DISCLAIMER:All of the Disney characters in this fic are not mine although I wish they were. I'm borrowing the idea and storyline from the movie and book by the same name called "Ima, Ai ni Yukimasu". The book is by Takuji Ichikawa and the movie (and later the TV series as well) are both based on the book. I'm also borrowing Adam Park and Tanya Sloan both of whom belongs to Saban Entertainment for the duration of this story. Kaine and Iskra, however, belongs to me. Hope you enjoy! Comments and complaints welcomed:-)
Author's Note: Wow... I'm kinda disappointed that I didn't get any sort of review for this fic at all for the last chapter, even though it's just a set up chapter. I'm not sure if that means that my writing skills are that good, because it's that bad, or something else. As for the story, I was listening to songs "Weathered" by Creed & "Sweet Surrender" by Sarah McLachlan when I wrote this chapter, so it's going to get a little depressing. For those of you who are wiry of the slight crossover, don't worry, they aren't really important to plot, I just don't see Shego as a diary/journal type person... do you?
This is the first time I am attempting to write in present tense as well as a kinda action/romance/adventure/drama genre, so if you pick up some errors, do not hesitate to drop me a line and let me know.
Timeline: I apologize ahead of time for this but please assume that the Kim Possible Canon Universe is something a little further into the future and that this story starts about 14 years past that and 2 days have passed since the Prologue scene.
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" Be with You "
By SpaceRanger
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The day passes slowly for the family of three but that was because today is Friday, the last day before the weekend begins. The only thing they want to do is stare at the clock, ticking down the hours to freedom.
The children didn't end up staring at their clocks too long though. They are 6 and 4 year olds after all. Their teachers are able to distract them to the point that they forgot about the clock entirely in lieu of the activity within their classrooms. The adult, however, has been too busy reading, putting together her squad list, plus whatever else she needs for the 11:00am case meeting with Agent Will Du and Dr. Director that the last time she looked at the clock was before she left for work.
As it is per nature, a 5 hour day ultimately came to feel like 10. But now, there are no more complaints because it's 1:00pm and "day jobs" for Kaine, Iskra, and Shego are officially over...
Not!
While it is true that the kids are done with classes and the adult with work, they are still at their respective "jobs" even as the students and staff around them are streaming out like dam water does upon the opening of the gates.
For Kaine and Iskra, the makers of the cheerful chattering and occasional squeaking sounds of "cheeze!" are the reasons why they are still there. It's Kaine's turn to take care of Rufus Two and Rufus Junior -- clone and son of Rufus (also known as Ron Stoppable's pet naked mole rat) respectively -- for the weekend. Therefore, it is up to him to clean and gather up the water bowls, toys, etc. in preparation for the trip home. He smiles at the happy chattering duo who easily forgave him for nearly forgetting his duty to feed them as they entertained his sister with their antics.
For Shego, her reason for staying over isn't as fun. She is still in a drab conference room where worried tension fills the room despite the arguing with Will over the case file that Betty is frowning at as she flips through the papers in the green and black folder in her hand.
In a broken down and deserted farm house further away from where Kaine, Iskra, and Shego call home, lighting flashes ominously once, then twice behind a rusty door within.
"Oh fuck..."
At the GJ conference room, Shego's vision begins to warp everything around her. Less than two seconds later, she can only feel her head spin and hear the dull sound of her body hitting the floor as she lost control of the rest of her body.
-------- -------- --- Chapter 2 --- -------- --------
The sunlight streams through the sky, breaking up the darkness and bathing the town in warmth that it had been missing since this morning. Yet it is not the reason that the prone figure occupying the bed from one of two bedrooms in a home clinic is stirring awake, especially since the sunlight couldn't penetrate far past the curtain barrier. The figure's green arm reaches out to the right side of the bed to try to clutch at something only to hit empty space. This stirs the sleeper into opening her eyes and look around.
The haze of sleep only clears from her emerald eyes when Shego realizes that this was not her room or her house. She lets her head collapse back on the pillow with a groan, mentally cursing out her co-workers for bringing her here.
