Dark.

Deep down in dark.

Like floating but with unfathomable pressure pinning her to the abyss.

"His medulla oblongata tells her brain stem that she's gotta…"

She had been to this place before. Sort of. Usually during the harder missions. But back then when she plunged there were shimmering lines of light leading her home. But this was just black. Totally directionless. All consuming.

"Send an impulse of data, which creates a lotta pain!"

Was she dead? There was a voice singing that most certainly wasn't hers.

It was — cheery?

Who could possibly be happy right now? Her life just imploded in a matter of hours.

Life — she really wished she could just die. Perish as a hack, a loser who couldn't take the pressure anymore. It'd make her easier to forget about.

"Her front lobe gets busy with a thought that makes her dizzy, puts her cortex in a tizzy, so she never vill complain!"

A white light came into focus, a blur then clear and real, rapidly growing with time.

She wasn't ready.

"That's vhat I love about the Brain!"

?: Paris, France (? District)
October ?, 2007: ?:?

"Professor Dementor?"

"ACK!"

Professor Dementor was stooped over her, thread caught between his teeth, her own body curled against a bed, stomach hot, like it was cauterized. Before she could take in any more details, a fist decked her so hard that she fell back into darkness.


Kim awoke later, body sinking into the cushion of a queen sized bed, back propped up against a mountain of pillows. She scanned the room fast and found herself in the lap of luxury. A massive loft that seemed more hotel than home, but it was too lived in to be that.

She made to get up but a searing pain from her abdomen forced her back down.

She winced, trying to calculate what the heck had brought her to this place. Wherever it was.

Boy drag. Bermuda Triangle. Towtruck. Bad guys. Bonnie. Kiss. Stab. Vomit. Blood. Boom. Du. Handcuffs. Shego.

Right.

Up to speed.

Groaning, she pulled back the blanket and gasped at the sight of a scar that ran across her abdomen like a canyon did to a map. She ran a finger across the surface and twitched as her prints brushed over sutures. It was then that she caught herself panting.

While she couldn't see it, her warm skin tone had paled, body hollow from what felt like days without food or water. She spotted a tray besides her and immediately plowed into it, guzzling down water while tearing the tinfoil sheet off her breakfast: fried eggs and bacon with toast. It was the most delicious thing she had since she moved to Paris.

It wasn't until she was wiping the crumbs off her lap that she saw the note.

"Hey champ. Demenz says sorry about smacking you; he panicked evidently. Surgery's new for him. If you ever go back to heroing, Kimmie, I'd highly recommend nixing the crop-top look." - S

Shego's Loft: Paris, France (? District)
October ?, 2007: ?:?

It wasn't before long that Kim's energy left her and she plunged right back into the darkness, this time with a little more security.

The shrill shout of a black cat was the next thing to pull Kim back into the life. It took far too long to process what the creature was. She backed into the pillows and curled her fingers behind the feline's ears. Evidently, it had taken a liking to her lap while she slept.

She looked around for any signs of change and saw none. It was impossible to tell how long had it had been since she passed out. A few hours? A day? Days?

"What's wrong buddy?" Kim smiled.

The cat moaned again, a distant look in her eyes as she gazed out the window.

Kim switched to a chin rub and found it much more effective. She could feel the purring in her own chest. "You hungry? Me too. Let's get some food."

Getting up from bed so fast quickly made her go light-headed. She wanted to sit back down but the cat had taken the initiative, feet pattering across the floor as it lead her over to the food bowl. A demanding meow this time. Not wanting to disappoint, Kim trudged along.

Meow meow meow.

Kim chuckled and reached up to the cupboard over the bowl and found the cat food with ease. The second her hand wrinkled the plastic, the cat trilled and began popping figure eights at her angles. Never having taken care of a pet, she poured an arbitrary amount of dry food into the bowl. The trilling stopped and the cat shoved her head into the bowl.

Kim's smile faded fast. "Hello? Anyone home?" Nothing but echoes.

What caught her eye next was the stunning view of Paris she had from the window. So many roofs with such regal architecture, lively trees wavering in the wind. She could see for miles.

