Author's Note: Mmm... Nothing to say about this one really. Enjoy.

Chapter 8: Setting the Scene, Part 1

Lexington, once he'd put on the necklace, proceeded to completely forget about it. It suddenly didn't seem like anything to take interest in. That is... until someone else took notice of it.

When Lexington went back to the roost wearing the necklace the first time both Brooklyn and Broadway saw it.

"What have you got there Lex?" Broadway asked, pointing at the necklace.

"This?" Lex asked, putting his hand over the necklace. "I found it on the street." He answered.

"It looks expensive. Are you sure it doesn't belong to somebody? Maybe you should give it to Elisa." Brooklyn suggested.

"I looked around for anyone who might've dropped it. No one looked like they were searching around for it." Lexington said, expanding upon the lie.

"That doesn't mean someone didn't lose it." Brooklyn said in his 'no nonsense' voice. "C'mon, it's almost sunrise but we might still have time to get it to Elisa." Brooklyn held his hand out for the necklace.

Lexington cringed back a little and his grip tightened around the necklace instinctively.

"No..." He said hesitantly.

"What?"

"I mean... there's not enough time to explain where I got it. I'll just give it to her tomorrow night." Lexington amended.

"Alright." Brooklyn conceded. "But give it to her tomorrow."

"Right." Lexington agreed.

====[Break]====

All through her shift on Wednesday Emily rehearsed her request to have Friday off. Trying to come at it from different angles. She didn't think the pity angle would work very well.

"Think of my social life! I spend all my time working and never get to socialize with people on a normal level. Surely I deserve some time off to go out and enjoy myself among civilized people?" Emily went over that in her head. It made Bill look bad, like he didn't care about his employees. Rather than invoking pity it'd probably invoke a sense of indignation, especially since it implied something about the diner's usual customer quality. She didn't think it'd work any better if she pleaded the case for her love life either. So mentioning the date wouldn't give that argument any points.

"Hey Boss. I'm always on time, right? Plus I've been picking up a lot of extra hours on half time instead of overtime to help you out, yeah? Don't you think that maybe I deserve just one day off, since I've been doing such a wonderful job lately?" Emily thought that sounded better. If she played up how she was such a good employee she was maybe it'd guilt him into giving her a day off. She was essentially doing work for three people. Surely that merited something.

Confident that this tactic was the one that would work best she went to try it on Bill. There were no new customers at the moment so now was as good a time as any.

"Hey Boss..." Emily started as she knocked quietly on the door frame of the 'office', which was really more of a cove since it lacked an actual door.

"Yeah?" Bill grunted over his paper work. He looked up at her. Emily hedged a bit, he didn't really look in the mood for this conversation.

"Mmm... you look busy. I'll come back later." Emily replied.

Bill nodded absently, then looked up as if reminded of something.

"Oh, I've scheduled you for Jean's old Friday evening shift from now on." He said.

Emily bit back a scream. That was just the worst sort of luck.

"That's fine, but you'll have to find someone to cover this Friday." Emily replied, the calmness in her voice belying her true feelings on the matter.

"What for?" Bill asked, looking displeased at this revelation.

"Well, since I normally have Friday evenings off I already made plans." She explained.

"Why are you just now letting me know? I was counting on you to cover that shift anyway." Bill asked in outrage.

"Why didn't you let me know sooner then? You're not really good at giving advance notice of schedule changes." Emily countered.

"That's never been a problem before." Bill pointed out.

"That's because I usually cancel my plans. Which I'm not willing to do this time." Emily explained.

"Emily, I NEED someone to cover that shift. Lizzie can't do a Friday night shift be herself." Bill protested.

"Which is why you should have hired someone to replace Jean way before now. She left more than a month ago and it's not like you'd be lacking for applicants if you'd just bother to post a help wanted sign." Emily countered.

This seemed true enough. She remembered getting hired here. Several women had applied just the same day she had, and she suspected several more for each day that week had too. She didn't doubt that it's be the same now. Especially with how everyone was talking about the job market.

No, it definitely wasn't that Bill couldn't hire a new waitress. It's that he just wasn't for some reason. She couldn't begin to guess why. The result of this was that there were several open hours in the evening shifts now that Bill expected the other waitresses to fill, and while Emily was the first to jump on more hours there was still a limit to what she could do and what she felt she should be expected to do. She felt like this was reaching it.

"Maybe Sarah would be interested in picking up some extra hours or something." Emily said, trying to be helpful. She'd seen the work schedule. It hadn't surprised her at all to see that Sarah wasn't scheduled for any more than her regular shift whereas just about everyone else had snagged up a few hours of Jean's old shifts.

Bill didn't find this suggestion helpful at all, at least not if the look on his face was any indication. Emily was about to defend the statement but was interrupted by the front door chiming.

She went to the front feeling as though their conversation was unresolved. She could feel it biting her in the ass already.

Author's Note: I don't really care for the title of the chapter to be honest. But I can't really think of anything else. Not sure how many parts will have that title. I'm thinking three, but don't hold me to it.

Whither: It's not so much that the plot is running away from me, it's just that it seems like it's taking forever to get here. I tend to want to rush through my stories. I want to get to the bit where something happens. But if you don't go through all the inbetween bits then the story isn't as good... Which is why I'm all annoyed that all the chapters leading up to what I know is going to happen just seem like... filler. It seems pointless to write them but at the same time I know if I just rush through the plot points it wouldn't be as good a story.
But I'm really glad that you like Emily. I worry over that sort of thing a lot. I feel like if I concentrate on the OC too much then people won't find the fanfic as interesting as I do. So it's nice to hear that you like her. It makes me less nervous about writing the scenes with her in them.