READ THIS! I'm writing this here for those of you who don't read my rants at the end.

There is a reference to characters from jules130's story Rock Prodigy because we're planning to do a crossover between the two stories in later chapters and that's why I dedicated it to her...

"This is crap."

"Huh?" Keely said blankly, blinking as she raised her head. She'd been lounging relaxed in one of the chairs in the control room, her feet propped on the edge of the table with her head leaning on the back of the chair and her arms crossed loosely over her stomach.

Seth spared a moment to send her a scowl, before turning back to the laptop, his scowl deepening. "This track, it's crap. What were you and Marco thinking when you recorded it?"

Yes, ripping off his head was becoming a more and more pleasant prospect for Keely with every word he spoke. He apparently had no censor when it came to her music. "It's not crap! This is a good song, what's really wrong with it?"

"Yeah, it's good, Staub. Which makes it shit compared to what we've been recording."

That she could agree with, but not out loud! Something about Seth put her back up, that had become more than obvious, but she was being extra ornery with him on that day because there had been a definite lack of sleep the night. It had all been because a song in her head, which she'd been afraid would flee had she not worked on it straight away.

So instead of saying she agreed, Keely glared at him fiercely before letting her head fall on the chair's back again. "You're the producer, go fix it, pop star."

"I don't want to fix it like that!" he exclaimed. "Haven't you understood anything about how we've been recording so far? If it was anyone else's album, I'd be using pro tools a whole lot more, but I don't want to do that to your music, it doesn't need it in the same way! It's raw, it's real and I need the album to reflect that!"

Surprised, Keely raised her head again, allowing their gazes to connect closely over the space between them.

But Seth looked away first, turning to frown at the computer screen again. "What kind of mic did you use for the vocals?"

"An eighty-five," she replied promptly.

He groaned loudly, rubbing a hand over his shadowed eyes and pushing it through his hair, causing the front to stand up again. "Seriously? It should've been a condenser mic for this song, an eighty-five worked with Denial, but Marco was just being an idiot with this one. It's like he was trying to make it sound packaged and fake. It just doesn't work for this song."

For a moment, Keely simply considered him, it was hard to be annoyed with him more than usual when he'd had a little rant about her music being real. "So do you want me to go back into the booth so we can re-do the vocals?" she asked quietly, not even a hint of mutiny in her voice.

"Not when he has a secondary guitar track, I mean, what's the point of that? It's just over-producing that way."

Sighing she rubbed her temples, "Then delete the track and then I'll do the vocals with a condenser."

"No," he answered simply.

"Then what do you want me to do?!"

"We're going to have to re-write the song," he said finally, looking back to her. His scowl was gone, replaced with a thoughtful expression. "I mean, we can't have this song on the album, the lyrics are weak."

Yeah, she'd been wrong, Keely decided. It was incredibly easy to get annoyed with him after his little rant. "Weak?! They're not weak!"

In reality, she knew that the lyrics weren't some of her strongest, but she just couldn't admit it to him. Not when he'd just insulted her while she was running precariously low on sleep as of late.

He arched an eyebrow at her. "Not weak? "It's drivin' me crazy, Do I want you to know, Do I let it all show?" Really, Staub?"

"You're just being a jackass now," she snarled."

"Yeah? Well, you're just being a-"

"Children, could you give it a rest for one second?"

That managed to get both of their attention. Keely shot up in her seat, sitting straight, her head snapping towards the door of the studio wildly. Seth's head mimicked her action, he too sitting up straighter in his seat.

With wide eyes, Keely observed Maureen Jones. As usual, she looked the picture of a business woman in the black pencil skirt, button up shirt and grey blazer. For one of the first times since Keely had moved to New York about a month and a half before, Maureen did not have a trail of people bustling behind her, listening to her every word. She was just standing in the doorway, her face stern although her dark eyes were twinkling with amusement with her hands on her hips.

Not knowing what to do, Keely sent Seth a confused glance, but he only returned with one of the same.

