"Come on, Sammie! Finish him off!"

Her trapped friends' desperate cries echoed loudly in her ears. Despite the fact that she was extremely tired and that there was also a loud throbbing in her eardrums that made her wince, her furious glare was directed at the criminal that stood before her smirking cockily.

Tim Scam.

No matter how many times he was captured and locked back into his prison cell, he never seemed to tire of escaping, of challenging them at every turn. It had started out with him posing as their new WOOHP guardian while he was busy trying to eliminate Jerry. Then came the episode involving brainwashing their mothers, followed by the liquid-metal robots, and then the plot to turn Jerry himself evil. The spies would certainly have had a much easier time if it weren't for him.

"But our general well-being is just about the last item on his priority list," Sam muttered angrily to herself, narrowing her eyes in frustration at him. His smirk only grew wider as he observed how irritated she was at this point.

"Given up already, Samantha?" he taunted, leisurely putting his gloved hands into the pockets of his trench coat. "Tsk, tsk. I always thought you were more resilient than that."

Sam felt herself rolling her eyes at his obvious arrogance as she resisted a strong urge to march up to him and slap his face. "For your information, Scam," she retorted, adding a spiteful emphasis on his name, "you are completely unarmed. I happen to have gadgets on me. You're at a disadvantage, so you might as well acknowledge that right now and surrender!" She ignored her gut feeling that the last part of what she said would never actually happen, no matter how much she wished it would.

Scam walked over to her calmly before standing mere inches from her. Why is he so close to me? Sam wondered nervously. Her hand closed around her gadget behind her back and she felt slightly better, though it didn't help that she could feel his warm breaths brushing across the orange-red strands of her hair and traveling across her skin.

Looking at her with a raised eyebrow he spoke. "Yes, you may be armed," he replied nonchalantly, "but even if you do succeed in capturing me, what difference will it make? You know I'm only going to break out again – and again – and again." His sea-foam eyes glinted with amusement and irreverence as he watched Sam fuming with rage. Even though she didn't want to admit it, he knew that she knew he was right.

"Aw, look at you," Scam went on, deciding to prod her ego some more. "For being WOOHP's top spy, it seems that not even your best efforts can stop me." He snickered slightly, shaking his head. "Seriously, Samantha, I thought you were supposed to be smart. What's stopping you from taking me down? I am just one man, after all, and as you said yourself earlier, I am also unarmed." Seeing the hurt written all over her face, he knew he had touched a nerve right then and there, for she prided herself on her intelligence and on her ability to outsmart virtually every criminal the girls had ever faced.

Every criminal except him, that is, for reasons she never wanted to tell.

Brushing the last thought off, she faced him with an even more murderous glare than she thought was possible. "I can take you down, Scam, and I will!" she shrieked at him. Grinning smugly to herself, she finally produced the gadget she'd been hiding the whole time, and Clover and Alex, who were tied up in a far away corner watching the whole ordeal, widened their eyes when they saw it.

It was a modified version of the Immobilizing Stun-Tan Lotion, the same gadget Jerry had used on Scam, effectively halting his plans for vaporizing the entire earth's waters. Sam held out the gadget and began walking closer to him. "Remember this, Scam?" she mocked. "From what I've heard, they've made this thing even deadlier from when you last remember. As far as that pink sticky bubble that eventually trapped you… well, let's just say it now has the ability to suffocate its captives to death."

But instead of gaping at the weapon in horror and pleading for mercy as Sam had expected, Scam just gazed at her with a small smirk on his face. "Alright," he shrugged, "let's see you actually try to kill me with it."

His smirk grew as he watched her falter while the gadget wavered in her shaking hand. "It's just as I expected…" he teased, "…In spite of everything you believe, you wouldn't dare to even attempt pulling that one off."

Seeing how weak she was in the face of Tim Scam, who was supposed to be her worst enemy, Sam cursed at herself as she slid down to the floor weakly, her exhaustion finally overcoming her as she blocked out Clover and Alex's screams to get back on her feet. Before she could stop herself, the tears started flowing from her eyes and she was finally beginning to realize what she looked like according to him: a young, helpless, pathetic woman. For someone who valued duty, loyalty, and responsibility so much, why was it that she could not bring herself to even lay a finger on Scam?

As she sobbed, she didn't notice when Scam lowered himself onto one knee and lifted her chin so he could look into her eyes. "I think I know what's going on here, Samantha," she heard him say, and she blinked her eyes in confusion. What was he talking about?

Scam smirked. "You're secretly still in love with me."

Audible gasps sprang from the three girls' mouths, and a few seconds later Clover and Alex were yelling at him indignantly, calling him all the worst names they could think of. But they gradually stopped when they saw that Sam wasn't reacting.

Her jaw had dropped open on its own accord and she was staring at him in disbelief. How was it possible that he still remembered her old crush on him? More importantly, how was it possible that he knew about the internal battle that had been eating her up inside ever since she'd met him? On the outside, she was a WOOHP spy and Jerry's favorite agent, an exemplary person whose strong character and moral conscientiousness were lauded by many. But on the inside, she was nothing but an ordinary woman who felt a strange attraction to Scam, who was essentially the polar opposite of what she stood for.

She hadn't dared to tell anyone – no, not even her closest friends – about any of these feelings, but even though she'd openly renounced any form of positive emotions that she'd ever harbored towards Tim Scam, something inside her still admired him more than ever. His resilience, his perseverance, and his ability to stick to his goals… those were all things she highly valued herself, even if he was working against WOOHP.

Sure, she acted indifferently each time she caught him and locked him away in his WOOHP cell, but somehow she couldn't bear the thought of doing him any bodily harm. The time when she'd reprogrammed his mind control corsages on her and her friends' mothers' wrists, she'd instantly felt awful when she saw how badly he was beaten up. She knew their mothers normally could never hurt anyone like that, but it just so happened that Scam's invention tapped into their natural aggression in such a way that his own creation was the very thing that led to his downfall.

Now, as she sat staring into his mesmerizing gaze, she couldn't help but smile shyly a little. Her mind was shouting at her, telling her this was wrong and that she should stop at once, but she also couldn't ignore her heart telling her that this was so right.

Scam returned her smile with yet another smirk. "Looks like I was correct then," he whispered.

Hearing his words and finally lacking the willpower to resist what she truly wanted, Sam's eyelids fluttered until they were half-closed. Ignoring her bound friends for a moment, she felt herself involuntarily leaning in towards him till her own lips touched his…

…in a kiss.