Are u awake?

Helllooooo

Get up!

I hopeurup cuz were coming over

"I hope they didn't all get kidnapped or something." Joe Walker said, looking at his phone again to see if Lauren had replied to any of his texts.

"Well they did walk home alone last night. It's quite possible a man in a dark van jumped out and attacked all five of them in the street," Brian replied completely nonchalantly.

"Only if he was such a fine specimen as me. I mean, look at these guns," Joe said holding up his arm. It was covered in so many layers he could have had noodle arms and no one would have been able to tell the difference.

"Impressive," Brian said not impressed in the slightest.

Brian and Joe were at the back of the pack so by the time they reached the girls' front door Brant had already knocked on it a couple times with no answer. He tried a few more times with the same result.

"Come on! It's freezing out here!" Jim exclaimed.

"Hang on. I've got this," Brian said reaching into his back pocket and pulling out his wallet. He moved through the crowd until he was at the door. Rummaging through his wallet he produced a key.

"Where did you get a key to their house?" Joe Moses asked.

"Meredith gave it to me," this elicited many quizzical looks. "You know, for emergencies," he said with a shrug as he unlocked the door.

He stepped inside and paused. The house was completely dark. He felt for the light switch he knew was right beside the door. Locating it he switched it on. It was then he noticed the girls weren't in their rooms but all cuddled asleep together on the couch.

He felt a pang of jealousy when he saw Lauren. She was snuggled into the corner of the couch with her arm around Meredith; the other girl was curled into her side, both of them fast asleep. The others crowded in the door until they were a giant huddle standing in the entryway.

"Awwww! Isn't that adorable." Brian heard form the behind him. He thought it was Nick but couldn't quiet tell.

"Should we wake them up?" Corey asked.

"No, let's just make it a surprise breakfast," Joey suggested. "It might be hard with them sleeping ten feet away but lets do it anyway!" he said, a huge grin slipping across his face.

Lauren awoke to the smell of smoke. Her eyes shot open. Fire! Fire! She thought. Now think, what they tell you to do in case of a fire…Hell, I don't remember! She jumped up off the couch in panic, nearly throwing Meredith to the ground with her. Miraculously she remained on the couch, still asleep.

Lauren spun around to the source of the smell. The kitchen. To her surprise she was met not with a blazing fire but with a dozen sets of eyes all staring at her.

It was Dylan who broke the silence. "Good morning sunshine," he sing-songed.

"Whatareyouguysdoinginmyhouse ?!" Lauren yelled.

"Making breakfast,"Clarkexplained. "Surprise!" he added on as an afterthought.

"I thought you set the house on fire," Lauren said, calming down a bit as she got a hold of the situation.

"Nope, just the toast," Brian said. "Joey over here isn't the extreme chef he makes himself out to be."

"I've been found out," Joey said looking like an agent whose cover had just been blown.

"I'll get the girls up while you guys finish," Lauren said turning back to the living room and her sleeping friends.

A half hour later everyone was crowed in the living room. Some sat on couches and various chairs from around the house while everyone else took a seat on the floor. They ate in silence, too distracted by the great food to talk much. As it turns out Brian had a secret skill, cooking like nobody's business.

Once they had finished, the girls, with bed head and in their pajamas, raced up stairs to get ready while the boys cleaned up the mess in the kitchen.

Once they were all ready they headed to the building that housed their home for the rest of the day: the stage. It was a Starkid tradition to have last chance rehearsal on the day of opening. They were always behind and needed one last day to work on the show. So today was that day. It was always hectic and jammed with rehearsal until the last minute. Stress was inevitable.

"Go, go go!" Corey yelled to everyone as soon as they entered the building. They rushed up the stairs to get into costume. Once they were dressed for their various first scenes, most of them in black pants and hoodies, they gathered center stage.

"Ok, you guys know how it goes. Today is last chance rehearsal and then opening night. We have a lot of work to get done, do your best, don't get distracted, and etcetera, etcetera. Julia is really better at this type of thing," Corey droned on. "Basically act like this is your job and not us just having fun. Because we can fire you," He said with a warning stare.

A few hours into their rehearsal, Matt yelled from the audience, "Where the heck is Meredith?" After missing her cue the others had tried to cover for her for a few minutes but soon the ad-libbing got out of hand when Joe, as Up, had threatened to take his spaceship and shove it in a less than desirable place if Krayonder didn't get his shit together.

They all simultaneously broke character. "No one knows," Joe Moses said from on stage.

"Well find her," Matt commanded. Lauren, both Joes, and Julia all plopped down on stage. "Uggghhhh." Matt groaned.

