"She was just… bored. She was bored. Something she hadn't had the chance to be in years. For a moment she impatiently tapped her foot against the floor, as if somehow that would make something happen. As if it would make Drew come back faster to entertain her. She nearly slapped herself for that. What was wrong with her? She didn't need him. She didn't need anyone."

The first thing Shea heard when she, not yet fully conscious, began sitting up the next morning was Drew saying, "I'm sorry. I was trying not to wake you."

She blinked and glanced exhaustedly around the room, finally spying him standing in the kitchen. "Whatever," she grunted, rubbing at her eyes with one balled-up fist. "What time is it?"

"Quarter to eight. Want some?" he asked. She had to squint, her vision clouded by sleep, to see him holding up a piece of toast.

She shrugged. "Sure." Her back popped pleasantly as she stood and stretched her arms up over her head. "Surprised you didn't start crying and wake me up in the middle of the night."

He shot a quick glare in her direction, before turning his attention to the toaster. "Give me some credit, Shea. I am an adult after all."

"Tell that to the version of you that screamed and fell off the couch last night."

Apparently, he'd elected to ignore her. "Do you want jelly?"

"Sure." She stifled a yawn, a little surprised she didn't feel more awkward about the previous nights' couch sharing.

"You know," Drew began, as he slathered strawberry jelly onto her piece of toast, "the more I think about it the more I think there must be something wrong with you that makes you enjoy watching movies like that."

She hopped onto the counter and scoffed. "Yeah, it's called not being a baby."

"Or you're crazy," he said, passing the toast over to her.

"Wonder what that means for you."

Shea watched as his face paled considerably in almost a singular instant. "Nygh— anyways."

"It's anyway," she corrected.

"What?"

"There's no 's'," she explained, though not without a hint of mockery. "It's anyway, not anyways."

He rolled his eyes at her lecture and sighed out, "Yes, sure, fine. Anyway, what are you planning to do while I'm gone?"

She shrugged again. "Don't know. I might snoop through your stuff. Steal your TV and run?"

"Shea!" Drew sputtered. "You… you're not really going to, right?"

"I'd have to be really dumb to leave now," she scoffed. "I'll wait until after I get you to buy me clothes, at least." He whined her name again and after a moment of staring blankly at his distressed expression, she snickered. "Relax. I've got books, can watch some TV… I will probably snoop around your room though."

"Don't be such a pest."

"I'm kidding."

"You'd better be," he warned, pointing a finger in her face. "There's nothing even worth snooping for."

"Well, now you're just trying to tempt me."

"I am not!"

Shea finished the last bite of her toast as he stammered out his protests then shoved his shoulder to shut him up. "Don't give yourself a stroke there, sport. Shouldn't you be going?"

Drew glanced at the clock, let out a strangled sort of sound, and hurried out of the kitchen, disappearing into his bedroom only to return a moment later haphazardly shoving books into a backpack.

As he rushed out the door he glanced at her, still swinging her legs on top of the counter, and called back, "You will be fine on your own, yeah?"

She nodded at him, and said with a false sort of innocence, "Don't worry, Drew. I'm a big girl. I can handle being on my own for a lil bit."

"Okay," he said, "um… good? Bye." And then the door slammed shut, and he was gone, and she was, for the first time in days, well and truly alone.

She'd gotten used to the feeling of being alone in Go Tower - so she'd thought. But knowing it was unlikely that someone would burst in to demand she stopped what she was doing and go save the city from whatever gimmicky moron was trying to take over that day felt… different. She realized, staring at the cabinets on the other side of Drew's kitchen, that she wasn't at all used to the feeling of being alone. Not without the added feeling of being watched. For the first time in longer than she could properly remember she could do something she wasn't meant to and actually get away with it. How weird.

She finally hopped off the counter, and with that thought in mind, made a beeline for Drew's room. As long as she didn't mess anything up, he'd never know. She could just go into his room and he wouldn't even know. She had already twisted the knob halfway when she paused. Sure, maybe he wouldn't know, but she would. Part of her insisted that she open his door, not even to go in, just to prove that she could do something she wasn't meant to and get away with it. A moment later she found herself wandering back to go sit on the couch. Drew's bedroom door remained unopened.

She breezed through the rest of the book she'd been reading the day before. To her surprise, less than an hour had passed since Drew left. She sighed and fell to her back on the couch. None of the other books appealed to her at the moment, which worried her. She'd never… not wanted to read before. She loathed the idea that she'd enjoyed reading so much during the last few years because, in large part, it had been rebellious. Or maybe because the threat that at any moment she'd be forced to stop had encouraged her to read as fast and as often as possible. She forced herself to sit back up when she noticed she was nibbling on her lip - a habit she'd thought she'd killed long ago. She told herself how ridiculous she was being. She'd loved reading since she was little! Way before the comet! She was just… bored. She was bored. Something she hadn't had the chance to be in years.

