Disclaimer: I do not own Kim Possible or have any claim to it.

Author's Note: I know, I should be working on Summer Break, and I'm sorry. The next chapter's about half done. This idea has been rolling around in my head for a while, and I was hoping that writing it would help me to focus on my main project. Ninnik Nishukan also covered this, but I wanted to do my own take on what might have happened after an enraged Shego chased Drakken toward the horizon at the end of Emotion Sickness. This loosely fits with my other stories.

Moodulation

He wasn't going to make it. That thought kept repeating itself over and over in Drakken's mind as he ran for his life toward the outskirts of town and his lair. Shego was 15 years younger, in much better shape, less burdened by heavy clothing, and fueled by mindless fury. He was getting a stitch in his side, and he didn't even know what he would do if he managed to get to the lair. He just had a vague idea that he could find something there to help him.

Inevitably, however, Shego caught up with him and tackled him to the ground. Oddly enough, this was not the first time she'd tackled him today, although the motives earlier had been very different.

Drakken continued to struggle, fighting desperately to keep green, glowing hands away from him while simultaneously searching for the Moodulator unit. She was the superior fighter, however, and she quickly got one of his arms pinned. When her knee pressed into a place dangerously close to his groin, he froze, afraid to move. She reared back, that twisted expression of rage still fixed on her face, and lifted her free hand to launch a point-blank plasma blast.

This is it, he thought, feeling a strange sense of calm come over him. I'm going to die at the hands of my crazed sidekick, thanks to an ill-advised invention. And it's not even mine! He closed his eyes, waiting for the deathblow.

It never came. Instead, he heard a distinct cracking sound and got a whiff of ozone. The faint, green glow behind his eyelids faded away. Cautiously, he cracked open first one eye, then the other. Shego was still on top of him, but instead of enraged, she now looked confused.

"Dr. D? What…?" Blinking, she rolled off of him into a sitting position. Then, she got angry again. "What did you do to me?"

"It wasn't me!" he protested. "Why on earth would I want to make you into a homicidal maniac?"

"Okay, I guess you've got a point," she admitted after a tense pause. "So what happened to me?"

"I, uh, have a theory," Drakken hazarded, raising his hands in the universal gesture of surrender. "May I?" Shego looked at him quizzically, then slowly nodded. He used one hand to lift her hair out of the way while he searched her neck with his eyes, trying not to think about the fact that this probably resembled checking someone for ticks after being in the woods.

When he found the offending item, it even looked a little like a tick – sort of round, with sharp, pointed legs that gripped the skin. He removed it and brought it out so Shego could see.

"What is that thing?" she demanded, lip curling in distaste.

"I believe Bortel called it a Moodulator," he explained, turning it over in his hands. Such a small thing to cause so much trouble. "You and Kim Possible must have 'acquired' them when you were fighting in his lab." The thing bore one large crack down the middle, with several smaller cracks radiating out from it. It must have shorted out somehow.

"Kimmie had one of these, too?"

"So it seems. Two relay devices with one controller."

"What's it supposed to do?"

"Obviously, it's for controlling emotions, although it's a bit rudimentary," Dr. Drakken replied. "It selects one basic emotion at a time and forces the subject to experience only that feeling."

"What could possibly be the point of that?"

"I have no idea," Drakken admitted. "Group therapy sessions?" There was a long pause, during which he puzzled over what could have caused the malfunction. He'd been pretty occupied at the time, but he thought that Kim Possible had managed to override hers as well. Maybe there was a clue there.

"Did I…did we…?" Shego asked awkwardly, breaking into his thoughts.

"What?" he asked distractedly.

"I…seem to have a memory of…a photo booth." She was staring at the ground, and Drakken immediately realized that she was referring to their lip-lock.

"Er, yes. That happened," he responded awkwardly. There seemed to be nothing else to say, so he watched her closely to see how she reacted to his confirmation. She just sat there, staring blankly.

"I'm sorry," she blurted out suddenly. "For…everything."

He wondered whether she was apologizing for trying to kill him, for kissing him, or both, but he was afraid to ask.

"That's all right," he said. "You weren't yourself." That was certainly true, yet Drakken felt a certain, vague emptiness. He'd been completely freaked out when she'd begun flirting with him, so why did he now have the feeling he was going to miss it. He shook his head in an effort to clear it. Evidently, Moodulators could have almost as profound an effect on bystanders as on the people who actually had them attached. He stood up and brushed himself off, still grasping the defunct item in his hand.

"I'll be going back to the lair now," he announced, leaving the invitation to her unspoken but hopefully implied. He walked away, and she made no move to follow, which was probably just as well. A little time apart would do them both good just now.

Drakken occupied his time by trying to determine how the Moodulator had broken. The only thing he could think of was that some deep-seated emotion had risen up and overwhelmed the limited circuitry of the device. So…deep down, Shego didn't want him dead, and he doubted that it was just because he was her employer. Even she couldn't possibly have that much emotional attachment to money. The only logical conclusion was that, at some level, she actually cared about him. That was interesting, and it was something to remember the next time she got irritated and started threatening him with her plasma.

The problem solved as well as he thought it was going to be, Dr. Drakken dropped the Moodulator to the ground and crushed it under his heel. He had no further use for it, and he didn't imagine that anyone else did, either.