“Yeah. I wouldn't mind getting out of here for awhile myself.”
They watched the shooting stars for another hour in silence, absorbed by their own thoughts.
Kim's “vacation” consisted of a trip to the University of Colorado campus – at Colorado Springs. She'd found some correspondence from a professor there in Drakken's notes, so it seemed like as good a place as any. Maybe she'd find something useful in the professor's office, or at the very least pick up some direction for her studies. Kim had exhausted what the Middleton Community College had to offer in the way of Math and Physics. Almost at the age of twenty, she was ready for 300-level courses – a college Junior.
Luckily, the campus was nowhere near downtown, but they still had to drive the Humvee past the burned out center of the city, and Kim gawked at the fire's destruction. Shego said nothing. She dropped Kim off at the campus – Kim would have to find her own way around – and went scouting for food in the suburbs. The suburbs were good for foraging because the backyards were usually fenced all the way around, and backyard gardeners would often have perennial vegetables and sometimes even fruit trees. Being only late spring, there wouldn't be any fruit yet – but there might be onions or something.
Meanwhile, Kim searched through the campus for the office of Dr. Arahajeshamahturatha. Shouldn't be too hard to find that name in the directory…
In two hours (it took her one of those to realize that the name had been shortened to just “Arah”) she was in his office – and it was a goldmine! Bookshelves full of books she knew she'd need – Vibrations and Waves, Fundamentals of Chaos Theory, Numerical Methods for Engineers, and Aesthetics of Beauty and Art - well, she could probably do without that one. Besides, it had the ugliest dust-jacket she'd ever seen – a scattering of pink symbols on a dark grey background. Maybe it was some kind of joke or something. Boxes… I need boxes…
She found them in the mail room, and began the process of moving the Dr.'s office down three flights of stairs to the curb where Shego would pick her up. On her fifth trip down, she heard the Humvee's horn. What, is she in a hurry? You could offer to HELP, y'know… she thought, mildly annoyed. Her arms full of boxes, Kim used her back to open the front door.
“KIM! Get back in there!” she heard Shego scream.
Kim did as she was told without hesitation or thought. Something in Shego's voice told her this wasn't the time to ask questions. She dropped the boxes on the floor and peered out the thick antique glass in the wooden door.
All she could see was tell-tale flashes of bright green – Shego had her plasma on. And she was getting closer, apparently throwing fistfuls of it behind her and to either side as she ran. When she got to the steps leading to the door, she yelled “Kim! Open the door! And get ready to close it when I'm in!”
Kim did exactly that.
“Wh – what's going on Shego?” she asked as the other girl stood - plasma at the ready – facing the doors from the inside.
“Dogs. Dozens of wild dogs. I think some of them are rabid, too. Dozens of them Kim!” she said between pants, “Are there any open doors they can get in? Windows? We're in a bad spot here Kimmie. A really bad spot!”
“As far as I know, there's no other way in except the back door right there” she pointed to the other set of doors in the long but narrow building, right behind them. Also made of heavy wood and thick antique glass, the doors were shut.
“Okay. Good. We really need some guns… I don't suppose you found any guns?” Shego asked without looking away from the front doors she was still facing.
“Guns? In a University office building? I don't think so, Shego… Besides, can't you use your plasma to -”
“Yeah, that's what I thought. But they're goddamn smart Kim! I got a few, then they learned to stay out of range and get the hell away when they saw a ball coming. The plasma-balls are too slow! We need guns!” Shego was obviously near a state of panic.
Kim tried to calm her down by stepping directly into her line of sight and looking into her surprisingly frightened eyes. Shego frightened? That was a new thing for Kim… she put her hands on the other girl's shoulders, careful to stay away from her energized hands “It's okay, Shego… they can't get us in here. We'll be okay in here…”
Shego looked into those eyes. Kim was calm. Kim was confident. Kim was cool. Slowly, Shego's mind began to calm. She cut the plasma and lowered her arms.
“Yeah… yeah. It… they were everywhere, Kim… Every time I'd turn around there'd be one behind me, charging. They're god damned smart! The plasma is too slow! It's… you're sure they can't get in? They're probably all rabid… one bite and we die, Kim. You know that? Eventually, I mean. I saw a movie once where -”
Kim pulled Shego into a hug, “Nothing's going to bite us. Calm down, Shego… We'll get out of this. It'll be okay…”
Shego hesitated, and then finally, with a sigh, let herself be comforted. That was a new thing, too, just as having been frightened had been. Shego had never confronted a situation like that where her comet-powers were useless.
