The Kat Ryan Fan Club

[UKHoneyB]

Please tell me Shine gets dead. Soon.

Shine... eh heh heh. Hasn't Kat been wanting to break his arm for a while now? Hm? She might get that chance now...

I'm really glad that she's going to have a real reason for not being able to be 100% butt kicky and not just all "Oh I'm a giiirl and Max is so much better then me."

Yay

I also promise that the next part introduces a significant bit of head!canon backstory.

Oh?

[Akili]

I'm really glad that she's going to have a real reason for not being able to be 100% butt kicky and not just all "Oh I'm a giiirl and Max is so much better then me."

Well, she had a reason in the episode, too - the same reason, actually - but yeah. IT WAS LAME. I promise that she will not be waiting around for Max (because when I watch the part where she's yelling uselessly for someone to save her, I want to reach through the screen and strangle the writers for butchering her character).

Yeah but in the episode she was only 'hurt' when it suited them. ><

[Julia456]

In honor of the excellent news that Taylor Whathisface has dropped out of the (still theoretical) Max movie, I give you... Kat! Versus! Shine! And some dude.

Oh, and remember: herein we begin the head!canon.

---

Sedatives sucked.

Kat had never enjoyed the being drugged/waking up from being drugged thing. It was a bummer aspect of her chosen career that she had enough experience to recognize, immediately, the grinding headache unique to post-knockout.

The how, when and why of her drugging, she was a little blurry on… the last thing she remembered was telling Josh to break a leg. But memory gaps happened sometimes. Besides, she'd find out soon enough.

She pushed through the lingering grogginess and tried to pick up clues about her current situation before she opened her eyes.

Hot. Muggy. Fan whirring nearby, doing nothing more than pushing around stale air.

Well, she was still in Florida.

She figured out she was lying on a sofa – not a particularly large or nice one, either – and that there was no one else around. So she opened her eyes and blinked, trying to look more out of it than she actually was, just in case.

She was in a windowless room, maybe six by five. The sofa was the only piece of furniture; a recessed fluorescent in the ceiling was the only light. The fan was bolted to the ceiling, out of reach. Directly facing her was a steel security door and a one-way mirror, both of very recent installation, to judge from the sloppy patching on the plaster.

As far as secret villain lairs went, it was definitely down in the bottom ten.

Kat sat up and scanned the room for hidden cameras. She didn't see any. She also didn't see her crutches, although she still had on her boot. That could make things more difficult.

Okay. Time to figure out who'd abducted her from her hotel room and dumped her, sans crutches, in a newly-constructed secret room. This was clearly not a DREAD-grade operation. Heck, this was not even on par with the Mercury Brigade or those loony-bin Barkowskis.

Her two top suspects: Kelly and Shine. And somehow, she thought this setup was not Kelly's style. It wasn't nearly perky enough.

"Okay, I'm awake now," she said out loud. "And I've got a headache, so let's get on with this."

Almost immediately, the lock turned in the door, and it opened.

"Kat," Richard Shine said, smiling with all of his very white teeth. "A headache? I'm so sorry."

Kat was not surprised.

"Yeah," she said. "And it looks like my hotel accommodations have been downgraded."

"Mm, yes. Regrettable… and temporary, I think." Shine stepped clear of the door to allow someone else in – a man with a cheap suit and no neck to speak of. Hired muscle. Pretty dumb muscle, too, if Kat's instincts were right.

Tweedledum was carrying a folding card table and two folding metal chairs. Somehow, despite the bulging muscles and lack of space, he managed to set all the items up without knocking anyone over, then lumbered back out, closing and locking the door behind him.

Shine gestured at the chair nearest Kat. "Have a seat, please. I hoped we could have another discussion about my business proposal."

Kat stood and took a few limping steps to sit in the chair. She didn't want to follow Shine's orders, but figured it was better to play along for the moment. Besides, it gave her the opportunity to test out walking minus crutches. "You didn't have to go to all of this trouble, Mr. Shine. We could've talked at the hotel."

"I didn't want us to be interrupted," he said, flashing the teeth again. It was more shark than reptile this time. He turned and gestured at the one-way glass, and a second later Tweedledum cracked open the door just long enough to pass Shine a sheaf of papers. "And I didn't want you to… overexert yourself. I was being sincere, you know, when I said I was worried about your health. You were never meant- Well. Some of my employees aren't very good at following directions. But I'm sure I won't have that problem with you."

