As always, Annie Mara and Kolla, thanks for reading. This is the final chapter, enjoy:
Chapter 12
"Polestar- rise and shine
I'll be running in your direction-"
Joe hummed silently with the song that was stuck in his head, he was beginning to know the lyrics. It had been played over and over on the radio station over the night. Salvatore had told him it was the icelandic eurovision song. It was, along side with Russia and UK predicted to win.
"But those predictions have been wrong for years," he had added.
In the morning the radio had broadcasted news where, Salvatore told them, they were still being looked for but so far to no avail. Then there came more music and in between interviews with some contestants, composers and others.
And, currently, it was playing the icelandic song, Polestar, performed by a group called Arctica.
Suddenly Joe heard something outside the door. He quickly motioned for Salvatore to take the right side of the door while he was on the left, ready to take down whoever who enterd the room.
Isabelle stayed in one corner of the room and layed low.
The door opened.
Joe grabbed the person, slammed him down and raised a fist to knock him out. The fist stopped in mid-air.
"Dad?"
"Joe!"
"What's up? Haven't seen you in a while. What took you so long?" Joe helped his father to his feet.
"Hey! I've been working very hard to find your sorry ass and this is how you pay me," Fenton said and rubbed the back of his head, although his lower back had taken the impact of the fall.
-"Did you find him?"
-"Bill? I don't know, the police might have by now."
"Hopefully. Um...dad, you haven't met Salvatore Elina," Joe turned to the ex-director.
"No, I haven't. Nice to meet you, are you all right?" Fenton held out a hand to him.
Salvatore shook it and smiled. "Am now."
"And Ms. Arcens..." Joe introduced.
"Bonjour. Comment ca va?" Fenton shook hands with the woman.
She smiled. "Ca va bien, merci, monseur," she replied.
"Good," Joe rubbed his hands together, "Well, now that everyone knows everyone -let's get the hell out of this rathole."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"All right. Where is he?" Frank said loudly. He had heard people whisper about his brother being found.
Joe, Fenton, Salvatore, Isabelle and Martin were standing the saloon's entrance when Frank, Steven, Miguel and José found them.
"What did you do this time?" Frank demanded from his brother.
Joe shrugged carelessly. "Forced entry." Frank ruffled his hair.
"Salvatore! Are you-" Steven began.
-"I am all right, yes," Salvatore cut him off.
"So much time has gone awaste," Martin nagged.
"The time spent on searching for us included?" Salvatore raised an eyebrow at him.
"That's not what I meant..." came the quiet reply.
"Martin, chill out. You're a workaholic, you know that?" Joe said.
"Did you catch senor West?" Elina asked Moneo after taking a good look at his uniform.
"No but I'm sure it won't be long," the sergeant answered.
Steven winced. "Salvatore, I'm so sorry, I didn't know...I-"
-"Then don't be sorry. You didn't know, " the older director cut the younger one off again with a smile, "Now, I'd like to see my familia."
"I'll take you home, " José offered. They left.
"Quierra, why don't you accompany Ms. Arcens to her room and tell her personal crew that she's been found," Fenton said to Miguel.
"What about Maggie?" Joe asked when there were the four of them left.
"Maggie! I haven't seen her since yesterday. Is she involved?" Steven asked.
-"Yeah, she is."
"I bet that's where your troubles began. You always fall for the wrong women, Joe," Frank said and shook his head knowingly.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fenton woke up around 10 o'clock when the phone rang.
"Hello?"
"Mr. Hardy?" Martin's voice came through, "Have you seen Steven this morning?"
-"No, how could I? I haven't been awake this morning."
Martin ignored Fenton's sour tone. "Could you please go check on him. He should have been here long time ago.The dress rehearsal-takes for the semi-finals are today."
-"All right, I'll get back to you."
They hung up.
Fenton sighed and got up and got washed and dressed. Then he went over to Steven's room and knocked. "Steven? Steven are you there?"
No one answered.
"Damn," Fenton said to himself.
