Chapter 20 – The Wow Finish.

Betty Director tried to shake the fatigue from her head as she poured over the data readouts for the fifth time. She wasn't a super genius like the boy who had prepared the report and to be honest science was never her best subject, but a career of dealing with madmen who created devices named things like the "Sub-Atomic Magna-Departiclizer" or the "Vortexular Radteculating Matrix" had taught her enough to recognize science gone bad.

Wearily she rubbed her forehead and turned around to face the assembled group of scientists that had been summoned to deal with the crisis. The motley group in front of her might not have looked like it, but they were the best minds on Earth, each one the authoritative master of their respective disciplines and just like her they were hanging on the words of a single teen-age boy.

"None of the scenarios so far have a good chance of succeeding." Wade Load said with an air of defeat in his voice.

"Even with the additional data provided by Dr. Hong and Dr. Holbrook, every simulation I've run has ended in failure."

Betty rubbed her good eye with her palm and tried to get her thoughts together. It wasn't every day that you found out that the end of all life on your planet was imminent and there wasn't anything you could do about it. Frankly, she felt like she was handling things pretty well but she knew that it was all only a matter of perspective. She had long ago worked in the field before she had risen to control the operations of Global Justice and the specter of death had always walked with her. The only really unnerving part of the current circumstances in her opinion was the fact that the person telling her she was going to die was a teenage boy, who seemed to be more annoyed with not being able to solve a thorny problem than with the prospect of being blasted apart into his sub atomic particles.

Well, he is a super genius. His huge brain probably doesn't work like mine. Still… it's more than a little freaky.

"Wade…" Betty finally responded, "Lets run through our options again."

Betty leaned back in her plush leather chair and brought up a mental list.

"Containment?" she asked.

"There's no known force on Earth or nearby celestially that could possibly contain an energy influx of that magnitude."

"Siphoning?" she continued.

"It's possible, but with the technology we currently have the feedback from such a task would destroy a large portion of the Earth, sending vast quantities of debris up into the air not to mention disintegrating a huge amount of atmosphere and possibly bringing on another ice age."

Betty frowned. It wasn't quite instant death for planet Earth, but it was the next worst thing.

"Oh, and it would take us a year to build." Wade added.

"What about our space option?" Betty asked.

Wade looked off in the distance like he was thinking and then tapped a few keys on his keyboard.

"It's one of our better plans, but it has a significant chance of failure. Basically it's a matter of speed. Even if we were to use our fastest engines on our most advanced spacecraft there isn't a guarantee that we'd be able to move the locus of the blast far away enough from Earth where we wouldn't be affected. "

Betty twitched her lip, "Numbers Wade, I need numbers."

"Less than 50 percent." Wade responded with a downcast tone.

Betty rubbed her chin and pondered if that number was high enough to act on. She needed more information.

"Wade, what about our…" she hesitated for a moment, "final solution."

Wade knew what Dr. Director was trying to get at. He didn't like it, but he had been thorough and knew those chances just as well as he knew the others.

"Low. Very low. We don't honestly know what would happen if we tried to do that. There is a high possibility that the energy release would continue unabated."

Betty looked directly at Wade and carefully phrased her next question.

"Would failure here preclude our usage of the space option?"

Wade was visibly upset at what Dr. Director was proposing. His long running gig as Kim Possibles tech-guru had given him a sense of maturity that most young people his age didn't posses but he still had deep moral concerns about the final option. In his heart of hearts Wade Load still imagined himself as a hero, one of the good guys, and he didn't have the time in the current situation to grow old fast enough to gain the cynicism it would take for him to be able to go to the lengths that Dr. Director was willing to go.

"I'm not positive," he finally said. It wasn't a lie, but he was doing the best he could to try and cleverly dissuade Dr. Director from going down this road.

"What do you mean by that?" Betty asked on cue.

"It could trigger a sudden release of the energy." Wade responded.

The gears in Betty's mind started to churn. There was something here that the boy genius hadn't mentioned to her, a plan that possibly had a good chance of working, maybe even better than half odds. She struggled for a bit, grasping at threads of thought and she could have sworn that she saw Wade looking at her with apprehension.

"Wade…" she began in a slightly irritated voice. The boy genius immediately didn't like where this was going.

"What if…" she paused for a moment to pull all the threads together to one coherent plan, "What if we were to combine both the space option and the final option into one plan? What are our chances then?"

Wade visibly blanched. He had somewhat expected that Dr. Director would pick up on this possibility but he had held out hope that she wouldn't..

"Well, I hadn't really ran those…" Wade tried to lie.

"Wade!" interjected Betty, "Don't give me that – tell it to me straight, right now."

It was no use. Wade knew that he couldn't delay the inevitable. He had given Global Justice enough information that their scientists would be able to figure it out in short notice. All he had really hoped to gain was some time so that he could come up with another solution, his own solution - one that would leave everyone safe and alive.

"Alright…" he slowly began, then sighed. "Better than 70 but no guarantee. It could fail. Destruction of the host focus while moving away from Earth could trigger a blast of significantly reduced power that would not reach as far as our planet."

Betty nodded and then picked up the telephone on her desk.

"Will? I need you to mobilize our assault and capture teams. We have a big problem to solve."

There was a pregnant pause in the room as Will Du said something that only Betty Director could hear.

"Yes, that's right Will… a problem named Shego."

-

Shego was out of shape. It was something that was more or less unavoidable as her pregnancy had continued to progress. A normal woman who was extremely disciplined might be able to retain a great deal of fitness throughout her entire pregnancy, but Shego was no normal woman. She was well versed in over half a dozen forms of hand-to-hand combat and a master of gymnastics and acrobatics. Sure, she was far more fit than the average expectant mother but she also knew that attempting to do a back flip kick was not only improbable due to her new, and lower, center of gravity but down right dangerous to both her and her unborn child.

It bruised her ego to admit it, but on her best days she was barely a match for Kim Possible and now that she was with child she wouldn't even be a road bump for her arch-nemesis in a fair fight.

Of course, Shego didn't have any intentions of fighting fair – not with what was on the line.

Normally, this wouldn't be the case. If you could sum up the essence of her character in one word that word might be "Competitive". She relished testing her abilities, battling against her enemies and being victorious. If she had stopped to think about it she would have realized that this aspect of her personality was most likely due to her being a middle child – always competing with her brothers for parental attention and accolades. However as an adult this trait of hers had manifested itself in the form of a bizarre code of honor that had held true even through her criminal endeavors. There might not have been any honor amongst thieves, but just like everything in her life, Shego had on more than one occasion proven herself to be the exception.

Except for now. No, this time she wasn't going to take and chances. No foolish bravado, no bullheaded grudge fighting, nothing of that sort. She was going to hit Kim hard and fast and when she least expected it with the full force of her power. Whatever reservations Shego had about obliterating her husbands' ex-girlfriend and possibly ex-best friend had evaporated the moment Kim's fist had pummeled her face.

Ron will have to understand. I don't know how but he'll have to understand. I'm not going to let Kim, or anyone, hurt the baby.

The cargo compartment that Shego had been incarcerated in was empty now so she risked a few subtle movements to ease the cramping in her muscles. The shiny metal device that she wore like a necklace had been a two edged sword. On one hand it had allowed her to control her powers enough that she didn't disintegrate everything within a few meters of her, but it had also unwittingly provided a way for Kim to incapacitate her. With a simple radio transmitted command the device had shut down nearly all her of her motor controls, freezing her body in a living rigor mortis. Kim had made a mistake however and had deactivated the machine to interrogate Shego and either due to her own negligence or the unmarked bottle of alcohol she had been drinking from, had failed to turn it back on. For once it seemed that luck was actually on Shego's side.

Maybe the 'Ron Factor' is working for me for a change?

Shego half smiled at the thought. Throughout her long 'association' with Kim Possible and her 'sidekick' Ron Stoppable, it had always seemed like the forces of the universe were arrayed against her. If a mistake could happen, it did. If a machine could explode, it did. If a banana peel could fall out of a 14th story window making her lose her balance and careen into a large stack of precariously stacked cans of paint… well you get the idea. Even though her marriage was only a few hours old, in the back of her mind Shego idly wondered if she had somehow managed to inherit a little bit of her new husbands luck. Maybe Ron was like a Buddha statue and if you rubbed him enough, you got some good luck.

I've certainly done my fair share of that…

It wasn't really the time or place for thoughts like that, but thinking of Ron calmed her down and made her determined. Determined to get out of this situation alive and well and back to him. She knew that their reunion wouldn't be all smiles, especially if Kim got in her way, but she felt confident that Ron would understand. He loved her, this she was absolutely sure of. The fact that she was a criminal, a villain and sometimes a down right bitch hadn't swayed him. Ron Stoppable had done the one thing that no one else alive had managed to do – he had earned Shego's trust and with it, her love.

Shego cocked her head to the side slowly, flexing the bunched up muscles in her neck and shoulders. She was sore as all hell. The hours of paralysis as well as the beating Kim had given her had taken their toll and she felt a momentary wave of doubt surge over her. What if she couldn't escape, even if she took off the inhibitor collar and used her full power? There was no way she was going to be able to break free while the cargo plane was still in transit – they were thousands of feet up in the air and Shego couldn't fly. To compound matters the collar that she wore around her neck was the only thing keeping her hyper-charged cosmic power in check. If she removed it to make sure that Kim couldn't paralyze her again then she would quickly be surrounded by a nimbus of green energy that would destroy everything within a couple meters of her… including the floor of the plane that was currently carrying her.

If only I could figure out some way to change the frequency on this thing…

Shego sighed and then banished the idea from her list of actionable plans. She was no technical genius and although she would never admit it, she could barely put together a bookshelf from Ikea let alone tinker with anything electronic. She sat there thinking for long moments and then let out a sigh and settled back down into her 'seat'.

The only thing I can do is play possum right now and hope the Princess doesn't realize that she made a mistake. As soon as this bucket hits the ground I can make a break for it. Once I fry the inhibitor collar I doubt whoever Kimmie is taking me to will have any better luck of stopping me than Global Justice did…

Shego slowly put her hand to her distended stomach and fought back a soft sob.

I'm sorry… I don't know what this will do to you, or even if I'll be able to eat, or drink or sleep once I blast this thing off.

Shego cursed Kim under her breath and then settled down to wait. Kim had put her in a nearly impossible situation – having to choose between her own life and that of her unborn child, a child that she considered a miracle. After all, she had never expected to be able to bear children and then to have one with the man she loved…

Subconsciously her hands fired up in green plasma and she stared at the emerald flames as they danced between her fingers. She couldn't shake the feeling that just like everything else in her life, her damnable powers were taking away her future and her hopes. For a sad moment she thought herself a fool – she had dared to dream for the first time since she was a young girl and now she was paying the price.

It was a pretty little dream… while it lasted.

-

Ron had never fully been awake during time travel before – both of the times he had been tossed through the years he had been blissfully unconscious, however now that he had the Tempus Simia in his hands it seemed that the strange idol was granting him a slight level of protection from the strenuous experience. He stretched out his limbs as he plummeted through ethereal currents and pondered the sensation that was buffeting his body. Was it eddies of time? Currents of history streaming past him? What did time feel like?

Head in the game Stoppable!

Ron sighed and exhaled what he thought was air from his lungs. It seemed that no matter how much he experienced, or how much he thought he had matured, his basic nature – ergo, his essential Ron-ness, always popped up at the most inopportune times. Floating through time holding an ancient artifact in pursuit of your wife was more than enough for him to think about without getting side tracked by trying to figure out if time felt sticky.

Wait… sticky?

He blinked once and shook his head and then realized that he had come to an abrupt end of his journey. He couldn't help but be slightly disappointed – there was no cool wormhole effect, or flash of light, or explosion, or nearly anything that Ron would have expected based on his steady teenage diet of science fiction movies. Just a barely audible pop and the feeling of cold cement on his skin and what seemed to be a still moist glob of chewing gum doing it's best to adhere his hand to the pavement.

Wasn't I standing up when I…

Ron was about to think "used this thing", but caught himself. He hadn't in fact used anything, at least not in the sense that one would normally consider performing an action. He stared at the idol that was still clasped in his other hand and concentrated on it for a moment. At first there was nothing, just the cool gem like material rubbing against the calluses of his hand and then suddenly, albeit faintly, there was a tingle on the edge of his consciousness. He focused on that feeling, it was tiny and seemed to be slipping away from him when he caught a glimpse of it's true nature.

The pure malevolence that he sensed stunned him and the idol fell from his grasp.

Slowly Ron picked himself up off the pavement. It was dark, wherever he was and he was grateful for the concealment – the last thing he needed right now was anyone coming around and asking him questions about what he was doing here, dressed in the tatters of his wedding kimono and cowering away from a crystal monkey.

Where is here anyway? This doesn't look like Japan… and it's dark, the moon is high it's probably around midnight or later… and the wind… it feels different.

Ron stared warily at the Tempus Simia as it lay on the ground. He had held the artifact in his hand while thinking about where Shego was and before he had time to register the fact he was already off, flying around the currents of eons. He hadn't focused very hard, nor even had much of an idea about where exactly he wanted to go.

Hmm… or even WHEN I wanted to go.

It was the truth, and a disturbing one – The Tempus Simia wasn't a teleportation device, its domain was time travel and while it might physically move someone from point A to point B, it always did so along with a chronological shift. For all Ron knew he was months, or even years, away from the time and place where he had first held onto the artifact. It was a daunting prospect, but one that Ron was familiar with. He had spent lifetimes trapped in a seemingly unending time loop and he comforted himself by noting that so long as the Tempus Simia was in his possession at the very least he wasn't trapped.

