DISCLAIMER: All of the Disney characters in this fic are not mine although I wish they were. I'm also borrowing the idea and storyline from the movie and book by the same name called "Ima, Ai ni Yukimasu". The book is by Takuji Ichikawa and the movie (and later the TV series as well) are both based on the book. Hope you enjoy! Comments and complaints welcomed :-)

Author's Note: If it's in italics and has parenthesis around, it means that it's a flashback. i.e. (" I am italics" )

If it's just italics then it's a thought. i.e. " I am a thought "

If it's italics that's been underlined, then it was said in the past by the person having the flashback. ( " I have been said in the past. " )

Timeline: See Chapter 1...

i

-- -- -- Chapter 4 -- -- --

It's strange.

She has dreamed of this very moment for months. There were several scenarios where she'd run up and hug her mate and never let go; where'd she scream and yell and throw a tantrum for deceiving and leaving her; where'd she'd chase Kim around while throwing plasma and they'd end up fighting each other until they were both too tired to do anything else other then holding hands; where'd she fall and cry and cling to her better half like the lifeline she was to her...

All those cliche things that she had often scoffed or laughed at when Kim read aloud those parts of her romance novels to her... and yet... despite her hope and despite her heart screaming "Yes this is her! This is my soulmate! Go to her!" she can't seem to feel anything at all. All she could get was the feeling of something being... different... and wrong. It was as if Kim's gone so far away from her in the year they spent apart... as if they aren't looking at each other with mere yards between them, yards that would only take her half a minute to get to the seated redhead at full run.

She knows this but she can't seem to do anything more than stand and stare like a dumbass, uncertain and unable to do more than drinking in everything about her mate in that one single minute before--

"Daddy!" The children squeal with happiness as they run toward the seated woman stopping short of throwing themselves on her probably giving the world saver the huge grins that Kim had often said was cute.

("They're like little puppies; I can almost imagine a little tail waving behind them.")

Before she knows it, she finds herself behind their daughter and isn't able to stop herself from asking the red haired woman what the display earlier had answered,

"Kimmie..." Kim shifts her eyes from the children up to hers as Shego speaks and a chill slides down the green skinned woman's spine at the blank stare in her mate's dull olive eyes. "Is that really you, Kimmie?"

"Kimmie?" Kim's voice sounds hoarse as if it hasn't been used in a very long time but the questioning tone is unmistakable. It is only then that Shego realized how haggard her mate looks, with her purple and black mission outfit clinging to her much thinner frame while looking weather worn with dirt patches -- some of which is on parts of her tanish-pale skin like her face and arms -- and a few holes.

"I...Is that my name?" The chill turns her stomach and the fear in her heart causes her hands to shake. A part of her is glad that she had the foresight to shove them into her pockets to hide her shakiness from her daughter. Unfortunately for her, Iskra is old enough to understand that something is wrong.

"Daddy?" Shego could hear the tentative questioning tone from her that almost sounds like a whimper. Kim's eyes shift to that of the children and she repeats her words with a tone that sounds to her like disbelief.

"Dad-dy?" Nothing is said again. Shego didn't really understand why they are all still rooted in place as the red head examines them all. Maybe she's hoping that it's a nightmare, that when she wakes up it's morning again and she can head back home to her children. Maybe it's because they're hoping that Kim's either joking or that the longer they stood together like this the more likely that the red head would remember them.

"Who... who are you?" Whatever it is, isn't working, if anything, Kim seems to look even more confused. Shego couldn't stop herself from slowly moving closer and into one of the sun beams, hoping that maybe it's because of the darkness of the barn that is causing her confusion. Unfortunately, the only thing that this move did is cause her heart pain when her mate tries to ease herself closer to the wall, away from them.

Even from where she is standing, Shego can see Kaine tense his shoulders then relax. He slowly steps up to offer his hand to the seated woman. Kim eyes the hand warily and Shego lets out a silent breath that she didn't realize she had been holding when, after a few seconds, the red head takes the offered hand, allowing herself to be pulled to her feet.

It's still raining when they finally returned to their home and it took a little bit of convincing to get Kim to allow Shego to make sure she has no visible and/or life threatening injuries, of which there are none surprisingly enough.