After a moment, Shego broke the embrace, and looked back into Kim's eyes as if trying to figure out whether or not she should feel ashamed, embarrassed, or angry. Kim held the stare while Shego's eyes flitted back and forth. Kim thought, If I say the wrong word right now – or even the right words with the wrong tone – she's going to hate me for a really, really long time. What do I say? I can't think of -
“Thanks, Kim” Shego said, surprising her, “I… I needed that.”
“Uh… no big.” Kim paused to collect her thoughts, “So… think we should just spend the night here? Think they'll go away by morning? I hope it doesn't rain on the stuff I put out there…”
“Find something good, did ya?” Shego was back on track now, her new-old self. But what had happened during Kim's hug – though never spoken of again – would never be forgotten, by either of them.
“Oh, yeah! This Dr. Arah – he was really into time and quantum mechanics and gravity and stuff… I'm basically taking his whole office! There's enough stuff in there to keep me busy for…” What? Years? Decades? Just how long was this going to take? Kim's excitement died then and there. “… for a long time. But it's exactly what I was looking for, at least. I mean, if nothing else, I can get leads from his notes and books and stuff to figure out what I need to know next…”
Shego put her hands on her hips, “Okay, then we'll take it all. What ever you need.” She looked at the boxes of books and papers on the floor where Kim had dropped them, and began picking them up and stacking them by the door. Kim watched with her mouth hanging open. Once she'd finished, Shego dusted off her hands, stretched her back, and said with workman-like demeanor, “So, whaddaya want me to do?”
By next morning the dogs had apparently gone, but Shego made a quick sweep of the campus courtyard anyway – she didn't want to be taken by surprise. After they'd stuffed the truck to the roof with boxes, and finally got in and shut the doors, they both took a moment to breathe a much-needed sigh of relief.
“Ready to go back home?” Kim asked, excited about the prospect of un-canned food for a change. Shego had become quite handy in the kitchen in the last two years, although Kim still liked to make fun of her for bring water to a boil by sticking her hand into the pot and using her plasma.
“One stop first, Pumpkin. There's a big pawn-shop-looking place I remember passing while I was out foraging… they'll probably have guns in there” Shego replied, starting the engine. She drove towards the lane of strip-malls she'd seen the day before.
Kim was a little uneasy at the thought of guns. Guns were not her thing. Skill and cunning and split-second decisions were her thing… Guns were… guns were just ugly. “Shego… do we really need guns? They're so awful! And besides, I mean, you've got your plasma, and I… well, I've got you…”
Smirking inwardly, Shego thought, Super-hero cheerleader doesn't like guns… too crude for her, are they? Doy! I'd have given my right ARM for a pistol when those dogs… Does she really think I'll be around whenever she needs me to be? Like I'm her – oh, that does it!
“You've got me? You mean like, 'I've got your back'? I'm not your sidekick Kim! I'm not gonna follow you around like Ron did in case you need me!”
Kim looked down suddenly ashamed, “You didn't have to say it like that…”
“Look, you need some kind of long-range protection, Kim! Hell, I do too! When those -”
“Okay, Shego” Kim cut her off, “Okay. You have a point. It's just – did you have to put it like that?
As her anger abated, Shego realized she'd touched a nerve. Looking at her carefully, she saw that Kim's eyes were wet – she was going to cry any minute now. Shego hadn't really meant for her to take it that personally…
“Yeah. Okay, no, I probably shouldn't have said… I didn't have to say it like that. I'm sorry. Alright?”
Kim sniffed.
“I said I was sorry…” Shego tried again. What was Kim so upset about?
“I know. It's not you Shego… I was just thinking about Ron. You're right, that was his job – to follow me around in case I needed him. And I did, too… but never gave him much credit, I guess. No one would even remember his name” she paused, remembering, suddenly melancholy, “He was always there when -” Kim never finished the sentence.
Good job Shego, Shego thought to herself, Bring up Ron. Just fuckin' brilliant. “I don't think he really cared about being in the spot-light, Kimmie. He just liked being around you is all.”
That didn't really help much. Yeah, he didn't. And yeah, he did. And in return, Kim had “put up with him”, was probably the best way to put it. Why had she acted like that? It wasn't how she had felt… but it was how she'd acted. Why?
“We're here…” Shego said, pulling up to the pawn-shop, “Uhm… you wanna come in? Pick out something?”
