Maybe it was the pent-up frustration. Maybe it was the anxiety of the situation. Maybe it was the feeling that it was now-or-maybe-never.
Or maybe Forces of Nature just come in pairs.
The love-making – if it could be called that – lasted four hours. The swarm lasted six. It was 5 a.m. before Kim woke up needing to pee, and had to consider how to extricate her self from the tangle she was in with Shego. They were lying feet-to-head across the front bench-seat of the truck, between each other's legs, so there was absolutely no way for Kim to get up without waking Shego – or so she thought. Thankfully, Shego remained asleep throughout the de-tangling, and Kim breathed a sigh of relief. That would have been embarrassing.
A little later, she stood naked in the cool blue pre-dawn, leaning against the front-fender of the Humvee, and considered what had happened – and wondered how she felt about it. She couldn't even remember a many parts, it had been that savage. She certainly didn't remember how she'd ended up in that position. Other things she remembered with vivid clarity – almost all of them things she'd done to the other woman, hardly any of them the things Shego had done to her. Tell-tale bite-wounds and scratches – some in odd places – told her that she'd gotten as good as she gave, though. She was sore all over… everything hurt.
So, your first lesbian sex, Kim. Like it? she thought to herself with an inward smirk. Last night was not the norm – she knew that much. It had been strange. Like they were animals. Like she was an animal – all instinct, stimulus, and response. Mindless. Emotionless, for that matter. Like a dog that will eat until it's sick, just because the food is there, even if it throws up afterward. It can't see past the craving for food, even if it doesn't need food. That's what it had been like. Kim had needed, Shego was there, so she took her. And apparently, it was mutual. It was not what she'd hoped for. No, she didn't like it. Not really. It wasn't something she'd care to ever experience again. Oh, she'd had orgasms. Orgasm after orgasm after orgasm – but they were meaningless, they were animal orgasms, they were… biological, physical, and that was all.
“You okay, Red?”
At some point in Kim's reverie, Shego had awoken and was now joining her – also naked – by the truck. Kim looked at her and then tried to hide her shock. Shego had blood everywhere – a little blood goes a long way – her hair was matted, she had deep bruises on her breasts, thighs, sides, arms… she looked as if she'd just lost a fight with a buffalo. Actually, most of the bruises were either caused by the steering-wheel or the gear-shift.
Partly to cover her shock at seeing Shego that way, she answered the question quickly, “Actually, I hurt all over, Doc. I mean – all over…”
“Yeah, me too… but what I meant was…” finally daring to make eye-contact, Shego got a good look at the younger woman. “Oh my god, Red… do I look as bad as you do?”
It felt oddly good to hear Shego ask that. It was an good question. It showed self-awareness, consciousness of others, intelligence. It was not something an animal would say.
“Probably, Doc. And yeah, I'm okay.” It was funny how the awkwardness was dissipating with each word spoken between them, “So that was… weird, huh?” she asked, breaking the ice on the subject. Then she noticed something, “Why are you limping?”
“Uhm… someone bit me on the bottom of my foot. Among other places” Shego made a point of rubbing her butt, “And yeah. 'weird' is a good word for it. Do I – uhm - Do I need to apologize for anything?” Shego was wondering if it was all her doing last night. Animals are naturally self-centered, especially about sex.
The question made Kim smile to herself. If they were to start apologizing to each other, it might go on a long time…
“Not if I get the shower first.”
“Oh. Well… damn. Hurry up, then.”
They didn't even think about making love again until St. Louis, by which time their wounds were scabbed-over. When they did, it still wasn't the stuff of erotica. It was mostly trial and error, and what sex there was was manual, not oral.
They discovered they were different. It shouldn't have been surprising, but it kind of was, all the same. They liked, and didn't like, different things. They liked some of the same things in different ways. It became painfully obvious (literally) that the missing ingredient from the love-scenes on television, in the movies, and in print was communication .
