"What Color is a Phoenix?"
by Eoraptor

AN: Kim Possible Property of Walt Disney Animation. I own no portion of this save the concept and original characters. Rated T for situations and some language.

Kim sat on the ledge of the skyscraper, her feet dangling in space, eyes on an imaginary horizon somewhere beyond the buildings in front of her. What she actually looked at was one of those modern glass-sheathed structures, and were it day, she'd probably see her own reflection staring back at her. But it was just after 1 A.M. now, so the building was just a smear of lights reflected up from the street below, occasionally punctuated by dots of illumination from within.

The redhead's perch was a far older edifice; solid stone, concrete, and thick antique glass windows older than her Nana was. A first or second generation skyscraper to rival the Flatiron or the Woolworth building in New York City. A few of those old panes of glass now bore her fingerprints, and some of her sweat. The stone of the building had soaked up more of her sweat where she had occasionally rested her forehead during her ascent.

She let go another long, cleansing breath into the cool air; watching steam escape away into the night faintly from within her lungs. With it, she imagined some of the weight and struggles she had conquered over the past six months wafting off into nothingness.

"Free Climbing is illegal in this city, you know."

A lesser woman would have leaped right off the building in shock. Kim did jerk in surprise, but not so much as to upset her perch.

"Next time, just use this..."

There came a clattering sound, and the redhead looked down. She was more surprised still to see a mark-one hairdryer grapple gun land next to her hand, perfectly balanced on the ridged cap of the roof's ledge.

"Where the heck did you get that?" She boggled, finally turning her eyes to look up, knowing Shego's voice even in the darkness thirty stories up.

"Princess," the older woman let go a put-upon huff, "You'd be surprised how many times you left something of yours laying around the lair, or in a hover pod, or at a crime scene."

Kim's eyes were well adjusted to the darkness, but it still took her some time to pick out her counterpart's body in the gloom. Mostly because Shego was not wearing the legendary harlequin bodysuit, but some matte black gear from neck to toe.

Keen green eyes finally pieced together that it was a two piece affair, and that the woman was also wearing black socks and had her sleeves tucked into black gloves. On her hips was slung a belt with a few pouches, also in black.

Shego snorted, her pale face almost seemed disembodied and hovering; framed by black hair and only the outlines of her turtle-necked top. "Seriously… that thing used to be fused to your hand… why the spider-woman act?"

Kim rolled herself backwards off the ledge, somersaulting in the gravel of the roof until she hit her feet again and stood up. On doing so, she realized something. Mostly by virtue of the stars and city lights moving behind and relative to Shego's head in the darkness.

The woman had her inky black hair tied back into a long pony braid, rather than the proud mane of free locks the redhead had always known her to wear.

Shaking her own head, Kim dusted her hands off on her hips, "Because, I needed to do it."

"That sounds suspiciously like why overly-bold men climb mountains."

"No, that's because 'they're there.'." Kim sniffed, blowing a breath across her brow. "Erm, the mountains, not the men."

"Close enough." the taller woman rolled her eyes, crossing her arms over her chest, finally exposing a bit of pale skin at her wrist from her ninja-like garb.

Silence reigned again for a moment

Watching her, the redhead felt her mind crushingly full of questions. Six months ago, Shego had stealthed into her hospital room, announced her retirement, given Kim a heady lapel pin, and an even headier kiss.

And then she had vanished.

Within five minutes of leaving the hospital, not even Wade had evidence of her.

Not that Kim had been immediately concerned. She was literally laying at death's door, or just outside it.

As much as she had tried to deny to Ron, to her parents, to her friends, even to Shego or herself that she had not died; the heroine's recovery was neither smooth nor trouble free. She had no time to worry after whether Shego's boast of independent wealth or retirement were true.

It had turned out that there was a defect in the hasty repair to her suprascapular artery. The huge blood vessel which ran just beneath her collar bone had been sliced by a piece of shrapnel in the explosion which had, actually as well as technically, killed her.

Her vascular surgeon told her that she was darned lucky the debris had not gone even one millimeter deeper, or it would have cut the suprascapular nerve which ran right behind the artery…. AKA the root of every nerve from shoulder to fingertip. Had that been severed, deceased or not, her right arm would have been even deader than the rest of her, permanently.

But as it was, there had been a weakness in the wall of that big muscular blood vessel next to her collar bone; one which formed an aneurysm that had darned near burst two months after her rebirth, almost killing her a second time.

