There is more to Kim than meets the eye, as Melissa, the new spotter for the Middleton cheer squad is about to find out

Disclaimer: Kim Possible and related are the property of Disney which, contrary to common belief, I do not own.

Thanks to Slipgate for beta-reading this story.

Special thanks to SHADO Commander, his stories have inspired me to write this bit. He was also kind enough to pre-read the story and allow me to use some (minor) elements from his stories.

A/N: This story is different from what I usually write. I hope that doesn't put any readers off.

A/N2: Even though this story is inspired by SHADO Commander and has Kim and Bonnie as the title characters, this is no KiBo or KiGo story.

The new spotter

"Go, Mad Dogs, go-go Mad Do-ogs…"

"We're number one!"

The pyramid of cheerleaders stood for a moment before Kim jumped off the top and landed nimbly on her feet. "Great work team, you too Melissa, you definitely earned your spot on the team."

Melissa, the newest member of the Middleton senior cheer squad smiled happily. The former South Dakota resident had been afraid she would never make the squad when she first arrived in Middleton – surely, she had been a pretty decent cheerleader at her previous school, but this was the Middleton cheerleading squad, made great over the past few years by none other than Kim Possible.

She hadn't been too happy about moving to Colorado when her father's company had relocated him, especially since she only had one year of High School remaining, but so far things had gone really well.

She had quickly been accepted to the cheerleading squad as a spotter given her accomplishments at her former High School. But the compliment Kim had given her made her really feel like a long-lasting part of the team.

Of course, she was dedicated to her part of the job, and she had saved two cheerleaders from a nasty fall today, but that only made the compliment better; it wasn't just a loose comment, but an acknowledgement of what she did.

"Don't get cocky, drop one and you'll hear about it all year."

And then there was of course Bonnie Rockwaller.

Melissa frowned as the brunette brushed by, ignoring Kim's remark about spotters and taking phone calls, which she didn't entirely understand.

For some reason, Bonnie was on a quest to annoy the heck out of Kim. And she succeeded at it pretty well. It made the blond South Dakotan wonder how Kim managed to cope with the snarky brunette.

But before Melissa could come up with a reply, Bonnie had already passed her and was on the way to the locker room. In fact, most of the cheerleaders had already hit the showers, making the girl wonder what the rush was about.

"A little help would be nice," Kim remarked. Melissa turned around and saw the redhead standing between several discarded pom-pons and some other abandoned equipment.

Tara, who had hung behind, was already picking up discarded items and took them to their appropriate locations. Bonnie, who had almost reached the door of the gym, gave an exasperated sigh and turned around. "Fine."

"I'll help too," Melissa offered, which caused Bonnie and Tara to look at each other for a moment in what almost seemed like panic. But then Kim smiled – almost tiredly, Melissa noted – "Please and thank you." And the blond didn't care anymore what the others would think and quickly started helping with cleaning the gym.

"What's your problem?" Melissa hissed as she and Bonnie walked into the locker room while Kim and Tara switched off the lights in the gym and closed and locked the doors leading to the gym hall. To Melissa's surprise, most of the other cheerleaders had already finished and left. "So much for socializing…"

Bonnie regarded the blond girl in front of her. "You're new here, just go with the flow and do as we do."

That hit the wrong spot with the South Dakotan girl. "She's the best cheerleader I've even seen! Even more, Kim is a freaking world-saving hero. And you-you're treating her like dirt!"

She took a breath before continuing. "I'll have you know that she saved my life last year, she saved my entire home town! I owe her my life! You just don't…"

She was immediately shut up when Bonnie grabbed her shoulder with surprising strength. "Don't you talk to me about owing her your life." she hissed, her teeth clenched.

Melissa was taken aback by the feral growl in the brunette's voice, but Bonnie wasn't done yet. "I owe her my life many times over, and if she didn't save my butt, Ron did. You know who Ron is? He's the blonde guy who's pretty much always close to Kim. He's loyal to her to a fault and he's probably the nicest person on the planet. I snark at him almost as much as I do to Kim, but he keeps coming back and keeps being nice to me."

