Sorry not sorry for delay. (SHRUG) I moved somewhat unexpectedly and it's been exhausting, now winter weather's probably gonna affect the next update.

Anyway, just a liiittle more shenanigans, followed up by fluff.

17. The Nature Of – part5

Letting her heavy eyelids fall shut wasn't a conscious decision. It just sort of happened. She didn't know when it happened. Maybe after a town or two, an hour tops, after she'd strained for too long to keep her eyes peeled for the telltale flashes of red and blue in pursuit. The barren wasteland stretched on forever and the ambience of the engine and wheels on pavement had a lulling effect, as did the monotonous desert highway in the headlights with no end in sight.

She was only vaguely aware of a hand on her shoulder, a light jostle she refused to wake up to. She unbuckled her seatbelt instead, patting around for a lever to drop the seat back before giving up and lying down across the bench instead. She tucked her knees up between her and the backrest, surrendering to fatigue as she curled up. It didn't feel completely safe, but she was safe enough and too tired to care. There were fingers in her hair that weren't her own and then something pressing to the sore spot on her temple, where blood left her hair crusted and matted, but she didn't argue with the feather-light touch.

It wasn't totally pitch black outside anymore when her eyes cracked open again, but it was dark enough to know it was still the dead of the night. Faint light like passing traffic pulsed dimly through the car. She was reluctant to come round as she heard the crunch of gravel, and after a moment she deemed it couldn't be Drakken drifting off the road, because everything was still. The engine wasn't even idling. A draft blew in from the busted back window, and the seats were hard and cold, and Drakken couldn't have been driving because he was snoring somewhere nearby.

Shego was just warm enough as long as she didn't move, but she couldn't help shifting in a hopeless effort to get comfortable. The soft material under her cheek certainly wasn't the leather upholstery, and for a moment she might have assumed the firm improvised pillow was just her backpack. But her backpack wasn't remotely comfortable or smooth – it was full of junk food, blocky cigarette cartons, and her boots and wadded uniform.

She almost jumped when her eyes wandered up and fixed blearily on the man above her. Despite the leap of her heart, she didn't jerk her aching head away from the lap she'd come to rest it on. She dropped her stare back down quickly to focus on his belt just inches from her nose.

Her head really hurt. She bit her chapped lip and skewed her eyes shut as she reached up for the injury in reflex. A cloth was found stuck to the dried blood in her hair, and she recognized the soft fabric of the hankie Drakken used for his glasses.

She pried her eyes open again to look up at him. Slack-jawed and snoring, he wasn't exactly her definition of sleeping beauty, but he was a sight to behold nonetheless, slumped awkwardly against the car door with his white dress shirt filthy and necktie loosened, tangled ponytail flopped over one shoulder, and his glasses askew on his face. She supposed her state couldn't have been much better, as she was just as dirty, if not more so, considering the dried blood that cracked on the side of her face as she yawned.

Dazed, she stared back up at the peculiar shifting of light flickering lazily through the cab above her.

Finally it registered.

Her heart dropped the instant before a light flooded in through Drakken's window to blind her, followed by a knock on the glass. She squinted and blocked it out with a hand, muttering a curse as she recoiled.

A voice of warning in her head droned, "No sudden movements." Or maybe that was the officer outside. She really couldn't be sure as she blinked away the disorienting fog of fatigue and slumber.

There was no need to guess who was behind the flashlight presently being shined mercilessly in her face. Not when the lights of a cruiser were flickering through the windows too. "I'm going to have to ask you to step out of the vehicle," came an almost-polite order from the voice beyond the light.

Drakken's head lolled and he jolted awake a second later. "Huh – wha'? What time is it?" The hour wasn't really crucial at the moment, but Shego wasn't surprised it was the first thing out of his mouth.

"About a quarter till three AM, sir," informed the policeman graciously, and stepped aside as he repeated the order for Drakken. "Please exit the vehicle. You're under arrest."

"Busted," Shego hissed quietly through her teeth as she slowly lifted herself upright. The word passing her lips sent a strange shiver down her spine she knew didn't belong there, but to hell with it. She'd better get used to it. She might have even found the excitement pleasing if her skin weren't prickling in alarm now at the fact the flashlight jerked as the officer stepped back in response to her movement. She was positive another damn gun was pulled on her – or about to be – she just couldn't see it because she was still being blinded by a flashlight.

"Augh! Sheg—Shilo," whined Drakken, flicking a bewildered look across to her. "What did you do?"

"Me?" she blurted.

