Warning: This story will eventually be Kigo, and elements of said Kim/Shego goodness are present even in this chapter. If you don't like that sort of thing, please read no more. Also, me writing Kigo fanfiction doesn't necessarily mean I despise Ron Stoppable or any other characters in the show. This pairing just happens to be my favorite.
Disclaimer: I don't own Kim Possible. Kim, Shego, Ron, Wade, Drakken, and all the rest are copyright to Disney, Bob Schooley, and Mark McCorkle.
Stranded: Descent into Darkness
Kim Possible closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and weighed her options.
Leaving Shego here in this blocked and damning ravine, she decided immediately, was not something she could ever consider. Ruling that out with vehemence, Kim brooded about her remaining choices, none of which were very appealing. She could always wait things out with Shego: she could stay here too, huddled on the ledge next to her nemesis, and hope for the best.
But what good would that do? she agonized, biting her lips from the inside. We'd both freeze to death within hours. Shego might be able to keep us warm with her plasma for a little while, but that'll give out soon and she doesn't need to be using the energy.
And then there was the matter of the cave.
That's the only way out. Kim was convinced of this. Curling her hands over Shego's arm, the teen superhero meditated on the mental images she had of the cave: wide, high, and with the promise of clean air, it seemed their best option for survival. Kim could only hope it went all the way to the surface of the mountainside. She listened to Shego's relenting, half-sobbed breaths, absently stroking the other woman's arm with the tips of her fingernails, and heard her mother's voice rise into stern relief in her head.
Spinal cord injuries don't heal easily, Kimmie. And they often come with a variety of nerve-wracking symptoms, if you'll pardon the pun: temperature irregularities, shock, incontinence, paralysis... And usually, the damage is only worsened by the victims trying to move after they've been injured. I've operated on plenty of people with a mix of brain and spinal damage. The brain can bounce back. If one area's injured, the others attempt to compensate. The spine… well, it usually can't do that. You and Ron be careful out there, okay?
She remembered her mother's expression of panic when one of the Tweebs—Kim couldn't honestly remember if it had been Jim or Tim—had sproinged right off the family trampoline and onto his back in the yard, setting up a wail fit to raise the dead. She remembered her mother's usually smooth brow crease with lines; remembered the cool gaze snap and crackle and burn with fear; remembered her snarling shriek of, "Don't MOVE!" But the Tweeb had been okay, yes, after a trip to the hospital and many x-rays and even a grape-flavored lollipop. Having rarely seen her mother come so close to losing her cool, Kim recalled every instance of the experience as though it had been etched into her mind with the very fine point of a scalpel.
Shego's already moved. Not good. Kim rubbed her forehead, feeling a spike of worry for the woman she had, up until now, considered her most formidable enemy. I shouldn't worsen the injury by dragging her around through an underground cave system, but if I don't, I might as well be signing her death warrant.
Shego shifted in the darkness in front of her, rubbing her bare hand with the one still covered. Kim looked down at the appendage in idle curiosity, realizing that this was one of the few times she'd ever managed to catch a glimpse of her nemesis without a glove. Shego's hand was just as milky-pale as the rest of her, nails manicured to perfection, fingers long and graceful and deceptively pretty. Before she was really aware of what she was doing, Kim had taken the hand and was rubbing it between her own, trying to urge warmth back into the slender, icy palm.
The villainess gave the limb a weak tug but didn't really seem interested in pulling it away, narrowing her eyes at Kim. "What are you doing?"
"Thinking," Kim responded promptly. At least she doesn't sound like she's going to cry anymore, she thought in relief. Shego and tears just didn't mix.
"With my hand, princess."
"Oh." Kim looked down at the woman's fingers, then smiled and shrugged. "Warming you up, I guess." Her brain snapped almost immediately back to the situation at hand. "Shego, do you have anything in your suit we can use? Any food—anything?"
Shego frowned. Twining her hand firmly in Kim's—the hand she'd used to level buildings, throw cars, and wreak general havoc—the villainess both anchored and pulled herself forward away from the rock wall upon which she was propped, and managed through gritted teeth, "There's a pack with some traveling stuff sewn into the lining of my suit. I can't remember all of what I put in there. You'll have to get it out and look." Reaching up with her free hand, Shego unzipped the black-and-green uniform and began to gingerly peel it away.