For a moment she impatiently tapped her foot against the floor, as if somehow that would make something happen. As if it would make Drew come back faster to entertain her. She nearly slapped herself for that. What was wrong with her? She didn't need him. She didn't need anyone. She shouldn't even be… but she wanted to be there. She really did. She wasn't gonna walk out. And she wasn't actually going to steal his television either, as fun as it was to tell him she would.

She snapped up the remote and was met with the still rolling credits from the previous nights' movie. She groaned and stood to fiddle with the television set until she managed to get it off the VCR and onto live TV.

And then she almost blasted Drew's television to bits. Her heart raced in her chest, as picture after picture of her - well, pictures of Shego - flashed on the screen. Occasionally the images were joined by the scrolling headline announcing the superheroine had gone missing. She tasted bile rising in her throat as the channel nine newscasters began discussing her "kidnapping".

She knew it. She knew it! She knew they'd say she'd been kidnapped or something equally ridiculous. And she didn't even care. She really didn't. Except… she still couldn't help worrying about what would happen to Drew. Maybe she really should go. It's not like he'd miss her or anything. She certainly wouldn't… yeah, okay. She had to roll her eyes at herself for that thought. She would so miss him but only cause he was actually nice to her. She didn't like him or anything. She didn't even really know that much about him.

Well, she knew he was a baby and a dork. She knew he could cook, and started because he didn't like his mother's cooking. She knew he was dyslexic - she knew he was dyslexic when supposedly nobody else did. Did that mean something? It had to. What it meant, she couldn't work out quite so easily.

Shea buried her head in her hands. Soon enough, if they weren't already, someone would start looking for her. She didn't even know for sure how far from Go City she'd actually gotten. She hadn't left the city since they first moved into Go Tower, none of them had. The places that existed on the outskirts of Team Go's protection were deemed not worth knowing about, and she struggled to even think of names of the bordering towns. If she was just a town or two over, it probably wouldn't take that long for someone to think to search the area. Then again, Go City was pretty big, and her parents probably didn't know enough about her to realize that she would leave. Maybe… maybe it would take a while. Maybe they would give up before they even thought of searching this run-down city - wherever it was.

Biting her tongue to stop herself from cursing out the newscasters, she changed channels. After five more channels talking about her disappearance, all of which seemed to have different theories about what happened to her, she finally managed to find a channel that wasn't talking about her. Instead, she found reruns of some old cartoon, Scamper and Bitey. She'd never been much for the show when she was young, but she found some low-level relief in watching the exaggerated cat-and-mouse violence. It didn't distract her from her worries, but it made thinking about it easier than the litany of "kidnapped", "victim", and "hope to find her soon" had.

She decided, as the cat - she didn't know if it was Scamper or Bitey - slammed face-first into a painted brick wall, that she could at least warn Drew that people might be looking for her. She didn't have to tell him why, necessarily, she just had to tell him.

"Oh yeah," she muttered to herself. "Cause saying, 'hey Drew, by the way, people are probably going to look for me and you might get accused of kidnapping' is totally not something that's gonna get me kicked out."

It took several deep breaths to get her glowing hands under control, after which she turned the TV off, slid her sneakers on and stuffed her keys in her pocket. She needed fresh air, and she needed it now. She made sure to lock the door behind her, then hurried down the steps and outside the building. The promise that she would have clothes soon enough had her brisk walk turning into a run before she'd even reached the end of the road.

Running through Go City had always been interesting - given the fact that she wasn't actually allowed to. She really wondered how her parents hadn't realized that attempting to lock her in her room would only lead to her getting out. It's how she'd gotten out every time. It seemed counterintuitive to give your children spy training, then expect them to stay locked up when there were windows and air vents to sneak out of. Then again, Heath and Merrick had never tried to sneak out, as far as she was aware. And the twins were too young to realize that they shouldn't have to live the way they did. They were too young to even realize that it wasn't a good way to be living in the first place.

It wasn't like her parents weren't aware that she snuck out. They yelled at her every time they found out. Once her father had even threatened to send her back to the lab. That had been just before she'd tried to burn up her plasma. Maybe, Shea figured, they'd thought she'd come back. She had every other time. But this hadn't been just sneaking out to get a new book. And the fight with her parents hadn't just been an argument. And she wouldn't be going back, no matter who they sent after her.

