Yet Another Kigo Fic! – Chapter 5

By Ken-Zero

Disclaimer: I'm not responsible for elevated cardiac levels after the last chapter, or heightened amounts of adrenaline in your system, or..oh! Disclaimer, not surgeon general's warning. KP & Co. aren't mine. I don't make a profit off this. If I did, I'd have to go through royalties and lawyers and all that, and this story would undoubtedly be a lot better since I'd have editors and publishers and all that, too.

On with the show!

Shego groaned deeply as she stirred back to consciousness. Every inch of her hurt, and hurt a lot. Even moving her head side to side was extremely painful. Hell, even breathing felt like she had broken, if not bruised, a couple of ribs when she hit the tree.

This is even worse than when Kimmie knocked me into that power pole a year and some ago, she thought grimly, then grimaced. And even thinking hurts. Ow.

Forcing herself to ignore at least some of the pain, though, she heaved herself up into a sitting position. The first thing she became aware of was that it was night; what sky she could see overhead was black, though offset by thousands of stars. She sometimes forgot what the sky looked like away from cities and the associated light pollution; even the moon seemed brighter than usual, and it wasn't even full. She was sitting on a carpet of pine needles, she saw by moonlight, and the tree she'd smacked into lay off to one side. Other trees, not nearly dense enough to obstruct her view for a long distance, stood straight and tall, apparently undisturbed by her crash landing. It was eerily quiet, though; perhaps the fallen tree had scared some of the animal population away. The only noticeable sound was that of a mountain stream, though Shego couldn't see it; she was still too groggy to judge its distance by sound. She laid herself back on the ground and stared at the sky. A stray thought crossed her mind: I wonder how often Princess takes time to appreciate the scenery like this.

…

Kim!

Shego shot up again and hissed in pain as her injured body protested yet more movement. Frantically she looked around the new little clearing, seeking any trace of the smaller adventurer. The needles did a good job of covering any sort of tracks Kim would have made, as Shego could see nothing of her, which meant Kim had gone off somewhere.

Now that Shego's head didn't hurt so much, she could remember rocketing towards the tree with Kim, switching around at the last second to try and shield Kim from the impact; she knew from past experience that Kim, while tougher than she looked, didn't heal nearly as fast as Shego herself did. Of course, Shego had an edge that came from her meteor-induced powers, so pretty much nobody else healed like she did…except her brothers.

She shook off her wandering thoughts and tried to focus on looking for Kim. She really had no idea why the redhead would have left, as they were enough in the middle of nowhere that the nearest help was probably a Buddhist temple hiding somewhere deeper into the mountains themselves. Shego was of no mind to go knocking on temple doors for help, though, so she forced herself to her feet. A massive spike of pain through her left leg let her know instantly that that was a really, really bad idea, and she almost collapsed in a heap; she carefully sat down, using her right leg and arms to do the lifting, and prodded her other leg carefully. She wasn't particularly enthused about stripping out of her catsuit to check for bruising—her fingers and leg would let her know, though she doubted she had two square inches of skin that wasn't bruised—so she simply made sure nothing was broken.

Her ankle hurt like a bitch, though she could still move it, which meant most probably a sprain, at least in her mind. Setting her teeth against the pain she stood up again, this time making sure to use her left side as little as possible. She hobbled over to a standing tree, leaning against it to catch her breath, and took another look around.

The moonlight was bright enough for Shego to see a long distance, but she saw absolutely zero signs of movement. A feeling not unlike panic gripped her as she realized she was alone, and that scared her slightly. Shego hadn't felt panic since…actually, she couldn't remember exactly when. It wasn't pleasant, especially since the feeling, combined with her aches, pains, sprains, and bruises, was causing her to hyperventilate. She shut her eyes tight and forced herself to breathe normally.

What the hell is wrong with me, she thought. Why am I in such bad shape?

No answer was forthcoming, but she did manage to calm down. She opened her eyes again, this time looking for the source of the water noise. It was faint enough to suggest a bit of a walk, and she grimaced at the thought, but she knew she was tougher than a sprained ankle and lots of bruises.

After a brief walk—hobble, really—she found herself at the top of a slight decline, at the bottom of which was the stream she had been hearing. The reflected moonlight suggested the stream was quite deep, and she could see its banks easily, which she estimated at a good twelve feet or so apart. It was a fairly large stream, and she was sure it was freezing, since it flowed down from the mountain.