“No… you pick for me, okay?” Kim said, still staring at the floor, “I'll just wait here.”
“Kim -”
“I'll be okay. I – I'd just like to be alone for awhile. Don't forget the ammo.”
Shego got out of the truck and went into the store. It wasn't nearly as fun as she'd thought it would be.
“Blue-cheese, Thousand Island, French, Italian, uh… Green Goddess” Shego chuckled over the allusion, “Which is it gonna be, Pumpkin?” Their first real salad in three years was dinner the day after they returned.
Kim looked up from her plate. Suddenly, the thought of food – any food – was making her nauseated. “Shego? I think I'll just pass, for right now. I don't feel so good.”
“You sick?”
“A little. I think it's just from the run – pushed myself a little hard, I guess. I'll be okay in a few hours.”
Eyeing her suspiciously, Shego said, “Okay Prince – uh, Kim. I hope you know that I'm going to chow down anyway…”
Kim smiled at her, “You go ahead. I'm gonna go lie down.”
At the farmhouse, they had four bedrooms – three now that Kim was using one as her “office” - and two of them had their own bathrooms. Since Kim had taken the master bedroom when she'd first stayed there, Shego had the other. So Shego had no way of knowing that Kim spent fifteen minutes throwing up almost as soon as she left the table.
I don't feel so good AT ALL! Kim thought, finally lying in bed, dripping with clammy sweat. Maybe it'll pass now that I threw up… Shego would just start worrying if I told her…
In the living-room, Shego was just sitting down to resume Hadrian, a historical novel. One of the previous occupants in the house had a penchant for such books, and to her initial surprise, Shego had discovered that she did, too. It surprised her even more to discover that the Roman emperor had had a boyfriend, with whom he was quite in love, apparently. Who'd a thunk?
In the dead-quiet of the house, Shego heard Kim's voice, weak and shaky, “S-Shego…”
It didn't sound good. Shego fairly lept up to go see what was wrong, only to find Kim on her knees at the door to her bedroom, doubled over with both hands at her gut.
“Kim!” she dropped to her knees too, “What's wrong?”
“It… I think… help me get in bed…” Kim managed to say.
Shego helped Kim into her bed, taking almost all of her weight to walk her across the floor ten feet. Kim's skin felt cold and wet, her face was pale. This is bad Shego thought, and didn't dare think further.
She pulled off Kim's shirt, shoes, and pants, and arranged the covers over her. “Is it something in your stomach? Something from lunch? Does it hurt down in your gut? Talk to me.”
Kim opened her eyes to look into the older girl's. Shego could see the fear. “It hurts right here…” she pointed to the right side of her abdomen, just above the hips, in front.
A place Shego had seen someone point to before - Oh no… oh no no no… Shego pulled the covers back down, exposing Kim's belly down to the waist. “Tell me if this hurts, okay?” Kim blinked questioningly and Shego pressed – gently – at the spot she'd seen the doctor do it when her younger brother had been taken to the Emergency Room.
Kim moaned loudly and hissed through her teeth. Fuck! Shego thought. “Okay, lemme try this. Tell me if this hurts again -” Shego pressed down very, very slowly, and then released the pressure of her hand all at once.
Again, and louder, Kim moaned. Yes. It hurt.
Shego's mind raced, FUCK! FUCK, this can't be happening! What am I gonna do? She couldn't be sure, but the symptoms were the same. Exactly the same. Kim had appendicitis. Sudden, painful, deadly, and SOMEone was going to have to… remove it. And that someone was going to have to be Shego.
“She… go?” Kim asked haltingly. She knew that Shego knew something, could see it in her face and eyes.
GODDAMMIT!Shego thought, her mind racing, Ok-ok-ok… gotta be calm… Gotta look confident. FUCK! C'mon Shego, confident. Cool… For her sake… Confident…
“I think you have appendicitis, Kim. My brother Mego had it, and I was with him in the Emergency room when he was examined. You're going through exactly what he did. You hurt the same place, and in the same way” she tried to sound reassuring, “It's your appendix. It… uh…”
Most of what Kim knew of “appendicitis” came from television, but she was aware of one thing – they had to be cut out. It required an operation. A doctor. A hospital.
“It… has to… be…” Kim began, unable to stop squirming, trying to find a position where it wouldn't hurt so much.
But Shego finished, “Taken out. Yeah. Uhm… Kim? I'm going to have to go into town and get some stuff. We don't have any… anything here. Except power. And water” she began thinking out loud, “And light… Uh… I'm gonna go get some stuff. Yeah. Uhm…” it was difficult to remember the last thing she'd said, when she was thinking a hundred things at once.
