Scott removed his golden sparkling jacket and stood in front of his mother defiantly. "Weren't you watching what just happened?" He threw his arms out and flicked the black strands of hair from his face.
"Oh of course I was Scott, but that was nonsense." Shirley Hastings hissed back at him. "You don't think that changed anything, do you?"
He bent down and rubbed his knees, still a little bit sore from sliding across the dance floor so extravagantly, then straightened himself up.
"Barry Fife will certainly have something to say about this." She turned towards the dressing room door, checking nobody was walking in and began to dislodge her huge pink earrings from her earlobes.
"Barry Fife is a fraud Mum!" Scott laughed in disbelief. "Everything about him was a fraud!" he flicked his hair again and changed his stance. "And you…how could you lie to me about Dad for so long!?" His mother looked him straight in the eye, shaking slightly, her high platinum hair moving with her head.
"Everything I did was for you Scotty." She pointed at him. "It was all for you, so you could win the Pan-Pacific Grand Prix and be a success."
There was a knock on the door as Scott was gearing himself up for his furious answer.
"Come in!" They both shouted angrily.
Scott's father's head meekly looked around the door.
"Dad." Scott looked towards the door, ran to his father and hugged him. "Thank you, thank you for telling me everything." His father squeezed his back and patted it. "You needed to know son." He replied to Scott's thanks, then let go of him. Before they could talk properly, there was another knock at the door.
"Come in." Scott and his mother shouted again.
Wayne's shock of red hair popped around the door. He threw it open and behind him were Fran, Les and other people from the dance school and competition. They all cheered as they piled into the room to congratulate Scott and Fran on their success in giving Barry Fife and the rules a great big 'up yours'.
Scott embraced Fran as soon as he could move Wayne to get to her. "You were wonderful." He whispered in her ear as he spun her around the middle of the room to roars and claps from the 30 or more people who filled the room and the corridor. Scott noticed his mother wasn't as pleased as everyone else. Her face was contorted into a tight fake smile as she greeted Les. Scott listened to the laughter and talking whilst gazing at Fran, whose smile was the biggest he'd seen. Champagne bottles began to be popped and Wayne shouted "Well if nobody won, I guess we all did!" Scott looked at Wayne and laughed, then back at the wonderful woman in front of him. 'A life lived in fear…' he thought to himself and smiled, picked her off her feet and spun her around again.
Things felt different. Fran's stomach was full of pride and butterflies. It seemed too good to be true, she got to dance and make her family so proud, she had been good enough to dance with Scott, he'd actually CHOSEN to dance with her, and everyone loved her!
Her heart was bursting as everyone was patting her on the back, Tina Sparkle gave her a strong, friendly hug and even Liz had told her how nice she looked. The only person whose approval she hadn't received was Mrs Hastings. After some time laughing and talking with the people who were now her friends, Fran saw Shirley Hastings approaching her.
"Fran, darling, can I talk to you for a moment?" Mrs Hastings arm looped into hers so she couldn't refuse. "Perdón, abuela." Fran smiled at her grandmother and was pulled away from her and out of the room. She stumbled behind Shirley down the corridor to a private room that was definitely an oversized broom cupboard.
