“It is difficulties which give birth to miracles”
- Rev. Dr. Sharpe
“Tell me” House said to Foreman while they both walked across the corridors “Why would a criminal want to save a hero?”
“How should I know?”
“She’s a criminal, you were a criminal. I presume you two must have a lot in common”
“Yeah, but I was part of a gang, not a multinational searched and wanted thief like her”
“We could argue the whole day about the levels or you could go just straight to the point of the question”
Foreman thought for a moment about that, remembering his days as part of that street band. Yeah, he had stolen things just like Shego, but it used to be mostly to keep up living. If someone would ask him about regrets, he’d say that if he could go back to the past, he would do the same things again. One thing was to be a criminal, and another was to be… oh! There he got the answer:
“I don’t think she might be evil”
“Evil?” House repeated.
“Well, I admit I’ve done bad things before, but I never meant any harm to anyone”
“Yeah, like you didn’t do it” There he goes again with it.
“I know I did, but the reason was not because I wanted to do it”
“So you are saying that our villain injured the hero but didn’t want to injure her?”
“Man, I don’t know. Why don’t you ask her?”
The moment she saw her, all the important question until that moment, like how she got here, what happened to Ron or what was wrong with her, passed to a secondary level of importance. Even her injures were trivial now.
It was all simply logic: If Shego was here, Kim had to fight her. Nothing else matters, right? ‘Cause if she didn’t, people would get hurt, and she just couldn’t allow that
“What are you doing!?”
But the moment she tried to get up, Chase and Cameron stopped her, pressing her as carefully as they could against the bed.
“What are YOU doing!?” She replied “Don’t you see who’s there!? It’s Shego!!”
“Calm down!”
Calm down? Their lives were in danger and they wanted her to calm down and stay on bed!? Right: She was injured, and even drugged. She knew it, just like she knew that fighting like that would be harder and she surely harm herself while doing it, but there was more in her slogan of “I can do anything” than just optimism. She had a personal rule: If you have to do it, do it. Do it trembling if you must. Do it the hard way if you can’t find the easy one. Do it with your feet if you can’t use your hands. Use the way you want, but DO IT!
Forgetting the pain, or rather making her best to ignore, she sat up on the bed and pushed both doctors away. It was certainly rough coming from her, but she had to keep them safe somehow.
She then looked at Shego, but the green criminal was already too near of her, and before Kim could realize, she was pushed back into the bed by her enemy. The teenager hero tried to fight it, but in two second, only two seconds, Shego had taken care of everything: One hand was on her healthy shoulder, keeping her resting against, while the other was holding her left wrist, and due to the pain of her shoulder, she couldn’t fight it. And her right arm? It was handcuffed to the bed. Where did Shego got the handcuff or when exactly did she put it on her, she had no idea.
“How did you…?”
“You’re predictable” Shego replied after sighing, practically copycatting the occasion in which she had said that to her. And Kim decided to pay her back with the same coin.
“Really? Then predict THIS!” She screamed, quickly raising what Shego had forgot to cover: Her legs. Her knee instantly smashed against Shego’s head, but her hold on her didn’t lessen even on bit, but rather got tighter. She clearly didn’t even consider guarding herself against the attack. That would have meant loosening on the redhead.
Kim was just about to repeat the attack when her hands were hold and put down on the bed once again by the blonde doctor.
“What are you doing!?”
“Cameron! Increase the morphine!”
“Right!”
“Are you guys crazy or what!?”
“CALM-DOWN” Shego said, strong but paused. Her expression and way of breathing denoted a certain frustration.
There was a minute of weird peace then, mostly silent. Chase left go of her legs after warning her to stay still while Cameron fulfilled the order given, starting then to check around cheerleader’s body, readjusting the feeding tubes and the IV on her.
“How do you feel?” She asked after finishing the checking.
“Uhm… dizzy”
“That’s normal” Chase commented, sitting down after clearing around a bit.
“How are your shoulder and abdomen?”
“My shoulder… doesn’t hurt so much, but…”
She grumbled. During the rush of adrenaline she had managed to forget the burning pain, but it was still present there, even more intense than before.