Then movement caught her eye from her peripheral vision, and she turned to look…and turned away just as quickly.

A very naked, very wet Kim Possible was standing a few feet into the little river.

After a few seconds, Shego was struck by something: since when was she self-conscious about other people, especially Kimmie? She was the big, bad Shego, unafraid of seeing her opponents reduced to pitiful emotional wrecks when she was done humiliating them with her skills and powers. The thing was…Kim was practically her equal. She hadn't been able to do that to Kim, not once, not ever. The littler redhead, in fact, almost always came out on top. That meant, to Shego, that Kim was more worthy of her respect than anyone else she'd come across yet…and she'd earned it. Maybe that's why I'm…embarrassed for her.

Regardless, Shego felt a massive amount of relief behind the embarrassment as she realized she, indeed, was not alone.

A mild splash made her turn around again, and she watched as Kim bent in half at the waist, letting her head fall and dousing her hair in the water. She ran her fingers through it, then straightened again, causing the sodden mess to slap against her back.

Shego felt her breath catch at the sight. The moonlight—both real and reflected—bathed Kim as completely as the water did, and her skin fairly well glowed. If I didn't know I liked her already, this scene would convince me, she thought in something akin to awe. She took a step forward, hoping to come clear away from the tree trunk she was hidden behind and get a better view.

She happened to come down on her left foot.

A strangled hiss escaped her as she fell to her knees, hands going to support her on the ground as her injured ankle gave out under her body weight. She kept her head up, though, watching Kim's reaction.

The slender hero whipped her head around at the noise, and she dropped into a combat stance despite her nudity. Shego could see her searching for the source of the noise, and raised a hand weakly in greeting. "Hey, Princess."

Kim relaxed slightly, though one arm moved to cover her breasts while the other went to her side, her hand pressing against it. "You're awake!" she said.

"That I am," Shego acknowledged. "And I'm hurting like a sonuvabitch."

"How…how's your head?"

Shego levered herself into a sitting position. "Feels okay, but from the sound of your voice…" She reached up and gingerly patted around her skull. Her hair, though rife with pine needles, felt dry enough to the touch, nothing caking it together, and she didn't feel anything terribly out of the ordinary. "I don't feel anything," she reported.

"You have no idea how glad I am to hear that," Kim answered, sitting down herself in the water. It rose to just under her shoulders.

"You're not alone," Shego replied dryly. "Tell you what, though, I don't remember much of anything between flying at the tree and waking up on the ground."

"Concussion, probably," Kim said. "I…don't remember, either. I had my eyes shut tight until we stopped moving."

Shego grunted. "Can't say that I blame you."

"When…when we landed on the ground I was scared stiff that you'd finally done something dumb enough to not wake up from it," Kim said after a short pause. "You didn't wake up for so long…it took me like ten minutes to even remember to check for your heartbeat."

Something in Shego cringed at the tone of Kim's voice; apparently the hero had been suffering some serious anguish while Shego had been knocked out. "Sorry about that, Kimmie," she said.

Kim surprised her by uttering a short, sharp "Ha!" She shook her head. "You don't have anything to be sorry over," she said, and in the light Shego could barely make out a half-grin. "It's not like you could control the circumstances any better than you did. Stupid me, I didn't have my jetpack or glider wings or anything like that, either. Besides, it seems I really can do anything—even panic."

Shego's mouth turned up into its usual smirk. "I almost wish I could have been awake to see that."

"It wasn't a pretty sight," Kim admitted. Silence fell between them for a moment until Kim spoke again. "Could…could you maybe turn around while I get out of here? It's freezing…"

"Why's that, Princess? I mean, I could join you, maybe heat things up a bit," Shego returned with a leer. "You, me, no one else, no animals, no clothes, chilly mountain stream…very picture of romantic, wouldn't you think? All we'd need are some candles." She held up a plasma-encased finger; her reward was a few droplets of water raining on her face as Kim tried her hardest to splash the other woman from her sitting position.

"I swear," Kim huffed, "that sometimes you're a bigger perv than Ron or Felix, and they're guys, so you'd expect that."

Shego laughed, even though it still really hurt to do so. "Relax, Princess. I won't do anything you don't want me to do. I owe you at least that much."

"Thanks. Does that mean you're still going to watch me get dressed?"