Then she felt Kim take her hand and squeeze it weakly, “Hurry…”, she said.
God-damned right she hurried.
In fact, what Shego did over the next three hours would never quite be clear in her mind. Driving to the hospital at 70 mph. Dumping drawers of surgical instruments into a trashcan she found in the hallway. Looking through a cabinet full of drugs only to realize that none of the bottles said what they were actually for, and half-way ready to light the whole room afire in frustration - her “other half” ready to break down in tears. Unable to make up her mind, she moved on to the next room, and the next room, and the next room, looking for anything she might need, hoping that if she did find something, it would somehow trigger her brain to take it, because she was too busy thinking a solid string of expletives to pay much attention.
She eventually left the hospital with two trash bags of drugs, a case of saline solution, eight-thousand hypodermic needles of various sizes, a plastic garbage can three-quarters full of surgical instruments, two cardboard boxes full of books, a trash bag of masks, gloves, gowns, towels, and two-hundred and fifty hards of Tygon(tm) tubing she had no idea why she might want. Nonetheless, she was sure she forgot something, but simply COULD NOT stay any longer. Every time she wondered if she should stop and think, she would imagine Kim lying there writhing and moaning and pale. She had to go. It was a wonder she'd stayed long enough to make four trips up and down the stairs as it was.
She drove back to the farmhouse even faster than she'd driven away, sometimes topping 90 mph, as much to keep her mind on driving – and off everything else - as to actually get there sooner.
She drove across the yard and through her vegetable garden to the back door and unloaded the Humvee into the kitchen, clearing off the counters with a sweep of her arm. Then she ran towards the bedroom to check on Kim.
In the hallway, in mid-stride – she stopped. Get hold of yourself, Shego! You can't go in there all panting and anxious and scared – just calm down. She doesn't need to see you like this. Not now. How would YOU feel if Kim had to cut you open and she's obviously ready to… to just… Cry? In front of someone? Was she that far away from her old self, now? Snide, sarcastic super-powered Thief, and she was ready to cry?
Well… even if she was, she wouldn't let Kim see. Not now.
Maybe later.
Surgery was set up on the kitchen table, underneath the quadruple four-foot-long florescent lights in the ceiling.
“Do… do you need another pillow or anything?” Shego asked – Kim didn't look very comfortable lying there.
Trying to smile at her feebly,Kim whispered hoarsely, “You're… stalling…”
Shego sighed. Kim was on to her. “Yes I am. If I could just read over this one more time, I think -”
“Shego… ”
Kim's face was colorless, her voice a whisper. She looked like someone in the process of dying. And one thing Shego had read about over and over again as she'd been frantically searching through the books: if the appendix ruptured, Kim would almost certainly die – and that was in a hospital under treatment from doctors.
But there was a way to see if it had already happened. Shego pressed the spot she'd since learned was called “McBurney's Point” again, lightly, and Kim winced and moaned. “Still pretty sharp pain, Kimmie?”
After a few breaths, Kim nodded.
Shego sighed. It wasn't too late – yet - but she didn't have the equipment to know how much time she did have. Sometimes, she'd read, these things could be cured just with antibiotics! But there was no way she could know. I might kill her… she might die anyway… I don't know how I could live with killing her. I don't know how… I…
Then a galvanizing thought wiped everything else aside: But if she dies and I didn't even TRY…
No fuckin' way. No fuckin' way is that going to happen.
Shego pulled down the sheet covering Kim, pulled up her pajama-top, and down her bottoms. The bikini-cut panties were so low they weren't a concern, and Shego grabbed a bottle of Betadine and sponged it over her entire belly and right hip, staining the pale skin an awful yellow-orange color.
Now or never, Shego said to herself. “You ready Pumpkin?” she said, trying her best to sound casual about it. They'd agreed previously that Shego would use her “knockout plasma” in lieu of anesthesia. It had sounded like a good idea at the time, but Kim looked so sick now… Shego wasn't so sure. Just how safe was her knock-out power?
“Will… will it hurt?” Kim asked.
No one's ever complained, Shego thought of saying, then thought better of it. The truth was: she didn't know. She'd seldom stuck around long enough after doing it to find out. Kim didn't need to know that, of course.
