A/N – Before I give you this chapter I have to thank Mizuki Yin who has given me such lovely reviews and well wishes whilst I've been sick it's nice to know that I have fans who appreciate my work because certain family members of mine, aka my younger sister, aren't the most supportive of it. I'm going to attempt a full day of school tomorrow so I probably won't write as much unless I end up going home sick.

After a week of not rehearsing, Karen and Derek went back to the studio where Hit List rehearsals were being held. When they arrived they had a pretty rude awakening when they were greeted, rather rudely, by their producer, the intolerable Jerry Rand, and the most hated columnist on Broadway, Michael Riedel.

"Karen good to see you back and in good health," Michael said.

"It's nice to see you too," she replied politely.

"Tell me is it true that the former lead in Hit List, and your ex-boyfriend, was behind the wheel of the car that hit you?" Michael asked, Karen looked like a deer in headlights and she looked at Derek for some strength.

'How had he heard about that bit? Oh that's right Jerry, the loose-lipped devil,' Karen thought before giving the most cryptic answer she knew of "I can neither confirm nor deny such a claim," she told him practising the bit of democracy she wasn't willing to have her personal life dragged out into the public just yet and Mr Riedel was extremely good at twisting anything somebody said to mean the exact opposite to what had actually been said.

"And I see that you arrived with Mr Derek Wills, are you guys an item?" he asked, he was fishing for gossip now and it didn't suit a man the man at all.

"My answer to that is, of course, no comment. Now I really must go and get ready for rehearsal," she said before walking inside the building with Derek at her side and Jerry following closely behind.

"Karen the least you could have done is answer Michael's questions!" Jerry yelled at her but she wasn't going to have any of it, not today.

"All he wants to know is about my private life, now if he'd have asked me about Hit List, then of course I would have answered his questions as honestly as possible without making it or you look bad but of course he didn't so now he has no scoop," she told him curtly before walking off and into her dressing room where she changed into her dance gear.

Meanwhile Derek and Jerry argued over the fiasco. "She was ambushed! She actually did really well for someone who's been through as much as she has, Jerry cut her some slack!" Derek told the producer.

"She's our only selling point; she and Ana are the only leading actors from the original cast that were at The Fringe, that's our selling point!" Jerry told the director.

"Our selling point is the music and an edgy and new musical; it's going to be the new RENT or something like it! You have to cut Karen some slack on the interview front. She doesn't want her personal life dragged out in front of everyone and quite frankly I respect her for that," Derek told his producer before walking into the rehearsal space.

Seeing her godmother Lily ran down the steps from the lighting booth where she had been with Blake. "Aunt Karen! Aunt Karen! Aunt Karen!" the little girl screamed as she ran to meet Karen. At the same point in time Ana, Jessica and Sue walked to meet their friend.

Karen picked up her goddaughter on instinct "Hello sweetheart, where's mummy?" she asked

"Mummy went to coffee, I really like it here I want to stay every day!" Lily told her.

"But you'll have to start school soon," Karen said which got Lily to poke her tongue out.

Lily requested that she be put down so that she could run over to Derek shouting "Uncle Derek! Uncle Derek!" who then picked up the little girl and whirled her around before placing her on his shoulders.

It was a side of Derek that none of his cast had seen before, excepting Karen. Over the previous week, since Amy and Lily had been staying with them, Karen had noticed how attentive Derek had been towards the little girl and it made her think that he'd make a good father one day. Then she quickly reminded herself that she and Derek had only been in a relationship for a little under two months and that she was thinking too far ahead.

Amy eventually walked into the studio with four coffees: a Caramel latte for Julia who was editing Hit List's script once again, a black coffee with two sugars for Derek, a flat white with a shot of Vanilla for Karen and a flat white for herself. She then proceeded to tell Derek to put Lily down so that she could sit down and he could do his job, earning a massive laugh from the cast and crew including Derek himself.

"Okay everybody, I know we've all had another week off so warm up and then Ana will go through Reach for me," Derek said in a moderate tone.

They ran through the performance with no major issues except from the adjustment to the heights that Ana was flying at, which most people understood but her understudy, Daisy, just scoffed at it. The idea that someone could laugh at such a thing really grated on Karen.

"Right, Daisy if you think it's so easy to sing whilst you're twenty feet in the air above a massive crowd then why don't you give it a try?" Derek scolded.

