Chapter Text
The shower in Kim's dormitory ends up being incredibly unpleasant. She had been looking forward to her first wash in weeks but it turns out to be ultra dehumanizing. Turns out the whole showering process is not only mandatory daily, but also requires supervision when you're on suicide watch. And just for fun — every gruesome part of the damn thing is engineered to prevent you from killing yourself.
Which reminds Kim that she still kind of sort of wants to die.
For instance, the shower head isn't arched over her or anything, it's implanted directly into the wall like a drain.
— "So you don't hang yourself off of it," Dash explains. —
The water pressure is so weak it merely dribbles down, cascading down ceramic tiles. The shower is already a tight squeeze, but for her to get any water on her, she has to press her body against the walls. Which is exhausting, and makes her all the more aware of her gross ‘boy’ body. She rubs up against the wall, awkwardly twisting about to get wet, and not only does it make her feel foolish in front of Nurse DaMont — she has to keep backing up to hit the button on the wall because the shower shuts itself off every thirty seconds.
— "So you don't try to drown yourself." —
But Kim can't even process trying to drown herself in this because the water is also frigid. Surprise surprise. The first minute or so she feels like an idiot; she can't figure out how to get warm water out of this stupid thing and then she realizes — this is the only setting.
She looks over to Nurse DaMont and before he can explain why the water has to be ice cold, she smirks and quips, "So I don't burn myself to death."
Nurse DaMont flashes her a thumbs up and laughs.
Kim laughs too. It's not actually funny. This is actually the most miserable thing that's ever happened to her. So she laughs, and then stops because the subzero water hits her body again and she can't help but spastically twitch at its touch.
It hurts to look in the mirror. She wants to smash the glass and use the shards to….you know — but Nurse DaMont tells her that it's shatterproof. Not that she would have considered actually following through on harming herself like that — but of course now she is.
When Kim looks into the mirror, she sees someone she doesn’t recognize anymore. She’s tried so hard for so long to transition and now she’s off her meds, far away from her support system. She’s crumbling. Usually when she disassociates like this, she tries to find her eyes. They always tell her the story.
But today her eyes are wide and blank. Today she is numb; she feels nothing. Just a sad spirit encased in flesh.
Her hair sticks to her shoulders and neck, held down by all the water, and it makes the ugly black hairs on her upper lip and cheeks so much more obvious and painful. She asks for a razor but is refused one because she's on suicide watch. Apparently you need to earn ‘points’ around here to gain access to these things they call ‘sharps.’ Whatever.
It's strange, but she does get to have a moment to count her blessings. She doesn't have the means at the moment, but when she gets the chance she will look like a damn cute girl. She rides her shorts up high past her stomach, pulling the black socks to her knees. Her shirt is a little baggy, but she tucks it in as much as possible so that it looks like a blouse. With a cardigan and a bowtie wrapped in her hair like ribbon, it's the best she's got.
She smiles in the mirror because she knows she'll bounce back from this.
Nurse DaMont laughs. She turns her head up and frowns. "What?"
He shakes his head as if he can't believe what he's seeing. "So you want to take a picture with your Mom in front of the school bus too?"
Kim's new room mate ends up being the first person to talk to her in the cafeteria. She almost knocks her tray over in excitement and holds out her arm for a handshake. The boy sniffs as her cufflinks ride up past the wrist scars.
"So you hate yourself because you're a faggot or something?" he keeps his hands in his hoodie pockets.
She tries not to let it get to her, although there's a clear tremor in her voice. "Um — a-actually — haha — " she cringes because her laugh sounds super forced even to her. " — I'm a girl."
"Um," this boy, Stephen, grunts. "So why do you have a mustache?"
She gives up on the hand shake and her fingers twiddle together nervously. "Because um — I'm trans."
The boy blinks dimly because he doesn't get it, and she doesn't really want to educate him because being trans isn't something she volunteered to do, and she doesn't even really understand it most of the time.
"Well I don't want to live with a sissy," Stephen growls and walks away before Kim can retort. She's sure he doesn't mean that.
And she's not a sissy.
Ugh. It's okay. She takes a few deep breaths. Stephen doesn't have to be her friend. There are others.
A quiet girl from a table over briefly looks away from her friends. "I think your hair is really pretty. I also never thought of using a bowtie like that. It's really cute."
She looks to be a little older than Kim — like twenty. Something about that is comforting.
Kim later learns the girl's name. It's Corey.
Group therapy is cool. Apparently it's every morning. Kim likes it because it reminds her of when she did group in Foster City. She starts crying at some point because she realizes that all those girls must think that she did actually kill herself and that the government is just covering it up— and then when she thinks it over slowly — she did kill herself.
She isn't Kim Possible anymore.
Can she be Kim Possible again?
Maybe.
Everyone is talking about goals. Kim isn't sure what to say — well she is sure — but saying "I want to be Kim Possible again!" isn't exactly something that people would understand. Kim liked group because she could be so raw and vivid. She could recount her crazy missions and not worry about what anyone had to say. But this? What can she say? Oh, yeah, I used to be a crime lord and I got arrested during one of my schemes . Is she supposed to come up with a fake backstory? Create some new traumas for her to dig into with these random suicidal people?
When all eyes fall on Kim she cringes and shakes. She spaced out and doesn't have anything. The group leader reassures her that this is a safe place and it's okay. She bites her lips and wipes her eyes and thinks of all the people she lost and if they could — what would they want her to do?
Get better?
Fuck that.
How do you get better? One step at a time. Okay.
Think.
Kim looks up at everyone and smirks despite the glistening cheeks. "My name is Miriam. I'm nineteen and I tried to kill myself last night. I use she/her pronouns. My goal is to get enough points so Nurse DaMont lets me use a razor."
Like a thespian in a particularly juicy role, Kim works the room by tracing the lip fuzz dramatically and everyone laughs along with her.
Psychiatry's not fun. Mostly because it's Doctor Bortel. Who has actually worked for Kim. Back in the here-under-protest-long-as-you-kiss-me-Shego days. She distinctly recalls knocking Bortel out and throwing him into a dark tunnel. Woops.
Kim drums her knees nervously as Bortel settles behind his desk. "Ground rules," Bortel looks up from a binder. "I don't want to talk about the elephant in the room here."
"What? That Betty paid you better than we did?" Kim mutters and then decides — fuck that. Fuck Doctor Cyrus Bortel and his mercenary ass. "It's pretty obvious. Anyways, let's talk about me. I want get back on my HRT — "
Bortel smirks. "You aren't even trying to be - - - - - - ."
God, there’s that name again. Kim growls and sinks into the chair. "I didn't ask for this."
Bortel looks at her for a long time and finally blinks. "I mean, what? Do you want to go as Kim Possible again? You’ll get locked up, be grateful for..."
Kim just makes a face, and Bortel changes course. “I didn’t know this was the plan, okay?”
"So then help me!"
It's the first time Kim has really yelled in days, and her voice comes out all scratchy and deep. She sounds like a boy mad at a video game or something. The scream pings! about the room like an echo and she slouches back in the chair. She wants to complain that this isn't fair but she knows it's a pratfall. "I want to be me at least."
Bortel shifts a little. "I can't. My hands are tied."
Kim's shoulders fall a little and she slouches. Bortel tries to talk to her about her feelings but she doesn't want to tell him shit, so she stays tight lipped. It's not doing anyone any good obviously. She wants to kill herself, yes. She looks at sharp things and imagines them stabbing her. She looks at normal things and imagines sharp things protruding from the floor and stabbing her. She's sick. But to start crying in front of Bortel? Ugh.
She cries anyways. It's been such a long day already. He prescribes her some pretty basic antidepressants and sends her back out to Nurse DaMont who of course — is waiting outside the door.
Kim's bed sucks.
She only gets one pillow and the bed sheet is too thin. It's such an illusion of comfort that she'd rather sleep on the floor.
It's also very hard to sleep with a man sitting at the foot of your bed, staring at you. DaMont punches out and Berman punches in. But they might as well be the same guy.
"I said you need to keep your hands above the covers!" Nurse Berman shouts, pulling the blanket down to her waist. "I need to make sure you're not hurting yourself!"
Kim's eyes water but she doesn't say anything. She can't say anything. She can't let them see through, so she kicks the blanket to the floor and curls up tighter.
It's a lucid dream. Pretty cool.
It starts off with Kim talking to Shego about something. It's a little unclear and she doesn't remember all of it.
Kim looks like Kim which kind of hurts — she dreams in third person, very cinematic, which makes sense given her life — so when she does get control of the dream she changes things up. She deteriorates herself until she looks like this ragged Kim trapped in a mental hospital under a fake name.
