7x21

"Hey, it's Finn. It's me, Finn. Leave a message."

With a huff, Piper did not leave a message and hung up once again. Her foot tapped anxiously against the bottom step of the stairs. Finn was supposed to pick her up to head to the airport twenty minutes ago, but she had yet to hear anything from him. He hadn't responded to any of her texts and calls, which was incredibly unlike him.

Piper felt sick to her stomach. Her boyfriend was MIA. They were running horribly late for their Dancemania flight. This trip was already a disaster, and it hadn't even started yet.

Opening her contacts again, she scrolled past Finn's and selected the one above it instead. A few seconds later, Amy answered.

"I know I'm late, but I'm on my way, I promise. The Starbucks drive thru is ridiculously slow this morning."

Not hearing a word of Amy's greeting, Piper told her in a frantic voice, "Finn's not answering his phone, and he's supposed to pick me up, but he's not here, and we're already supposed to be at the airport, and my parents already left for work, and—" She cut herself off to take a shaky breath before crying, "I don't know what to do, Amy."

"He's not answering at all?"

"No." Piper's voice was about three octaves higher than normal as she blinked back tears of despair. She was already nervous about performing on live television. Finn was supposed to be calming her down, not adding to her worries. "What do I do? We're supposed to be at the airport right now, and I have no way to get there. I'm going to miss the flight."

"Okay, take a deep breath," Amy told her calmly, and Piper did as instructed. "There's still plenty of time to get to the airport before the plane takes off. I'm almost to the window, and then I'll swing by and pick you up, okay?"

"Okay," Piper agreed quietly, gripping her phone tightly in her hand.

"Do you want anything from Starbucks?" Amy asked, and Piper shook her head even though she couldn't see her.

"No, that's okay. Thanks."

"Okay. I'll see you soon."

With that, they ended the call, and Piper closed her eyes, taking a deep breath in through her nose and slowly letting it out. She anxiously opened her text messages with Finn as if he might have texted her while she'd been on the phone with Amy, but there was still radio silence from him.

Was it possible that he had slept in? After she had gone to the trouble of setting all of those alarms on his phone yesterday? Would he have turned them all off? Deleted them all completely?

Piper huffed just at the thought. The entire point of all those reminders was to avoid something like this from happening.

Finn had never exactly been a punctual person. He had been putting in more of an effort to be on time for things ever since they had started dating, and Piper had taken notice of that and appreciated it.

But this week, his old habits were appearing worse than ever. First he'd been an hour late for their brunch date, and then he forgot about the lunch date yesterday that was his idea to make up for brunch the day before. And now this.

Old habits died hard, and Finn was trying. Piper just wished he could have picked any other week to let his lateness make a reappearance.

Piper tried calling him one last time before Amy arrived, but once again, the call went to his voicemail.

She was starting to hate his voicemail.

When Amy finally arrived at her house, Piper was sitting on the front steps with her luggage. She wasted no time in grabbing her suitcases and running down the walkway to throw them haphazardly into Amy's backseat before hopping into the passenger seat.

"Let's go," Piper snapped as soon as the door was closed behind her. She fastened her seatbelt then glanced at the clock in Amy's car. It was almost half an hour after the time Nick had told everyone to be there.

"Have you heard from him?" Amy asked as she pulled a U-turn in the middle of the street.

"No," Piper said, shaking her head as she stared down at her phone in her lap. A photo that she and Finn had taken on their second date stared back at her, and she let out a desperate sigh. "I'm starting to get worried, Amy. What if something happened to him?"

"I'm sure he's fine," Amy assured her, "He probably overslept or something. I'm sure you'll hear from him any minute."

"We have an hour until the flight leaves." Piper ran a hand through her hair, puffing out her cheeks as she let out a long breath. "What if he doesn't make it?"

"He will."

Piper frowned at her best friend. "I'm glad you're so confident."

"You know me. Always thinking positive," Amy joked, faking a smile before taking a drink from her pink drink. Piper glanced at it, wishing she had a coffee right now, but it was probably for the best that Amy hadn't added another drink to her order at Starbucks. They were already running late as it was.