"Gladly," she told him before getting into the silks. That didn't work out too well for her because Daisy ended up screaming to be put down because she'd failed to notify he crew involved of her fear of heights. Derek now knew that if she couldn't handle the Diva's biggest number then he'd have to fire her.

Next Karen and Ana ran through I'm Not Sorry, with Daisy, again, laughing at the performance. This made Karen rush over to the chorus girl and remind her of her place. "You ungrateful little cow! You have the opportunity to work on something truly amazing and you insist on laughing at Ana's performances! So this is how it WILL work! You stop with the laughter at Ana's performances, you do your little chorus girl stroke understudy thing and you don't get to stare at my boyfriend!" she yelled.

"He'll just leave you soon anyway, you'll stop putting out and he'll leave it's what Derek always does!" Daisy told her.

"You know what? I really don't care what you've got to say on my personal life because it's mine! I'm from Iowa; first thing my dad taught me was how to fight dirty!" Karen roared.

"You wanna fight? I'll give you a fight!" was all Daisy could say before she pulled Karen's hair, thinking it would be a typical girl fight but then Karen kneed Daisy in the stomach before Derek could pull the pair apart.

"That's enough!" he bellowed as the tore them away from each other leaving Daisy with a clump of Karen's hair in her hand. "Daisy, I'm sorry, but you're fired! Karen I'll talk to you about this later," he said gruffly.

"Yeah! Of course you'd refuse to fire your girlfriend! You know what Derek? You can forget about that little deal we had, I'm so going to the press with that sex tape and I'll make sure you're never able to work in this business again!" Daisy yelled viciously as she left the room, making sure she was heard as she did so.

Karen plopped herself down on one of the seats and buried her head in her hands. She felt completely ashamed. She'd brought personal matters into her professional life, something she'd sworn she'd never do again after the issues she'd had during Bombshell's previews in Boston.

Ana got all of the cast and crew to leave and take a break allowing Sue, Jessica, Julia and Amy to stay as well as Lily. Julia sat quietly for a while and Amy shuffled next to her friend. Derek took the seat that remained next to Karen and pulled her into a protective hug as she began to cry. "Hey, it's alright, it happens to the best of us," he told her comfortingly.

"You mean to say that you've let your personal life cross over into your professional one?" Karen asked with a look of incredulity.

"Lord yes! Have I ever told you why Tom and I don't really speak anymore?"

"No,"

"Well when we first started out in show business it was on the West End in London and to begin with we were really great mates. Back in 1998, my dad, who I hadn't spoken to for about a year since he and my mum had divorced, showed up at my apartment randomly and asked me to bad mouth the musical that Tom and I'd been working on together. At the time I was exceedingly insecure and my dad had always, always made me feel inferior so to try and please my dad I did what he wanted and Tom and I never really spoke again until Bombshell," he told the group that had assembled around them and noticed that the admittance to what he was no longer too proud to call a mistake had cheered Karen up a bit.

"Have you spoken to your dad since?" Karen asked innocently.

"No, I don't think I ever forgave him for forcing me into that corner and making me feel like I had to destroy one of the best and only friendships I've ever had," he said regretfully as he looked back on the memory.

"Have you ever tried to apologize to Tom?" this time it was Julia that asked the question. She'd always wondered why Tom and Derek had disagreed on every single little thing and now she had the answer.

"No, I suppose I was too proud," he said. At that point Karen looked up at him and wondered how much she genuinely knew about this man with the green eyes.

"So what's the story with Daisy then?" Ana asked "Bearing in mind that Julia and I have promised that if you break Karen's heart we will break you and I'm sure Amy, Jessica and Sue would love in on that one,"

"A few years back Daisy and I worked on a production together and I slept with her, I'm not proud of it I might add. At the time I didn't realise that she'd taped it and then just before Karen's accident she came up to me in a bar and threatened to release the tape to the press if I didn't let her be the understudy for one of the major roles in Hit List. Now that I've fired her I suppose I'll have to deal with it now," he told them, still holding onto Karen.

"We'll deal with it," Karen told him looking up and into his emerald eyes.

"What? You still want to be with me through this? He asked, shocked.

"Of course I do you idiot! I love you Derek and if that means dealing with the press over someone from your past then that's just fine with me. We can deal with it together." She said smiling up at him.

"I love you to darling," he said as he got lost in her eyes as she pressed her lips to his earning them a chorus of 'awws' from Ana, Jessica, Sue, Amy and Julia.