Changing the game

This story starts out post-STD, in the summer between junior and senior year. It will follow the events of season 4, eventually going slightly AU for reasons that are probably obvious. It follows the episodes in production order, not broadcast order.

This is going to be mostly all fluff, with a little bit of angst thrown in here and there to keep things dramatic. There'll also be some actiony scenes, but no Villainous Plots.

Rated M for Shego's pottymouth. Will be M for sexy things later.

There are a number of - let's call them "conventions"; "cliche" is such an ugly word - involved in this sort of Kigo fic. I will probably hit them all.

I have this stupid gimmick with the ellipses: this...is meant to be a short pause, and this... is meant to be a longer one. It probably doesn't make any sense to anyone but me. To anyone else, it must look like a typo. Stupid written language...

Shego just wasn't feeling it this time. She'd broken into the high-tech lab to steal the whatever for Drakken's latest doomed plan, and Kimmie had shown up, just like she'd hoped, and they were fighting, just like she wanted, but for whatever reason, Shego wasn't having any fun tonight. Maybe the girl's game was off (Oof, she let out, as Kimmie landed a good one to her stomach. Okay, that wasn't it.), or maybe it was all the other shit going on in her head these days. Shego just wanted to knock it off and get out of there. She recovered from Kim's latest attack (Eh, B-, at best. Maybe Pumpkin was off a little, so even less fun.), connected with a flying kick to the girl's face, and landed on top of a display case.

"Hey Princess. This is getting old, and I have other things I could be doing. Whatta ya say I just put this thingy back where I found it - no crime, no foul - and we get out of here and go get a drink?" Shego tried to keep the mocking tone to a minimum.

"Wha..." Kim was blindsided by this. What the heck did Shego have up her sleeve here? She wiped blood from her nose and tried again. "You..."

"Nice comeback. Been practicing?" Shego noticed something missing. "Where's the buffoon tonight? Two-for-one night at Boner Nacho?"

Okay, how long had the two of them been doing this? Would it kill her to call Ron something less insulting? At least 'Princess' was okay as far as mocking pet names went. "His name is RON, Shego! Jeez. At least Drakken has an excuse. And Ron has a...medical problem."

Kim fought to keep from blushing. If Shego found out Ron had twisted a testicle trying to do something romantic, neither of them would ever hear the end of it. Kim sighed. It had been a sweet idea, and might have worked a little better if he hadn't been covered in nacho cheese. Which was kind of the problem with Ron, she thought. He kept thinking that kind of thing was fun. What was worse, the fact the she didn't or the fact that he did?

Fortunately, Shego wasn't going to rise to that bait. Which was good, because Kim had just realized what Shego had suggested a moment ago. "Wait. You're just going to bail on whatever you're doing and give up?"

"Not giving up, Pumpkin. Just bailing. So how about that drink?"

Oh, great. This was getting worse. "Do you seriously expect me to just go off with you to some dark lair where you can dose me with something and take me captive? Is Drakken making mind control soda now?"

"No, and if he ever does try that shit again I'll give him a plasma tonsilectomy. Fucking mind control. Gah! No, I mean you and me, we call a truce for tonight, go find a bar, and have a nice quiet drink, like - colleagues - and relax. You put up an okay fight tonight, Princess, but you've done better. Honestly? So have I. What's the point if we're not going to do our best? And it's not like you're going to capture me or anything."

Kim was definitely having some problems with this concept. Who had kidnapped her Shego? "Well, for one thing, we're enemies, remember? Never mind the fact that I don't drink. And I'm underage."

"Eh, semantics. You say 'enemies', I say 'close professional colleagues with differing alignments but deep respect for each other's abilities'. And I know places we can go where they'll serve you, no questions asked." Shego thought about what the crowd at The Lair would say if she brought Kimmie in. The In-Terror-Net would probably collapse under the weight of the blog posts. Good thing Shego knew lots of less-than-reputable bars, and not all of them were so sleazy. Some of them were even rather nice.

"Whatever. I don't drink, remember?" Kim reminded her nemesis, and why on earth was her nemesis asking her out for a drink anyway?

