AN: For anyone who is new to this story, this is the second part of my 56 chapter epic Company, wherein we have taken the cast of Phantom (from so many different versions I've lost count) and transported them to a Rhode Island arts program. And that's just where it started. This is not a typical re-telling, so keep that in mind and try to enjoy the ride.

To my long term readers who are returning: Welcome back! Hopefully it won't take me three years to finish this one ;-) The Little Corinthian: Oh god, the 25th Anniversary was SO GOOD, I loved EVERYONE, but most especially Ramin and Sierra. I like to think that was their prize for suffering through Love Never Dies. Writer of the North: I did. I'm...cautiously optimistic. I like to think that even if it's terrible, it will be terrible in a very entertaining way. miss awesome 1213: I'm glad you liked that! I won't say what's going to happen on the E/C front, but there's absolutely nothing wrong with shipping them. Ahmed's been doing that since chapter 6.

The announcement of Les Mis as the spring show really went a long way from separating the wheat from the chaff at Memorial Rep. The wheat were panicking. The chaff were just pleased as punch, already claiming roles that they wanted, casting the show in their minds. Erik and his parents were definite wheat. Whole wheat. Honey whole wheat.

Since Erik most emphatically had not known about this momentous decision, he immediately started calling everyone who he thought might have some idea. In a strange, twisted way, this worked to his benefit. Listening to other people's outrage over the phone was a nice way of soothing the ache in his gut and brought the lump in his throat down to a manageable level. Was there time to angst over Christine when a disaster of this magnitude was underway?

The short was yes, but at least there was distraction to his angst. As it turned out, no one had any idea what was going to happen. Sure, there had been rumors flying around, but no one took them seriously. Every theatre company which specialized in musical theatre was subjected to constant Les Mis fantasies. Every little theatre kid with a dream imagined performing in it someday and if Broadway wasn't an option, there was the regional theatre scene to consider. It was just a matter of waiting for the rights to go on sale – but that was just a fantasy. No one truly expected for that to happen. Older members of the company remembered hearing that they were going to do the show back in 1995, it was less a rumor and more a legend at this point. And yet, it was happening.

Maddy was freaking out, not necessarily in the most positive way. In between shrieking about how Tim clearly had dementia and did he realize how expensive the costumes alone would be, why had he waited until she was too old to play Fantine?

Charlie was less dramatic. At first, he thought Erik was kidding. Genuinely kidding, then Erik had Ahmed on the phone to confirm and he checked his email and saw the message Tim sent to everyone on the payroll, followed by a personal note to Charlie in particular asking if he wanted to come on as the lighting designer.

Charlie didn't rail at the stars, cursing his middle age or swear like a sailor. He told Erik to stay exactly where he was and that he would be at Memorial to pick him up in twenty minutes. Ahmed said it wasn't a big deal, he'd drive Erik, but his friend told him to head on home. He had that gleam in his eyes that bespoke a plan and after the week they'd had, Ahmed thought it was in his best interest to leave without asking too many questions.

"I'll be fine," Erik said as he shooed Ahmed out the door. "Besides, if I go now, I won't be able to hear the inevitable blow-out. Then I won't be able to tell you guys what's going on."

"Okay, that's a good point," Ahmed conceded, taking his keys out of his pocket. He dearly wanted to ask Erik what had him so upset earlier if notTim's display of early onset Alzheimer's, but he figured that could wait until later. "You'll call me, like, the minute you get home?"

"Hell yeah," Erik said, nodding vigorously. And with that reassurance he disappeared back inside the lobby. His fellow classmates left earlier and he hadn't seen hide nor hair of Raoul and Christine since that fateful moment in the parking lot. Erik had no idea whether or not they knew that their lives would be turned upside down from now until May, but he wasn't going to be the one to tell them. Maybe they'd both drop out of the program to have lots of sex and babies from now until the end of time. Eurgh. Spare him. He had better things to do right now than think about their domestic bliss: it was time to play James Bond.

Years ago he found an ingenious little way of listening in on conversations he had absolutely no business paying attention to. There was a little room, a closet really, off the manager's office. Usually Tim had it locked because there was nothing in there except green file cabinets containing cast lists and payroll slips from decades past. What Tim did NOT know was that there was a small panel that could be opened from the office which adjoined his allowing individuals in the know to pass from one room to another unnoticed.

Tim did not have an assistant manager, not since Don retired years ago. It fell to him to do the artistic management and business management, everyone thought he took too much on, but Tim was a control freak workaholic, so he ignored them. The office was usually locked, but Erik made himself a copy of the master key five years ago and it was simplicity itself to slip in. There was silence as he stood in the musty, shut-up old workspace; evidently Chester was long gone. Jiggling a letter opener in the seam where the panel connected to the wall caused it to pop open almost soundlessly and Erik was able to crawl into the dark, dusty interior of the cupboard.

One of the problems with finding cool hidey-holes as a child was that they did not grow with you and being 6'5 presented problems with comfortably sitting in a six foot by four foot space. His shoulder was jammed against a cold metal cabinet and his back was pressed uncomfortably against the wall, but the closet was right behind Tim's desk and sound traveled well enough. Small sacrifices were necesssary to avail oneself to all company gossip.

A buzzing in his pocket alerted Erik to the fact that his dad was texting him – mental note, effective spies turned their phone buzzers off before embarking on secret missions – but Charlie told him he was going to talk to Tim before they left. That suited Erik just fine, all he had to do was stay silent and wait.

