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Author: The Humbug
Disclaimer: “Kim Possible” and all characters within © The Walt Disney Company and its related entities. Kim Possible created by Mark McCorkle & Bob Schooley. All rights reserved. No profit is being collected from the fiction contained within. You can blame the rest of this on me.
Rating: PG-13 for combat violence and intimations of a physical relationship and intimate contact between consenting adult females. This should also cover a little harsh language now and then. If this will offend you, please read something else, and then seek professional help.
Summary: Mostly harmless, this is a Kim/Shego pairing fan fiction set late in my ‘Who’s Writing This Crap?’ Kigo-verse. Drama with humor seasoned to taste. Kasy Ann and Sheki Go Possible are the creations of NoDrogs, bless him.

Tag / Part II

The Kimmunicator chirped with an incoming signal while they were in the car. It was Shego that immediately looked around for the device but it was Kim that pulled it from her pocket.

“Don’t…” The taller woman was driving and from the backseat her daughters heard an almost pleading quality in the voice. “Please don’t answer it.”

“I’ve got to. You knew that they were going to call.” The redhead palmed the small blue machine but let it continue to chirp away. Her voice was almost as patient as the girls were used to hearing, not like that morning at the kitchen table.

“I know, but…” The adults became silent in the front seat and Sheki leaned forward against her safety belt to watch the blinking lights of the Kimmunicator.

“Aren’t you going to answer that?”

Shego continued to drive and kept her eyes on the road; Kim clutched the casing of the device until it creaked against her grip. After several more seconds the chirping stopped.

“Doesn’t look like it, sweetheart.” Kim looked out at the barren landscape of this deserted region of Middleton, her reflection unreadable to her daughters as they stared, incredulous, from the back seat. The redhead glanced down to see that a text message had been uploaded to the device but she already knew what it would say.

“Thanks.” Shego turned the steering wheel around and around and brought the car to a stop, facing the direction in which they’d driven. There was no answer from the smaller woman, now dressed in her usual black Kevlar top and olive drab cargo pants, except that the top had a midriff-bearing cut to it that the girls were not used to seeing.

“This is it, girls! We’re here!” The woman turned in her seat and pulled her hair out of the way to beam at her daughters. Now that the car had stopped, the passengers took a good look at the area.

“Here?” Kasy popped her belt.

“Yep!” Shego’s enthusiasm was more evident.

“This is where we’re going to practice?” Sheki was the first to open her door, appraising the long abandoned storefronts and vast, empty parking lot. “An old shopping mall?”

“Sure! This way we can cause all the ruckus we want and no one will know!”

“Great…” Kim was also out of the car but opted to take a seat on the hood of the vehicle. “This will end badly.” She kept the Kimmunicator in her hand but did not open a channel to ‘GJ’. She watched her girls as they performed the stretching exercises they had been taught by both parents, all the better to move or fight when staging a simulated mission. “Arch your back, Kasy. Good girl… Don’t forget to loosen up your calves, either. You, too, Sheki, that’s right…” The girls obeyed, limbering up even as their Momma was starting to ignite her plasma.

“So? Are you girls ready yet?” The tall woman was holding up her arm, letting the green plasma field roll and cascade around her fingers, constantly adjusting the intensity of the field and making it flicker. She seemed to be fascinated with her own ability and only when her children were ready did they join her.

“Ok, Momma!”

“What’s the sitch?”

“Well…” the pale green woman smiled down into the twin faces that bore the same cast as her own. “I thought that you might want to run through a few of the standard drills that your Mommy and I set up for you, but then I’d like to try some target practice!”

“Really? That rocks!”

“Yeah, that hurricane rocks!”

“And then maybe the three of us can play a little ‘plasma-powered dodge ball’ to work up a hearty appetite for dinner?”

“What’s for dinner?”

“Um… pizza?”

“YAY!”

The three green skinned females began to run around the huge parking lot, the low sun glinting off the few chrome highlights of Shego’s uniform and utterly vanishing into the inky depths of the twins deep black outfits. If any of them heard the repeated chirping of the Kimmunicator in Kim’s hand, they never reacted to it. The petite redhead remained seated on the hood of the car and only moved to reach down and deactivate the little annoyance, a full deactivation that was hardly ever performed, her intense look of disgust slowly easing into one of pleasure.

She watched as the physically larger woman scampered around the macadam like a playing child; her movements and her laughter mirroring that of the young teens. A look of sheer joy suffused the features that both adults knew had hardly ever known true joy until far too late in life. The play was mixed evenly with actual training, mock attacks being waged against real defense; the girls were becoming very strong for their size and could jump almost as far and leap almost as high as their folks. The pride on the pale green woman’s face was obvious, so the redhead was content to let it continue uninterrupted for a while. And besides, she was just as proud in the girls’ skills as was her wife.

When the girls had begun to tire of the drills, their Momma made good on her promise for target practice, calling a break so that she could assemble a few sundry items that were strewn across the cracked lot. A few metal frame shopping carts, plastic crates, bits of wooden pallets and the odd piece of cinderblock were arrayed in a heap beside her.

“Ok, Team Possible, here’s the sitch…” The tall woman matched her daughters’ grins with one of her own. “When each of you are ready, I’ll throw a target OR targets out in front of you and it’ll be your mission to blast it!” She grinned wider. “Ready?”

“READY!” The girls had spaced themselves apart for safety. Kim could see, even from her perch on the car’s hood, that the girls were cupping their hands slightly so as to feel the short-lived plasma ‘bubble’ that could quickly be strengthened into a ‘grenade’.

“Then here goes…” Shego lobbed a chunk of wood high and right. “Sheki!”

BAM… splinters were still raining down after the green flash had faded.

“Good, very quick on the draw!” A piece of concrete took flight. “Kasi!”

BAM… BAM… the piece was cleaved in two and then thrust away.

“Wow! Excellent control!” Several small bits of rock were gathers into a pair of green and black gloves. “Let’s try for multiple targets, this time, shall we?”

“No big!” Kasy giggled.

“Yeah, so not the drama!” Sheki winked at her twin. Several yards away, an older redhead shook her head in wonder.

The former cheerleader leaned back and watched as an intense and thorough session of plasma training unfolded before her very eyes. Her emerald eyes were slightly glazed at how both teens were not only performing beautifully but also how they never even realized how their skills were being tested. She had never thought to incorporate these techniques in their training herself, and was equally stunned and impressed at the same time. Not every target was hit, and not every hit was clean, but with guidance and encouragement from the woman in green and black the girls were displaying a comfort with their own powers that the other parent hadn’t previously seem before.

Maybe the day wasn’t such a loss, after all.

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“Hey!” It had been almost two hours since they’d started their training session and the sun was almost gone. “Hey, gang! It’s time to pack this show up and get home!” The slender redhead was getting cold, something that she wasn’t used to, and she knew that the girls would be getting hungry even if they didn’t want the fun to end. No one had eaten yet and it was still a school night.

“She’s right. Ok, Team Possible, let’s pack it in!” The pale green woman straightened and stretched her own muscles, reveling at how they flexed and bunched beneath her skin.

“Mommy, did you see?” Kasy ran to her, pulling off her cowl. “Did you see the new move we came up with?”

“Did you?” Sheki was beside them, equally ecstatic. “Cool, huh?”

“Yes I did and it was brilliant. I can’t wait to see it in action some day!” And she meant it; they girls had worked together to first create a plasma sphere, concentrated enough to be powerful but far too large and unwieldy to throw, but then boost it from behind with another plasma blast designed to launch the first sphere like a cannon ball. The attack carried a considerable punch! “Your… Momma and I are very proud of you!”

“Care to go a quick round, Cupcake?” Shego had finished brushing the debris off of her uniform from the girls’ efforts and had glided up behind the three. “It’s still light out.”

“It’s a school night and the girls are hungry. I’m getting chilled and they will too once they start to cool down.” Kim kept her face set and her mouth hard. She continued to stare at her spouse but redirected her speech to the girls. “Great work, you two. Jump in the car and let’s head home.”

“Awww…”

“Ok, Mommy…” The disappointment was more obligatory for the girls than anything; their Mommy knew that she heard at least one stomach growling.

“You are such a buzzkiller, Princess.” The waning light grew bright but green as twin flares of plasma engulfed the hands of the taller woman. “Come on, let’s show the girls what it was like in the old days!”

“Yeah, that would be so cool!” The twins stood by the open rear door of the car in eager anticipation. “You never let us watch you fight!”

“And with good reason…” Kim would not be swayed. “It’s not right to let you see that, even if it’s not real.” The older woman with the flowing black hair seemed oblivious to this fact, so her spouse repeated herself. “It’s just not right.”