"That's good, you two. Every time I look in here, you two are bickering like an old married couple. You didn't even notice when I walked inside today," she laughed. Yet her face and tone turned abruptly serious. "I want you two to come and talk to me in my office, right now."

When she turned around, walking away at a brisk pace, her high heels making their sharp clicking noise upon the floor, Keely looked to Seth again, this time perplexed. He shrugged at her, pushing himself from his chair and pushing the sleeves of his white long-sleeved shirt up to his elbows as she'd noticed was one of his habits.

Yet when she didn't move from her chair, her eyes wide, Seth gave a loud sigh and leaned down to grab her wrist.

"C'mon, Staub," he muttered, dragging her to her feet, "Up you get."

He let go of her arm instantly when she was steady on her own two feet, and simply walked out of the studio door. For a moment Keely stood still, straightening her slightly baggy black v-neck, dropping her mother's necklace beneath her shirt. Remembering what she should be doing, she stumbled forward through the door, having a panic attack in her mind that was racing a mile a minute.

What was Maureen going to say? She was the owner of UAE Records and Keely's manager, she could do whatever she wanted. Keely had signed on the dotted line, almost selling herself indefinitely, she could never walk out on the contract, at least not without Maureen's consent. But Maureen could give up, and walk away, cut her from the label, send her back home. Was she going to say she didn't like what they'd done with the record so far? Would she be heading back home?

The prospect of going back to her home in Bellingham was not a pleasant one, it raised a nauseous feeling into her stomach. She'd be going home to a dog of an ex-boyfriend, a father who hadn't bothered to call her since she'd left and a best friend who obviously didn't approve of her moving in the first place. Yes, she was definitely beginning to feel sick.

Not knowing what else she could do, Keely hurried her pace up the hall until she was beside Seth, and gripped his taut arm in her hand. "What does she want to talk to us about?" she asked, her voice holding none of the challenging tone it usually held when she spoke to him in her panic.

"Probably nothing," he answered, sending her a casual look.

"Seth!"

He sighed, pulling her forward slightly by wrapping an arm around her waist momentarily before dropping his arm. "I know what's going through your head, and don't worry about it. Maureen loves you, and she'd be an idiot to drop you, which she is not."

"But how do you know?" she continued, her throat feeling tight around the words as she spoke.

"I know," he told her in a calm voice.

Before she could protest further, he gave her a slight shove into Maureen's office. A room with vibrant coloured walls and tasteful paintings.

"Sit," she ordered them.

Instantly Keely dropped into one of the chairs, sinking deep into it, feeling small.

Seth on the other hand moved slowly, almost leisurely.

"You two have been doing a great job on the album from what I've heard," she began, leaning her forearms against the desk. Without thinking about it, Keely gave an audible sigh of relief, making Seth smirk at her from the side. "Better than I could have hoped for, you two have great chemistry in the studio. But I wanted to talk to you about Keely's first single to be released. It was supposed to be the duet between NSR and her, but I haven't heard about that being even touched."

Instead of speaking as she knew she should, Keely gaped at the woman like a fool, not knowing what to say, and not sure if her voice would work had she known.

On the other hand, Seth leaned forward slightly, wearing that irritatingly calm expression, that made Keely want to glare at him. How could he have had no doubts when they had come in the office? It had felt like she'd been walking the plank. "I wanted to talk to you about that, actually," he began.

Maureen arched an eyebrow and leaned back while Keely gave him a wide eyed look. What did he want to talk to her about? Oh god, he didn't want off the album did he? Because although she would never tell him, he was an incredible producer, not to mention musician, and she was better with him as her producer.

"I don't think we should have her first single as a track with NSR," he continued. "It would be really good for publicity to have her first song to be with us, she'd automatically be getting fans. But the problem is Keely's music isn't anything like ours was, and since we're changing up our sound to, I don't want to use her music as a spring board for ours. Anyways, even if our sound is changed dramatically, the fact that she did a song with the crappy band that is NSR will follow her around."

