Special thanks to Mrkelangelo for his input and encouragement, and for allowing me to use him as a character in this story.

Side note: for those who like to read "with sound," as it were, I decided Shamus' voice should be that of Michael J. Fox; probably a somewhat younger one, but not quite Marty McFly. For those curious about the reasoning, feel free to check the end note on this chapter.

And for anyone who's just dropping in, this chapter is written - within reason - to bring the reader up to speed on relevant events from past stories. If you want to catch up, though, the main ones to read are "Sing Me to Sleep," "Santa Clawed," and "Rendez-Bleu," all by yours truly.

Preamble aside, happy reading.

A knocking sound on the hood of the car summoned Shamus' attention. "Just a sec!" he called as he slipped the electrical connector carefully into its port. The part was old and it would cost the customer a pretty penny to replace it, but his discreet repair job should let the customer at least stretch more use out of the car before breaking the bank to keep it running.

"What's up?" he called out, his voice reverberating in the depths of the car's engine. Crawling inside fully-assembled motors stirred up some serious bad memories for him, but it paid the bills and saved a lot of lifting and unbolting when he could make it work.

"Your phone's ringing," an anteater named Carl reported, leaning over the motor. "Caller ID shows a pretty bun named Judy."

Shamus nearly jerked his whole body in surprise; not a smart thing to do in a space like this, and definitely not with a bad leg. "Ow. Ow. Pick up!" he called earnestly, already maneuvering to get out of the cramped space. "Tell her I'll be right there!"

Twisting like a circus performer, he bent and wriggled his body almost bonelessly toward the nearest exit from the vehicle's innards, slithering out head downward towards the ground. With outstretched paws he caught his descending weight, wriggled a little to unsnag his coveralls from some protrusion within, and proceeded to half-lower, half-roll himself onto the cement floor of the garage. Looking both ways to make sure no one was passing at the wrong moment, he rolled out from under the car and pushed up to his feet. He darted to the table where he had left his phone, grabbing a paw-wipe on the way for a quick clean-up before he took the device.

"Hey, Judy!" he called, maybe just a tad too exuberantly.

"Hey," she greeted. His exuberance must have come across oddly, because she followed with, "You okay?"

"No problem," he reassured her, signing to his boss that he'd only be a minute and receiving a sign in kind that he'd better. "Just let me step outside where it's quieter."

Evading the noisy background of grunt work and power tools, he asked the reason for her call. Now that he was outside, though, it almost seemed as though his own mounting pulse was at least as loud and distracting.

'Please be what I'm thinking. Please be what I'm thinking,' he thought as he asked what was up.

Judy cleared her throat. "Well, I thought about what you brought up the other day in Tundra Town."

'Yes?' he thought breathlessly. He had told her – and tried to tell himself – that he wasn't that invested in whether she said yes. His knotting stomach loudly protested that nobly as it had been intended, it was hardly the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. She had said as they parted ways that she'd like to spend more time with him, but when he asked later she had demurred answering whether that would be… well, special time.

"Yes?" he managed, weakly.

He could never quite be sure if he heard her chuckle or not before she answered. "Well, I was thinking… sure. Why not?"

The phone nearly slipped through his grasp as his brain reeled. "Really? I mean, you really want to?"

He could almost hear her shrug and light-hearted smile. "Sure. I'm career-driven; not dead."

His heart started doing jumping jacks. She'd said yes? She'd said yes!

Somehow his brain managed to keep its connection with his mouth. "Great. That's really great."

She laughed a little. "So, when did you want to do it?"

Slapping his pocket, he remembered that he had left his day planner in his car. 'Think, rabbit,' he chided himself. "Uh, I have Wednesday free. Is that good for you?"

An audible patting sound came through the phone as she checked her own planner; no doubt digitized. "Let's see… I can meet you after two… no, make that 3. I'll need time to clean up."

'Clean up,' he thought to himself. He'd have to pick out some of his better clothes – most were in some state of discoloration, disrepair, or both – and get them into the best shape possible. Or he could go shopping… hm, better make it the thrift store. He'd want to leave money open for the date itself. How much could he spare anyway?

He pushed these intrusive necessities to the back of his mind. "Okay, then I'll see you Wednesday at three – thirty," he added as an afterthought, recalling she'd said 'after three.'

