Shego never saw much of Kim for the rest of the day, or the next four days after she stormed out, save for her meals and toilet breaks. The red-head barely glanced at her or acknowledged her words as she helped Shego to the bathroom. But it was hard for her to feel bad for her former rival; she had her useless legs to remind her why she was here in the first place. But she couldn't find it in herself to enjoy the elation her old-self would have felt when she had heard Kim thrashing her own office in frustration.
In a way, she resigned to her fate of being fed and taken care by the sullen woman. There was no use talking to her, she reasoned. Shego was completely dependent on her, and she was completely dependent on Shego to safely bring her baby to term. A mutually inconvenient arrangement, she should think. She tried to push aside the thought of the moment when Kim didn't need her anymore, and she subconsciously caressed her belly. Her pregnancy wasn't just showing yet, but somehow she just knew that there was a new life growing inside her, and that was all she needed to bear the silence.
On the fifth day, after restlessly tossing in her bed, Kim appeared at the door. Shego was surprised to see her pushing a wheelchair. Not just one of those manual wheelchairs, but complete with a small electric motor and rechargeable batteries. Glancing up at Kim's stoic face, she waited for the red-head to say something.
"Don't get the wrong idea," Kim said bluntly. "It's not for you, it's for the baby. Unfortunately for now, taking care of the baby would mean taking care of you."
"Thanks," Shego mustered up enough sarcasm in her voice in defiance.
"Don't get any ideas about leaving this apartment," the red-head warned. "I've got an electronic perimeter set up around the apartment. If you as much as go past the living room, a silent alarm would go off on my Kimumicator and then the wheels would be locked. Then you either wait for me to come back here and unlock it, or drag your sorry ass all the way to the couch."
"So you're not exactly giving me any freedom, just a longer leash, right?"
Kim bit her lip from blurting out certain words that would make her lose control. "Just take it, and be grateful for the little things," she replied coldly as she pushed the wheelchair next to Shego's bed. "Get on."
Shego eyed the chair warily, as she kept looking over at Kim standing next to her bed with her arms crossed across her chest. "So finally I get the grand tour of your apartment," Shego snipped back. Gingerly, she reached over to the armrest of the wheelchair and tugged it a little just to make sure the wheels were properly locked in place. Slowly, she pulled herself up and over into the wheelchair. There was a time when she could have easily done one-handed pull-ups, or throw a three-hundred pound man over her shoulder. But her arms quivered as she breathed heavily from the effort of getting into the wheelchair.
It didn't help one bit when Kim just stood there and watched her without raising a finger. Finally, she sat down and let out a sigh of relief and triumph. Wiping a strand of hair off her forehead, she quickly looked over the controls of the wheelchair. It seemed simple enough, a small joystick to manoeuvre, a button to lock and unlock the wheels, a flashing indicator for battery life and finally an SOS button. She gently pushed the joystick forward and was pleasantly surprised to hear the whirling of the electric motor as it inched forward slowly without jolting. She might not win any Paralympics with this, but in the least, she could get herself to the bathroom without relying on Kim.
"Good," Kim interrupted her thoughts. "Come with me." Without waiting for the woman, she walked out the room, leaving the door ajar for Shego to follow.
Annoyed, but happy over her newfound freedom, Shego followed the red-haired woman into the rest of the apartment. She'd never seen Kim's apartment beyond the four walls of her prison bedroom and adjoining bathroom. To her surprise, Kim lived a very Spartan lifestyle, much unlike her old teenager bedroom back in Middleton at her parents' place. The walls were a light cream colour, accented by the white marble floors, and draped with black furniture. A long black L-shaped couch faced a black TV cabinet with black tinted glass. And in between sat a rectangular black coffee table, immaculately kept with not a single speck of dust on it. Even the kitchen cabinets were black.
Shego let out a little sigh. For a woman, she definitely had no sense of colour. The apartment felt more like a showcase rather than an actual home. Even the pictures hung on the wall were simple oil paintings that were non-descript in nature, just blind splashing of paint to evoke an abstractness about the place. Her brow furrowed as she realised that this could be the apartment of just about anyone. There was nothing that said that Kim Possible lived her, none of her pictures, news clippings or accolades adorned the wall. There wasn't even a single magazine on the table to hint what sort of person lived here. She shuddered a bit; this was no different than many of the evil lairs which Dr Drakken skulked around in most of his time; this was simply a place of residence, nothing more.