A bright flash of light from overhead startled them all. It was repeated twice more as three lamp posts, tall remnants of the once bustling mall parking lot, flickered to life and illuminated an area several square yards in diameter. They were apparently still tied into the power grid in this disused section of town. The petite woman watched in frustration as her wife walked over to stand in the middle of the lighted area.

“The Mighty Shego stands ready to take all comers!” Her arms were raised and her hands flared with green death, her voice roaring with bravado. “Who thinks that they are strong enough to fight me?”

“Oh, for the love of Mike…” Turning to face her daughters, the woman handed them the Kimmunicator. “Hold this and stay by the car.” Her gaze burned into them. “And do NOT get any closer than this, no matter what happens, capisce?”

“Ok, Mommy.” Their anxious looks gave her pause.

“It’s Ok, don’t worry. I told you that your Momma wasn’t herself, right?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Well, I think that I’m going to have to give her the fight she wants.” She tousled their hair and walked towards the ersatz arena.

“Hel-lo, Kimmie!” The smirk was timeless. “I didn’t think that you’d have the nerve.”

“Let’s just get this over with. I could do with some pizza, myself.”

“Oh, there’ll be pizza, alright!” The tall woman sprinted forward and leapt, flipping as she did so and bringing both hands down right where her slender opponent had been standing just a second before. Clawed gloves tore into asphalt that had already been weakened by the heat of her plasma fields. White teeth grinned through black glossed lips.

“Street pizza!” She stood and charged again.

“Son of a …!” The redhead had rolled at the last moment, feeling the familiar heat and hearing a crunch that would have been her bones if she’d not been fast enough. Lithe muscles and quick reflexes being utilized to the fullest, she ducked and dodged a flurry of attacks, each designed to cripple or main but all coming just within a hair’s breadth of contact… and the former cheerleader had to keep herself constantly moving just to keep it that way.

“Not bad, Princess! I guess there is a benefit to not carrying too much extra weight!”

“Oh, you are so going to pay for that one!”

Back at the vehicle, the twins watched in awe, not realizing the degree to which the fight was authentic and not being staged or just an innocent ‘sparing’ between the two martial artists. They stood by the car and mimicked each blow and parry, each bob and weave and feint just as their parents made them out in the shadowed parking lot, with each girl seeing the outcome of their hours of training each week.

The children weren’t the only ones receiving an education; the green and black clad woman was learning that size and strength weren’t always better than agility and accuracy. Every strike, be it charged with plasma or not, missed by such a small margin that she was losing control of her emotions, making each attack a little wilder than the previous one. She was also getting tired, the weight of her frame unable to keep up with the fluid motions of her human target. That target wasn’t immune to learning a lesson either; the redhead could not believe the psychological advantage that a larger opponent able to throw plasma grenades had over a non-powered, albeit athletic, body. Every time that she saw the larger form coming at her she fought against panic, and every plasma blast startled her with its heat and concussive force. Quick and dexterous she might be, but all it would take was one good hit… just one… and she would be dead.

It was time to call it a day.

“Ok, we’ve had our fun…” She kept her voice even as she dropped out of the path of a flying kick aimed right at her face. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you, Kim Possible?” Eyes flashed as green as the energy around her hands. “You think you’re all that, but you’re NOT!” Shego draw back her hand and swung at her foe, making the smaller woman backpedal towards the closest lamppost.

“Look… “ It was all that she could do to keep her voice steady in the face of such unbridled power and fury, the look in the eyes of her opponent bordering on madness. “We really need to stop and get home. The girls probably have schoolwork and they need to be fed!” The argument was completely lost on the rampaging woman as she continued to advance, with fists and claws trusting out and grasping or slicing through the air just shy of pink flesh.

“No!” A powerful arm drew back. “I will have my victory!” The smaller form had barely enough time to evade the strike as a plasma charged fist pulverized its way through the metal shaft of the post, blinding them both as the shredded wires sparked and the light above went out.

“Mommy!”

“Momma!”

The girls knew that something was very, very wrong. They disobeyed the order to remain by the car as the lamp fell, the long metal post canting and twisting as it collapsed, kicking outward from its ruined base and forcing the redhead to huddle against the concrete for safety. Staying well back from the falling post, the girls witnessed their Mommy hiding down behind the conical base of the shattered post while their Momma continued to punch into it, her plasma fields allowing her to crush more and more of the formed concrete into powder.

“Stop it!” The redhead’s voice held more real fear than she wanted it to, but the reply she received was even more terrified. “Stop it right now!”

“I… I can’t!” The tall form straightened and ceased her attack against the concrete base, but the plasma fields did not go out. “I can’t shut it off!” The pale green woman held her hands out before her as if they had betrayed her, as if the energy fields were some horrible malady. There was pure terror in her eyes.

“Sh… Shego! Help me!”

“I’m coming, Princess!” The redhead crawled out from her hiding place and the thoroughly confused twins watched as the tall woman lurched about on stiff legs, desperate to shake off the green flames, while the petite woman ran around and jumped up onto her back, still keeping well clear of the flames herself.

“It won’t shut off! I can’t…!”

“Shhh… it’s Ok, Pumpkin, it’s Ok…” Kim’s voice was soothing, even if she had been fighting for her life a few seconds ago. “Relax and slow your breathing.”

“I can’t…” Terror still ruled the face of the taller woman but her forced gasps were a little slower now. “I can’t control it anymore!”

“Sure you can, you’ve done fine all day.” The tone was calm and was slowly having the desired effect; the stiff lurching was almost stopped and within moments the green and black clad woman staggered and fell to her knees before settling down to sit on the cooling macadam. The slender redhead never left her place on Shego’s back.

“Think of fishing line…”

“F-fishing line… Ok…!”

“You have the reel, so just reel it in…”

“Reeling it in…!”

“Or the strings of a marionette. Just pull the energy back in. You could feel it running out through your fingers, now just reel it back…” The serene look on the redhead’s face was eventually matched by that of her wife and the panic that the larger woman felt slowly leeched away as the calm words and controlled breathing took hold.

“What’s going on?” The twins dared to walk closer when the green flames eventually died away.

“Yeah, what’s wrong with Momma?”

“I know that you’re not standing here right now because I distinctly recall telling you to wait by the car!” The redhead wasn’t really mad but there was entirely too much adrenalin coursing through her veins at the moment.

“But Momma’s sick or something!”

“Girls… your… Mommy’s right. You should have stayed at the car.” Staring at her hands as if seeing them for the first time, it was the woman in the green and black uniform that answered. The slender redhead holding onto her back and shoulders was gently stroking the flowing black hair and maintained the steady breathing. “I’m better now, really.”

“But what happened?”

“I… I owe you both an apology and an explanation. I’m hoping that it can wait ‘til tomorrow because it’s getting late and I know that you’re hungry, but I hope that you won’t be too upset if we… if…”

“How about we have pizza tomorrow night, Momma?”

“Yeah, and then we can all talk then.”

“That’d be Ok with us.”

“You two are the bestest little girls in the world.” The pale green woman looked right at them and for a second it was as if someone else was behind those eyes. The redhead stirred and slowly withdrew the Kimmunicator from her pocket and held it out for the larger woman to see the display.

“They’re ready for us, baby. They’ve been waiting for almost two hours.”

“I know.” The larger woman seemed to be mentally collecting herself. “Let’s get the girls home first.”

“Are you sure?” Kim unwrapped herself from her spouse and they helped each other to their feet. “We could always call in a transport, or we can have an Agent take them home…”

“No. I’m sure.” She looked down at her family from a perspective that she knew that she would never have again. “I’m sure.”

“Ok, but I’m driving!” The petite woman herded the other three back to the car and they had soon left the deserted parking lot behind them. The girls were just as perplexed as ever but there was something new in the equation; both of their parents were much more relaxed than they had been the entire day, each apparently at peace in a way that would remain a mystery, even if for just another day. Their Mommy actually turned on the radio to one of Momma’s favorite stations and their Momma just sat quietly and kept looking at her face in the small mirror mounted in the sun visor.

“Baby, where are you going?” Kim had failed to make the turn in the direction of their community, instead taking the car down a street lined with fast food restaurants.

“The girls are probably starving and I know I am… I’m sure that you are, too, so I’m going to get us some perfectly horrible and unhealthy drive-thru crap.”

“YAY!”

“Don’t ‘yay’ me, Team Possible!” The redhead smirked. “It’s dinner and then homework and then bath and then bed!”

“BOO!”

She even treated them all to extra fries that evening. The night ended smoothly if quietly with the four of them gathered around the table in the dining room. The girls brought out their homework and it became a group study effort while they ate and made sure that the children were well prepared for the following school day. Momma helped with the math and writing but still seemed subdued, more exhausted from the afternoon’s activities than from anything on her mind. Mommy left them alone to clean up but kept a watchful eye on the tall woman, apparently satisfied with what she saw.

