Disclaimer: I own nothing you may or may not recognize. Characters are from RFR; I don't own them.

Rating: PG13, just in case

Pairing: Travis/Lily eventually

A/N: This space left intentionally blank. (What can I say, I'm a smartass.)

Because I Know You

Chapter Twenty: The Anonymous Men

Travis had no sooner disconnected with Lily and the guys when his uncle and Vic walked through the door of the flat. He leapt from his bed and headed to the kitchen to put their plan into action. He caught his uncle pulling covered dishes from the fridge, "Here, let me do that."

Barty gladly stepped aside as Travis began to heap some food onto plates and place them one at a time into the microwave. Barty went to the couch and put his feet up onto the table in front on him. A long sigh escaped him as he let his head fall back. "It's the weekend. The weekend, mind you, and still we have been running in place. I'm beginning to wonder if we are just going to be small potatoes."

Travis brought around the first steaming plate. Ignoring Vic's outstretched hand he placed it in front of his uncle. "I had an interesting conversation tonight about improving the attendance at Two-Tone"

Vic sneered at him. "Did ya now?"

Travis narrowed his eyes at him; Vic had not gotten over being snubbed for the DJ slot. Travis walked back into the kitchen to prepare the second plate. He continued to talk with Barty. "It's a gimmick really. The DJ should go incognito, be anonymous."

His uncle's mood was not lifted. "Gimmicks like that rarely work, mate. You've got to have solid reasons for people to come."

Travis brought the second plate around and held it just out of Vic's reach for a moment so that he would be forced to make eye contact. The man really was acting like an elementary school bully. He snatched the plate from Travis' hand. With a sad shake of his head, Travis continued speaking to Barty.

"I disagree. You must have solid reasons for people to stay. We have that. We need to find a way to get them to come in the first place. I believe this will do the trick."

Barty leaned forward and began to move his food around with his fork, "What exactly would that be then?"

"Like I said, we hide my identity. Darken the glass and change my voice with pitch control. Anonymity frees me up to say more and play more. I've got new music to try too. You've heard some of it."

Barty's eyes snapped to Travis'. "You mean you've been holding back on me?" He looked exasperated for a moment as if he was about to rebuke him for not giving his all, then thought better of it. "Is it as good as what I've heard?"

Travis grinned, "I think it's better."

Vic interrupted with a mouth full of food, "Well, alright den, so ooo ave new tunes." He swallowed hard and cleared his throat. "But so what if they can't see you! How's that change anything?"

"I don't know that it will." Travis paused for a moment and decided to trust them with the secret of RFR. "It worked for us in Roscoe. We had our own radio station, an underground radio station, we had to keep ourselves unknown and create aliases. The people seemed enamored with the secrecy of it all."

His uncle still looked doubtful although Vic's expression had changed with the mention of the underground station. Travis went in for the kill. "People have always fallen in love with the unknown man. The Lone Ranger, Zorro, The Phantom of the Opera. People always try to find out who is behind the mask."

Vic stuck his fork in midair with exuberance. "Yeah, mate! Like on Scooby Doo!"

Travis looked down at Vic with one eyebrow raised. "Something like that." He shifted his gaze back to Barty, waiting for his opinion.

"Let's do it!"

Travis grinned. He felt the invigoration fill his veins. This was going to work, and it was all because of her. Because of Lily.

Vic was a born again friend since he had such a nifty project to work on. They had closed the club for a few nights to make the changes. Vic had added the voice modulator, boasting that Travis could sound like anyone from Winston Churchill to God. Travis chose the booming voice that Vic had labeled "God." He had liked the sound of "Let there be music!" booming out of the sound system. The plexiglass was blacked out and locks were added to the gate and the rear door of the booth that led to the service hall, this was the one Travis would be using to go in and out for each session. Who knew what people would try to do if this gimmick was successful.

On their "opening night" Travis refused to let his nerves get to him. He thought of Lily and repeated to himself, must have faith in my abilities, over and over. The crowd was a good size one, but the usual for the first weekend night. Hopefully, this would be the last night for anything usual. A few curious people glanced at the booth, Travis actually felt more comfortable knowing he was invisible to them. Ray's voice filled his head…It's Go Time!

Travis slid the control for a loud lingering bass note on the synthesizer while simultaneously rolling beams of light across the dance floor to fixate upon the booth. He flipped the voice modulator on and took a deep breath. "THIS IS DJ SMOG." He paused while his new voice reverberated through the club; all attention focused and people began to point to the new glass. "I AM YOUR NEW MODERATOR FOR MUSIC." He heard a few whistles and catcalls. "COMMENCE DANCING IN FIVE…FOUR…THREE…TWO…ONE!" He let the bass of one of his best tunes bust out of the system and the crowd went crazy. Travis began to let his hands glide across the turntable and let the world get to know Travis Strong, even if it was only anonymously.

After the club finally shut down for the night, Travis wearily went up to the flat. He was bone tired, but it was a good tired. He would have to say the night was a "booming" success. Now if the word spread like it should, Two-Tone should be seeing increasing numbers very soon. He wanted to call Lily but knew it was too late. Besides he didn't want to keep her up all night again. He found the photo they had used for her second single and was gazing at it when Barty trudged in and leaned on the doorframe to Travis' room.

"That your missus?"

"She's very important to me, if that's what you're asking." Travis' eyes never left her photo. "She's important to you as well, if everything goes as planned. This was mostly her idea."

