Disclaimers in Chapter One

False Death

Shego stood outside of the suburban residence staring at the front door with her daughter in her arms. She was preparing herself for the attack that was most certainly going to be handed down to her. Kim's mother had never particularly cared for her, and Shego suspected that the woman never really would.

It's not like they had ever gotten off on the right foot. Shego had always been out to hurt Kim, and parents didn't simply forget these types of things. Certainly, no parent would forget the reason, the person responsible, for their child's death.

Contentious. That was Kim's and Shego's relationship as Anne Possible had understood it. Shego was the bad guy, the evil one, the one that should be stopped at all costs. The price for stopping her had meant Kim's life, and now Shego and Kim were asking Anne Possible to believe that none of that mattered anymore.

Shego had never felt any guilt about the fall she and Kim had taken together. She never had time to think about it much after she had woken up in Animatus's world. More important things had taken her attention, but even now as Shego had a moment to stop and think about the life she had been given, she still felt no remorse.

Ultimately, she wasn't the one that had that final altercation with Kim, but even if she had been she was positive she wouldn't feel guilty. It didn't make sense to feel guilty about something that had killed her. Guilt was a luxury for those who didn't understand what it meant to fight for their survival. Even Kim had eventually sacrificed guilt so that she could continue her own life. It was necessity, as it was a necessity for Shego to somehow convince Anne Possible that somehow contentiousness had turned into love.

The front door opened just as Shego was preparing to knock. Kim had seen Shego approach the house, and had been impatiently waiting for a knock on the door. When her patience had run out she swung the door open and then immediately reached out for her daughter as Athena reached out to her.

"Mom's waiting in the living room," Kim told Shego as Athena settled into her arms. What she left unsaid was that it was now Shego's turn to integrate into a life that had never originally been part of her fate. Kim had done her part, had succeeded in her trial.

Shego nodded. "How do I look?"

Kim smirked. "You look like a completely different person."

Neither of them had walked out of Animatus's domain looking like the bodies that he had originally taken. His experiments had altered them both physically and emotionally. Animatus had adapted them to fit his trials. He had enhanced them in ways they never would have asked for. He only sought to strengthen those attributes he saw as weaknesses, but none of those changes could be seen in Shego now.

Using skills from a life almost completely forgotten, Shego used makeup to lighten her skin to the color it had been in her first foray into the living. Her skin had grown into a deeper shade of green as Animatus had enhanced her plasma abilities, and would have caused speculation as to the reasons for the change. So, she lightened her skin tone, making it even paler than it had been before.

For the first time in a long time, Shego looked weak and frail. She looked nothing like the person Kim had been sharing her life with. Shego looked beaten and walked as if she could hardly continue to stand. They had said that they had fallen from a great distance and survived. Shego supposedly got the brunt of the impact, both physically and mentally.

It was important that Kim come back marred but strong and Shego return weakened and almost broken. No one would rush off to kill someone they pitied. The only scar that marked Kim where her clothes did not cover was a small jagged mark on her forearm. It wasn't created by the illusion of makeup. It was real. It was Shego's mark. It rested in the same spot Animatus's chip had once been placed just beneath the surface.

"Goodness," Anne Possible gasped out as she entered the foyer, no longer willing to wait to lay her eyes upon Shego and the granddaughter she had recently learned existed. "What happened to you?"

"It doesn't matter anymore," Shego answered. "You should meet your granddaughter."

Kim stroked her child's head, whispered into Athena's ear that she needed to remember what they had said about playing pretend, and then presented the child to her mother. "This is Athena."

Anne reached out for the toddler, but pulled her hand away quickly when Athena uttered a tortured, "No!" and then burrowed deeper into her mother's shoulder.

"Sorry, Mom," Kim hurried to explain. "Athena isn't used to other people touching her yet." It was a lie. Athena had been examined and prodded by Animatus's robots since she was born. She understood that it was important to stay still and keep quiet so that Animatus wouldn't hurt her, but Athena's parents had told her that it was time she play pretend and turn away from anyone who reached out for her. She needed to pretend that she didn't want anyone touching her.

Athena didn't understand everything that went on around her, but she understood a lot. She knew it was always the most important thing to listen to what her parents told her to do. They had been the strongest people in their small community, and somehow that strength had forged an understanding in the small child. She had seen her parents exert their control over others and had coveted that strength as her own, and on basic animal instinct bowed down to it.

"It's fine," Anne's hands fell back down to her sides. "I understand." Her attention went back to Shego, dissecting the woman that had taken her daughter away, and a part of her felt that Shego didn't look like she was in enough pain. She didn't look like she had suffered enough for everything she had done.