Ron stooped over the idol and considered it for a moment and then he warily reached down and picked it up. He tried to keep his mind empty of any sort of thoughts that might set the malevolent artifact in motion. Such a task would have seemed to be impossible for the average person, but not for Ron Stoppable. At the tender age of 15 he had been convinced that the Middleton High lunch lady was secretly scanning his brain in order to devise the perfect plan of culinary terror to bring him to his knees. In response to this notion Ron had spent countless hours practicing not thinking at all and while he might be accused of easily being able to accomplish such a feat, especially by Kim, truth be told it was a lot harder than most people imagine. So, in usual Ron fashion, he took the opposite approach to the problem and instead filled his head with so much inane gibberish and random associations that no discernable patterns of thought could possibly be detected in his head.

Once again the Ron-man proves there is no such thing as a useless skill!

Ron tucked the idol away within his clothes and then took stock of the situation at hand.

Alright, this is just like exploring one of Drakken's lairs. Of course asides from the fact that it's not a lair… looks more like a military compound if you ask me… and I don't see any ventilation ducts to crawl around in… and I'm pretty sure that thing across the way is a tank…

Ron blinked a couple times as his eyes adjusted finally to the darkness and took in the scene before him. Truth be told, it did look like he was in some sort of military compound – the concrete bunker type buildings and the barbed wired fences atop reinforced walls were a dead give away. Ron shrank back into the darkness, hugging the closest vertical surface he could find – a wall of some type, and narrowly missed being illuminated by a spot light. It seemed that along with the buildings and military hardware, wherever Ron currently was also had guards. Guards that he didn't really have any interest in meeting, especially since they probably had things like guns. Ron knew his kung-fu was good, probably even the best, but there were serious limits to what you could do when faced with fully automatic weapons. Luckily for him his time at Yamanouchi had given him an education in things other than fighting and with a quick moment to settle his breathing he practiced the most ancient of ninja arts – the art of being unseen.

-

Kim Possible nursed a five-alarm headache with a little bit of the hair of the dog that bit her. She didn't like it, but experience had taught her that it was indeed the best way to cure a hangover. Her one concession to propriety was making sure that she had ducked out of sight before imbibing. It wasn't like she cared much what the Saudi's thought of her, but still, somewhere deep down inside it mattered to her. She didn't know why, but she didn't labor long on thinking about it – she had bigger fish to fry. With one last swig followed by a breath mint, Kim smoothed down her clothes and turned the corner to watch the paramilitaries load the captive into the helicopter.

She felt a slight pang of guilt watching the nearly nude pregnant woman being carted around like a piece of luggage, but the sentiment was quickly overpowered by the memory of the angry confrontation she had experienced with Shego earlier. She had come in wanting to get answers, but instead had gotten the run around. Normally Shego's acerbic wit would have only slightly annoyed Kim, but in the state she had been in last night the older woman's comments had driven her into a bloody frenzy. She wasn't proud of the beating she had given the pregnant woman, but she justified it with a myriad of reasons, ending of course with the fact that Shego was Shego and by that nature probably deserved it.

Kim didn't want to get onboard the helicopter. Truthfully she was feeling emotionally spent – her "revenge" as it were, had been hollow and now all that was left was a feeling of remorse. She wasn't dumb, not by a long shot, so she realized that the relationship between her and Ron was probably at an all-time low and while she had ostensibly set out to capture Shego, Kim's real motivation was to bring about a confrontation with Ron. She had hoped that she might still be able to talk to her "best friend" and convince him to come back with her to Middleton. She had felt sure that if she could just get him away from Shego and whatever influence she was exerting over Ron then she could reason with him. Kim had always been able to make Ron see things her way in the past – it was the bedrock of their relationship; Kim led and Ron followed.

"Miss Possible, it's time to leave!" said a man in heavily accented English. He was wearing bland desert fatigues and holding an aviation helmet in his arms. Kim deduced that he was probably the pilot for the chopper.

"Alright…" Kim drawled and then remembered something. "My stuff?"

The man nodded his head towards the helicopter. "It's already aboard."

Kim sighed softly and then began following the man across the tarmac. She didn't know why but for some reason she was dreading completing this mission. It wasn't like there was anything bad at the end of it, quite the opposite actually – she was getting a handsome bounty from both the Sultan she was handing Shego over to and the Saudi government. Enough money for her to pay back her trust fund, get her parents out of debt and finish college without ever having to work a single day.

I should be happy. I'm getting paid a huge amount of money for dragging Shego into the deepest, darkest hole imaginable and throwing away the key. With that thing on her neck she's completely powerless, she'll never escape and with her out of the picture it'll be a cinch to snap up Drakken and send him to Leavenworth. Hell, I shouldn't be just happy – I should be doing cartwheels.

Kim climbed onboard the helicopter, accepting a helmet that one of the men offered her. Before putting the helmet on she pulled her hair into a ponytail and marveled at how filthy it was. To her, it seemed that every particle of dust between Middleton and whatever God-forsaken place she was currently in had taken up residence in her mane.

Oh, this is absolutely… gorchy!

As the 'copter began to take off Kim silently resolved that the first purchase she'd make with her new found wealth would be about a gallon of hair conditioner.

-

Shego had her eyes closed. She knew people were talking but she couldn't hear them over the constant thrum that the helicopter made in flight, not that it mattered much because they were talking in a language she couldn't speak. She placed it as some sort of Arabic dialect, but that was about as far as she could be certain. She was uncomfortable, but she was managing well due to some tricks she had picked up at Yamanouchi.

When it had become apparent that the likelihood of Shego giving birth at the school was imminent, Yori had taken it upon herself to teach Shego some meditation techniques that she claimed would help during the delivery. Shego had snorted at first, not at the kind offer, but due to the fact that she had assumed that when the time came she would either be threatening Ron with death or blissfully drugged out of her mind. The idea of her serenely meditating was comical enough that when she mentioned it later to Ron that he also chuckled at it. For some reason Shego didn't find that as funny as when she did it, but she let it pass with just a hard stare that silenced the laughter.

Ever since that day Shego had gotten serious about trying to absorb whatever knowledge her new friend could teach her. She was surprised at two things – first off, that she wasn't half bad at it; she had never considered herself to be anything remotely related to the word "calm", and secondly she was astounded at how well the techniques worked.

Given her current state, she was immensely grateful for that fact.

It's not easy being lazy.

It sounded like something that Ron would say and Shego would roll her eyes at. Ron had been much more… well Ron recently. It seemed that the time they had spent together at Yamanouchi had done good things for both of them, almost as if the place was slowly healing both of them in body and mind; stripping away the weariness that had enveloped them for so many long months. Shego conceded that it was near impossible to imagine Ron, at least his current incarnation, as the bumbling sidekick that she had known previously, but there was the oddly placed rare moment when she looked at him with an almost dumbfounded look on her face. A look that pretty much said it all – I can't believe I'm in love with this guy.

Ron would always look sheepish whenever she gave him one of those looks, but she would quickly replace it with a grin or a giggle. Both of them had changed it seemed; and definitely for the better.

Thinking of Ron, Shego almost broke out in a smile. She was quick however to regain her composure and while she didn't move her body, she twitched her eyes in a sidelong glance to make sure that Kim wasn't watching her. The redhead hadn't yet realized the mistake she had made earlier and Shego was holding out hope that Kim would make a further screw up – one that would allow her to escape.

It was a simple plan, but one that relied heavily on chance and thus became innately more complicated. Shego knew that at any moment she chose, she could destroy the collar around her neck and thus free not only her powers, but remove any threat that Kim would immobilize her. However, doing so would also let her powers blossom unchecked; a situation that could quickly get out of hand.

Things were bad before Dr. D got this device on me and that was months ago. If I totally destroy the collar there is a good chance that I'll end up dying somewhere – not from a bullet or anything like that, but just from hunger or dehydration.

With Shego's powers running rampant, it meant that everything that came within a meter of her was instantly vaporized and this included simple, but necessary things such as food and water. Sure, no weapons could harm her – but they wouldn't need to if she starved to death. It was with a sense of irony that Shego pondered the fact that she was the one criminal on the face of the planet that no prison could hold, but instead was being held prisoner – by herself.

She knew that there really was only one way out of her predicament and unfortunately it was in the front pocket of Kim Possibles cargo pants. The Kimmunicator, the device that was able to communicate directly with the collar that was around her neck - needed to be destroyed. It was the best solution to a terrible problem; without the Kimmunicator, Kim wouldn't be able to immobilize Shego again and with that out of the way Shego would be free to use her powers in a much more restrained way that would allow her to escape aboard some sort of plane. It wasn't perfect – Kim could still come after her later with another device; but if things went well then Shego would be able to get away to Ron and hopefully get some help at changing the collar's frequency. Of course the problem with the plan, as it were, was that in order for Shego to destroy the Kimmunicator without a chance of Kim realizing what was happening, she needed to be close to her; much closer than she currently was.

Shego wasn't slow, not by any stretch of the imagination. Even with her current pregnant frame she was still athletic and sharp. It was just that Kim was faster. She didn't like to admit it, but the one thing that the younger woman had going for her was the fact that she could move like lightning when she had to. Shego had the unfortunate experience of being on the receiving end of Kim's super human reflexes more than once, so she was intimately aware of the time frame she would need in order to pull off her escape.

It wasn't much.

And of course there's the 64 million dollar question: Go for the device or go for Kim?

Shego knew that if Ron even had an idea of what she was currently thinking he'd be very disappointed in her, but as far as she could tell the cold hard facts were that she would only have one chance at this and she couldn't afford to mess it up. If she couldn't destroy the Kimmunicator straight away, then disabling, or even killing Kim would be her next best bet. Almost certainly, Kim, with her larger than normal ego, hadn't filled in the soldiers accompanying them on the details of Shego's capture. It was likely that if Kim were unable for any reason to work the Kimmunicator, then no one else would be able to. If that were true then it would be easy enough for her to destroy the device, defeat her guards and commandeer the helicopter or some other form of transportation.

While she struggled to make up her mind, she cast another glance up towards the front of the aircraft. Kim was alert, not talking to the pilot, but seemingly looking at the scenery as they flew by desert landscapes. Shego pondered making her move right then, but realized that by the time she vaporized her restraints Kim would already have her Kimmunicator out. She needed to be closer, much closer, if this was going to work.

With an internal sigh she closed her eyes and began to recite a mantra that Yori had taught her. It was going to be one hell of a long ride.

-

Ron tapped a few keys on the keyboard and then grinned to himself. People usually associated ninjas with the Hollywood martial arts stereotype, but while yes there was usually some fighting involved in what he once joked to Yori was the "ninja line of work", the truth was that there would be no way that they could have survived, or even thrived in modern times if that was indeed all they did. The fact that Yamanouchi not only still existed, but was bustling with students, was a fairly good indicator of the truth of the situation. Ninja's not only existed, but their job hadn't really changed much in the last thousand years.

They were spies, and in the case of one particular ninja, a damn good one.

In the last hour Ron Stoppable had found out more about the location he was in than the CIA had been able to discover with their spy satellites and paid informants in the last year. Ron rummaged around the desk he was standing at and found a keychain USB drive. Humming slightly to himself he plugged it into the workstation and brought up a file listing.

Figures – Porn. These Wahabi guys sure love their porn. I wonder what it is about religious fundamentalists; do they just attract an inordinate amount of perv's or do we just notice it more because of what they claim to believe in?

Ron was considering his next move while absently scrolling through the thumbnails on the USB drive. Whoever had used the workstation before him had either accidentally or stupidly left their email client open and while most of the messages he had read were worthless junk, there had been a few good nuggets of information. First of all, he was likely in Saudi Arabia. Secondly, according to the date on the computer he was only a day and a half in the future. This last bit of information brought him a great deal of comfort – being physical lost is one thing, but not even knowing what time you were in was completely irritating. There were also some rather interesting emails about various activities that Ron was sure certain authorities would love to know, so he did the proper thing and forwarded the messages to a secret email address that was monitored by Wade. Without a doubt the young computer genius would make sure that the information was routed to the correct people.

Ron blew out a slight breath. He knew he had better things to do than to look through some guys secret porn stash, but he was having serious issues coming up with a plan of action. Gnawing at the back of his mind was the fact that the idol had brought him here; but for what reason, Ron couldn't decide. He had been thinking of Shego and wanting to be with her when the idol had transported him, but as far as he could tell she wasn't around here at all. He wondered if perhaps the entire situation was a set up, a trap of some sorts, but if that was true then it would mean that the idol was actively trying to harm him. It seemed like a strange motive to attribute to an inanimate object, but then Ron remembered Monkey Fist and what had happened to him – he had possessed the idol for months and it had somehow warped him into that beast that had died at Ron's hands earlier.

Ah crap. I'll just think about it later – I need to get out of here and I need to find my wife and I need to… wait, is that BONNIE?

He had never gotten around to visiting that website that Felix had told him about, but it seemed that the man who possessed this desk had a lot more time on his hands. Ron's eyes bugged out and he was just about to drag the mouse over the thumbnail to enlarge it when all of a sudden a loudspeaker outside crackled to life and a voice began announcing a message in Arabic. His first reaction was to duck and roll underneath the windowsill. He didn't want to take any chances that the message was about him being loose in the compound. It was unlikely, he was sure he had been unseen, but unfortunately for Ron he couldn't understand what the voice was saying.

Cautiously he peeked through the window, taking care to make sure that his head was still in the shadows. Outside the compound was coming to life – armed men were making their way to a center courtyard and within seconds Ron's ears could detect the sound of an approaching helicopter.

Looks like they have guests… airborne guests. Maybe if I kept a low profile I could steal that 'copter out from underneath them…if I knew how to fly one that is.

Ron was a man of many talents, but piloting a helicopter wasn't something that he felt confident he could do. Plus, he had to admit, it was kind of a flashy exit – one that was likely to spur a manhunt for him. After all, militants didn't usually like it very much when people went around stealing their stuff. It would be better, he decided, to wait until the hubbub died down and then to quietly make his way over the chain-link fence that surrounded the compound and steal away into the desert undetected. There was plenty of supplies around, including water and maps, and while it wouldn't be traveling in style – it was highly unlikely that anyone would come looking for him.

