A/N: My god this is the longest episode I've ever written, and I know it gets a little busy but there's so much I wanted to accomplish so you'll just have to sit through it and have patience with me.
A/A/N: Song performed is "I Have a Dream" from Mamma Mia!

Annie stood alone on stage, bathed in a blue spotlight as she looked out into the dark audience.

I have a dream, she sang wistfully as she glanced down at the envelopes in her hand. A song to sing.

To help me cope, with anything

If you see the wonder of a fairytale

You can see the future…she bit her lip and nodded resolutely.

Even if you fail, she spoke as she plucked up her courage.

Everett crept up the stairs of the now empty house, wrapping the oversized letterman jacket around him a little more tightly. He tiptoed into the kitchen and saw his sister was already cleaning, separating out the empty dishware from the bottles and cans that would need to be placed in recycling before their parents came home.

She looked over at him and grinned ecstatically at his sweatpants and jacket. "Now that," she told him, "was a party."

Previously that week…

"What do you mean there's not going to be a party?!" Michelle was beside herself with grief as she spoke to her brother. "It's a Harrison family tradition—how can Dad and Papa drop this on us now?"

"Well, Princess, to be fair they've had this convention planned for almost six months now," her brother reminded her. "And they did promise to have the party when they got back."

"It's not a Premiere Celebration if it doesn't happen the same night as the first performance; it's just a performance party." The tiny brunette crossed her arms petulantly and huffed.

"Did I just hear the word party?" a voice interrupted, and the siblings turned to see Walt approaching them. "What's going on?

Everett dipped his shoulders and adopted a casual tone. "It's no big deal—we just usually have this thing with our family for opening night, and we can't this time."

"It's a very big deal Hiccup!" Michelle pushed out her bottom lip unhappily and turned to her sophomore friend for sympathy. "I have a huge role in my very first high school theater production, and my Broadway-obsessed parents decide this is the moment to just drop important tradition?" She kicked the floor with the toe of her white converse. "It's not fair," she grumbled.

"Papa's had this surgeon's convention on the books for ages," Everett explained. "It's up in Boston, so it's sort of doubling as a romantic getaway thing." He glared at his sister. "They are not just abandoning us. They'll catch the next show."

Michelle scoffed sullenly again, and Walt glanced between the two of them. "Why not just have the party anyways?" he asked.

"What do you mean?" the junior asked.

"I mean, you have an empty house and a whole cast of friends—why not just throw your own Premiere Party?"

The curly-haired boy's eyes widened as he slowly shook his head, "It's really not that kind of party—" he tried to deter.

"Do you really think we could?" Michelle interjected, her own doe eyes glowing in excitement. "I've never thrown my own high school party…"

"Sure we could," the muscular boy grinned. "I can help you navigate the waters and make it a totally smash."

"Uh, guys? We can't do this," Everett reminded them.

Michelle didn't even seem to notice her brother had spoken. "Do you think we could have a theme? Like Red Carpet Exclusive or something? Oh, that'd be so Liz Taylor!"

"It's your party, we could do whatever you wanted," the jock assured her. "And to keep the disaster-level minimal, we'll make it cast and crew only, how about that Ev?"

His fellow Gleek looked unconvinced, but the Cheerio was already off and running, grabbing her player friend by the arm and walking him down the hall as she talked and texted a mile a minute about her very first high-school soiree.

Emma scraped her fingers through her damp curls as she walked out of the girls' locker room. She felt a little nauseous, ironically, but satisfied after her morning run and subsequent purge. After all, she felt more in control of her life than ever, especially after finding that she'd lost three pounds this week.

The sophomore was pulled out of her thoughts when she realized a talk, dark, and handsome not-so-stranger was standing out in the hallway waiting for her.

"What are you doing here Ash?" she asked, a jolt of fear running down her spine that he may have discovered her secret.

"I saw you at the track earlier," he explained, straightening off of the lockers and stepping toward her. "Came and waited to give you this." He handed her a small square wrapped in pretty paper.

"Ash—" she started, then gasped happily. It was a hardback copy of The Beatle and The Bard. "I can't believe you did this," she whispered, flipping through the pages with wide eyes. After a moment, however, she shook her head and shut the book. "I can't take it," she argued softly. "I told you Ashwin, I'm not going to get back together with you."

"And I told you, I'm not giving up," he insisted, turning with her to walk down the hall. "Anyways, I also wanted to see where you stood on this." He opened up his phone to show a message from Michelle.