Shego nodded. "Mmhm. And I'm gonna enjoy every second of it, you sexy thing you." She made a little growl noise to emphasize her point, dearly wishing she could see Kim's face in better light right now. It was probably ten different shades of red.

"Fine," Kim sighed. She rose from the water, a hand at her side again as she gingerly picked her way to the shore. Shego couldn't help but stare as she moved; she was so lithe, so graceful, even while freezing and probably shivering to death. Still, there was something about the arm pressed against her torso that Shego didn't like.

"Princess, are you alright?" she asked.

"I'm freezing, shivering, soaking wet, and slightly embarrassed, but otherwise, yes. Why?"

"Are you cramping?"

"No…" Kim stopped, allowing some excess water to continue dripping off before getting to her clothes. "Oh. This?" she asked, lifting the arm in question.

"Yeah," Shego confirmed. "You okay?" she repeated.

Kim laughed weakly. "Do you want the honest answer or the feel-good answer?"

"Honest," Shego said instantly, frowning slightly. If she's injured, I'll…I'll…

"Well, when we hit the tree, you got KO'd almost instantly—at least, I think so, since you weren't holding on as tight anymore. I hit a few branches on the way down, one scratched up my side, and another," she finished, indicating her clothes, "yanked my Kimmunicator off my wrist."

"Shit," Shego swore. "How long was I out?" Her mood had gone from relief to anger and fear in the time it took for Kim to explain how she'd gotten hurt. She was not a happy camper by any stretch of the imagination.

"Only a couple of hours, I think," Kim answered. "Look, Shego, don't beat yourself up or anything—at least, not any more beat up than you already are," she finished with half a grin. "I'm okay, really. It just stings a little."

"Like hell it does, Kimmie," Shego said, forcing herself to her feet, still favoring the bothersome left ankle. She limped down to where Kim stood. "Lemme look at it," she demanded. Kim shied away, covering herself again; up this close, Shego could make out the blush painting Kim's cheeks. Shego grunted in frustration. "Look, Kimmie, I'm not going to feel any better about this until I can see it for myself, okay? It's my fault, anyway, so I'm going to look at it one way or another. And if it makes you feel better, it's all I'm going to inspect."

Kim relented finally with a big sigh. Shego could tell she was still embarrassed, but the fact that she was willing meant Kim trusted her, and Shego privately admitted that was a very nice feeling. She hadn't given it much thought before—frankly, before escaping from the lair, she hadn't really had a reason to think on it—but in this less-tense moment Shego felt special that she had Kim's trust. And she damned well wasn't going to do anything to violate it.

That, unfortunately, meant that she had to be chaste while inspecting Kim's side. Much as she would have loved to even tickle the redhead, she held herself back, instead keeping a serious expression while she checked on Kim's injury.

It wasn't terrible, Shego decided; it was a little too deep to be a scrape but too shallow to be a laceration or whatever the proper medical term would be. It had been bleeding, that she could see, but the chill water had helped cease the flow—that and the time that had elapsed. She placed her hand over the injury and stood up, ignoring the pain in her ankle, looking Kim in the eye.

"I'm sorry," she apologized.

Kim said nothing for a moment, and Shego figured she'd scared her again or something from the look in her eyes. After all, Shego apologizing was not an everyday occurrence—in fact, the only time she herself could recall doing so was long before she'd started working for Drakken; the Moodulator and Attitudinator didn't count, because then she wasn't really herself. This time, though, she really was sorry; the chance of having Kim as a friend had been looking too good to pass up, and then she had to go and do this to her. Shego wasn't sure if, after this, Kim would have anything to do with her again…and while before, Shego probably couldn't have cared any less, right now the thought was almost physically painful, which came as a huge surprise.

She needn't have worried, apparently; a few seconds passed before Kim smiled shyly. "I told you already, you don't have anything to apologize for," she said, though she didn't move from under Shego's touch.

"Just let me be pathetic for a few minutes," Shego said, mirroring Kim's smile with a little more confidence. "Trust me; you won't see it again any time soon."

Kim giggled lightly. "If you insist," she said, and Shego could see her shoulders relax.

"Are you really okay?" she asked Kim, concern in her eyes.

"Honest, I'll be fine. I've had far worse," Kim reminded her.