Yep, that's the plan…just hang low, make my way to a cell phone someplace and call in a favor or two. I may not be able to trust Wade for this, but Sensei has connections – it wouldn't be too hard for them to find out where… my wife is.

The last words came awkwardly to Ron. To him he had only been married for a few hours and he wasn't quite use to referring to Shego as "his wife". Hell, it had taken him months to stop calling her "Shego" all the time in his internal monologue. He still occasionally slipped up, but for the most part he tried his hardest to remember to call her Bella. It was what she liked to be called verbally, so Ron was determined to make his thoughts match up with his actions – if he truly loved her then he could do that much at least.

The chopper had landed and the rotors were slowly coming to a standstill. A large group of men formed a single circle around the perimeter of the vehicle, with one small group standing more inward than the rest. Ron studied them carefully, trying to discern who they were. At the head of the group was an older man, probably in his late 50's or early 60's. He had a large, salt and pepper beard and was wearing what could only be described as the paramilitary wing-nuts version of a general's uniform. Obviously he was the big shot of whatever den of weirdoes that Ron had found himself in. Ron could have sworn that the man looked familiar, almost like his identity was just on the very cusp of Ron's memory but try as he might, he couldn't quite place the man.

Eventually the helicopter had come to a complete stop and the large sideways facing door opened. Out stepped a couple of men, one large and burley and another much shorter and lithe. The two made there way across the courtyard and stopped in front of what Ron had dubbed the "head whack job" – his distaste for these kinds of people was obvious. Some words were exchanged, from the older man to the smaller one and then a handshake took place. The head whack job looked displeased somewhat at whatever the other man had told him, but seemed to shrug it off as he stared intently at the helicopter. To Ron it appeared from the man's body language that he didn't particularly care for the smaller man from the helicopter, but instead was bearing with the situation out of some sort of professionalism. He wondered what the cause was. It didn't take him long to find out.

The smaller man turned took a few steps away and reached for his helmet. Within seconds, it had come off and Ron was treated to the sight of a familiar shock of red hair.

It's Kim. Here. Wait… why is Kim here?

Kim Possible tucked her helmet under her arm and then looked around the compound. Ron visibly flinched when Kim's gaze settled on his hiding position and for a long moment he was convinced that she could see through the walls and the shadows right to him. Either Kim's senses were good, or it was a big coincidence, but she lingered her vision on Ron's window for what seemed like ages, only reluctantly turning her head back when the older man said something.

That man… and Kim… wait a minute… shit! Now I remember!

Ron had seen the man before, over a year ago. He had talked to Team Possible over a videophone about a job he wanted them to do. At first they were slightly interested, but when the Kim found out what the job was – tracking down Shego and turning her over to him, she declined right to his face and abruptly hung up. At the time Ron had been a little perplexed; the man had offered them a huge sum of money for what seemed to Ron as something they would be doing anyway, and he had asked him why she refused. He still remembered the conversation vividly.

"First off Ron", said Kim matter of factly, "We're not bounty hunters. I help people because it's the right thing to do, not for money."

Ron had almost launched into one of his famous whiney, "But Kimmmmmm…" routines, but she silenced him with a hand on his shoulder.

"And also Ron…" Kim paused for a moment.

"This guy isn't completely on the up and up. Handing over a villain to the feds, or to Global Justice is one thing – they're the good guys and they don't do things that they shouldn't. But this guy… well I just don't know."

Ron didn't quite catch on to what Kim was saying.

"What do you mean Kim?" he asked, "What are these 'things'?"

Kim sighed for a moment and then lowered her voice to almost a whisper.

"Torture Ron. They torture their prisoners. Shego is bad Ron, I admit that – but I'm not going to be party to having anyone tortured, even a villain like Shego."

In that moment Ron's already stellar opinion of his best friend skyrocketed to new heights. He knew Kim was a sweet hearted, generous and kind girl, and that she was smart, but she was also something so much more, something that it seemed like a lot of people these days weren't – principled. Kim Possible had her own code of justice, her own morals and she wasn't the type of person to bend them, no matter how easy it would have been to talk herself into it.

Of course that was then, what seemed to Ron as eons ago, and this was now and from what his mind was rapidly piecing together Kim seemed to have had a change of heart.

Ron didn't have to wait long to have his fears confirmed. A ramp had already been lowered from the side of the helicopter and three men were roughly lowering a restrained figure to the ground. Eventually they backed away and Ron was able to get a good look at their prisoner. It was the last piece of the puzzle that he needed to fall into place.

Ron felt that he should have been outraged, furious even, at what Kim had done. But instead he felt only a sublime detachment to the situation. It was almost like he was standing outside of his own skull, observing everyone and everything that was going on. He saw the expression on the older man's face and discerned his excitement at having Shego in his possession – his eyes spoke untold volumes of the horrors that he was greedily anticipating subjecting her to. Ron noticed the haunted look in Kim's own eyes, the shrinking of her body language and the way she seemed to be crawling in her own skin. She wasn't happy to be here, most likely she was having second thoughts about dealing with these men, but she was too far in to back out now.

Ron's vision wandered over to his wife, laying helpless and at the mercy of her captors. Her muscles were tense, her breathing was shallow, her eyes were open but… there was no one home. He suspected a she was in a trance and when he reached out his chi towards her, he wasn't surprised at what he had found – his love evidently, was full of surprises.

She's ok, the baby's ok – at least for now. I need to get her away from this place, but how?

It occurred then to Ron that the answer was in his pocket.

Slowly he reached his hand into his kimono and placed his fingers upon the cool crystal surface of the Tempest Simia. It had brought him here, and he realized, it could take him away - him and Shego. All he needed to do was get close enough to physical touch her. Ron took stock of the situation – it was dark, which was good because it would allow him to cover the yards to Shego quickly before anyone could notice him. Immediately surrounding the landing point was a couple of dozen of men armed with assault rifles. They would be a problem, but not an insurmountable one – he had speed and surprise on his side, and he really didn't need to engage them; all he needed to do was flee.

Still, with all that firepower around there was a chance that a stray bullet could hit Shego… or even Kim. Sure, Ron was mad at Kim right now, but he didn't want to settle their differences here and with a bullet. He decided that he would do his best to make sure that Kim was unharmed. Maybe he would even take her with him when he made the time travel jump.

We can go someplace where we can all sit down and hash this out. Kim isn't going to like it, but she's not going to have much choice in the matter. She's going to have to learn sooner or later that she's not the one with all the power all the time.

Ron stealthily crept from his hiding spot and out a side door where he could hide in the inky blackness of the desert night. Large spotlights rimmed the inner courtyard of the compound, but Ron didn't see them as being a major problem. He would be in and out before it would matter; all he had to do was wait for the proper time to make his move…

When the diesel power generator for the compound blew up with a thunderous explosion, Ron was so stunned that he almost forgot to move. Complete darkness enveloped the area, and while he took off across the courtyard to rescue his wife, he had one major thought on his mind –

Who the hell did that?

-

Sub Commander Will Du looked at the data readouts coming across his tactical console. The infiltration team had made its way to the power generator and was ready to destroy it on his mark. They had done their job well and it seemed that the installation's guards were completely unaware of the impending operation. Will wasn't surprised, he himself was an expert in field maneuvers and he had personally trained every man in this squad. They had a reputation as being the elite of the elite and Will was certain that even though the mission ahead looked impossible, they'd somehow manage to pull it off.

For the sixth time in the last 15 minutes Will checked his gear harness and fiddled with his infra-vision goggles. It was ironic that while Global Justice practically cornered the market on high-tech weaponry and devices that it's head of field operations was more or less a complete luddite. It wasn't that Will didn't understand technology, it was just that he was leery of it – in his mind so many levels of complexity just introduced dizzying amounts of potential failures.

I really wish we had the time to just do a basic snatch and run, or hell – just negotiate with the bastards for the prisoner. Yes, that would be the best way to do it – talk it out and make them understand it's their asses on the line as well. I'd even go so far as to offer them a hefty bribe… it's better than getting one of my men killed over this bitch.

Will sighed and fiddled with one of the flaps on his combat suit. He wasn't thrilled about his current assignment – the capture and transport of one super villain known as Shego. As far as he was concerned, it didn't matter which prison a woman like her ended up rotting in, so long as it was nice and damp and infested with rats. In fact, the more he thought about it, the better the idea of having some barely civilized nation keep a hold of all the world's super villains. He loved his job and he loved his organization, but sometimes Will felt that Global Justice was just a little bit too soft for it's own good. If they had taken his advice about Shego years ago she'd be fertilizing an apple orchard somewhere and this entire mess would have been avoided.

Will comforted himself in a blanket of smug satisfaction at this thought. He had, after all, been right about the woman – she was far too dangerous to let live. Unfortunately, it didn't seem like Will could take care of that problem – at least not right now.

If the eggheads back at headquarters are right about this – about her, then we're all pretty much fucked one way or another. We've got a snowballs chance in hell of getting out of this mess with a result somewhat less than the total extinction of humanity and it's all that green freaks fault.

Betty Director had actually briefed Will on the particulars of the threat and the operation, but even in his internal monologue he was over simplifying. He knew on some level that most people wouldn't choose to become a living bomb capable of wiping out an entire planet, but still he was looking for someone to blame and just saying, "Shit happens" wasn't part of Will's psyche profile. He was far too high strung for that.

"Commander!" shouted one of the computer techs in the forward operations compartment, "We've got a hit sir! Enemy bird approaching…"

The tech poked at a keyboard in front of him with his beefy fingers and brought up a video feed from one of the dozen or so high altitude spy drones and global satellites currently hovering over the desert.

Will peered at the screen and then asked, "That's them, isn't it?"

The tech seemed to fiddle a bit more with his console and then nodded in the affirmative.

"We're using the frequency Dr. Load gave us and the Kimmunicator is onboard. That's them sir."

Will rubbed his chin for a second, it was an annoying habit of his that made people who viewed him think he was a pompous ass – but he wasn't aware of that. Ironically he was just pantomiming what he thought a thinking person would do, which to other people generally made him look less intelligent than he actually was. The tech was no exception and he stared at Will dumbfounded and with an agitation that quickly climbed as critical seconds went by due to Will's play-acting.

"Activate cloaking device, drop to their altitude and follow in the wake. When they land I want us right on top of them – but do it gently, I don't want so much as a slight breeze to blow a strand of Miss Possibles hair out of place."

Will turned away from the man and went back to his command chair to wait while his subordinates carried out his orders. The ship they were in was a new prototype that hadn't gotten very much in the way of field testing, a fact that made Will's technophobe skin crawl, but supposedly it was the most advanced hovercraft ever to grace the sky. In a rather bizarre twist of fate, and one that Will wasn't aware of – and gladly so, because if he had known he most likely would have jumped ship, the design for the craft belonged to one Drew Lipsky – better known to the world as Dr. Drakken.

Drakken it seemed was always losing equipment, or leaving behind valuable research materials whenever he had to flee one of his lairs due to the inevitable crossing of the paths with Kim Possible. At first Global Justice usually left it to local authorities to clean up the messes that were left behind, but eventually some rocket scientist in the R & D department (and he actually was a rocket scientist), got the bright idea of carting away all the miscellaneous technological equipment and attempting to see how, if at all, it worked.

The hovercraft was one of the lucky discoveries that this enterprising scientist had made. It was nearly complete when it arrived on a flat bed truck at the GJ research campus and truthfully, it needed only minor repairs to make it functional. Months of study eventually allowed the GJ scientist to understand enough about the machine that they were able to put their own version of the craft into production. However, when the current mission came up none of these vehicles were ready so in an unusual decision, Betty Director had authorized them to use the current proto-type, in actuality a salvaged hovercraft, for the operation.

Will Du was aware of this and he didn't like it one bit. Using equipment that was created and provided for him by GJ was one thing – it was part of the job, and he could at least trust that the research eggheads would do their best to keep the field agents from being in danger. However, using commandeered equipment was an entirely different matter all together. In his mind, there was no telling what a lunatic like Drakken would put into his own devices. As far as Will knew there was probably something idiotic, like a self destruct switch, under the main pilots chair. Mad geniuses were notoriously unpredictable and quite often demonstrated a psychotic disregard for safety – he just hoped there were no nasty surprises in store for him.

Unfortunately for Will, this was going to prove one of the few times where his fears were actually correct.

The pilot skillfully maneuvered the hovercraft behind the helicopter, trailing it slowly as it landed in the military compound. Accordingly to Will's orders, it hovered silently above and waited. Will studied the external monitors, viewing the scene below and when he had determined that the time was right he pressed a button and spoke into his headset.

"Eagle leader to Magpies – operation is go. Repeat, operation is go."

To his surprise, Will actually felt the generator exploding. He lamented for a moment why the demo team always used so much explosives, but then pushed it out of his mind. He'd dress them down later. For now, he had a job to do.

-

The moments after the generator exploded were a flurry of activity on all sides.

Ron began a loping run across the open tarmac to where his wife was being held, his hand loosely wrapped around the Tempest Simia. He had a nagging fear that at this critical moment the malevolent artifact would betray him somehow, but he prayed that everything would work out.

Kim had swiveled instantly to the source of the explosion, dropping down into a fighting crouch. She had shouted, "What's that? What's going on?" but no one it seemed had their wits about them enough to respond – or even more likely, they didn't know themselves.

Shego hesitated for a moment – she didn't know what to make of he explosion, nor the darkness that had suddenly enveloped the area. However, she was a professional opportunist and she recognized a chance when she saw it. She summoned all her concentration and willed her aching body to be ready for what she was about to do, even though she knew it was improbable that it would co-operate. Her eyes popped open with a fierce jolt and near instantly her green fire vaporized the restraints on her wrists.