"Fine I'll get her," Brian said and walked off into the wings.

After wandering around for a while he walked to the girls' dressing room. Knocking on the door he yelled, "Anybody in there?" No reply. He decided to go in and check. Of course it was a disaster but after rummaging around he found a leg sticking out from under one of the makeup tables.

Crouching down he saw Meredith curled up in a ball sleeping under the table.

"Mere." He said shaking her shoulder. "Mere. MEREDITH!" He screamed in her ear. Still no movement. Knowing she could sleep through the apocalypse, he decided to take matters into his own hands and pull her out from under the table. Once she was out he stood looking down at her wondering what to do. He settled on picking her up and carrying her onto stage.

He slipped his arm under her knees and the back of her neck and stood up. Holding her bridal style he looked down. With half of her white wig covering her face and copious amounts of stage makeup on he was still overcome by how pretty she was.

Carrying her through the crowed backstage area proved to be a challenge but soon he arrived back on stage, Meredith still sleeping in his arms.

"Found her!" he yelled from the wings.

"Look at that," Joe Walker said lightly elbowing Joe Moses in the ribs. He retuned a slight, almost unnoticeable grin, as to avoid suspicion from the other cast members.

Brian set Meredith down gently next to Lauren.

"So how do we wake her up?" Brian asked.

"Only one way," Lauren said dramatically. She rose from the ground and loomed over Meredith. Her hands bent into claws as she slowly bent down over the sleeping girl. Claws poised at the soft spot on Meredith's sides Lauren starting tickling her.

"Ahh, hahaha!" Meredith laughed scrambling up from the ground. Looking around at all the laughing faces she asked, "How did I get here?"

"Brian," Lauren explained.

"Guilty as charged," He said with a grin.

"Now that everyone is here, we can continue with the play," They heard Darren yell from the audience.

"Noooooo," Meredith groaned. "We've already gone through it three times today. I need a nap."

"Yes, but you've consistently messed up all three times." Matt argued from his seat next to Darren in the audience.

"But we've covered it," Joey countered.

"We only have this last act and then its nap time for all of us before the show. Just get through it," Matt yelled finally.

They got the scene set back up and going again. They finished the play without any major mess ups and soon it was nap time. This was when all the Starkids traveled down to the now almost empty warehouse and took an hour long power nap before opening night. Most of them didn't bother to take off their costumes before collapsing onto the floor in sleep.

Meredith and Brian both changed though, and met each other at the top of the stairs going down.

"So I never really got an explanation earlier. How did I end up on stage?" Meredith asked him as they descended the staircase.

"Well obviously you missed your cue. From there it spiraled into a scene about Up hating Krayonder and how Krayonder was only there cuz his mom did some… favors… for Up many years back. Matt didn't seem to agree that it fit into the show and stopped that before it could get worse."

"I see. But how did that end up with me being on stage?" she asked as they navigated their way through the sleeping bodies downstairs to a clear space off to the side.

"Well everyone else was too lazy to find you so I did. When I finally did find you, which took a considerable amount of time, mind you," he explained as he sat down against the far wall. Meredith sat right next to him so she wouldn't sit on Dylan who was asleep to her left.

"I get lots of practice when I nanny. Those kids sure do like hide and go seek."

"It paid off. Anyway, you were asleep and I didn't know how to wake you so I carried you on stage to Lauren who I assumed would."

"That makes much more sense." They settled into a comfortable silence. Neither one having much energy left to talk. Soon Meredith's eyelids drooped and she lay down with her head in Brian's lap. He played with her soft curls until she fell asleep. Soon he himself drifted off as he stared down at his sleeping friend.

"Thirty minutes!" The sound of Jaime's voice echoed through the large room waking Brian and most of the other Starkids up. Meredith remained sleeping on his lap. From earlier that day he knew only one thing would wake her. He tickled her sides until he squirmed with laughter and woke up.

"Hey Sleeping Beauty. Thirty minutes." He said standing up and offering her a hand up.

They all rushed upstairs to get ready for curtain call. Five minutes to go and they had their group huddle. One minute to go and they took their places in the wings or went farther backstage to wait.

The show ran smoothly. In true Starkid style they had many mess ups but covered them with something funnier than the original script. Many laughs and maybe ever a few tears later they were all back stage again changing into their normal clothes to go meet with fans.

An hour or so later they again all met up at the door leaving the theater. They headed out into the cold and to the boys' house for celebratory cookies. Store bought, since before this morning it was thought that no one in the house could cook.

