A/N: Forgot to say, title and inspiration for first chapter from "Somebody That I Used To Know" by Goyte. This chapter also includes a line pilfered from Power Play, for the 8.2 people in the world who might recognize it, if they were also Smash fans.

She'd been offered a part in another workshop. Her agent had sent the pages over that morning. It would probably go nowhere, like most new shows, but it was a solo and a duet and the character had promise.

The pages were heavy and she was jittery. Not that she hadn't done dozens of these before, over the years. But it had been so long, Bombshell had gone so far, that she stuck the pages into her bag and spent an hour at the gym sweating out the nerves and washing them away before settling in at her favourite cafe to try again.

The comings and goings and the heavy iron chairs kept her right where she needed to be: grounded and logical. The workshop was a good idea, a good opportunity. It wasn't like she was busy. This was as least better than her ensemble role in Bombshell had been. And it was never a bad idea to stick your fingers in a few more pies; the fragments of points you could pick up, even this early, was what kept many an actor from starving during lean times.

Finger tapping along absentmindedly on her coffee cup, she hummed the melody underneath the ambient noise. Actually, it was rather nice, and she was already picking out places where she could draw out emotion and pull the audience along. Maybe it was a bit too reminiscent of Into the Woods, but the writers were new, and there was plenty of time f-

Someone dropped heavily into the seat across from her, even though the place was half-empty.

"Derek." The soft, surprised tone was not in any of the scripts she'd rehearsed, thinking about the first time she'd see him after...

"Candy From Strangers?" He inclined his head, thumb rubbing over the side of his cup.

She collected herself. "Yes."

"Tom." He clarified, to her silent question. "It'll never go anywhere."

As if she didn't know that. Not everyone could just stumble into a Bombshell, and not everyone had the luxury to pick and choose. As if he didn't know that.

She made a noncommittal sound, and flipped over to a page of dialogue, trying to focus on the words while hyper aware of him lounging so close his sneakers were almost nudging her bag. Most of her lines were nothing special, but with the right emphasis and pauses – she wasn't afraid to play for laughs.

Or at least two lines had promise, since that's what she kept reading, over and over, cycling back when her attention wandered. When it reached the point past which she could reasonably pretend to still be on the same page, and he was still sitting there, being quiet, she brought up the only other thing there was to talk about. Even if she didn't want to.

"I hear Bombshell is doing well." Tactfully, no one had brought up details, but with funding secured, they were moving swiftly on towards Broadway.

"Yes." He looked a little cranky, but that was his problem.

Nothing more was forthcoming. Fine. He was the one who'd sat down. If he'd expected anything more from her, she didn't owe it to him to figure it out. She moved on to the next page, on which she'd already made a couple notes.

Eventually, he'd give up and go away, and it would be over with. Broadway was a tiny community and they had people in common, so avoiding him entirely wasn't possible. But still, first meeting, no casualties. It could only go up from here.

"Look, Ivy," he leaned forwards, elbows almost on her side of the small table. "You know I had to, it's about the show. You know that."

Unless it went further down.

"So what," she cut indignant, "It's all my fault now?"

"Of course not-"

"Bombshell is fine, I'm not even there." She was. Bombshell had its Marilyn. She leaned forward herself, hissing the words. "What else could you possibly want from me?" She would have left anyway. She couldn't stand in the shadows watching K- watching her catapult to fame using phrasing and choreography she hadn't – couldn't have - developed. It happened all the time but not like this. She would have left anyway.

She hadn't needed the non-subtle comments spread through second hand gossip, that her continued presence was only upsetting their star.

Bastards.

Would have served her right, after all those weeks spent screaming in her ear, simpering for every scrap of attention and pretending she didn't want any of it, it just happened! To! Her! Because Oh! She's just a Sweet! Perfect! Innocent! Girl from Iowa! And-

Who knew what her internal rant looked like from the outside. Probably pretty pissed. Derek's eyes were on the floor somewhere near the next table over. Suddenly she didn't want him to run. She wanted him to try and explain, justify using her and lying to her and never even giving her a fair chance. She wanted to break him down until... until something. She'd know it when she had it.

Finger pads stopped scraping over his thumbnail for half a second as he met her eyes, started up again as he looked away. "What was I was supposed to do? " He held the pause as his eyes held hers.

Hello, Further Depths of Hell. Now he wanted her to tell him how to not piss off his next girlfriend. Everyone had stayed away from that topic entirely, but it wasn't as if it hadn't crossed her mind that Newly Single Iowa would jump at the chance to date her Adoring and Powerful Director. Every time he got near her she'd wiggle and hold her breath like he was her first crush.

And now he wanted her to once again be the stand in, work out all the kinks so when it was show time, the lead would find it all running smoothly.

"For starters," she had actually intended to storm off, but the chance to slap him, even a little, the very real possibility that this would be the only chance she ever got, won out. Even if it became just another way Iowa benefited from her pain. "Standing up your girlfriend to screw someone else is pretty much the universal definition of a bad idea."

The tragedy was, that hadn't actually been the worst of it.

"You slept with Dev," he calmly replied. Then, after a pause, "and Lyle."