“You won't feel a thing”, Shego lied, hoping Kim would notice her swallow – her throat felt dry as sandpaper. As with everything else she had done, was doing, and was about to do, Shego had no idea if it was the right thing, or not. She was tired of telling herself to “hope for the best”. She was tired of platitudes of all kinds. She was just plain tired, period.
She held her right hand out to Kim's forehead, desperately hoping she looked re-assuring. Kim had done that for her, when the dogs had been after her. Now it was Shego's turn. But then she made the mistake of looking into Kim's eyes.
Which were looking right back at her. Their eye's locked. Their minds froze.
Something passed between them, unvoiced and unthought, but there, nonetheless. It was over in the blink of an eye, and Kim whispered, “Funny… how things… turn out…”
“Yeah” Shego agreed, knowing exactly what Kim was talking about. Then she ignited and Kim went out.
Shego was alone now, and Kim's body was just that, Kim's body, empty but at least alive, lying in front of her. She had a chilling feeling of what the same experience might be like if that body weren't alive. What would she do? Probably just leave. Leave and never come back. Maybe go back to Cheyenne Mountain… watch movies, eat ice-cream. Suffocate in apathy and comfort. That'd be about right.
I can't make it without you, Kim, she realized. And then, added to that, I wouldn't want to, anyway.
NO TIME FOR THIS!
Business! Shego picked a scalpel and lit her other hand, running it along the blade to sterilize it. How… how exactly does one cut through human flesh? She'd never seen it done, on tv or otherwise. Oh, she could have – she'd seen whole libraries of surgical tapes in the medical library, but as with everything else, there was no TIME to check it out. Did one saw? Did one push or pull? How deeply should one cut per pass? How many passes should there be? Her manual said to not to cut too deep, and to cut with the grain of the muscles. How was she supposed to know which way that was? And how deep was “too deep”? It didn't say anything about how many cuts she was allowed to make, either, or if one could go back and enlarge a cut once it was made if it was discovered that it wasn't big enough, or in the wrong place, or… or… or – the list went on. She examined the business-end of the scalpel. Okay, it looked like something you were supposed to pull. In fact, thinking about it, pushing made little sense, if you wanted to cut something smoothly. Ok. Now, how would she control the depth? How would she know -
FUCK IT!
Three incisions later, it was suddenly obvious that Shego had cut through the skin and muscles above Kim's intestines and was indeed into her abdominal cavity. She could pull the wound apart and see them. She only hoped she hadn't so much as “nicked” anything down there, because nothing she'd read gave her any indication what a “nick” might look like, but almost everything hinted that it would be bad. Fucking medical manuals… they left out as much as they put in… but, they were all she had.
Now, according to the manual: retract the skin and seal-off the “bleeders”. What the fuck is a bleeder?
She used the weight of several hemostats clamped to the muscle and skin to keep the cut open, an idea she'd got from a different book. It was soon obvious what “bleeders” were. Small veins she'd cut through were constantly draining blood into the wound. If this kept up, Kim could die of blood loss before Shego would be able to even findthe appendix. She could clamp or she could suture, or she could “either use the cauterizer or litigator to permanently seal each bleeder”. Shego had no idea what either of those devices looked like, let alone how to use it, but “cauterizing” she could at least guess about. She touched a plasma-encased finger to each bleeding vein, searing it shut.
The smoke smelled – as one might expect – like roasted meat. Shego had prepared herself mentally for the sight, the feel, the risk… everything but the smell. That hadn't occurred to her. She choked back the urge to throw up. Good thing, too, since her face was basically right over the opening into Kim's body –MASK! Goddammit! How could I forget… FUCK! Shego found and put on a surgical mask without taking the time to further berate herself, and then sterilized her hands again, feeling at least a little competent that she'd remembered to do that.
Okay. What have we got here… The cut was filled with blood from the bleeders, and Shego had to mop it up with what looked like the “cotton rounds” used to remove make-up – back in the World - but were now called “sponges” for some reason. Now she could at least see. Ah. There. Lumpy, pink, tubular, and the size she'd expected from the anatomy drawings. The cecum. The manual told her to reach in there, grab it, and pull it out of Kim's body.
Actually pull it out of her body. Even just reading it, she found it hard to believe that this was what “modern surgical procedure” actually said to do… Of course, there was that other procedure, using something called a “laproscope”, but that was just wishful thinking. An hour after she'd began the first incision, Shego lit up her right hand one more time, just to be sure it was sterile, and slipped her fingers into Kim's gut, wrapping her fingers around and below her patient's large intestine. It felt… strange, to say the least, to have her hand inside someone else's body. Kim was hot inside for one thing. And wet and slippery for another.
