A/N: Just for the record, this chapter was complete on Wednesday, March 2nd, and could have been posted sooner if more of you would bother to review. Sincere thanks to those of you that do! And to whichever one of you commented about Sonny being a little down, compared with how she is on the show, I know what you mean. I'm hoping she'll regain some of her general perkiness as the story progresses, certainly by the end (and we ain't half way there yet). These have been an intense couple days for her.

Anyway, some things will be solved (ish) this chapter. Others are still just beginning...

Chapter Six: Dance Around a Pit

After an hour and a half of rehearsals without Nico or Tawni present, the remaining three So Random! cast members decided to break for lunch. Mr. Condor expected Sonny and Tawni in his office by one, according to a text Marshall had received.

Nico was pacing back and forth in the prop house when Grady, Zora, and Sonny showed up. "Where have you been, man?" Grady asked. "Condor and Marshall are both pissed off and tomorrow is show night. We need to get to work."

"And where's Tawni?" Zora asked, still feeling like she needed to apologize.

"Tawni's taking a shower," Sonny answered, figuring that was the only reason the blonde was taking so long to change.

Nico hesitated a moment, looking Sonny over. "I just overheard something kind of… strange. And I don't know how you're going to feel about it Sonny…"

"Huh?"

"Well, and you know I'm only telling you this because we're friends, not because I'm trying to upset you, because I'm not. And I'll be the first one to beat Chad up if you ask me to."

"What?" Now she was really confused.

"I overheard Tawni and Chad talking and…well…I think there might be a thing…between them."

"What?"

"I know it's shocking, and I know Tawni might not always be the nicest, but I'm really surprised that she's doing this to you. I mean, we all know how hard your breakup with Chad was."

"What?" Sonny repeated a third time, apparently unable to form any other words.

"What did you hear?" Grady asked, intrigued.

"Well, it was weird. They were all like 'we're not friends but we have an arrangement'. So I don't think they're a couple. But I think maybe they're…you know…more than friends."

"Friends with benefits, you mean?" Zora asked.

"You're too young to even be involved in this conversation," Sonny scoffed, gently ushering the younger girl into her sarcophagus and shutting the door.

"Tawni and Chad aren't sleeping together," Sonny said, finally mustering up some new words.

"I know it's hard for you-"

"No, they aren't, trust me. I don't know what their 'arrangement' is, but I know it's not that," Sonny insisted. "And for the record, I am totally and completely over Chad. Honestly, I was never that into him."

"Uh huh," Nico and Grady replied in unison, clearly disbelieving.

Sonny rolled her eyes and made for the door. "I'm going to go find Tawni. We need to go talk with Mr. Condor."

Grady shook his head. "She's in denial. This is bad."

"We need to step up and be the men, G," Nico decided, banging a hand against his chest for manly emphasis.

"Yeah, we do!" Grady exclaimed eagerly, his excitement almost immediately becoming confusion. "What do you mean?"

"I mean we gotta go find Chad and give him a piece of our minds," Nico declared, marching out of the room.

Grady wasn't too sure about that, but he always followed Nico and this was no exception.

Tawni had showered, changed, and spent the better part of the morning applying makeup to hide the bruise on her face. She had just achieved satisfaction when Sonny entered the room.

"We need to go get Marshall and then talk with Mr. Condor," she said, clearly worried.

"Uh huh," Tawni replied, without taking her face from the mirror.

"This is serious, Tawni," Sonny dropped down on the couch. "I've been out for two days and now I was late and you blew off rehearsals all morning… Condor was texting Marshall every five minutes for the past two hours. He's really angry."

"A lot of people are angry with me right now," Tawni stated matter-of-factly.

"You mean your parents?" Sonny assumed, glancing over at the blonde, who still hadn't broken her gaze from the mirror. "They probably just need some time to cool down. At least, that's what my mom thinks."

"What do you think?"

"Your dad hit you," Sonny replied. "You don't deserve that. No one does. No matter what."

Tawni nodded, still not turning. "See those flowers there?"

Sonny looked around a moment before finding the colorful bouquet.

"They're from my mom," Tawni explained. "Read the card."

Sonny leaned forward and grasped the tiny white tag, flipping it over to see Tammy Hart's bubbly scrawl in pink ink.

"Your Daddy is sorry he overreacted. We're going to get U some help."

"So they're going to deal with Penelope?" Sonny asked, admittedly relieved, even though she still wasn't sure she felt Tawni should return to their house.

"Oh no, that's not what I need help with," Tawni said, her voice cold and emotionless. "See the ribbon around the vase? There's a brochure in it."

Sonny reached down and pulled the brochure out. There was a giant cross on the front, underscored with the words Find the Light Within. She frowned and flipped open the booklet, wherein the 12-step program to heterosexuality was described. "You're kidding me?"

Tawni shook her head, finally turning away from the mirror. "Let's go talk to Condor."

"Are you going to do this?" Sonny asked, concerned, holding up the brochure.

"Let's go talk to Condor," Tawni repeated flatly.

Marshall kept wiping his sweaty palms on his pant legs. Thirty years in the business and he still couldn't handle meetings with the boss.