"That's okay, I don't want to corrupt you or anything", Shego smirked. Yes I do, Kimmie, right here on the floor. Gah! Knock it off, Shego. "We can just have coffee. I know a really nice place. Look. You wanna know the truth?" I'm pathetically in love with you and I want any excuse to spend some time with you, even though I know it's hopeless. "I'm bored, all right? I haven't had an intelligent conversation since a henchman asked me about lockpicking last week, and that was ten minutes. I just want to sit for a while and talk to someone with a brain in their head. I go back now, I'm gonna have to listen to Drakken rant and bitch for the rest of the night and then I'll have to blast him again and listen to him whine for the next two days. I promise to be nice, and not to make fun of you or anything. Just you, me, some good coffee, some tasty snacks and a conversation. If I do anything you don't like, you can leave."

- Flashback -

In the paddy wagon after the Lil' Diablos thing had gone completely sideways, Shego wondered if Princess had really been trying to kill her. Knowing a little bit about Kim Possible, Shego didn't think so, but she wasn't quite sure. Kimmie had been pissed. Not without good reason, of course. Shego had gone entirely too far tonight. She wouldn't have blamed Kim for tying to kill her. Shego would have done that and worse if someone had messed with her emotions like that.

Then again, Shego was a villain. She was supposed to do that kind of thing. But Kimmie was such a little goody-good, it would have hurt Shego in some way she couldn't describe to see the girl cross a line like that. Maybe it had something to do with not losing those last few illusions she had left and tried never to think about any more, the ones about innate goodness and decency. Shego did not want to see her Princess go the way she had.

In the months after Kimmie had kicked her into the tower and said she hated her, Shego had done some thinking. A lot of thinking, mostly about why it bothered her so much. She knew that she would miss the dynamic between them. Sure, they were enemies, but their professional relationship had always been rather collegial, mostly. Kim tried to stop her and Drakken, but that was what the do-gooder did. It wasn't personal. Shego got the feeling it was personal now.

What was it about that that had her so unsettled, so on edge and willing to blast Drakken whenever she heard his stupid, whiny voice? So what if some do-gooder hero hated her now? It wasn't like they were ever going to be friends or anything, or god forbid anything more. Sure, the kid was unbearably cute, and had an ass that wouldn't quit, and could give her the fight of her life. But she was an incredibly annoying little brat who never knew when to give up.

'Of course', some dark part of Shego's mind told her, 'more than a few people have described you like that.' Oh, please, just shut up already. I don't need this. We are nothing alike. Aside from the obvious surface similarities, anyway. Okay, okay, if she was going to be honest? In different circumstances, they would probably be good friends, the snarky, cranky one and the cheerful, full-of-life one, teasing each other and trading playful insults and one-liners, and maybe, if she was lucky, orgasms. Yeah, not much chance of that ever happening. Not now, anyway. None of this helped answer her question, though. It just made her more angry and depressed, and would make Drakken's life even harder. Just drop it already.

As the weeks went on, Shego discovered that not only couldn't she drop it, it just got worse. The damn cheerleader was on her mind all the damn time, throwing off her rhythm when she was trying to train, and keeping her from sleeping at night. What the hell was going on, and why wouldn't it leave her alone? It wasn't just the loss of the friendly banter that hurt so badly, although that was definitely part of it. She had never had a fighting partner like her Kimmie, and especially not one she liked so much.

Wait, what? What do you mean, you like Kimmie? She's annoying, she's irritating, she's frustrating, she keeps getting under your skin, she's always stopping Drakken's dumbass schemes - okay, that last one was probably a good thing, actually - but she's just an impossible pain in the ass. So to speak. You don't like her, you hate her. Right?

No, not right, apparently. As soon as she had had that thought, that dark part of her mind spoke up again. 'No, you don't hate her. You really do like her. That's why all this hurts so much.'

"Gah!", she screamed, her fists lighting without her realizing it. What the hell was her traitorous mind trying to do to her, drive her even crazier than she already felt? Okay, okay already, so she didn't hate Kimmie. Yes, all right, she'd admit that the little redhead had kind of grown on her, a bit. And fine, so she did kind of like her, a little bit. Happy now? Now would her damn mind just shut up and leave her alone?

Again, apparently not. Now that that embarrassing admission had come out and not been squashed down, her mind felt free to say whatever the hell it wanted. 'What's really bothering you is that she hates you. You like her and you want her to like you, and it's breaking your heart to know that she hates you', it said, way too smugly.

