Mama who bore me.

Mama who gave me

No way to handle things. Who made me so sad.

"No way," Billy breathes. "This can't be real."

"What's up?" asks Cassie, behind him. With Karolina deciding to take the younger girl under her wing, she seems to have decided her and Billy are friends as well. Billy's not going to complain, especially if Karolina keeps doing the hard work for him.

Billy nods at the woman running a scene with Julie. This must be their Adult Woman. They haven't met her yet, but Billy recognizes her. He's seen her on stage before, almost five years ago. He remembers it well, one of the best days of his life. His parents had taken him to a production of Into the Woods. He hadn't known the show, had hardly known any musicals at that point. But he watched Wanda Maximoff from the moment she hobbled onto stage. The rest of the cast was good, but Wanda was magnetic, commanded the stage effortlessly. And when she had sung Last Midnight, he knew. Knew that's where he wanted to be. On stage, wielding his voice like a weapon.

Sure, it had taken him years to admit that dream to anyone else. But that's where it had begun. With the Witch, who is now here in front of him, in his rehearsal space.

"That's Wanda Maximoff," he explains to Cassie. "She… I saw her. As the Witch. She's amazing."

Cassie giggles. "Do you need a moment, Billy?" He might stress at the giggles being at his expense, but he can't focus on anything but the scene in front of him. He watches Wendla's mother lie to her daughter, and tries to remember to breathe.

He had waited at the stage door, crumpled program in hand. She had looked so surprised when he asked her to sign it, like she hadn't just killed one of the hardest female roles in theatre.

"Oh, she was on that show, wasn't she?" Cassie's still talking, but he can't concentrate, because the full truth of what Wanda being here means has just caught uyp to him. She met him. Talked to him, had a conversation.

Five years ago was a long time.

Especially for him.

It's a good thing he doesn't have any solo lines in Totally Fucked, because try as he might, he can't quite swallow the fear in the pit of his stomach. When rehearsal ends, he speeds out of there, fast enough that within ten minutes he has texts from Karolina and Cassie, both asking if he's okay. He's barely finishing typing out yeah, fine to Karolina when he gets a text from an unknown number.

Hey, it's Achilles! I got this number from Karolina. I hope that's okay. Are you alright? you seemed off at rehearsal.

Achilles? Oh, right. The terrible joke he'd made, the first day. His cheeks burn and he stares at the message like it's in a foreign language. What does he say? just not feeling very social today. thanks for asking though he finally sends back, after almost ten minutes of stressing. He feels like he can't get air in his lungs. This is over the top, even for him. He's usually got a little more self control.

Teddy's reply comes as he's opening his apartment door. He glances around, and sees a pill bottle on the counter. Where he left it this morning. Without taking his meds.

Suddenly, the panic makes a lot more sense.

"Shit," he mutters, and takes his dose, because better late than never, right?

I'M SORRY. Want me to leave you alone?

no, it's fine. He worries his lip, then adds you sounded really good today.

Thanks! You did too. I'm terrified of the choreo for Totally Fucked… Not much of a dancer.

neither am i, don't worry. we can suffer together.

Halfway through gushing about the choreo in Jesus Christ Superstar (i can't believe you haven't seen it! i'll lend it to you.) Tommy comes home. He's got a nasty bruise on one cheek, but seems to be in good spirits. Knowing his brother, the bruise might even be contributing to the good mood.

"How long have you been standing here?" Tommy bumps him out of the way of the sink and starts to scrub the dirt off of his hands. "Today I got to fall off a building! It was so cool."

"Proud of you," says Billy absentmindedly. He's been home almost half an hour, but he's not about to admit that. He casually sits down at the table, pulls out his script, because next rehearsal is Word of Your Body reprise and a few more spoken scenes, and he really doesn't want to mess up any lines. His phone sits beside him, still buzzing with Teddy's questions. They're talking about some of the strangest choices they've seen made on stage, now. Apparently when researching Hänschen, Teddy had found a production that had Hänschen's masturbation scene end with a confetti cannon. Billy demands proof.

"You didn't even check the messages? Jeeze, Billy. You're slacking."

There's a beep from the answering machine, and then a familiar voice cuts through the apartment.

"Thomas?"

Billy freezes. So does Tommy. Billy knows he does, even though he can't see him at this angle. The only times he's ever seen Tommy perfectly still is when this voice is talking.

"Thomas, it's Mary. Rebecca said I could reach you at this number."

Tommy hadn't really seen much of his foster parents since he got out of juvie. In fact, when he was released, it was radio silence. Billy had recently tracked him down, and convinced his mom to take in a boy he hardly knew. He couldn't leave his twin brother with nowhere to go. They're family. Family doesn't do that.

Which is why Frank and Mary Shepherd don't really deserve the title.

