A/N: I'll explain everything at the bottome/end of the story. Enjoy!

Chapter 8

Watching Leslie still asleep in her hospital bed, Mr. Donnelley couldn't help but wonder if his only daughter was ever going to recover. He, along with everyone else, had heard the stories about comma patients never recovering, and those who did rarely ever remember what their lives had been like before the comma. Yes, there were the exceptions, which you also heard about. Just last month the newspaper headline read: "Full Recovery! A Miracle for a Comma Victim!"

Going back to looking over Leslie's school books, he almost didn't notice that his daughter had turned pail white. Only when she started shaking uncontrollably did he glance up. Seeing the petrified look on her face, he jumped from his chair, knocking all the books off his lap, lunged for the bed and hit the emergency button the nurse had shown him at the beginning her their stay at the hospital, just in case something like this happened and there wasn't a nurse in the room.

Responding immediately, a swarm of nurses flooded into the room. The head nurse, and older lady with a tinge of gray in her hair, and a great amount of bulk, charged in demanding, "What is going on in here? Has she woken up?" But taking one look at the bed, she understood and jumped into action, sending nurses flying in all directions into the hospital. One was sent to find a doctor on duty, another was sent to find mussel relaxers, another to find straps to hold Leslie down so that she didn't fall off the bed, even though the shakes weren't bad. The youngest was sent to get Mr. Donnelley out of the room since she was the one with the least experience; she started the day that Leslie was admitted into the hospital. The last nurse that wasn't ordered to stay and help with Leslie was sent to get a warm and wet towel to help sooth her, and to get the color back into her face.

Before anyone could come back though, with the exception of the lady with the towel, Leslie had calmed down and was sleeping again, just like she had been doing for the last two weeks. When the doctor got there two minutes later, she asked what had happened and how it was resolved. Finding that Leslie had just calmed down, he went to talk to Mr. Donnelley. "Sir, what where you doing when she started to spasm?" the doctor asked.

"I was just looking at her school books. You see, if she is going to miss too much school, she is going to need someone to help her catch up, so I've been trying to re-learn all of her materials." Mr. Donnelley answered.

"That's very nice of you to think that far in advanced, but did you give her anything? Say anything to her?"

"No, I was just looking at her; then went back to reading. I looked up because I heard the bed squeaking and shaking to find her pale as a ghost and shaking. She looked terrified of something!"

"I see…"

"What's wrong with her? Does this mean that she is going to wake up soon?" Mr. Donnelley asked; hope filling his eyes, along with terror in thinking that this could delay her recovery.

"I'm not sure. I don't specialize in commas; I'll have to consult her doctor. In the meantime, why don't you let one of the nurses take over for you? You look exhausted. Why don't you go home, nap for a few hours, and then come back. I bet you would greatly appreciate your own bed after sleeping here for two weeks."

"Thanks, I'll think about it." Going back into his daughter's room, he picked up the books he had knocked over, and then once more settled into his arm chair next to her bed.

Flash

Helping Alexa through the window, they walked back down to the stage. Since everyone had the day off, there was no one there, so they quickly made there way off into the corridor outside of the actual theater. Alexa decided to spend the rest of the day in her room, still a little shaken from her roof top experience.

To make sure that she got there all right, Dustin escorted her to her rooms, then left to go out to the stables where he was expected to do some work later on in the day. Once inside the stables, Dustin immediately broke down into shudders. What was she thinking leaning over the wall like that? She could have gotten herself killed! What if I hadn't noticed and wasn't there in time to catch her? Where did this girl come from to give her such a lack of common sense?

Getting to work on mucking out stalls, feeding and watering the horses, then tethering selected horses up to the merry-go-round to give them their exercise, Dustin kept toiling over what could have happened and where this strange girl had come from and why she couldn't remember a single thing.

Over the next few months, Dustin continued to ponder everything about Alexa, along with everyone else in the theater. They all knew she was good for they had now opened Hannibal to the public. Everyone agreed on that fact at least, that she could sing, even though she was very timid about her voice. The things that nobody seemed to be able to agree on though, where were she had come from, what her real name was, why she was there, why she couldn't remember anything, and why was she so shy?

Opening night, an hour before curtain call, Alexa was locked up in her dressing room, shaking from nerves. Dustin came in to wish her luck, and found that she was shaking every bit as much as the time she had almost fallen off of the roof! "Alexa, what is the matter? You have not finished getting dressed!" he said upon seeing her.

Turning to look at her friend, Alexa smiled, though very faintly. "I can't do it Dustin, I just can't!"

"Why not?" He had gotten used to the way she cut off words and conjoined them together. Though it was odd to him, he found that he sometimes did the same whenever he was around her for long periods of time. Which just happened to be just about every day.

"I'm terrified of the stage! Dustin, I'm a dancer, not a singer!" she told him for the millionth time.

"I'm not so sure of that. I know that you keep insisting that you can't sing, but honestly, would you have gotten the part that you have if you could not?"

"Well, I guess not; but I just can't do it!"