Once dinner and homework were completed, she hustled the twins off for a late bath. The teens received their usual hugs and kisses but the hug from Shego was especially tight. Kim stood back and waited until the pale green woman was finished, watching her stand and leave the room before the redhead turned and addressed the twins.

“Alright, you two, bath time. We’ll be up to tuck you in when you’re done.”

“’Kay, Mommy!” Kim watched the girls scamper upstairs and then waited for her wife to return to the central location of the dining room; the former villain had left to make the house secure for the night.

“Aren’t you going to wash up and change?” The redhead’s inquiry evoked a puzzled look.

“Why? Aren’t we going to drive to ‘GJ’ once the girls are in bed?”

“Naw… I sent a text message back while I was in the kitchen. I told them that we’d be in tomorrow morning after we got the girls off to school.”

“But…”

“A few more hours won’t hurt anything.” The redhead sidled up to her wife. “I just thought that… maybe you’d want to take it for another test drive. You know…” the redhead smirked. “Under less stressful conditions.”

“… please and thank you…” The larger woman was blushing, her entire face and neck becoming a dusky, bruised color.

88888888

Kasy and Sheki had been staring at their mothers for over thirty seconds in silence. Their mouths had been slack and their matching pairs of green eyes were wide. It was the afternoon again and the girls had been home from yet another day at school for about an hour, doing a few simple chores and starting that evening’s homework. The night before had been peaceful and they had slept well, and after several assurances at breakfast that morning that everything would be back to normal by the time they came home, the girls felt better about the sitch… whatever it was… than they had the day before.

“Ok…” Sheki found her breath first. Their parent’s explanation over some after-school snacks had been interesting.

“Let’s get this straight.” Kasy followed close behind. “All day yesterday and until we left for school this morning, you…” Kasy pointed to the redheaded Kim Possible. “… were in Momma’s body.”

“That’s right, sweetheart.” Kim sat cross-legged on her chair, still too embarrassed at her behavior to stop blushing; she was starting to worry that the rosy hue might become permanent. She sipped at her beverage to avoid looking at them.

“And Momma…” Sheki peered closely at the former villain. “Momma was in Mommy’s body.”

“Yep.” Shego was sitting backwards at her chair, draped over the back and resting her chin on her crossed arms.

“Did it hurt?”

“Well, I’m certain that one of us is a little more sore today that the other…”

“Shego!”

“What I meant, Pumpkin, is that your body doesn’t heal like mine and it was pushed to its limits yesterday.”

“Oh. That’s true.”

“And then there was later…”

“Ghaa!”

“Uh… “ Sheki glanced at Kasy and neither girl understood what was meant by that. “But are you sure that the ‘mind-switching’ thingy didn’t leave you a few episodes short of sixty-five?”

“Yeah, how do we know that you’re back to being, well, you?” Kasy was still peering at her Momma, prompting the pale green woman to cross her eyes and stick out her tongue at the girl. This elicited a giggle from both girls and, to Shego’s relief, Kim herself. The older redhead set down her drink and looked at them evenly.

“When we arrived at the old lair and broke up the gang of scavengers, they hadn’t yet figured out what they’d found or even how to use it properly. Several of their own minds got switched around before we got there and had the same thing happen to us. Needless to say that everyone was more than a little disoriented during the fight and when the machine was accidentally damaged, well…”

“Damaged?”

“It was just the power source, baby, nothing that ‘GJ’ couldn’t repair.” Shego reached out and patted Kasy on the hand. “They needed a few hours and there wasn’t any reason for us to hang around there, so we came home.”

“It might have been better…” They all looked to Kim, who turned away slightly before continuing. “Maybe we shouldn’t have come home. It was wrong to expose you two to that sitch since I wasn’t… behaving myself better.”

“It’s Ok, Mommy.”

“Yeah, it was awkweird because we knew something wasn’t right.”

“But we had fun last night, too! The practice was great!”

“So why didn’t you tell us?”

“Well…” Kim looked to Shego, who shrugged. “We thought that it might freak you out a little.” The girls grinned back at her.

“Richard, how about ‘The Kids Were Freaked Out Anyway’?”

“Survey says… BING BING BING!”

Shego roared with laughter and fell off her chair, with Kim staring at the girls in shock.

“Oh, no, you didn’t!” The twins were up and moving before Kim could make it around the table, but she was able to make up the distance once they reached the backyard. “You think you’re all that, Team Possible… blah, blah, blah!” Shego, still laughing, walked into the kitchen and removed two of the largest, most righteous pizzas from the oven that the world had ever seen. Outside there were two children being tortured by tickling so what could be wrong?

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“What am I going to do with you?” The children had been in bed for an hour and Shego had just brought two cups of hot chocolate into the family room.

“Huh? What do you mean?” They were both dressed for bed but ‘the movie’ was on and Johnny had just cracked his skull against a headstone. Kim had on her pajamas and robe and had her feet tucked up under her lest a zombie grab them from beneath the sofa.

“You lied to me the other day.”

“What? I did not!”

“I asked you if you were ‘Ok’ and you said yes. You proved how untrue that was yesterday.” Shego sat down beside her younger spouse and twirled a strand of red hair around her green finger. “So tell me what’s wrong.”

“Nothing’s wrong.” Kim smiled, knowing that she wasn’t going to be able to put up much of a fight. As if to make the point, Shego leaned close and whispered into the perfect ear.

“I have ways of making you talk.” She straightened and became serious. “So talk.”

“You know…” Kim sighed deeply. “You know how I was upset the other day during the game of tag against the BEBE, right?”

“Yes.”

“And I told you that I was angry at being the ‘enemy’, and that I didn’t like not being able to ‘be there’ and that I was feeling ‘old and used up’?

“Yes.”

“None of that was quite true, either.”

“Really?”

“Really. It was all… bullshit.”

“Uh, huh. Hang on a sec’.” Shego reached out and snagged the telephone from the end table behind her.

“What? Who are…?”

“Hold on, hold on…” Shego made a show of dialing a number and then listening to the ringing through the open connection. “Hey, Doc? Hey, it’s Shego! Yeah, long time and all that. Listen, hope I didn’t wake you but I’ve finally done it.” Kim huffed and rolled her eyes; Shego covered the receiver and shushed her before returning to her ‘call’. “Yep, that’s right… Operation ‘Live With KP Until She’s Hopelessly Corrupted’ is a howling success! I’m proud to say that she’s lying like a rug! She’s as crooked as a dog’s hind leg! She’s even cursing!”

“Ok, enough! That was funny for, like, never!” Kim hid her grin as best she was able. Her wife returned the phone to its cradle.

“Then you tell me exactly what was on your mind.” Shego had the patience of Job at the worst possible times.

“When we were out in the yard, with me as the BEBE and you coaching the girls, I was upset because…”

“Yes?”

“Geez, this is harder than I thought.”

“Is it the plasma thing again? Please don’t tell me it’s the plasma thing again, because the girls felt terrible about that and we swore an oath that night…”

“What? What oath? No! No, it’s not ‘the plasma thing’. I’m over that, really.” Kim would have to get the details on what ‘oath’ her wife was talking about, but that was for some other time. “It’s because all I saw was you.”

“Me?” Shego looked like a deer caught in front of a pair of headlights.

“… yes.”

“All you saw was me? What does that mean?” She watched as her young wife pursed her lips. Kim was steeling herself to face an old and shameful demon.

“Ever since they were born, I’ve felt as if no babies had ever seen the light of day that were nearly as beautiful as those two. They were these flawless little jewels.” She noticed that Shego’s eyes had glazed over and that there was a smile playing around the corners of the black glossed lips; the woman was apparently reliving those times. “I still feel that way.”

“Me too, Kimmie. So what’s the drama?” Shego’s brow furrowed at her own choice of words.

“The drama is that every time I would bathe them, or feed then or dress them… I still don’t see… any of me in them.” There, she had finally said it. “I always see you. Out in the yard that day, with them running and dodging and having a grand old time with the BEBE… all I could see were two little versions of you.”

“You’re shitting me, right?” Shego’s face was a mask. “That’s why you’ve been so…”

“Crazy?”

“I was going to say ‘loopy’. You’re serious?” She watched Kim nod. “How can you mean that? They’re our children… OUR children, genetically and in every other way that counts! Kasy even has your hair!”

“Ssh! You’ll wake them!”

“It would serve you right if I did! They’d give you a working over like you’d never believe! Well, what about Kasy’s hair?”

“It… has those little green highlights, you know?” Kim felt terrible. “The ones that shine green when the light hits them right.”

“I cannot believe what I’m hearing!” Shego lowered her face and covered it with her hands. “I cannot believe it.”

“So when I found myself in your body, I… I thought that this would be my chance to be as close to them as you are! We’d have the same powers and the same appearance…!”

