Colm and Emmet chose that moment to come flying back through the door, as if one had pushed the other and then gotten pulled and dragged along. They were laughing like idiots, but stopped and came running over when they saw Keith kneeling in front of Ryan with his hands on Ryan's shoulders.

"You all right, Ry?" Emmet asked in concern.

"Yeah, what's going on?" Colm said.

"I'm fine, guys," Ryan said. "I just needed a little pep talk, that's all."

"Aye," said George. "He's all right, and we'd better get up to the rehearsal room, or David will be after us!"

So far, Ryan had had no trouble with rehearsals as they were primarily working on solo pieces, which meant everybody got a lot of down time. But today they'd been working on ensembles all morning and were now going back to it after lunch. They were trying to nail down the rapid changes in singers and styles for "Voices", which was easily one of the most complicated pieces they'd ever done, and it was finally starting to come together before they took their lunch break. Now they were going back to it again. It all went well for a while, but then Ryan started making mistakes. It didn't worry anyone at first, since they'd all been struggling with it, but he didn't seem to be able to shake it off. Finally David cut them off as they realized that Ryan's voice had been missing, and all looked to see him staring straight ahead again, overwhelmed and unable to keep up with it. Colm started to say something, but David motioned him to silence. Finally, minutes later, Ryan shook his head a little and said,

"Sorry, I got lost for a second." Nobody said anything, and David kept staring at him.

"What?" Ryan finally said.

David looked sternly at him. "I'm waiting for you to ask for the break you clearly need."

"I'm fine!" Ryan said. "I don't need a break!"

"Yes, you do," David said. "You spent 15 of the last 20 minutes messing everything up, and then you disappeared for nearly 5 minutes. You knew you were messing up, I could see you making faces about it. Why didn't you ask for a break?"

"Because I should be able to do this!" Ryan said angrily.

"And soon you will," David said. "But right now you can't, and I'm sending you out. Neil, go with him and make sure he rests. I'll work with these other guys on their parts for 'Turning Away'".

Ryan got up and stalked out the door, Neil hurrying after him. Ryan was muttering the whole way to the lounge and threw himself onto the sofa there, glaring at nothing. Neil sat down across from him, watching him.

"You don't need to keep an eye on me, Neil," Ryan said, still angry. "I'm not a child."

"No, you're not," Neil said steadily. "But you're acting like one."

"What the heck are you talking about? I'm trying to do my job!"

"And not resting when you need to - like a kid refusing to nap. Which is what you really need."

"Oh, come on. This is a waste of time, we've got a lot of work to do!" Ryan started to get up, but Neil was quicker and pushed him back down on the sofa.

"You are staying there." Neil's voice was incredibly serious and quite firm. "This isn't a waste of time. You trying to push yourself when you can't keep your music straight, pushing yourself into an overload, is a waste of time for you and for the rest of us. How does it help to try to practice something you can't remember right because you've pushed yourself too far?"

Ryan's face paled as he took in what Neil had said. "Shit," he muttered. "You're right, it is stupid." The anger returned suddenly. "God, I hate this!" He grabbed a pillow that was lying on the sofa and threw it across the room. "Why did this happen to me? Why now, when I need to be able to get this right?"

"That's not the question you should be asking yourself," Neil said calmly, sitting down again now that it seemed that Ryan was going to stay on the sofa - not that he was resting in any sense of the word. "The question you should be asking yourself is why you aren't handling this like an adult and taking a break when you need one, when you know that break will let you get back to work. Why are you letting your pride get in the way of your better judgment? You don't need to prove anything to us."

Ryan put his head into his hands. "No," he said quietly. "I'm trying to prove to myself that I'm OK. But I'm not yet, am I?"

"Not yet," Neil said gently. "You will be, but you'll get there quicker if you stop trying to overdo it. Now you're going to need to sleep for at least an hour to be able to get back to work. If you'd asked for a break when you started messing up, 15 minutes of quiet would probably have been enough." He got up and walked over to his duffle bag at the side of the room and pulled something out, tossing it to Ryan. It was Ryan's favorite pillow that he always travelled with, which the fans had named Jen.

"What?" Ryan said, catching the pillow reflexively. "How'd you manage to sneak Jen here?"

Neil grinned "Remember when I said I had to go back to the room for something I forgot? I grabbed her then. I figured you'd end up needing a rest at some point today with what was scheduled, and I knew you'd be able to rest better with Jen than with that lumpy old thing you threw across the room."

"Thanks, Neil," Ryan said, settling himself down on the couch. "I'm fine, you can go back to the rehearsal room."

"Are you kidding?" Neil laughed. "Give up an hour break that I was basically ordered to take? Heck, no. I'm hanging out here and letting the others slave."