Story: Undercurrent (chapter 5)

Undercurrent (5)

Allaine

Rating: PG-13

Disclaimers: Kim Possible, Ron Stoppable, Shego, Wade, and all other characters from the Kim Possible television series belong to Disney, its television production arm, and the creators and producers of the animated series. All original characters are my invention. I seek no profit from writing this, and expect none.

"Well," Mrs. Dr. Possible said as she re-entered the examination room with a second doctor in tow, "we have good news, and we have bad news."

"Who's he?" Shego asked suspiciously as she cradled her injured hands protectively against her chest.

"This is Dr. Edwards," Kim's mother explained. "He'll be Kim's primary physician from now on."

"What?" Kim asked, surprised. "But - "

"Kim, you know perfectly well that treating one's relatives can be considered an ethical violation," Mrs. Dr. Possible reminded her. "No one pays any mind when we treat our children's sniffles, but your condition is a different story. Dr. Edwards is a very competent surgeon, and when you go into the operating room, he will be your doctor, Kim."

"You don't have anything to worry about, Ms. Possible," Dr. Edwards, a bluff, jovial man in his mid-sixties told her.

"So who's my doctor?" Shego asked.

"I will continue as your doctor," Mrs. Dr. Possible told her.

Shego frowned. "I'm not sure I like that idea," she said. "You don't like you very much. AND I work for the person responsible for us being in this situation."

"No, I don't like you," Kim's mother agreed, narrowing her eyes slightly. "But I'm oathbound to treat you to the best of my ability. Besides, as your conditions are so intertwined, it allows me to - consult with Dr. Edwards on your case, Kim."

Kim's hand hovered near her collar, wanting to massage the inflamed skin and afraid to jostle the device at the same time. "So what's the bad news?" she asked grimly.

"The shielding on your collars appears to be breaking down," her mother said.

"Eh?" Shego asked.

"We can't say for certain," Mrs. Dr. Possible told them. "Maybe it's the repeated shocks the collars have delivered. Maybe it's a design defect. Or maybe Drew created these collars in such a way as to ensure a - lethal jolt would be delivered sooner or later, no matter HOW careful you moved." Her last words took on a wintry quality as she looked right at her patient.

"Could we save the moralizing for AFTER I'm not living with a death sentence?" Shego growled.

"So you're saying that as the shielding decays," Kim said, "the distance we can keep from each other is going to keep getting shorter."

"Yes," Dr. Edwards confirmed. "And, inevitably, it won't matter how close together you are. The collars will go off anyway and . . . you know what happens then."

Kim nodded slowly. "We die."

"Kim," her mother said quickly. "There IS good news, you know."

"What's that?"

"Well - the shielding on your collars appears to be breaking down."

Shego put a hand over her face. "Wasn't that the BAD news!"

"It's both," her doctor said. "The shielding is the reason why we haven't removed your collars yet. You'll recall that I specifically asked you not to remove your collar with your plasma powers or other means of brute force?"

"Yeah," Shego said sullenly. "So your precious daughter wouldn't get killed."

"So BOTH of you wouldn't get killed," Mrs. Dr. Possible reminded her. "I asked you to picture every invention your employer ever built, and every one that didn't work according to plan. Then I asked you to imagine all the possible things that could happen if you tried to remove it WITHOUT knowing what you were doing."

"I know, I know," Shego muttered.

"The problem is the shielding," she went on. "It's too heavy to be penetrated by the Kimmunicator OR our scanners. Without more than the most cursory knowledge of these collars' schematics, we can't surgically remove them. Plus there has been a concern that Drakken made the shielding as heavy as it is because he was protecting himself from the collars' power source. For all we knew, your collars were radioactive. But, even as the collars begin to grow more dangerous, they also grow more transparent to the mechanical eye. At the current rate of decay, we should have a near-perfect idea of how these collars operate in a few hours."

"And in that time," Shego said, "maybe our hair is falling out from radiation poisoning."

"We haven't picked up any levels of radiation since the shielding started to degrade," Kim's mother said. "Which leads us to believe that the shielding was intended solely to control the collars' electric fields, and to thwart any attempts to remove them. So, all we have to worry about now is safely removing them without - "

"Blowing our heads off?" Shego asked morosely.

"Sending so much electricity through our spinal columns that we'll be paralyzed for life?" Kim asked at almost the same time.

They looked at each other, surprised. "Looks like my sunny disposition is wearing off on you, Pumpkin," Shego said.

"As if."

"Ladies," Dr. Edwards said. "I find that hope can be a miracle tonic."

"Exactly," Mrs. Dr. Possible said. "You two just stay here and don't move. We'll scan your collars every fifteen minutes until we have a satisfactory idea of how your collars can be removed. You will come through this, Kimmie. Got it?"

"Anything's possible," Kim said softly.

Shego snorted.

"Me?" Kim asked.

Shego didn't respond for a moment. "What I hate," she finally said, "is not living long enough to punt Drakken into the Grand Canyon."

"I have more reason to hate him for this than you," Kim grumbled. "At least YOU weren't the intended target."

"Oh, I'm not even angry about THAT any more," Shego said. "I'm talking about Monkey Fist."

"Monkey Fist?"

"Hello, princess? We both heard him. He knew exactly what separating us would do to us. There's fewer than a half-dozen people in the entire world who knew that. Now, which one of them do you think told Monty?" Shego asked sarcastically.

"I hadn't really thought about it," Kim admitted. "Guess I was more focused on surviving this than I was on who to blame."

"Well, that's the difference between us," Shego said. "Bad girls obsess over how they're going to exact payback, while good girls bandage the wounds of their worst enemies."

Kim sighed. "What, am I supposed to apologize now for doing that? Well, tough. You already thanked me before."

