Shego glared at the line of temporary villain lairs, her mind wondering why she was even bothering with this whole search for Amy when she wanted Doctor D. Of course, this was much easier to think than to actually act as she found out. Finding Amy was one thing since she was at least still active in the villain community to a certain extent, but the doc? Completely off the map. It was almost unnerving.

But even including the failure to find even a thread of evidence about Drakken's whereabouts, finding Amy was a lot more bothersome of a chore than she thought it would be. Stupid DNAmy and her decision to sell her crappy saccharine house and go who-knows-where. Well, now Shego knew where she was, but trying to find her had been a nightmare.

She'd tried tapping into her old contacts to find either Amy or the doc, but for some reason she was having trouble reaching them. All of them. Probably had to change their contact info, but Shego was still offended that they hadn't forwarded it to her in some fashion. In fact, she had tried to resort to going to that creep Big Daddy. Tried being the operating word as, to her shock, he had actually gone into semi-retirement. How could information brokers go into semi-retirement and still be relevant?

It did work out for her in the end, though. After playing some of his patently humiliating games, he offered her up a tidbit of info to go see a gentleman he knew in Beijing. Who told her to go to Paris to see a lady friend of his. That gave her the hint to go to Chile. By the seventh go of the stupid fetch quest crap, Shego was ready to roast the next person to try it.

Which she did. It only took a bit of singeing to get the informant to give up the ghost and finally give up the location of that damned geneticist. If her contacts were actually in touch with her Shego knew that she could have dodged all this stupidity.

Shego was finally where she wanted to be, though. The lame-o rent-a-lairs in the outskirts of Lowerton. She hadn't seen these since Drakken had his flashbacks to his ancestor with the bad haircut.

Shaking her head at the silly memory, she walked over to Warehouse 7 and tried the door. Open, as she expected. Brotherson and his games…

Shego walked in confidently, hands alight to provide some illumination. She quickly realized it wasn't necessary, however, as the object of her search was easy enough to see. It's hard not to notice when there's a massive spotlight shining down on an almost comical scene; Amy sitting patiently in a floral chair with a coffee table laden with goodies, a serene smile on her face. Across from her sat an empty identical chair, clearly meant to be where Shego would sit.

Never before had Brotherson been so obvious with a game as he was with this. It was almost disappointing to see how far he'd slipped from being semi-retired.

"It's SO good to see you again!" Amy gushed, interrupting Shego's train of thought. "You know, I had worried when I heard that you took a vacation down in Chile. It was out-of-character for you to run away from something."

Shego snarled, "I wasn't-"

"Or was it?" Amy seemed to consider something. "Silly me, I forgot about your vacations. Always getting away from worrisome worky. And your fear of commitment… I think we were all shocked when you ran off on Drakken!" Amy giggled as she grabbed a cookie. "Let's not even mention your brothers…"

A growl escaped Shego's lips. Fucking Brotherson! What was he playing at? "Amy, don't push your luck. I just need-"

"-what I know about silly Drewbie." The shorter woman bit into a cookie. "Oh, I just love gingersnaps!" She gestured to the open chair, smiling at the lithe mercenary. "Don't be rude; sit down! Let's chat and exchange some juicy girl gossip."

"Thanks but no thanks," she said with some annoyance. A dog she was not, and she was tired of being yanked around like she was on a leash. There wasn't a chance in hell that she was going to sit for Brotherson as well. In fact, she decided, she should be giving the demands right now. The flames in her hands burned brighter as she leaned over to look Amy square in the eye. "I think that maybe we should skip the chit-chat and go straight to you telling me everything I want to know."

"I don't think you're the one calling the shots here," Amy said, wiggling a finger at her.

"Oh really?" She laughed at the sitting woman. "Then who is? Brotherson?"

"Nope!" Her finger instead pointed somewhere behind Shego. "He is!"

"Who-?!" Before she could turn around, Shego felt her arms being twisted and pinned behind her, her flames intensifying even more out of reflex as she cried out in surprise and pain. She was forced to the floor, a knee in the small of her back and her arms twisted to the limits of their flexibility, which, she realized belatedly, had suffered in her self-imposed exile.

"Oh, that's just Jimbo, silly!" Amy tittered delightedly. While she was pinned and unable to move her arms, she could still turn her head enough to see who had attacked her. A tall man with a fez glared down at her, his free, mitten-covered hand-which, to Shego's disgust, matched the pattern on the chairs-holding a tray.