It was an odd sensation, Keely realized, people speaking about you as if you weren't present when you were in fact sitting beside them.

"It would be a great chance for her," Maureen replied evenly, looking straight towards Seth while Keely continued to sit silently, sinking deeper into her seat. "We wouldn't even have to do any work to get her song onto the radio for regular rotation."

"That's true," answered Seth, a little smirk playing on the corner of his mouth as his golden eyes darted towards her fleetingly. "But the fact is that her music doesn't need all the NSR back up to get it fans, it's going to get it's own easy, I'd know. And you can't tell me it's going to be hard for you to get her song on regular rotation."

Maureen shook her head slightly. "The fact is, Mr Ryan, Marissa James and NSR fans are going to back her music anyways. She's going on tour with you lot. So why not just sell her to the fans first of all?"

"Because by the time we go on tour, her song will be released and she'll have some following already, no doubt about it. So we'll get the people coming just to see her show, I've gone to shows before just to see the opening act before, lot's of people have. And maybe once they realize we have a different sound, those people will stay for NSR show, but I don't want to have people hearing her song for the first time to connect with our music, it should be solely her own."

The woman behind the desk eyed him appraisingly, Keely was staring at him with her mouth gaping slightly open, still trying to process what was going on. "What do you think about it, Keely?" asked Mrs Jones.

Her intelligent response was, "Huh?"

"About your first song," explained Maureen, a smile playing on her lips.

Sending a quick look to Seth at her side, Keely caught sight of him giving her a discreet nod. Speaking over the large lump in her throat, she murmured, "I agree with Seth."

He sent her that smile she'd only seen once before, the one with the dimple in his left cheek.

"Then I want her first song on the radio to be For You, it's not a slow song, but there's meaning to it which is lacking in most music today plus some pretty great guitar playing. We'll get back to recording then," he said, excusing the two of them.

Not having caught on to what was going on, her mind seemed to working rather slowly, Seth rolled his eyes at her and hauled her to her feet once more.

As he shoved her down the hall back to the studio, Keely could feel the smile working it's way onto her mouth, finally having worked through everything that had happened in that office. For You was going to be her first single, the club song was going to be her first song on the radio. Oh god, she was going to be on the radio! She couldn't think of a better single for her debut, she and Seth had spent so many hours in the studio working on it until the point where they were simultaneously ready to kill each other and fall asleep at the same time. That song was like sonic sound perfection to her.

"About the song we were working on before Maureen came in," Keely said, looking to the wall avoiding eye contact. "I don't think it's very good, really. We should just scrap it, I mean, there's only so much we can do for it. But I wrote a new one last night..."

He brushed past her casually. "Want to show it to me, then?"

She bit her lip unconsciously, finally looking over at him where he was already back at the laptop. "I think the lyrics could use a little work."

"Don't worry about it, we'll work on them."

*

Feeling the buzz, Keely dragged her phone out of her pocket only to see she'd received a text. 'You done at the studio yet? We could still salvage some part of the night.'

Yawning, she texted back a quick refusal to Marissa.

She was much too tired to go out with that girl, maybe that made her not very fun on a Saturday night in New York City, but she was almost dead on her feet. A whole night of not sleeping and then spending the day in the studio was taking it's toll on her by midnight.

They hadn't done anymore recording, just closed the door to the studio since it was thankfully soundproof and began to work on the new song. After much arguing, glaring and even a punch directed at his shoulder from Keely, they fixed the song together, switched up the chords and altered the hook. And, once again, Keely couldn't help but think that the song was a hundred percent better for it.

As she pushed her way in through her door, Keely looked down to her cell to see a sad face peeking up at her from the screen.

Throwing her room key and cell phone onto the side table, she yawned loudly, glancing into her shoulder bag, looking for her laptop as she intended to charge the battery over the night.

But she groaned, finding nothing but her usual cluttered bag without her computer.

She must have left it at the studio.