“Oh, Princess…” Her face still covered, Shego’s shoulders quivered.

“Don’t be angry with me! I knew that it wasn’t forever, just until the machine got fixed and ‘GJ’ could switch our minds back!” Shego raised her face and wiped at her eyes; Kim felt panic when she saw that there were tears in the woman’s eyes but panic became bafflement when she noticed that Shego was laughing to herself.

“Baby?”

“I swear, the more human and imperfect you show yourself to be, the more I love you!”

“Huh?”

“Come with me, Pumpkin. I want to show you something.”

“But what about the movie?”

“Princess, I have the VHS and the DVD! Come on!” Shego stood and started to leave the room, but turned back and lifted Kim bodily from the sofa when the petite woman didn’t start moving fast enough.

“Shego! Where are we going?”

“To the den, Kimmie. There’s something you should see.” True enough, Shego carried her to the den, depositing her into a chair and seating herself at the family computer. From her vantage point Kim could not see what her wife was doing but the pale green woman had turned the machine on and was accessing files. A few minutes passed in silence and Kim was beginning to feel worried again when Shego stood and gestured towards the chair that she had just vacated.

“Please, have a seat.” The face was unreadable with its border of flowing black hair, its faint green highlights shining where the light hit them. Kim sat, noticing that Shego had been opening image files from their digitized photo album. She saw pictures from when the twins were born, from several different vacations, from that indescribable time at Sans Woo… dozens of photographs were posted on the screen, ready to be scrolled through or enlarged.

Shego had also made a drastic alteration to the displayed image files.

“Why did you covert them all to grayscale?” Kim turned to her in confusion.

“Take a look at the faces.” Kim turned back to comply, staring at the pictures. She looked at them for over a minute, her trained eye and sharp mind searching for the clue that Shego apparently wanted her to find. She saw faced smiling, yelling, mugging for the camera; she saw herself with the twins, Shego with the twins and all of them together.

“Sorry, baby, I still don’t see anything!”

“Please take another look.” Exasperated, a pale green arm reached past her and enlarged a few particular images. Kim kept looking until her eyes burned and she sighed.

“Shego, I just don’t see what…” She was interrupted when the chair was forcibly spun around and a very intense woman stared at her from mere inches away.

“They look just like YOU!”

“Like… me?”

“The faces, the way they move, their sense of humor, even the way that they’re built…” Shego thrust out her arm over Kim’s shoulder and pointed at the monitor behind her stunned wife. “Do you want me to bring up your own baby pictures, or the pictures taken of you as a kid, ‘cause I will!” Kim had no chance to respond as her chair was spun back around. Feelings of vertigo meshed with embarrassed realization when she inspected the images again.

“You, you, you!” The hidden source of the voice didn’t stop. “Everything about them screams ‘Kim Possible’! Yes, they got the plasma. Yes, they both have my gloriously dead white skin with its algae tints. Yes, Sheki even has my hair!” The angular face softened and she paused to catch her breath. “I’m grateful that whatever there is of me in them is at least visible… “ Shego slowly leaned forward and enfolded the petite woman in her long arms from behind.

“Are you so colorblind that you can’t see this?”

Kim was beyond speech. There was no denying the fact now that it was all before her in… black and white. She wondered how she could have been so wrong. She did her best to remain composed but her breath caught a little and it was noticed.

“I swear that if you start crying, I’ll break your arm.”

“I won’t cry.”

“Compound fracture, immobilized for weeks.”

“Really, I’m not going to cry.”

“I’d have to bathe you and give you massages to avoid bedsores.”

“Bedsores for a broken arm?”

“Mm, hm.”

“Can… we pretend later that you broke my arm?”

“Sure, Princess.” The pale green nuzzled the back of Kim’s neck. “So, what do you want to do now?”

“Drink my hot chocolate and finish the movie.”

“Really?”

“Really, really.”

“You got it.” Just as they had entered, Shego hiked the slender woman up over her shoulders and carried her back to the family room where an exhausted television announcer was giving out the locations of rescue centers that both women knew had long been abandoned in the onslaught of the advancing zombies. They shared the sofa and finished the movie in comfortable silence, broken only once when Kim covered her face and whimpered when Barbara was dragged away by her brother.

The film ended and Shego turned off the electronics. Kim was looking at the blank screen but seeing something else. Shego nudged her.

“How did it feel?”

“How did what feel?”

“Being me for a day.”

“I felt strong… powerful. The plasma was one thing… it was like a humming in my bones, but the strength!” Kim actually raised her arms and flexed her toned and not-insubstantial muscles. “You’re so strong, physically I mean. That, plus the height… I felt like a giant, or a titan!” Her pink face became very Shego-esque. “I just felt huge!”

“They do have a nice heft to them, don’t they?”

“Oh, yeah, they’re… ghaa!” Kim scowled and pounded her fists on her knees, frustrated at Shego’s sly giggles. As she let the feeling pass, another thought occurred to her. “You… didn’t like being in my body much, did you?”

“It was Ok.” A shrug. “Definitely different, not what I’m used to. Forget the lack of plasma because there was sure a heap of energy when I needed it.”

“Energy?”

“Hell, yeah. My heart never slowed down, I felt as light as air and like, well…” She shrugged again. “Like I could do anything.”

“But you didn’t like it?”

“What do you want to hear, that I felt like a hideous frelling chud?”

“…”

“Well?”

“Did you?”

“Kimmie! Judas Priest, no! I am exactly three seconds from waking up the girls and telling them about this conversation!”

“… sorry…”

“Look… I think that you’re the most beautiful thing on two legs but a large part of that is because it’s you in there.” Shego reached out and poked Kim on the nose. “Putting me in there isn’t right… I didn’t belong. Maybe it’s why I hate the idea of being cloned.” She inhaled deeply and pounded on her chest. “This is me and there can be only one. I don’t want to look up and see other ‘pseudo-Shegos’ running around.”

“So my being in your body was wrong?”

“Only if you refused to give it back, yeah.” Shego looked closely at her wife’s face and wasn’t quite convinced that things were copasetic yet. “There’s more to it but I’m not a philosopher. I don’t have the right words.” Tired, she leaned her cheek against her hand and had run her eyes around the room when a memory came to her. “Do you know that silvery dress? The one that you usually wear around the Holidays?”

“Yeah, sure. Why?”

“Well, what would you say if I were to borrow it? You know, wear it now and then?”

“Well, that would be fine… but why would you? It totally clashes with your hair and whatever light you’re standing in while you wear it makes your skin look either chalky or… oh.” Realization dawned. “I see what you mean.”

“Right. What we look like shouldn’t ever matter to who we are, but what we’ve become and what we mean to each other is affected by how we look to them.” She caught herself stifling a yawn. “Or some such bullshit. I’m starting to get really sleepy.”

“The Mighty Shego becoming the voice of reason… what is the world coming to?” Kim remained seated when her wife stood and flipped the light switch, plunging the room into darkness.

“Aren’t you coming to bed?” Emerald eyes looked back curiously.

“No. I’m going to sit here in the darkness and feel stupid for just a little while longer, then I’ll be up.” This got a blank look, but the pale green woman quietly left the room. Kim noticed that lights were going out in the dining room and kitchen and eventually the entire house was pitch black. She heard footsteps moving back in her direction and the cushions shifted as a weight settled down beside her in the darkness.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going to sit here and feel stupid with you.” The tall body was warm as it leaned against her. There was a dry chuckle. “Zo tehl me, Miz Possible… how long haf you had zis desire to make luv wis yourself?”

“What?”

“Don’t jerk me around, Kimmie… ‘Calling Doctor Freud!’ Don’t tell me that all day yesterday when the girls were at school was just about you feeling what it was like to experience sex while inside my body.” You could hear the smirk. “From the way you chased me around the house I’d almost believe that you were more eager to see what the inside of your own body was like, but from the outside!”

“Well, you know that book you have by David Gerrold?”

“Yeah? So?”

“So? Haven’t you ever wanted to… you know… yourself?”

“Ok, I rarely ever say this, but EWWW!”

The End

Author’s Note: I hoped that not everyone figured out that it was the mind-swap machine that Team Possible encountered, such as was used in ‘Mind Games’. I’d hoped that some of you were guessing Moodulators or maybe even the Attitudinator, or something. This plot bunny-turned-plot buffalo was originally conceived from my love for the ‘Farscape’ episode ‘Out Of Their Minds’ but was further prompted and enhanced by a suggestion from the SAME anonymous source that prompted ‘A Cookie For Ecclesiastes’. I hope that both you, and he, enjoyed it. Sorry about the wait. Oh, and the book is called ‘The Man Who Folded Himself’ by David Gerrold. That’s right, ‘folded’.