She followed Kim into her office, where a long oak desk sat in the middle of the room facing the door. Kim had pulled aside the guest chairs and gestured for the woman to move closer to the desk. For a moment, Shego took her time to gaze around the office. At least this place felt a little more lived in. Although the bookshelves were stacked with thick law tomes, regulation guidelines, compliance materials and case files, there was a semblance of humanity in the least, in the form of a white mug with a yellow poppy flower adorning it on the desk, next to Kim's new laptop. Still, Shego noted that there was not a single photo or picture frame in the entire room.
"So I got the grand tour of the place," Shego replied, trying to feign disinterest. "So where do I fill out the survey?"
Wordlessly, Kim reached into a side drawer and pulled out a compact digital voice recorder. Without even asking for her permission, Kim hit the record button and set it down gently on her desk, before propping her elbows on the desks and interlocking her fingers. "Tell me about Ron," she spoke calmly.
"Huh," Shego snorted as she looked disdainfully at the voice recorder. "What's that for?"
"For my records," Kim replied without hesitation.
"Why would I want to tell you anything?" Shego asked.
Slowly Kim drummed her fingers on the table as she looked unflinching at the black-haired woman sitting opposite her. "You're right," Kim finally said. "I never asked you about what happened between you and Ron the day you escaped from the hospital. So I'm giving you a chance now to tell your story."
"Hmph," Shego snorted bemusedly. "Giving me a chance, Princess? This would be the first time, isn't it?"
Kim maintained her silence. She tilted her head a little to the side and looked at the digital voice recorder on her table, before turning back to look at Shego. "It's still recording," she spoke. "Say whatever you want to say."
"Alright," Shego muttered to herself. She leaned towards the table, with her face inches away from the digital voice recorder and yelled in a loud voice, "Kim Possible is a frigid bitch who kidnapped me, held me against my will and plans to steal my baby." Glancing up at Kim, Shego found herself mildly annoyed that the woman had not shown any sort of reaction to her words. She went on, "Kim Possible is the biggest Global Justice slut in the world, but no one would screw her because she'd break their dicks off and eat them for breakfast. So she has the largest collection of dildos which she uses to frig herself to sleep every night." Shego paused for the moment, before she added, "Up her ass."
The black-haired woman leaned back into her wheelchair with a contented look on her face. "There, I said it," Shego announced with a smug look on her face.
"Okay, now that we've got that out of the way," Kim took a deep breath and maintained her composure, "What happened the night you and Ron escaped from Global Justice's prison hospital?"
"Huh," Shego deflated a little when she realised that Kim wasn't going to rise to the bait. "So we're all serious and work-like now, huh? That's why you have the whole office scene thing for this interrogation?"
"How did you escape, Shego?"
"You can't handle the truth!" Shego drawled in her best Jack Nicholson impersonation. They locked gazes for a moment, as the raven-haired woman attempted to stare Kim down. Shego finally let out a defeated sigh. "Okay, fine, since you're so intent on knowing... The truth is I don't know."
"Shego..."
"I'm serious," Shego shrugged her shoulders slightly. "Anti-climax, I know. But I really don't know. I was so drugged up on meds that I have been slipping in between consciousness and lala-land the whole time. I was in a lot of pain, remember? All I could recall was my face pressing up against Ron's chest as he carried me away. But if you want my guess, I think he used the window."
"Eight storeys high?"
"Well, he definitely didn't take the front door, if that's what you were asking," Shego replied sarcastically. "That night, he snuck into my room and whispered my name. Then the next thing I know, he was carrying me through the hospital parking lot, before he bundled me into the back of an SUV and drove off."
"Okay, so where'd you go after that?"
"I just remembered a lot of travelling at first, we rode for hours, days even, on cars, buses, planes and boats. You name it, we probably hitched a ride on it," Shego replied. "I was still in a lot of pain, and Ron gave me some pills every time the pain got too much to handle. It took away much of the pain, but it pretty much took away everything else. Then, I remember that it was one early morning when Ron was carrying me on his back, while he hiked up a mountain trail to the middle of nowhere."
