Fic: "Shego's Plan: Aftermath" (5/6)

[cdybedahl]

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Shego's Plan

Written by Calle Dybedahl

Aftermath

For the two-hundredth time that day, Shego picked up the phone.

For the two-hundredth time, she dialed all the digits but the last one, then put the phone back down again.

She threw herself on the hotel bed, covered her face with the thick, luxurious pillow and screamed.

Why did it have to be so hard?

She threw the pillow as hard as she could across the room. Before it hit the far wall, she blasted it into a cloud of feathers with a plasma bolt. It made her feel a little bit better.

She picked up the phone for the two-hundred and first time.

"I don't know, Wade," Ron said to the computer screen. "I mean, what would I say? Hey, KP, sorry you were turned into an evil mastermind who nearly lobotomized the entire world and got five billion people killed?"

On the screen, Wade gestured at him.

"Say something! She's been locked in her room for ten days now. We need to do something to get her talking to people again. Ask her for help with your homework. Invite her along to Bueno Nacho. Do something!"

Ron crossed his arms over his chest.

"Why should I be the one doing it?" he said. "Why don't you talk to her?"

"Because you're the one who's known her since pre-K," Wade said. "And she refuses to talk to me. I even faked caller id once, and she just hung up."

"I'm the one she dumped," Ron said.

"Wooooe," Rufus said and sadly shook his head.

Wade sighed.

"Yes, Ron, I know," he said. "And maybe she's changed her mind about that now that she's not evil any more."

Ron shook his head.

"No go, Wade," he said. "She said that she and Monitors has had some kind of thing going for over a year. Way longer than Kim was evil."

"So you're just going to let her sit there? To give up on Team Possible?"

Ron put on his resolute face.

"Yes, Wade," he said. "I think I am."

He reached out and turned the computer off. Once it had died down, he let himself fall forward. For a while he just sat there, face resting on the keyboard.

"Rufus," he finally said. "Let's go drown our sorrow in Nacos."

"Woe," Rufus agreed.

At the two hundred and sixty-fourth attempt Shego managed not only to dial all the numbers, but also keep the phone to her ear until someone answered.

"Yeahhello," a perky male voice said.

"Doctor Possible?" she asked. It would be just too silly if she'd spent all this time almost dialling the wrong number.

"Speaking!" the voice said. "What can I do for you? Rocket science a specialty, but everything's possible for a Possible!"

Shego took the phone from her ear and stared at it for a moment. Was this guy for real?

"Er," she said into the phone. "Can I talk to Kim, please?"

"Ah," Dr Possible said. "Weeeeell... Do you want her to talk back?"

"Yes," Shego said. "I was hoping to..."

Her voice failed her for a moment.

"...have a conversation," she said instead of the word she found she couldn't say.

"Okay, see that may be a problem," Dr Possible said. "Because Kim's refusing to speak with anybody. Even her mother! But if you just wanted to talk to her, we could rig the phone to an amplifier, put a loudspeaker outside the door to her room and she could hear what you said that way."

It made a twisted kind of sense. Shego was beginning to see where Kim got her can-do attitude from.

"Yeah, well," she said, "I was also hoping for the conversation to be private."

"I can ask Jim and Tim to stop tapping the phone line," Dr Possible said.

Again, Shego was briefly speechless.

"Your kids are snooping on your phone?" she asked.

"Well, they like playing around with technology and someone told them about the Echelon project," he said. "They wanted their own."

"Er, I think I'll talk to Kim later," Shego said. "And not over the phone."

"Okey-dokey!" Dr Possible said. "Nice talking to you!"

Shego stared at the phone after she hung up. What kind of madhouse had Kim grown up in? She'd known that both Kim's parents were near-geniuses in their respective fields, which she guessed came with a certain amount of eccentricity, but still...

She put the phone down and got up from the bed. Having finally managed to call, she just felt frustrated not to have reached Kim herself.

She knew where Kim was. If she snuck in her window, Kim couldn't really avoid talking to her. Well, communicating with her. If you included punching and kicking as forms of communication.

Shego sighed. Well, if Kim wanted to punch and kick her, Shego couldn't really blame her. So, okay, a visit it was. She looked out at the setting sun. A late-night visit, it looked like, but if she didn't go right now she might never work up the courage again.

She walked out on the balcony and looked down. She was only sixteen stories up, but on the other hand the pool was smaller here. She felt how the wind interacted with the hotel's facade, estimated the thermals from the kitchen air vents and decided exactly how hard she'd have to kick off from the railing in order to land in the middle of the pool.

Then she went and took the elevator like a normal person.

"Um, Ron?"

