Back in their room, Shego pulled a first aid kit out of her bag and gestured for Kim to take a seat at the kitchenette's small table. The green woman then unwound the makeshift bandage the redhead had wrapped around her injury.

"Well at least you made an effort to clean it." She admitted grudgingly. "But we'll still need to wash it properly with distilled water, then get some antiseptic on it. How'd you get this, anyway?"

Kim bit her lip, then gave a soft sigh.

"I was dumb." She conceded.

"Clearly." Shego snorted, as she pulled on a pair of disposable medical gloves and opened a pack of sterile swabs. "How specifically?"

"I was pulling a ventilation grate out of the wall and cut myself on one of the screws." Kim flushed at the glower she got from the pale woman. "I know it was stupid, Shego. I was worried about my dad."

Shego nodded as she began to gently dab Kim's wound with a now-damp swab.

"I know, Pumpkin. But you need to be careful: this cut was shallow, but it could have been deeper. You might have damaged something important. You could have needed surgery, or even lost some of the movement of your fingers."

Kim nodded silently, watching as the green woman completed cleaning the wound with water, then got out a small bottle of alcohol-based antiseptic.

"This will sting." Shego cautioned.

"It's okay. I've been through it before." Despite her words, Kim still hissed at the first touch of the antiseptic. Shego immediately paused. "Sorry. Carry on."

The redhead continued to watch as Shego continued working on her injury. The green woman's careful attention surprised the redhead. Her touches were so gentle ... almost tender.

"You like me, don't you?"

Shego felt her skin grow heated as it darkened to a deeper verdant shade. What's she asking me? The green woman wondered, glancing through her lashes at the redhead. Kim's skin blazed with embarrassment. It seemed the younger woman was as surprised by her own question as Shego had been.

"I already told you, Kimmie: I do swing that way, but you're not my type."

That statement was technically true, the pale woman tried to convince herself. She had told Kim that. It was also avoiding the question, and they both knew it.

"I don't mean 'like me' sexually." Kim's voice was strained with the effort of keeping it steady. "I mean 'like me' like a friend."

Shego sighed and paused in tending to Kim's injury, though she did not actually release the redhead's hand.

"You know, it's not fair to ask me personal stuff like that when I'm forced to tell you the truth. Especially after you said you wouldn't." More evasion, but maybe that would be the end of it. Yeah, right. Kimmie won't let me off that easily. The redhead's words did come as a surprise, however.

"... you're right." The younger woman admitted. "Sorry. You don't have to answer if you don't want to." Apparently emboldened by what Shego's reluctance seemed to mean, she gave a tentative smile. "I like you, you know."

"Prin-" Maybe now wasn't the right time for pet names. "Kim ... we spent four years trying to kick each other's asses. I don't think that's a good basis for a friendship."

"But you do like me, right?"

Shego sighed again, not meeting Kim's eyes. She's not going to let this go. Oh, what the hell ... my reputation is shot, anyway. She looked up.

"Fine. Yes, I like you. You're a lot less annoying and prissy than I thought you would be. And a lot more grown-up."

"Spankin'."

"Ugh. Pumpkin, that is not how you thank someone for saying they don't think of you as a child, anymore."

Kim blinked.

"You thought of me as a kid? I thought you respected me ..."

Shego sighed.

"I've respected your abilities for a long time, Kim. Do you really think I would have asked you to be my sidekick for this tournament if I didn't?" She raised a dark eyebrow, and waited for the redhead's answering nod. "Exactly. But you were a kid when I first met you ... and in my head you still were one." Shego paused and smirked. "An annoyingly gifted and frustratingly skilled kid, but a kid nonetheless."

Kim considered the green woman's words.

"Huh. I guess I can live with being 'annoyingly gifted and frustratingly skilled'."

"I'm sure." Shego's tone was dry.

"It's nice to hear you say it, though." Kim smiled. "You're not usually one for compliments. Though I guess just asking me to be your partner –"

"Sidekick."

Kim ignored the interruption.

"- in this tournament was a pretty big compliment."

"I guess." Shego shrugged noncommittally. Just about the biggest I could give.

