III. Life's a Beach
Kim folded the corner of he page she was on and closed the book. She spared a look out at the surf where Ron was trying his best to use a boogie board, with varying degrees of success. At least he looked like he was having a really good time. He seemed to look right in place here at the beach. The sight of him pedaling a batter old red beach bike with the short board under one arm, his short blonde hair and knee-length trunks flapping in the breeze, looked like something right out of an old beach-blanket movie. She reached into her beach bag and checked a tiny digital watch. Sunblock or no, both of them were very fair skinned and would burn quickly in the bright coastal sunlight. Just in case, she squirted some lotion on her fingers and smoothed it onto her face, hoping to keep her childhood freckles from making another unwanted appearance. Cute or not, Ron had enough freckles for both of them.
The morning showers had ended by the time breakfast was done and cleaned up. Sitting down to a meal with Shego was beyond awk-weird. How do you make small talk with someone who literally tried to kill you? At least she was apparently abiding by the truce Neil Argus somehow forced on her. Something more important that her war with Kim was driving her. Was it just the appearance thing or did it go deeper? When Ron offered the blessing she actually bowed her head respectfully. That was so surreal.
The cool rain gave way to a hot, bright morning. She was thankful for the chance to get out of the house. They changed into their swim suits and availed themselves of tow of Neil's many bikes. Since he lived near the lighthouse they made that their first stop. If it were not for the towering black and white landmark they were sure to have gotten lost. The sentinel was not the tallest on the East Coast, but the view from the top was spectacular. You could see the entire island from the observation deck.
"I can see our car from here." Ron said, pointing at the reddish shingle roof of Neil's house. She smiled, thinking warm thoughts when he referred to her car as "Our car."
They quickly discovered the climb down was worse than the ascent, leaving their legs feeling like jelly. They spent some time exploring the restored keeper's buildings letting their legs recover before reclaiming the bikes.
She turned over, lowering the back of her lounge chair till it was level with the rest of the chaise. Fifteen minutes more, then we'll head in she told herself. She let the shoulder straps of her once piece suit slip down a little to even out what little tan she had.
"Hey, pretty lady, want me to put sunscreen on yer back for ya?" Someone asked with an obviously exaggerated southern accent.
Kim looked up at the source of the voice. The man was an even six feet tall, brown hair hanging almost to his shoulders. A small, square beard punctuated his otherwise clean shaven face. He was at least fifty pounds lighter than he had been a year ago, but he was still a big man. He was dressed only in dark yellow knee length trunks and black sport sandals. Behind him trudged a bikini clad Shego, sour expression and all.
"Neil!" Kim exclaimed cheerily. "Why of course you can rub some lotion on my back, especially if it sends my boyfriend into fits of jealousy." Shego just shook her head as if in disgust at the exchange.
"How-ya been doin', Red?" He asked genially.
"Please, please don't call me 'Red,' you sound just like Motor Ed when you do that.
"Seriously?"
"Urrrrgh!" She hurled a handful of sand in his general direction.
"NEIL, MY MAN!" Ron screamed, running up the beach, still dripping from the warm murky waters of the Georgia coast."
"Ronster! So that's where my board got to!" He said, gesturing at the red boogie board.
"Sorry, thought I'd give it a try."
"Hey, no problemo dude. Like I said, make yourselves at home. ¡Mi casa es su casa!" he added in stilted Spanish. "Sorry about last night."
"Yeah, where'd you get to last night?" Kim asked, propping herself up on the chaise.
"I drove up to around Hilton Head to help out a friend and I ended up shuttling back and forth to Charleston. Just got back about an hour ago, so I thought I'd come down here and spend some time with you guys before I have to open my shop."
"Those cruisers at your place are a far cry from that Badical rig you left in Middleton last year." Ron said.
"Yeah, but unless you get a sand spur in the tire, you don't have to do very much to these things. I left it in Middleton? I'll be darned, after that escapade I completely forgot about it. That was a good bike, but it wouldn't last a month here at the beach. Heavy steel one-speeds are the order of the day out here. Leave 'em outside in the rain, they're fine. Ride 'em out on the beach, they're fine. It'll take years for one of those heavy steel frames to rust through and by that time I'll have another new one at the top of the heap."
"There were some really fancy bikes in your shop." Kim mentioned.
"Yeah, that's the other aspect of the business here. I don't get the fancy mountain stuff except when some tourist pops a tube or something, but the kids here get pretty wild with their cruisers. Some of them weld up their own custom stuff, while others get me to order up a fancy frame and spec it out with all kinds of 'look-at-me' junk. I'll sell maybe one or two of those things a week, the rest of the time I spend replacing bad tubes and rusted out chains."
"Doing good?"
"It's a living."
"If you call spending almost every dime you make there on your mortgage and sometimes having enough left over for food a living." Shego said icily from her lounge without looking at them.
"I do well enough. You're just upset I won't buy you that expensive beer you like Sheeg."
"Sheeg?" Ron tittered. Even Kim had to stifle a giggle.
"Laugh it up, you two. You're just saving up for what I'm going to do when I run into you off this island." Neil shot her a glance that said 'knock it off' though they didn't know if she even had her eyes open under the dark sunglasses. Kim suddenly realized that Shego had now twice indicated her concern about Neil's financial situation. She said rather emphatically the two of them weren't officially together, but it seemed like she had been living in his house for some time. One of the four bedrooms was clearly occupied by a woman and looked well lived in. Neither of the two kept a very neat room.
Kim also noted there was no sign of Shego's customary green and black jumpsuit.