Someone had told him. Of course, he didn't even care. In his world, sex was just a power play.

"I didn't sleep with Lyle," she countered. She hadn't, and wouldn't have. Especially not with a room full of people downstairs. Some flirting, a little making out was all she had been expecting, before they'd run into Eileen.

Not that this was a real defense, but he gave her the point anyway.

"And Dev," she didn't know why she felt the need to defend herself, when he was the one who was always abandoning her to screw around. "I slept with him after you slept with Rebecca."

He narrowed his eyes, but there was only a hint of edge to his voice. "I told you why I-"

"No, you didn't. You gave me another stupid story about how you're always right."

"I never said-"

"You asked what you could have done instead? You're a smart guy, figure it out." She threw words from their past at him, because they haunted her.

"That's it?" His voice was strained.

She shook her head. In for a penny, in for a pound. This wasn't a conversation she intended to have again, and she didn't want to have it only halfway.

"You always say 'that's the truth,' like it means something. It doesn't. You do lie, Derek," his shoulders twitched, "And you lie about things that matter."

"I never told you anything that wasn't true."

She scooted back in her chair. "The sad thing is, I believe you believe that." And he believed passionately. She missed that. "But you also leave out a lot of important things."

"Like?" He dug his fingers into his arm.

Endless nights flashed through her mind. "Like you were never going to give me Marilyn. Not for real."

"I didn't know that."

"Why did you go over to Karen's place in the middle of the night to apologize?"

He sighed, another conversation he'd already resolved. "Because you told me to."

"You're blaming me, again?"

"Why did you lie about your voice going, and wait to fall apart in the middle of rehearsal," he countered.

His voice was starting to match her own, cutting but not quite mean. She blinked. Partly because she'd thought he was too groggy that morning to remember anything. Mostly because, sadly, this was probably as honest as they'd ever been. Too little, too late. It hurt like anything, but maybe it always needed to happen.

"You know why."

His eyebrows raised.

"You would have taken me out and put in Karen in a heartbeat."

His jaw tightened. "Which we almost had to do anyway."

She let it drop. She didn't want to talk about the drugs he'd bullied her into taking, and everything that happened after. He didn't know, she didn't want him to know. It almost didn't matter anymore. He would never think he'd done anything wrong, and he'd never try to understand why she wasn't wrong either.

She pitched the script into the open top of her gym bag.

"Look, Derek," she bit her tongue, hard, in case she started to cry. It was easier to hate him than to admit that she hadn't. "I liked you a lot." The coffee was still warm in her hand. "Probably more than you deserved." It wasn't as if she wanted to drink it anymore, but it helped to hold onto something. "I don't think there was anything you could do, really. It's just who you are. Or who you think you are," she amended.

He made no move to respond. She was glad, in a way.

"I thought you could be-" Oh, the power of self-delusion. "I thought you wanted to be something else. And you thought I'm something I'll never be." Almost. But she wasn't like him, she couldn't go that far. "We were never going to work. Sleep with her, your star, date her, don't try to have it both ways and you'll be fine."

Grabbing her bag with her free hand, she stood up.

Karen didn't deserve to find out the hard way either. In case she was right, and Derek would move on to his next star, eventually, and she'd just be another walking legend he'd discovered.

Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to meet his eyes. And ignore what looked like a little bit of pain around the edges. She'd thought she wanted to hurt him. What she really wanted was to understand. Something else she could never have.

"But next time you should tell her first, before you move on."

She was already heading for the exit when he stopped her. "Why did you sleep with Dev?"

Who was asking, Karen or Derek? It couldn't possibly matter, at this point. It wasn't like her motives weren't obvious, to anyone but him.

"Karen had just ditched him during his proposal, you'd just ditched me. Sometimes it's nice not to be alone."

Poor Dev. He'd been cruel to her. But then, she didn't think he'd ever quite accepted that Karen wasn't as perfect as he thought she was (or she thought she was), and that was his problem.

It struck her again that she was very good at being heartless, when she didn't mean to be. Sleeping with Dev had given Derek the last piece to turn Karen into whatever it was he saw that made her a star. By his own professional obsession, he should be thanking her, not sulking. She was the only one who had gotten hurt, in the end. Her and Dev.

"Now you're lying."

She was. Oh, sure, she'd done it to make herself feel better. With Lyle, too. But she'd also wanted to hurt Derek back. Another way life backfired. Since she was the only one who came out of it worse off than before.

"What does it matter?" she asked, with a brittle smile. The final question. What had she mattered. What had they mattered?

She waited for a moment; it was a rhetorical question, but she was curious to see if he had an answer anyway. At last, he came to some sort of decision, speaking so low she had to lean closer to hear.

"I didn't think we were over."

There was something in that she didn't want to examine too closely.

It was easier to assume the obvious. Ivy and Dev were the villains. Derek and Karen got to be the heroes. A match made in – as good an excuse as any to get what they wanted, in a way not even prudish Karen could object. Hell, it was probably even romantic, if you were hearing about it as a story. Beauty and the Beast, Phoenix from the Ashes, Cinderella in her Castle in the Stars...

"Fuck you," she spat. And before he could say anything else, she was gone.