Shego had packed up the remains of all of the lunches, including her strawberries. For some reason they weren't tasting as good as usual. She'd dumped the contents of the dog bowls and packed those and the unused toy ball up in the ice chest too now that there was extra room. She'd folded the blanket and set it atop the chest, leaned her crutch against them, pulled on her track pants, and now sat on her towel.

Waiting.

The dog was sniffing at her feet, but not licking them, so she ignored him. She tried to guess how long it would take Drakken with the burden of his aged mother to ascend the stairs and then for him to come back down, but she hadn't been paying attention while packing up the lunch.

She lay down on the towel and folded her hands behind her head, looking up the jagged sides of the ancient volcanic plug that was the lair. As she stared up at the sides that narrowed into a flat top just below the clouds she started feeling dizzy.

She rolled onto her side and stared over at the dog, who had tugged the neatly-folded blanket off of the ice chest and was dragging it around in the sand.

"He can't be serious," she said to no one.

She looked over at the door, and then lay her head back down. She hadn't put on any sunscreen.

"If he's not back here in five minutes I'm going to need that blanket..."

"Oh Drew, this is just like when you were a boy!"

Drakken's mother gave his arm a squeeze as he tied an orange bow on a red candy cane. He did feel a calming sense of nostalgia with the repetitive act as they tied bow after bow of varying colors onto the candy canes ahead of tying them onto the tree. Listening to his mother drone on with reminiscences was also a very happy change from what her visit had been so far.

"...And someday, maybe you'll even have someone special to share this with," his mother said as she finished up a sparkling silver ribbon.

Drakken blinked back to the present with a frown.

"We're supposed to be sharing it with Shego..." he said, not hiding his disappointment.

His mother faced him with a furrowed brow. "You want to share our traditions with your employee? You wouldn't feel obligated to do that if she'd just go spend Christmas with her own family."

Drakken dug his fingers into the couch cushions, his forehead creasing in frustration. "Mother... She's not just my—"

A blaring alarm—the intruder alarm—began going off in the lair with a repeating horn and red flashes. Drakken stood up with a start as his mother covered her ears in pain.

"What's that Drew? Is it a fire?"

"No!" he yelled over the noise, running for the main lab.

He skidded to a stop in front of the computer and turned off the alarm as he brought up the lair's security camera feeds in multiple-screen view.

"Drew, what on earth? This isn't...isn't some horrible criminal thing, is it?" his mother asked, wringing her hands in worry.

"Nnyeh, Mother! Quiet!" he said as he cycled through the multiple cameras, looking for the point of intrusion. Who would be breaking into the lair on Christmas Eve day...?

As he switched over to the camera overlooking the West beach his heart began pounding. Two police boats were pulling up in the cove not too far from the beach entrance to the lair.

Questions began racing through his mind faster than he could pause to think of possible answers. How had they found the lair? What crimes had he committed lately to warrant police attention?

He started making a list, going backward toward the summer when he and Shego had received their pardons. There were the St. Lucia bank robberies, the Martinique bank robberies, the St. Thomas museum robberies... Had they sold any antiquities that could have been traced back to them? They had to keep up the cash flow so he could purchase parts for his inventions... And Shego got bored so quickly unless she was—

Drakken staggered back from the computer with a choked gasp.

"What's wrong Drew?"

"Shego! I...I forgot about her!" he said as he ran from the room.

"She's a grown woman, she can take care of herself..."

He heard his mother's protest faintly as he ran for the balcony and the hover cars, not even considering the stairs. How long had he left her on the beach? Twenty minutes? Thirty?

He was about to hop into the closest hover car when he stopped short, his eyes going wide.

"Drew... What's the big hurry?" his mother complained, catching up to him. He felt her eyes on him for a moment, but then her gaze followed his own to the side of the hover car. "Oh, there you see? That's where that gang vandalized your fancy car."

Drakken shook his head with a quiet growl and ignored the obscenity, jumping into the car and starting it up.

"Drew! Wait for me!"

"Mother, this...this really isn't a good time for you to come with me," he protested. But she was already climbing into the car.

"Oh, nonsense. Poor Admiral Cuddles is down there too. If you're so busy being concerned about your employee, he's going to be jealous and want some attention," she said as she buckled her seat belt.

Drakken bit his lower lip as he lifted the car off and guided it down the side of the lair. He'd forgotten his dog too...