Once she ran out of curse words, she slowly moves around, testing her motor skills from her head down to her toes. Satisfied that she had control over her body once more, she slowly gets out of bed. When her blackout problems first began three years ago, she had learned early on that any jerky motions after waking from her episode may cause her condition to act up once more and she is in no rush for a repeat.
She does not bother hiding or fighting back her yawn as she moves into stretches to work out the kinks from her muscles. When done, she reaches forward to grasp the water glass -- mentally noting the yellow post-it note beside its coaster -- filled about one fourth of the way at the bedside table which she gulps down.
Once her thirst is quenched, she picks up the note on the table which reads:
This is the THIRD time this week I've had to see your punk ass in here because you're too damn stupid to know when to stop. Get down to the Greenhouse and talk to me or I'll tranq your ass until next month.
"Ah shit she's pissed." Shego shudders. Words do no justice when you anger a Mother Hen Doctor who is normally calm, cheerful, and doesn't curse. She reallllyyy hopes that the elder woman's trimming bonsai trees today because that and her husband --who would not be back for another week-- are the only things that can calm the lighting storm that is her pissed off doctor.
"So, Um... I'm guessing that you just got back. How's the Yamanouchi school, Tan?" Tan, or rather Doctor Tanya Sloan Park, former radio DJ and wife of the long retired head ninja Adam Park, looks up from her bonsai tree to smile at the green-skinned woman who had spent the last 10 minutes after entering her garden, fidgeting with the chair after gulping down the glass of water she had set on her desk.
"It's going very well."
"Is that old man still kicking the shit out of the newbies' egos?" The African woman laughs lightly as she returns to snipping at the branches.
"Occasionally. I don't think he's ran into any arrogant ones for quite a while now." Silence returns and Tan could see out of the corner of her eye that the silence was not comfortable for Shego. Before she could bring up her observations, Shego blurts out,
"You haven't asked me that question." Tan tilts her head in puzzlement at the younger woman but does not stop her trimming.
"What question?"
"You know! That question. The question everyone keeps asking me since the goddamn announcement."
Ah, that. Confusion cleared, Tan continues her trimmings.
"Do you want me to ask?" Shego scowls at her doctor.
"I majored in Child Psychology Tan. Don't do that fucking reverse shit on me." Realizing that she would not be able to finish her project, Tan doesn't even raise an eyebrow as she puts away her equipment and clears off her garden desk.
"You being sent here after falling unconscious at work, for the third time this week," Here, Shego flinches at her deadly tone. "is self-explanatory to me. But... Since you want proof..." With that she fully turns around to face her patient.
"Your eyes shows wariness that comes from hiding your grief, your face shows sleep deprivation, and your hands are clinch in a pencil hold in the way one does when their hand has been in one position too long."
"In 'nother words, there's no need to ask 'how I feel' because I look the way I feel... like shit."
"M-hmm..." Taking off her dirt stained yellow gloves whose pale color matches the bright yellow hair tie as well as her T-shirt and tucking them in the back pockets of her faded blue jeans, Tan moves to kitchen, snatching up the glass as she went.
She returns to the room, her hands washed and glass refilled. The glass is set back to the desk but she continues moving so that she would be sitting in one of many the living chairs spread out around her greenhouse. The chair she sits in is close enough to Shego to where they can be heard, but far enough away that personal space would not be invaded.
She leans against the coffee table and smiles when she hears the familiar laughter of her friend's two children. Shego's reaction to their joy is one of surprise.
"Are..." The temporary GJ agent hesitates as if wondering she should really ask her question. "Are they here?" Tan nods and tilts her head to the window, inviting her to look, which Shego does with no hesitation. The two of them watches in silence as the two children race around the doctor's backyard chasing the tiny forms of Rufus Two and Rufus Junior
"They worried when you didn't go home today, but Kaine made a few calls and figured out that you were going to be here."
