Not Hard Enough
C4: Odd Meetings
[Disclaimer: Disney owns KP. I own whatever I write/create. Don't steal and don't sue.]
"Oh, come on mom!"
"Tao…I just don't know."
"Are you worried that Solomon or Lobo would eat it?" Tao was trying to convince her mother to allow her to purchase a new pet: a hamster.
"I'd suppose they would." Ion sighed, "It's what they'd eat naturally."
"But I wouldn't let them!" Tao replied, "Come on. I'd buy it, feed it, and anything else."
"You've been saving your allowance, haven't you?" Tao nodded with a grin. "Well…since you've been arguing for at least four hours…I suppose. But that hamster has to stay alive for three months."
"Thankyoubye!" Tao said quickly as she ran out the door, grabbing her yellow jacket as she did. Ion sat stunned for a moment, and then chuckled slightly. Tao loved her pets.
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"It's one in the morning, and the pet store is open." Tao remarked as she walked into the pet store in the Middleton mall, "I love this place."
"Welcome to Pet Place." the girl behind the counter said as Tao walked up, "How may I help you?"
"I'd like to get one of the hamsters here." Tao smiled, "It's this one over here." She led the girl to one cage in particular where a ball of white and brown fluff was running in a wheel.
"Oh, he's a cute one." the girl giggled a bit as she unlocked the cage and picked the hamster up, "What are you going to name him?"
"Dario." Tao answered, "I like that name."
"I like it too." the girl smiled, "Now, over here are our cages…"
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Dario watched in fascination as Tao balanced a cheese-covered nacho on her pointer finger and thumb as though it were a quarter she was going to flip. She chattered at the hamster for a second and it sat extremely still. Tao flipped the nacho high in the air and it landed exactly in her mouth. Dario chattered back, nodding his little head.
"What's a kid doing at the mall in one in the morning?" someone asked suddenly. Tao looked up for one second and saw someone she never expected to: Shego. She looked back at Dario and handed him a sunflower seed.
"I've only just convinced my mother to let me get this adorable fluff-ball of a hamster." Tao looked back up at Shego with a smile, "Why are you here?"
"That's none of your business." Shego snapped, her cheeks tinged a very light pink. She started to walk away. Tao snickered silently and turned to Dario.
"Lover's quarrel, eh, Dario?" she baited the black-haired woman to come back. Shego stopped, tensed, and then whirled right back around.
"Shut your mouth!" she shouted right at Tao, slamming her hands onto the table, "My personal life isn't any of your business!"
"No," Tao smirked, glad that her bait worked, "but you seem to be shouting to the whole mall about it. If you talk, it gets easier." Shego was about to shout something in reply, maybe even attack, but paused. Dario had toddled on over to her hands and started nipping at her fingers to see if she was food. Shego laughed slightly and sank down in the chair opposite Tao.
"Listen, I appreciate the sentiment, but I don't really want to talk about it." Shego sighed, crossing her arms, "This isn't the kind of thing you yap about."
"Oh, that kind of lover's problem." Tao smirked again, understanding the problem and pulling a cheesy nacho from the nacho box, "Ah, idiotic prejudice, how you rule our lives. So—Why are you staring at my hamster?"
"He isn't trying to eat your nachos." Shego looked very confused that Dario was just sitting there and chewing on his seed.
"Hamsters don't eat cheese." Tao's eyebrow twitched in amusement, "Anyway, who's the—"
"But whenever I see Kim and her doofus friend, his pet is eating something." Shego unknowingly spilt the beans. Tao was puzzled for a moment, but smiled.
"So her name is Kim." she had a good idea of who the 'Kim' was. Shego stared at her, and then slapped her hands to her forehead.
"Yes." Shego sighed, shaking her head, "Kim. Kim Possible. There. Happy?"
"Yep." Tao nodded, "Why don't you just tell her?"
"Excuse me?" Shego asked in shock, "We're enemies! We fight, and she hates me!" Tao took the open-mouth shock to silence Shego for one moment: she shoved a nacho into her mouth.
"Just think for a second about your situation." Tao picked Dario up and starting petting him, "Have you ever heard one of the many old sayings about love? Whenever you fall in love, it's either your best friend, or your worst enemy. Now doesn't that make sense?"
Shego chewed the nacho for a few long moments, thinking. Tao put Dario on her shoulder and put her chin in her hand, smiling in amusement.
"So, you going to tell her?" she asked.
"Yeah." Shego swallowed the nacho and smiled just a bit, "Thanks, I guess." Tao nodded with a smile, standing and grabbing the cage at her feet. She started to walk away, putting Dario in his cage. Before she could start running, Shego called out.
