A/N: Okay so due to dealing with a lot right now I am going to probably do smaller chapters. I had hoped to have been seven chapters ahead right now but its not going well. Sooooo... yeah.

History Lessons Part 1

The light hum of the lights and heat were the only sound besides he and Shego's breathing but that numbing silence only lasted a few more heartbeats as Drakken finally registered the sight. In one exhale it was as if he opened a floodgate in his mind, swarming with emotions and questions that he could barely decipher himself to begin finding answers.

Grandmother had a lair?

That was a quick and obvious answer...

She was part of the Company?

That one was a hard pill to swallow. He knew she'd always been aware and he'd thought the stories had inspired her tales she would tell him... not that she had actively lived it. This confirmation of this fact as he looked at black and white images of her on the wall in the very gear before him...it was a strange sense of betrayal. Not one of anger but almost a feeling of melancholy came over him as he thought back to growing up with the women. He'd known from stories she'd once had a brilliant mind and that somewhere was a treasure-trove of her old sketched inventions... but it hadn't registered that she was actually part of an organization instead of simply marrying into one.

His Uncle even in the few drunken ramblings of the Company had not once mentioned this about this... though he wondered if even his Uncle had known... it did nothing to make him less angry at his Uncle possibly withholding information... information he could have questioned and had possible answers too... unlike now.

Here he'd thought the cabinets would possibly be too much to take in... but now they seemed almost welcoming to this being sprung upon him. He saw Shego's hand moving towards a book and his hand snapped out to stop hers, perhaps with a little too much force. Instantly his hand dropped away from her wrist as she looked at him with wide eyes.

"I erm..." He didn't know what to say other then wanting to yell not to touch it.

Why?

Rationally he knew there was no stopping a curious Shego but in the moment he wished only he was in here.

"Traps," she seemed to decide on his actions herself and she began looking around the items, "No doubt there's something protecting the display.

Drakken only nodded as Shego inspected the area. He chose to focus on her to sort out the mess racing in his head but this only made things worse. Shego held no lingering shock on her face and almost seemed to take it as a casual occurrence. Before he could voice anything, his mind fell back to after he'd rescued her from Botox... the way she'd tiptoed around questions and anything about his family he'd told her he had no interest in... more so the questions about his grandmother days after... and he felt new anger... at himself.

"You knew," he said softly.

Shego looked at him in confusion and then she looked quickly away from him.

"I didn't know about the lair," she grumbled as her hand ran up the frame of the display.

"My grandmother," he added.

Shego shrugged.

"I had a theory..." she muttered.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he heard the agitation in his voice.

Although it wasn't nearly as angry as Shego looked when she swung around to look at him.

"Excuse me?" she asked sharply, "It was a theory and you're the one who told me not to talk about Company stuff."

"Yes... well," he stammered, "That would have seemed important."

He watched an array of expressions fly across her face and suddenly wished to back peddle to stop an argument. Though when her expression looked almost mournful for a second he almost stopped himself from talking.

Almost.

"It doesn't matter," he waved it off, "You held a theory... but no one else ever said anything. My Uncle... even Emily."

Drakken scoffed and waived towards the direction of the discarded photo that had been found.

"Clearly, she knew... Couldn't have dropped a letter or something?" Drakken grumbled, "And my grandmother never bothered telling me... but she could tell them as bedtime tales."

Shego had remained silent in his ranting. He noted she looked uncomfortable as she leaned against the wall and rubbed her arm in clear thought.

"Especially after I'd already known about the family secret, it would have been nice to know while she was around," he continued.

"Maybe she couldn't," Shego finally spoke, her eyes fixed on a large photo on the side of the display Drakken couldn't see, "You mentioned that she had cognitive issues from a lab accident... taking a stab at that... maybe she only held the memories as a secondary person."

"What?" asked Drakken.

Shego still didn't look at him as she spoke.

"She had memory issues, right?" Shego asked. Drakken nodded, "Well let's say that and the fact the very organization these memories took place in was also responsible for loosing a child... a traumatic separation could have made the memories stick but simply as stories."

Drakken could find a million different ways to combat this and Shego's lack of eye contact could have meant she knew this as well... but she was trying to make him feel better by attempting a possible and non-provable scenario. There was a part of him that really wanted to whine or argue her taking a very large leap in her theory... but instead he chose to accept it as a truth... albeit a very slim chanced truth... but he'd take it.

"You're probably correct," he sighed. He saw a faint smirk on her lips.

"I always am," she hummed.

"That's heavily debatable," countered Drakken. Shego finally met his eyes with a raised a brow, "I mean there are plenty of moments I can recall-"

"What, can you recall?" her tone was sharp as she tilted her head and crossed her arms.

Drakken knew not to continue.

"How many times we were both correct," he shrugged off, "Which is not the point of this moment- Did you see any traps?"

Shego held a long gaze at him before she nodded and reached back around the frame to push something. A flickering of a light that had momentarily not been see-able like a web around the items before the humming of the room became less as the light died. He wondered for a second what would touching the lights have done given the arrows at the entrance.

I'll test it later...

He thought idly as he took a step closer to the items. His mind was still at war with itself, but he found himself picking up the glass box that held a sinister looking glove inside. Taking in the worn leather that buckled over a wrist and led up to cover only three fingers. The index and the thumb held a thinner fabric that Drakken couldn't even try to guess. The spool that held the thread rested on the back of the wrist buckled, small loops fastening through the thinner fabric of the two fingers. The metal dipped tips showing the bowed needles that gave a claw like effect. It was both terrifying to imagine a hand like it coming at you, but also practical. It was for sutures on wounds, quick and before its time. His mind thought back to stories again, those nestled in the book he'd been reading earlier in the bedroom above. Instead of an ominous faceless figure he'd placed in those stories, it was almost alien to imagine his grandmother wearing this.