"Mrs Hastings?" she looked puzzled at Scott's mother.
"Fran…" Shirley pulled the tight, fake smile again and patted Fran's shoulder condescendingly.
"What you did out there was silly…" She looked concerned "…and dangerous, for you and Scott. You're a lucky girl that it didn't backfire. So I just want to say, although it didn't go wrong, I hope it doesn't give you any ideas about Scott. He's worked so hard for this, and you made him sacrifice it, so I hope you won't become too involved again." She handed Fran a tissue, as if she expected her to cry, moved Fran out of the way of the door and left her in the cupboard. How humiliating. Fran was getting used to Mrs Hastings' reaction to herself and Scott. She stood in the cupboard for a minute, staring up at the single bulb light swinging from the ceiling. Forcing the tears not to come, she remembered the fire she felt on the dance floor. The passion and power she felt when she was moving with Scott, holding each other and then letting each other go, stamping her feet and swinging her beautiful dress. She swung the door open and stormed back down the corridor in the direction of the room her friends had been in, now it was mostly empty, apart from her father, grandmother, Wayne, Vanessa, Scott and Mr and Mrs Hastings.
"vil mujer." She muttered and walked into the room.
"It is time to go." Her Father pulled himself out of his chair, looked at her and then at Scott.
"Already?" Scott asked as he stood and went towards Fran. "I thought we could celebrate some more? Les has just gone to open the dance studio for everyone to go back to." He smiled at Fran and reached for her hand.
"No, no. Enough celebrating." Rico, Fran's Father's accent was heavy and beginning to sound cross.
"We must go now, Fran." Fran nodded and picked up her bags. She moved in to hug Scott goodbye "I'll come by the studio later." She whispered beneath the farewells going on between the few people left.
On her way home, she considered just how little had really changed. Her Father would still be controlling, Mrs Hastings still hated her, the only real change was in Ballroom Dancing, and what did she really care about new steps? That was Scott's domain. What she had really wanted was to be good at something, to be accepted and have freedom.
It was dark by the time they reached the little convenience store-cum-home that Rico had built for them.
"Why couldn't we stay?" she asked her grandmother in Spanish, when they were alone. Her grandmother helped her to remove the many layers of dress carefully as she prepared to go to bed.
"Your father, he said to me that a pasodoble is not enough to win his only daughters heart." Fran sighed as her grandmother continued. "He only wants what's best for you my child. What your mother would have wanted too."
"What's best for me abuela?" she separated the plait that had been in her hair. "Do I not know myself?"
Her grandmother shrugged and walked out of the room, leaving Fran by herself, sitting on the bed. She reached over to her bedside table and pulled a picture from the drawer.
"I'm a real ugly duckling story." She muttered as she looked at the photograph of herself and her father taken a year ago. She put the photograph back and checked the clock. It was starting to get late and was already dark.
"Are you coming outside or are you going to sleep?" Her grandma re-appeared at her bedroom door.
"Yeah, I'm really tired." She yawned over-dramatically. "I'll just sleep."
He grandma gave a sly smile "Don't be too noisy in your sleep." She winked at her and left the room, closing the door gently behind her. Fran decided to wait a while, and sat on her bed updating her diary that she had kept from the age of 10.

