Yep. It's time.
Ye Old Legal stuff: Kim Possible, Shego, Monique, the Drs. Possible, Ron Stoppable and all other characters borrowed from the wonderful KP Universe are the creations of Mark McCorkle and Bob Schooley, and those names are all trademarks of the Disney media organizations. Although use in this context may be considered fair under parody law, just in case: this work was not created for profit, no money changed hands etc. Also, this story takes place at a time at which all characters shown should be considered to be over the legal age of 18… except, obviously Wade and the Tweebs.
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AT THE CENTERFOLD OF THE STORM
Chapter 10
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Kim froze for just a second. Had Anna just asked if…?
No, of course she hadn't. It was just that Kim's own mind had been running down a different track of thought, and she'd just happened to have been looking directly at Shego when the question was asked.
She'd been looking at Shego a lot this morning. Out of the corner of her eyes. When she thought no one was looking. Sometimes even when she knew people were looking. She knew it was odd behavior for her, yet her eyes kept being drawn back.
And what was freaking her out was that she also wanted to touch.
After last night's emotional gauntlet... their 'escape' from the paparazzi, that magnificent sparing session, the soul leveling sensory barrage of the hate sites and after-wards... it just seemed impossible that it had only been a day since they last sat in these chairs. That her life could have been uprooted so rapidly yet fundamentally in such a short time. But somehow, the strange synergy she'd always shared with the green woman had become a pyrophoric catalyst, throwing gasoline on what had already been a volatile relationship and turning it into...
Well, yes, that was the big question wasn't it? Into what?
Yesterday's escalating series of soul-ripping revelations had done more than just stripped her essence to its very core, had seared off more than just the blinders Kim had placed around the issues of her physical safety, of her public perception and probable ultimate fate... it had left her forced to finally face the creature, the animal, that lived at the core of Kim Possible.
And then she'd gone and kicked the drama up another level all by herself.
At first she'd convinced herself that what she'd done last night had been a simple act of compassion.
That there was no way she could have let the woman leave in that mental state. Not after Shego had bared herself in that way. Especially not after Shego had talked Kim down from the precipice of own crisis... But there had been a calculated intent on Kim's own part as well. She COULDN'T let Shego go, had needed the woman to stay. Desperately. And in the realization of that truth, Kim confirmed what she had already begun to suspect... that the connection between herself and the pale woman went way beyond the rivalry and sparring... that when she was with Shego she felt more like the Kim she wanted to be than at any other time; as if the ex-villainess was somehow the mirror she needed in order to see her own soul.
Wow. This was really heady stuff.
The problem was that Kim didn't have the slightest idea what Shego was making of what had happened. How could she? The two of them hadn't had a single solitary second alone this entire morning, thank you very much Monique. She'd kept hoping that her supposed best friend would have to use the bathroom or ask to use the computer or SOMETHING, but instead Kim and Shego had spent the morning giving each other weird-eyed exchanges of looks whenever they thought Monique hadn't been watching. It was like something out of a cheesy romantic comedy!
Kim's mind hit a scratch and backed up. Had she really just used the "R" word?
She had.
But that would make her…
Okay, let's look at this objectively.
Everything that had happened so far could just mean Shego was developing a protective big sister mentality towards her. Perfectly logical. Being a big sister herself, Kim knew that sisters DID sometimes bash their younger siblings while taking on a very defensive attitude against all outsiders. Especially hyper-agressive outsides like, say, Warmonga. And as for the sleeping together thing, that's all and exactly what they had done: sleep. And finally, while the green woman hadn't exactly woken up in horror at finding herself in bed with Kim, and certainly hadn't run screaming out of the apartment, she hadn't exactly leaned up and planted a big fat kiss on Kim's lips either.
Which brought up the question as to whether Kim had wanted her to?
And if she hadn't wanted it, why couldn't she stop wondering about what it would have been like? Whether it would have been like soft and mushy like kissing Ron… or if it would have been as fiery and incendiary as it felt when she and Shego's bodies slammed together in the heat of combat?
Once again she thought back to yesterday's sparring session. How it had felt as they had pushed each other past all possible expectation, achieving a level of physical synchrony that had transcended the martial in martial arts to become art itself. Could it have been as good as that?
God, could it have been even better?
And THAT brought up the memory of that quiver that had gone through both of them right as they were getting up. THAT had meant something. Oh boy had it meant something. And if Kim didn't stop thinking about what that something was, she was going to have a nervous meltdown before she could answer Anna's question.
Which had been about what? Oh yeah, friends.
"Um, well…" Kim thought quickly down the list of people she knew who might be helpful and a name… two names actually… seemed to pop into her head. Exactly why, she wasn't sure, but as the Machiavellian possibilities linked together in her head, she saw a certain chain of poetic justice forming.