Will Du had opened the side panel on the cloaked hovercraft, temporarily revealing it's presence to those below – if they were capable of making it out in the darkness anyway. On his order a barrage of tear gas and flash grenades flew earthbound to the scene below, followed shortly there after by a dozen GJ commandos.

Four forces met together in that small arena with a force of conflict too fast for anyone to react in anyway other than a head long rush towards their goals. Kim was the first person on the ground to understand what was happening, and she covered her eyes to avoid the flash grenades that were quickly disabling the guards around her. Ron wasn't so lucky, and had been caught completely unaware due to the fact he was so intent on making it across the field to Shego. His vision blurred and he staggered for a moment and tried to rub his eyes. Shego herself happened to be the unluckiest of all, with a large grenade going off just a few feet in front of her. She was so startled that she momentarily lost control of her powers, discharging them wildly into the mass of men on the ground, sending many of them flying.

Will Du, on the other hand, calmly rappelled down the side of the hovercraft. The operation was going more or less how he had expected it. His men were already fanning out and pushing the remaining guards to the ground at gunpoint – most of them were either choking on tear gas or otherwise completely disoriented; there wasn't much resistance. Will himself landed on the ground, his boots making a satisfying crunch on the bare earth. Within seconds he had found his target – only the click of his handgun readying itself announced his presence.

"Shego, I've got a pistol pointed right at your head – don't make any sudden moves, GJ is taking you in." he announced in a slow drawl.

Shego didn't say anything. She just stood there emotionless and blank. Internally however she wanted to cry. Everything just kept getting worse and worse and all she wanted was to be with her husband, to have her baby, to have a life. She knew that even if she could see, there was no way that she'd be able to dodge a bullet at that close range – her hopes of escape seemed crushed.

"Will!" screamed Kim in between coughs. She had inadvertently inhaled some of the tear gas before it had settled to the ground.

"Miss Possible, GJ is taking custody of this prisoner. Thank you for assisting in her capture." Will said this with a smirk on his face.

He had never really liked Kim. He considered her an amateur and her continued success in what he thought of as a professional's job only infuriated him. It went without saying that the fact that Betty Director not only continued to rely on the young woman, but had even offered her a job incensed Will Du to no end.

"You can't do that!" protested Kim as she started to find her feet.

"That's right, you can't do that" came another voice from behind her.

Shego's eyes opened – she still couldn't see, but she would have sworn that she heard…

"Ron?" two surprised voices said at the same time.

Almost by divine timing at that very moment the backup lighting turned on and Ron stepped out of the shadows into a dim halo of illumination. The sight before his eyes both infuriated him and caused him to despair; his wife was held at point blank gunpoint by what Ron secretly considered to be the most arrogant ass to ever wear a GJ uniform. To make matters worse, Shego looked like her face had been run through a meat grinder.

"It's me. I'm here." Ron spoke. Kim didn't pick up on the fact that these words were delivered not to her, but to the raven-haired woman a scant few yards away.

Shego tried to focus her eyes on the direction that Ron's voice was coming from – her eyes were still unfocused from the flash grenade that had gone off in her face, but she could have sworn that she could make out the silhouette of her beloved against the backdrop of the dimly light yard.

She smiled at him.

Ron took a good look at Shego's face and felt his stomach do a flip. She had a black eye and bruising around her cheekbone that was a sickly yellow color. Her normally luscious lips were split and scabbed over – a wound that obviously didn't happen recently. He cast a baleful look at Kim, whom, to her credit, seemed to feel enough shame to visibly shrink from him.

Will Du interrupted the moment.

"I'm afraid that not only can I do this, but I am." He made a motion with his free hand to the men in his squad and they quickly formed a circle around him – their weapons drawn outward.

Ron took a step forward, but found his progress stopped by a firm hand on his shoulder. It was Kim.

"Ron, look… Don't do this. They have guns and its just Shego…" she pleaded with him.

"Just Shego!" Ron thought to himself, "Just the woman I love Kim! Just my wife!"

Ron quickly brushed her aside. His only comment was a brusque "Don't touch me." At that moment there were a million things that Ron Stoppable could have said to Kim Possible that would have hurt her to the core of her being – by either fate, or by virtue of their long association, he had chosen the ones that devastated her the most. She wilted like a flower away from him, her head cast downwards.

"I don't know what's gotten into you Stoppable", stated Will Du, "But I'm not playing around here. I have a Sigma-Epsilon situation here and I've been authorized to use any force to resolve it."

The commandos around Will raised their weapons at Ron. The threat was obvious.

"Don't give me that bullshit Will!" exclaimed Ron, "She's a Japanese national now – and she's been kidnapped. I happen to know for a fact that GJ doesn't have rendition treaties with Saudi Arabia – you don't have a leg to stand on."

Ron took another fateful step forward.

"Now hand her over!" he barked.

Internally Will scoffed at the man. Kidnapping? Treaties? What the hell did these things matter when the alternative was the extinction of the human race? He didn't like it, but he had a job to do and God damn it, he'd do it!

"Kill him." He spoke in a firm voice.

Shego, at that moment, finally came to her senses. The odd thrumming sound at the back of her skull seemed to have finally made it's way through the fog that was enveloping her brain and she came to several realizations.

First, the thrumming was the sound of one of Drakkens hovercrafts. She had piloted, or been onboard enough of them over the years to recognize the distinct sound of the anti-gravity nacelles that made the vehicles unusual mode of locomotion possible.

Secondly, buried deep inside the base of her skull was a very tiny device that she had long ago reluctantly agreed to have implanted in her. It was a tiny microchip; very similar to the one that Ron had been implanted with by Wade; except it had a few subtle differences. Asides from monitoring her health and vital signs and acting like a locator chip (it was after all, how Drakken had managed to retrieve her after she was sent forward in time), it also allowed her to remotely control his signature hovercraft so long as they were within a few miles radius. It was one of Drakken's better-kept secrets and the way in which he had assured that the vehicles always seemed to turn up whenever they needed a quick escape, or a break out of prison.

Thirdly, and lastly, while Shego couldn't actually see the vehicle, the chip inside her skull let her feel where it was – and she knew that it was near directly overhead.

When she heard the first grim staccatos of gunfire a plan instantly formulated in her mind. Reaching out through the device, she did the one thing that she could think of to save Ron's life – she cut the power to the hovercraft.

The effects were not instantaneous, but they were profound. The craft made no noise when it fell, at least not until it landed on the parked helicopter it was hovering over. The crash was thunderous and the impact severe. Hunks of metal, almost all from the less sturdy 'copter, went flying in all directions and the gunfire momentarily halted as everyone looked around for the new threat. Will Du himself, turned instantly to face the noise, but he didn't have time to register what had happened because by some twist of fate the hovercraft had bent down one of the 'copters rotor blades, causing it to deeply impale into his head.

Shego felt the gun fall away from her temple and having forewarning about what was going to happen she was already prepared to drop into a protective crouch. She rolled over on her side to get away from the falling debris, only to catch a glimpse of her husband and his one-time best-friend, railing about the remains of the GJ commando team with fists and feet flying. Luckily for Kim and Ron they had been able to take advantage of the distraction to close the distance between them and the commandos. They were now in melee distance where the fully automatic firepower that the soldiers carried wasn't nearly as effective – these men were trained professionals, but they were also a close knit team and none of them seemed to be willing to risk a shot into the melee that might kill or injure one of their friends.

Within what seemed like a matter of seconds, the battle was over – the soldiers proving no match for the worlds foremost ex-teen super heroine and her former "partner". Kim actually clapped her hands together and nearly cheerily started to talk to Ron.

"Nice moves Ron!" she exclaimed in a strained voice.

For his part, Ron either wasn't interested, or he wasn't buying it. Instead he went directly over to the prone body of Shego and knelt down beside her.

"Bella… I'm here baby. Everything's going to be ok…" he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into an embrace.

"Ron… Ron…" she replied. For long moments these were the only words she could get to come out of her mouth. She didn't know when it started, but somehow she had found her cheeks wet with tears. Her body was wracked with sobs and she buried her head into her husband's chest.

Kim Possible merely stood there, stunned, taking in the scene in front of her.

What's going on? Why is Ron holding her? What did he call her? And… Shego is crying?

A mixture of emotions overwhelmed the fiery redhead. There was sadness, sadness in knowing that what she was witnessing was the reunion between two people who genuinely cared for each other. There was jealousy, jealousy that the woman in Ron's arms wasn't her. Then there was anger, anger that out of all the women in the world, the one that was with Ron, with her Ron, was the one that she hated most of all.

Her hand, almost on it's own accord, went into her pocket. She didn't know why, or what she had intended to do, but somewhere deep down inside her she was overcome with a desire to end the scene unfolding before her. It was an impulse born of pure malice and jealousy and one that came to her unbidden of rational thought. For the first time in Kim Possible's young life, she wanted to kill someone.

The cool plastic of the Kimmunicator felt alien in her hand as she removed it from her pocket. Her fingers were shaking and her stomach felt like it was going to expel its contents. Ron and Shego were talking in hushed tones now and Kim couldn't make out what they were saying. The way Ron was holding her however said pretty much everything that Kim needed to know. She knew that pose; she knew that gentle embrace.

It was the way that Ron used to hold her.

The device was now in front of her face. Kim tried to focus on the tiny screen but she was having trouble seeing through her tears. Her index finger reached out and gently grazed the touch pad. With a flick of her wrist it would all be over…

It was then; at that exact moment that Kim Possible realized something profoundly important.

She wasn't the girl who could do anything; at least, not this.

She dropped the Kimmunicator to the ground disgusted with her self and gazed intently at Ron and Shego. She took in the way that they held each other, the tears in their eyes, the hushed and comforting tones they made. She knew that she had lost him – the man that she loved, and there was no way that she could get that love back. She deduced correctly that the child in Shego's womb most likely belonged to Ron and while she felt a twinge of pain that the green-hued villainess should possess so much that she had thought belonged to her, she also knew that there was no way that she could end the life of Ron's unborn baby.

She did love him. She loved him enough to let him go, to let him be happy, to let him be… well whatever he wanted in life. She had screwed up, and for the first time in long months she had come face to face with that reality and didn't shrink back. She didn't try to bargain for one more chance, to rationalize away her actions, or even to wish desperately that she could go back and undo it all. No, she realized the truth now – she loved Ronald Dean Stoppable, with all her heart even, but she hadn't loved him the right way, the way that he deserved.

She took a few faltering steps toward the couple, the sounds of her boots crunching the ground seemed to echo across the cavernous courtyard. Ron slowly turned his head to face Kim and Shego looked past his shoulder towards Kim as well. She stopped just a few feet in front of the couple.

"Ron…" she began, her voice was cracked and weak. This wasn't how she had imagined this meeting was going to take place.

"Save it Kim," Ron barked back at her. Shego could feel her husband tense up with anger and she tried to comfort him, to let him know that she was there with him emotionally, by squeezing his hand.

Kim blanched for a second and then tried to clear her throat. She didn't know what to say that could make this all better, but she had to try something.

"You'll always be my best friend Ron," she stated in a sad, strained voice.

"Kim…" Ron started to growl at her. He was so angry with her right now, and rightfully so. She had put the lives of his wife and child in jeopardy – it was going to be hard for him to forgive that.

"Please listen Ron!" she began, her voice taking on a semblance of its old fire.

"I don't understand… this, but I do know that I'm sorry… I'm sorry I did this. I'm sorry I brought this down on you." Her voice was seriously cracking now.

She looked directly at Shego and continued to speak.

"Shego…" her voice trailed off for a second, "I'm sorry Shego. I should have listened to Ron – I didn't know, not that it makes what I did any better…"

Kim, never in a million years, thought that she would ever be apologizing to Shego. It was something that was so… un-Kim-like that Ron was actually taken aback for a moment, enough so that he begrudgingly pushed aside his anger at Kim to really listen to what she was trying to say.

Shego didn't respond to Kim. She wasn't going to say something trite like, "That's alright", or "Don't worry about it", because in truth what Kim had done was completely beyond the pale and both women knew it. Instead she merely nodded her head at Kim, acknowledging the sentiment, but not offering absolution or condemnation.

Kim continued to speak, "I know this is going to be hard to do… but I hope that someday we can patch things up Ron – and I don't mean by being your girlfriend again. I think you deserve something better than what I was able to give you…."

Kim looked at the couple in front of her.

"And as crazy as it seems, I think that maybe you've found it…"

Kim couldn't believe that she had just said that. This was Shego that she was talking about after all! Still, the way she looked at Ron and the fact that she was most likely carrying his child… Kim silently prayed for them. Instead of being jealous that her love was having a baby with another woman, she put their welfare above her own hurt – she wanted that baby to grow up with a loving family that would always be there for it. She knew intimately just how important that was.

A soft, almost healing silence, hung around the trio. There was some tension in the air still, but things that had been said that needed to be said and while they were awkward and weird, everyone involved seemed to be, if not accepting, willing to entertain them as ideas.

Ron spoke up.

"Kim, this is going to take some time to set right. But I want you to know… you'll always be my best friend too."

Ron ventured a little smile towards his life long friend and Kim started to return that smile, her own lips were turned up slightly when all of a sudden a look of shock, or surprise crossed her face. Ron was slow to register what was going on, but he knew instantly something was wrong!

Kim had seen something that neither Ron nor Shego had. Hiding with the shadows, just on the outside of the battle that had been waged, was one of the militants that had seemed to have escaped complete incapacitation. He wasn't quite completely upright, and he was leaning heavily on his right side, but he had this assault rifle out and aimed… directly at the couple on the ground. He didn't know who they were, nor what part they had played in injuries he had sustained and the affront to the dignity his brothers had suffered, but he knew one thing – they were outsiders, infidels if you will, and they had to die.