"Can I ask where we're going?" she asked.

He clamped his mouth shut before a telltale 'Uhhhhh' could escape. He'd only half-hoped he'd even get this far, and thought for a frantic fraction of a second to find a suitable answer.

Salvation came from an unexpected quarter as his supervisor – a rather grumpy rhinoceros – stuck her head out the door. "Stampett! You good out there? You can talk to your girlfriend later!"

Shamus resisted the urge to smack himself on the forehead. "Yeah, I'll be right there!" he shouted over his shoulder. Then he turned back to the phone and did his best to drum up at least a mustard seed's worth of confidence. "It's a surprise," he managed, saying the first thing that came to mind. 'Please let that be the right thing to say,' he silently begged.

Her tone, at least, sounded pleased. "A surprise, hm? Well, just promise me it won't involve getting cold and wet again – or towels."

A flush flooded his face as he remembered the insanely ignominious turn their last date had taken. He could easily imagine that half the guys he knew would give their right arms to have a date end with them and their sweethearts in a sauna. Under other circumstances, he might have enjoyed it himself. The way it had played out, though, before he even admitted to liking her that way…

"Yeah, that you can count on," he promised, fighting to speak past the lump in his throat. "I'll text you the address an hour before."

Mercifully, she broke off the awkward moment. "Well, I'll let you get back to work. See you Wednesday."

He returned to the shop, his mind awash in the question of where to take Judy for their first real date, eager to lose himself in the familiar work of car repairs so he could let his imagination wander. Much to his chagrin, however, a new matter arose to muddy the waters.

"Whoo!" hooted Carl, laughing. "Shamus, my mammal, how'd a guy like you catch such a hot babe?"

A few chuckles arose at this remark. Though not exactly unfriendly, Shamus' habitual disinterest in socializing (generally, at least) had been the butt of a joke or three, and now the boss' unguarded remark had given the wannabe comedians fresh material. Correctly identifying the better part of valor, Shamus decided it would probably be best not to let on that Judy wasn't officially his girlfriend yet. Besides, he wasn't entirely sure at what point it was fitting to call someone that. He'd only dated very briefly in high school, being at first too absorbed in his martial arts dreams and then in self-pity when the accident had shattered those hopes.

Shamus opened his mouth to answer, but a musk ox looked up from filling out some forms and beat him to it.

"Why do you ask, Carl?" he quipped, raising his voice to make sure the whole garage could hear. "Not man enough to annoy a girl your own size?"

Scattered laughter, a few calls of "Oooh" and "burn," and one call of "smoked" erupted from the crew. Shamus considered letting the matter lie there, but whether it was the high of Judy having said yes, or some other reason, he decided on the moment to give a quip of his own. He swallowed to set his throat right, then called out in an exact recreation of Carl's own voice just as the anteater opened his mouth to fire back.

"Come on, Mike!" he called out for the whole garage to hear. "I've still got a couple of cousins left to try."

The ensuing ruckus was halted only by the boss' bellowed behest to get back to business. Mike glanced across to Shamus with a raised eyebrow and a smirk of approval. Shamus' impressions were a kind of open secret around the garage; a talent everyone had mentioned at some point, but which the rabbit consistently refused to deliver on demand.

As his route back to the engine brought him past Mike, Shamus paused a moment to thank his colleague.

"Don't mention it," Mike replied. Then, leaning over his forms, he added, "So, where're you gonna take her?"

Shamus opened his mouth to answer, then stopped and shrugged sheepishly. "Well…" he admitted, rubbing the back of his neck.

Mike's eyelids dropped halfway. "You have no idea, do you?"

"Hey, give me some time," Shamus defended with a helpless shrug. "I didn't even think I'd get this far."

The musk ox just shook his head. "Shamus, I'm not going to try to boss your love life, but never ask a lady out without a plan. It's way too easy for it to go south."

A lot of mammals – males especially – would have bristled at this reproof. Shamus had half a mind to do so himself, but he hadn't fallen as far as he'd once done and pulled his way back up to where he was without learning to swallow his pride occasionally. Besides, Mike had been helpful on other matters in the past, and he'd even heard in passing that the musk ox's advice worked well for other mammals. Hearing him out couldn't hurt. "Are you some kind of love expert?" he asked, genuinely curious.

