Kim was just getting as comfy in bed as she could when her phone rang. She was tempted to ignore it, considering her current state, but in the end the answering machine was only for when she wasn't there. She couldn't not pick up, so she blew her stuffy nose first, hoping (futilely) that it would at least temporarly improve her conversational capabilities.

"Hello?"

"You gave me your sdubid gold," a familiar and exceedingly grumpy voice intoned.

"Sh-hego?" Mucus made Kim split the name in two. "Whad?"

"You gave me your gold! Gold!"

Oh, I gave her my cold, the teenager translated. "You asged for id, you know."

"Did nod!"

"You wouldn'd led me gover my nose," Kim pointed out.

"Thad doesn'd mean you had do sneeze in my face!"

"Noone do blame bud yourself. Id was you who sed off deh sbringlers-"

"Waid, whad?" Shego interrupted. "Springlers?"

"Wader from deh ceiling? For pudding oud fires?"

"Oh, springlers. Righd."

"My poind is, soaging me in gold wader was your fauld, so don'd gomblain do me." Kim took a breath with her mouth before continuing. "Besides, you bassed id on do Ron."

"I did?"

"He was going on aboud never gedding sig and his body being a 'fordress of immunidy' undil you god do him."

"Oh, yeah, when he was sdealing bag deh Ray eggs thing." The villainess still sounded grumpy, but also slightly mollified now. "Well, good. I'll dage whad revenge I gan ged. Maybe id mudaded in my body do bead deh fordress."

Kim blinked several times. "...Didn'd ged a word of dad."

"Huh? Whad aboud your dad? You gave him your gold doo?"

"No, nod my dad," the redhead whined, which didn't help her sinuses at all. "Glegh... whad was deh lasd thing you said?"

"I was sayind..." Shego stopped to noisily blow her nose. Kim grimaced; she could hear the gooey ickiness through the phone. "Green girl geds gold, gold geds sdronger in green girl, green girl gives buffoon sdronger gold."

"You thing so?" Kim hoped Shego's mutated strain of the cold, if that's what it was, wouldn't override the one she already had and make her even worse, since she'd already been with Ron after the villainess infected him.

"Brobably." Shego's voice became uncertain. "So... how'd you ged sig in the firsd blace?"

"The dweebs."

"Oh, gread. I guess they god me bag for when they dried do lasso me."

"I dunno, dis seems lige overgill for jusd d... thad." Kim paused, sniffling, then asked, "Were you worried aboud me?"

Incoherant grumbling came down the line before a muttered, "Maybe a liddle." Shego quickly followed up with, "I jusd figured maybe you god a gold afder we wend indo deh river..."

Kim couldn't help smiling at the memory. "Shego... even if I had, id would sdill be deh besd nighd of my life."

"Yeah?" The villainess sounded genuinely pleased.

"Yeah."

"Kimberly Anne," the voice of Kim's mother called harshly up the stairs, "Are you on the phone? Go to bed!"

"I am, mom," the teenager assured her, turning out her light.

"She sounds bissed," Shego noticed.

"You heard, huh? She's nod habby I wend on a mission while I was sig... oh boy," the teenager suddenly gasped, "I hobe she didn'd hear me say your name."

"You didn'd dell her, yed?"

"Aboud us? No. A pard of me wands do, bud..."

"You worry aboud how she'll reag... rea... reaACHOO! Ugh."

Kim chose not to try and correct her. "Gesundheid."

"Thangs."

"I'm gonna hang ub. We both need resd."

"Ogay. Wand me do visid when we're bedder?"

"Absoludely."

"Nighd, Gimmie. Uh, brincess. Gubgage. Whadever."

Kim tried to giggle, but the phlem made her choke instead. "Nighd," she managed before hanging up.

She was worried about me, Kim thought as she settled down. And it was her idea to take the truce beyond this room... oh god, I didn't tell her about Joss. Well... it can wait. Instead she wondered what her relationship with Shego was evolving into, and why she wasn't ready to tell mom about them, despite the urge to do so. Something to do with how she went about it. What was she supposed to say?

Shego only took off her gloves and boots before slipping into bed with Kim, apparently something that had to be done as soon as possible. As was the kissing. "You know, I'm kinda disappointed," Shego murmured, "My body can do an assortment of amazing things, yet it can't handle a cold any better than anyone else."

"You're Shego, not Supergo," Kim teased before planting a kiss on the tip of the green girl's nose. "Oh, I might as well tell you, since the thing got smashed anyway. Do you know what Ray X was supposed to do?"

"What?"

"Cure the common cold."

"Well... isn't that ironic," Shego said as neutrally as she could.

Kim nodded in agreement, also straight-faced. "It is. Very ironic."

The heroine broke first, but the villainess quickly joined the gigglefest. More kissing followed, until Kim decided to ask, "You didn't bring it with you?"

"Wha? Oh, the... no, I'm... not really up to it, tonight..."

The teenager quickly kissed Shego again before saying, "I'm not complaining. I just want to try using it on you sometime."

"I'd like that," the green girl's smile faltered as she continued, "But tonight... I just wanted... uh..."

"To cuddle?" Kim asked with a wicked grin.

"Gah, I have gone soft," Shego hissed with surprising vehemence.

"Hey..." Kim stroked her cheek to ease her temper, "You can be as big a softie as you want. Like you told me. No judgements here." Another kiss, and Shego pulled her against her body as it expanded into a full makeout session.