"Mountain?"
"Hey, I might have gone wrong in the head, after the beating you gave me," Shego replied nonchalantly. "But I remember a glorious orange sunrise, and I kinda thought for a moment that I'd died and Ron was carrying me to heaven."
"So where did he take you?"
"There was this old dojo hidden in the mountains, someplace where Ron use to go over his summers, or something," Shego explained.
"Yamanouchi..." Kim breathed.
"Yeah, yeah," Shego looked at Kim quizzically. "That's the place. There was this old man who came out to greet us, he was no taller than five feet, and but he reminds me of Mr Miyagi. Somehow, Ron was like a big kahuna there, and I got the royal treatment with attendants fawning over me, giving me a much needed hot bath and tending my wounds. It was the first time in days that I felt remotely human and the pain melted into a dull throbbing in my back. But somehow, as nightfall came, Ron made me bade farewell as we couldn't stay there long, because he knew that you would come looking for him there soon."
"He's right," Kim breathed. "Sensei told me that you'd left just the day before I arrived."
"Yup, boo hoo," Shego grinned. "After that, we snuck onto a cargo boat headed for Bangkok. Ron managed to find a small room for the two of us in some cramp immigrant lodging, and get some illegal work hauling cargo off the boats. He'd manage to dye his hair black, but even then, the locals know a farang when they see one, and it was really hard to keep a low profile especially with Wade constantly on the prowl on the Internet for any mention of a young Caucasian man and a crippled woman."
"What happened next?"
"The cops came busting down on us after barely a week," Shego remarked. "Guess Interpol was doing its job. Anyway, we manage to escape after Ron bribed one of the inspectors. That took out a lot of our remaining savings, and we were really running short of funds at that time already. I wasn't even sure we'd make it then, and sooner or later you would somehow catch up to us. I could see that Ron was worried because he was just making things up as we go, but he kept a brave face trying to reassure me that he had a plan and everything was going to be okay."
"I see. Where did you go after that?"
"Ron stole a car," Shego went on. "That was kinda... Impressive."
"So you are impressed by random dishonest acts of thievery?" Kim asked pointedly.
"Well, yeah, in a way..." Shego smiled sheepishly to herself. "I mean, I knew he smuggled an escaped fugitive out of the country, evaded police and probably broke half a dozen international laws during the whole thing. But to see him jimmy open the car door and hotwire it in under a minute, that was impressive. That was sort of when I realised the kind of man he is and how far he would go for his friends." Shego gazed at Kim with a sad look on her face, "Now I understand why he would go on all those crazy missions with you even though he never wanted to do anything more than play Zombie Mayhem."
"I never forced him to come," Kim replied defensively.
"No, but you exploited the fact that he wouldn't let you go on missions alone." Shego locked eyes with the red-haired woman.
Looking into those glazed eyes, Kim flinched and looked down at her hands on the table. Her eyes shifted over to the digital voice recorder. Clearing her throat, she asked, "So after Bangkok where did you guys go?"
"You know, seeing as the police are after us, of course we'd go to a place without police..." Shego replied nonchalantly. "Well, legit police anyway. We went up north through the jungles of Burma to lose your trail, then crossed over to Bangladesh, India then Sri Lanka. Painfully, slowly... Sometimes Ron carried me, sometimes we got a lift from a village farmer, and sometimes Ron would push a cart with me in it. It was a long trip, we were mostly wet, tired and hungry, but we simply had to stay off the radar. And I don't know how, but we ended up on some remote island in the middle of the Indian Ocean."
"Where I finally found you."
"Yup, three years later." Shego nodded her head.
"I heard you were a total bitch to Ron those three years," Kim spoke evenly, as she glanced sideways at the digital voice recorder to make sure that it was still recording.
"What do you mean?"
"An old man on the island told me that you treated Ron badly."
"You mean Jarlow who owns the only dingy store in the whole fucking island?" Shego snorted in contempt. "That old bugger wouldn't forgive anything! I just called it like it is. He gave Ron nothing but scraps and leftovers. His chickens were half-dead when Ron got them, and he spent a sleepless week just trying to nurse them back from the brink of death. And he had the gall to come knocking on our door asking for payment."