Mike shrugged. "Well, I am studying for a psych major," he admitted, "and I've been around the block a few times. If it's help you want, see me after work."

Shamus promised he'd think about it and went back to work on the engine. It didn't take a lot of thought. After all, what could he lose from a little free advice?

"The thing to remember about ladies is, they want a guy who's secure and dependable. You need to be confident in you, or they can't be."

Shamus shook his head. "Judy's not exactly the damsel-in-distress type," he defended.

"Good," Mike answered, totally undeterred. "Damsels in distress make terrible matches anyway."

That was a valid point, but not what Shamus meant. "She's pursuing the cop career she wanted since she was nine," the rabbit pressed on, thinking Mike wasn't getting the picture. "She's literally saved the city from a megalomaniacal politician. I don't think she's going to need much security from me."

"Doesn't matter," Mike countered firmly. "Heck, if she can support her own weight that well, that's all the more reason she'll want to see you do the same. If she's dating you at all, she wants to be your girlfriend; not your crutch."

The wording was a little too apropos, and Shamus felt he had to call it out. "Really?" he asked, gesturing to his gimpy leg. "You went there?"

To his credit, the musk ox looked a little chagrined at his poor choice of wording. "Okay, my bad," he admitted. "But you get my point, right? What doe is going to want a guy who can't even make a plan and stick to it? Even if she wanted less, she wouldn't deserve it."

Shamus admitted that was true. He hadn't told Mike – or anyone else at work – about the literally life-saving impact Judy had had on him what felt like a lifetime ago. Thinking back now, he reflected on something Judy had once said and no doubt still believed: small mammals should step up, not be stepped on.

"Now, have you come up with any ideas for this date?" Mike asked.

"One or two," Shamus confessed, "as long as she doesn't mind it being on the cheaper side."

"Cost isn't the main thing," Mike reassured. "If anything, overspending on a first date is a bad call. You say you've known her since you were kids?"

Shamus started to nod, then did a quick calculation in his head. "Apart from a fifteen-year gap or so," he admitted.

Mike nodded. "Good start. Get to know her better; let her get to know you. Start with something simple like coffee; maybe dinner, but preferably not. The time is a lot more important than the money. Pick a nice spot, but not so busy you'll feel crowded or have a hard time talking."

Shamus thought it over. He knew one or two places, though he usually took his coffee to go or brewed it at home. "Something nice, but not busy," he mused, mentally writing that down. "Anything else?"

Mike seemed to mentally check a list. "Make a list of things you want in a female, and a relationship. See if she matches up with them."

"What is this, a job interview?"

"Honestly, not that different," Mike replied, waving a hoof airily. "Chances are she'll be doing the same with you, whether she knows it or not. Dating is all about seeing if the other person is up to snuff, and that means expectations. It only makes sense to be intentional about it."

'Great. No pressure there,' thought Shamus, who was fully aware that he wasn't exactly most does' first pick. Between his health and his financial status, there was no question Judy could find a more dependable buck if she looked. About the only thing he really had going for him was a refusal to give up, and that was largely on her account.

Mike seemed to sense his mood, if not the underlying details. "And be confident," he advised. "The last thing any doe with an ounce of sense will want is a guy who doesn't believe in himself. Put your best paw forward and let her see some worth in you."

"Let her see some worth in me," he mused, nodding. "Anything else?"

The last bit of advice made Shamus' jaw hit the floor.

"What?"

So, that's it for chapter 1; actually a bit longer than I anticipated, but it was hard to find a good stopping place. Once I started writing, it just wanted to keep growing – which, I dare say, is only a good thing.

I chose Michael J. Fox as Shamus' voice for two reasons. Firstly, he once said he'd go back to acting if he found a role that reflected his own experiences, and while Shamus doesn't suffer from Parkinson's Disease I'd like to think the struggles overlap enough that he'd at least approve. Secondly, it so happens that Shamus was named after Shamus McFly from Back to the Future 3. No particular reason; just a suggestion from one of my test audiences.

So, as always, faves, follows, and reviews are much appreciated. See if you can guess what the last thing Mike said was. :)