Day 120
Shego stood pressed against Drakken's left side in the hover-car where they hovered about thirty feet above the surface of the ocean. She had stayed at a formal distance when it was his turn to speak, but once watching eyes were off of him she was at his side again with her arms tight around his waist.
Phil's family had agreed to a burial at sea.
His former roommate Mitch had gone through his personal belongings, found the phone numbers to call, and had the difficult task of informing the family who had already lost a young daughter that they had lost their nineteen-year-old son as well.
Shego had learned that the family was aware of his villainous pursuits and had maintained a positive relationship anyway, hoping it was just youthful rebellion. All of his roommates had assured them that it was just that, though any relief they may have felt was far surpassed by the loss.
The entire fleet of hover-cars—the six in working order—were out over the ocean about three miles from the lair, crammed to capacity with henchmen. Even the short-range hover-scooter was being utilized for the occasion, precariously holding Phil's three ill roommates. The rest of the sick including those testing the vaccine had been forced into a single vehicle. Shego and Drakken occupied their own car, which Shego felt slightly guilty about considering how many men were crammed into all of the others, but not guilty enough that she wanted them crammed into theirs.
The sky was filled with spotty clouds that day, causing shadows to fall over the waters. Small glimmers of sunlight peeked through as if they were trying to tear back the clouds, and the combination of light and shadow with the movement of the waves made the entire surface of the ocean look like a waving flag. It was an indefinable yet somehow appropriate atmosphere the weather had created for the task they were burdened with that day.
They were only three miles out from the lair because Drakken was concerned about the cellular signal; Phil's family were listening over Mitch's phone, and Drakken's service would regularly get cut off when the local islands' governments discovered his hack into their service.
Drakken had spoken first, his words brief, well-rehearsed, and heartfelt. Shego wondered if he hadn't done a web search for comments to make at funerals. But even if he had, the stiff set of his jaw was enough to tell everyone listening that he meant every word.
Phil's three roommates—Mitch, A.J., and Tony, who also had the disease—were taking turns speaking from the hover-scooter, their words frequently broken by violent coughs. Shego kept glancing up at Drakken from where her head was leaned against his chest. He kept his head held high and his face still as he listened to the stories and memories about the young henchman who had so quickly succumbed to the illness.
Drakken had suffered the loss with an emotional crash nearly as bad as with his mother's death. Shego had spent that entire day convincing him that it wasn't his fault, and also to her annoyance that it wasn't her fault for dragging him away from the ventilator construction. He had eventually admitted that he wouldn't have been able to finish building it in time, and she also got him to acknowledge that even if he had, it wouldn't have mattered; people in hospitals on ventilators were still dying.
The next day he had built the coffin. He insisted on doing it without help, even when several of the henchmen offered. Shego thought it must have been some form of therapy for him, though how exactly she wasn't sure. But it did the trick of at least getting him nearer to the place where he just obsessed about the vaccine again and wasn't looking on the brink of crumpling under the weight of his own guilt.
"My favorite thing about Phil," Mitch was saying, "was when he'd play his guitar. He seemed to go to another place."
"Trans-...transcen—" A.J. couldn't finish the word for his coughing.
"Transcendence," Mitch finished with a nod. "And he was always offering to teach us."
"Seemed like all his problems went away when he'd play," Tony added.
"And so did some of ours when we'd hear him," A.J. added, finally getting his breath back.
Shego thought back to the evil family picnic from the previous summer and tried to remember if Phil had been there. He may not have been on the books yet. She certainly couldn't remember any of the henchmen ever playing an instrument where she could hear it. But then, she had always participated to the bare minimum at the picnics, staying on the fringes and as far away from the activity as Drakken would let her get away with.
She decided then that at the next evil family picnic...if the pandemic was ended in time for them to have one that summer...she was going to pay attention.
The three henchmen on the hover-scooter finished their combined eulogy, and then all eyes turned to Drakken. He tensed further as he nodded to Shego, who had quickly released him so as not to soften his image. She pressed the control that released the coffin that had been hanging by chain beneath their vehicle.
