Shego tried to maintain an aire of pride and serenity as she walked the distance from the clinic to her motorcycle. The hardest part had been standing there as the nurse filled out her forms and took her credit-card information, something she probably did all day long, every day. How incredible it was that that nurse's world hadn't changed within the last 10 minutes, as Shego's had.
The first thing she'd felt was that it was all Kim's fault, but that quickly passed. It wasn't. It wasn't her own fault either. She and Kim had picked their respective lifestyles by themselves… without fully knowing the consequences, it appeared. And now Shego was paying for it.
She hoped Kim wouldn't have to, as well.
She pulled on her black-and-green helmet to hide her tears. She wished she'd brought the car, instead, so she could just sit in its privacy and cry… another poor choice. Of course, she hadn't expected news like this.
She sat on the bike and thought about the red-haired heroine; thought about her in a new way. Usually, her thoughts were lusty and even slightly perverse, a cascade of images of the girl – and bits of her – that had been burned into her mind over the years. It was such a shame that Kim didn't appear to be the least bit interested in her. She'd dropped enough hints, god knows… and gotten nothing back. It wasn't too surprising. She and that Stoppable boy were always hanging around together. And he probably wasn't trying to kill her – or at least pretend to – half the time.
Well, all the time, really. Every time they met. Such a waste… She lifted the face-shield to wipe her eyes, started the ignition, and drove off, taking her frustration out on the road. As she drove, it occurred to her that she ought to tell Kim the news. Because Kim should… she might… but Shego didn't want to think about it anymore. Plenty of time for that at home.
“I can't believe you watch this stuff!” Kim said, munching the popcorn down next to Monique. “It's just…”, she tried to find a word that would be less insulting than “stupid”, but none would come, “… stupid.”
Monique looked over at her out of the corner of her eye, so as not to miss a single moment of the World Wrestling Federation Smackdown. “So is snuggling up to a stuffed animal. You're stupid your way, I'm stupid mine, ‘kay?” She did spare the WWF enough time to give Kim a peck on the cheek. Kim set the bowl of popcorn down on the coffee-table and stared at her, waiting.
As the black girl continued watching the show, Kim admired her soft brown eyes, the profile of her nose and lips… especially lips…
“Quit staring at me. You'll get your chance, girlfriend” Monique said.
Kim didn't say anything back, she just waited.
When the announcer spouted off the most ridiculous phrase in all of media history: “We'll be right back after these important messages!”, Kim swung up and over, straddling the other girl, and locked those lips within her own.
Shego stood behind a tree-trunk in the River Park, using her ears and mind alone to form an image of what was on the other side. Kim Possible was jogging down the path a black teenage girl beside her. They were talking in low tones, so she couldn't make out what they were saying. As they passed, she could make out one word: “Monique”. That must be her name.
She had wanted to talk to Kim alone, everything had been planned out for that. And now here she was - but not alone. Maybe her company would take off, eventually, Shego thought, so she followed them at a distance. She was rather surprised when they turned off the main path onto a less-traveled one that led down to the river. She could no longer see them through the dense underbrush.
It was evening, and the park was fairly deserted, so Shego picked a tall tree near the new path and started climbing, trying to stay on the side away from where Kim might see. What could she be doing? That path ended at the river… and what was this other girl doing going with her? Cautiously, she peered around the tree-trunk, fifty feet up.
To see Kim and the black girl – Monique – wrapped around each other, their mouths pressed together, their hands roaming lovingly and desperately across each other's bodies. Shego's mouth hung open. Kim? Kim was… Well, OBVIOUSLY she WAS… Shego forced herself to stop watching and resumed her hiding, her eyes still wide. But… but that meant…
Kim WAS Lesbian… Or at least bi-sexual… She's just not interested in ME!
Shego's hatred of the world in general, only barely under the surface at the best of times, came to the forefront now. She jumped, flipping and spinning around lower branches, until she hit the ground in a crouch. Then she ran. She ran as fast as she could, and kept it up for an hour, solid. Finally, hitting The Wall, her body devoid of any further fuel, she collapsed on the ground, her mind blessedly empty of any thoughts about the red-headed girl.
It took a week to recover. Well, to resume some semblance of recovery, anyway. Still, whenever she'd think of what she'd seen, Kim and that other girl, embracing as SHE wanted to embrace – and be embraced by – Kim, her blood boiled. So she became good at not thinking about it. Still, underneath all that, there was unfinished business. There was something Kim might need to know, and the only person who could tell her was – for real, at last – her devoted enemy.
She let herself in Kim's bedroom window. “Wake up, Kimmie.”
Since that didn't work, she kicked at the bed. “Wake UP, Kimmie!”
Kim opened her eyes, wondering what had happened, and where was that green light coming from? In that light, she could see Shego's face standing out like a ghost. It awoke her instantly, and she flew out of the bed, assuming a fighting-stance instinctively. “Shego!”
