She walked slowly across the cool grass as her emerald eyes darted from tree to tree, trying figure out where she was. She couldn’t see anything in the shadows only a few feet beyond the edge of the wood line. The trees looked almost as if they were painted shades of gray and blue in the darkness, but nothing looking familiar.
Where was she?
Shego stopped walking and looked down at her feet, the pale toes exposed to the world as realization came over her.
And why was she walking around barefoot in a hospital gown? She shook her head, trying to shake the feeling that something was amiss.
Somewhere overhead the moon peeked from behind the blanket of clouds, painting the forest in shades of silver, the shade of gray chased away by the light. Her emerald eyes looked around the trees, trying to see if anything looked familiar in the moonlight. Something darted in the shadows in the distance causing her to jump a little, dropping into a defensive stance. Shego shook at her own jumpiness, standing up again, letting her hands drop to her sides; it was probably nothing more than a squirrel or a rabbit.
“Alright, you got out here somehow… You’re barefoot, wearing a hospital gown in the middle of the woods at night so either you’ve started sleepwalking or you’re going nuts….and… I’m talking to myself….” Shego sighed, shaking her head. “Let’s figure out how to get back…” She turned slowly, trying to find a fire break a path through the trees, grumbling as she realized that nothing looked remotely familiar.
“Fuck.”
The moonlight faded slowly as the clouds drifted back over the moon, casting the woods back into dark shades of gray and blue.
It wouldn’t stay dark for long, she thought as she raised one hand, mentally commanding her glow to appear.
Then nothing happened.
“FUCK!”
She concentrated, searching for the familiar feeling of her glow, urging herself to produce a spark. A sizzle. Something.
“FUCK. FUCK. FUCK!” She fought off the panic that was beginning to seize her chest in its cold grip. First Kim, now her glow. Was there a reason she was losing everything? Some kind of method to the madness of universe?
She inhaled deeply, breathing out slowly, trying to clear her head. She needed to worry about getting out of the woods first and her failed powers later. Picking a direction she started off, hoping it’d lead out of the woods.
Shego walked for several hours, every mile blending with the next, until she was convinced that she was walking in a large circle, everything looking so much in the darkness.
Shego stopped near a tree that she was positive that she’d passed before, and faced it. With a quick slash she attacked the tree, cursing as her fingers bashed against the tough bark. She pulled her hand back, checking her throbbing fingertips. Her mouth hung open as she realized her talon like nails that she’d had were gone leaving regular soft tipped fingers.
What was going on?
She twirled as a twig snapped behind her, her left foot coming down on a pine cone. She winced as she shifted her footing, kicking the pine cone away from her, it bouncing off into a shrub behind her. The brush on her right shifted, as something moved passed it. Shego adjusted, her body sinking into a little as it assumed a stance that it knew by memory, hands at her sides, fingers tightening, tips digging into her palms.
The short hairs on her neck stood on end as she turned around slowly.
Something was out there.
A pine cone came bouncing towards her, gently bumping against her foot. Shego twisted towards its sourced only to see a blur of green and black climbing up a tree.
Something about the blur looked familiar.
“Quit fucking with me! You think that this is some sort of game?”
A high-pitched giggle echoed above her moments before a flash of green moved from the tree she was facing to another one, disappearing into the branches above.
“Come down here!” Her heart was starting to pound as she tried to focus. She was strong enough to fight Kim. Some nut in a tree was nothing. She breathed deep and slow, her heartbeat slowing.
Overhead a small green light flickered into existence, growing brighter, shadows of the leaves cast in every direction.
The light looked familiar…
She didn’t get time to remember before the tree exploded. Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion as the leaves, some burning as they fell around her, small pieces of wood and bark falling like hair. She didn’t see the movement in the explosion, a sharp pain coursed through her jaw, as her body turned like a top before dropping her flat on her stomach.