Description
Tag
Author: The Humbug
Disclaimer: “Kim Possible” and all characters within © The Walt Disney Company and its related entities. Kim Possible created by Mark McCorkle & Bob Schooley. All rights reserved. No profit is being collected from the fiction contained within. You can blame the rest of this on me.
Rating: PG-13 for combat violence and intimations of a physical relationship and intimate contact between consenting adult females. This should also cover a little harsh language now and then. If this will offend you, please read something else, and then seek professional help.
Summary: Mostly harmless, this is a Kim/Shego pairing fan fiction set late in my ‘Who’s Writing This Crap?’ Kigo-verse. Drama with humor seasoned to taste. Kasy Ann and Sheki Go Possible are the creations of NoDrogs, bless him.

Tag / Part II

The Kimmunicator chirped with an incoming signal while they were in the car. It was Shego that immediately looked around for the device but it was Kim that pulled it from her pocket.

“Don’t…” The taller woman was driving and from the backseat her daughters heard an almost pleading quality in the voice. “Please don’t answer it.”

“I’ve got to. You knew that they were going to call.” The redhead palmed the small blue machine but let it continue to chirp away. Her voice was almost as patient as the girls were used to hearing, not like that morning at the kitchen table.

“I know, but…” The adults became silent in the front seat and Sheki leaned forward against her safety belt to watch the blinking lights of the Kimmunicator.

“Aren’t you going to answer that?”

Shego continued to drive and kept her eyes on the road; Kim clutched the casing of the device until it creaked against her grip. After several more seconds the chirping stopped.

“Doesn’t look like it, sweetheart.” Kim looked out at the barren landscape of this deserted region of Middleton, her reflection unreadable to her daughters as they stared, incredulous, from the back seat. The redhead glanced down to see that a text message had been uploaded to the device but she already knew what it would say.

“Thanks.” Shego turned the steering wheel around and around and brought the car to a stop, facing the direction in which they’d driven. There was no answer from the smaller woman, now dressed in her usual black Kevlar top and olive drab cargo pants, except that the top had a midriff-bearing cut to it that the girls were not used to seeing.

“This is it, girls! We’re here!” The woman turned in her seat and pulled her hair out of the way to beam at her daughters. Now that the car had stopped, the passengers took a good look at the area.

“Here?” Kasy popped her belt.

“Yep!” Shego’s enthusiasm was more evident.

“This is where we’re going to practice?” Sheki was the first to open her door, appraising the long abandoned storefronts and vast, empty parking lot. “An old shopping mall?”

“Sure! This way we can cause all the ruckus we want and no one will know!”

“Great…” Kim was also out of the car but opted to take a seat on the hood of the vehicle. “This will end badly.” She kept the Kimmunicator in her hand but did not open a channel to ‘GJ’. She watched her girls as they performed the stretching exercises they had been taught by both parents, all the better to move or fight when staging a simulated mission. “Arch your back, Kasy. Good girl… Don’t forget to loosen up your calves, either. You, too, Sheki, that’s right…” The girls obeyed, limbering up even as their Momma was starting to ignite her plasma.

“So? Are you girls ready yet?” The tall woman was holding up her arm, letting the green plasma field roll and cascade around her fingers, constantly adjusting the intensity of the field and making it flicker. She seemed to be fascinated with her own ability and only when her children were ready did they join her.

“Ok, Momma!”

“What’s the sitch?”

“Well…” the pale green woman smiled down into the twin faces that bore the same cast as her own. “I thought that you might want to run through a few of the standard drills that your Mommy and I set up for you, but then I’d like to try some target practice!”

“Really? That rocks!”

“Yeah, that hurricane rocks!”

“And then maybe the three of us can play a little ‘plasma-powered dodge ball’ to work up a hearty appetite for dinner?”

“What’s for dinner?”

“Um… pizza?”

“YAY!”

The three green skinned females began to run around the huge parking lot, the low sun glinting off the few chrome highlights of Shego’s uniform and utterly vanishing into the inky depths of the twins deep black outfits. If any of them heard the repeated chirping of the Kimmunicator in Kim’s hand, they never reacted to it. The petite redhead remained seated on the hood of the car and only moved to reach down and deactivate the little annoyance, a full deactivation that was hardly ever performed, her intense look of disgust slowly easing into one of pleasure.

She watched as the physically larger woman scampered around the macadam like a playing child; her movements and her laughter mirroring that of the young teens. A look of sheer joy suffused the features that both adults knew had hardly ever known true joy until far too late in life. The play was mixed evenly with actual training, mock attacks being waged against real defense; the girls were becoming very strong for their size and could jump almost as far and leap almost as high as their folks. The pride on the pale green woman’s face was obvious, so the redhead was content to let it continue uninterrupted for a while. And besides, she was just as proud in the girls’ skills as was her wife.

When the girls had begun to tire of the drills, their Momma made good on her promise for target practice, calling a break so that she could assemble a few sundry items that were strewn across the cracked lot. A few metal frame shopping carts, plastic crates, bits of wooden pallets and the odd piece of cinderblock were arrayed in a heap beside her.

“Ok, Team Possible, here’s the sitch…” The tall woman matched her daughters’ grins with one of her own. “When each of you are ready, I’ll throw a target OR targets out in front of you and it’ll be your mission to blast it!” She grinned wider. “Ready?”

“READY!” The girls had spaced themselves apart for safety. Kim could see, even from her perch on the car’s hood, that the girls were cupping their hands slightly so as to feel the short-lived plasma ‘bubble’ that could quickly be strengthened into a ‘grenade’.

“Then here goes…” Shego lobbed a chunk of wood high and right. “Sheki!”

BAM… splinters were still raining down after the green flash had faded.

“Good, very quick on the draw!” A piece of concrete took flight. “Kasi!”

BAM… BAM… the piece was cleaved in two and then thrust away.

“Wow! Excellent control!” Several small bits of rock were gathers into a pair of green and black gloves. “Let’s try for multiple targets, this time, shall we?”

“No big!” Kasy giggled.

“Yeah, so not the drama!” Sheki winked at her twin. Several yards away, an older redhead shook her head in wonder.

The former cheerleader leaned back and watched as an intense and thorough session of plasma training unfolded before her very eyes. Her emerald eyes were slightly glazed at how both teens were not only performing beautifully but also how they never even realized how their skills were being tested. She had never thought to incorporate these techniques in their training herself, and was equally stunned and impressed at the same time. Not every target was hit, and not every hit was clean, but with guidance and encouragement from the woman in green and black the girls were displaying a comfort with their own powers that the other parent hadn’t previously seem before.

Maybe the day wasn’t such a loss, after all.

88888888

“Hey!” It had been almost two hours since they’d started their training session and the sun was almost gone. “Hey, gang! It’s time to pack this show up and get home!” The slender redhead was getting cold, something that she wasn’t used to, and she knew that the girls would be getting hungry even if they didn’t want the fun to end. No one had eaten yet and it was still a school night.

“She’s right. Ok, Team Possible, let’s pack it in!” The pale green woman straightened and stretched her own muscles, reveling at how they flexed and bunched beneath her skin.

“Mommy, did you see?” Kasy ran to her, pulling off her cowl. “Did you see the new move we came up with?”

“Did you?” Sheki was beside them, equally ecstatic. “Cool, huh?”

“Yes I did and it was brilliant. I can’t wait to see it in action some day!” And she meant it; they girls had worked together to first create a plasma sphere, concentrated enough to be powerful but far too large and unwieldy to throw, but then boost it from behind with another plasma blast designed to launch the first sphere like a cannon ball. The attack carried a considerable punch! “Your… Momma and I are very proud of you!”

“Care to go a quick round, Cupcake?” Shego had finished brushing the debris off of her uniform from the girls’ efforts and had glided up behind the three. “It’s still light out.”

“It’s a school night and the girls are hungry. I’m getting chilled and they will too once they start to cool down.” Kim kept her face set and her mouth hard. She continued to stare at her spouse but redirected her speech to the girls. “Great work, you two. Jump in the car and let’s head home.”

“Awww…”

“Ok, Mommy…” The disappointment was more obligatory for the girls than anything; their Mommy knew that she heard at least one stomach growling.

“You are such a buzzkiller, Princess.” The waning light grew bright but green as twin flares of plasma engulfed the hands of the taller woman. “Come on, let’s show the girls what it was like in the old days!”

“Yeah, that would be so cool!” The twins stood by the open rear door of the car in eager anticipation. “You never let us watch you fight!”

“And with good reason…” Kim would not be swayed. “It’s not right to let you see that, even if it’s not real.” The older woman with the flowing black hair seemed oblivious to this fact, so her spouse repeated herself. “It’s just not right.”