Kim helped her, keeping her arm tensed at the elbow so Shego wouldn't fall back again and hurt herself. She bit her lip as the uniform came away from the slender shoulders, revealing bruises aplenty and, to her horror, an expanse of mottled pale skin made slick and crimson by fresh blood. With an expert wriggle of her upper body, Shego shed the uniform down to her waist, switching handholds on Kim's arms as she did so to wrestle away the sleeves. The teen superhero, letting the villainess hold her for bracing as she needed, looked upon the deep gouges along Shego's spine and shoulders and felt, for the first time in her life, as though she truly couldn't handle a situation. Not this, not down here in the cold, in the darkness and the neverending stillness, in the fathomless gloom of the mountain.
The wounds near the small of the woman's back were deep enough to expose taut lines of quivering red tissue and, here and there, the telltale chilling white of bone. Kim Possible looked down the line of Shego's spine and at the grievous injuries and felt the bitter, acidic taste of bile touch the back of her tongue. Working desperately to control her gag reflex, the red-haired teen closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and leaned slightly around Shego's hip to dislodge the lining from the top piece of the woman's suit. As promised, it felt bulky and came away with a few delicate tugs, and Kim pulled free a creased silver package no longer than her forearm and slighter in width than an empty manila folder.
Kim placed the package on her knees and set about helping Shego fasten the lining back in place and tuck her arms into the top half of her suit once more, her gaze quiet, resolute. Only when Shego was as comfortable as possible again did Kim shift her eyes to the package in her lip, her hands hovering hopefully over the crinkled edges.
Shego pointed with her bare hand to the package. "Pull really hard on that seam." Kim obeyed, blinking curiously as the package broke open, spilling its contents onto the snow. Three vials of black, sinister liquid, a cluster of darts, a pocketknife, a spare pair of gloves, and a tiny square of beige material fell into a lump before Kim's knees, followed closely by a twin set of granola bars and a small packet of SweetTarts.
Lifting her eyebrows, Kim picked up the last item and examined it with a smile. "I didn't know you liked candy, Shego."
Shego made a soft rumbling sound and shrugged, rifling through the meager contents of the packet. "Dr. D keeps them in a bowl on the kitchen counter," she murmured distractedly. "For the minions and all. I'm only human, princess—of course I like candy."
Settling the SweetTarts back on the snow, Kim ran her fingers in puzzlement over the three black vials and offered thoughtfully, "Mmm. What's in these? And what is this?" She pinched the square of beige material and flipped it over into her free hand, weighing it with a surprised exhale. It felt heavier than it looked, coarse and cross-hatched all over—it reminded Kim of a condensed tarp or perhaps, she thought, nylon fabric.
"Potent sleeping drug in the vials," Shego answered, "and it's for the darts, though I'm sure you gathered that." She smiled somewhat maliciously—though the expression didn't quite reach her eyes, Kim noted. "Handy for stubborn enemies that just won't stop running down mountainsides all night. You're lucky it was dark."
Kim nodded, brandishing the square again to remind the villainess. "And this?"
"Parachute."
"What?" Kim muttered incredulously. She turned the tiny square over in her hands. There was just no way…
Shego smirked and crooked her fingers to indicate she wanted the square. Kim handed it over obligingly, watching in high interest as Shego ran a thumb along the edge of the rough little package and, after digging into the fabric with her nails, came up with what was unmistakably a drawstring. "Move," she ordered the superhero, and Kim gathered the other items from the silver packet before skittering over to sit at Shego's side. The tiny square in Shego's fingers exploded the moment the villainess pulled the drawstring, a sudden eruption of billowing beige folds and strings and straps, none any wider that Kim's ring finger—none that looked as though they could actually keep a person aloft for any amount of time.
Leaning forward with a wince to collect a handful of the parachute's material, Shego showed the crosshatched stuff to Kim and explained, "You see how it looks like a bunch of squares? Each one is an air cell. Good for snagging thermals and other rising currents—the material's super thin and not smooth inside like a normal windcatch, obviously, so it compensates for not developing a single giant air pocket beneath the parachute by creating millions of tiny ones. More surface area. Quieter, easier descent."
