Brady closed her eyes and focused on her breathing. In through the nose, out through the mouth, repeat. Again. And Again. I am capable, she thought. Make mom and dad proud.

She opened her eyes to see the velvet curtain separating herself from a crowd of over a hundred people. The contrast between a fabric so soft and a crowd so daunting did not elude her. Just breathe she reminded herself as she wiped her palms on her costume. Her whole body shook as she went over her lines in her head one last time. In all candidness, she knew her part as Eponine perfectly well. What she didn't know was if a certain someone would be in the audience, and if that person's presence would fuck everything up.

Without warning the curtain was opening and there was no time to run for her life. Oddly enough, as the parted curtain revealed a blinding spotlight, an empty stage, and an audience she couldn't quite make out, an unearthly calm swept over Brady like a caress from God himself. Her heart rate slowed, her mind cleared, and a firm determination set in: she was an actress (in her own sense) and nobody, not even Lin, whether he was out there or not, was going to take this moment from her.

As she took center stage, Brady let loose her inner Eponine. It wasn't difficult for her to transform into the character; both Eponine and Brady felt cast away from a love they had once wanted more than anything. Lin was once her Marius. With tears filling her eyes she expressed every word with a pain that even she thought might be real.

The song ended what seemed like moments after it had begun and, lifting her head, she looked out into the crowd as the final note danced from her lips. She saw all her friends: Hannah, Renee, Oak, Daveed and more. But it was the sight of Lin that made her heart skip a beat. She couldn't see much of him, but she did see a sad sort of smile on his face.

Brady exited the stage to the sound of cheers and was welcomed backstage with even more applause. Will, also in costume, congratulated her with a hug. "You are spectacular," he said with wide eyes and a dumbfounded expression. "I mean, I knew that from the moment I met you, but still. That was just… wow. Did you see the scout? She was smiling the whole time."

"Scout?"

"Yeah, talent scout. Mr. Hall pointed her out to me, front row. And by the look on her face you really got her attention."

"What?" Brady said with a mixture of excitement and confusion. Now her mind was in full-out overload. Not only had she just performed in front of a crowd, but she had also seen Lin for the first time in weeks (long, toilsome weeks). Why not add a talent scout into the all the fun? Even better, make it a scout that was potentially interested in her. It was all too much for Brady. She led Will to a set of open chairs, grabbing a water along the way, and sat down.

As Will sat down Brady watched him nod at Michael who was about to go onstage for his song. "God, can he just ask you out already," Will said as Michael nodded back and then smiled at Brady.

"I thought you liked him," Brady replied. Michael had become a topic of discussion between the two as of late. Neither could deny his good looks or his sense of humor. They also couldn't deny that he'd been paying more and more attention to Brady.

"Kind of," Will shrugged. "But you can have him. I'm pretty sure he's as straight as a one-way sign. It's a shame, really."

"Yeah." Despite his attractive qualities, Brady couldn't bring herself to thinking of Michael romantically. She knew why, and that reason was sitting just a curtain away.

Staying away from Lin was digging a knife into Brady's back. It was torture not being near him, but every time she got closer he always found a way to push her away or make her feel stupid somehow. She was afraid if she got too attached he'd leave her, along with a gaping hole in her heart, just like the two she already had for her parents.

…

Not long after the show ended, and after taking their bows, the cast and crew gathered backstage. Champagne was brought out, music played, and audience members started filing their way through the door to join in.

Brady kept a keen eye on the door as she talked with her castmates about how the show had gone. Hannah had agreed to meet her there after the show, but it wasn't Hannah who Brady was looking for.

Brady didn't understand why she had all her attention focused on him when she was the one who cut ties in the first place. Shouldn't she not care where he was or what he did anymore? By now she could have easily gone out with Michael, who seemed like a decent, interesting person. But still she hesitated. It annoyed the crap out of her. Lin annoyed the crap out of her. She couldn't get him out of her head. Yet he didn't annoy her in the slightest. It was all very confusing and made Brady question her own sanity.

In any case, Brady spotted Hannah in the crowd and waved her over. Hannah gushed over Brady's performance before saying in a hushed tone, "Fair warning, Lin is coming backstage. Probably to win you back. I can either punch him or officiate your marriage. Your call."

Brady was about to suggest a less-extreme alternative when she saw Lin and the rest of the gang walk through the door. In reality, she and everyone else in the room watched them walk in. Word had spread that the cast of Hamilton was in the audience, including THE Lin-Manuel Miranda. Not surprisingly a crowd formed around her famous friends as Brady's castmates and other audience members asked for photos and autographs.

