Yeah, people are gonna kill me. But this is what's been in my brain. *sigh* New fandom, here we go.

A Long Way From Here

1

"I don't know, Coop. Some of these names are pretty public eye. We don't really have that kind of money in the budget." Owen Reynolds told Chad as he pushed one of the many lists currently cluttering the tabletop back to the other man.

Chad glanced at the list Owen had passed him, his eyes skimming the actresses who'd been suggested for the part. His eyes nearly bugged out at some of them. Nicole Kidman? Charlize Theron? Who was Natalie kidding, Chad asked himself. There was no way such big name actresses would even think of signing on at the rates he and Owen were offering, much less happily slave away on what was best termed an indie film. It was all he could do to keep from laughing.

"Well, Natalie Portman's been known to do some low budget stuff," he offered, his eyes lighting on that name. "And I think Scarlet said she was between projects. But I don't think this is something she'd be looking for right now. I heard she was being considered for the next Spielberg film."

"Do you really think Scarlet Johanssonwould say yes to this?" Owen asked Chad, his mouth quirked with sarcasm.

Chad shrugged, considering it. "Probably not. But what's the worst thing that happens? You ask, and she says no."

"Ha ha. No, you ask and she says no. I ask and she laughs me back to London."

"Point taken," Chad replied as he skimmed more of the list, his blue eyes shrewd as he considered each name before moving on. "Wait, who the hell wanted to ask Avril Lavigne to costar?"

Owen craned his head back over the table, the newest list in his hands completely forgotten. "How the hell does anyone think Avril Lavigne should be the female lead? Isn't she still her rock-pop tour anyway?"

"No idea. But hey, Anne Hathaway has potential. Granted, she's making more money now than she was a few years ago, but she's got definite potential," Chad pointed out, dropping the list on the table as he leaned back, his hands behind his head.

"Anne Hathaway isn't on any of the lists," Owen mused as he glanced again at the list in front of him and of the several scattered between himself and Chad. He hmm'd before biting his lip and then looking up at Chad.

"She's not," Chad confirmed with a faint smile. "I just thought of her since I saw her the other night at the opening of the last Harry Potter movie."

Owen chuckled. "You actually went to that?" It sounded almost contemptuous as the older man shook his head. "A complete travesty; that entire series was broken in book six. I can't believe she clung to an outline she wrote a decade before finishing the series—"

"And yes, we all know it's a travesty that she didn't take character growth into consideration and we all know that Draco Malfoy got the short end of the stick," Chad interrupted, breaking the oft heard rant well before it was begun. Owen grinned sheepishly and Chad sighed. "I only went because my agent said 'CDC' has to make an appearance. Something about how it's been too long since my last movie, never mind that I've been working on this one."

"We haven't even finished casting, must less started filming. How can you possibly think that this qualifies as working on a movie?" Owen demanded. "You're just being a slacker because you hate L.A."

"What a terrible thing to say," Chad deadpanned. "I adore my hoards of screaming fans."

"And you adore the shit parts your agent gets you? Admit it, 'CDC' peaked with Mackenzie Falls," Owen told Chad. "Besides, you'd gotten better parts here as Chad Cooper than you ever got there as Chad Dylan Cooper."

"I know, I know." Chad mulled it for a second before going back to the lists. "So is Anne Hathaway off the list? Or do you think it's a possibility?"

"Off," was Owen's immediate reply. He glanced up with an amused grin. "Unless you have a couple million lying around to pay her with, because her asking price is almost as high as your buddy Scarlet's."

"Oh. Hadn't realized that. I could not draw any pay at all?" he suggested.

Owen scoffed. "You're putting up half the money on this project, how does that translate to you getting paid?" He didn't even wait for a reply. "She's a no, we can't afford her. Fuck, who can we afford? Maybe if we tried to get rid of some of the post production costs we could scrape some kind of money together."

Chad gave a mirthless laugh. They already nixed as much as they could in the way off costs, right down to having only crew that lived in London, getting their hands on second hand filming equipment, tossing the possible scripts back and forth between the two of them and the other members of the core team (and that was before deciding to pen the damned thing themselves), and practically selling their souls to get a week's filming on a familial estate of one of the crew members.

"We can't cut costs on post production," Chad said flatly, his patience at an end as he crumpled the list he'd had in hand, then reaching for the rest of the lists and taking an unholy amount of pleasure in balling them up one by one. "If we cut costs there," and he reached out and snatched Owen's list, squeezing it, too, into nonexistence, "we risk making this whole project worth less than the effort we're all putting into it."