"A party?" The brunette eyed the text warily. "It's for cast and crew only—I'm neither."

"I'm cast, and I'm inviting you," the Indian boy insisted. "Besides, you're a New Direction—all of us are going to be there, so I doubt Chelle's going to kick you out." He grinned as they reached the classroom. "What do you say? Should be fun…"

Emma held his gaze reluctantly for a moment, then smirked. "Yeah, I guess I could forego one night of studying," she conceded, laughing when the boy gave out an enthusiastic cheer and pumped his fist. "But this doesn't mean—"
"That we're going as a couple," Ashwin finished for her. "I know, I know."

"There's a party?" a bubbly voice asked from behind them, and the tiny sophomore shut her eyes in agitation before counting silently in her head and turning around. Addie Baxter continued to fix her baby blues on the pair expectantly.

"Um, well yeah," Ashwin informed her. "Michelle Harrison is having a sort of Opening Night thing at her place."

"Sounds like fun—what time is it?"

The pre-med boy glanced at his ex before opening his mouth. "Well, it's kind of a cast party," he told her delicately.

"But Emma's going," the curvy girl countered with a raised eyebrow.

"Emma's with yearbook," he explained, and the brunette gave him points for his quick thinking. "She's just going to get a couple of decent quotes while everyone's running on their performers' high."

"Well, I'm with the paper," Addie reminded them. "In fact, I'm reviewing the very production you'll all be celebrating, so it's actually perfect." She grinned at her editor. "I wanted to have a whole section on the sexual-discrimination regarding Harry and his love interest—"

"Addie—" the brunette began, about to complain that once again her coworker was drawing too much attention to an almost irrelevant aspect of her assignment.

The outspoken girl continued, "But I knew you'd probably make me cut it, so maybe I could expand it as a human interest story with the students instead?"

Emma inhaled deeply, holding the air in her lungs until she realized she could not think of a thing to counter the girl with. If it was any of her other problem journalists, she'd jump at the chance for them to find a relevant angle, and she knew Addie really was trying. "Great," she sighed, fixing a pleasant smile on her face. "I'm thrilled to see you taking an active interest in your assignment. I'm sure it will reflect in the piece."

"Terrific—you've got my number Boss. Just text me the details." And with that, the two watched the outspoken artist bounce back down the hall.

"Well, oops," Ashwin commented as they watched her leave. He flashed Emma a sheepish smile, "Maybe nobody will notice?"

"Yeah, right," the tiny girl beside him replied sarcastically as she made her way inside the classroom.

"Lovely, two more reps and then hit the showers!" Coach Roz called into the water, and the tiny brunette nodded her assent. She had taken to the waterbrilliantly, and had felt a vast improvement in her condition since she'd started. The tiny girl was still on medication, but she no longer walked through the halls gingerly or felt stiff upon standing after class.

However, she still felt the crushing loneliness that came from the loss of her friends in Glee—and Dalton. It wasn't that the swim team wasn't welcoming, but Roxie had simply fallen back into her inaudible tendencies, and the people around her found it difficult to relate to someone that was so soft-spoken, causing her to once again become cast out to the margins.

But she would not be swept away with sad thoughts; she took a deep breath and allowed herself to submerge below the surface, practicing her underwater stretches as she breathed out all of the tension she felt until she had to come up for air.

When she finished her reps, the tiny brunette pulled herself to the edge of the pool and onto the tile. She pushed her glasses onto her face and grabbed the towel sitting on the risers, taking a seat in the empty room as she wrung out her hair.

"Hey." The freshman looked up in surprise to see Stassi walking toward her. The Armenian girl tossed a red and white terrycloth robe at her. "Put this on," she instructed before throwing a pair of flimsy flip-flops on the ground as well. "And these—you're going to need them."

The tiny girl was only allowed a moment to be puzzled before the junior commandeered her, opening the wrap and guiding her body inside of it, as well as her tiny feet into the shoes, and then taking her wrinkly hand and leading her toward the hallway.

Roxie's eyes popped in surprise and she faltered in her stride in an attempt to stop.

"Uh uh," the older girl interjected, shaking her head as she built up speed and navigated them through the stream of students. The soft-spoken girl felt her face heating in embarrassment as students to her left and right glanced her way in curiosity as she followed the Cheerio wearing nothing but a bathrobe over her swimsuit.

