Disclaimer: Kim Possible is owned by Disney.

Author's note: This is a sequel to Reflections. As such, it will contain spoilers to the earlier story, and they begin in the first paragraph. If you haven't read Reflections yet, this might be a good time to do so. It shouldn't be necessary to follow the story, though, as there will be a recap right here in this first chapter.

Chapter 1

Shego tossed around in her bed, unable to sleep. She kept thinking about Kim Possible, and the way she had treated her at their last meeting. She felt guilty, no matter how much she tried to convince herself she didn't have any reason to. They had had an understanding, and Kim wanted to go beyond it. Perhaps she had gone a little far in making her point, but she had to make it clear to Kim that there was not going to be anything between them. Really, she had been doing the girl a favor.

She could still see Kim's expression in that final moment, the disbelief and heartbreak on her youthful face. She had hurt Kim, after promising her she wouldn't use their affair against her. She should have found a different way. Deep down, she knew she hadn't been thinking of Kim in that moment, but of herself. She had been afraid she was getting in too deep, and she had made sure to sever that incipient connection before it could become an unwelcome complication. It was the right call, she just should not have been so cruel about it.

She shouldn't have gotten involved with Kim in the first place, really. She had known it was a mistake from the start, but when Kim had offered to sleep with her, she had jumped at the chance. She hadn't ended up as a thief because she was particularly good at resisting temptation. In Shego's opinion, it would take a saint to turn down Kim Possible. A dead saint. She still couldn't bring herself to regret the act itself, only the fallout. The fallout that was her fault.

"God damn it."

The guilt was useless. There was nothing she could do about it now. She turned around and buried her face into her pillow. She could just apologize to Kim the next time they met. This wasn't something she needed to lose sleep over. But would apologizing just undo what she had hoped to accomplish with her touch of cruelty? If she explained to Kim she hadn't really meant it, would she take it as a sign that she might be interested in something more? Why did things suddenly have to be so difficult? She'd had a comfortable thing going, lonely and boring, maybe, but easy. Of course it was the constant pain in her ass that ruined it for her.

She remembered how Kim's touch had felt, the way the imprint of her hand had been so much clearer, more distinct than those of other people. Was that how it felt to touch someone you might have feelings for? It was a depressing thought that she didn't even remember what the sensation of being with someone you were infatuated with felt like. There was no room for romance in her current life. Not with anyone, but especially not with a hero like Kim. She would apologize to Kim, but make it clear she was emphatically not going to add to their brief fling.

Shego's mind should have been easier with the decision made, but sleep was still slow coming. Her bed was large, and it felt empty. Her long hair brushed her face every time she shifted position, and in her half-formed thoughts she imagined it belonged to someone else sharing her pillow. Eventually she became too exhausted for even her restless thoughts to keep her awake, and fell into fitful slumber.

Shego emerged from her room at Dr. Drakken's latest lair in search of coffee. After a shower she felt a little more like a human, though not a particularly wakeful one. What little vigor the shower had imparted her was gone by the time she was toweled and dressed in her green and black catsuit. At least the harlequin-patterned suit was remarkably hard to put on wrong, though she had once again gotten tangled in the sleeves for a while. She was not a morning person at the best of times, and she hadn't had a good night's sleep.

The fluorescent lights in the bare corridor were too bright. She grumbled as she made her way to the kitchen. She wished there were henchmen around she could order to fetch her coffee, but she had only recently broken Dr. Drakken out of prison, and he was still setting up. Usually she let him stew a little longer while she took a vacation, but after the incident with Adrena Lynn and the way things went with Kim, she hadn't been in the mood for it.

When she entered the kitchen, she was greeted by Dr. Drakken's disagreeable voice. "Good morning, Shego." He was fully dressed, thankfully, wearing his usual double-breasted blue coat that was probably designed to recall a scientist's lab coat.

"Keep it down, will you? I didn't sleep well."

"I'm sorry to hear that, Shego." He hadn't lowered his voice at all. "Perhaps you, too, should have had some delicious warm chocolate before bed. It helps me sleep like a baby."

"I don't doubt it, Doc." After all, he was like a baby in many other ways, too. "Is there any coffee?"

