Reminder that this is still a fairly young Shego, still technically a teenager and just a few years into superpowers, and as such, still learning how to cope. *shrug* (And she'll be younger in the next chapter. PFFT)

25. Welfare Check – 7

Dressed for bed with hair damp, Shilo had wasted her evening sitting up in front of the television, waiting for her family to show up to pester her, but they never did. Now it was bedtime, past bedtime, and she'd been lying awake with the blankets kicked off, the top of her pajamas flayed open to cool her burning skin as she lay sprawled out, breathing deep, eyes skewed shut.

Hot flash was literal in her case. She hoped the cotton of her pajamas wouldn't burn as her skin glittered.

As if rest wasn't hard enough to come by knowing her family was in town, she had cool blue eyes on the brain – and that was the last thing she needed haunting her to fan the flame.

Another cold shower didn't exactly do the trick, but at least she was considerably safer under the water. She let the tub fill and lay in the bath long after she got pruney. Dozing off there was tempting, but as a kid, her mother had always warned her about falling asleep in the tub. It was probably just for the sake of not hogging the bathroom, she decided. Sleeping in shallow water was preferable to scorching her sheets for the fifth time this month.

If it weren't for her brothers, she could self-medicate with the stash she'd stolen from the guest she'd evicted Halloween morning. She'd only just gotten the smell reasonably out of the apartment, and opening the tin now would spell trouble.

Her eyes were drawn to the medicine cabinet and the promise of sleep it held. The last time she'd seen the clock, it was nearing midnight. She didn't want to think about the hour now.

Shilo clambered out of the tub in the dark, not bothering to grab a towel as the water steamed off her body, and she stood stark naked and on the verge of overheating all over again as she hunched over the bathroom sink. She couldn't see what she reached for. Everything was blurry from hot tears welling up. She couldn't keep her eyes squeezed shut forever.

She wanted to dump out the bottle and flush the pills down the toilet.

That was her intent anyway as she fumbled with the lid with trembling hands, but she damned herself as she tossed her head back to swallow one down dry and slammed the cabinet shut so hard the mirror broke. She pawed at her burning eyes and left the bathroom, shaking glass from her bare feet as she decided she'd deal with the mess in the morning.

The apartment was already beginning to feel frigid by the time she choked down a slice of bread to put something her stomach to chase the harsh pill.

Gravity came down on her, everything beginning to feel heavy in a hurry as the unheated studio sapped whatever heat was left on her skin. She told herself she was just tired. She wasn't steaming anymore and licks of green flame had ceased flickering over her body, so she couldn't complain.

Shilo exhaled an exhausted sigh as the relief drew her to bed. She was just a little too drowsy now to be upset anymore for giving in. She could hate herself tomorrow, she decided as she patted around her blankets in the dark. Her fingers curled into soft woven fabric bundled near the head of her bed as she straightened the pillows she'd discarded, and she didn't think twice about pulling on the oversized sweater to replace the ruined pajamas she'd abandoned on the bathroom floor. She pulled off the bat brooch and collapsed, barely finding the energy to tug the disheveled blanket over her as she fell deeper under the pill's spell.

If her glow wasn't still dormant four hours later, she would have fired a shot at her alarm just to sleep in. Keeping the offending clock across the room on her dresser was incentive to pick herself up out of bed each morning, but today with a sedative drug in her system, it was a little less compelling.

Eventually though, she rolled out of bed and slumped over shut it off. And then she stood there at the vanity, staring at the miserable reflection looking back at her. Her hair was a mess and she had work to do to hide the shadows under her reddened eyes. A strange man's sweater hanging off her body shouldn't have been the only comfort she found in the frame, but she hugged herself and reminded herself it was hers now. She'd stolen it, fair and square.

A knock at the door made her jump and she hastily pulled on the first pair of jeans she grabbed off the floor.

"Hope you're decent!" hollered Milo from the other side, and she was just spinning her back to the door to button her pants as he squeezed in through a crack and rose to his natural height inside her apartment.