Kim Possible, with her nearly supernatural reflexes, was quick to react to the perceived threat. Ron and Shego were on the ground – prone, and there was no way that she could warn them in time for them to escape harm. The man was already about to fire and Kim knew that she had no time to disable him, or take away his weapon. She had two choices at that moment, save her friend, or watch him die.

She chose the former.

With a quick leap, Kim launched herself at Ron and Shego, pushing them back and partially covering their bodies with her own. Bullets flew by the top of their huddled mass, ricocheting off of the downed hovercraft and ruined 'copter behind them. Their assailant was weak, wounded most likely, and he lacked the strength to properly aim his weapon, so the shots were for the most part, extremely off the mark.

Shego took it upon herself to end the threat to herself and her husband – she fired up one of her fists and with an expert aim developed through years of practice, she caught the man square in the face, sending him cart wheeling backwards into the dirt.

The trio laid on the ground there a pregnant second, the adrenaline in their system making their heads dizzy. Eventually Ron spoke up, "Lets get the hell out of here before that happens again."

He picked himself off the ground and extended a hand to the pregnant Shego, who needed assistance to get up from the dirt. Then he turned back to his friend Kim and offered his hand to her.

Kim reached up, her gloved fingers touching Ron's hand for a moment and then falling back to her side. She blinked for a moment, her eyes staring up at Ron.

"Hey KP…" Ron started, "Are you ok?

Kim looked at Ron quizzically for a moment, almost as if to say, "Of course I'm fine!", but when she went to open her mouth instead of those words being uttered, all that came from in between her lips was a thick, red stream of blood.

Kim saw the look of horror that spread over Ron's face and she went to ask him what was wrong, but instead of words forming her lips contorted and her mouth flopped open and close like a fish out of water. Suddenly her body was wracked with violent coughing as the blood began to seep into her lungs.

"Kim!" Ron shouted, "Oh God Kim… don't talk, don't try to talk!"

Shego was dizzy – for some reason she didn't understand every time she had tried to use her power recently she had been overcome with a wave of nausea; this time proving to be no exception. She waited for a moment, collecting herself and then waddled over to Ron and looked down at Kim. She saw the blood and then she knew.

She's dying.

Ron flipped Kim up on her side, letting the blood flow freely now from her mouth – it was an attempt on his part to make sure that she didn't choke to death on her own life's blood, but when he moved her he noticed the wounds – bullet holes in her back. Kim had been shot and the blood was everywhere.

Ron had seen people die before, even people that he had been close to. He had witnessed his close friends, people he loved, die some of the most painful and horrible deaths imaginable. Still, none of that had prepared him to bear witness to the death of Kimberly Anne Possible. A sob broke free of his throat and he gathered Kim's weakening form into his arms, holding her face close to his so that she could look into his eyes. Kim actually smiled at him, a pure, innocent smile, like the ones that she used to give him when they were children. The kind of smile that had made him fall in love with her before he even knew he liked girls.

Shego put her hand on Ron's shoulder. She knew that this was going to be hard for her husband and even though she had her differences with Kim, she had been a huge part of Ron's life. When other people had picked on Ron, or called him a loser, Kim had always been there for him. When other people had thought Ron was a freak, or an outcast, Kim had been there for him. Although Shego hadn't really appreciated it until now, if it wasn't for the fact that Ron had Kim's friendship, the man that she loved today might not exist.

Because of this, in some small way, Shego decided that she too loved Kim Possible. It wasn't the same as the way Ron felt about her, or even the way her friends felt about her. It was a respectful love, like loving the rain because it made the flowers bloom.

Death came inevitably to Kim Possible and almost as if it was pre-ordained, Ron Stoppable was at her side. He held her now lifeless form close to his body and wept uncontrollably. Shego hated doing it, she felt for sure that Ron needed more time to grieve, especially after everything that had happened, but she knew that they were running out of time. Already in the distance she could hear the sound of engines stalking them in the desert night. The longer they stayed here, the more likely it was that this scene would repeat itself and frankly there had been so much death tonight that Shego felt a huge internal conflict – she had never shied away from killing when she had to, but she felt weary and her soul was ill at ease. She thought idly that mothers should only be bringing life into the world, not sowing death in their wake. She'd defend herself and her husband and their child if she had to, but right now, at this exact moment, she preferred to avoid any potential conflicts all together. She did not want her sins to be passed down to the innocent life inside her.

"Ron…" she said softly, "We need to go. More soldiers are coming."

She gently laid her hand on the back of Ron's neck while she said this, softly massaging him and trying to ease his pain.

Ron nodded his head and tried to collect himself. He struggled to get to his feet, Kim's body still in his arms. Shego helped him right himself and then nodded her head in the direction of the fallen hovercraft.

"Let's get her inside the hovercraft. It should still work – Drakken's inventions are pretty durable."

Ron merely nodded at her again. Obviously he was too overcome with grief to talk at this point. Shego understood this and she put her hand on his arm and led him to the craft. Together they placed Kim's fallen form inside and then helped each other climb on board. Within minutes they were hurtling through the night sky, leaving the sight of all the carnage behind them, but carrying forward with heavy hearts.

-

Shego set the autopilot on the hovercraft on a direct course for Japan and then made her way to the back of the vehicle. Ron was sitting there alone, looking down at his hands and barely making any noise. She was thankful that Ron had taken her suggestion and placed Kim's body directly out of sight – she could only think of how horrible it would be for Ron to have to see his friends' corpse non-stop for the entire duration of their flight home.

"Ron honey… how are you doing?" she asked as she waddled over to sit next to him.

Ron didn't respond directly, or verbally even. Instead he reached out his arms and put them around Shego's much-expanded waist, pulling her into an awkward half embrace that found his face resting against her stomach.

"I'm devastated Bella. She…Kim… She was my best friend for nearly my entire life. She was always looking out for me when we were kids, even now when things were at their worst… she was still looking out for me."

Shego didn't say anything. She just ran her fingers through Ron's tow headed hair.

"How are you Bella?" He asked, turning his face up to meet her gaze, "How is the baby? Is everything ok?"

Shego paused for a moment, unsure exactly what she should say. After a brief internal conflict, she decided to level with Ron.

"I don't know Ron," she stated flatly.

"What do you mean, you don't know?" asked Ron. A tone of anxiety had crept into his voice.

"Shh… calm down honey," Shego said in soothing tones, "I just… don't know. I don't feel particularly bad, but…"

Ron arched an eyebrow. He hated "buts".

"When I used my power before… and twice before that actually, each time I felt really, really sick. Like sick to my stomach sick. I don't know why and I don't really know if it's new or not because I've been trying to avoid using my power for months now…"

Ron instantly picked up on the slightly scared undercurrents in Shego's voice. He wondered what it must be like to be her – to feel like your own body was constantly betraying you and to know that there was precious little you, or anyone else for that matter, could do for you.

"We're turning around," Ron stated flatly.

"What?" asked Shego.

"We need to get you to a doctor – a specialist of some kind… I don't know, but someone!" Ron was obviously panicking.

Shego knelt down next to run and put her head on his shoulder, leaning against him and rubbing her face into his neck.

"I don't think we'll be able to find a specialist for whatever is wrong with me…" she said softly.

Ron knew that this was true, but he wanted to take some kind of action. He had just lost his best friend and he was terrified that he was losing his wife and their child as well. For the first time since he was a teenager, he felt completely and utterly powerless. He didn't like it, not one bit.

"Maybe we can call Wade" Ron offered.

Shego looked up at her husband, she could see the worry in his eyes and she understood that he was doing his best to keep it under control.

"Again Ron? Is he really going to be able to tell us anything new?"

Both of them sat quietly for a minute, holding each others hands. Eventually Ron grunted and righted himself.

"Where are you going?" Shego asked.

Ron sighed deeply.

"I'm going to make the call," He saw the face his wife made at him and added, "I know, I know… but it's all we really have right now and also… I need to tell him about Kim."

Shego nodded to her husband and muttered a soft, "Ok…"

To say she was skeptical that the young super-genius would be able to help her would be putting it mildly. Still, she knew that logically there was no harm in asking – it was just that she was afraid of the answer. She thought, naively even, that the less she knew about her condition, the better. Almost as if by ignoring the changes that were happening in her body, she could make them somehow less real and thus less threatening. No one wants bad news after all, so why go asking for it?

Ron had moved over to the pilot's chair and began fiddling with the communications equipment helplessly. It was obvious that he didn't know exactly how to operate the high tech videophone. He looked up plaintively at his wife - against her better judgment and insecurities she relented and helped him make the call.

"Wade?" Ron asked when the connection was finally made.

"Uh… Ron? Wait… RON!" gasped Wade.

By now the two-way screen had come into complete focus and both men could see each other. Wade had obviously been sleeping – part of his tightly curled hair jutted out from the side of his head like the crest of a wave, and while Ron wasn't sure exactly what the younger man had thought of as passing fashion (especially since he did live in his parent's basement) he was pretty certain that even Wade wouldn't like to be publicly seen in an obviously stained t-shirt.

"Sorry to wake you up Wade, but I have some really bad news for you…" Ron let his voice trail off. He knew he had to break the news to Wade; not just because he was the only one that knew at this point in time, but also because it would be the right thing to do. He was, after all, part of their little world saving team.

"Um… Ron…" Wade seemed to look at something off to his left, "Why are you onboard a GJ craft… and where are the GJ crew?"

Ron just rolled his eyes. Wade was never all that good at tricking people, especially people who knew him well.

"Wade, who's over there right now?" Ron deadpanned.

Again Wade looked over to his left, his gaze lingering for a few moments. Unexpectedly he lunged at the camera –

"Ron! This isn't a secure line! Run for it Ron, GJ is tracking this transmission! You've got to – "

A pair of hands reached for Wade from outside the frame and grabbed the man around the shoulders, wrenching him from his seat at his desk. Wade tried to fend them off, but he was a computer genius not an operative, it didn't take long for the phantom arms to remove him.

"Hey put him down!" shouted Ron impotently at the screen. He had no idea what exactly was going on, but the fact that someone was actually inside Wade's basement sanctum didn't bode well.

A black clad torso covered the angle of the camera shot for a second, and then the figure sat down in Wade's chair – reaching forward to grab the headset microphone from the desk. Ron and Shego both recognized the figure before them – Dr. Betty Director.

"Stoppable – I see your in the process of committing yet another felony. That's a stolen craft you're piloting and with a wanted fugitive. Any excuses for yourself?" asked Dr. Director in an overly placid tone.

"Excuses!" shot Ron back at her, "What about assault, illegal abduction, imprisonment and extraordinary rendition? What about violating practically every article in the United Nations convention on criminal justice? What about –"

"Cut the crap Stoppable!" barked Dr. Director into the microphone, "We don't have time for this. You need to bring Shego in to GJ headquarters now or I'm sending every single unit we can after you. I don't care how many treaties I have to break!"

Ron stared dumbfounded at the screen. This wasn't the Dr. Director that he was used to, or the one that he had known when he was a teenager. The woman was always serious, always commanding and in charge, but she had never seemed so… desperate. Something was definitely up.

"What's going on Betty?" asked Ron as he narrowed his eyes and peered into the screen like he was a professional poker player trying to read an opponent's tell.

"Your friend there…" Betty began.

"Wife." Ron interrupted.

Betty raised her one good eye at this news – she had heard rumors, but had hardly believed them to be credible. It went to show how strange the world really was.

"Ok, wife then. Your wife is most likely going to cause the extinction of the human race."

Ron scoffed at this and turned his head back to Shego to give her a look that showed what he had thought of Dr. Directors comments. He wasn't prepared for the expression on her face. Shego seemed to be taken aback, almost… aghast, as if she was buying in to what Ron assumed was the hyperbole of some half-cocked law enforcement fanatic.

Shego returned Ron's look by snapping out of her own reverie and gently squeezing his shoulder. She then slightly bent over so that her face became more prominent in the video feed. She needed to ask some of her own questions.

"What do you mean by this?" she said with a hint of apprehension in her voice.

Betty wasn't expecting Shego to talk to her, nor was she actually expecting the tone of concern in the woman's voice. With the obvious failure of Will Du's extraction team, the situation was getting desperate and truthfully, Betty feared that they had already run out of time. It was a gamble, but she hoped if she could just make the woman understand what was at risk here, then maybe, just maybe, she could get her compliance.

"Your powers are going out of control, aren't they?" Betty began.

Shego nodded, "That's not a secret."

"That's not the point," Betty was doing her best to try and remain calm. She really needed to talk Shego into seeing things her way if there was going to be anything close to resembling a decent end to this crisis.

"Look Shego, Wade did some work on the data that the Japanese were able to collect from you and he ran some simulations on it. It didn't look good, so he contacted us."

Ron groaned internally. He had given Wade specific instructions not to contact anyone at GJ.

"Don't make that face Stoppable," shot Betty, "Before we ran the numbers past our own scientists I was more than happy to let Shego cool her heels in Japan. No offense to her but frankly GJ has bigger fish to fry."

"Anyway, our own guys went over Wade's data, ran his simulations and then came up with some of our own. The news wasn't good." Betty seemed to pause for a moment to gather her breath.

"Basically Shego; You're a bomb. You're going to explode and you'll probably take most of the planet with you."

Ron laughed out loud at this pronouncement, seemingly oblivious to the dire expression on Betty Director's face. Shego however, just looked intently at the woman – wondering if this was just some kind of trick. She didn't know how, or why, but somewhere in the back of her mind, something was telling her that at its essence, what the woman said was true.

"So you want to kill me?" asked Shego in a strange, detached voice.

"Well, personally? No. If I thought it would save the planet, then yes," responded Betty.

Ron couldn't believe his ears. He did a double take from his wife to the video feed and then back again.

"Wait a minute, you're serious about this?" asked Ron in shock.

