Just a small side note to those that reviewed the first version of this, don't feel obligated to review again just to have reviewed the rose... I still have copies of all the reviews too.

Also, I apologize. This chapter is going to carry on and on. Detrimental to keeping readers with shorter attention spans, but definitely needed for the... ambiance?

Not quite the right word, but it fits a shoe better than "mood".

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Shego felt her fingers twitching inside the boy's shirt. The buffoon not only insulted her by knowing when her birthday was, but tried to give her a gift? Her clench on the fabric tightened, her palms beginning to sweat. Ron could no longer feel his body, the death glare he was receiving being mind numbingly horrid. "Okay, maybe not-so-happy birthday?" Flinging the mass of flesh across the room, the green powers resembling flames erupted from her hands almost involuntarily, cascading around the room to create small explosions where any stray bolt landed. Shego screamed, nearly tearing the ear drums out of the evil doctor, who was currently a good hundred miles away trying to hide in some remote cave to save himself from any interaction with his partner on the one day off she made him write into the contract.

That first year he hadn't known. It had apparently slipped her mind during the contract signing as well, but that didn't matter. What mattered was how little lair was left by the time he found the contract and revised it. He had mentioned something about going over a death ray with her, and then it was all blank. He surmised the memory was so unbelievably horrific that his mind had blanked it out as it was happening. He barely remembered handing the woman the new contract fresh with his signature and seeing her come down off her fit, and even then she was still someone to fear.

But now all that anger was directed at one person. Were it any other person, the sanity of this move would likely have been questioned, for anyone and everyone who had the cognitive ability to count to three should know the one day not to mess with this super-powered beauty. But Ronald Stoppable was not what many normal people would call sane, though his logic is always far deeper than most people care to look, including himself.

Shego, now clearly focused on the cause of her anger, bolted towards the cowering intruder. She dove at him, which he leapt away from, trying to use his hands to protect his body from the claws. She turned to leap again, and for a split moment something strange registered in her mind. Her anger returning to the forefront, she went after him again, her fingers barely missing the open palm of the evader. Her mind again clicked that something was wrong, but yet it didn't matter. This was dead flesh she needed removed.

This continued for nearly an hour, until a somewhat tired Shego had finally burnt off enough anger for her mind to get a thought in edgewise. Ron had fled into a small corner of her closet, and she tore at him with her powers, when he held up his hands. There, her mind told her, do you see that? Indeed, his hands had cuts and punctures all along them. A couple had reopened and were bleeding, albeit slowly. The blood trickled down to his wrist, and he opened his eyes. The woman was staring with a very confused look on her face. The kind of face girls first give him when he mentions Rufus, the one right before disgust. It's a look that screams "I don't know what that is, why its there, or why I need to know about it."

Her hands powered down, quickly placing one of the sidekick's in them. Not caring what injury she furthered to his hand, Shego turned it over again and again, looking the wounds over. Letting the hand go to walk over to the bed, she picked up the rose and eyed it over carefully. There were thorns on it, though not even a single one had been broken off. The rose itself looked nearly perfect, save maybe an hour's worth of wilting off the bush.

"You... This... Me?" Shego slumped into the bed, her perplexing expression only growing dimmer. Taking this time to look at the hand she had inspected so closely, Ron grew into a state of almost understanding.

"Well yeah, its your birthday, and no one else really got you anything, right? I figured someone had to say its nice you're alive."

Quickly reforming to hatred again, she started spouting, "No one gets me anything because I tell them not to. I don't want people to think its nice I'm alive. I don't want people pitying me because it's some date on the calendar. You take this floral disaster and play sorry with someone else, like Kimmie. She could use it."

Ron looked past Shego for a moment, his eyes glossing a bit. As quickly as they had gone down, his expression came back in full determination. Without another word he walked out of her room, earning a satisfied smirk from the woman occupied within.

Stretching a bit, she let a relaxing sigh loose as she slid her body to the floor, leaving her muscles to unbind. After a few minutes, she picked herself off the floor and ventured into the bathroom, peeling her jumpsuit off. It was time for a good body cleansing, she worked up quite a sweat today.

Shuffling back into her bedroom wearing her nightshirt and a towel around her hair, she sat at her dresser, pulling the towel away. Her hair fell to the floor, neatly tangled in a slightly wet mass. Taking a brush out, she started slowly pulling the bristles through the dark locks, careful not to let a single hair get caught in the maze. A quarter hour had passed before she noticed the rose still left on her floor, discarded as soon as she felt the disturber had gone far enough away. Wondering why she cared to wait, she picked it up, turning it carefully in her hand. The green petals were no longer as energetic, nor did they have the same sheen they had when she first looked at it.

"Nothing special at all about it," Shego mused. Flipping it between fingers, she caught a thorn against her thumb, dropping it. Putting the hurt appendage in her mouth and pointing a lit finger at the traitor, she quickly stopped herself from blasting the flora. "I suppose it is a little special that he got some unique colors, but its simple genetic manipulation Dr D could do in his sleep." Pulling back her hand, she looked over the small hole. "The kid must have looked through a lot of them to find this one to have all the scratches he did." Picking up the gift carefully, she set it on the dresser. "I'll pay you back for my thumb tomorrow. I've worked up enough bad mojo today not to screw it up by angering some tree hugger."

Settling herself into her bed, the villainess closed her eyes. Today was worse than she expected, yet something eased her right into sleep. She still had her fun nightmares, but something felt different about them. It had been a crappy day she would remember.

The next morning, she stretched and yawned to the feeling of warm morning light. She grumbled when she saw where the sun was, remembering her stunt with the alarm clock the morning before. Hearing the door open, she quickly leapt up, ready to take down whoever invaded her room. Hearing the person stop in their tracks, Shego allowed her eyes to focus, seeing... Stoppable again? And he was holding another one of those blasted roses!

"Happy not-your-birthday, Shego."

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This isn't going to be a birthday-specific story. Nor do I really have an ending in mind. I might even keep doing this day-by-day blow-by-blow thing (I doubt it, though it would be cool to do it like that for a full year's worth... First story on FF that was 365 chapters long. I wonder if they'd start getting restrictive about how much server space I was using by that point...)