She'd rag his ear off about home invasion and criminal trespass and the likes, but she knew he'd disregard it. They were family and he was a superhero, so he could get away with that kind of thing. She swore it would bite him in the ass one of these days.

"What do you want?" she groused over her shoulder, digging into her drawers and hoping that setting a bra on top would ward him off.

It didn't. She regretted making him do the laundry since he was a tween, but she'd been stuck taking care of the twerps so it was the least he could have done to pull his own weight.

He put himself between her and the drawers, and she wanted to strike him, and maybe pack a little heat behind it, but when she clenched her fist she realized the heat of her glow was still extinguished. The fleeting fear crossed her mind of Global Justice changing the formula to lengthen her downtime.

Milo crossed his arms, narrowing his eyes at her, and said, "You lied."

"Yeah?" she snorted. "I'm not under oath." She didn't care to ask about what. She'd lied that she'd go to the library yesterday, and she'd lied that she'd never take the damn worthless pills again, and she'd lied—

"He didn't go to Mexico."

She quirked her brow at him. And then it hit her – that lie – and she took a hasty step back away from her brother. Her heart started to thud. She almost felt warm, but it was nothing compared to the fire that would have burned her had she not swallowed the pill last night. Nonetheless, she suddenly saw her breath in the chilly apartment.

"Don't worry," said Milo nonchalantly, waving a hand flippantly and holding it out palm-up. He kept his voice down. "I'll keep quiet about your weirdo boyfriend."

Her heart skipped a beat. "He's not my – augh! Fine." Shilo spun around, dropping to her knees by her bed to pull out her go-bag, yet to be fully unpacked from the Las Vegas lark. She needed to grab some extra spending money for herself today anyway. She winced at the sound of beer cans knocking around under there and glared over her shoulder as she fished out a single bill. An even hundred dollars was enough for her spoiled little brother to give a content grunt and stuff it in the back pocket of his jeans.

"So you don't live together, huh?" he wondered, eyeing the place. "Pretty shitty of him if he can't—"

"Hey! You said you'd keep quiet," Shilo seethed, bundling up the clothes off her dresser.

"And you said he wasn't your boyfriend."

Her lips had never zipped shut faster. Her face went pink – she could see it in the mirror – and she whipped around with an indignant huff to change in the bathroom.

She miserably remembered about the shattered glass strewn across the bathroom floor. She picked her way around it and decided she'd deal with it tonight, sweeping some of it aside with her scorched pajamas for now. If blue eyes hadn't troubled her last night, she wouldn't have to deal with the mess at all. Or at least, she wanted to blame the rising distress that had lead to her breaking point on the stupid fantasies. She wouldn't have taken the pill at all if she hadn't been flustered over stupid beads.

Once she was dressed and presentable enough for family, she stormed out, ready to shove her little brother away from the vanity so she could finish her routine. She narrowed her eyes on the trinket he held. She wasn't sure where she'd displaced it last night, but he'd found it and was looking over each little pebble as if they held a clue.

"Too cheap to buy you gold, huh?" scoffed Milo as she yanked the bracelet from him.

Denying him an answer, she returned the trinket to her wrist – if only because it wasn't a gift from the rogue doctor. Milo didn't know that, but at least she did, and it helped Shilo hold her ground. "Are you done prying into my personal life?"

"Nope. How old is he?"

She grimaced. She didn't want to admit that to Milo, much less to herself. It could be worse, but admitting the man in question was several years older than her wouldn't help her case – not that the detail mattered. "How much do you know?" she asked, sparing him a cagey sidelong glance as she perched on her dresser before the vanity mirror.

"I know you went on a date last night."

She nearly dropped her brush. Her nerves were harder to mask than the signs of fatigue stamped under her eyes. "No, I didn't," she snorted in a poor attempt to dismiss the accusation.

Milo cleared his throat. It was never a good thing when Milo cleared his throat, or opened his mouth at all for that matter. "Let's elope to Alaska and go skiing," he jeered, gripping the air as if miming skiing – until he made a suggestive motion that made Shilo painfully glad she'd taken the dreadful pill last night.