Shego's Loft: Paris, France (6th District)
October ?, 2007: ?:?

Not wanting to waste time, Kim rushed to the door and tried to open it. But no matter how she fiddled away with the locks, the heavy slab of wood wouldn't budge. Shoulders sagging, she checked for anything that could be helpful right now. But the only technology was a clock. No television, no radio, no phone, no nothing.

"Dang," Kim ran her fingers through her hair. "Think Kim, think — "

A little head bumped against her ankle. Kim stooped down and found another little gray cat. He looked morosely over to the food bowl where the black cat was trying to push the head of a tabby away, the bowl too small for both of them.

"How many cats does she have?"

She tried climbing out the window but it was way too dangerous with her total lack of equipment — plus her poor health. So she made the most of it, quickly falling into a regular schedule. Wake up, feed cats, eat, litter box, read, work out, play, read, work out, play, eat, cat stuff, clean, sleep.

The routine developed fast and she quickly learned to tell time (roughly) by looking up at the sky. For instance, on the fourth day she looked up to the sky and found the sun shining at an extremely sharp angle that just skimmed along the Seine, popping along like a skipping stone.

Shego's Loft: Paris, France (6th District)
October x + 4, 2007: 6:31AM

The cats got plenty of play time out of her. All of them seemed a little worse for wear, some of them with holes in their ears, others with malformed paws. Each had strong personalities, the cats all emerging as individuals by the end of the second day, although she still could not keep track of how many there were. At least seven. It felt like a new one popped up every day.

Each cat was as different as Shego was to Ron. Or more like — Shego and Frugal Lucre. Ron actually had a spine.

Sometimes she felt sad about Ron. She wished she could call him — but even that might be invasive. Dumping all your feelings onto someone is unhealthy and while she really did not want to mind meld with him that day at the bar, it felt akin to a drunk dial.

The bulk of her days were spent brushing up on her reading. For whatever reason, she was floored by Shego's hyper feminist collection of lit. Stuff like Kate Chopin's The Awakening, Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar, and Virginia Woolf's Orlando. She even had Audre Lorde's Zami: A New Spelling of My Name. It was nice to read and for a little bit, she could pretend that she wasn't holed up in some strange apartment with no human contact.

After a particularly rough work-out session abruptly ended with rage, her filthy clothes holding her back from doing anything physical, Kim worked up the courage to trash those rags and use Shego's shower. Of course the green lady only had the finest selection of toiletries and after an hour Kim emerged from the steam a new woman.

Not willing to wear the vomit stained and bloody suit again, Kim wrapped herself up in a towel and prepared herself for — well, anything — and stepped into Shego's room.

Expecting some sort of doomsday trap to kill her upon entering, Kim was relieved that the only unusual thing about the room was that Shego lived like the one percent. Really, this loft was a palace.

Kim peeled back outfit after outfit, disturbed by the steep price tags that had to have been attached to all these outfits at one point. After some time passed, she settled for a butch look with flannel and jeans.

Each day, Kim tried a new makeup and outfit combination. For the first time since Graduation, Kim was really feeling herself.

Bubblegum pink lipstick matched her eye shadow, eyeliner curling into cat ears. Hair elegantly curled into neat waves, much of the volume pinned back into a bun that was hidden from sight by the long locks. A navy blouse over a stiff white dress shirt, checker-print skirt pulled up past her stomach, Kim lounged on the couch, reading Sylvia Plath's Ariel.

She was a few poems away from finishing the collection when her solitude came to an end.

Rattle rattle. Click.

Turn turn turn click.

Slide.

Click click click ca-chink.

Ding ding ding ding beeeeep.

Rattle rattle rattle rattle click.

Meow meow meow meow meow meow wait. Only six cats.

The door creaked open and snapped like a mousetrap as Shego's boot lifted one of her cats by the tummy, dropping him away from the exit. Blazer flung over her shoulder, she frowned deeply at the sight of Kim in her clothes. "How you feeling, Princess?"