'Dear Diary,' she wrote. 'Today, Scott and I danced at the Pan-Pacific Grand Prix! It was just incredible. I never would have thought that I'd have managed that, but everyone was happy and clapping and telling us how wonderful we were. Scott got to change ballroom dancing and I got to dance, with Scott like I really wanted to. I knew we could do it together. The only person who wasn't happy was Mrs Hastings, but Scott has proved that he doesn't need her approval anymore. Things are changing. I'm just about to sneak out to the dance studio to meet Scott. I hope everybody else has gone already. My cheeks ache from smiling! xFx'

She gently closed the book, placed it down and pulled herself up off of the bed, slipping her feet into her pumps. The house was small and creaky, but she knew how to get out. She'd been sneaking out and back in for years. She pulled on a long black skirt that she'd made herself and tucked her vest into it, grabbed a cardigan and padded across the room as quietly as she could. Her heart was beating ten to the dozen. Sneaking out had never felt this dangerous and exhilarating before.
As she opened the door she heard noise coming from her garden, guitars, laughing and music and the stamping of her father's dancing. She preferred nights they were celebrating; it made it easier to sneak out. She closed her bedroom door behind her and decided it was best to leave through the front door of the store. Nobody would be round there now and it was the most silent way out.

Scott stood on the roof of the building, alone and avoiding the party going on downstairs. He surveyed his surroundings and remembered the dancing he and Fran had done there. He felt a knot in his stomach as he remembers how rude he had been to her when she first started, but he expected a lot from her and in the end she had become the perfect partner. He no longer cared about new steps, he cared about her and how proud he felt that she'd forced him to follow his heart. Fran was a strong woman, the sort he needed. He turned to look at the huge glittery Coca Cola advertisement behind him and wondered when Fran would arrive. He felt he'd been waiting an age for her, but he didn't mind, he'd wait longer if he had to. Liz had been a follower, and a glory hunter. He laughed at the way she had relied on him up until he decided he wanted change, but then she flipped and went for Ken. She probably regretted it now. He looked across the street to the direction Fran would come from and sat down on the lounger that had been on the roof since he could remember. He re-adjusted his legs and lay down, looking up at the stars and recalling the journey he had been on to this point, and what he would have to do to continue. After a little while he felt himself falling asleep, so he got up from his seat and paced the roof a few times. The party downstairs wasn't quietening down yet, but he still willed Fran to hurry up, he knew they wouldn't have long once she arrived. He couldn't stop thinking about her beautiful she looked, confident and fiery. He stared up at the sky, listening to the party dying down below him.

"Scott!" he could hear his mother screech but chose to ignore her. "He must've gone home, Mrs Hastings!" he heard one of this kids respond to her. He heard them trickle out of the room, the music stop and then the clicking lock of the door. He checked his watch, it was gone 11. Was she even coming? Just as he stood up to leave the roof and admit defeat, there she was. She'd climbed up the fire escape quietly and was standing in front of him.

"Fran." He grinned and rushed towards her, embracing her with all of his body.

"Scott, I.." before she could say a sentence, his lips were on hers. She felt her body melt into his arms, all of the tenseness and worry left her. This was what it was about now. He lifted his arm and stroked her cheek.

"I was getting worried." He said as he pulled away from the kiss to look at her. "I thought you'd forgotten."

"Don't be silly." She smiled and shook her head, then placed it on his chest. "It just took me a while to get out." They stood for a while, her head on his chest, moving softly with his breathing. His chin nestled gently into her once again unruly hair. The coca-cola sign behind them glistened in the light, and they could hear the distant sound of cars, cats, babies and people. Night time sounds.

Fran lifted her head from his chest to look at him.

"Scott, I want to thank you." She said, pulling her body away so she could hold his hands in front of her.

"No Fran. Thank you. Without you, and your support and well… stubbornness, I wouldn't have done it, and I wouldn't be here."

"No worries." She smiled and awkwardly shuffled away from him to sit on the lounger.

"It was good, wasn't it?" She asked. Scott moved towards her and knelt on the floor in front of her.

"It was incredible!" He leapt up and swung her up into his arms, grabbed her hands and began reliving the steps they'd performed earlier. Fran laughed as he swung her around dramatically and so did he. He couldn't help but smile and laugh with her, he loved seeing her happy. All of the mood swings and fallings out of the last two weeks were forgotten. He stopped dancing and pulled her in close to kiss again. His hands gripping her body like he never wanted to let her go again.

"Scott." She pulled away. "I should go."

"Already?" He said, looking upset.

"Yeah." She replied, looking down. "Today has just gone…so fast. Everything is going so fast." She looked up into his eyes, at the hair that fell into them.

"I understand." He smiled widely. "Come on, I'll walk you home." Her rejection hadn't made a bit of difference, Scott still had a spring in his step and so did Fran. It was less of a walk to Fran's, more of a hop, skip, twirl, run and jump to Fran's. When they arrived, she stopped him on the corner of the street, in case anyone saw them.

"Are you coming to the studio tomorrow?" he whispered urgently, clutching her body close.

"I might have to work. I've been neglecting the shop with all this dancing. My dad probably isn't too pleased." He looked hurt again. "But I should be able to come, maybe to the evening class." A smile spread across his face again. He kissed her goodnight and jogged off into the darkness, to his own house, screechy mother and bed. Even his mum and her, "Where did you get to?!" questions couldn't burst his bubble tonight. Fran felt the same. She snuck back in, got changed and tucked herself into her small bed and decided to add to her diary. She lay there, grinning like a fool, scribbling down the best she could.

'I saw him. He makes me feel like the most wonderful person in the world! If this is love, then I love it."