Mortified by his heckling, she stared wide-eyed and slack-jawed for a moment before her brow knit together in a glare. "If you tell anyone—"

"Cool it," said her little brother, hands up. "I'm the only one who knows your dirty little secret. Promise."

Her patience was worn thinner than tissue. "Get out!" she barked at him, and he actually jumped back.

Milo looked her over and shrugged as he turned around. "If you insist," he said flippantly.

She wished she hadn't told him off – because he opened the front door to allow an even bigger headache to barge in. She could only stifle a groan and rub her temples, on the verge of screaming as she stifled a distraught whimper.

They couldn't keep this up forever, she decided, hastily finishing up in front of the mirror. She shouldered her purse, locked the door, and trotted down the staircase as she tied her hair back with a teal bandana to match her cardigan. Just shy of running from it, she ignored Hugo's persistent complaints about not keeping to her routine yesterday.

The only good thing that came from him shadowing her was the information he divulged. She tried not to let her shoulders slump with relief at the news they were leaving soon – soon, soon – as in within the hour, because the boys had missed enough school. She couldn't smile about it, but she was glad to hear it anyway.

"Ohh," she crooned, looking back at her plaid-clad lumberjack of a brother looming just behind her. "Sorry we didn't get to hang out much. Maybe next time."

"Next month," supplied Milo.

"We'll work something out," added Hugo. "The twins would've liked to spend more time with their sister, but—"

"I was busy," Shilo sternly reminded. "My life doesn't revolve around you guys or the twerps anymore."

Milo coughed. "Yeah, so I've noticed."

She shot a scowl to her lavender brother sauntering along on her other side. He was close to having his teeth knocked out. She didn't need her glow for that. She balled her fists and set her jaw, picking up the pace.

A month. She had a month until she had to deal with her family again. A month to tear that reckless Drakken a new one. It wasn't crucial, but if she could find a new guy to hide him behind by then, she might be set, as long as her family didn't suspect the rogue to be anything more than a creep preying on young women. Nate had been a crappy alibi, but she'd been desperate, and he had a car, and was easily talked into being the getaway driver for her and Buckley's girls – and then he didn't want to leave. He had been convenient. She could do better.

A month was generous.

Shilo looked between her brothers shadowing her. If Milo had been lying – if the leader of Team Go really did know the man who'd spirited her away was in town – then Hugo would surely be wringing his hands and grumbling things like, "Just wait until I get my hands on him," or interrogating her for his location. He wouldn't be wasting his time with puppy-dog eyes trying to guilt-trip her, or whatever he was playing at. Town might even be crawling with Global Justice agents if he knew. But it wasn't, and so far Hugo had only made a pathetic attempt to bring the family back together for the holiday and convince her to rejoin the team to live in the Go Tower alone, if she wanted her space that badly.

So she relaxed a little.

Halfway to Buckley's, she crossed paths with her downtrodden father. He kept his eyes downcast and said nothing. Shilo looked to her younger brother, a little hopeful the center of attention would like to shed a little light, but he only grimaced slightly and shrugged. As she hugged the twerps goodbye, she couldn't shake the sense that she'd been disowned on Halloween from the minute she'd slammed the door in the man's face. That was fine by her. It was high time he got the hint he'd lost all grasp on her – on them. He was nothing more than a glorified babysitter now thanks to Lady Fate and Global Justice.

She squeezed the twerps once more – and kept her complaints to herself when Hugo stooped to engulf her in his huge embrace. If only to be included, Milo managed to wrap his spindly arms around them as well.

The hug lasted a little too long for comfort. She worried she was about to be hefted up and toted off while she was still next to helpless to defend herself. After a moment, she cleared her throat and shifted, spurring Hugo to release her. He did so reluctantly.

The twins turned tearful pleading eyes up at her.

She didn't need that.

She didn't need them begging her to come home with them.