Yeah, okay. So maybe probable cause was all on her. Unless the one who'd bought the alcohol and abetted in a little underage drinking was to blame for her poor choices tonight – in which case, that was on him.

Drakken looked between her and the officer and back to her. She nodded. He looked to the steering wheel next – she grimaced and shook her head. She saw his fingers flex, and knew what he was thinking, but she grabbed his hand to stop him from reaching for the key in the ignition to make a run for it. Doing so was bound to only lead to even worse charges if they were caught.

When neither made a move, the officer cleared his throat for their attention. "Are either of you aware this vehicle is stolen and was involved in a robbery earlier tonight?"

"No," gasped Shego. "Get out."

"No Miranda?" wondered Drakken lightly. He rolled his head on his shoulders, feigning a carefree demeanor, but Shego could sense he was tense.

"Step out of the vehicle," ordered the officer one last time, his voice rising. "Hands up!"

Drakken's hands shot up, taking one of Shego's with it. She raised her other almost as slowly as Drakken cautiously reached for the door to pop it open. He climbed out first, and the open door revealed for a fact that the officer was brandishing a firearm. The man holstered it however as he ordered Drakken to put his hands behind his back and turn around.

Shego was just crawling out herself when Drakken was shoved against the side of the station wagon. He twisted his head to shoot a displeased glare back at the officer, his lip raised and brow knitted tight. Glasses slipping, he cursed and tipped his head back to try shifting them back into position, but it didn't help him much.

Her hands free and palms itching, Shego watched just shy of helpless as her getaway driver was handcuffed and frisked and read his rights in a tired drone. The officer lost his courteous tone as he yanked up Drakken's shirt to check his waist, commenting snidely on what he presumed was body paint or a tattoo extending past his face and neck, to which Drakken grunted irritably.

When she took a step forward, the officer's attention snapped up at her and she was ordered not to move. And then she was ordered to shut the door and put her hands on the roof. She complied, and flashed a smirk to her companion an arm's length away. He wasn't nearly so amused by it all. He glared at her, harrumphed, and scowled away to grit his teeth and bear it as he was given his pat-down.

Something about the policeman's evident belief that Dr. Drakken was the more dangerous of the two was plucking hazardously at Shego's nerves.

The officer made the mistake of crouching to check Drakken's oxfords for concealed weapons or anything incriminating. Meanwhile Shego eyed the man's gun, safely holstered. A glance up to his patrol car, lights still flickering, and she determined he was foolishly working alone tonight. During her hero career, seeing the police department so understaffed and thus shouldering the burden on her would have really ticked her off.

Her hands really itched.

They slid from the roof as she slowly leaned back, studying the careless man in uniform squatting. Completely vulnerable.

He was asking for it.

The fool was too focused on checking Drakken's socks to notice her measuring a charge of plasma in her grip. He didn't know what hit him as she swept a hand over the top of his head to discharge the ball.

"Ksssh, officer down," she jeered, speaking into her fist to mimic a radio.

Bug-eyed and jaw unhinged, Drakken gawped from her beaming face to the policeman who'd just crumpled and fell in the sand around his feet. "Did you just kill that man?" he sputtered.

"Nah. But he'll have a heck of a headache when he wakes up," she said, though she couldn't be sure she was telling the truth. The blow was nothing compared to the desperate blast she'd scrambled her brother's brains with several weeks ago, but blunt force trauma was tricky to work with. There was no certainty how much was too much. How much was fatal. All that really mattered was the pop upside the head was effective in rendering the lawman incapacitated at the very least.

She could only cross her fingers and hope for the best as she worked quickly, stripping the officer of his gun for good measure and smashing his radio under her heel for the hell of it, telling herself it might buy them time so he couldn't immediately call for backup if he came to in a minute.

"He's dead, isn't he?" Drakken uttered, craning his neck to look past her as she grabbed him by the chain links between his cuffs. Another quick charge of plasma concentrated to her fingers, hot and metal-warping, and she pinched the links apart, leaving him with two shiny bracelets but at least his wrists weren't bound together anymore.

Shego rolled her eyes. "I swear, if you throw up—"

"No, no," Drakken sputtered, waving to signal denial as she ducked back into the car through the driver's side. She swore she heard him dry heave though as he rolled the body – be it a dead body or a sleeping one – safely aside with his foot so as to not run the officer over. A courteous thought, considering he was clearly still woozy as he stumbled into the door and nearly fell completely on his side when he dropped down onto the bench.

Shego shoved him upright – just about shoving him back out in the process – but he caught himself with the door and slammed it shut. He reached to fix his socks, but a swat on the shoulder reminded him of their number one priority. The engine revved then and they were back on the road, tires spinning in the grit. She was thankful they'd stopped for gas earlier after all, even if her stunt there might have been the reason they'd been found at all.

