“I… I just thought…” Shego sighed heavily. You can do this, just look at her. Eyes on the Prize, Shego…
“Would you come with me?”
Kim called Doctor Director. Ron had a chat with her, too. An appointment was made. But no “deal” was ever discussed. One didn't do that with The Director over the phone. Actually, one was on shaky ground even thinking of “dealing” with the Director - at all, ever.
Shego listened to the phone conversations, mildly in awe of what was being done by Kim and Ron for her sake. It was something new to her. It was something she would never forget. By the time it was done, it was after 11 a.m. Ron's thoughts (and Shego's too, for she was still a scarecrow version of her former self) turned to food.
But a question still nagged the back of Shego's brain.
“Uh, Ron… Kim… shouldn't we be kind of worried about Lee? I mean, I imagine he's pissed. Isn't that a problem?” she asked in earnest. She still feared Lee, after all, she'd talked to him, they hadn't.
Ron took his accustomed seat in the recliner, turning to look at her in her accustomed place on the couch. And Kim, of course, assumed her place, not on the other end of the couch this time, but just beyond Shego's curled-up legs.
“I don't think so. I'll tell you why. You're worried that he'll want ‘revenge', ‘retribution’… because you're thinking of Lee as a man. But he's not, see? I have the…” Ron collected his thoughts, “feeling… that - since you're no longer of use to Lee - you're ‘off his radar', so to speak. I don't think he cares about you, what you've done, or what you're up to any more.”
He went on, “I don't think he cares about individuals at all, ever, except as a conduit to… to bigger and badder things. And if you are no longer acting as that conduit, then he'll pay no attention to you. But there is a new factor now. We know – or can at least guess – at some of the things he's up to, based on your missions. It may be… may be… that we can prevent some of those things from happening. I've been working on a, uh, ‘matrix', is what Wade calls it, trying to categorize your missions according to several factors. Frankly, I suck at it. But Wade says he needs a starting point to go from. The better the starting point, the clearer picture we'll get, so it's kind of important…”
Ron picked up his notebook full of ripped-out pages, and took them to the table, spreading them out carefully.
“Come see” he said, not looking up.
Ron's “work” was a hodge-podge of different kinds of organizational drawings: there were flow-charts, org-charts, tables, and other kinds of diagrams that probably don't even have a formal name. He let them stare for awhile, going around to the kitchen to get a glass of grapefruit-juice. Yeah, yeah, I know… probably looks to them like the work of a deranged lunatic… is that redundant?… I'm just not good at logical pattern-recognition!But he knew who was, and he wished to hell…
Right on cue, the front door slammed open, revealing the back and blonde head of Josh Mankey, who was trying to do his best Jack Nicholson while fighting with four pieces of luggage. The luggage appeared to be winning.
“Honey? I'm home!” he yelled.
“Saw your car outside, I'm so glad you're here! Gawd I missed you!” he was saying, still backing in the doorway, “I just hate family reunions! If I hear one more person telling me how tall I was the last time they saw me” he finally turned around, “I'll just… explo… shit…”
Everyone's mouth hung open (except Ron's – he was looking up at the ceiling and shaking his head, smirking to himself). There was a short moment of silence during which the very air seemed to frozen into place.
“Hey, Josh” Ron finally said from the kitchen as he walked over to the paralyzed blonde boy and began unloading bags from the his shoulders. “I missed you too.” He pecked the other boy on the cheek. “Way to ‘out’ me, Josh.”
Moving only his eyes, Josh looked into Ron's face. “Oh, gawd… I'm so…”
“It's okay, Josh, it's okay,” he said, removing the last of the bags strapped across Josh's back. Ron smiled faintly at him, “Really, it's okay. But if you could just wait outside for a minute – I, uh, I think I've got some ‘splainin’ to do…”
“Ron, I -” Josh began to protest, but Ron already had his arms around Josh's shoulders and was turning him back around, to lead him out the door, as if he were an octogenarian.
“There ya go, Josh… just for a minute, okay? It'll be fine. You'll see…”
Quietly closing the door behind the still stupified Josh, Ron turned back to the girls. Their mouths still hung open, their emerald eyes still wide, staring at him as if he were some kind of fascinating sea creature. Ron smiled faintly with a look of well, weren't ready for THIS, now were we? and just stared back.