Shego, for instance, kept having to tell Kim to squeeze her nipples harder, harder! HARDER! because to Kim, it would have been just flat-out incredibly painful. Kim couldn't imagine such a thing feeling good, but apparently Shego got into it. A lot.
Kim, on the other hand, seemed to have a hard time finding Shego's clitoris. “Over to the left. MY left, Red. Doy! Can't you feel – Jesus, not like that!”
Kim liked fast, Shego liked slow; then again, Kim liked slow sometimes, but Shego rarely liked fast. Shego was much more into breasts than Kim – from either perspective. Shego enjoyed massage-like caresses on her body, deep and powerful, while Kim enjoyed being touched so lightly that Shego couldn't even be sure she was touching her. Kim became frustrated because Shego was so silent – she had to keep asking how she was doing. Shego was frustrated too because Kim would keep subtly changing what she was doing just when Shego would start to really get into it. Neither of them had ever thought it would be so complicated, or require such Zen-like concentration on what they were doing. And they had to tell each other all these things. Being in love didn't make one a mind-reader, apparently.
One night, just across the Illinois border -
“Uh… Doc? Don't…” Kim said as Shego began to kiss her way down her belly, obviously intending to go a step further than they had as yet, “I'm… I'm not ready for that yet.”
More than just a little disappointed, Shego stopped and laid her head on Kim's stomach. She traced the outline of Kim's appendectomy scar idly with a finger. Okay, she could wait. She had really been looking forward to this, though – getting a personal taste of Red's passion. She would've liked it. She was pretty sure Kim would've liked it. Why was Kim stopping her, anyway? Really, it didn't make sense…
“Red, uhm… what's the matter? I'd like to do this. I want to do this…”
Kim sighed – she wouldn't have minded Shego going down on her the least bit of course. She just knew that she wasn't ready to go down on her yet. But, how to say that?
“I… I just don't think… I'm ready, is all. That I could… y'know…”
A light went on in Shego's head. “Kim, look. It's okay. You don't have to do me because I do you, okay? Really, that hadn't even occurred to me… I just… want to. I'm not expecting… anything. If you never want to, that'll be okay too, all right?”
“You're sure? I mean… you mean it?” Kim asked, because she didn't think she ever would want to do that. She was wrong, of course… but that's how she felt at the time.
“New rule, Red: No Expectations. Okay? No Pressure. You don't wanna do something – don't. You don't like something – you tell me. And vice-versa. Speaking of which, you know I don't like being touched all feathery like you do, right? I wish you'd stop doing that. It makes me itch.”
“But -”
“Kim?”
Kim rolled her eyes - it was just hard to believe that Doc didn't like the “feathery” touches - “Oh, all right. But… I gotta go pee first” she lied. In fact, she wanted a chance to clean herself up before Shego… got so close. Unable to understand why Shego would want to put her mouth… down there… she was naturally self-conscious about it.
“You're killing me here, Pumpkin…”
“Please? I gotta pee!”
They reached Chicago in early fall, camping out at the Argonne National Laboratory on the edge of the city. Shego began making preparations for the coming winter – likely to be harsher than what they'd been used to, even in Colorado, while Kim hunted down offices and labs.
Kim's hunt was not very productive. She didn't really know what she was looking for, and more or less just hoped that anything useful would jump out at her. Nothing did. Most of the time, she wasn't sure what she was looking at , either, and had to hunt around the laboratories for clues. Apparently a lot of space was devoted to nano-tube technology, and there was the collider cloud-chamber, of course, for sub-atomic physics… but there was certainly no sign denoting the “Parallel-Universe Transportation Prototype Lab”. Most of her time was outright wasted, and she felt bad about that.
Winter was cold, gray, and windy - “The Windy City” is aptly named. Furthermore, the cold and gray just does not stop , week after week after week. One might get a break from the wind from time to time – but rarely the gray, and never the cold. The abandoned city was incredibly bleak, the days were incredibly short, the nights incredibly dark, and it took it's toll on the both of them.