Drakken's swerving had lessened considerably, but he drifted into the center of the highway anyway as he floored it. They were homebound. At least, Shego hoped they were. She hadn't the slightest clue where they even were – other than still in the never-ending wasteland.

To make damn sure she stayed awake on what was hopefully the last stretch, Shego rubbed her eyes and pinched her thigh to keep her peepers peeled for any sign of officers patrolling the highway for a stolen rust bucket and two convenience store thieves. It sounded like a petty enough crime the local law enforcement might let it slide without making an effort, until Shego considered the charges for assaulting an officer and running from the law should they be identified and arrested later. She might be able to slip under the radar effortlessly enough – but Drakken, the big blue sore thumb he was, might not be get away with it so easy.

"What?"

"What?" she echoed, blinking in a stupor.

"You're staring," grunted the driver as he slouched down in his seat to get comfortable. "It's rude to stare."

Face heating, she quickly tore her eyes away from him and set them back on the road. She sat on her hands in precaution, as it was just about the safest place for them right now to keep her sparkling glow from showing. She drew a deep meditative breath and focused on keeping the nervous tic under control.

After a minute, she flicked a glance over at the frowning alcoholic behind the wheel. A meek laugh escaped her as she tried to smile over at him. "That creep really put the cop in coping a feel, huh?" she jibbed, and she was pretty sure she saw him shudder.

"I'd rather not to relive the experience," he said wistfully, and reached for the radio to search for a station. "Not the first time. Won't be the last." A few back and forth twists of the dial and it was determined that nothing came in, so he grunted and snapped it off.

Shego chewed her nail for a minute. "Thought you haven't been arrested before?"

"Did I say that?" Drakken uttered with dry wit, tapping his chin as if trying to recall. When it earned a small laugh out of her, the rogue doctor flashed a crooked grin at her. "You're staring again."

Big deal. "Hey, it's your job to watch the road. Not mine," she dismissed as she turned away to dig into her go-bag packed with snacks and smokes. She hoped her cheeks weren't glowing, because they sure felt like they were. She pulled out a bottle of cream soda, cracked it open to take the first sip, and held it out in offering for her tipsy driver.

Drakken took it, but he scrutinized the label with blatant distrust of the clear soft drink. She knew he'd tried one of her sparkling waters a while back, because she'd been missing one from the twelve-pack. He must have deemed the cream soda safe enough though, because he took a swig – only to pull a face and pass it back. "Too sweet," he muttered.

"You of all people," Shego groaned with a roll of her eyes.

She slumped against the window, pulling her legs up onto the bench. She wanted to kick her sore ankle up into his lap, but thought better of it.

She soon noticed she was the one being watched, the fact made clear when Drakken drifted across the fog line and she shot a glower at him. She snapped her fingers. "Hey, hey, hey," she called. "Eyes on the road, pal."

He veered back into the lane, but she didn't miss his stare drifting back to her anyway.

It was her turn to snip, "What?"

"Nothing," he answered quickly, blinking rapidly and looking back at the road just as there was a bend to slow for. "Nothing, I just. You. You are one of a kind, you know, Shego?"

"Yes. Yes, I do know," she acknowledged with a nod. It was a little hard to forget when she had to leave her bottle of pop between her knees to sit on her hands again, the damned glow making her life difficult as always. She relaxed back against the door anyway, deciding the curse was probably worth it.

Jiminy Cricket chirped in her head as she watched cloud cover slowly blot out the stars. She didn't mean to start humming to the nostalgic melody again, because it set Drakken off. She sighed and put up with it, deciding his tired halfhearted singing at least kept her awake and filled the void left by an uncooperative radio.

The desert seemed endless, but miraculously, they did eventually find its end. Sand and parched weeds gradually gave way to a wider range of flora and fuller bushes, and rocks jutting up in black silhouettes against the night sky smoothed out to lumpy mountains as they were funneled into a pass, the highway soon running parallel to the river Shego knew must be the one that ran through town. Sparse pines flanked the road soon enough.

She swore she felt a change in the air miles before they even reached the oasis settlement – it wasn't so dry, for one. It was a little colder too, however, and with wind blowing through the car, she had to wrap her arms tight around herself, shivering slightly against the chill.

It was a relieving sight to see the glitter as they came over a hill and dropped back down into the valley. "Finally," Drakken gasped, and Shego gave a sleepy hum in agreement.

A quick cut through town down Main Street, and they were skirting back around and back up another hill.

