Thanks to everyone who read and to Scififan33 for reviewing.


Roddy rocked slowly from foot to foot as he waited for the concert part of this concert to begin. He wasn't nervous, not even about the being concertmaster part since he'd done it enough times through school to know the routine, but when it was time to play he wanted to play. Instead he was standing here listening to Cleo thank everyone she'd ever met and plenty of people she hadn't, and if it dragged on any longer he was going to go bang his head against the wall a few times. She was a nice lady and all, but this was ridiculous.

"Are you okay?" Monroe asked, fiddling with the cuffs of his shirt as he came up beside Roddy. He didn't have his cello with him, but considering how Cleo was carrying on he probably wasn't going to need it for another hour anyway.

"Yeah, I'm fine, but there can't be too many people left in the city that she hasn't gotten around to mentioning so are we going to get to go on soon or what?"

Monroe nudged him gently. "Be nice, it shouldn't be too much longer." He shifted, tugging at his shirt again.

Roddy had gotten lucky and all they'd asked for in terms of men's concert wear were dark pants, a dark dress shirt, and a plain tie, nothing that he didn't already have even if it wasn't the kind of thing he'd choose to wear day to day, but considering that Monroe's shirts normally had collars it was hard to believe that he was as uncomfortable as he looked. "Are you okay?" he checked.

That got him what was probably supposed to be a smile, but it came out looking more like a grimace, and Monroe's face reddened a little. "Yeah, it's just that being up in front of a crowd has never been my favorite thing."

"For real?" He wasn't sure why he was surprised, lots of people including plenty of his otherwise-obnoxiously-confident classmates got stage fright to some degree, but he wouldn't have guessed that Monroe would be one of them.

He nodded. "Yeah. Don't worry, I'll be fine once we get started, but the build up is always a little nerve-wracking." He craned his neck, examining the small fraction of the audience that they could see from behind the curtain on this side of the stage. "Is your dad out there somewhere?"

"I don't know. He said he'd try to make it back after his last job, but it was pretty far out of town and he wasn't sure how long it was going to take." Why anybody would waste time and money evicting rats from a barn Roddy had no idea since even if Dad totally cleared the place it would only take a week or two for another colony to move in, but whatever. It was a paycheck. "He promised that he'd come to the matinee on Sunday if he can't make it tonight, though." Roddy hesitated. "Is Detective Grimm out there?"

Monroe choked.

"What?"

"You know that's not his name, right?"

"Duh." And okay, yeah, that wasn't exactly watching his mouth around the predators, but seriously, what had Monroe been expecting?

"And you know not to call him that in front of..."

Roddy looked up at him because that warranted enough more than a 'duh' that he wasn't quite willing to say it out loud. No doubt that there were plenty of Wesen kids out there stupid enough to make that mistake—hell, he was probably related to some of them—but that didn't mean that he was one of them.

Monroe held up his hands. "Okay, okay, just making sure." A pause. "And now that I have, do me a favor and call him that to his face sometime when I can see it, would you?"

Roddy grinned, but it sounded like Cleo was finally winding down, and Monroe clearly heard it too because he patted Roddy's shoulder and then turned back to get his cello.

Roddy hadn't bothered to put his violin down after he'd gotten warmed up so he stayed where he was while Cleo made her way offstage to polite applause. He kind of thought they were applauding because she'd stopped talking, but whatever. He continued to stay out of the path of traffic until the rest of the orchestra members were in their seats and then took a deep breath and stepped out himself. Ridiculous acoustics aside this wasn't a professional stage with all of the insane lighting like the one at the school had so he could make out actual people in the audience when he squinted, but now wasn't the time to be searching for familiar faces as he took a bow and then turned to face the orchestra. Given the lack of oboe and the fact that his pitch pipe didn't carry very well he was playing the A for tuning, and with a quick visual check and an automatic prayer that none of the pegs had slipped, he drew his bow across the strings.

It rang out clear, and of course everyone else in the orchestra had also done their real tuning and warming up long before stepping on stage so it was more of a formality and final check than anything else. As soon as they went silent again he took his seat and then it was Daniel's turn to cross the stage and take his position and bows. And then the concert was finally on.

The opening piece went well, the music flowing smoothly with no sign of any first-concert jitters, and in Roddy's opinion it only improved from there. Especially the duet, which totally rocked. He tried to be a little professional about it and keep his grin from completely taking over his face as he retook his seat for the final piece, but he wasn't sure how well he succeeded. At least Monroe was smiling too when he caught Roddy's eye. And the last piece went pretty great as well with the orchestra getting a standing ovation from the audience when it was time for them all to take their bows. Granted that most of them were probably just being polite, but it was still nice.

There were the usual congratulations and pats on the back and all of that among the orchestra members once they were off stage again—congratulations that Roddy was included in, which was weird but also nice—and then for once he wasn't too annoyed at the fact that there was an after-concert reception to deal with. Admittedly mostly because he was hoping that Dad had made it and seen the performance, but there were maybe a couple people here besides Dad that he wouldn't mind talking to too. And plus there was no way that cheese and crackers at the back of the auditorium could possibly be as stuffy as the school receptions were.

Roddy put his violin in the annex with the rest of the instruments being stored safely out of the way of the crowd before heading out to join everyone, but scanning for Dad was pretty fruitless since as usual he was nose-to-shoulder-blade with most of the crowd. After a few minutes of unsuccessful searching he found a spot out of the way and woged far enough to take advantage of his nose, but there was no sign of him that way, either, though, and he'd sighed. They'd played perfectly tonight, too.

After a minute he shook himself. He'd known this might happen, and Dad had said he'd be here Sunday if it did so they'd just have to play as well then. For lack of anything better to do, he snatched a couple crackers and then went to grab a glass of whatever the alcoholic beverage of choice was. Wine, from the smell of things. Monroe would absolutely call him on it, but he was still up by the stage so Roddy figured he'd be temporarily fine.