She recognized the boot that sat in front of her face before it pulled back moments before connecting with her side. Shego rolled twice from the blow before stopping. The pale woman started to pick herself up, a warm trickle of blood running down her cheek flowing from her bottom lip. “Alright you bitch…I don’t know where you got an outfit like mine…but…” Shego’s voice died in her throat as she saw a familiar face looking down at her.
Slowly the pieces began falling into place.
The woman’s figure resembled a skeleton, with a tattered green and black suit almost draped over her form. Black orbs peered from beneath the tangled mess of black hair a thin smile filled with needle-like teeth was wrapped in two thin black lips that rested between her sunken cheeks.
The woman looked a lot like her on a bad day.
The last piece fell into place as Shego’s eyes met the woman’s black orbs.
She swallowed as she realized why her powers weren’t working anymore.
The woman she was staring at was her powers.
Shego aimed low, aiming at the woman’s midsection, but the woman was faster, her thin body twisting out of the way of Shego’s fist, seconds before swinging a glowing fist at the pale woman’s stomach.
The fist stopped short, the green flame lapping at the hospital gown, slowly burning a hole in it as Shego tightened fingers around the other woman’s forearm.
“Gotcha bitch.”
Shego pulled her hand back to strike again, but froze as the arm she was holding exploded into green fire. The pain tore through her body starting in her palm and working up her arm and into her spine. The pain spread through her body until her whole body felt like it was burning with her hand.
She couldn’t hear herself scream, but the dry cracking in her throat told her body dropping to her knees unable to let go, the other woman leaning in close to her. Tenderly their lips met before the woman’s entire body was enclosed in green fire. The pain disappeared slowly as a memory slowly drifted into her mind.
She could see it in her mind, the entire scene playing like a movie. The tree house in her grandparent’s house taking shape first, as she remembered reading a book while her bothers pretended super heroes nearby.
She remembered looking up from her book as something began to whistle loudly overhead, the sky growing dark. Time itself seemed to slow before the tree house exploded. She remembered the feeling of falling as thousands of splinters of wood fell around her, spinning like leaves, everything moving in slow motion. Then came the feeling of warmth as she began to get warmer, sweat pouring from every pore in her body.
Her ribs popped as she hit the ground, the pain lost in the burning sensation that was growing stronger with each slowly passing moment. She struggled to stand, her body continuing to grow hotter, her muscles starting to stretch and tear as she strained to lift herself up.
Fire came from every part of at once, bursting from every pore in her body, green flames engulfing her as she drifted into unconsciousness.
The memory in Shego’s mind slowed and stopped, fading away into darkness, as her body going limp, her body growing heavier by the moment, her form only suspended by the arm she couldn’t release.
It was the same sort of pain she’d felt on the day she’d been given the power of her glow, every nerve screaming in pain as her body began to smoke and sweat.
And now it was happening again. Her head fell back, her eyes trying to focus on the sky above. And slowly, like the sky above everything turned to black.
Her head was throbbing as her eyes opened into a room of blurred light and color. Her hand went to her temple, rubbing it gently as she closed her eyes. She just needed to relax and the pain would go away.
Her rubbing slowed as she realized that something seemed different. Shego opened her eyes as she lifted her hand and looked at it. Each slender finger ended with talon like nails. She stared at the unmarred hand in surprise. Why wasn’t it burned? Hadn’t it been the hand that was in the glow? Faint phantoms of memory danced in her mind with each throbbing pulse pounded through her head.
She looked at it, before slowly lowering it back onto the bed.
What was going on?
The door to the room opened, and then closed with a soft click, a pair of hard sole shoes walking towards her. “Oh…you’re finally awake…”
Shego turned her head towards the redheaded surgeon her eyebrows knit together in confusion, “What do you mean…finally?” Her vision fell on the woman’s left arm, which hung in a sling. “Wait. What happened to your arm?”
“Well… after you went to sleep you started tossing and turning like you were having nightmare. When I tried to wake you up, I was thrown into the wall, which is when I dislocated my shoulder. We had to heavily sedate you to get you to calm down.” The surgeon looked embarrassed as she spoke sitting down on the foot of her patient’s bed. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Shego slid to a sitting position to give the older woman a little more room, not taking her eyes off of her own feet, “Talk about what?”
