A/N: the song is City by Sara Bareilles. Enjoy :)

I can barely see through the smoky air of the bar, and I grasp the mike, getting ready to sing. I have to do this. I need this break, and the money. But I want the fame.

I don't want to sing these songs again and again. Like I'm giving the same pieces of myself to everyone.

"Presenting our very own Miss Monique Jones! Our lovely Nudge!" Stefan, the guitarist, says. I breath a deep lungful of the musky, exotic perfume clouding the air, and the golden stagelights illuminate my sequined dress. The talent scout is standing some way off in the crowd, and I also see Iggy, my 6"4", pale best friend forever.


There's a harvest each Saturday night
At the bars filled with perfume and hitching a ride
A place you can stand for one night and get gone
It's clear this conversation ain't' doing a thing
Cause these boys only listen to me when I sing
And I don't feel like singing tonight
All the same songs

My voice slides, low and sweet, across the people. I'm unspeakably sad. My career has barely started and it's almost over. With bitter disappointment clinging to me like a heavy, wet blanket, I am becoming weary of the dark streets of the downtown. I'm desperate, in a sad, slow, resigned kind of way.

Here in these deep city lights
Girl could get lost tonight
I'm finding every reason to be gone
Nothing here to hold on to
Could I hold you?

I want to get lost. I want to lose myself, because then I can find another me to replace it. I have nothing anchoring me here. Except Iggy. My lifelines are drifting and snapping apart, but Iggy, my rock, my strenght, and my light, is constant as the stars.


The situation's always the same
You got your wolves in their clothes whispering Hollywood's name
Stealing gold from the silver they see
But it's not me

I know. I say I need the money and that I want the fame, and now I have it. The clothes, the shoes, the constant admirers and paparazzi. I should be happy, making others smile and laugh. My songs take a sad turn as I realise that I myself have broken my ties with Iggy, the one who believed from the start.

My star.

Here in these deep city lights
Girl could get lost tonight
I'm finding every reason to be gone
There's nothing here to hold on to
Could I hold you?

I cry myself to sleep. I feel so alone, even though a sea of people who love me surround me. No one knows my name. They know that I'm Monique Jones. They don't know the chatterbox girl, the fashionista, the laugh-er, the hope-er, the dreamer.

They don't know Nudge.

I'm drifting. In loneliness and a terrible, hollow feeling that never fades.

I sneak from my apartment and catch the subway to the station near Iggy's apartment in the downtown.

I arrive at his doorstep at two in the morning, and yet he still opens the door for me.

Even though I have not done the same for him.

Calling out somebody save me I feel like I'm fading away
Am I gone?
Calling out somebody save me I feel like I'm fading

I throw myself into his arms, and I cry. I cry, and I sob my apologies, and I say I'm sorry for leaving, for being distant, for losing myself.

I feel like I'm someone else. I am fading away. The only comfort for me is that he is still here. He still knows who I am. He can find me, from where I am lost.

My light, and my saviour.

In these deep city lights
Girl could get lost tonight
I'm finding every reason to be gone
There's nothing here to hold on to
Could I hold on to you?

There is something for me to hold onto know. I know now. This is not the life for me. I'm not for fame.

Because, fame means that my friends are not who I want them to be. I need a friend who can keep me from drifting, from losing myself. Iggy is that friend.

I terminate my contract, and I go back to singing in the smoky little bar where I got my big break. The pay is worse, but I am much happier.

Now, I know who I am.

I have been found.