AN: Hey! So this is opening night. In the scenes, if you didn't already know, all of it being sung. I'm not putting all of the lyrics in the scenes, so they'll just be snips (It also helps if you know the songs as well). Just to clear up, the cast party is after closing night! Also, I'm splitting this into two chapters because If I don't it will be ridiculously long. But, I will be posting the second part within the next few hours! Anyway, I hope you like it!
Chapter 39
"Alright cast, form a circle, we need to talk" Mrs. Bates calmly asked. It was opening night, and curtain was in less than eight minutes. It was the moment we all worked so hard for, and it had arrived a little too fast for everyone's liking.
We all stood in full dress and makeup, costumes varying from actor to actor. My makeup was a hue of browns, and my long dirty blonde hair descended down my back in large curls. I took my place in between Ari and Matthew, and the three of us clutch onto each other's hands and gave goofy smiles.
"Alright everyone, this is it. This is what I put you through hell and back for. I'd like to tell you how proud I am of each and every one of you. This is an amazing thing you're- or shall I say we- are a part of. This is a remarkable thing we're doing. You're all here for a reason: because you have an amazing gift and passion that stands out like no other. I want you all to go out on stage tonight, and do this musical the justice it deserves, I trust you will. Now show the audience what you busted you're asses for" Mrs. Bates' pep talk to the group of us all of a sudden made everything real. A small tear escaped her eye, but she quickly swept it away.
"This is it guys" I announced to Matthew and Ari, just before we all fled to the wings of the stage.
"Unbelievable, isn't it?" Ari replied.
"You got that right" Matthew chuckled.
Moments later, the house lights dimmed and the show began. Matthew soon became Jean Valjean and was sucked onto the stage for the first scene. Ari and I waited backstage, although I didn't need to enter for another few scenes and Ari didn't enter until the second act.
As "At the End of the Day' approached, my first scene, my nausea became more prevalent. I was nervous, very, very nervous. I was about to transform into Fantine, and tell her story to an audience of over six hundred people, seven of them being Spencer, Emily, JJ, Hotch, Rossi, Derek, and Penelope.
Before I could fully prepare, there was a full stage blackout, signaling me to take my place in the mock sewing shop we had built.
The song began and I absorbed into the scene. Everything melted away.
"Please! No I have a daughter, please!" I pleaded as the foreman through me out at the end of the song.
Blackout.
I changed rapidly into my cloth covered corset dress, terrified I wouldn't make the change.
Lights up, two scenes later, I'm at the grimy docks of Montreuil, France.
"Lovely ladies Smell 'em through the smoke! Seven months at sea can make you hungry for a poke"
"Even stokers need a little stoke!"
The sailors sang as I tried to flee from them, but was followed and then blocked by prostitutes trying to lure me in.
"Lovely ladies waiting for a bite! Waiting for the costumers that only come at night" They sang and danced aggressively and seductively just the same. They were caked with makeup, all for affect of course. I continued to run frightened, but was met by an old woman.
"What pretty hair...what pretty locks you have there. What luck you've got, it's worth a centime my dear. I'll take the lot!"
"Don't touch me leave me alone!"
"Let's make a price. I'll give you all of ten francs, Just think of that!"
"It pays the debt"
"Just think of that."
"What can I do it pays the debt. Ten francs may save my poor Cosette!"
I ran into the wings while the 'prostitutes' preformed a dance break. I had to throw my hair up into a bald cap and cover it with a short wig, as I (Fantine) had just sold my hair.
I emerged thirty seconds later.
Soon after, my teeth were removed and sold as well.
I curled against a large boat, huddled in my own pain and sadness. I had lost my hair, my teeth, I was depleting to nothing. I had no worth. Or so I thought.
"Come on dearie, why all the fuss? You're no grander than the rest of us..."
"Life has dropped you at the bottom of the heap"
"Join you're sisters, make money in your sleep"
I was being reeled in, into prostitution. I had no other choice, I gave in.
"Come on, captain, you can where your shoes. Don't it make a change to have a girl can't refuse? Easy money, lying on a bed. Just as well, they never see the hates that's in your head" I sang with as much helplessness as I possibly could. Tears were in my eyes.
"Don't they know they're making love to one already dead!" the 'costumer's hands wandered my body, causing me to tense and let a tear escape, not just as Fantine, but as Jenna.
Black out.
The round of applause was incredible. Although I couldn't help but feel pitiful, like I was nothing. Maybe I bought into the role too much.