Shego understood the disapproving look Anne Possible gave her. She expected it, and knew there was nothing she could do to prevent it and nothing Kim could say to stop it.

"Have you let your brothers know that you're alive?" Anne asked, keeping her voice pleasant and interested.

"No," Shego shook her head. "Kim wanted you to be the first to know; I respected her decision."

They moved away from the front door and then sat down in the living room. They maintained an awkward silence as the seconds ticked away on the clock. Athena kept close to her parents, not once showing any warmth towards her grandmother.

Anne eventually grew tired of the silence, and tired of pretending that it was completely normal for Kim to be seated next to Shego on her couch with their child. "I can't do this," Anne stood from her seat. "I'm sorry, Kim but I can't sit here and look at you and pretend like you haven't been dead."

"I know," Shego said calmly. "It's hard, isn't it?" Shego shifted on the couch so that she could move further away from Kim, giving into Anne's silent wish for separation between her daughter and the woman she had grown to hate. "One day you're living your life one way, and then the next day comes and everything is different. You're not the person you thought you were. You don't have the life you thought you had. Everyone you thought you knew, you don't quite remember anymore. You've changed and everything around you has changed, and all you remember doing is falling asleep."

"I didn't want to come back," Kim confessed. "It was easier being alone with Shego and Athena. We didn't have to try and find answers for things that we didn't even want to talk about. We would have been happy."

"Then why come back at all?" Anne forced herself to ask, knowing that part of her honestly felt that perhaps it would have been better if Kim had just stayed dead.

"Because she's Kim Possible," Shego chuckled, "and still believes she can do anything. She wanted her family back." Again it was only a half-truth. They both would have been happy to live far away from Middleton and its occupants. They would have been happy to start new lives and become new people, but they also knew that eventually that world would crumble. The years had passed, but the world would eventually recognize them. Someone would lay eyes on them and would remember that they were supposed to be dead.

Animatus might have even eventually found them and given away their identities. They couldn't trust him to maintain silence until he was dead, and they couldn't kill him while living in another part of the world. So, Shego spoke a half-truth because her partner did believe that they could do anything, and Kim had her heart set on finding a way to kill Animatus for everything he had put them through. They both had their hearts set on it, and it wasn't a mission they were willing to give up.

"And what did you want?" Anne struggled with her words. She didn't want to start yelling at Shego in Athena's presence.

"I'm a wanted criminal who the world thinks killed Kim Possible. My body is broken and pathetic. What do you think I wanted to do?"

"You could have stayed dead," Anne challenged. "You didn't have to come back."

"No," Kim shook her head. "That wouldn't have been fair, wouldn't have been right."

"Fine." Anne closed her eyes as she rubbed at her forehead in an attempt to rub away the anger and frustration that was building inside of her. "When need to call your brothers, Kimmie and let them know that..." Her words faltered. She was beginning to fall apart. "And we'll need to get your father home as well. And um...everyone else. Everyone will want to know that you've come back, and that you're okay. Your grandmother died shortly after you did so there's no need to bother with her."

"Mom," Kim spoke before her mother could continue, "there's no need for all of that right now."

"Oh, of course," Anne's hand shakily fell down to her side. "I'm sure you both want to rest. You'll be staying here, of course."

"Mom," Kim interrupted again. "Let's settle down a little, okay?"

"Yes, of course, let me just go and call your father." Anne hurried out of the room before Kim had a chance to call her back.

"I'd say this is going well," Shego gathered her daughter up in her arms. "I think we've broken your grandmother," She whispered to Athena.

"Don't say that," Kim playfully slapped Shego on the leg. "We've asked a lot of her."

Shego turned her attention away from the young girl playing in her arms to the woman sitting next to her. "Are you ready to deal with everyone else, because she's in there calling for backup?"

"Are you ready for it?" Kim moved closer to her partner. "More people want you dead than they do me."

"I've got the easy part, Lover," Shego smirked. "You're the hero."

"No, I'm not," Kim sighed. "I've never been a hero."

"But they don't know that, Kimmie" Shego's airy tone did nothing to cover the serious undertone of her words. "We both decided to come back to this, and now it's time we deal with the consequences of it."

Kim took in a deep breath and then slowly released it. "I know." She reached out for Shego's hand. "Do you think they're going to arrest you?"

"I don't know," Shego ran her thumb across the smooth skin of Kim's hand. "If they do I'm sure our good friend Animatus will get a real kick out of it."