Shego was the first to come to her senses. She blinked, and finally closed her mouth. She looked at Kim, and then back to Ron. Slowly, her mouth assumed her trademark smirk.
“Well!” she said, “I think he's just cute as a bug!” She got up and took a few steps to face Ron, “And I guess I'll just have to introduce myself, if you aren't going to.” Then she pecked Ron on the cheek and whispered into his ear, “Way to go, Ron… Way to GO!” She slapped him on the butt as she passed by him, heading towards the front door, giggling all the way.
Which left Kim and Ron, quietly standing there, facing each other. Kim was still speechless.
As Ron waited, it became apparent that she was going to stay speechless.
Ron sighed heavily.
“About two weeks” he offered, anticipating her unspoken question.
Nothing.
“No, actually, I'm bi. But, yes, we are, and yes, we have.”
Still nothing.
He sighed again. “So there I was, pretty bummed out about the way our relationship was going. And I meet Josh at Smarty-Mart, while I'm just wandering around trying to find something to take my mind off you. Well, he's had some experience in that area, too, y'know… and we started talking, then we went to Bueno Nacho… then we saw a movie… and y'know, and y'know and y'know.”
Kim blinked, but that was all.
“Look, KP, are you going to say anything or not?” Ron asked, getting frustrated.
Ever so slowly, Kim's mouth closed. Then opened, then closed again. Then she seemed to think of something, finally -
“Oh my god…” she said, a look of… of concern taking over her face, “I turned you gay!”
What? was all Ron could think.
“I turned you gay! Oh My God! Oh, Ron… I'm so SORRY!” Kim went on.
Ron couldn't believe his ears. Turned me gay? Is she serious? Through self-discipline that could only be called masterful, Ron refrained from laughing out loud.
“God, Ron, I'm… maybe it's not too late – my Mom's a doctor, maybe she could help…”
Help?
“Maybe there's some pills she can give you -”
Pills! That was the last straw. Ron burst out laughing so hard that the walls of the little apartment fairly shook. He laughed all the air out of his lungs, until all he could do was wheeze, wheeze, wheeze, but still he couldn't stop. Curled up in the fetal position on the kitchen floor, he fought for small gulps of air between the convulsions.
And Kim was still going on, absolutely in earnest, “… or maybe a shot or something…”
He wanted to say “Stop! Please stop! It hurts! Oh god, let me breathe!” but couldn't, of course. A shot? - and it started all over again. He actually did pee in his pants. His diaphragm cramped and spasmed, yet he still couldn't stop, because he kept thinking: Help? Pills? A shot? And that look on her face, so earnest, so concerned… it was all just too much!
There comes a point, when is in the throes of laughter like that, that it stops being so funny because one is in so much pain. Ron's mind could step back and see what was happening to him, see how repeating those words in his mind was setting him off, see how the image of Kim's concerned eyes was setting him off, and wish it could stop. Just long enough to get a breath. To relieve the pain in his gut. But he just couldn't stop it from happening. Her words and image just kept playing back to him over and over and over, as he watched and listened and felt his body shake helplessly.
Then he felt another sensation, however momentary, take the place of the pain.
Josh had come back in with Shego, and he was spraying cold water on his curled up body from the kitchen faucet. “Shego! See if there's anything cold in the fridge and pour it on him!” Josh ordered, “and get her out of here!”he added as an afterthought.
Shego dumped a pitcher of ice-water onto Ron's pain-filled face. The coldness of it caused him to reflexively gasp for air, and he was grateful. But then he'd look at Kim and think, Pills? again, and start the cycle over. Shego grabbed her and led her - against the Kim's vigorous protests - to the bedroom.
Josh meanwhile helped Ron get to his feet, and to the couch, where Ron only doubled over again, holding his stomach, wheezing. “Ron! Ron! Listen to me!” he tried to break through. He slapped Ron in the face hard, and then at least the helpless boy was able to look him in the eye. “Ron! Concentrate on breathing! Just breathing! Nothing else!”
Ron stared into Josh's eyes, but he wasn't really seeing anything. He concentrated on Josh's voice, just his voice, telling him to breathe, breathe, breathe. As he became able to gasp for air regularly, the tenor of Josh's voice calmed, “Just breathe, just breathe, only breathe…” Ron clung to that voice for dear life.