"How do you know that? Do you remember ever being on stage and freaking out?" He paused while she sat and thought.

"Well, you know perfectly well that I remember very few things about who I am, and you also know perfectly well that I do remember being a dancer."

"Yes, but just because you remember being a dancer, doesn't mean that you are not also a singer. Listen to me!" he begged her. "You can't just nock your head on something and suddenly wake up being able to sing if you had no talent in carrying a tune before hand. You can sing now, so that means that you could sing before I met you, so stop worrying about it! You'll be fine! I promise." As he said this, he pulled her off of her chair and into his arms. After giving her a hug, he stepped back and looked at her from an arm length, still holding her shoulders. "Now come on, you still have to get dressed and put your makeup on. I'll be outside the door when you are ready to go on stage. If you need me, just give a shout and I'll be in here in less than two seconds."

Smiling at him, Alexa nodded and sat back down to fix her hair. That night, although she was scared out of her mind, she proved to herself that she really could sing. The next night on the other hand, she was every bit as scared as she had been the day before, but she was determined to overcome her fear. Every performance went like this until the end of the show's running. Every night, she proved that she could do it, yet the next day, she was always just as scared as she had been; and Dustin was always there to calm her down.

A week after Hannibal closed, Andre and Firmin called everyone to the theater to make an announcement. Once everyone was there, they explained that the next show that they were going to do would be A Chorus Line. (A/N: YES, I KNOW THAT A CHORUS LINE IS A MODERN PLAY, BUT I LOVE ALL OF THE SONGS IN THERE, SO I'M PLACING IT IN THIS TIME PERIOD INSTEAD OF OURS. PLEASE LET ME SLIDE ON THIS.) "We will be holding auditions for the parts tomorrow. Everyone please look over the songs and parts and be prepared to sing and dance. You are dismissed."

Walking up to the stage, Alexa, along with everyone else in the company, grabbed a copy of the play and the score. Walking back to Dustin, he looked over the script and smiled. "What are you grinning about?" Alexa asked.

"Come on, let's go outside. It's really nice out there." Taking her script along with him, Dustin began to walk out to the stables. Shrugging to herself, Alexa followed. When they got to the stable, Dustin set the script on a stack of hay, then pulled out to horses and started to put tack on them. (A/N: TACK IS THE SADDLE, BRIDLE, BIT AND STURUPS THAT ARE NEEDED IN ORDER TO RIDE. JUST IN CASE YA'LL DIDN'T KNOW)

"Um, Dustin, I'm not exactly dressed to go riding astride." Alexa interrupted his work as he put two saddles onto the horses. Looking at her, he noticed that she was wearing a soft blue skirt with a white lace-up blouse.

"Oh, right." he said, taking one of the saddles of one of the horses and then putting a side saddle on it instead. Helping Alexa up onto her horse, a dappled mayor, he led the horses out onto the path, hopped up onto his own grey stallion, and started off towards the woods behind the theater. Although the theater was in the middle of the city, there where copses of trees places precariously throughout the city so that people could just get away from city life whenever they wanted without having to actually leave.

Ridding though the trails, Alexa noticed that Dustin had the script in his hands and was reading it, guiding his horse with his knees. "Dustin, why do you still have that?" she asked him, ridding up next to him. When she had first arrived, Dustin had taken her riding, and to his amusement, and her chagrin, she couldn't stay on to save her life! But as the weeks bore on, she had become a decent rider. Yes, she still fell of if her horse bolted into a run when she wasn't expecting it, but other than that, she usually had total control over the animal.

"What?" Dustin asked, looking up from the script. "Oh, sorry, I've never read A Chorus Line before, so I wanted to read it through."

"I've never even heard of it." Alexa commented.

"Well of course you haven't. And even if you had, you still wouldn't have." Dustin said smiling. They had gotten accustomed to teasing each other about silly things, and this just happened to be the main thing he teased her about; her lack of memory.

"Well, what's it about then?" she asked, also grinning. She didn't really mind his teasing, but she still wished that she could remember things such as her own name.

"It's about a bunch of people trying to get into this play and all the complications they've had in their lives and why they so desperately want to be in the play. But there is this one girl who used to live with the director, and she ran off to some prominent theater company to make it in the big times as a dancer. Well, she ends up coming back and tries to get into the play that her old love, the director, is putting on. He keeps telling her no, that she's too good to be in this play, but she keeps persisting because she needs a job. In the end, she gets into the show and they fall in love again. The songs are different than what people are accustomed too, but I thin that you would do wonderfully for the part of Cassie. She has this one solo that would be perfect for you."

"Another solo? Dustin, I…"

"Yes you can!" Dustin interrupted, before she could say that she couldn't. "Look what you did in Hannibal! You where wonderful! Come on; let's just have a nice ride. You can learn the longs when we get back."

When they got back, they went to one of the vacant practice rooms. Dustin sat down at the piano and started to play. "I didn't know that you could play!" Alexa exclaimed.

