ALL THINGS

A Shug Nesmith fic-of-fic for Smittygirl

There was only so much a man – or a woman – could take. Shug had reached and bypassed her breaking point. Constantly bombarded by Micky's hangdog expressions, Davy's coddling, and Mike's overbearing pronouncements of what she should and shouldn't do, Shug felt as if a train wrecked itself in her brain at least ten times a day. When she added the jumbled mess of her indefinable relationship with Peter to her burdens, she felt as if she simply could not stay in the Pad for one more minute. Grabbing Davy's little leather cap from the hatstand and shoving it on her head, she declared "I'm going out!" and stomped out of the house as fast as her long legs would carry her.

Just before the door slammed behind her, she heard Davy's voice. "Let her go, Pete. She can take care of herself." Shug felt a twinge of guilt at lumping Peter's reticence in with her hardships. He didn't mean to add karmic weight, but having to tiptoe around his dizzying array of feelings was becoming the hardest part of her days. Trying to figure out if Peter loved her – not just pitied her – was a stone drag.

Actually, she reflected as she rounded the corner toward the road into town, it was impossible.

The rest of her problems could be handled well enough. It was easy to tease Micky into a smile, or to get Davy off topic by mentioning whatever girl had caught his interest that week. It was no difficulty whatsoever, and also one of the few genuine pleasures in her new life, to tell Mike just where he could stick his 'rules.' Sometimes she did it just to watch his face go purple.

One of the rules Mike had driven home repeatedly was that Shug was never to talk to strangers, and certainly not to strange men. Such as, for example, the middle-aged gentleman standing, puzzled and helpless, next to a car that didn't look as if it would be going anywhere soon. Shug knew that she could probably fix whatever was wrong, but Mike would scream bloody murder if she so much as spoke to the guy. That piece of knowledge made her choice of action so much simpler.

"What's the matter with your car?" she called out.

"No earthly clue," the man replied. His voice had a familiar Southern twang and Shug responded to it as she would to the aroma of home-baked bread. She glanced from side to side before crossing the street. She walked right up to the stranger and felt a delightful sense of freedom in disobeying Mike.

Shug unlatched the hood of the car, then looked back to the man. His hair was short and gray and he appeared to be about Mr. Babbit's age, but the resemblance ended there. This man had soft, kind eyes behind gold-rimmed glasses, and a grateful smile that made him seem years younger. "You sound like me a bit," Shug said as she began to look at the car again, eager to be useful. "You from Texas?"

"Oklahoma. But will you give me a hand, anyway?"

Shug liked the stranger's sense of humor. She cocked her head at him, suddenly aware of what a ragamuffin she must look like in her borrowed outfit: Mike's jeans, Peter's orange pullover, Micky's sneakers, and Davy's flat cap. She decided to give him a friendly grin, and the man grinned back. Shug pushed her hair behind her ears. "Lemme see what's decided to come loose, here."

"I appreciate your help, Miss," the man said as he watched Shug tug at hoses and wires.

The unfamiliar term of address made Shug bristle before she remembered that it wasn't an insult. "I'm not 'Miss,' I'm just Shug. Sugar, I mean." When she glanced up she noticed that the man wore a clerical collar. "Whoa, you're a preacher?"

"I'm the Reverend Robert Thomas, but you can just call me Rob."

"No, I really can't," Shug gulped. Mama would have ripped Michael's hair out by the roots for speaking casually to a Man Of The Cloth, so there was no way Shug was going to do that, either.

"Then, how about 'Rev Rob?' That's what the kids at church call me. Would it be okay with you?"

She nodded, her mouth suddenly dry. What would a PREACHER think of her unnatural origins? "I'll just get right back to it…just a few seconds and…here we go, this wire's loose." Hoping to cover her embarrassment, Shug lowered her head farther than the task warranted and worked as quickly as she could.

"You're very good at that—"

"—for a girl?" Shug interrupted before she had a chance to measure her words.

"For someone so young, I was about to say."

As quickly as her temper had flared, it now dissipated. She let her hair fall in front of her face so that 'Rev Rob' couldn't see the sudden rush of blood to her cheeks. "Start her up, let's see if that took."

He got into the car and turned the key. The engine sputtered for a second, then roared into life. "Yep, that's got it. Thank you so much!" He shut the engine down again and got out of the car. "Do you get that a lot? People thinking you're good at something and being surprised because you're a girl?"