Once the checkup is through, the three of them lead the amnesic through all the rooms of their home. Kim spends her time clutching the white towel to her, as she looks through the various things that they point out to her, the children at her heels and clinging to her shirt. The hope that she may have remembered something is when they arrived into the last room, the so called "shadow training room" on "Floor One" where the adults worked on their katas or practice new moves. Kim seem drawn to the practice tonfas, bo staffs, nunchakus, and sanjieguns, all of which were the weapons that she had favored in the past.

"Do you still not remember anything, Kimmie?" Shego asks quietly as her mate walks closer to the real weapons with 3 black slash marks drawn on them but doesn't attempt to touch them. Kim pauses in her examination of the weapons and nods slowly. Shego watches her look into the mirror with a simple dark wood frame in the middle of the triangle of weapons -- the red nunchaku with the cyan twin short swords above the mirror, the yellow bo staff with the green meteor hammer on the left, the blue tonfas with the black war fan on the right, and the sanjiegun seemingly connecting the three together, the ends of which are pointing to the darker green and purple sai slightly above the nunchaku.

Kim slides her hand to touch her hair as if unsure that the image she sees in the mirror is actually her. Trying to ease the awkwardness in the air Shego hurriedly says,

"You're... well... it's a bit complicated... but you're Kimberly Ann Possible, you're my husband... and Kaine and Iskra's father."

"I'm a husband," Kim repeats again in a questioning tone that causing Shego to feel unsure of herself. "And a father?" Seeing the picture frame of their family in the corner Shego takes it and hands it to her.

"See, look!" Kim takes the picture and Shego holds her breath again as she looks over the picture. Her mate sniffs a bit and smiles.

"It's me..." The smile relaxes the three of them and Iskra takes this chance to ask with a grin.

"Daddy, what's it like in the Archive Star?" The confused look returns to the amnesic woman's face and before she could say anything else other than a "Huh?" Shego pats their daughter's shoulder with a nervous laugh.

"Oh, um, Kim. You'll catch a cold. You better hurry up and change." She takes Kim's hand and drags her over to their bedroom where their dresser sits.

"Your things are all still there."

"Still there?" Kim sniffs again.

"Right. Uh... give me that towel and I'll get you some cleaner ones." Shego takes the wet towel from her then dashes out for the ones Wade had done earlier this morning -- if the scent on it is anything to go by. She places the new towels on the bed.

"So, uh, here you go. Take your time, we'll be out there. Kaine, Iskra, let's go."

"Why?" The two ask in a whining tone.

"Because I said so, now move your little butts kiddos." With a slight push Shego manages to close the bedroom door, and then she drags the kids into their shared bedroom. She shuts the door and gestures them away from the door towards the middle of the room where they sit on Kaine's sports themed bed.

"Listen you two, it's our little secret that Daddy's back, Ok?" She whispers.

"Why?" Kaine inquires.

"They don't know about the Archive Star, so they'll think she's a zombie or something that's not human and would take her away from us."

"We keep secret!" Iskra says. Kaine puts his finger to his sister's lips and makes a "Shhh!" sound. Iskra's eyes widen and she nods once to show that she understands.

"Secret!" She whispers. Kaine nods himself to show that he agrees.

"And Daddy doesn't seem to remember anything." Shego says clutching her children's hands lightly. "Not about Momma... or about you two."

"Or that she died, once." Her hands tense as she says this but her grip isn't strong enough to make the children flinch much less feel pain.

"Why?" Iskra asks.

"Maybe that's how it is when you come from the Archive Star."

"Why is it like that?" Kaine questions. Shego squeezes her eyes shut as if it pains her to think about it as she says in frustration,

"How should I know?!"

"Sorry..." Kaine murmurs softly, depressed. Shego opens her eyes and changes her grip to pat his hand before returning to holding it.

"I'm sorry too."

"So... she doesn't remember me?" Shego knows that it's a rhetorical question, but answers anyways.

"No."

"So... she doesn't like us anymore." That isn't how memory loss works, but even with her child psychology degree she finds it hard to dumb it down so that a six year old can understand it. So she goes with what -- she thinks -- works.

