MaTitle: Five Years – voice in silence

Pairing: Kim/Shego.

Rating: PG-15. Some language.

Spoilers: “Four Years Later” – up to Chapter 15.

Disclaimer: Kim Possible and all related characters symbols, objects, and themes are the property of the Walt Disney Corporation.

Acknowledgement: Thank you Solanaa, you’re an awesome Beta Reader!

Summary: For the record, this story is in fact a One-shot, in that it and all the events within it have no existence in the “Four Years” trilogy. Just in case some of you were confused, “Four Years Later” ended the way it ended, and the sequel will continue from there. This…this was just something I had to write because I was curious how things could turn out if just a few things were tweaked.

Chapter 2

Silence.

That was her world now, as it had been for the past…

Her world.

There used to be darkness and light…alternating slowly from one to the other before…someone decided she’d had enough of that and chose instead to shove her down here into the darkness. Here in the shadows, there was nothing to distract her from the thoughts in her head.

Not that there were very many of those anymore.

Still, at least she had a toilet. And food - the food was okay, if a little tasteless. Okay, maybe a lot tasteless, but she was allowed to eat it when it was delivered to her. Any other captor would more likely torture her endlessly with the proximity of food and the inability to consume it.

“Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink.”

A voice…in her head. But whose? It brought comfort, peace…serenity, but there had to be a reason for it; she wasn’t so far gone yet that she didn’t know that much. So, that faceless voice had to have some kind of foundation in the real world, right?

She let out a soundless sigh. As reasonable as that plan seemed, it had been how long since she’d been out in the real world? Ten, twenty years? A century? Five?

She looked around her cell. Limited mobility had been returned when He had locked her in here. He had instead left her with explicit instructions that she couldn’t help but obey thanks to her stupid, selfish mistake.

Yes, she reached up to brush one finger against the black shell-covered microchip above the corner of her left eye. It had been a pretty shitty mistake, as it had led her to the current situation. She couldn’t even really remember the details all that clearly anymore. There had been some kind of deal: she would accept the mind control chip, and she’d get…something. But what?

Raising her hand once again, she slowly increased the intensity of the light her plasma-generating hands were emitting, sacrificing heat for brightness. It was a trick she’d only just recently begun to practice.

“Recently” being a very indefinite length of time, of course.

Still, it was nice to be able to see her way to the toilet when she needed to.

“That’s my thief, always looking for the bright side.”

The voice seemed more often than not to be a sharper weapon than a katana as it lashed out at her. But it didn’t hurt…that was so strange. For he longest time, the only words she had heard had cut as deeply as a dagger in her chest, but without the merciful abyss of death to follow. The voice, on the other hand, was something familiar, comforting, at times playful…

Concentrating, she turned up the light and raised her hands towards the ceiling so she could see her cell in its entirety.

The sight that greeted her eyes wasn’t one she hadn’t seen before. In fact, it was a tableau she had seen so often she could see it with her eyes closed. God, it was pathetic…

There was the bed, the sink, the toilet… There were the bricks that made up her cell, massive foot-by-half-foot cinderblocks that could hardly stand up to even the lowest heat of her plasma; the solitary, black hand print on every single brick was proof enough of their fragility. Of course, rule number one kept her from being able to exploit this oversight in the cell’s architecture.

“You will never leave the cell unless you are told to come out by me.”

So much for Plan A when she’d first set foot in this place.

Besides, if she remembered right – and there was always the chance she didn’t – she was imprisoned underground. It would take a great deal of time for her to dig her way to the surface.

But no, the handprints were meant for something other than a physical escape from this place. For every one handprint burned into the cold concrete, she had counted through every brick of her cell…ceiling, walls, and floor. There were twelve thousand one hundred sixty-seven bricks in her cell, and she had counted through every single one twelve thousand one hundred sixty-seven times.

Why all the counting to no purpose?

It was the only way for her to escape her dismal situation. Rule two had seen to that:

“You will never practice martial arts.”

The loss of her most important outlet for energy would have been life-threatening if she hadn’t realized her diet consisted of jack-shit. And some tasteless porridge that looked like an albino’s excrement. If anything, she was probably burning more calories eating the crap than she was taking in. Chances were she’d lost maybe half her weight since coming in here, but she could never be sure. There wasn’t a scale, or even a mirror.

So, what to do to pass the time?

And why did she need to pass the time?

