Shego was trapped in a quandary.

The dinner she and the doc were having would definitely be an intimate affair. Talking out whatever bug was up his butt, figuring out who had put the dumb ideas into the scientist's head about picket fences and regular lab coats, and just sussing out all the crap to start shaping him back up. The way he was now, she'd almost think he wasn't a villain anymore!

But an intimate dinner meant that there would be intimate food. She knew that dork wouldn't know anything about intimacy save that he'd never experienced it before. It was up to her to provide the real meal. A plan had already formed in her head. She'd briefly considered kidnapping a high-tier chef, but she knew that that would not only result in their food getting spat on, it would be something so dumb that only Drakken would actually do it on the spot like that with no plan beyond 'get a chef'. As nicely evil as kidnapping would've been, she didn't want to jump whole-hog into it yet, plan or no. She still needed to rehab the doc.

For now, she was starting with the first step: what kind of wine could she get that was good enough for her but wouldn't make him start in on a tirade about how horrible it tasted?

As she examined a Château Lafite Rothschild in the only halfway-decent wine shop in the tricity area (in Upperton, what a shocker), she sensed someone walking up behind her.

"I'll look for you if I need help," Shego said dismissively, waving her free hand at the clerk that was probably checking to make sure she wasn't going to run off with the bottles. Normally she would just stroll out with what she wanted, but she kept in the forefront of her mind the number one need to rehabilitate the doc's villainy. Clearly he needed a refresher course.

"You can't exactly call me or beep me if you want to reach me anymore," a frustratingly familiar, bemused voice said from behind Shego. Her fists clenched, and she had to rein herself in to not bust the very expensive wine she was handling. Still, there was no

fucking

way

that she was here.

Why would she even be here? Shego didn't have any active warrants out on her as far as she knew. She'd barely been able to do anything since she got stuck in-..

Ah. That was it. Doing the 'scare' routine, like that would actually affect Shego any which way.

"My my Princess! I'm barely in town a few hours and you're already tracking me down? Is there something you want me to know? I was gone a long time," She looked over to the redhead to keep hassling-..

She blinked a few times. Huh. This wasn't Kimmie. It was Kimmie's mom. Kinda weird to be running into her, but the older redhead did seem to know about higher-end lifestyle.

...wait. Kimmie's mom's eyes were blue, not green; the woman in front of her had the same shade of eyes as Kimmie did.

"Hello Shego," Kim Possible said, a wry twist of her lips giving Shego enough of a hint that she'd reacted to seeing the redhead for the first time in years.

There was something… off about the wo-.. Girl. Her words felt off, unlike the bantering teen heroine that she had been just a few years prior. Damn, Kimmie grew up - and filled out. She really was the spitting image of her mother now. But there was a bright side; now Shego could mock her for looking old. ...except she just… Couldn't. It didn't feel right, thinking of Kimmie as grown up. It was just wrong.

"Funny, running into you at a wine store of all places," Shego said, trying to regain some of her cool and ignoring the heeby-jeebies she was getting seeing Kim Possible as she was now.

"I didn't just run into you," Kimmie stated, apparently putting all her cards on the table. "I came to chat a bit about Drew."

"How did you-.." The redhead blithely pointed to her watch, the communicator thing. The piece fell into place. "Oh. Right. Nerdlinger." Another piece popped up at her. "But how did you know I'm getting back with the doc? I've barely been in town for part of a day!"

"Getting back with him?" The younger wo-.. Girl shook her head and chuckled in a full-of-herself way. It made Shego want to punch her in her smug little face. "Delusional much? Anyway, Drew called me."

"He called you," Shego deadpanned. That was one of the dumbest things she'd heard that day, and she'd talked with Doctor D.

"Yes." Kimmie checked her watch, apparently trying to keep a good handle on the time. "He said he'd told you that he was calling me."

"He sure as hell never said-.."

"He told you he was calling a therapist," Pumpkin interrupted, irritating Shego even more. It made her next question come out more vicious than she'd wanted, instead of staying cool and amused.

"Why would you show up when he called his therapist? Dealing with some huggy-huggy stuff about you always punching him in the face?"

Another condescending chuckle. "He said he was calling a therapist. Not his."

The green woman took a second to process that. That sneaky sonofa-.. ...it made her feel a little proud of him. Clearly he hadn't gone completely rusty, and improved in a few areas, while she was gone. Maybe he wouldn't be as hopeless as she thought he'd be.

It also gave Shego another piece to the puzzle. "A therapist, eh? World-saving not enough to keep you busy?" Shego set the bottle down and made like she was thinking about something, tapping her chin. "Or maybe poor lil' Princess is so bored that she even keeps tabs on apparently benign old has-beens."

Kimmie's eyebrow rose as she said, "Drew is an 'old has-been'? And I'm not busy with saving the world?" Another little chuckle, the condescension grinding against Shego's mind and irritating her in a way unlike their normal banter. "I'm guessing you haven't been paying much attention to world events."

"If it involved Drakken, if it was evil, I would've cared enough to pay attention," Shego said with an easy shrug of her shoulders. "Otherwise 'world events' are about as interesting as Junior's obsession with his looks."