Beyond even that complication was the sheer trauma she had suffered over all. It turned out that losing more than half of one's blood volume, and then laying clinically dead for two hours on a slab, took its toll on the flesh. She had suffered from a form of delayed tissue death, individual cells throughout her body, stressed by her 'death' and her resuscitation afterwards, had succumbed to the strain and perished in the days following her revival. She had been, in addition to being physically weakened by the transfusions and the trauma, sick as a dog as toxins flooded throughout her body from dead and dying cells. She learned rather painfully just how excruciating a swollen liver and spleen were as they worked overtime to cleanse her borrowed blood.

And medications to prevent clotting, infection, whole-blood rejection, and so on, certainly didn't help matters, making her feel even worse than just the extent of her injuries.

Needless to say that it had been month three before Kim was even able to start feeling like a human being again between her original injury and then the surgery to repair the aneurysm in her shoulder.

Then came her intense personal rehabilitation, both physical and spiritual. And near the start of this of course was Shego, her mysterious visit, and that kiss.

Which was why it was so vexing that Shego had vanished into thin air. According to Wade, Shego was one of only two green women in the western hemisphere; the one he couldn't find when she finally got round to asking.

Kim had reached out to numerous international agencies, both professionally and through personal favours, trying to find her. All reported the same… that they could not find any trace of her.

The redhead had tried to reach even deeper in her efforts, but she hit a wall. A private one.

The more she dug, the more people began to ask why she was digging. Drakken had been captured the first time he tried to execute a scheme without Shego's help, and now sat back in Cell Block D at Supermax outside of Middleton. And the longer Shego stayed off the radar, the less other agencies seemed to be concerned with finding her.

After all, most of Shego's existing warrants world-wide had been canceled after the events of the alien invasion; and those few she had accumulated afterwards hardly garnered notice from international agencies; mostly petty theft and assault.

And Kim couldn't exactly tell Doctor Elizabeth Director at Global Justice that she was trying to find the retired criminal because of a smoldering and clandestine kiss still lingering on her lips.

Even Ron didn't know about that. Nor did her mother or Wade; or heck, even her tweeby little brothers who made it their business to interrogate her life and diaries. There had been cameras all over the ICU, and inside her own hospital room. But all of them had, of course, conveniently failed during the few moments Shego had been inside her room. Only two people in the world, it seemed, knew what went on inside that hospital room that day and why Kim was looking for Shego.

After three weeks of struggling to find Shego, to come to terms with whatever had gone unspoken between them in that moment, Kim had needed to move on with other issues so intrinsic to her recovery.

Which was why she now stood here, in the dark, at the top of this building, so gobsmacked in the face of Shego's presence.

It seemed the ex-villainess was not exactly feeling verbose either. She stood, watching Kim in the dimness on top of the municipal building, in an equal measure of silence.

It just so happened to be One Go Municipal Plaza, Go City.

Kim had not intended in any way, shape, or form, to use the building as bait to call out Shego. In fact, it wasn't until she was three stories up it that she even remembered what this building had meant to Shego. IE; that it was the spot that Electronique had "killed" a teenaged Shego on over a decade before. The one where Shego had earned her own Lazarus pin.

Kim was in Go City as part of an outreach. It was something she was used to. Even when she had been in high school herself, she had been asked to go and talk to other highschoolers and younger students (and even one or two colleges). It was an overnight trip, and she decided, after talking to a class of third graders, and then going to dinner, and back to her overly-quiet hotel room….

Well, she had decided that it was time to, finally, REALLY test herself and her recovery.

The alien invasion had taken the wind out of the sails of most would-be and actual supervillains fifteen months ago. And after Shego did whatever it was that she had done to Dementor, even Gemini had gone to ground and taken the surviving shreds of WEE with him. So Kim's 'hobby' of world saving had been reduced once again to mainly babysitting and to getting cats out of trees. Normal sized cats even.

The most strenuous thing she had been asked to do in the three months since her official release-to-rehab was to head security for MC Honey at her Middleton concert. And even that was mostly ceremonial, with Kim making a few observations about Honey's already very professional security setup and watching the concert from a well-appointed skybox.

"UGH!" Kim finally growled, trying to resurface her mind from the flood of questions and remembrances which swirled within her. "Shego! Where have you BEEN?!"

Raising her eyebrows at the very unprofessional and emotional tone from the redhead, Shego rested her hands on her hips and put on a show of consideration, "Well, do you want the entire itinerary, or just the guidebook pitch?"