There was one thing that had been better about running through Go City that didn't happen in… whatever this place was. She really needed to ask Drew. At least in Go City she knew where she was going. She kept trying to pick out landmarks to keep an eye out for when she turned around, but everything she saw slipped out of her mind before she properly registered any of it. Rather, they were pushed out by thoughts that matched pace with her while she ran.

She stopped, pulling in labored breaths, when she realized she didn't even remember what Drew's building was called to ask for directions if she ended up needing them. Glancing around at the boarded-up windows and half-demolished buildings she figured she might not actually want to ask anybody around for directions in the first place. When sirens started up in the distance she started to panic. If there was some sort of monetary award for the person who found her a place as obviously as poor as this would be filled with people desperate enough to turn her in. With nothing left but instinct to rely on, she turned and booked it back to where she thought she came from. Suddenly, the people she hadn't noticed before seemed to be everywhere, pointing at her, whispering, all of them rushing for phones to call the cops, or worse her, her parents.

She figured out the way back to the apartment faster than she'd expected and she didn't stop running until the door was securely locked behind her. The sirens still rang in her ears, even though she'd sprinted some five or six miles. For the first time in a long time she was more than a little grateful for superhuman abilities.

With her back pressed against the door, she scanned Drew's apartment for any sign of life outside of herself. Seeing nothing she allowed herself to sink down to her knees, trying to calm her breathing and wiping sweat from her eyes. A glimpse at the clock showed her she still had three more hours until Drew got back. She wondered if meeting him at the bus stop would be weird, then decided it would be. Besides, she had no idea which stop he'd even get off at.

Her legs trembling with a combination of nerves and overexertion, she climbed to her feet. She grabbed the towel from her bedroom and shuffled into the bathroom. Putting her jeans and t-shirt from the other day back on didn't appeal to her, but it was better than her, well, Drews, sweat-damp gym shorts and Mighty Martian shirt. She was in and out of the shower before it had even begun to get warm.

The one good thing about her fading nerves was that throwing herself into the world of a novel was almost shockingly easy after her earlier struggle. She wanted nothing to do with anything on the television, or thoughts about what would happen to her… or Drew… when she was eventually found. Because believing it wouldn't happen was ridiculous. So, she let the world slip away. Doing so came very close to proving to be a mistake when Drew came back. The opening door startled her so much that she nearly blasted him.

He either didn't care about, or just didn't notice, her glowing hands because he greeted her with a dopey grin and, "I see you didn't steal my television."

"Not yet," she responded, quickly shoving her hands behind her.

Dropping his bag on the counter with a heavy thud, he rolled his eyes. "Still might?"

"I told you I was at least going to wait until after you bought me clothes."

"Oh, right. Speaking of, when do you want to go?"

"Whenever." She didn't want to go back out at all, actually. Not now. Not when she knew for sure that people were looking for her. Not when she knew it wouldn't be safe for Drew. She could handle herself. She didn't know how much she wanted to risk not being able to handle him, too.

"Not a helpful answer, but alright," he yawned and fell into the chair. "Get up to anything exciting while I was gone?"

"Not really," she lied. Then, gulping, she decided she needed to just spit it out. "My parents are claiming I was kidnapped."

To her surprise, he just chuckled, slumped lazily into the chair, and propped his feet up on the corner of the table. "Worried?" He spared her a quick glance before his eyes drifted shut behind his glasses

She stared at his relaxed posture, wondering if he understood the implications of what she'd said. "Not for me… The worst they can do to me is drag me back home," she added before she could think to stop herself.

"So, we'll be sure to get you a sweatshirt or something." He waved his hand dismissively. "Your skin color is gonna be the only thing people really remember. Cover your arms and you're pretty much in the clear."

She wasn't so sure she agreed, but something about his strange, carefree attitude was rubbing off on her. "Yeah, well—just—I'm only telling you so you know you don't get to blame me when the cops try and say you did it."

"I didn't actually kidnap you. I'm just… harboring a fugitive. Besides, cops have always gone after innocent people, what difference does it make?"

Something told her there was a story behind his evident distrust of cops, but she didn't question it. He was a college student, he probably got accused of being high when he wasn't or something else equally dumb and petty. She didn't have it in her to point out that whatever it was probably didn't come close to what being accused of kidnapping a superhero would - not in small part because confessing that she was a superhero was something she still hoped to avoid doing.

"Okay, then, just… whatever, I guess." That had been… easier than she'd expected. She tried not to let that worry her. "When do you normally get groceries?"
"Whenever." Drew yawned again. "Though I guess with the extra stops… and I still have to do work... Eh, just… Half an hour and we leave."

