Disclaimer: Copyrighted material belonging to Disney and Bob Marley, the only thing belonging to me is the storyline and a few original characters.
A few days rolled by, hastened by humor, alcohol in small amounts and games. Kim's parents seemed to accept Shego and Wendy more than when they first saw each other, and even if it wasn't that much of a change, it was welcome.
"I tell ya, I don't know how much longer I can do this."
"Oh come on, it isn't that hard."
"We're drinking tea and playing board games if we're not studying. This is not how I imagined I would spend my old days."
"Wendy, you're what? Twenty-ish? You're not old, and this isn't how you're gonna spend all your days."
"But we are spending all our days like this. I mean, the others must feel some sort of pressure."
"Kimmie can take any pressure, and if she can, so can that mole-rat carrying buffoon. End of discussion, Wendy."
Any normal day, that conversation would soon be forgotten and filed away, never to be brought up again. But as Shego loves to think; 'then again'…
Shego was busy changing her biological clock all the time, considering her being out all night partying for the past few years, the past month-and-something with Kim. And then all of a sudden having to be little Miss Fredericks, perfect in every freaking way, seriously fucked her internal clockwork up as she went to Kim's house and played or something and then went home where the only thing she could do was to go to bed. This was the thing that fucked up her clockwork. Usually, it was dealt with by applying the infamous head-meets-table exercise.
Anyway, Shego was suffering from her own bar-jetlag and kept replaying the past nights' conversation in her head as she observed Kim in their chemistry class.
'Pressure, eh?' Shego pondered, almost aloud. She sat up straighter in her chair and shook the hand she'd been resting her chin on. She had to make up her mind on something, and that something could be big. It could seriously have something of an impact Shego believed.
She never got the hang of what this something was, but it did make an impact. One that would change the quartets lives.
The bell tolled and the children and nigh-adults left the building in different levels of disarray and chaos and Shego led a very confused Kim to the bench they had been talking to each other on after the first day of school, leaving Ron to first look around to get a bearing on where they'd gone and then following.
"Sit, Kimmie."
"What's this about, Shego?"
Shego calmly but firmly placed her hands on Kim's shoulders and pushed her down. "Sit. There, now we can talk."
Ron caught up and sat down, looking rather puzzled at Shego. "What about?" He asked and got pushed down in the same manner as Kim.
Shego crossed her arms and glared dejectedly at the ground. "I want you guys to be brutally honest with me. I mean seriously brutally honest." She looked at Ron. "Steel-Toe-brutally honest." Ron swallowed hard at the mentioning of his wrestling-hero and gave Shego his full attention.
Kim leaned back and crossed her arms too, though she didn't glare at the ground like Shego. "Alright, what's this about now Shego?"
Shego sighed. "I need you guys to tell me what you feel about hanging out with me and Wendy."
Ron joined Kim in leaning back and crossing his arms, and in a weird maturity burst he sounded almost normal in asking; "Did the Queens say something to you? 'cause in that case you shouldn't listen to them at all."
Kim nodded and put in her few cents, "That's right, you shouldn't."
Shego frowned. "That's not it guys." She drew in a deep breath and continued. "I need to know if you feel forced to hang out with me and Wendy."
"Shego, you know it's…" Kim started, but Shego cut her off.
"How about you, Ron? Do you do stuff with us 'cause you feel forced?" Seeing the confusion and contemplating in her new friends' eyes, she somewhat felt that maybe Wendy had been right. There was some pressure. And it was her who put it there. Shego frowned. She suddenly didn't know how to feel. The biggest part of her wanted to flip it off with a shrug and drop anyone who couldn't keep up with her. But the new part of her kept wondering if maybe she should take it easy.
'That 's it! Kim should be able to handle this, right?' Shego realized, and for a moment, she almost saw herself looking at Kim differently, and she thought Kim looked at her differently. For a moment, it looked like instead of Shego, there stood a Bonnie, mocking Kim with a forced "friendship" like so many bullies before had done.
"…go…Shego! Hey, you kinda zoned out there, you okay buddy?"
"What? Oh, crap."
"What was it that you were going to say?" Kim asked, trying to bring around and back into what they were talking about.