The redhead was sorely tempted to throw a punch at her for that. But then she realized, that might be exactly what the villainess wanted… to misdirect her energies and avoid a talk.

So she did the next best thing to throwing a strike at her long-time foe. She grabbed the taller woman by a handful of noir shirt fabric and yanked her forward, into a hard kiss which mashed their lips together.

Before Shego had a chance to react, the redhead released her and glared, "There! How does that feel?!"

After a slightly stunned moment, the villainess regained some of her normal swagger, touching a finger to her chin in consideration, "Four out of ten… you didn't really give me a chance to enjoy it."

"Ugggh!" with a put-upon squawk, Kim threw her hands skyward, "I meant how does it feel to have someone do that to you with no warning and no explanation! Should I throw myself off the building where you can't see me for further effect?!"

The redhead glared daggers at her counterpart, daring her to be glib.

The villainess took a breath and did Kim one better. She dropped the act. "Fine. I probably deserved that. I mean the shouting, not the kiss."

Kim arched a brow, a signal to continue.

Shego had no clue where to continue from though. So she lapsed into yet another protracted silence in the nocturnal gloom.

Finally, seeing that she might be making things a bit more difficult than they had to be, and thus denying herself any explanation, the heroine sighed, "Okay, let's… let's try this again. The first question I have is… why are you here?"

"Well, it is my home town after all." Her counterpart began gamely with a smirk. Sensing the heat rise in Kim, she quickly held up her hands, "Kidding! Okay, mostly kidding. Look, it would sound weird to say I've been shadowing you, but… I'm a thief. That's exactly what I've been doing since I found out you were coming here."

"And far be it from you to do anything weird." Glaring, Kim crossed her arms over her chest.

"I like weird." Shego gave a rather pointed reply, her voice an odd mixture of coy and parroting.

It had the desired effect. The redhead felt her heart clench in her chest. She'd said those words more than once. Particularly to Ron when she was reassuring him about their own relationship.

That the other woman knew them, and knew to call them back to her, was just as effective as any gut punch or any surprise kiss. Kim was too stunned to be angry.

"We sure know how to hit each other, don't we?" She sighed after a moment, completing a thought along the lines of how two old enemies recognized each other.

"I wasn't trying to hit you, Kimmy," Shego huffed. "Look, I'm… not all that good at flirting, alright? As you probably know, when one spends their formative years fighting crime, there's not a lot of time left over for developing inter-personal skills. Then again, you might not know that. You're so freaking perfect at everything that you managed to balance saving the world with being a straight-A student, a championship cheerleader, and having time to date at least a few boys and one goo-bot."

"Jealous much?" the redhead shot back, stung by the tone in the older woman's voice.

"Yeah I am!" Shego responded, her own heat rising. "Not all of us got to have it all, Princess."

"And who said you're even allowed to flirt with me?" Kim practically yelled as she clenched her fists, months of confusion and multiple frustrations reaching a boil within her, "I have a boyfriend, remember?!"

"Says the girl who just grabbed me and stuck her tongue down my throat?!" the emerald woman challenged, thrusting a finger accusingly in the heroine's direction.

"Oh I so did not!"

"Tell that to the mocha-me-crazy lipstick smeared on my Onyx Olive!"

"Oh, I bet you'd just love if I really did stick my tongue down your throat! Wouldn't you?!"

"Yes I would!"

The bellowed statement landed with a heavy thud, surprising both women.

After a few tense minutes, Shego rubbed her face with her hands, groaning into them, "Why did I even come here?"

"That's a darned good question, Shego," Kim was still feeling the heat of her own anger and confusion despite the impact of the last statement. "Why did you come here? I know why I did."

"To draw me out?" the former villainess challenged, her ire rising again as she realized something Kim herself had previously thought upon.

"No…" the redhead faltered, sensing the ways this situation could go bad and cut her off from the one thing she wanted… answers. "No actually. That didn't even occur to me. I just needed to prove to myself I still had it. The capability to do a climb like this."

After a long moment, chewing her lower lip, she shook her head, "Okay. Maybe that isn't entirely true. I didn't realize exactly where I was until I was well into my climb. When I did, I could have just stopped and gone back down; three stories is more than just about anyone else can do bare handed, at night, in casual clothes, avoiding observation anyways. I could have been happy to say that yes I COULD do it. Maybe I kept climbing just because I thought of where I was and that maybe, MAYBE you were out there somewhere and might notice. Subconsciously anyway."