"Jimbo?!" Shego gasped, shocked that Amy had somehow acquired his services. Then she remember that of course she did, Daddy was involved! He was probably recording this crap for future entertainment.

"He'll let you up if you promise to behave yourself," DNAmy said in a sing-song voice. Shego considered just turning up the heat even more, but quickly dropped it when the geneticist added, "If you haven't guessed yet, this material the chairs and his gloves are made of? Same as your suit. The pattern might be different, but I'm surprised you didn't recognize it by the sight all the same." Another giggle escaped her as she asked, "Will you be a good girl and not attack your hosts?"

Shego grumbled, but, after a few tense moments, nodded stiffly and dropped the flames. Jimbo let go of her and stood up, taking care to place the tray of cookies on the table before he lent a mittened hand to her to help her up. The mercenary pointedly ignored his proffered hand, instead opting to stand on her own and brush herself off.

With a flip of her hair and a judgmental glare at Jimbo, Shego walked over to the putrid-patterned chair and sat down. "So, Amy, how about you tell me about how the doc's doing? Hmm?" She tried to be as cordial as she could, but couldn't keep the snip out of her tone.

"Hmmm…" The geneticist nibbled on another cookie before shaking her head. "I don't think so, Sugar-Booger. You've been a naughty guest! How about we split the difference?" Amy pulled a piece of paper out of her pocket and offered it to Shego. "I won't tell you what he's been doing, but I will give you his address and warn you that you might not like what you find when you get there."

"ARGH! You...you…" The green woman was nearly tearing her hair out at the annoyance levels of the plump woman in front of her. She considered again applying a bit of pressure via heat-to-rear, but the crackling of Jimbo's fists as he eyed her slight freak-out reminded her of why it might not be a wise move. After all, she was a great mercenary and an incredible fighter, but Jimbo was-had been-an experienced bodyguard for a very sought-after man. She could probably take him, but it would cost her.

And it wasn't worth it. The geneticist's info was probably out of date anyway.

"Fine," she snapped, snatching the folded paper out of the waiting hand and unfolding it. "Go ahead and yank me around. I'll still have the last laugh." Eyes darted over the paper's neat yet curly handwriting. And again. Shego sighed as she reread it one last time. "You're shitting me."

"Now now, Shego! Mind your language." Amy popped another cookie into her mouth and giggled. "Really though, I'm surprised that you didn't think to look there."

"How was I supposed to know…?" The mercenary cut herself off, shaking her head. "You know what? I don't care. I'm gonna go to this place and you had better hope that he's actually there!" Her hands lit up as if to burn the paper, but she thought better on it and instead tucked it away in her pocket and lit up some of Amy's cookies instead. "Oops. Looks like some of your cookies burned. What a shame…" Shego tsked as she stood up and turned away, making a show of walking out. "Laters, Amy."

Amy let out a breath of disappointment once she was sure Shego was gone. "Oh dear. It seems I owe Teacher a case of his favorite yum-yums. I didn't think that she was that rusty!" Standing, up, she signaled Jimbo to follow as she turned to leave out the other exit. "I hope that she won't go into shock when she sees the good doctor…"

Looking from the sheet of paper that Amy had provided her to Drakken's current residence, Shego shook her head in fond annoyance. It seemed...anticlimactic, to find Drakken in the lair he'd had in Middleton. Though she supposed it would be worse if he'd kept that not-secret not-haunted island.

To her surprise, the lair wasn't quite how she remembered it. Instead of being a random little bunch of peaks in the middle of a suburban area with a laboratory at the top, there was now a house built right at the base of the peaks. It was surprisingly average, to her great distaste, having the classic white picket fence, disgustingly cute lawn ornaments, and a sign that said 'Beware of Dog' with a crudely drawn poodle. Shego was certain that Drakken had painted that.

The house itself was even worse. Two story, white shutters, bright blue paint job, garden growing along the front of the house… The only thing Shego could think of that would force Drakken into such depravity was the strong-arming of his mother forcing him to try to adopt some normalcy to his life. And, naturally, he went overboard.

It wasn't surprising that his strong-willed mother stepped in to try and make him change. But that was okay. She was back, and it wouldn't take much to get Drakken back to his usual self. She knew him, after all, and this was not what he wanted.

Shego walked through the chintzy fence and up the little cobblestone path to the door, reflecting on the conversation she'd had with DNAmy. Warning her about change? Drakken and change? The worst of it looked to be this house.

HA! Like some crappy decorating was going to stop her!