After Kim does that, she can actually focus, and she realizes that Shego is floating. Her skull is half-exposed, mostly at the jaw, and at the temple. Green embers burn around her head which droops down as if the neck is broken. Hair is ragged and the voice is throatier than usual.
Kim steps closer to the phantasm. "I tried to kill myself."
Whatever the foreboding thought is that Shego's decreeing — she stops. Her eyes shift from where Kim's old eyeline was and way down to her new one. " And what? They did some kind of whacked out secret society shit to keep you of jail? "
“Don’t joke,” Kim growls. “They’re… grooming me. She wants me to be a soldier, I think.”
Shego's eye narrows. " I'm sorry, Princess. This wasn't supposed to happen. I wanted you to be strong. "
Kim hugs herself tight. "You shouldn't have let Ron — " — there's a weird shift in energy — " — do this to you. It wasn't worth it. I'm not worth it."
The jaw flickers as the eye get a little softer than Shego ever offered. "Kim?"
Shego's voice hikes up in pitch and it just sounds so soft. So young. The pupils drift back up to where Kim's old eyeline was. "Kim, where are you? I just heard your voice, I don't — " Everything within Kim quakes, this is too soon. He can't see her like this. She bites her lip and tries to remember it's just a dream.
There's a choking sound and Ron gasps, "What's going on?"
Kim opens her mouth and steps forward. "I'm right here, Ron."
Nothing. The corpse just hangs there in the air, forever burning.
Kim chokes back some tears too. "Ron, I'm so fucking sorry."
Something erupts up the corpse, twisting its form in the air, and the head hunches down, jaw opening wide. “Shit, I saw the news and… I know we have our differences, and I know… I know I’ve said some shitty things to you, I guess I feel responsible.”
He feels responsible?
"No," Kim says softly. But it's not loud enough for Ron to hear. Something's in the way. She summons all the strength she has left in her. "I did this. This is my problem, not yours, don’t — "
Someone wakes Kim up to draw some blood. Something about making sure her new meds won't fuck her up. It takes her a moment to see through the inkly blob standing over to her to realize it’s just one of the nurses.
Honestly, this nurse in particular is at least kind of nice about waking her up like this so often, and she's thankful to be back in reality.
Because she doesn't ever want to lucid dream again.
Being in a mental hospital can't be that bad. It's not like they rolled her up into a straitjacket and dropped her in a padded room. She can move around and talk to people. It doesn't have to be so doom and gloom. Be positive.
It's scary but she takes a seat next to that girl "Corey" who complimented her hair the other day. She wishes she could wait until she's off suicide watch to make the move, but she goes for it anyways because no time like the present — or maybe — never be normal? Heheh.
"Thanks for complimenting my hair a few days ago," Kim says in a small voice. "No one's been nice to me in a while."
Corey looks up from her boring breakfast; she seems starved for affection. "Can you compliment me then?"
"Uh." Blink. Blink. Cringe. "Yes?"
Corey laughs. Somehow that social interaction turns into a friendship.
Exercise class isn't as easy as she wants it to be. Due to her malnourished limbs (Kim hasn’t been eating again), she has a lot to make up for. But she works hard, harder than anyone else. She has to. She has to get better.
Everytime her chest doesn't dip low enough, she cracks those arms back into right angles and draws a deep breath, shuts her eyes, and imagines taking out legions of goons at a time. She can still do this.
A lot of the people in her class can't keep up. They are depressed (obviously) and stayed inside a lot, still stay in a lot, so even one push up for them is a whole thing. Meaning that the instructor has to keep the speed of the class slow, and work with each person to make them feel better. So he winds up not keeping an eye on Kim.
Kim goes faster and faster. Her head is pounding and her elbows are shaking. She should stop. Anyone can see that. But no. She pushes off the floor and lets go. Her hands rush in and clap the spot underneath her chest as she swings back down and boom — she catches herself.
A few more of these and it gets noisy. Everyone can hear her clapping. Heads start turning and she tries not to acknowledge it; everyone should be at her pace. She's anorexic after all. But this is when someone yells at her to slow down.
Kim doesn't stop; stop telling me to slow down, she thinks. She'd say it but she really can't look up right now. She needs to focus.
She gasps. Something surges up her throat and she catches it. She wants to swallow it away but it's too late and all the color drains from her face as she vomits all over the floor.
" - - - - - - , what exactly have you been eating?" Nurse DaMont asks.
Kim sits across him on her bed, fingers nervously digging into her knees. She doesn't want to look at him; this is a man she used to be able to school in combat and now all of a sudden she can't do anything right. If it was anyone but him, she would tell the truth. But she can't. Not in the face of the enemy.
Nurse DaMont heaves a deep sigh and slaps the clipboard to his thighs. " Miriam , talk to me."
Miriam.
She can't help but smile. She hates herself for getting emotional at her second fake name. But her eyes shine a little and she looks up. "I'm vegan."
She notices a little rise in the corner of his mouth. "How long?" he asks.
"Um." Time is hard for her. What with never seeing the outside world. "I tried to kill a deer when Shego left me alone in the forest. It went really poorly and that was kind of my moment. Um. When was that?"
Dash looks at her for a while to make sure she's serious about asking. "Christmas last year. It's June so — " His skin crawls again. "I'm vegan too — I know it's important to you but we currently don't have the resources here to keep you well nutritioned."
Kim shrugs. "Okay?"
He furrows his brow. "Kim — ah shit…. Sorry."
Kim doesn't flinch, she just looks at him hard. Being called Kim hurts too. She’d prefer hey you for now if she had any say in it.
After a while, he starts talking again. "At least go vegetarian for now. Get some eggs in you. That sugary cereal they have isn't doing you any favors, I'm serious."
"Tofu and veggie broth is a damn good substitute though. Cheap too." Kim vaguely remembers living off bare minimums in her apartment with Dom in Foster City. "Oh and the nooch. Obviously."
Nurse DaMont remembers that flaky, cheesy but not actually cheesy goodness. "Obviously. Listen, I want you to do well here. So let's figure out a diet. If you can do it, Hell, I'll give you enough points to use a razor."
This catches her attention. It's been really bad lately. Whenever she cries, which is frequent, she gets all snotty. It's nasty that it's her normal, but she just wipes it on her sleeve and with each passing day, the gross black stubble catches on the fabric and —
"Yes," she says very quickly. "I'll do anything for that."
A greasy sausage patty waits for her on the styrofoam plate, surrounded by a circle of bland eggs. The potatoes are a good touch at least, although some of them feel like they weren't boiled long enough.
She brings the plastic knife and fork down to the patty and breaks off the tiniest piece she can snag. She needs to not overthink this. She needs to — her mouth caves around the brown bitlet and the teeth chew it up.
She remembers the deer in New Hampshire. How she knocked it to the ground and killed it. She didn't even get to eat it because she was bleeding so much. She shot open the noble creature's stomach and slept inside of its guts.
Never again, she said.
She feels the grease slick down her throat, emptying into her stomach which violently churns at the touch. Ugh.
Kim's grateful that after one week in Hell they finally take her off suicide watch. Meaning now the nurses check in on her every ten minutes to make sure she's okay. Which actually makes her feel more stressed out than when Team Impossible was shadowing her every move, but whatever. The ten minute gap gives her enough time to go to the bathroom without supervision.
She shuts the stall door behind her and kneels in front of the toilet. Her face screws up in concentration because she knows this is wrong. She knows this is why they had her on suicide watch to begin with. It's a betrayal of the little trust they finally gave her.
She shuts her eyes. No one can make her do anything, and she is not letting meat and dairy strengthen her. She doesn't need it.
She plunges her fingers into her mouth and ends up a shaking, shivering, pale mess again but no one seems to notice since she is always like that.
Kim is babbling her way through group therapy, trying to make up some kind of tangible goal. She thought this would be an easy exercise but as time passes on, it gets harder. Her goals become little tiny normal things that shouldn't be hard for anyone.
Her voice cracks while she’s talking. It keeps happening, without the blockers, her voice is shifting back towards going through normal ‘boy’ puberty.
Kim struggles to hold it together and in the firmest voice she can possess says, "I want to get through today without crying."
Kim has been trying to keep herself as busy as possible since arriving here but with her new 'diet,' she knows it's probably a good idea to skip exercise class. So she does what most patients do at the hospital for that hour: wander around aimlessly until you end up in the TV room and pretend to watch TV.
Most people stare at the wall. Kim wants to stare at the wall too but the TV manages to distract her. It's about Ron.
She starts crying again so it's hard to focus. She feels so stupid that she can't follow along.