"Why didn't you have us all locked up?" the villainess eventually asked. "Drakken and Killigan were sick too, it woulda been easy..."

"It just didn't seem fair... and after the carpet thing, I'd say the tweebs are even with you now, by the way." Kim allowed her lover to grumble for a moment before continuing. "But, I mean, all I was really supposed to do was keep Ray X out of your hands. Besides, if you guys are calling a temp agency for backup..."

"He wasn't too bad, actually, for someone with no previous villian experience. He organised the office, captured the twins and the rat..."

"Well, I think we managed to scare him off," Kim told her, referring to herself and the tweebs.

"Great," Shego deadpanned, "Now he'll probably go back to becoming a lawyer."

"Oh. Uh... maybe we were too harsh."

"Maybe."

More making out, with both of them thinking they could get used to having all their conversations like this.

"There's something else I should probably tell you," Kim admitted, this time with serious concern. "I think Joss knows what we did that night."

"Did she follow us? I never got the feeling that we were being watched."

The teenager shook her head. "She wouldn't have needed to. Uncle Slim has a satellite in geosynchronous orbit to keep an eye on the whole ranch. I think she used that."

"How do you know..."

"Well... she was acting wierd. The whole day, until we left, she couldn't look me in the eye; and she was... distant. With me, only me."

"Maybe she's got a crush on your sidekick and wants to steal him away from you," Shego sniggered.

"I wondered about that too, actually. But then at lunch, uncle Slim mentioned the satellite. It has thermal imaging, and he records everything at night in case of thieves or predators. He said that a glitch in that night's recording had... cut it short. And Joss was blushing for that whole conversation."

"Well, at least she's covering your ass. Maybe she just needs to get used to the idea."

"Y'think?"

"She's stuck in the middle of nowhere, life must be pretty dull," the green girl reasoned. "Finding out your hero's getting it on with her archfoe must be quite a shock." She watched Kim think it over. "Maybe that's what the problem is. Telling someone you like girls is one thing. Telling them you like me is another."

"Not in my mind," Kim immediately repugned.

"And not in this room," Shego continued, "But out there, in the real world? They might even lock you up for fucking the enemy. How do you think the head of Global Justice would react?"

"She's a hot older woman," Kim pointed out. "You'd probably like her too."

"Hm, seduce and blackmail her. Nice thinking, princess. I guess I'm turning you evil, after all."

Kim snuggled closer. "Just because I'm a do-gooder doesn't mean I'm a think-gooder. I've thought about being bad. Evil. I've wanted to seriously hurt Bonnie more than once over the years, just because I know how. I've even thought about how I'd take over the world."

"If anyone could..." Shego trailed off, refusing to voice the heroine's family motto. But instead of hearing it from the redhead's lips as she expected...

"Sometimes I think all I'd do is replace the world's leaders. Politics, industry, military... all the ego and self-interest, the corruption, the lack of accountability. I'd like to clean up the world, cure the ills of society, reorganise the economy. I'm sure I could get it all done if I put my mind to it, I just... I just wish it wouldn't be necessary. That things would sort themselves out regardless."

"Maybe they will," Shego whispered. "Or someone will take over the world. There'd be a new world order whichever way it goes. Maybe there should be a third world war, an end to this flawed civilisation, so that when it's all burned down we can start again from scratch. Wouldn't even be the first time."

"But it's the first time we've come so far. If civilisation ends, will anyone remember we walked on the moon? What would they have to strive for if they're too busy just trying to survive?"

"People are still doing just that, right now, in the worst parts of the world. No matter how remote the region, or how out of touch the tribe, you can bet that even they've heard that man has walked on the moon. Even if they don't understand how, they know it can be done. And why was it done in the first place? Science? Or boasting rights in the cold war?"

"Both, I suppose. Each used the other, really, didn't they? But it got done, regardless. I just wish..."

"Purer motives," the villainess voiced. "Not having to work the system."

"Yeah."

Shego's inner realist would only bring the teenager down, so she decided the conversation had been this deep for long enough. It was certainly a surprise to have such a conversation with her nemesis at all. She squeezed the girl in her arms. "So, what other bad thoughts have you had? Admitted your mom's hot, yet?"

"Yeees," Kim grudgingly admitted, "And... I've imagined, the two of you... briefly."

"Well, I hope you enjoyed the show; but in my fantasies, you always join in."

"I'm not surprised." Kim suspected Shego was a hair's breadth from going into detail, so she twisted around and kept her lover's mouth too busy to do so. The kissing continued until their lips were sore from the constant abuse.

"Stay with me, tonight," Kim eventually pleaded.

"Kimmie..."

"Just until dawn, at least."

"...Okay."

The heroine fell asleep in the villainess' arms.

Shego didn't sleep at all. She just watched Kim; observed her slow, steady breathing; stared at the small smile on her face. Comfort, it told her. Contentment. That's what Shego had come for tonight. That's why she'd agreed to stay. In a way, she felt like she could stay like this forever... except that would mean Kim wouldn't be allowed to wake up.

That's not it, is it, she thought to herself. You could spend all your nights like this. Every one. Falling asleep together, waking together, for the rest of my life. Together forever. Oh boy... I am so screwed.

Shego lay there, with the girl she loved sleeping in her arms, and very quietly started to freak out.