"I should really have this paved," Drakken mumbled as they came up his gravel driveway. Shego was inclined to agree. It was too reminiscent of the sand and grit they'd spent far too much time on tonight, whether driving or walking.

Predictably, the gate was chained and locked, and no henchman was close at hand to see their need for assistance. Even if there was a grunt on duty, he wouldn't have recognized the vehicle. So Shego took it upon herself to hop out, pulling Drakken's set of keys from her pocket, as she'd never given them back after tipping the van.

She tried a couple in the lock, but between two dozen keys, decided it was quicker to stalk back to tired driver leaned out his window with head in his hand. He found her the right key with his eyes half-closed and passed the jingling set back for her to do her job, even if his help had her feeling a little incompetent. She locked back up after him, and was glad he waited idling for her to climb back in, although she had to jump out again a moment later to manually lift the garage door.

Maybe he did need more henchmen, she mused to herself.

Back in the lair of the weary blue scientist, Shego shoved her companion off toward the door to his quarters before trudging across the lab for her own accommodations.

She hadn't thought of sleepwear when Drakken told her to pack an overnight bag. She'd been too doubtful of whatever he had in mind. Honestly, she'd expected him to drag her back to his lair for some reason or other. She hadn't foreseen spending the next twenty-four hours running all over Vegas and the Nevada desert.

Thankfully, her drawers still contained a few essentials, which she tried to keep handy just in case she needed them at a time like this. The foresight to leave behind a set of pajamas was a godsend, because there was no way she was hiking or driving all the way back to her cold apartment at this time of night when there was a hot shower calling her name here.

She was relieved to strip out of the grime-encrusted civilian wear at long last, using her ruined green sweater still bedazzled with glass to sweep up some of the loose sharp tidbits that fell off her.

She wasn't a particularly pretty sight at the moment. A checkup in the mirror revealed her shoulder was scratched and bruised from where she'd fell on it in the crash, and the cut on her temple right at her hairline had bled enough to just about paint half her face, though most of the smeared blood had turned black and brown with dirt by now. She took utmost care in washing around the cut, miserable to have it bleeding freely again and making a vain attempt to stop the flow with a pristine white cloth.

It took the shower running cold for Shego to realize she'd been falling asleep in the tub, the stream of water beating down on her back spraying over the edge and onto the floor, soaking her now-muddy outfit. She was beat.

Shego inadvertently startled the soggy robe-swaddled man in his own kitchen when she came strolling into the good Dr. Drakken's quarters with a towel around her shoulders like a shawl. Under his wide-eyed stare, she patted the corner of the towel to her temple, trying not to care that she was staining it.

Pulling the towel tight around herself, Shego stood torn between the sofa and the fridge. Blocking the way to the fridge, Drakken was still staring at her. She glanced down, double-checking just to be absolutely sure she'd remembered to pull on her fleece pants to go with her matching tank top. Maybe it was the little green owls all over her legs that caught him off guard. It couldn't be the fresh blood leaving an extra dark streak through her hair and staining the white towel pink.

"What? What is it?" she carped as Drakken gravitated toward her. She wasn't so sure she was hungry for a midnight snack anymore.

It was definitely her blood that had caught his eye. "Mind if I…?"

"Yes," she snapped, sidestepping away from him and the curious hand reaching out toward her. "I do mind. It's…it's fine, Doc. I shouldn't need stitches."

He retracted his hand and blinked and tore his curious stare away. "If you say so," he mumbled.

Shego stuck her tongue out at him, too tired to care that it was childish. "You just wanna give me some to match," she growled. She turned for the couch. Fatigue was winning out. "I'm crashing here tonight. Got a problem with that?" It was warmer in his living room than her bedroom anyway. And the couch was softer.

Drakken shook his head, spooning yogurt into his mouth to keep it busy, as if avoiding answering her. He seemed to be avoiding looking her way at all, she noticed, as she fluffed the throw pillow. When he shuffled out to shut himself away in his bedroom for the remainder of the night, Shego sarcastically wished him a goodnight, but he was too stupid to utter more than a short, "Yep," before disappearing.

She snorted incredulously as she flopped down. It must have gotten to him within moments, because she'd just shut her eyes when she heard his door creak open again and his hurried footsteps. Something soft landed on her.

"Goodnight," he grunted, voice strained as if it was a exhausting just to correct himself and return the sentiment in the proper manner.

Crudeness aside, Shego smirked and shook out the puffy blue comforter he'd thrown at her. It smelled mostly like generic fabric softener, but also still too much like him. She squeezed her eyes shut as if she could block out the thought.