Shego sighed as she set her bags down in the comparatively cramped master bedroom of the lair deep in British Columbia. It had only been that day that Doctor D had been released from GJ care, but it had been a long, dragging process.
He'd been led out under the direct gaze of Betts and a vanguard of 19 GJ agents. All of them had been equipped with the energy weapons that had managed to have an effect on him when he went berserk before. They'd also chained him up, cuffs and mouth guard included - a purely symbolic move, as the doc's vines could've torn them to scrap in half a second. It was dehumanizing in Shego's opinion. Treating him like a rabid animal… But then she would flash back to his freak-out, where he had been acting like one… The only bright spot in it all was that they let him put on actual clothes. Sure, they were massively oversized gray jogging clothes, but that was pretty necessary to fit over that chest and the thorns.
It had been a good thing that Kimmie had ducked out when she did. It would've been ten times worse if she's seen Drew acting nutso. Or, somehow even worse than that, if she'd been in the cell with Mama Lipsky. Drew was still painfully torn up about it, even though he hadn't been in his right mind.
Speaking of which…
Shego turned and made her way back to the main living room, a good spiral staircase and two hallways away from the bedroom. She flipped her hair behind her as she walked into the main room, expecting to have to forcibly uncurl the doc, make him relax, and try to take things a little at a time.
Surprisingly, he wasn't where she'd left him, standing vaguely in the entrance to the lair.
"Hm…" Shego cocked her hip and looked around the room, as if Drew was just hiding in the corner of the room like he had before the fight with him and Gemini started. To absolutely no surprise, he wasn't hiding from her in plain sight.
So where…?
Shego's brows knitted together as she thought for a moment on where he might have vanished to. There wasn't that much going for the British Columbia lair. Nestled in the side of a mountain, it hadn't actually broke ground in the mountain itself. It was mostly a hideaway lair, far away from where most people would be and not even marked down in HenchCo files as their property. Perfect for their purposes.
But that led back to the question of where in the world her doc had gone…
Deciding to do a full search - and hoping he hadn't snuck off to try and save his dear 'Lord' Gemini - she started from the top, the hanger.
To her relief, the hover car was still there. No sign of Drew, though.
Next was the kitchen. It had been a long drive, and the doc might've been thinking ahead and started whipping up a snack or something.
Nope. Not there either. And, to Shego's frustration, they hadn't stocked this lair up with non-perishable goods the last time they were here. Those bananas looked ripe as death. She roasted them with her powers to put them out of their blackened mushy misery and to help get rid of the stench.
Now it was time to check the lab. Maybe he had a brain flash for a new invention?
As she neared the small, rather underequipped lab that was located in the middle of the lair, she heard the loud buzzing noise that was always Doctor D messing around with his welder.
Bingo.
She entered the lab, making sure to grab the protective goggles that was a practically necessary accessory for even being near welding that was hanging by the door, and walked right on in.
Drew was standing hunched over one of his workbenches. His vines held a plethora of parts and tools, everything a mad scientist would need to create whatever monstrous invention he had cooking in his head. He was welding what almost looked like… A lampshade? How in the world did he get stuff built so fast?
Ah well. It didn't matter.
"Yo," Shego started out, being careful to squeeze his shoulder gently so he didn't get startled and fry her in the face with the torch. When he stopped and turned around, carelessly swinging the torch, Shego sighed to herself at her wasted effort at being safe. Ignoring that annoyance, she asked as he turned the torch off and set it down on the table, "What in the world are you doing? We literally just got here!"
"I, uhm…" He began to twiddle his fingers and vines as he spluttered, "I just thought that you, erm, might want something nice to, ah, pass the time. You like sunbathing a lot, so I was building you a deluxe sunlamp. One that will give you a suntan with real sunlight!" His brows came together with concern as he hesitantly asked, "That's okay, right?"
There was something… Off about the way he said it. He sounded almost desperate for her to approve of what he was doing. At the same time, it was something Doctor D would've been doing on his own anyway… Maybe he was trying in his own way to get back to normal?
Deciding it was best to play along, Shego condescendingly patted his shoulder. "Yeah, that's fine, Doc. Whatever floats your boat."
He brightened up considerably at her allowance and bobbed his head up and down excitably. He proudly proclaimed, "Don't you worry! This will be the best sunlamp you've ever seen!"