Kim frowned, feeling the material curiously. "Is it strong?"
"As much as any normal parachute."
"And the straps? They look really thin."
"Way to state the obvious, Kimmie." Shego snorted and flexed her fingers in the material, easing slowly back against the wall until she seemed to meld with it, a mix of green, black, and slate shadows in the light of the glowstick. "They're made of some sort of incredibly durable hybrid material—you'd have to ask Dr. D," the villainess continued tightly. "I'm sure he'd gladly rave about it to you. He explained it to me too, but I stopped listening after he dropped in a claim about his, ah, imperial magnificence." She waved a hand somewhat weakly. "Regardless, yeah. They're strong."
Mulling quickly over the supplies at hand and their possible uses, Kim tipped her head and said at last, "We can use the parachute." She nudged over one of the granola bars, tucking the black vials into one of the remaining chambers of her utility belt after moving aside the smelling salts. "You should eat that. You need energy—and I need your plasma."
Shego made an inquiring, suspicious noise as she plucked the spare pair of gloves from Kim's hands and donned one of the set, wriggling her fingers with evident relief. "Oh? Why?"
Taking a deep breath and deciding that now was as good a time as any to voice her plan, Kim informed her nemesis simply, "I'm going to need you to melt some of the edges of the parachute together so I can make a sled for you." Swallowing, she went on in a rush, "There's no other way out but the tunnel I found. I don't want to move you, but it's either that or leave you here to die, and I want that even less, Shego."
There was a measured silence from the other woman, one that seemed to stretch and expand and go on forever between them. Kim dug her fingers into her knees until her skin screamed protest and prayed that Shego wouldn't argue too much. And there were worse, more agonizing things to consider: what if Shego was afraid of moving? Of losing her legs forever? Of going into the cave? What if she preferred death over darkness and immobility?
When Shego spoke at last, her words were almost a snarl and her voice cracked with a mix of disgust and incredulity. "You want to drag me out of here?" Her visible eye snapped and glowed like a sparkler on Independence Day, a green firecracker of righteous indignation and cold, crackling fury.
"It's not something I've fantasized about, I'll admit," Kim confessed irritably, "but wrapping you up like a giant sushi roll in the parachute is the best chance you've got. If we sit here waiting for a search party or something—"
"I didn't intend," Shego spat, lip curled, "for you to stay here with me!"
Feeling her cheeks flush with anger rather than embarrassment, Kim leaned forward and took Shego's chin between her forefinger and thumb. She saw Shego's newly-donned glove burst into faint flame at the fingertips, saw the fist clench—saw Shego's jaw tighten with the restrained urge to fight back against her. Rage doing a jig behind her eyes so fiercely that she could hear the blood roaring in her ears, Kim hissed explosively at her nemesis, "I am not leaving you here to die! I don't want you dead. And you obviously don't want me dead either," she continued, tightening her grip on Shego's slender chin, "or you wouldn't've done what you did on the slope up there."
Shego glared at Kim through her good eye, face still cast in a stubborn set—but she was, at least, keeping silent, listening to the girl. Closing her eyes, the teen superhero took a deep breath and murmured, taking steps on her pride as she did so, "The likelihood of me getting out of the cave without you isn't high. My glowstick will run out soon"—Kim gave the little plastic torch a small wave—"and if I happen to find heavy blockages in the tunnel, the only way I'm going to be able to get around them is with your plasma." Pausing, Kim opened her eyes again to gaze at her nemesis and found a peculiar expression on Shego's face: a kind of muffled awe complete with arched brows, quirked lips, wide eye. Hurrying onward before her pride flared again, Kim managed quietly, "I can't do it alone. I need you."
Shego frowned, studying Kim intently. Cocking her head as much as she was able with her chin still in the red-headed teen's grasp, the woman murmured at last, "I don't think I've ever heard you submit to anyone before, Kimmie." She smiled and pumped one of her eyebrows suggestively. "If this is always how you're going to talk to me in close quarters, count me in."
