Sugar thought nothing of arriving back at the Pad at such an hour. It was actually rather typical, considering how many show dates ran late for the group. She fumbled with her bag a moment, doing her best to fish her keys out of her jacket pocket. Her key was barely aimed at the lock when the door flew open.

"Sugar!" Mike stood there, jean jacket on and car keys in hand. "Shug, honey, where have you been?" The concern was evident on his face as he quickly scanned her currently soaked condition. "What happened to you?"

"If you really wanna know, I've been walkin' home in a cliché," she replied, voice flat. She shouldered her way past Mike and trudged into the house. Dropping her nap-sack at the foot of the spiral staircase, she was quick to shed her soaked windbreaker. Her head remained down, refusing eye contact with any of the boys; as she stared at the floor, though, she blinked and noticed a particular pair of worn loafers and mismatched socks had joined her very soppy moccasins. "Pete..."

When she looked up, she immediately noticed that Peter was practically dressed for battle, with towels wrapped around each arm, and another looped around the back of his neck. It looked almost ridiculous, but then again, she knew it would require quite a bit of work to dry her off after she'd been walking around in a torrential downpour. Rolling her eyes, she gave a tiny nod, and immediately, Peter wrapped one of the towels around her, vigorously rubbing at her shoulders. When he paused, she looked up at him, confused, feeling a pang of guilt when she saw the worry in his eyes as they flittered over her features. "You're shaking." He frowned, reaching a hand to her forehead. Though she flinched away, he persisted, adding, "And you're warm."

Sugar pushed Peter's hand away. "Ain't nothin'."

Peter stuck out his lip in a pout. He put another towel on Shug's head, practically obscuring her view in his attempts to dry her off. She sighed and sputtered, puffing at the terrycloth over her face. As Peter continued scrubbing at her head, she felt another set of hands close around her shoulders. They made their way down first one arm, then the other. The towel on her head at last slid back enough for her to see that Davy had taken one of the spare towels from Peter and doing his best to help get her dry.

"What's the idea, bein' out in this weather?" the Englishman asked. "It's not a fair night out at all, yeah?" He exchanged a look of distress with Peter, who excused himself to the downstairs bedroom. He returned with his own orange footie pajamas, neatly folded. Davy's face relaxed into a warm smile. "C'mon then, luv. Let's get you into something dry."

Mike remained oddly speechless for the moment, while Micky had seemed occupied with the phone from the moment Shug had slogged through the door. The drummer waved and picked up the phone, carrying it across the room. He propped the receiver between his neck and shoulder.

"Sugar, it's April. She's been calling all night. Said you disappeared on her?"

She peeked out from the towel draped on her head, black bangs in her face. The expression she wore was one of hurt. "She hates me now."

Micky's eyes widened and he shook his head in disbelief. "She's been blowing up the phone all night over you. I'd hardly call that hate." Shug pulled the towel over her face again.

Mike approached his twin, still clutching his car keys. He pulled the towel off her head, looking at her intently. "I'm gonna ask again, you stubborn gal—What happened?"

The girl took a deep breath and gnawed on her bottom lip. She crossed her arms over her chest, huddled against the cold metal of the stair railings. Admitting her mistakes had never been easy. It was even worse now, acknowledging them in front of her genetic equivalent. "She figured it out. I opened my big, stupid mouth an' she figured it out."

Mike's expression fell. "Aw, no. Baby Sister..."

"So...I left. No sense stayin' 'cause there's no reason when someone hates you." She took the folded orange fabric from Davy and ducked under the staircase, quickly whirling around to the top landing. Holding onto the end of her sopping nightshirt with her free hand, she disappeared into her bedroom, slamming the door behind her.

With Sugar having disappeared, Mike paced the floor, trying to decide whether or not he should ascend the steps and see if she needed any help. Torn between potentially invading her privacy and leaving her to sort things out on her own, though, he ended up listening to Micky's conversation with April. He got the feeling that calling Micky's girlfriend 'distraught' would hardly be sufficient in this case, and yet, the drummer continued trying to gently calm her down. "We'll talk to her, okay? ...No, she doesn't hate you." He ran a hand through his hair, tousling his already messy curls. "I know it's weird, April. In case you haven't noticed, everything about us is kinda weird..."

Mike sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. He could already feel his head pounding; his nerves tightened into a knot in his stomach. "It's supposed to be our secret. She knows that."

"She's human, Mike. Just like you," Davy added. He picked the discarded towel up from the floor and wrung it out over the kitchen sink. "Sometimes she's more you than you are yourself."

The Texan wrinkled his nose at the comment, as though it were an affront to his own personality. "We're nothing alike, Tiny. She's all...legs and hair and impulse."

"And you're what? All legs and hair and calm gentility?" Davy snorted. "I've seen you break a few things in your time, Michael. You just do it when you think no one is watching."

Mike's mouth pinched shut into a straight line across his face. His eyebrows drew together as he gave Davy a hard stare. "You tell me somethin'—What kind of a name is 'Sugar' anyway? You couldn't come up with anythin' better? Maggie? Valleri?"

As Mike continued staring at him, Davy seemed to become more and more uncomfortable. He groaned, eyes shaded by thick brows as they averted to the floor. Mike continued with his gaze, though, waiting for an answer, until finally Davy stopped squirming and pointed to the kitchen counter.

"I panicked," he said, pointing. "It was the first thing I thought might work. It sounded kind of...Southern."

When Mike realized just what Davy was gesturing toward, his heart felt a touch sick. Between the can of coffee and half a box of stale Corn Flakes was a small tin labeled 'sugar'. He sighed deeply. He hated it for his own sake, but more than anything, he hated it for his sister, who was forever saddled with a hastily-chosen nickname. Even worse was his next realization... She doesn't even have a real name. He looked up at the second floor landing, then slammed his fist against the nearest object he could find. The totem pole by the front door now sported quite an impressive dent. The other boys said nothing, but rather stared at him as he shook his hand and quietly swore beneath his breath.