Again rubbing and slapping her own face, Shego sighed after a prolonged moment. "Fair enough. Lord knows you were always the impulsive one between us."

"I'm the impulsive one?!" Kim openly disbelieved. "The supervillainess who robs banks out of boredom says this? Pot or kettle much?"

Said supervillainess gave a bark of laughter at that, "Oh pumpkin… I may be a bit flighty… but I'm also a thief par excellence. Every single thing I do comes with loads of planning, training, and observation. To whit: I followed you around all day and I climbed up this building, in your shadow, making sure to change my hair and my clothes, specifically to avoid being detected, or even sensed, by you. The only impulse in any of that was that I came back to Go City at all when I read that you were going to be giving a talk at my old elementary school."

Kim was about to give a critique to that when she stopped dead in her tracks, "You're kidding me right?! That was the school you went to?"

"Let me guess, you didn't plan that, either?" Shego sniffed derisively.

"No. I didn't." Kim huffed, "Paranoid much? Coming to Go City and talking at an elementary school was just an excuse to get the heck out of Middleton for a while and away from everyone who looks at me like I'm made of crystal and tinsel these days."

After a sigh and a shrug, the pale woman nodded, "You're right, I am a bit paranoid. That also comes of being a thief."

"But, if it makes you feel better," Shego suddenly smirked, and jabbed a gloved finger right into Kim's infamous shoulder, "I never once believed you were made of anything less than steel."

The redhead actually smiled at that, tempted though she was to put on a show at being hurt by the poke to her scar. Turning, she sat back down on the lip of the roof, and patted the concrete next to her.

Shego took a seat a moment later, sighing. "So… you want to know all about the kiss I suppose?"

"You just said yourself you don't do anything without a plan." Kim rolled her eyes, "So yes, I do."

"Fine…" Shego let go a reluctant breath. "Look. It's not like it's that difficult to figure out."

"Well it is for me," with a snort, the redhead laid bare her frustrations at the months' long mystery in her life. "it's not every day that someone who's tried to kill me for four years grabs me and sucks the tongue out of my head before disappearing for six months."

The retired criminal gave a howl of laughter at that, again mimicking the heroine archly, "Oh I so did not!"

Regaining her composure after a moment, she sighed, rubbing a mirthful tear from her eye, "but believe me, if you hadn't mashed that stupid freaking button I probably would have. I wanted to. That was the plan."

Turning red in spite of herself, Kim waited for the explanation she had asked for.

Sighing, trying to calm herself and be uncharacteristically serious, Shego finally complied. "Look, it's not like I planned to get these… feelings for you. You were this prissy little bitch cheerleader who kept cutting into my boss's schemes and making my life harder than it had to be. Stopping you was business; and frankly, you gave me more business in three years than I wanted."

Exhaling into the night air, the villainess continued, "Honestly, I really disliked you, and I'm sure you felt the same way. But it was business, which is why I never hunted your ass down at home and killed you in your sleep. I'm a thief and an enforcer, not an assassin. And then…"

"And then," she shook her head, a mysterious smirk on her lips, "You handed me my ass twice in one night and told me that you hated me. Hated me. With fire in your eyes and murder on your lips."

Kim shivered at that. Because she really had felt murderous at that moment. A moment she'd vowed every day since to never repeat so long as she lived.

"It said something to me. It said to me that this wasn't just business to you. That you had steel in your spine and that I might bend it, but I'd never break it." Shego smiled that mysterious smirking smile again, "You changed in my eyes that day. You weren't just some punk little girl pissing in my cheerios. You were someone worthy. I'd never really met worthy before."

"I guess it's why I made Drakken keep it low-profile after that. I wasn't sure how to deal with that." She continued, shaking her head, "I wonder now, did you even notice we weren't as active as much that last year? Hell, half the things we did we stumbled into, like that weird-ass pirate shit."

"I suppose I did notice, but considering how many others stepped in to fill in the gaps, I didn't really care," Kim ran a hand through her hair, shaking her head. "Electronique, Camille Leon, Professor Dementor, Senior Senior Junior, the Fashionistas, the Mathter, the Yono…"

"It's enough to make a girl feel not wanted," Shego gave a suitably lugubrious complaint at that.

Rolling her eyes, the redhead snorted, "Save it. We're talking about you and me, not my rogues gallery."