The two girls turned a corner and Stassi finally slowed as she pulled the freshman into the dark auditorium. Roxie blinked hard as the spotlight suddenly honed in on her face, and Stassi's voice rang out, "Hey, cut it out!"

The brunette girl watched as the light instead joined a second beam and began swirling around the room, finally landing on a sheepish-looking sophomore who stood on stage.

"Hey," Dalton greeted her nervously. The lights broke into two and highlighted the two of them as music swelled from the speakers, and he glared offstage. "Would you guys cut it out?!"

The Cheerio beside her huffed and ducked down the aisle, disappearing momentarily behind the curtain before reappearing, dragging Coby and Walt by the arm behind her.

"Don't worry," Dalton assured his damp ex-teammate, holding out his hands as he stepped off the stage and toward her. "I'm not going to make you sing or anything."

Roxie regarded the boy dejectedly, her guilt overwhelming her as she turned to scurry back through the door. However, her retreat was blocked by Stassi and company, with the taller girl crossing her arms and giving her a visual rebuff.

"Hey hey there," the ashen-brown haired boy called out, placing a hand gently on her shoulder to turn her towards him. She couldn't look at him and stared willfully at the ground, her heart choking on itself in her chest. The young girl felt sick for letting him down, and worse for having to leave him.

"Come on Rox, just give me a chance," he pled, to which she shook her head stubbornly. She couldn't tell him her secret, and she couldn't expect him to forgive her for what she'd done, so why were they here? "Oh come on," he argued. "You have to at least look at me before you dismiss us."

Her dark eyes crept upwards toward his chestnut ones and he looked at her seriously. "I know what you're thinking," he told her. "And you're wrong." Her eyebrows danced skeptically, and he continued quietly so their friends couldn't hear. "I don't need to know what you're hiding, because I trust you. I can easily forgive you for leaving, because I know you wouldn't unless it was important—you're passionate, and loyal, and a constant to everyone around you.

"You think we should break up because I deserve better, but Roxie? There is no one better." He took her hands in his and stared at her in earnest. "For me, there's just you. Quitting the team didn't make me care about you any less, and I refuse to believe you leaving made me unbearable to you. So until one of us screws up big time, I refuse to allow this break us up. Okay?"

The brunette's eyes teared up from behind a chlorinated lock of hair and she succumbed to a watery smile as he grinned back at her.

"Oh, for Pete's sake—lay one on her already!" Coby shouted from the door, and Roxie laughed quietly as she saw Stassi sock him in the shoulder. Nevertheless, she happily leaned upwards to meet Dalton halfway in a sweet reconciliatory kiss.

"So," he told her as they began walking toward the others. "If you're up for it, there's this thing I've been dying to ask you to…"

"I'm so nervous," Annie confessed as she and Hayden sat in the library. "This my first lead role."

"I thought you said you had tons of acting experience," the blonde replied. "Not to mention a commercial."

"I was never the star," the Cheerio admitted. "The closest I got was Ado Annie in last year's Lima Community Center's Oklahoma. Other than that, just minor roles and understudy parts."

"And the commercial?" Hayden asked.

"I had three lines among, like, a dozen other girls," the long-legged Hudson responded with a sheepish smile. "Not very memorable."

"But it's still experience," the boy insisted. "Every bit gives you a little bit more insight into what you're doing, and now it's led you here. They wouldn't have given you the responsibility if they didn't think you could handle it."

Annie smiled; she loved being around the other sophomore—he was so calm and always said the right thing. She could barely stand not telling him how completely head-over-heels she was for him.

"By the way, I brought back your story," she told him, pulling out the pages he'd given her. "It's really amazing—so tragic and beautiful." The story had been about an isolated teenage boy unwelcomed and shunned by the people of his new town. The loneliness in the writing had been palpable, and Annie had cried more than once, even though the narrative was less than fifty pages. "You're really talented," she told him sincerely.

"Thanks," he replied as he placed the writing back into his bag. "I used to write a lot more—it was a dream of mine to become a writer once."

"Why not anymore?" Annie asked, and he gave her a skeptical look. "What? You're blind, you're not comatose. You've still got all sorts of amazing thoughts and talent inside of you; anyone can see that. You just need to get out more; have some experiences to get the creative juices flowing." She grinned mischievously. "Like a certain party…"

"Cast and crew only, Annie—I am neither." The tall girl huffed and Hayden shrugged. "If you didn't want me to use that as an argument, you shouldn't have read the text out loud."

"It's not like anyone's going to notice," the Cheerio argued stubbornly.

