Disclaimer: Still don't own anything but the plot.

Sonny stared out the window at the huge white letters spelling out Hollywood on the hillside and sighed. This was very likely the last time she was going to see them. After the way she suddenly ditched So Random, no one was going to want her on their show. But that's okay, she reminded herself. She was doing this for a good reason. Besides, before they called her to be on So Random she'd already started thinking about careers. Everyone told her she'd be a great Kindergarten teacher, and though she wasn't so sure of that herself, she could see the point. And even if she didn't know right away what she was going to do, she still had a few years. She'd figure out something.

Leaning back in her seat, she wrapped her arms around the pillow she'd brought for sleeping on the plane. She had made the right decision, she was sure of it. After almost five months on the show, she was still treated like the newcomer and therefore the outsider. As good as she was at "making-do" it had gotten to be too much. There were only so many insults a girl could take before she tried to do something about it. And she had tried to do something about it, in the only way she knew how. She tried harder. It didn't help much. The harder she tried to be friendly and include them, the more the excluded her. Finally, she decided she'd had enough. That's when she'd handed in her resignation to Marshall. He'd been, well, less than understanding, but Sonny stood firm. She could not take any more abuse and she was leaving.

The other part of her decision to leave was much harder for her to admit, even to herself. Contrary to what she'd told Nico, her decision was at least halfway due to her relationship with Chad. Not relationship, she thought quickly, that's definitely the wrong word for it. Acquaintance maybe? No matter what she called it, she couldn't stand being around him any more. She couldn't stand the way he couldn't go for two seconds without complimenting himself and in doing so, putting her down. She couldn't stand the way he never cared for anyone but himself, no matter what the problem was. At first, she'd though she could change him. Sometimes she even thought it was working. The thing was, in those little moments when she got through the outer shell of self-centeredness and saw the inner, sweet Chad, she could feel herself falling for him. That was the real reason she'd left. She couldn't stand the thought that she was falling for someone so awful, just based on the occasional passing moment. But that was all over now. And after their last encounter, she was entirely sure that he would never change. She'd go back to school with all her friends and they'd have some much better times than she ever had on the set of So Random. There would even be other boys, and though they wouldn't be nearly as nice to look at as Chad, they would certainly be less high-maintenance. And Chad would go on being Chad, the way only he could, abusing everyone within earshot, just because he could.

Still, a small part of her whispered, I'm going to miss it so bad.

***

The cast of So Random was sitting around the famous prop room trying to come up with a new, and they were hoping funnier sketch. Marshall had already called one meeting to talk about the awful ratings they'd been getting since Sonny left. Either they had to come up with better sketches to bring up the ratings or they had to think up some way to bring Sonny back and Marshall made it sound like he didn't think that was possible.

"How about if we did some kind of broken fairy tale? Like, I dunno, Sleeping Beauty or something. We could have the Prince Charming be a bumbling idiot and the sidekick the smart one," Nico suggested.

"Ooh, I call Sleeping Beauty!" Tawni looked up from studying her perfect manicured nails.

"No, you blockheads! We already did that remember? Sonny was Cinderella, Nico was the bumbling Prince Charming, and Grady was that fat mouse from the Disney version," Zora rolled her eyes, "We've got to come up with something fresh, something new." She shook her fist at the ceiling. "Curse you, Sonny! What happened to the So Random Code?"

"Oh, I remember that one. I should have had the part of Cinderella," Tawni pouted. Zora rolled her eyes again.

"Do you want to help?" Zora growled at Tawni.

"Not really. See you later." Tawni swept out of the room, flipping her hair.

"Now what?" Nico asked, flopping onto the couch Tawni had just vacated.

"It's time for drastic measures!" Zora exclaimed.

"You're shaving your head?" Grady asked. Zora gave him the look she reserved only for when she felt the rest of the world was being particularly stupid.

"No! We're going to Mr. Condor!" The other two gasped.

"But-but-" Grady stuttered.

"But what if he fires us?" Nico finished.

"If we all go together, he can't fire us. We'll even bring Marshall," Zora seemed very excited at the prospect.

"Zora, going to Mr. Condor is beyond drastic, it's suicide, and I still don't see how it helps us," Nico was stood back up, ready to defend his position of necessary.

"You wouldn't. Look, we know from what Sonny told you two that the reason she left was something to do with Tawni and Chad, right?"

"Yeah, but I still don't see how that -" Nico interrupted.

"They probably wouldn't apologize on their own, bur if Mr. Condor ordered them to, they'd have no choice, right?"

"I get it," Nico nodded with a big smile on his face.

"Wait a minute," Grady said, a look of puzzlement still on his face, "How are we going to convince him to order them to do anything of the sort?"

"We just have to convince him that he needs So Random. With the way the ratings were looking before she left, it shouldn't be too hard." Zora had an answer for everything. Unfortunately the boys still looked a little apprehensive.

"Look, I'll just do everything. You guys just have to show up and tell him what Sonny said," Zora said.

"Well, when you put it like that…" they agreed that Zora would set up a meeting with Mr. Condor the next day.

A/N: Wow. So they've been bugging me and I updated way faster than I planned. Unfortunately, Sonny's not being entirely forthcoming with me, and she won't tell me what happened in her last encounter with Chad. Obviously it was bad, or she wouldn't have decided to leave, but she just doesn't want to talk about it. =P (yes, I treat the characters like real people). Anyways, if you have any suggestions for what happened, I would love to hear them.

Have a nice day and please review on your way out!

~Laure