Shilo kissed her index fingers and pressed them to their dimpled cheeks before the twerps could start bawling their little hearts out. A sweet lie that she'd send them some of Buckley's special candy was enough to perk them up. They were still stubborn about releasing her legs. It took Hugo scruffing them by the straps of their overalls to hoist onto his shoulders before Shilo could put distance between herself and her family.

"Next month," she said in lieu of a goodbye. She was still unsure what next month would entail, but she gave a small wave and a weak smile anyway as she retreated.

The group stood on the corner, watching her go. She turned her eyes straight ahead, determined not to glance back at them until she'd rounded a block herself, where she risked a peek over her shoulder just to be sure they weren't following her. She heard the rumble of the jet shortly before reaching Buckley's and saw it zip across the sky.

The next few hours proved to her that her family weren't the only ones in a funk.

Shilo downed caffeine throughout the day in hopes of taking the edge off her fatigue. Every so often between customers, she slapped her own cheeks. She was off her game. It must have been painfully obvious and awfully annoying to her fellow barista when the stocky girl struck her in the shoulder just as Shilo raised her hands to pat her cheeks again.

"Need help slapping your face?" wondered the henchgirl-to-be with dry sarcasm.

"No, thanks. I'm good," Shilo shot back, though she decided she might stick to the espressos.

She scrunched her face in a grimace at the bell jingling behind her back, and she drew a deep breath to prepare herself. She was composed and smiling and as awake and alert as she could be when she spun back around on her heel to face the customer and recite the usual greeting, "Welcome to Buckley's Brew, what can I brew y— yo."

She jerked back as she fixed her eyes on the customer, standing prim and proper and just about eye-blinding, dressed in shades of white and beige with hair as bright as the sun and eyes as dazzling as a clear July sky and—

And Shilo realized she was staring wide-eyed and slack-jawed at the radiant angel boy.

She blinked rapidly and shuddered as the warmth crept back over her skin and tingled across her clammy palms. Of course now the effects of the suppressant would wear off. Granted, she might have helped speed it along by downing more than the recommended allowance of espresso.

The boy cracked a smile of bleached-white teeth, quipping, "Yo, back at you."

Shilo barely heard him. She gripped the counter. "Angel boy," she blurted under her breath. She blinked again. Glanced back and gestured to the menu on the wall behind her – just about smacking her fellow barista Gail in doing so – and quickly sputtered, "W-well? What can I get ya? I haven't got all day." She winced at the crass words that flew out of her mouth.

The young man raised his brow at her and stepped aside to inspect the glass display loaded with fresh baked goods. "Just having a look around," he said innocently. Shilo tried not to glance his way, setting her glower on the tip jar instead, but still caught his straight face crack again with a smile. "It all looks good. What do you suggest?"

When Shilo stood stock-still and mute, clutching the counter like a lifeline, Abigail knuckled her hip to shove her over to follow the customer to make a sale, but she didn't budge. "I, uh. The daily special is…uh," she floundered, realizing to her mortification that she couldn't recall the special she'd only been suggesting robotically to each customer today.

"Pumpkin strudel," answered Abigail impatiently.

Shilo caught a glimpse of angel boy's eyes settling on the latest addition to Buck's pastry showcase and she felt something twist in her stomach.

"Sounds good," angel boy chimed, tapping the glass. "I'll take one – oh, and a caramel latte. To go."

"I-I'll get right on that," Shilo stuttered, prying her hands off the counter and willing away the heat. Severely lacking in the friendly department, she avoided eye contact as she fulfilled her duties otherwise.

"What is with you?" hissed Abigail, all but shoving the latte in Shilo's hands.

"I – um – nothing," she mumbled and quickly ducked away. If she could, the fellow barista might have swatted her upside the head. And if she had, Shilo might have spun to release some of the pent-up energy begging for an escape.

Shilo kept her eyes locked on the countertop as she slid the order across. In turn, angel boy slid over a bill. "Keep the change," he said, as if the fifty cent difference was really all that generous. He took his order and left a little quickly, Shilo raising her brow at his back as he went.