She ends up having to ask an adult sitting near her what happened.
The adult looks at her. She looks pretty grim. “Apparently, that Stopstop kid — ”
Ha, Stopstop . How did Nong Man’s nickname for Ron catch on like that?
“ — he’s leaving that Global Justice thing, he tried suing them but lost.”
Kim blinks. Ron… did what? “Wh-why?”
Kim sort of knows why. She wonders if that actually was Ron in her dream, if he does actually feel bad. Or if he’s just pissed that Global Justice let Kim live after everything she’s done. The adult keeps chattering away. Apparently Kim Possible's suicide was a media sensation and everyone in the mental hospital was talking about it when it went down three weeks ago.
Three weeks?
It’s only been three weeks? Oh God.
Ron needs help, Kim thinks. He’s on a bad path and for once, he’s free from some of his manipulators. Sensei is still out there to do his damage on the boy but… if Kim could just contact him. Maybe she could help him. Maybe.
Her heart starts pounding and she’s sweating. Thinking about Ron is scary, thinking about — anything to do with her old life is scary.
Kim tries to think of the many ways she could kill herself in hopes it will help her disassociate out of this, but of course it doesn't work. Ain't it just the way.
Fortunately her stupid watchguard saves the day with his fifteen minute check-in. "Hi. Are you okay?" Nurse Cranston asks.
She looks up and it's the first time she actually says, "No."
Nurse Cranston escorts her back to her bedroom and lets her take a nap. It's not even a big deal that she keeps her hands underneath the covers.
Kim has a ratty mustache now. The hairs are so dark. Even her cheeks are starting to pop out little whiskers. She hates that she's used to it.
Nurse DaMont weighs her one day and notices that she's lost a lot of weight for someone who has been 'eating better,' so they put her back on the 1-to-1 watch to make sure she actually eats her meat and doesn't throw it up. It ends up being for the best. DaMont is the one to notice that for someone who sleeps so much, Kim is awfully fatigued. Turns out her meds are no good.
Great.
It scares her when they do nice things for her. Because they work for Betty, and Betty hates her so much.
Maybe Kim is actually crazy. Maybe Betty loves her, and wants her to recover, and Kim is too sad and stupid to know that. Bortel keeps telling Kim that all these people she says hate her actually love her. How could that be though? And what the fuck does Bortel know?
"Why don't you just put a fucking Moodulator on my neck and call it a day?" she snaps.
Kim ends up losing one point over her outburst which is frustrating because she had to follow her diet for a solid week to get it. She feels kind of bad and decides not to fight back anymore.
It's exciting to be in the thick of a heist. Well, it's not really a heist, but Kim pretends it's one.
Basically she's been chilling out with Corey in an empty room. Kim really likes Corey; they are pretty and emphatic. It's sad that she hurts herself so much. She's also shy, which is a shame because she knows exactly what to say to make someone smile.
After Nurse Berman does the ten minute check-in on Kim, which times out with the half hour check-in that Corey gets from her nurse, the heist begins. The two strip fast and toss their clothes across the room to the other, of course without being a Sneaky Pete.
The second the bra hooks behind Kim's back, she remembers how her mom made her wear a bra before she even started developing. It was scratchy and you could see it through her shirts sometimes. Embarrassing. But this? The way it hugs her body? No matter how flat she is, no matter how oversized it is for her, no matter how she can look past the cups and see her tiny chest, wow this is empowering.
When the hem of the dress flutters down to her knees, it feels kind of bad because she knows she'll never fit in her old outfits again, but it's still a victory. She twirls around and the dress swishes along with her. "Can I keep it?"
Corey looks over, very cute in Kim's boyish suit, and smiles. "You look really happy."
Kim is a little embarrassed at how red her face is, but she comes over and hugs Corey tight. But that doesn't feel right. Something about it is too distant. So Kim reaches over and grabs Corey's hand, thumb running across her knuckle. That feels better.
Things happen fast, neither of the girls really think about, but Kim backs Corey over to a wall. Corey slouches against the plaster, sliding down until her long body drapes past Kim. Kim grins mischievously and kneels between the older girl's thighs. Their eyes are not interested in anything else but the other right now.
Kim isn’t seriously attracted to Corey, and after all, she’s dating someone right now. It’s a platonic thing, and the two girls both have very physical needs. But outside of this hospital, Kim doesn’t think they’d be friends. But it doesn’t matter because they’re here, and she’s sure Yori would be good with it.
Kim just wants to help Corey feel happy, and well, she also kind of has the ulterior motive of feeling more like a girl. The clothes help her out a lot.
They only kiss for a little bit. Corey holds Kim close. Corey is actually anorexic and Kim is verging on that — so the warmth of their bodies — the warmth they can never feel for themselves — is immensely comforting.
But then Kim starts crying again. Because she can't help it.
Exercise class as a meat eater ends up being traumatizing. Who would have guessed? Oh right. Kim did. What a smartie.
It happens during a push-up. That rush of wind flaring up at her from below as she bobs down — she's back in the wilderness. Falling from a tree branch, slamming into a deer and hurtling it to the ground.
She can't move. Her joints lock in place and she can't — fucking — move. Her heart is pounding, like why aren't you moving you fucking idiot?
She crawls across the floor, legs swinging like pendulums, her body like a mechanical spider. People start staring so she looks at them. Her pupils are wide as dinner plates and she hisses. Oh, if only she could move straight.
She remembers this feeling. Fighting cops on the beach so effortlessly. She can't do that anymore, she'd get trounced and laughed at. She's a stupid boy with a mustache. Heh heh. It's funny. Her head bobs up and down as the limbs tap across the floor.
Nothing really makes sense. Her limbs speak to her — they breathe in and out and say — complete the transformation . Mm. Okay. The kneecaps rush in and she almost backsteps into the wall. Her arms waggle in the arm and then adjust, hands slipping into the pockets of her hoodie.
Casual.
She ends up in the bathroom. She doesn't even hesitate at the doors; she goes into the men's room and immediately catches her reflection.
She kinda looked like a girl when she came here but it's been two months and that's gone. Her face is hairy, her hair is raggedy, and there's other body hair too. She didn't even try today. No spark of femme anywhere.
She slips into a bathroom stall and immediately drops her pants. Can you even do this when you're sad and losing your effin’ mind? She grits her teeth and tries anyways.
The blood rushes through her veins. It hardens fast and she's sweating all over. She's going to stink after this, she just knows it. Haha. A stupid, smelly, horny boy. Great. Let this please be the actual bottom of the barrel.
This has to be it: going for a jerk off between visits from the nurse. She's not even supposed to be in here; you stay in the class you're in. You don't just up and leave —
— ow, fuck. Her dick hurts. She glances down. It's just flopping around. She shuts her eyes and really tries to think of something erotic. Yori? Oh no. Not Yori. Kim. Kim Possible .
Her name is - - - - - - and she wants to be Kim Possible. That's the perspective of her fantasy.
She imagines what it would be like to have that body — to be happy.
She comes. It feels really good. Although really it's bad because the idea of happiness is an actual turn-on for her now.
She's slumped against the toilet and says fuck it — and vomits everything she has left in her.
She gets lost on the way back to exercise class. There are voices in her head telling her what to do. Which is new. How fun.
One is her old voice, and the other is the deeper voice that sometimes threatens to overtake her. They're arguing about what she should do with her life. - - - - - - and Miriam, always going at it. She likes to imagine them as flashing lights.
Miriam is a green beam and - - - - - - is an orange one. They run into each other, spreading into beautiful rays of light among a black space. Each beam spreads to form a solid wall to hold back the other and eventually, one breaks. Everytime one of them wins an argument, they blast through the other beam and obliterate it, soaring through until the other beam returns and tangles into them.
She's basically deciding that she's going to eventually kill herself. Hard stop.
Kim stops in the hall and vomits again. This time unintentionally.
She's too tired for tears. She feels like a carcass rotting on the side of the road, waiting to get picked up and buried. Why is she here?
Corey told Kim that when she gets stressed out like this, it's a really good idea to close her eyes and hum something pleasant. Practice good breathing techniques. So she does it. The green and orange beams drill into each other again, but this time both of them erupt. A purple beam spirals in and she knows its her. Kim Possible. Not ideal but it's something.
She can have a penis and still be a girl. She can be good enough to get on hormones. She can pull this off, and it starts with finding an adult, tugging on their sleeve, and telling them she had an accident in the hallway
Beeeep. Beeeep. Beeeep.
Click.
"H-hello?"
Kim's been allowed phone calls for a few weeks now; not that they are of any use. Who can she call? Her first parents?