"Yeah... he's a smart boy." Tan mentally frowns as sadness won over the pride on her face as she turns her body to face her but says nothing as she patiently waits for the younger woman to elaborate her sudden bout of melodrama.
"I feel sorry for them." Shego finally says.
"Why?"
"I'm useless as a parent and I'm all they've got..."
"I don't think that at all. The three times I've seen you this week aside, I'm actually very impressed with what you've done so far. They've growing up into a good children so I'd say you're a wonderful mother." Shego snorts in a self-depreciating laugh.
"As if." Iskra's squeals of laughter came through once more as Rufus Junior climbs on her back to blow a raspberry to Kaine. He and Rufus Two looks over at each other and starts chasing after Iskra and Rufus Junior in retaliation.
"I wish I could give them a normal life and could do normal things with them, learn acrobatics, go to the mall, travel to amusement parks, and go to the festival they have planned in Little Tokyo. I've been there and I've done those things when I was their age and they are all part of the best times of my life."
Shego lifts up her right arm to bend it at the elbow so that her hand -- palm up and facing her -- is leveled with her chest but is far away enough so she can stare at it.
"Instead, I can't go to those places with them. If I do I'd end up losing control of my fucking body like I did this morning thanks this goddamn disease. And to make it worse..." Her hands light up just enough that no one but the two of them can see it. "I end up passing on my freak powers to them."
"It's still inconclusive with Iskra." Tan points out.
"But she will. The two of them in a few years will have kids screaming at them and picking on them for being a freak like me." The green flames vanishes as Shego drops her hand. Tan does not speak as she watches her close then turn away from the window to sit her previously occupied chair, she drinks from her water glass then returns to her seat once the glass is down on the desk again.
Tan can not help but frown again at her actions. This is not normal Shego behavior at all. Normal Shego is sarcastic and a bit violent but she had never been this... brooding or angsty. The reason for this reaction continues to escape her notice until her eyes landed on the back of the only picture at her office desk that the younger woman was sitting to the left of and about 2 feet away from.
"It has been over a year now since she disappeared." Shego tenses then jerks her head up to look at her, her eyes searching hers as if looking for some clue of her deceit. When she finds none, Shego, though still tense, relaxes enough to nod. Tan takes advantage of her nod to go to her desk where she had set Shego's files upon her admittance to her clinic.
Wanting to put her at ease, she picks up her pen and moves her eyes across the pages that she has read hundreds of times before. She forces herself to actually read the words and write down a few notes about the younger woman's condition for today on a new page.
"I'm finding that I'm remembering... less and less about her." Shego whispers after about 10 minutes of silence. Tan forces her eyes to finish reading her sentence and lifts her head up to watch her patient, whose eyes are staring at some point away that only she can see. "I seem to only feel her when I watch her on video or look at her photograph."
"You think you've lost her?"
"It feels that way..." Shego whispers. "But she told me... she made me believe that..." She trails off, unable to say anymore, but she didn't need to. Tan knows what she cannot say.
"With her last words she told you to wait for her at the spot during the next solar eclipse?"
"Yes."
"She wrote it in Kaine and Iskra's book too."
"Yes."
"Do you believe that?"
"I think Iskra still doesn't really understand but I know that Kaine believes it."
"Then, what's the problem?"
"Because it's impossible!" Shego angrily snaps. "And-And-And..." Shego's burst of emotions vanishes as fast as it appeared, seemingly draining all of her energy away. She tiredly scrubs her face with her hands before dropping them back on the seat of her chair.
"And instead of telling the truth... I'm railing up Kaine and Iskra with hope that the impossibility of what she laid out could and would actually happen." Tan slides a neutral expression on her face before putting down her pen. Once the pen is set down, she swerves her chair so that she can lean against the back rest to look at the younger woman.
"As a doctor, I'd say that yes, it's impossible." The flash of anguish across the Shego's face but is quickly masked. Had the doctor been anyone else, the flash would have gone by with no notice. Shego's move to say something in reply to her comment has the elder woman jumping in to interrupt her.
"Do you want it to be true?"