As she made to put the cash in the till, she discovered a slip of paper beneath the bill – which Shilo snatched up and stuffed in her pocket, throwing a hasty glance to ill-tempered Abigail already whispering to Buckley through the window to the kitchen.

Westinger Grill, 6pm Friday

No name. No number. The Westinger rang a bell though.

Shilo found herself eyeing the slip of paper as she sat on the bus heading to the far end of town that evening. Her heart gave a lurch each time she glanced at it. Buckley had warned her, "Watch out for that one." But Buckley couldn't tell her why. Just that it was a gut feeling. But Shilo had a gut feeling too, and it had been fermenting all afternoon.

Whether a date or a prank, she knew where he worked. One way or another, she'd make him regret driving her to such desperate measures last night.

Angel boy was good as damned.

She tried not to walk with such a spring in her step, but jubilance made the trek up the hill go that much quicker. As usual, she found the gate chained and locked, but the barbed wire at the top had been removed after her mishap, making climbing it a second time a cinch.

As she entered the stuffy lab Dr. Drakken had himself safely holed up in – behaving himself finally now that it didn't matter – she swore she caught a whiff of something sweet. It almost made the stale air pleasant to breathe.

"Ugh!" she groaned hugely as she strode across the cavern toward the man seated in a spare computer chair, hunched over his favorite work desk. He didn't look up. She tried raising her voice, adding dryly, "I never thought I'd be so glad to be in a stuffy cave."

The closer she came, the quicker his movements got, but there was no hope of finishing his task quick of enough to hide the project she fancied poking a little harmless fun at him for. He still seemed to be in a rush to connect cables like veins and arteries that connected an arm to a torso, too preoccupied to spare her more than a grunt.

"What'chu got there, Doc?" she jibbed, as if she didn't already know. She perched on the armrest and leaned an elbow on his shoulder to stoop over and watch him tightening minuscule screws and tapping here and there with a soldering iron. He stiffened under her weight, and she let herself lean heavier against him as she pressed his buttons. "Trying to replace me already, huh? Man. Can't believe you're still working on these things. You're such a nerd." She tugged a lock of loose hair hanging by his ear for good measure. "You really got your heart set on these robo-girlfriends, huh?"

He fumbled with his screwdriver, dropping a tiny screw through the mess of connective cables. She could see his ears turning purple with his weird blush, and though he wore his awkward goggles, she knew he was glaring. His jaw was set, but he pried it open to gripe, "I'll have you know, they're more like my children at this point."

Shilo – Shego scoffed. He'd yet to explain in full how they came about, and she wasn't sure she could stay awake to listen to ancient history if he began the tale now. He had let on though that the Bebe sisters were a pet project of his since his teens and fresh out of high school – which must have been an awful long time to have his heart set on a single project he'd yet to perfect. It didn't reflect well on his capability, by evil genius standards, and just thinking about the prototype robots made Shego quirk her mouth in doubt that this man would amount to more than a hermit scientist in a hole in the ground, making his living by building dangerous toys for others.

She wondered for a moment if she'd be alright with that – as long as he gave her something to do and took her out to stir a little mayhem now and then, of course.

Watching the twist and pull of his frown as he chewed on curses and grumbles, she stopped herself just short of reaching for the ponytail worn loose and low, and jerked away instead at the jolt of nerves flaring in her gut.

She shoved off from his shoulder before she could burn him by accident and found something else for her hands to do.

Hovering beside him instead, she lifted a limp robot leg to shamelessly inspect the carapace for female anatomy beyond the breastplate – which surprisingly served a function, allowing for extra room to store the cooling system and other vitals like the battery and what amounted to a complex synthetic nervous system.

Though her search came up empty, she mumbled, "Whatever helps you sleep at night," and leaned forward to fold her arms on the table as she watched the man beside her continue to tinker and fumble with the inner workings of a shoulder, reaching into the gaping chest cavity on occasion to string something through.