She leaned far over the side just in time to see the splash as the wooden box hit the ocean's surface and then bobbed up and down atop the waves. After a moment she felt Drakken slowly move beside her and peer down.
A henchman named Claudio who Shego had previously only noted for his seemingly too-massive-to-be-useful size, began singing 'Amazing Grace.' It turned out that in his former life he had been an opera singer and his family had ties with the Italia mafia.
As the coffin slowly vanished during the song, Shego couldn't help but think how ironic it was to have a song of faith at the memorial of a villain. She would have remarked on it if Drakken weren't so rigid beside her, his nerves wound so tight she thought at any moment he might snap.
As for the henchmen, Shego could hear a few sniffles from the gathering of hover-cars surrounding them (and endless coughs from the sick), but not too many to suggest a loss of dignity. Although, in that circumstance...she couldn't consider it weakness. She knew she would have made a far more pathetic showing if Drakken had died.
The song finished, and the coffin fully submersed and out of sight beneath the dark waters, the henchmen turned their cars and the hover-scooter back toward home. Shego reached for their own car's controls, but Drakken's hand over hers stopped her.
She watched as he straightened up and surveyed the henchmen's departure, his eyes clouding. Shego slowly stood up and held her breath as she watched him. He had the same haunted expression he'd had when looking out at the vacant parking lot of Everything-A-Dollar, and the abandoned public park they had walked in weeks ago.
The henchmen's hover-cars became small gray blips in the distance, the dark silhouette of the lair poking up from the edge of the water looking exactly like what it was—something out of place, like it didn't belong. Just like the people who called it home. People who had turned their backs on society for one reason or another, and who used each other for the justification of their illicit actions.
But what they had all experienced that day in Phil's loss revealed that they had at least some humanity left. And as Shego looked at Drakken's distressed expression, she knew between the pair of them who had the most.
His eyes came away from the lair and moved out to the left. Shego followed his gaze and saw the hazy darker-gray bumps on the horizon that were the island countries of the Caribbean—places they regularly bought and stole from, and where Shego had been lost and poisoned just trying to buy toilet paper—places that reminded them that there was still a world out there.
"I'm sorry...Shego," Drakken said slowly, his voice just above a whisper.
Shego turned and looked up at him sharply. "What?"
"I'm sorry, I...I can't do it."
Her stare was unblinking as she held her breath, waiting for him to continue.
"I know...it would be the most evil thing we—that I've ever done. I would be..." he grimaced and closed his eyes, "undeniably the most evil person in all of history. Of all time. Some might even say...I was more evil than Satan himself."
The salty winds blew their hair as they remained standing in the craft hovering above the choppy waves. Shego hugged herself against the chill but didn't take her eyes off his face. She already knew what he was going to say... She already knew what she was going to say in response. But she also knew...he needed to say it all first. So she waited.
"But I..." he shook his head in slow disbelief at himself, staring over her head at the distant islands. "I can't. I can't do it."
He sank down to the seat and buried his face in his hands. She tentatively sat in her seat and leaned forward with her elbows on her knees, listening.
His hands slid slowly down his face until they pulled at his lower lip and then rested in shaking fists under his chin. His eyes were more dark and hollow than ever, and they seemed to be permanently bloodshot, for he had slept scarcely more than six hours in the days since Phil had died. That, compounded with the lack of sleep he'd had before and the almost total lack of food, Shego was surprised his body hadn't simply given up.
"We— I— We would be ruling the world overnight," he continued. "And we would have allies. They would fight for our allegiance while we play them like...mere infantry, while we hold the nuclear weapons. No one would ever be able to stop us. It's almost...too perfect. It's more evil than anything I've ever imagined."
Shego hugged herself again as images flashed through her mind of what he was saying. World leaders bargaining with them, making illicit deals, betraying former allies as if they were fodder—all for the sake of gaining the good graces and being number one in the eyes of the man who held all the cards...Dr. Drakken. And she would be at his side, sharing in every deception and every spoil, even calling some of the shots if it suited their whims. And whims they could spare, with the great power they would wield over every living soul on the Earth.
He was right. History would judge them more evil than Satan.