At least the trailer was cozy – Shego spent a lot of time making sure it stayed that way. If their heater were to break down in the middle of a Chicago winter… it would be bad, so a good part of her routine consisted of checking and double-checking the systems that kept them warm.
Kim had the trailer to herself much of the day. She rarely left it – going outside involved a good deal of preparation in the way of clothing, flashlight, gun, snow-boots, ice-cleats fitted onto the snow-boots, gloves, parka, balaclava to keep the wind off her face if she expected to be out any length of time… it was just a huge ordeal, so she simply stayed inside.
And played Mahjongg on her laptop.
Kim had been studying Mathematics and Physics at a furious rate for nearly seven years, and yet she felt no closer to getting them back home than she did on day one. The math had no end. Neither did Physics. The closer she looked into them, the more there was to see, and she began to hate it. Now twenty-two years old, Kim had educated herself up to doctoral-candidate level material, but the simple fact was that there were no courses in what she wanted. So now she was on her own, and it was getting her down.
So, rather than open yet another file-folder filled with excruciating detail about something she didn't need to know, or access another disk full of hundreds or thousands of megabytes of information she didn't want – she played Mahjongg. But she always kept a window of equations handy in case Shego came in.
Along with the gray, the cold, and the dreary, now the guilt wore on her as well.
“Learn anything interesting today?” Shego would ask idly as she removed her cold-weather gear.
Kim would make up something, “Oh, just some stuff about vector calculus in zero dimensions…”
“Mmm” Shego would say, the phrases going right over her head as usual, “Movie tonight?”
Unable to stand having to talk to Shego, to lie to Shego, to dig her hole any deeper, Kim would often just say, “I'm really tired Doc. Let's just go to bed… ”
And as often as not, Shego would reply, “Yeah, you go ahead, I gotta take a shower.”
By February their love-making had tapered off to weekly, or maybe a little less. As little as Kim thought she could get away with. It was like a kind of torture, being made love to by someone she was “cheating on”. Shego was still doing all the chores, and still offering to help Kim in any way she could. Shego obviously wanted to go home, and every disparaging remark she would make about Chicago, the weather, or just things in general, made Kim feel all the guiltier. Several times, Kim offered to help Shego with her rounds, but Shego would always say that she could handle it, that Kim's work was too important. Kim wouldn't argue. It was awful.
The night-time spooning had eventually stopped, too. Kim had used the excuse that she liked to roll around a lot – a lie she had to keep going from then on by making a point of lying on one side and then the other before she finally went to sleep.
Shego also sensed that something was wrong, but gave Kim the benefit of the doubt. When the sex had tapered off, she just thought Kim might be having “lesbian issues” again. When the cuddling ended, the thought that maybe Kim had a point – it was good to be able to move around before going to sleep, sometimes. She could believe that. There was something else though… something about the corners of Kim's mouth… something about the way her eyebrows moved, and her tone when speaking. For one thing, Kim was getting sarcastic, verging on snide. It reminded her a lot of herself. For another, she never seemed to take anything seriously anymore… which wasn't like Kim Possible at all. Not at all.
Sometimes, it would get so bad for Kim that she would force herself to read things just so she could make believe she was holding up her end of the bargain, if only for a little while. Often she'd read the same paragraph, or stanza of equations over and over and over, not understanding, just reading. On the increasingly rare occasions when she did make an attempt to understand, it would just made her even more sad. She couldn't be sure – none of the various PhD's and engineers had ever run through the equations for her particular situation of trying to get back to a unique universe; but by this time, Kim could see the general direction things were taking, at least in a theoretical sense – and it didn't look good. One hateful symbol kept appearing just when she'd think she was on to something – the sideways eight, infinity.
This went on through March, and into April, when Kim, desperate for a change – ANY change – suggested they pack up and head for Boston while the weather was good, or at least improving. They left on the first of May. They had a little party, and Kim tried her best to smile as if everything was great, things were looking up.
That may well have been the most horrible day of Kim's life. She could feel the lies snowballing.
