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Chapter Three - Tales of Madness

"Things didn't go well after graduation between Kim and I...they did at first but, later..."

"Doy...didn't take a Possible's rocket scientist Dad to figure that out."

"Do you want to hear this or not?"

"Don't get snappish buff...uh...Stoppable."

"Anyway. The first year of college went well. I was getting good grades, Kim went to Paris to study and I visited as often as I could; everything was great. Then...well then Kim decided not to come home for the summer and every time I mentioned coming to visit she just blew it off and suggested I come some other time. Things went like that for a while and then the next year she stopped answering many of my calls. When she came home for Christmas I thought things would go back to normal, but she kept finding reasons to blow me off even at home. I got worried it was me so I decided that to put the spark back into our relationship by showing up for a surprise romantic evening on our three year anniversary in April."

"I take it that type of thing was important to Possible."

"Yeah you could say that. She did get me a gift for our 'half-a-versary'. Who's ever heard of a

'half-a-versary'?" Ron gesticulated with his arms...a spark of his old self shining through.

Ron was always a little weird; but likable in a goofy way. Kind of what Shego had liked about Drakken when he wasn't acting like an ass.

"I show up at her apartment. I've got the roses, the gift, reservations at a restaurant, I'm dressed up...the whole she-bang." Here Ron's face twisted into a look of disgust with perhaps a bit of self pity thrown in.

"So I knock on the door and it's not Kim that opens it. It's some French dude dressed only in boxers who asks, first in French, then in bad English, who I am. I say: 'I'm sorry I must have the wrong apartment, I'm looking for the apartment of Kim Possible.' He replies: 'No you don't have the wrong place.' then calls back into the apartment for Kim saying 'Cheri, there is some American here for you'. Then my girlfriend, the woman I've known for sixteen years comes out dressed only in a sheet."

"Harsh...I was, or am evil and I wouldn't even do that." Shego remarked, her face twisting into a disgusted look that almost matched Ron's own.

"I know...anyway I just shutdown and stood there staring at her...and she did the same. I guess my instincts and mad running away skills kicked in and the next thing I know I'm just running...running as far away as I can go. Eventually I stopped outside this little restaurant and spent most of the evening there just kind of comatose not wanting to think about it. I found a hotel and spent the night, then headed back on the first flight I could get the next day. By the time I landed Kim, her parents, and Wade had called probably a hundred times, but I just couldn't deal with it so I went back to the dorm at school."

Here Ron took a small breather.

Shego shifted closer to help get the umbrella over both of them. Ron gave her an odd look and she just smirked and lit a hand warning him against reading too much into what could have been a comforting gesture.

"I was in a bad place after that. Kim had been my best friend and my girlfriend for a long time. I just didn't know how to deal with that. We hadn't even had sex and she jumps into the sack with some French guy she barely knew instead of me. I thought we...well...I thought we might get married and all. If I hadn't seen it I wouldn't have believed it either."

"Could you have been wrong? You didn't actually see them doing it." Shego asked, she was on the verge of finding out Possible wasn't a saint and she didn't want it ruined by any trick scenarios.

"No...She left me a bunch of messages trying to explain. First she said it 'wasn't what I thought'; then she calls back bawling about how she was sorry and that she shouldn't have let it happen and that she was wrong and all this and that. Later that week this picture comes up in one of the tabloids of me and Kim standing there. They spun the story like I was the one stalking her and I just...well...I didn't handle that well either."

Shego couldn't help but be satisfied that Possible had 'fallen from grace' with her closest friend. She had long known that their teamwork was what kept them in the 'hero-and-villain' game more than any one skill of Kim Possible.

"So, I decide on that Saturday I'll go out and find a bar that will let me in, since I was almost twenty-one anyway it wasn't that hard. I dropped Rufus off at my parents and headed out before they had a chance to try and talk me out of it."

"I know that feeling..."

"Really?"

"You don't get points for being a green super-powered freak in high-school or college...guy's tend to leave you places when they find out you have a short temper and can beat the crap out of them."

"Hmm...never thought of that. Sorry to hear that I didn't know that you had it that hard."

"Get on with it Stoppable, it's cold and I'd like to get back home sometime tonight."

Ron started, looking back at Shego. She was closer than a moment ago, and it had gotten colder than when he started. He hadn't noticed he had been so wrapped up in telling someone, anyone that was actually willing to listen to his story. He did now notice his dirty wet clothes and the cold seeping into his skin...though he was more used to it than the woman beside him.

