A/N: More domestic Drakgo fluff! Also, this ficlet marks my 30th Drakgo story!

Sleepless

A familiar sound startled Drakken from sleep. And familiar though it was, he still started in fright whenever he heard it. He always needed a few seconds to analyze it before his racing heart would calm. Not that he really could analyze it...yet.

Shego hit him with a pillow from the other side of the bed.

"Go get her!" Somehow, Shego's grumbling was just as threatening in sleep as when she was wide awake.

Drakken rubbed his pained eyes. He wanted to argue that it was her turn...because it was. But he didn't.

He rolled out of the bed and this time, remembered to keep his eyes open as he crossed the moat. As he stumbled across the dimly lit room he wondered how long he had slept that time...and then realized it would probably be more efficient to count hours awake, since they were by far the more numerous.

He reached the bassinet and plucked the crying baby out, carefully tucking her up against his chest and shoulder and cradling her head for security. He started to pace back and forth in front of the crib.

"Do you have to stay in here?" Shego grumbled from the bed.

"I'd like to go back to sleep...as soon as she does," he answered, his tone a mixture of annoyance and pleading.

Shego didn't respond, so he continued to pace. And their tiny daughter, barely a month old, kept crying.

Several minutes passed.

"Ungh..." Shego groaned, sitting up and beginning to push her pillows against the headboard. "Come on. She's probably hungry anyway."

Drakken gratefully returned to the bed and handed the tiny baby over. And then he fell into the mattress and closed his stinging eyes. Seconds later the crying diminished to whimpers as a soft suckling sound began. And soon the whimpers disappeared entirely.

But the suckling kept Drakken right on the edge of wakefulness. It was still too new to be ignored. And despite being so tired he was in pain, he still marveled at the miracle.

With a grunt of exhaustion, he blindly reached across the mattress until his hand found Shego's thigh. He began massaging it lightly as he listened to the suckling and tried to measure his breaths to match the rhythm of the unique sound.

A few moments later, he felt Shego's fingers slowly combing through his hair as her nails lightly dragged against his scalp. He loved when she did that, and she knew it. It soothed everything in him that was crying out in pain from sleep loss.

The stinging of his eyes diminished ever so slightly as the minutes passed. He was too tired to keep massaging her leg, and finally stopped. A few minutes later he was aware of gravity moving his hand off of her leg and down to the sheets. He realized also that Shego's hand had left his hair at some point, though he wasn't sure when. The suckling sound had also stopped.

He felt a shift of weight, and he knew Shego had left the bed to return their daughter to her crib. He was still drifting in the dark behind his eyes when she returned, but he was slipping away fast.

He felt Shego lift his arm and place it across her middle as she moved to be nearer to him. There was still space between them, but he felt her warmth. He sighed long through his nose as his hand tiredly gripped at her hip once before falling across her back.

He was sinking into blessed oblivion, all grasp on reality vanishing.

And then the alarm clock sounded.

Drakken blinked painfully and stretched once before curling in on himself, his face twisting in a grimace of frustration as a small cry left his lips. The light level in the room rose to a dim but warm yellow glow as Shego pressed the appropriate panels on the headboard after turning off the alarm clock.

Drakken had pinched his eyes even more tightly shut against the pain of the noise and the light, but then he felt Shego's fingers caress his jaw and move softly behind his neck. He felt her hot breath on his face a split second before her lips lightly touched his. He couldn't help but return the gentle kiss.

Drakken opened his eyes to tiny slits.

"Good morning," she whispered, her eyes dancing in sympathetic amusement.

Drakken whimpered and closed his eyes again.

Shego continued pressing gentle kisses to his lips, some of which he returned and others he simply received.

He was surprised as suddenly the warm light in the room dimmed back to the natural darkness of the cave, broken only by the greenish glow of the artificial moat.

"Go back to sleep," Shego whispered. "I'll take her for a few hours."

The relieved sigh that left Drakken's lips just might have been offensive, he realized. But he was in too much pain to care, his aged body not ready for so few hours of sleep over so many days.

He was surprised when Shego's fingers returned to his hair, and her lips rested against his. She hummed softly as she occasionally pressed her lips to his in a kiss, but mostly she just rested against him.

"Sleep," she murmured into his mouth.

Finally, desperately, his mind slipped into unconsciousness, surrounded by the faintest happy awareness of his daughter's soft coo and the gentleness of his wife's touch.