“The deal wasn’t forever, Shego.”

Shego?

Her eyes widened as the voice spoke the name. Shego. A name…yes…

Her name.

Shego sank down to sit on her stupid cot, hand flying to her face in a sudden movement. She felt the warm black nodule on her temple and for a moment she was confused as to why it didn’t vaporize under her touch. Then, in an all-too-rare moment of clarity, she remembered exactly what the shell around the mind control chip was made of.

Almleti.

It was a…special alloy of metals that Shego’s master had created to withstand her powers. Short of carving a chunk out of her skull, she couldn’t take the chip off her head on her own. Her powers couldn’t cut her own head anyway; something in her body made her invulnerable to plasma. She didn’t just heal from plasma burns – it had no effect on her at all. And other means to cut the chip out? Well, what else could rule three be for?

“You are to never cause any harm to yourself, or take any action or inaction that will by extension cause harm to be done to you.”

“I’d be disappointed if you ever took that way out, Shego.”

The voice!

Shego stared at the cell around her, feeling her mind slowly coming back to her. She remembered who the voice belonged to.

Kimmie…

“Welcome back to the land of the sane, my thief.”

Shego wanted to shout out in triumph. Kim Possible is here! She came to free me! But then…rule four:

“You will never speak.”

Where are you? Shego cast her thoughts out desperately, hoping her Princess was out there, somewhere, listening for her. She felt tears prick at her eyes. Goddamn – she wiped them away furiously.

“I’m right here, in your head.”

Shego looked around, her tears flowing beyond her control. Here? She realized; then what are you waiting for? Let me out, set me free…help me.

“I can’t.”

What? Why the Hell not? Are you just here to torture me more – rub my gullible belief into my face? My childish faith? My trust in your promise?

“Well, the truth is,” the voice seemed to pause. “I’m not really her. You should know that, Shego.”

The once-beautiful, once-fearless woman’s tears slowed gradually. What are you talking about – you’re not who?

A sigh. “How many times do we have to go through this?” The voice began to change, rising in pitch slightly and hardening. “I’m not your Pumpkin, Sara.”

Sara…

Her name, her real name. No one knew that secret. Not Kim, not the buffoon…not even He knew the name she used to go by.

You’re me. The realization hit Shego like one of Kimmie’s spin-kicks. All this time…all this time she’d been comforted by her…her Princess… It had only been her subconscious masquerading for her. What kind of sick game are you playing?

“No games, Shego.” The voice transformed again. “I just know you,” it purred to her in Kim Possible’s voice. “I know you as well as you know yourself…” It circled around her, “In some ways…even better...” bombarding her with the voice of the girl she had hated at one time in her life, “I know whose voice comforts you the most,” the heroine she had fallen in love with, “I know what buttons to push to make you survive.” The woman she had all but mated with.

No, stop. Shego tried to shake the voice out of her head, her tears flowing once again. You’re not real…

All these years, every time Dr Drakken threw another coil of his binding mind control over her, every time he stripped another “privilege” from her life, Kim had always been there to help her cope with it. The ghostly, disembodied voice of the gorgeous redhead had whispered words of comfort, offered reminders of a promise made so long ago. Every time…every time Shego fell, Kim had been there to catch her and push her back onto her feet – sometimes gently, sometimes roughly…but always just what Shego needed to pull herself together and face another day with Drakken as her master.

A sob rose from deep within her throat as the reality crashed down on her like a collapsing tower.

It was all a lie.

“Not a lie, Shego.” The voice still tried to keep up its pathetic game. “Come now, Shego…you already know this game. It’s all about surviving, keeping you alive. That’s all that matters. If you survive, I survive…but if you give up – if you die…where does that leave me?” The voice paused and Shego felt so tempted to go with the charade, like she had every other time. It would be so easy to give in, to give up-.

“No!” The Kimmie-voice implored. “Shego – remember. You must survive! Remember: What’s Plan B?”

It took a moment for Shego’s memory to trace so far back, but the trigger was clear enough. Plan B…Kimmie comes to save us.

“Thatta girl,” the voice approved brightly. “So, what do you think?”

Shego sat up a little straighter. I-it still hasn’t been five years… Still? It felt like it had been so long. Could she be dead – did Dr Dee kill her?

“Oh, come on.” Kim sounded highly insulted. “We both know he couldn’t do that – he’d need to sic you after me and look at the state you’ve fallen into.”