With a huff at her ignored joke, the pale woman nodded and resumed, "Anyway, during that year, I kinda started to figure out that what I was feeling was not respect… it was a crush, like I'd had on my math teacher in seventh grade. Of course my math teacher couldn't roundhouse a nine-foot tall alien. At least not that I never found out anyways…"

Kim rolled her eyes again at that, wondering if Shego was ever going to get around to the point or if they would be here till sunrise.

"Oh, I went through a few iterations trying to explain it away at first… maybe I just wanted to bang the head cheerleader… maybe it was a bad girl impulse to corrupt the pure, or some weird form of pedophilia…" she ticked off a few fingers as if these were all common things.

The heroine made faces at each item and tried to resist the urge to interrupt on the last one.

"But eventually I figured out that yeah, I had it bad for a good girl." She sighed, shaking her head, "Not the place one wants to find one's self when one is a top-ranked villain. Doubly so when said good girl Is the one constantly being sent to arrest you at all costs."

"AAAAND triply so when you realize that it was you who set up the good girl and her boyfriend, however indirectly." She finally let go with a groan. "Next time I get a crush on a spunky teen hero, remind me to put them in solitary, not hang them up next to their boon companion in a moodily lit parade room."

"Wait… you knew about… that?" Kim blinked, turning to look directly at Shego, "That Ron and I got together because…"

"Well not at first," Shego harrumphed, "But yeah, those few months I spent in Cellblock F after the Diablo Bots, I had time to do the math and read the tabloids and figured it out. Most people assume that you two were always going to get together. I don't buy into such ordained crap, but I've got a psychology degree and I know a jumping off point when I see it."

"Jumping off point," the heroine made a face, "Way to describe how I fell in love with my best friend, Shego. Not earning any points here."

"Hey, I told you… not good at flirting, remember? I usually cut straight to the action part of the equation." Shego scoffed. Then she amended her statement, "and not trying to earn points or flirt. You wanted an explanation, I figure you deserve one, that's all."

"So get to the explaining," Kim groused.

"I'm trying!" the villainess snapped, raking a hand through her tied-back hair, "I don't know how it is in the clean world, but I don't exactly have a lot of experience with unburdening my feelings for someone, to that person, when those feelings aren't limited strictly to 'hate' or 'want to bone'."

Kim winced at the tone, and blushed a bit at the language, "Sorry. If it's any consolation, listening is not exactly easy either."

"Good." Shego huffed, turning to watch her counterpart. "Now, where was I?"

Kim actually had to order her thoughts and remember, which was unusual for her, "You laying low all through my senior year… feelings for me… and setting me up with Ron. Not in that order."

"So… That's where I left it I suppose. I may not have many redeeming qualities," the one-time-villain held up her finger, "but not breaking up relationships is one of the few. I didn't dance all over Drakken when DNAmy turned him down, and I did not intend to besmirch you when you 'forgot' you were supposed to be dating the buffoon that one time."

"Ron," Kim growled between clenched teeth. "not doofus, buffoon, not anything else."

Shego bit back a few responses before settling on, "Look, respect is not something I have in over-abundance… Take what you can get, Pumpkin."

"Using people's real names is not that huge a sign of respect Shego… work on it." The redhead moved to stand up, not in a frame of mind to stomach having her partner and boyfriend badmouthed by someone as… troublesome as Shego.

Shego reached out impulsively and grabbed the heroine's wrist, "It is for me. Or if you hadn't noticed, most people don't even get one name out of me… but how many pet names have I given you over the years?"

The heroine was about to offer a retort when she stopped, the thought jamming in her mind on that realization. Even Doctor Drakken only merited "Drakken," usually shouted in various irritated forms. Rarely "Dr. D" if she was in a hurry. Compared to that, not even her brothers on Team Go seemed to merit two names from Shego.

Reluctantly, she sat back down and waited in hope Shego would come round to the point.

Seeing she had earned some sort of reprieve, the retired villainess took a breath.

"ooookay. Um. So we come to the Aliens, right?" She sought confirmation.

A nod from Kim bade her continue, "Yeah, by now I think you realize that me saving your heart-shaped ass from Warmonga the first time was more than just professional jealousy. First time I ever saw you in genuine peril and my hindbrain kinda said 'Kimmie's Mine!' and took over before I even realized I had blown off some kind of 29th century super-handcuffs. Didn't help that Drakken had spent the whole time antagonizing me and turning my nobs up to eleven."