"What's going on?" Joe said huskily from the doorway of their room, bare above his waist.
"Steven either won't answer the door or isn't in the room," Fenton told him.
Joe went back inside their room and put on a t-shirt. Then he went out to the balconies and climbed over. Steven was on the couch in the living room but Joe quickly made his way to the front door to let his dad in.
Empty beer and vodka bottles filled the living room table. Steven sat on the couch, his eyes red and swollen, his hand clenched over the nozzle of a whiskey bottle.
"Jesus, Steven...you drank all this?" Fenton looked over the room. The cd player was playing the eurovision cd, exactly the song the was still stuck on Joe.
"Polestar
please be there
if you disappeared, I couldn't bear-"
"Is he passed out?" Joe asked and waved a hand over Steven's open eyes, "Steven, please, say something."
Steven took a deep breath. "He's gone," he said sadly.
"He cheated on you, did you know that?" Joe said softly.
Steven shook his head. Not disbelieving but like it was something he expected. "I'm not good enough," he slurred.
-"No...he wasn't good enough...you gotta know that..."
-"And you've got to know that your contest is tomorrow! Tomorrow, Steven," Fenton thundered, "Your greatest dream... Dreams come true, remember? At least show us that you worked hard to make it happen. That Salvatore hasn't been missing for nothing. That you care!"
Steven looked up at him, shameful. "I..." he sniffed, "I'm gonna...take a shower," he said in a small voice.
"You do that," Fenton said encouraging.
Joe waited until Steven had locked himself in the bathroom before turning to his father. "Dad, you dramaqueen!"
Fenton started gathering the bottles. "Well, it got him up, didn't it?"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Along side the semi-final dress rehearsal there was an emergency-shooting. The rehearsal was recorded, and the recording would be aired if something went wrong live so the people at home wouldn't notice anything. That's why everything had to be so exact on the rehearsal. A lot of close-up shots had to be cut off from the russian act because Alezjandra had bruises on her neck. Same story with the french act but not until the finals. Isabelle hadn't bruised as much as Alezjandra.
The day went on and no news came from the police about Bill or Maggie.
Then day turned to night and everybody had a good night's rest. Although the case was offically over, the Hardys stayed because EBU had offered them free seats on the show, which they gladly accepted.
Next morning were more rehearsals and more press conferences. Evening wore on and at half past seven the saloon started to fill with people.
Outside the entrance a few people had put up a kind of a stall, but the merchandize were for free.
Steven and the Hardys went outside for a quick breath of fresh air before the show began. Steven reached into the box in the stall, took something and put in his pocket while smiling sweetly at the women who were supervising the stall. "Well," he said when they went back inside, "Let the show begin."
"What was that?" Frank asked curiously.
"This?" Steven pulled the small object from his pocket. Condoms. "Union against AIDS, they spread them around...because there are so many of us gathered here..."
The Hardys nodded, knowing he was talking about gay men.
"You think you'll need that?" Joe grinned.
Steven shrugged. "You'll never know," he said mysteriously.
Frank smiled. "That was a fast recover."
"Are you nervous about the show?" Fenton asked.
-"I'll be all right," Steven said.
The show began.
The eurovision logo and theme appeared on the TV screens. The opening act, a spanish dance, came before the hosts.
Their: "Welcome Europe!" was met by the mad roar of the audience's clap and yells and flag waving. Then, after the hosts had explained the process of the night the performances started.
The Hardys, the Elina-family and Claudia Richardo's family sat together on first row. Claudia's brother had turned in to the police as he intended and had to stay in jail for some time.
Frank was hypnotized under the russian performance. Alezjandra gave her all and when she winked seductively to the camera and it appeared on the big screen, Joe could have sworn his brother was drooling.
Then there was a 10 minutes break while the points were being distributed. In the semi-finals, that part wasn't shown to the audience. When the top ten had been found, the hosts got ten envelopes with the top countries names, they were opened randomly and the country got it's place in the finals.