Ron looked up from his Grande Size chimmerito with extra cheese. Extra, cold, congealing cheese. He blinked. How long had he been sitting here? It had to be quite a while, if the cheese had had time to get into that state.

"RON!"

He looked even further up. Monique was standing there, arms across her chest and evil glare aimed in his direction.

"Have you lost your mind, boy?" she said.

"What?" he cleverly retorted.

"Do you know what time it is?"

She did not look happy. Ron looked out the window. It was dark. Really dark.

"Er, no?"

"It is two thirty A M," Monique said, really stressing the letters. "Do you know when Bueno Nacho closes?"

"One in the morning on weekdays, two on Saturday and Sundays," he said.

"Oh," he added when he finally saw where this was heading.

Monique sat down.

"Ned tried telling you to leave an hour and a half ago, Ron," she said. "He says you were just sitting here like a zombie not reacting to anything. Finally he called for help."

"Why you?" Ron asked.

Monique sighed.

"Because Kim ain't answering her damn phone, that's why," she said. "Come on, let's leave."

She got up from the seat again, picked up the soundly sleeping Rufus and put him in her purse. Ron got up too. That chimmerito wasn't edible any longer anyway. They walked out of the building, and Ned locked the doors behind them the moment it was physically possible.

"Kim wouldn't have come anyway," Ron said. He kicked at a pebble and missed.

"Sure she would," Monique said. "If she hadn't gone all hermit on us."

"She dumped me," he said. "She cheated on me and lied to me."

"She cheated on you?" Monique said. "Woah! Who with?"

"Er, you?" Ron said.

"What?" Monique laughed. "That was just a girly friend thing, boy. That don't count as cheating. Everyone does that."

They were heading nowhere in particular.

"I'm pretty sure everyone doesn't," Ron said. "And she still lied to me!"

"What about?"

"You know, only the whole being gay thing."

"High School is a harsh place, Ron," Monique said. "You can't blame a girl for not having the guts to throw herself to the wolves dressed in bacon. Hell, do you even know if she's sure about herself? She's only eighteen! When did you guys talk about this anyway?"

Ron stuck his hands deep in his pockets and glared at the ground.

"While she was evil," he mumbled.

Monique hit him over the head with her purse, causing a scared yelp from Rufus.

"Ow!" Ron said. "What was that for?"

"Your girlfriend, who you've known for Hell knows how many years, says some stupid things while her brains are fried by some weirdo ray thing, and you just give up on her ass? Damn, boy, that girl is way too good for you. You don't deserve her at all!"

He raised his finger and pointed in her general direction.

"But,..." he said.

She glared at him.

He lowered the finger.

"Never mind," he said. "I'll try to talk to her tomorrow."

He started walking again, this time in the direction of their homes.

"If she's talking to anybody at all," he added.

In spite of the late hour, there was a light on in Kim's room.

Shego, standing on the driveway below the window, swallowed. One less excuse not to do this. She jumped, grabbed hold of the edge of the roof and vaulted up on it. The windows to Kim's room were large, and set a bit in from the edge of the garages under them, so there was a decent-sized ledge for Shego to land on. She knelt there, looking in.

Kim was sitting at her computer. Playing Tetris. The pieces were falling at an astonishingly fast pace. Her fingers were a blur on the keys, keeping up with the game. Shego tried to see what the score was, but couldn't tell more than that it was a longer number than any she'd ever managed.

She waited until Kim had finished her game, then she knocked on the window.

Kim turned and looked at Shego.

Then she turned back to the game.

Shego knocked again.

And again.

Eventually, Kim paused the game, came over and opened the window.

"Yes?" she said.

She didn't even sound angry.

"We need to talk," Shego said.

Kim started to shut the window again, but Shego grabbed hold of it.

"Please, Kim?" she said.

After a brief hesitation, Kim let go of the window and stepped aside. Shego climbed in and closed the window behind her.

"I didn't think you knew that word," Kim said.

"I've heard it often enough," Shego said.

Kim had backed up and stood leaning against her desk, as far away from Shego as the room allowed and not looking at her.

Shego's heart sank. She hadn't really expected this to go well, but it still hurt.

"I'm listening," Kim said. "Say what you want to say and leave."

Shego gathered the few shreds of courage she had left. Maybe later she'd go do something easy to get her confidence up again. Like break into Fort Knox using only a pair of chopsticks.

"I'm sorry," she said.

Kim looked up.

"What?" she said.

"I'm sorry," Shego repeated. "I'm sorry for what I put you through."

Suddenly there was fire in Kim's eyes. A distinct improvement over the dead-looking sadness of a few moments ago, but it didn't really make Shego any less nervous.

"You're sorry?" Kim said.

Shego nodded.

Kim came closer to her.

