This chapter is dedicated to everyone who's stuck with me this long, through my unpredicted and unreliable updates, life snapfoo's and school work, and all of my other excuses for not writing. This story isn't my first priority but, I always have so much fun writing it. I'll probably cry when it's finally finished. I'm not a drop dead twihard but I just love Stephenie Meyer's characters and getting to play with them in the setting of my favorite reality show makes me smile. So let's get back to the fun.

Chapter 38- Double Trouble

Pov- Bella

"Who do you think it'll be this time?" Edward asked as he reached out in front of us to open the door to dance studio six.

I shrugged my shoulders and bounced on my toes, the butterflies in my stomach were dancing to rave music, and the anticipation was killing me. We were standing in the hallway on the third floor seconds away from meeting the man or woman who would be choreographing our contemporary number for us this week.

After breakfast a man, dressed in show crew black, had told us we would get a chance to meet both of our choreographers today; one before lunch, and one after. I was nervous and had to force myself to finish eating all of my eggs. Passing out from lack of sugars would make a bad first impression and with two dances this week we couldn't afford to lose any practice time.

Edward's hand paused on the door and Roger moved in for a close up on our faces. Over the last few weeks I'd grown accustomed to the constant cameras filming our every move out side of the dance studios and the red light blinking in my face didn't phase me anymore. Edward twisted the door knob and I pushed the door open, eager to see who we would be working with.

The door burst open and I leapt into the room with Edward on my heels. I knew her at once, anyone who had ever watched the show would know her even if they couldn't pronounce her name right. She'd only been with the show for the last three seasons, but her contributions had not gone unnoticed by the judges, the dancers, or America's growing love for her work. It was Sonya Tayeh and I almost had a small fit right there in the doorway. She was my all time, personal favorite when it came to contemporary routines on the show.

Sonya was standing in the middle of the room wearing black warm up clothes that matched her black hair. She was wearing neon, knee high socks and had two pricings in each ear and one in her lip. She turned to look at us when we came in and smiled when she saw us, waving us to come out of the doorway and join her.

"Bella, Edward, welcome. Come on in here."

I smiled and bounded forward with Edward at my side, feeling much less nervous, and more like a five year old with the promise of a trip to the toy store. "You're Sonya Tayeh!"

She chuckled at my "Captain Obvious" moment and I blushed when Edward and Roger laughed with her. Roger had just caught me saying that with his camera which meant ten to one it would be aired all over the country in a few days…great.

"Yes I am, and I was hoping you two would draw my card. I've seen some of your previous work on the show and I think this is going to be a strong match up for both of us."

"Why's that?" Edward asked moving forward so he could shake her hand.

Sonya grabbed his hand with another big smile on her face. "Because I've been working particularly hard on this number and I needed a pair with great on stage chemistry to dance it or it wouldn't work right. I'm going to give you a challenge this week and if any of this years pairs can handle it, you two can."

I followed behind Edward and got my chance to shake Sonya's hand. "What's it about?"

Sonya glanced once at Roger and then looked me over taking a step back so she could look us both over once as Edward moved to my side. "Bella have you ever suffered from depression before?"

I was caught off guard by the question so it took me a moment to respond. "No, like what? I've never been medicated for it or anything. Why?"

"That might make this dance a little harder then." She said moving over to the stereo in the corner. "A friend of mine lost a cousin about a month ago, he'd been suffering from some really bad depression for awhile and then he committed suicide. It was a big loses for his family but, it inspired me to do a song about the struggles someone might face going through depression. A lot of the choreographers have been talking about doing numbers that touch on national problems and although I didn't know that at the time this number works out for that cause."

She pushed some buttons on the stereo and I glanced up at Edward. She was totally serious. We were going to do a dance revolving around depression. What in the world had we gotten ourselves into? I knew the song almost instantly when she pushed play. The opening electric guitar cords were unmistakable. It was from Rihanna's newest CD, "Russian Roulette." I'd never been a big fan of Rihanna herself but, this song was amazing.

We sat down on the floor to stretch and Sonya told us more about the layout of the dance and the emotions she hoped to achieve behind the physical concept of the number.

"Bella your character is the one who's fighting with depression throughout the song. Edward you're going to be trying to help her, kind of like a guardian angel, or those cute little angel and devil spirit things that sit on peoples shoulders and tell them right from wrong."

