When the director finally released him from his interview session, Derek wandered around the edges of the bustling set in a daze. Filming of the show would start in about an hour, an assistant had told him, and he was free to do whatever he wanted until then, as long as he didn't get in the way. Dodging speed-walking interns and stepping over bundles of thick wires, all he wanted to do was find a quiet corner where he could review the choices he'd made in his life to land him in this hellhole.

He spotted a corner that seemed to be less busy than the rest of the big room and made a beeline for it. There was a table tucked against the wall, with an assortment of stale powdered donuts and sickly sweet pastries atop it. Derek figured he'd stumbled on the craft services the assistant producer had instructed him to help himself to. Derek looked disdainfully at the limp fruit tray, and thought about his and Laura's breakfast of hearty oatmeal, swirled with brown sugar and cinnamon.

Laura had been barely awake, nodding off into her bowl. Unsurprising, considering it had been 4AM and neither of them had slept well in their hotel room. They'd made the trip from NYC early enough that they'd be over their jet lag, but spending a week in a no frills hotel with a tiny kitchen was taking a toll on both of them. They'd both been tired from a sleepless night, but she'd woken up enough to try and settle his nerves before they left for the film set.

"Thank you for doing this, Der," she whispered in the early morning quiet. "I know this is so far from your thing, it's not even in the same country as you, but this could really make our dream a reality."

Derek leaned into her hand on his shoulder and took a deep breath to calm his panic.

"You're so talented," she said. "You were born to make amazing food for Sweet Things by Hale and I was born to take care of the business side you artists don't think about." They both smiled at memories of their father teasing their mother at her lack of concern for the finer details of budgeting. "Just get through today, kick some ass and we'll finally do right by them."

They were silent during the cab ride to the set, and Laura had hugged him when they reached the point when she could no longer go with him. The buoyant hope that he'd been feeling had disappeared by the time he walked through the doorway.

He crossed his arms over his chest and put his back to the wall. He had about half an hour before he'd need to get into his outfit for the show, and he was going to spend it quietly and calmly trying not to tear his hair out.

"Who do I have to blow around here to get a tiny styrofoam cup of lukewarm coffee?" A voice mumbled from next to the food table.

Derek looked over at a guy who was already wearing a chef's jacket like the one he'd been given to wear for the filming, and looked even more like a zombie than Laura had. Derek's surprise must have showed on his face, since the guy noticed his gaze and grimaced.

"Sorry," he said, his voice rough from sleep. "I don't have much of a filter on a good day, but on 3 hours sleep and insufficient caffeine? There's no telling what'll come out of here." He gestured to his mouth with a shaky hand.

Derek suppressed a bubble of amusement, and raised an eyebrow. "You're a baker. Aren't you used to early mornings?"

"Nuh-uh. We serve the dessert crowd, not the morning donut people. We're never open before 11AM, and our prep time is a finely oiled machine, precisely so that neither of us have to wake up before 8, which is approaching a normal time for human beings to be awake."

Laura would probably lecture him for even talking with someone from the other team, but the guy looked so pathetic that Derek took pity on him. He pointed to a man he'd seen toting Starbucks cups to various producers and crew members.

"I think if you ask him very nicely, he could get you one. No blowing required," he added, just to see the guy squirm.

The guy blushed, but smiled brightly. "Thanks, I owe you one," he said, and turned in the direction of the potential bringer of coffee. He made it a couple steps before he seemed to cognate what he'd said and whipped back around. "I mean, not a...you know. Just a favour. Not of the...blowing variety." He gave up, and slouched away, muttering, "God, I need some coffee."

Derek shook his head as he watched him go, but he appreciated that the guy had made him forget that he was about to make an idiot of himself on camera for 3 minutes. Derek gave up on trying to find some peace and quiet in the place and headed for the green room to put his outfit on.

"Alright, listen up, people. We've got about 15 minutes until they want to start filming the opening sequence."

The green room was actually a sickly, faded yellow that might have been mustard at one time, which was even more horrifying. Both teams and a few sound technicians were crowded into the room, in their separate corners, while one of the producers lectured them about conduct becoming of representatives of the network. Isaac was nodding along like he was listening intently, but Derek was pretty sure he was just as zoned out as the rest of them, he just had a face that defaulted to earnest.

Derek still felt like Isaac was a good choice for his team. He used to work in the bakery for summers and the Christmas rush. He'd looked Derek up when he'd moved to New York to go to culinary school, and they'd struck up a friendship of sorts. If he could call Isaac occasionally texting him to ask his advice on cooking techniques a friendship. Derek didn't make friends easily, but Isaac was persistent, even inviting himself over a few times for a real time demonstration. He knew that Isaac still considered Beacon Hills his home, so Derek had offered him a spot on his team with the promise that, if they won, he'd be the first person he hired when the bakery was up and running.

When they'd all filed in, they'd been instructed to go around the room saying their names. Derek wasn't sure why it mattered, though, he supposed, they'd each want to know whose name they'd be curses if they lost.

Lydia was the name of the girl he was up against. She was pretty, a pale, red-headed china doll with perfect make-up, but Derek noticed that her hands were rough and reddened from work. He knew from growing up in a family of mostly women not to underestimate someone just because they were beautiful. (Conversely, he wished people didn't overestimate his social skills because of the way he looked.)