The jab hurt, but Shego understood well enough; she’d learned her humility. There was no one on the planet who could take Kim Possible down – no one but Shego…when she wasn’t mind controlled into losing her form. Now, however… So, how long has it been?

She’d be lucky to endure ten seconds with the redhead.

“Hey, don’t look at me; we’re both in this sitch together. I know what you know.” A short, cut-off laugh, “You must be really far gone for your sense of time to have fallen so far out of whack.” Kim’s tone eased off a little. “But you seem to have done a few things to count the passage of time; why don’t you figure it out yourself? You can still do math, can’t you?”

Shego stared up at the marked bricks that covered the six faces of her cell. She’d been methodical about counting every single one, never miscounting, and keeping a regular pace every time. Twelve thousand one hundred sixty-seven bricks, she recited from memory. She ran her dark emerald eyes from the upper corner farthest from the locked and welded door – where she’d first begun marking the concrete blocks – to the lower corner closest to the door. Every single cinderblock was branded with her handprint. So that meant…

I’ve counted every brick in my cell as many times as there are bricks in my cell. Goddamn…that’s a Helluva lot of bricks…

“Too much math for you?”

Oh, shut up.

Shego was about to start multiplying in her head, burning the numbers into her bed sheets if she had to, when a sound from the door interrupted her thoughts.

She looked over just in time to see the trapdoor in the bottom of the steel barrier snap shut with a sharp clank. That hadn’t interested her in a long time – not after she’d realized no part of her body could physically pass through the opening. Thank you, rule one, she grumbled silently as she made her way over to see what had been left for her. Was it feeding time already?

“What do you mean, already…when was the last time you ate, Shego?”

The item just inside the door made her thoughts stop cold.

A towel and a bar of soap.

That was a much easier way to count time, since it happened far less often.

She pounced on the two items and got ready.

Twelve seconds.

That’s how long it would take before the showerhead in the middle of the ceiling would start blasting water at the floor. She would get thirty seconds of cold, frigid water and then it would be over.

As she stood in the center of her cell, Shego tried to count it all up.

When she was counting bricks, she could get through almost fifty full counts of her cell between showers. So, as long as her sense of timing wasn’t completely messed up and it really did take about three or four hours to count through her cell once, then that meant she was getting a shower every week or so…

And how many showers had she had…?

A blast of ice-water like a cannon shot to the back of her head threw her calculations straight out the front of her skull.

Shower-time.

Was it strange to take so much pleasure in such a simple thing as cleaning one’s own hair? The bright red colouring in her hair had long since washed out, replaced by the natural black-as-night shade. It had yet to reclaim the lustrous silkiness she preferred though, seeing how all she had was soap. And not very good soap at that.

Once she was done with her hair – ten seconds, good… - Shego’s hands moved down to her face, her neck, her shoulders, one hand holding the soap and the other trailing behind to rinse the pitifully weak lather away. It was then she noticed a couple crucial things:

She was still clothed, and her bed was now soaked.

God-fucking-dammit!

There was a reason she got twelve seconds before the showerhead exploded.

“And you just had to use it up trying to count time, didn’t you?” Kim sounded profoundly amused to Shego’s mind.

I didn’t hear you offering to help. Shego practically tore her clothes off, barely taking the care to slip off the insubstantial garments without burning them to cinders.

“Help with what?” Kim laughed, “I haven’t got hands.”

Shego tossed the sopping clothes into a dry corner, grimacing at the obvious burn marks the brief contact had left. You could have run some math, you know.

“Oh, right – and miss the chance to see you struggle?”

Shego ignored the voice and returned to her shower, swiping her hand across her pale, gaunt skin. She grimaced at the feel of her bones evident in almost every part of her body but she didn’t linger. She didn’t have time to linger and mourn the loss of her striking, toned figure.

“Eight seconds…” Kim warned.

Shego nodded her silent acknowledgement. Oh, so now you decide to count for me?

“Of course…six seconds.” Kim giggled darkly, “Would you love me any other way?”

No, I guess not. Shego briefly regretted not being able to spend more time on her more funky-smelling areas, but she had to at least cover over her whole body in the time remaining. Her clothing mishap had cut her time in half – at the very least.

“Two seconds.”

Not enough time! Shego swiped the soap down her leg, rinsing the nonexistent lather away almost before it could even form in her haste.