Well after some time, she comes up with a new scheme. She just has to wait for a day where she can call and Nurse DaMont is her handler; they've actually been getting along — somehow.
"Ron Stoppable’s office.”
Kim smirks a little and leans in closer to the receiver; Nurse DaMont is a few feet away so she needs to play it cool.
"Hi! Um. My name's Han, I'm Ron Stoppable's little sister. We're having a family emergency and he's not picking up his phone. Can you get him?"
There's a painfully long delay. Kim obviously can't keep too quiet while waiting, so she chatters on about nonsense, pretending to be answering trivia questions on a dumb radio show that she just loves.
Kim is of course a terrible liar — she displays the same obvious tells that Ron has — like overtalking, laughing too loudly, and doing the darty eye dance. Nurse DaMont's mother didn't no raise no fool so he catches on that something is off and he draws closer.
Kim tries not to swear under her breath. "Um — Martin Van Buren!" she blurts out.
Two burly hands clap her shrimpy shoulders. Fuck. Shit. God. Fucking. Dammit.
"John Quincy Adams!" DaMont hisses.
Kim blinks. "Huh?"
"The only President to serve in Congress after his term. That's the question, right?"
Kim takes too long to get it. "Oh! I thought it was — wait! Hey!" she blushes furiously, "I take my answer back! John Quincy Adams!"
She purses her lips in deep concentration and then feigns a heavy sigh. She turns back to DaMont and motions for him to go away. "No cheating."
Nurse DaMont raises his hands into the air and chuckles as he wanders back to his leaning spot.
It's hard not to smile, but that excitement fades fast — a high voice is snarling at her on the other line.
“Uh, this is Ron,” Ron says. Hearing him in-person makes it clear that the first person Kim talked to was also Ron — just him pretending to be his own secretary. Apparently he’s opened up his own detective agency.
“Who the fuck are you?” Ron swears. “My sister’s like 3 years old, what do you want?”
“Ron?” Kim blurts out. Oh shit, she shouldn’t have done that. She shouldn’t have said his name with such familiarity.
Nurse DaMont notices and is speed walking over. Fuck fuck. His hands are about to wrench the phone from her grip.
Think fast Possible.
The line goes dead, but not before Kim says, "That wasn't a nightmare."
A week unceremoniously passes by. She really hasn't been feeling well, and stuff has been weird between her and Corey. The girl thankfully catches the vibe that Kim can't stomach a relationship, but now she just talks down to her like a little kid. Sure, Corey is a few heads taller and sure, Kim is constantly getting reinstitutionalized for bad behavior but that doesn't mean Kim is pioe, a child. She already went through that.
"You know, I'm actually going to be leaving soon," Corey says passively while walking down the halls aimlessly with Kim.
Kim should care more but she doesn't really feel anything.
Corey purses her lips and looks off to the side. "Probably at least."
Kim nods. You have to get approved by a panel of doctors to leave. It's part of the agreement when you volunteer to enter the hospital, which most people do.
"Don't you care, Miriam?" Corey snaps after Kim fails to respond in any way.
Kim blinks and tries to focus. "Sorry. I'm just really drained. I'm happy you're feeling better, I'm just going to miss you."
"Yeah, I'll miss you too," Corey touches her face and it reminds Kim that they are still friends. "Um. By the way, I heard you got in trouble for prank calling Ron Stoppable. What was that about?"
Kim's eyes widen and the gears in her head almost crack apart from the sheer speed of thought. "Yes. So. Um. First off. Not a prank call. Yeah."
Corey crosses her arms. “You gonna tell me?”
Kim eyes her carefully — is it really worth telling her? She’s never going to see Corey again, and not even really in a bad way. Talking about it is just going to get Corey in trouble anyways, so Kim shakes her head. “Sorry. Can’t.”
Corey frowns. It doesn't come up again at least. Corey gets approved to leave a few days later and that's it.
All the dinnerware in the cafeteria is either plastic or styrofoam. It's a lot less likely to hurt you than metal or glass. It makes Kim sick because she actually campaigned against single use plastic — but to be fair, this is kind of an instance where it's acceptable? It doesn't excuse these big corporations from —
— fuck it, Kim, just take the goddamn — there.
She knows it's wrong but she slips a plastic knife into her sneaker. She smirks because no one notices.
Everything is numb. The day doesn't feel like anything; there's a knife under her sock, that's her life.
She pretends to sleep so that she can sneak into the bathroom around 2AM. It's not a smart plan, but Kim's feeling a little delirious. But that doesn't change the facts:
Ice cold water can't soften your skin.
A plastic knife has no catch or strength.
Kim doesn't have enough points for an actual razor. So this will have to do.
She gets a little frustrated and grabs her lip, pulling it over her gritted teeth, running the knife over and over the black hairs. She swipes and swipes and swipes and yelps when she doesn't stop the knife fast enough and it slams her middle finger.
Oh. Duh. It doesn't take long before she snaps the silly knife in two. She tosses one half to the floor and uses the pointier end on her face. Still nothing. It swats at the hairs like an arm sweeping over grass and she snaps. Screams something primal and jabs the sharp end into her wrist. Again and again and again.
The cuts are old now; they don't reopen like they used to. It's just scars on these stupid flimsy wrists. The skin reddens at the impact but she barely nicks the wounds. Jabbing jabbing jabbing. She hurls the knife across the room and spins around, seething. Her hand grips the sink and she looks down at it. That could work.
A door handle pulls down. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. It has to work, there's no more time. She swings her head into the sink and she sees blots of light when she pulls her head back up. Another swing and a flash of black. She tries again, but a large hand slaps her chest, fingers digging into the soft flesh. She screams and without thinking claws at her assailant's head. Bald. So it's Nurse DaMont. Great.
A big hand comes over her head and shoves it down. She tries to break free from their grip but he's obviously stronger than her.
"Fuck you!" she screams, grabbing his hand with both of hers and digging her nails in as deep as possible. He shouts and she uses the opportunity to bite him. She actually draws blood and at some point there's a slap.
She hits the ground like a boxer hits the mat. The first bounce actually kinda feels good. It reminds her that she's an actual human being and not a horrible demon from Hell. So she's a little more grounded. The second bounce, the once where she skids across the tiles and hurts her face, that one makes her angry. She swings onto all four of her limbs and backs away like a scared cat, teeth showing.
"I'm sick of people controlling me by hitting me," she says slowly. Her limbs shuffle naturally to the right as Dash draws closer. It's like she's been a quadruped her whole life. "I'm stronger than Shego. I'm stronger than you."
"I'm glad you're working that out finally," Dash tries to keep it calm. "But you need to calm down - - - - - - . Your behavior is unacceptable."
She snickers and brushes a sleeve across her mouth, wiping away the blood dripping down. "Take your best shot you fucking shill."
"Listen to yourself," Dash is definitely a little hurt, but largely unphased. "Do you understand how childish you've been acting?"
She takes a deep breath. "I'm not — "
"Lying to us, abusing special privileges, mouthing off at Bortel, whining, crying all the time, tugging on sleeves, stealing, and jerking off in our bathroom stalls?"
Her face falls a little. She thought that had been discreet. "Well what do you want me to do?"
"I want you to act like the hero you used to be."
She blinks back tears. "How the fuck am I supposed to do that when I’m treated like I’m not even human?!"
Dash hesitates. “You’re sick.”
"I’m trying," she adds meekly. "And this isn't the solution."
Dash nods very slowly and looks over his shoulder. Deep breath.
"That's why I want to get you out of here."
She's calm now. Her body is relaxed and it feels silly to be on all fours. She sloppily gets back to her feet. "What?"
"This is fucked up. I'm not telling anyone about what happened."
"O-okay, b-but I screamed and kind of — "
Dash cpomes over and grabs Kim, hugging her tight. "I got it. Cranston and Berman are picking up Bortel at his place right now. I want you to calm down and tell him what you need. We're not leaving his office until you get on the right medications."
Dash gets back up and takes Kim's hand. She wants to pull it away but his touch is nice when she's been so lonely. He keeps talking. "I don't know what Betty wants to do with you after you're out but this is fucked up. You deserve a lot more. But not a word to anyone, you understand?"
She gulps. "Of course. Yeah. Th-thanks, Dash — I mean….Nurse DaMont."
As they exit her bathroom, she catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror.
She doesn't even recognize who's looking back at her anymore.
Negotiations go poorly. A tantrum may have been involved. There's some shouting, and some spit that flies. Not just from her thankfully.
But does Bortel end up getting punished for spitting at her? Obviously not.
Solitary confinement sucks.
