A/N: Inspired by split-n-splice's latest art on Tumblr, by her car not working, and by the endless rain outside my window. Set during canon, and with an established romantic relationship. (And regarding the art...you know those shorts are just a quick cover to the real version *cough*) I forgot how to write again... Trying to remember how. Enjoy, maybe.

Gonna stick a Mature rating on this one. Mild perhaps, but still.

Solid Ground

The dome to the hover-car was inoperable. Ordinarily, Shego wouldn't care about this. She was used to Drakken's penchant for flying with the top down, because it was "cool." (Totally not a mid-life crisis vehicle, she had teased at times.) But on the one day the dome was actually needed, it wasn't working. Some faulty circuit due to lack of use, or perhaps a mouse had chewed through some wiring, Drakken had said as he fumbled for an explanation.

Unfortunately, the dome not working had just been the first symptom of what quickly became a cascade of unexplained mechanical failures. And before long, they were going down.

Shego barely heard any of Drakken's excuses or apologies, resigning herself to misery as she sat in the broken-down hover-car on the side of a small mountain. She was too upset to bother to think of mechanical solutions herself, except that she recalled the hover-car previously showing signs of difficulty when it got the least bit damp. And the damp that day, and the reason for need of the dome, had unfortunately come in the form of a massive downpour.

That was why she sat shivering, her suit soaked in rain and her arms crossed in a feeble attempt at retaining some body heat as veritable sheets of water dripped down over her hair and puddled in the seat around her. Her throat hurt from screaming at Drakken on the way down, and the man was uncharacteristically quiet now as he attempted to repair the vehicle in the sudden storm, invisible to her eyes presently as he was bent under the hood.

She had nothing else to do while waiting for the ride to get fixed than run her mind back over the day's sorry events, starting with an unexpected encounter with Kim Possible that had led to their flight in the first place. As she considered everything, she found Drakken's lack of protest in the circumstance to be very intriguing. Usually it was a long back and forth over who was to blame for their defeat at the hand of the teen leading to further arguments, but that day he had, for the most part, simply accepted her vicious, verbal assault.

Perhaps it had been because of the hover-car not functioning properly when he had ignored its signs of needing maintenance for months. Perhaps it was because their plan had been foiled before it even began. But regardless of the reason, and in spite of the inch-deep waters around her thighs on the ruined leather seats, she was starting to feel badly for how she had treated him.

The rain had begun to lessen, she realized, as she considered how Drakken was probably shivering even more than she as he was forced to manipulate tools under the vehicle's hood, his extremities likely numb by that point. It wasn't in her nature to apologize, but, Drakken hadn't really deserved her vitriol. It wasn't his fault the pesky teenager had just appeared while they were viewing a new potential lair location. The sudden storm wasn't his fault either.

However, she was still feeling too sorry for herself to force an apology. Drakken needed to do better. Something must have tipped off the teen, and even if not he needed to keep the hover-car in optimal working order. Not just to keep them dry, but now they were stuck on a mountainside for who knew how long.

As she continued to ruminate over the day's misfortunes, she watched as sunlight began shining through the rain. The clouds in her field of view were thick and dark with rain, but clearly somewhere behind her the storm was breaking. The light hit the treetops first and then slid downward, lighting up the rain like sheets of falling crystal. And it wasn't her imagination that the density of the raindrops was lessening.

"Oh...Shego, look!" Drakken said, startling her. His voice was cautious yet tinged with excitement. She looked first to where his expression was shifting between anxiety and boyish wonder, and then followed to where his shaking hand was pointing. "A rainbow!"

The word was spoken with hope. 'Hope for what?' she wondered, as she gazed at the large, colorful miracle as a slow breeze began shaking the pine trees, interrupting and intensifying the show that the sunlight was putting on through the rain both in front of her and in the distance. She turned blankly toward Drakken, and his hopeful expression faded. His head rapidly vanished back behind the hood of the hover-car.

The rain lessened further, and after a few moments Shego rolled her eyes. She rose slowly from the puddle she was seated in, shaking the water uselessly from her boots as she climbed out of the car and moved to stand next to Drakken.

He jumped slightly at her presence, looking at her in a mixture of fear and question.

"So...you figure out what's wrong yet?" she asked flatly.

"I...I think the spark plugs got wet," he said nervously, seeming to want to shrink in front of her and yet still holding his ground.

Shego blinked. "That's it? Then why are you standing here?"

Drakken seemed to want to look anywhere but at her. Suddenly, it clicked. He preferred freezing his fingers off in the rain than risking more of her ire by joining her to wait out the storm in the hover-car. Something about that made her feel even worse than just sitting in the downpour, and she squeezed out her hair as the rain finally faded, being replaced by a thin, chilly sunlight as she barely restrained a growl at herself.