Sonny fidgeted nervously as well.

Tawni was the only one who seemed cool and collected. She had been involved in a texting conversation with someone for several minutes by the time Condor actually showed up.

"So," the barrel-chested man boomed as he entered the room. "Before you start spewing out dog-ate-my-script nonsense, I want to make it clear that I've heard every inane excuse in the book. Don't waste my time."

Marshall and Sonny nodded vigorously. Tawni didn't even look up.

"Toni?" Condor asked, his tone biting and his eyes dark. "Am I wasting your precious time?"

"No, sir," Tawni replied, giving him her attention. "And my name is Tawni."

"Tawni was my ex-wife's name," Mr. Condor said.

"It's mine too," Tawni stated pointedly. She had always let him call her whatever he wanted, but not today. Today was different. Everything would be different from now on. Tawni Hart was going to take control. Holding up her phone, she explained why she'd been texting. "I was just taking care of a little problem."

"A problem that couldn't wait?" Mr. Condor's face was reddening. He expected the full and undivided attention of his employees whenever he was in the room, especially in an official meeting. This blonde's attitude was bordering on inexcusable.

"No, sir, it could not," Tawni answered, then taking a deep breath, she continued her explanation. "There's a sex tape out with me in it and I'm trying to stop it from getting to the media. It would be bad for my career and for Condor Studios, since I'm on a kids show."

Marshall and Condor were both dumbstruck by her admission.

She wasn't finished yet. "And the tricky part is that it's not just a sex tape. It's a gay sex tape."

"Tawni, stop talking right now," Marshall ordered, though his voice was hoarse and barely above a whisper.

"That's the truth," she shrugged. "I'm done with the secrecy."

"Tawni, can I talk to you a minute?" Sonny asked, grabbing the blonde's arm and making an effort to pull her to the door. Clearly, Tawni wasn't thinking straight and she wanted to knock some sense into her friend before she lost her job.

"Are you two an item?" Mr. Condor asked plainly.

"Wh-what?" Sonny stammered, wide-eyed.

"No," Tawni answered. "So, so not."

"I'm not gay," Sonny said, the words rushing out of her lips in an unusually high tone.

"Really?" Mr. Condor inquired, skeptically, and seeming genuinely surprised.

"Of course not," Marshall chimed in emphatically. "She was dating Chad Dylan Cooper until very recently. She's straight as...as... as a nice girl from Wisconsin would be."

"Yeah, because there's no queers in Wisconsin," Tawni rolled her eyes.

"I figured she was Mr. Cooper's beard," Mr. Condor shrugged. "Either way, this is irrelevant. You're on a children's show, so you can keep this sort of thing private. What you do on your own time is your business, but what you on my time, is my business."

"Mr. Condor, I can assure you-" Marshall started, frantically trying to save face.

"Shut up, you sweaty little man," Mr. Condor interrupted. "I don't care if you've got homos on your staff. This is LA. They are everywhere."

"They're even in Milwaukee, I promise," Tawni quipped.

"Yes, well, in the business especially. I could care less, so long as it does not interfere with work. A sex tape is an issue for me. I will not have parents forbidding their children to watch...what show are you from again?"

"So Random," the three replied.

"Ah, yes, that one," Mr. Condor nodded. "I won't have children being forbidden to watch because their parents learn of a sex scandal involving one of the cast, gay or otherwise."

"It's taken care of," Tawni insisted.

"How so?" he asked.

Sonny looked to Tawni as well, confused as to when the blonde had figured out a solution to her problem.

"I can't say, but trust me, it's taken care of. However," Tawni hesitated a moment. "So that this doesn't happen again, I want to release a statement to the press."

"What sort of statement?"

"I want to tell people the truth," Tawni explained.

"What?" Sonny and Marshall couldn't contain their shock.

"Look, a sex tape is scandalous in general, but the only reason I was being blackmailed this time was because of the gay factor. If everyone knows, there's no special motivation to catch me in the act."

"Tawni, I don't know if that's a good idea-"

"Well, I'm not going to stop having sex- that would be a crime. I'm too good. It would be like if Van Gogh quit painting or Mozart stopped composing or Lady Gaga quit...being Lady Gaga. So I'm just going to come clean instead. I really don't care if you want me to or not, it's what I'm going to do."

With that, she rose and excused herself.

"Mr. Condor," Marshall tried again.

"Don't," he held up his hand. "It's alright. I won't fire her for this. It would be illegal. We'll see what happens. If ratings plummet, we'll see. This is business, like I said. What she does on her own time..." Mr. Condor paused a moment. "Honestly, she's quite brave to do this, if she goes through with it. There may be queers everywhere in this business but they are rarely out in the open. You two are excused." He waved his hand, gesturing for them to leave, which they did, anxiously.

"Did you know she was going to do that?" Marshall asked, as soon as he felt they were out of Condor's earshot.

"No, I don't..." Sonny glanced both ways down the hall, wondering where Tawni would've gone. "I need to talk to her."

She started to leave, but was stopped by Marshall. "Sonny?"

"Yeah?"

