Chapter 4:

The rest of the day had dragged on in protracted silence. Shego, after furiously pounding at the boards for an hour had abruptly jumped off the roof and headed to the abandoned hovercraft that had been hidden in the woods. She had dragged it out on to the beach and promptly vanished beneath it. Drakken had avoided her, the harsh words she had uttered making themselves repeatedly heard in his head.

The long term consequences of his actions hadn't made any impact in his mind before now. But not only had he saved everbody from enslavement, he hadn't taken advantage of the worldwide crisis to try to enslave them. He had failed on both accounts; or as Shego would say, had achieved "abject failure". No, it was worse than that. It was in this lugubrious state that he wandered aimlessly up and down the shore. Up and down, up and down, up and down like clockwork.

Neither knew how late it was when her black locks reappeared, and her hand stopped his footsteps, and they must have communicated through telepathy for all of the words that were spoken. He cooked as she ran her fingers through her hair, easing out whatever invisible knots she sensed. There would be no banter and adventures in the extent of what was edible tonight. It was a tense and uneasy silence, neither quite daring to meet the other's eyes.

After the food was gone, dishes cleaned, Shego had returned to the hovercraft. Drakken, instead of leaving her well alone, sat next to the piece of machinery. "Shego," he started. An abstruse reply emerged from the gloomy cave beneath the vehicle, as if she were speaking around a tool clutched in her mouth. "Shego, what are you doing?"

"I'm fixing the hovercar. Doy," was the reply from the still obscured figure.

Then silence reigned again except for the occasional clank and grind of metal tool meeting metal body. Suddenly a yelp was followed by several choice words as the green-and-black clad body fairly rocketed itself from its refuge. Shego was wiping her face desperately and spitting in an attempt to rid herself of the oil that had suddenly poured onto her face. However, her attempts were doing little more than smear it across an even larger area. "Gah! Dr. D!" she yelled, as she clawed at her face, trying to get the liquid away from her eyes.

"She-! Wha-?"

"Water!" was the demand.

He grabbed her by one flailing arm, pulling her upright with enough force that she nearly fell back to the ground. Then he half-pushed, half-dragged her to the ocean, nearly tripping her multiple times in the process, until she was deep enough where she could submerge and scrub away the offending substance. Finally she emerged and staggered back up to the beach with him trailing along behind. She dropped back onto the ground by hovercraft, but just before she vanished again, a single word shot out of her mouth so quick, and grudgingly quiet that he nearly missed it. "Thanks."

"What?"

"I'm not saying it again, Dr. D." And she was gone. This time, though, the silence was not so heavy, nor so awkward... or "awk-weird" as their teenage foe would say. Then a moment later she commanded him, "Screwdriver," and shot out an impatient hand, and it was like things were back to normal between them.

Shego hauled herself out from under the contraption, wishing desperately that she had some way to clean her gloves. Drakken was patiently sitting cross-legged, building tiny towers out of sand and then crushing them. "Yo, Dr. D. Come on, it's getting late."

Drakken grumbled, annoyed slightly at being forced to tear himself away from his imaginary triumphs over Chen, Ramesh, and James Possible. "Fine." He looked up and took in Shego's appearance. Her hair, still slightly damp, was mussed and stuck up at weird angles, around her hairline she hadn't been able to banish all of the sticky oil, and there was a streak of dark lube that ran across her forehead and down to her ear.

He pointed, "She-"

"Shut up." And he did.

As they lay on the floor, Drakken decided to take advantage of the respite in hostilities and ventured, "Shego, why were you fixing up the hovercraft?"

"So we can get off this stupid island. Doy. I don't like it having Lucre knowing where we are. The man has one of the loosest mouths I've ever met." Then there was silence. After five minutes she spoke again. "And so you can go to your stupid ceremony thing." Before he could reply, she rolled over so that her back was to him.

"Shego? Shego?" There was no reply, so he too rolled over and eventually drifted off to sleep.

It was barely dawn when he was woken by a stinging slap to his face that made him bolt up. "Yeow! Was that necessary?!" he yelled, rubbing his sore cheek.

Shego shrugged. "I've been trying to wake you up for the past half hour. Tried nearly everything." It was then that he noticed he was soaked as if someone had dumped a great quantity of water on him. "Here." She roughly dropped a plate into his lap, nearly causing the contents to slide off. To his great surprise, what lay on the plate was a perfectly edible omelet.

"It's not poison," she remarked huffily as he eyed it. Quickly he shoveled some into his mouth, and then, his voice muffled by the unchewed food, he hurried to assure her that it was very good. "It would have been warmer if you had woken up sooner."

He didn't dare risk the plasma burns to ask her how she had managed to create a restaurant-worthy omelet when not too long ago her food had been crawling off the plate under its own power.

"Hurry up. I want to get back to the U.S. before one, and I couldn't fix the hyper-loop power drive without a K9-80 and a right twist 6-40." How she managed to talk technical about anything that flew, but completely butchered or forgot the names of his inventions was completely elusive to him.

