'I'm still amazed you found time to do this every single year. Especially with all the things you had going on. High School. Part time jobs. Chasing me all over the world.'

'Well, you made it pretty hard to ignore you.'

'I guess I did.' It wasn't often that Shego felt guilt over her previousprofession. It wasn't that there wasn't a lot she should feel guilty about, she just didn't see any point dwelling on it. Yet tonight was seeming to be one of those moments. A moment she was sure would fade when she and Kim were snuggled up on the couch later tonight. 'Although next year we are going to find you a different costume.'

'What's wrong with my costume? I think I make an excellent cat. I think the cat ears really set off the outfit.'

'I don't think it's the ears people have been looking at.' Shego supposed she shouldn't have been surprised that upon hearing she was going as a witch, Kim had suggested going as a cat. It had become something of a tradition to get costumes that complimented the others. Shego wouldn't have been surprised to see Kim turn up in a baggy cat onesie or something, not the skintight black velvetwellcatsuit she had gone with, complete with cat ear headband.

'Maybe not.' Kim grinned. 'I look good though.'

'Mr Stevens thought so too.' Shego allowed herself a soft smile. 'I don't think he knew where to look.'

'Oh, I think he knew exactly where to look.' Kim grinned. 'I think your costume kinda hit the spot for him too. It's not so surprising. I think he is a little sweet on you.'

That was a surprise to Shego, not that her costume had attracted some attention. She had known when she chose it that her witch's costume of artfully tattered black dress that barely covered her legs would attract a few stares, it was more that someone could still be sweet on her.

'Isn't he too old to have a crush on someone?' Shego said that just to have something to say, not sure how to process that.

'He's not that much older than you.' Kim slipped her arm through Shego's. 'Besides, if we weren't married, I'd have a crush on you too.'

'Always the charmer.' Shego placed a soft kiss on Kim's cheek. 'Now, where have our charges gone. One more street you little horrors, then we are heading home. I'm sure your parents are dying to see the sugar rush you will have later this evening.'

'Yes, Mother Shego.' That chorused reply came from the closely clustered group of five children a few steps ahead of the snuggled couple, that reply only providing a short break from the excited chatter that passed between them.

'You are good with them. Always have been.' Shego picked up on the subtle swell of pride in Kim's voice.

'Former Teacher.' Shego reminded her softly. 'It's just practice. I don't seem to be getting through to Tommy though.'

As it had more than once this evening, Shego found her gaze straying to the young man at the edge of the group of ahead of them. Just having turned sixteen he was the oldest of the group, and Shego could see the first bloom of a sweet, kind and compassionate man he would become. Unlike the other kids who had taken to Shego instantly, as kids often seemed too, she had real trouble getting him to say one word to her.

'Although I guess it's understandable that he would be a little withdrawn. His first Halloween without his big sister around. I know that she's only moved one state away for her internship but that can feel like a world away for a young man.'

And young man he was, having just turned 18, that year's gap between him and his sister must have felt pretty big right now.

'Well, that's true.' Kim nodded. 'But that's not what's going on there.'

'No?' Shego raised an eyebrow slightly.

'Well, let's say Mr Stevens isn't the only one who is a little sweet on you.' Kim said without a hint of mirth. 'It wasn't so long ago I was his age. And I know that look. He's been crushing on you since we saved the Middleton High Science Fare from those mutated silk worms.'

'Oh yeah. I remember. He and his two friends made that really cool impact absorbing smart material. Most kids today just like playing around with slippery goo, not making useful stuff out of it.'

'You know, I had expected to see the trio tonight.' Kim mused. 'Those three are usually thick as thieves.'

'Maybe it's a good thing they aren't.' Shego chuckled. 'One young man with a crush on me is one thing, I'm not sure you could handle three of them.'

'Oh yes, I'd be green with envy.' Kim allowed a laugh in return. 'Green as that slime they mixed up. Anyway, we should be wrapping this up. Hey, where did Tommy go?'

'Over there.' Shego had been keeping an eye on the whole group as they talked, having followed him with her eyes over to the rundown, rickety and long abandoned house that sat on the edge of the street. 'I'll go and get him. You round up the others. Their parents should be coming to pick them up soon.'

'You okay, Tommy?' Shego kept her voice gentle as she strolled over to where the young man was leaning on the wooden fence running around the edge of the house, seeing the flaking scraps of paint that might once have been white. 'Don't tell me you saw a ghost.'

'Not this year.' Tommy sighed deeply. 'Not that we ever saw a ghost. My sister and me I mean. We used to come here a lot when we were younger. This place is supposed to be haunted and we always used to sneak in here each Halloween. Mostly because it drove our parents crazy.'