"You're so SOFT."

"So if it had been me, you would have just let me bleed out," Kim retorted. "Is that what you're saying?"

"I - " Shego paused. "I'd have done the same thing," she finally said with a casual air. "Otherwise you'd pass out from blood loss, and I'd have to drag your sorry butt every place I went."

Kim wished she could have seen the look on Shego's face as she spoke, but they were sitting with their backs to each other. Any closer and they'd be chancing their collars coming into contact with each other.

She wished she could have seen Shego's face - because something told her the villainess wasn't being completely honest.

"Except I wouldn't want your gratitude," Shego added. "I'd want you to know I was doing it out of sheer selfishness. And you could just glare at me unappreciatively."

Kim didn't answer her. Shego's stubborn antagonism was infuriating. Even when they weren't fighting, Shego wanted them to be at each other's throats!

And if that wasn't a bad pun, Kim didn't know what was.

"Shego," she did finally respond though, "is there a reason why it's so important to you that people think you're completely heartless?"

"ExCUSE me?"

"In Go City - "

"Do NOT bring that day up."

"In Go City," Kim repeated, ignoring her, "you made it awfully easy for me to take your brothers' powers away from you. Like you wanted to do it yourself, but you couldn't bring yourself to."

"Drakken said I was going soft," Shego snarled, "and I made him regret it. You'd BETTER not be saying the same thing."

"Is it so incredibly wrong for you to have moments where other people's needs matter more to you than your own?"

"Hello! Eeeevil ring a bell?"

Kim grunted. This was getting them nowhere. "So you'd rather I just hated you?"

"You already do," Shego pointed out.

"Uh, no, no I don't," Kim said.

Shego's head almost whipped about, but she stopped herself for fear of getting shocked. "You're joking."

"I think you're insufferable and obnoxious, but so is Bonnie Rockwaller, and I don't hate HER. I know Bonnie is capable of doing good things, and after what happened to you and your brothers, I'd like to believe the same of you," Kim told her.

"Then stop believing it."

"Why?"

"Because how the HELL are we going to go on doing what we've been doing if you start wanting to like me!" Shego hissed at her. "We have a very simple relationship. You hate, I hate, you punch, I throw plasma, and either you put me in prison or I get away. Don't go complicating things just because you THINK I care about my brothers, or because I thanked you for treating my injuries today."

Kim didn't know how to respond to that. Shego was so twisted, she made it sound like she WANTED to go on fighting Kim until one of them was six feet under! "So you do hate me," Kim said.

"Well, doy! I sure as hell don't like losing! And I've spent a lot of time in hospitals and prisons because of you! And hey, doesn't look like THAT'S changed lately. So you might as well GET with the program and realize that I'm as awful a person as you used to think."

"Fine, you hate me," Kim said, shaking her head slightly. "But I'm not going to hate you back."

"Suit yourself. Good girls," she said, disgusted.

Another half hour passed, during which time Kim's mother pronounced that as long as the collars remained dormant, they were going to give it a little more time and wait for the best idea possible of how to proceed once Kim and Shego were on the operating tables.

It was a few minutes later that Kim began to notice minute tremors in the examining table they were seated on. Carefully she leaned forward and turned her body sideways, enabling her to look at the woman behind her without pulling the collar away from her.

Shego was sitting with her back straight as a board, and she looked so tense it was almost like the tension was radiating from her in waves. Her shoulders were hunched slightly, and her bandaged hands were clutching the cushioned table like she was about to undergo surgery without anesthesia.

Then her collar gleamed for a quarter-second, and Shego's body trembled.

"Shego," Kim whispered. "What's happening to you?"

"Nothing," Shego shot back, but her voice betrayed her. Even her strength couldn't keep the strain from her voice.

"Your collar's shocking you!"

"Not really," Shego muttered. "It's been zapping me every ten seconds or - so." The last word was delayed as her body shook again from another shock. "Guess it got dinged up a little by those - fucking monkeys. Nothing serious, it just - "

"It looks like it hurts like hell!" Kim said. "I'm calling my mother. We need to operate - "

"No!" Shego demanded. "I can - take a few minor shocks. I figure by the time they come back in, the shielding on - ngh - my collar will be practically gone. What's a little more pain? I want to be - alive tomorrow so I can track Dr. D down and set his nosehairs on - fire."

"And you always have to be the strong one," Kim said.

"Hell yeah."

Kim closed her eyes. Shego wasn't ENTIRELY crazy - her collar wasn't going to kill her like this, and the longer she waited, the greater her chance of survival became. But typical Shego! Suffering in silence, refusing kindness or sympathy for fear of having to show gratitude!

Well, screw that.

Kim craned her head toward Shego's as she swiveled about to face in the same direction as Shego. Then she carefully slipped her arms around Shego's waist and held her tightly.

Shego almost leapt onto her feet, but once again the fear of the collar had become so ingrained that she didn't budge. "What the FUCK are you doing?" she snarled.

"Being the good girl," Kim murmured.

"Let go!"

Kim's response was delayed when she felt the electric shock run through Shego's body and into hers. It was no minor shock. It HURT, especially in the condition they were in. "No," she said. "You could pry yourself free, but what are the chances you'll set them off again in doing so?"

"I don't know what you think you're trying to prove, Kimmie," Shego said, enraged, "but - "

"I'm not going to hate you," Kim interrupted, "and I'm not going to let you shoulder this alone. I - unh - guess I just like to revel in my softness."

Shego shook her fists in the air gently, but she didn't try to pry Kim's arms off of her. And a minute later, she leaned back carefully into Kim's comforting embrace. But she cursed herself for her weakness, so that made it all right. Kind of.

To be concluded . . .