"Are you really... not?"

"What?"

He shrugged. "You always seemed...sort of... I don't know..."

She let out a frustrated sigh and hurried off down the hall, without answering him.

Tawni released her statement through an interview with People magazine- since that was the magazine she saw first when she got back to her dressing room. Tween Weekly wouldn't have been an appropriate venue. She had been rather terse, calling them up and simply telling them this: Tawni Hart is queer and proud. And amazing in bed.

That last bit might be more than Condor would tolerate, but it just slipped out and she couldn't help herself. Humility had never been her strong suit. The news hit the internet first and within an hour her phone started ringing off the hook. She had never received this much publicity in her life and she intended to milk it for all it was worth.

The only calls she rejected were from her parents and from Sonny. She didn't care to hear from anyone who would tell her she'd made a mistake. She wasn't stupid. She knew she was taking a risk, but she also knew it felt like the right risk to take.

"YOU WILL REGRET THIS, CHAD!" Penelope screamed as the officers dragged her off the Mackenzie Falls set.

"Will I, Penelope? Will I really?," he replied with a smile, glancing down at the DVD in his hand. Several hours earlier, Tawni had finally filled him in on her situation via text, and, seeing as he was the object of Penelope's affection, he had been able to not only acquire the DVD, but also to erase copies on her computer as well.

She had been ecstatic to hear from him. And when he told her he had heard rumors of her return and of the tape, and that he wanted to see it himself, well, she couldn't turn him down- she was in love with him and it's not like he would help Tawni Hart with anything anyway. She brought her laptop down to the Mackenzie Falls set, after hours, as he'd requested, and tried to show him the video- presumably figuring that him seeing her make it with another girl would get him all turned on too, and then she could take full advantage of his Dylan. He, of course, didn't watch. He swiftly closed the video window and then dragged the file to her recycle bin, deleting it before she could stop him. A computer nerd might be able to get it back but neither he nor Penelope could. And then, just for good measure, he dropped the laptop in the Mack Falls fountain. "Oops! SECURITY!"

Guards emerged almost immediately, giving Chad barely enough time to snatch the disc inside Penelope's coat pocket before they carried her away. He flipped out his phone and sent Tawni a text: "Got it."

"Thanx. In prop house," she replied, not a minute later.

He headed over to the So Random! stage.

On his way, he ran into Sonny. "Do you know where Tawni is?"

"Yeah, she's in the prop house," he nodded. "I'm going to talk to her now."

"Prop house? I was just there ten minutes ago..."

"Well, she's there now," he shrugged, pushing past.

She noticed the DVD in his hand then and followed him.

Nico and Grady were in the prop house when Sonny and Chad arrived.

Tawni was on the couch frantically pushing buttons on her phone.

Chad tossed the DVD at her, snapping her out of her intense fixation on the phone. She looked at him. "Thanks, Chad."

"Oh, you'll take your attention away from the phone for Chad, but not us?" Nico asked, perturbed.

"My phone's dead. It just died. I've been on it since four this afternoon," she was beaming.

"Why didn't you ever tell us?" Grady asked. "You didn't think we'd care, did you?"

"I didn't think about it one way or another," Tawni shrugged.

"Makes sense," Nico conceded. Tawni wouldn't be the type to spend excessive amounts of time contemplating other people's feelings on anything.

"Well, we don't," Grady said. "Just so you know."

"Ok," Tawni replied, really not caring about their opinions on the matter.

"Why now though? It seems really out of the blue," Nico said. "And what's with you and Chad? I heard you two earlier and I thought you were..."

"Chad just helped me out with a problem I was having," Tawni explained succinctly, her expression telling them that they would not be privy to any more information than that. "As far as why now? It was just time. My parents kicked me out of my house and then sent me an apology and a brochure for a scare-you-straight place. I would be lying if I didn't say part of the reason I decided to tell the world- since it really isn't their business anyway- is just to get back at them."

"They kicked you out?" Grady asked, concerned. "Where are you staying?"

"Sonny's."

"Oh," Nico nodded, a slow smile forming on his lips as he shot a knowing look at the dark haired girl. "Of course you are."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Sonny asked, glaring at him.

"Nothing," he said, unable to stop grinning.

"It's a good thing we didn't beat Chad up," Grady mused, nudging Nico in the side.

"What?" Chad looked at them.

"Well, we thought you were sleeping with Tawni, and that was so not cool after breaking up with Sonny, only now we see that Sonny's really over you and-"

"And what?" Sonny snapped.

"You so could not have beat me up!" Chad barked.

"Oh I think we could," Nico argued.

Before long all three boys were caught up debating over their manliness and Sonny was able to easily usher them out of the room. Intent on discussing her friend's insane course of action, she turned to Tawni, who had a broad grin on her face.

"What?"

"Want to watch it?"

"WHAT?"

"Come on," she patted the space on the sofa next to her, slipping the disc into her laptop.

"Are you kidding?"

"Sweetie, you know it's as close as you're ever going to get," she said coyly, grabbing Sonny's arm and pulling her down onto the sofa beside her.

Tawni pushed play.