He smiled. She scoffed.

"My answer is still no."

"I thought it might be," Shine said. He held the papers up and waved them slightly, side to side. "So I came prepared with a few… alternate suggestions."

Kat had a few alternate suggestions for him. The most G-rated one involved shoving his face through the glass mirror.

"Save it," she said, hoping beyond hope that she might be able to get out of this without actually touching the creep. "Look. I'm not interested in anything you have to say. I just want to get back to my friends, who by the way are probably calling the cops right about now."

A smug, secret triumph lit his face. It upped his sleazeball factor immensely, which was saying something. "I think you're going to want to listen to this," Shine said.

"I seriously doubt it," she said.

"Oh, I don't," he said, laying the papers down so that she could see the mug shot clipped to the top of the stack. "I don't doubt it at all, Grace… Katherine… Reilly."

---



YOU LUCKY DOGS I AM GIVING YOU THE NEXT CHAPTER ALL AT ONCE.



---

Grace Katherine Reilly.

That was the name on the mug shot, on the rap sheet. That was the name of the punked-out teenage girl scowling at the police camera and the world. That was the name she had been born with and that she hadn't touched since joining N-Tek.

Grace Katherine Reilly was about to have a panic attack.

Kat Ryan was playing it cool.

"Nice hair," she said, looking at the photo with disinterest, and leaned back in her chair. "Your point?"

Shine was smiling. Not fooled. "I told you that I'd seen you somewhere before. I had some business in Philadelphia a few months ago. Lovely city, just lovely. You know, your father doesn't talk about you very often," he said. "But he still keeps a photo in his office."

"Uh-huh," Kat said.

"So, Grace Katherine Reilly, that brings us back to my business proposal. You can sign on the dotted line and become my client. Or…" He picked up the papers and flipped through it slowly. "Or you can dip into your trust fund and buy this back. I'm willing to accept a payment plan. Say, two million a year. For the rest of your life."

Blackmail. So that's why he wanted her alive and well.

She remembered each and every charge on that rap sheet. It was a long one, and some of the entries (okay, all of them) would be very interesting to the national news media. And her current name and whereabouts would be very interesting to a few other people.

Grace Katherine Reilly went ahead and had her panic attack.

Kat Ryan said, "Oh please. I'm not giving you two cents. If we're done with this lame blackmail attempt -? I was in the middle of a seriously good nap."

Shine's lizard smile faded. For the first time he looked less than supremely confident. In fact, he started to turn a little red. He tossed the paper back across the table at her, defiant. "If that's the way you want to play it."

He turned and motioned at the one-way mirror. Almost immediately, the door lock clunked open and the hired goon brought in a chunky portable TV – an embarrassingly old one, as evidenced by its size and the eighties-classic purple-turquoise color combo.

Her stomach dropped. Had he already leaked everything to the press?

"Wow. You guys really spared no expense," she said, casually scornful. She folded the papers around the mug shot and stuck them in her back pocket.

Shine's red flush deepened to scarlet. Then he recovered his reptilian poise, smoothed the front of his suit, and turned on the TV. The audio was tinny, the picture was black-and-white, and the quality of both just somewhere south of "really sucky".

But it was more than adequate to show her the perils of messing with Richard Shine.

"- live from what we're hearing is a suspected terrorist bombing of the Vizcaynos Hotel. The fire is right now being contained to the top floors of the hotel, where it began, and I'm being told that the employees and guests were safely evacuated... uh… with some exceptions –"

Not Josh. Not Berto.

"-still unable to locate five to seven hotel guests and employees, Eric, some of whom are believed to have been on the upper floors when the explosion occurred. No names have been released at this time –"

Shine flicked off the sound. "My condolences on your tragic loss, Ms. Ryan."

"What?" she said, looking around. "Oh, sorry. I'm supposed to cry or something, right? Break down into hysterical sobs at the thought that my beloved family is toast? Yeah, okay. I'll get right on that."

Shine went red again.

"No bodies, no tears. And anyway, you don't open with the deaths. That's your best leverage – save it. Use it. You're supposed to make me beg for their lives." She crossed her arms and leaned back, maintaining cool, deliberate eye contact. "You really suck at this."

Finally, Shine broke. "Shut up!" he yelled, pounding a fist on the table and half-rising from his chair. "What do you know, you miserable little b-"

Strike. Three.