Kim refrained from celebrating her victory of winning over Shego in favor of producing an indignant, surprised squeak. Releasing the other woman, she backed away from Shego quickly and turned to begin to collect the parachute to her, hoping fervently that the darkness was at least hiding her burning face.
"Kimmie?" asked Shego after a long moment. Lifting her head to indicate that she was listening, Kim murmured softly and blinked as Shego persisted, "Do you have anything in your pockets?"
Kim blinked again, then slowly dug her hands into her pockets to search them more thoroughly than before. She came up with two handfuls of twigs and pebbles when she fished through the ones at her hips; a small shard of her Kimmunicator's screen was lurking at the bottom of her left pocket and gleefully gave her a sharp prick. Gritting her teeth, Kim patted her back pockets and found, to her surprise, a lump in one of them. She seized upon it eagerly and found, to her instant disappointment, a tube of lipstick and the sad remnants of a package of airline peanuts.
She presented her findings to Shego, who took both to examine them. "Splendid," she grouched. "Mushy peanuts. My favorite."
"And crushed granola is so much better."
"Better than peanut butter without the butter, princess. Blech! It even feels gross." Shego paused, and Kim heard her uncork the tube of lipstick. Seconds later the villainess informed her simply, "And this shade of lipstick really doesn't suit you."
Kim turned, folding the parachute in absent occupation, to see Shego critically evaluating the contents of the lipstick tube. She agreed immediately with her nemesis that the color was far too dark for her—and it was that which brought to memory the tube's use, quite far from cosmetic. Smiling, she shrugged and replied in a smooth voice, "That's because it doesn't go on my lips."
Shego looked up at her, brows piqued. "Then where does it go?"
"On locks and doors. It's a dissolving agent. Works on most substances—including skin. I wouldn't touch it if I were you."
Shego proceeded to don an expression of interest and turned gingerly, curious, to press the very tip of the lipstick to the rock wall near her shoulder. At the resulting sizzle and sudden divot in the wall, she grinned fiercely and murmured, her voice holding a touch of longing, "Wish Dr. D would think to make me stuff like this. Would've been useful in Italy last week…"
Kim snorted, trying not to sound too derisive. "Is anything he ever makes useful?"
"Not really," Shego allowed, and followed up after a few seconds with, "unless you count that parachute. And he's a pretty good cook."
"You don't cook for him?" Kim asked, half in curiosity and half to have something to keep her mind off the cold, a spreading entity which was beginning to ooze through her limbs, a plague of aching pins and needles. Her fingers, stiff and frigid, only obeyed her brain's commands every now and then. It made folding the parachute a chore in itself. Her ankles and hips were chafing, snow having clung to and melted behind her utility belt and in the cuffs of her pants; she was certain the hairs on her arms were perpetually frozen standing up, and that she would have goosebumps forever. Her breath steamed in the air in front of her, puffs of vaporous white substance that drifted up to make her nostrils hurt.
"As if," Shego murmured quietly. "I can't cook."
The dry, blatant admission startled Kim. Folding the last section of the parachute with an effort, straps facing out and up so she could loop them about her shoulders when the time came, the teen superhero squinted at her nemesis in the darkness. "I can't either," she found herself telling Shego. "Ron tried to help me once, and it worked for a while—long enough to get me out of Home Economics with a passing grade, at least. I still manage to burn water."
"Perfect Kim Possible can't cook?" Shego sounded tiredly amused. "I fear for your future children. They'll be raised on a microwave lasagna diet the moment they're off the bottle."
"Microwave lasagna has its perks, y'know," Kim murmured. Settling the parachute carefully back down on the snow, she turned her full attention to Shego. Anxiety bounced in her stomach with more vigor than the Tweebs on a chocolate high, and she bit the inside of her cheek before she said to the woman, "I'm going to have to move you from there onto the parachute. Which means picking you up. And I'm strong, Shego, but I'm not that strong…" She trailed off, sawing her lower lip between her teeth.
"You're warning me that you might drop me, ruin me for life, put me through agonizing pain, yadda yadda." Shego's voice went deadpan and somewhat wobbly once more, but she waved a hand impatiently and continued, "I'm already like this because of you, and if I really wanted to blame you for it, you'd be a pile of mush in the snow. Just hurry up, Kimmie. Get it over with."