Barty came closer to peer at her picture, "Pretty lass. I can see now why you meditate so often."

Travis looked up at Barty in confusion. "Pardon?"

His uncle laughed heartily, "Travis, If I'd left behind a gorgeous lady like that who had brains to boot, I'd be stressed too."

The flush rose in Travis' face. "Well, if you become Daddy Warbucks because of this gimmick, you'll be paying my way for a visit to New York."

Barty clapped Travis' shoulder with a wicked grin, "Gladly granted, mate."

Lily had returned to Julliard only to find that the feeling of unfulfillment had not only returned but had intensified as well. She just wasn't as happy and content with her classes as she had been before. As wonderful an opportunity as this was, it was not where she wanted to be. She was consumed with foolishness and guilt at the very thought; she was the one who had pushed so hard to get here.

She was distracted as well. Travis had called to congratulate her for the success of Two-Tone. Attendance had been steadily increasing since Smog had debuted and the competition was taking notice and applying some new tricks to stave off their losses. She had quickly set him straight about who was really behind the sudden popularity of the club. He called often to relay the increasing numbers and his excitement about being a DJ, albeit an unknown DJ. She would have given anything to be there with him and fearlessly told him so. To her surprise he had agreed. It was unusual for him to want for something much less openly admit it. This distracted her even more.

Her classical music instructor had noticed her shift in mood. He had handed her a slip of paper and requested she study the particular music composition written on it, suggesting that it would gather her focus. Now she was sitting in the library at one of the listening stations trying to keep her mind on that task and fighting the urge to put one of the RFR recordings into the CD drive. She wondered how she would ever get through the next few years if she felt this uneasy right now.

"May I sit here?" A deep and soothing voice interrupted her thoughts.

"Sure," she replied, "But it's kind of bright there, the sunlight from that window kept getting in my eyes so I moved over to this one." It had been one of those blindingly beautiful but bitterly cold, clear sunny days that only the coming of winter can bring.

The young man sat in the rays from the window turning his face into its warmth, "Eh, I'm used to it." He was a lean man, trim with warm olive skin, his longish hair, brown and unkempt, but it was his eyes that held her attention. They seemed to change colors depending on the tilt of his head and were intense and inviting at the same time. It was a little eerie how he would hold her gaze. "So, you must be Lily Randall."

Lily nearly fell out of her chair. "Excuse me? How do you know my name?"

He smiled warmly. "Everyone is talking about the Lily the London Liaison. Quite a bit of excitement was caused by students clamoring to be the next big trend in DJ history."

She winced; she didn't want to be known as a troublemaker here. She'd only wanted to help Travis. "So everyone knows me, but I still don't know you, what can I call you?"

Again he smiled softly, turning his face into the sun again, "Oh, it's an unusual name, but you can call me J."

"Just J?" At his nod, she asked, "And what does Just J study at Julliard?"

"Oh, I don't study music. I study people. I'm more of a…" he paused looking for the correct word, "Teacher's Assistant."

"Oh." She glanced back at her notes on the composition with a sigh. "Maybe you can assist me with this."

He sidestepped her request. "You don't seem like the other students here. Most of them are tripping over their own feet trying to impress the instructors or outperform a fellow student. You just seem to be going through the motions." He ducked his head lower to try to catch her attention. "Why is that?"

Lily glanced sideways at him, talk about hitting the nail on the head. "This was always my dream. I worked so hard to get here, to learn about music. Music is so much a part of me that I wanted to be trained by the best. Now that I'm here…" she trailed off because she didn't quite know how to explain it.

J pressed his lips together nodding sagely. "Ah, so you're one of those."

"One of what?"

"Dogwoods in the wild." At her curious and open stare he continued. "In the south, there is a flowering tree, a dogwood. It's quite common really and used highly in landscaping for it's beautiful foliage." Lily turned to face him more directly and motioned for him to go on. "But it can be rather tricky to plant, especially to transplant. A lot of time, care, and sometimes special soils are used to keep it healthy."

Lily smirked, "So I'm difficult to cultivate?"

"You didn't let me finish." Lily rolled her eyes with a smile and he tried again. "The thing is that this beautiful little tree flourishes in the wild. Out in the woods it can be found it's beautiful flowers shining like a beacon. And it grows there, all on its own." Lily was staring openly now as he stated quite clearly. "Naturally."

He turned his face once more to catch the sunlight and Lily blinked. "You mean you got all that from my one statement?"

J chuckled. "Well, let's just say I listen well; I'm used to that too." He rose from his chair and stretched tall before relaxing into a more natural stance.

Lily's brow furrowed slightly in confusion and she pursed her lips for a moment before asking, "So, you're saying I should just have faith in my natural abilities?"

A mysterious grin crossed his face as he looked down at her, "Hmmm, faith. Yes, something like that." He turned to go with a wave of his hand.

It wasn't until he'd left the library that Lily realized J had never cracked a book or listened to anything but her. She wondered exactly what kind of assistant he was.

A/N: O.K. so who thought that it was Travis who interrupted her at the library? Gotcha. So do I still have everyone in the dark? Only one more chapter, y'all, The finale. You'll have to tell me if it's a grand finale. I'm getting all emotional about it. I don't know that I'll be able to see to type. I'll have to be brave like Sini and type without seeing. Drop me a line, what do you think? I promise to have one more review beg for the finale, y'all seemed to enjoy them as much as the story itself. (I did too.)