"You killed him."
Shego fell silent at her words. She shut her eyes, pretending that she didn't blink to hide her tears. "Look," Shego looked up as she shook her head. "I would admit that I could have treated Ron a lot better. I wasn't the easiest person to live with but could you blame me? I lost everything, my bank accounts, my belongings, my legs, my life..." Shego suddenly stopped as a shadow of a smile crept to her lips. "I remember screaming at Ron that I won't be able to walk in heels again. You know what he did? He knelt down and gave me a foot rub and said legs this beautiful don't need heels to show them off." Shego studied Kim closely, wondering if she would fly into a jealous rage again at her words, but the red-haired woman remained stoic.
Kim spoke in a low voice, "But you still drove him away..."
"I tried to..." Shego started, but bit her lip. "I didn't want him to waste his life on someone like me. I asked him to take me back. At least that way he'd probably get off on a lighter punishment because of all the hero work he's done. He didn't deserve any of this; all he did was being a good friend."
"At least that's one thing we agree upon," Kim pursed her lips tightly. "He should have turned you in and I could have gotten him off with a light jail sentence in light of everything he has done in saving the world."
"Yeah, yeah, I know," Shego yawned tiredly. She leaned forward and looked at Kim strangely for a moment. "Now that we're both here laying our hearts open before each other, what the hell happened between you and Ron?"
"What do you mean?" Kim muttered evasively. "Nothing happened."
"Ron has told me many stories about you," Shego explained, as she leaned closer with her arms on Kim's desk. "So many stories, so much that I do feel that I am the one who actually grew up with you." She tilted her head to the side and wondered out loud, "But there was one thing that bothered me about all his stories... He never told any stories about you after your junior year in college. Why?"
"Because there wasn't anything to tell," Kim finished simply.
"Oh, come on," Shego snorted with disbelief. "I poured my heart out here, and you tell me that you have nothing to say? What happened to the two of you?"
"I was busy," Kim sniffed unconvincingly. "It's not easy juggling an internship, two majors and a world-saving job at the same time."
"Too busy to care about Ron?"
"I never stopped caring about Ron!" Kim found her voice rising. Taking a deep breath, she repeated calmly, "I never stopped caring about Ron. He understood how busy I was. He knew that I needed some space."
"You distanced yourself from him," Shego observed.
"No!" Kim protested. "No, no... Nothing like that! It was only temporary! Only until we graduated."
"Okay," Shego replied, sounding unconvinced. "What happened after you graduated then?"
"We were still together," Kim replied, a hint of hostility creeping into her voice. "If that's what you're asking."
"But you joined Global Justice, right?"
"They had already given me a letter of conditional employment before I entered college."
"Right, and Ron too?"
"Yeah, I made sure he could join me."
"But you didn't work with him," Shego noted.
"We..." Kim struggled to find the word. "We were assigned to different departments."
"But you could have transferred to where Ron was..."
"It was the fast-track programme to become a senior field operative!" Kim crossed her arms as she leaned back in her chair. "I could have picked my own missions and my own team, and I was going to choose Ron as my second."
"And look how that turned out for you?"
"Just because I took my eyes off Ron for one moment that doesn't mean that some cheap floozy can swoop in and steal him from under me," Kim snapped at the woman.
"We were just friends!" Shego exploded incredulously. "Could you get it into your thick numbskull? We were just drinking buddies!"
"Drinking buddies who get knocked up, huh?" Kim growled sarcastically.
Shego hung her head and sighed. "We just hung out together and reminisce about old times! Sure, I was a criminal and all, but even Ron knew that I had my off days!"
"But you loved him! You admitted it yourself!"
"After you broke my back, Ron became my world! He saved me! He took care of me! He bathed me, fed me and wiped the damned shit off my ass!" Shego raised her voice. "You must have a heart of stone not to fall in love with someone who would do all of that for you! But I would never do anything to hurt him! Never! Which is much more than I can say for you!"
"Me? What have I ever done to hurt him?"