"Without a female lead we don't even have a movie," Owen pointed out. "And right now, we haven't got one. Which means no movie. Which means none of us get make anything."

"Which also means I'm not shelling out half of a million dollar budget out of my pocket. I may have deep pockets, but you know most of my cash is tied up, I can't touch it till the market takes an up swing."

Chad breathed out a long breathe. "Does she have to be blond?"

"What? Blond? What makes you think she has to be blond?" Owen questioned him.

"Maybe because more than half of the list was blond, and most of the ones you liked were blond?" Chad suggested. "Cause you know our best bet is going to be someone who hasn't been, um, discovered, I guess."

Owen narrowed his eyes. "You've got someone in mind. Coop, you've been holding out on me."

Chad's hands went up in an almost mock surrender. "No, no. I don't, but I do. I knew this girl once, she was a pretty good actress. Or at least she would have been if she'd stayed in L.A. long enough." Chad paused. It crossed Owen's mind that whoever Chad was about to suggest might not be a good idea, since it was obvious that Chad was having second thoughts, but he was a patient man, and if Chad thought the girl was equal to the part, he'd tell him.

"I heard a few weeks ago that she's been doing auditions, but she's having a hard time. Getting type cast."

Owen gave Chad a sympathetic look, knowing that Chad had been victim to that particular devil more than once. "So she's what, a teen queen trying to break the mold?"

"A comedian trying to use a theater degree is more like it," Chad told him, sighing feebly. "You should know who she is; her name's Allison Monroe."

Owen stared at Chad blankly. "That doesn't ring any bells. At all. Try again?"

Chad closed his eyes. "Sonny Monroe," he bit out. "She was the one who got So Random an Emmy."

Owen's eyes widened in recognition. "You mean Funny Sonny? You want her to be Erin? Christ, Coop, she's never acted a day in her life!" Owen stopped abruptly, guilt on his face. "And I'm just as guilty of it as everyone else."

Chad shrugged, this time giving Owen his own particular brand of sympathy. "I did it to her, too, but trust me, she can act. I remember the first few months she was on set with them. None of them liked her much, but you'd never have known it from the way she acted."

"Real life and on screen are completely different things, Coop," Owen pointed out.

"Give her the chance. Make the offer. I think you'll be surprised," Chad told Owen honestly. "Just my opinion, but hey, you're the director."

"Bollocks, you're producing this effing thing. Fine, consider the offer made. Think she'll take it?" At Chad's nod Owen sighed. "You know it's going to push the budget even more to put her up, yeah?" He brightened momentarily. "You think maybe she could pick up her own room if we reimburse her after we open?"

"Doubt it," Chad answered. "I don't think she has access to the money she made while she was with Condor. But I'll underwrite her living expenses—I've got an empty guestroom. Think of the convenience having your stars in one place. You'll be able to find us no matter what."

"Huh," Owen said. "Point taken. You've got yourself a deal, Cooper. Just so long as your Allison Monroe says yes."

xXx

Sonny didn't even pause as she got out of the cab. It was raining hard enough to make her wince as the icy droplets hit her, but Sonny knew from years of experience that looking up to examine a stormy sky only made you wetter and more cold in the end. It was a legacy of too many Wisconsin winters, something she'd never really thought she'd have to rely on after relocating to New York City. But then, she hadn't really thought much about it beyond graduating and going back to the business she knew and loved, even if she'd only been on So Random for two years before leaving.

Unfortunately, her chosen business didn't seem to want her as much as she wanted it. That wasn't exactly fair, Sonny admitted to herself as she managed to slide through the crowd without losing her bag, her purse, her still closed umbrella, or being run over. She was uneasy with the thought that she might one day be like one of the automatons that shoved their way along the sidewalks of the city, making their own path no matter who was in the way, but it was only a matter of time if something didn't give.

The ice-cold rain off of her, Sonny ducked through the run down lobby of the small building she'd rented an apartment from. It was self preservation that made her skip the elevator—she'd ridden in it exactly once since she'd moved in, and that was when she was being shown the apartment—but the stairs were only marginally better. The stairs just made Sonny feel like she had a fighting chance of making it home alive so long as she stayed near the wall and didn't touch the banister. Where it wasn't rotting and loose, it was covered in questionable substance that Sonny just knew she was better off not identifying.