Going was slow as they worked their way through Ohio – Cleveland was a nightmare of big trucks everywhere – but got a little better on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. It was early summer, two-thirds of the way to Massachusetts, when the snowball finally crushed Kim entirely:
“Damn, I thought I'd never get that tanker out of the way, Red!” Shego said, coming into the trailer where Kim was “studying”. “I had to hook on to one end and then the other, pulling each one just a little… back and forth back and forth, winch to truck, back to the winch, back to the truck… Finally got 'er done, though. All by myself too!” she chided Kim, meaning it as a joke.
Kim, of course, didn't take it that way. “God-damn it Doc, how many times have I offered to help? And you always brush me off like 'Oh, I can take care of it, I don't need you to help me! ' I'm capable of doing a FEW things, y'know! I HAVE saved the world a few times!”
“Jesus, Kim… it was just a joke… I know you've got studying to do in here, so I leave you alone to -”
“Well I'm SICK of studying, Shego! You hear me? I HATE studying! I HATE math! You think this is easy for me? I HATE IT!” Kim screamed. Shego looked at her in shock – this was all news to her. Back at the farmhouse, when she'd used to watch Kim through the window, she'd seemed positively excited , sometimes.
Kim caught her breath and went on, “And I don't need you REMINDING me that it's you who's doing everything around here! I'd LOVE to get out of this fucking trailer! It's like a prison in here! I'm SICK OF IT, SHEGO !” With that, she stormed past and out the door, leaving Shego dumbfounded.
What the hell… Shego wondered, She's acting like Idid something! Well, hell, I've been doing EVERYTHING! She looked at her greasy, bruised, and calloused hands, and began to feel what everyone wrongly-slighted feels – she got just as mad at Kim as Kim had appeared to be at her. She has nothing to be mad about! Stupid bitch! If anyone has a right to be mad, it's ME! Every fucking thing I've done has been for YOU, you asshole! FUCK YOU, Kim!
She tore open the door to give Kim a piece of her mind. Where was she… Ah, there she was - “Hey! Listen here you -”
Curled up in a ball next to the fender of a beat-up pickup by the guard-rail, head in her hands, her entire body convulsing with sobs. Taking her frustrations out on Shego had been the last straw. Kim couldn't stand it any more.
“K – Kim?” Shego was completely at a loss. Her mind recoiled at seeing Kim crying like this, and the shift from the way she'd been thinking only a second earlier was too much for her – Shego could only stare in shock for a long moment.
After the shock, on the tail of it, a new thing took over Shego's mind. She loved Kim, and Kim was hurting. She didn't know why, she didn't know what to do, she didn't know what to say – and it didn't matter. She went to her, put her arms around her, and lifted her into a standing hug. Kim tried to protest, tried to beat her away by hitting her randomly, child-like. Shego took no notice, and just held her tighter, until the beating stopped, and Kim began to sob helplessly into Shego's shoulder.
This went on for twenty minutes. Shego didn't say “There, there” nor did she pat Kim on the back, she just stood there and held her and let her cry.
Eventually, Kim began to speak, haltingly at first, her words broken by sobs, but clearer and faster as she went on. She told Shego how she'd spent whole days – weeks - playing games on her computer. She told Shego that she'd been cheating, how she'd been doing it, how she'd been hiding it. She told Shego everything, and feeling as she did, she made it all sound far worse than it really was. Because she was telling Shego how she felt , and she felt… bad. Very, very, very bad. Useless. Lying, cheating, taking Shego for granted, taking the things Shego did for granted, expecting it of her, knowing she could get away with it. Getting away with it. Relieved that she got away with it…
She said that Shego deserved better than being stuck with Kim Possible.
And Shego just held her, through it all.
It was getting dark by the time the embrace ended, and Kim finally looked up, sniffling, into Shego's eyes to take her punishment, absolutely sure she'd find hate and disgust there.