“Uh… Uh… Uh…”
Apparently, it felt and looked strange to Kim, as well. Shego's knock-out had worn off exactly at the wrong time, and Kim was conscious again, and staring at Shego's arm embedded up to the wrist in her belly.
Luckily, Shego's left hand was free, and she stretched it out to the other girl's forehead again, quickly knocking her out again, with a somewhat stronger charge this time. Doy! THAT was… awkward?
She pulled the cecum out of the opening and there, finally, underneath it, was the “finger-like appendage” she was looking for, adhered to the cecum with tissue, and a rather worrisomely large vein running to it. Well, she was expecting that, at least. She began cutting the tissue to separate the appendix from the large intestine, and used a charged finger to burn the vein shut. Nervous sweat dripped from Shego's eyebrows onto Kim's belly, and Shego absent-mindedly wiped at it with the back of her free hand, immediately cursing herself for doing so, and then bathing that hand in plasma at full heat to sterilize it again.
Okay. There it was. The next thing to do was cut it off. Trouble is, there was nothing obviously wrong with Kim's appendix. It looked fine to Shego… pink, soft (she'd expected it to be harder, since supposedly it was close to bursting). Had she completely done the wrong thing? Suppose it wasn't appendicitis at all? It could have been something else – should she “go in and look around” while she was there?
You idiot. Like you'd know what an infected appendix “looks and feels” like anyway. The symptoms were right, the whole McBurney's Point thing was right… Let's get this over with… Shego knew that at the very least, if she was right about the appendicitis, Kim should be free of at least that particular pain when she regained consciousness again. Trying not to think of the consequences, she clamped it and got ready to sever it, just like the book said.
Apparently it was likely to be full of “offending fluid” that shouldn't be allowed to drain into the body cavity. Then again, the cecum was also full of stuff that shouldn't either. How was she supposed to make sure neither side of her cut didn't spill anything? The book didn't -
Clamp it twice, brainiac! Cut between the clamps!
The voice in her head was surprising in it's clarity, and even more in it's brilliance. As Shego rolled her eyes at her own stupidity, one more odd thing about that voice occurred to her – it sounded like Kim.
Well, no time to think about that now. She fished out another clamp, sterilized it, and clamped it next to the first one. Then she cut Kim's appendix off. Two hours had now elapsed.
Now she was supposed to “invert the severed end of the cecum and suture it”. Invert? Turn it upside-down? That didn't make sense… what the FUCKING HELL did they mean “invert”? More sweat rolled towards Shego's eyes, and she used a sterile sponge to wipe it off. What else could they possibly mean by “invert”?
Well, to hell with that. What would make sense to her, then? Fold it over like wrapping a present, and then sew it shut? Well… that seemed kind of reasonable… but surely there was more to it than that. For one thing, just what was supposed to heal here? The inside of the cecum to the outside? Because it made a difference… and one wouldn't think that the inside of the cecum would heal just because it was touching another part of the inside of the cecum. If that were to happen, people's guts would just seal themselves up whenever they were empty for a day or two. Okay, what about the outside? Better, but still didn't seem like -
INVERT like rolling up a sock! Was that a possible meaning for “invert”? It could be – and she didn't have time to look it up. Hoping to God she was right about what “invert” meant, and using both hands with her face three inches away from Kim's gut, Shego inverted the end, squeezed it flat, and began to sew it up.
Was that the right way to suture something? She'd seen pictures of the knots she was apparently expected to use, but… how far apart should the stitches be? It seemed wrong to poke too many holes through the tissue… and what of the thread? Was it okay to just leave it there? Was she supposed to go back in and remove it after some amount of time? Was this the right material for an internal suture? What if it wasn't? What if and what if and what if and what if… Let's get out of her body, Shego. Whaddaya say? Bodies DO have a way of taking care of themselves, given the chance… close her up and leave her the hell alone!
Having sewn the cecum closed, Shego stuffed it back into Kim's body – was that the right thing to do? - and removed the clamps holding the incision open. Now just sew it shut? Just the skin, or every layer of tissue she'd cut through? Nothing offered any hint. But then, nothing she'd read had ever said anything about having to suture everylayer cut through, either. Fuckshe thought a dozen more times while trying to make up her mind.
Twelve stitches later – she was finally getting the hang of it, Shego was done. As far as she knew. As much as she could do, anyway. She washed the wound off with Betadine one last time and carefully taped gauze over it.