"Sorry it didn't work out." Kim apologized, looking downcast. "First we get zero points, now mom and dad were disqualified ... this hasn't been a great couple of days for Team Possible."

"You and I are Team Shego, Sidekick-Girl." Shego dug in the medical kit for a bandage. "And ... your parents didn't seem too upset."

"Yeah ... but you must be." Kim ducked her head, trying to make eye contact with the green woman. "This tournament was important to you, wasn't it?"

Hell, yes. Outwardly, Shego simply shrugged again.

"We did the right thing, Princess." She paused. "However much I wanted to just take the damn gem anyway." She saw the younger woman's startled frown. Just reminding you who your new friend is, Kimmie.

"... I wanted to as well." The green woman gaped at this admission from the redhead. Obviously her surprise showed, because Kim blushed and gave a minute shrug of her own. "I'm not perfect, Shego. I sometimes want to be selfish. I wanted to just be able to persuade myself that those islanders would get away."

"There was a time I wouldn't have cared whether they did or not."

"Maybe once you would have done something else." Kim touched the green woman's shoulder with her uninjured hand. "But yesterday you chose to do the right thing."

"Gah. The 'right thing'? You're not making me feel any better, Cupcake." Shego made gagging noises.

"Sorry." Kim didn't look especially repentant, the green woman noticed. "About the tournament ... they told us the island was deserted, but that wasn't true. Can we appeal about that, or something? Maybe get another mission?"

Shego shook her head.

"Judges' decision is final. They banned appeals back in the twelfth century. The world's best thieves tend to know the world's best lawyers. If the tournament allowed decisions to be challenged, it'd be years before a winner could be declared."

"Sorry."

"No b ..." Shego paused. "It's okay, Pumpkin. I made that choice too. Besides, at least now you have to erase that tape of me doing your stupid cheer."

Kim flushed, even the tips of her ears turning red. Shego fought down an urge to touch one and see if it was as hot as it looked.

"Actually ... I never hit 'record'."

"What? Why not?" Shego's eyebrow twitched. "You mean I humiliated myself for nothing?"

"Not for nothing." Kim protested. "As long as you thought there was a tape, there didn't actually need to be one, right?"

Shego frowned.

"I guess."

Kim nodded.

"And if there was actually a tape, you might have found it and destroyed it. You know, if you wanted to be evil again. But if there was no tape for you to find ..."

"Then you'd always be able to hold it over me." Shego whistled. "Nasty. Kimmie, you really missed your calling with this hero deal of yours. If you wanted it, world domination would only be a matter of time."

"That's not my thing." Kim clearly felt a change of subject was in order. "You know ... it seems suspicious that we got given bad information for our mission, and then mom got put in a situation where she either had to get disqualified, or put dad in more danger than he had to be. It was like the missions were chosen to be impossible for us to complete within the rules."

Shego paused in what she was doing, then shrugged.

"The organizers like to mess with the contestants. Probably every task will have a decision like that ... where they have to do choose between the competition, and something else that you really don't want to do. It'd only be odd if the other teams didn't have that happen to them." The green woman pinned Kim's bandage in place. "All done. I bet you've never had an injury that was treated better."

"I dunno." Kim gave a teasing smirk. "The bandage is as neat as one of mom's, but she would also have kissed it better."

Kissed it? The pale woman's eyebrows shot up at the comment, a flush rising in her cheeks. Kim's smirk widened, the redhead obviously enjoying the fact that for once she had managed to shock the older woman. Shego narrowed her eyes. Careful, Kimmie. You play with fire, you sometimes get burned.

"Sorry. Forgot." She leaned forward and gently pressed her lips to the younger woman's bandaged palm, feeling the redhead twitch in surprise. Shego gave a smirk of her own as Kim flushed scarlet, heat racing through the skin the green woman was touching. Shego straightened, her expression deliberately nonchalant as she regarded the obviously tongue-tied teen hero. "Now, I seem to recall someone promising to make me coffee."