"Actually, you might want to talk to my brothers," She smiled innocently.
"The TWEEBS?" Monique almost fell out of chair in shock. Even Shego looked surprised.
"Tweebs?" Anna asked.
"Twin Dweebs," Monique filled in. "Half-child genius, half-evil spirit times two. Unfortunately the math works out that you get twice the child instead of one rational grown up while the evil makes up the difference."
"Oookay," Anna looked at Kim with an arched eyebrow. "And we'd want to speak to them why?"
"Tracking. I happen to know that they've developed a system for making multiple cameras automatically follow and focus on multiple subjects, even when they're moving at extremely high rates of speed. That WAS one of the issues you were worried about, right?"
"What Kimberly's not saying," Monique added at Anna's nod, "Is that we know they developed it because they'd been using it to take rather lecherous shots of the cheer squad, the gymnastics club, the female members of the track team and, of course, one Kimberly Ann Possible…"
"Though the latter was simply for the purpose of busting me when I broke curfew," Kim clarified. "Which is how I caught them."
"It… does sound interesting," Anna admitted. "But do you really think it would be applicable here?"
"You'd have to talk to them," Kim allowed, "But I know that they used some kind of external module that attached to my dad's dSLR lenses without damaging them. The trick revolves around tiny little coded tracking pellets that are placed on each subject. I'm sure some clever person with a comprehensive knowledge of clothing and jewelry could work with them to find a way to disguise them."
Monique's face went pale. "Kim Possible! What have I ever done to you?"
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Shego bit back an explosive guffaw. It was completely not in keeping with the character she was trying to project, and she didn't want Monique to snap to the fact that Kim's suggestion was actually a sneaky little bit of tit for tat that Shego thoroughly approved of. She'd never realized that the Possible mind even had such a devious bent and it was rather amusing to see how that All-American, sugar-wouldn't-melt-in-my-mouth face could seem so earnest while actually being quite diabolical. That was definitely a lesson to keep in mind during future dealings with the redhead…
And Shego was very interested to know exactly what the nature of those future dealings might be. She'd expected that exposing the secrets she'd kept hidden, while they would have the intended effect of getting Kim to become professionally paranoid enough to survive, would also result in the permanent exit of one green supervillain from the ex-cheerleader's life. The last thing Shego had expected was a blanket embrace and… she wasn't sure if absolution was the right term, but how else to explain the extraordinary trust Kim had shown her last night? Shego had admitted… ADMITTED… to having tried to kill Kim in the past, told the young woman exactly what her own personal definition of evil was and how she fit that description down to a T, she'd confessed to her history of substance abuse… she'd even come clean about having intentionally killed someone, for God's sake, and…
And it hadn't mattered. The damned redhead's record of completely confounding the green woman had continued unchecked, and instead of finding herself out on the street, Shego had experienced the first nightmare free sleep she could remember since she'd turned 15.
And she'd found it in the arms of an angel, nestled against the very warm and perfectly fitting body of Kim Possible.
If only she'd been the first one to wake up, maybe she could have had time to think of how to properly react before Monique had shown up, to have said SOMETHING. Or at least had a chance to watch the Princess while she slept. Instead she'd surprised herself with her own restraint, forcing herself to be nicer than she'd thought she could be, making omelets for the two of them, even offering to make one for Monique. At one point she'd been so polite and courteous that it felt like she was having a relapse into her odious Miss Go persona… and her hatred of Miss Go, of that total mental submission to an outside influence, bordered on pathological.
But she'd done it because the one thing that she couldn't have handled would be to scare Kim off now. Before she could figure out what this strange relationship truly was:
Need?
Desire?
Or another word that kept hovering in the back of her mind, but that she was still opting to keep suppressed in the background, out of focus.
Which was what Anna happened to be talking about at the moment.
"Yes," The older woman was saying, "Not having to track focus would be a help trying to photograph the more... kinetic displays, so Monique, if you could get with with these Dweebs."
"Tweebs," Monique, Kim, Shego and Cyn all corrected in unison.
"Tweebs," Anna continued as if uninterrupted, "It would probably be worth the effort, especially if you can integrate it into something unobtrusive. Failing that, the alternative would be to paint them a brilliant color so they could be removed in Photoshop."
"That, however," Anna turned her focus directly to Kim and Shego, "Leads to the reason for the little setup we have here."
All eyes quickly flicked to the assembled lights and backdrops, then back to each other.
"The one thing that I noticed in the test shots I did yesterday it that the difference in your skin pigmentation seems to extend below just the surface layer. Shego consistently photographs just a bit darker than she appears to the naked eye, which I'm guessing means that less light goes through the skin and bounces back... whereas Kim... well, you go in the opposite direction."