A bright flash of light from overhead startled them all. It was repeated twice more as three lamp posts, tall remnants of the once bustling mall parking lot, flickered to life and illuminated an area several square yards in diameter. They were apparently still tied into the power grid in this disused section of town. The petite woman watched in frustration as her wife walked over to stand in the middle of the lighted area.

“The Mighty Shego stands ready to take all comers!” Her arms were raised and her hands flared with green death, her voice roaring with bravado. “Who thinks that they are strong enough to fight me?”

“Oh, for the love of Mike…” Turning to face her daughters, the woman handed them the Kimmunicator. “Hold this and stay by the car.” Her gaze burned into them. “And do NOT get any closer than this, no matter what happens, capisce?”

“Ok, Mommy.” Their anxious looks gave her pause.

“It’s Ok, don’t worry. I told you that your Momma wasn’t herself, right?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Well, I think that I’m going to have to give her the fight she wants.” She tousled their hair and walked towards the ersatz arena.

“Hel-lo, Kimmie!” The smirk was timeless. “I didn’t think that you’d have the nerve.”

“Let’s just get this over with. I could do with some pizza, myself.”

“Oh, there’ll be pizza, alright!” The tall woman sprinted forward and leapt, flipping as she did so and bringing both hands down right where her slender opponent had been standing just a second before. Clawed gloves tore into asphalt that had already been weakened by the heat of her plasma fields. White teeth grinned through black glossed lips.

“Street pizza!” She stood and charged again.

“Son of a …!” The redhead had rolled at the last moment, feeling the familiar heat and hearing a crunch that would have been her bones if she’d not been fast enough. Lithe muscles and quick reflexes being utilized to the fullest, she ducked and dodged a flurry of attacks, each designed to cripple or main but all coming just within a hair’s breadth of contact… and the former cheerleader had to keep herself constantly moving just to keep it that way.

“Not bad, Princess! I guess there is a benefit to not carrying too much extra weight!”

“Oh, you are so going to pay for that one!”

Back at the vehicle, the twins watched in awe, not realizing the degree to which the fight was authentic and not being staged or just an innocent ‘sparing’ between the two martial artists. They stood by the car and mimicked each blow and parry, each bob and weave and feint just as their parents made them out in the shadowed parking lot, with each girl seeing the outcome of their hours of training each week.

The children weren’t the only ones receiving an education; the green and black clad woman was learning that size and strength weren’t always better than agility and accuracy. Every strike, be it charged with plasma or not, missed by such a small margin that she was losing control of her emotions, making each attack a little wilder than the previous one. She was also getting tired, the weight of her frame unable to keep up with the fluid motions of her human target. That target wasn’t immune to learning a lesson either; the redhead could not believe the psychological advantage that a larger opponent able to throw plasma grenades had over a non-powered, albeit athletic, body. Every time that she saw the larger form coming at her she fought against panic, and every plasma blast startled her with its heat and concussive force. Quick and dexterous she might be, but all it would take was one good hit… just one… and she would be dead.

It was time to call it a day.

“Ok, we’ve had our fun…” She kept her voice even as she dropped out of the path of a flying kick aimed right at her face. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you, Kim Possible?” Eyes flashed as green as the energy around her hands. “You think you’re all that, but you’re NOT!” Shego draw back her hand and swung at her foe, making the smaller woman backpedal towards the closest lamppost.

“Look… “ It was all that she could do to keep her voice steady in the face of such unbridled power and fury, the look in the eyes of her opponent bordering on madness. “We really need to stop and get home. The girls probably have schoolwork and they need to be fed!” The argument was completely lost on the rampaging woman as she continued to advance, with fists and claws trusting out and grasping or slicing through the air just shy of pink flesh.

“No!” A powerful arm drew back. “I will have my victory!” The smaller form had barely enough time to evade the strike as a plasma charged fist pulverized its way through the metal shaft of the post, blinding them both as the shredded wires sparked and the light above went out.

“Mommy!”

“Momma!”

The girls knew that something was very, very wrong. They disobeyed the order to remain by the car as the lamp fell, the long metal post canting and twisting as it collapsed, kicking outward from its ruined base and forcing the redhead to huddle against the concrete for safety. Staying well back from the falling post, the girls witnessed their Mommy hiding down behind the conical base of the shattered post while their Momma continued to punch into it, her plasma fields allowing her to crush more and more of the formed concrete into powder.

“Stop it!” The redhead’s voice held more real fear than she wanted it to, but the reply she received was even more terrified. “Stop it right now!”

“I… I can’t!” The tall form straightened and ceased her attack against the concrete base, but the plasma fields did not go out. “I can’t shut it off!” The pale green woman held her hands out before her as if they had betrayed her, as if the energy fields were some horrible malady. There was pure terror in her eyes.

“Sh… Shego! Help me!”

“I’m coming, Princess!” The redhead crawled out from her hiding place and the thoroughly confused twins watched as the tall woman lurched about on stiff legs, desperate to shake off the green flames, while the petite woman ran around and jumped up onto her back, still keeping well clear of the flames herself.

“It won’t shut off! I can’t…!”

“Shhh… it’s Ok, Pumpkin, it’s Ok…” Kim’s voice was soothing, even if she had been fighting for her life a few seconds ago. “Relax and slow your breathing.”

“I can’t…” Terror still ruled the face of the taller woman but her forced gasps were a little slower now. “I can’t control it anymore!”

“Sure you can, you’ve done fine all day.” The tone was calm and was slowly having the desired effect; the stiff lurching was almost stopped and within moments the green and black clad woman staggered and fell to her knees before settling down to sit on the cooling macadam. The slender redhead never left her place on Shego’s back.

“Think of fishing line…”

“F-fishing line… Ok…!”

“You have the reel, so just reel it in…”

“Reeling it in…!”

“Or the strings of a marionette. Just pull the energy back in. You could feel it running out through your fingers, now just reel it back…” The serene look on the redhead’s face was eventually matched by that of her wife and the panic that the larger woman felt slowly leeched away as the calm words and controlled breathing took hold.

“What’s going on?” The twins dared to walk closer when the green flames eventually died away.

“Yeah, what’s wrong with Momma?”

“I know that you’re not standing here right now because I distinctly recall telling you to wait by the car!” The redhead wasn’t really mad but there was entirely too much adrenalin coursing through her veins at the moment.

“But Momma’s sick or something!”

“Girls… your… Mommy’s right. You should have stayed at the car.” Staring at her hands as if seeing them for the first time, it was the woman in the green and black uniform that answered. The slender redhead holding onto her back and shoulders was gently stroking the flowing black hair and maintained the steady breathing. “I’m better now, really.”

“But what happened?”

“I… I owe you both an apology and an explanation. I’m hoping that it can wait ‘til tomorrow because it’s getting late and I know that you’re hungry, but I hope that you won’t be too upset if we… if…”

“How about we have pizza tomorrow night, Momma?”

“Yeah, and then we can all talk then.”

“That’d be Ok with us.”

“You two are the bestest little girls in the world.” The pale green woman looked right at them and for a second it was as if someone else was behind those eyes. The redhead stirred and slowly withdrew the Kimmunicator from her pocket and held it out for the larger woman to see the display.

“They’re ready for us, baby. They’ve been waiting for almost two hours.”

“I know.” The larger woman seemed to be mentally collecting herself. “Let’s get the girls home first.”

“Are you sure?” Kim unwrapped herself from her spouse and they helped each other to their feet. “We could always call in a transport, or we can have an Agent take them home…”

“No. I’m sure.” She looked down at her family from a perspective that she knew that she would never have again. “I’m sure.”

“Ok, but I’m driving!” The petite woman herded the other three back to the car and they had soon left the deserted parking lot behind them. The girls were just as perplexed as ever but there was something new in the equation; both of their parents were much more relaxed than they had been the entire day, each apparently at peace in a way that would remain a mystery, even if for just another day. Their Mommy actually turned on the radio to one of Momma’s favorite stations and their Momma just sat quietly and kept looking at her face in the small mirror mounted in the sun visor.

“Baby, where are you going?” Kim had failed to make the turn in the direction of their community, instead taking the car down a street lined with fast food restaurants.

“The girls are probably starving and I know I am… I’m sure that you are, too, so I’m going to get us some perfectly horrible and unhealthy drive-thru crap.”

“YAY!”

“Don’t ‘yay’ me, Team Possible!” The redhead smirked. “It’s dinner and then homework and then bath and then bed!”

“BOO!”

She even treated them all to extra fries that evening. The night ended smoothly if quietly with the four of them gathered around the table in the dining room. The girls brought out their homework and it became a group study effort while they ate and made sure that the children were well prepared for the following school day. Momma helped with the math and writing but still seemed subdued, more exhausted from the afternoon’s activities than from anything on her mind. Mommy left them alone to clean up but kept a watchful eye on the tall woman, apparently satisfied with what she saw.