"Alright. I guess I'll believe you." She let Kim go, and the other girl shivered at the loss of heat. "And get your clothes on. You're giving a whole new meaning to being an adventure buff." Kim giggled but obeyed, and when she was dressed again she helped Shego limp back to where they'd come from.

By now the moon was well past its peak. Kim said, "Unless you want to do something, I'd suggest we sleep for the night."

Shego was thoroughly exhausted, hungry, hurting, and irritable in general, so Kim's suggestion was taken as a godsend. "That sounds wonderful," she said, slipping her arm off Kim's shoulder and flopping on the ground. "Don't wake me up early," she warned, lying down and turning on her less-injured right side, facing Kim. She fell asleep quickly, her breathing dropping into the deep, regular rhythm of total rest.

Less than an hour later Shego was slightly disturbed in her rest; she cracked one eye open to see Kim curled up almost into a ball, one arm around Shego's waist, the crown of her head practically under Shego's nose. Shego draped her arm in turn over Kim and went back to sleep, feeling much more content than she had…in a very long time.

It was the sun in her face that finally woke Shego the next day, the offending orb shining almost directly into Shego's eyes. Just my luck that I wind up facing east when I sleep, she figured. She stretched languorously, taking stock of how her body responded; she was pretty pleased to note that most of the aches and pains from the night before were gone, and her left leg was feeling less like it was utterly broken and more like it was sore. She got to her feet, happy again at how her ankle was ready to support more weight, and looked around for her companion.

She spotted Kim a little ways away, stretching away the soreness from the day before. "Morning, Kimmie," she waved, and the adventurer waved back in the middle of a back-bend. Shego waited patiently while Kim finished before speaking again. "How're you feeling today?"

"Less like a train wreck and more like a person," she answered frankly, "except I'm starving."

"That makes two of us," Shego agreed. "On both counts." She did a little experimental loosening-up of her own and found, to her pleasant surprise, that the activity helped work out most of the rest of the leftover effects from yesterday's arboreal stunt. "Are you up for a bit of a hike, Princess?" she asked when finished.

"Sure," Kim said readily. "Are we finding a way out of here?"

"If I'm right, we won't need to," Shego answered with a hint of a smile.

"What do you mean?" Kim asked, but Shego would say nothing, no matter how much she badgered her about it. Instead, she simply set off, and Kim followed, the two of them picking their way through the light forest and back to the foot of the mountain. They set about climbing the side a short way, extremely thankful that the lair blowing up hadn't dislodged the snow cap or caused a cataclysmic rock slide. Shego called a halt about four hours later as she scanned the area carefully.

"What are you looking for?" Kim asked, her curiosity now evident in her voice.

"A thing," Shego said vaguely; her attention was clearly elsewhere. She was searching for a particular rock formation that was supposed to disguise the entrance to another emergency exit for her jet, similar to the one she'd used at Dr. D's last lair. After about fifteen minutes of looking from various angles, she finally found it, breathing a sigh of relief that the rock itself looked less than obliterated despite its proximity to the lair itself. The boulders that masked it were still blackened and carbon-scored, and one was actually half-melted, but they'd held up. Shego ignited her hands and warned Kim to stand back before she unleashed a double-fisted blast at the base of the giant rocks. Between the energy and concussive force of her power the boulders were easily dislodged, tumbling down the mountainside to pulverize a few trees at the entrance to the forest. Where the rocks had been, there now was a pair of dull metal doors.

Kim gaped at the scene, her face impersonating a fish remarkably well. Shego only smirked, saying nothing, as she pressed her still-glowing hands to the doors; once again, rear-mounted temperature sensors detected her lethal heat and the doors ground open. Shego put her hands out and walked back to Kim. "Coming, Princess?" she asked, holding a hand out to the other girl.

Kim snapped her mouth shut and shook her head. "And why didn't I ever see one of these before?"

Shego shrugged, her hand still extended. "I never used one; Dr. D and I usually escaped together, remember."

Kim nodded and took the proffered hand, and Shego pulled her close. Kim 'eep'ed gently at the contact.

"Relax, Pumpkin," Shego said soothingly. "It's a small platform." Indeed, when Kim looked down and saw the three-foot-square plate under their feet, she relaxed as ordered. The platform began its descent, and Kim and Shego waited in silence. Kim actually relaxed to the point that she put an arm around Shego's waist, which the super-powered woman didn't fail to notice. It made her feel good inside, made her feel safe, which, to her, was funny, since Shego was going to be the one to get them to safety.