Peter propped his backside against a couch arm, halfway sitting on it. He bounced one leg nervously. "I wish she had phoned. We could have picked her up."

Micky ended his call with April and left the phone behind at the window stoop. "I think April will be alright once she's sure about Shug. She's worried about her." He joined Mike at the edge of the kitchen area, eyes glancing upward. "You know how April gets sometimes. She said she was kind of overwhelmed and didn't want Sugar to see her panicking. All she did was run into the bathroom for a while so she could clear her head... I guess Shug took it the wrong way. Anyway, April's really sorry. She'd like to tell Sugar that, too."

"I dunno, Sugar may not feel like talkin' for a while." The guitarist scratched at the back of his head, idly giving his hair a yank. Frustration, yet again. Just when he thought she had leveled out, something threatened to throw her into an emotional tailspin. This was by far the worst. "She needs time to get it out of her system first."

"From the minute I showed up, your favorite thing to do is talk about me like I'm not here!" Clad in Peter's pajamas, Sugar stood on the landing, hands wrapped around the railings. Her hair was still a wet mess, with most of it hanging over the left side of her face.

"Shug, it's not like that," Mike began. "We just—"

"You just wish I wasn't here!" She stomped her foot hard enough to rattle the broken grandfather clock at the opposite end of the landing. "Don't think you're th' only one who wishes things were normal again. It's all I think about!" Her voice quivered as she glared at her brother and sniffled, running her hand under her eyes. "How do you think it feels to wake up every mornin' havin' to remind yourself that you're not who you used to be? That whatever you thought you wanted in life has been completely ripped outta your hands?" She paused for a breath, which turned out to be a series of sobs, before lowering her head and finally allowing the tears to fall. "You don't know how hard it is to try to build a new life when you're so close to your old one, you have t'look at him every single damn day!"

Watching Sugar, watching her break like that, was painful for Mike. He may as well have eaten a pound of lead, the way his stomach felt. The two of them were so similar, copies of one another at the very core, yet in that instance, they couldn't have been more different. Mike wasn't much on expressing himself. He was quiet, methodical, logical for lack of better phrasing. For Sugar to open up like that, to share the ache in her soul, made him feel peculiar. He found himself momentarily embarrassed.

At the same time, however, the very real fear of having to start an entirely different life against one's will was crippling. Soul-crushing. He knew it; he had felt it. In a way, his worries were what helped bring his twin into existence in the first place.

He had never felt so guilty about something in his entire life.

Mike watched as Micky peered at Sugar from his vantage point in the kitchen. The drummer craned his neck, trying to make eye contact with the girl, despite her slumped position on the landing above. "But Shug, you're one of us. You can still do all the same things. It's not that different—"

Sugar shook her head, then looked up. This time, her eyes were fixed on Micky. "Do you have any idea what it feels like to be ripped in half, Micky? Because I'm pretty sure ya don't!"

Micky flinched, eyes wide.

"It's like bein' set on fire," Shug continued. "Like being split apart with a chainsaw! Everything hurts—Everything in you, about you, right down to your soul, hurts so much that you'd rather die than have t'live through that much pain."

As Micky glanced over at Mike, the Texan expertly avoided his stare and stood with his arms folded around himself, directing his eyes anywhere away from his sister's gaze...or anyone else's, for that matter.

"Mike, you never said..."

Mike merely coughed and turned away, one hand rubbing over his own face.

Sugar pointed at Mike and stomped her foot again. "See that? You just think of me as another...him!"

"But—but—Shug, you kind of are!"

Sugar's eyes looked wild. She took all of two seconds to grab something from her bedroom before hurling it down directly at Micky's head. "You go to Hell, Micky Dolenz!"

Thankfully, Micky had the sense to duck as an alarm clock careened toward his head. It brushed by him and bounced off the table with enough force to land in the clogged sink with a sickening, metallic 'ploop'. Not long after, the sink seemed to "burp" and the murky water began to slip down the drain. At any other time, this would have been hilarious to the group. Instead, their eyes were fixed once again on the upstairs bedroom door as it slammed shut. Shug's crying was painfully audible.

Davy, still clutching onto the pile of damp towels, did his best to break the awkward silence. "Well, at least she fixed the sink?"

"She hurts, guys," Peter said quietly. "She really, really hurts."

Micky slumped into one of the kitchen chairs, propping his elbows on his knees. He stared across the house, eyes focused on nothing. "I didn't know it was that bad. She never said anything." He glanced at Mike. "You never said anything."

"Look, Mick, I—I didn't wanna worry you none," the Texan boy stammered. He still felt extraordinarily uncomfortable. "There are just some things best left unsaid."

"Unless you're Sugar," Davy interjected with a snort. "Then you just let it all go at once."

Micky groaned and shook his head. "You want the truth? I think I needed to hear it."

There was a sudden silence in the house, save for footsteps coming from the upstairs bedroom. If there was one perfectly consistent thing about living at the Pad, it was the fact that it was never ever that quiet.

"I'm sorry, Mike. I'm so sorry."

Mike had just opened his mouth to respond when a shriek echoed through the house. It was followed by a loud 'thud', then another, and another, as well as a series of crashes, peppered with Sugar's screams. Micky buried his face in his hands. Davy excused himself to the bathroom to hang up the armload of damp towels. Peter's eyes remained fixed on the door upstairs, while Mike shut himself into the downstairs bedroom. Try as he might to sleep, it was near impossible as Sugar's tantrum continued into the night.

Author's Note: Sugar finally broke. :( I think it's understandable.