Once dinner and homework were completed, she hustled the twins off for a late bath. The teens received their usual hugs and kisses but the hug from Shego was especially tight. Kim stood back and waited until the pale green woman was finished, watching her stand and leave the room before the redhead turned and addressed the twins.

“Alright, you two, bath time. We’ll be up to tuck you in when you’re done.”

“’Kay, Mommy!” Kim watched the girls scamper upstairs and then waited for her wife to return to the central location of the dining room; the former villain had left to make the house secure for the night.

“Aren’t you going to wash up and change?” The redhead’s inquiry evoked a puzzled look.

“Why? Aren’t we going to drive to ‘GJ’ once the girls are in bed?”

“Naw… I sent a text message back while I was in the kitchen. I told them that we’d be in tomorrow morning after we got the girls off to school.”

“But…”

“A few more hours won’t hurt anything.” The redhead sidled up to her wife. “I just thought that… maybe you’d want to take it for another test drive. You know…” the redhead smirked. “Under less stressful conditions.”

“… please and thank you…” The larger woman was blushing, her entire face and neck becoming a dusky, bruised color.

88888888

Kasy and Sheki had been staring at their mothers for over thirty seconds in silence. Their mouths had been slack and their matching pairs of green eyes were wide. It was the afternoon again and the girls had been home from yet another day at school for about an hour, doing a few simple chores and starting that evening’s homework. The night before had been peaceful and they had slept well, and after several assurances at breakfast that morning that everything would be back to normal by the time they came home, the girls felt better about the sitch… whatever it was… than they had the day before.

“Ok…” Sheki found her breath first. Their parent’s explanation over some after-school snacks had been interesting.

“Let’s get this straight.” Kasy followed close behind. “All day yesterday and until we left for school this morning, you…” Kasy pointed to the redheaded Kim Possible. “… were in Momma’s body.”

“That’s right, sweetheart.” Kim sat cross-legged on her chair, still too embarrassed at her behavior to stop blushing; she was starting to worry that the rosy hue might become permanent. She sipped at her beverage to avoid looking at them.

“And Momma…” Sheki peered closely at the former villain. “Momma was in Mommy’s body.”

“Yep.” Shego was sitting backwards at her chair, draped over the back and resting her chin on her crossed arms.

“Did it hurt?”

“Well, I’m certain that one of us is a little more sore today that the other…”

“Shego!”

“What I meant, Pumpkin, is that your body doesn’t heal like mine and it was pushed to its limits yesterday.”

“Oh. That’s true.”

“And then there was later…”

“Ghaa!”

“Uh… “ Sheki glanced at Kasy and neither girl understood what was meant by that. “But are you sure that the ‘mind-switching’ thingy didn’t leave you a few episodes short of sixty-five?”

“Yeah, how do we know that you’re back to being, well, you?” Kasy was still peering at her Momma, prompting the pale green woman to cross her eyes and stick out her tongue at the girl. This elicited a giggle from both girls and, to Shego’s relief, Kim herself. The older redhead set down her drink and looked at them evenly.

“When we arrived at the old lair and broke up the gang of scavengers, they hadn’t yet figured out what they’d found or even how to use it properly. Several of their own minds got switched around before we got there and had the same thing happen to us. Needless to say that everyone was more than a little disoriented during the fight and when the machine was accidentally damaged, well…”

“Damaged?”

“It was just the power source, baby, nothing that ‘GJ’ couldn’t repair.” Shego reached out and patted Kasy on the hand. “They needed a few hours and there wasn’t any reason for us to hang around there, so we came home.”

“It might have been better…” They all looked to Kim, who turned away slightly before continuing. “Maybe we shouldn’t have come home. It was wrong to expose you two to that sitch since I wasn’t… behaving myself better.”

“It’s Ok, Mommy.”

“Yeah, it was awkweird because we knew something wasn’t right.”

“But we had fun last night, too! The practice was great!”

“So why didn’t you tell us?”

“Well…” Kim looked to Shego, who shrugged. “We thought that it might freak you out a little.” The girls grinned back at her.

“Richard, how about ‘The Kids Were Freaked Out Anyway’?”

“Survey says… BING BING BING!”

Shego roared with laughter and fell off her chair, with Kim staring at the girls in shock.

“Oh, no, you didn’t!” The twins were up and moving before Kim could make it around the table, but she was able to make up the distance once they reached the backyard. “You think you’re all that, Team Possible… blah, blah, blah!” Shego, still laughing, walked into the kitchen and removed two of the largest, most righteous pizzas from the oven that the world had ever seen. Outside there were two children being tortured by tickling so what could be wrong?

88888888

“What am I going to do with you?” The children had been in bed for an hour and Shego had just brought two cups of hot chocolate into the family room.

“Huh? What do you mean?” They were both dressed for bed but ‘the movie’ was on and Johnny had just cracked his skull against a headstone. Kim had on her pajamas and robe and had her feet tucked up under her lest a zombie grab them from beneath the sofa.

“You lied to me the other day.”

“What? I did not!”

“I asked you if you were ‘Ok’ and you said yes. You proved how untrue that was yesterday.” Shego sat down beside her younger spouse and twirled a strand of red hair around her green finger. “So tell me what’s wrong.”

“Nothing’s wrong.” Kim smiled, knowing that she wasn’t going to be able to put up much of a fight. As if to make the point, Shego leaned close and whispered into the perfect ear.

“I have ways of making you talk.” She straightened and became serious. “So talk.”

“You know…” Kim sighed deeply. “You know how I was upset the other day during the game of tag against the BEBE, right?”

“Yes.”

“And I told you that I was angry at being the ‘enemy’, and that I didn’t like not being able to ‘be there’ and that I was feeling ‘old and used up’?

“Yes.”

“None of that was quite true, either.”

“Really?”

“Really. It was all… bullshit.”

“Uh, huh. Hang on a sec’.” Shego reached out and snagged the telephone from the end table behind her.

“What? Who are…?”

“Hold on, hold on…” Shego made a show of dialing a number and then listening to the ringing through the open connection. “Hey, Doc? Hey, it’s Shego! Yeah, long time and all that. Listen, hope I didn’t wake you but I’ve finally done it.” Kim huffed and rolled her eyes; Shego covered the receiver and shushed her before returning to her ‘call’. “Yep, that’s right… Operation ‘Live With KP Until She’s Hopelessly Corrupted’ is a howling success! I’m proud to say that she’s lying like a rug! She’s as crooked as a dog’s hind leg! She’s even cursing!”

“Ok, enough! That was funny for, like, never!” Kim hid her grin as best she was able. Her wife returned the phone to its cradle.

“Then you tell me exactly what was on your mind.” Shego had the patience of Job at the worst possible times.

“When we were out in the yard, with me as the BEBE and you coaching the girls, I was upset because…”

“Yes?”

“Geez, this is harder than I thought.”

“Is it the plasma thing again? Please don’t tell me it’s the plasma thing again, because the girls felt terrible about that and we swore an oath that night…”

“What? What oath? No! No, it’s not ‘the plasma thing’. I’m over that, really.” Kim would have to get the details on what ‘oath’ her wife was talking about, but that was for some other time. “It’s because all I saw was you.”

“Me?” Shego looked like a deer caught in front of a pair of headlights.

“… yes.”

“All you saw was me? What does that mean?” She watched as her young wife pursed her lips. Kim was steeling herself to face an old and shameful demon.

“Ever since they were born, I’ve felt as if no babies had ever seen the light of day that were nearly as beautiful as those two. They were these flawless little jewels.” She noticed that Shego’s eyes had glazed over and that there was a smile playing around the corners of the black glossed lips; the woman was apparently reliving those times. “I still feel that way.”

“Me too, Kimmie. So what’s the drama?” Shego’s brow furrowed at her own choice of words.

“The drama is that every time I would bathe them, or feed then or dress them… I still don’t see… any of me in them.” There, she had finally said it. “I always see you. Out in the yard that day, with them running and dodging and having a grand old time with the BEBE… all I could see were two little versions of you.”

“You’re shitting me, right?” Shego’s face was a mask. “That’s why you’ve been so…”

“Crazy?”

“I was going to say ‘loopy’. You’re serious?” She watched Kim nod. “How can you mean that? They’re our children… OUR children, genetically and in every other way that counts! Kasy even has your hair!”

“Ssh! You’ll wake them!”

“It would serve you right if I did! They’d give you a working over like you’d never believe! Well, what about Kasy’s hair?”

“It… has those little green highlights, you know?” Kim felt terrible. “The ones that shine green when the light hits them right.”

“I cannot believe what I’m hearing!” Shego lowered her face and covered it with her hands. “I cannot believe it.”

