And You And I

Chapter 23: O cho meallt

It had been a strange day for Shego. She'd woken in the morning to the sound of someone, or rather something else's snoring. She had ignited a hand before her eyes fell upon the lounge chair; the source of the noise and her brain had quickly remembered the events of the previous night. For such a small creature, Ru-Ru; the naked-mole-shark, made quite the racket while asleep. With both her phone and alarm clock having suffered unfortunate accidents over the previous two days, she had needed the clock on the CD player to tell her that it had been six am; her normal wake up time. She'd elected to leave Ru-Ru where he was, recalling DNAmy having said something about him getting cranky in the morning if he didn't get to bed at a reasonable time. She'd ran through her normal two-hour morning workout and gone for a shower before waking him. As Amy had claimed, he had not taken kindly to it, but the stick of a very hot finger when he'd tried to bite her and the carrot of more cheese, had worked wonders to get him up. For the first time in over six years, she'd actually had another sentient being to feed at breakfast time. Unfortunately, this had brought with it the memory of a certain blonde-haired girl whom she'd rather forget and she'd known that little Miss Go would probably dissect the moment when next she was alone.

After breakfast, Drakken had called to tell her that Amy had been on the phone in hysterics at having lost her naked-mole-shark and could she come in and help him search the lair for the 'little beast'. She was not sure why, perhaps because Drakken had sounded rather panicked at the thought of Ru-Ru being on the loose in his lair or that she found it amusing that he would have to search the entire place for something that wasn't there, but she had neglected to tell him that the naked-mole-shark had stowed away inside her jacket. Instead, she'd told him it was still the weekend and so he could sod off. She'd received a sly grin from Ru-Ru, who it transpired had been eavesdropping. So, she'd shot a tiny plasma ball at him and told him that he'd lost his cheese privileges for the remainder of the day as punishment. He had not been happy, but a polite reminder that she could easily call Drakken back had got him to toe the line. She had then spent the day in the garage, tinkering with a new upgrade for the Blackbird. Mad-science might not have been her thing, but she knew her way around a motorbike and would not let anyone else touch her pride and joy. In what she had assumed could only have been an attempt to restore his cheese privileges, Ru-Ru had forgone the offer of free access to the TV and decided to assist. Apparently, he had a good working knowledge of tools and mechanical components and so actually came in useful. However, when probed on where he had picked up the knowledge, he had been unable to answer. Leading to think that perhaps he did have some of Rufus' memories buried in his subconscious.

Evening had eventually rolled around and the naked-mole-shark had politely reminded her that she had an unfortunate social engagement at seven-thirty. She'd left him in front of the TV with a large bag of cheese balls as a reward for his help and a warning that should she come back to find the house trashed, going home to Amy would be the least of his worries. She'd then gone upstairs to get cleaned up and dressed. Given that Killigan was taking her to the most expensive Italian restaurant in the tri-city area, she had been forced to dress appropriately, donning a green dress with black shoes, jacket and handbag. It had made riding the Blackbird somewhat awkward, so she had kept her speed within the limits for once. Had she crashed it would have hurt like hell, but her glow would have been able to patch her up, so she had not been worried.

Shego parked the Blackbird in what was becoming her usual parking spot in the lot and cut the engine. Climbing off, she stowed her helmet below the seat and activated the security system before heading out onto the sidewalk. It was only a short walk to Antonio's Italian restaurant. She stepped inside to find Duff Killigan waiting for her in the entrance hall. Tonight, much to her surprise, he had traded his traditional Kilt and plaid attire for a pair of tartan trousers, a white shirt with a black bow-tie and a black dinner jacket. She had no intention of saying this to him, but he scrubbed up far better than Dr Drakken; who thought the addition of a red bow-tie to his usual double-breasted coat constituted getting dressed up.