"Hey, cheer up kiddo... she just doesn't remember that she likes us. Maybe if we show her that we're not so bad, she can start liking us again."

"Me too?" Iskra asks hopefully. Shego smiles at her youngest child.

"Yeah... you and Kaine and Momma too..."

After their "huddle" the three of them left the room in search of the amnesic woman upon realizing that she is no longer in the bedroom they left her in. It took a little while but they found her in the training room looking over the various weapons and equipment in the room. The children run to her and latch on her blue shirt beaming up at her. After a few seconds of looking at each other, Kim laughs, a sound that's followed by the children's giggling, all of which are melodious to Shego's ears.

"May I ask a question?"

"Yeah sure."

"Did I use to live here? With you?"

"Yes..."

"The equipment... they seem to have been used a lot... but there's a lot of dust on them now. Was I really such a lazy slob?"

"No, no you use to keep this room cleaned all the time. The two of us split chores. I mostly handle anything dealing with the kitchen. You mostly handle anything dealing with the gym. The reason why it's so dirty now is because..." Here she hesitates a bit, not sure if she wants to reveal this fact to her mate, but chooses to do so anyways. "You were in bed, sick -- really sick."

"Really sick." Iskra echoes.

"Uh-huh!" Kaine agrees

"I see." Kim looks around once more. "But still...what a mess."

"It should be okay if we leave it for another day... unless you want to do something here." Shego says.

"Ah... I wonder...if it's okay..." Kim pauses here. "May I take your weapons off the wall?" Shego smiles and chuckles lightly, finding it funny that Kim is asking her for permission to use her own weapons.

"Actually, all of the weapons here are yours. You're the one who brought them here a few days after we moved in. You trained me to use the Sai which you gave me as a birthday gift, so in a way those Sais are mine." She points to the green and purple colored Sai next to the red nunchaku.

"Really? Was I a weapons collector?" Shego shrugs her shoulders.

"Not exactly... I'm not exactly sure what your story is with the colored weapons but you know at least 17 different types of martial arts." Kim's eyes widens at the amount.

"Wow... that's a lot! Is that my job? A martial arts instructor?"

"Well, no, not really, I don't know really if you're at master level of anything. I know that you do some instructions on the side, but you're more of a diplomatic than a fighter."

"Now anyways," Shego adds in her head. If she can prevent it, Kim isn't going to be going out saving the world again anytime soon.

"I've never seen you practice with anything other than katas with bare fists and those Sai when you were teaching me though."

Kim nods and she tentatively reaches out and touches the nunchaku. She looks over at Shego as if expecting her to say no.

"Go ahead, it's your weapon." She still looks a bit unsure but is a little more confident when she takes the nunchaku from the wall.

"Have you used any of these weapons before?" Kim asks as she turns the weapon over in her hand.

"No, I never really felt like I'd need them in my field."

"With the way you move, I can't picture you as anything other than the best in martial arts, so how come?" Shego wasn't exactly sure she wanted to answer that question. Luckily for her she didn't have to thanks to the growling of stomachs of the kids. Kim, startled, nearly drops the weapon in her hand. The three of them bursts out laughing at the silliness of it all and it didn't take too long before Kim joins them. Kim kneels down on one leg and pats them on their head.

"You two are pretty cute." She looks over at the boy, "Kaine right?"

Kaine nods proudly. "Kaine Behar Possible!" Kim laughs lightly then turns to the girl.

"Iskra?"

"Iskra Possible!" Kim grins and looks up at Shego.

"And I'm Kimmie?" Shego nods, unable to stop smiling at their antics. "Your husband and... Kaine's and Iskra's father."

"Yeah."

"I see."

"I see." Kaine echoes. Not wanting to be left out Iskra says,

"I see!"

Shego grins and Kim laughs lightly. They couldn't help but laugh louder when the children's stomach chooses that moment to grumble at them once more.

"Speaking of feeling... I don't feel like cooking or going out, how does pizza sound?"

Street clothes were changed to pajamas and much to Shego's disgust... dinner came in the form of food from Bueno Nacho delivery thanks to her being out voted by the rest of the family. She loves her family and all but sometimes she curses the children's inheritance of the Puppy Dog Pout because it works way too well on Kim. She also makes a mental note to make a certain ninja chef's life hell the next time she sees him being that he's the one who introduced the food to her children when he baby-sat them almost a year and a half ago.