There was no good answer for that question. What constituted "a lot" in the two months she'd been a girl instead of a guy? Pretending to wipe a perfectly clean valve, she asked, "Does it seem as if I would?"

Rev Rob chuckled. "There's more than a bit of the tomboy about you, that's for certain. Raised with boys, I bet. You can probably keep up with the fastest and strongest of them."

Shug laughed for a few seconds. This guy was good, and she was going to keep his words in mind for the next person who asked a similar question. "You got it. Plus, I live with my brother and his three roommates." The word 'brother' still felt alien – although everything in her life could be called that – but it was coming easier and easier with each use.

"That's a lot of testosterone."

You don't know the half of it, buster, Shug thought. "They're good fellas, though. Especially…well, they're…good."

Rev Rob's bright blue eyes, kindly and still youthful, twinkled at her from behind his spectacles. "And which one is 'especially,' if you'll forgive an impertinent question?"

Spending an inordinate amount of time wiping nonexistent grease off her hands, Shug spoke slowly. "His name's Peter. I think I love him. I'm not sure he loves me." She peered up and saw nothing but kindness in Rev Rob's smile. "It's hard enough to know what I'm feeling," she blurted out as she slammed down the hood impatiently. "How does anyone ever know what someone else really, truly feels?"

Rev Rob motioned to the least dusty part of the curb, indicating that Shug and he should sit down. "That's going to take some words, and words take time. Let me think a minute."

She tried not to laugh when Rev Rob took a handkerchief out of his pocket and spread it on the curb so that Shug wouldn't get dirty when she sat down. If he only knew how much dirtier she'd gotten back when she was still Michael…

"Tell me a few things about Peter," Rev Rob asked, breaking her train of thought. "How does he treat you?"

"He's so sweet," Shug sighed even as she realized that she sounded like a lovesick girl. "He's never had a mean word to say to me, not even when I got mad at him. He just waits for me to calm down, and he smiles…you should see his smile! It lights up the whole house sometimes!"

"So he's kind? And patient?"

Shug nodded. "I've got a bit of a temper on me, in case you hadn't figured that out already." She didn't wait for his assent. "Sometimes I wonder how much more patient he can be. I'm not always…easy to figure out."

"No woman is, at least not to a man. But he's not sure of himself, he'd never brag about you being 'his' or something like that? He doesn't get jealous?"

"Oh, no!" Shug couldn't imagine Peter behaving the way Rotten Ronnie had toward Valerie Cartwright. "That's not in his nature at all."

"That's a good sign, I'd say. Does he know how you feel about him?"

"It'd be hard to miss," Shug groaned, thinking about some of her less subtle gestures. "I know he wants to believe it. But he's a little afraid, I think. I mean, neither of us has, you know…experience." She couldn't believe she was talking so freely to a stranger, and a preacher at that, but her heart was so burdened and he was so, so understanding. "Can…can I tell you something? Something you can't ever tell anyone?"

The smile he bestowed on her was gentle and comforting. "I'd be honored if you would."

Shug swallowed hard and scuffed the toe of Micky's sneaker in the dust that had collected in the gutter. "I wasn't always what you see. I was born…that is, I turned into…" She turned her face toward Rev Rob, saw nothing but kindness in his gaze, and for the first time she found words to explain her very being. To be sure, she sputtered and wept as she described the effects of Micky's potion, but just to be able to tell someone who hadn't been there, someone who could look at this with fresh eyes and, maybe, some compassion, was such a relief that she couldn't help herself.

Rev Rob listened without saying a word. When Shug's story came to an end, she was stunned to find that she'd actually curled up in his arms and had been crying into his shoulder while she had been talking. She wiped her eyes on his jacket and peered up at him. Would he think she was an unnatural creature, an aberration? She gathered the courage to ask her question. "So, what do you think? Am I a…a freak?"

He didn't smile, but he didn't pull away, either. Instead he cupped her chin in his palm and said, "What do I think? I think you're a miracle."

Tears dimmed her vision for a few moments. "Ain't no one called me THAT. I can't even believe that you believed me!"

He shrugged, a smile tilting his lips upward. "I've believed stranger things than that. I do it for a living, remember?" When Shug began to giggle, he released his hold on her and helped her sit up straight. "Maybe you've got it backwards, Shug. Maybe you were supposed to have been here all along, and what Micky did actually put the world right."

Her heart did a happy backflip. "Really? Maybe I'm supposed to be…me?"

"Well, is the world a better place because you're in it? I think your friend Peter might think so."

Peter. Oh.