"So I find the place and have a few drinks. It's right on the strip next to MCC and I thought the happy people might cheer me up. Anyway these three dudes form the College's only fraternity walk in and spot me. I've had problems with them before but apparently they saw that stupid tabloid article and decide I need a good beating for 'stalking' Kim. I tell them I don't want to fight and dodge the first few punches I can, but...well...three on one odds aren't that great. So I decide I could use just a little monkey power and bam! each one goes down with a single hit."

"Lightweights..." Shego mutters, while grinning at the idea of a good bar fight.

"Yeah...so the cops get there pretty soon and I just let them haul me in. I figured I might be able to slide if I could get officer Hobble to remember me but I've never been that lucky. I spent the next week in jail with them telling me they are holding me to 'cool down' so I don't attack 'those fine, upstanding young men'. I came to find out that these frat guys all have some connections or their dads do and the next thing I know they are mirandizing me and telling me I'm under arrest for assault. The next morning I'm in court for a bench trial with this sleazy court appointed lawyer....you know that Hank Perkins guy?"

"Huh...made a half way decent villain...he was sleazy though."

"So he tells me the best shot I've got is to plead insanity. Like I said I wasn't in the best of shapes so he convinces me that my depression over Kim is driving me nuts and that it's actually true."

"And you believed him!? Are you really that gullible Stoppable?"

"Hey...I really did fell like I was going insane. Everything I cared about had just blown up in my face; even after I had put in a lot of hard work to get where I was. My parents wouldn't take my calls from lockup and all of a sudden I've got a bunch of lawyers AND the judge after me!"

Ron exclaimed heatedly. Nobody had let him get this far in his story and he needed to let this out. He wasn't wrong...he had been misled and railroaded.

As close as Shego was sitting trying to keep warm she rocked back at his outburst and brought up a lit hand in case she really needed to defend herself...this was certainly not the same Ron Stoppable she remembered.

After a silent moment when he stared her straight in the eye not backing down she let the hand drop and scooted back closer to him...perhaps a little backbone couldn't hurt him.

"Go on Stoppable."

"The judge accepted the plea and they decide I should spend six months in the loony bin; and I'd be released after that." Ron replied with an air of finality. His earlier bravado was fading and he didn't want to talk about the rest of it.

"Come on Ron you've said this much...what happened over the next four years?" Shego prodded. More gently than he had ever herd or thought she could speak; even when she had been the bubbly 'Miss. Go'. He sighed but decided he'd come to far to start pulling punches now.

"They sent me off. When I got there the Doctor assigned to my case took a disliking to me; decided he'd use me as an experiment and started stuffing me full of drugs."

Here Ron did get that glazed far off look back. She imagined that things had been worse than that but apparently he would was not going to go into detail.

"Drugs can do odd things to you...they can make you insane. I didn't know what was happening or why I did things. I was paranoid...sometimes violent. At some point he found out about my powers and decided to get me to use them. I broke a few orderlies bones...and they broke a few of mine in retaliation later. Eventually he got bored and tried to give me a lethal dose of pills...tired to make it look like I stole them. They caught him and pumped my stomach; then decided to cover it all up. By then I'd been there nearly two years. I spent a while detoxing from the drugs and then they took their sweet time evaluating weather I was ready to leave or not. They wanted to send me the message that they could keep me there if they wanted, to shut me up. Three years after having been sentenced they dumped me with one set of new clothes on me, an ID, fifty dollars, a package of legal papers, and a bus ticket to Go City just outside the Upperton City limits."

Shego shook her head. These were the people who he had fought to protect many times. As a villain it was understood that she might do something like that...but even she wouldn't have tortured anyone with medication. Hell, every time they had captured Kim and Ron she had actually been reasonably certain they would make it out with minimal damage.

"I took the bus since I couldn't walk home and then ended up here in Go City. I called allot of people trying to get some help once I got here. Mom and Dad were said they wouldn't risk my being in the house with Hana and the Possibles don't answer numbers they don't recognize after Kim started to attract stalkers. Most of my friends have moved out and have either gotten married or started having kids and don't want a crazy guy around, and some of their families have even completely moved since then. I've been here ever since. I do odd jobs for food and have tried to get steady work allot of times but not having an address usually keeps me out of even the most basic jobs."

Shego's face was blank for a while, this was allot to process, even if he had given out just the bare outline. Eventually she reached some sort of decision and rose to her feet.