"Yes, Ron – I'm deadly serious about this. If the young Mr. Load has calmed down enough, then maybe he could explain it. –" Betty looked off to the side and then nodded.

Wade seemed to be almost shoved back into the camera frame. He leaned forward, both of his arms supporting him on the desk and then began to speak.

"Ron… Shego… I'm sorry. I'm really sorry, but everything Dr. Director said is true."

The young man looked to be on the verge of tears. Shego and Ron just looked at each other and then, without words, moved a little closer – taking comfort in their bodies physical proximity while they prepared to listen to whatever bad news Wade had in store for them.

"Shego's body, her very cells even, act like a gate, or a dam even. We don't know where exactly the power comes from, but what we do know is that normally her body is capable of handling its discharge. That's why she doesn't just randomly start igniting or flaring up at odd moments."

"Okay so…" interrupted Ron.

"I'm getting to that Ron," continued Wade, "Her power levels have been increasing steadily since the first time we took readings. In fact, they've been increasing exponentially. It's so much power that her body just can't hold it in anymore."

"What about the collar that Drakken made?" asked Shego.

Wade shook his head.

"The collar just suppresses your bodies natural release mechanisms. The power is still building up inside you, in fact it's probably saturated your body to the point that I'm surprised you're still standing. Actually…" Wade's voice trailed off for a second as he seemed to ponder something, "Have you been feeling strange recently Shego? Any sort of odd physical symptoms? Anything out of the ordinary?"

Shego sighed and nodded her head.

"Every time I've tried to use my power… I get sick to my stomach. Physically weak, like I'm going to throw up or black out. I haven't been using it much because of this. In fact, the last time I used it, I almost passed out and fell over."

Wade seemed to contemplate this information for a moment.

"I think", he started, "this is probably a really bad sign. The energy has most likely invaded your body on a cellular level."

"Uh hello, Wade?" Ron broke in, "Lets pretend that I don't know what that means for a second."

"Oh," the young genius continued, "Every time Shego tries to use her powers, instead of just channeling it from wherever it comes from through her body, it's so back logged that it's actually channeling her physical cells. That's probably why she gets sick after using it – her body is actually expelling part of itself every time she lights up."

Shego slumped down beside Ron and leaned her head upon his shoulder. For his part, Ron was trying to keep his cool, to keep some hope, but it was getting harder and harder as the conversation continued.

"What if she doesn't use her power Wade?" asked Ron desperately.

"Doesn't matter – She can only hold so much Ron. Eventually the molecules that make up her body are just going to start… well exploding. And of course once we get to that point… well lets just say that it's pretty much over."

"Damn it Wade!" said Ron as he slammed his fist down into the communication console, "Isn't there anything we can do?"

"Ron, I know this is hard but we don't have many options right now. If we had years to study Shego we might be able to devise some sort of way of helping her without putting us all at risk, but we just don't have that time man! If my calculations are anywhere close to correct, her body could start to break down in a chain reaction any second."

This wasn't what Ron wanted to hear. In his anger and frustration he clawed at the surface of the console with his fingers and gritted his teeth. He wondered idly what he had done to cause the universe to hate him so much. He wondered what he had done to deserve to lose everything in his life that mattered the most to him in the same day. Ron was just about to slam his fist down in fury and bark another set of seemingly unreasonable demands when he found himself brought up short.

Shego, still leaning against her husband's side, had moved her face and with it, her lips, up to her husbands ear. She exhaled softy, her hot breath getting Ron's attention and then she kissed him gently and whispered a sweet and simple phrase.

"I love you."

With the pronouncement of those three words, Ron felt all of his anger that was threatening to boil over subside. In his frustration and pity he had almost forgotten the reason why he was so mad – this woman next to him was his wife, the most important person in the world to him, and she must be absolutely terrified. Ron was in awe of this woman and the amount of grace that she showed under her own imminent doom.

Ron reached his free hand over to the console and shut off the video feed. If somehow he managed to live long enough, he'd tell the world about the sacrifice of Kim Possible and how she had played her own part in saving the world one last time, but for now Ron wasn't sure that the world had been saved. It seemed that the final act of the play had been left for him to write.

How will I end this? What will I do?

He gazed into Shego's eyes, cupping her face with his hands. He smiled at her and then passionately kissed her full on the lips, they tasted sweet yet salty. She was crying.

"Um… don't cry?" ventured Ron when he broke away their kiss.

"It's awful damn hard not to right now…" complained Shego as she buried her head into Ron's chest.

He ran his fingers through her hair in a comforting gesture and snuggled her close.

"I know, it was a stupid thing to say," he admitted.

"That's one of the reasons why I love you so much," she rejoined.

"Ron…" she began, "I can feel it. I can feel it starting."

Truthfully Ron didn't need Shego to tell him this; he could see it with his own eyes. Her green cosmic glow that had been so subdued over the last few months had come back with a vengeance. It surrounded her like a bright nimbus of emerald fire. For now however, it didn't burn and was cool to the touch. How much longer this would last… Ron didn't know.

"Oh God Ron!" shouted Shego as she sprang backwards, "Get away from me!"

Ron reached forward to grab her, but Shego twisted away from him.

"No!" she shouted, "Stay away…" she sobbed a giant body wrenching sob, "please… stay away."

"Not this time," Ron stated bluntly, "I'm not going anywhere Bella. I'm going to be here. With you. Until the end. That's what it means, 'till death do you part'."

Shego hunched backwards against the side of the hovercraft, huddling down and clenching her stomach.

I'm sorry… I'm so sorry little one. I want you to know that I so desperately wanted to be your mother. Please forgive me.

"Ron, I'm sorry…" Shego started.

"No Bella, I'm the one that's sorry. I'm a poor excuse for a husband; I couldn't protect you from… this. If I hadn't brought you along that night in London, then maybe all this wouldn't be happening!"

"No!" shouted Shego.

"Whatever else you feel Ron, I don't ever want you to be sorry for what happened between us. You gave me so much Ron, you made my life so… full. If this is the price that I have to pay for living that kind of happiness, then I don't mind…" her voice trailed off.

Ron was dumbfounded. He finally understood what exactly he meant to Shego and he was humbled by this knowledge.

"Ron… I don't want to kill you. I don't want to kill my brothers, or my family, or your family, or Yori, or your friends… Ron I don't want to kill the world."

Shego was crying hysterically now and despite the fact that the light around her had grown to a fierce intensity, Ron was right there beside her. He leaned in and kissed her strongly – her body was warm, bordering on hot. Obviously the chain reaction that Wade had warned about was already under way. Ron closed his eyes and then silently prayed to God for some help, for some divine wisdom, for some inspiration. He prayed for a miracle.

That's when he remembered, he wasn't completely out of tricks yet.

Ron reached into his clothes and found what he was searching for. It's cool crystalline surface felt oddly warm to his touch, but he didn't take any note of it. He thought to himself that he probably couldn't save the woman he loved and he most likely wouldn't be able to save himself, but he was pretty sure that he could do one thing…

Save the world one last time.

Just as the energy building up in Shego's body was about to burst forth, Ron grabbed her in his arms, ignoring for a moment the intense heat that burned his skin. He held the Tempest Simia in his hands and then he concentrated very hard on moving forward in time.

From point a, to point b…

He felt the idol activate and when it did he was surprised that the heat that Shego's body was giving off seemed to diminish. It was almost as if… the idol was feeding off her cosmic power.

Where have I seen this before? Wait, is THIS the cause? Is this why her powers went haywire?

He looked at the beautiful woman in his arms as they flew through the ethereal currents of time. She wasn't conscious anymore and Ron acknowledged that there was a good chance that she was either dead, or in the process of dying and there was pretty much nothing he could do about it.

Don't worry Bella, everyone else is going to be fine. It's just you and me now and I'm not going to leave you.

When Ron had activated the idol he hadn't had much in the way of a plan formulated in his head. All he could think of was taking Shego away, someplace far away, where the imminent release of her pent up energies would do minimal harm to the people living on Earth. With those thoughts in mind the idol had been triggered and sent them hurtling through the cosmos.

They arrived in the future, just in time it seemed, to bear witness to the super nova of Earth's sun. It was an amazing event that Ron had never in his wildest dreams thought he would witness, and even though he had only seconds to realize what was happening, he felt oddly at peace as his corporal form was carried away out of existence.

So ended the lives of Ronald and "Bella" Stoppable. Ron had kept his word, and they were indeed together right up until the end. Just like a husband and wife should be.

-

It seemed however that the universe still had other plans for Ronald Dean Stoppable.

He awoke with a start, a silent cry on his lips and burdened with a physical sensation like every fiber in his body was on fire. Even though it had seemed like such a long time, his body intimately remembered the excruciating pain of rebirth and it echoed in his mind like a ghost – present and past pains, mingling together until he forgot where one ended and the other began. He laid there for long minutes, silently listening to his heart beat pound away and the blood move up his neck and through his head.

He was alive damn it. Why was he alive?

The room was for the most part dark, but Ron didn't need to see it very well to make out where he was. Indeed, the room and it's interior were indelibly etched into his mind – they were always the first thing that he saw whenever the infernal time loop he was caught in retracted like a rubber band, snapping his back into existence at this singular point. He rolled over on his side, studying the carved statue of the Monkey King as the slender shafts of sunlight that managed to enter through the cracked roof, started to dwindle.

Why do you keep doing this to me? I thought I had done what you wanted… I accepted the power! Why? WHY?

Ron hung his head in shame. He knew that there would be no answers to that question, if even there were an answer that could be found to satisfy him. He had spent long nights screaming into the darkness of his soul, bargaining with the unknown, pleading with fate, that the silence was expected. No one ever called back to him when he railed against his destiny. No one probably ever would.

He moved to both hands, then pushed himself gently up. He was hungry and he knew from experience that the closest food was nearly two hours walk away. It would give him plenty of time to start thinking about what to do.

Wait a minute… why should I bother with that? Obviously defeating Fiske has nothing to do with the entire thing!

The realization hit Ron like a ton of bricks. He had spent literally lifetimes battling Monkey Fist in the past, and now that he had defeated the man – literally ripped him apart with his bare hands, he still found himself waking up in the same ruined remote shrine - his feet plodding along the same path as before. There was only one conclusion that he could draw from this –

He'd been wrong.

Wrong about what his purpose was. Wrong about what he needed to do. Wrong about the approach he had taken. Wrong about everything. Absolutely everything that he had believed to be necessary, every task he had set for himself, every plot he had concocted, every deception, every quest, every motion he had ever made… They were all wrong.

It was enough to make him want to fall over and break down in tears.

Ron stopped at what should have been the entrance to the shrine, only to find out his second shock in just as many minutes.

The door was gone.

Actually, to say the door was "gone" wouldn't be entirely appropriate. The door, or more accurately, where the door should have been was gone. And in it's place stood what appeared to be a rather large boulder.

This is… new?

Suddenly all the despair that Ron had been feeling up until a moment ago was replaced with such a profound feeling of excitement that he felt like he would literally jump out of his skin. He sized up the boulder for a mere second, then reached deep down inside himself and found what he needed – a blue flash welled up in his eyes and with almost supernatural ease, he shoved the giant rock clear of his path.

The sight that greeted his eyes was nearly beyond comprehension. He had expected to see the same rustic and near abandoned countryside that always welcomed him whenever he came down from the mountain, except of course, it was gone. Where once there had been a lush forest stood a forest of another kind, a forest of homes, each one sporting chimneys bellowing smoke. Ron looked to his left and another sight caught his eye…

Is that a… cell-phone tower? What the hell is going on?

Indeed, things were most definitely not how Ron had remembered them. A certain set of possibilities started to form in his mind, but he pushed them aside. It was too premature for him to hold any hope; at least until he was able to gather more information… but maybe, just maybe, he could do something amazing. Something that ran completely counter to what most people knew as time.

Maybe he could change the past, by changing the future.

Without wasting another second, Ron raced down the hillside at a galloping pace. He needed information more than food, and once he had sated one appetite he would take care of the other, but for now, he had work to do.

-

"Well, that should take care of it for now!" exclaimed the woman as she swept the last remnants of the winter accumulation of dust out her front door.

It was a nice day in mid may and the long midwestern winter had finally given away to a refreshing spring breeze that she was currently coaxing through her home via every available open window and door she could find. She was a little miffed that her husband had been called into work, with it being Sunday and all, but it was something that she was used to and rightfully couldn't complain about – before she had retired she used to be nearly as bad, if not worse. Still, it would have been nice for him to be home today. If not for the extra help with her spring-cleaning, at least just to have him around for company – they were, after all, not only married, but absolutely best friends.

She stopped for a moment and rested on the front porch of her home. It was a modest house in a modest neighborhood. Her family could most definitely afford bigger and better, but her husband liked the town and it's people and while she at first had been a little reluctant to settle down here, she also had come to love the place just as much as he had. It was a good town, she thought to herself, a fine place to have a family and for them to raise their children.

Almost on cue, a loud crash from the backyard shocked her out of her reverie.

Yes, lovely children that are probably destroying their father's tool shed right this minute.

Without missing a beat, she skipped through the open door and out towards the rear kitchen, poking her head out the open window and looking to see what the damage was.

"Hey! What's going on back here?" she called into the yard.

Two sheepish faces popped up from right below the windowsill, giving her a mild start.

"Sorry mommy!" they said in unison.

She eyed them with a wary look, using that expression that only mothers seem to possess and even then only when they really wanted to make sure that you weren't trying to pull a fast one on them.

"Oh really? What was that noise I heard then?" she asked suspiciously.

The older one, a girl, spoke up, "We were cleaning daddy's shed like you asked us too…"

The younger one, a boy, continued, "… and we accidentally dropped some stuff."

The two children's mother sized them up for a second. It made them both extremely nervous whenever their mother looked at them like this, almost as if she was reading their minds.