"Still," Shego muses as she shifts her body so she'd be lying on her back, staring at the ceiling of the darkened guest room, "Dinner wasn't a complete bust."

For her, there were only three good things that came out of that order: the first being that Kim kind of had a feeling that she didn't really like the naco... or a few other things on the menu. This allows Shego to count it in the 'Kimmie will be getting her memory back soon' column. The second good thing was that it relaxed the amnesic woman enough that it erased the dazed look she had been wearing since their meeting at the barn and encouraged her to chat with them. Though in all fairness, it was mostly the children chatting about their day and Kim saying some variations of "Oh, really?"

The last thing is more of an accidental discovery. As with most people and relaxing, Kim ends up slightly dosing off during the dinner and feeling the sleepiest of them all. This somehow reduces the effect of the Puppy Dog Pout to almost zero, so, it took them a lot of pushing and prompting to convince her to retire to bed while Shego and the kids clean up the kitchen area where they ate.

After tiny teeth were brushed and little bodies tucked in bed, Shego found that she had to force herself to not enter her and her mate's bedroom.

At first she didn't mind, in actuality, it's more like she couldn't. In order to get back in time to not worry the kids, she forced her wounds to heal completely before she reached home. Normally, her healing rate takes energy from sun, however, due to the late night hour, she had sacrifice what little remained of her stored energy in order to make her self-appointed deadline. So it's with no surprise that as soon as part of her body touched the bed, she passed out in sleep.

Too bad it seems that fates decided to torture her by making her wake up two hours later, and since then, she has been unable to fall back to sleep.

She has just done her last resort, which is something she'd been dreading since she'd been forced into wakefulness, going over the events in her head, cataloging all the boring details. This has been a method that has worked for her in the past and isn't working now. With a frustrated sigh, she rolls to other side.

No matter how much she's tried to avoid it, Shego knows exactly why she can't seem to find rest. It's mostly due to the worry that everything is an illusion, as if she'd finally lost what little bit of sanity she has left.

Knowing that she won't get any more rest otherwise, she tossed off her covers with a low growl of frustration.

It didn't take long for Shego to reach their bedroom. The door is closed, as expected, and somehow it made her feel slightly relieved. She closes her eyes and touches the wooden door with the pads of her fingers, taking careful measures to prevent her claws from scratching it up.

She takes a slow deep breath as if meditating, but in truth is more to steel herself at what she may find when she enters the room. She opens her eyes, then mentally thanks a certain Felix Renton for WD-40-ing her door when he babysat almost a month ago as she turns the knob while silently pushing it inward.

Shego winces slightly when the opening she made causes the dimmed light from the room to strike her eyes. She stops all movement in order to wait for her eyes to adjust to the light change.

Unable to see anything with just her eye against the opening, she cracks it open some more so she can sticks her head through while mentally scoffing at how cowardly she was acting.

"I can imagine it now: 'Momma, why are you hiding behind the door to your room? Is there a monster behind there?' " She rolls her eyes at herself at some of the answers she comes up with. She just has to hope that her children didn't wake up and catches her doing this.

A look around and her eyes are immediately drawn to the figure lying within the sheets. Shego smiles lightly at how young the sleeper looks, clutching the slightly battered Pandaroo to her chest. It seems that, amnesic or not, Kim still finds comfort in her Pandaroo, a fact that only she, and probably Kim's parents, knows and has endlessly teased her mate about.

The longer she watches her, the more her unease grows when she realizes that Kim isn't moving. In the ten years they've been together Kim has always shifted in her sleep at least once or twice during the night, particularly so whenever she's been stared at. Plus, it doesn't seem like her mate is breathing at all.

With her heart to her throat, Shego quietly creeps into the room and heads towards the bed. Her hand trembles as she leans forward and touches her mate face with the back of her hand.

And what she finds causes an unreadable look to cross her face.