“What your dream was about.”
Shego didn’t say anything for a moment, shifting her gaze from her feet to the wall, avoiding the woman’s eyes. “I…I don’t remember…”
“You’re lying.”
“I am not!” Shego looked hurt by the woman’s accusation.
“You mumble when you lie. Kim used to do that when she lied too.” The woman smiled for a moment before the memory of her lost daughter clouded her face. She sniffled a little, trying to look professional. “Sorry about that…I don’t mean to be so emotional…” She used her good hand to dry her eyes with her lab coat.
Shego chewed her lip, “I was burning….”
The older woman looked up at Shego, surprise written on her face.
“When I was little my brothers and I were up in a tree house at our grandparent’s house outside of Go City. They were pretending to be superheroes like usual and I was reading a book… I think it was Frankenstein, I read that book a lot when I was little. Anyways, I remember hearing something that sounded a lot like thunder, or a jet in the distance, but I couldn’t see anything.”
“Then everything got dark… The tree house exploded, and I remember falling, everything slowing down to a crawl, fragments of wood everywhere. Then everything started to hurt. My skin was so hot, but it was coming from the inside. It felt like fire was coursing through my body, igniting every nerve. When I hit the ground I could hear my ribs break, but I couldn’t feel it. I was sweating steam as I tried to stand.”
Shego’s eyes were welling up with tears as she struggled to continue, “The…then all I remember is green fire, my entire body began burning…I…I don’t know what happened after that but I can still remember it… My dream was that memory replaying itself.”
The surgeon was too stunned to speak, staring at the pale-emerald woman. She leaned over and hugged the trembling woman, her good arm wrapped around the shaking form. “It’s okay….it’s okay…Shhhhh…”
Shego hugged the woman back, holding her close, as tears ran down her face. She wasn’t burning anymore. She couldn’t burn anymore. The tears stopped slowly as she relaxed her grip loosening before she let go completely. She weakly smiled at the older woman, “Sorry Doc….”
The older woman smiled, “Call me Anne, Doc sounds like something out of a cartoon… So…Feel better?” She stood, slowly and straightened her lab coat.
Shego nodded slowly, feeling a little surprised that she did.
The older woman walked towards the door slowly, “Good. I’ll be back later with your discharge paperwork, so we can get you out of here.”
“Wait…I thought you said I’d be here for a few days.”
Anne looked back from the open door, a small smirk on her face, “That’s how long you were asleep.”
Shego lay in bed staring at the hand that her mind said should be burned. “Only a dream, huh?” She sighed and let the hand fall back onto the bed.
After a little while she slid out of the bed and walked over to the window, wincing at the tight pull of her calf muscles. Slowly she opened the curtains, wincing at the sunlight that streamed through the window. Leaning against the window sill, basking in the warm sunlight she looked out into the small courtyard below.
“You’re…um…backdoor is open…” The door closed with a soft click.
Shego quickly pulled the hospital gown closed in the back, turning around to keep her backside hidden. “Er…Anne…Sorry about that…” Her normally pale skin darkened as she began to blush.
The older woman smirked, looking remarkably like her daughter, “It’s alright, I’ve seen worse as a medical student. I like the tattoo though.”
Shego’s light complexion deepened to an even darker green as she looked towards the bed, avoiding the woman’s gaze.
“So do you have anywhere to go tonight\?”
Shego looked at Anne in surprise, “Pardon?”
“Well my sons are at a science camp and my husband is currently working on s new rocket prototype so he won’t be home for the rest of the week. So that means I’ll be eating dinner alone. That is… unless you want to join me.”
“Depends…”
“On?”
Shego looked at ceiling, “If I can get some pants.”
Anne smiled, “Hospital scrubs okay?”
She crossed her arms, “Got anything in green?”