“It's all right, Red…”
Kim just stared while it sank in. It's all right, Red. …
“Kim… It's okay. Really. It's okay.”
How could that be? How could Kim have done all these things, for all this time, and Shego just say it's okay ? And yet, Shego's face confirmed what her mouth had said. Somehow, for some reason Kim would never understand… it was “okay”.
So it wasn't that Shego didn't deserve Kim… It was that Kim didn't deserve Shego.
Kim resumed the embrace and cried until nightfall.
Next morning, bleary-eyed and groggy, the two of them got up, showered, and dressed in silence. It was a morning routine, and what with the long night, they couldn't think very clearly anyway. Kim began making the pot of instant coffee, while Shego got out the bowls and poured cereal, then went to mix up a pitcher what passed well enough for “milk” - a combination of dried milk powder and canned, condensed milk.
“I still can't believe you're just going to forgive me like that…” Kim said. She had accepted that Shego had , but still had trouble believing it. That it was over. All that anxiety, all that pain, guilt, depression – all over, just like that.
Shego had told her that as far as she was concerned, it would be okay if Kim dropped everything. It had always been a long-shot, she'd said. She'd known that. She said she'd been completely in awe that Kim had accomplished what she had. Shego wouldn't have been able to do that. Shego even hinted that maybe life here might not be so bad – as long as Kim could be there with her. She could be happy with just that.
Shego had taken the weight of the world off Kim's shoulders. When Shego had asked if they should just return to Middleton, Kim had thought about it, and decided that under the circumstances, they'd might as well go on to Boston. But that they might be there awhile. Shego had smiled and said, “Okay, Red”. Then they went to sleep. Kim being the spooned one, as usual. Another lie forgiven, and forgotten.
Smiling, not quite a smirk, Shego replied, “Actually, it was kind of a relief, Pumpkin. Finding out that you weren't friggin' perfect after all, y'know.”
“I never said I was 'perfect'” Kim said, accepting the tease with glad relief.
Standing at the counter, Kim was waiting on the microwave to heat the water. Shego turned to her, now smiling wryly, and said, “You never had to, Red.” Then she kissed Kim just in front of her ear, and went back to mixing up the milk.
A simple kiss, an honest kiss, a kiss accepted without guilt. It had been a long time. It was nice.
In fact, Kim could use more of that…
Much more of that… She embraced Shego from behind and buried her face in her neck, her passion growing – as she might have put it – geometrically in a power-series of squares.
The Humvee didn't move that day.
They reached the outskirts of the Northeastern Megalopolis in mid-summer, and it soon became apparent that blindly fighting their way through the traffic jams was just not going to work. Even driving off-road wasn't going to solve the problem. To get where they wanted to go, they were going to have to scout ahead and then pick the best – not necessarily shortest – way to get there. Shego got a pair of small dirt-bikes prepped, Kim found some two-way radios they could use, and prepared map packs for them.
Once the route was scouted, they might make twelve miles a day. The trailer was the problem – the Humvee could go over or through most anything, but not the trailer. As a result, they decided on having dual homes: the trailer at Lincoln Labs, in Lexington, on the outskirts of the city proper, and a second “home” in an RV already on the M.I.T. Campus, which Shego got running and parked next to the Applied Physics building, downtown. This set-up had logistical difficulties – the motorcycles were going to be useless in winter, and now there were two abodes to keep powered, watered, and working.
They divided up responsibilities, now that Kim was taking a less pressured, more relaxed approach to her studies. The first problem was transportation – twenty miles separated the two bases of operation. So finally, after eight years of being driven everywhere, Kim was going to learn to drive a manual transmission.
Shego found another Humvee that had been put into deep storage at the National Guard center, which cut down on the amount of prep she'd have to do to get it running. One day, and the second truck was up. Now came the hard part.
“See, the clutch consists of two plates, Red: one spins with the engine, and the other goes to the gear-box. Now, when you push the clutch in, what happens is -”
“I don't need to know how it works to drive it, Doc! Geez… Just show me how to shift the gears.”