“You’re out of time, Shego.” Kim declared apologetically. “Maybe next time.”

The stream of water weakened, but didn’t stop.

What? Shego didn’t take any time to question her good fortune but just continued to wash herself as fast as she could.

Her voice had other ideas.

“Hm…that’s interesting.” It paused for a moment. “You think Drew’s giving us a little extra time? You are pretty grungy.”

Oh, shut up, Possible. Shego’s hands unconsciously slowed as she too wondered the same thing. Deciding to take the risk as the showerhead continued to blast her with quickly warming water, she returned her attention to the parts she’d neglected. She focused more on getting everything clean this time rather than on speed. Who could tell the next time she’d get a shower like this?

The voices in the hallway – the first she’d heard in who-knew-how-long – were her first clue that something was amiss.

“Why is that shower still running?” It wasn’t a voice she recognized but then, she’d seen a lot of new faces before Drakken had sealed her away down here.

“I don’t know – the pipes are jammed. But look – the temp is rising in there too.”

Indeed it was.

It had been for the past dozen seconds and Shego had by now run out of places to double-wash. The warm water cascading down over her was an unexpected pleasure – one she would enjoy for as long as she could. She tossed the soap down on her drenched bed and just stood under the spray with her eyes closed.

“What’re you doing turning the heat up?”

A squeak of pipes, “I’m not – see? Full cold, but look at all the gauges – pressures dropped to half what we’re supposed to give her, temp’s up at 37 Celsius.”

A low groan. “The boss isn’t gonna be happy about this.”

Long since deaf to the voices and goings-on out in the hall, Shego spread her arms and turned her face up to the near-scalding rush of water. Now this is a shower, she thought.

“You’re telling me,” the voice spoke, confused. “Now why would Drew do this for you?”

He wouldn’t, Shego realized, long dormant mental gears grinding to life as she processed everything. We’re supposed to suffer. She ran her hands down her arms, her chest, scrubbed her face…tried to absorb and rub the pleasant heat into her body for later. This is heaven, she mused, her lips parting and curling up as she released a soundless laugh at the incredible pleasure and freedom she was feeling from this simple shower. He would never give me heaven – I know that much for sure.

“Well,” Kim’s voice turned smug. “We both know one person who’d move the Earth itself to give you Heaven…and she does have a way with water, Shego.”

Shego froze, hands stilling where they’d been lightly rubbing, massaging unused muscles. No, she thought. Kimmie…?

Her voice laughed, “Looks like you might not need to do that math after all, Shego…”

An overpowering mixture of emotions flooded through the once-proud, once-fierce villainess’ mind at the inevitable point to which all her thoughts had been drawing nearer. Are you really here?

“What do you really think?” The voice was getting quieter as the shower spray finally died out. “So, I guess this is goodbye, eh?”

No… Shego wished for the showerhead to come to life once more to hide the fact that her eyes were about to spew fountains of salty tears. Don’t go, please. Tears of grief…of anguish. I need you, Kimmie… Tears of desperation…tears of longing.

“Silly girl,” the voice changed again to sound more like her own. “I’ll always be here if you need me, Sara.” The voice was only a whisper now, so distant and small that Shego could barely make it out. “But let’s face it, I can’t beat the real thing.”

Instead of reacting in anger at being fooled again, Shego sent out a final thought to the voice, shedding a few more tears for what she now realized had been her shield, her haven, her constant companion for the past years of her life. Thank you… Tears of gratitude…

“I’ll see you around, Speedy…” The voice had now taken another tone, but it was too distant now for Shego to identify it. “Look out behind you…”

On cue, Shego suddenly felt a pair of arms wrap around her from behind, both meeting to tighten around her waist. She felt the warmth of a body press against her back and the butterfly’s kiss of someone’s breath against her ear:

And then…

A word, a single word spoken into the shell of her ear in a voice that was real and pure as the healing rains; a voice that lived in her dreams. A voice that simply managed to bring all the tears of the world to her eyes with all the feelings and memories it evoked in her. Tears of relief…tears of joy…

A voice she could never forget in a thousand lifetimes:

“Shego.”

A slow, silent, tearful smile spread across Shego’s lips. She sighed and sagged into the embrace, here eyes sliding closed in the warmth.

Kimmie…

A/N: Okay, hope you enjoyed it. More to come…maybe slower this time, though…