From the way she explained it Edward's character would have two sides, representing the mood swings my character would go through during the song, and his costume would have two sides to help the audience connect.

The first personality would be the front of Edward's costume. When he was facing the audience his costume would be white and my character would be fighting to overcome her depression. When Edward turned around, so his back was to the audience, the back of his costume would be black, showing that my character was losing her struggle.

"Unfortunately for you Bella," Sonya continued. "Edward's not a very good Angel, at the end of the song your character is going to die."

Buzz kill.

"On the gun shot." Edward said pointing to the stereo which was playing our song on repeat. The song was currently at the beginning but we both new what he was talking about. The last note of the song was the sound of a gun going off. We were all supposed to assume that the singer was dead. It was a very dramatic song and I liked Sonya's interpretation of it. I just hoped we could do it justice for her. I was fairly decent at the acting part of dancing but I'd never had to portray a person about to commit suicide before.

Sonya nodded. "Yep, all the lights are going to go out except for a lone white spot light right in the middle. That's where you'll be standing Bella, and then the gun shot will go off and so will the light as you fall to the ground. It's going to be epic and if you two can play it right, which I think you can, I'm hoping to make Mary cry."

We'd blown our first hour talking, but as soon as she was done outlining the dance for us Sonya got to work kicking our butts. Our costume fitting wasn't until tomorrow night so for now Sonya was making Edward wear a white shirt with black paint splashed on the back. It was sloppy but it helped us both get the feel for the different moods in the choreography.

By lunch my fears that Sonya was crazy were gone. There was no fighting that fact that she was completely crazy, but her dance was amazing so it was ok. I couldn't wait until we performed it. Edward tossed an arm over my shoulders as we shuffled down the stairs and I leaned into his side and sighed. I was already sore and we still had another dance to learn after lunch.

"How you feeling?"

I shrugged not exactly sure how I felt. I was excited to do Sonya's number, nervous about seeing our next one, waiting for the next twist the show people would pull on us, hungry because it was after noon and we were already late for lunch, and oddly depressed which wasn't like me at all. Acting depressed all morning had an unexpected affect on my moral. I'd loved dancing with her but Sonya was so admit about getting the emotion right that I'd thrown myself into the mindset of someone fighting with depression. I didn't like acting depressed.

"I'm not sure." I admitted. "I'm hungry but all that talk about depression back there has me kind of down."

He nodded. "I know what you mean. I went through my own phase of teen angst but I'm pretty sure I've never been honestly depressed. Not the way she was telling it at least."

I nodded along and pulled open the door to the lounge. Everyone went through their own kind of depression when they were younger but I was pretty sure that wasn't the emotion Sonya was going for in her dance. Depression had to be pretty bad for someone to commit suicide properly and that was exactly what my character was going to do on Tuesday. I hoped the dance didn't freak my mom out.

"What do you want for lunch?"

Hu? I looked up from my thoughts and realized we were standing in front of the food table. Edward was holding a plate out to me and I wasn't sure how long he'd been talking to me. He raised an eyebrow at me when I took the plate.

"You ok?"

I nodded and grabbed a turkey sandwich and a bag of baby carrots. "I'm good, I promise. I was just thinking."

I shook off the weird feeling Sonya's dance gave me during lunch and threw myself into conversation with the other dancers to try and get myself pumped up to meet our next choreographer. Everyone was feeling good about their morning dances and most of the dancers admitted to being a little worried about having to do two dances on Tuesday's show. The only obvious sore thumb came from Tanya and her partner James.

Their first dance was a high spirited foxtrot, which Edward confirmed they'd had experience in before back in Washington, and they would be meeting with someone after lunch to learn a Paso Doble, which James was quick to inform us all that he'd had previous experience in. Both styles were crowd pleasers and, if they did well, it could earn them big points in both the eyes of the judges and America's voters. She went on and on about how she thought the foot work for their foxtrot had been too easy and how she hoped the judges wouldn't take it out on them if they didn't like the choreography.

The less noble side of me wanted to shove a sock in her mouth; preferably one of Emmett's dirty socks…a fresh one. He wasn't aloud to take his shoes off in the lounge anymore at diner because everyone had agreed his feet smelt nasty after he'd been working all day.