“Yeah, yeah, ‘Shego!’ We need to talk, Prince- uh, Kimmie. I'm not here in my official capacity. I just have to tell you something.” Shego put out her flames and the room grew dark.
Her little speech hadn't really registered with the other girl yet.
“What are you doing here! Get out of here!” Kim cried, though not loud enough to carry through the house.
Shego sighed and turned her back on Kim. “Look, can we just drop the whole ‘heroine/villian’ thing, for once? Just for awhile?” she said, and turned to face her again, “This is… woman-to-woman. Ok? We can go back to the way things were in a minute. I'll leave, and we can go back to business-as-usual.”
Kim relaxed from her stance, standing up straight, but still as alert as she could force herself to be. It was always a trick, with Shego. Every time. She always had something up her sleeve. “What do you want, then?”
Shego walked back over to the window and looked out at the night. She'd rehearsed what she was going to say, but it just didn't seem right, now. She fished a business-card out of a slit in her suit and looked at it, then she held it out toward Kim, without looking at her. “Take it”, the last sentence in her page-long speech, was all she managed to get out.
Kim cautiously – and keeping at arm's length – took the card:
Dr. Elizabeth Parker
Ob/Gyn
Hillcrest Hospital
“What's this?” Kim asked. She looked carefully at the card. There must be a micro-chip or something on it, or maybe it had been dipped in one of Drakken's secret mind-control formulas, or -
“You have an appointment tomorrow. Paid up front. Just go.” Shego said simply, fully knowing it wasn't going to be that simple.
Kim thought about it a moment. Then, still watching Shego's back, she said, “You… you think I'd actually go to a doctor – especially THAT kind of doctor – on your recommendation? Do you think I'm stupid, Shego?”
Shego had expected that, but it still cut like a knife to actually hear it. She whirled - “No! Really, I DON'T expect you to go. You'll ask around, you'll see that she's the best… not connected with me or Drakken or any other villains in any way, and STILL you won't go, just because I ASKED you to! I -” But she had to stop talking. The more she talked, the madder she got, and it wasn't what she'd planned. She'd thought she could do this professionally. She was wrong.
Just as Shego had expected Kim's response to the offer, Kim had expected Shego's reaction to her refusal. Really, it meant nothing.
“WHY, Shego, do you want me to go to an Ob/Gyn?”
“Because you… need to be checked out. Might need to be checked out. Maybe not. I don't know. You… may have a problem. I do. I thought you should at least know. I'll be going now” Shego said, glad to be done with it.
As Shego began to climb out, Kim grabbed her by the collar of her cat-suit and pulled her back in. Shego's hands lit up instinctively. “What do you think you're doing, Kim…”
Kim faced her without fear, and inside the radius of her plasma-spewing hands. “What do you mean, ‘I do’? What kind of… problem do you have? And what's it got to do with me, anyway?”
The villianess hadn't even realized she'd said “I do”. This was not going according to plan AT ALL.
She killed the plasma. This was not going to be a fighting night. That would, doubtless, come later. Shego looked Kim in the eye a long time before answering, her feelings swinging from lust to hate to awe to pity to shame, and then back again. Finally, emotionally exhausted by it, the simplest answer seemed to be best.
“I can't have children” she said flatly.
Kim was doubly shocked by the fact itself, as well by the thought that Shego might have ever WANTED… or even THOUGHT about having a baby. Shego? Come ON… give me a break! After the initial shock died off, she began to realize that despite what she'd thought about the older girl, it seemed to be a Big Deal…
“I'd have never thought -” Kim started.
Shego screamed back, “IT WAS AN OPTION! OKAY? IT WAS AN OPTION I USED TO HAVE AND NOW I DON'T. GET IT!”
“Okay, okay… Look, I'm sorry” Kim said without thinking. For just that moment, she had seen Shego as a woman in pain, rather than as Shego, her arch-nemesis. Then she returned to her senses, “But what's that got to do with me? Why are you even TELLING me?”
Shego turned around, facing Kim's dresser. She tried to collect her thoughts – the plan was out the window now, she was making it up as she went along. Just to be there in her bedroom was harder than she'd even considered, surrounded by her things, seeing her stupid stuffed-animal on the bed… the whole thing was almost more than she could bear. And now to tell her the final secret she'd been harboring for over a week… for which Kim would hate her – and for good reason – forever… how could she do it? Professionally? She laughed at herself inwardly. Good idea, Shego.
“She – the doctor – she said I'd been kicked a few too many times in the gut. WAY too many, actually, she said.”
Kim instantly caught the connection, but only part of it, “I hope you're not trying to blame me for -”
“Oh, shut up, Kimmie” Shego said tiredly, “No I don't blame you. We both choose to do what we do.” She turned around to face Kim again, amazed she could do so.
“I gave as good as I got, Kimmie.”
Kim thought about that. A look of horror slowly crept into her face. “Get out”, she said.
Shego left unhindered, this time.