"You did something to Ron that he would never do to you! You put yourself before him!" Shego accused. "Wasn't it always finishing your assignments before Ron? Or graduating with honors then go on a date with Ron? Or get your promotion first, or finish your paperwork, or whatever... Don't you see? That's what you've been doing to him! You put all your achievements before Ron, and you are so proud of everything you've achieved that you forgot completely about what you had!"
"No I didn't!"
"So you say..." Shego drawled. "Just look at your apartment here. This is the results of your desire for success! You are a successful commander in Global Justice, your pips pull enough weight such that you can smuggle me into the country without so much as a blip on the radar of all the world's intelligence agency, and let me just say, you are a snappy dresser. That blouse is what? At least two hundred dollars?"
"It was a gift," Kim mumbled apprehensively. And then she added softly, almost as an afterthought, "From Ron..."
"See? He gave you all that!" Shego exclaimed. "But have you ever taken the time, set your priorities aside just to sit by his side one evening and ask him what does he want?"
"He would..." Kim closed her eyes for a moment. "He would have wanted to spend the night in front of the television with a box of pizza, watching some cheesy classic zombie movie."
"And when was the last time you did something like that?"
"Just after graduation," Kim paused and bit her lip. "High school graduation." She looked at Shego defiantly, "But that was so dumb! He knows I don't like zombie movies! It's lame, the effects are so fake and you already know when someone is going to die! It's almost as bad as those 90s teenage scream movies."
"And if it was so dumb, why couldn't you do it?" Shego asked. "What's so hard about just spending some time with the man you love? Because he sure as did everything you wanted to do, even if, in your own words, all he ever wanted to do was curl up in a couch watching some cheesy classic zombie movie with you!"
"Because..." Kim pursed her lips tightly before snapping back. "Look, I don't have to answer to you! If Ron wanted me to spend time with him, he would have just told me instead of sneaking out behind my back to hang out with you!"
"And is that what you tell yourself so that you can sleep at night?" Shego asked pointedly.
Kim suddenly stood up from behind her chair and slammed both palms on the table. "Look, what happened between me and Ron stays between me and Ron. You're nothing but a slutty interloper who wormed your way in between our relationship and my only regret is that I never threw you in prison earlier," Kim replied defiantly.
Shego stared at the dark shadow that clouded Kim's face. "I..." Shego's voice faltered a little. "Okay, fine, Kim... Have it your way. I'm a little tired with all this..." she waved her hands in the air. "I honestly don't like you and clearly you hate me with all your guts. But believe me when I say that before you attacked me, broke my spine and left me in a pool of my own blood in the alley, I had no romantic feelings for Ron. If I had known what a sweet person he was a lot sooner and what a total bitch you are, I'd have tried to steal his heart a lot sooner because Ron definitely deserved better."
Kim just glared at her silently as Shego's words lingered in the air. The raven-haired woman continued in a strong voice, "I really don't care how you feel anymore or trying to make you understand that it was your fault that you drove Ron away. I just want to raise Ron's baby because his baby is the last piece of good thing he left in this world and... Just, Kim... I'm tired of fighting..."
"This isn't over yet..."
"Whatever you want," Shego replied listlessly as she nudged the joystick on her wheelchair. "But the fact is Ron isn't here anymore and you can hold on to old grudges all you want. But me? I've got my baby to look forward to." Slowly the electric motor whirled and she turned to head out of the office when suddenly she felt the wheelchair jolt. Looking back she realised that Kim had stepped out from behind her desk and grasped the handles of the wheelchair. Shego glanced back up at the red-haired in surprise. "I can find my way back, you know."
"Just making sure you get back to your room," Kim mumbled under her breath.
"Right," Shego sat back in her chair, as Kim flipped the light switch of her office on the way out.
Author's Notes
You guys know I don't reply to reviews anymore, right? Right, so be ungrateful and don't leave a review. Let's see if reverse psychology works. But then ah-hah! I could be planning to make you guys not write a review so that I feel less guilty about replying to reviews, but then again maybe since you know that I know that you know that I'm not replying to reviews, maybe you don't know that I know that you know that I know that you know that...
Inconceivable!
And that would be my antepenultimate rant for the day.