She scoffed quietly to herself as he somehow managed to contort his body into the singular most uncomfortable looking position she had ever been forced to witness. His face went slack, and while Shea didn't trust that to mean he was actually asleep she decided to not bother him for now - only because she'd figured she would have been kicked out the second the idea of being accused of kidnapping was presented. She figured she at least owed him half an hour of peace for letting her stay after that.

While his quiet snores filled the room, Shea realized she'd never eaten lunch, which she decided was to blame for the pit in her stomach, rather than any semblance of nerves - or worse - butterflies. Snooping through his fridge she found nothing particularly desirable, and she found herself munching on an apple out of habit. She'd have to ask Drew to add strawberries to the shopping list.

The second half an hour passed, she decided it was high time she went back to bothering him. She almost chucked the apple core at the back of his head to wake him up, but forced herself to throw it in the trash can instead. She tried calling his name but, except for a slight twitch, he didn't stir. That, she decided, gave her every right to move behind him and start tipping the, surprisingly light, chair backward.

Drew woke up only as his feet lifted off the table. He made a noise somewhere between a shout and a squeak and flailed so violently that she came close to actually dropping him. She rapidly pushed the chair back up, and before he could turn around she leapt onto the counter and began innocently bouncing a plasma ball between her palms.

"What did you do that for?" He demanded, gasping for air. Her gaze drifted lazily back towards him, where he glared at her over the back of the chair.

"Do what?" She caught the blob of plasma and extinguished it in a fist.

"Why—didn't—nngh!"

"Have a bad dream or something?"

"No! Nn—gah! Nevermind.

"I'm hungry," Shea said, surprised to find it was true. She'd just eaten an apple, a fairly typical meal for her, she didn't normally feel hungry. She shrugged it off, figuring sprinting several miles must have burned some calories. "Can we go now?"

Drew rubbed at his eyes, still glaring disgruntledly at her. "Fine," he mumbled and all but slid out of the chair. "I 'ave to get my wallet."

As he ambled to his bedroom she hopped off the counter and slid her sneakers on, making a mental note to buy socks while they were out. Drew joined her at the door a moment later looking more awake than he had when he left the room.

"Ready?" He asked, tossing his keys into the air and failing to catch them by nearly a foot. They fell to the floor with a jingle. The tips of his ears turned pink as his eyes met hers, and he hurriedly bent down to pick them up.

"Are you?" She quipped, mussing with his hair that had gotten messed up during his catnap. She quickly snatched her hand back when she realized what she was doing. His hair was still soft.

The flush spread down his face as he straightened up. His brief attempts to smooth his hair back down did little to help, but before he could hurry off into the bathroom to fix it she grabbed onto his sleeve and reminded him that she was hungry. He started to stammer out a complaint before he sighed, tried again to smooth his hair back down, then opened the door and gestured for her to go before him with a mocking bow. She forced herself not to laugh at his antics as she stepped out past him. He snatched the shopping list from where it was pinned to the corkboard next to the door and followed her down the steps.

"Can we get strawberries?" Shea asked, trying to ignore the way her legs burned. She really should have stretched after sprinting so far.

"I thought you didn't care what I bought," he teased.

"I didn't. Now I want strawberries."

Before Drew could respond the slimeball creep that had asked him to share her the first night spoke up. "Damn kid, twice in one week? That desperate, Lipsky?"

"She's sixteen!" Drew sputtered, wrapping a hand around her arm, startling her enough that the plasma starting to flare up in her hands burnt out. The creep laughed, an even more mucusy sound than his voice, but whatever he said afterward was drowned out by the closing door.

"I hate that guy," Drew spat as they reached the end of the sidewalk. He looked significantly angrier than he had when she teased him about library girl the day before. "He's such—just… he's—"

"A slimeball?" Shea provided her name for him.

"Yes, exactly," he laughed. "A slimeball."

"Is he always like that?"

"He's always a jerk if that's what you mean. I—I'm sorry he's so—"

"It happens," Shea dismissed, unconsciously rubbing the almost completely faded bruises on her thigh. Maybe she was a little too used to creeps.

"Come on, the store is just a few minutes this way." Drew led her across the street, his hand still wrapped loosely around her arm. The pressure was strangely comforting.

"You can let go of me now," she blurted. Not that she wanted him to. But it would only make things worse if anyone who recognized her saw him looking as though he were dragging her around.

"What?" He glanced at her, then seemed surprised to see his hand was still on her arm. "Oh, right. Sorry." His fingers drifted down past her elbow, leaving tingles on her skin as he let her go. "I'd rather not break you, anyway."