He wasn't long to wait. Only scant seconds after his father texted him, the man himself was in his friend and boss's office, looking uncharacteristically irritated. It took a lot to rile Charles Theroux, but no one could do so more effectively than Maddy's theatre friends – though, since they were going on 20 years acquaintance now, he supposed they were all his theatre friends as well.

"You know I have to turn down a job in New York," Charlie demanded, the time for pleasantries long past as far as he was concerned.

My dad is pissed. Erik texted Ahmed quietly, thumbs working as silently as possible on the screen of his phone.

Tim, who had been leaning on the front of his desk, not sitting behind it, looked up at his friend and co-worker uncomfortably and then away, eyes resting on door Erik was crouched behind. Clearly he had no idea that any inappropriate snooping was taking place. "I was just asking if you'd design, I can find someone else. You don't have to do that," he said quietly.

Charlie drew a hand through his hair – still thick and black, but he was positive this show would be the thing to cause him to go gray. "Clearly I do, since you've lost your mind," he said, heaving a sigh and throwing his tall, broad frame into a chair. "What the hell were you thinking? Do you have any idea how expensive this show's going to be to mount? Our grosses haven't been that good this year."

Can you record what theyre saying? Ahmed texted back.

The sound quality would suck, I'm making mental notes.

Tim's voice was grim when he replied. "No. They haven't. And I'm blowing our budget on this show – this year and next year's budget. And that's if we break even."

The silence was so thick, you could cut it with a knife. "So why are we doing this?"

Tim stood up, running a hand through his hair, closing his eyes and pacing around to the front of his desk where he looked Charlie dead on. "We've had a slow last few seasons."

"Everyone has, the economy's not good to the arts, but we're not doing that badly - "

"We are," Tim interrupted. "I...haven't let on how poorly we've been doing. I don't want to raise ticket prices again, it just keeps the crowds away, but they're not coming anyway. We need to do a show that can keep the lights on for a while longer. This is a hugely popular show and I know we can do it well. We have to. People will pay good money to see this, we can make it worth their while. If this is a hit, we can live off the proceeds for years."

Ever the pragmatist, Charlie couldn't help questioning, "And if it's not a hit?"

"Then we'll just close our doors a few seasons early," Tim said, his voice hardly wavering, though Erik felt his heart jump into his throat at the pronouncement. Surely, surely things couldn't be that bad.

We're going to close if this show doesn't do well.

WHAT?/!11

That's what Tim said. I'll tell you the rest later.

"Timmy..." Charlie said weakly. "We put our lives in this place, it can't just...close."

Tim pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed again. "If things don't improve now, we will. You think I haven't been trying to keep us open? I haven't let anyone know just how bad it is because I don't want anyone walking. Maybe that's selfish of me, but we've got a great company. How much worse would things be if you all left?"

Charlie stood up, shaking his head. "We're not leaving – well, I can't speak for everyone, but me, Maddie, Chester, John, Bev – I can go on, but I won't. We built this place. We love it, we love you. You should've told us, this shouldn't have been something to deal with on your own."

"Maybe I should have told you all, given you more time to find other work if it comes to that - "

"Shut up," Charlie said, shoving Tim lightly. "Listen, I might not be around all the time, but I'm just as much a part of this place as you are. I already told you, I'm not talking the New York job. Let's just go forward, alright? We need this to be a success? Let's work on making this a success."

Erik had heard enough. Exhaling slowly, he crawled back into the abandoned office, looking around at the dusty furniture and computer that was years out of date. Everything started to make a lot more sense now. The reason Tim had not hired a business manager had nothing to do with the fact that he was a micromanager and more to do with the fact that they couldn't afford it. His comments about keeping the heat on this winter hadn't been in jest...God, he felt sick.

What he'd felt this afternoon over Raoul and Christine? It suddenly did not seem so important and he was struck with a complete sense of panic. Memorial could not close. Months ago, when he was in the hospital, he vaguely remembered voicing his frustrations over his life to Ahmed. Back then he was frustrated by the idea that working at a repertory company in Rhode Island was as far advanced as he would get in the arts and the thought was depressing and made him go off his meds, just to see if he could make it without them. As stupid as that had been, he felt desperate at the time. It was nothing compared to how he felt now.

If Memorial closed, he would have nothing. As much as Charlotte and the blonde Civil War kid (who he later found out was called Todd after he tried to friend him on Facebook) complained that the panel at the voice class was too harsh, he knew their comments had been spot-on with regards to him. No one would hire him if they didn't know him. They'd take one look at him, too tall, too thin, too plain, never mind his health problems and they'd shoo him out before he could sing a bar. It was a nice idea that talent was all that mattered in theatre and that people would give you the chance if you were just good enough, but Erik knew deep in his heart that this simply wasn't true. If this place wasn't around for him to inherit, then he had no future to speak off. Not in theatre and that was what he loved. If you couldn't do what you loved, what was the point?

His phone was buzzing again. "Hey kiddo, I'm downstairs. Want to grab dinner before I take you back to your place?"

"Sure," Erik said. First, dinner. He'd need sustenance since he fully intended to stay up all night formulating some kind of plan to fix this mess. This place was his legacy, he was going to work on helping even if it was absolutely none of his business.