Kim ignored the lump of guilt that rose in her throat and slipped forward without a word to wrap her arms around Shego's shoulders. She'd never hugged her nemesis before, not willingly, and she now fully understood why: Shego gave off an aura of being about as huggable as a cat with its tail caught in a light socket. She felt the woman stiffen and heard her hiss of pain, and she ignored those too, tucking her face into her enemy's lush black hair to murmur quietly, lips quivering, "I'm sorry, Shego."
Kim felt blindsided by the remorse and the grief and the self-rebuke twining and twisting within her, tormenting her soul and wounding her morality without the slightest shred of mercy. Tears welled in and pricked at the corners of her eyes, threatening to spill over into the raven expanse beneath her cheek; she turned her head, shaking it softly, trying to clear it of the ringing sirens of blame, trying to keep herself from hearing the soft echo of My fault, my fault, my fault ringing with such persistence between her ears.
She was preparing to draw back when the woman gingerly curled her arms about Kim and allowed in a softly chiding voice, "Remember, Kimmie—you're worth it. It's all right." The woman turned her head, brushing cheeks with Kim in a chaste motion of comfort. Shego's pale skin was like ice. "I wouldn't've said it earlier if I didn't mean it. Now." Kim felt the pseudo-embrace tighten as Shego laced her fingers between her shoulderblades. "Get on with it, pumpkin, before we both lose our nerve."
Kim steeled herself and shifted her arms slightly, using the crook of her elbow to brace Shego's neck as she gently turned the woman away from the wall. Shego gasped, uninjured eye widening, and tightened her fingers all the more; Kim could feel Shego's torso going rigid against her own. Possessed by the desire to complete the task at hand as quickly as possible for Shego's sake if nothing else, Kim nudged her enemy's legs together with her other elbow, looped an arm beneath her thighs, and heaved the woman upright bridal style. She lifted with her knees and wobbled despite it all, feeling the influence of the cold in her sluggish limbs, in her very blood, pounding and drumming and crying out and oh Shego was just so heavy, and then the woman in her arms screamed.
It was a sudden, startled sound, one that clawed its way unbidden from Shego's throat and into the world around them, wretched and harsh and miserable, the absolute voice of agony. Shego's fingers came undone; the villainess, scream ending in a suffering sob, raked one hand down Kim's back and side, fingers scrabbling for purchase, nails biting into skin even through the gloves. Kim cried out too but, clenching her jaw, spun on her heel and took the three small steps to the parachute, kneeling to rest Shego in the center of her folded creation.
Fingers twitching and buried in the fabric and skin just above Kim's hip, Shego refused to let the teen go. She wheezed, visible eye glazed over in the darkness; her other hand hung uselessly at her side, and Kim could see the limb spasming faintly from the elbow all the way down to the fingertips. Nerve damage, a mean little part of her mind whispered. She crushed the whisper with a mental boot and began to slowly, slowly ease Shego into a horizontal position on the parachute, murmuring soothingly to her nemesis as she did so, "Almost done—it's almost over…"
Shego responded by grating out a word truly unfit for human ears, and Kim, in the discretion of her own mind, felt a stab of encouragement and relief. A cursing Shego was a breathing Shego.
She managed to get Shego entirely horizontal and smiled down at the woman when the task was done, trying her best not to notice that one of her arms was covered in a warm rush of blood and that the other was aching from Shego's inflicted clawmarks. Eye glazed a rather marbled green, the woman gazed up at Kim and panted softly, lips parted and tinged an alarming lavender. "Didn't feel very nice," she managed at last. Her voice came out gravelly and wet, and Kim winced without really meaning to do so, shifting her arm with delicate, almost operative precision from beneath her enemy's neck.
"It's over," she encouraged Shego quietly. "All you have to do now is seal these seams so you don't slide out when I start to pull"—Drag, hissed the nasty little whisper in her head—"you." Kim lifted one of the carefully arranged folds, her eyes on the woman's pale face. "Do you feel up to it?"
Shego gave a weak chuckle and reached up to run a finger along the indicated line. She melted the separate folds of fabric together in a tiny flash of green light and a pungent sizzle of nylon, then curled her hand and let it flop limply over one of Kim's knees. Looking both disgusted with herself and amused at the entire predicament, the villainess looked up and notified Kim, "You're going to have to guide my hand to the rest."