"Is anything broken?" she finally asked.

"No…" they both said together.

"Well then, clean it up and try to be quiet. I just got your sister to lay down for her nap."

At that, both of the children took off like rockets for the relative safety of the shed. They both loved their mother, but they knew intimately that she wasn't the kind of mom that you messed with – not if you wanted to get out alive. And truthfully, they hadn't really broken very many things… at least not anything their father used quite often. With any luck, it would be months before he even discovered that anything was wrong and while it was unlikely, there was always a hope that their mother would forget today by the time that happened.

I swear, what did I do to deserve children that act just like me?

She giggled a little bit at this thought and then pulled her head back into the kitchen. Opening the refrigerator to retrieve a can of diet cola, she walked over to the kitchen table to look at the final bit of work that she had laid out for herself today.

It wasn't really cleaning, well not really, although some of the materials had been taking up space in their closet. It was more of a project that she had taken upon herself for fun. Littered across the table was an odd collection of photos, newspaper clippings, magazines and letters that had been for the most part buried in a loose collection of shoeboxes for going on near a decade. She had tried to organize all these memories before, but every time she got started something always distracted her and she rationalized it by saying she'd always have more time to do it later. Now however, the children were getting older and after she had given birth to her latest one, it seemed that the time had finally come. Sure, the kids wouldn't appreciate it now, but some day when they were teenagers she'd be able to pull out this scrapbook and show them memories of their mother and father that they'd only be able to barely guess at.

Her hands gently grazed the memorabilia scattered across the table, almost as if she was trying to sense from touch where she should begin. Eventually she settled over the first item – a photo of her and her husband back from when she was still in high school. It had been one of her favorite pictures of them, not really because either one of them had looked so great, but because you could tell from the picture that they were having so much fun. She smiled when she remembered the day and then placed the photo in between two pages of her book. She wasn't going to mount anything, at least not just right now, but instead she was more interested in just getting a feel for how she wanted things to be presented.

The next thing she picked up was an old magazine dated nearly two decades ago. It wasn't one that she had read often, but she kept it because of the cover and it's proclamation, "Teen Hero Marries Partner". The picture was excellent and it irked her that it was taken by paparazzi instead of their wedding photographer, but still… it looked so perfect that she had to keep it. She remembered actually calling up the magazine when she had gotten wind that they were going to run her wedding on the front cover. She had never told her husband but the original headline was, "Teen Hero Marries Sidekick" until she asked them to alter it – It wasn't that he would have minded so much, but she had always made it clear that even though he had stayed pretty much out of the public eye, that they were a team. They were partners.

People had been surprised that she had gotten married so young, in fact even her parents, although they weren't surprised quite as much, were more than a little worried about her tying the knot at such a young age. Although they hadn't had much say in the matter, she had eventually won them over by telling them that she felt so strongly about it, that she just wanted to do it as soon as she could. For her, it seemed like a waste of time to put off doing something that you knew, deep down inside, was absolutely the right thing to do.

After all, from the moment he had entered her life, she knew that everything in her world was about to change.

-

It had been another long and thankless night of saving the world for a bunch of people that probably could care less about her. She didn't like to think of things this way, but facts were facts. It was five days before the junior prom and she still didn't have a date.

Her family told her she was being melodramatic, but then again they didn't have to walk in her shoes. They didn't know what it was like to be a girl and to be different, to have boys be afraid of you because of your "hobby" – how many men out there would appreciate the fact that she could roundhouse kick a villain through a window?

She saved the world on almost a weekly basis, and what did she get out of it? The disapproving glares from the other girls on the cheer squad, constant berating from the kids at the top of the school's "food chain", and completely ostracized from having even a somewhat normal high school life. Hell, the way she was going she probably couldn't even get a member of the chess club to go with her to the dance.

Dejectedly she slunk down the hall to her locker, not noticing until she was already there that someone was waiting for her.

"Hey…" he began.

She looked upwards at him, shocked that a person, a real live, actual person, was talking to her.

"Uh… Hey?" she offered lamely.

Oh nice one! Way to come off as a total brain dead bimbo.

The young man looked nervously around him, like he was looking for someone to bail him out of an uncomfortable situation he had gotten into. Eventually he seemed to master his nerves and continued to talk.

"I was wondering…" he stumbled over his words.

"Yes?" she asked, perhaps a little too eagerly.

"Uh… do you have a date to the prom?" he asked.

Yes! Thank you God! Thank you!

The boy wasn't particularly handsome, but he wasn't bad looking. She knew him somewhat, or at least knew of him. He was a member of the football team, she thought maybe a running back. He definitely wasn't at the top of the food chain, but he wasn't, like her, at the bottom. She saw opportunity when it knocked and it took her only a second to formulate her reply.

"Do you want to go with me?" she asked, silently cursing herself for completely jumping the gun.

"Do you want to go…" the boy started to say by rote, but then slowly he realized what she had actually said.

"Oh, um… yeah," he offered – still obviously confused.

The awkward situation was brought to an end by the bell ringing, announcing that they had only 5 minutes to get to their homerooms.

"Well, I guess we can talk about it after class. Okay?" the boy offered.

She nodded at him and then stood there dumbfounded as he walked away to his class. She would be marked tardy of course, but she quite simply just needed the time to digest what had just happened.

I'm going to the prom. With a football player.

Suddenly she felt complete and utter elation, as if she was skipping along on clouds. Unfortunately this didn't last long as the reality of the situation set in.

I have absolutely nothing to wear!

-

She didn't know how her mother had done it, but she had come through for her in a big way. Just as she was despairing about not having anything appropriate to wear to the biggest dance of the school year, her mom had shown up with a long white box emblazoned with the fashionable Club Banana logo. Inside was the most darling prom dress that she had ever seen. She had wanted to ask her mom how much it had cost, but she knew instinctively that she should just let the matter drop – most likely it had cost way more than her mom should have spent, and way more than her father would be happy about. Instead she just hugged her mom, telling her, quite truthfully, that she was the "greatest mom ever".

Armed with the appropriate fashionable attire, she had begun to feel pretty good about the upcoming dance and her date. She had spent a couple of hours on the phone with him and a study period here and there over the last few days and while he probably wasn't the sharpest guy she had ever met, or the most expressive, he did seem to genuinely want to go with her to the prom. This raised him much higher in her personal opinion than she would like to admit. Although she wasn't feeling anything in particular for him right now, who knew what would happen later? Proms were magical nights for young people and you never could tell what fate had in store for you.

The hour of the dance steadily approached and while most girls would be primping right until the last minute, she instead sat in front of her vanity mirror staring at her reflection. She was surprised that she actually liked what she saw – it didn't happen often. It wasn't that she was ugly; she was just very self-conscious about her looks. She tried to have a more positive and upbeat attitude, but being the only girl (asides from her mother) in a house full of men didn't really give her much to compare herself to – she was actually quite secretly afraid that she was just plain too much of a tom-boy to attract a decent guy.

Suddenly her mom called out from downstairs, "Honey, your date is here!"

She hesitated for a second, and then gathered up her purse and practically sprinted down the stairs.

Much to her surprise the night had actually progressed pretty smoothly. Her date wasn't a great conversationalist, or even that much of a dancer, but just the fact that she was here, at her junior prom, was magic enough. For the first time since she had entered high school she actually felt like she belonged. A few people had even come up and talked to her, one boy in particular had asked her to dance. She had sadly declined him, not because she didn't want to dance with him, but because she was unsure if it would offend the boy that she had come with. She didn't know exactly how she felt about him, but she was being cautious, not willing to risk the one good thing that had happened to her so far in her high school career.

"Hey, do you want to get out of here?" he asked her.

She looked at him with confusion on her face. Why would she want to leave? The dance was a three-hour affair and they were only just barely half way through with it. She wondered to herself if there was a polite way to say that she wanted to stay.

The boy caught on to the look of indecision in her face and tried a new pitch; one that he hoped would have more success.

"A bunch of seniors are throwing an after prom party. It's actually starting pretty soon and I was thinking maybe we could go over there and hang out for a bit…"

It took a great deal of self-control for her to resist having her mouth jut open like a fish out of water. She couldn't believe in how just a few days her fortunes and her social standing seemed to be climbing upwards - First a date to the prom with a pretty popular guy and now an invitation to a senior party? Could this be it? Could this be the school life that she had always dreamed of? She quickly gathered her composure and nodded in the affirmative.

"Yes! Lets go!"

As they strode out of the school gymnasium she reflected upon how this night seemed to be the defining moment in her young adult life and how everything that had happened so far was absolutely just too good to be true.

A half an hour later, sitting in a parked car behind the school, she realized that she had never been so right.

She knew something was up the minute that they got into the car and her date didn't immediately buckle up. She had naively asked him, "Are we going to go now?" to which he had only responded that he wanted to "Chill for a few minutes."

Evidently the boy's definition of "chilling" included a great deal many things that she wasn't quite so comfortable with. First there was the paper bag wrapped bottle that he had produced from the back seat. She had never tried any herself, but from where she was sitting she could tell that it was some sort of alcoholic beverage. He had offered some to her, and initially she had refused, however she had started to worry that she was making him not like her, so against her better judgment she decided that just a few sips wouldn't hurt.

Those few sips turned into a completely empty bottle about 20 minutes later and she was starting to feel the effects. Her head was flushed, her body felt hot, and she was feeling kind of spacey. She had never been drunk before, so this was a new experience for her. She had wondered to herself why people did this for fun? She didn't feel like she was having that much fun right now, in fact she felt a little paranoid and scared.

Suddenly she found her date sitting quite close to her. The car was an older, Detroit model, with big wide bench seats and the boy was definitely moving in. He had draped one of his arms around her back at this point and was uncomfortably close. She didn't know what to do.

What does he want? Does he just want to make out? Could I kiss him? It might not be so bad… and I'm kind of curious; I've never kissed a boy before…

Without warning the situation was resolved for her when her date leaned in and practically mashed his lips against hers. She was surprised at first, and started to wriggle about in a little bit of a panic, but he was physically much bigger than her and he used the weight of his body leaning against her, to keep the contact going. Somewhere in her mind she decided that this wasn't so bad actually. She was nervous, very nervous actually, but it wasn't like the boy was a terrible kisser… at least the kiss didn't seem terrible.

This… isn't so bad actually. Maybe I even kind of like it. He's kind of cute and I guess… I guess he likes me. He wouldn't be kissing me if he didn't like me, right?

Slowly she let herself relax and she even ventured applying a little pressure to the kiss on her own. This seemed to spur her date on and she took one of his hands and placed it in her lap. It bothered her a little bit, but it didn't seem too bad. She took her hand and placed it on top of his, holding it gently while they let their lips wander across each other.

"Yeah… that's more like it baby," the guy had muttered duskily to her.

"Um… yeah it's… pretty good," she had responded in between soft, small kisses.

She was actually starting to get into it now as her natural urges combined with the alcohol started to chip away at her inhibitions. She was just about ready to smile, when what he did next completely shocked her.

His hand… it's on my…

"Hey!" she shouted, while she pushed him away, "What do you think you're doing?"

The boy look confused, like he didn't know why she was protesting.

"What? Why are you acting like this? I thought we were having a good time?" he complained.

She was taken aback for a moment. They had been having a good time. She had been reluctant and scared at first, but the kissing was definitely really exciting. However, when she had felt his hand snake up to her breast… it had really bothered her. She didn't know how far he wanted to go, but she knew that deep down inside her, she had a limit to what she was willing to do.

"Look… I just don't want to go that far, ok?" she tried to reason with him in a voice and tone that left open the possibilities of at least resuming where they had left off.

"Are you serious?" the boy shot back.

Why is he acting like this? I don't understand…

"Of course I'm serious! What's gotten into you?" she barked back at him.

"Into me? Look I don't know what kind of game you're playing but I know all about you, so why don't you just calm down and we'll go back to having a really, really good time. I promise you'll like it." At this point he reached over completely, enveloping her in his arms and burying his face in her neck.

"What? No! Get away from me!" she screamed and tried to twist away from him.

"What is going on you bitch!" he shot at her, "You too stuck up to do me too? I heard about you and the rest of the guys on the team!"

Her mind reeled at this revelation. The rest of the team? What had people been saying about her? What sort of rumors had been going on behind her back? Is this why she didn't have any friends? Is this why everyone seemed to avoid her like the plague?

What the hell is going on? I'm a virgin! I hadn't even kissed a boy! Why? Why is this happening to me?

She was just about to try and form those thoughts into a sentence when the slightly drunken boy snatched at the front of her dress, tearing the straps from her shoulder and exposing her bra.

He leered at her for a moment and then spoke, "Now just be quiet and we can get this done fast and then we can both go to the party and hang out."

She didn't mean to, but she had started to cry. It wasn't that she was scared; not really. She knew that if she wanted to she could lay this guy out like a cheap suit. She was just disgusted. Disgusted at her self.

She was disgusted that she had thought that a guy would actually like her. She was disgusted to think that she even had a chance of fitting in with all the other kids at her school. She was disgusted to acknowledge that just for a brief moment, she had heard this boys offer and even considered it – just for the sake of trying to fit in. There was a small part of her that was willing to trade her most special gift in return for acceptance from her peers and a small degree of popularity, and it made her feel like she was trash.

It was, quite likely, the lowest she had ever felt about her self in her entire life. That fact alone made her hate her self just that much more. Almost as quickly as the self-loathing came, so did the anger. Anger at the world that had been so uncaring, anger at the school mates that had treated her like shit to be wiped off their heels, anger at this boy who was trying to fondle and grope her. Anger wasn't a new emotion for her, she had felt it before on many occasions, but she had never felt it with such pure unadulterated intensity. She knew that right now inside her she had the hatred that it would take to kill this asshole if she had to.