Frank was happy to see that Russia made it to the finals.
Afterwards, they met Steven. He was delirious with happiness and in some euphoria he informed Frank that Russia had won the semi-finals, followed by Iceland, which meant that they'd most likely stay in top five in the finals. Later that night the Hardys noticed Steven didn't go back to the hotel but sneaked off somewhere in the company of Martin.
The day after, José Moneo contacted Fenton and told him that William West had been captured on a train station in Barcelona, heading to France but Maggie remained unfound. Steven was busy at the emergency-shooting of the finals.
The day of the finals began like any other, with a last dress-rehearsal. In the afternoon the Hardys knew that Maggie had been found in her home in London.
The finals opening act was last year's winners with an awesome light show and an even bigger: "WELCOME EUROPE!" The ten nations that were re-performing, since they got through the semi-finals, were joined by the fourteen countries already placed there.
Frank's favourite was still Russia, while Joe couldn't decide on France or Iceland, that had gotten through the semi-finals.
Again there was a ten minutes break to let each nation count the scores from their televoting.
All the countries, both in the semi-finals and finals gave their votes. A spokesperson appeared on the big screen, usually thanking the hosts for a wonderful show. Then the results from the televoting came: "Romania - 1 point" one of the host repeated in french: "Roumania - Un pointe" -"Croatia - 2 points." -"Croatie - deux pointes." -"Spain - 3 points." -"Espagne - trois pointes..." -
-And so on.
Steven controlled the voting on the computer in front of him with the scoreboard on the screen. The program worked like this, the spokesperson gave the vote, Steven clicked on the country and the number of the points came automaticly. If accidentally clicked twice or at a wrong country the spokesperson would have to start all over.
The audience gave their opinion also, the most of them Spaniards, they cheered if they liked what they got and booed if they didn't. They did that too when something predictable came. Like Cyprus and Greece awarded each other with 12 points as they'd done the past years, and Norway and Iceland.
The past years had been ruled by south-and-eastern Europe but this time the fun was in the north. Russia, Estonia and Iceland ended up in quite a fight.
The last country to give it's votes was Ukraine. By then this was the top three score:
Russia 138 points
Iceland 135 points
Estonia 130 points
Frank was almost chewing his fingernails in excitement.
Ukraine awarded Russia with 8 points but their 12 points goes to...Iceland!
The audience went crazy.
So the top scores were:
Iceland 147 points
Russia 146 points
UK 135 points
Estonia 130 points
Frank whistled loudly between his fingers. "Whoooaa!" The brothers cheered.
The hosts gave their goodbyes and introduced the winners, the icelandic Arctica and the winning song: Polestar, and the group started to sing. Fire rain and mica explosions emerged from here and there.
As the song was about to finish, Steven called up the credit list up on the screen.
-"Polestar -rise and shine
I'll be running in your direction
Polestar -glow on me
I am blinded by your golden reflection
Polestar -don't you leave
I am longing for your affection
You're my guiding light.
Polestar -rise and shine
(you're the only light)
I'll be running in your direction
(you're the brightest light)
Polestar -glow on me
(you're the one who watches me)
I am blinded by your golden reflection
(you're the greatest star)
Polestar -don't you leave
(you're the wonder star)
I am longing for your affection
(who always knows where to go...)
You're my guiding light."
Okay, about Iceland winning – wishful thinking but ain't gonna happen any time soon I think but it's only a story so what the hell…
Like I said, that was the end. Thank you all for reading, if you are writers you know how much it means to know someone's reading and if you're not, well, know it's the best…frankly, I was kinda bummed when the amount of readers lessened after my long break there around 8th chapter but hey! Maybe later! Again, thanks for reading. I have many other stories in preparation and the first should be up in the beginning of December. Finally, if you want to know more about Eurovision (or read more of my lyrics ;), please click my username and visit my website.
Ps. I realize I'm advertising but how do you get up if you don't reach, right…? Especially when you're as small as me…..