"Of course I do! I lost her, Tanya. I lost her and I tried to tell myself to not believe in her promise, to put it behind me and keep moving forward... but... But what I tell myself is different from what I feel." Shego clinches her fists but doesn't light up. "I want her to fulfill her promise. I need to know that she forgives me for being a burden to her from the beginning to the end. And I want to make it up to her, to make her happy. Maybe... maybe we could even take a small trip somewhere."
"Then you should keep hoping. It seems to me that you haven't lost her at all." Shego snaps up her head to stare at her in shock.
"Aren't you suppose to stop me from entertaining these delusional thoughts?" Tan grins at her.
"My husband is a Ninja Master in the Art of The Frog who doubles as a Ninja Master in the Art of The Monkey because his best friend, the first Monkey Master, injured his back. I am and am friends with a Ninja Master in the Art of The Bear. You, your son, and your brothers have the touch of the comet within. We have all touched the Earth and I would think that you of all people would know that unexplainable things, labeled delusional by others, happen all the time. Perhaps instead of trying to believe in reality, you should just try to believe."
"What if it doesn't happen?"
"Why wouldn't it?"
"I just don't want my children to end up calling us liars because I'm the one who fucked things up."
"Why would you think that?" Shego rolls her eyes.
"Oh I don't know. Evil sidekick. Merc. Thief. And oh, did I mention evil sidekick to "The Great Blue?" Ring a bell yet you old hag or shall I go on?" Tan ignores the sneer in her tone and lifts up her fingers to tick off her own points.
"Team Go, Team Possible, and a good mother to two children." She lets her hand drop back to her desk. "I'd say your good karma out weighs your bad." Shego groans.
"And we're back to this again."
"We won't have to keep going back to this if you'd quit that emo thinking of yours." Tan suppresses a smirk when the other woman tries to slay her with a death glare. While she did succeed in suppressing her smirk, she isn't able to stop her laugh at the next word out of Shego's mouth.
"Damare!" A word that translates "Shut Up" and most likely had been taught to the woman by a certain Japanese ninja that is her granddaughter, Yori.
"Alright, alright. I'll stop teasing." Tan says as she reaches for her pen once more to jolt down a medical leave note for Shego which she takes. "One last thing, I'm sorry, but I'm obligated as a doctor to ask you this question."
"Shoot Doc."
"How are you feeling?" Shego smiles at the doctor's attempt to make her feel better.
"The same." The younger woman stands up then walks out the door, not looking back at her even as she shut the door behind her.
Countdown: 3 days
A/N 2: Bah, I ended up re-write this chapter so many times it's crazy. I had plans on introducing several more characters before ending this chapter so that I can start kicking it up a notch, but I find that I seem to be slowing down instead because my Shego-muse went into angst mode. I think it's because we're two chapters in (three if you want to include the prologue) and she hasn't gotten into any fights yet.
Anyways, if you've read this far, you just got a few hints about why Shego's changed and yes, she is sick. Don't worry, it's not the kind of sick that will eventually cause her to die, but it would, unfortunately, cause her to lose control over her motor skills. There's no real name for her condition, no one's really sure what caused it but the combination of lack of sleep and getting too stressed does tend to cause her condition to act up more than usual. If the stress is too high, she tends to black out. She's on medication but it tends to mess with her brain functions about an hour after she takes it hence the post-it notes in the last chapter.
So why is she a GJ agent? Even a temporary one? Who is "she"? How did Shego get sick? Was it the lighting? Who is "Daddy"? And the answer is...
That's it for now. I've got midterms coming up for rest of February so I don't really know when I'll update next but I've got a few lines to Chapter Three started. My best estimate would be (if my muses don't run off on me) to have it ready by the end of March since I don't think I'll be able to work on it at all until March first at the earliest. We'll see... I would just like to ask you to please be patient with me and drop me a line if you see any problems and/or have any questions. But if you're really bored, then I'd suggest making a list of all the characters in the Deal or No Deal kind of way and start the elimination round with what I've told you so far. Erm... yeah I'll shut up now.
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