When they finally arrived at the airport, it was to find the rest of their team and Nick waiting for them. Everyone except Finn.

Nick was pacing back and forth but seemed to relax at the sight of the two of them. "Oh good, you're here. Good, good, good. Now we can go through security," he said, sounding relieved. His normally gelled hair was slightly disheveled as if he'd been running his hands through it repeatedly.

"Wait, where's Finn?" Ozzy asked from where he was slouched in a chair between Kingston and Heathcliff.

Reluctantly, Piper told them, "He's not answering his phone. I don't know where he is."

"Do you think something happened?" Summer asked in concern.

Just the thought of something happening to Finn made Piper's stomach twist. Next to her, Amy was shaking her head discreetly at Summer as if that was the wrong question to ask.

Her fear must have been evident in her eyes because Nick's expression softened as he looked back to Piper. "Alright, well, we can't put off security much longer. Has anyone else heard from him by chance?"

The others shook their heads, but Lily nudged Kingston. "You were the last person who saw him, weren't you?"

"Yeah. How late were you guys at the studio last night?" Kenzie questioned, leaning around Heath to look at Kingston.

"I left around 2:30 this morning, but he was still there. He was going to keep working through the list until he finished it," Kingston said, giving a guilty frown to Piper as if he felt bad for leaving Finn alone at the studio so late.

Piper chewed on her lip nervously, possibilities of all the terrible things that could have happened to her boyfriend flying through her mind. Finn could have passed out from exhaustion, or fallen asleep while driving home and crashed his car, or someone could have snuck into the studio and kidnapped him, or—

Nick's voice interrupted her thoughts. "Emily's still at the studio to oversee B-Troupe today. Piper, give her a call and see if she knows anything, and then meet the rest of us at security. Finn will just have to meet us at the gate when he gets here."

As the rest of her team moved towards the security line, Piper found a quiet spot away from the bustling activity of the airport to call Emily. Her studio head sounded concerned when she explained the situation and promised to check Studio One for Finn. Piper should have felt at peace, knowing that Emily was on the case, but there was still a nervous knot in her stomach that wouldn't go away.

She joined her team in line, gnawing on her bottom lip as she continuously checked her phone for any messages from Emily or Finn. Just as she was beginning to ponder the idea that maybe this was her fault, that she had messed up the times in Finn's phone or something, her phone rang. Hope immediately surged through Piper, but it wasn't her boyfriend calling. It was his mother.

"Piper? Please tell me Finn is with you," Finn's mom said when she answered the call.

"No, he's not," Piper said slowly, glancing to Amy with wide eyes as her best friend looked on curiously.

His mom sighed on the other line then said, "He never came home last night, and we haven't heard from him. We're really worried."

Hearing Finn's mother sound so distressed caused tears to spring to Piper's eyes all over again, but she tried to keep her composure as she told her, "Kingston said he stayed really late at the studio last night. Emily's checking Studio One to see if he's still there."

"I'll bet you that boy fell asleep there," Finn's mom guessed exasperatedly. With a sigh, she added, "Thanks Piper."

They exchanged goodbyes, and Piper hung up as the security line moved forward. Amy looked like she wanted to ask what the phone call was about, but it was her turn to go through security. Piper followed suit, her throat tight as she walked through the metal detectors.

Once on the other side, she joined Amy, who had waited for her, then they turned to follow their team to their gate. "What did his mom say?" Amy asked as they went.

"He never came home last night," Piper answered nervously, hands wringing together tightly in front of her.

"He probably fell asleep at the studio then," Amy assured her, but Piper bit her lip, thinking back to all of the alarms she had set. How could he sleep through those?

"What if something worse happened?" she asked, "What if he got in a car accident or something, and he's lying in a ditch somewhere, and we're all about to board a plane when my boyfriend is dead?"