"Of course there is coffee, Shego. How would one start a morning without coffee? Although I really think it should be you making it. After all, I am the brains of this outfit, and..."

"Hold it right there. My contract specifically says I'm not responsible for coffee."

"It doesn't say that."

"Do we need to go over this again?" Shego glowered at her employer. With as rotten as she felt, it was a good glower.

"Fine, have it your way." Dr. Drakken grumbled to himself while Shego poured herself a cup. "We need to get some henchmen in here. It's a waste of my genius to do trivial chores."

"So, you have some funds lined up, then?" Shego took a careful sip. She had to admit that, despite his numerous other faults, Dr. Drakken brewed good coffee.

"Not as such. I was wondering if you might..."

"I'm not loaning you my hard-earned money." Or the money she had swindled out of him, for that matter.

"Perhaps you could steal some?"

"You want me to steal money, you plan the job. If I have to do all the work, I'll keep the swag, too."

"Mmh. We can get by. Most of the equipment was lined up already. The transhemispheric magnetoscope I sent you to steal last week was the final piece to the puzzle."

It hadn't been so much that Dr. Drakken had sent her; rather, Shego had browbeaten him into just giving her a description of the item and staying behind. She had wanted to make a quick, clean grab to avoid running into Kim, something that would have been all but impossible if she'd had to babysit the bumbling mad scientist.

"Already? I'm impressed, Dr. D. Usually you just flail around for a few weeks before you get your ducks in a row."

"I really don't like this attitude of yours, Shego. Follow me to the command center, and I'll explain everything."

"Command center? You call it command center, now?"

Dr. Drakken, however, wasn't listening, having already marched out of the room. Shego shrugged, picked up her cup, and followed him.

Shego settled herself at the table in the middle of the large room, while Dr. Drakken paced back and forth in front of a set of needlessly large displays.

"It is no accident that we are in this specific lair, Shego. It was in this very lair my genius gave birth to something astonishingly brilliant, yet wickedly evil."

"I've got to say I'm not fond of your choice of expression, Dr. D."

"Mm. Everyone's a critic. My work on the device was nearly complete, when circumstances forced me to put it on hold."

"By which you mean Kimmie sent you to jail."

"Can we not talk about her, Shego? Kim Possible may think she is all that, but I assure you, she is not." Shego had to disagree. She could testify from first hand experience that Kim most certainly was all that.

"If your thing was so brilliant, and nearly finished, why didn't you get back to it sooner? We haven't been in this lair for, what, a year?"

"I had other irons in the fire, Shego."

"You forgot all about it, didn't you?"

"Why must you always try to drag me down? Would it kill you to be supportive just once?"

"It might, and I'm not prepared to take that chance."

"Bah. Irregardless..."

"That's not a word."

"Irregardless, Shego, let me explain my fearsome machine in exquisite detail..."

Shego tuned Dr. Drakken out, as she didn't need the excruciating details. She looked at the pile of magazines littering the desk and picked one up at random. Dr. Drakken liked to have an audience, but didn't usually notice if they were actually paying attention. A few grunts now and then were generally enough to keep him from being a nuisance. Today, however, Shego needed distraction from other things as well: namely her own thoughts and the way they kept returning to the affair with Adrena Lynn, and the different affair with Kim.

Lynn had planned to hijack Jack Hench's project to imbue people with the Go Glow in her campaign of vengeance against Kim. Shego didn't hold people who went for vendettas in high regard, but if that would have been all, she would have been content to let Kim handle it. It was involving her family's legacy that made her break out of prison ahead of schedule to stop Lynn. She had failed. In her effort to destroy Hench's device, she had also destroyed the piece of Go Comet it housed, and in the resulting explosion Lynn had gained the power she sought. It had availed her little.

The power Lynn had received seemed almost tailor-made for someone looking to humiliate their nemesis. The orange Glow let Lynn control people. Unfortunately for her, it didn't appear to work on Kim at all. Shego was also immune, probably because of her own Glow. Other people, not so much. Nevertheless, Shego and Kim had dealt with Lynn without undue difficulty. She was back in prison less than a week after making parole.