"Well, you didn't need my help last time because you already knew all the songs that you needed to know. Now then, come and sit next to me so that you can see the words and that I can see the notes." Alexa walked over and sat next to him on the bench. The bench wasn't very big, so they had to sit really close to each other, but neither noticed all that much. Or at least they didn't let the other know that they had noticed.

As Dustin started to play, Alexa looked at the words for the first time. "This is right in the middle to lower part of your range, so you should have no trouble hitting these notes. I'm going to play though it once so that you can hear the notes, and then I want you to sing."

"Okay, go for it." Alexa said, listening intently as he played. When he started to song over again, she did as he as instructed and sang. "Kiss today good-bye, the sweetness and the sorrow. Wish me luck, the same to you! And I can't regret, what I did for love, what I did for love! Look my eyes are dry. The gift was ours to borrow. It's as if we always knew! But I can't forget, what I did for love, what I did for love! Gone! Love is never gone! As we travel on! Loves what we'll remember. Kiss today good-bye, and point me toward tomorrow. We did what we had to do! Won't forget, can't regret, what I did for love. What I did for love! What I did for love!"

"Not bad for the first time you've seen this. Look it over once more and listen while I play. There were a few spots where you didn't quite get the right notes. Don't worry about it thought because there are a lot of strange notes in this song.

For the rest of the day they worked together on the song. Periodically, Alexa got the feeling like they were being watched again like she had had so many times since arriving at the opera house.

That night as she was getting ready bed, she had that feeling again. Looking around to make sure that no one was in the room with her, she finished dressing. As she was climbing into bed, she heard a soft click from behind her. Spinning around so fast that she almost fell over, she saw that there was indeed someone in the room with her. She was so shocked by the sudden appearance of this intruder, Alexa screamed. When the intruder made no gesture to stop her, she stopped herself and demanded, "How did you get in here? Especially without me hearing?"

"I am here for your lesson." the intruder said. "I take it that you got my note that I left you?" Seeing her puzzled and frightened face, he spoke again. "Obviously not. Mademoiselle, if you would kindly look at your vanity table, you would see a white rose with a note attached to it. Please read the note."

Stunned, she did as she was told, but making sure that she came only as close to him as possible, unsure of what to think of him and how he had come into her room unbeknownst to her. Picking up the white rose, she saw that it had a black ribbon tied to it, also attached to a piece of parchment with her name on it. Opening it, she read, Mademoiselle Alexa, I will be coming to collect you at ten o'clock this evening for your first voice lesson. Please be ready to sing, and make sure that you tell no one of this note or our lessons. I am very secretive about whom I choose to teach for I take only the best, and if word got around about whom I was teaching, you would be given the cold shoulder and would be neglected from jealously. Once again, please be ready to leave at nine forty-five so that we will have ample time to get to the lesson and be able to start promptly at ten o'clock. Sincerely yours, O.G.

"Well, are you ready to go? We are pressing for time so we had best be going. Come along, follow me, and don't wander off, you might get lost." And with that, he stepped over to the floor length mirror hanging on her wall.

"Um, sir, who are you?" Alexa asked, still standing at her vanity table. "Where are you taking me? Why are you standing at my mirror?"

"All questions will be answered later. First, we must get out of here before anyone can here me. You did read the entire note?" She nodded her head. "They you know why no one must know I was here. Come now, let us hurry." As he spoke, he pressed on the glass and to Alexa's amazement, it slid forwards to reveal a secret passageway. As the mysterious stranger stepped through, he gestured for her to follow. As she was about to move, she heard someone banging on her door. Turning, she saw that it had been locked. So that was the click I heard; he locked me in! Unsure of what to do, she hesitated.

"Alexa! Alexa, I heard you scream, what's the matter? Why is your door locked? Alexa, are you okay, can you hear me?" But before she could answer, the man grabbed her around the waist and pulled her into the passageway after him. Terrified, she screamed at the top of her lungs, hoping that Dustin would be able to get inside in time to help her. To her dismay and horror, the glass swung back into place just as the door banged open, revealing Dustin standing in just his trousers, looking around the room frantically trying to find her, but he couldn't see her because the mirror was a one way window. Obviously the stranger could read her mind, or was anticipating what she was planning to do, because he clamped he other hand over her mouth before she could let out another scream. Grabbing her more firmly around her middle, he started to pull her away from her room and into the hidden passage.

End Chapter 8

Ballet-Girl-Forever:
thanks for the review! You'll be getting more details in the next chapter.

Girl In Story: thanks for the compliment! I've always loved writing, and I have finally found something that I can write about. I just wish that it was my own idea! LOL

IndiaPyro: sorry I haven't written in a while, I've been working on my other story because I had writers block on this one. I'll be writing more often from now on I think. I'll give my other one a break.

A/N: okay, soooooooo sorry this took so long to update! I just got writers block so I decided to work on my other story for a while to give me time to think about this one. Now that I have my head sort of straight again, I'll work on this one a lot more often. School is starting next week, so I won't write as often as you would like, but I'll be better about updates than I have been.

A/N: also, i havn't been able to separate sections, so you will be seeing a lot more of the end chapter and flash'es