Brady and Hannah watched as a young boy, probably family of someone who was in the show, went up to Lin and asked him to sign his Les Mis playbill. Brady smiled as Lin crouched down to the little boy's height and, smiling, took the boy's pen and book. After signing it Lin said a few more words to the boy as he handed it back to him. The boy laughed and then left. Lin stood up and moved his attention to the next person, one of Brady's classmates. As he smiled for a selfie with her Brady felt a tap on her shoulder.

"Excuse me, but are you Brady?" Brady turned to see a fifty-something, smartly dressed woman with pin-straight brown hair and glasses looking at her. She also held a notebook in one hand and a phone in the other.

"Yes, I am," Brady replied cheerily.

"Nice to meet you, I'm Wende Perkins." Wende extended a hand that Brady shook. "I'm a talent agent working with a couple shows here in town."

If there was one sentence that could get Brady's full attention, it was that one. Automatically Brady widened her smile and straightened her posture. "It's a pleasure to meet you. Did you like the show?"

"Yes, yes I did. I took special notice, however, of your performance. I'd like to schedule a meeting with you. Come to my office at ten a.m. tomorrow." Wende held out a business card that Brady took with both hands. "We can talk more then. Sound good?"

Feeling speechless, Brady managed to blurt out a flustered 'yes' and a 'thank-you-so-much' before Wende said goodbye and disappeared into the crowd. She turned around to look for Hannah, the angel on her shoulder, wanting to tell her everything only to find the exact opposite: the devil on her shoulder, Daveed.

With a cheesy smile he opened his arms wide. "My star pupil," he said just as a proud mom would. Brady couldn't help but chuckle as she begrudgingly let Daveed hug her. Renee, Oak and some of the others also managed to make their way through the bustling crowd to Brady's side. She laughed as they piled giant bouquets of flowers into her arms.

"You all cheered like crazy people at curtain call," she teased, craning her neck over the mountain of roses and tulips.

"Ain't nothin' wrong with a lil bit o' crazy, sweetie," Daveed said, keeping to his motherly theme and patting her on the head.

"Yeah," Renee chimed in. "How else were we supposed to cheer after your show-stopping performance!" Renee straightened Brady's flowers to keep them from toppling out of her arms.

Daveed & Company continued to pour over how wonderful she had been until a few minutes later more requests for autographs and photos were made, and Brady told her friends to go ahead and meet said requests.

Realizing that her flowers were going to fall out of her arms any second now, Brady found an open table across the room and began to make her way over to it very slowly. Left and right she dodged people, peering over her mountain of flowers, when about halfway there someone bumped her from the side, sending most of the boquetes scattered across the floor. Being in too good of a mood to be mad about it, she knelt to the floor and began collecting them one by one. That is, until another set of hands began collecting them too. She was about to say something along the lines of "Get away from my flowers you thief" when her eyes met the culprit: Lin.

"Hey stranger," he greeted Brady with a smile.

"Hey there," Brady replied. She smiled back too, hoping he couldn't see how awkward she felt.

The two continued picking up bouquets in a charged silence until all had been accounted for. Both stood back up and looked at eachother.

Lin, of course, had to look good, because Brady could never catch a break as long as he was around. He had on a black sweater with dark wash jeans and black dress shoes. His hair was down.

"You were brilliant out there." Lin dropped his eyes from hers. Was he nervous? He shuffled his feet only to nearly drop one of the bouquets.

"Thank you, Lin."

"You really...you were vibrant and... and it was so real...I...just really liked it, I mean you, I mean out there, performing, it was good. Not good, but great." Lin cleared his throat. "But I'll stop holding your flowers hostage," he said as he stepped towards her and poured the flowers into her arms, all except one bouquet Brady hadn't seen yet.

"Thank you," Brady said again. Because apparently that's all the english she could remember at the moment.

"And, this one's from me." He placed the flowers on the very top of the stack. They were pure white orchids. They reminded Brady of snow.

"Thank you, again. They're wonderful." Brady thought she saw a blush rise on Lin's cheeks but it was gone before she could be sure.

He stood there for a moment, looking like he was going to say something else. He removed his hands from his pockets, clenched his fists, unclenched them, then turned and walked away.

Brady watched him until the crowd swallowed his figure back into its form. She closed her eyes with furrowed eyebrows. A whirlwind of conflicting emotions battled inside her.