"Good," Kim slapped the poetry collection to the glass table and slid in a bookmark before getting up. "Where were you? What's going on? Why am I here and not — "

"Ugh, one at a time, you're stressing me out," Shego shook her head, dropping the blazer to the floor and marching over to the sink. "I was in Spain. Big Daddy needed me out there for some crud you'd rather not know about."

Kim crossed her arms. "I think I do want to know — and what?! Big Daddy? Like — Brotherson? I thought you worked for Drakken. Are you not — "

Shego whirled around and pressed an index finger to Kim's lips, other fingers flapping across her temple. "Oy, seriously. Slow down. I've been in Europe because Doctor D planted me here. Gave me a list of jobs — still doin' 'em actually but he stopped taking messages from me a few weeks ago. So I figured I'd pick up a new hustle just in case we are done."

"Why are you telling me all this?"

"Because you obviously already knew that."

"Fair," Kim arched an eyebrow. "Did you have anything to do with the weather machine in Algeria?"

"What?" Shego slipped a very old piece of pizza from the fridge and chomped on it. "Nah. What are you talking about?"

"Got it, um, okay," Kim frowned. Her mind sorted through the jumble to find a tangible question but so much was buzzing through her at once.

"So are you like some kind of lesbian now?" Shego observed, the crust of the pizza sticking out of her mouth like a cigar.

Kim blushed again and grabbed her shoulders. "Do — do I read as one?"

"Uh, yeah, high femme, I see it," Shego said. "Listen, you're queer, it's cool. But I don't want to get mixed up in your young dyke adv—"

"Shego!" Kim shrieked with much scandalization.

"Whaaat? We're reclaiming the word!"

"Wait — so — so — so you're — "

"Doy," Shego stuck her tongue out. "I'm just saying I see how you look at me and you need to take a cold shower or something. So not interested."

She was in fact not interested in Shego but something about the comment made her feel very small.

Shego continued, "But if you want a role model, sure! I'm queer. I'm here."

Kim's heartbeat was rapid. "Thanks."

"Not the first time a queer kid has been kicked out of their house ya know."

Like a knife to her heart.

"What?! Oh no — m-my parents — they didn't — "

"No! Not them," Shego laughed, digging her hands into deep pockets. "I'm talking about the world."

Her legs felt weak.

"Princess, getting wasted and trying to make out with a straight girl before blowing up a really well known bar is a bad look."

"Straight?! She — kissed — me — first!"

"Uh huh," Shego drawled. "People don't know that though — and besides, you beat up that Global Justice twerp and have crazy magic powers now, riiiiiiiiight?"

Shego's eyes searched deep into Kim and her defenses immediately collapsed. "I lied about that to protect Ron. I just want him to stay safe — seeing how he doesn't even want those powers anymore. I thought I was about to die so it seemed like a good idea at the time."

"Mm, got it," Shego picked scraps of dried cheese from her teeth. "You okay by the way? You had like a death wish thing going on. It was kinda spooky. I mean, it's been three weeks but — "

Shego's Loft: Paris, France (6th District)
October 22, 2007: 2:43PM

" — ya never know. Sorry I have to ask."

Kim shrugged. "I mean yeah, I'm pretty down. Your books have been helping though — "

"Oh my God you are so gay," Shego laughed.

Kim cringed. "I'm bi, I think. I don't know. I mean — I got nothing. I lost all my friends, I have no money — or belongings now I guess. I'm homeless and the world probably hates me." She managed a laugh. "Should I be sadder?"

"Eh, your life was kinda boring anywho, but hey, I need you to sit down," Shego motioned for Kim to lean into the armchair while she took the couch. "You understand you broke the law — a lot, right?"

"Um — y-yeah," Kim scratched her head. "Unintentionally but — "

"They don't care about that. Listen. I would have liked to get you into a hospital that night, okay? But it didn't work out."

Kim nodded slowly. "B-but, why? My parents have amazing health insurance."

Shego squeezed the bridge of her nose.

"Kimmie, you're wanted in every country in the world."