Bonnie's rant was interrupted when Tara walked in, closely followed by Kim.

The redhead frowned. "Picking on the new girls now?"

Bonnie shrugged. "Just making clear that this is the spot where my clothes are."

Kim sighed and walked over to her own stack of clothes; it was clear that she wasn't in the mood for an argument. She did turn to Tara however and looked questioningly at the platinum blond. "Where's everyone gone off to so soon? There isn't any party planned for tonight, right?"

Tara shrugged. "I guess they really wanted to start the weekend."

"I guess…" Kim muttered and started undressing.

Before Melissa knew what was happening, Bonnie was in her face again. But what surprised her more than the seemingly mean attitude were the trails of several tears on the brunette's face.

"You want to know why I react the way I do?" the cheerleader hissed in a voice so low that even Melissa had trouble hearing it. And before she could react, Bonnie grabbed her chin and forced her to look at Kim, who stood facing away from them.

As the redhead shook off her skirt and pulled her top over her head, Melissa was surprised at the slender, but powerful muscles under Kim's skin. She had of course already seen Kim's arms and legs, but apparently the girl was toned all around; she could probably out-bench-press most of the jocks Melissa knew from Mitchell High back in South Dakota.

But when Kim took off her bra, Melissa was in for a shock. Only Bonnie's hand clasped over her mouth prevented her from uttering a loud gasp when she saw the angry red mark running across Kim's back. It was clearly a cut she couldn't have obtained more than a week ago, and it still had loads of very fresh stitches holding the flesh together.

As Melissa tried not to gag or throw up in Bonnie's hand, she noticed that the wound was covered with some sort of transparent, gel-like bandage. Even more so, Melissa began to notice entire patterns of barely visible scars all over Kim's body, it was a testament to the surgeon who had managed to conceal some clearly serious wounds that well.

Oblivious to what went on behind her, the redhead discarded the last of her clothing and walked to the showers.

"Got a good look at that?" Bonnie asked, somewhat louder now that Kim was out of view. The brunette then gave Tara a quick signal with her free hand. The platinum blond nodded and, having undressed herself, stepped under the showers as well and began to chat with Kim.

Melissa nodded slowly, still a bit queasy.

"In case you hadn't noticed, Kim had a mission a couple of days ago, and it was pretty rough. I assume you didn't see it, but she was performing way under par today."

"But-but…" the blond girl stammered, "she was really good…"

Bonnie sighed and shook her head. "She didn't somersault off the pyramid. She's hurting… bad."

"But you…" nothing seemed to make sense anymore to Melissa. "Everyone just left her to clean up."

"Apparently you didn't see that Tara and I stayed behind to help." After Melissa gave her a confused look, she added, "We just weren't obvious about it."

"All of us knew Kim had done a mission with some nasty results," Bonnie continued. "And most of the girls are more queasy than you. Can you blame them for wanting to be out of the showers before Kim gets there? They didn't know what kind of injury she has this time. And believe me, they don't want to know either… It's been a lot worse than this time."

Melissa shook her head, desperately trying to make sense of things. "But, you were being… mean," she finally came up with.

By now, Bonnie's face had lost all snarkiness, and she glared at Melissa with a death-serious look. "Fine, you want to know why I am like I am to Kim? I'm snarky because I'm the Queen B. I'm at the top of the food chain and I'm sure going to act like it."

Noticing Melissa's blank look, the brunette groaned. "They have High Schools in South Dakota, right?"

"Yes… Bu-"

"And they have a food chain, no doubt," Bonnie went on relentlessly.

Melissa nodded weakly. "Yes…"

"And from the top, you looked down at the bottom feeders, right?"

"Well… yeah, but…"

"That's it,," Bonnie said. "That is the point."

Clearly, Melissa didn't get it, as her face only looked more confused and bewildered.

Bonnie sighed. "What do you know of Kim Possible?"

"Uhm… she's a hero," Melissa replied, surprised by the sudden change of topic. "She saves the world from crazy super villains, and she helps out during natural disasters and stuff like that."