She still had the Glow, though. It irked Shego that the useless wannabe criminal now had access to the otherworldly power that belonged to her family. For a wild second she had considered asking Dr. Drakken's help in rendering Lynn powerless, but quickly thought better of it. She doubted that the moron was up to it, and she didn't really want to encourage anyone to develop a way to neutralize the Go Glow. Aviarius's power-stealing device had been bad enough, even if she had ended up with all of her brothers' powers for a few glorious minutes.

Kim had briefly had powers during that incident, too. Aviarius had attempted to steal her brother Hego's powers, but had inadvertently transferred them to Kim, instead. Not surprising, considering the old man was probably going senile, and hadn't been that impressive even in his best days. Why couldn't Kim have ended up with the Glow that went to Lynn instead? She had been standing right next to Lynn when the comet fragment exploded. Something in the image nagged at Shego, but her mind seized on the idea of what an exhilarating opponent Kim with a Glow of her own would have been.

Shego wondered how Kim would have reacted to having mind control powers. It was the kind of power that might be a bit of an ethical struggle for the hero. Or maybe not; Shego could see her controlling a couple of henchmen and ordering them to attack the rest. Kim had never had too much of a problem with beating up bad guys. She tended to avoid excessive force, sure, but didn't seem overtly concerned about some cuts and bruises, or even the occasional concussion or a cracked rib.

Kim might also not be quite as virtuous as she had imagined. Apart from her willingness to indulge in the occasional lesbian fling with a villain, there was the fact that she'd helped Shego avoid capture to facilitate said fling. Kim might be corruptible, after all. If she could be seduced onto the side of evil, the reason she needed to keep a distance between them wouldn't apply. They could be partners in all the senses of the word. A surge of heat went through her at the thought.

Shego shook her head irritably. The magazine wasn't doing a good job distracting her. Dr. Drakken still droned on. Shego searched the table for something more interesting, and happened upon an envelope addressed to her; or rather, to one of her longer-standing fake identities. Intrigued, she opened it up with one slice of her Glow-wreathed finger. Inside was a printed letter informing her she had won first prize in a magazine contest: a free spa treatment.

She didn't recall the competition. She sometimes did puzzles and crosswords to pass the time, but she must have been exceptionally bored to actually go to the trouble to actually mail the thing off. Well, she wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth—she loved free stuff. The letter contained instructions for claiming her prize. She carefully folded the letter and stored it in her ankle pouch. A spa trip sounded like the perfect way to forget her troubles for a while, the next time Dr. Drakken's plans inevitably crashed.

There was an ominous rumble and the entire lair shook.

"What the hell was that?" Shego was up from her chair and looking around.

"That was my lovely machine I've been explaining to you for the last fifteen minutes, Shego. Haven't you been paying attention?"

"I never pay attention to your rants. What does your machine do?"

"Shego, that is very hurtful."

"Well, that's in the past and it's too late to change it now, so let's focus on the present: what does your machine do?"

"My Intercontinental Electromagnetisizer charges up the atmosphere with negatively charged electrons..."

"English, Dr. D, in English."

"It moves the continents."

"What?"

"It moves the continents, Shego."

"You've got to be kidding me. Does it actually work?"

"You felt the earth move, didn't you?"

"Really not a fan of your word choices."

"Hrmn. Whatever, Shego. My plan is working."

"And what is that plan, exactly?"

"To gather all the continents together into one big landmass, creating a fitting monument to my greatness when I finally conquer the world. Which, incidentally, will be much more convenient with all the world in one place."

"Uh huh, uh huh. And didn't they make you take your pills back at the prison?"

"Shego, I don't like your implications. I am perfectly sane, and soon I'm going to prove it to the entire world. They will see, they will all see!"

The lair shook again, more violently. Cracks appeared on the walls.

"You could have given me a little warning before you turned it on."

"It's been on all morning. It takes a while for the charge to build up."

"And can the lair stand all this shaking?"

"Uhh... I'm not sure. It's possible."

"It's possible?"

"Kim Possible, actually."

Shego sighed inwardly at the familiar, confident voice. She really had hoped she wouldn't run into Kim just yet, but of course Dr. Drakken had to jump the gun. Oh well, it was going to happen sooner or later. With a feeling of resignation Shego turned to face her long-time nemesis, occasional ally, and the girl whose heart she'd broken.