"Look, let's just get the dome up," she said, trudging back around the car to find the manual controls.

Drakken followed her a moment later, and she scowled as she saw how uneasy he still looked being near her.

They forced the cover up manually and then bailed a little water out of the seats, finally sitting and shivering in silence as they waited for the engine to dry out enough to be started. As the minutes passed, Shego kept glancing sidelong at Drakken and watching the conflict on his face. She knew she could end his misery. All it would take would be to shift across the center seat to sit next to him and share in some body heat, letting him know with the wordless gesture that her anger didn't really run that deep.

Unfortunately for them both, she felt too guilty to eat crow yet, and so silently sat and pretended not to look at the vibrant rainbow in the distance as the storm gradually stopped.

Two hours later and back at the lair, she still hadn't apologized. She had worked through her anger and guilt throughout the wait and return flight, and had realized it was going to take more than a simple 'sorry' when every glance at Drakken's face showed that her words were continuing to cut him deeper. The man was obsessive and created catastrophes in his mind out of things that were mild to others, and she knew he deserved more than the casual and flippant 'sorry' that she'd be most at ease with.

Drakken had already showered, dried his hair, and was flopped moodily in his pajamas on the large, round bed, seemingly ready to cocoon himself in the dark of the lair and write off the entire day by the time Shego emerged from her own shower, watching him silently from the bathroom door. She mused briefly on how warm water was such a comfort while cold an utter torment as she squeezed out her hair, staring at Drakken's un-moving back. She'd let him shower first as a gesture of reconciliation, but it had obviously gone unnoticed. She'd even considered joining him under the warm streams, but he was giving her such a cold shoulder that she knew her presence wouldn't have been welcome.

However, her stubbornness was taking over as the comfortable bed called to her as well the sheer idiocy of continuing in the moody separation her anger had caused. She decided then exactly how they were going to restore their equilibrium, and after giving her hair one final squeeze, she dropped her towel on the floor.

Drakken opened his eyes in sudden fright when a warm weight settled atop his back. The emotion immediately subsided into sadness when he realized it was Shego, and then annoyance as he felt her wet hair dripping all around him when he'd only finally gotten dry.

"Shego," he broke the silence that had been between them for hours save for necessary communication, "it's been a miserous day and I would like to sleep."

Shego ignored him however, her knees coming to rest on either side of his hips as she folded herself over him. His pajama shirt was rapidly moistening due to her hair, and as she nestled snugly atop him, her fingers running up over his shoulders and her damp cheek leaning against his ear, he realized she wasn't wearing anything.

"Shego, please. You're soaking wet," he said, the words coming out like a complaint that didn't reach his heart. Said organ had begun beating rapidly as his mind swirled in confusion. She was furious with him...wasn't she?

"Heheh, you bet I am," was her less than subtle reply, and Drakken's brow shot up to his hairline.

Her fingers had slid under his collar and she began feeling her way down his neck, her wet hair falling around them to the sheets as she wriggled for better access.

Drakken was torn between what she was clearly offering and the ache still in his chest at her fury toward him before, leveling blame upon him for everything from the teen nuisance showing up at the new lair ("You must have left a credit card trail!") to the change in the weather itself ("Another climate control experiment gone wrong!?"), among other insults. He swallowed nervously as her fingers found his shirt buttons.

He had been trying to work himself into a state of apathy, pretending like his life depended on it that the approval of the woman he shared his bed and heart with didn't matter to him. But her touch quickly dissolved that shaky wall he'd been building, like floodwaters on sand, and it was less than a minute before he couldn't resist and made to roll over to receive the fullness of her affections.

She paused when he was finally face-up, smirking at him as if nothing had happened, and part of him wanted to keep pretending and imagine the day had been normal. Perhaps a success even, and she had come to him in celebration and not...erasure. But everything within him yearned for her true love, possibly too much, and even if it meant he would lose that moment with her...he had to know.

"Shego?" he said simply, his eyes communicating the rest he was sure as he held his breath to stay the oncoming tears.

Her hands stilled on his buttons again as she met his eyes, and he saw the twitch at the corner of her mouth as he knew she understood. There was a flash of something in her eyes that caused his chest to seize in fear, but it vanished a moment later as one of her hands slid up to cup his cheek.

"I'm sorry," she said simply, seeming to hold her breath with the difficult admission as her eyes darted away from his more than once. But it was enough, and he pulled her damp hair away and guided her to roll over as he felt all the fear and self-loathing within him began to drift away, like the lifting of a fog.

He gave no resistance when her hands sought to rid him of his shirt again, and he accepted her apology with a deep, longing kiss.