"You don't think anyone will notice that a random blind guy crashed the party of a girl he's only met once?"

"Ugh, you're so infuriating!" Annie hissed, thudding her back against the bookshelf dramatically.

And then jumping back in alarm as the bookshelf thudded back. "What the—?" she asked as Hayden placed his hand on her shoulder while she peeked through the books. "Katie?"

A blonde high pony flew as the freshman Cheerio attached to it twirled around to face the eyes peering at her from the biography section. "Annie?" the girl replied.

Annie grabbed Hayden's hand and led him around the corner to the next aisle and her eyes popped wide as she took in Katie and Dylan pushing apart from each other and straightening out the creases in their clothing.

"Oh my god Katherine Bennet!" she exclaimed, glancing sheepishly at the librarian who shushed her loudly before lowering her voice. "You dirty slut!"

"Shut up Annie," the smaller girl retorted as the blush on her face deepened.

"I cannot believe that you two of all people are making out in the stacks!" Annie continued, stepping closer in an attempt to keep her volume down.

"Not surprising that you are, though," the blonde shot back teasingly.

"Actually—" "Oh, no—" Annie and Hayden both countered simultaneously, and the Gleek corrected, "Hayden and I are just hanging out."

"We're just friends," the boy clarified adamantly, causing Annie's expression to droop momentarily in hurt.

"Oh," Katie said, glancing apologetically from one sophomore to the other. "Well, it's nice to meet you Hayden; I'm Katie and this is Dylan—we're friends of Annie's from New Directions." She pressed her hand into the boy's to shake, and the shaggy brunette followed after. "Did you get the note about the cast party?" she asked Annie.

"Yes, I'm really excited," the brunette replied, her eyes lighting up as she considered Dylan. "Are you going?"

"Of course—"

"And I'll bet you're bringing Dylan right?" Annie interjected, grinning as Katie nodded. "See Hayden? Dylan's not in the cast and he's going to the party!"

"Yeah, but he's on your Glee team…" the boy argued.

"So? You're my friend," Annie shot back. "And I'm the lead, and if the priest can bring her boyfriend, I should be able to bring my friend."

"I'm sure it'd be fine, Hayden," Katie assured him. "Michelle loves crowds—I'm guessing Everett is probably the only reason she's not inviting the whole school."

"I don't know…"

"Oh come on," Annie urged him. "Think of it as research for your next story." She placed her hands on his and squeezed them tightly. "Please? Come with me?"

Hayden frowned back at her through his sunglasses for a moment before finally sighing in submission. "Fine," he relented, and Annie squealed happily, causing Katie and Dylan to laugh before another sharp admonishment vocalized from the librarian's desk.

Lindsay Erne was good at sneaking and secrets. She could make her way from one side of the building to another without anyone noticing she was gone; could give the slip to both Bert and Michelle without either missing her. The tiny orange girl could dig up skeletons long since buried, and knew things about almost everyone in this school, even though she was only a freshman.

So when she slipped into the Astronomy classroom during second period and a malicious voice pressed, "Does anyone know you're here?", she could turn to Nikki Hardy confidently and shake her head with certainty.

"Good," the junior replied, tossing her a paper. The girl smoothed out her poofed-up hair before opening the paper, which she recognized as a printed text from the computer lab.

Premiere party at Gossip Girl's, the note read, and Lindsay frowned. "Who sent this?" she asked.

"You don't get to ask the questions here," the HBIC told her. "You get to take orders and do what you do best. Walt Devlin is going to be at that party, which means alcohol will be at that party. Your assignment, little Ernie, is to get invited, get Little Q smashed, and pry out of her anything useful."

"How am I supposed to get invited? It's a cast only thing," Lindsay pointed out—she'd actually already been talking to her best friend about her plans before Nikki had summoned her.

"Aren't you and Jabber Jaw best buddies?" Nikki asked. "Get invited."

"I'm not exactly on that group's A-list," the journalist argued, and the Cheerio's eyes flashed dangerously. "Look, I may be one of the best—I mean the best investigative journalist at this school," she corrected as the girl's gaze narrowed. "But if I just pop over to Michelle's place, people are going to suspect things. I've got a reputation at this school—people aren't going to just open up around me."

Nikki took a menacing step toward her new spy. "So you're saying that you're useless to me?" she asked lowly, and the younger girl gulped.

"No," she argued bravely, putting her thoughts quickly to work. "I'm saying there's more than one way to get information from a group that doesn't want to give it."