Authors Note: Sigh, But to own Hairspray... I can dream :-) Also BTW spelling isn't my forte so i ask for forgiveness in advance

"Someday this will all be just a silly story to tell our kids. And they'll laugh at us and say 'Come on, Ma, be serious! Nothing is segregated and nothing has been in forever! Thats ancient history!' But we'll smile and we'll say 'Ok, don't believe us, but we were on a show that was segregated.' It'll be great." said Tracy with a smile. Her eyes were permamentaly fixed upwards, seeing the future. Penny offered a smile and a "Mm-hm" before putting the sucker in her mouth and turning to smile at Seaweed, who squeezed her hand and smiled back.

Link was the only one amoung them not smiling. He had been, all day, since the Miss Hairspray Pagent, but he'd come down from that cloud rather suddenly. It had only been a week since that fateful coupling of nights leading up to and at the show, but since then everything had changed. Baltimore as Link Larkin knew it had changed.

He hadn't realized it, happy as a clam with Tracy. After all, what could be better? He got the girl, the good one, the agents asked him to sign after his performance at the Miss Hairspray show, and he'd made new friends: Seaweed and Penny and a conglomeration of other kids Seaweed knew. Ok, so some of his old friends shied away, but who cared? People like Tracy and her friends were who held the future.

But yesterday, on his fall from Cloud Nine, he hit his head. And it hurt.

"Well thank you, Li'l Inez. There you have it, everybody, all our new Council Kids. Don't you change the channel, folks, we'll be back with more of the newly and totally intergrated Corny Collins show, with Motormouth Maybelle"

"That's me! You stay right there and we'll jam more of your favorite R+B, brought to you by Ultra Clutch!"

"And we're off! That was great, everybody, great!"

"Psst, Link, C'mere a minute."

"Me?"

"Who else do you know named Link? C'mere!"

"What's up, Seaweed?"

"You hear about Amber?"

"Uh..."

"How she's gone from school and everything?"

"Well, yeah, Mrs. Von Tussle got fired. They left."

"That's not why they left Baltimore."

"Yeah it is. Why else?"

"Wake up, Cracker Boy! Can't you see? They left because the show got intergrated."

"No."

"Your right. That and Amber was 'making friends' with John Russells."

"Who?"

"John Russells. He's a friend of mine? They started dancing at the pagent."

"Oh yeah? Hmm. So? Mrs. Von Tussle didn't like me all that much."

"Boy, really! John was a friend of mine. He was black!"

"..."

"Yeah. Welcome back to reality."

"No."

"And we're back on in ten, nine,"

"Places!"

"Smile pretty for the camera."

"Five, four, three,"

"No."

"Welcome back to the Corny Collins show!"

"Link."

"Link."

"Link?"

"Link!"

"Huh?"

"You spaced out!"

"Sorry, Trace." He smiled, but it was a surface smile only. He had noticed. But he hadn't wanted to admit it. Things between Amber and he had been moving forward at a standstill. The Larkins had met Amber, thought she was nice and all, and of course Mrs. Von Tussle knew Link. But he had the feeling Amber had inherited her view of men from her mother: Link was on the same level of a teddy bear... a great accesory but not much else.

Thus, neither of them had been horribly heartbroken when it had ended. He had noticed, from up in his euphoria, that Mrs. Von Tussle was screaming on the sidelines, and Amber was dancing with a black fellow. But so what, he thought, people like Tracy are the future, they have to teach everyone else, she'd taught him, maybe Amber had learned, too.

No. He'd sat next to Tracy on the bus, in class, at lunch, so obviously he didn't see his old friends as much. He had attributed it to that. But they were avoiding him. Not all of them. More so Brad, and Mikey. Fender and IQ acknowldged him, smiled, but not much more.

Li'l Inez and the rest of the new Council got dirty looks from some people. They acted like they were used to it, but they got to dance on TV. Some people did leave, but some stayed, an whoever left got replaced, no big deal.

Big deal.

He hadn't wanted to notice. Tracy said, "They can't stop the beat. It's happening." They may not be able to stop the beat, but Lord knew they were gonna try their hardest.