A/N: So, I'm setting this story to take place sometime after Haunted, but Jesse hasn't moved into the rectory yet. Hmm… oh, this is my first Mediator fic. It's been a while since I've stepped out of the Alias zone. So be kind. Constructive criticism is welcome, but I don't like flames very much. :-)

Disclaimer: I own nothing except Rachel Lennox.

Ship: Suze / Jesse to come, have no fear :-D

Places for Curtain Calls!

Chapter One "Place to Start"

Let's start at the very beginning

A very good place to start -"The Sound of Music"

Musicals aren't really my thing. Don't get me wrong, I mean no offense. If you enjoy the spontaneous rupturing of full out orchestras and perfectly synchronized and choreographed tap numbers in the middle of your dinner, go ahead. Do your thing. It's just not my style.

You'd think I'd be all into that stuff, wouldn't you? Being a big city gal from New York and all, the home of Broadway in all its doo-wahing glory. According to my mom I used to love it. I was just "too adorable!" running around in my Elmo underwear belting out "The Sun'll Come Out Tomorrow" whenever it rained and clunking around in my mom's old high heels as though they were tap shoes.

But that phase is long gone, I guess. Just hearing the first few notes of "Summer Lovin'" these days could send me into sudden convulsion. So you can imagine my surprise when CeeCee shoved the flyer for our school's Winter production of "Cinderella" under my nose. "Auditions are tomorrow afternoon."

"Um, yes, I see that quite clearly, as you're holding the thing a centimeter from my eyes." CeeCee promptly flung the paper to a reasonable distance. "Thank you. Now what about them?"

She rolled her large, violet eyes. "Duh. We're trying out."

I stared. Seriously, I think my brain momentarily stopped sending signals to my eyeballs. "Uh, no we're not."

CeeCee folded up the paper and swung her bag over her shoulder, stuffing it inside then pulling the strap back on as she grabbed my arm and towed me along towards the public bus platform. "Come on, Simon. It'll be fun. Adam's trying out with us."

"Stop saying 'us,'" I muttered. "There is no 'us' where high school musicals are concerned. And as far as Adam trying out, I seriously hope that is not why you're subjecting yourself to this mundane form of public humiliation."

She scoffed indignantly as we sat in the seat next to the emergency exit. "Of course not. Musical productions are a flavorful experience in taste and culture. I should think you of all people would appreciate that, Miss New York."

See? I told you that's everyone's automatic assumption. "I could say the same about you and sunlight, Miss Southern California"

"I suffer from a lack of epidermal pigmentation. The situation is slightly different."

"Well, whatever. I don't like musicals. Period. End of story. Finito."

The bus screeched as it halted at the stop closest to my house and people began to file out. CeeCee thrust a copy of the flyer into my hands as I got up.

"I'll call you later to help pick out an audition song!" CeeCee called out as I inched my way to the front of the bus.

"Good luck with that!" I yelled back over my shoulder as I hopped down the steps onto the pavement. I watched the bus drive away from where I stood. CeeCee had a little smirk of triumph on her face. Oh, that little… she thinks she's won this one, doesn't she? She's got another thing coming if she thinks I've bought into this.

I began my walk home, my mind straying away from CeeCee's persistence about the musical and approaching a new subject. A subject that, hopefully, would be sitting on my window sill waiting for me when I reached my bedroom. A subject with thick black hair, cinnamon eyes, and chiseled abs. A subject with the smallest hint of a Spanish accent and a tendency to curse in the language when he's upset….

A subject I didn't get the opportunity to dwell on long, because the cars that had been swarming down the road to beat the rush hour were suddenly slowing to a crawl and cluttering in close. I looked up, craning my neck to see over them, wondering what was causing the sudden jam. Making my way down the sidewalk towards the front of the line, I got my answer.

A car had swerved messily into a streetlight pole and now sat, crushed and smoking, in a horizontal position from the sidewalk to the street, totally blocking my walking path. A stretcher was being carted urgently from the twisted wreckage to a waiting ambulance on the side of the road. A sheet covered the body. I stared in awe for a few moments, unable to tear my eyes away.

One of the policemen on the scene finished up with the caution tape he'd been unrolling and made his way over to me. "You may want to find another way home today, sweetie. This was a doozy of an accident, could be blocked for a while."

Trying to ignore his annoyingly condescending tone, I asked, "Who was in the car? Are they alright?"

The police officer glanced down, and his features were stoic when he looked back up at me. It was so NYPD Blue, without the hotness of Mark Paul Gosselaar. I just knew this wasn't going to be news that would send me frolicking down the street. "It's pretty bad. It was a girl, we haven't made a positive ID yet. We have to find some kind of identification in her car."