"I'm calling because Frank was in an accident. He can't work, and I didn't know what I was going to do…" The woman does sound honestly upset. But it had taken almost two years for the Shepherds to contact Tommy, after juvie. Billy remembers that call, and all of the ones that followed. Always at least a few months apart. Always some crisis, and Mary asking him to come home, just for a bit, just to help out. And Tommy would go, because for some reason he still feels like he owes them something, and he would come home a few nights later, always livid, looking like he's hardly slept, filled with quotes from his foster family that were almost comically terrible after the fact, but must have been so much worse to hear in person.

Billy had met them once. After Frank had casually mentioned how faggots were responsible for this country's downward spiral, he decided he was better off avoiding them and hating them from afar.

"But I remembered you didn't bother to go to university this year," Billy flinches, because he and Tommy had both tried a year of university, and it hadn't gone well for either of them, for different reasons. It wasn't something they talked about, much. "So I thought I would call, and ask you to come home, just for a few days." They hadn't heard from the Shepherds since they had moved out. Billy had naively thought that maybe they had finally decided to ignore Tommy entirely. But no, it seems that when they needed something, they decided to remember the boy who had lived in their house for almost thirteen years.

"It would mean so much to me. And to your father."

The message ends. Billy sighs, his whole body tense. "You don't have to go."

"I know," Tommy says, in a voice that already sounds resigned.

"Tommy. You can just ignore it. You don't owe them-"

Tommy isn't listening. He stomps off to his room, and packs as loudly as he can, slamming doors and smashing cupboards. Then he storms out into the kitchen again, muttering under his breath, twitchy and unfocused. In moments like this, he looks like he did when Billy first met him, angry and rattling, a literal loose canon. Billy hates seeing him like this. He hates it and he hates his brother's useless foster family, too.

"I have three days off. If I leave tomorrow, early, I should be fine, that should be enough time… Maybe I should call work though. Just in case."

"Don't call work." Billy doesn't mean to sound so harsh. He bites his tongue instead of apologizing.

"Billy," Tommy is talking through gritted teeth. "Don't." Billy flinches at the anger in his twin's voice, already feeling guilty, because he knows, he knows his brother doesn't want to hear it. "Don't talk. I don't have time to argue with you."

So Billy says nothing. He says nothing, just goes to bed earlier than usual, and when he wakes up, Tommy is already gone. Whatever. Billy has auditions to prep for and a duet to practice. He doesn't care.

Still, he texts Tommy a be safe anyway. If he gets a raised eyebrow for it later, he can play it off as a joke.

He tries to take advantage of having an empty apartment like it's a good thing. Karolina and Cassie come over on the second night, and they all cook dinner and then watch Jesus Christ Superstar, because it's apparently still on his mind. He had texted Teddy an invite as well, but the boy had declined, saying he already had plans. He did sound genuinely sorry, so Billy had tried not to stress about it.

Cassie was a great addition to him and Karolina's hangouts, though. She hadn't seen the movie, but she had seen a live production of it, when she was very young.

"My dad's an actor!" she explains. "Which was romantic to my mother for a few years. Then they got a divorce. I don't see him a lot anymore, but I do try to make it to all of his shows. He played Pilate, when I saw this. Mom hates that I wanna act too. Blames it on him." She makes a face. "Blames everything on him, actually."

After they leave, Billy takes the hint that the universe seems to be giving him, and calls his own mother. By the time they've finished catching up, it's almost a reasonable time to go to bed. He hasn't heard from Tommy, so he assumes he's still coming home tomorrow. Tomorrow is also when he gets to sing a love song with his current crush, a crush that has only grown with the almost constant texting conversation they've been having over the last few days.

He's kept himself busy enough, had enough other things to worry about, that he's all but forgotten to worry about whether Wanda recognized him or not.

She did.

She remembers it very well. It had been a tough week, but having a young teen waiting at the door just for her, shyly telling her that she had been 'amazing, the best, probably...' had been exactly what she needed. And while the parents hung back, Wanda brushed a bruised cheek with careful fingers, asked if everything was okay, and had been quietly told about a bully. It was such a matter-of-fact telling, like bullies were just part of life, inescapable. And maybe they were, but they shouldn't be, shouldn't leave bruises in their wake. Wanda had said just that, told the kid that they all have power in them, even if they don't know it (because that's what musicals have always taught her, and it hasn't steered her wrong yet).

"Be yourself," she says, and gets a smile in return. "And stand your ground. Remember," She hums a bar of music. "No one is alone."

"Truly," is the response she gets, and she knows this conversation might be important to her, but it is even more so to the this one, who already seems to be standing a little taller.

Wanda surprises herself by ending the talk with a hug, which is eagerly returned. It's a conversation she has run through in her mind many times, in the years since. So of course she recognizes him, although it does take her a moment to place where she's seen that face before. She hears someone call him Billy, finds out he's playing Ernst. And although she might not have the right to, she feels a rush of pride, seeing him grown. She's excited to work with him, see what kind of person he's become.

He reminds her of herself, in an odd way.

It's in the details.

Getting ready for rehearsal, she hums the tune of a song she doesn't quite know.

"Mama, the weeping.

Mama, the angels.

No sleep in Heaven, or Bethlehem."