“You kinna do, sweetheart. Look, when the two plates – remember, one is spinning with the engine – come together, you have to-”
“Push in the clutch pedal, select a gear, let out the clutch. I've seen you do it a million times, Doc! Why are you making this sound hard?”
Exasperated, Shego finally gave in, “Okay then. Go for it. Remember to push the clutch in whenever you change gears. End of lesson.” Shego put on her seatbelt, a point Kim did not fail to notice. Kim started the engine. So far, so good. Now, push in the clutch, and -
“Take the parking brake off, Pumpkin.”
Oh, yeah. “Forgot.” Shego only nodded her head. It was going to be a long day…
The truck lurched, the engine died.
Lurch. Die.
Lurch. Die. “I just need to have it revved up more…”
Lurch! Die.
LURCH! Die. LURCH! Die. LURCH! Die.
“Red…”
“No, I'm getting the hang of it…”
Lurch. Die. Lurch! Die. A dozen more times.
Kim felt utterly stupid. How did Shego make this seem so easy? Kim knew what she was supposed to do: clutch, gas, gear, let out the clutch… The trick was something about giving it the gas and letting out the clutch at the same time , and she just wasn't getting it! Well, she would get it… dammit! She was Kim Possible, the Girl Who Could…
Lurch! Die. Lurch! Die. Lurch. Die.
… Admit She Was Wrong when she had to.
Kim sighed and shut off the engine. “So, one plate spins with the engine…”
Shego looked over at her with a faint smile at the corners of her mouth, but didn't speak. For no reason that she could think of, she was completely overcome with an overwhelming sense of… rightness about the whole situation. Part deja' vu, part humor, part love, and part just plain fun. Everything just felt like it was supposed to be, like it had always been meant to be. Like this. Her and Kim. There. Now.
Shego patiently explained the workings of the clutch and gear-box. It wasn't such a long day, after all. Kim tried again, to no avail. Shego suggested they break for lunch, after which, Kim tried again, and again with no success. They went for a walk, and Shego tried to take Kim's mind off it, because Kim was getting embarrassed and losing her enthusiasm. They looked at the inside of the Holy Cross cathedral – sort of a scaled-down version of Notre' Dame. Kim was impressed. She'd never been in a space that big and… elaborate, before.
On the walk back to the Humvee, Kim thought about those spinning plates, and how they were connected to the engine, and the wheels, and had her epiphany – of course!
Once back in the truck, she got it on her second try. She drove around trying out all the gears, and only killed the engine twice. Okay… high gear at low speed – bad idea. I get it. You have to have a feel for what the engine can do… I get it. I get it!
Kim drove them back to Lincoln Labs, looking as casual as she could on the outside, and squealing like a school-girl inside.
They stayed in Boston the rest of that year, and into the next. The winter was predictably harsh, but the Humvees proved to be a match for it. There was more snow than Chicago – but at least they didn't have to deal with the wind so much. Kim was finding “good stuff”, as she called it – and Shego didn't ask for elaboration – at both M.I.T. and Lincoln Labs, but she was still taking it easy. To her surprise, she found that she could understand a lot of the things she saw and read, now that the pressure was off. Getting back to The World became more of a hobby than a frantic pursuit.
Shego had picked up a new hobby – art. Not as in “artist”, but rather more like “art appreciation”. She'd take Kim to museums, and even hooked up a National Guard generator truck to the Museum of Fine Art so she could visit it at will, and for as long as she wanted. Kim joked that she should just put a bed in the place and live there, and Shego actually thought about it.
But something was pressing on Kim's mind, and it had nothing to do with Math or Physics. That cathedral had really impressed her. It matched up in her mind with the all-out kind of wedding she'd dreamed of in her younger days. A whole cathedral! And now here she was, and there it was, and… Shego…
Shego would think it was silly, of course. She'd make fun of the idea. Besides, it would be just the two of them – no family, no reception, no rice in the air. Maybe Shego had a point – not that Kim ever brought it up to her, but she knew how Shego would respond. Maybe it was silly…
She was still thinking about it next spring.
