So I'm back with an emotional chapter (you're welcome). Uhm... I think it best I talk in the bottom. Big news down there!

So forward march.

Chapter Twenty-Four
Attribute of the Strong

"And it'll be fully functional soon?"

"Yes," Shego answered. "The main systems will be on tonight. Tomorrow morning you can turn on the rest, once it's done rebooting." She let out a bored sigh. "You've already paid me, so if you have any trouble with it, call. I'm leaving."

Without another word, she turned from the man and exited the building. She hadn't felt well for the last couple of days and, despite despising doing so, had spent quite a bit of her time sleeping. It was simply easier that way. It kept her from going back to Kim; she was convinced she'd ruined Kim's life. Shego felt a wave of guilt every time she thought of the redhead. Nausea sat in the back of her throat with each wave of guilt, indistinguishable from the want to scream and cry like a child because of how unfair it was that something like that green pigment was now etched into Kim's skin.

Shego was internally distraught. The only time that showed on the outside was when her plasma flared up due to her losing focus. The first time, right after leaving Kim's that day, Shego had visited an old quarry outside Go City. It was one of the only places she knew that wouldn't go up in flames if she lost some control there.

But she was so sick of green. Every time she saw green now, she could only think of what she had done to Kim. And now she was avoiding Kim and probably ruining the only decent friendship she had enjoyed in years. She hated herself for it.

Despite this, Shego ignored her phone as it went off in her purse, the muffled sound of Lilly Allen's voice reaching her ears. More guilt washed over her as the call ended and, she was sure, another voice mail was left. She had tried listening to the first one Kim had left, but had nearly burnt her phone in anger at herself.

It would be so much better if Kim was angry. If Kim was angry with Shego, Shego could deal with it. Anger was something she knew well. But Kim's instant forgiveness was something she didn't understand. Normal people didn't do that, normal people held grudges! But, that was assuming Kim was normal.

This guilt that sat in Shego only made her that much more aware of the fear she had of losing Kim. Couple that with her anxiety over actually doing something, and she was lost. What if she did answer Kim's calls? Would everything turn out okay? Or would she cause Kim to be hurt again? What if she answered and Kim said she never wanted to see her again? Shego was baffled that she simultaneously wanted that to happen, but she also wanted to stay at Kim's side.

But at that point, Shego decided her decision was not to decide.

Kim woke with a cry. Nightmares had tortured her once more and the agony plaguing her stomach was all too real. She groped at the nightstand on the side of her bed in an effort to find her pain killers. All of her last few mornings had happened the same way, and sometimes in the middle of the night. Her mom's instructions had been three or four days, but Kim was sure that she'd have to ask if the lower minimum was good enough. She decided to wait until the pain medication kicked in. She had no doubt her mother would be awake, but waiting seemed the better decision. Even if she wanted nothing more than to race out to Shego and force the damned woman back into Kim's life.

Kim sighed and grabbed pandaroo. "Pandaroo, women are trouble." Pandaroo said nothing in reply. "Well, you're no help. Aren't you supposed to give me advice or something? You know, to help me keep this ferociously out of my league woman as my best friend?" Still Pandaroo was silent. "No help at all."

She pressed her face against the stuffed animal and let out a frustrated yell. After a moment, she pulled her face away. "I should call mom, huh?" she asked the beast. Ignoring pandaroo's silence (though if pandaroo did speak, she probably would've thrown him out the window), Kim grabbed her phone.

Her mother answered the phone on the third ring. "Good morning, Kimmie. How are you today?"

"Anxious," Kim admitted. "And pandaroo isn't helping."

"Talking to pandaroo, huh? You must be troubled."

Kim bit here lip and cut to the chase. "So, can I go to Shego?"

Anne let out a sympathetic sigh. "I'm sure you can, but I want to stop over before work. That way I can be certain you're on your way to healing. I'm actually almost at your apartment now."

"You can just come in when you get here."

No more than ten minutes later, Anne arrived at Kim's apartment. "How are you feeling?" was one of her first questions.

"Mentally or physically?"

"Both are very important," Anne replied. "So if you can answer both…" she trailed off, intending for Kim to speak after.

"Physically, okay. It just aches a bit. Mentally, well like I said earlier, anxious. A little angry, honestly. I thought she'd be smarter than to react like this. She won't even answer my phone calls and I—" her voice cracked. She coughed before trying again. "I do not need ano, another Ron." Anger, closer to rage, flared up in her but after a sigh, she reined it in until it became a soft sadness that she could suppress. "I don't know what I'll do if she won't talk to me." Running away sounds nice, though. Be anyone but me? That's what I feel like lately… Kim laid back, allowing her mother at the bandage.

