to think of this as the end. He did so much to us that it's strange to imagine that it will be over soon," future Shego explained.
"Ah, I see," Kim said. She was silent for another few minutes when another question popped into her head and decided to ask it since the future woman was answering her questions. "Shego, why do you as well as the present Shego and my future self, hate Dr. Director so much?"

Shego sighed.

"I was hoping you wouldn't ask that question," she said. "I'm not sure if I'm going to answer you Kimmie. It's a long and very brutal story and I don't think you're ready to hear it quite yet."

The teenager's cheeks puffed out in indignation.

"I'm not a child, you know!" she hissed. "I can handle more than you know."

The older woman from the future stared at the red haired girl for a long moment. It looked as if she were searching her forest green eyes for something. She did this for so long that it was beginning to make the young woman squirm slightly in her seat.

"Kim," future Shego finally said with total seriousness, surprising the teenager when she used her real name. "I'm not saying you're a child. However, this story is one you will not like and I want to protect the innocence that you still have. I look at my Kimmie and I see that spark of innocence completely gone. I lost it when I was younger than you, after the meteor took away any normal future I could have had; but you…you still see the world through innocent eyes and I want you to keep that for as long as you can.

"Where we're going Kim, is a place where you will lose some of that. You will be shocked and horrified at what you see and the world will look different when you leave," Shego continued. "However, if I can help you keep what little innocence that you have left when we're done, then I swear to God I will. Don't ask me to take that away from you and don't try to lose it so quickly. You do eventually, thanks to what Eclipse puts us through. But if today works out like I hope it does, then you will never have to experience that. And you will hear the story soon, most likely from my past self, however, when she's ready to share it."

Kim stared at the future woman, her mouth slightly agape. She had not expected to hear anything that she had said. Future Shego's seriousness had curved into one of the real, rare full blown smiles and Kim was hypnotized by it, but then slightly startled when the woman reached up and stroked her cheek gently.

"I forgot how adorable you are when you were younger," she stated simply. Shego stared at her a moment longer and then stood to walk back to her original seat next to her partner.

Present day Kim stared at her empty seat in shock and reached up to touch the spot the older woman had caressed.

"Kim? KP? You okay?" came a distant voice. Kim looked up and saw her best friend looking at her with a worried expression.
"Yeah—" Kim said weakly, then cleared her throat. "Yes, I'm sorry. I'm still waking up I guess. How'd you sleep?"

"Fine, but I'm anxious to get off this plane. I just want this mission to be over, you know?" Ron said, sitting down.

"Agreed. This got really strange really fast," Kim answered.

"No kidding. What's it like seeing your future self?" Ron asked.

"It's—well it's really weird for sure, but it's also a little scary," she admitted. "I'm so different that I hardly recognize myself. I can't imagine what happens to cause such a drastic change. I wonder how much is because of Eclipse and how much is just the natural changes that come with growing up."

"I think the weirdest thing is that Shego is your partner. I'm wondering what happens to us," the blond haired teenager said quietly, his face overcome with sadness.
"Oh, Ron. You know we're still best friends in the future," Kim reassures her oldest friend. "No matter what happens Ron, in their future or our new one, that will never change."

Ron stared at the green eyes he knew so well. They held a conviction that he couldn't help but believe as well.

"You're right, KP. Nothing will ever change us," he stated with a smile. He quickly glanced over his shoulder at the sleeping present day Shego, then whispered conspiratorially.

"If anyone here changes for the better, however, then it's definitely Shego. I think she actually likes me in the future."

Both of them then giggles like children.
"True, her future self does seem friendlier, towards both of us," the seventeen year old whispered back. "However, she did apologize to me earlier."

"What for?" Ron asked in disbelief. Kim then realized that if she answered truthfully, then her best friend would ask what they fought about and she felt a blush creep up her cheeks at the thought of telling her best friend that Shego had hit on her, even if she was teasing.

"Well, just for being so uncooperative in the beginning," she lied, feeling a little guilty for it, but she had no idea how Ron would react to that. He would either be outraged on her behalf or embarrassed at the idea of thinking about her and Shego in that way.

"Weird!" he exclaimed. "Maybe she's beginning her transformation."
"Yeah…maybe," Kim replied slowly as she started to go deep in thought about her weary alliance with the villainess.