With surprising quickness they had packed up what few belongings they had with them (moving from lair to lair did not encourage the amassing of knick-knacks) and they were in the air.

"When did the letter say the ceremony was?"

"Two weeks. Enough time for me to invite my 'select family and close friends'. I'm still trying to decide whether I should invite Mama or not... Either way, what happens if she finds out what I've been doing for the past several years?" He raised his voice into a mimic of Mama Lipsky. "Drewbie, how dare you lie to your mother! All these years I thought my precious boy was a radio talk show doctor and now I find out he's been trying to take over the world. No dinner for you tonight, young man!"

Shego winced at the memory of the strident voice, and the woman that produced it. "That, or she'll be blinded by the fact that 'Drewbie' saved the entire planet."

"Gah. It's all too confusing. What do you think?"

"Since when do you ask for my opinion?"

"Not the time for lip, Shego," he growled. "I'm being serious."

"How do I know? In case you don't recall, I've cut off all contact with my family for years now." Of course, that was excepting two occasions, but those times had been out of her control. "That way I don't have to deal with them."

"That's not helpful."

She shrugged. "Whatever. You might as well invite her. Can you imagine what she'd be like if she discovered you had been honored by the COWUN and didn't invite her?"

"Eep!" was the only thing he had to say to that thought, his eyes darting around as if he expected Mama to pop up behind him.

Shego sighed and turned back to the dash. She was really regretting the lack of the loop drive; it would take an extra two hours to reach America and at the moment all there was to look at was blue sea, blue sky, and a blue man. She remembered how Mama Lipsky had thought that she was Drakken's girlfriend. Of course, for a brief moment the deluded woman had also thought that Kim was a "special girl", which just showed how much her vision was skewed in favor of her precious "Drewbie". The woman was the quintessential over-protective matron.

The matron who had thought she and Dr. D were together... well, together as an "item", not in the employer/employee or even almost familial relationship they did actually have. The aliens thought they were together too. Warmonga had called her Drakken's "battle-mate" and when she had protested, neither of the Lorwardians had believed her. Even Kim had teased her then. Of course it had seemed like the two of them had been closer lately, even before the invasion. It had been a rough year, between her being broken out to work for Motor Ed and Junior, and him working with Warmonga and Frugal Lucre. It seemed like that had forced them to come to an understanding that she would never truly leave him for long, at least not without notice and a reason, and that he would never fire her without the same conditions. It had to be one of the weirdest and most dysfunctional partnerships in the history of the world, but for them, mocking, ranting, yelling, ignoring, and insulting worked.

Of course, there had been that brief awkward moment when they had come so close to mirroring the hug that Stoppable and Possible had shared when Shego and Ron had infiltrated the Lowardian spaceship. They were running towards each other, arms outstretched, nearly enveloping the other in an embrace before realizing how close they were, and what they were doing, and self-consciously pulled away. A year ago they would have never done that. If he had come within two feet near her, she would have blasted him, and if she got too close to him he would jump away, rant, or yell, or a combination thereof. After Cousin Larry had defeated Dementor she remembered how his chin had come so close to resting on her shoulder as he had bent over to read the article as she held the paper.

They had become more familiar around each other. Maybe that was just natural after working together and practically living together for so long. Still, to follow this train of thought much farther led to disturbing ideas... It had to be the sun getting to her.

They managed to hit land at 11 and sneaked across the borders just before noon, pleasing Shego that they hadn't arrived later than when she had wanted. It was another hour-long stint to a large city that had been minimally damaged and mostly repaired. At a swanky hotel she managed to persuade a rather venal desk clerk at a hotel to give them two rooms and ignore their disheveled appearance (she still had a faded streak of lube across her forehead), leading her to be very thankful her well-stocked super-secret Swiss accounts hadn't been tampered with in the global chaos. Even if Dr. D was being honored by COWUN, they were still criminals and it never hurt to ensure anonymity.

She still wasn't sure how she felt about all of this. She stood in the doorway, a week after they had arrived at the hotel, watching as Drakken scribbled away furiously, his chair and waste basket covered by crumpled balls of paper. He had acknowledged to COWUN that he would be at the ceremony and was now desperately trying to pen down some sort of short speech since she had made it quite clear the previous day that if he started ranting she would come up and drag him offstage and put him back in jail herself.

Sure, she had fixed the hovercar and brought him here mainly so that he could do this; after these long, long years of failure she could hardly deny him his moment of glory. For most of those years, she had been the one to most severely berate him for the failures and demand a success. To deny his one and only successful scheme was diving farther into hypocrisy than was comfortable, even for her.

Still, for him to acknowledge openly and be thanked internationally for saving the planet would do, and could do, nothing for her reputation. She might as well announce to the world that she had once been a superhero- a secret she had hidden so well that even Nerdlinger hadn't been able to find it until Kim met Team Go in a completely unrelated set of circumstances.

For his part, Drakken was no more confident. Shego's words from that morning on the beach still echoed in his thoughts, making him doubt what he was doing and throw away the speech draft, only to remember that he had bested Kim Possible. He had saved the world, not her, he was all that, not her, and he would grab another sheet of paper and start scribbling away again until the doubts froze his mind for the umpteenth time.

