Jim was welcomed as a hero when he set the hovercraft down at the hospital. His mom worked with the emergency room personal to make certain there were no serious injuries and then taken her son home. Despite the number of his injuries they expected even Ron to be out of the hospital by that evening. Dr. Possible and her son arrived at the house slightly before Wade dropped off Tim and Joss.
While the twins were welcomed as heroes they were sent off to school, bone-tired, at daylight. Their parents reminded them that Kim always asked permission before saving the world. When they got home they found their dad grilling huge steaks for them, but they were too tired to eat and went to bed early.
Joss suffered no physical damage in the rescue, but it is the brain which ‘feels’ pain no matter what portion of the body is injured. She was still experiencing shock in the aftermath of what the robot body had endured and Dr. Possible insisted she spend the day in bed after Wade brought her home. Kim's mom feared her niece had suffered more than those in the hospital. Before he left Wade asked if he could take her out that evening, to make sure she was all right. She had begged off, but shyly suggested he could ask her out for Friday -- if he wasn't too busy or anything.
Wade was walking on air when he got home. His mother pounced as soon as he got in the door, “And where have you been, young man?”
“Oh, I was helping rescue Kim and Shego… Ron too.”
“You could have telephoned. You're grounded for a week.”
“Mom! Please! I've got a date this Friday!”
She smiled, “You've got a date?”
“Yes ‘um.”
She gave him a hug. “Okay, you won't have to stay home Friday. But you'll still have to serve your sentence.”
He returned her hug. “Thanks, mom. I'll remember to call next time.”
Drakken caught a few snatches of sleep that night, He made a nuisance of himself with hourly calls to the hospital for reports on Shego, which the hospital refused to give over the phone. When visiting hours started they forwarded the call to the patient's room.
Drakken felt groggy and out of sorts on the day following the rescue. He imagined that the others spent the day partying to celebrate the safe return of Shego and the others. He received no invitation, and felt hurt to have been ignored. He had played a major role in the rescue and resented being passed over. He spent the day feeling sorry for himself and reassembling the Bebe from the pieces Jim had retrieved. It kept his mind off their ingratitude and allowed him time to carefully examine Wade's variations on his designs.
Drakken had been wrong about how the others spent the day. None of the three victims of the monster's attack had any desire to celebrate.
Kim had appeared fine by the time her mother saw her, but spent the night at Middleton hospital for observation. She was released in the morning. Despite being free to leave she stayed at the hospital until almost ten in the morning moving back and forth between Shego's room and Ron's. She blamed herself for Ron's injuries. She should have listened to Drakken, she thought, and waited until she had a better plan.
Shego took longer than the others to come out from under the Jack's influence, Kim was with her as she slowly regained full consciousness. The pale woman reported a sore hand, and the doctors taped two sprained fingers. “The idiot must have dropped me or something,” Shego complained. Kim decided to say nothing about the sore hand.
The police called, wanting a statement from Kim and Shego. When Shego was conscious a squad car arrived to take them downtown. As they rode to the police station they wondered how they could present a story that could be believed.
Ron received a sedative during his examination. He woke up in a hospital bed after noon. He suffered three broken fingers on his left hand, a cracked radius on his right arm, two cracked ribs, and seventeen stitches closing four gashes. He opened his eyes to find Bonnie and Zita in the two guest chairs, happy to see him awake and assuring him they would help him around the house until he was recovered. The house was the least of Ron's worries. As he looked at his splinted fingers and immobilized arm he wondered if he would be able to go to the bathroom by himself -- or if he was going to find out who his real friends were.
Late in the day the rebuilt Bebe lay on the workbench. Drakken put another dark wig on it and dressed it in another outfit like Shego's. The robots were now so lifelike that he felt it would have been indecent to leave it undressed. He tried to understand Wade's changes as he worked on the Bebe. They were slower and less efficient in terms of internal power. Given the problems with the earlier models asserting independence and trying to take over the world for themselves Drakken accepted the remodeling as a safety measure. Drakken suspected he knew the reason Wade spent so much time on the cosmetic changes, but dismissed the idea. Sixteen years old was too young to be thinking like that. The blue man was blessed with having forgotten his own adolescence.
Drakken wondered about the programming Wade had prepared for the Bebes. He scratched his head, he could not remember the young man ever saying a word on the subject. The blue man decided to leave the robot assembled. He would ask Wade for a copy of his program tomorrow, or maybe Drakken would make another stab at creating his own program. The blank drive he had installed for the rescue meant it was just an empty shell now that Joss's mind was out. There was no potential for harm until some sort of programming went into it.
It was after eleven that night when Chuck, making rounds at the lab, found an exhausted Drakken putting away tools.
Drakken was not positive how Zita had convinced Chuck to take on the title of head of maintenance. Perhaps the big man was too dumb to realize he was now chief janitor. Drakken suspected she'd used flattery to convince he was the most important individual around the place. He still regarded himself as part of security as well as head of maintenance. To demonstrate his importance Zita had made certain he was given the largest key ring in the building.
“Better go to bed, boss,” the hulking ex-henchman told him.
“Yes, fine,” the blue man yawned. “Can you lock the lab up for me?”
“No problem, that's what I'm here for,” he replied, jingling his symbol of authority.
Drakken headed back to his quarters, remembering space station parts that needed to be completed for NASA by next Wednesday or L&L would pay a penalty which would eat up most of the profit on the contract. It didn't worry him enough to keep him awake, he fell into bed fully dressed and was asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.
Chuck looked around the lab before closing. Turning off what he thought should be turned off and leaving on what he thought should remain running. He had an eighty percent success rate with his guesses. He left the Bebe completely alone. After completing his circuit of the lab he exited the room and locked the door behind him before heading down to his own quarters.
Two hours later, if a witness had been present in the lab, he would have seen two dim red lights spring suddenly into existence, as if two eyelids had opened. As motion detection alarms began to sound in the security room the robot sat slowly up and swung its legs over the edge of the workbench. The metal construct searched for a word to describe the sensation it experienced. The word, it decided, was hunger.
--The End?--