Disclaimer: I do not own Kim Possible. She is owned by Disney and Mark McCorkle and Bob Schooley. Any original characters shown or mentioned belong to me and cannot be used without permission. Got it?

Maternal Instinct: Spotlight

Chapter 21: Kieran Stevens-Valentine's Day Surprise

Kieran never really had what one would consider a normal life. It was a good life, just not a normal one. For one, she had never known her father. Her mother didn't have any pictures of him and never spoke of him. As far as she was concerned it was like he had vanished into thin air long before she was born. She would like to know a little bit about her father, but she knew better than to press the issue.

It wasn't like she didn't love her mother or anything. She was a great mom. It was just that at times she could be very...well the best word she could come up with was flighty. Kieran figured it came from her being an actress and having to take on so many parts. Course she wasn't a famous actor or anything she mostly got picked for background and bit parts. And most of those centered around her to best and obvious...assets. Regardless of what part she landed it always seemed she was stuff into some tight, revealing number for the titillation of audience. And the cast. And the director. And the crew. And just about...everyone, really.

As much as she did love her mother, it was her rather more than well filled-out physique that made Kieran herself the target of some unflattering remarks. Not helping matters was the fact that she was currently going through what everyone seemed to want to call "the change" and it was already becoming fairly obvious she was going to emulate her mother in body type. This of course led to all sorts of jealous and scornful remarks from the other girls in her class and immature taunts and names from the boys. It was really annoying and frustrating.

Of course, as bad as the taunts about her developing body could be she at least expected that to happened. The other physical traits that everyone made fun of her over had happened surprisingly and suddenly over the summer. Her mother had brought her to the set of the latest show she was guest starring on. It was some medieval fantasy show where her mother would play, naturally, a seductive witch trying to lure the hero away from his main love interest to be her loyal slave. The premise was predictable and stupid but Kieran was intrigued by the magical aspect of it. She had always been interested in magical lands and creatures and trying to find out if there was real magic out there. Not the stuff magicians did on stage, but rather the stuff out of the storybooks. That's what she wanted to find.

Sadly, that's exactly what she found on the set one day. After shooting one day she had been left to explore the set and spent the time going through the books on the shelf tucked into the corner of the witch's lair. Most of them were just props that were filled with blank pages and those that needed to be shown on screen only had certain pages filled with gibberish and pencil drawings. But there was one book that was different. It was a complete book. Filled from front to back with strange, ancient looking words and spells and drawings of monsters that looked like nothing she had ever seen before. It had intrigued her and she just had to know more about it. So she snuck if off the set and into her mother's trailer when she was talking with the rest of the cast and crew. She eagerly flipped through the tomb's pages until she found an incantation she thought she could read aloud.

She was horribly, horribly wrong. It turned out the book was a real spell book and by reading aloud from it was preforming a real spell. Unfortunately her untrained mouth couldn't pronounce the words correctly and so whatever the spell was supposed to do, it didn't. It instead took away her left eye and turned her formerly chestnut brown hair snow white.

With no idea how to reverse it, she simply had to deal with it. So when she returned to school at the beginning of the year, all her sudden physical changes made her an even bigger outcast than she had been before just for being friends with a certain hyperactive green girl. But it was her friendship with Shin Possible that helped her deal with her new look and find some way to be comfortable with it. Though she still wasn't sure about wearing the white eye patch with her white hair, but both her mom and Shin seemed to think it worked.

Unfortunately, even their support couldn't help her from feeling self-conscious or lonely on this particular day. A day that people either love or hate unconditionally. A day that could make someone feeling incredibly happy or incredibly sad. A day that was either celebrated or feared. A day for extremes.

Valentine's Day.

Officially, Middleton Middle School took no stance on the day except for the usual gaudy decorations found in schools. Lots of pink and red and few hearts and some Cupids here and there. But as for actually passing out Valentine's Day cards and gifts, they took a very "hands off" approach. They didn't encourage kids from doing it but didn't particularly stop them from doing it either. It was supposed to be the best way to handle it to make everyone happy.

It didn't exactly work. While most of the girls were all too happy to give out cards to boys they had crushes on and the boys begrudgeningly gave them gifts and candy like they were supposed to, the rest of the cards that got passed around were used to deliver taunts and generally make people feel any worse about themselves.