Unable to think of anything else to do, Shego went out to the back porch and threw up violently for ten minutes.
How much longer? How hard did I hit her that second time? What if she NEVER wakes up? Kim… C'mon… Shego sat next to the kitchen table after washing her face, anxiously watching the Kim for signs of consciousness. She was so tired. It had been the longest two and a half hours of her life, and the six hours prior to the actual surgery had not exactly been restful, either. Not that she could exactly relax now. Not without knowing if – well, without knowing something. She reached over and took Kim's hand to check her pulse. Such a simple, basic thing… where the hell was it? Wait – was that it? She remembered something about the thumb having a pulse of it's own, and so shouldn't be used to find other people's. Okay, first two fingers, then. Was that a pulse? Should she squeeze a little harder? Or was -
Ah – squeeze a little harder - that was the answer. That was obviously a pulse. Kim's pulse. Did it feel strong? How the hell should she know what a “strong” pulse felt like… so many questions, so much she didn't know, so few real answers… the frustration was just… exhausting.
Kim seemed okay, as far as Shego could tell. Maybe a little pale, still… but hell, redheads were alwayspale, weren't they? Not that pale, no. Kim usually had more color than this. But at least her face had lost the pinched look and her eyes no longer looked sunken inside dark rings. She actually looked rather pretty. That was a good sign, wasn't it?
Shego stared. Yeah, she was pretty. She'd always been “cute” but now, three years older, legally “adult” and almost through growing, Kim's face had a much more… serious look. Her cheek-bones had become better defined, her face less round, slightly more angular. And those eyes… closed now, but gawd Kim had nice eyes. Penetrating, laughing, questioning – you could pretty much read Kim like a book through those emerald-green eyes. It was kind of fascinating to do so - fascinating and maybe a little hypnotic at the same time.
The eyebrows and lips were dead giveaways, too, Shego smiled thinking about the various expressions she'd seen on Kim's face over the last three years. Her all-time favorite – she chuckled when she thought of it – was Kim's “what the FUCK are you doing?” expression. That time Shego had been playing with the wolf-spider from the wood-pile, Kim had looked at her that way. She didn't appreciate the beauty of spiders, it seemed. Shego chuckled again, her hand unconsciously moving from the girl's wrist and into her hand.
She put her head onto her folded arm on the table, just to rest her eyes for a little while, until Kim woke up.
It occurred to Shego, as she rested, to wonder why she cared so much about someone that – only three years ago – she'd have gladly sent to the hospital with a broken back. There were reasons, she told herself. For instance, Shego needed Kim to continue her work in order to get back to The World. She also needed Kim to keep her from falling into the bottomless pit melancholy she'd experienced at Cheyenne Mountain. And face it, Kim was her friend. Shego liked Kim. A lot. Was that what she was feeling? That's what she was feeling. Yeah, that must be it.
She fell asleep telling herself that.
“I want REAL FOOD Shego!”
“Tough. Eat your strained pears” Shego replied stubbornly. She'd been giving Kim nothing but baby-food for three days now, afraid to send anything through her gut that might… do something.
“I'm fine! Look!” Kim said, pressing on the bandage above her incision.
“KIM! Stop that!” Shego's hand shot out to grab hers.
“It doesn't hurt. It doesn't hurt at all… and I'm freakin' starving here! I need solid food, Shego. Now c'mon! Pleeeeease, doctor?”
“No.”
“Pleeeease?”
“No.”
“Pleeeeeeeeeeeeease, Doc?”
“Dammit Kim -”
“I'll be good…”
“Kim -”
“I'll eat my peas an' everything! I'll sit still! I'll pay attention and I won't talk back and I -”
“Y'know what, Pumpkin? If you're willing to sacrifice every shred of dignity for food, then fine. But we're going to do it my way. Get it?” Shego said mock-scornfully. Kim's puppy-dog face was just adorable!
Kim was in fact willing to do just that, “What's your way?”
“A little bit at a time, okay? I'm talking one bite, here. And if that doesn't bother you by tonight, maybe you can have a few more. Build our way up. I think it's -”
“ONE BITE? A few more by tonight? Oh come ON Doc!”
“Kim?” Shego said threateningly. Not mock-threateningly, either – but with real anger in her voice. Maybe Kim had nearly died, but Shego would have gladly traded places with her.
