And You And I

Interlude two: Mother will always find out where you've been

Author's note:

Ok, so this is interlude number two. This time we're catching up with Ann, on the night before the big showdown inside Dr Drakken's volcano lair (chapter thirty-four: dance on a volcano). Like two of the earlier chapters that have heavily involved Ann, this one also takes its title from the lyrics to the Pink Floyd song Mother; from their 1979 epic, The Wall. Lol, if there are any more chapters that prominently feature her, I'm eventually going to run out of lyrics to use. So, without any further delay, enjoy.

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Ann Possible sat alone in the family living room. Her husband had gone to bed half an hour ago; while her sons had been unceremoniously sent to their room several hours ago. It had been one of those rare instances where she had genuinely lost her temper and yelled at them. The incident itself had been fairly innocuous, at least by the standards set by her children. They had been out in the garden, fine-tuning their new 'upgraded' auto-turret, when the device had inadvertently shot one of the windows. It had done no damage, as the respective blast shutter had closed in time to stop it, however, in a normal household, breaking a window merited punishment and while her window had not actually been broken, the action would have resulted in it under 'normal' circumstances. So, she'd got up from the sofa, headed outside and called Jim and Tim out of their respective hiding places with her, "if you don't make your butts appear right now, I'll triple your punishment," voice. Ann had then proceeded to chastise the boys for their actions, like any normal mother would, only to, as she often did, invoke her daughter's name and tell them that they should act more like her. Needless to say, both the act and the response had backfired superbly on all three of them, for her sons had been quick to suggest that meant they could go around causing grievous bodily harm to supervillains. At the mention of Kim's latest exploits, she had lost it. Yelling at both twins, she had sent them to their room and grounded them for a week. Harsh, yes. Fair, definitely not.

Ann sighed as she absentmindedly swirled her glass of red wine. She would probably rescind Jim and Tim's punishment come morning and that would be the end of the matter; both she and her sons would quickly forget the incident had ever occurred. However, her daughter was a completely different story. Her eyes scanned the front page of a national newspaper, one of several strewn beside her on the sofa. It depicted a photograph of a bloody and bruised Motor Ed; with the headline, "Brutality is Possible!" Aside from a description of the villain's injuries, the bulk of the article was a bunch of bogus and skewed statistics that supposedly backed up the view that Kim's form had been in decline for months and that this incident was simply the natural result of a hero who could no longer get the job done properly. Ann neither cared for nor believed a single word of it. There was something wrong with her daughter, but it had nothing to do with her ability to do her job.

She took a sip of her wine; a full-bodied Australian Shiraz, as her gaze passed over a second paper that detailed how Kim had shattered a Mr Phaze's femur and to the printed pages of a local Californian evening paper she'd had passed onto her from Wade. Adorning its front page, a picture from a security camera that showed her daughter dragging Señor Senior, Junior and his fiancé, Bonnie Rockwaller, to a police van by their respective hair. While scant on details, it was clear from the photograph that Junior was out cold.

What is eating at you so much that you've resorted to such violent methods? she internally asked a non-existent Kim for the umpteenth time that night and the god knows how many since reading the article about Motor Ed on Tuesday. Unfortunately, while she did not know the answer, the question always led back to the same subject; Shego. While her daughter had outright refused to talk about it and even went as far as to claim that nothing had occurred between the two of them, Ann knew better. The manner of Kim's rebuttal, the recent engagements between the pair, motherly instinct and the words she had overheard her daughter say in her sleep after her defeat to the villainess, all told her that something out with the norm had occurred between the pair. And she had not needed Wade to tell her what Kim's real intent had been this week. What could possibly have happened between the two of you, Kim?