Shego realized that a contented smirk had found its way to her lips and eyes as she imagined the future he had outlined. The desire for it tore at her like an unquenchable thirst, so much so that she licked her lips in anticipation.
She felt him looking at her and focused in on his gaze. The desire, the hunger was in his eyes too. And for a moment they shared in that lustful understanding of all they could have...
The world. They could have the world.
She wanted to kick her feet and laugh in delight, to wickedly relish in all they could do... But in his eyes, greater than the hunger and the desire...was agony. Fresh, overwhelming, and excruciating.
With an extreme effort she forced her smirk to lessen and her eyes to soften from their hard glitter to something more approachable. His eyes pleaded with her desperately, as if whatever action she took next would mean his life or death.
"So it works," she stated through her smile, leaning back comfortably in the seat.
After a brief hesitation, he nodded. "Jasper, Sanchez, Yaseen," he murmured as if in awe as he numbered each volunteer off on his fingers, "Luis, Johnson, and Scott. All...all producing antibodies, and not even a sign of any symptoms."
Shego slid across the center console and sat half on top of it and half on his lap. He leaned back slightly with a look akin to disappointment, but she ignored it as she brought her fingers up to stroke his jaw.
"Mad scientist," she grinned, drawing the words out with a slowness that was somewhere between mocking and adoring as her fingers lightly stroked his chin. "Evil genius."
He gently grabbed her hand and brought it down to her lap, holding it there. The pain and pleading in his eyes served to extinguish the last of the wild dreams his words had kindled within her. It was with surprising ease she put them back in the designated compartment of her mind to await a more appropriate time for release.
Drakken shook his head, his eyes despondent. "I can't do it. Please, Shego... I'm sorry. I want to...but I...I can't..." he pleaded with her. "I can't hold the world hostage."
She entwined her fingers with his and brought her other hand up to cup his cheek as she slowly leaned in closer to him.
"I don't want you to."
He blinked and shook his head in disbelief.
"What?" he asked.
"I said...I don't want you to."
His eyes widened as he stared at her in fascination, as if she were an alien just landed in his lap. She brought her hand down to stroke his jaw again as she leaned in closer and lowered her voice to a whisper.
"Give the vaccine away. Save the world."
His soft gasp and the tremble of his lower lip were the first sign of his breaking. And then with a sigh that seemed to give up his final reserves of strength he crumpled down into the seat, all of his fear, worry, and grief lifting off of him at once. Shego's smile faded as she looked at him, his eyes closed and his chest momentarily stilled. Then it rose again with too quick and too shallow a breath. He looked old, wasted, and barely alive.
She slid her arms around his shoulders and slowly pulled him forward again. He blinked several times as if just waking up, his eyes briefly scanning his surroundings before finding her face.
"Shego..." he breathed.
She pulled him into a gentle hug, and a moment later felt him return it warmly. She shifted her face to whisper in his ear.
"I love you, Dr. D."
She felt him heave once, twice...and then he was gently pushing her back. His face was wet with tears that he ignored as the desperation was back in his eyes.
"We're wasting time," he said. "People are dying."
She frowned lightly, but she continued to hold him and began brushing his hair back from where the wind was blowing it down into his face. She noted with some dismay that he felt hot and feverish.
"You have to promise me something, right now," she said.
He looked confused. "What?"
"Let me take it from here."
"But...what—?"
"Dr. D., I..." she glanced away as she took a steadying breath and then looked up, her resolve firmer than ever. "The world has had you long enough. I need you now. Our baby needs you."
He cast his eyes to her ample baby-bump and then looked back up.
"You did it. You saved the world. Please... Let yourself be saved."
She could see the hint of fight in his eyes. But he was too weak to bring it forward. With a sigh, he nodded his assent. And no sooner than he had were her lips were on his, kissing him slow and deep, reminding him of just what he was living for.
When she pulled away he looked a bit more lively. She grinned at him and slid back into the driver's seat and put the hover-car in gear, flying it higher and away from the chill of ocean breeze as they journeyed back to the lair.
"Shego...to be clear," he began. She glanced at him. "I still want to take over the world someday. Just...not like this."
She chuckled and grinned at him. "I'll bet you've already got a plan."
Drakken smirked.