Kim could tell by the look in Shego's eyes that enough was enough and didn't push it further. She remembered the look in her eyes before the “anesthesia” jolt from Shego's hand hit her. She also remembered the look on her face when she'd woken up mid-surgery. All seriousness, desperation, extreme anxiety… Kim had an inkling of what it must have been like for Shego, and she realized that it was only an “inkling”.
“Okay, fine. You're the doctor. Doc.”
“And stop calling me 'Doc'.”
“Whatever you say,” Kim grinned, knowing that there was nothing Shego could – or would - do about it, “Doc.”
Five months later, October of year 3.
“You're sure you're ready for this?”
“Shego… I've been ready for months. I'm back up to a hundred crunches in fifteen minutes. I'm solid as a rock. Here,” Kim lifted her sweater exposing her belly, complete with the new scar, “Punch me in the stomach, Doc. G'head.”
“We're not going there, Pumpkin. In a year, I'll think about it, okay? I read that sometimes these things can -”
“Yeah yeah yeah – and I read how some guy named Schrodinger figured out how to equate energy, matter, and waves. We both read too much. And your cooking has really suffered, I might add. If I were going to be mean. An' all.”
Shego narrowed her eyes at Kim – it was true enough, she had been getting into cooking more the more she did it, but since what had come to be called “The Operation”, Shego had been burying her nose deeply into medical books, starting with first-aid and working her way up. Currently, she was involved in a fascinating – if icky – textbook entitled “Burnbaum's Parasitology”. Next medical emergency that came up, Shego was going to be ready. Or at least, more ready. Her dinners, on the other hand, were rather plain.
“You are so lucky I'm your doctor or I'd kick your ass for that. Okay, let's do this thing, but new rule – nothing in the stomach. No kicks, no punches. Guts are off-limits. 'Kay?”
Kim whirled and kicked, her foot stopping frozen an two inches from Shego's unflinching face.
“Oh-kay, Kim?”
“Okay, Doc”, Kim chuckled.
By next spring, their fourth year in the new universe, they had racked up enough accidental torso-hits that Shego no longer panicked when she hit Kim a little too hard there. Besides, she had the feeling that Kim was using her reluctance to try and hit her their unfairly – Kim was racking up a lot of connections because of it. It was kind of pissing Shego off… but in what could only be called “a good way”.
That summer, Kim got her chance to be “doctor” for a week, after a rattlesnake bit Shego on the ankle. The wood-pile was a dangerous place, it seemed. Shego had been totally out of it for a day, ironically, because she'd just told Kim that such bites usually only made the victim “sick”, and were very rarely fatal. It was closer to “fatal” than Kim liked. Still, it had cleared up after a couple of anxious days. Kim kept her in bed for a week anyway. Partly out of spite. “Friendly” spite.
Kim's studies were getting her down. She kept getting the feeling that she was going off-track, what with Reinmann Manifolds and Laplacian Integrals and three whole weeks spent on Fourier Transforms before she realized that it had more to do with signal-processing and hardly anything to do with trans-dimensional travel.
Often, from her office window, she'd watch Shego out in the yard, tending her garden, or feeding the chickens, or working on the Humvee. Shego had taken to wearing her hair in a braid now, that hung down to the small of her back. It was Kim's idea, and Kim did the braiding. She looked forward to it. A great deal.
For her part, Shego would often go out after dark to “make her rounds”, she'd tell Kim. Actually, she'd got into the habit of spending sometimes as much as half an hour in front of Kim's window, watching the girl study. When she'd first started doing it, she'd felt a little like a voyeur, but as the weeks rolled by, that feeling had gone away, replaced by something else.
They were each falling in love with the other, and yes, they did realize it, by now. They never voiced their feelings, of course – that would be just wrong. They both blamed it on the fact that there was no one else around, that they were alone here. Had they been “back in The World”, things would certainly have been different. What they were feeling was just a symptom of their situation, they told themselves – it would end when they got back to their own universe. This was just a “personal problem”, and each of them would deal with it alone.
Besides, it's not like they actually felt… attraction to each other. Appreciation of aesthetic beauty was one thing, right? But sexual attraction was a whole different ball of wax. Right?
Right?
Author's Note: I'd like to thank all those who helped me with the medical procedure/terminology and stuff: madman, rdfox, mouse, & probably other's I've forgotten about now. Rdfox's “Hospital Procedures Manual”, or whatever it was called, was EXTREMELY helpful as far as how one actually goes about performing an appendectomy. Cutting through the tissue with the grain, sealing off bleeders, cutting away attached veins an' all. Would've sucked without that. Thanks again, rdfox.