Soulmates of the Fury
II. Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Green
Kim was the first to wake up, instantly knowing there would be a price to pay for their folly. Ron's arms were around her bare waist, his head lolling at an unnatural angle. She groaned for his sake, knowing he would probably go through the day with a serious crick in his neck. They hadn't intended to sleep on the couch but it was so cozy and comfortable and they were so worn out from walking all over Savannah and Tybee that it lulled them into the deepest of slumbers. Kim stretched an arm out, then her legs, slipping out of Ron's grasp. He snorted and snuggled a little further down into the cushions, but didn't fully awaken. She rolled her head around and stretched as if reaching for the high ceiling. She was stiff, but poor boyfriend was going to get the worst of it. She made a mental note to rub his shoulders down really well once he woke up.
It was light outside, but not very bright. She went back out onto the screened porch. A light rain was falling. The sun was up, but it was obscured by the thick gray clouds. Despite being high summer it was very slightly chilly, as if the rain had sucked the heat right out of the air. Her face flickered into a slight pout, only a little one, not her famous (or is that infamous?) Puppy Dog Pout. Why waste such a thing of power on the weather? She always said she could do anything, but she sure couldn't make the rain come and go. (Unless she had a little help from the good scientists at the Middleton Institute of Technology!)
Something was carried on the gentle breeze. She traced it back through the living room just in time to hear a loud "SNOOOOORK" from Ron, who curled up tighter on the sofa, pulling the blanket over him. She realized that somebody had covered them during the night. There were even a couple pillows on the floor near where their heads had been. Somebody tried to make them comfortable during the night.
What time did Neil come in? For such a large man he must have been quiet as a mouse not to wake her. Ron could sleep through a train wreck but Kim was used to being awakened at any hour and was a feather touch in sleep. She looked around the room. The living room was the center of the house, with four bedrooms radiating outwards, making up the outer walls of the actual house. The porch wrapped completely around the building except for the kitchen, which had its own door leading directly outside. Four bedrooms and we end up sleeping on the couch? Oh joy!
Deliberately sharing a bed with Ron was a new thing for her. Sure, they had ended up asleep together on many occasions, but that was on missions or just happy accidents on a couch like the previous night. They weren't doing anything but actually sleeping but somehow the act of curling up with another person to take your rest was a deeply intimate act in its own right. She wondered about other things, but that would wait. There was a time and a place and they hadn't reached that yet.
Kim had always envisioned couples holding each other close all through the night. That was well fine and good in a well air conditioned house but the first nights of their trip were another thing all together. Small rooms with small beds and air conditioning units that would either turn the room into an icebox or would barely wheeze enough to make sleep possible at all. They quickly learned that two bodies huddled together under the sheets in early August got overheated very quickly, and not in a good way! Ron would end up sleeping on top of the covers and Kim would wrap herself up as her body cooled during the night. When there were two beds they quickly separated. Sharing a bed on a regular basis would take practice!
It was firmly decided that their next room would have a king-sized bed! At least until they got the call from Neil.
Kim realized the tantalizing smells were actually coming from the kitchen. The light was on and her mind was starting to identify the separate components of the odors coming from inside. Bacon, for sure, mixing sweetly with the smell of fresh brewed coffee. Eggs, yes, eggs, most likely scrambled with cheese. Oh, but if Rufus was here instead of staying with "Uncle" Wade! She pushed her way through the door leading into the combination kitchen/dining room.
A petite woman with an athletic build was at the stove, her back turned to Kim. Her long black hair was gathered into a ponytail high up on her head. She was wearing cut off denim shorts and a dark colored T shirt that contrasted with her porcelain doll-like peach colored skin. She turned to Kim and smiled, her brown eyes gleaming in the kitchen light.
"Dona?" Kim said in surprise. The woman from another dimension was the first to come to mind when she saw that face.
"Bzzzzzzt. Guess again, Kimmie!" She said, the smile deepening into a wicked grin.
"Shego?" The look on her face slipped from shock to wary anger.
"In the…flesh." She said, showing her now normal colored arms. Ever since Kim had known the older woman, her skin had been a very light green, her eyes bright emerald, brighter even than Kim's green eyes. Even her raven black hair seemed to have a greenish cast. All the result of being exposed to the mutagenic radiation of a rainbow colored meteorite in her early teens.