"She'll talk. She's just scared that she hurt you. But she's scared she's going to lose you because of it."

Kim let out a huff. "If she doesn't want to lose me, why won't she answer the phone?" She cringed as Anne cleaned the edges of the wound.

"Sorry, Kimmie-cub. I'm almost done."

"Can I go find her?" Kim couldn't stand the thought of waiting longer.

Anne gave Kim a long look. "If you take your time getting there and go easy on yourself. Try not to get too stressed." She placed a new bandage over the injury and sighed. "I wish I knew how to make things a little easier on you, sweetheart."

Slowly, Kim pushed herself up. "I'm fine, mom. I'll get it together. I mean… I'm Kim Possible, right? I can, I can do anything!" Anne didn't miss the hesitation in her daughter's voice, but she let Kim believe she had.

She leaned forward and placed a kiss on Kim's forehead. "You can. Which is why you're going to go get your friend back. Just be sure to call me later. Alright?"

A nod from Kim. "Yeah."

Kim wasn't sure what time it was when she pulled up outside Shego's building. Music blasted from the radio, loud, angry, and oh so motivating for Kim; "You're gonna listen to what I say this time! Shut up, shut up, shut up! Shut your fucking mo—" Kim switched the music off. She needed to be angry. Angry could keep her going long enough to get inside. Long enough for her to forget her anxieties. And then she'd be honest about it.

The main thing was getting to Shego first.

Standing in front of Shego's door, Kim took a deep breath and knocked. She had already decided what to do if she didn't get an answer. It was an incredibly Shego-esque thing to do, but she didn't care. Kim planned on breaking in. Of course, this was technically "Plan C" for her, though her Plan B was close enough. Sure enough, there was no answer. Kim frowned, but tried plan B. It was simple, easy, and always seemed overlooked in similar situations.

She tried to open the door.

The handle turned with no resistance and she pushed the door open. Shego must be out of her mind, to forget to lock the door… Kim bit her lip and entered. "Shego?" Her voice seemed to echo through the apartment, but there was, once again, no answer. Kim wandered through the duplex until she found Shego's bedroom upstairs. Shego was curled up under the sheets despite it being midday. Seeing her friend sleeping so seemingly peaceful, Kim's inner turmoil nearly calmed. Nearly, but not quite.

She sat on the end of the bed and crossed her arms. "Shego," she spoke louder. "Wake up." It took only a few more prompts in such a style before Shego opened her eyes, slowly at first, until she realized Kim was there. She bolted up right before pushing herself away from Kim.

Her voice was slow and raspy. "What are you doing here, Princess?"

"Finding you! You know I do miss you when you're not around, right? And you're insane if you think I'd let you sit here in your pity party."

Shego only looked down at her blankets. "Why bother?"

Kim huffed. "Why bothe-, Shego! You're my friend! I enjoy spending time with you. You saved my life. I can go on but you're smart enough to see I want you in my life."

"Let me rephrase," Shego said in an obviously still tired huff. "Don't bother. You'll survive happily longer that way." She was avoiding Kim's eyes at all costs.

"Uh, no, I don't think I will. If you remember, I needed you to fucking save my life!" Shego turned her head away. Kim let out a sigh. Her voice was softer now. "Shego, why does it bother you so much? So I've got a little green now. It doesn't bother me. But what problem do you have?"

Shego wasn't sure how to respond. They were at a stalemate. Shego had this horrible inability to speak and Kim had a fire raging behind her eyes. "I.. it's… It's hard to explain."

"Try." Kim's voice nearly cracked. Her mind was still focused on what might happen if she couldn't get through to Shego.

Shego remained silent.

Full of pent up frustration, Kim let out an annoyed noise and whirled around, her feet making harsh noises as she exited the door. Instead of heading in the direction of the exit, though, she turned in the opposite direction. When she didn't return a few minutes later, Shego forced herself up to go and find Kim.

She found Kim in the gym room. She had wrapped her hands and was taking out her frustrations on the punching bag Shego had hung in the corner. Alarm flared in the older woman. She was quick to place herself between Kim and the punching bag, catching Kim's first in a gentle grip. "Don't… don't hurt yourself…"

Kim gave her a dirty look and pulled her hands away. "Move."

