Hey everyone! That's my first story, so I'm really nervous. It's a work in progress, an idea I had recently and decided to share. So this is kind of a test to see what I can do with it. First things first: The Flash is a property of Warner/DC/CW and I owe absolutely nothing that's canon (I just like to play with their characters a little ;). However, Marie, Paige and few other characters are my creations, therefore they belong to me. Also, I'm Brazilian, don't speak french, I'm not a specialist in ballet or the DC Universe, so if you spot any grammatical errors/fail Google Translator french/ballet mistakes/DC plot-holes, please tell me so I can fix it!

Enjoy the reading! (and if you have some time left, leave a review and make my day happier!)

Before

Prélude

One, two, three, four.

Five, six, seven, eight.

Again.

And again.

One more time.

Marie takes a deep breath as she trains one last time before her audition to Central City Ballet. Fresh out of ballet school, this is her fifth audition for a company, and she is starting to feel hopeless. All of her former classmates had been hired already, except her.

She comes in and suddenly everything's in automatic mode. Her focus is on dancing and dancing alone. Marie follows the instructions closely and imagines she's at a class, but that doesn't help. Pressure's always there.

She dances the variation next. Marie keeps the bright – and slightly fake – smile on her face as she twirls around the room. Pirouettes are her forte and she knows, that's why she choose to dance a variation with many of them. It was her mother idea, actually. Karen Shepard wasn't a dancer, but after years following her daughter to classes and spectacles, she learned a few things.

And then, in the blink of an eye, it's over. It was fast, too fast for Marie's liking. Now all she can do is wait.

Marie was never good in making friends. She couldn't start a conversation and felt strange looking at someone's eyes. But instead of realizing that she was shy, everybody seemed to jump to the conclusion that she was arrogant. So Marie became a loner, but she didn't mind. She had her mother and ballet, and that was enough.

So when a girl approached her after the end of the auditions, Marie was very surprised.

Her name was Paige and she had auditioned too. She came to congratulate Marie for her performance and ask if she was up for a coffee. Marie normally would say no, but she missed having someone to talk to, so she followed Paige to the coffee shop in the company building.

She was nice, Marie figured. Two years older than her, she used to dance for a company in Gotham, but moved because she was afraid of the violence in the city. Marie found herself telling Paige a few things about her too, like how she started dancing and her years in ballet school. She had fun.

The two exchanged phone numbers and departed, Paige to her friend's apartment and Marie to her hotel. This had been a good day, she concluded.

The results were up. Marie can't gather courage to look at it, so Paige does it for her.

A deep breath later, Paige says they're in. Marie is now a member of the Central City Ballet.

And that's where it all began.