Kim gets a new room mate: Stephanie. A black girl about Kim’s age. They don’t really get along at first, though Kim desperately wants to be her friend. She never liked Corey that much, but she still misses her. She wants to fill that void again.
Kim thinks that Stephanie’s gay too. Which helps.
But it also feels sort of manipulative. Stephanie like cries in her sleep and stuff. Kim knows because she herself can't sleep. She's too excited about going to the cafeteria tomorrow and showing her bare face (Nurse DaMont gave Kim a ton of points that she could finally spend on razor privileges) to the world.
Kim also has dresses now.
Kim has never really been a girly girl but when you're this repressed? You go a little nutty.
So it's very late at night — or early in the morning — when Nurse Berman grumbles something about needing to take a piss, but he's really not supposed to leave Stephanie unsupervised.
Kim snaps and climbs out of bed in her brand new nightie and locks eyes with Berman. "Hey," she rasps.
"What do you want?" he frowns.
"If you wanna go piss— uh, go to the bathroom I mean," Kim is working on not swearing because it makes her lose points, "I can watch her for a few minutes."
Berman sizes her up. "You're a troublemaker though."
She smirks. "Yeah I am. But c'mon. Ya gotta pee and you're not the one who needs 1-to-1 supervision."
Nurse Berman cranes his big, thick neck and finally shrugs. "Fine," and he wanders off.
When Nurse Berman does return, he is annoyed to find that Kim is not awake, and also that she is in Stephanie's bed. Kim stacked her blanket on top of Stephanie's and delicately slipped in, wrapping her arms around the older girl.
It's like super against protocol but ultimately he allows it because it apparently puts a stop to Stephanie's nightmares.
Kim is looking in the mirror one day — shaving by herself, no big deal — when she catches that she doesn’t actually have an Adam's Apple. As in when she phased back into reality from Ron’s void, she didn’t have one anymore. She has to put the razor down because she's laughing so hard.
Ron’s stupid monkey magic forgot to give her an Adam's Apple. Hahaha. What a fucking goof.
The television room is as dead as ever. A bunch of sad sacks spread out around the room, pretending to look busy. But somehow they all notice the depressing news shut off. Heads start turning and eventually all fall on one thing: Miriam Director, standing on a table with a sheet of paper in hand.
"My name is Miriam; I use she/her pronouns," Kim announces. At the beginning of this wretched journey, she used to overcompensate with pitching her voice. Now her tone is relaxed. Part of it comes from her knowing she’s on HRT again, and part of it is just her general attitude. Kim feels okay today.
Some of the mental hospital regulars blink in dismay at her. "I used to come in here a lot to cry and I really like this place. I kinda want to cry today so I thought I'd share a poem I wrote in art therapy."
She holds the sheet of paper before her eyes and squints. Looks back up at her captive audience. "This is about a friend I let down." Deep breath. "Okay," she whispers to herself.
"A clap on the back, a glimmer in the eyes
A smile that doesn't fit; glowing skin
A tension I didn't want, my coulda shoulda woulda didn'ts
You ol' so-and-so how you doing?
Um
Well
Yeah ah it's
Good!
Three years ago I was trying to hold it together and then
Then I saw you and you saw me despite my facade
And I collapsed in your arms, melted, out of control
Like a baby, I was oh yeah work is good um yep
I'm at the coffee shop still yeah
(Oh yes, I know that things aren't fine
And how I'd love to cry into those arms again
But back then I was misery incarnate, and shouldn't
Shouldn't I, well, shouldn't I be hopeful for them just once
I was their project after all
And they worked so hard on me)
Suicide, hah, oh, that old thing
I daren't even think of the word
I'm great now, I'm writing again
Writing, this is writing
Look, at the words, at the movement
It's amazing how I can take my specific thoughts and write them down and call them
Art
Then, oh, oh, oh drat
A crack in my voice and I hope they let it
Pass
Because I don't want to
Hurt you again
Hurt you again?
Ha I am the one who is suicidal so that's funny
See, look, writing! Writing means you are doing better
I just know that you are strong and good
And that I am worthless and already have a plan
Maybe next week, who knows, always hated thursdays
Heh heh heh
Just please smile and hurry off somewhere else
Stay away because you will live long and
I will not and you shouldn't get involved
Forget I was ever here
Oh
Oh
Oh that's right
I forgot
We're not friends anymore."
Kim stops talking. No one has clapped or snapped along yet, and she silently swears to herself that maybe the last line wasn't very good, and she leans into her back leg, throwing up jazz hands. "That's it!"
Kim's been having weird dreams lately. She dreams that she's a boy fighting off mobsters —not her mobsters at least. Probably. Unless Big Daddy expanded the operation.
It's very strange. Kim hasn't thought about being a crime kingpin in a long time. Not that she ever was one…
But the dreams are vivid — she also dreams in first person now, which is new. It's not even her hands that fly out in front of her to punch people. They are bigger hands. Pale and freckled, desperately swinging at scrambling mobsters. He's a good fighter, this boy, but his energy's not focused. He can't win like this.
Obviously it’s Ron. He’s fighting generic mobsters and gangs, trying to find where Big “Big” Daddy Brotherson is holed up. And he’s losing. He has all the power in the world but he can’t control it anymore, and he gets his ass kicked.
Kim wants to go to him and help him but she can't. She tries to pretend that these are just nightmares — but she can't find the strength to bring them up to Bortel like her other nightmares. Because she dreams about this boy every night for weeks. He is on the hunt to find someone. That someone probably being her. She wants to scream and tell Ron to stop, that she killed herself and he'll never see her again, but anytime she tries to interfere she wakes up.
The last time she dreams about the boy is the one where the boy utterly fails. The mobsters get the jump on him and actually fight him off. The boy's pale hand raises itself into the air and directs its fingers towards the gang, and there's this spark of blue.
But the spark becomes a wisp and drifts away.
Ron keeps trying to summon this crazy strength of his — this magic — but it won't come. It's gone, and the wisp is the last he sees of it before someone conks him out.
Kim wakes up in the middle of the night and almost screams; but it's just a nurse. These guys are lucky she's shrunken down into a normal teenager that has been out of combat for almost four months now — because those I'm-going-to-karate-chop-the-brains-out-of-surprise-callers PTSD moves would probably split skulls.
She stays perfectly still as they draw blood from her arm. She hates being manhandled, especially by men when she's trapped in a body they think is normal for her, but she knows the best advice to follow is to stay perfectly still and let them do whatever they need to do.
There are some days where the dysphoria is worse than how it was before the blockers.
Basically, Kim gets erections sometimes that are really embarrassing. She can’t help it, they just come in. Even with the anti-androgens that are supposed to stop them, they still happen. The more and more nights Kim spends cuddling with Stephanie, the more anxious she feels. Because those erections are really embarrassing.
Nothing feels good. This is the closest Kim's been to a girl in a while and she feels more like a boy than ever.
"Miriam… where are you going?"
Kim freezes and looks back at Stephanie, beautiful, sleepy, Stephanie, yawning as she grabs Kim's tiny hands and pulls her back into the bed. Kim blushes and pulls a blanket past her waist. "I — um — I — have an — uh — "
"Oh fucking whatever, Miriam," Stephanie rolls her eyes and reaches under said blanket and grabs onto said nuisance.
Kim's eyes shoot open and she tries to protest that but — but but but but but whatever, yeah, it feels soooooooo goooooooood….
Kim shakes herself back into consciousness, forgetting herself completely. Who's Kim Possible again? She giggles and slips a hand under Stephanie's shirt and smashes her wet lips against her roommate's. Palms press together and fingers intertwine.
Three more days and Kim's case will be presented to the panel.
She isn't sure why she's having a meltdown, but she just starts crying during breakfast. She hasn't been this frail in weeks and now she's sobbing so much. Nurse DaMont asks her what's wrong but she can't answer, she can't stop crying.
When she tries and fails to take a nap, she realizes how much her head hurts. There's this unearthly force pushing against her temples from the inside out. In the weakest of moments, she catches a blue glow coming from underneath her skin, flowing with her veins.
It's not hard to put two and two together — Ron loses his powers, the connection between them drops, and now she feels the pressure of what is likely his power.
Uh. Chalk it up to being crazy; she's not that far gone. She can't have Ron's magic, that wouldn't make sense. Well, it's happened before but not like this. Not a full transfer, and if it was his magic, she would be erupting with power… right?
Yes. That's it. She's just crazy. The dull thudding in her head is bad but it can't be that bad. Those dreams about Ron are wish fulfillment sort of. She only wishes he still cared about her but she knows better. He only cares about her because he wants her dead. He wants whatever he thinks justice is. She feels sorry for him and it’s bad because it’s going to prevent her from protecting herself when he does come for her. Boo hoo.