Shego sighed and ran a hand through her long, raven hair. "Listen, this is what we'll do, we'll all go to our separate homes, I'll call Wendy and tell her this too, and once you're there, make yourself comfortable and please think about this for a few days. I need you to think of how you feel around me." Shego almost begged on her knees by that point, and both Ron and Kim could see the need in her eyes as she asked this.
Kim sighed and mimicked Shego's gesture of running a hand through her hair. "Alright Shego, I'll do this, but then I'll be wanting some answers."
"What she said." Ron quipped in and Rufus nodded.
Shego smiled wryly and agreed to the deal. She was going to need to do some serious explaining in a few days.
"You say you did what?!"
"Wendy, shut up, you're shrieking again."
"I don't really care about just that right now, what the hell are you on girl?"
Shego threw her hands up, "I'm not on anything that you're not on, just listen to me dammit!", and proceeded to whack Wendy over the head.
"Ow! What the hell girl!" Wendy rubbed her head where she had been hit and glared at Shego. As Shego raised her hands again, Wendy frantically waved her own arms for shields and yelled back at Shego. "Okay, okay, just tell me where this farce is going. Why did you tell them to think about hanging out with you? I don't know about them, but to me it sounds rather ungrateful and like you don't want them to like you."
With a sigh, Shego sat down on what passed as a couch in Wendy's room. The couch was lumpy, but Wendy claimed that if you found the right lumps, it was heavenly.
Shego doubted that. "Look. I've known you for a while, right?" Wendy nodded and Shego continued. "It's different with Kim and Ron, you know."
"Duh." Wendy was quickly losing sight of where this was going.
"Let me finish, I've known you longer than them, and yet I hang out with them more than you. Doesn't that bother you?"
Wendy shrugged. "Not really, I got lots of homework nowadays, so I can't hang out with you guys much anyway."
"Just think about this, please."
"Alright, dammit, whatever makes you stop hitting me, Shego."
"I don't hit you that much."
"Yes you do."
"Does not."
"Does too."
"Shut up."
Contrary to what Wendy claimed, Kim was not feeling like Shego pushed any of them away. She sat on her bed, back to the headboard with a pillow for comfort and thought on what Shego had said, and how she had looked when she said it.
'She almost begged us to do this…least I can do is try.' She leaned her head back to rest against the wall and, closing her eyes, began to hum softly to one of the ballads she put on her CD player.
Ron did almost the same at his house, even though he sat in his tree house and ate nachos with Rufus instead of sitting in his room listening to music.
Almost immediately after getting up there with enough food for a month, Ron began to brainstorm with Rufus. "You know, maybe she's a spy for the teachers." Rufus shook his head after a minute of thinking. "I mean, maybe she's risking her life telling Kim to think about this." Rufus scribbled down a note on an empty packet of Diablo Sauce. Ron read it out loud. "No sense. Makes sense, Rufus…then maybe she's an alien! And she's fallen in love with one of us and tries to warn us!" Rufus cradled his head in his paws and searched for another Diablo Sauce packet to write on.
Kim was more down to Earth with her thoughts. But she felt like she gained no ground thinking about it anyway. 'Maybe…she's just worried about us cramping her down…? No, Shego would be more vocal if that was the case. It's something subtle she can't say loud probably…something that might scare us away from her…as if we'd be…maybe she's playing for the other team so to speak…No, Wendy would have blown it out of proportion by now.' Kim was quickly developing a headache, and decided to call it a day. Tomorrow was a tough day after all. Kim sighed, turned off the CD player and glanced at the clock. She had been brainstorming for four hours and was dead tired. She undressed as quickly as she could, turned off the lights and went to bed. She sighed and pulled the covers over her head. She really, really didn't want to go to gym class with Bonnie tomorrow. It was going to be a trial, and she had the growing feeling in her stomach that something would go incredibly wrong.
Ron had passed out in his tree house with a half eaten nacho on his forehead and Rufus across his stomach. He would wake up in the morning and be late for school, making the hugest difference the following morning.
Shego and Wendy had played a drinking game, during whish Shego had clicked away a message on her cell phone and then passed out. A few blinking words faded as Shego's thumb fell on the DELETE button in her sleep.
'Dont botger with gyn tomorow, Il wait at the usal spot. want to drink with you tree…'
A smiley marked the end of the message as it was the last symbol to fade from the screen.
MESSAGE NOT SENT…