“I’ll see what I can do. But you got to tell me about that tattoo.”
“Deal.”
Anne set her fork down, “So let me get this straight…you and Kim were trapped inside of a collapsed tunnel after Drew’s machine exploded?”
“Sadly it’s been a recurring theme while I worked under him. You think he’d learn not to have a self-destruct button on everything, the toaster, the shower, the coffee pot, the toilet, but then again he did lack common sense… Anyways… So we’re trapped in this tunnel, and Kim thinks she can find a way out. Well I bet she couldn’t….well after going back and forth we settled on the idea of tattoos. Long story short is she found a way out, but as we were climbing up, it collapsed, burying us in marshmallow bunnies. After her buffoon sidekick managed to find us I honored my end of the bet seeing as she did find a way out, even if it did collapse.”
Anne nodded, taking a bite of wrinkled pink meat that she’d dipped in ketchup.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you something …What is this stuff?” She poked at a slice of wrinkled pink meat with her fork, her face a mixture of interest and disgust.
“Brain Loaf. Don’t worry, it’s not undercooked, I color the hamburger with food coloring.”
“Oh…” Shego set the fork down, not sure that she wanted to eat it now that she knew what it was.
Anne smirked, before starting to laugh, “That’s the same face Kim made. It’s amazing how much you act alike.”
Shego sighed, “You’re not the first person to say that. We weren’t that much alike though she was a hero, one of the best I’ve ever seen, and I’m nothing more than a super-powered pickpocket. A fallen hero. I could never be the hero she was…I’m not that strong.” She looked distracted as she spoke, her eyes fixed on the slice of pink on her plate.
“Bullshit.”
Shego’s attention snapped into focus as she looked up at the woman across from her, “What?”
“Bullshit. I really only know a little bit about you, but I think you have the strength in you, you just need to realize it.” Anne put her hand down on Shego’s as she spoke.
“I’m sorry…but I guess I’m just not hungry…” Shego pulled her hand away as her chair slid back, before she walked away from the table. The woman padded through the living room following the different pictures on the wall, some of the whole family, some of Kim’s younger brothers, and some of just Kim herself. Shego sighed as she followed the photographs up the stairs looking at the redhead growing up, even a few pictures of her awkward years. Shego sighed as she saw the girl with braces.
There was so much she had never known about the teenager. So many things she wanted to know.
Shego kept following the pictures, trying to clear her head of what Anne said. She stopped as she found a smaller set of stairs that led higher still and found a small room with a lot of pink, lit by the a streetlight outside. Shego sighed as she looked around the space. The room had a familiar feeling to it. It felt like…Kim.
She walked slowly over to the bed and sat down on the foot of it with a small thump. This room was the accumulation of what Kim was. She had made it into what she was. A teenager, a cheerleader, a hero…a woman. She leaned back with a forced sigh, staring at the ceiling, not sure what to do. She didn’t feel like stealing for a living anymore. She used to do it for fun as much as the money until she met Kim. Then it was just a way to facing the girl.
The blood pumping through her veins so loud that it thundered in her ears. The sweat running down her body. The stretching fabric of her cat suit. The volume of everything had no match to that feeling. What she would give to have that feeling again. The feeling of purpose, of need, of…. Slowly she slid her hands behind her head, pausing as her arm brushed against something next to her on the bed, her thoughts scattering.
She grabbed it and held it up, a little surprised at the oddness of the stuffed animal. She held the animal close, studying it, pausing as she noticed that it smelled familiar. She held it closer, wrapping her arms tightly around it, lost in the euphoria of the scent.
Kim…. Her mind faded out of consciousness as she fell into a peaceful sleep, body curled up on the teenager’s old bed, a small smile parting her lips every so gently.
She didn’t even twitch when Anne came and tucked her in later that night.
A/N: Not much to say. Next chapter coming out as soon as I can finish it!
Next Chapter: Shego strikes up a deal and finds a home, and has to deal with an unexpected guest, as well as a couple of house warmers.