A cloud-burst interrupted their run, and they ducked into a bus-stop shelter to wait it out. Being tough, disciplined, and dedicated was one thing – getting soaked when you didn't have to was another.
“I give it ten minutes” Shego guessed, trying to see the clouds between the tall buildings.
“Yeah…” Kim agreed, fondling the ring in her jacket pocket. She'd been carrying it around for three weeks now, waiting for the right moment. She'd have preferred Shego to pop the question, of course, it just felt weird for her to be the “proposer”. But there was nothing to do about it. Oh, she could leave hints, like a child that wants a particular present on Christmas – bridal magazines, perhaps ring catalogs, yes, she could cajole Shego into doing it… but that wouldn't be right. So Kim would have to do it. Kim knew Shego would say yes, of course. The only real question was – how much would she laugh?
Today was a good day for another reason.
“Uhm… Doc? Shego, I mean. I got you something…” Kim waited for what she knew was coming.
“Oh GOD Red! Do we have to do this again ! Can you just not get it? I don't CARE about birthdays! It's just another day, no 'big three-oh', no surprises, and no presents !”
“I know, Shego. But… well, here” she held the ring-box out.
Shego knew something was up. One: Kim kept calling her “Shego”, a name she only used on special occasions now. Two: Kim wasn't being sheepish, but rather had an oddly serious tone, like she was expecting something. And three: it was a ring-box.
These things had just barely had time to register in her mind before Kim said, “W – Would you marry me, Shego?” Kim winced at her stutter. She'd rehearsed the line a hundred times – all in her head. But she'd never said it out loud before.
Kim was still holding out the box, meeting her eyes, and waiting for an answer. A dozen things occurred to Shego at the same time, Marry her? Who'd perform… Who'd watch… Why would she… It's just us… No one cares… What difference… Not even legal… Does she mean… What for… How would… If we…
But over and above that – MARRY her?
Ceremonies were not Shego's thing. She could care less about pomp and ribbons, rice and thresholds. Whether it was the passing of a birthday, fireworks on the 4th, presents at Christmas, or… gowns and rings, Shego had little use for the trappings of convention. She considered herself above it. She had better things to do, things to think about, people to deal with. She wasn't so much a Scrooge as just a realist, to her way of thinking. Circumstances did not change because someone thought up a ceremony for something. The whole idea was stupid.
But, if Kim wanted to “get married”, such as it was, then so be it. She'd play along.
“Yes.”
“I thought you'd laugh…” Kim said.
Shego was trying not to – and it took effort. She could see that Kim was taking all this very, very seriously.
“If you want to get married, Pumpkin, we'll get married” then she spoke without thinking - “I don't have to wear a suit, do I?” and broke Kim's mood.
“Doc…”
Shego could see the disappointment in her eyes and it cut her like a knife. “I'm sorry, Red. Kim. Really, I… I'm a jerk, okay?” She took Kim in her arms, and opened the box behind her back. Diamond solitaire. Classic. Yup, that's my Kimmie, all right…
“Do you have any idea how long it's been since I wore a dress? I'm not sure I remember how…”
“Like riding a bicycle, Doc. Hold still.”
“I've been holding still for an hour , Red!”
“I know… I'm new at this, all right? One semester of Home Ec didn't prepare me for taffeta.”
“Didn't teach you how to bake a cake, either…”
“You're never going to let me forget that, are you…”
“How can you not tell the difference between powdered-sugar and flour – ouch! DAMMIT Red!”
“Sorry. Hold still. And shut-up.”
“Ready?”
“As I'll ever be…”
They marched up the aisle together; Shego in green and black, of course – it really was the best combination for her complexion, which could only be called “Spring”. Kim in white, which Shego found outrageously funny; perhaps Kim didn't have “carnal knowledge” of men, but she was definitely not a “virgin”.
