Not Hard Enough
C3: And Ahead…
[Disclaimer: Disney owns KP. I own whatever I write/create. Don't steal and don't sue.]
Tao snorted suddenly in her sleep and woke up. She was lying facedown in her bed, something pinning her head down and her face in the bed.
"Solomon." Tao grumbled in a muffled tone, "Get off my head."
Solomon, the tuxedo cat, slowly stood up and stretched, finally getting off Tao's head. Tao propped herself up on her arms and yawned widely. She flicked her tail a few times and stretched it out before rolling onto her back. Tao yawned again, and then pulled her blanket over her head, curling into a ball.
Then someone started tickling her.
"GAAAAAAAAAAH!" the girl shouted, shooting out from under the blanket like a cat on speed. She bounced off the wall and shot under the bed, not wanting to be tickled anymore.
"Happy seventeenth birthday, Tao!" her mother's voice laughed.
"Mom!" Tao protested, "I hate it when you tickle me when I'm sleeping!"
"I know, sweetheart, but it's the best way to wake you up." Ion answered, "Besides, there's lots of birthday food for everyone…"
"Food?" Tao was out from under the bed at the mention of food. Food was good. Very good. Too good to waste time hiding under the bed from a tickling instead of eating it.
"You had better not—GAAAAAAAAAH!" Ion jumped on her opportunity—and daughter—and tickled the poor little kid for all she was worth.
"HELPHELPHELP!" Tao shouted, clawing at the floor with her fingers, making sure not to stab anything. Ion was tickling her feet, and that was her most vulnerable spot: no kicking and slashing back. Sooner or later, Ion stopped tickling her daughter and the party got underway.
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A few hours later, everyone but Ion had fallen back asleep. Their stomachs were full, and full stomachs always made animals sleepy; even the human with animal genes.
The full-blood animals had gathered around Tao, the two smaller ones sleeping on the silver-haired girl. Lobo had let himself be used for a big pillow, Tao's head resting on his stomach.
Ion regarded her daughter lovingly from the kitchen table. The slumbering group had settled themselves in the den, only an open door away from the kitchen. A smile crept onto Dr. Psymon's lips as she took a small sip of coffee.
Despite Tao's habit of falling asleep whenever she could, she had finished her 'schooling' with her mother just a few months before. Her time was spent either playing with the pets, eating the fast food most mothers wouldn't like their children to touch, or sleeping.
A long, yellow, hooded trenchcoat lay on the table. It had been one of Tao's presents that year. It would make it slightly easier for Tao to go out in public and keep her long silver tail hidden. That, and the yellow color distracted people from looking at Tao's bare, clawed feet.
Seventeen years had passed. Ion barely believed it. And after so much time, the words of her once-colleague and friend, Sean Green came back and bit at the back of her mind.
Tao wasn't going to be able to live a normal life. Already, there were signs of it. No normal kid had a wolf for a pet. No normal kid had natural silver hair. No normal kid had a tail. Tao wasn't a normal kid.
The thing that pained Ion the most was that Tao would never be able to have a boyfriend. No one to love her like she should be loved. Ion pushed the cooling coffee away from her and stared down at the table, forlorn. A few minutes later, she had left, leaving a note behind.
I'm going for a walk. Hope you had a good birthday nap, sweetheart. –Mom.
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Winter had already descended on Middleton. Snow was beginning to pile up on the ground, leaving a white glaze over the frozen soil. Ion sighed and pulled her jacket tighter around her as she sat down on a bench that was placed rather nonchalantly on the sidewalk.
"Well, as I live and get bitten by hungry wolves."
Ion looked up at the familiar voice. Sam Del stood before her, smiling in his funny way.
"Hello, Ion." he greeted her, "It's been a while, huh?"
"Yes." Ion admitted sheepishly, "I should have at least made some contact."
"S'OK." Sam sank down on the bench next to Ion with a groan, "At least you remember me."
"I don't think I could ever forget such a wonderful man." the words escaped her before she could stop them. A crimson blush overcame her and she looked away nervously.
"How's Tao doing these days?" Sam diverted the conversation away from such embarrassing matters.
"Better." Ion was grateful for his subject change, "Today's her seventeenth birthday."
"Whoa." Sam chuckled, "Has she gotten her license?"
"She doesn't need one." Ion smiled a little, "She can run just as fast as a car." The two laughed for a moment, and then fell into a content silence.
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Back at home, Tao had awoken from her food-induced nap. She spotted the note her mother had left, and then started towards her room. Tao turned on her computer, starting to surf the web.
In the back of her heart, she felt a deep pain that she kept trying to push back and out. She only half-remembered what the pain came from. The half-memory was enough to make her become very still and silent for long periods that seemed to pop up at random times.
She shook away the rising memory and went onto one of the more interesting sites on the Net: Kim Possible's.
The villain files were amusing to Tao. All of them were blindingly stupid, except for Shego. Especially Drakken. Drakken made Tao laugh out loud.
How interesting, she thought, it would be to meet these people. And then laugh as Kim, Ron, and Rufus foiled their plans again.
And Tao had no idea how soon her interesting thought would come true.
—to be continued—