I rushed onto the thrust of the stage and sat down, placing me as little as ten inches away from the first row of center seats. Even in the darkness, I could see the faint faces of each team member, sitting three rows back in the dead center. I immediately felt a compression on my chest. It was my song, I Dreamed a Dream. I had never met a person who didn't absolutely bawl their eyes out at the song, and it was my job to carry that out.
Lights up.
My body was hunched over, eyes pointed to the ground with added makeup to make me look polluted. I had lost my worth, my pride, myself; I was stripped to a worthless being.
"There was a time when men were kind, when their voices were soft, and their words inviting..."
I soaked into the song, and soon found myself crying. As Fantine, I was supposed to, but I was crying as Jenna. The song dug into me and nestled in my bones. I felt Fantine's pain. I became it.
"He slept a summer by my side..."
I looked up to the seats, quickly spotting Garcia, JJ, and Emily with tears in their eyes.
"He took my childhood in his stride! But he was gone when autumn came!" I sang with the hurt peeking through the lyrics.
"And still I dream he'll come to me, that we will live the years together. But there are dreams that cannot be, and there are storms we cannot weather" My voice grew and I let the achiness exhibit in my body language, becoming more hysterical, but not over doing it. I remained looking up, as a symbol of being stuck in a deep rut I couldn't climb my way out of.
At the instrumental break, I let out a sob, cupping my hand over my mouth but being careful I didn't hit the microphone attached to my cheek.
"I had a dream my life would be so different from this hell I'm living! So different now from what it seemed..." I accidently let out more cry's.
"Now...life has killed the dream..."
I sniffled and took a deep break, looking at the ground.
"I dreamed" I held onto the last note like my life depended on it, all while looking up at the audience. That's when I saw each agent with tears streaming down their face. Even Hotch, who I had never seen show any emotion whatsoever.
I did it. I hit the hearts of the audience. I even hit mine.
Mission accomplished.
I remained on stage, lethargic, lonely, hopeless.
Blackout.
I was downstage against a ship, dying. Literally, dying of tuberculosis.
Approached by a grimy costumer, I rejected him of my service and fought him, scratching him, causing him to call Inspector Javert. I begged and begged not to be taken away.
"There's a child who sorely needs me, please M'sieur, she's but that high. Holy God, is there no mercy?
If I go to jail she'll die!" I pleaded, but he wouldn't listen.
Valjean entered, defending me.
"I've seen your face before, show me some way to help you. How have you come to grief in a place such as this?"He crouched down beside me.
"M'sieur, don't mock me now, I pray. It's hard enough I've lost my pride. You let your foreman send me away, Yes, you were there, and turned aside..."
"If there's a God above, he'd let me die instead" I sang bitterly.
Valjean promised to take in Cosette, leaving me forever in his debt. He swept me away, and found me refuge.
Blackout.
I waited back stage as Matthew sang 'Who am I'. Backstage I could tell the rest of the cast was being affected differently by every song we preformed.
Blackout
Light's up
I'm lying in a hospital bead, seeing delusions of my daughter, Cosette.
"Cosette, it's turned so cold. Cosette, it's past your bedtime..."
"Come to me, Cosette, the light is fading. Don't you see the evening star appearing? Come to me, and rest against my shoulder. How fast the minutes fly away and every minute colder..." I reached out to touch my little Cosette, but she disappeared, causing me to panic.
Valjean enters.
"Oh Fantine, your time is running out
But Fantine, I swear this on my life"
"Look M'sieur, where all the children play..."
"Be at peace, be at peace evermore"
"My Cosette..."
"Shall live in my protection" I looked up to Valjean with thankful, tear filled eyes.
"Take her now..."
"Your child will want for nothing"
"Good M'sieur, you come from God in heaven"
"And none will ever harm Cosette as long as I am living"
"For God's sake, please stay 'till I am sleeping
And tell Cosette I love her, and I'll see her when I wake..."
And just like that, I slipped away, my body falling limp.
Fantine was dead. But really, she wasn't. She was still in me. Partly because I had to revive her at the end of the second act, but also because when I assumed her character, she hid inside of me and clutch onto by veins.
Black out.
I headed backstage and into the dressing room in a fog, still crying slightly.
"How'd it go?" Ari asked while rummaging through her suitcase for extra makeup.
All of a sudden, my vision was blocked by tiny black dots. The room began to spin, and I heard a high pitched ringing in my ears.
"Jenna?" I heard a twisted voice called out, then everything went completely black.