"Oh…" I responded, not sure of what else to say. "Well… good luck with that. Goodbye, Officer."

Now with even more thoughts crowding my unwelcome mind, I shifted my backpack onto my left shoulder and turned away from the destructed vehicle, making my way towards the longer path home.

I half expected Jesse to be sitting on my window-sill when I swung my door open and tossed my schoolbag down on the bed, but there was no sign of him. I wasn't even sure where Spike had run off to, not that he pays all that much attention to me anyway.

In the depressing silence of my room, I attempted to do some of my homework. Hey, I was really bored, all right? And I didn't get much done anyway. My thoughts were in a million other places.

As I stuffed my math textbook back into my schoolbag, a bright green paper fell out. Oh, yay, just what I was looking for. The flyer announcing musical tryouts. "Yeah, right," I muttered, and my hands moved to crumple it into a ball. Might as well get some aim practice out of this.

"Hey, I'm looking at that!" a voice suddenly shrieked from behind me. I gasped and spun around. Sitting on my bed was- yes, you guessed it!- a ghost. She was a girl about my age, maybe a little older, with long, reddish brown hair and deep brown eyes. And I recognized her! Suddenly, she looked back up at me, and her eyes darted throughout the room. "Hmm, that's funny. How'd I end up here? Who are you? Oh my God, did you kidnap me?"

"Rachel Lennox!" I exclaimed, wondering how it came to be that the star of every one of our school's productions and president of the drama club had ended up… well, as dead as she'd ended up in her role as Juliet last year. "You died!" Well, that certainly shut up her paranoid tirade.

Her large eyes widened in surprise. Damnit, I need to start remembering to break it to them more gently. "I… I what?"

Here we go. "Dead. Gone. Bit the dust. Kicked the bucket. Final performance, curtains closing, took your bows."

She continued to stare at me. I sighed. "Ok… Rachel? What's the last thing you remember before ending up… here?"

Her voice was shaky when she began to speak again. "Well… I was driving home… I remember practicing my audition song for tryouts tomorrow. I was planning on singing 'Seasons of Love.' You know, from Rent?"

I didn't know, but I nodded anyway and let her continue her story.

"Anyway, I was right at the climax of the song, you know where I'll be expected to really belt it. And all of the sudden, I heard this really loud crash," she clapped her hands together to emphasize, and raised her voice dramatically, "And… I stopped singing. And… I remember smelling smoke and wondering what was burning. That's the last thing I can remember."

Oh my God, so she was that one in the accident! Tomorrow was not going to be a fun day at school. "Alright… well, I hate to break it to you, Rachel. But you're dead. So now that we know how it happened, the next thing we need to work on is how we're gonna get you where you're going."

She leaned forward. "And… where's that?" she whispered.

"The next world," I answered, lowering my voice as well, if only to mock her. "You're sticking around here because you have some unfinished business you need to take care of. So, what's something you needed to do before you bit the big one?"

"Well…" she gazed up thoughtfully, like the answer lie in my ceiling fan. "To be cast as Cinderella in the play, of course."

Oops. Problem there. "Well I'm pretty sure the school isn't in the habit of casting corpses as main roles in their shows. Can you think of anything else?"

"I don't know… I mean, this was my senior year. My last year at Junipero Serra Mission Academy. I wanted to go out with a bang!" she exclaimed, clapping her hands together again. "I wanted to show the world one last time who Rachel Lennox was before her name went up in lights!" She finished with a wild flourish of her hands, almost knocking down the ceramic lamp beside my bed.

Her drama queen antics were going to get me into serious trouble.

"Or…" she adds suddenly, "It might just be enough if I leave my imprint there… if I prove that I can make my mark theater wise, whether my body is alive or not…"

"Great, now you're talking."

"Maybe, if I take someone under my wing… coach them through… get them the main part… I'd know that I've done enough here to move on." I smiled and nodded, just glad that she'd be out of my hair soon. Suddenly, she fixed her eyes directly at me. "Tell me, who was the writer of the show Anything Goes?"

I stared at her blankly. What the hell was Anything Goes?

Her fingers snapped and she grinned a bright white grin. "Just as I suspected! You're perfect!"

I didn't realize people lost their sanity when they died. "Uh… perfect for what?"

She wrapped a cool, glowing arm around my shoulders and smiled at me again. "By this time tomorrow, you'll be being cast as the leading lady in the winter musical!"

Holy crap. Have I mentioned that being a mediator sucks big time?

A/N: Review please! By the way, the writer of Anything Goes, for those who are curious, is Cole Porter. (I'm hoping to get some Jesse action in the next chap so review and get me there!)