"Why?" Kim asked worriedly even as she curled her fingers around Shego's wrist. Her skin rejoiced—the glove was warm from recent expulsion of plasma. "Can you not feel this now either?"
Shego inclined her head the tiniest bit to indicate Kim was wrong. "Far from it, princess," she murmured. Kim watched as she closed her eye and settled back, her skull forming a divot in the snow through the parachute, and smiled, a quiet expression completely lacking in malice.
I knew it, Kim thought with confidence, gazing down at Shego's angular face. Her lips curved easily into a mirroring expression. I knew a nice smile would make her beautiful.
"I want to enjoy your touch as long as I can," Shego murmured. She sounded sleepy, distant, and Kim disregarded the idea of blushing to lean forward to make sure her nemesis was still breathing. Shego proved to be quite alive and well, lips twitching as Kim's shadow fell over her. "Ready when you are, Kimmie." The muscles in her wrist jumped as she flexed her fingers.
For the next five minutes or so Kim drew Shego's hand carefully over the folds that needed to be merged, murmuring to signal when she needed heat and giving the wrist in her grasp a faint press when she needed none. Shego said nothing during the entire exchange, and when Kim stated at length in soft exultation, "That's the last one!" the villainess merely exhaled thinly and went still, her hand entirely limp in Kim's. Sliding her fingers down to Shego's pulsepoint, Kim counted the beats beneath the glove until she was satisfied that her nemesis wasn't dying on her, then tucked the limb into the cocoon-like shape of the altered parachute and set about collecting their supplies.
She retrieved everything down to the last mushy peanut for fear of leaving behind something they might need in the tunnel, and was about to return to Shego's side when a dark shape in the snow near the rock wall caught her eye. Tucking one of the crushed granola bars into her pocket, Kim edged over to have a closer look and blinked when she discerned the lipstick tube under the light of the glowstick. She bent to pick it up and held it for a moment, her eyes trailing absently to the small hole in the wall for which Shego was responsible.
Seconds later and possessed by an idea, Kim knelt in the snow and, uncapping the lipstick, began to scribble quietly on the rock wall. It took her about seven minutes to compose a hurried and rather shaky message with the deceptive cosmetic, one that would remain engraved in the belly of the mountain forever and hopefully gain the attention of a search party, should Global Justice think to send anyone to look underground:
Kim and Shego trapped. Injured, few supplies. Must get out. Taking tunnel. Plz help.
Kim paused, then wrote beneath that, Love You, and drew an arrow to indicate which direction she and Shego were going. She didn't sign it, leaving it as a note from both she and the villainess together—just in case. It couldn't hurt.
Stepping back over to her unconscious nemesis, Kim recapped and dropped the lipstick into her pocket. She slung the straps of the parachute around her arms and, hoping against hope, gave them an experimental tug. To her immense relief, Shego slid forward an inch or so over the snow in her cocoon-sled, and Kim grinned fiercely into the darkness as the created seams of the parachute held, loyal and steadfast. The teen superhero adjusted the straps a bit, letting them loop over and around her shoulders like a harness, before she started forward across the ledge, Shego trailing along behind her with the soft, scraping sssssshh of fabric over snow. Kim held the waning glowstick out in front of her like a tiny blue torch and chanced only a single glance back over her shoulder, hardly daring to let her eyes fall on the bloody snow that marked Shego's former presence, hardly daring to reexamine the words illuminated in flickering relief on the rock wall.
Forcing herself to look forward, Kim blinked tears of anxiety from the corners of her eyes before they could freeze there, wondering with a heavy heart if she'd just written her own epitaph—and if she'd condemned herself to an eventual shared grave, a lifetime of being twined in silent, icy harmony with Shego as her companion.
—To Be Continued...
Notes: Deeper and deeper they go, and longer and longer the chapters get! I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. Any helpful critiques, comments, and fluffy hats are very much appreciated.
This story is dedicated first and foremost to my friend Lizzie, who pestered me about writing Kigo until I finally gave in and did so. Thank you, Lizzie. I hope you like it.