As ever, I do not own Smash or any of the dialogue that was taken directly from the show; it was only taken to provide a frame of reference and all rights belong to NBC Universal.

Derek and Karen approached their theater, studiously not talking about what might have, almost did happen. To their surprise, Tom stood waiting for them, a strange expression on his face. Before the composer even began speaking, Derek knew something had to be very wrong.

"I called Kyle this morning. He called me back, but...it wasn't him. It was the police." Tom had to take a moment, and Derek instinctively put a supportive arm around Karen, his own heart sinking. "He got hit by a car last night. Hit-and-run driver. They, uh, they took him to the hospital. He's still alive, but...It doesn't look good," he finished, biting his lip so the pain would keep him focused. For a long minute, no one spoke, Karen burying her head in Derek's chest and Tom awkwardly shuffling, squeezing his hands tightly together in the folds of his coat.

"Jimmy. I've got to...I've got to get ahold of..." Karen trailed off distractedly, wiping her eyes with her hand as Derek steered her inside to talk to the rest of the cast and crew.

"Go on, then. I'll tell this lot." With a nod of thanks, Karen darted away, leaving the director alone in the dimly lit hallway. Frowning, he glanced up distractedly. Hadn't that bulb been burning much brighter yesterday? Now it flickered on and off, somewhere between burning brightly and burning out completely. Derek pressed his hand to the wall, allowing it to hold his weight while he counted to twenty. Then, with the calmest manner he could muster, he went to break the news to the group of idealistic twentysomethings whose exuberance was about to be brought to a screeching halt.


"Has anyone talked to his parents yet?" Julia asked gently. The group of young people scuffled their feet; after the events at the bar last night, no one wanted to be the one to glance in the direction of the person they normally would. But Blake spared them the trouble.

"I can... I'll do it..." he volunteered, the words catching in his throat as he pulled out his phone. Ana closed her hands over his.

"We'll do it together. Come on," she murmured, wrapping an arm around him and leading him to the back where they could make the call in some semblance of privacy. No one followed or spoke until one of the girls in the ensemble piped up.

"Do you know when we could go see him? Like, not all at once, but maybe a few of us could visit at a time?" The others looked up at this suggestion, the first tiny glimmer of hope on a few faces. Derek rubbed his eyes, already exhausted though the day had barely begun.

"Maybe. I don't know. Let's let his family figure things out first, yeah? We'll go from there."

It was only a little while later when Jimmy stormed into the theater, a scowl on his face and the all-too-familiar look of coming off a high in his eyes, and let loose with more of his trademark venom. The instant the words "Kyle", "hospital", and "coma" made their way to his ears, though, he froze. The scowl remained intact, but no longer reached his eyes. Ana tried to grab him as he pushed past, but he was too fast, ignoring her pleas and what he thought might be Karen's voice floating from somewhere else in the building. Jimmy hurried down the hallway, avoiding looking at anything around him, not even noticing the flickering bulb flash brighter as he passed beneath it.


"Don't do it." Instead of coming from the mike next to her, Karen was startled to hear the line echo from somewhere in the audience. In an instant, she had located the source: Jimmy, looking determined and maybe just a tiny bit terrified for the first time since she'd met him. Sam backed away respectfully as Jimmy bounded onstage, muttering in Karen's ear that he wanted to actually perform the number. A few moments later, the lights dimmed properly and the set piece rolled out. Murmurs filled the audience at this turn of events, but Jimmy ignored them, instead seeking the familiar weight of the guitar around his shoulder and the song he'd wrote- God, it felt like another lifetime ago. Before...just before.

Up in the cramped space by the light and sound control board, Blake gripped both sides of the table so tightly his knuckles began to whiten. He focused on the blinking lights and the cues he knew were coming, carefully manipulating them to keep the simple, soft effect as Jimmy sang the song. Of course. "The Love I Meant to Say." By the time Jimmy's voice climbed to falsetto for the bridge section, Blake could hardly see his screen.

He wasn't the only one. Derek glanced around the audience, filled to the brim with friends of the show- seeing a flash of Ivy's blonde hair made him smile faintly for the first time all day- and fans who had never even met the ambitious, idealistic boy they were there to honor. Because that's all he was, wasn't he? A sweet and clever kid who made him believe in something agin. Is, he corrected himself. Let's not leave the present tense just yet.

"Sorry...that's the word I wanna sing to you. The other word is...stay." Jimmy's voice cracked on the last word, sending the last few dry eyes into floods. "To hear the love I meant..." He took a breath, finally giving up. "To say." The last two words weren't even sung, just spoken despondently. There were no illusions about this song's meaning for anyone in the show or in the audience. Not tonight. As the cast took their bows, Blake darted out of the theater as quickly as he could, hailing a taxi and giving him an address.

I meant to say...

So this is the beginning of my little story. Probably going to be a few chapters, but not overly long. The other chapters will probably be a little longer, I just wanted to get the part covering "The Phenomenon" done. I just never could bring myself around to the Tom/Kyle pairing after getting very attached to the background adorableness that was Kyle/Blake. So here's my AU with that in mind. Hope you enjoy!