Fuck! What are we, in third grade? You want her to like you? Why, because you like-like her or something? You want to pass notes back and forth saying "Do you like me? Yes/No. Check one"? Suddenly, everything else in her head went deadly silent as the traitorous part said 'Yes. Yes, you do.'

WHAT? Oh no, no, no, no. No way, no fucking how. Not even remotely true. I hate her and her goody-two-shoes schtick, and I just want to kick her ass, and I don't ever want to see her again, or think about that cute little smile of hers, or those huge green eyes that go so perfectly with all that beautiful red hair, or that adorable way she has about her, or...

Her thoughts all came to a screeching halt, except for one.

"Goddamnit, I'm in love with Kim Possible."

- end flashback -

Kim honestly did not know what she was supposed to think right now. This was all kinds of strange. On the one hand, hanging out with Shego? So wrong. On the other hand, Shego thought she was an interesting person to talk to? That was - kind of nice to hear? Kim considered her options. Tell Shego to go to heck and go home and do her summer reading, or have a tasty snack and some conversation. With Shego. With Shego. Who was apparently going to be nice. Okay, well, it wasn't procrastinating, it was gaining information about her enemy, she rationalized. Yeah, that was it.

"Well, I don't know... Maybe?" Kim hated how indecisive she sounded.

"Let's just get out of here, this scene is getting depressing. Look, I'm putting the stupid thing back." Shego took the device she'd come for out of her ankle pouch and tossed it at a lab table, but it bounced off and landed on the floor. "Now can we go already?"

"I'm pretty sure that's not where you found it, Shego. If you're going to put it back, put it back right", Kim said, sounding a little self-righteous even to her own ears.

"What are you, my mother? Because you're sounding like her right now."

Shego had picked up on the tone, apparently. Kim ignored this, picked the thing up and started looking around the lab for a safer place for it.

"Ah, Kimmie, aren't you forgetting something?", Shego asked, a teasing tone in her voice.

"What? Is it going to self-destruct or something?" Kim looked the device over closely for any flashing lights or countdown timers.

"No - you're getting blood on it. When these people show up and find their precious doohicky sitting out, when it used to be locked up in a supposedly impregnable vault, the first thing they're going to do is get a crime scene crew down here. Do you want to explain why your DNA is all over it?"

Kim couldn't argue with this, even though she wanted to, somehow. "Right. Good thinking." Kim tried wiping the thing off on her shirt. It didn't seem to be working very well.

"Here, Pumpkin. Try this." Shego handed her a large handkerchief and a small bottle of something nasty-smelling.

"HenchCo All-Purpose Blood and DNA Remover? And you have this, why?"

"Be prepared, Princess. It's the Villains' marching song."

Kim was confused. Villains had a marching song? Whatever. She concentrated on wiping away evidence.

"Can ya hurry it up, Princess? I'd like to be out of here before the cops show up."

Kim couldn't argue with this either. She finished polishing the thing and put it back in the middle of a workbench. Maybe she should leave a note? She had to hand it to Shego, the woman knew what she was doing when it came to villainy. Well, doy. "Fine. Let's go", Kim snapped.

"You don't have to sound so happy about it, you know", Shego replied, feeling a little snappy herself.

"Sorry", Kim apologized automatically. "I'm just a little weirded out about all this."

"What? You think this the first time the good guys and the bad guys have gotten together off the clock? Come on, the hovercraft is on the roof. I'll give you a ride."

Kim was a little nonplussed as she climbed up after Shego towards the hole in the roof. Apparently, she was going to have coffee with her arch-enemy. This was different. Very different. She sighed. Apparently, anything was possible for a Possible. What next? Catching a movie? Going shopping?

Next time: All sorts of new things.

A/N:

Ah, the old "voice in your head pointing out the hard truths" gimmick. It's a classic for a reason.

"Be prepared" is from the Tom Lehrer song of the same name. It's the Boy Scout marching song (so he claims).

It was pointed out to me in a review that not everybody will get the "Ralph and Sam" reference. It gets explained in the next chapter, but for those who can't wait, Wikipedia has a good article on the subject.

I'd like to thank whoever came up with the In-Terror-Net. It's a wonderful thing.

Disclaimer:

I not own anything Kim Possible related. You should know this.