Second part.

I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank everyone who reviewed this story and the first one. Your kind words mean a lot to me.

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The knock at the door brought him straight up out of his thoughts. Shego was here.

He flung open the door and belted out, "Shego, I want a puppy!"

"Good morning to you, too, Doc," Shego replied. Her lips twitched at the corners, which meant that for the moment she found him more amusing than annoying.

"So, can I have one?" Drakken asked hopefully.

"No."

He felt himself deflate. That was one thing he would never understand about Shego - how she could be so nice to him and then turn around and casually crush his dreams with one simple word.

He begged. He showed her the article about dogs lowering your blood pressure. He explained to her about unconditional love. (All that did was make her snort.) He promised to feed it - and walk it - and give it fresh water.

Finally, after about two hours of that, Shego held up her hand. "If I let you get a puppy, will you shut up?"

Drakken nodded immediately.

"Fine, then." Shego heaved a huge sigh and flipped her glossy dark hair over one shoulder.

Something bubbled up inside him that made him jump up and down and clap his hands - because he was sure if he didn't, he would just explode from joy. "Thank you, Shego!" he cried. "Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank -"

"If you keep that up, I'll reconsider," Shego muttered, reaching for her nail file. He wasn't sure whether that meant she was about to file her nails from boredom or stab him with it from irritation. Either way, he stopped the "thank you"s.

"So," Drakken mused, rubbing his chin in thought, "where would be the best place to steal one from?"

Shego's green, cat-like eyes sprang wide open. "Oh, no, Dr. D.," she muttered. "You aren't gonna go steal a dog."

Drakken felt his hands fly to his hips. Who was she to tell him what he should and shouldn't do? She was just the sidekick, after all! "Why not?" he demanded.

Shego unfolded her fingers from their clenched fists and began to tick things off on them. "First of all, you can get them for free at the animal shelter. And, second of all, if the police found out, they'd take the puppy away from you, and I'm assuming you don't want that."

Okay, so maybe she knew what she was talking about.

"Fine," he muttered. "We'll go to the animal shelter. This afternoon."

"Goody," Shego grunted. "I can hardly wait."

**********

He was overwhelmed. There were so many dogs, young and old, big and small, all different colors (well, maybe not all different colors; he didn't see any blue ones, and that made him feel a little conspicuous), and they all needed homes. The second they saw him, their big brown eyes lit up and they started thumping their tails against the floors of their cages.

Drakken waved at them all awkwardly. He wasn't used to anyone being happy to see him. He had half-expected them all to start growling at him when he walked in the room.

"Which one do I choose?" he muttered.

Shego didn't seem to hear him. She had walked over to a cage full of chubby little beagle puppies and was sticking her hand inside. "Oh, they are so cute!" she squealed.

Drakken's entire world was knocked off its axis. He had never heard sassy, no-nonsense Shego squeal before. Maybe puppies did bring out the best in everyone.

"Can I help you, sir?" a worker asked, walking up to him, scribbling something on her clipboard. When she saw Drakken, her eyes widened and her mouth dropped open.

Yes, I know I'm blue. And yes, I know I have an enormous Band-Aid on my face. You can quit staring now!

But she didn't, and that made him squirm. And when his brain went into knots and he couldn't think of a single thing to do or say, there was only one thing to do.

"Shego!" he hollered.

Shego tore herself away from the cage of beagles and sauntered over. "Yeah?" she said in her usual I-am-so-bored tone.

Drakken pointed at the worker. "She asked me if she could help me, and I..."

One of Shego's eyebrows went up, and Drakken slowly realized exactly how stupid he sounded. "Don't pay any attention to him," she said to the worker. "He doesn't get out much."

Drakken felt his face grow hot.

The worker recovered then, shaking her head and chuckling to herself. "Oh, that's okay," she said. "So, can I help you two?"

"I suppose," Shego muttered. She pointed at Drakken. "He wants a puppy." She gave her cat-eyes a roll.

"Ah." The worker's eyebrows went up, and she and Shego exchanged a glance that made Drakken feel like someone was talking about him behind his back. "I see."

"So, do you want any of these little guys?" Shego gestured toward the beagle cage. "They're awfully cute."

The puppies wagged their tails and fell all over each other in excitement. Between Shego squealing and puppies being happy to see him, the whole thing was starting to feel like a scene from The Twilight Zone.

But Drakken shook his head without really knowing why. "No. They aren't what I'm looking for."

Shego put her hands on her hips. "Well, then, Mr. I-Want-A-Puppy, what are you looking for?"

Drakken shrugged. "I'll know it when I see it."

"Oh, boy," Shego said with a snort. "We are gonna be here all day, aren't we?"

But they weren't. For just at that moment, Drakken's eyes lit on a nearly-empty cage at the end of the room. Curled up inside was a lone tiny, puffy, pink poodle puppy.

Something pulled him across the room toward the cage, like a giant magnet pulling all the continents together so that the whole world was one big continent and a lot easier to rule. Ooh, good idea.

Drakken went over and peered into the cage. The puppy had his chin resting on his front paws, which looked like tiny pink cupcakes. Mmm, cupcakes...

But the poodle didn't even seem to notice him. His doggy eyebrows were shifting from side to side, and those little eyes of his looked...sad. And lost. And scared. It was a look he recognized, though he wasn't sure where he'd seen it before.