Drakken must have reached a stopping point because suddenly he stood. Or maybe he just couldn't focus any longer with her practically breathing down his neck. Either way, he snapped the breastplate shut, but otherwise clearly left the task unfinished as he hit the button under the desk to draw the privacy curtain shut and shut off the surgical light overhead. With his dorky magnifying goggles on, she couldn't really see the glare he shot her way, but the curve of his mouth was enough to get the point across.

"I don't need you criticizing me," he declared, abandoning the pet project for now. He tore off the goggles, tossing them aside on the computer mainframe serving as a desk as he passed, and pulled his regular spectacles back on.

Tailing him, Shego clicked her tongue. "Contract never said I couldn't," she twittered.

He made a beeline for his kitchen, shedding his gloves and tossing his oil-stained jacket on the back of a barstool Shego set herself in a moment later to watch him roll up his sleeves and scrub down. "So," he grumbled over his shoulder. "If you're here, then I take it your family has gone home, yes?"

She couldn't help the contented smile that stretched across her face. "Affirmative," she answered blithely. "So far, so good. But you need to practice being sneaky. You're lucky you weren't busted."

"Hmm, why's that?"

"Milo saw us."

Drakken threw an alarmed glance back at her, fumbling for a towel to dry off. "What? Who's – the purple one?" he guessed, and she nodded. He breathed a sigh of relief. "Well, I'm not worried about that one."

"That one has a mouth on him, you know. He's kind of a rat," she warned gravely. She barely found the nerve to discuss the matter, especially after her brother's crude take on their idle chitchat at Cow-n-Chow. "You need to be more careful. They're coming back to check on me next month. Dunno when. Hope they give me a heads up first. But for now, they're out of my hair."

The man made a disgruntled kind of noise as he rummaged into the fridge. "That's good to hear," he said, though it didn't sound like he thought so. "So you're available again?"

Shego perked up at the implication in his tone, and couldn't help a wry smile. "Depends. What'chu got in mind?" she shot eagerly.

"Oh, it's that pesky Dementor again," said Drakken, lip raised in disdain as he waved a large knife with a roll of his wrist. "Every time I think he's out of the picture, he pops back up like that moldy spot in the corner."

"Ew," Shego muttered, and couldn't help a glance around to figure out which corner he was referring to. In a room carved out of the earth, there were a lot of corners, nooks, and crannies.

Drakken cleared his throat to regain her attention and dropped a cutting board with a clatter at the end of the island. "Anyway. I hear he goes by Professor Dementor now. He's reconstructed and upgraded his seismic generator, and now he's planning to threaten the world with tsunamis for some ridiculous demonstration. We need to find it and get rid of it – for good, this time."

Shego grimaced. "That's hero work," she complained, and bit her lip for sounding like such a petulant child. Nevermind that there was evidently a villain teaching a class on global threats—

"It's a necessary evil – err, good," Drakken answered grimly, slicing away at bell peppers. "I can't have his plans succeeding before mine."

She rolled her eyes and retorted, "What are your plans anyway?" She already knew the answer to that. "I haven't seen you do anything super radical since I got here." Granted, she hadn't been with him long.

"We're biding our time, Shego," crooned the rogue doctor, and she could practically mouth it along with him. "By the time your pesky brothers accept you've given up the whole hero lifestyle and have moved on, I'll have the resources to play in the big leagues. I'm almost there, dear. You'll see. We don't need some little city guardians tipping off big brother because they found out their little sissy is a criminal."

Somehow, sissy bothered her more than dear. She grimaced. "Watch it," she warned. Nonetheless, she was glad to still be included in his plans, and it was reassuring to know her brothers' hovering wasn't a deal-breaker – though it was all the proof she needed to believe he was out of his mind. And even if it was all sweet lies he fed her to serve his unclear agenda, she still smiled at the prospect of sticking around to see it.

She had an itch after all, and he knew just how to scratch it.

A/N:

This scene picks back up immediately in Ch27. Aura of Others! ;B