Kat kicked up with her good leg and flipped the table over. Shine, who was off-balance and partially supporting his weight on the table, went down. The table went up – and smacked him in the face.

She jumped up from her chair and grabbed the embarrassing TV from the floor just as Tweedledum opened the door again. Kat shifted her balance onto her good leg and swung the heavy old portable TV at the goon's head.

He said, "Oof," and went down like a sack of bricks in the open doorway – except bricks were probably smarter.

She dropped the now-busted TV (no loss there) onto his chest and returned her attention to Shine. He was blinking, dazed, and gingerly touching a bleeding scalp wound. He was not ready for Kat to grab him by the lapel, haul him up, and slam him face-front into the wall.

"Blackmail's illegal," she said, twisting his arms behind his back in a hold that wouldn't really do any damage… unless she increased the torque. "So's kidnapping. And name-calling? Is just really rude."

Shine was panting and still fairly rattled. "How – did you -?"

"I don't know how you got that file," she said. "But I want it. And all the copies you made, you slimy little weasel. I want to know where you're hiding them. And I'd kind of like that information now."

She couldn't quite make out his response, but it sounded more like name-calling and less like a helpful answer.

She increased the torque on his arms, ignoring the twinge of pain from her bad ankle. "Pop quiz, Dick," she said. "What charge got Grace Katherine Reilly her last nine to twelve months in Juvie?"

Shine opened his mouth, but couldn't get any words out. Involuntary tears were springing up in his eyes.

She leaned in closer to his ear and dropped her voice to a calm, controlled whisper, because "calm and controlled" was always scarier; she'd learned that from watching Jefferson Smith. "Here's a hint – it starts with 'assault' and ends with 'battery'. And I think, if she was here right now, she might be a little angrier with you than she was with that poor schmuck back in Philly."

She eased the pressure on his arms and he made an obvious attempt to not gasp in relief. "My office," he said. "Everything's in my office."

"Okay," she said, shoving him toward the door without letting go of his arms. This was the tricky part, but with any luck Shine would be too stunned to realize that if he made a move, he could probably overwhelm her in short order.

Sure enough, they climbed over Tweedledum with no problem and emerged into a construction zone that looked like it had been a guest bedroom in its former life. Tools and materials were still scattered around; the cell really had been a rush job. Kat would not have been surprised to find a hardware store receipt in amongst the junk – except Shine had probably taken it all off of his own sites.

"This is a pretty low-rent operation," she said, force-marching him towards the bedroom door, which was standing open. "Guess the hotel was just a fluke. Which way's your office?"

"Left," he said. He was darting glances around, and his body language screamed Hey, I'm about to make a break for it.

She bit back a sigh. Heaven help her survive Amateur Villain Night. She was so overqualified for this, it wasn't funny.

Kat stuck her booted foot between his expensive loafers, tripping him up. Shine crashed down, and she grabbed an orange extension cord from its resting place on top of a nearby drum of plaster. A couple of quick loops and a knot, and he was hogtied: hands bound behind his back, ankles tied together, and a length of cord connecting the two.

With a lot of effort, he could conceivably get to his feet and shuffle, but there was no way he could run… or fight her.

"That's better," she said. "Tell you what – I'll find your office, and you'll stay right there like the loser you are."

He glared heavily at her, but she was impervious to the glares of idiots. She gave her knotwork a last critical glance and walked out of the room, trying not to limp.

[Akili]

Her two top suspects: Kelly and Shine. And somehow, she thought this setup was not Kelly's style. It wasn't nearly perky enough.

Yeah, Kelly would have put in stuffed unicorns and pink wallpaper.

Yay for Kat! I like the head!canon, IIRC you've out some of it in one-shots and other stories, right? I'd almost feel bad for the bad guys but... nah I don't feel bad for them at all. Even Woody's shaking his head in disgust lol.

[Blackrose715378]

Grace… Katherine… Reilly."

*Can just imagine Max calling her Grace if he ever found out*

LOve how Shine thought he was just dealing with a sports celebrity XD

Awesome how she handled the whole thing by herself...the re-write is so much better than the original ep...obviously

[UKHoneyB]

Ooh, boy, Shine's gonna regret trying to kidnap Kat I am just waiting for Max to burst in, expecting to rescue Kat...and see her waiting by the front door.

I am slightly confused, though: head-canon?

[Julia456]

I am slightly confused, though: head-canon?