He continued scribbling well past the time dark had fallen. Shego had since moved to the bed where she was lying on her back. Whether or not she was asleep or just in a trance-like state of boredom was debatable. Eventually she stirred, making a very quiet little moan as she rose and stretched. "Dr. D, time to take a break." No response. She snapped her fingers right in front of his face. "Dr. D!"

He jumped, "Who-?! Wha-?! Where-?! Huh? Shego!"

She smirked, "Come on Dr D, you've been writing for so long that I'm getting writer's cramp just looking at you." She leaned over and grabbed the latest version of the speech. "Bestest? Gee Doc, do you think you're the 'most smartest'?"

"Very funny, Shego. I'm not an Englist."

"Linguist."

"Stop that!" He snatched the paper back, crumpled it, and tossed it with the others.

"Whatever. Just hurry up and put these on." She tossed a bundle of black fabric at him.

"What?"

"Well you can't go up and give a speech in your lab coat, and I'm a thief, remember? But I don't feel like attracting police attention for once so we're doing old-school cat burglar style."

"But why am I coming?" he whined.

"So you can try things on of course. Now hurry up. I want to be out of here by 1:30." She left him as he gaped open mouthed at the clock that now announced that it was 1:24 AM, instead of the 5:37 PM that it had displayed last time he had looked at it.

Just as he came out of the bathroom, tugging slightly at the hem of the long-sleeve black shirt, there was a sharp rap on the French doors that led to a very small balcony. Then the door slid open and Shego walked in. She too was dressed all in black; pants and a shirt as opposed to a one-piece catsuit. She scanned him over critically and then nodded her satisfaction. "Very well, Doc. That'll do well enough. There's barely any security where we're headed."

"How do you know?"

"I cased it the past two nights," she said in the attitude of someone explaining some to a very slow five-year-old. "Now let's go." He headed towards the door. "Uh, Doc, where are you going?"

He turned towards her, the pointed at the main door with a confused expression, "Aren't we going-?"

She sighed, "Doc, do you really want to go out in the lobby dressed like that? The night clerk's a stern one and I can't bribe him as easily as the day one. Now come on." He followed her to the balcony.

"Shego, how are we-?"

"Balcony hopping, doy. Just follow me, and whatever you do, don't slip and don't let go." He looked down the 14 stories to the ground and cringed. Shego noticed his reluctance and hopped down from where she was standing on the balcony wall. "Come on, Doc." She laid a hand on his arm. "Just take it one jump at a time and don't look down. Just like climbing the jungle gym at recess." She offered him a small smile, and he gulped and nodded. They paused for a moment, then quickly backed away, her hand falling to her side and the smile vanishing. "Yeah.. come on."

She took it slowly, and to her surprise, he actually did quite well. His vine also offered assistance by wrapping around the nearest protrusion, once preventing him from slipping and falling to the asphalt. Eventually they made it down, and then it was a quick run down a couple alleys, and they reached the security door that, instead of breaking with her plasma, Shego neatly picked. After all, it wouldn't do for the savior of humanity to be caught robbing a clothing store a week before his award ceremony. For this theft she wanted as minimal police involvement as possible, and even less evidence. Creating a loop in the the security camera feed was just as easy.

They sneaked through the dark store to the men's section. Shego browsed around the racks with incredible nonchalance until she had picked out a large pile of clothing. "The changing room is over there. Try everything on. Anything that doesn't fit, leave outside the door." She shoved him in the direction of the rooms.

Once he was gone she went over to the women's section. There was no way she was wearing her catsuit, and she was even less inclined to wear the dress she had used to fool Martin Smarty. When Shego was done, she slipped back to the men's section and knocked on the stall door. "Find anything, Dr. D?" He emerged to show off khaki pants, a button-up shirt, with a black jacket. There was one thing wrong with the whole ensemble though.

He was wearing the stupid bow tie. It looked like the same bow tie he had worn when he had tried to negotiate with Big Daddy Brotherson at the Bermuda Triangle Club. How he happened to have it, Shego didn't want to know.

"Honestly Dr. D," she groaned in frustration. "This. Needs. To. Come. Off." She spat each word out as she deftly undid the offending article. She would have burned it, except that the ashes would leave traces, so she stuck it in her pocket. Then she dragged him out to where the ties were, eyed several, held one against his shirt, put it back, pulled off another, then put it around his neck and deftly knotted it. "There."

"How did you tie that?" Drakken gasped.

She shrugged. "I dunno. You pick up weird things as you go through life. Point is, that looks much better. Go change back and bring those clothes with you." She proceeded to put back the clothes he had discarded. When he returned she threw the clothes into a sack with the items she had picked out, and they returned back to the hotel the same way, Drakken's vine being of immense help in hoisting him to the next level when he simply couldn't match Shego's athleticism.

As she let him back into his room she dumped his clothes into his arms. "Get some sleep Dr. D. Order up some room service when you wake up. We'll leave for New York late tomorrow afternoon..." And then she was gone, as if she had been made of smoke.