Again, alarm bells went off in Shego's head. There was something that was not right about how he was talking about doing his usual thing. It made Shego's skin crawl for some reason.
"Are you okay?" she bluntly asked, giving him a look.
Drew shrank back, shame and worry radiating off of him. "What did I do wrong?"
She blinked. What?
Apparently confusing her own confusion with disapproval, he began to shiver slightly as he yelped, "Whatever it was, I didn't mean it!" He began to curl in on himself. "I didn't mean-.."
"Whoa, calm down, Doc," Shego interrupted, cutting off his panic attack as soon as she could. "You didn't do anything wrong."
He paused, still half-curled into himself, and cautiously asked, "For realsies?"
Damn. It just struck her… This… Helping him… This wasn't going to be easy. At all. Sure, she didn't think it'd be a walk in the park, but...
Sighing, trying to relax so he would relax, she murmured, "Yeah, 'for realsies'."
He began to calm down, his vines uncurling and resuming their aimless wriggling in the air. Slowly he asked, "So you don't want me to build what would make you happy?"
"I want you to build what you want to build," Shego said, her face softening slightly at his fearful reactions. "I'm not gonna get upset with you for doing things you want to do."
"Really?" He sounded skeptical.
"Look, I just want things to be back to the way they were," she replied, trying not to get testy with him. "Which is normally you making your crime-against-humanity inventions and me relaxing and getting a tan, or hanging in a jacuzzi, or other, far better activities than your nerdy crap."
Drew suddenly began to pace, muttering to himself under his breath. "Back to… Normal… Hm…"
Her eyebrow quirked at the change in attitude. He was even more irregular than usual. Though, again, with what he'd been through…
Shaking it off, she waved her hand in the air. "Yeah, you go ahead and figure out what that'd be for now."
"Yes, yes, I'll do that…" He twirled back around to his workbench. "But first! I need to finish your sunlamp!"
Ugh.
"Alright, Doc, time for bed." Shego stretched and got up from her sunchair, letting herself begin to relax into the tired feeling in her muscles. It'd been a long, trying day, and all she wanted to do was lay down and sleep.
She'd made the executive decision to wait until the next day to start the rehab process in earnest. No need to pile on everything in one day. Taking it slow would probably be more beneficial in the long-term.
"Okay…" he said hesitantly, then nodded slowly, putting the equipment and pieces that he'd been using to create a portable scanning electron microscope down into the bench.
Shego blinked. Weird. Normally it took a lot of haranguing to get him to even consider going to bed when she did. Maybe he was just as tired as she was. Ah well. It didn't matter.
She led the way to the bedroom, him trailing behind almost uncertainly.
Once there, she locked the door behind them and began digging around in her bag for her clothes. Once she found most of them, she took them over to their small dresser. Shego shoved most of them into drawers, vowing to properly fold them in the next few days. The only clothes she left out were her dark green silk pajamas with the light green highlights. She slipped them on, piling her favorite catsuit and gloves together and leaving the boots in front of the dresser. The tiled floor was cold, but tolerable.
She blinked then, realizing that Drew hadn't started unpacking. Then duh, she remembered that he didn't really have anything to unpack. Pretty much none of his clothes fit him now, and he normally packed light. All he'd brought was his weirdo teddy bear and a toothbrush he'd cobbled together while she was packing at one of their side lairs using some kind of metal and some softer type of wire. To his consternation and Shego's amusement, regular toothbrushes simply couldn't fit right in his mouth and around his teeth anymore, nor could they handle the chewing that the doc sometimes did out of habit.
Sighing, ready to deal with his complaints about having to wear the same clothes to bed as he'd spent the day in, Shego turned from the dresser to look at him. To her minor surprise, he hadn't moved, his eyes firmly locked on the fluffy comforter laden and red silk sheeted California king bed with a vague look of discomfort.
"Uh, Doc?" She walked over and snapped her fingers in his face. He flinched back from her fingers and shook his head in annoyance, snorting while giving her a dirty look. Once she was sure she had his attention, she asked, "What's going on in that pea brain of yours?"
Flustered, he muttered, "Erm, I, uhm…" His face purpled as he looked away and practically whispered something.
"What?" Shego poked him in the arm, to which he pulled away a little. Exasperated, she pried, "I couldn't hear that. Mind telling the class what's up?"
