The conclusion. Finally. I have labored like a mountain and given birth to a mouse. Regardless, let me offer another round of expressions of gratitude to reviewers BlazeStryker, BlueEyedBrigadier, CajunBear73, FirestarXSandstorm, JCS1966, Katsumara, King in Yellow, Mack53B, Masterperson, MrDrP, Reader101w, screaming phoenix, Shego2009, Shrike176, whitem, and Worker72. It makes my day to know that I've entertained you at least a little bit, and I've gotten a lot of good ideas from reviewers, so thanks for taking the time to write something!

If you enjoyed this, and like/don't object to KiGo, you should go read King in Yellow's So The Trauma, another tale of lost memory.

VII.

"What's the big deal?" asked Ron. "He might be a great villain. Look at him! He's got a scar! And he's blue! What's not to like?"

Shego looked at Ron disbelievingly, and, waving her hand disparagingly in Drakken's direction, said, "Kid, he writes his villainous plots on index cards. This is one of the seven habits of a highly successful supervillain?"

Drakken would have none of it.

"I knew I was no sidekick," he said, preening. "I am clearly an evil supergenius whose very name makes my foes tremble in terror!" He paused. "Erm, excuse me, hero's computer geek, but what is said terror-inspiring name?"

Not really seeing any way out, Wade responded, "well, your real name is Drew Theodore P. Lipsky. Though you call yourself Doctor Drakken."

Shego snorted in derision and Drakken's face quivered. "What? Drakken, yes, good, rather terrifying, that sounds right, but…Lipsky? What game are you playing? Are you trying to undermine my evil confidence while I still don't have my full memory back?"

Wade sighed. "Check your jacket. Your mother sewed name tags into all of your outfits."

Shego immediately grabbed Drakken's collar and turned it over. "Drewbie Lipsky?" she read off the small piece of fabric sewn there, and laughed cruelly.

"Alright!" shouted Drakken. "Fine! Doesn't matter. I'm an evil supergenius and you are my hireling! That's all we need to know!"

"Ahem," interjected Ron.

"Oh, hey, Ron," Wade said. "You're Ron Stoppable. Kim's sidekick and best friend. And, uh, lately…her boyfriend."

The foursome could hear, several rooms away, a member of the fire and rescue squad drop a pin.

Shego was the first to speak.

"You're kidding."

Ron followed this up with a "What?"

Kim just stood silently, looking at Wade, then at Ron.

"Oh, please," said Drakken, rolling his eyes. "Goofy sidekick and hottie heroine dating? Could you be more cliché?" Directing his vision towards Wade on the Kimmunicator's screen, he said, "Let me guess…they revealed their love for each other just when things looked darkest, probably while being held captive by a.... Wait a minute – was I involved?" He looked around. "Am I being punked?"

"It's true!" protested Wade. He looked back at the teen couple.

Kim and Ron's eyes met. She smiled uncertainly; he shrugged, grinned nervously, and rubbed the back of his neck with his right hand.

"Oh, and the search and rescue crew found Rufus in the children's ward."

"Who?" asked Ron.

"Your pet naked mole rat, who usually accompanies you on missions."

"O-o-kay," Ron responded.

The tentative smile left Kim's face and she looked from Ron to Wade and then back to Ron, squinting skeptically at the latter. He shrugged sheepishly.

Drakken was mumbling to himself. He picked up one of the scattered index cards and, finding a pen in the rubble, started writing as he spoke to himself. "Kim…Possible…Doc…tor…Drakken…" He paused.

"Sorry, what was his name again?" asked Drakken, pointing at Ron.

"Ron Stoppable," answered Wade.

"Sorry, what? Missed it," Drakken responded, a blue hand cupped to a blue ear.

"Ro-on Stop-pa-ble," Wade said, dragging out the name and exaggerating each syllable.

Drakken frowned. "No, it's just all pops and buzzes from here. One more time?"

"Actually," Wade said, giving up, "you usually just call him the buffoon."

Drakken's face lit up. "Aha!" exclaimed the blue scientist. "Now that really rolls off the tongue!" He jotted it down on the card.

"Okay, this just got boring," Shego said. She pointed to the Kimmunicator. "I believe the kid; and if I have to spend any more time with these two pimply faced teens, I'm going to lose it. C'mon, Dr. D, let's go." She grabbed him by the collar and headed towards the window shutters.

"But where?" Drakken asked in a panic.

"You heard the geek. It's a temporary problem. We're going to find your lair, remember who we are, and then come back and kick teen hero biscuit. Then, I dunno, we knock over some banks, wreak some mayhem, take over the world. Then, I'm taking a vacation."