"Get off me!" she snarled at the boy, pushing away his pawing hands. He might be pretty strong for a boy his age, but she was a real fighter. She had been handing super villains their asses since freshmen year. Just as she was getting ready to launch into an attack that would probably see her assailant, at the very least, in the hospital, something quite unexpected and all together remarkable happened.

He just stopped.

Actually, it wasn't like he had stopped of his own accord. It was more as if he had been sucked out of the car from the drivers side from some unknown force and then flung off somewhere into the night. She caught her breath, and tried to wipe the tears from her eyes so she could see better. Cautiously she crept forward towards the now open door, only to scream when she came face to face with another man.

"Augh!!" she bellowed straight into his face, small droplets of spittle actually wetting his eyes and chin.

To his credit, the man didn't scream back, but instead he lurched upwards, hitting the top of his head on the ceiling of the car.

"Oh… damn that's going to hurt," he muttered to himself.

The girl quickly covered her mouth, and then just as quickly tried to pull the front of her dress up. She had been startled at first, but now that she had the time to study the man peeking into the car, she recognized him. He was one of the teachers, a new one actually that had just started this last semester.

He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly and spoke in a calm, comforting tone, "Are you ok? I just happened to be walking by when I saw what was going on… Do you need me to call your parents?"

She was so embarrassed about what had happened, about what had almost happened, that she didn't respond verbally. She merely shook her head 'no'.

"Wait, is that no, you're not ok? Or no, don't call your parents? Really, I should call someone…" he leaned over his shoulder and shouted into the night, "Like the police you stupid asshole! I know you can hear me! Don't think that this is over!"

To her utter amazement and despite everything that had just transpired, the girl found herself overcome with a strange urge to giggle. She couldn't quite remember who this teacher was, but he seemed like a nice guy.

"I'm all right and please, don't call my parents…" she said in a quiet voice.

"Are you sure about that? I don't really like the idea of that jerk getting away with what he tried to do here, I'd really like to report it… it might keep me from beating his face in if he's in jail."

That pretty much cinched it. She did like this teacher.

"It's ok Mr…" she searched around her memory for a name.

The man just smiled at her and finished the sentence.

"Stoppable. Mr. Stoppable. Although I don't feel like much of a Mister – I'm only a student teacher right now. I'm actually still in college… but I'm working hard!" he grinned broadly and offered his hand to her.

"I'm Cornelia Goldstein," she stated in a flat voice.

"I know," he said with a smile on his face, "C'mon – everyone knows the famous super hero Shego!"

She giggled a little bit at his over the top way of making her feel more comfortable about her public identity. He probably hadn't known that it was a sore point with her, but she appreciated the levity all the same.

"You know that guy's actually really lucky…" Mr. Stoppable had stated.

"Oh really?" Cornelia replied, a hint of malice creeping into her voice.

"Yep, if I didn't stop by when I did his testicles would probably be orbiting Jupiter."

She couldn't contain herself any longer. After all the loathing and angst that she had just experienced, this man's antics felt like a breath of fresh air. She let out a deep, throaty laugh that was chased with a brilliant natural smile. Yes, she liked this teacher, liked him a lot!

She hadn't known it at the time, but she had made two significant predictions on that night. Yes, some things were indeed too good to be true and yes, that night was the night that her life was going to change.

However, this time, it was going to prove to be for the better.

-

There weren't many weeks left in the end of that school year, but they passed in a flurry of activity. Mr. Stoppable, or Ron as she had taken to calling him in her own private monologues, had been like her guardian angel. He had badgered some of the other teachers into getting more serious about the amount of bullying that was going on at the school, even going so far as to get certain people expelled. She had secretly worried that he was doing all of this on her account, but when she confronted him about it he had confided to her that he too had been bullied when he was in high school and this was just his way of turning a bad experience into a positive one.

She liked that line of thinking; turning bad experiences into positive ones. Months ago she probably would have thought that it was a load of bunk, but for some reason when her Ron said it, it seemed like the wisdom of the ages. In fact, nearly everything that Ron Stoppable did seemed to be practically amazing to her. It was embarrassing, but she would be eating dinner with her parents and brothers and just find herself in the middle of a gushing rant about "Mr. Stoppable did this" or "Mr. Stoppable said that". Her parents seemed to be a little concerned, but slightly less so when they found out that this "Mr. Stoppable" was just a college student, only a few years older than Cornelia – still they kept a watchful eye on her. Her brothers on the other hand would always roll their eyes, sometimes they would even tease her, but for the most part they just ignored their sister – chalking everything up to the fact that she was a girl, and hence, a completely alien creature.

All in all however, things at Goldstein house were pretty happy for what seemed like the first time in years. No one in the family would have liked to admit it, but there was a period when they all secretly worried about Cornelia and how she was handling the stress of balancing her super heroic life with her school life. She had always been a sensitive, emotional girl, and even if it was slightly unorthodox, her school girls crush seemed to actually be helping her cope.

Summer vacation eventually came, and it was with a heavy heart that Cornelia said goodbye to her not-so-secret crush for the summer. It was so bad, so blatantly obvious, that there were even some whispers amongst the students that the two of them were having an "illegal affair". Of course, nothing like that actually was going on – but that thought did feature prominently in the secret fantasy life of Cornelia Goldstein. Still, it seemed that despite how hard she was crushing on Mr. Stoppable, he was determined to always remain a perfect gentlemen (which of course, is one of the reasons why she thought he was so perfect) and she was too shy to pursue the matter further – at least for now.

The summer was a period of profound change for Cornelia. Team Go was finally starting to really take off and have a life of their own. They had saved Go City countless times over the last couple of years and finally they were starting to get the recognition that she had felt they deserved. However, it was somewhat ironic to her that once people did start praising her, she felt as if it really wasn't as great as she had made it out to be in her head. It was confusing to say the least, and she resolved to send an email to Mr. Stoppable to see what he thought about it – plus it would be a great excuse to maybe even talk to him on the phone.

With Team Go seeming to gain more prominence, it only made sense that bigger and bigger villains would be pitting themselves against the self proclaimed protectors of Go City. New names and new faces started to appear everywhere and for a while there was talk amongst her siblings as to if they could manage to keep it all together any longer without help. Fortunately for them and for Go City, some of the new faces that sprouted up that summer were actually good guys, and they did manage to take some of the heat off of the towns signature hero team.

One of the new heroes in particular caught Cornelia's eye. He didn't seem to have any particular name, but the press had taken to calling him the "Blue Ninja" due to his midnight blue clothing and demeanor. They had first crossed paths when Team Go's arch-nemesis, Avarius, had managed to capture nearly the entire team but Shego. Out of opportunity and necessity, she had teamed up with the enigmatic heroes to save her brothers and out of this a limited partnership of sorts had been formed. Team Go was still Team Go and the Blue Ninja still worked mostly by himself, but occasionally Cornelia (as Shego) and him would team up and go on adventures of their own. All in all it was a fairly exciting arrangement and Cornelia had determined that it was always good to have as many friends as you could find to watch your back.

Soon the school year started again and Cornelia found herself struggle to juggle all the things in her life. There was her work with her brothers in Team Go, there was her school work and trying to graduate with her senior class, and then of course there were both the missions she went on with the Blue Ninja as well as what ever time she could squirrel away to spend with Ron Stoppable. She wasn't sure if it was just her familiarity with Ron, or if it was because of the fact that she was more confident these days in herself than she had ever been before, but she had actually dropped some not so oblique references to the fact that in just a few short months not only would she soon be 18 years old, but she also would no longer be a student at Go City High school.

She had even at one point gone as far as to ask Ron to show her around the campus of Go College, since she had told him that she was thinking of attending and pursuing a teaching degree in the fall. Maybe, she had said, they'd even be in some of the same classes.

The entire situation was kind of frustrating for her, because no matter what she did or said, it seemed that Ron was completely immune to her feminine charms. It wouldn't be until months later that she would find out that quite the opposite was true and that she had been torturing the poor man for almost a year.

During this period of time her relationship with the mysterious Blue Ninja also deepened. Their partnership had seemed to grow more stable and they had both found themselves calling on each other more often for assistance and help. Cornelia really liked working with him because the type of cases that he took on often gave her the opportunity to put on her "detective hat" to sort of speak. The Ninja himself was a really great detective, and while it was fun trying her hand at it, it was just as much fun learning from someone who was obviously one of the best.

As the older version of herself sat there at her kitchen table, pouring over all the memories in her hands that were destined for the scrapbook, she chuckled dryly to herself.

Oh, if only I had been a better student I wouldn't have had so much angst over my relationship with my "two men". Some detective I turned out to be I guess.

Just as she was about to put down the magazine cover, she heard the sound of an engine pulling up into the driveway. It idled for a second and then shut off.

That must be him… Too late to help out but just in time to catch dinner. Figures!

She actually smirked when she said this – her husband actually wasn't much of a loafer, although to hear him tell it, that's only because he had grown up substantially since he had been a teenager. Still, it was hard to imagine Ronald Dean Stoppable as anything but the enthusiastic and energetic teacher that everyone in this community had come to love.

"Honey I'm home!" he shouted from the front door, "Hey is this door supposed to be open?"

Quickly, and without warning, Cornelia spun around the corner and pounced on her husband, throwing herself into his arms.

"Mmmm!" she exclaimed as she stole a kiss from him.

"Why hello and I must say I'm rather pleased to see you too!" he chirped as he swatted her playfully on the rear.

"You can close the door if you want too sweetie, I was just airing out the place. The kids are cleaning out your tool shed…" she realized too late what she had said.

"Wait? My shed? They're touching my shed? Oh great…" Ron hung his head and set his satchel down on the couch.

"Look, I'm going to supervise… you know, make sure that they haven't…. well burned it down. Or blown it up. Or turned it into a tree house."

Cornelia giggled at him.

"You go and do your big strong man stuff dear and I'll go scurry off to the kitchen and cook dinner like a good little wife. Ok?" she rolled her eyes at her husband.

"Hey, you know I can cook… in fact I like it…" he began to protest.

Cornelia just gave him a peck on the lips and then said, "I know baby, and you're a great cook. I'm just teasing you, I want to make dinner – You know, sometimes us girls actually do like cooking a meal for our man and our babies. It's a motherhood thing."

She winked at him and then strode off towards the kitchen.

"Just call if you need any help!" he shouted out after her and then trudged out to the back yard to see what damage his genetic offspring had wrought upon the one place in the entire household that solely belonged to him.

-

Later that night as Ron Stoppable gazed down at the sleeping form of his wife he wondered to himself if he had done the right thing. Oh, he didn't regret marrying Shego, or having this life with her, or having their children – that wasn't the cause of his concern at all. He was just worried if he should let her in on the secret, the real secret of his origins in her life. Many times over the last 20 years he had considered it, but always at the last moment decided against it. Things were going so well, he mused, why open that can of worms now? He didn't think it would change how she felt about him, or their life together, but Ron had learned that there are some times in your life that you just take the win and keep on going.

When he had first realized that he had woken up in a new time, his mind had been overwhelmed with possibilities. When he actually had discovered what time it was a certain plan had begun to form in his mind. He needed to escape the infernal trap that he was in, but the only way that he could see to make that happen would be to go back to the root of the problem – the fight in the Middleton Space Center, and make sure that it never happened. There were many ways that he could have caused this to come about, and he had contemplated a great deal of them, but eventually he chose the one that he felt would do the most good.

He had decided to see if he could prevent Shego from ever being there.

He truthfully had never intended to spark a romance between them. All he had desired was to be her friend, to be her support, to be that one person in her life that she could count on. He knew how much pain she had experienced in high school, he understood it himself, and he wondered if the reason why she had turned out the way she had wasn't due to the fact that unlike the relationship Ron had with Kim, Shego had no one to rely on but herself.

He was determined to not let that happen again.

It was a little awk-weird, running around the world knowing that there was a doppelganger of yourself also roaming around, but the two Ron's had miraculously never met – and probably wouldn't. Both him and Shego had retired from the hero business about the time their second child had come along, although Ron did still occasionally do a mission or two for an old friend. The other Ron and Kim, it seemed, were still going strong into their mid 30's – fighting the good fight and generally being a pain in the ass to super villains everywhere. They had even gotten married, although there didn't seem to be any children in the relationship.

Ron had often wondered if the events of that one night upon his return from Japan had played themselves out exactly the same in this time stream as they had in the last. It was mostly a whimsy on his part, since that obviously was no longer his life – but he was always curious about the history that he remembered and the history that had been rewritten by his reoccurring presence in the time stream. He vowed that if he ever did run into himself, that would be one of the questions that he would ask – even though he knew it would probably piss… well - himself, right off.

Shego murmured something in her sleep that sounded suspiciously like, "Go to sleep Ron…" and he marveled at how his lovely wife seemed to be omniscient. It was surely a trait that she had picked up somewhere along the road to motherhood, because he couldn't remember her ever being able to boss him around in her dreams before.

Truly, women are amazing creatures.

He chuckled to himself at this thought and leaned across his still slumbering wife to turn off the bed lamp. Then he gently snuggled up to her side and laid his head next to hers on the pillow. Gently he kissed her upon the cheek and then whispered into her ear the same thing he said to her every night.

"Sweet dreams my Bella…"

-FIN-

A/N: I hope people enjoyed this mega huge economy sized super family package edition of Ron Stoppable: Ultimate Monkey Master. I'd apologize for this chapter being so enormous, but frankly I don't feel like I did anything wrong! I was determined to finally finish this story and I wanted to make sure that I got it all out in the way that it was in my head, so one mega 55 page typed chapter it was!

Anyway, once again, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed this work of fiction as much as I had fun writing it. The entire work measures up at about 200,000 words and I can hardly believe that I've written that much.

Maybe if there is some interest I will write the story of Shego and the Blue Ninja some day – I think it might be good for a lark.

Thanks again,

QC