I tuned Tanya and her drabble out, and turned to talk to Alice who was sitting on my side with a carrot in her mouth like a cigar and her feet thrown over Jaspers lap like they'd known each other for years. They'd been almost inseparable since Alice had been let in on Jasper and Rose's secret and it was almost impossible to tell they'd ever had problems when they acted so casual together.

"What's up B?" Alice asked, noticing me staring at her.

I smiled and bit a chunk out of my sandwich. "Just thinking."

"You've been doing that a lot." Edward pointed out on my other side. Apparently I wasn't the only one tuning Tanya out and it made my day to know I had more of his attention then she did. Another point for Bella.

"There's a lot to think about in this mad house."

"What's your second style?" Jasper asked turning into our conversation and rejecting the pencil he'd been spinning in his fingers.

"Viennese Waltz."

He nodded. "Slow, exposed, and full of showy lifts; Have fun."

"We will." I promised him. Alice and I chatted about our families back home and Jasper told us a few stories about his home in Texas.

"There's nothing quite like the smell of the desert after a really bad thunder storm. The apartment I live in has a door that leads to the roof and sometimes when it rain, which isn't that often down south, but I like to go up their during the storm and watch the lightning."

I nodded along knowing what he meant by the smell of a storm on the dessert and loving the way he smiled when he talked about his home state. I wasn't sure where all the foster homes Jasper and Rose had bounced around where but it was clear to me his heart was as southern as the cowboy boots I knew he had upstairs in his room somewhere.

"Rain is really pretty in New York too, but it makes getting around a pain in the butt. I don't even have a car, driving is such a hassle and walking in the rain ruins my hair." Alice added with a chuckle. "Actually truth by told, I can't drive. I don't even have my license."

Jasper snorted in his milk and I laughed. "You can't?"

She shook her head. "Nope, I've never really thought about leaving New York and its easier there without a car, but I can hail a taxi like no ones business; watch this." Alice stuck two of her fingers in her mouth and let off a whistle that echoed around the room, made every dancer jump, and caused every dog within a five mile radius to go deaf.

"What the hell Alice?!?" Emmett said one finger in his ear, the other still holding onto his fork full of food. Several of the dancers had thrown their hands over their ears and Erik had knocked over his glass when he jumped.

Alice smiled as the whole room turned to look at her and wiggled her fingers at the table full of irritated dancers. "Sorry guys, I got a little carried away."

"You have got to teach me how to do that." Rose said scooting her chair closer to us. "It would come in handy at a big mall sale; distract everyone long enough for me to get in first."

Alice and Rose fell into conversation about some of their wildest mall stories and the rest of the dancers went back to their previous conversations. I listened to Alice tell a story about a time when she got into a fight with another lady who'd grabbed the same purse as her at a sale in some big outlet I'd never heard of before with a name that sounded French. A mall cop had to throw them both out so Alice snooped around online until she found an exact copy of the lost purse. I thought it was kind of pathetic. The only bag I carried with me back home was an old laptop bag and it worked out just great.

"So who do you think it'll be this time?" I asked Edward as we stopped outside of our second studio, stealing his line from this morning. Roger was still hovering over us, filming our conversation and we were about to find out who was going to teach us how to Viennese Waltz.

Edward shrugged. "Only one way to find out."

He pushed open the door and we found a man and a woman sitting on the floor waiting for us. I didn't recognize either person right away but I knew the song that was already playing over the loud speaker.

"I love this song." I said honestly offering my hand to the girl as she and her partner stood up.

"I'm glad." The man said stepping forward to shake our hands. "My name is Hunter Johnson and this is the song your Waltz will be to."

"What is it?" Edward asked shaking Hunters hand.

"It's called "Life after you." by Daughtry. It's a fairly new song but it's perfect for a slower Viennese Waltz." Hunter's partner said stepping forward to shake our hands.

"Bella, Edward, This is my partner Norah Blake." Hunter said, introducing the young woman. "She'll be helping us out this week."

I shook her hand. "It's nice to meet you."

Introductions didn't last long and we didn't need to waste as much time stretch after our morning work so it wasn't long until we were back on the floor learning a new set of steps. I spent the first part of the hour working alone with Norah while Hunter worked separately with Edward on his opener. Hunter was tall with dark hair and dark eyes. Norah was Alice's five foot seven blond twin. Her workout clothes were designer and she had just as much energy.

The waltz was even slower then the contemporary piece and that made every move even more critical. Slow numbers were about grace and transitions and the chemistry between the dancers on stage. The judges had given us fairly good praise so far and I was willing to bet they'd rip us a new one if we left our transitions sloppy.