You know - the Grace Katherine Reilly thing. This is the backstory I give her in all of my fics, actually, although this is the first time I've really laid it out. Ergo, it is canon in my head only.

I am just waiting for Max to burst in, expecting to rescue Kat...and see her waiting by the front door.

Well, I miiiiiiight give him more to do than just that.

*Can just imagine Max calling her Grace if he ever found out*

Yes... but he'll only get to call her that once. Because after that, he will be too dead.

LOve how Shine thought he was just dealing with a sports celebrity

Clearly, a classic case of Did Not Do The Research. Although, I'll be honest: I dunno how you could research top-secret international counterterrorist spy agency employees who are using false names. BTW, more head!canon: Jefferson helped her with her new identity.

I like the head!canon, IIRC you've out some of it in one-shots and other stories, right?

Bits and pieces, yup. See above.

[Akili]

Of coursenow I wonder if Kat's dad ever saw/sees her on TV as a sports star and goes "WTF? What's she doing there? And wait... KAT RYAN?!?"

[Julia456]

Of coursenow I wonder if Kat's dad ever saw/sees her on TV as a sports star and goes "WTF? What's she doing there? And wait... KAT RYAN?!?"

Oh, he knows where she is and what she's doing... he keeps tabs on her, mostly to make sure she's holding up her end of the deal. (The deal being that she's not backsliding into her criminal ways. )

[Akili]

Of coursenow I wonder if Kat's dad ever saw/sees her on TV as a sports star and goes "WTF? What's she doing there? And wait... KAT RYAN?!?"

Oh, he knows where she is and what she's doing... he keeps tabs on her, mostly to make sure she's holding up her end of the deal. (The deal being that she's not backsliding into her criminal ways. )

So does he have a hidden room someplace with all his daughter's posters and greatest moves someplace?

[Julia456]

So does he have a hidden room someplace with all his daughter's posters and greatest moves someplace?

No, but he has a a file folder of reports. Some of them are from Jefferson, who did him a favor by taking on Kat in the first place... much to Jeff's regret at the time. But, luckily, she's mellowed. A little.

[Julia456]

One more chapter left after this!!!

And I changed the climactic wine cellar fight. I've been in a lot of houses in FL, and I ain't never seen no cellars, wine or otherwise. Also, it was a stupid fight.

---

Out in the hallway, it became obvious that Shine's house was a generic two-story McMansion. There was an enormous, high-ceilinged foyer with an enormous, garish chandelier hanging over the kind of sweeping staircase Scarlett O'Hara would have enjoyed.

Kat was on the second floor, standing on tiles that were probably supposed to be convincingly fake marble. Unfortunately, she knew what real marble – and real wealth, old-money wealth – looked like. This wasn't it.

"A loser all the way around," she said under her breath, walking down the hallway and mentally crossing her fingers that Shine's office wasn't on the ground floor and he didn't have more minions stashed away, waiting to jump her.

For a change, her luck held. No further goons emerged, and the third door she pushed open proved to be the jackpot. She stepped inside and shut the door behind her, then took a moment to survey.

Pretentious desk. Pretentious chairs. Walls with built-in bookshelves, filled with pretentious books that Shine had probably never read. The fake marble floor continued here, with a very large Oriental rug that looked like it had come out of a Burmese sweatshop three or four years ago.

The only thing respectable and genuine about the room was the computer on the desk: it was top-of-the-line and brand new. Shine had managed to mess that up, too. The hard drive had been pulled out and smashed into an unrecoverable mass of metal bits.

There was a file cabinet in one corner, but the drawers were standing half-open and they had been ransacked, leaving only a few random papers sticking out haphazardly. A paper shredder and a soot-stained metal trashcan sat to one side of the cabinet; a box of matches sat on top.

"Somebody's been destroying evidence," she said to no one. Well, that would make it easier for her.

On the desk, next to the computer, was a manila file folder with all sorts of official-looking stamps and tags. She recognized it as her juvenile record and felt a flash of indignant anger. That was supposed to be sealed. It was supposed to be gone. Back in the day, her dad had bribed a lot of people to make it disappear – but apparently Shine had bribed a lot of people to undo that magic.

She moved behind the desk, careful not to touch anything except the folder. That she picked up and flipped through slowly despite herself. What a walk down memory lane.

The life and crimes of Grace Katherine Reilly, age ten through seventeen.