Elsewhere in Upperton:

"Brick Flagg!" Brick Flagg, football star and volunteer firefighter forces himself not to grimace at the eager tone and turns around in his chair within the so called "strategy van" to face the awed face of one of his department's firefighters. At age 39, he still gets annoyed by people throwing themselves at him as if it would impress him.

"Fer cryin' out loud, I'm married!" He grumbles mentally, even as he turns around to face the stumbling woman. It was only pure luck that helped him solve a few seemingly dead end cases, rescuing several people from death by fire and one case that dealt with a bomb. Yet everyone seems to believe he was some kind of hero because of them. To this day, he finds it funny that Justine -- his beloved logical and scientific Justine -- is the one who helped him make sense of all the crazy nonsense going on that has his face plastered everywhere.

("People need something or someone to believe in. With Kim's disappearance, we've lost our pillar of strength and hope. You're a wobbly and cracked pillar, but what you do shows that your heart is just as large as Kim's. That's enough to call you hero. Just don't let it go to your head, Brawn.")

"Thank you... Brain." He feels his muscles relax at the memory, feeling a little more cheerful as he watches the dark red-haired woman approach. Before she can gush into fandom, a familiar looking boy-cut brown haired woman dressed in a police officer's uniform shoves something in to the fanwoman's hand said something he couldn't catch. A look of alarm crosses the younger woman's face and she rushes off. The brown-eyed woman climbs aboard and starts spreading out blueprints on the table.

"What happened and where is everyone?" He asks, wondering what caused the commotion.

"I needed a messenger to call our PR department 'cause the news people are crowding in. The others have been spread thin. We've got more than ten different house fires spread out across Lowerton and Upperton as well as freak winds burying people in their homes in Middleton." He nods and leans over the table to look over the prints, mentally noting the additional familiarity of her name tag which has "Sapphic" engraved on it.

"That sounds exactly the same as the Lowerton Middle School incident from three days ago, the Upperton bridge incident from two days ago, and the Middleton Park incident from yesterday."

"Yeah, I thought you'd recognize it. We'll figure out the connection later, but right now we need you and yours to go rescue people."

"How many?"

"Five of them are trapped up there." Brick frowns as she pulls out the blueprint of the office building and lays it flat on the roof of his car.

"Where?"

"Floor ten. And same as before, we can't get them out. He showed us the images from where he's at with his video camera on his phone and we can't see a way out for him. What or whoever did this has blocked off all escapes routes, even to the windows. We can get in here, here, and here, but after that there's a wall of fire between us and the people." She shows him the images of the inside of the building.

"When are the bombs set to explode?"

"In about half an hour... maybe less."

Brick frowns deeper, realizing that she's right about it being impossible.

("People need something or someone to believe in...")

"Hey Brick! Why are you in that van?"

"Or is it..."

Brick watches the figure jogs lightly towards them dressed in the familiar red hockey jersey and cargos with a skateboard in hand as his brain begins working over time figuring out a plan.

"Tell me was the Team Possible car being exhibited today?" The woman thankfully didn't give him an odd look like most would.

"I think so."

"Alright then, we might have a chance." Brick grins as he waves at Ron Stoppable to pick up the pace.

"What do you plan on doing?"

"Something Kim Possible worthy." He uncaps one of the markers lying around and starts drawing path marks. He pauses for the second right before the marker touches the laminated prints to say,

"Oh, yeah, thanks for being Justine's Maid of Honor, Alex."

He finally figured out why Officer Sapphic looks so familiar.

"Ah-Booya! Told you he'd remember! Show me some of that green Alex!"

"Uh-huh! Pay up!" A certain Rufus the First chimes in gleefuly.

A/N: Yes, I know. I'm sorry I'm late. I ran into a bit of writers block again with closing out the chapter and am having a bit of trouble with the grammer. Thank Brick-muse for stepping up and helping me out.

Ah...Alex Sapphic... character owned by Disney but name by someone else. No, I have no plans on including Leslie Bean. I did some searches and can't find the face to match with the name. So, in the intrest of moving on to the next chapter, whoever you all gave that name to will probably be introduce in this fic by a different name.

In other news, the next chapter should be out sometime during the last week of June at the latest.

So, now that you've reached the end of this chapter, let me know what you think. Comments and complaints are welcomed. :-)