"Norah, Bella? You guys ready to try it together?" Hunter called to us from across the studio, checking on our progress.

Norah thought I was getting the start of the dance down so we moved to the middle of the room to try it out with Edward's set. I'd be wearing a long dress for this number next week so I'd pulled a full length skirt on over my leggings to practice in. We had the first string of moves down and were heading into an assisted lift when we hit our first bit of trouble.

The lift was relatively simple compared to some of the ones we'd already done on the show. I started a few steps in front of Edward and when the music swelled I had to move into a double step and jump, using his shoulders to brace myself. My knees would catch on his chest and he'd hold me up by my butt so I was hovering above him. The only problem with it was, I couldn't jump high enough on my own.

The first attempt at the jump I kneed Edward in the gut and knocked the wind out of him, the second time I was off center so he didn't catch me right and I almost kneed him in the chin when I fell backwards. I wasn't sure what went wrong the third time but I wound up on the floor again staring up at Edward with a bruise developing on my tail bone and the start of a headache in my temples. I was so glad the doctor had let me take off the wrist brace. My hand hurt but I'd regained almost all of my mobility and the bruising and swelling was gone.

"Ouch."

He held his hand out to me and pulled me back to my feet. "You ok?"

"Yes, you're just too tall."

"We need to get you into higher shoes." Hunter commented pointing at my work out flats. "The shoes with your costume come with three inch heels so you'll start out a few inches higher. That will help with your jumping problems."

"The costumes won't be here until tomorrow." Norah pointed out. She glanced down at my feet. "What size shoes do you wear Bella?"

"Eight."

She smiled and kicked off the silver heels she was wearing. "Me too, lets trade. You can borrow mine for today."

Norah's shoes were a little tight but the extra height made me almost as tall as Edward and made me fear falling down even more.

"That should help." Hunter hoped resetting the music. "Run the first verse again and let's try the jump now."

I took my opening stance, facing the audience, currently a giant mirror wall, a few feet behind Edward. Edward was sitting on the ground with his legs out in front of him. On the stage he'd be hanging his legs over the front of the stage but for now we were pretending.

As the music started I moved through a slow set of solo moves on the back side of the stage while Edward moved back and forth along the front of the stage. The story in this song was more about the inner conflicts of the male character, which was a perfect balance to our first dance, which dealt with the problems the female character was fighting with. I bet our choreographers got together and planed that out on purpose.

As we entered the first chorus Edward and I met center stage and tried to remember all of the movers we'd just learned. I stepped wrong in the second set but Edward grabbed my hand and pulled me back into place before the counts could get me off.

"That's ok; we can clean this part later just focuses on the counts for the jump." Hunter encouraged as he, Norah and Roger all circled around us watching our progress.

I blushed and internally yelled at myself, forcing myself to concentrate harder. There was no way Hunter could know this, but technically I'd gotten the move right. We had a move similar to it in Sonya's contemporary number that I'd learned this morning. I'd gotten the two dances mixed up for a split second and made a mistake. A move like that on the main stage next Tuesday could get me eliminated and drag Edward into the bottom with me. I couldn't rely on mussel memory when I had to keep more then one dance straight.

I forced myself to shake off the mistake and got back into the counts of this dance. I felt the swell in the music as it came and moved into the double step, taking a deep breath as I prepared for the jump. I leapt and over knew I'd over shot my mark. The heels made me to high and I hadn't allotted enough space for the new height. Edward grabbed onto me as my knee's hit him to high in the chest and my weight along with the awkward angle sent us both hard to the ground. Edward landed flat on his back and I somersaulted over his head when he let go of my legs, throwing my arms up to keep myself from face planting on the panel flooring.

Hunter jumped to check on Edward and Norah started laughing at us. I crawled so I was kneeling over Edward's head and blew my hair out of my face. "I'm sorry, are you ok?" I asked. He looked a little dazed and I was hoping I hadn't knocked the air out of him again.

He coughed and took a long drag from the water bottle Hunter passed him. "I'm fine Bella, I think you got high enough that time."

"Sorry." I said again.

He shrugged and pushed himself into a sitting position. Norah was still smiling as she helped me to my feet.

"I like your version of the jump Bella but, I don't recommend doing that on stage the judges might not like it."