"Hey, what's your name?"
"I'm Tao Psymon." Tao waved over her shoulder with a smile, "Bye, miss Shego." Then she started running. To the human eye, she vanished. It wasn't a normal thing to humans to see one of their own running as fast as a cheetah, so they didn't see it.
Tao ran all the way home, rushing into her room and putting Dario's cage on a long table along one wall. Lobo stood up from his lying position, looking up to his girl with a happy look. Tao grinned and started doing an odd little victory dance.
"I just met a famous criminal, Lobo!" Tao laughed in glee, "I just met Shego! I just convinced her to go tell Kim Possible that she loves her!"
Tao stopped abruptly.
"Is that a good thing?" she asked her wolf. The gray wolf cocked his head to one side, as if to say that he had no clue.
"Think I should go see if they try to kill each other?" she asked. Lobo straightened his head and lowered it, nodding a bit. "If they do, should I stop them?" Lobo nodded again.
"OK. I'll be back later. Again." And she was off.
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The sounds of a battle were loud somewhere in suburban Middleton. Tao rounded a corner and saw a huge black robot swiping at a small redheaded figure.
Tao hoped and prayed that she wasn't the cause of Kim Possible being attacked. A black figure tackled Kim as a laser fired from the robot: Shego. Tao slammed her head against the wall of the house she was standing by and sent spider-web cracks up the wall.
The robot, Kim, and Shego were having a conversation. The robot lifted its arm and aimed at Kim. She was in a corner with nowhere to go.
"KIM!" everyone, including Tao, screamed. Tao saw, as if in slow motion, Shego dart in front of Kim. She was going to take the full force of the blow. And she did.
Tao's eyes widened in horror. Shego fell back, bleeding badly, before throwing the green fire her hands held. The robot was destroyed. Tao turned away from the scene and started to run back home.
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SLAM!
Ion jerked and woke up. It sounded like Tao was home. She got out of bed and put on her glasses, going to greet her daughter and see what kind of hamster she had gotten.
"Well, Tao, is he as cute as you said?" she asked in a bit of a teasing voice. Her smile fell away when she saw Tao leaning against the door, her face full of horror and panting for breath.
"Tao?" Ion went to her daughter, "Tao, what's wrong?"
"I think I just killed someone." Tao said in a terrified voice, shaking madly. Ion's eyes opened a bit more and she hugged Tao quickly.
"Tell me what happened." she led her daughter into the kitchen to talk.
…………
"Oh dear." Ion murmured, rubbing the back of her neck, "That does sound bad."
"I think Shego's dead." Tao had stopped shaking, but was holding herself tight, "I think I sent her to her death."
"You did no such thing." Ion answered, "You just helped two people closer to each other. It's not your fault Drakken decided to attack Kim on the same night you helped Shego."
"OK." that seemed to calm Tao down enough to make her fear vanish, "…did you want to see the hamster?"
"Oh, yes." Ion smiled, "Let's see him." Tao went and got the cage, taking Dario out of its confines.
"By the way, sweetheart." Ion said as she stroked the hamster's head, "Why don't you see if Shego is actually gone before being so worried? I'll bet she's all right, and I think you should keep helping her to get Kim."
"How?" Tao asked.
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Tao stood just around the corner of the hospital waiting room, listening closely to what Kim Possible and Ron Stoppable said. There was silence as Kim cried for a while, and then Kim's mother said that Shego was stable.
Tao hurried off just as Kim did.
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The last bit of night was devoted to a fast nap. The part of the day before noon was spent picking out something to give to Shego when she woke up.
Tao knocked at the door of the hospital room, a bouquet of roses in one arm and Dario on one shoulder. Someone called the OK and Tao walked in.
For the first time in her life, Tao saw Kim Possible up close and for real. Kim stood from Shego's bedside and walked over to her slowly.
"Hello." Tao smiled, "You must be Kim Possible. These are for miss Shego." She gave the roses to Kim. Kim gave her a bit of a scrutinizing look, as if wondering if Shego already had a person in her life. Tao noted that the roses were still a good idea, even if Kim already loved Shego back.
"Don't worry." she smiled more, "I'm just a friend. Bye." She was out the door running before anything else could happen.
Tao leapt over the fence that surrounded the hospital from behind and rolled in the snow for a moment. She stared up at the clear blue sky. Dario chattered and crawled out of his pocket-spot and onto Tao's stomach. Tao laughed a little bit.
At that single moment, everything was just right. For that moment.
—end—