For a moment she pondered just going to the bed that was calling her name, but the idea was dismissed immediately. The laptop had her music on it, and despite UAE being the safest place for her music, she couldn't just leave it there.

Groaning she gather up her things once again, stalking back down to the lobby. She gained incredulous looks from Mr Englis and his staff, but ignored them as she went to hail a cab, Maureen finally having listened to her when she said she didn't need a driver.

By the time she reached UAE, it was hedging close to one am.

Shivering against the chilly October night, she drew into her baggy sweater, using her car to unlock the doors. Oddly there were still lights on, apparently someone else was there after hours.

Vaguely she wondered who it might be as she pushed through the doors, but quickly shoved the thought from her mind. As long as it wasn't Ted Bundy reincarnated, she did not care. All she wanted to do was get her laptop and go home.

But when she opened the door to Studio C, the music hit her like a tidal wave.

It was loud, no, loud was understatement, it pushed its way into her very blood stream, making her heart beat in tune with the bass. But the bass and drums weren't what held her attention, it was the guitar that her mind snapped to. The player wasn't shredding the guitar, yet it wasn't slow either. Forcing her mind to focus on the notes, her eyes widened in astonishment after a moment, listening to the complicated bars that were made to sound so easy by the guitarist. Keely knew she was very good on the guitar, but she doubted she could play that piece, hitting all the licks and changes, and make it sound so casual as she did it.

When the music abruptly cut off, she blinked, her ears already not familiar with the silence that met her. Giving her head a little shake, she once again forced her mind to focus as it so easily wanted to wander away. The lights in the studio were shut off, but the lights from the sound booth gave a dim light in the room. And she found herself looking down at Seth who happened to be frowning in confusion up at her.

Unconsciously her eyes raked over him. His clothes were looking a bit wrinkled from where he sat in his habitual chair inside the studio, but she quickly bypassed them to look at his face. Besides the fact he was still looking bewildered, she could see his red rimmed eyes that were also bruised underneath, a tell-tale sign he had probably been sleeping less than she had.

“Hi,” she said, breaking the silence. Her voice sounded quiet to her ears, but she thought it might be because her ears were still used to the music from moments before.

“Hey,” he murmured in response, the frown leaving his face as he simply looked at her incredulously. With a sigh, his golden hazel eyes looked away from her momentarily as he ran his hand over his face and into his his hair, an action she'd seen him do many times before. “Didn't you just leave like an hour ago?”

Stepping forward, she closed the door behind her. “Yeah, I did, I thought you were going, too.”

He sent her a slight smirk that held no kind of amusement at all, just a slight turn of the lips. “Gotta find time to work on the new NSR album too.”

“You look tired,” she returned thoughtlessly. Keely had no idea why she was still speaking to him, she'd usually be snapping at him for being arrogant by this time, but she was deciding to blame it on her lack of sleep.

“Didn't I tell before that I'll sleep when I'm dead?” he answered, rubbing a palm over his eye.

She sent him a sheepish look. “I thought you were talking about drinking and sleeping with some random girls.”

“Unfortunately, I still have a girlfriend,” replied Seth, rolling his eyes at her.

Keely just made a sound in the back of her throat.

Arching an eyebrow in her direction, he asked, “Why are you here, Staub?”

“I forgot my-”

“Laptop,” he finished for her, leaning over to grab the said object off the table. “I was just going to give it to you tomorrow,” Seth explained, handing it to her.

Even though she had her computer in her possession, Keely didn't move towards the door. She was focused on the frown her wore when he turned back to the soundboard. “Is everything alright?” she questioned. Seriously, she seemed to have lost all control of her actions, had it been any other time, she'd have been out the door already.

Stifling a yawn, he answered, “No. There's something off with this song and I need to figure it out.”

“You're being a perfectionist.”

“And why not?” he retorted, sparing her a glance where his golden tinged eyes looked solidly into hers. “This is the first real album NSR has done, at least in my opinion, and I don't want it be anything less than perfect.”