Quietly closing the door behind her, Shego turned to face the new mystery-man. She held out her hand.
“I'm Shego. Kim's… girlfriend. And you are?” she asked, hardly able to stop giggling.
“Uh, Josh. Josh Mankey. Ron's… boyfriend” he said uncertainly.
“Nice to meet you. Quite a surprise too, I have to say. He never even hinted that -”
“Uh, ‘Shego’? The green, plasma-throwing evil villianess? That ‘Shego’?” he asked, just realizing where he'd seen her before.
“Well… yeah”, Shego replied, unsure how to label herself now, “But… well, I guess you have a lot of catching up to do. Uh, when I said I was Kim's ‘girlfriend', I meant 'girlfriend’ - wink wink, nudge nudge. Get it?”
The blonde boy regarded her for a minute.
“So… not evil?” he asked.
“Well… I'm getting better!” she grinned.
He considered that for a minute, also smiling. “Hey, could you do your… thing?” he held a hand up in front of him and waggled it, probably thinking it would represent a flame.
“What?”
“You know, your plasma thing. I've heard about it, but I've never seen it.”
“You… you want to see me light up?” No one had ever asked her to do it before, as a trick. She didn't know whether to be flattered or insulted. And frankly, she wasn't even sure it would work. Since that night in the parking lot, she'd been trying to forget about it. She held up a hand.
Whomph!, it lit into green plasma, flickering and wavering and shimmering the same jade color as her eyes. Hey! It's back!
Josh stared at it awhile, moving his head in close to get a better view. It stunned Shego that he didn't seem to be afraid of it. Everyone was afraid of it…
“Coooool” he said simply.
Cool? Cool? Shego thought. Deadly. Fearsome. Terrifying. But “cool”? She turned it off with a wuff. “Well, glad you like it” she said, unsure how she felt about displaying her power on demand, and for show.
“So. Kim's girlfriend, eh? How -” but he was cut off by an incredibly loud - considering he was hearing it through the apartment walls – BWAHAHAHAHAH….
They looked at the door and then looked at each other. “We'd better check it out” he said.
“After you” Shego replied. Cool. Damn…As she followed him through the door, she thought again, Way to GO, Ron!
“Shego, Shego let me go! I have to help Ron! Shego!” Kim was fighting against Shego's leading her onto the bed. Not fighting as in fighting, because the teenage girl was too much in shock for that. All she could think was that she'd somehow messed up Ron, and maybe she could make it better. Because it had to be her fault, didn't it? The idea that Ron might have a social life outside of her shook her very reality… she had just assumed, for as long as she could remember, that Ron was… was… he was like an appendage, like her arm or leg. Part of her.
It was inconceivable that Ron had a life of his own, outside what she knew about him. So it MUST be her that turned him gay! It was the only explanation!
“Kim… Stop… Kim! KIM!” Shego tried to break into the other girl's consciousness. She raised her hand to slap some sense into her, “KIM! LISTEN TO ME!” but it was no use. Slap! Still no use. Slap! again. But Kim was out of her mind, and just kept babbling, not even noticing the abuse.
Shego thought, Oh, Pumpkin… don't make me do this. Not to you… But there was no getting around it. Holding Kim down with one hand, she placed her other palm on her forehead, and – ever so gently, lightly, like a flashbulb – lit up.
Kim's body fell back on the bed, unconscious.
I'm sorry, Pumpkin. It'll just be for a few minutes.
Ron was breathing almost normally when Shego came back into the living room. He was staring straight ahead, one arm out in front, as if warding off something, the other cradling his still-painful stomach. Josh had his arm around Ron's shoulders and was whispering to him, “Just breathe… just breathe… just breathe…” over and over. It was a tender scene, and Shego felt the awwww feeling, and not sarcastically.
A hell of a lot more tender than what I just did to Kim she thought, a little envious of what the two boys seemed to have together. She sighed, and went to mop up the mess in the kitchen.
From time to time, Ron would begin to chuckle again, just a little, and Josh would repeat his words just a little louder, until Ron calmed back down.
Shego's stomach growled, and she had a brilliant idea. She went over to Josh and whispered into his ear, so as not to disturb what he was doing to Ron. She whispered two words, and Josh turned to look at her, smiling. Of course!
The two words were, “Bueno Nacho”.