"Is that why you came here? To apologise?"

"Yes," Shego said.

Kim punched her in the face. It came like a total surprise to Shego. Usually, there were tiny muscle movements a split second before a punch that helped her dodge them, but not this time. The urge to hit back, to defend herself, exploded within her. She pushed it back down.

"You turned me evil!" Kim hissed. "I was about to have six billion people killed!"

Six? So they'd underestimated the number...

Kim hit Shego again. There were tears in her eyes, if from anger or hurt Shego couldn't tell.

"I did horrible things to my enemies! You saw what I did to poor Drakken, and as for Amy..."

Kim shuddered.

"I blackmailed Mr Barkin," she went on. "I mind-controlled the governments of every country on the planet. I broke up with my boyfriend. I..."

Words apparently failed her. She was crying openly now, and it was pretty obvious that it was mostly from anger. She was not only punching at Shego. She kicked at her, threw her at the walls, slammed her to the floor.

Shego let her.

"Fight back, damn you!" Kim screamed.

Shego had just hit the floor a bit extra hard and her vision was a little blurry. Kim was standing over her, holding on to the front of her suit with both fists.

"Why?" she said. "I deserve it, don't I?"

Kim let go of Shego and dropped like a sack of flour to a sitting position on the floor. Her entire body shook with sobs of helpless fury.

Shego got up from the floor. Slowly, and with several winces. Damn, but that girl could hit hard. She knelt down next to Kim and stroked her hair.

"Look, princess," she said. "All those things are my fault, okay? I hit you with the Attitudinator. If not for that, you'd never in a million years have done any of it."

Shego fully expected to be punched again. Instead, Kim threw her arms around her and pulled her into a bone-cracking hug. She pressed her face to Shego's chest and cried even harder. Or possibly screamed in anger. It was getting hard to tell. Shego just stayed put, unsure what was going on. She tried gently putting her arms around the young woman. She wasn't rebuffed, so she escalated to slowly stroking her back.

They sat like that for a long while. Shego had no idea how long, nor did she care. Holding Kim and, apparently, being a comfort to her was something that she was willing to keep up for however long it took.

Eventually, the sobs subsided. Kim relaxed her death-grip around Shego and lifted her head from her chest.

"I got your suit wet," she said, running a finger along the large tear-stain on Shego's chest.

"So not a problem," Shego whispered.

Kim looked up at her. She frowned.

"You're going to have a black eye," she said.

Shego shrugged.

"I heal fast," she said. "Go ahead and punch more, if it'll help."

Kim made a sound that might in a few hundred thousand years evolve into a laugh.

"No, thanks," she said. "I think I'm done with that bit."

They both awkwardly made their way to their feet.

"Did you really come here to apologise?" Kim said.

"Yes, Kimmie," Shego said. "I really did."

Kim sat down on her bed. Shego remained standing.

"When was the last time before this you apologised for something you'd done?" Kim asked. "I mean, truly apologised because you regretted what you'd done, not just said it sort of ironically."

Shego blinked. That was not a question she'd been expecting.

"Er," she said. When was it? A long time ago, that was for sure. Maybe when... No, not then... Not that time either. Nor that one. Or that one.

"I don't think I ever did before," she finally said.

Kim looked at her with something Shego couldn't identify in her eyes.

"So why me?" she said. "Why now?"

"Nobody was ever about to destroy the world because of me before," Shego tried.

Kim looked doubtfully at her.

"Because I was afraid I might lose you," Shego mumbled.

"Lose me how?" Kim said.

Now it was Shego's turn not to look at Kim.

"Look," she said. "I know it sounds strange, but we do have some kind of relationship. A weird one where we mostly just meet to fight one another, but I'd miss it."

"Is that all you want?" Kim said. "To go on like we have for the past few years?"

"Of course it's not all I want," Shego said. "But it's what I have, and what I don't want to lose."

Kim got up from the bed and went to stand right in front of Shego.

"Much of what I did while I was evil is kind of hard to remember," she said. "But I distinctly remember coming on to you pretty hard, and you running away. Diving off a twenty-eighth story balcony, if I remember correctly."

Shego looked away.

"That wasn't you," she said. "That was the evil talking."

"Oh no," Kim said. "That was me. A lot more... active about it than I've ever been before, but still my desires."

Shego swallowed, her mouth having gone all dry.

"Did you really dump the buffoon?" she said. "That wasn't just the evil talking?"

"His name is Ron," Kim said. "You know that. And yes, I really did. Partly it was the evil talking, but it's going to stay that way. There's nothing quite like having all your inhibitions removed to make you understand what you truly want."

"So what is it you want, Kim Possible?" Shego whispered.