“It’s still hurt?” Cameron asked.
“Damn it does!” She replied, her eyes closed for the suffering.
“That’s… not normal” Chase said standing up and approaching her “Shego, let her go”
Slowly and carefully, Shego finally let go of the girl and stand up straight. They both looked at each other for a moment without exchanging words and then Shego decided to give space to the doctors to do their job. Only now she was considering that maybe she was worrying too much.
“Why are you doing this?” Kim asked seriously while the doctors inspected her burn.
She didn’t reply. She had walked away and sat down in the chair Chase was using before. Her eyes were focused on the floor, and she didn’t feel like staring at the cheerleader right now.
“She brought you here” Cameron said, but sounded a bit unsure.
Kim looked at one woman and then to the other, and presuming that Shego wouldn’t answer, she though about her next question and said it:
“What happened to Ron?”
“He is fine” The criminal replied, not too emotionless “Just unconscious”
“You hurt him!?”
Once again, Shego stayed silent, but Kim was not taking that this time.
“Answer me!!”
“For the sake of-! He is fine!!” Shego answered screaming, finally looking at the teenager “I just knocked him out, nothing he can’t overcome. You should worry about yourself now!”
“And why do YOU worry?” Kim asked, resentment in her eyes “You don’t expect me to believe that you actually care for me, right?”
Funny… Shego just didn’t know how to feel before such words. She remained confused…
“What’s your scheme, uh? Spill it out!”
“There’s no scheme, pumpkin” She said, her voice low and once again staring only at the floor “Just get better”
“Why would you want me to get any better?” The hatred in her words seemed to be diminishing.
Now that was a good question.
“You hurt me and now you want me to get better?”
If that could have been rhetorical…
“Why’s that for? So you can hurt me again?”
“Shut up!” She replied, her temperament lost “Do you think I’m a sadomasochist or something!?”
Cameron felt the urge to stop this conversation, which was clearly turning into a verbal fight, but something was telling her to back down. Was this what people called the spark between two persons?
“I dunno! Who knows? Maybe…”
“You’re ridiculous” Shego retorted
“I’M ridiculous? Look at you!”
“So what if I want to save you? What if I don’t want you to die? What’s your problem with that?”
“That it makes no sense at all!” She exclaimed while trying to throw her hands up in certain exasperation, only to remember that one was chained and the other would provoke her a lot of pain.
“Stay-quiet!” Both Shego and Chase scolded, making Kim feel like embarrassed and annoyed at the same time.
“Your injure seems to have gotten worse” Cameron said while looking at her abdomen “And this bruises…” She then looked at Shego “How rough was your fight?”
“We have had it rougher” She replied “But never got seriously injured like today”
“Do you usually get so many bruises in these battles?” She asked, this time to Kim.
“Rarely”
“We may have to do traumatology tests” She commented, but decided to save the part about a possible internal bleeding “Feel any different?”
“Same as before” Kim replied, or rather complained.
Cameron readjusted the teen’s gown, took the notebook and wrote some things on it.
“Where are House and Foreman?” She asked to her partner
“They should be coming soon”
“Is she gonna be ok?” Shego asked, her eyes with a mix of worry and hope.
Chase and Cameron looked at each other, but before they could come out with an answer…
“What’s the difference?” Kim asked “What could it matter to you whenever I’ll be ok or not?”
“Princess…” Shego started… but didn’t know how to go on…
“What?” She questioned, but got no reply “Why are you here anyway?”
“Don’t you remember?” The pale woman asked “I brought you here!”
“Yeah, but why?! And why are you staying here anyway?!”
“Again, don’t you remember? You were screaming like you were in hell after you fell unconscious!”
She did remember… though she preferred not to. Remembering that was painful enough. She had never experienced so much pain like to make her scream like that, let alone faint. She couldn’t remember well what happened around her while she was in such pain. As far as she knew, she was being carried in someone’s arms, but she though it was Ron…
“I…”
But that still didn’t answer her questions.
“But… but why? Why did you?”