Kim has another bad day.
Someone in her exercise class taunts her, insinuates that she's some kind of pervert, as if a girl can't have well toned arms and legs. Yes, Kim is getting strong again, and yes, she can beat the shit out of this little snot if she wants to. But she doesn't.
She doesn't want to be a bully. She has to be good so she can leave this place.
In the afternoon, Kim has to have a second daily check-in with Bortel, which is unusual. Turns out her meds are wrong. Again.
Explains a lot.
Art therapy is not fun either.
She feels so tired.
She tries to write a new poem but her fingers can barely twist the crayon right. The letters come out soft and loopy, crossing over each other. She grits her teeth and tries writing the words again but this time she writes the wrong letters.
She looks around the room and screams; she can't read. Nothing makes sense. It's like her brain short-circuited and she's stupid. She hates it.
She keeps trying though and soon, the crayon scribbles so fast it snaps in two. Kim growls and grabs one of the bitlets left and scrapes it over the page hard, managing to tear through it. She screams and tries again and eventually the teacher has to make Kim take a nap to calm down.
The panel is so scary. It's all these faces Kim doesn't know and it's so overwhelming. They keep asking questions that she doesn't want to answer, things that trigger her, and she ends up a sobbing mess before the panel.
It's kind of a no brainer what happens next.
"Miriam…"
Stephanie's soft breath tickles the back of Kim's ears and she blushes. Kim feels so small next to her, especially when she's been crying for over an hour now. Stephanie is the only one Kim has ever really felt comfortable dressing down around. Just a nightie and pajama shorts. Stephanie opts for something baggier, a whole flannel get-up. Very gay. Kim feels so guilty sometimes, because she’s dating Yori. But she also knows Yori would be okay with it, Kim is just messed up and lonely and… she’s been crying all day. It hurts to cry, her throat crackles and makes everything worse.
"What is it, Stephanie?" Kim manages to choke out.
"You should cheer up. We can at least hang out together for a few more weeks."
Kim does smile a little, because it is a consolation, but obviously not the prize here. "I know, but — I guess I'm just disappointed in myself. I thought I was ready."
"We all grow up at our own pace…." Stephanie whispers. Flat teeth nibble against Kim's ear and she tries not to moan.
"You have no idea how true that is," Kim cackles.
Chapped lips sloppily run down the ear to Kim's shoulder, working their way up Kim’s neck. There's a little biting involved. She loves it but also kinda hates it because — um — erections.
"Ow!" Stephanie yelps. Kim raises an eyebrow and turns over, feeling something peel off her neck. As she lands on her left shoulder, there's a sudden lightness to her migraine, and the cloudy plume in her eyes goes away. She feels refreshed. Not suicidal. Just a little sad. Kim frowns and looks at what's caught between Stephanie's teeth. A tiny piece of metal with a frowny face on it —
Holy shit.
"Don't swallow that!" Kim yelps and snags the little machine turning it around in the air. Sure enough, it's a Moodulator. What a surprise. "Oh, that son of a bitch!"
"Huh?" Stephanie leans in. "What? What’s that?"
"Um… long story," Kim catches herself. Shit shit. She shuffles up onto her rear. This is all so fucked up. She makes hard eye contact with Stephanie and leans in, pecking her on the lips. "Forget about me, okay?"
"What?" Stephanie stutters. "Miriam, what are you — "
"I need to go see Doctor Bortel."
"But it's past curfew — "
"It'll be okay. Don't tell anyone about what you saw; I’m not coming back."
Kim doesn't really know what she's doing, but she's out of bed and her bare feet are speeding across the cold floor. She knows it would be smart to put socks and shoes on at least, but she's too anxious.
The second she opens the door she's greeted by her two favorite guys: Nurses Cranston and Berman. She retreats back into her dorm room, the two broad shoulder boys looming over her.
There's a brief moment where she's scared, where she feels so small standing before them and then she remembers a hot tip a dying friend gave her — puh-lease, you can do anything .
Kim runs forward, ducking under a lunge from Cranston, and jumps into the wall — okay, it's a little crazy and she hasn't done this in forever — but she somersaults off the wall and her legs grip Cranston at the cheekbones.
Kim actually hits the ground first and it hurts a lot — but Cranston does too and it's his jaw that takes the blow. Kim brings her feet together and leers at him, chest heaving. She's still got that spunk but damn it takes a lot more out of her than it used to. As Berman draws closer, she's actually not confident she can win this.
She ducks under an apelike chop and twists behind him, punching him in the neck. It definitely hurts both of them — but her a bit more. Her delicate frame is not intended for this much violence, and her groin is searing from that hip check. There's another lunge and this time she rolls right under him, slamming her bare feet into his chest. It's good — but not particularly strong and it just gets him lumbering.
Berman growls and jumps at her again but moments before he grabs her, a blanket slings over his eyes and pulls hard against it. He stumbles some more and before Kim can even question it, she nails Berman in the dick. He crumples. She chops him in the head, conking him out once and for all, and looks up to meet Stephanie's wide eyes. Stephanie's tall, but she looks so small in the oversized flannel on the bed, blanket curled in her fists.
Kim forgets that they are just kids sometimes. But this time it's impossible to ignore.
"Miriam, please don't leave me, I really like you — "
Kim bites her lip. "Um. Um. Okay. B-but, if I tell you what's going on, you need to promise not to laugh."
Stephanie nods and climbs down.
"How familiar are you with Kim Possible's suicide?"
Stephanie frowns. Pretty much every suicide kid knows it left and right. "It's kinda weird — that like — those government people won’t say what happened to her… I hope she didn’t try to kill herself again, you know? Most people cool down after one attempt in a day. But it's still really sad."
Kim nods. Oh God, how does she say this?
"Right — well — the person who brought me here, who found me after I tried to kill myself… is the head of Global Justice. And if you look those two nurses up online, it's not hard to see that they are two thirds of Team Impossible. They work for Global Justice too."
"Th—that—that's weird?"
"Yes," Kim takes in a deep breath. "See Steph, I'm Ki— ugh — oh my God. Okay." Another deep breath. "They're watching me. It's not a coincidence — and that device you found on my neck? It's called a Moodulator; it controls people's emotions. But… um…shit. Shit. Listen… fuck. This is really hard, sorry."
"Miriam, it's okay," Stephanie grabs her shoulder. "You can tell me."
"I know, I'm just really scared…." Kim gulps, dry lips grinding together until she can stomach looking at Stephanie. "Urgh…."
"Miriam…."
"Stephanie. I am Kim Possible."
Bortel's door opens with a BANG. "How long?!" Kim shrieks before she even lays eyes on the despicable piece of garbage.
Bortel sniffs and lazily peeks over his binder. "Hm?"
"Oh fuck you!" Kim squeaks, pressing her stomach into the desk, shoving the Moodulator into his face. "Seriously. How fucking long have you — " Bortel takes his sweet time in drawing in a deep breath, and Kim putters herself out.
When Bortel's face drops, he looks very somber. "Just a few days. It's for your own good."
"B-but — no, I was ready! I'm better!" she challenges. "You know that — you've seen my progress."
Bortel shakes his head and waggles a finger. "You're not conditioned to be a Global Justice agent yet. Betty asked for me to plant the Moodulator on — "
"Why?! I thought you assholes wanted me to recover and — and — " Kim stutters, eye filling with tears. God. She squeezes the bridge of her nose. This fucking brainwashing, these knee jerks reactions she can't stop… She focuses really hard. Imagines dropping into secret lairs with Ron, dropping between rings of goons with quips at the ready, effortlessly fighting through waves of drones, and saving the world.
Fuck.
Kim almost gags saying it, because she's not supposed to say these kind of things but —
"Betty’s a cunt."
"Whoa!" Bortel shouts. "I mean, sure, she's a little mean sometimes but — "
There's a scrambling as Kim climbs across the desk. Bortel yelps and grabs at a drawer, pulling it open fast, but before his hand can get in there, Kim fishes through it, snags what feels to be a gun, trains it on Bortel's fat face, and wedges a shoulder against the wood before tumbling off the desk.
Bortel's nostrils flare and he jumps back. "Don't shoot!"
Kim narrows her eyes; she really doesn't like using guns. Not since New Hampshire, but as her finger draws closer to the trigger she remembers something.
The back of Betty's head, her pretty brown hair, neck tilted over the hole in the Global Justice hallway. Kim — or Kimberly, rather — had a gun aimed at Betty's skull. Even then her hands shook. Betty cackled and Kimberly cried. "I'm surprised you haven't killed me yet," Betty laughed.