'I can relate to that.' Shego did know something about a little parental rebellion. She was still careful not to push Tommy too hard. This was more than he had spoken to her all evening and she didn't want to push him back into his shell. 'Would you like to take a look around? For old times sake?'

'Well, I guess so.' Shego would remark later how she had heard nothing but reluctant genuine despondent agreement in his voice. Something made even more impressive given how that had been exactly what he was hoping Shego would say.

'Alright. Lead the way.' Not taking that completely literally Shego fell into step beside Tommy as the young man lead her up the haphazard stone pathway, his hand resting on the door handle, turning it and slipping inside a second ahead of Shego.

What happened next Shego had to admit was a pretty slick move, even if she didn't understand what happened right away. All she knew in the moment was that by the time Shego had followed him through the door, Tommy had vanished from sight; leaving Shego staring at the empty hallway with two doors to her left and one right across from her.

While Shego wasn't prone to admitting fear, except when the moment called for some ironic mockery, privately she couldn't deny the atmosphere here was a little spooky. The darkness, the cobwebs, the slight smell of damp and rotting wood, the soft creaks of the building around her; all could have easily contributed to a general feeling of unease. She could see why this place had a reputation for being haunted.

Yet there was a more tangible feeling at the back of her mind, something honed during the life she had long left behind, the one hang on from her life on the other side of the law. That little tingle that said she was being watched.

'Aren't we a little old for hide and seek?' Shego called out, that slightly snide comment filling the empty hallway as her gaze swept over it; distractedly noticing both the musty dusty smell and the absence of even the lightest coating on the floor as she tried one door after another until the third yielded to her, creaking open to reveal another hallway even darker and cramped than the one behind her, her eyes scanning the darkness; a slight smile crossing her face in time with the thought that ran through her head. 'Ah. So that's the game we are playing.'

'Is she inside?' Tommy fought to keep his voice to as low a whisper as he could, his voice still sounding very loud in the small crawl space he had just managed to slip into a second before Shego made it through the door.

'Uhuh.' That reply came from the youngest of the two boys waiting inside, Clark being the tallest of the trio while avoiding any awkward lankiness. 'She's just found the unlocked door.'

'And she has taken the bait.' Darren, being a good foot shorter than either two of his friends was actually the most comfortable in this cramped space, his short brown hair not coming close to even touching the low ceiling where as Clark's spiky blonde hair did so even while crouched. 'Come on, let's get to the end before she does. I don't want to miss this.'

With eager agreement and excitement obvious in the way the three boys crept carefully towards the second hidden door at the other end of the enclosed space, Darren as the first to reach it carefully released the latch and slipped out to wait for the others to exit; all three now crouched with backs to the door they had just exited, eyes locked onto the door across from them, waiting with an alert air expectation as if waiting for something to happen.

Likewise it was Darren who first felt his eager smile fade a little into a bemused and confused frown. 'Shouldn't we have heard something by now? I mean, she should have tripped one of them by now? Right?'

Just in case he was wrong and not daring to even blink less he miss the moment they were all waiting for, Clark paused there. He wasn't sure why he expected an answer since neither of his two friends knew anything more than him. But he got one anyway. Just not in the way he expected.

'And I might have. Had I gone the way you wanted me too.'

As one and with a shrill shriek, all three of the young men span around sharply to find Shego leaning casually against the now not so secret passage they had used moments before; all of them sporting expressions both crest fallen and a little guilty.

'Don't feel bad, boys. Those were good traps. Nicely arranged, excellent number of decoy tripwires as well. One small tip, don't use linseed oil to aid the mechanism. The smell is a dead giveaway. So, what was the plan here? Try to give me a good fright?'

'Wellyeahkinda.' Tommy hung his head a little lower; guilt and remorse evident in that action. He had been the brainchild of the idea after all, even if Darren and Clark had made the traps work. 'We hoped you'd be so freaked you'd rush straight into it.'

'Tommy, what did you have to say that for?' Darren smacked his palm into his forehead a little over dramatically. 'She's already angry enough without telling her about that.'

'Did I say I was angry?' Shego let the slightly cocky tone drop from her voice. 'And no, I'm not going to do the whole 'I'm disappointed' cliche instead. Rather I'm more curious what it was you wanted to scare me towards. Must be something impressive to go to all this trouble? Is it something that lies behind that door?'

'No..not quite.' Tommy, feeling all that heavy emotion drop away from him, turned to follow Shego's gaze to the heavy wooden door across the end of the hallway from them. 'That's not really a door. Here, I'll show you. Had things worked you'd have run in there and found yourself standing in..well..this.'

