And You And I

Chapter 29: Marooned

If Kim Possible had thought the previous night had been bad, it was nothing compared to the one she had just endured. While the codeine had initially sent her into ga-ga land, she had woken up in the middle of the night in a massive fit of coughing and subsequently struggled to breathe. Fortunately, her mom had, unbeknownst to her, gotten the Tweebs to set up a glorified baby monitoring system and so the woman too had been wakened and rushed up the stairs to give her oxygen. She'd also been dripping with sweat and required both a pyjama and bedsheet change before she could settle back down. Her temperature had then gone up and down like a yo-yo for the remainder of the night and the pain from her ribs had returned twofold once the codeine had worn off. Her whimpers must have been enough to wake her mom a second time because she'd soon found herself with a cold compress on her forehead, while her mom prepared a small syringe. At the time, she'd had enough of her wits to ask what it contained, to which her mom had replied, "morphine." While curious, the guilt at her mom having done something so unethical on her behalf, prevented Kim from asking how exactly she had acquired it. However, it mattered naught, as the drug had quickly taken effect and sent her back into the land of dragons and fables.

Kim had finally been roused at about eleven am by her mom. Groggily, she had eaten breakfast, allowed herself to be led out of bed and much like a robot, complied to each of the commands the woman had given her as she underwent a thorough examination and been given her morning dose of antibiotics. It was only when she had stepped out of the wardrobe, after having had more x-rays taken, that she finally woke up enough to say, "how bad am I?" She had not even considered suggesting that she was fine, because they both knew she felt awful and for once, Kim did not feel like trying to hide it. She then broke out into another coughing fit, the third or was that fourth, since she had woken.

"It's not good news, Kimmie," her mom replied from the desk, where she sat staring at the digital x-rays. "The stress you put your lungs under last night has caused the infection to worsen. Not to mention that you've probably set the healing of your ribs back by a few days."

"Recovery time," she asked, dreading the response. In hindsight, this was a question she probably should have asked yesterday. However, because she'd felt fine, bar the pain coming from her ribs, she hadn't thought it necessary. She would have gone off on a light mission today and simply taken whatever painkillers she needed to keep her going. Rinse and repeat until it had fully subsided. Only now, given how she currently felt, she knew a few days on the sidelines was inevitable.

"It's going to be several days before that infection clears up, if we keep treating it with antibiotics. As for your ribs, normal recovery time is about three weeks, but given how fast you heal, they should be done in about two. If you don't overexert yourself."

"Two weeks!" Kim exclaimed. Her eyes then darted to the bracelet on her right wrist. While she was yet to test it, if it did as her mom claimed and brought down the respective blast shutters when she went within four feet of a window or outside door, she'd need to find some way to circumvent it. I'll go insane if I'm stuck here for two weeks and that's before adding in the Tweeb factor. She recalled the last time she'd been side-lined; with her back. She had been figuratively clawing at the walls by day four and only managed to last one week before she'd gone back into the field.

"I'm sorry, Kimmie, but that's how long it takes to recover from broken ribs. And that's assuming your body does indeed heal at an increased rate."

"I can't take two weeks off! What if Drakken or some other villain tries to take over the world?"

"Then someone else will just need to handle it, because you're grounded until I say otherwise, Missy," her mom said in her no-nonsense, no-argument tone, as she stood up from the computer.