"Stuff like that…" Bonnie repeated in a mock voice. "With stuff like that, did you mean negotiating in hostage situations, putting herself on the line in trade for hostages? Or perhaps dealing with terrorist attacks? Or, you know, bringing down crime organizations by using HER OWN BODY as bait?"

Melissa's eyes had grown so wide by now that she was afraid they were going to fall out of their sockets. She vaguely noticed that Bonnie had backed her completely against the wall and was staring at her with wild eyes filled with desperate tears. "N-no…"

Catching herself, Bonnie took a step back and allowed the other girl some room. "Well… she doesn't talk about that much, but being her classmate, you tend to hear things." Her glare returned. "If you tell anyone about what you just heard, even Kim… especially Kim, you won't just have the entire cheer squad hunting you down, half the school will join in as well. Got that?"

Melissa nodded weakly. "O-okay… but why?"

Bonnie nodded; satisfied she had gotten her point across. "The things I just described, what would that do with your sanity?"

Not waiting for a reply, the brunette continued. "If it were me, I'd be bat-shit insane before the day was over. But Kim has been keeping this up for years. But that's doing something with her, you can bet on that."

"But Ron…" Melissa weakly interjected.

"He's doing his share keeping her sane," Bonnie replied with a weak smile. "Although I'm not sure if this taking things to the next level will really work out for them."

"Anyway, Ron is different," she then said. "Actually, Ron is normal… as normal as someone like him can be. Sure, this is taking its toll on him as well, but he's good at shrugging things like this off… not to mention he was not part of some of the more nasty stuff."

"But Kim… Kim is very smart. Ever seen her scores?"

Melissa was doing her best to keep up with the topic-jumping brunette, but she nodded nonetheless. "She aced those two tests from last week, right? I think Mr. Barkin even complimented her on it." The blond girl frowned. "But those tests were generally done pretty well, right?"

"Oh, they were," Bonnie replied with a shrug. "I was glad to get a B and a B+. I had worked hard for them."

"So…?"

"So… In case you hadn't noticed, Kim had been on three missions that week. Remember her being called away several times? Remember she came to school the next day in that ragged outfit? Yeah, she had an all-nighter that night, and she still went to school to take that stupid test… and aced it regardless!"

"Did you even pass a test you didn't have time to learn for…" Melissa nodded with a weak grin, but Bonnie wasn't finished yet. "…After working out an entire night? Because believe me, she did the equivalent of that. Well, anyway, what did you get for that test?"

Melissa looked down sheepishly. "A C minus."

Bonnie nodded approvingly, glad that Melisa was getting the hint. "Kim's a straight-up genius. She could be graduating from a University right now if she wanted to, without a sweat and with honors. Want to know why she's still here, doing High School senior year?"

At Melissa's nod, Bonnie continued. "The Possibles are all geniuses, no exceptions. The only reason Kim's brothers have only skipped one class so far is because they don't care too much about school. And why should they? They'll have the world's militia begging on their knees to help them out if they show them only a quarter of the modifications they made to Kim's car."

Seeing no objections from the blond girl, only increased wonder, Bonnie continued. "Kim's mother is a brain surgeon. I've seen her at work once. Admittedly, I fainted halfway through, but she brought someone back after the other doctors had given up, all in a day's work. And her father…" Bonnie chortled. "Dorky he may be, but he built a complete rocket ship in his spare time, as a private project. If there's a gene for genius, the Possibles can patent it."

"I get it, Kim's a genius, but I don't see…"

"You want to know why Kim chose not to skip classes?" As she asked the question, Bonnie realized she had already asked that and had started to ramble. And she knew she should start to get to the point, because Tara could keep Kim talking only for so long.

"Kim is also different from the rest of her family. Her ambitions are way different. Some, like wanting to help people, are more pronounced. Others are just plain different."

Before Bonnie could continue, Kim and Tara walked out of the showers.

"Bonnie!" The redhead scoffed. "Stop making such a fuss about that being your spot, there's plenty of room! You're still even in your outfit. I really don't feel like waiting for you to finish before I can lock up here."