Kim did her best to avoid the tingle from her hand as she poured water into the coffee pot. It's just the antiseptic she told herself. It couldn't be anything else. After all, it wasn't like Shego's lips had actually touched her skin, no matter how much the tickling sensation might feel like a smirk across her palm.

The redhead blinked, suddenly realizing that she'd filled the pot to the point of overflowing. She picked up a cup and gingerly dipped it into the water, skimming off some of the excess. Snap out of it, Kim. She told herself as she flicked the power switch on the pot. You're mooning around like you've got a –

The thought screeched to a halt as Kim's eyes widened. Blindly, she reached behind her for one of the kitchen chairs, then sat down with a weak-kneed thump.

"Oh crap."

"You okay, Pumpkin?" Shego immediately called from the living room.

"Uh ... yeah, fine." The redhead slumped back in her chair and closed her eyes. She opened them again to find the green woman standing at the kitchen door.

"I heard you swearing. Thought maybe your hand ..."

"No." Kim shook her head, her gaze falling on the kitchen table, where some water from her cup had slopped onto the surface. "Just spilled some water."

"Okay." Shego seemed to accept the explanation. "I'm just going to hop into the shower and try to rinse some of this salt out of my hair."

"Coffee'll be ready when you get out." Kim nodded, as nonchalantly as she could. The green woman gave her a look, not entirely buying the pretense of unconcern, then shrugged and turned away.

Wiping down the table and putting the cup in the dishwasher were mindless tasks that kept Kim distracted long enough for Shego to start her shower. With a sigh of relief, the redhead slumped back into the chair.

"Okay, you've got ten minutes to work this out." The redhead told herself, then took a deep breath and straightened up. Picturing herself in her mind, Kim looked straight ahead and spoke firmly. "You can't have a crush on Shego."

Why not? The mental image asked. It might look like Kim herself, but the voice it spoke with sounded suspiciously like Shego's deeper timbered tones.

"She's my enemy!" Kim hissed to herself.

Riiiiiiiiight. The voice was definitely Shego's, and now the image in Kim's mind was wavering, as well. Red locks were turning darker and growing longer, and the dark green eyes were turning emerald. You just got done admitting you were friends, remember?

"She could be lying!"

The Kim-becoming-Shego in her mind didn't even bother answering that. Darkening lips simply gave an all too familiar smirk as bright green eyes studied black polish on the nails of hands suddenly turning pale.

Kim sighed. She'd known the protest was weak when she'd made it. She cast about for some other objection as her mental image completed its transformation into Shego. Strangely, it was the clothes that changed last, Kim's mission outfit slowly morphing into the older woman's catsuit.

"Being friends is almost as bad as being enemies." The redhead muttered at last. "I don't want to make things weird between us."

That didn't stop you and Stoppable. Kim's inner Shego snorted. And the two of you are still friends, right?

"Best friends." Kim admitted, smiling slightly at the thought of the blonde-haired boy. The first thing she wanted to do when she got back to Middleton was to see him again, and give him the gifts that were stuffed in the bottom of the still-packed bags she'd left lying in her bedroom: a genuine French cookbook for Ron, and a stuffed toy of a white hippopotamus for his sister Hannah.

Right. So got any other objections? Her mental Shego asked, then gave a sudden snort. Please tell me we're not going to go through the whole "But she's a girl" thing again. I had enough of that the first time.

Kim sighed and shook her head.

Good. So ... Shego's smart. Funny. Has an amazing body. Don't deny it. You've been jealous of her figure since you met her. As far as you know, she doesn't need a database to keep track of all her conquests. Can you come up with even one good reason not to be into her?

"Actually ... I can."

Yeah? What?

"She's made it clear she isn't attracted to me."

That finally silenced her antagonist. The mental image of Shego faded away, leaving Kim alone on the field of battle.

It didn't feel much like she'd won, though.

Author's Notes: Aww, poor Kimmie. I feel kinda bad about ending the chapter here, but after writing this I realized that the section I'd planned to go on with needed to move to a later chapter. So you'll have to wait a while longer to learn about Shego's first crush :-)

I originally wrote the database comment as "make notches in her bed posts", but changed it as a nod to "The Chart" from The L Word.