Rev Rob chuckled. "He's already met so many of my criteria for truly loving you, so let's try a few more. Is he happy that you're in his life? Does he protect you? Trust you?"

Shug nodded. "He's never questioned. Not even when it was just me, before we split back into two people. One of the first things he did was offer to be with me, just in case I couldn't change back. He never fights but he took swings at the jackass—" She cut herself off and put her fingers over her mouth. Rev Rob merely nodded that he was not in the least offended. "Oops, I'm sorry! I mean, he took swings at a guy who hit me when I wouldn't go with him. Peter got so beat up and he wasn't the least mad about it, he just wanted to make sure I wasn't gonna be hurt."

"That's more in the 'good' column. I'm not making light of your confusion at all when I ask this, but what are you waiting for? What if God sent you to Peter, by way of your friend Micky?"

"Do you really think so?" Shug could feel her face burning, and the tears that filled her eyes this time were created by joy. "Oh, I hope that's it! He's been so sweet and hopeful, and he's never once given up on me. If it's because I'm meant to be here…" For the first time since the painful events happened, Shug flung her arms around someone other than her bandmates. Rev Rob quietly patted her back and let her shed her tears.

"Why'm I doing this?" Shug asked, laughing even as she wiped her nose on Peter's orange sleeve. It smelled vaguely of Peter, of suntan oil and the leather of his bass and banjo straps.

"Relief is a powerful emotion, Shug. And, if I might be so ungallant as to mention the time, I bet there are four young men at your house who'll be relieved to know you made it home safely?"

Shug looked up at the darkening sky. "Oh! I'd better scoot. I can't thank you enough, Rev Rob!"

He shook his head and offered his hand to help her up. "Thank you for fixing my car. Another reason I think you're meant to be here—would 'Mike' have gone for a lone walk?"

Not a chance. Mike would've snatched up the keys to the Monkeemobile and driven off as fast as he could. Only Shug would have felt the need for a lonely saunter.

Not so lonely now.

"Can I offer a lady a ride home? Your chariot – the one you fixed – awaits."

Shug considered the fun she could have with Mike if he saw her being driven home by a strange man. "I'd…I'd better not. My brother's got a protective streak a mile wide. But thanks anyway."

Rev Rob nodded sagely. "Best not to awaken the sleeping beast. But I should really—oh!" He pulled something out of his pocket. "I put this in my jacket this morning, and bookmarked it when I stopped for lunch. Couldn't think of why at the time, but evidently I was meant to see you today." He handed her a small leather book.

"It's a Bible," Shug said, wincing at the obviousness of her remark. "It's really old, too."

"I've had it a long time. I think I've been waiting for a chance to give it to someone. Take a peek at the place I've bookmarked, sometime, and you'll know why."

Shug saw something sad cross Rev Rob's face, a little shadow like the one she sometimes saw when Davy was thinking of his mother or Micky of his father. "You lost someone," she murmured.

Rev Rob took off his glasses and cleaned them on his shirt sleeve. His gaze fell somewhere between his task and infinity as he said, "I had a little girl once, a tomboy like you with a heart of gold. But that golden heart had a defect. We didn't know until…" He cleared his throat and gazed at Shug. "Anyway, I gave this to her mother the day we laid her to rest, and she gave it back to me a few months ago, when she went to join our baby."

Her eyes brimmed with hot tears. "I never knew my daddy. I mean, even when I was Mike. He split when I—when Mike—was little. I wish…I wish he'd been someone like you." She quickly hugged Rev Rob and placed a tiny kiss on his cheek. "Be careful and get the car checked out real good as soon as you can," she mumbled as she tried to regain her composure.

Rev Rob stroked her hair for a moment, then pulled away as if the gesture had brought back a painful memory. He got into his car, closed the door, and rolled down the window. "You be careful, too, Shug, and enjoy your miracle."

"I will! Goodbye! And thanks!" Shug watched Rev Rob's car turn the corner, then she walked in the opposite direction. Humming a happy, wordless tune to herself, she flipped the little book open to where the grass marked the page, and took in a deep breath when she read the words, "Love never fails."

No, it never does, she thought as she headed down the driveway to the Pad. Davy's kind nature, Mike's brotherly affection, Micky's earnest attempts to make people happy—these things never failed. Neither did Peter's loving heart.

The door flew open before she had a chance to turn the knob. Peter was standing in the doorway, his arms held out to her. Shug flung herself into them, sighing as Peter wrapped himself around her, and she returned the embrace knowing she would never, ever let go.

**END**

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