A Shot in the Shadows

Here We Go

The kids are kept entertained by Leah and Addie until their first rehearsal of the day. They're all holed up the dressing room, the door between the girl side and the boy side flung wide open.

They're playing a really intense alphabet improv game. Aaron's mildly amused by Phoebe and Henry pretending to be Shrek and Fiona, but his mind isn't really on the game.

Aaron may just be barely eleven, but he isn't stupid. He knows they're all in the dressing rooms to keep out of the way: he can hear the sound of people hurrying by outside the room every few seconds, probably running between stations. Everyone seems to be in a rush today, or at least that's what Aaron thinks.

He tries running through all of his lines, really fast, in his head, and then hopes for everyone's sake that things slow down by the time the show starts.

Aaron sneaks a glance over at Hayley, who notices his look and smiles at him. Aaron thinks that Hayley looks more composed than she usually is before shows, and he feels slightly reassured by this, especially since Hayley has a somewhat complicated piece of blocking to pull off regarding him. He's almost three quarters of a head shorter than her, and her character has to accidentally kill him. It's relatively harmless if both Hayley and Aaron are paying attention, and both kids have already worked out a signal system to synchronise their movements. If Hayley's thinking straight tonight, Aaron has one last thing to worry about.

Phoebe and Henry don't have time to finish their scene: the intercom system backstage goes off, summoning everyone to the stage.

Aaron and Sawyer are the first ones out the door, waiting impatiently for the others to follow. By the time they make their way through the still unorganized path to the stage, everyone else has gathered.

"Shawn, I think you need to do a wee bit of cleaning," Addie calls, skirting around some stacked chairs and emerging from the wings.

Mr. Harding looks up from where he's talking with one of the composers, that Adam guy.

"They'll get that before our last rehearsal today," he calls, making a big circular gesture with his arms before saying a few more words to Adam.

The cast begins arranging themselves in a circle, Sawyer dragging Aaron with him to the other side of the circle to stand by Lara. Addie follows them over, and within the few seconds it takes for Sawyer, Aaron and Addie to wedge themselves into the circle, Lara turns and walks away.

"Lara!" Sawyer protests. "I want to stand next to you."

Lara shoots back an apolegetic smile. "Sorry, squirt, but I want to talk with Paige about something."

Aaron watches Lara settle by Paige, but he doesn't see the two talking, and he's pretty sure Sawyer observes the same thing.

Laughing, Aaron watches Sawyer pout and turn to the closest adult. "Hey, Addie, what's wrong with Lara? Why doesn't she want to talk to me?"

Aaron watches Addie turn slightly to glance at Lara out of the corner of her eye. "I'm sure it's not you, Sawyer," Addie says, craning her neck slightly to take a more subtle look. "Lara may just be a little stressed, that's all."

"Maybe she's still a little sick," Aaron says.

Addie looks down at him briefly. "Maybe," she says.

Mr. Harding sets them off playing a couple of games to get everyone excited, and Aaron does get excited, until Teddy comes barreling across the circle, knocking him clean off his feet despite being the smaller boy.

Soon after Mr. Harding decides it's time to start their first run-through of the day, sending everyone off to get microphones on. After getting his on, Aaron finds a cozy corner in the wings where he can watch the action. Addie and Riley come join him after a moment, the latter waiting until right before Aaron has to go on and die to launch a tickle attack.

Aaron lets Nathan pick him up to carry him onstage, and they make their entrance with Julia Ward. Aaron's able to hide his lasting grin in Nathan's shoulder for a few minutes, until Nathan has to put him down.

Aaron manages his two lines with a somewhat straight face, but then he makes eye contact with Hayley and breaks out into a small grin. Hayley gets halfway through her line before she starts smiling too, and after that it's a struggle for Aaron to not burst out laughing.

In the middle of Hayley "killing" him, Aaron has to twist sideways slightly, and apparently Riley sees him struggling to not laugh and breaks out in a loud snicker.

Aaron exhales heavily, not quite laughing, but manages to completely miss Hayley's supporting arm and slides down to the floor. He loosens his muscles, greatful to be facing the back of the stage as he grins into his elbow.

He's dropped halfway through their sequence, and to anyone in the audience it's apparent that Hayley hasn't done anything to make him collapse, but Hayley starts continuing anyway. Unfortunately, that's also the moment when Mr. Harding stops his conversation with the writers (the other two had wandered in sometime in act one) and shoots the two kids onstage a look.

"What exactly is going on up there?" he calls.

Aaron sits up and twists to face their director, pointing an accusing finger towards the left of the stage. "Riley made me laugh," he says.

Mr. Harding raises an eyebrow. "Oh, really?" he says. "Riley!"

Aaron sees Riley's jaw drop open as Addie lets out a loud snigger. "I didn't do anything!" Riley shouts back, lying.

"You two, from the top," Mr. Harding says. "Nathan, Julia! You're starting the scene over. Riley, come sit out here, by me."

Riley gets up grumbling, shooting Aaron a dirty look. She proceeds to make faces at Aaron for the rest of the rehearsal, much to the amusement of everyone else in the cast.

After they're done Mr. Harding sends Riley off to be rebuffed by one of the assistant directors, drawing some of the kids aside for some pointers. Aaron finds himself spared from the conversation, and finds himself in the lobby with the three teenage boys, tossing around a beanbag.

Lunch is brought in by the parents: dry sandwichs. Aaron's somewhat content with this, finding a moist piece of ham in his, but he can hear Cameron and William complaining about it. There's no cheese, which strikes Aaron as weird while he's eating it, though he understands why.

As soon as he's done with his meal, Aaron feels compelled to look up at the clock. He does so, having the sudden revelation that in exactly six hours they'll be starting the show. He looks around at his castmates and the few crew members who'd managed to wander up to join them for lunch.

Six weeks ago he'd known only a few of these people, but in such a short time they'd become his second family, and Aaron can't wait to pull the show off with all the wonderful people he's come to know.

Look how far we've come... let's see how far we'll go.

No one ask me what this is, because I don't know :)

Thanks for all the reads while I was away with exams, I really truly appreciate it, and it made my day coming back to find all the reads on here as well as my Jori oneshots :)