Anna held up one hand. "Not an insurmountable problem. It's a common issue with shooting more than one model, although I've never dealt with quite this extreme a range of pallets before. All we have to find the right combinations of lighting that level the playing field. Soooo, what I HAD intended to propose for today is that we do some tests with different gel and filter combinations until we find the best compromises."
"However," And now it was Anna who looked like she was working to a secret evil agenda, "Since Monique has surprised us all with these amazing costume samples that will ALSO need to be tested..."
Shego could complete what Anna was going to say even before it left her lips.
"Why don't we go just for it all at once and see what happens?" The photographer finished, as expected.
"Uh..." Shego started to speak before she pulled it back. She'd expected to have a little more time to lead into this. And THIS...
Fortunately Kim was sympathetic... but when wasn't Kim sympathetic? Outside of kicking her into a electrical tower, which after learning the full details of Drakken's little plot, Shego had to admit was pretty justified.
"Is something wrong Shego?" Kim was asking.
"Um... Kim?" Shego looked at the woman who already had her so mentally confused she could barely think straight, and realized that perhaps the redhead was being even less observant. "You might want to look at these costumes just a little more carefully."
Kim looked.
And flushed red.
Then flushed an even deeper shade of red.
"OH MY GOD MONIQUE!"
Kim looked at her 'friend' in complete disbelief, and Shego could see the entire manufacturing processe and especially the method of DELIVERY process running through her head.
"MY DAD SAW THESE?"
At least Monique had obviously never thought about it, Shego noted as the other girl suddenly clamped her hands over her own mouth in mortification. And with that tiny concession, Shego found room in her heart to be more generous than she'd EVER imagined possible.
The Tweebs, she reflected, would probably ALMOST be punishment enough.
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Holding the flimsy constructs that Monique had euphemistically termed costumes, Kim and Shego stepped into the master bedroom portion of the suite. As Anna had described, Kim could see that the room had both a huge bathroom and a walk-in closet, both equipped with multiple mirrors and each large enough to serve as a private dressing room.
Laid out on the bed were two white robes of Turkish cotton... the uber-expensive high-pile count terry cloth that Kim had always loved but never been able to afford. Each had the hotel's insigna over the left breast.
One in Shego's size.
One in Kim's.
She barely had time to take all that in before the door closed behind them.
Then the room and the shoot and everything outside of this time and this place faded into nothingness.
Kim turned to Shego.
And Shego turned to Kim.
Since the moment minute Monique had arrived this morning until this very second they had never had a single second alone.
Until now.
And NOW Kim was horrified to realized that she couldn't find the words she wanted to say.
Shego managed it first, although her eyes were wary, and she was biting her lower lip again in a gesture Kim found oddly familiar.
'Because you've seen it in a mirror,' Kim knew.
"What's..." Shego's voice was unnaturally soft. ""What's going on with us Princess?"
A good beginning. Kim's nervous voice took the next step in the dance. "I don't know Shego…" Don't stop! Go forward! "I don't know. But…"
"But…?" Now Shego's had met hers and they were locked.
And Kim knew that the look she was returning to Shego was one her opponent had never seen before. That no one had ever seen before.
"But the one thing that scares me… the only thing that scares me... is the chance you might disappear from my life again."
And then they were in each others' arms.
"God," Shego murmured softly, her lips gently skirting across the delicate oval of Kim's perfect ear. "I thought I was going to go insane not being able to talk to you this morning."
"I was insane," Kim confessed, her hands explored the exquisite muscling of the pale woman's back as her other senses became lost in the act of exploring the sandalwood scented skin above Shego's collarbone, the soft surface of her jade neck. "I should never have answered the door this morning. Or told Monique to go away. Or…"
"She might have found that rather suspicious," Shego exhaled, her delicate tones trailing the vaguest hint of a chuckle.
"I wouldn't have cared," Kim confessed. "I…" The redhead stopped, fumbled for words…
"How can I have missed you so much when we were in the same room?
"I don't know…" Shego sighed breathlessly. "But that's it. That's exactly what it was like…" And now it was her time to look confused. "But… exactly what are we?"
"To each other? Or are you looking for a label?" Kim questioned. "I don't know about the latter. But I know you're important. To me. In a way that no one has ever been before."
"Yeah..." Shego smiled, but it was a different smile. It was like the sun and the moon and all the planets had come together. It was like black had become white, like evil had become good... like... whatever it was that they'd had had just inexplicably become more than Kim had ever dreamed possible.
And she knew what it was.
FINALLY, oh my god YES! She KNEW what it was...
THIS was the Drama!