What had happened to her? She looked completely normal!
Kim dropped into a ready stance, prepared for the fight that always came when the two women caught sight of one another.
"Ah-ah-ah!" Shego singsonged, wagging her forefinger from side to side. "Neil's house rules. Neutral territory and all in his home. He told me to expect you two."
"Where is he?" Kim asked, an edge still in her voice.
"Never came home last night. Nothing to worry about there quite yet, he does that sometimes. I'm sure you can relate, Kimmie."
"Came home? Does that sometimes? Are you two…" Her eyebrow arched upwards. She knew Shego had a history with Neil Argus, but that had apparently ended some years ago when she turned to evil, betraying her brothers and Neil in the bargain.
"Uh, no, not really." Did she actually blush? "He's just been helping me." She held out her hands. It seemed so strange to see her hands bare with no razor tipped gloves. "As long as I don't power up my skin stays normal looking. His powers are still developing but he can help my appearance turn back to normal. So, I can look like this again, at least until I flare up. Then it's back to "Miss green thing" until he can change me back."
"Sounds like it puts a crimp in your 'Take Over the World' plans."
"Ye-ahh, tell me about it! Neil keeps telling me I can either be pretty or 'Evil Greenie' like I've got some choice in the matter." The familiar snarkiness was creeping back into her voice.
"You mean you don't have a choice?" She asked as Ron entered the kitchen.
He looked at Shego, then at Kim, then back to Shego, his jaw hanging open. His voice managed just a tiny squeak "Shego is in the kitchen making omelettes?" as he pointed at her.
"It's okay, Ron." Kim said, placing a hand on his chest in case he decided to go on the offensive. "Apparently Neil made her declare a truce here so he can help her."
"More like he didn't want the two of us wrecking the place. He's going to be making payments on this place for the rest of his life, if his little bike shop even makes it." Kim knew about the shop. Neil finally resigned as the manager of the old shop in Charlotte and bought a much smaller, one-man shop in "Downtown" Tybee Island. For a man who was supposed to be the cornerstone of some celestial Trinity, fated to save not only this world but many others, his real personal dreams were much simpler. Ron pointed it out to her the night before. They peered into the windows at the dozen or so custom beach cruisers that made up his stock.
From secret teen hero and sometimes Global Justice operative to beach-town bike merchant and happy for it. Maybe simple dreams were sometimes the best!
"Okay, what did you mean by not having a choice?"
"We've already been over this, Princess. I'm evil, plain and simple. The sky is blue, the grass is green, I'm evil. Just facts of life. Now, if it weren't for Neil, I'd have at least tied the two of you up good and proper when I came in last night."
"You saw us on the couch?" Something clicked in her head. "YOU COVERED US UP?"
"Awwww, but you two looked sooooo cute together. If it weren't for the fact I didn't do something nasty to you, I'd have taken a picture and posted it on EvilGeniusArt dot com. Or emailed it to your Daddy!"
"You are still evil." Ron muttered.
"What about Doctor Drakken?" as far as Kim knew, he was still in prison, this time with daily checks to determine if he had switched places with a synthodrone or other kind of clone.
"Don't say that name!" Shego hissed at her. For an instant it seemed like green fire was creeping back into her eyes. She calmed herself as they slowly faded back to rich cocoa brown.
Kim and Ron looked at each other, wondering.
Very early that morning:
It wasn't Hilton Head Island. That had been a fib left in case other eyes happened upon that note. He wasn't far from the resort, but he might was well be worlds away. Away from the sandy beaches of Tybee and the tourists of Savannah, the Low Country was mostly swamp. In fact, once you crossed the Tallmadge Bridge, you left the city behind in favor of the marshes of southern South Carolina. Swamps were a great place to hide things.
Neil wanted to strangle Dr. Director. What part of 'retired' did she not understand? Never mind that the 'retiree' was twenty four years old. This "Teen" hero thing was best left to real teens! He'd been all too happy when his former 'sort of' boss called wanting his help giving Kim Possible and Ron Stoppable some really good R&R time. His place was an old "Party Shack" with plenty of bedrooms, so he had the room. He could even wink and nod if Kim's father decided to pay a call and say quite truthfully there was plenty of space for the teens to each have a room to themselves. He was eighteen once!