"Ugh," Bonnie muttered as she slipped out of her cheerleading uniform. "Just leave the keys and I'll lock up…" The redhead gave her a skeptical look. " I've done that before, you know" she added with a frown at Kim.

Kim shrugged. "Fine." She tossed the keys over to the brunette's spot, where they neatly got stuck on the hook next to Bonnie's towel. "Don't lock Melissa in, okay? And Melissa, don't mind Bonnie. You did great today, and I hope you had fun. Night!"

Then she turned back to Tara. "Anyway, if you really want to impress Josh…"

As Kim continued her talk with Tara in the dressing room, Bonnie and Melissa stepped under the showers.

Even though their voices were easily drowned out by the noise of the water, Bonnie still walked to the shower furthest away from the opening to the dressing room.

"Kim wants to lead a normal life… at least, as normal as hers can get," she continued. "So she goes to school, gets good grades and indulges in what seems like a normal life on the surface of it."

"But it really isn't, is it?" Melissa asked, starting to understand Bonnie.

The brunette nodded. "No, but we're doing everything we can to make it feel normal. Mr. B is applying the rules at least as much on her as on the rest of us… except for the missions of course. And we generally don't talk about what happened during her missions, not when she's close by anyway. A normal life has people who don't act like you're special."

Melissa reached for the soap as she ventured, "And you…"

"And I'm being as snarky as I can," she went on. "If her being angry at me takes her mind away from the ghosts of her missions, than that's something I can deal with."

Melissa suddenly felt very cold, despite being under the relatively hot shower. "It's really eating away at her?"

Bonnie nodded sadly. "I didn't believe much of it at first either. But then I got glued to her for a day or so… don't ask," she said after a questioning look from Melissa. "Anyway, I witnessed a couple of her nightmares, and that shook me up enough to have nightmares for a week. After that, I asked her parents about it, and they told me a lot. Not everything… I don't even want to know everything, but they told me enough."

Melissa wanted to ask a lot more, but Bonnie turned away and began washing her hair, clearly no longer in a talkative mood.

As Bonnie and Melissa walked through the empty school building after Bonnie had locked the rest of the gym up, they noticed Kim standing by the lockers, absently rummaging through her belongings.

As she saw the two, she closed up her locker and walked over to them. "Did you put the keys back in Mr. Barkin's office?"

Bonnie huffed. "Did you really wait out here just to make sure I locked up everything?"

"So not," Kim countered. "I was just trying to figure out where I put that book we have to read for the weekend."

"In your backpack?" the brunette remarked. "Anyway, shouldn't you be out with Stoppable?"

"He's having this big Zombie Mayhem thing with Felix tonight," Kim said, looking a bit lost. "Anyway, let's head out before the janitor kicks us out."

As the three of them walked off the school premises, Bonnie to her car and Kim and Melissa in the direction of their respective homes – Kim still preferred walking short distances over driving, and Melissa didn't have a car of her own – Melissa found that Bonnie's talk had completely changed her view about Kim. It was as if she were a diamond, arguably the strongest material on the planet, but one tap in the wrong spot could send it shattering like glass.

"Hey Kim," she began, not even knowing what she really wanted to say, but feeling the need for a conversation anyway. "Bonnie told me you were in several school committees." Actually, she had heard it somewhere else, but that didn't really matter right now. "I'd like to do some extracurriculars… do you have some recommendations?"

"For starters, don't do too many at the same time," Kim replied with a grin. "I kind of did too many, and I kept adding even more and Ron had to talk sense into me. Anyway, it all really depends on what you like to do. Did you do some extracurrics in South Dakota?"

"Not really, but I have nothing to do the rest of the evening, so maybe if you could show me some of the work you've done…"

From the corner of her eye, Melissa saw Bonnie's smile and approving nod. The South Dakotan girl smiled inwardly; if Kim needed an extra spotter to stay on top of things, then she would surely help out.

END

A/N: I hope you liked this story, let me know what you thought. This style is different for me and I like the input.