No anger in the question, even though they all knew who harmed her. No sight of the aggression she had in her voice during the last minutes. Just those scared and confused eyes which Shego couldn’t stand and face.
“Why are you so concerned about this?”
Maybe if she said that it was guilt she would believe it and shut up, but then again… it was more like guilt and… why was she finding it SO hard to lie?! She had done it so many times before! Not she considered herself and expert on that like in other “evil fields” but…
“Shego!” Kim called, almost pleading “pl-… please…”
That did it: Their green eyes met…
“Because I care for you!!!” Shego screamed, so loud that it made the doctors shake a bit. She had let go out all the tension and frustration contained, and now those traits, along with the stress, where visible on her.
Amazed stares were the only reply the heavily breathing woman got from everybody present. She felt embarrassed as she never felt before, not even when being defeated over and over again by a teenager.
“There! I said it!” But now it was too late to regret it or to stop. “Regardless of the fact we’re enemies, I… I just… don’t want you to die”
She felt so pathetic, so stupid… talking works without even thinking them but unable to call them lies.
“Shego…”
“So… just focus on getting better! Ok?” Once again, she rolled her eyes and stared at anywhere but Kim’s eyes “The doctors here are the best, and I…” Never before had she though she’d said this: “I’ll help as much as I can.” She stopped for a moment, took some breathing, trying to calm down “All you have to do… is focus on getting better. As soon as I know you’ll be alright… I promise that I’ll leave” She didn’t really want to, but if that could make her feel better, then… “Fine?”
There was a moment of silent tension. She knew she was going to need some good drinks after all this. She could only hope that it would end up soon…
“Shego…” Kim called…
…but…
The criminal sidekick looked once again, ashamedly, to her princess, but then, without teenager noticing, her eyes went wide in shocks.
“That’s… really…” She continued…
“Ki-Kimmie!” Shego interrupted; panic in her voice.
All the presents stared at the heroic girl, and Shego was even pointing to her face. Concerned about this, she touched her face with her hand, feeling, much to her surprise and fear, something that she just hadn’t perceive until she touched it.
Nosebleed?
One moment of fear… and then she coughed, tainting her hand in red even more then before, and more and more as the cough continued beyond her control, blood spilling all around her gown.
“Wha… what the-!?”
“KIMMIE!!”
Chase and Cameron acted as quickly as possible. She trying to stop the hemorrhage and he checking the girl’s vital signs, just to find out what he feared: The blood pressure was rising up!
“What’s wrong with her!?” Shego asked grabbing Cameron’s shoulder.
“It burns” Kim murmured between coughs “It’s burning!!”
“What?” Chase asked, and then…
For Shego, it was as if her nightmare was being revived. For the doctors, it was the probably the most hated part of their work. For Kim… it was hell itself.
She screamed again, like nobody had ever seen her screaming before. She grabbed her burn abdomen again, as if trying to suppress it somehow, but nothing as a good sign seemed to happen. Kim was in pain, in torturous pain. So much that even SHE couldn’t handle it…
What’s going on?
Shego felt as if the world as she knew it was twisting itself, just like her princess in front of her. Her reality was facing a thrill like nothing ever seen. This wasn’t as it was supposed to be, nothing of this was ever supposed to happen.
Yet…
“Move aside!” Someone said, grabbing her shoulder and pushing her away of the bed in which little Kimmie was suffering. A black man in doctor uniform. He was here to help, right? So obvious, but still…
Stepping backwards slowly, Shego just gave the doctors the space they needed to work, yet she couldn’t help them, she could even understand what were they doing nor what was happening to poor Kimmie. She was helpless… felt useless… could do… nothing…
So much she wanted to do. So much she wished to comprehend… but she couldn’t understand not even herself!
Kim…
“You sure know how to throw a party” Gregory House said, standing beside Shego. Confused, she just stared at him. “Pleasure to meet you”
Author Notes:
Sorry for taking so long for a not so long chapter, but lately I feel like inspiration won’t hit me not even by mistake. Still, I’ll keep writing.
Next chapter will be more HouseMD-like and with more focus on the diagnosis business, yet there’ll still be a lot of feelings around.