It was definitely what was happening to her. Aside from the extra snippy comments from some of the girls and some fumbling lewd remarks from the boys when she got to her locker before lunch she found it stuffed with Valentine's cards. A small avalanche of pink and red envelopes fell towards her when she opened the steel door. She let out a frustrated huff and kicked them down the hall. The few she did stop and read where pretty much what she expected to find and she tore them up in anger. In her rage she picked up a heart shaped card and was about to tear it up as well when she recognized the handwriting on the front. It looked like...Shin's writing. She blinked her ice blue eye snapped the small piece of tape holding it closed with a finger. When she flipped it open she found a message that was again clearly written by her friend:

Knew a couple of jerks would try to mess with you today so I figured you'd like a real card.

Don't let 'em get you down cause you're better than that.

The girls are just jealous cause you're filling out before them

And the boys are just stupid anyway.

I still think the hair and eyepatch thing look really cool.

So cheer up and have some fun dammit!

You're Friend,

Shin Possible

P.S. Don't let anyone see I wrote a swear word there

Cause I don't want to hear about it from my Moms.

Kieran chuckled and shook her head at the note. It was so very...well....Shin.

"Ha! Knew that'd get you to smile today," her friend's voice said cheerfully.

The white haired girl turned her head to see Shin standing at the locker next to her. She was still amazed that someone who's usually so loud could be quite when she wanted to be. It was probably something one of her moms taught her. Kieran held up the card in one hand and gave her a lopsided smile.

"You know this doesn't rhyme, right?" she joked.

Shin scowled a bit. "Yeah well...I'm not good at ryhming," she huffed. "Besides it's the thought that counts right? And I thought it'd make you feel better to get a real Valentine."

"Yeah, it does. Thanks," Keiran smiled.

She then looked around to see if any teachers where present and when she found the coast was clear she moved over to give her friend a tight hug. Shin was a little surprised by the action but happily returned the hug.

"Oh come on don't get too mushy on me," Shin pleaded even though she was smiling as well.

"I know, I know," Kieran relented as she pulled back. "It's just...well it's not been a good year for me."

"Ah don't let those jerks get to you. That's exactly what they want. Just ignore 'em and that'll really make 'em mad."

"This coming from the girl who keeps saying she wants to fry Asuka?" she replied with a grin.

Again, Shin's face scowled but much deeper than before.

"Hey that's different!" she shouted, her voice echoing a bit off the walls. "Asuka's pure evil and has to be destroyed! Trust me, if we don't stop her now she'll probably be tearing up the city in a giant robot or something."

"Uh huh," Kieran nodded, unconvinced. "I think someone's been watching too much anime."

Shin puffed her cheeks a bit before she grumbled, "Shut up. Way to ruin a nice surprise."

"Okay, okay you're right I'm sorry," the other girl agreed before she hugged her friend again. "I didn't mean to ruin the moment and you're right it was very sweet. Thank you again."

"No big," the green tinted girl said as she hugged back again. "You're my best friend, course I'm gonna look out for ya."

The loud ringing of the school bell brought up their tender moment and Shin recoiled in horror.

"Aw crap I'm gonna be late for class! Look we'll talk later, okay? See ya!" she said hastily before she tore off down the hallway.

Kieran chuckled even harder as she watched rather spastic friend ran down the hallway in hopes to getting to her class on time. Just like always. She looked down at the heart shaped card in her hand again.

A Valentine's Day card. That's just exactly like Shin, she thought with a content sigh. She really is the best friend I have. I don't think I'd be able to handle this whole thing without her. She maybe a bit hyper but she's also got a heart almost as big as this card. And she's kinda cute too.

She blinked again at the thought.

Huh. That was...weird. But it felt kinda...right. Wonder what that means?

She thought about it for a moment but shrugged it off with a shake of her head. It was probably just her getting caught up in the moment and the spirit of the day. She tucked the card into her backpack, then shut her locker and headed off to the lunchroom to get a piping hot tray of whatever they were serving that day.

Even so, her musing of Shin being cute stuck in the back of her mind. She really wasn't sure what it meant yet but it was something she would deal with eventually...

The End

Author's Note: Well this was just a quick little fic I wanted to get out there in spirit of the holiday. Actually the original idea for this came to me back in December and I almost worked on it then but I figured it'd be much more appropriate to wait til around Valentine's Day to post since...well it was set on Valentine's Day. Yeah I know there's a lot of back story and exposition before getting to the actual event but I just wanted to get into Kieran's history a bit. Plus I couldn't think of a better way to start the thing off so...yeah.

Anyway I hope you enjoyed this scene and I know this day can be kind of a bummer for a lot of people but like Shin said try not to let it get you down. There are plenty of other things you can do to have fun on it that doesn't relay on being in a relationship. Hey, no one said you can't bey one of those giant hearts of chocolate for yourself. Nothing makes you feel better than chocolate right?

Whatever you decide to do just try to have a happy and safe Valentine's Day.