The events of his eighteenth year surged back to the forefront of his mind. The pain and stiffness in his left ankle were gone for good, but the memory of it would be with him forever. The pain was unimaginable and that pain did not go away quickly. There were times when he wished he could just blast his leg off just above the injury. The pain, despite the medicines they tried to give him, was that bad.
Then came the physical therapy. On splintered bones that despite three operations would never heal completely properly. Some pain you could learn to live with. This kind of pain comes at you day after day, with the horrible knowledge that it would be there again tomorrow.
It didn't help that the cause of that pain was at his home now, living with him. She had been a high-school sweetheart, his first love. Theirs was the kind of love that children felt would last forever. He knew from the moment he first laid eyes on her at the "Go City" high school Global Justice had set him up in. They were both fourteen and he instantly believed in love at first sight. It's easy to believe when it happens to you.
He saw her descent into madness, though he couldn't make himself believe it. Wasn't denial a wonderful thing? In hindsight, it was all plain as day, but he missed it. Hell, even her brothers missed it and they weren't the ones 'in love' with her. Still, they were just as hurt by her final betrayal as he was.
Trust. How can you trust someone who betrayed you? How can you leave them in your home, knowing their greatest enemy of all time would be coming to share that home with her, even for a few days? How would she fare against the temptation to use her powers and do harm to the unsuspecting couple? No, he would trust her. If he ever wanted to help her the way he wanted to he would have to make that leap of faith. He would have to believe she could behave herself. Well, then again, Kim Possible could pretty much take care of herself where Shego was concerned.
Then there was the harder question. Did he love her? He honestly couldn't answer that. Sure, there were moments of tenderness between them. There were kisses, embraces…even passion sometimes. Then there were those moments when their eyes would meet. Something would pass between them as if the old cliché about eyes being a window into the soul was actually true. There was something between them, though he couldn't quite say whether it was really love.
Betrayal can do that to a relationship.
Head in the game, Argus, he chided himself. Retired. I'm supposed to be retired. Yet there was that familiar voice on the phone that afternoon at his shop. He growled a response at the woman but couldn't in good conscience ignore her either. The store was empty so he washed the grease from his hands and closed up. Most of the tourists came through in the morning, nodding appreciatively at the fantastic and improbable machines that decorated his floor. The real source of his income was behind the counter. A battered, rusting beach cruiser was clamped into the stand, waiting for the customer to come and pick up. Well, it was close enough to closing time and a front was moving in. It would be raining by morning and they wouldn't be able to ride until later anyhow.
That voice was why he was here now. He moved with a liquid grace that belied the intervening years. His ankle no longer bothered him. The bone had been fused, healed by the touch of a man who was at once him and not him. Healed with the knowledge that he would one day be able to do that himself. It wasn't magic, though there might not be any difference. What was magic if not just what science has not yet found a way to explain. He was dressed head to toe in black. It was a battle suit, made by Kim's tech guru, Wade but it was different from the earlier models. For one the color! Gone was the white highlighted with luminescent blue. That was fine for a straight up the middle, take 'em head on kind of gal like Kim. Neil was 'old school.' It was all about stealth. While she was constantly in the headlines, nobody outside of GJ and Kim's circle of friends even knew about him.
The compound was new, but it was designed to look very old. From the outside it looked like some tumble-down Gullah shack. That was only the entrance. Many, many dollars had been spent building something in the thick muck. He could only wonder how they could hold back the marsh long enough to build anything, let alone the facility he had diagramed on the back of his wrist. No matter, it was here, just like Dr. Director said it would be.
It bothered him that he was going up against an organization that was supposedly part of the FBI. It helped that Director explained they had gone rogue, acting as if the laws of the land didn't apply to them any more. This "Special Unit" was moving ahead with their plans, no matter what innocent people got hurt. It was up to Neil to stop them.
Maybe that's why I'm here? GJ couldn't move against them openly, rogue unit or not.
Just hope I'm not too rusty!
Matt 3671 - Thanks for the first review here at FF. Guess I've got to say something smuffy involving small red fruit, if you know what I mean. I don't live in Savannah, but I sure like to visit there (still couldn't really imagine living there full time) It's a good 5 hour drive to get there from here but I've only been there twice (most recently last July) I highly recommend it!