Kim tilted her head up and kissed her. Unlike their first kiss in the hotel, this one was hesitant and overly gentle, as if they were both afraid that even the slightest force might break things. Even so, it made Shego tingle all over and her head swim.

"That," Kim said after they broke apart. "Lots more like that."

"I think that can be arranged," Shego said dreamily, her arms still around Kim and Kim's around her. "A lot."

Kim smiled.

"Goo-," she said, and was interrupted by a huge yawn.

Shego arched and eyebrow.

"When did you last sleep, Princess?" she said.

"Um," Kim said. "Couple of days ago?"

"Been too tense to fall sleep? Nightmares?"

Kim nodded.

Shego stroked her hair.

"Less tense now?" she asked.

Kim nodded again, smiling beatifically.

"Let's lie down," Shego said. "You sleep, and I keep watch for nightmares. If they show up, I'll give them a plasma blast right in the fangs."

Kim laughed.

"I'm not twelve," she said.

Shego let her hands drift down Kim's back until they were resting on her firm behind.

"Oh, I know," she said. "But for a little while, relax as if you were?"

"Okay," Kim said.

Shego picked her up and carried her the few steps to the bed. She put her down, and laid down herself maybe an inch away. Kim scooted closer and put her arm around Shego, so they lay touching front to front.

"You'll be here when I wake up?" Kim said.

"Yes," Shego said. "I promise."

"Good," Kim said. It wasn't many seconds before her breath became soft and slow.

Shego lay there, looking at her from too close to see anything. Pretty soon, her arm would go numb. By morning, her neck would be stiff as a board and her back aching like nobody's business.

She couldn't remember ever being happier.

Ron rang the Possibles' doorbell with greater trepidation than ever before. When he heard footsteps approaching from inside, he almost turned and ran.

"Oh, hi Ronald," Dr Possible said when she saw who it was. "How are you this morning?"

"Been better," Ron said. "As a piece of advice, don't spend most of the night at Bueno Nacho and the rest of it walking around. Makes you tired."

"I'll keep that in mind," Dr Possible said. "Do you want to come in?"

"Yeah," Ron said. "I was kind of hoping to get to talk to Kim. I know she's locked herself in her room and isn't coming out, but..."

"Oh, no," Dr Possible said. "She came down and got lots of breakfast food this morning."

Ron blinked.

"She did?" he said.

Dr Possible nodded enthusiastically.

"She took it all up to her room, but it's nice to see that she's eating again. She looked really happy, too."

That was good. Weird, but good.

"Um, can I go up and see her?" he said.

"Sure!" Dr Possible said. "Just make sure you knock before you enter, in case she isn't dressed yet."

Right. Just what he needed. A reminder of possibly naked Kim. Which he hadn't seen since a long time before the concept became interesting, but could vividly imagine.

He resolutely walked up the stairs. He'd promised Monique he'd talk to Kim, and if he couldn't do much else right he could at least keep his promises. He was just about to knock on Kim's door when he heard giggling from inside.

Two giggling voices. Both female. What the...?

He knocked.

There was a sudden silence from inside, followed by the rustling of cloth.

"Come in," Kim's voice said after a few seconds.

Ron gingerly opened the door. As it swung open, he looked inside. The first thing he saw was Kim's top and bra, thrown at the floor. Then her pants, and a scrap of cloth that probably was her panties. After that, also tossed on the floor, a black and green catsuit.

For a few moments, his brain refused to process the information. Then he abruptly forced the door open the rest of the way.

Kim was sitting in her bed, wearing a dressing gown. A tray loaded with breakfast food sat on her bedside table. And in the bed, with a blanket pulled up to just above her breasts, sat Shego. Kim was holding a piece of buttered toast, and from their positions and giggly demeanor he got the impression that she'd been in the process of feeding it to Shego when he knocked. And that the rustling he'd heard had been Shego pulling the blanket up to cover herself.

"Hi there," Shego said, breaking the tableau.

"Hi, Ron," Kim said.

"Kim?" Ron said. "Shego?"

Rufus stuck his head out of Ron's leg pocket.

"Mroo-hoo!" he said.

Kim giggled a little. She put the toast down on the tray.

"Ron," she said. "May I introduce my girlfriend Shego?"

"Girlfriend?" Ron said.

"Is he always this eloquent?" Shego asked.

"Only when he's stunned," Kim said.

"I talked to Monique," he managed to get out. "So, uh, friends?"

Kim smiled.

"Of course," she said. "Ron, if you wait in the living room we'll get dressed and join you there. So you can think a little better, and we'll sort everything out."

"Uh-hu," he said. Then he closed the door and headed downstairs.

Through the door, he heard severe giggling break out.

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