26. Burning the midnight oil

December 24, 2006

Shego yawned and sat up from where she'd finally lie down on the floor when her eyelids had grown too heavy. She looked up at the old wall clock that ticked relentlessly in Mama Lipsky's house, realizing that was what had woken her. It was past one o'clock in the morning, and she wanted nothing more than to turn out the lamp and fall back to sleep even right there on the aged rug.

But, she had a gift to wrap.

The house was finally quiet, Drakken's mother long asleep and hopefully the blue-skinned man himself as well. He'd said he was going to wait up to catch Santa after the special airing of Snowman Hank, and so she'd taken that as the perfect opportunity to tease him and tell him she'd be getting some real sleep before the big day. It was just the excuse she'd needed, but, she had underestimated Drakken's ability to stay awake.

She mentally scolded herself for doing so; after all, the man was known to stay awake for days on end in the lab. Thus, she had waited until she had no energy left herself for wrapping his gift. But she had to... A fire to please him was burning in her chest, and she knew how much this would mean to him.

She moved nearer to the lamp and surveyed all of the wrapping materials she had laid out, and then down at the gift. She ran her fingers over the one slightly-charred corner of the picture album—a result of the destruction of the lair the year prior—and then flipped to see the new photos she had added. She smiled softly and felt a flutter in her chest in anticipation of his opening the gift, and then she closed the album and set it back in the box.

The hands on the clock had moved well-past one by the time she was finished, taking extreme care with the wrapping and the curling of the ribbons after she had tied them. There was a small pile of wasted ribbons that she felt weren't curled up to standard, not for Drakken's mother but for him... Something within her wanted him to know that she had in fact been paying attention.

The gift finally wrapped and addressed with a small stick-on snowman tag, she crept down the stairs in the old home to sneak the present under the tree. Mama Lipsky's living room looked like something out of a storybook with the colored lights glowing softly through the darkness, and a small ember still flickering in the fireplace. The ebb and flow of the shadows it cast were the only movement in the room, and Shego smiled victoriously as she tiptoed to the tree.

She found a spot to nestle the gift so that it looked natural and that hopefully Drakken wouldn't immediately notice when he came down the stairs in the morning, and then she turned to leave.

"Ah-ha! You won't get away this time, Santa Claus!"

Shego gasped in shock and lit up her hands as she fell into a fighting stance even as she processed that it was her ridiculous and often childlike significant other who had made the exclamation. She watched as he groggily stumbled upright from where he'd been asleep on the sofa, grinning wildly and blinking tiredly around the room.

Shego caught her breath as she watched his face fall to confusion seeing the room bathed in a menacing green glow before he finally spotted her in front of the tree, blinking in confusion.

"Shego? Where's Santa?"

"Probably dealing with damp pants after too many kids on his lap at the mall," Shego said, relaxing her stance and her hands.

Drakken rubbed her eyes and peered at her in confusion.

"What are you doing down here?"

Shego felt her heart skip, but she quickly put on an irritated expression.

"Coming down to drag your blue behind up to bed. You wanna enjoy Christmas, don't you?" she said, stepping near and pulling on his arm.

"But Shego! My plan was foolproof! The moment Santa finishes leaving my gifts, then..." Shego watched as Drakken pushed a button on a remote she'd not seen in his hand, and then a blue, glowing force-field covered the front of the fireplace. The small ember within immediately waned.

"You were going to choke Santa to death in the fireplace?" she asked with a raised brow.

"Ngh... No, Shego, I was going to prevent him from leaving!"

"Why?" she said, pulling him toward the stairs the moment he disengaged the force-field.

"Why!? Because, ah...hnn... Because it's every kid's dream to catch Santa!"

"Kid is right," Shego said with a scoff as she took the remote away from him and started pushing him upstairs.

"But, Shego..." he protested.

"Don't you want to be awake to enjoy presents and everything else tomorrow?"

Drakken's expression was glum, but he nodded in acknowledgement as he gave one last glance around the living room before finally giving in and letting Shego push him up to the landing. She sighed in relief and gave his shoulders a sympathetic rub when he yawned as they continued down the hall, her own yawn following moments later. It was well past time to say good night.