"Home," she breathed, as she made the fifth floor and her own door right next to the stairwell, digging out her keys and carefully unlocking the three locks that secured her life. Home, indeed; she tried not to condemn it, relying on that ever-optimistic side of herself that had gotten her through nearly everything bad in her life.

But optimism was hard to come by when you were living in a space that was barely bigger than a dorm room. Her entire life fit into the boxes still neatly stacked inside the small closet, minus the few that were on the minuscule kitchen counter that had a sink, a mini fridge, and a microwave. Anything extra had been left in Wisconsin in the house she couldn't bear to sale and spent most of her spare money on supporting. It had been a tempting thought Sonny had entertained more than once while she was in school, but in the end she couldn't justify giving up the home she'd grown up in, no matter what happened.

Sonny pushed the thoughts aside as she closed the door behind herself. "I can't believe I'm paying five hundred a month for this," she sighed, taking care to lock all three locks and pushing a chair behind the door just in case. Not that she'd had any problems since moving in, but Sonny didn't think it could hurt. Stranger things had happened in New York City than a girl from Wisconsin being raped or murdered because she'd assumed a few pieces of steel would stop an intruder.

She dropped her oversized purse on a small table next to the now properly locked and safeguarded door, her keys following into the plain glass dish kept there for just that purpose. They clattered pleasantly, echoing through the small space as Sonny halfheartedly kicked one of the boxes in passing on her way to the meager kitchen area. The only things worth any real money in the entire apartment were the laptop carefully hidden beneath the mattress of the bed and the phone that she'd brought with her from Wisconsin.

Sonny had surmised five years earlier when she'd returned to Wisconsin that of all the places to save money, those two were not the places. After all, classes could very well depend on the laptop (and more than once had) and her eventual livelihood would definitely depend on her accessibility. It was only too unfortunate that her cell phone had bit the metaphorical dust just before graduation. She hadn't yet replaced it and doubted it would be before she heard from her current round of auditions. At least this way she could get gentle rejection one after the other in the privacy and relative comfort of her own home.

To her dismay the light on her answering machine was already flashing, the bright red '3' etching itself into her eyes as she bypassed it, heading instead for the mini fridge and one of the many bottles of water waiting inside. No matter how much cheaper it was to filter, Sonny was taking no chances on the water that came from this particular sink. As she stood there drinking it she sighed and pressed the play button, waiting for the inevitable.

"Miss Monroe, this is Theresa with Mr. Silverman's office. We'd like to thank you for coming in to audition. Unfortunately Mr. Silverman has decided that he'd like to go in a different direction. Thank you again."

The sudden burr of the dial tone on the recording was a startling bit of relief after the polite but quite firm rejection. She took another long drink of the cold water as her finger hit the delete button, the sudden silence a peaceful aftermath. It was broken all too soon by the next message, which made Sonny arch an eyebrow as she listened.

"Hi, Sonny, this is Carry out in L.A. We heard you were doing auditions and we have this great sketch show planned we'd like you for. If you're intere—"

She didn't even wait for that one to finish before she deleted it. "Well, that one's new for me," she told herself without humor. "Not interested."

For the third time the silence was interrupted, but this time Sonny actually listened after the first few words, her head tilted in intrigue and her eyes beginning to feel a faint spark of hope behind them.

"I hope I've got this number right. My name is Owen Reynolds, and this message is for Allison Monroe. I've got a script I'd like you to look at, for a movie, so if you're interested it'd be great if you could give me a call back. Ah, if I've got this wrong and you're not Allison Monroe, my apologies. You can reach me at 44-22-5—oh, wait, right, you're in the States. Ah, area code 646-555-4389. Right, I look forward to hearing from you. Oh, it's the female lead, if that helps convince you to call me back. So, yeah, goodbye."

This time the dial done startled Sonny out of her surprise; habit nearly made her erase it before she scrambled after a pen and a scrap of paper. A script—a lead—and she'd been auditioning for supporting roles, not even daring to hope that she might land a lead. She replayed the message once more, the number scribbled down before she had the phone in her hands and was dialing the Manhattan area code.

It rang twice before she got a harried, "Hallo?" But the near curt greeting didn't do anything to dim the smile that was spreading across her lips.

"Hi, I was calling for Owen Reynolds? My name is Allison Monroe."