"My heart-shaped…"

"Ah-bububu," Shego made a shushing sign, "We'll never get through this if you keep stopping me to quibble. And yes, it is."

Blushing, Kim ducked her head.

"The second time? Well, that was more a case of 'who can help me save MY heart-shaped ass?' with a little bit of 'if this is my last day on Earth, I know where I want to spend it and boyfriend be damned' thrown on top." She admitted. "Believe me, I was more than a little… oh fuck it, you don't know how depressed I was to find out they'd taken you already."

"That's not how Ron tells that story." Kim rolled her eyes, doubting some of the veracity of Shego's pining. "He says you were a well behaved and eager companion intending on saving your boss and the world."

"Princess… your boy is many things, including, occasionally, a god-like force of nature, but observant he is not." She snorted scathingly, "Besides… bad girls are good at hiding their feelings. Exhibit one; Me."

Kim pursed her lips. She knew both those things to be true. Bonnie being another prime exhibit of bitchy girls who hid their true feelings. Oh god…

"Kimmie…? Kimmie, you just went pale, paler than me… is everything alright?" Shego almost moved to shake her.

"N- nothing," she shook her head, hard. "Just a… A really bad thought about someone. Please, go on."

"Anyway… you know how the Alien thing went down, you were there for most of it. We found you and you were okay, so I went back down to my more normal background levels of distraction and we dealt with the Lorwardians." Shego let go a long sigh. "I also went back to my policy of non-interference. Seeing a guy throw two nine-foot-tall four-hundred-pound monstrosities five miles into an exploding space ship makes a person rethink the odds of interfering anyways. I know my limits."

"Okay," Kim looked over after silence reign for a moment, "By my count that brings us more or less to the last time I saw you… because I DIDN'T see you most of the nine months after my graduation."

"Yeah, well, I was busy with the UN ceremony and the Playboy shoot, and you were sailing off into the sunset with your bu-," She managed to mostly catch herself this time, "-oy friend. I try to hold myself above tabloid tripe, but there was one too many pictures of you and he being all happy for me to stomach."

Kim tilted her head, "I… heard that you did some kind of sexy photo spread…"

"Let me guess, you never actually looked though, did you?" Shego gave her much more usual cutting smirk.

"Well, until a few months ago, I… didn't have any reason too, and by then I'd really forgotten you ever did it." Kim's face turned as red as her head. "I'm a cheerleader, and have seen more than enough bare breasts in the shower over the years to stop being overly curious about them."

"Oh, but now you are?" there was now a predatory gleam in Shego's eyes as she grinned.

Kim pinched the bridge of her nose, sighing, "Focus, please, Shego. It's nearly two A.M. now and, like you said, the dawn approacheth."

Sighing as she was again shut down, the villainess nodded, "Well, okay; and yes, you're right, we were off each other's radar for a while for various reasons."

"And then they said you were dead." Green light briefly illuminated the rooftop as the villainess's temper flared at the mere memory, her black gloves evaporating in a flash of emerald fire. "I was knuckles deep into the skull of the guy who did it before I even realized where I was and what I was doing. I know I must have planned on finding him, planned on grabbing him, and doing things to him, but it's all a blur between the moment I found out you were dead and the moment I found myself beating a pint-sized German within an inch of his Rhineloving life. It took me a second to regain my head, not explode his head from the inside out, and see if anyone was willing to pay me for my handiwork."

Kim made a face at the description, but it was hardly the worst she had seen or heard over the years, particularly from the villainess.

"Turned out Senior was VERY willing to pay for the head of the man who had destroyed his one worthy opponent. Pay handsomely he would say. So I took what was left of Dementor's groaning corpus to him, collected my pay check, kissed Junior goodbye, and bought my own island hideaway."

"Kissed Junio-,"

Shego again made her shushing gesture, "Not like that. He's like a kid brother to me… but in a good way. And that Wife of his was hardly going to let me hang around on their island even if I did now have the money to rival theirs. Especially if I did."

Kim gave a low whistle, "there's generous, and then there's…. uh, remind me to send him a thank-you card. But wait, Bonnie kicked you off the island?"

Nodding, the emerald woman fluffed her collar, "From my island, one day later, I got word that the Phoenix had Risen. So I got into contact with the one who gave me my pin and put out some feelers; because I knew it was more than just some random trinket. Turns out it's kinda like the old Mafia rule… 'the one who does you will be known to you.' So they were cool with me giving you your pin and wholly agreed you met all the criteria."