At the bottom of the shaft the platform stopped, and they got off. Kim gasped lightly when she saw Shego's jet sitting in its quick-launch rigging. She looked up at Shego. "You've had this a lot longer than the one time I saw it a couple of years ago, haven't you?"

"Exactly right, Kimmie," Shego said with some pride. "Believe it or not, I'm actually a licensed pilot. I can fly without stealth and be totally legit."

Kim scoffed. "That's a stretch…but I suppose in a sneaky sense that's even sneakier than stealth."

"More like brazen," Shego said, her smirk returning. "Anyway, this is our ticket home, as I'm sure you guessed."

"I had an idea," Kim confessed with a cheeky grin.

"Good for you, I always knew you were smarter than the rest." Shego released Kim to unlock the wall cabinet containing her g-suits. "Lemme get these out, we'll get into them and get out of this silly place."

"What about Drakken?" Kim asked.

"Dr. D's either long-gone and on his own, or crashed somewhere—and with his luck, he crashed into a police station. He's probably being jailed as we speak for destruction of public property, at least until they dig up the rest of his dirt."

"You're not going to help him? Break him out?"

Shego leveled a flat look at Kim. "I thought that much was evident when I blew up his geo-auto-whatsit-thingy."

To say Kim looked shocked was an understatement; she looked like the sky turned yellow and grass was purple. "You mean—?"

"Yes, Kimmie," Shego agreed, sounding exasperated, though the slight smile that accompanied the words softened her tone somewhat. "I mean I'm giving up Dr. D and his life of take-over-the-world. We both know that I could do a much better job of it anyway, but that's just not my thing." Before Kim could squeal like a little schoolgirl, Shego continued, "That doesn't mean I'm taking up the hero-ing thing again, you know."

Kim deflated almost as quickly as she'd gotten excited. "Aww, you and your reality check." She sighed. "I guess that makes sense, though. I don't think I would be ready for something like that, either."

"And I don't know that I'll ever be ready," Shego agreed. "Not after my brothers ruined it for me, at least. But enough about that for now. Put this on." She handed Kim one of the g-suits and took another one for herself. She helped the now-docile cheerleader get into hers before pulling her own on and zipping it up. She grabbed two helmets off the top rack, handed one to Kim, and walked a ladder over to the side of the jet, bracing it against the fuselage under the cockpit.

She turned back to Kim. "It's gonna be a tight fit, trying to get us both in there," she said, "but I think we can handle it for a few hours, don't you?"

"You know me," Kim responded with a weak attempt at a smile. "I can--"

"Do anything, right," Shego finished. "Shouldn't have asked."

They ascended the ladder, Shego settling onto the pilot's seat and Kim climbing awkwardly into her lap. Shego had to put her helmeted head on Kim's shoulder in order to see. "Okay, Princess," she said quietly, her breath on Kim's ear and cheek, "this might be rough." Kim nodded slightly and donned her helmet. Shego flicked the jet's systems on switch by switch, watching their panels as the lights came up green. When the engines started she gave them a few seconds to warm up; she then punched a short series of numbers into the keypad on the front panel. The display paused for a moment before the words "Catapult Ready" appeared, and Shego pushed her throttle forward. The jet's turbines increased their volume from a whine to a scream, but as the tunnel was designed with an aircraft-carrier-style catapult system, it didn't move. A countdown appeared on the screen, and Shego kept one hand on the stick while the other went around Kim's chest, pulling her closer. The countdown reached zero, Shego pressed a button on the stick, and the jet took off like a scared cat; it cleared its two hundred mile per hour speed cap just before the tunnel exit and only continued accelerating as they climbed gradually.

A minute later they were several tens of thousands of feet in the air. Shego relaxed her grip on Kim, who was a bit wide-eyed and breathing heavily. "You okay there, Kimmie?" she asked, her voice neutral; she wanted to tease, but Kim's behavior had her slightly concerned.

"Yeah, I think," the other girl answered. "It's just…that was my first time…" Her voice trailed off, sentence unfinished.

Shego grinned evilly. Bad choice of words. "You mean I was your first?" she asked, her voice the very model of innocence. She even faked a gasp.

Kim nodded before Shego's words sunk in; she then flushed bright red. "Shego!" she nearly shrieked.