"Drew, you're flying without your seat belt!" his mother gasped.

He turned away so she couldn't see his grimace as he yanked the belt across his chest and buckled it. His panic about the police had been superseded by his concern about what Shego would do to him when he got down there. He wouldn't be able to pretend that he'd just been taking overly long. She was sure to know that he'd forgotten to come back for her.

As he brought the car down he saw three officers had disembarked their boats and crossed the beach to where Shego was still lounging on her towel, but with an indignant frown on her face. Swallowing nervously, he landed the car about ten yards away and then hopped out. He slowed his initial jog as he saw the stern looks of the officers.

"Ah..." he began, looking nervously between the three men and Shego. Admiral Cuddles was sniffing at the policemen's shoes and wagging his tail excitedly.

"Huh, look who it is," Shego greeted him with a frown.

"Dr. Drakken," a dark-brown-skinned police officer with a thick mustache and an accent something between British and French greeted him. "We're investigating an incident that happened yesterday evening on St. Vincent."

"Oh my!"

"Forty-eight," Shego said, drawing out the words as Drakken's mother joined them.

"Are you here about those cunts?"

The three uniformed men's eyes grew large as dinner plates.

"Mother! Let's...leave the officers to do their job without distraction, shall we?" Drakken said, taking his mother by the arms and turning her back toward the hover car.

"Drew Lipsky, if you're trying to hide some sort of underhanded goings-on from me... Or if Shego really is involved with that cunt gang and you're just turning a blind eye..."

Shego rolled her eyes.

"Mother! There is no gang! Please, just wait in the car!"

"But...if there's no gang then who vandalized your fancy car? Is Shego lying to you?"

"Don't worry about it!" Drakken said, his face starting to turn purple. "Now please...just wait in the car!"

"But if you knew it wasn't a gang, why would you—?"

Drakken was already jogging back to the officers, where Shego was standing up slowly using the crutch for support. He moved to her side to help her, but she slapped his hand away with her braced wrist and scowled at him.

Drakken recoiled, an anxious look on his face. He looked up at the three officers who were looking between the pair as if they'd just arrived from another planet.

"Ah...so... St. Vincent, you say?" Drakken said with a nervous smile. For some reason St. Vincent did ring a bell, but he wasn't sure why...

"Yes. A man made a report late last night, claiming that Shego had attacked him and deliberately released his $3,000 macaw."

Drakken looked at Shego, who rolled her eyes again.

"Ugh, I didn't attack him," she said with an exaggerated groan.

One of the other officers spoke up, a voice recorder in hand. "Would you care to give a statement?"

"Sure," Shego said, leaning on the crutch. "While I was in the vet with the dog, a man keyed my car," she said, pointing to the hover car. The third officer produced a small camera from somewhere and took a photo. "I was mad, so I let his bird out of its cage in the parking lot."

"The man says you...shot at him with your green fire," the first officer prodded.

Drakken swallowed nervously as Shego shrugged with another roll of her eyes. "Might have destroyed the bird's cage that way. But I never attacked the guy."

"I see... I'm very sorry to do this ma'am, but you'll need to come in to the island for further questioning."

Shego scowled, and Drakken quickly stepped in front of her, waving his hands.

"Now...now officers, surely this can wait until...a-after Christmas? My mother is visiting from New Jersey and just had a very long flight," he said with an innocent, beseeching smile.

The three uniformed men looked at each other. The one who had spoken first finally sighed. "If you were anyone else...no. But since you saved the world...we can wait a few days."

Drakken sighed heavily in relief, but Shego merely turned and began picking her way toward the hover car. Her going was made almost comically slow by the crutch's lack of stability in the sand, and Drakken watched with a grimace as she almost fell twice.

He balled up the picnic blanket, and tossed it and the ice chest in the back of the hover car.

"Can we help you ma'am?" one of the officers said as they all watched Shego.

"Sure," she said, tossing a glare over her shoulder at Drakken. The officer who had spoken moved to her side to help support her. "Nice to have a man a woman can count on around here."

Drakken grabbed Admiral Cuddles and hurried him back to the car as well, dropping him in his mother's lap. She looked a bit affronted, but held on to the sand-covered animal and began brushing him off. Drakken watched the police officer help Shego into the back seat of the hover car.