I rolled my eyes and moved back into my starting position. "Let's do it again."

We had to run the jump probably twenty times but, we eventually got to a point were, not only weren't we falling down, but I was staying centered so Edward could catch me right for the next move. After he caught me he was to spin us around and drop me to my feet for the next set of partner moves. Getting down was the easy part.

Diner went by in a blasé of pizza and cards. I got into a massive Go Fish war with Erik, Victoria and Jake. Jasper and Emmett were taking beats on who would win and Alice was trying to send me clues as to what Jake was holding, since she was sitting behind him, but I couldn't read her lips well enough to know what she was saying.

Erik won the game. Emmett lost ten bucks, and Alice was setting up to give me lip reading lessons.

It was ten thirty and I was standing in my room wearing nothing but my tank-top with wet hair when someone knocked on the door. I pulled a pair of shorts on as fast as I could and found Jasper standing in the hall with Alice and Edward.

"I thought I'd take you up on that offer to spend the night again." Jasper said moving into my room and dumping the arm full of pillows and blankets he was holding on the floor in front of my bed. Alice followed him in waving a movie in her hand.

"I brought the Lion King and Ed's got the popcorn."

"If you call me Ed again I'm going to start calling you Mary." Edward threatened shutting my door behind him as he came into the room, making sure to flick the lock closed so no one else would walk in on us.

Alice coughed and waved her hand dismissively in the air. "I meant to say that Edward's got the popcorn."

Edward smiled. "Thank you."

Alice put the movie in while I tossed the popcorn in my microwave. Edward's cold fingers startled me when he ran them across my exposed stomach and I jumped when he kissed the back of my head.

"Someone's jumpy." He pointed out with that sexy little smirk of his.

I spun around and moved his hands down to my hips. "Your fingers are cold."

He smiled and pinned me against the counter so we could make out until the popcorn was done. Three and a half minutes of uninterrupted bliss without the fear of cameras catching us. Alice already new about our relationship and I didn't care if jasper found out. Alice had said he already knew, and I was positive he would keep our secret.

Jasper and Alice were both smiling at us when we broke apart at the sound of the microwave beeping and I flicked Alice off when she woof whistled at us threatening not to let her have any popcorn if she wasn't nice.

"Oh shut up and pass the bowl." She countered holding out her hand for the popcorn.

"I knew there was something going on between you two." Jasper said with a smile as he helped himself to a hand full of popcorn and sunk into the blanket nest he'd made for Alice and himself on the floor. I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing when I noticed that his black pajama pants said NCC1701D across his butt. I wasn't a big on Star Trek but even I knew that was the number for the starship Enterprise.

"You can't tell anyone." I said flicking off the over head light. "Or I'm going to get a picture of you in those pants and post it all over Facebook and Youtube."

"Not a word." He promised. "And you can have a picture if you want. These are my favorite sleeping pants."

Alice pushed play while Edward and I flipped the pillows on my bed so our heads were closer to Alice and Jasper and our feet were against the headboard. I turned off the bedside light and tucked myself into Edward's side just as the lions were getting ready for the presentation of Simba. This was my all time favorite Disney movie.

I managed to bite my tongue on the first song but couldn't stop myself from singing along with "I Just Can't Wait To Be King" Alice joined my alto with an impressive soprano and Jasper made a smart comment about girls having an unnatural talent for memorizing movies with talking animals when we not only continued to sing along with all of the songs we started doing voiceovers for all of the characters spoken words. There was a small pillow fight in which Alice wound up in Jasper's slippers and Edward lost his shirt all together. I think it got shoved somewhere near our feet but I wasn't going to tell him that after he pulled me back to his side so we could cuddle while Simba got chased out of the Pride Lands by Scars minion hyenas.

I fell asleep somewhere between, Nala trying to eat Pumba, and Timon dressing in drag, which was ok because I knew the movie backwards and inside out and Edward had one arm around my waist and his nose in my hair. I was pretty sure he was asleep but I couldn't tell and I didn't really care because this was one of the best nights I'd spent in Las Vegas. Hakuna Matata.

~Darkrose

R&R

Songs in this chapter:

1. "Russian Roulette" by: Rihanna

2. "Life After You" by: Daughtry

Ps: Lion King really is my all time, super favorite Disney movie and if you haven't seen it you should because it's adorable and full of awesome African drum music.