I don't miss her, she thought. And she didn't. Grace had been a punk, and not a nice one. Josh would never have looked at Grace twice…

Wait a minute – what?

Unnerved, she closed the folder fast and limped over to the paper shredder and trashcan. She didn't have the time, but she carefully fed each page of her record – and the copy in her back pocket – through the shredder, then dumped the fluffy mass of paper strips into the trashcan. Before she reduced it to ash, she did a quick search for additional copies, then grabbed the smashed hard drive and dropped that into the trashcan too.

Then she struck a match and let it all go fwoosh.

While the trash fire burned down, she went around the office and wiped down surfaces for any prints. Fiber and hair evidence she couldn't get rid of, but since she'd been elsewhere in the house – and in Shine's company – the cops would likely write it off as due to transfer, not direct contact.

Finally, the fire was out. She examined the hard drive and decided it was too damaged to be revived, even with N-Tek technowizardry.

There might be more copies of her record floating around out there, but she couldn't do anything else tonight. She would just have to cross her fingers and hope neither Berto nor Josh ever came across them.

If they did…

She'd worked too hard to get things straight. She'd worked too hard to become someone worth knowing. So it wasn't going to happen. The end.

Thus fortified, Kat let herself out into the hallway, trying to fight through the sedative headache and figure out what the nagging feeling in her gut was telling her. The file was toast, the disk was trashed, her presence had been erased… what had she forgotten?

A flash of movement in her peripheral vision. She instinctively jerked away and thus barely avoided having her head taken off by a very angry Tweedledum.

Oh yeah: she had forgotten to tie up the muscle.

He took another swing at her, and this time she didn't dodge fast enough; he clipped her on the shoulder, her injured leg gave out on her, and she kissed the faux-marble McMansion floor.

"Lucky shot," she said, pushing herself back up – or trying to, anyway. Tweedledum might have had the brains of a tadpole, but he was strong, and now he was angry. The veins on his thick neck stood out and he had gone the same apoplexy-red color that Shine had been sporting earlier.

He growled and took a very menacing step towards her, massive hands flexing.

"Wait!" a voice said behind him. "Don't touch the girl."

Shine. Untied. And talking again.

Just great.

She got to her feet and took the best defensive stance she could manage with her leg aching and Tweedledum looming over her.

"I still have plans for you," Shine said around his henchman's broad back. He was cradling his arm against his chest. Was it broken? Oh, please, let it be broken.

"That's funny, 'cause I have plans for me too, and you're not in 'em," she said.

Shine glowered. "You're going to be sorry you caused me so much trouble."

"And you're going to be a walking cliché for the rest of your life," she retorted. "So?"

"I changed my mind," Shine said to Tweedledum. "Grab her and knock her out, then put her in the car. I'll take her with me."

"Sorry, wrong answer," Kat said. She stepped in closer to Tweedledum as the big man took another swing at her, ducked the blow, and delivered a strike to his chin with an upthrust of her hand. His head rocked back, and he swatted at her – but she followed up with a jab to his throat and hustled to one side, out of range.

"Guh," Tweedledum said, grabbing at his throat and going down to one knee.

Kat set her sights on Shine. He was stunned all over again, standing like a big dummy in the middle of the hallway. She took a few hopping steps, closed the distance, socked him in the gut, grabbed his wounded arm, and used that to flip him over her hip.

She sat on his back, making sure to dig her knee into his spine and wrench his arm up behind his back.

"You lose. But thanks for playing," she said brightly.

"Get off!" Shine raged. "How dare – ahh! My arm!"

Oh, it was definitely broken. She'd never met someone who deserved it more, and she was just about to tell him so when Tweedledum got to his feet – swaying, but angry – and prepared to charge.

Kat swiftly evaluated her chances and came up with a big zero. She couldn't let go of Shine, and she couldn't fight Tweedledum while holding onto his boss. She was between a rock and a hard place, and she was about to get crushed.

Tweedledum charged. Lacking options, Kat turned her head to try and catch the blow on something other than her chin.

And then Max was there, grabbing the hired thug and expertly turning his momentum into a picture-perfect judo throw. Tweedledum smacked into one of the hallway walls and thumped to the floor in a shower of plaster particles.

Kat released her hold on Shine and stood, hopping on her good leg to get clear. Max grabbed Shine by the scruff of his neck and hauled him upright.

Shine glared murder at Max, but the best he could do was to gasp, "You – what – what're you doing – here -"

"Me," Max agreed. "And what I'm doing is taking Kat home."

