Disclaimer: Step Up isn't mine. Song by Nelly (find and play while listening, it makes it better! lol).

A/N: Bit of a shorter chapter this time but it's a teary one and I'm just no good at those so enjoy. Next one will have plenty of dance, promise!

Chapter Four;
Thinkin' About Us

The house was quiet when Camille returned, her eyes still red from unshed tears, tears only held back by the last of her determination. As she dumped her keys on the coffee table Tibbles appeared, slinking out from behind the couch, looking up at her with wide eyes. "Okay Tibbs, I'll get you some food." Sniffing back some tears and memories, she started to the kitchen cupboard to grab a can when she spotted it, a yellow Post-it note stuck to the iPod dock. She grabbed it and read the two words in Moose's very distinguishable sloppy handwriting.

'Press play'

With a frown she slowly hit the play button and the song started up…

I was thinkin' bout her, thinkin' bout me
Thinkin' bout us and what we gonna be
Open my eyes yeah and it's only just a dream…

Giving in, the tears quickly began to fall.

…

To everyone on the train watching the lanky kid with the curly hair, he probably looked like a statue, but he was actually breathing, even if it was a little laboured. His own iPod was stuck on shuffle, constantly playing 'Just a Dream' in the hope that when Camille did play it at her place, they could be in synch for just a second and not so far away from one another. It was cheesy and something he'd likely picked up from one of his mother's romance movies (which she'd made he and his father endure every Thursday night since the age of four), but it seemed nice enough.

Music had always been Moose's escape. It was why he danced really. Dance and music went together, even if he could dance solely to the thumping of his own heartbeat, and they meant so much. Dance was hope and speech and light at the end of the tunnel. Music was the instrument that made it work.

It said so much without revealing everything in one go. Every time you listened to music it said something new, different, relevant. And right now this song said everything he couldn't say when Camille had walked out that door.

…

It had been three years since the World Jam and back then, when the future held so much promise, she thought it had all been sewn up. They had the Pirates, dance, each other. Back then it had been easy.

Then it just… the real world got involved.

She knew she over-reacted when he told her about Philadelphia, that she should've been happier, but how could he spring this on her? It was so close to graduation, so close to things starting to fall into place, and now he decided to mix up the pieces again? Throw in some more?

Philadelphia? Dance academies? How could he not see this was a step backwards? Or at least sideways.

How could he not think about her? Leaving her behind?

Camille lifted her head from her hands and stared at the yellow Post-it note, sticking and un-sticking it to her thumb. On the third time it fell away and landed on the floor upside down. That was when she saw the smaller writing on the other side, right near the bottom of the little square...

'Sorry'

Anger getting the better of her now, she scrunched it up and threw it in the bin.

…

As the train pulled up to a station somewhere along the way (Moose had lost track of where he was a good hour or two earlier), he saw them, the group on the platform. Two girls and a guy. The guy had his arm around the pretty brunette, so caught up in her as she seemed more interested in her fingernails, but it was the other girl that intrigued him. The way she looked at the guy, a guy who seemed so unaware she was even there, the way she studied his every move and smiled when he told a joke. The way she touched his shoulder to indicate the train had arrived. The way he just passed the touch off without even a notice.

Three years ago he'd been that guy. So caught up in something else, someone else, and not noticing what he had right in front of him. Then the Pirates had changed everything. New York made his life right. Dance, friends, Camille.

How badly he wanted to grab that guy and tell him to pay that girl some attention, that one day soon he'd realise she was the best person he could ever know, that she'd make every single day even better than the last.

But that would make him a hypocrite.

How could he say that when he'd left his girl so far behind him?

…

If you ever loved somebody put your hands up…

Camille lay on the cool linoleum kitchen floor, just staring at the roof, as those words came spewing from her iPod. When the little green rectangle of music had turned on her she wasn't sure, but right now she hated it, unable to listen to it's message but at the same time unable to stop it.

Before lying down on the floor she'd fished the yellow Post-it from the bin and, turning it over so she could only see the 'sorry', she stuck it to the fridge with a magnet. Her eyes went to it as the lyric repeated and slowly but surely she raised one arm into the air, her tears sliding down the side of her face so they landed on the floor.

Forced to cough back a sob, she didn't initially hear the front door open but when it slammed shut she sat up straight, irrational hope rising like bile into her throat. If he walked through that doorway what would she do? Kick him? Punch him? Kiss him? God, she didn't know.

She didn't need to find out when Constance walked in and dropped her bag on the couch, finally turning to see Camille on the floor. Her eyes widened and she rushed straight over, crouching down to Cam's height and assessing her as if she'd just fallen to the ground. "Oh my god, what's happened? Are you alright?"

Camille shook her head. "It's Moose Connie, he's gone."

"Gone? Gone where?" But Camille didn't answer, just forcing back another hacking sob, and Constance didn't push it, just pulling her friend into a hug.

…

Realising he needed to sleep, Moose leant his head against the window and allowed the rocking train to get the better of him, but his dreams were judgemental and cold, Camille's final words echoing through his head, and he knew in sleep that he'd lost her forever.

In a train coming from the other side of the country, Holly Given was already asleep, dreaming about the future and life away. Nothing weighed her down, nothing held her back, and that was the way it should be…