"These are journals," came Shego's voice, interrupting his thoughts.

He looked to see her holding one of the thick books that had been resting on one shelf. He fought the urge to snatch it from her hands as she gently flipped a page.

"It's old. Put it down," he directed.

"I'm being careful," Shego hummed, her eyes still on the pages, "She sure wrote a lot of weird notes... pfft I see where you get it from."

Drakken ignored her snicker.

"Shego," Drakken urged, not wanting to have to argue about it.

"Fine," she sighed as she closed the journal and placed in on top of the others, "You can read it first, geesh. Am I allowed to touch anything or should I go back to looking for the key?"

Drakken noted her eye-contact seemed to be lacking again. He couldn't decipher why this bothered him or if it was simply her attempt not to argue with him either... but he glanced back at the items and then to her.

"Erm... just not... the journals," he forced out as he put the glove back down. She reached for it, "Or that."

Her hands rested on her hips and she rolled her eyes.

"It's just... fragile," he ranted.

"Yet you picked it up?" she snorted, but moved to pick up an album next to one of the Automaton's, "Can I look at these or is it going to spontaneously burst into flame."

Drakken widened his eyes.

"Is it?" he sputtered out.

"No," she snapped and leaned against the wall to look through the album, "Oh look, more creepy 'ye olden day' robots."

"Automa-"

"I know what they are called," sighed Shego, "Doesn't make them any less creepy... I hope you're not bringing any of them home with us."

Drakken chose not to answer as he picked one up and looked at the craftsmanship before placing it down to touch the hem of the labcoat. It was more textured then he'd imagined it would be, by comparison his was almost smooth. It was also more rigid and the darkness showed patched of a lighter blue dye on it that might have been the original color. He concluded it was real scales versus simply a fabric print, so the dye had not stayed like his fabricated coat was. Lifting even the hem of the coat proved it to be even heavier than his as well. There were small nicks and tears in the coat that had been repaired... he couldn't imagine having one labcoat to constantly repair... his would have just been holes and burn marks and patches at this point... or gone completely. Drakken looked at the multiple pockets along the belt and the coat, different then the pockets he simply had inside the lining of his coat.

"Drakken," Shego said sharply as she pushed herself off the wall, "Look at this one, it's in color."

"Colored photos started in the early 1900s, it's not that shocking-" Drakken whined as Shego yanked him by the arm, "I was looking at the coat."

"Yeah, well, this is more interesting," she scoffed and shoved the album in his face, "Look."

Drakken wasn't given much choice in not looking as the album pressed against his face. The smell was overwhelming from the old pages that made him sneeze as he pulled it from his face to look at the picture Shego had wanted him to see. It was a large group photo that had dulled edges around it and a few spots of discoloration near the background. The group in question was obviously a Company photo, but far smaller a group then the picture he'd shoved in the closet back at the lair... not that he'd looked at it since its relocation. He was about to pass it back to Shego when his eyes fell to the bottom center of the page and he realized what had shocked Shego.

It wasn't an elderly women sitting on a chair, nor the young man smiling next to her that looked out of place in the straight faced photo. Not even the man standing center flanked by similar looking faces that bore a sharp resemblance to Drakken's father. It was the women standing between he an a couple in traditional white labcoats. There stood the blue labcoat in front of him, the women who wore standing in a sharp fixed posed with her fingers pressed together... even more ominous with the claws of one... her dark lipped smirk almost menacing... but it wasn't that particular image of the sweet toned cheerful grandmother he once knew... it was her face as a whole. His grandmother had always been sickly pale growing up, something he'd long since figured was tied to her general health and nothing more... but now he momentarily wondered what had all happened in that lab accident... because her skin was no different from his own. The same icy gray blue, highlighted by the tones of makeup at the time.

"I honestly thought you were making up that dormant gene thing," snorted said Shego as she leaned against him to look at the photo, "You two have the same sneer... aw so cute."

"Adding that to questions I'm not getting answered," grumbled Drakken as he closed the photo album and reluctantly returned to his searching.

"Hey, now I lost my page," sighed Shego as she opened it up again, "I'm taking it the blue-ness was also new?"

"Wondering if I knew the women at all,"said Drakken, as he looked at the coat again, "Looks like the family business wasn't the only secrets after all."

"Well," stated Shego as she put down the album and gestured to the journals and the unopened filing cabinets, "We're in the right location to make them... less secret."

He wanted to ignore her words, but the questions running wild in his head were building and there was still something off about her voice. There was a nervous undertone to it that shouldn't have been there. He glanced at her, nothing the knit of her brow not fitting on her expression. He could chalk it up to her own curiosity wanting to be met, but he knew it was more... there was something else she was keeping from him at his own request... something he wondered if she wanted him to find on his own... like this.

His hand touched something hard in one of the coat pockets and he knew what it was before he reached in the labcoats pockets and pulled out a set of keys.

"Looks like it answered for us," said Drakken as he handed Shego the set of keys.

"Then it was meant to be," the smile she gave didn't match her knit brows and the way she spun away from him swiftly.

Standing in place as he watched Shego begin trying keys across the room, he glanced back at the items on display. His eyes looking over large photos similar to the ones in the album, newspaper articles with Dr. Drakken mentioned, and then too the mannequin's attire before grabbing the journals and joining Shego. The sound of the metal drawer being pulled out making it known he was about to go down a road he had avoided most of his life.

No going back now...

More Chapters Soon...