Well, that was eye-rollingly macho. But a damn good entrance, she had to admit. Berto popped up at the end of the hallway, out of breath from running up those darn stairs. Kat foresaw more cardio in Berto's future.

"You okay?" he asked Kat, who nodded impatiently, more interested in the ongoing Max vs. Shine conversation.

"You, on the other hand, I'm leaving for the cops," Max was saying.

Shine spluttered and tried to bluff: "I haven't broken any laws!"

Max sighed, rolled his eyes, and looked at Kat, Shine still dangling casually from his hand. "Advice?"

"KO," she said. "Please."

"What?" Shine said, alarmed. "You can't –"

Max flicked one turbo-charged finger against Shine's temple and knocked him into unconsciousness. Shine went limp, and Max dropped him to the floor, where he began drooling. Snored a little, too.

Kat looked from Shine to her partner. She could write RELIEVED in five-foot neon lights and shoot off confetti guns while the Hallelujah Chorus played, and it would still not approximate what she was feeling.

Of course, she didn't say that.

She put her hands on her hips and looked bored. "So it wasn't much of a boss fight. But good job anyway."

Max gave her a cocky grin. "I do what I can."

"Looks like that was enough," Berto judged. He crouched briefly to check Tweedledum and Shine's vital signs, then stood up, evidently satisfied. "Now get out of Max mode before you flatline – that bomb stunt earlier used up way too much t-juice."

"Yes, Mom," Max said, and powered down to Josh.

Meanwhile, Kat hopped-limped over to Shine, carefully calculated angles and force, and kicked him in the ribs. To be nice, she aimed for the same side as his broken arm. "Jerk," she said, even though he was too unconscious to appreciate it.

"Uh… was that necessary?" Berto said, taken aback.

"Yeah. He got on my nerves," Kat said.

Berto didn't look convinced; Josh grinned and said, "That's my girl."

Kat froze. She knew she was supposed to make some wiseass snarky retort, but she couldn't get beyond Josh calling her my girl. Great. Next thing, she'd be giggling over pictures of hunky guys in magazines and fretting about what color lip gloss went with her purse.

She risked a glance at Josh and saw that he was equally stricken. Obviously, not a sentiment he'd wanted to share.

This was just getting better every second.

"We called the cops on our way here," Berto said, fearlessly stepping into the void of awkward silence. "I guess, uh, we should meet them outside. And maybe come up with a reason why the bad guys are, you know. Unconscious."

"Yeah. Good plan." Kat gave Shine a last scornful glance and then stood, heading for the front door. Josh and Berto fell in beside her, going more slowly than usual in order to keep pace with her. To distract everyone from the fact that she was not functioning at One Hundred Percent Awesome, she said, "So make with the exposition already. How'd you avoid being blown sky-high, figure out it was Shine, all that stuff?"

"That first part's easy. We cleared out of the hotel once we realized that you'd been taken," Josh said. "So we were halfway across Miami when Kelly bombed it."

Kat looked at him, surprised. She'd figured the bomber would be another anonymous thug for hire; Shine didn't seem like an equal-opportunity crime lord. "Kelly? Creepy perky Kelly?"

Josh snorted. "Creepy perky Kelly is an eco-terrorist in her spare time. I – uh, Max raided her apartment and found enough C-4 to turn all of Dade County into a smoking crater."

Given what she'd seen of Dade County thus far, Kat privately thought a smoking crater might be an improvement in some spots. "And here I thought her big skill set was being annoying."

Berto shook his head. "Nope. And Shine knew it. Her job application was red-flagged – she didn't even come close to passing the background check – but instead of reporting her to the police, Shine hushed it up and hired her."

"He wanted her to blow up his park," Kat deduced. "Huh. I don't think that practice is approved of by the Better Business Bureau."

"He needs the insurance money," Berto said, sounding very cynical for someone who could quote most of Stuart Little 2. "He's deep in debt and getting deeper every day. All of his businesses are operating in the red, even the hotel. Uh, former hotel. The MegaPark was supposed to be his big money-maker, but it's turned out to be the nail in his coffin."

Josh added, "He bribed half the people in Miami in order to buy the land and develop it. But he couldn't bribe the environmental activists."

They reached the stairs and Kat's ankle immediately began to protest the descent. "Yeah, I noticed."

"Kelly's just one person," Berto said.