The former villainess just laughed and laughed.

Five hours later they landed.

As far as Shego was concerned, it was a repeat of the last time she'd fled via jet—she landed in the same parking lot, taxied into the same underground hangar, and led Kim to her hideout. Kim was, for lack of a better term, in awe.

"Why did you ever leave this place?" she asked. "This is amazing."

"Eh, I had to earn my living somehow," Shego replied, shrugging it off. "Remember, Dr. D paid me a lot of money. Now you know where a lot of it went. I've got places like this all over."

"No wonder nobody had any clue where you went when you weren't out and about with Drakken."

"That's kinda the point, Kimmie," Shego said dryly. "Otherwise it wouldn't be much of a hideout, now, would it?"

"I know that," Kim said, exasperated. "But still. This place is incredible. It looks like a real home. Just without windows."

"I strive for creature comforts," Shego replied. "Makes it easier to relax." She pointed to a corner of the room. "Through there's the bathroom. If you want it, go for it, otherwise I'm going to hog it for a long, long time."

Kim waved her off. "It's your home. Hideout. Whatever. If you want to go first, no big."

Shego shrugged again. "Your loss." She ventured into the bathroom and began to strip down for the nice, long, hot shower she'd told Kim she was going to take. She turned the water on, intending on having it get as hot as she could stand it—which was actually much warmer than most people—and watched the water vapor fog up the mirror.

Then she got a really evil, really amusing idea: as she slipped out of her undergarments, she cracked open the door slightly, spotting Kim watching the large screen television. With careful aim she tossed her quite-black bra underhanded across the room…and watched as it landed square on Kim's head, falling in front of her face. A wild grin broke out on Shego's face and she closed the door quickly, counting down the seconds until…

"SHEGO!" Kim yelped.

"Right on schedule," the green-skinned woman said to herself as she tried hard not to laugh out loud. Kim pounded on the door, then the sound stopped, and Shego figured she just huffed and went back to the couch. She chuckled for a few seconds before getting into the shower itself. By now, the water was perfect.

Ninety-seven minutes later a thoroughly-waterlogged Shego exited the bathroom, clad in only a towel. "Hey, Kimmie," she said as she walked behind her big leather couch, "it's all yours, but you may want to wait a while for the hot water to return."

"Mmkay." Her voice was distant, like she was only paying ten percent attention.

Shego stopped for a second. "I'm going to make something to eat. You want anything?"

"Mmkay."

She smirked. "I'm going to drop this towel and dance around the place in the buff."

"Mmkay."

"Then I'm going to get in your face and you're going to love every second of it."

"Mm—wait. What?" She turned from her spot on the couch to face Shego, who had a hand on the edge of her towel and looked poised to, indeed, fling it off at a moment's notice. "Shego!" Kim squeaked again. "Do you have to tease me like that every chance you get?"

"Your reactions are mastercard-worthy," Shego replied, grinning slyly. At Kim's confused look she added, "Priceless. It's just so much fun! Besides, you can't deny you would enjoy it, can you?"

Kim flushed even redder this time before burying her face in the couch. She said something to Shego, but the cushions muffled it so completely that it was unintelligible.

Shego laughed delightedly, reaching over the couch to ruffle Kim's hair. "I was serious about making some chow, though. You want anything?"

"Please and thank you," Kim said, lifting her head from the couch far enough to allow Shego to understand her.

Shego nodded before leaving to get dressed; twenty minutes later lunch was served, and each woman found her manners forgotten as they ate for the first time in nearly two and a half days.

When the culinary carnage ended each of them sat back, extremely satisfied. Comfortable silence reigned for a few minutes before either spoke; Kim did so first.

"Shego, I just wanted to say thanks, for real, for getting me out of that place before it blew," she said honestly, still leaned back in her chair; it looked like she was speaking to the ceiling. "And for all the stuff you did for me after that. I'm…I'm really glad you're not working with Drakken any more, as selfish as that sounds. I know you're used to doing what you want with your life, and you know what's funny? I wish I could be like that."

"What are you talking about, Princess?" Shego asked. "Isn't that how you got started with your saving the world thing?"

"Well, I guess you're right," Kim admitted. "But…I don't know. It's like I can't get out of it if I wanted to, you know? If I wanted to do something else. Plus there was cheerleading and being picked as valedictorian and now there's college and all the stuff that comes with that and…it's just a lot of stuff that I feel like I have to do, instead of what I want to do."