Lighting was provided by stained-glass and candles, music by a Panasonic boom-box in front of the altar. Of course, the place was empty, except for them. All in all, Kim was embarrassed and really felt like calling the whole thing off. Too cheesy. Too lame. But too late for that now – Shego would have a fit, no doubt. Kim sighed a lot.
Shego, walking beside her, was in complete and total awe of the cathedral. She'd been there before, but that was a long time ago – Kim had set everything up. She couldn't figure out why, but she felt like she'd never seen anything like this before – the sheer volume of vertical space , the arches, the paintings, the worn wood of the pews, and most of all, the rosette-like round window of stained-glass behind the altar. It was mind-boggling, perhaps because of her new-found appreciation for things artistic. It was sublime. She didn't even hear the tinny music. This was the kind of place a soul could soar… and hers did. This was a place where the Really Important things were dwelled upon, and it didn't really matter how one read the words in the prayer-books, nor did it matter which symbol stood behind the altar. Everyone had their own take of the meaning of prayers and symbols anyway.
What mattered was that people prayed and worshiped whatever they thought lay behind those symbols here . And together. Masses of people, over a hundred years, believing what they believed, whether it was what they were told to believe or not, but doing it here. THIS was a Big Deal…
Shego swallowed. She was marrying Kim here. The profound weight of it almost choked her. This was real. Not just a stupid ceremony. What happened in this place, happened under the eyes of… well, God. Shego had never been religious her whole life – neither had her parents, but in this place, it was impossible not to believe that something was… taking note of what they were doing. Whether it be God, ghosts, the spirit of humanity as a whole, or just the personified Past that had gone on before, something was watching them. Not judging. Just watching. Taking note.
Her throat felt dry. She was about to marry Kim. This was big. This had the force of forever behind it.
They turned and faced each other in front of the altar. Kim held up the index card she had written her vows on.
Marry her… oh my god…
“I, Kim Possible, here-” Shego grabbed the card and lit her hand with plasma. It whuffed into ashes and fell at her feet.
“S-Shego! What are-”
“I don't want to know what you wrote, Kim. I want to know why you wrote it.” Suddenly, Shego was taking this very, very seriously.
Kim had worked for eight hours on that card, most of it just trying to think of how to say what she thought ought to be said. She'd used an unabridged dictionary and thesaurus to do it. Each word had been painstakingly wrought. She'd had to empty her trashcan four times to get it right, and her wrist still hurt from writer's cramp.
“Shego -”
Shego took Kim's hands in her own and said again, “I want to know why you wrote it, Kim…”
Kim tried to make out the expression on Shego's face. She'd never seen one like it. Shego was dead earnest, that much was clear, but there were other things there too: love, exposure, vulnerability, and maybe even a little surprise. Maybe a little fear.
“I wrote it because… because I knew I'd never be able to find the right words. Actually, I probably still didn't… I wrote it because I wanted you to know… how I felt about you, and how… how I wanted to be with you and… how you made me feel… I don't know, Shego, I can't sum up all the things that have happened, all the things I've felt. I tried and… it was okay, I guess. The best I could do, anyway. I wanted you to know that, y'know, I'm happy it's you. I mean, at first… well, I wished it wasn't, y'know? I wished it had been Ron. Or if not Ron, then… well, someone else besides you. And if it had to be a girl, for some reason, then why couldn't it have been Monique, or Tara, or even Bonnie – god help me – why'd it have to be YOU , y'know?”
Kim caught her breath and considered for a moment.
“And what I wanted you to know, now, here, is that I thank God it was you. I mean… I've thought a lot about it. A lot about it. About you. And I just… I honestly don't think I would've felt this way about anyone else. I'm still trying to figure out why. But I just… I can't imagine feeling this way about anyone else, is all. That's the only way I can think of to say it. I love you, and I always will. No matter what happens. I know it. Somehow… I wonder if I haven't always known it… but, y'know-”
Shego kissed her hard and Kim forgot if she was going to say anything else.