Her voice cracked, and a tear rolled down her cheek. She hastily wiped it away. Amy turned to her, placing a hand on either of her shoulders and looking her in the eye seriously as she said, "Piper, Finn's not dead. He's fine, I promise. You're worrying over things you have no control over."

"But—"

"If Finn had gotten into a car accident, the first people the paramedics would have called would have been his parents, and his mom wouldn't have called you to ask where he is." Piper couldn't think of a counterargument to that, and Amy dropped her hands from her shoulders. "He's going to be okay."

Forcing herself to take a deep breath, Piper wiped her clammy hands on her jeggings and nodded. "Okay, yeah. You're right."

Amy gave her a small smile then looped her arm through Piper's as they continued on to the gate. Amy sat with Piper while they waited to board their plane, and Henry seemed to understand that Piper needed her more than he did even though he had left the seat next to him open for his girlfriend.

Because they had gone through security so late, they only waited at their gate for ten minutes before the attendants began calling for the passengers to board the flight to Los Angeles. A-Troupe were in the first group to board, and Piper found a window seat in the middle of the plane. Summer followed her into her row and took the seat next to her, and Piper gave her a weak smile before checking her phone for what felt like the hundredth time that morning. She kept hoping for a text from Emily saying that Finn was indeed at the studio or a text from Finn himself, but there was still nothing.

With a sigh, Piper spun her phone around in her hands restlessly as she turned her gaze out the window. She didn't mind sitting with Summer, but she wanted to be sitting with Finn. She was supposed to be sitting with Finn. Tears sprang to her eyes again, and she blinked them back, pouting as she glared out the window.

"Is this seat taken?" Amy's voice asked, breaking her out of her reverie, and both Piper and Summer looked up.

Summer shook her head and asked, "Are you not sitting with Henry?" as Amy plopped down in the aisle seat.

Amy rolled her eyes and shook her head. "No, he's sitting with Heath and Ozzy. Something about room assignments and bro stuff, I don't know."

"Sounds about right," Summer said with a smile as Amy settled in next to her. Turning to Piper, she gave a more empathetic look as she asked, "Do you want to find a movie to watch? It'll take your mind off everything."

Piper shrugged and mumbled, "Yeah, sure." Maybe Summer was right. A movie would be a nice distraction.

But Finn would have wanted to watch a movie too.

As the passengers settled in for their flight, the flight attendants were doing their rounds, ensuring that all devices had been turned off. Piper gripped her phone, about to follow instructions and turn her phone off when a new text suddenly popped up on her screen. From Finn.

A passing flight attendant gave Piper a pointed look as she paused by their row, and Piper closed out of the messages with a sigh before turning off her phone. She would just have to text Finn back when the flight landed.

The plane finally took off ten minutes after the designated time, and once they were in the air, Piper leaned back in her seat, watching as the city of Toronto passed below them before being hidden from view by the clouds.

Next to her, Summer and Amy were looking at the movie selection on the screens in front of them and debating what to watch. Piper tore her gaze from the window as Summer pulled her headphones out of her backpack then paused as if just realizing that there were only two earphones that could be shared.

"I think Ozzy or one of the boys has one of those cords where you can plug in two pairs to it. I'll go ask him," Amy started to say, but Piper interjected before she could unbuckle her seatbelt.

"That's okay. I'm not really in the mood to watch anything. You two just watch it without me."

Summer and Amy frowned at that, sharing an uncertain glance. "Are you sure?" Summer asked.

Piper nodded. "Yeah. Really, it's fine."

Summer and Amy shared another look but didn't argue with her. Piper sat back in her seat, turning her gaze back out the window and resting her chin dejectedly on her fist. The relief to know that Finn was alive and well was unmatched, but she knew she was going to be on edge now until he joined the rest of them in Los Angeles. Hopefully he and Emily would be able to get on another flight that afternoon and be in California by evening.

Piper wasn't going to be able to rest until her boyfriend was next to her again.

First Richelle abandoned the team to go solo. Now they were flying to the competition with only nine of their ten dancers.

This did not bode well for Dancemania.