Drew sighed dramatically as he again said something while facing away from her.
"Drew," she growled, resisting lighting up her hands to accentuate her annoyance, "I. Can't. Hear. You. Say it in a big kid voice!"
Suddenly, standing stock straight, he burst out, "I don't think I can sleep on the bed!"
Shego blinked a few times. That was… Confused, she asked, "What in the world do you mean? Like…" She tried to make sense of what he'd said. "...is it one of the ones that have the springs you hate?"
"Yes," he said, then shook his head. "But that's not why!"
"What is it then?" Shego demanded.
"I just…" He rubbed an arm with his other hand. "I don't think I can."
"You pouting or something? Don't want to sleep on a bed, woe is me sorta thing?" Shego said sharply.
"Nono, nothing like that!" He waved his arms defensively. "I mean, I want to, but…" He resumed staring at the bed and swallowed. "Just… Being this close to a real, not-prison-not-punishment bed…" He cringed as he said, "Lord Gemini said that I wasn't worthy of a bed, and he didn't want me to be too far away from him…"
"Where in the world did you sleep?" Shego asked, a little afraid to know the answer.
He vaguely shrugged. "I slept on the floor, in the corner." At her incredulous look, he said a bit defensively, "That was an upgrade! Before he would make me sleep on the rack, strapped in, while he slept on the rollaway."
Yikes. "That sounds…" There was no sugarcoating it. Cringing, Shego stated, "Awful…"
"I deserved it," Drew said forlornly, looking down shamefully.
"Why?"
He looked back up at her. "Hm?"
"What in the world did you do to earn that kind of treatment?" Shego repeated with disgust.
"I, uhm…" He kicked at the ground. "I didn't treat Lord Gemini with the respect he deserves, and wasn't a good enough underling."
"Drew…" Shego looked up at him. "No one deserves to be treated like that… Especially you by that… That psychopath! And for what? Because you didn't jump when he told you to?" She reached out to cradle his face. He flinched away, taking a half-step back from her and raising his arms defensively. Her eyes widened in surprise. She wasn't being aggressive in her stance. Not like she normally would be when he used to flinch like that, when she treated him badly. Seeing him react like that, just from that… At the same time, she got it, as much as she hated it. She'd practically forced herself on him in the cell. Now he had room to flinch back, get away from possible punishment. She'd just hoped...
Shego let her hands hover in the air for a second before dropping them again in temporary defeat. Sighing, she bitterly growled, "I should've roasted his ass the second I got the chance."
"I'm not meaning to do that!" Drew said, grumbling at himself as he crossed his arms and slumped down, yet still keeping a short distance between himself and Shego. "Just, being out and in a lair again…"
"Yeah, I get it," Shego replied.
She took a moment to bite her lip, thinking. She did get it. She really did. In prison, he was caged. Trapped. Yet, at the same time, he was safe. Gemini couldn't get him there. Outside that self-contained cage, though, he's out in the open. Gemini could waltz right in at any moment and start right back where he'd left it all. He'd been tormented by that monster in their favorite lair, too. It wasn't like they varied up their lair designs that much. Even if it was a different lair, it had a similar aesthetic.
It probably didn't hurt that he was being punished just by being in the prison cell. Seemed like Gemini was all about punishment.
"Nnnngh…" Her husband stomped over to the edge of the room and flopped down.
Shego tilted an eyebrow at him. "What in the world are you-.."
"I'm going to bed!" he snapped, making a show of stretching out on the floor on his stomach. It was reminiscent of a grumpy cat. "There's no way I could sleep in a bed, and we're supposed to be laying down for the night."
"You aren't even going to try?" she asked with a little more anger than she meant.
Drew cringed a little. "I, erm… I guess..."
It was obvious he was about to cave. But… This wasn't about her getting her way, as great and right as she was.
"Doc…" She walked over to where he had curled up. Ducking down, she murmured, "So, you really don't think you could sleep in a bed? Or even lay in one?"
Hesitantly, he answered, "...no."
"Okay then." Shego went to the bed, gathered the comforter and pillows, walked back over to Drew, and tossed everything at him.
"What in the world are you doing?" Drew asked, incredulity plastered on his face as part of the comforter stuck to his horns.