That seemed to catch Kimmie a bit off-guard. The annoyingly first time in the entire conversation.

"Wow. You really haven't been paying attention…" the redhead said, apparently awed at the fact.

"What, the Junior comment?" It was the only thing that would've piqued Cupcake's radar like that without being mentioned before in the conversation.

"You are referring to Señor Senior, Junior?"

"Like there's another one?" Shego scoffed, wondering what the bonehead had done to get Kimmie to react like that.

"The same Junior who is currently the Terran ambassador to the United Galactic Federation?" Kimmie said dryly.

...huh.

Shego took a few moments to process that. She couldn't help but ask incredulously, "That Junior?"

"Well duh," Pumpkin said in a half-mock of her normal tone. "After he and Bonnie got married, he became a lot more grounded. He had to, once the divorce proceedings started. Can you believe he got married without a prenuptial agreement?"

"That sounds like the Junior I know," Shego said, smirking. "I guess not everyone can exist in a vacuum like the doc can."

Kimmie's lips twitched, but she didn't say anything.

"Speaking of which…" Shego leaned against the open space of wall between racks of wine. "You'd mentioned something about talking to me about Doctor D?"

"Yes, I did," Cupcake said sternly. "I'm here to tell you to leave him alone."

A short silence hung around, an apparent attempt to make the message 'sink in'.

Shego couldn't stop herself. A bark of laughter broke out of her, loud and sharp. Pretending to wipe her eyes, the green woman said, "That has got to be the funniest thing I've heard all day! Leave the doc alone? After I finally decided to take him back?" Shego slapped her leg and gave a small fake laugh this time. "Oh Princess, you are just too funny."

"Why do you even want to come back now, of all times?" the redhead said with a needling tone. "What makes you suddenly think that he's good enough for you now?

Shego rolled her eyes. "I gotta admit, most of it was me getting bored." She studied her nails, not wanting to look at the stupidly mature wo-.. girl. "It'll be fine. Just have to whip him back into shape. Should've realized he would've slacked off without me. Though really, I don't get what he spent his time doing." A chuckle escaped her lips as an absurd idea struck her. "Maybe trying to woo some women? Ha!"

"Can't accept that he might have changed, or grown?" the former teen heroine queried with some curiosity and something else Shego couldn't recognize. "It isn't possible that he might have actually gotten a few dates since he saved the world?"

Saved the world? Yuck. Still sounded wrong, even in her head.

But Cupcake had a point. Even with how pathetic he was, he would've gotten at least a few pity dates out of the entire thing. So maybe he really might have an idea about what to cook and crap. It would certainly save her the trouble of going around and gathering everything from Chez Chateau and those other fancy crappy restaurants around here.

"Yeah, maybe he might've," she grudgingly admitted. Before Kimmie could be too smug, Shego added, "but that muddle-brained idiot would never have any booze in his home. We both know Mama Lipsky wouldn't've let him."

"His mother is dead," the redhead said flatly.

Oh. Oh. Suddenly it made more sense that he'd give in so easy to what his mom wanted, in keeping with her memory. But alcohol?

"Like that would encourage him to like something like fine wine," Shego deadpanned, tapping the bottle she'd been holding.

"You never know…" Cupcake gave an easy shrug. "Maybe his wife likes it?"

Shego froze, then, eye twitching, began to process what Kimmie had said. "Wife? Doc has a wife? Like…" The entire idea was foreign to her. It didn't make a lick of sense. "...someone felt sorry enough for him that they willingly tied the knot?"

"Ohhhh trust me, it wasn't a pity marriage," Pumpkin said with a smirk. "Those two are rather happy together."

"Uh-huh." Like Doctor D could be happy with anyone but her! What was Kimmie trying to pull?

"You doubt me, but you'll find out when you meet her tonight." The redhead checked her wrist device thing and tapped it. "Gotta jet. Have to get ready for a dinner date of my own."

"You and Monkey Boy eating off the kid's menu somewhere?" Shego snarked.

"Hm? Me and Ron?" Cupcake shook her head. "We haven't been together for years. Partners? Yeah, still are. Best friends forever? Totally. But romance? Nope!"

The green woman blinked a few times, then smarmily asked, "Got tired of his antics?"

"Nah. We just didn't work out like that." Kimmie turned and began walking away. "Oh," the redhead gasped, like a last-minute idea had popped into her head. She looked back at Shego and said dismissively, "and don't worry about getting any wine. I happen to know that the Lipsky's have a very nice selection of wine in their cellar."

Shego glared in the direction that Kim was strolling off in, fuming. Who did she think she was? Giving her a supposed heads-up on Drakken's wife? Ha! She doubted that the dummy could've convinced anyone to marry him except for her. Kim was probably just trying rile her up with that kind of foolish thought. And even if he did, it was probably a sucky marriage anyway.

But…

Assuming Kimmie was telling the truth…

Who would even bother with someone like Drakken except her?

A/N: Someone asked me about this a while ago. Actually felt like writing it a bit, so I did! Hopefully it's decent enough without a beta looking through it.