Kat muttered, "One crazy person," under her breath, but listened as Berto kept talking. She'd asked for exposition, and boy, she was getting it.

"Some of the normal activist organizations filed a ton of lawsuits right off the bat. They've been working their way through the courts since then, and the legal fees are going to ruin Shine whether or not he wins it."

Her ankle was killing her. Why had Shine needed such a huge staircase? Was this him overcompensating or what?

She glared down at all the steps she had yet to conquer. Stupid melodramatic McMansion stairs.

"But it gets better," Josh said.

Berto nodded. "The activists did some investigating of their own, and what they found got all kinds of government agencies interested – the EPA, the FBI… and the IRS."

"Now that's scary." Also, the perfect revenge. She almost felt sorry she'd kicked him and dislocated his elbow; the IRS was bad enough. "And we already know Shine's totally guilty of tax fraud." Suddenly the burned files in the office made sense. "Oh man. He was getting ready to skip the country. That's why he was trying to -" To blackmail me. She blinked and finished, "Uh, to become my manager."

Frowning, Josh demanded, "And that's all he wanted?"

"Yeah," she said, wary. "What's it to you, McGrath?"

He paused, then shook his head. "Nothing."

Of course not.

They reached the bottom of the Endless Stairs of Overcompensation. Across the grandiose foyer, the front door was standing open, and a few more hired grunts (ha! she knew there were more of those guys) were sprawled out in varying degrees of beat-down on either side of it.

She felt a little flutter of warmth; Max really had been worried about her. Then she told herself to quit being so excited about being a damsel in distress. It was undignified.

Her ankle picked that moment to give up the good fight, and she did some undignified windmilling as she tried to stay on her one remaining weight-bearing foot.

Before she wiped out, Josh grabbed her arm and waist, steadying her. Her usual reaction would've been to push him away and insist that she was all right, but, anti-damsel or not, she didn't feel like it.

Maybe it was fatigue; maybe it was sedative hangover; maybe it was the that's my girl and the even earlier you look really good. At any rate, she leaned against him and let out her stress in a sigh.

It startled him. "Uh… Kat?"

I was so scared you were toast, and I was so scared you were going to find out who I used to be – okay, nevermind, I'm still scared of that – and right now I just want a big, sissy, touchy-feely girly hug. And maybe a good long kiss.

That was what she wanted to say.

But what she actually said was, "My leg kinda hurts."

The hand on her waist moved tentatively across the small of her back. It made her shiver and burn all at once, and she wondered if it would be rushing things to tell him to quit fooling around and start… well, fooling around.

"Oh yeah?" he asked, trying to sound like his regular cool self. And failing. He had to clear his throat. "Does it hurt enough that I'll have to carry you out of here?"

Berto, shaking his head and clearly doing his best to remain oblivious, picked his way across the foyer and went outside without looking back, God bless him.

"Maybe," she said, leaning more of her weight against Josh, and not because her leg hurt.

"Kat," Josh said. His brown eyes had a lot of gold in them, and they were doing this shadowed, smoldering thing that was very interesting – almost as interesting as the way they kept looking at her mouth. "Hey. I, uh – I suck at this – but are you really okay?"

"Yeah," she said. "You really do. And yeah, I really am."

He looked skeptical, so she put her hand on the back of his neck, pulled him down, and gave him a good long kiss.

[UKHoneyB]

D'aww at the kiss -- I was waiting for Josh to help Kat down the stairs

And only one more chapter?

[Blackrose715378]

Awwww kiss kiss! XP

Cute chapter- liked how Kat's rescue was much more true to character

Also glad Shine got knocked around. he earned it

[Julia456]

I was waiting for Josh to help Kat down the stairs

I think if he'd insisted, she probably would've let him. But then again - maybe not.

And only one more chapter?

GOOD GOD WOMAN WHAT AM I A FIC MACHINE???

That being said, I still intend to write "Once Bitten", and I'm now toying with a redo of "Turbulence".

Awwww kiss kiss! XP

We all knew it was coming. Let's not pretend.

(If I do a "Turbulence" fic, BTW, it will start at maximum shippiness and only build from there. Mwhahaha.)

Cute chapter- liked how Kat's rescue was much more true to character

Thanks! It couldn'tve been much more out of character than standing in a room and yelling for someone to let her out.

Also glad Shine got knocked around. he earned it

Kat certainly thought so! *innocent smile*