…

It took an act of God and then some to get Brady and Hannah back to their apartment. From talking backstage to maneuvering flowers to a post-show get-together, Brady began to wonder if she would never escape. Not that she didn't enjoy every second of it, just that she was absolutely tired. Thank goodness for Hannah, who, sensing her friend's fatigue, told Brady's cast mates something along the lines of "neighbor's dead cat"..."funeral tomorrow"..."gotta get up early"... to which Brady agreed, and the two made a quick escape.

"So, just your average night, huh?" Hannah remarked as she locked the apartment door behind them.

Brady walked into the kitchen and rested her hoard of flowers on the counter. "Yeah, maybe we should've done something."

"Like seen a show."

"Or performed in a show."

"Or talked to a talent agent."

"Oh well, our loss."

"What a shame. Well, I'm gonna turn in, this uneventful evening took it out of me." As Hannah walked past Brady towards her room, she gave her a squeeze on the shoulder. "You were incredible out there, don't you forget it."

Now that Brady was alone, with only her reflections on the day's unfoldings to occupy her mind, she found that she wasn't tired anymore. She smiled to herself as she arranged the flowers neatly on the counter, placing as many as she could in vases with water. Then she got to Lin's flowers. White flowers, green stem, wrapped in white tissue paper with a blue ribbon holding it all together. She liked the elegant look of it.

Brady found her best vase and filled it with water. Then she delicately untied the blue ribbon and removed the white tissue paper. Except underneath this tissue paper was another blue ribbon tied around the stems. Not only was this ribbon holding the flowers together, but something else, a small square wrapped in white tissue paper. Brady curiously undid this second ribbon. Out fell the wrapped bundle onto the counter. Brady placed the flowers in the vase, then turned her attention to the object.

It was a square maybe the size of her phone, only lighter. Hesitantly she took it in her hands and started carefully removing the tissue paper, afraid of breaking it. Brady removed the last bit of white paper.

In her hands sat a cassette tape. She held it in her palms like one might a baby chick, but looked at it as if it were a spider. She flipped it over to find writing, Lin's writing, borderline illegible, saying 'Lady.' She had no idea what that meant, whether to be offended or flattered, but either way it could've said 'elevator music' and still her heart would have raced just as quickly as it did now. Here was a treasure chest and all she had to do was unlock it. But where was the key…

It took her fifteen minutes rifling through four boxes from the back of her closet to find it. She didn't even know she still had it. Of course, she had to change out the batteries to get it running again, and sighed in relief as it powered on. If her life was a movie, she felt like she would've whispered 'atta girl' to the old cassette player at its resurrection. It was fortunate that Brady was an old soul; she liked the physical versions of things: books on paper, money in bills, and music on records/CDs/cassettes, you name it.

She wasted no time after that. She shakily inserted her earbuds and cassette into the player. She walked into her room and shut the door, not bothering to turn the lights on. She lay her back on her bed, atop the covers, and rested the device on her stomach.

For a brief second Brady felt a whiff of embarrassment. What if she was making a big deal out of nothing? What if it's nothing more than a playlist of 80s rock? Nothing more than a friendly gesture?

Yet, the spark of hope lit in her chest again, and her fears vanished. She wasn't sure what she was hoping for, wasn't sure what she wanted, but knew she had to find out.

She pressed play.

…

Bang Bang Bang.

"Lin."

Bang Bang Bang.

"Lin, open this goddamn door."

Brady's eyes accusatory and voice like a dagger, she stood in front of an apartment door with a wreath on it, one hand on her hip and the other a fist. She went to knock again when a noise came from the other side. The door opened.

"Officer, please, I'm innocent," came Lin's voice. He casually leaned against the door frame in the same dark outfit he had been wearing earlier. He looked down at her with an eyebrow raised. This was a contrast to the timid Lin from earlier backstage, but this was his territory now, and Brady was sure he knew what she was fuming about.

"I'm not here to play games, Miranda," said Brady as she stormed past him into his apartment.

"Well come, in why don't you." Lin turned on his heel with a small smirk playing on his lips. The door shut behind him.

Brady wasn't typically one to stroll into people's homes unannounced, but she had had it with Lin and his string-pulling. She needed an end to all this once and for all, if only for her own sanity.

Brady stood in the front of what seemed to be a living room and gave Lin the most defiant look she could muster. She reached into her coat pocket and took out the cassette, holding it in the air.

"What the hell is this?" she demanded.

"A cassette," Lin remarked.

