Breathe Again
The good news is, he's landed in a tree. Not that it felt very good coming down, but it sure beat slamming into, say, concrete at sixty miles an hour.
The bad news is - he's landed in a tree. And he has no idea how to get down. Is it just his destiny to be stuck in trees or something?
He scowls up at the birds a few branches above who have the nerve to sing and be happy. Nobody has the right to be happy anymore. The world is ruined.
Kim Possible must have called the cops by now, and they'll come and take him back to jail for the rest of his life. Not that he's sure how much longer the rest of his life is going to be. It feels hard to breathe, like someone put a stone on his chest or something.
So he drags in a couple ragged breaths, glaring at the setting sun. It's too pretty. The whole day should be gray and gloomy and pouring down rain. How can the world go on when he feels so - so - he gropes for a word - broken? Like he's been shattered into thousands of tiny pieces and no one will ever, ever be able to put him back together again?
All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Drakken together again.
But the world can go on without him, he's seen. Kim Possible, Shego, that buffoon whose name he could never remember . . . none of them seemed to be the least bit bothered by his absence. Is he that unimportant? Does he matter that little to the world? How can it keep turning without him?
Once it's in my grasp, he reminds himself, they'll never dare to forget me again!
But there's not much chance of that anymore. Kim Possible even defeated Warmonga - Warmonga who was so big and strong and fierce. Maybe - maybe she really is all that.
If she's all that, what does that make him? Now it's really hard to breathe.
"Drakken!"
He freezes to the spot. He'd know that voice anywhere. Things either just got a whole lot better or a whole lot worse.
He chances a glance over the limb. Yep, it's Shego, and she looks angry. He draws his knees up to his chest and covers his eyes with his hands, not even daring to peek out. If he can't see her, she can't see him.
"Don't try to hide, Drakken. I can see you up there." Her voice is dead. No emotion at all.
If only he could be so lucky. He knows the tremble in his voice gives him away. "Go away! I hate you!"
"Yeah, so you've said." Shego flings her hair back. "Get your backside down here."
"No!" He squirms on the branch, feeling like there are bugs down his pants.
She sighs. Loudly. "Are you just being a brat, or are you stuck?"
"Both!" He lifts his chin up as far as he can and folds his arms over his squeezed-in chest.
"Then stay up there, for all I care. I just came to make sure you're alive."
His chest presses tighter. "Why do you care?"
He sees her shrug. "You know, I might be mentioned in your will or something."
"Well, you're not!" he spits back. He can feel burning in the tip of his nose, like he's going to sneeze, or maybe just cry. "Anything I left to you now goes to Commodore Puddles!"
"Drakken." Shego's voice goes sharp. "I'm not real fond of you right now either. You tried to have me killed by an alien woman with hero worship issues, remember?"
No. No. No. This isn't supposed to happen. "I wasn't going to kill you, Shego," he manages to choke out. "You know I wasn't."
"Uh-huh. Sure." He can practically hear her eyes rolling.
Anger bubbles up inside him. What does she think he is, some kind of monster?
You're not a monster, a guard in prison said when he was having a bad day. Well, they'd all been bad days in prison. But you got one inside you, and you gotta quit feeding it.
"I wasn't! Warmonga had you unconscious and asked me what I wanted to do with you! If I wanted you dead, you'd be dead!" The reality of that hits him, and his stomach yowls.
"Then why? Why'd you even do the darn thing in the first place?" Shego's voice sounds impatient, like it's tapping its toe. "Tell me!"
"Because," he gasps out, "I thought you were my friend, and you left me in jail. You broke out and you never came for me. You trashed my home and spray-painted that I was a loser. You hurt me - and - and I wanted you to hurt, too! I'm just sick of being the only one who ever hurts!"
By now, his throat is so thick he can barely breathe, and he can feel hot blotches on his face, but he's not crying. No way is he crying. He must have used up all his tears in prison when Lucre wasn't looking.
There's a long silence. No sound from Shego. She must have left him to his fate.
He whirls around and looks into a pair of hard green eyes. Shego's right next to him on the branch.
"I must be crazy," she mutters. "Absolutely, utterly crazy."
"What are you doing?" His voice drifts high, floats away.
"I'm getting you down, brainchild." She holds out a hand. "Here, grab on."
"No!" He scrambles away, nearly toppling over. "You'll throw me down and kill me!"
"Drakken." Shego's eyes narrow. "If I wanted you dead, you'd be dead. I woulda already thrown you over the side." The hand stays steady. "Now, do you want down or not?"
He takes her hand, and she drags him down.
Once his feet are on solid ground again, he looks everywhere but at Shego. She, on the other hand, he can see out of the corner of his eye, is looking right at him.
"So," she says casually, as if they're discussing the weather, "I'm going to be on vacation for the next week and a half. In the meantime, you round up the henchmen."
His chest loosens slightly. "What are me and them going to do?"
"They and I."
"What?"
"Never mind." Shego rolls her eyes. "Rebuild the lair. Think up a new evil scheme. You know the drill."
A tiny, warm spot glows somewhere inside him. "I'll - I'll come up with a new scheme for world domination!" He darts his eyes at her. "And then you'll come back and make fun of it?"
Shego sighs again, even heavier this time. "Yeah. Then I'll come back and make fun of it."
"Thank you!" he yelps. The world has righted itself. Everything is as it should be again! The happiness inside him is so overwhelming he grabs her hands and bounces up and down.
Shego yanks her hands away. "You drive me crazy."
She walks away. And he can breathe again.