Diagnosis
The morning after Shego had been a little more like her normal self.
Embarrassed at her vulnerable moment during the nigh she had snapped at him several times during breakfast and actually threatened to hurt him if he ever told anyone about what had transpired.
"Good. That means she's holding together reasonably well." Drew thought as he ducked into his office.
The day went by without much excitement. Shego had gone to her martial arts class and Drew spent some time plotting his visit to the inventor of the moodulator, Dr. Cyrus Bortel.
After all the tasks of the day had been finished, Drew went to Shego who was watching 'Animal Rescue: Go City'.
"Shego, darling? I have go out on an errand. It might take a while, so if I'm running late, don't wait up for me." He went up to give her a quick kiss.
"Where are you going?" Shego asked as he turned to leave.
"Oh, just to visit a colleague. I'll be taking the air car."
"The air car? but...?"
Drew didn't hear her objection as the elevator door to the landing pad closed behind him.
Shego looked at the closed door.
"But you haven't used the air car since we were evil." She finished.
Doctor Cyrus Bortel tripped over something that felt like a power cable left on the floor of his lab.
"That's funny. I thought I'd cleaned this place up before I left..."
He fumbled for the light switch but something found it mere moments before he did.
It was a vine or a creeper of some sort. He looked down, trying to figure out where the strange plant had come from. He didn't get far, as more vines wrapped themselves around his legs, another slithered around his throat and squeezed threateningly.
Dr. Bortel gurgled and looked around in desperation and saw that all the creepers seemed to come from his favourite high backed chair which now slowly spun around.
The man sitting in the chair had a collar of marigold petals around his neck. Normally it would have looked laughable but the look in the blue-skinned man's eyes made Cyrus Bortel feel less inclined to laugh than he'd ever had in his entire life.
"Mister Lipsky..." He began.
"Doctor Drakken. Tonight it's Doctor Drakken!"
The doctor in question got up from the chair and slowly stalked closer to the captive inventor.
"Your stupidity may be your one saving grace." Drakken growled.
"Uh...?" Bortel managed.
"Don't 'Uh' me, graduate boy! How is it that your stupid soon-to-be-dead customers thought they could buy a moodulator from you and use it against me?"
By now some of the vines sprouted thorns and were getting horribly close to Dr. Bortels face.
"Is this a declaration of war? Is this some evil idiot's joke that good idiot's don't understand? because I'm not flippin' laughing, Cyrus!"
Dr. Drakken stopped and glared furiously at the terrified inventor. After a few moments the blue skinned man calmed down somewhat.
"I know you couldn't understand my position. Because if you did you wouldn't be standing there with that 'what's going on here, then?'-look slapped all over your chubby face!"
Drakken took a deep breath and straightened his jacket.
"But what you do know is where your customers live."
He leaned closer, his breath in the face of Dr. Bortel.
"If you hold back anything, I'll kill you. If you bend the truth or I think you're bending the truth, I'll kill you. If you forget anything, I'll kill you."
Drakken's eyes narrowed dangerously.
"In fact, you're going to have to work very hard to stay alive, Cyrus. Now, do you understand everything I've just said? Because if you don't, I'll kill you!"
Drakken's insincere smile was as friendly as a shark about to strike.
"Now, Dr. Bortel, you may enlighten me."
What Dr. Bortel had told him had been a disappointment.
Apparently the moodulators were no more. The prototypes Drakken had stolen back in his evil days were the only ones ever made and there was no reason to think Bortel was lying. His assumption that someone had made a moodulator ray to attack Shego had proved unfounded.
He had made sure that Bortel destroyed the blueprints and any remaining files on the moodulator project.
Before he left, he turned to Bortel who was already heading for his brandy snifter.
"One more thing, Cyrus..."
Dr. Bortel turned to look at the blue skinned man who was reabsorbing the vines and yanking the petals off of his neck.
"I was never here. Because you know what I'll do to you if you ever tell anyone, don't you?"
The intimidated inventor nodded.
"You'll kill me."
The flight back home was frustrating. Drew had to admit that the one clue he'd had turned out to be a dead end. So what could it be that made Shego unhappy? There had been no lost fights with Kim Possible for several years now. And why should there have been? He and Shego had been on the same side of the law as Kim and...whatshisname.
He knew Shego was constantly irked by any extended contact with her brothers (and who wouldn't be?) so they had agreed to avoid Team Go except during holidays and the occasional birthday.
Drew's frown eased up at a sudden thought.
Shego might not like her brothers but she did care for them just as they cared for her.
Maybe one of them could shed some light on the matter?
He whipped out his phone and called Go Tower.
The phone rang several times before someone picked it up.
"Mmmyeahello, Mego speaking." A tired voice mumbled.
"Mego? Hello, it's Docto...I mean Drew. Shego's boyfriend. We need to talk."
"Uh...what? It's past midnight, Drew. What's going on?"
"I was hoping you could help me with that. It's about Shego."
"Shego?" That seemed to get the middle brother of Team Go's attention. "Is she all right?"
"You tell me."
Drew told Mego what the sitch was with Shego, making sure to remind the purple hero that this was very confidential. Mego, who knew full well what kind of pain an older sister could inflict on a younger brother, agreed to keep the entire conversation very much a secret.
With their mutual survival reasonably secure, Mego began to tell Drew about how it had all began and how easily Mego took to the role of being a hero of Go City and how great he'd been at it.
"I'm a natural hero, you see. It's like a second nature to me and..."
"Yes, yes, you're awesome yaddayaddayadda!" Drew interrupted impatiently. "Is there a point to all this?"
"Of course there is! There is always a point to what I say and if people would only listen to..."
"Then tell me what the point is! Pretty please, with sugar on top!" Drew was gritting his teeth with annoyance by now.
"I'm a hero. Shego never was happy with it. That's why she became a villain. She said it herself."
"What did she say?"
"She said 'I am evil.' And you know what? I believe her."
"Of course she was evil. She came to work for me, remember?"
"Yes, but what you don't seem to get, is that she still is evil. A life of good just isn't for her."
"So you're saying she's unhappy because she tries to live a non-evil life while she still remains evil at heart?"
"Yes! Finally you get my point!"
Drew glared at the phone as if Mego could see his face.
"There's just one little thing that threatens to turn this little theory of yours into bovine manure."
"What's that?"
"Why is she still around? You, of all people, should know that Shego is very independent. She doesn't take orders very well. At least not without being all snarky and giving me lip about it. So, if a life without evil is so unbearable for her, why hasn't she just gone her own way and done the evil thing?"
Mego sighed in frustration.
"You know, for a formerly evil genius, you can be pretty dense, Drew."
"Oh, can I? Care to tell me what I'm missing?"
"Just a little thing called love."
"What?"
"I don't know how or why, but my sister loves you, Drew. OK? That's why she stays. That's why she tries to stay away from evil."
"So now it's my fault that she's miserable? Because the woman I love more than anything loves me? Is that it?"
"Well, I wouldn't out it quite like that but...kind of, yeah."
There was a long silence after that. After a while Mego asked:
"Hello? Are you still there?"
"Yes. Yes I am." Drew replied.
"It's good I picked up instead of my brothers. Unlike them I can really..."
"Yes, thanks. Goodbye."
Drew hung up.
The rest of the trip back home Drew was lost in deep thought.
Just like that fateful day on the Lorwardian spaceship, he realized with absolute clarity, what it was he had to to.