"Who's this?" Shego was at his side, peering in with him.

The worker gave her head a sad shake. "Oh, that poor little thing. We had to give him his own cage, because the other dogs....well, they're good dogs, all of them. There's no such thing as a bad dog. But some dogs get territorial, and our poor little poodle here was pretty much picked on. They would growl at him and chase him away from the food, stuff like that."

Drakken plastered himself against the chain-link-thing in front of the cage. He was feeling something strange, something new. Something that made him feel like he had the flu, aching in his chest. "Why?" he breathed.

"Oh, who knows?" The worker flung her hands in the air. "Probably because he was the new dog and they never got used to him."

"Or maybe," Shego smirked, "because he's little and funny-looking."

Something slid into Drakken's head and locked with a solid clink, like the final screw bolting into place on a Doomsday device. Because he finally knew where he'd seen that look before.

In the mirror.

"He doesn't seem too trusting, either," the worker continued. "He doesn't growl or anything, but he never seems real happy to see anyone."

Shego rolled her eyes, but the eyes she rolled looked sad. "I guess that's not the puppy for you, then, Doc. Come on, maybe you can get something fierce, like a Doberman." She gave her harsh little laugh. "Of course, with your luck, you'd probably get a Doberman that's scared of your bunny slippers."

She'd found the bunny slippers?

Drakken tapped on the links of the cage. "Hi, there," he murmured softly.

Something happened then. Something no one there could quite believe.

The poodle lifted his head from his paws, and his mouth opened into a doggy smile, showing tiny puppy-teeth. And his puffy little tail began to slap against the bottom of the cage.

"Well, I'll be the son of a gun," the worker murmured.

"Okay, that's weird," Shego agreed.

Slowly, cautiously, Drakken stuck his hand inside the cage. The puppy bounded over and gave it a slurp. "Shego, he likes me!" he hissed in his quietest voice.

"I know," Shego whispered back. "Some things just defy logic."

He made a face at her.

The worker shook her head again, but this time she looked astonished. "You want to hold him, sir?"

Drakken nodded - and kept nodding until Shego elbowed him in the ribs and told him to stop before his head fell off. "I'm not entirely sure it's attached," she added.

He had a feeling he'd just been insulted, though he wasn't quite sure how. But that didn't matter once they brought the puppy into a little room with a couch.

Because the puppy took off across the room in little jumps and bounded into Drakken's arms, where he licked his face over and over with a very soft, very tiny, very pink tongue. And then yipped for joy.

"I don't get it," Shego said above him. "What does the puppy see in him?"

The worker smiled and scribbled something else down on her clipboard. "In all my years working here, I have seen things like this happen before. I can only say that animals seem to know who's a good person."

Shego went into a coughing fit that Drakken barely heard, because the whole world had just ground to a halt. When it started turning again, a tiny flicker of it would never be the same again.

"They used to make fun of me because I was small and funny-looking, too," he whispered into a fuzzy ear. "But I won't let them pick on you, and you won't let them pick on me. Deal?"

The poodle nibbled at the Band-Aid on Drakken's cheek in response. He decided to take that as a yes.

"So, are you going to be adopting him?" the worker asked.

"Absolutely," Drakken replied. He got to his feet, straightened his shoulders, and put on his best professional look.

"Excellent," she replied, handing him a bunch of papers. "Just get these filled out and you can come back for him tomorrow."

Drakken was about to wail "Tomorrow?" - until he caught sight of the papers. He understood "Name" and "Address," but everything underneath was a jumble of words that he knew, but that suddenly didn't make any sense. His middle clenched, and he could feel his breathing speeding up. "Shego?" he heard himself whimper.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll fill them out," Shego answered. Her eyes took on a gleam. "For a small fee."

She was impossible.

"I've got to warn you, though," the worker butted in. "He's not entirely housebroken."

I am so! Drakken thought indignantly.

"Oh, great," Shego said, rolling her eyes again. "Puddles." She gave about half a smile. "That's kind of a cute name for a puppy, actually. Puddles."

Drakken fought back the urge to snort. And she said he was clueless. "No, Shego," he said in his superiorest tone. (Most superior? Oh, forget it!) "He needs a name far more dignified than that. His name will be -" He scrambled around in his brain for something dignified and pounced on the first title he came up with - "Commodore Puddles!"

Shego burst right out laughing.

Hmmph. Well, he still thought it was a good name.

"I mean, he knows to get your attention when he needs to go out, but he's kind of like a toddler - he only realizes he needs to go just a few minutes before it gets urgent." The worker smiled affectionately. "So, don't wait too long to let him out, or you will have some puddles."

"From where?" Drakken whispered to Shego.

She gave him a very long look. "That is the stupidest thing you have ever said."

Did he miss something here?

"All right, Shego," he said as they were leaving, papers tucked firmly under Shego's arm. "Let's get home so I can go and work on my plan to conquer -"

She put a hand over his mouth then. Why, Drakken wondered, didn't she ever let him talk about world domination in public?

But he gave Commodore Puddles a wave over his shoulder and the poodle smiled back and his little pink tail beat a rhythm against the worker's shirt. Drakken knew he had - at last - found a kindred spirit.

*******

Random note: Shego has a few random moments of unpredictable softness in the series. I imagine she'd like puppies, as long as she didn't have to take care of one.