She tore through one of the shutters. As she was dragging Drakken off, he turned back to the two heroes and shouted "Kim Possible! Assuming that you think you're all that, I'd just like to say – despite the lack of empirical evidence one way or the other – I'm quite sure you're not! And…you…boy…well, you haven't seen the last of Doctor Drakken!"

Kim and Ron walked over to the shutters and watched the two villains scramble away. Then they looked at each other.

"So...you're a kung fu cheerleading teen hero?" Ron said, miming kicks and punches.

"Hero-ine," Kim corrected him. "And you're my clumsy best friend and sidekick, who has a naked mole rat as a pet?"

"Guess so," replied Ron, with a shrug and a grin.

They regarded each other for another moment.

"And we're dating?" Kim said.

"Well, that's what Wade said."

"Think he's playing us?"

"I sure hope not," answered Ron.

They lapsed into silence again.

Just when the pause was getting uncomfortable, Ron's stomach growled. He blushed, and said, "I'm starvin' marvin. What say we find a way out of here an' try to remember what we like to eat?"

Kim raised an eyebrow, and Ron suddenly felt self-conscious. "Or we could, you know, try to regain other memories, if, you know, that's something you felt we should do." He shook off the self-consciousness and held out a crooked elbow. "Well, milady - shall we?"

Kim smiled at him. "You're weird," she said, "but...I think I like you."

Arm in arm, they headed out through the broken shutter.

Fin

Well, there it is. I want to thank everyone who read and reviewed this. I really intended it to be a short one-shot; if you actually look at the word count you'll see that the total length of this tale would barely make a single chapter for masters of the craft like King in Yellow or yvj. So I thank those of you who stuck with it despite the little bite-size updates.

In case there were any doubts about how this would end up, let none forget that I am, at heart, a K/R shipper. I did stick in a couple of moments of Kim-Shego commonality (when they both wonder about Ron, e.g.), for the subtext, of course.

A particular shout-out to Worker72 for pointing out that nobody could mistake Ron for a villain (and for flagging his clumsiness). I'd kind of neglected Ron in the first couple of chapters and with Worker72's comment I knew immediately that, while everybody else's identity might be in question, the goofy sidekick is unmistakeable. (After all, what he does defies description!)

I had a lot of fun writing this (one of my favorite parts of this whole piece was getting the various characters to use the other characters' tag lines. Big laffs!) but started to get worried as it progressed - that, no matter what I did, I'd be letting down you readers. As anyone who's read my stuff knows, I really don't do much thinking/plotting in advance - an idea pops into my head, and I just take it from there. Hopefully things go well and the characters write the story themselves. Thus I was amazed and overwhelmed by the outpouring of speculation and ideas for twists and turns. I incorporated a few of them, but decided not to pursue the recurring suggestion that this be a longer tale in which all four are heroes, or all four are villains, or they truly do switch roles and go into action. Mostly this was because I'm just not up for that kind of writing adventure (heck, I can barely make progress on my "big" story, Diplomacy in Action), and partly because I just couldn't convince myself that circumstances could conspire long enough for their true identities to stay hidden. (KiY's reviews evinced the same instinct.) Some of you suggested that GJ might orchestrate something so as to keep Shego and Drakken working on the side of good. That's definitely an idea worth pursuing, but it'll have to fall to someone else. Really, though, it wasn't up to me. The subtitle of this story might as well be "The Truth Will Out" - no matter how much I toyed with writing Shego as a hero or Kim as a villain, their essential natures shone through.

There was also the question of whether Ron's MMP would out. Or if Zorpox would make any appearance. Verrrrry tempting - especially the latter - but I decided against it, again, mostly because I didn't want to complicate what was essentially supposed to be a brief comic romp. If anyone wants to write of those variations, well, I'd be flattered.

As I mentioned in chapter 1, AeroTendo's Clean Sweep 2 is a well-executed variation on this episode. For folks who want to see Kim and Ron as villains, well, there are numerous alternatives for that; I commend to you in particular Reader101w's Evil Amnesia, MrDrP's Booyahahahahaha!, and of course GWA's The Darkness Within.

My one regret about the story is that, as Shrike176 pointed out, it should have been Ron who jumped to the otherwise unsupportable conclusion about Shego's being a hero. I may edit the story to incorporate that twist. (Also, natch, it should have been Kim who figured out what Ron's plan was vis-a-vis the handwriting analysis - and then Ron would have said, "My plan? Ah, yes, of course, my plan!")

And on to the next tale!