"I'm going to bed too," she said with a shrug, pulling the comforter off of his face as she sat down. At his slack-jawed stare, she noted, "It's the bed that you don't think you could handle, right?" After a moment, he slowly nodded. "So you think you can handle having something comfortable, like these pillows and the blanket?"
"I…" Drew poked the pillow closest to him and ran a hand down the comforter. "I guess… I can try?" He cringed. "As long as you lock the door and everything up. So no one can come in."
"Doy!" She flicked his nose, to which he yelped and covered it with a hand and a few vines.
"I just wanted to make sure!" He shifted uncomfortably before settling back down. A vine shot out and snagged a pillow, flopping it haphazardously under his head before curling up with its brethren on the floor. His head hovered over the pillow, looking at Shego expectantly. "Well?"
"Well what?" She was not up for playing any guessing games right now.
"Aren't you going to lock the door?"
Shego rolled her eyes. "I locked it when we came in, genius."
"Oh, uhm, erm…" He flushed a barely noticeable purple. Then, angrily, he sputtered, "I was a little focused on the bed problem!"
"Obviously." Her head shook back and forth as she sighed in consternation. Hopefully he wouldn't keep being this hardheaded in the weeks to come. Goodness knew that her patience and knowledge would be pushed to the limit with trying to treat him. It would just add another layer of frustration to everything if he was just as dense later as he was being now.
Whatever. That was a problem for tomorrow.
Chuckling a little at his still peeved and embarrassed expression, she stated, "It's fine. Nothing to get worked up over, Doc."
"Easy for you to say," he said with a pout. "You didn't do it."
"Not everyone can be as perfect as me," she noted, smirking.
"Nnnnnngh…" His teeth clicked as he moved his jaw, but there was none of the normal distinctive noise of them grinding together.
For the first time in a week, Shego let out a heartfelt mirthful laugh. It was a relief, even after the entire mess and everything, that they could still have their normal back-and-forths, even if it was just a little bit.
Drew didn't take kindly to her continued reaction. Snorting and snarling, he rolled his head to face away from her and flopped down hard against the pillow. His vines obediently curled up and around him in a way that didn't get on Shego's side at all.
Shego rolled her eyes as she laid down and crawled under the annoyingly large amount of comforter. For having said he was okay with it, he sure wasn't acting like it. It was barely covering his shoulders. Though, to be fair to him, the spines kind of got in the way of pulling it over him. She could have offered to drag it over and actually on him… But she knew how that would end. Indignant outrage on his part with some pouting on the side.
Sometimes he was such a drama queen.
She floofed the comforter around her, tucking it in and around her so she wasn't in direct contact with the floor. It wasn't because she couldn't sleep on a bare floor. There were plenty of times when they'd been reduced to it when their various schemes failed and they had to lay low. Shego just preferred to have creature comforts when she could.
She tried to clear her mind and curl her back up against Drew's side. To her surprise and consternation, he let out a strange growling gasp before he scooted a little away from her, leaving a gap between the two of them. There was a brief thought of snarling about what his deal was, but she thought better of it. Waiting until tomorrow to start the dirty work...
It was annoying. It was frustrating. Shego felt the wall that it was keenly. To her, it was a sudden shift in the way things were. Just last week they had been cuddling in bed, something she was usually loathe to do, with him blabbering about the odds of them conceiving another child. But to him, it had been months of torture, conditioning, and whatever other goodies Gemini had left in her doc's brain that made it all a gradual shift.
She mentally snarled as she thought about that smug little snake of a villain. Why did Gemini have to come along and continually ruin everything they built up? It was like a neverending cycle of revenge that had managed to swallow their family up. All starting with that stupid job Drew had gotten.
Her thoughts paused. That job. That stupid job that he'd gotten purely because their fledgling little family needed the support. The job that she'd given the go-ahead for him taking, even though she'd known the risk.
...had he understood exactly what he was agreeing to? The risk involved? Would he have ever ended up in that position if she hadn't decided to waltz into his life?
Now that she thought about it, Shego realized that had she not gotten involved in his life, he wouldn't be like he was now. He wouldn't be scarred, wouldn't be mutated… Wouldn't be damaged.
Her brows came together as she wrestled with the variety of feelings that flooded her at that bit of realization. Disgust. Anger. A bit of self-assurance that she couldn't be that wrong, that none of it was her fault in the least. The biggest feeling that overpowered all the others, though, was guilt.