"So, you do think he's still watching us?" They had talked about the possibility before. After the years spent in Animatus's world, they couldn't believe that he would just let them walk away without continuing his studies. They couldn't be completely sure what trials he was putting them through now, but they felt his hand in their lives as they had always felt it.

"Always."

Anne came back into the room with the same rattled demeanor she had left with. If she had made any phone calls at all, then she hadn't been gone long enough to give any detailed information to anyone. She would have had to speed dial through her phone book and simply told those ignorant enough to answer that Kimberly Possible was alive.

"Your father is on his way home," Anne didn't look at her daughter as she spoke. Her attention was focused on the family picture that hung on the wall behind Kim's head. They had taken it before Kim had died. It was at Kim's high school graduation. Ron Stoppable had even managed to finagle his way in it, despite Anne's weak objections. She hadn't wanted Ron in the picture, just in case Ron and Kim had broken up she didn't want to be left with the possibility of Kim ruining the beautiful image by cutting Ron out of it.

We'll, Anne chuckled humorlessly, Kim and Ron had certainly never broken up. Kim had just died, and now she was back. Anne's eyes flickered down to the woman sitting below the picture and traced the foreign body with her eyes until she saw Kim's hand being lovingly held inside of Shego's. No, Anne decided as she stared at her daughter's hand, the Kim in that picture was still dead, and that Kim was never coming back.

"Athena must be tired," Anne said to her daughter. "We should get her settled upstairs." Her gaze spanned over the three bodies in front of her. "We should get you all settled. I'm sure you'd like to get settled before..."

"Thanks, Mom," Kim said when she realized her mother wasn't going to finish her sentence. She couldn't remember ever seeing her mother like this before, but then again she had never seen her mother after coming back from the dead.

"I'm going to go get the spare room ready for you." Anne was already halfway up the stairs by the time she had finished speaking. She needed space, otherwise she just might give into her impulse to cover up her eyes and pretend like she was the only one in the house.

"I think we have broken her," Kim joked as her mother disappeared from view again.

"Don't say that," Shego mocked. "We've asked a lot of her."

"Don't," Kim playfully warned. "I've never seen my mother act this way before. I'm starting to worry."

"Give her time," Shego looked to the ceiling where she could hear things being moved around in the room directly above her. "She's a strong woman. She'll manage to pull herself together."

They both sat silently listening to the noise Anne was making upstairs, neither quite sure whether Anne was making the space habitable for them or tearing it apart. Things were still being pushed around when the front door to the house opened and closed. James called out to his wife, having rushed home after getting a phone call from her that he knew was quite impossible. He was so intent on finding his wife that he walked right past Kim, Shego, and Athena.

He began walking up the stairs and almost reached the top before he stopped to turn around and make sure that his daughter wasn't sitting in his living room leaning against Shego with a child sleeping between them. When his eyes reconfirmed what it is he thought he had seen, he calmly turned around and walked back down the stairs. He then approached his daughter and calmly asked, "What's going on?"

"I'm so sorry, Daddy." The moment his eyes had turned to her, Kim had started crying genuine tears. She hadn't quite realized how much she had missed him until he had walked into the room.

The confusion showing in his eyes went away and was quickly replaced with anger. "It's probably best that you leave."

"Daddy," Kim gently removed Athena from her body so that she could stand up and face her father. "Let me explain."

"There's nothing to explain." James's anger intensified. "My daughter is dead, and you're a very sick person to come into my home and pretend otherwise." He turned away from them. "Get out of here before I call the police."

"But," Kim began to protest but stopped when Shego grabbed onto her arm, forcing her attention away from the angry man walking away from them.

"It's time we go, Kimmie," Shego told her lover.

"Don't you dare call her that!" James's words came out in a staccato scream.

"I'm just calling her by her name," Shego defended herself.

"Liar!" James rushed up to Shego and grabbed the woman by the front of her shirt. "Get out of my house!" He shoved Shego away from him, toppling her to the ground. "You're no Shego, and that woman is not my daughter."

"We'll leave," Shego slowly got up from the floor, making sure she made it look like she was having great difficulty in completing the simple action.

Kim cautiously gathered Athena in her arms, and then moved to stand next to Shego. Her free arm went around Shego's waist, offering support to the woman who was still not completely steady on her feet.

"Get out," James ordered once gain. "Never come back here."

They both turned to leave, and didn't stop to try and argue with Kim's enraged father. They walked out the front door of Kim's childhood home and continued walking. They kept on, Shego leaning on Kim for false support until they reached the apartment they had taking temporary residence in. Once they got inside, Shego's limp disappeared. Athena's shyness evaporated, and Kim's tears had immediately dried.

Things had worked out just fine.