Kim flinches through the tears and Bortel’s pink hand comes to her throat. She falls off the table, gun yanked from her hand and into Bortel's. Her limbs flap to hit him but they don't reach Bortel and her neck crunches against the corner of the wall; it hurts like crazy and there's a gun trained on her now.
"Is this what you want?!" Bortel cries out. "Do you want to get the life sentence?"
Kim snarls and slides back up the wall very slowly. Her heart is beating so fast now. This feels like end-of-the-line stuff.
Something pulsates in her body, this horrible force jettisoning against her small frame, threatening to snap bones and puncture flesh. It's this power from time zones away — a power a far-off boy lost. She doesn't want this. But she's choking on it, she doesn't want it to go down this way and….
"Drop the gun, please," Kim sneers, trying to stave off Ron's Mystical Monkey Power. "Something is about to happen."
Bortel shakes his head. "You are so arrogant that you think you can trick — "
There's a horrible screeching sound that comes from neither of them.
Kim notices Bortel's eyes widen in horror before she sees the blue claw lash out of her arm. It's so bright and so all-consuming that she can't even see her own hand through the spindly arm that reaches across the room.
The claw launches into the air, sprouting four deadly talons and swipes down over Bortel. It's all happening so fast.
She grabs the puppeted arm, eyes nearly popping out of their sockets as she struggles to hold the disturbed power back. Somehow, she pulls it off and for a second, the claw holds in the air and it's obvious that this isn't like the previous times this has happened between Kim and Ron, but the claw is blasting off crackles of light like sunspots. It shimmers in place and it almost threatens to tear her own arm off just by being there.
Usually too there's some sense of Ron paired with these outbursts, but this is just vague yet unadulterated anger. Because Kim really is the Mystical Monkey Master now.
Kim winces, bites her tongue by accident, and whips her arm back. The claw retracts, blurring into a gust of sapphire wind that throws Kim hard against the wall. Though a pointed blow, it's as if every part of her is pressed against the plaster, like a shoe to a bug. But when she drops back down, the magic is still there, living in her chest. Sparks fly and knock things over as she pushes herself back to her feet.
At some point, Bortel passes out — probably from fear.
"Holy shit…" says a voice from the left. "M-Miriam?"
Kim turns and sees Stephanie standing in the doorway. Kim's not sure what to say. She tries to say something but gasps as her eye sockets burn.
“S-sorry,” Stephanie stutters. “I’m still getting used to it… um… Kim?”
Kim holds back the magic and it’s akin to the lurch in your mouth when you throw back vomit, and it burns so much. Kim is blue eye-ing for sure; she can see sapphire light skimming the bridge of her nose. "Stephanie… you need to go," Kim finally says.
"What?" Stephanie shakes, "I don't want to leave you."
"I don't either but I can't control Ron's powers," Kim stutters, snagging Bortel's gun from his limp hand, stuffing it into her pajama shorts. She looks up to Stephanie and catches a glimpse of her reflection in Stephanie’s brown eyes.
Kim’s eyes are definitely pure blue. Glowing. "Go."
Stephanie shakes her head.
Kim growls, mostly because she likes this girl so much, and runs up to her. There's this awful burning again and all of a sudden Kim is floating. Her feet lift off the floor and Kim almost launches herself into the ceiling. She restrains herself and gets grounded, charging into Stephanie like a quarterback.
They kiss. Kim's fingers rummage through Stephanie's hair and hesitates, but still plants the Moodulator on her neck. "Stephanie, you're a really good person but you can't let me drag you down; they were never planning on releasing me."
"Miriam — " Stephanie's voice is never this high. She doesn't want to move away from the wall. "I'm scared."
Kim blinks and flashes her a reassuring smile. Like her old self would, and then somehow uses Ron's magic to access the controller to the Moodulator in Bortel's pocket.
Stephanie gasps as a roulette of emotions swoops through her all at once. Happiness, confusion, despair, anger, fear, cycling through, moving so fast and so bluntly that after a few seconds, her brain fries. Stephanie's body goes limp and Kim catches her before she hits the floor.
Kim brushes Stephanie's hair past her eyes and kisses her on the forehead before laying her down.
Kim’s voice shakes. "You don't think I'm scared too?"
Kim knows that she needs to escape as soon as possible, especially with the ticking time bomb of the Mystical Monkey Power threatening to destroy everything around her, but curiosity gets the best of her. She passes the Pharmacy and can't help but slip in.
Stealing is wrong, but Kim also needs to be on the right medications. No one will prescribe her with the right stuff so this is the best she's got. A li’l DIY, y’know? It really brings her back to when she asked Mugsy and Vinny to steal some drugs for her. Now it’s Kim’s job to make it happen.
Antidepressants, testosterone blockers, estrogen, and whatever else it is she can get her hands on. She sifts through medicine for a few minutes, dumping pills by the handful into plastic baggies. Still in just her nightie and shorts, Kim doesn't have anywhere to stuff away the baggies, so they all stay bunched up in her fists.
Kim hopes Stephanie will be okay. She settled her body back into her room, and did her best to fry Cranston and Berman’s brains so that they hopefully don’t associate any of this with poor Stephanie who deserves so much more.
Kim feels very anxious doing this, and maybe popping one of the random Xanax pills she finds isn't the best of ideas… but she does it. As her mind clears up, she becomes all the more aware of the horrible magic shaking her to the core, the sway of the magic literally jerking her arms up and down from their sockets.
Kim makes such a racket sifting through pills that she doesn't hear the approaching footsteps.
A shadow slides over Kim and a cold, deep voice speaks up. " Turn around and face me .”
Kim screams — this new person’s arrival being so sudden — and twists on her bare feet, whirling around so fast her mind can't keep up with her actions and she accidentally fires off the gun.
The bullet spins through the air and Kim's not even sure who she's shooting at yet — but she's no killer. She can't be. Not again, not anymore. No more blood.
Kim has tried so fucking hard to keep everyone alive — and — no . She screams again as the blue energy blasts through her limbs, morphing into claws, swiping at the air, trying to catch the bullet. A banshee wail carves through the air the claws tear through.
The claws close around the bullet but they're too slow. Kim swipes again and the bullet just manages to slip between the long fingers before they completely close up. Another grab, another miss — a scream cut short by a thud.
Doctor Betty Director slumps against one of the pill shelves, her crumpled body sending the shelf rocking, drawers of pills tumbling to the floor. Betty hacks a lung and looks up, her left shoulder mangled and bloodied by the gunshot. She chuckles and falls onto one knee.
Betty palms her bleeding shoulder and looks up at Kim, her thin lips twisted into the expression a cat makes when he’s pleased with himself. Kim tries not to snarl and slowly takes steps towards Betty. “What’s so funny?” Kim rasps.
“Me,” Betty answers, head bowed. “I thought I could control you when this happened… and you just killed me by accident.”
Betty looks so pathetic stooped over in some random pharmacy in the outskirts of Boston, losing blood rapidly. Dying to some confused kid who wasn’t even trying to hurt her.
Kim looks away awkwardly. “You surprised me.”
“Idiot,” Betty coughs. “Dammit, I figured…” She shakes her head. “...all the power in the world, and you still can’t do anything right.”
“No,” Kim echoes. “I can’t.”
Betty eyes Kim like she might lash out and kill her, even though every moment that slips past her without action is quickly bringing her to death’s door. “It doesn’t matter,” she says eventually.
Kim raises an eyebrow.
Betty continues, “My plan was to get you to work for me.”
“Uh — I figured?” Kim asks. Did Betty really think that was clever? Dumbass. “Why do you want me anyways? You already have Ron.”
“No, he peaced out. He’s pissed that I kept you alive,” Betty’s eye lights up. “You really don’t see it, do you?”
“No, clearly,” Kim frowns. “Enlighten me.”
Betty smiles. “I tried to get you after Will got himself killed… and failed, as you might remember. Makes me hate Shego so much. If I got to you first… ho ho ho… you’d be — ”
“Fuck you,” Kim growls. “I’m not a toy, okay? I’m a person, and — ”
Betty holds up a finger to silence Kim and gestures at the bleeding shoulder again. She coughs very dramatically, leaning really heavily into this role of a dying woman, and lets herself slump closer to the floor. “When you didn’t turn, I went to Ronald and it was so… easy .”
Kim nods; that doesn’t surprise her. Ron never was very self-aware, always yelled at her when she tried to show him how Sensei was playing him the same way Shego played her like a fiddle. Ron’s hatred for Kim eclipsed reality and all reason; he was lost. Probably still is.