In fact, it seemed like she was going out of her way to avoid green in her wardrobe. Her bikini (what there was of it) was dark maroon. Yes, something was definitely up with the slightly older woman, but she was not yet ready to discount that all this might just be an elaborate act.
There was also the fact Shego was technically a fugitive!
Sometime between their Junior Prom – the night of Drakken's Diablo attack – and mid-summer a year ago, Shego and Drakken managed to escape from prison. The authorities weren't aware they were gone at first, as they had substituted quite well-crafted Synthodrones at the special federal facility where they were being held. At the same time they were trying to steal an advanced fighter ship from the future an accident at the prison revealed the true nature of the fabricated prisoners. Drakken simply melted.
That whole fiasco ended with Doctor Drakken back in prison and Shego disappearing with an escape pod to places unknown. It was unfortunate that Drakken couldn't be charged with his insane scheme this time, as the existence of a spaceship from the future of a parallel universe could not be presented in a court of law. At least he still had the rest of his previous sentence to serve, plus extra time for his escape.
Somehow this time Shego and Drakken's parting was not the result of GJ troops separating them but something that had transpired between the two. Just that morning she responded with absolute venom at the mere mention of his name.
Neil suddenly sprung up and started sprinting toward the water. "Last one in loses the boogie!" He shouted as Ron took up the chase.
"Nicest thing about running a bike shop in a resort town like this! Setting your own hours!" Neil boasted as Kim and Ron surveyed the inside of his shop. "Pretty much if nobody's here by five, I lock up and head for the beach."
"So, what's up with 'Sheeg?'" Ron finally asked.
Neil considered the question for a moment, then finally sat on a stool behind the counter. "Don't mention any of this to her. All her bluster aside she's got some real emotional issues rattling around in all that black hair.
"She showed up here about six months ago as I was moving in. I mean, she was a real basket-case. Said I was the only person she could think of to turn to. Needless to say, she spent the first few weeks all worried I was going to turn her in. Granted, I had to think really long and hard about whether I should or not."
"Why didn't you?" Kim asked. "Considering what she did to you."
"I guess, hmmm, I guess I just didn't see her as that big a danger. Not in the condition she was in." He noted Kim's stare. "Now, I know how the two of you got along, I just wasn't there for all of that. I also had this idea I could some how help her regain some of who she used to be. Helped that I figured out how to modify her appearance."
"How did you do that?"
"Oh, it's part of those psychokinetic mumbo-jumbo my other self told me about. I think it's related to the healing powers, or summich. Nothing else has popped up, but Jimmy was like thirty six years older than I am now, so it's not like all this is going to develop overnight. Just like your Mystical Monkey Power, Ron."
"How did you?..."
"GJ, dude. Doctor Director emailed me your whole jacket before you got here. Standard procedure and all that."
"For a beach trip?" Kim asked, confused.
"An officially sanctioned GJ sponsored retreat." Neil corrected. "I get reimbursed for my expenses. Hey, I like being generous, but I ain't stupid."
Kim had to giggle. Just like Global justice to require forms, authorizations and procedures, even for a vacation.
"So, do they know about your other houseguest?" Ron asked.
"Uh, no, I kinda think they'd put us both under the prison if they knew about that."
The young woman huddled in the corner of her room. The people in blue jumpsuits were kind to her, but she still felt like a prisoner. At least they weren't like the black-suited men who had been holding her. The brought her food and gave her fresh clothing to replace the tattered punk outfit she had worn for so long. They let her shower and even offered to have a physician come in and check her out.
One moment she had been trying to steal some food in LA, the next she was bound and gagged on an airplane headed for that foul, moist place. She didn't know then where she was, she didn't know that she was almost three thousand miles from where she had been. She only wanted to get something to eat, something to survive on. She had been like that since she left the others behind in New Mexico. Why had she left them? They were kind to her and she wasn't their prisoner. Her old friends, if you could call them that, only kept her around because she was part of the whole. After they killed Xan even that wasn't true any more. She had to get away from them, to make a clean start.
But why did she leave the people who would be real friends behind?
Maybe it was that other "Xan." He was as different a person as possible, but he looked just like him. She almost couldn't stand to look at him, at least then. On top of that was her other self. She saw in that other blonde girls eyes something she thought only existed in her other 'friends.' It scared her. She simply had to get away from them, as she had to get away from everyone else.
Her blonde hair had grown out and she had finally cut all the black-dyed chunks off the ends as it grew. She thought she could make herself into another person, but everything still seemed to be going wrong.
At first she thought her captors were after her for stealing the food. That was until they put something over her mouth. Police didn't do that sort of thing, they simply locked your wrists in handcuffs and took you to the station. She woke up some time later in the company of several non-descript white men in suits. They looked at her with disdain, like she was a thing instead of a person. They locked her away in a cell that was more of a box than a room. They didn't even provide for the most basic of comforts. Animals in zoos were better kept than her.
Then, amazingly, another man in black was there. He was tall, like her Xan had been, but much heavier, much stronger. Despite his bulk he moved silently and fluidly. In moments her bindings were off and he was carrying her down the sterile white concrete hallways that made her latest prison. He carried her into the night air outside, the sounds of the marsh animals masking their escape. He gently placed her in some kind of SUV and without a word he sped back to the main road.
His voice was calm, reassuring. He had a very slight southern accent. He told her that he was taking her someplace that she would be safe, away from the "Special Unit" as he called her captors. He turned her over to people he called Global Justice, saying that they would take care of her and that they had her best interests at heart.
Ava tried her door again, still finding it locked. These people might act kind and merciful, but she still felt like she was a prisoner.
Kim Possible and related characters are the property of Disney. Ava and Xan are property of 20th Century Fox. This work of fiction is my property.