Hands shaking still from a little nerves and more than a little excitement, Tommy felt for and grabbed a thin yet sturdy cord and tugged on it. It was a good thing that Shego hadn't moved to follow him but rather remained leaning casually on the wall as the doorframe, the door itself and two of the panels on either side fell away to reveal what might have looked like a phone booth. Anyone else wouldn't have known what to make of this, no doubt observing it with a stare bordering on bemused.


Shego on the other hand knew exactly what she was looking at, even though she had never seen one in real life. Gunging Teachers had been all the rage back when Shego had done her stint in that particular field, with an even more particular attention to the use of Gunge Tanks like the one she was looking at now. Shego had just happened to be abroad when her school had run a charity gunge-athon. Which didn't mean she hadn't seen some of the videos uploaded to the web, videos that had led Shego to get the barest inkling of the amount of both content and following such videos had online. Which had to be where these three boys had come across this idea.

'Oh. I see.' Shego watched the boys expressions carefully here, watching them fall as if expecting her some angry retort then rising again when it didn't come. And Shego genuinely wasn't angry. Boys would be boys after all. 'You really wanted to see me in this thing, didn't you?'

'Well..yeah.' Tommy shared a glance with the others and, getting a quick nod in return, replied with an earnest hesitation. 'We kinda did.'

'Well, then I guess I should go inside.' Shego said.

'What? Really? I mean, you want too?' Tommy couldn't help his shock, unsure if he had heard that correctly.

'Yeah. It's Halloween. You guys set up one heck of a trick. So I guess it's only fair to give you a treat in return.' Shego nodded.

'I think she means it.'

'Me too.'

'She does, doesn't she?'

'Of course, if you don't want me to..' Shego couldn't help smiling at the unfiltered surprise in their voices.

Shego left that hanging in the air with the dust and cobwebs, and wasn't disappointed when Tommy hurried to open the door, as if afraid that she might change her mind. There was no chance of that though, Shego not going to back out now she had made her promise. So with head held high, Shego strode inside, nodding encouragingly as Tommy made to close the door again.

Which wasn't to say she didn't feel a littlenervesa sudden thrilla little of both.Shego wasn't sure. Suddenly her choice of the black dress didn't seem like such a good idea, she didn't even have a heavy cloak or anything to hide behind. Although she rather had a feeling that would have spoiled the boys fun.

Now it was Shego's turn to nod, watching silently as Tommy took hold of a sturdy chord that she had no doubt was connected to the top of the tank. Just as she was sure she knew what it would do. Still, that didn't hold her back. Or him.

Shego saw the strain on the chord, felt the sharp lurch that ran through the chambers, heard the sudden clack from above. Caught the heavy, thick and smooth splatter right on her head. Shego had always been one to take surprise in her stride, so the shrill shriek that slipped from her lips came as a real shock. She had never imagined the gunge to be quite as thick as she felt rushing around her head and over her shoulders, slicking the black dress more to her body with each second that passed and each gallon poured over her.

Not that all of them went over her. Seeing the umbrella effect of a sudden gunging on a video was one thing, seeing it live was another. And feeling it was another step beyond that. Shego couldn't get her head around how the same thick, slick pink gunge oozing its way over her shoulders could be flung off her with such force that it splashed onto the walls on the chamber around her. It was bizarre, it felt bizarre and Shego had to admit she felt bizarre.

Shego wasn't one to feel embarrassed easily but this did the trick. Maybe it was the weirdness of the moment, and given the moments she had been through, that was saying something. Maybe it was the boys, well, young men watching her; knowing they were enjoying it. It might have been objectifying, but she had been young once, she'd had crushes on girls and sometimes those crushes went down odd routes. So she couldn't entirely blame them for enjoying the moment. Nor for not taking their eyes off her.

Just like they didn't as Shego stepped out of the chamber, flinging a little of the clinging goo off her hands she had picked up snagging her hat; the slightly sodden headgear dropped onto her head almost in defiance of the fresh splash of gunge that came with it.

'Come on, let's get out of here before Kim comes looking'

For us. That was what Shego had been going to say. The all too familiar shriek that reached her ears made it obvious she was too late, that cry followed by hisses and odd clunks and what sounded like springs releasing until Kim emerged from the other side of the corridor Shego herself had been meant to walk through, her smooth cat costume splattered with a thick layer of bright white foam that too had been meant for Shego.

'Oh, we are so dead.' Tommy whispered softly. Secretly Shego agreed with him. But equally secretly she couldn't deny it was worth it.

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Didn't really think I was going to have time to pen a story for Halloween this year but then this idea popped into my head. Was kinda a last minute spark of inspiration hence it's maybe a little rushed, but I wanted to get in published today. I hope you can enjoy it for what it is, a sweet fun little messy read.