"Th-thank you again, officers," he said with too-big a smile. "We'll...expect your visit sometime after Christmas."

"Actually, if you could just give us a phone number, we could probably get this taken care of over the phone."

Drakken held his breath. Shego glared at him.

"Oh yes, that's a much better idea!" his mother said, joining the conversation again. "My son's phone number is..."

Drakken felt his blood racing as his mother gave out his private number to the police. He would have to change it...as soon as this St. Vincent business was over. He remembered now, he had seen the country's name on the receipt from the vet that he'd pulled from Shego's jacket pocket the night before.

"Thank you again, officers," Drakken said as the three men stepped back from the hover car. He leapt inside and started it up.

"Merry Christmas!" his mother called down with a wave.

Drakken stared at the rock in front of him as he brought the craft slowly up the cliff-face toward the balcony. But for the dog's scuffling around, shaking sand off of its fur into the floor of the car, the group was silent.

"Drew... Son?"

"Yes, Mother?"

"If you knew there was no cunt gang why did you tell me there was?"

Shego burst out laughing. Drakken turned to glare at her as he landed the hover car, but she was doubled over and holding her stomach as she seemingly gave up on all of it.

"You're not...involved in something evil again, are you?" his mother asked worriedly.

Shego swung her legs out of the car and landed on both feet with a hiss. Then using the crutch she began hobbling toward the door, still chuckling to herself.

"No, Mother! I...I invent things to better the world, now. Remember everything I showed you in the lab?"

He helped his mother out of the car, who still held Admiral Cuddles in her arms.

"But I don't understand. If you knew that the cunts—"

"Mother! Stop saying that! There is no gang, it's just a...a dirty word."

His mother's eyes widened behind her green glasses. "Drew Lipsky! You've been letting me say a dirty word and didn't tell me?"

Shego's laughter intensified, and he looked to meet her gaze from where she stood in the doorway. Her eyes flashed with anger and her mirth was suddenly gone. He knew if he didn't think fast he would have a green explosion of fury on his hands.

"I was just...I didn't... I wasn't..."

"Is it Shego? Is she involved in something you know about, and you're trying to protect her?"

Drakken looked back at his secret fiancée, who scowled and disappeared into the lair. He grabbed up everything from the picnic out of the hover car and hurried inside after her.

"You didn't answer me, Drew," his mother said, following close behind him.

Drakken passed Shego and gave her a pleading look as he went to divest himself of his burden in the kitchen. His mother looked between the two of them before following along.

"There's something you're not telling me, Drew Lipsky."

"Mother, please..." he said, leaning down on the counter and resting his head on his clenched fists.

It had all gone too far. Why they hadn't just told his mother the truth about he and Shego from the start was beyond him. Now that she was back on the idea of villainy she wasn't likely to let it go.

"Some Christmas Eve this is turning out to be," his mother said when she entered the kitchen, setting the dog down and moving to the sink to wash her hands. "We'll hardly have time to bake the cookies..."

Shego had followed them in with a frown. She sat heavily in one of the chairs and leaned her crutch up against the side of the table.

"Shego," his mother said, and he watched her look up with fire in her eyes. "Since my son doesn't seem to have the courage to tell you...I'll do it for him."

"What's that?" Shego asked. Drakken saw her right hand flare briefly, and he ran around the counter and pulled a chair to sit across from her and grabbed her hands in his.

"It's just not professional for an employee to spend the holidays with their boss. I can't figure out what it is you do for him, anyway. You should just make a clean break of it, and find a new job. Let him say goodbye to his past life."

Drakken bit his lower lip as Shego scowled.

"And you clearly haven't reformed all of your evil tendencies..." his mother continued, drying her hands on a dish towel. "Drew, I just don't understand how you don't see it. She's going to be a bad influence."

Drakken hung his head and grit his teeth. He felt the heat in Shego's hands and he held them tighter.

"Mother... Shego is...is..."

"I know you don't do well with change, dear, but if she leaves it will be the best thing for both of you. Here, Admiral Cuddles! You want something to eat?"

Drakken listened as his mother opened the ice chest and brought out the dog bowls. When he dared to glance up at Shego she was glaring. He wondered if she was mad at him for leaving her on the beach, or at his mother, or both.

"Well. I'm a bad influence. Clearly still involved in evil. What am I doing here?" Shego said quietly, in a voice far too flat. She started to stand up.