"Oh, so now we're being smart with each other, are we? Is that what you want? Well, you know what I want? For you to stop messing with me. That's what."

"Messing with you?" Lin crossed his arms and took a step towards her, an almost cocky confidence apparent on his face. "I thought it was sweet. You don't like the songs?"

"I do, but that's not th…"

"It was just an innocent gesture. Nothing to get upset over. Coffee?" Lin walked past her towards a doorway which he disappeared into. Brady let out a groan and looked at the ceiling. That son of a… he knows exactly what he's doing… I'll show him. Brady stomped after him and found herself in a nice kitchen. Lin was opening a cabinet, removing coffee filters.

"Stop that. Stop acting like you don't know."

"Know what?" Lin said innocently.

"I know you know what." Lucky for Lin the kitchen island separated him from Brady, who felt the growing urge to kick his shins or something.

"I'm sorry, looks like you'll have to spell it out for me."

"You know this was a low blow." Brady wiggled the cassette in front of her. "You can't just mess with people's feelings like this. Thinking you could win me over this easily, how dare you. You know what position I was in, how torn I felt. Well it won't work, I'll tell you that." Brady was so infuriated she wasn't sure she knew what she was saying, but was sure Lin understood.

"Well, it worked didn't it?" Lin said as he poured the coffee grains into the coffee maker.

"What?"

"I mean, if you really hate me all that much, you wouldn't be here, would you? You would've ignored the tape. By the way, how did you listen to that thing? I thought it'd at least take you a couple days to find a cassette player."

"I...I…" Brady was at a loss for words.

"Do you want any sugar with this?" Lin looked over his shoulder at her with that innocent look again, reminding her of her anger at him. His whole demeanor was a ruse, an act she had no patience for.

Brady thought back to earlier that night. When she had pressed play. The first song, "No Good Deed" from Wicked, floated to her ears. She wasn't sure what Lin meant by putting it in there. Then it was "The Phantom of the Opera." Then "A Whole New World," "That Would Be Enough" and so on. It didn't take long for Brady to realize these were all songs that she and Lin had a memory attached to. They were all songs they shared. There was the song she and him had danced to on the rooftop, the one she sang with him at her audition, the Titanic theme when she fell asleep on him. All the songs they shared were there, and lying in her bed, in the dark, the memories came flooding in, as did her feelings for him. God, she liked him beyond words - And this made her more mad than ever before. The fact that he would sink to this level to mess with her heart pulled her from bed and straight to his apartment. She would have it all out, here and now.

"No, Lin. I don't want your sugar. I don't want your coffee. I want to know what made you want to pull a stunt like that when it was your stupid comments that hurt me in the first place."

"It wasn't my comments, it was Anthony's." Lin set down the coffee pot a little loudly and turned to face Brady. She could see his cool demeanor melting, slowly, into anger, and she was glad for it, though she didn't think he had the right to be angry.

"Which you said were true."

"No, you didn't let me explain. You left." Lin's voice raised to Brady's level. He placed his palms on the island between them, leaning forward. "You know, running away doesn't fix anything."

"What, you've never had anyone say no to you before? Sorry I didn't swoon at the fact that you told Anthony I was a crappy singer," Brady shot back. She wanted to see how far she could push him. She wanted to hurt him like he did her.

"You don't have the context."

"In what fucking context can what you said about me be a good thing, Lin?" Brady hated that her voice shook in the slightest.

"Lea was in the room, Brady. She was standing right there. Tommy was telling her what made her stand out, why she got the part over you and the others, something about her voice. Fuck, I don't know, maybe I nodded my head to agree with Tommy, maybe I said something like 'glad you're apart of the cast now,' but I swear I didn't explicitly say anything Anthony said I did. You know him. You know he'd exaggerate for a story. Yeah, maybe I implied some of those things but God Brady it wasn't on purpose, it was in the moment. If you had only listened to me..."

Brady cut in. She believed Lin, but his story didn't make her any less mad at him.

"Oh so now it's my fault. You can't do anything wrong, can you?" Brady turned on her heel and walked out the doorway back into the living room, making her way to the front door.

Lin's footsteps followed behind her. "Were you not listening when I said running away doesn't solve problems?" He jogged to Brady's side and put an arm in front of her to keep rampaging Brady from reaching the door. He looked at her, then at the wall, then back to her. "Fine, leave if you want, I won't stop you."