“For a while, I was intent on just having Ronald at my side…” Betty overlong-alogues. “But then he raided the Bermuda Triangle, oh, I was pissed . He didn’t even tell me! No organization, nothing. I had to scramble to get him what he needed for his shitty hostage plot… and then I saw you outsmarting him, beating him every time and I realized how wrong I was to ever think Ronald could replace you. ”
Kim narrows her eyes. “I’m not like him, you can’t control me.”
“Tsch, you’re just as violent, if not more. I’m the one who had to deal with him after you shot him through the fucking chest, ” Betty sneers. “I’m surprised you haven’t killed him yet. You keep fucking with him, it’s torture. But I guess you just don’t want him dead yet, but… looks like you have his powers now, hah. I was hoping that’d happen.”
“I don’t even know how to use them. In case you missed it, I turned myself into an eight year old with these powers. I want nothing to do with them.”
The claws wrap behind Kim’s back and morph into these vine-like shapes. They wrap around Kim’s torso gently in a X pattern, and plant themselves into the floor, slowly pushing Kim high into the air so that she towers over Betty. It scares Kim, but it’s not like the power is making this up and forcing her to do something she doesn’t want — this is how Kim feels inside. She likes power, she licks her lips at the thought of it.
“You let yourself turn,” Betty spits. “You let a lot of things happen… even in the fucking weapons’ library, you gave him mercy. You never quite lost your soft spot for him.”
Kim glowers; she knows Betty is right… but…
“And he — he is so focused on you. When you washed back up on the shore after your suicide attempt, barely breathing… I knew what to do. Play up the rage, get people angry, get him angry and now… ha, do you think you even need Avarius’ stupid wand now?”
Kim ignores that, she doesn’t want to, can’t play into Betty’s bullshit. “You used Ron.”
“Yeah,” Betty smiles with so much pride. “You’re the Mystical Monkey Master, Kim. It was always supposed to be you.”
Kim glowers. “No. It wasn’t.”
A faint blue light shadows her nose, Kim is pretty sure she’s blue eye-ing again now. The tendrils unwrap and open up into vicious claws. It’s hard to hold it all back from Betty.
“You’ve taken his powers more times than I can count and boy, you know how to use them,” Betty drawls, her voice getting weaker faster and faster. “Don’t deny that. So — all I had to do was get you desperate and the boy hopeless.”
Kim stands very still, afraid that any movement on her part might shift her into an uncontrollable, inconsolable rage.
“Ronald knows about all this,” Betty laughs. “He hates me now, hates that I’d let you live, that I’d rehabilitate you. He just stays home all day now… he has that fake detective firm he thinks he can use to take me down but he’s just so lonely, ha, and…” She coughs up real blood, it hits the floor hard. Betty looks up, a streak of crimson running down her square jaw. “...now you’re better than him, again .”
Betty offers a gloved hand. “C’mon, Kimberly. Join me and—”
“No,” Kim says curtly.
Betty drops her hand to the floor. “Figured I might as well try.” She coughs. “It’s fine. Working with me, working with your mobsters, whatever it may be… it’s the same .”
Kim grits her teeth, she really shouldn’t let Betty keep talking. It’s fucking with her, and she needs to get the fuck out before Global Justice crashes in to kill her. But Kim can’t move, she’s waiting for Betty to say it.
“You’re just as bad as me, Kim,” Betty sighs. “We’re cut from the same cloth, but you’re the one coming out on top. So go ahead, go forward and do damage or whatever it is you want… just remember the little part I played for you, how instrumental I was in your take over the world bid. The people will hate you just as much as they would me , it doesn’t matter who wins.”
Kim can’t hold her power back anymore.
Blue appendages blast from all over Kim and thrust at Betty like snakes, battering her body against the wall. The attack is relentless. Again and again, the military commander is banged against the wall, falling forward only to get slammed again. The wall splinters and wears away with each strike, the horrible screech of the magic making Kim wince. It’s disgusting.
When Kim's had enough, she closes her fist and the tendrils disintegrate. Her other hand lashes out, punching the air, and six feet away Betty's head cracks back. It gives Kim pleasure but it's not enough, so she leaps into the air and unleashes a flurry. It's like mallets, but faster this time. Again and again. She feels her knuckles dig into Betty's crumpling form. But that's not enough. She can only bend bones like these and Kim longs to break .
So the blue hands become claws and she cuts and cuts and cuts. She smiles and it hurts her cheeks. Each finger digs into a trench, rides the blood, and this is better. Much better. They go and go and go and —
Eyes wide.
One last swipe. Overhead. Paws Betty down into the floor.
Kim crumples before the fallen figure, the blue energy still coursing through her body, not ready yet to go away, still thirsting for the kill.
Betty's head lolls into her shoulder, blood trailing across her jaw from a broken tooth. She coughs and whispers something. Kim has to kneel down and lean forward to hear her.
" Kill me ."
Fingers fumble and Betty pulls the revolver from Kim’s shorts. She can't drop it, her hands are nearly paralyzed at this point, the best she can manage is to tilt her arm so that the gun may roll down into Kim’s grip. Kim grabs it and presses the barrel to the woman's chin, pushing her head up as much as she can manage and waits.
Betty's jaw slides open and a mist shrouds her eye. But she's still there. Still alive. This person who's been #1 on her hit list since the beginning.
" What are you waiting for? " Betty croaks.
Kim gently lowers the gun so that it bumps against the woman's chest. They look each other in the eyes. She needs to shoot. Kill her before she tries to manipulate her. It's the only way. Break the pattern.
Is that the pattern?
Betty tries for a chuckle but her lungs are crushed. She's actually moments away from death. Kim could tell herself she's saving the woman from the misery of a slow, agonizing, pathetic death; that would be acceptable for someone as wretched as Doctor Elizabeth Director. But Kim doesn't move a muscle.
Kim bites her lip. "I'm not going to kill you."
" Why? So I can rot in a cell forever? Such cliche, Possible ."
Kim blinks away tears. "I don't know."
Betty's eye darkens and suddenly her corpse-like body lashes forward. Her left hand, with the last of its strength, grabs Kim at the groin and squeezes it like a vice. The move breaks Betty’s own hand, the bones crack apart. The right hand pulls the gun away and bumps it back into her own jaw. Betty sneers.
"Please, don’t," Kim chokes, Betty’s bloody fist only tightening its hold on her.
" Ha, boy," Betty says weakly. " Did I do a number on you or what. "
Bang.
Kim doesn't remember the next two minutes.
When she awakens , the pharmacy wing is destroyed. The shelves fall to pieces, pills scatter everywhere, and cold air sweeps in from outside. Kim guesses that it was these stupid powers that did it, they probably went off like a fucking bomb and leveled the room into dust.
Kim stands tall, ash and rubble rolling off the nightgown. She stands directly over Betty’s corpse, the head black and busted open. Kim can’t bear to look, her legs almost intertwined with the corpse’s. She brushes herself off and tries not to look. She stumbles forward to get away and clutches her knobby knees. This is all so messed up.
Something about stepping into the light for the first time since she turned herself in makes this so real. But she looks the same as she did when she entered; people will never know about this.
Kim makes sure not to cut herself on any rubble as she steps out and feels a chilling breeze play with the hem of her nightie. She turns back to this boring white building she had been trapped in for months and laughs.
It must be August. Maybe even September. Ah yes. September. The colors in the tree are faded oranges and browns, but Kim is sure it was a beautiful autumn for New England as it always is.
Kim can go anywhere. Anywhere in the world.
Or can she?
Well for starters, she needs to find a place to live. Preferably not a homeless youth center, ideally an actual place where she has control. She also needs to keep transitioning, she needs to find Yori, and she needs to — resume her plans?
Kim isn’t sure. She doesn’t feel less sick than when she came into this stupid hospital, she knows that.
But Kim has Ron’s powers, and a plan to take over the world. Apparently, it’s a good plan, if Betty wanted to know it so badly.
If Kim wants to save the world, some heads are going to have to drop. It’s going to get worse from here on out.
Kim looks at the gun in her hand. She actually killed someone. Well, she watched Betty kill herself but it wouldn’t have happened without Kim’s interference… agh.
Kim didn't even get to relish in it. It felt like anything else she's ever done.
She looks back to the mental hospital and leaves the gun in the dirt. There are police sirens off in the distance — she doesn't have a lot of time. Not with these skinny legs. No. Fuck that. She's strong, she won that back at least.
She sprints off into the distance, peeling behind buildings, and feels a familiar rush whip her hair off her shoulders. She laughs because it's fun.
Because Kim Possible's back and no one is going to stop her this time. Not even herself.