There were as many people around the drink tables as there had been around the food, but most of them were caught up in their own little knots of conversation, and he thought he was home free until a hand closed over the top of the cup he'd grabbed. "Nice try."

Roddy rolled his eyes and let it go without a fight. That answered that question, since Monroe hadn't gotten around to it earlier. "Hey, Detective."

"Hey yourself. You sounded great earlier, but how about you stick to the punch."

It clearly wasn't a suggestion, and Roddy gave him his best innocent look before he thought better of it. "Oh, that's not what that is?"

Detective Grimm sighed and then drew the pretty redheaded woman who'd been standing just behind him—standing just behind him and biting her lip to hide a smile—forward. "Juliette, this is Roddy, Roddy, my girlfriend Juliette."

"It's nice to meet you," she said, holding out her hand. "That was a wonderful concert, and I loved the duet."

Roddy decided that ignoring Detective Grimm was the best course of action for the time being and shook her hand in return. "Thanks. It's nice to meet you too."

"Hey, Nick, hey, Juliette," Monroe said, coming up from the other side. Apparently he hadn't been as far away as Roddy had thought. "I'm glad that you made it."

"Hey," they both echoed.

"I'm glad that you told Nick about this," Juliette said. "You were all amazing, and I was just telling Roddy that I thought that the duet was incredible."

Monroe made the appropriate noises, and then Roddy wasn't quite sure how it happened but somehow he was suddenly included in an after-concert dinner invite. Because apparently lunches with a Blutbad weren't weird enough, why not throw in dinner with a Grimm as well? But Detective Grimm said that it was his treat and seemed to mean it, and Roddy was getting hungry. And Dad wasn't here to freak out about it.


"And Roddy, thank you very much," Cleo said as he finished emptying his folder and put the pieces of music they'd played into the appropriate stacks. "I'm glad that you came out to play with us this summer. Do you think you might be back next year?"

"I don't know. I mean, I'd like to, it was a lot of fun, but I don't know what's going to happen with school and everything." He'd be graduated by this time next year, sure, but he had no idea what would happen with college or what their requirements might be or anything like that. He handed her the last stack of music. "These are all of the extra pieces Monroe and I were trying." They'd managed to read through most of them, at least, although not all of them, but even if he was a little reluctant to return them there wasn't much point in asking to keep them any longer.

"Ah, right. Let me just put those over here, and I'll make sure they get back to their folders as well. And with regards to next year I've got your email address so I'll at least let you know what our plans are, and you can see if it'll fit in your schedule. If nothing else, you'd always be welcome to drop in and play with us for a few rehearsals even if you couldn't do the whole summer."

"Thanks."

She nodded and took the now-empty folder from him, putting it in the stack behind her, and then crossed his name off her list and waved towards the front of the room. "Now, you'd better go grab some cake and ice cream before it's all gone."

"Thanks," he repeated. For once he wasn't really all that hungry, though. As much of a relief as finishing that final concert had been, especially since Dad had been there to see it and had been very proud of his performance—plus as a bonus had managed to not freak when Monroe had paused to greet him afterwards—it had been kind of disappointing, too. He hadn't been lying, it had been fun to play with the orchestra, and more fun dueting with Monroe, but now that summer orchestra was over it would be back to the regular school stuff in just a couple weeks. He wasn't even likely to see Monroe again unless he decided to show up at another Von Hamelin concert.

Monroe was chatting with a couple others by the stack of plates and plastic-ware since Cleo was collecting music folders by section and hadn't gotten to the cellos yet, and Roddy made his way over slowly.

"Hey, kid," Monroe greeted cheerfully. "You get any cake yet? If not you'd better grab some quick before all of the ice cream melts."

Roddy shook his head. "Nah, I just wanted to stay goodbye before I headed out."

"Oh. Okay," Monroe said, looking surprised. "But I wanted to ask: I know we're done here, but if you wanted to keep dueting at my place, Thursday afternoons aren't likely to suddenly get busy for me."

Roddy's head jerked up. "Seriously?" It was just barely possible that his voice cracked a little over the question, but it wasn't like people tended to go out of their way to spend time with him. Granted that it had sort of happened this summer, but that had been...there had been a specific reason for that.

"Sure," Monroe agreed, forehead wrinkling. "Might have to figure out something different once your school starts up again since that can't be too far off, and I can't promise I'll never have a job that I have to postpone for, but I've enjoyed playing. I think you have too?"

Roddy nodded quickly. "Y-yeah."

He smiled. "Okay, then. I'm afraid I don't know the bus schedules, but maybe Thursday sometime around noon or whenever a convenient one comes by my neighborhood?"

Roddy nodded again and then hesitated. "I just returned all my music, though."

He waved a hand. "Yeah, I'll have to do the same whenever Cleo gets to me, but we can dig through the closet of stuff I've got the next time you're over. A lot of it's just for cello, but I should have a few duets mixed in there too."

"Or I can transpose." Roddy wasn't necessarily all that good at reading base clef, but whatever, he could use the practice. "And I think there's a bus that'll get me there close to then." When he'd gone to Monroe's house alone that one time he'd mostly been looking at bus routes from here, but there should be a close-to-straight route from the transfer station. He found himself grinning again.

"If not, give me a call and we'll figure out something else."

"Okay."

"All right, then." A pause. "Are you sure you don't want to grab some cake on your way out? Some of those horrible frosting flowers probably have enough sugar in them to satisfy even your sweet tooth."

"Hey, I like those," Roddy objected. Especially with ice cream. If no one else wanted them, maybe a snack wouldn't hurt.