"Well, what do you want to do?" Shego asked, confused. "Don't tell me you want to follow in my footsteps. I don't know if my mind could take it."

"I don't know if I could take it," Kim replied. "What do I want to do? I know I want to go to college and all that. And as much as I may complain, I like my missions. The problem is, I have so much to do now that I wish the days had like thirty hours to get everything in."

"There's your problem, Kimmie. Just because you can do anything doesn't mean you should. Pick a thing or three at a time. Otherwise you'll drive yourself nuts, burn yourself out, and all that."

"Yeah…I guess it'll be better when I'm out of college and everything." Kim sighed. "Anyway, back to my main point…thanks for saving me, and I mean it."

Shego smiled gently. "I told you already, Kimmie: I like you. I think I have for a long time, which is why I couldn't ever kill you, even though I always blustered about it." She giggled lightly. "I think that's also why I saved you a couple of times before, like when Dr. D was visited by that alien chick the first time. I couldn't stand to see her trying to take you out—that was supposed to be my job, after all—so I had to wipe the floor with her. She wouldn't even properly mock the guy!" She blew out a long breath, looking over at Kim finally. "That last day, when we got you and the doc off that station—we'd been together before, but I think that was the first time we fought side-by-side for the same goal. And you know what? It was fun. Had all the adrenaline I could ever want—fighting for life would do that to anyone, I'm sure—but I'm also not too keen on having to gamble with my very existence to get to that level. That's why I don't think I could do the hero thing. I'm too…I don't know, used to the normal stuff? And the exciting stuff is too dangerous to really get into more than once or twice."

Kim nodded slowly. "I know what you mean, I think. Really, what I do, I only enjoy when it's a challenge, and Drakken's schemes were the best challenges because you were there. So I guess I liked you too, for a long time, but in a weird way…is it possible to really like someone normally when you look forward to seeing them only because it means you get to fight? Then there were those couple of days when you'd been zapped by Electronique…I know I keep bringing that up, but I'm also convinced that that's what made me drop thinking of you as a rival. So now the only excitement would be from something even more challenging than ever to make up for you being out of the business." She graced Shego with a helpless look. "Does that mean I'm going to be bored to tears with missions?"

"You won't know until you find out, Kimmie," Shego answered. "Right now, it sounds like it, but you never know; maybe something else can take my place. Like Dementor's lairs or something, those were usually pretty complex, from what I can remember."

"Yeah…I guess. Besides, people's tastes change with time, so maybe I can find something else."

Neither really had anything else to add to the conversation, so they lapsed into that same comfortable silence again. After about half an hour Kim remembered Shego's earlier offer and went off to the shower; she took much less time than Shego did, which hardly surprised the green-skinned woman. They sat together for the rest of the evening, having little actual conversation, instead zoning out on whatever they could find on Shego's TV. At some point close to midnight Kim nodded off, and she slipped sideways from her sitting position on the couch to land with her head on Shego's lap. Almost without thinking Shego placed a hand on Kim's head, and when she really noticed what she was doing she stared for more than a few seconds. Kim didn't stir; in fact, she looked quite content in her current position, and Shego smiled softly, her face having an expression of warmth, of tenderness, that possibly nobody had ever seen it wear—at least, not for a very long time. She stroked Kim's hair lightly until she felt herself going under, succumbing to her own need for sleep, at which point she shut off the television and gathered Kim into her arms.

Kim shifted a little bit as Shego carried her, bridal-style, over the threshold to the bedroom. She deposited the smaller girl on the bed itself while she doffed her clothing and replaced it with an overlarge t-shirt. She climbed in next to Kim and, acting in accord with her usual impulsiveness, placed a chaste kiss on Kim's forehead. "Goodnight, Kim," she whispered, allowing herself a small grin at the use of the adventurer's real name. Then she laid back herself, her memories of the last few days together with her former arch-rival filling her mind with pleasant dreams for a change.

A/N: Sigh. I wish I could get these out as quickly as the first few chapters; unfortunately, I hit big patches of writer's block and can stamp out maybe a few paragraphs in an hour instead of a few pages. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this installment.

King in Yellow: I know the cliche in question, and tried to avoid it accordingly; I like some cliches but too many of them and the story reads like, well, all the rest, which is why they're cliches, I suppose :)