"No."

"Then tell me why." More silence. "Then move."

"I'm not going to let you hurt yourself, Princess."

"Fucking move, Shego, I need-" her voice cracked and she silenced it, no longer trusting it to hold steady.

"You need take it easy; you're going to hurt yourself."

In her mind, Kim had already lost Shego. Shego wouldn't talk to her, wouldn't tell her what was wrong… So the rest didn't really matter. "And why would you care? You won't talk to me, you won't answer my calls, you won't be around me…" Kim wouldn't look Shego in the eye

"Why would I… Kimmie, it's because I care that I'm doing those things. You don't need me. I may have saved you once, but if I hang around, you're going to get hurt."

"I don't need- To hell with that! You're the only friend I've been able to be around lately! And now you're just repeating what Ron did, just for different reasons!" She rubbed her hands over her face, silently persuading herself not to cry. Tears of frustration and fear hid behind her eyes with very little stopping them from flowing. "I need you. You're all that's kept me sane lately."

Shego could see the shake in her own hands. "I'm not good for you and you know it."

"No, you're under the… the delusion that for whatever reason you're going to hurt me. I'm already hurt! It's worse when you don't talk to me, okay? So…" Tears, hot and horrible and altogether unsavoury, began to fall from her eyes. "So if you really don't want to be around me anymore, can we at least talk first? That way I can at least have some, some sort of closure…"

The look on Kim's face hit Shego like an eight wheeler driven by a homicidal Mickey-mouse. A long time ago—years, maybe, when they first met, when it was hate that burned in Shego—the sight might have been comical to her. But now it just took something innocent, and in Kim's case, something flawless, and massacred it.

Looking at Kim's face, every bit of logic and reasoning that Shego had used to convince herself that she should stay away from Kim disappeared. "Kimmie, I…" She barely realized she had stepped closer, or that she had placed her hands on Kim's face, using her thumbs to brush away the tears. "Princess, look at me… I'm no good for you. I never handle shit like this well… You bring out a crap ton of emotion out of me, okay? And my plasma gets harder to control when I'm emotional." Shego took a deep, shuddering breath. "The only reason I used my plasma on you was to make sure you'd stay alive. And when I—" kissed you, she had been about to say, but couldn't. Kim couldn't know about it. "—got you to the hospital, I just… I nearly lost it. And after that, all I could think was I could've lost control near you. Hurt you with my plasma… I, I couldn't…" Shego fell silent.

"I'd forgive you," Kim managed to croak. Her hands were hovering on Shego's wrists. "You know I'd forgive you right? You didn't ask for your powers… You're my friend. Accidents happen. I wouldn't care…"

"You might forgive me, but I wouldn't. I could never forgive myself for something like that. I already can't forgive myself for what's already happened…"

Kim pulled Shego's hands from her face but then wrapped her in a hug. Her tears were less now, but still fell. "I don't care about what's happened. I don't care that I've got some green skin. I just need you to stay my friend, okay?" Her fingers dug into Shego's back, keeping the embrace strong. "I need someone around to, to keep me from going crazy. Please." Kim's voice was soft, barely a breath. "Please."

"Why aren't you angry?" Shego managed to ask. "If someone did something like that to me…" But then her mind flashed to her scars; the area on her upper back that looked as though lighting had struck it, leaving a crisscross of fine lines branching out from one central area of initial damage: from when Kim kicked her into the tower. It was the same sort of mark: brutally damaging and physically altering. Shego wasn't angry about it. But she had her reasons.

"I, I am angry, just not for the green," Kim answered, her voice wavering. "I'm angry you didn't answer my phone calls. That you ignored me. I told you… I don't care about the green."

Shego just clung to Kim tighter. "I'm so sorry," she whispered. "I'm so sorry…" Kim was too good for her, she was sure.

Still, she wouldn't tell Kim about the scars.

Okay, so there we are. No, they aren't together yet. We're in this for the long haul, alrighty?

I was really tempted to use a forgiveness quote by Reinhold Niebuhr, but there's a word in it that won't be said between these two for... whew, a long while! So Gandhi's quote works too.

Okay. So there's a chance I'll split this story in two? Because I can see it getting... very, very, extremely long. There's a month or so of plot left (in story) before the biggest plot point until the next biggest one pops up (like forever after it). I'll update you all on if there's any progress on that decision.

At this point they're just dancing around each other.

Thanks for reading!