“So when I found myself in your body, I… I thought that this would be my chance to be as close to them as you are! We’d have the same powers and the same appearance…!”

“Oh, Princess…” Her face still covered, Shego’s shoulders quivered.

“Don’t be angry with me! I knew that it wasn’t forever, just until the machine got fixed and ‘GJ’ could switch our minds back!” Shego raised her face and wiped at her eyes; Kim felt panic when she saw that there were tears in the woman’s eyes but panic became bafflement when she noticed that Shego was laughing to herself.

“Baby?”

“I swear, the more human and imperfect you show yourself to be, the more I love you!”

“Huh?”

“Come with me, Pumpkin. I want to show you something.”

“But what about the movie?”

“Princess, I have the VHS and the DVD! Come on!” Shego stood and started to leave the room, but turned back and lifted Kim bodily from the sofa when the petite woman didn’t start moving fast enough.

“Shego! Where are we going?”

“To the den, Kimmie. There’s something you should see.” True enough, Shego carried her to the den, depositing her into a chair and seating herself at the family computer. From her vantage point Kim could not see what her wife was doing but the pale green woman had turned the machine on and was accessing files. A few minutes passed in silence and Kim was beginning to feel worried again when Shego stood and gestured towards the chair that she had just vacated.

“Please, have a seat.” The face was unreadable with its border of flowing black hair, its faint green highlights shining where the light hit them. Kim sat, noticing that Shego had been opening image files from their digitized photo album. She saw pictures from when the twins were born, from several different vacations, from that indescribable time at Sans Woo… dozens of photographs were posted on the screen, ready to be scrolled through or enlarged.

Shego had also made a drastic alteration to the displayed image files.

“Why did you covert them all to grayscale?” Kim turned to her in confusion.

“Take a look at the faces.” Kim turned back to comply, staring at the pictures. She looked at them for over a minute, her trained eye and sharp mind searching for the clue that Shego apparently wanted her to find. She saw faced smiling, yelling, mugging for the camera; she saw herself with the twins, Shego with the twins and all of them together.

“Sorry, baby, I still don’t see anything!”

“Please take another look.” Exasperated, a pale green arm reached past her and enlarged a few particular images. Kim kept looking until her eyes burned and she sighed.

“Shego, I just don’t see what…” She was interrupted when the chair was forcibly spun around and a very intense woman stared at her from mere inches away.

“They look just like YOU!”

“Like… me?”

“The faces, the way they move, their sense of humor, even the way that they’re built…” Shego thrust out her arm over Kim’s shoulder and pointed at the monitor behind her stunned wife. “Do you want me to bring up your own baby pictures, or the pictures taken of you as a kid, ‘cause I will!” Kim had no chance to respond as her chair was spun back around. Feelings of vertigo meshed with embarrassed realization when she inspected the images again.

“You, you, you!” The hidden source of the voice didn’t stop. “Everything about them screams ‘Kim Possible’! Yes, they got the plasma. Yes, they both have my gloriously dead white skin with its algae tints. Yes, Sheki even has my hair!” The angular face softened and she paused to catch her breath. “I’m grateful that whatever there is of me in them is at least visible… “ Shego slowly leaned forward and enfolded the petite woman in her long arms from behind.

“Are you so colorblind that you can’t see this?”

Kim was beyond speech. There was no denying the fact now that it was all before her in… black and white. She wondered how she could have been so wrong. She did her best to remain composed but her breath caught a little and it was noticed.

“I swear that if you start crying, I’ll break your arm.”

“I won’t cry.”

“Compound fracture, immobilized for weeks.”

“Really, I’m not going to cry.”

“I’d have to bathe you and give you massages to avoid bedsores.”

“Bedsores for a broken arm?”

“Mm, hm.”

“Can… we pretend later that you broke my arm?”

“Sure, Princess.” The pale green nuzzled the back of Kim’s neck. “So, what do you want to do now?”

“Drink my hot chocolate and finish the movie.”

“Really?”

“Really, really.”

“You got it.” Just as they had entered, Shego hiked the slender woman up over her shoulders and carried her back to the family room where an exhausted television announcer was giving out the locations of rescue centers that both women knew had long been abandoned in the onslaught of the advancing zombies. They shared the sofa and finished the movie in comfortable silence, broken only once when Kim covered her face and whimpered when Barbara was dragged away by her brother.

The film ended and Shego turned off the electronics. Kim was looking at the blank screen but seeing something else. Shego nudged her.

“How did it feel?”

“How did what feel?”

“Being me for a day.”

“I felt strong… powerful. The plasma was one thing… it was like a humming in my bones, but the strength!” Kim actually raised her arms and flexed her toned and not-insubstantial muscles. “You’re so strong, physically I mean. That, plus the height… I felt like a giant, or a titan!” Her pink face became very Shego-esque. “I just felt huge!”

“They do have a nice heft to them, don’t they?”

“Oh, yeah, they’re… ghaa!” Kim scowled and pounded her fists on her knees, frustrated at Shego’s sly giggles. As she let the feeling pass, another thought occurred to her. “You… didn’t like being in my body much, did you?”

“It was Ok.” A shrug. “Definitely different, not what I’m used to. Forget the lack of plasma because there was sure a heap of energy when I needed it.”

“Energy?”

“Hell, yeah. My heart never slowed down, I felt as light as air and like, well…” She shrugged again. “Like I could do anything.”

“But you didn’t like it?”

“What do you want to hear, that I felt like a hideous frelling chud?”

“…”

“Well?”

“Did you?”

“Kimmie! Judas Priest, no! I am exactly three seconds from waking up the girls and telling them about this conversation!”

“… sorry…”

“Look… I think that you’re the most beautiful thing on two legs but a large part of that is because it’s you in there.” Shego reached out and poked Kim on the nose. “Putting me in there isn’t right… I didn’t belong. Maybe it’s why I hate the idea of being cloned.” She inhaled deeply and pounded on her chest. “This is me and there can be only one. I don’t want to look up and see other ‘pseudo-Shegos’ running around.”

“So my being in your body was wrong?”

“Only if you refused to give it back, yeah.” Shego looked closely at her wife’s face and wasn’t quite convinced that things were copasetic yet. “There’s more to it but I’m not a philosopher. I don’t have the right words.” Tired, she leaned her cheek against her hand and had run her eyes around the room when a memory came to her. “Do you know that silvery dress? The one that you usually wear around the Holidays?”

“Yeah, sure. Why?”

“Well, what would you say if I were to borrow it? You know, wear it now and then?”

“Well, that would be fine… but why would you? It totally clashes with your hair and whatever light you’re standing in while you wear it makes your skin look either chalky or… oh.” Realization dawned. “I see what you mean.”

“Right. What we look like shouldn’t ever matter to who we are, but what we’ve become and what we mean to each other is affected by how we look to them.” She caught herself stifling a yawn. “Or some such bullshit. I’m starting to get really sleepy.”

“The Mighty Shego becoming the voice of reason… what is the world coming to?” Kim remained seated when her wife stood and flipped the light switch, plunging the room into darkness.

“Aren’t you coming to bed?” Emerald eyes looked back curiously.

“No. I’m going to sit here in the darkness and feel stupid for just a little while longer, then I’ll be up.” This got a blank look, but the pale green woman quietly left the room. Kim noticed that lights were going out in the dining room and kitchen and eventually the entire house was pitch black. She heard footsteps moving back in her direction and the cushions shifted as a weight settled down beside her in the darkness.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going to sit here and feel stupid with you.” The tall body was warm as it leaned against her. There was a dry chuckle. “Zo tehl me, Miz Possible… how long haf you had zis desire to make luv wis yourself?”

“What?”

“Don’t jerk me around, Kimmie… ‘Calling Doctor Freud!’ Don’t tell me that all day yesterday when the girls were at school was just about you feeling what it was like to experience sex while inside my body.” You could hear the smirk. “From the way you chased me around the house I’d almost believe that you were more eager to see what the inside of your own body was like, but from the outside!”

“Well, you know that book you have by David Gerrold?”

“Yeah? So?”

“So? Haven’t you ever wanted to… you know… yourself?”

“Ok, I rarely ever say this, but EWWW!”

The End

Author’s Note: I hoped that not everyone figured out that it was the mind-swap machine that Team Possible encountered, such as was used in ‘Mind Games’. I’d hoped that some of you were guessing Moodulators or maybe even the Attitudinator, or something. This plot bunny-turned-plot buffalo was originally conceived from my love for the ‘Farscape’ episode ‘Out Of Their Minds’ but was further prompted and enhanced by a suggestion from the SAME anonymous source that prompted ‘A Cookie For Ecclesiastes’. I hope that both you, and he, enjoyed it. Sorry about the wait. Oh, and the book is called ‘The Man Who Folded Himself’ by David Gerrold. That’s right, ‘folded’.