Brady looked down at his arm that was stopping her. "So this is just some weird side-hug? Good to know." She shoved his arm down and walked the last couple steps to the door. Just before she reached it, though, she turned around to make another comment only to see Lin taking deliberate steps towards her.

Only he didn't stop, he walked right into her, pushing his lips onto hers.

Finally. Brady didn't realize it until now, but this is why she came here. Not to say she wasn't still mad. No, her anger towards him didn't fade, not in the slightest. It may have even grown a bit. But her desire for him was there, and now it had increased tenfold.

At Lin's sudden contact the two stumbled back until Brady's back was against the door. Their lips fought hungrily as Lin's hands tangled into her hair and Brady's hands clutched at his shirt.

The doorknob dug into Brady's back as his body pressed into hers, but that was the least of her concerns. All she cared about was getting as physically close to him as possible. She dropped her coat on the floor and kicked it to the side.

Their lips parted for a moment and they gasped for breath in unison. Both still looked equally mad at one another, but what was once anger had turned into passion.

"I hate you." Brady said between breaths. And she meant it. She hated that she couldn't get enough of him.

"You're the worst" Lin shot back before their mouths crashed together again. He lifted her off the ground by her thighs and she wrapped her legs around him in return. He slid his hands all the way from her the back side of her thighs up to her lower back. Here her shirt was rising up, so Lin's hand met the skin right above her jeans, skin-on-skin contact that they both craved. He kept going, moving his hands up her back, underneath her shirt, and then back down again.

He then began carrying her, slowly, back towards the couch in the living room. Brady almost sighed in disappointment when he took his lips away from hers, only to find them, seconds later, ravaging her neck. She let out a gasp and digs her nails into his back in response.

They reached the couch and Lin, mouth still on her neck, laid her down on it. He hovered over her, one knee resting between her legs, and held her by the back of her head and the middle of her back so that their torsos were pressed together.

"Kiss me," Brady ordered. Lin immediately returned his mouth to hers, to which Brady slipped her tongue inside. She pulled Lin towards her so that she was pressed between the couch and him.

Lin pulled his lips just barely off of hers. "Why do you have to be so hot," he breathed as he brushed his lips against hers.

"Can you not be charming for two fucking second," Brady sighed back. She brought her mouth back to his and nibbled his lower lip. She thought she heard a moan from Lin in response, but wasn't sure. She did, however feel him kiss her more passionately, causing her to do the same.

Not a moment later, Lin's body moved ever so slightly against Brady's. The friction set her ablaze. Brady, aroused to an extreme, moved her hips against his just barely.

At this Lin paused and looked down at her. Brady met his eyes. He wasn't angry anymore. Neither was she. His eyes had that funny look in them that she had noticed the night it was raining, a look she now yearned for.

"Yeah?" asked Lin in a deep, throaty voice.

"Yeah." Brady answered. She knew what he meant.

…

Brady's eyes opened slightly, yawned, and rolled on her left side to check the time. As her eyes adjusted she saw a bedside table that was not hers. Weird. She looked around further, seeing a wood floor that was not hers, a picture that was not hers, a room that was not hers.

Then all the memories from the night before came back. Oh shit.

Slowly, Brady rolled from laying on her left side, to her back, and then turned her head to the right, to the rest of the bed.

There, asleep, lay Lin. Shirtless. Shirtless Lin. Hair-tousled, sleeping, shirtless Lin. Oh shit.

That was when Brady realized she was completely and utterly naked.

"Oh shit."

Author's note:

Here we are, 364 days after I published chapter 1.

And we've only gotten to chapter 9.

I'm well aware that this probably makes me your least favorite author ever, a title I so humbly accept, but I hope me publishing this chapter will make you hate me less. No? Yeah, I figured…

Anyways, I just wanted to give a quick shout out to some people I wanna thank for sticking with / supporting this lil fic, so here's to

TheJubilations , TheMagentaColor , Broadwaylovermlp22 , TheBookishGirl7 , PJOandHP4life , Thatwritermadeofpotatoes , the trash bin

And many, many more.

I'll be honest, I've looked at every single profile of the 60 people who favorited this fic, 85 people who follow it, and anyone who commented on it because I appreciate you guys so much and because I have this not-creepy love for you all.

Again, sorry I haven't updated in a butt-long time (yes, that is a precise unit of measurement of time). It doesn't mean I don't love ya'all (in, again, a non-creepy way), it just means I'm the worst. Like Burr.

p.s The cassette is called "lady" cuz it's their ship name ( Lin plus Brady equals Lady) ur welcome