"Break me?" Shea scoffed, genuinely shocked. She felt her eyes going wide as she stared up at him.

"Yes!" Drew insisted. "You're just so—" he jabbed a finger into her shoulder. "I mean, do you eat?"

"You've seen me eat!"

"Did you eat lunch today?"

"I ate!"

"What did you eat?"

"An apple," she told him. While her mother would have been thrilled with that answer somehow telling Drew felt more like a confession.

"That's not lunch, Shea!" He protested. He actually seemed concerned. It was almost comforting in the same way his protective hand on her arm has been almost comforting. It still felt nice to have someone act protective over her. "That's a snack, at best!" And a little embarrassing. She could handle herself.

She crossed her arms, glaring down at the sidewalk as she shuffled along next to him. "Yeah, well, I forgot, okay?" How could he think she was too skinny? Not that she cared what some dork thought of her. Her parents were always breathing down her neck about how much food she ate. If they knew what foods Drew had given her over the last few days - let alone how much - she'd swear her father would have a stroke.

"Well, you're eating something else before I make dinner. It's not healthy to go without eating."

"I didn't go without eating," she grumbled pointedly.

"You might as well have."

"You know, I was wrong that first night."

Drew blinked at her before pointing towards a building that looked only slightly more pristine than the surrounding buildings. "In here. And about what?"

Shea followed him into the grocery store, glancing around at the other people inside. She absently noticed herself stepping closer to him as if somehow being near him would mean people wouldn't notice her skin color and recognize her as the allegedly kidnapped superhero.

"About you being like a mom." She watched his beady eyes roll behind his glasses as he snatched up a cart. Before he could say anything she skipped up next to him again and elaborated, "You're more like a grandmother."

"Nngh! Zip it, pest. This way, come on." She followed him through the store, trying and failing to stop herself from anxiously shifting her gaze from person to person.

"You didn't protest, which means you know I'm right," she teased. When he didn't spare her a response she kept going. "So, were you born old, or did you decide at some point in your life that you wanted to be a grandmother?"

He let out a frustrated cry, shooting a glare towards her."Why must you be so—" He froze mid-sentence, a giddy grin taking over his face before he excitedly exclaimed, "Oh! They have the brand I like again! They were out of it last week!" She watched him as he damn near jumped over the shopping cart to throw the glass refrigerator door open and haul out a gallon jug of chocolate milk.

"Somehow you're both a grandmother and a toddler, Drew."

"I should get two just in case they're out next week," Drew mused, entirely ignoring her mocking.

"You've got to be kidding. First of all, one of those is bound to go bad," she pointed out, jerking him away from the fridge by his arm -in part to stop him from grabbing a second jug, and in part to force him to pay attention to her. "Second of all, I'd really like to wear something other than this," she gestured towards her presentable but uncomfortably unwashed outfit, "and your dork shirts."

"But cocoa moo," Drew practically whimpered, reaching a hand towards the door.

"You said—"

"I know, but one extra gallon won't set me back too much. Come on, Shea, plea—" She plucked a grape from the bag in the cart, and flung it at Drew's head. He spluttered for a moment before glaring at her. "Do you think that makes me less tempted to buy a second gallon?"

"You buy a second gallon and I'm gonna keep hitting you with these." She pelted Drew with a second grape and popped a third in her mouth. The urge she'd felt earlier that morning to break a rule and do something like sneak into Drew's room subsided slightly as she chewed. Even if he was going to pay for the grapes, it was sort of like breaking a rule.

"Don't be so—" The third grape she hit him with knocked his glasses slightly askew, and the fourth burst against his head, juice dripping into his ear and down the side of his neck. He let out a strangled series of sounds as he fixed his glasses and wiped the juice off his skin. "Fine, fine," he relented as she readied a fifth grape. "I'll buy one, just stop that!"

She grinned wickedly at him, as he continued grumbling about the grape juice in his ear. "Well," she reprimanded airly, "if you hadn't gone and grabbed a bag of the mushiest grapes to have ever existed maybe they wouldn't pop so easily."

He shot her a squinty-eyed glare. "They're less expensive than the other brands!"

"So what?"

"So, that dollar off is the difference between being able to afford food and clothes for you, or not," Drew explained, snatching the grape from her hand a moment before she could toss it into her mouth.

"Oh," she mumbled sheepishly, scuffing her sneaker against the cheap mustard-yellow tiles. "Right. Um… sorry."

A strange look flitted across his face, and he let out a thoughtful sort of hum, examining the grape for what seemed like several seconds too long before finally eating it. "Although… maybe we should get an extra thing of grapes," he murmured wistfully.