The guy Derek had met before, Stiles, had found his coffee. While the producer droned on about friendly competitiveness getting out of hand, Stiles caught Derek's eye, pointed to a garishly branded paper cup, then gave a huge thumbs up. Derek nodded indulgently and gave a much less enthusiastic thumbs up back. At the producer's pointed cough, they both went back to listening, but not before Derek caught Erica's eye, then quickly looked away from the mischievous sparkle he saw there.

Erica's position on the team had been a no-brainer. She'd worked at the same restaurant as Derek for the past year, mostly at the crepe station, the only job more odious than cannolis. She'd done it with a minimum of complaining, and had convinced Derek of her talent, if not the misogynistic, old-world Italian owner of the place. She was also the only person he'd met who could stand working right next to him for long hours. Everyone else Derek had ever had superiority over was scared of him. After about a day, Erica told him to screw off and move out of her way.

Boyd had come with Erica. He didn't have the baking calling, but he'd washed dishes at the restaurant to put himself through school as a subcontractor, so he was the perfect choice to help them with the structural integrity of their competition winning cake, and the bells and whistles Laura had told him he'd need to include.

"Alright, folks, that's it for now. 10 minutes until show time."

The teams naturally gravitated to opposite sides of the room. There was tension in the room, but it lacked the edge of animosity he'd been expecting. It was mostly a quiet nervousness, disturbed only by Stiles, who was regaling the other guy on his team with a loud story about the asshole in the bank in front of him the other day. Stiles didn't seem to realize how impossible it was not to listen to the drama, and he seemed surprised when Isaac laughed at a particularly outlandish detail.

"Don't stop now, please," Erica said, smirking. "What happened next?"

Stiles' cheeks didn't go pink like they had earlier, but Derek could see a ruddy flush creeping up his long neck. "It got pretty boring after that, actually. You know. Banking."

Somehow, Derek doubted that anything Stiles did was boring.

Stiles' discomfort seemed to break the ice in the room, and the two teams started making small talk. Derek knew his strengths, so he faded away, grabbing a plastic cup and filling it from the pitcher of tap water they'd provided.

"Hey," Derek managed not to jostle the pitcher when Stiles' voice interrupted him. "Thanks for the tip, from earlier. I feel marginally more human." Stiles waggled his cup, now empty, as he leaned against the rickety refreshment table.

"Don't mention it."

"I mean, there's only so much that one 8 ouncer's gonna do for me, considering my normal intake, but I've got a couple of Red Bulls in my bag, if it comes to it. Problem is, I promised my dad after the scrambled egg incident of '09 that I wouldn't ever drink that stuff before noon."

"Quite the dilemma." It was only 7AM.

"Right? So, the question is, do I want to risk my dad's disappointed face if end up addicted to energy drinks again, or Lydia's vengeful talons if I fall asleep in her fondant?"

Derek snorted into his cup, then Laura's face loomed in his mind, judging him with dark eyebrows for finding someone on the other team so amusing. emGet your head in the game, Hale/em, she might say. Actually, probably not.

"Shouldn't you be over there encouraging your team leader?" Derek said, then winced at how curt he sounded. It was a brush-off, but he hadn't intended it to be so abrupt.

"Nah, Lydia doesn't need a pep talk from me. She's awesome, and she knows it." Stiles aimed wistful stare in her direction, unfazed by Derek's terseness. "It's a good thing I got over my obsession with her in high school."

Derek followed Stiles gaze, then couldn't keep from picturing them both as high-schoolers. Would Stiles have had had longer hair? Would he have been even skinnier than he was now? Derek could bet Lydia hadn't changed much. "You've known each other a long time?"

"Yup. Classic rom-com material. She didn't know I existed. We both moved away, went to separate culinary schools, found each other when we moved back home within a couple of months of each other. Only problem? She didn't fall madly in love with me, and I'd switched teams. Hollywood really lost out on that one."

"Tragic. They could have had themselves the next When Harry Met Sally."

Stiles threw his head back and groaned, theatrically. "Oh, come on. That's the most relevant romantic movie you could come up with? What are you, a caveman? Not even The Notebook?"

"You should be grateful I didn't say the next Gigli." Stiles's response was another groan, followed by retching.

"Okay, people!" A perky intern had popped her head through the doorway. "Let's head over, it's go time!"

"Hey, good luck today, man," Stiles said, and raised his hand to shoulder height, like he wanted to pat Derek's arm, then evidently thought better of it, and ran his! fingers through his messy hair instead.

"You too."

Whatever levity Derek had managed to find in their brief respite vanished under the hot lights of the set. Derek couldn't see much beyond them, but he could make out a flurry of movement of the camera crew just beyond the edge of the kitchen.

From the first "action" to the end of the opening sequence was a blur. Derek forgot the names of the judges immediately. The host, whose teeth were just as blindingly bright in person as they were on the small screen, also introduced a kind-looking older man who announced that his toy shop was celebrating its 30th anniversary. That was their theme, they learned. Their cake had to represent the joy and childishness of a toy store.

There was no height requirement, as Laura had told him other shows had, (Seriously, who needed a cake that was over 6 feet tall?) but they would be judged on more than just aesthetic appeal. It had to be impressive, he knew. As he sketched out a plan, with cameras and the host hovering at his shoulders, he tried to harness all the imagination his mom and Laura had always told him he had. He could see what he wanted in his head, and he was hopeful that his vision would translate better into sponge and fondant than it did onto a two-dimensional sketch, because the cake he envisioned was a winner.

He could definitely do this.