She'd never thought about the whole hero/villain world as opposed to what most normal people experienced all that often. There was a definite split between them. The most people tended to get from one was either being saved or tormented as some hostages and being caught up in the crossfire. Shego has grown up mostly in the dichotomy that was the non-normy side of things. But Drew… He'd been an average, mostly-there nerd who wasn't even close to stepping foot in the world she grew up in.
And because of her, he got dragged kicking and screaming in the worst way possible into the hero/villain conflict.
Gah, what does someone do when they affect someone's life this drastically? ...should she apologize? Is that even acceptable for something this big?
"I'm sorry."
It took Shego a second to realize that that hadn't come from her mouth.
Incredulously, she said, "What?"
There was a growl and a snort from her significant other before he repeated, "I said I'm sorry!"
Shego flipped over to stare at him. Unsurprisingly, he had turned his head over to look at her. She asked incredulously, "For what?"
He cringed while he said, "For all of this mess. Having to deal with me. Having to deal with Lord Gemini." He paused and sighed, "For everything."
It was so weird hearing Doctor D of all people actually apologize for something. Even weirder that it was something that wasn't even his fault this time!
"Doc, none of this is on you," Shego said as she propped herself up on an elbow. "Absolutely none of it. In fact…" Swallowing some pride, she admitted, "I was just trying to figure out how I could say sorry to you!"
Strangely, confusion and fear flitted across his face. "What in the world did you do that would mean you'd have to apologize to me?"
Shego thought on how, exactly, to explain her reasoning. "Just… If I hadn't gotten you involved with all of this, you wouldn't be like you are now. You wouldn't've joined GJ, been kidnapped and tortured by Gemini either time… Probably wouldn't have even gone villain. All that fun stuff."
"Oh." He settled down some before he frowned as he grumbled, "You make it sound like I had no agency in this whole mess!"
This time Shego was the one to tilt an eyebrow. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Well… Just…" He shifted uncomfortably under her gaze, clearly debating on if he should dare to speak up. Before she could tell him to spill, Drew went for it by saying, "I was the one that got to decide if I took that job. And I was the one that agreed that we needed to give Lord Gemini some payback for what had happened before." His brow furrowed as he added, "And I found my own way to villainy after my mother nursed me back to health, thank you very much! You didn't have a single thing to do with it! So stop being so, so…" He floundered for the word. "...so self-centered about this!" Self-assuredly, he finished with confidence, "None of it is your fault. So stop acting like it is!"
Ugh. She couldn't believe they were having one of those arguments. Both of them blaming themselves...
Then, she realized… "No. You know what? We're both right."
He tilted his eyebrow. "Hm?"
"None of this is on either of us." She growled loudly, "This is all Gemini's fault…"
Drew cringed. "Lord Gemini's fault…?"
"Yeah." She loudly growled, "Him and his psycho obsessions, and just his psychoness in general. If he just didn't exist we would've been fine!"
"I-.. I'm not sure Lord Gemini has any of the blame…?" Drew stuttered, looking around fearfully.
Ah. That's right. Yet another reminder of that monster's influence on their life.
"Don't worry. He is," Shego said with finality. She sighed and said, "Now, time to sleep. I'd wanted to wait until tomorrow to tackle all this, remember?"
Drew cringed a little, but after a moment reluctantly nodded.
"Okay." Feeling a little mean, she condescendingly pat his head between his horns. "Nighty-night, Doctor D."
He stared, then replied, "Good night."
She flipped around so her back was to him again, being careful not to get too close for his comfort.
Then, suddenly, Shego felt him tense up through the comforter before he blurted, "I love you, Shego."
Why in the world would he tense up about that?
Shaking her head lightly in minor exasperation, she answered back as warmly as she could, "I love you too, Doc."
Just as suddenly, he began to relax. He still didn't touch her, but the slack from the comforter told her that he scooted noticeably closer. Shego held back a contented sigh, already feeling a little too emotionally open for her taste. But that was okay.
It wasn't much, but it was enough.
A/N: Just a heads-up, the next chapter'll probably take a while. It'll be a Ron/Kim focused chapter, and goodness knows I'm not good at writing either of them, let ALONE them together...