Once they had all had their fill of cookies they settled into the various couches and popped in a movie. About halfway through, they decided to just all stay at the guys' house tonight. They were too tired to move let alone walk three blocks. When this decision had been made they scattered about the house collecting all pillows, blankets and other cuddly items and brining them to the living room. Soon they were all cuddled together on the couches or the floor under blankets.

Meredith cuddled with Brian. This wasn't unusually. Most all of them had a cuddle buddy in the house. Brian had Meredith, Joe had Lauren, Julia now had Darren, Jaime had Joey, and Denise had Dylan. These pairs were scattered around the room, mixed in with the lone figures of the other Starkids.

The movie ended and the people who hadn't fallen asleep already started to drift off. Brian and Meredith settled into a comfortable position on the floor. Her head resting on his shoulder, his arm wrapped around her under the small of her back and their legs intertwined. His wish from this morning had been granted, he though as he drifted off to sleep.

Brian woke up shivering in the middle of the night. He was cold without Meredith's body heat next to him so he reached out his arm for her. When he couldn't find her he shot up in panic. Stumbling around he found his phone. Touching the screen, it lit up. He held it up so he could look around the room. The sleeping bodies of his friends lay scattered around the room. He could tell who most of them were at a glance but some were so covered in blankets it was hard to tell. After inspecting each sleeping blob he concluded none of them were Meredith.

Still in a panic he tried to figure out what to do. He walked around the house looking for any sign of her to no avail. He decided to try and call her to see if she left for some reason. He checked his phone. No missed calls or texts. And no signal. He walked upstairs where he normally gets service. Still none. He walked to the door at the end of the hall no one ever used. Turning the knob he crept out. In front of him were some flights of stairs. Starting the journey upward he continued to check for signal. When he open the door at the top and walked out onto the roof he checked again. Still none.

Looking up from the screen he finally noticed her. Standing alone near the railing at the edge of the building wrapped in a blanket. He walked up next to her.

"How'd you know about this place?" he asked her

"I didn't. I just couldn't sleep so I walked around up stairs and I was wondering where the door went so I opened it and ended up here." She explained

"I think I'm the only one that knows about it. This is my special spot," he told her.

Noticing she was looking up at the sky he also turned his gaze away from her to the sparkling lights.

"You can see them pretty well tonight," she said, meaning the stars.

"You usually can from up here," he said. After some silence he finally continued. "You know, during the summer in-between second and third grade my dad tried to teach me all the constellations." She turned to look at him but his gaze stayed up in the sky, lost in thought. "We went to the library and picked out the biggest book they had on the constellations. He had to carry it home because it was too heavy for me. I remember getting home and being so anxious to open up that book I grabbed it from his hand without thinking and ended up dropping it on his foot. He got pretty mad about that," he continued, a slight grin slipping across his face with the memory. "So eventually we sat down at the kitchen table and he just started reading to me. He read for hours it seemed like. Every time it had a picture of a constellation he would heft that huge book up off the table and show it to me. That night he took me up onto the roof of the house. My mom had a cow when she found out about that once," he chuckled. "He took this old quit we'd had forever out there and spread it out. Then we just sat laid there. Staring up at the sky. He would point up and tell me the story that went along with the constellation we'd read about earlier that day. It was like magic. Up past my bed time, secretly on the roof, looking up at these little dots in the sky and painting pictures out of them, making stories out of them. We made it a nightly thing. Eventually my mom found out but she never let on so the magic never faded. Soon we made it through that whole book and went back for a new one. We read through the library's whole section on constellations that summer. We would just lie out there. For hours. Looking up at the stars. Him, in hushed tones, telling me wonderful stories of far off countries and magical times. Then I'd start to get cold or drift off to sleep and my dad would piggy back me into bed. I was always asleep before my head hit the pillow." He smiled and looked down at her as he finished the story.

Meredith was overwhelmed with love for the man standing next to her. Something about him sharing that tiny chunk of his childhood with her had broken down her forces and she let all her hidden feelings for him come through. This tiny gesture made her want to tell him all her feelings then and there. But she knew she couldn't.

Brian shivered. "It's cold up here."

"Maybe because it's below freezing and you're up here in your pajamas." Meredith said with a smile. She then wrapped her arms around his neck, covering him with the blanket and hugging him. He wrapped his arms around her waist and hugged her back. After standing like this for a few long minutes Meredith broke the moment. "We should probably go back to bed," she said. "Another long day tomorrow."

"Fine," Brian said with a sigh and unwrapped himself from around her.

They headed towards the stairs side by side. When they got back to the living room they walked through the minefield of sleeping bodies back to their spot. Laying down Meredith snuggled close and wrapped her arms around Brian. They fell asleep cuddling once more.