The door was, as she expected, just as average. There was a doorknocker, but she ignored that in favor of the doorbell. Instead of pushing it once or a few times, though, she kept her finger on the buzzer for a full ten seconds, then kept alternating on and off every other second. Just in case he was in the lab. Shego was generous like that.

It took a minute, but she eventually heard movement inside of the house. A bit of crashing, some muffled curses, and increasingly loud and hurried footsteps making their way to the door. She almost started to self-consciously fix her hair before she caught herself and forced her arms to cross. Gah, what was she nervous about? It was just-

The door opened.

Shego looked at the man who'd opened the door. It was a bit of a shock to her system, seeing Doctor D after so long. Especially since he didn't look like Doctor D.

Oh, she could tell it was him. No one could pull off that flabberghasted look like he could. The differences were still shocking as she had not been expecting them at all.

First of all, he was no longer blue. Drakken was instead strangely pale, almost to a sickly degree. She wasn't really surprised that when he wasn't blue he was amazingly white. It was the fact that he wasn't blue at all that caught her a bit off guard. Shego had never even imagined him without his blue pallor.

Second, his clothes lacked the mad edge they used to have. He was wearing a lab coat, but it was frighteningly practical. It looked like a generic lab outfit from the discount store, except it had spots of stains and burns here and there. She would have entertained the idea that he was an imposter if his coat had been spotless, though the frayed bottoms just screamed at her that he had stopped caring about his mad image. Image was something she was good at; it wouldn't be too long before she whipped him back to shape on that front.

Third, and this one she couldn't fully pin down, he looked...younger? Brighter? There was something about him that lacked that hard anger that seemed to follow him wherever he went before she left. It was weird and vaguely uncomfortable. The only thing she could really think of was that he'd managed to go soft while she was gone. Exactly the opposite of what she'd told him to do when she left.

Really, though, what had she been expecting? Shego was the one that held everything together, after all. She really should have thought about that before she left him to wallow in his failure.

She was still going to rag on him about it, though.

Shego opened her mouth to begin her snarky tirade on his failings, only to find that Drakken had also taken her in and regained himself-enough to snarl at her and slam the door in her face. That only shocked her to silence for a moment.

"What the hell?!" she yelled through the door. Shego knew he was still there; he hadn't stormed off like he most certainly would have if he was going to leave.

"Go away!" Drakken shouted through the door. "Go away or I'll release the hound!"

"Yeah, right," Shego snarked as loud as she could. "Such a vicious little poodle. Shaking in my boots here." A sigh escaped her as she pounded on the door. "Would you just let me in? My car broke down anyway, so I'm kind of stuck here. You might as well let me in." An easy little white lie would get the doc to let her in-

"Liar!" Drakken snapped. The green woman heard the lock click.

-or not.

She lightly growled to herself. This was not how she'd imagined it would be. Drakken was a lot angrier than the mercenary had ever thought he would be about her returning. What in the world was wrong with him?

Shego decided to give voice to the thought. "What in the world is wrong with you?"

There was a small pause before he replied, "What's wrong with me?! What's wrong with you, Shego!?" Suddenly the lock clicked and the door swung open, and Shego was face-to-face with a severely red-faced (a state she never thought she'd see him in) and pissed off Drakken.

"What do you mean what's wrong with me? You're the one who is being weird," she countered, cocking her hips in annoyance.

"YOU LEFT!" he bellowed, his voice a tangled mix of confusion, anger, and a tinge of hurt. "You left, said that, that I 'wasn't good enough'! What was with that whole growing up thing you were talking about? I just-" Drakken had to pause to take a couple breaths before meeting her eyes with a glare. "I do not want to talk right now."

"I didn't-"

"I WILL," he spoke over her, "talk with you later." A short pause, she could tell he was gathering his thoughts. "At dinner. I… I need to think. And talk with a therapist."

"Yeah, okay. Sure," she replied, feeling a satisfaction settle around her. Dinner was what she had been aiming for anyway. Catch up, get a meal, figure out where to take their lives from here. She could give him a few hours to talk with his therapist. "I'll be back around…" she spared a glance at her watch "...six? That's long enough to call up a shrink and fix some grub."

Drakken stiffly nodded. "Yes. Six. That'll work."

"Got it. It's a date," Shego said with a chuckle. She skipped off to her car, leaving Drakken sputtering at her statement. As an afterthought, she added, "Oh, and no spinach puffs or cocoa moo!"

Author's Notes

I'm still not dead! Things at work finally settled down to a regular schedule, mostly because I kind of collapsed at work... Yeah... Anyway, hope this chapter is enjoyable.