Kim reached inside her collar, pulling out the lapel pin with the scripted 'L' which she had mounted on a stout chain. It seemed an oddly fitting thing to do since she knew that Shego wore her own inside her neck clasp. Now all the moreso.

"The kiss? Well. I was… just a bit overwhelmed that you were alive… and just like me now being reborn… and frankly, it was a bit corny and not at all planned beyond what I told you; that I had always wanted to do it and never got the chance." Thusly did Shego finally come to the salient fact.

Kim sat back in the darkness and the silence, staring at the faint stars she could pick out from the city light.

After several long minutes of silence, Shego sighed bitterly, "I think this is the part where you tell me that you're a cheerleader, and straight, and a good girl, and engaged to be married, and don't feel the same way, and-,"

It wasn't the fervent and cliché embrace that she was hoping for, but Shego at least felt a spark of happiness and hope when Kim didn't merely nod yes to those statements, but instead put a finger on her lips to shush her.

"One, it's the twenty-first century, Shego. And also, I'm kind of a public figure. You're not the first girl to tell me she's attracted to me." Kim withdrew her finger, shaking her head. "Just the first one I actually know and have spent a lot of time around."

"As to the rest…"The redhead again looked to the sky, as though seeking answers. After a long moment of watching her breath waft away, she sighed, "Yes. I am a cheerleader, and a good girl. And I am with Ron."

Turning, she again looked to Shego, "engaged to be married? Not that I've heard, but then your intel may be better than mine. Heterosexual? I've gotten pretty tired of labels in the last six months. I'm a person. I choose who I am with, not some label from a book."

She made sure to keep her eyes fixed on Shego's in the dim light, "and no, I don't feel the same way. How could I? You sprung a kiss on me out of nowhere while I was in a very vulnerable state, and then you vanished for six months."

When she saw the defeat blossom in Shego's eyes, such an alien expression there, she reached over, resting a hand on her shoulder, "and now, I'm not in a position to explore those feelings the way you want. It wouldn't be fair to Ron, or to me, to destroy a really good thing we have for something that may be nothing more than an infatuation."

Shego tried to turn away, but Kim kept her hand resolutely on her shoulder, "That doesn't mean that I'm disgusted, or offended. It means what it means. It also means that you happen to still be a somewhat wanted woman, criminally speaking, and I'd be legally bound to turn you in if this meeting were known to anybody."

Sighing, the heroine, shook her head, "But, as far as I know, you've been behaving yourself for six months straight, and I see no reason to casually admit to anyone that I ever saw you. And if you can keep behaving… well maybe you could step into the light and find someone like me who would be a better fit for you."

"You really know how to crush a girl's heart, Kimmie, you know that? All class and charisma to the end." Shego frowned in spite of herself.

"It doesn't have to be an ending, you know," Kim smiled warmly, "You've got skills. Maybe one of these days we can work together again or something. Not that I plan on becoming a criminal… but you know, you were a hero once."

"One of these days, when you're older," Shego brassily rolled her eyes, "you'll realize just how stupid you sound; offering friendship to someone who you know wants more. Maybe I'll see you around Princess, but maybe not."

Shego plummeted silently off the roof, slipping from Kim's grasp.

Kim watched her shadow vanish noiselessly into the darkness without concern for her physical wellbeing. They were both accustomed to jumping off of perfectly good buildings.

After a few minutes sitting alone in the silence, she tugged out the neck of her blouse to slip the Lazarus pin back inside. In pausing, she noted her tattoo, and lamented that Shego hadn't seen it.

It was an unconscious mark that probably spoke more about the two of them than the redhead cared to admit.

An inked feather passed through the thick scar on her collar, drawn as though piercing through the skin and under the bone from one side to the other. A long ornate feather, as from a legendary Phoenix… cast in fading colors from root to tip across her shoulder.

From black to green.

More than a few people between Fanfiction, AO3, and KPSlash, have asked me to do a follow-up to 'The L Word.' So here it is. In truth I have been wanting to, and trying to, write something quite like this for years, as the ending to any number of fictions I've worked on, both privately and publicly. But this is the first time it's ever gelled up like this into something that I feel actually works without having cliché elements like "the morning after surprise sex."

Please comment on it if you enjoyed it, Reviews = Love and Resharing is Caring.