Miss Kate looked over the Nationals papers. If she was being honest with herself, she hadn't expected to get this far and now she had no idea what she could do next. The dancers would be coming back to celebrate their Regionals win–celebrate! Alright, that was okay, she could throw a party and not completely lose her mind.

Oh, she wished she hadn't given Chris the day off.

As her gaze loosely rolled over the endless lines and paragraphs setting out the dos and don'ts she wondered how capable she actually was for this job.

"That man! He's refusing to take no for an answer!"

"Lucien? You haven't told him it's only going to be a month?"

"I thought I had."

"I could always keep an eye on things for now, if it would help at all."

"You haven't heard anything back?"

"Employers have more applications to go through nowadays, Mom; it takes them longer to respond."

"...Alright, if you've got the time–I could do with someone else to help out."

"Good! That's–that's good. I'm working with... Chris, right?"

"Our best choreographer yet."

But she had earned this, he had earned this, The Next Step had earned this. Even if they'd had to claw and scrape for every moment in the spotlight–every minute on the stage, even. Why were there so many stubborn A-Troupers? And, not that she'd ever tell them this, but why were the stubborn ones always so stupid? There were a few shining stars. But, apparently, she was doomed to love them all somewhere between younger siblings and the children she didn't want.

Feeling even slightly maternal about hormonal teenagers with mood swings that could take on the world's largest roller coasters and beat them on highs and lows was masochistic and absolutely ridiculous. Yet, here she was.

They could take Nationals. She just had to believe it.

She straightened her spine and tapped the wood just above the graphite of her pencil against her tongue as she'd watched her Mom do nearly her whole life. With her other hand she deftly folded the paper of her notepad before tearing it cleanly away. Maybe it... stopped the pencil end from snapping? She slotted the paper into place on the clipboard. Whatever. It had worked for her mom.

Who would be strong contenders for the duet? James and Riley, Chloe and Eldon, West and Stephanie, Tiffany and Daniel, Giselle and... oh God, no. She wasn't thinking of that yet. She didn't dare to.

What about the soloists? Michelle–as many rifts as it would likely cause, as much as she would beg and plead and pray otherwise–did have recent experience. That was invaluable for the troupe to be Nationals-level. She would make them bring their A-game, whether she had the most successful audition or not.

It wasn't like the other girls would shy away from the competition, right? Especially if Emily had anything to say in the matter. Bless that bratty know-it-all who... bizarrely seemed more and more like her mom the older she got. Not even her own mom–mine, Kate reflected.

That was one thing Kate knew she didn't have to worry about, their passion and their commitment–she knew her dancers, to them dance was oxygen. Nothing could keep them from it.

Nothing.

Ever.

...No she wasn't in denial, whatever could give you such an idea?

Hey I'm sorry it's been so long. This is the first of three (admittedly, very small) off-season-esque updates. I don't know if this will be all of the updates of this nature, whether I'll jump straight into s2, write s2 behind the scenes go back and write more off-season parts. And thanks for taking the time to read this!