Fall, Year 4, Month 9

A layer of mist hovered over the lake. The water was glass, still, reflecting the early morning sky above. A chill wind floated through the canyon, creating a cool temperature that the slowly rising sun would soon melt away, along with the mist. But that didn't mean the temperature hadn't existed.

Reeve shivered as she stepped out onto the cabin's back porch, wrapping her sweatshirt closer around her as she softly crossed the back deck and tiptoed along the stone path that led to the water. She was regretting leaving before the pot of coffee she had put on for Kelly was finished, shoving her hands deep into her sweatpants' pockets to keep them from going numb. She had left the industrial-sized coffee maker on to brew, sure that Kelly was soon to awake, dragging Dani, in the role of assistant, reluctantly along with her to start the day and her round of endless check-in calls. Today was not the day to sleep-in.

Reeve had found she had barely even slept. Everyone had stayed up late the night before, singing around the campfire until long after the crickets stopped harmonizing with them. There was a reluctance to break the magic they had found as a group these past four days. Even once Reeve and Gage stopped strumming and Anton, Leslie, and Bernadette, her back-up singers, gave up their flawless harmonies, the group of ten, with Noah as an honored guest, sat around chatting softly, looking at each other in the slowly darkening night as the fire died, experiencing for the first time what was waiting for them for the next eight months.

Reeve sat with her feet dangling over the edge of the dock, the bottom of her socks slightly damp from the dew on the ground. She pulled her leg up and rested her chin on her knee, looking out to the mountains across the way. It had rained sometime during the night as there was a faint layer of snow at the peak. It had been summer when she and her crew had left the city but now fall was making its way to the foreground.

There were nine people currently asleep in the house behind her. It was supposed to be a log cabin Kelly found, situated comfortably among a plot of woods, far enough off the main road that cell reception was spotting and wifi was non-existent. It was more of a log mansion and needed to be to accommodate everyone Reeve had invited for an 'end-of-the-summer' getaway.

Reeve had attended church with her mom and Dani, bringing Noah and Walter along with her, the Sunday after her final tour rehearsal. Her stage, which she had started calling Bertha, was already broken down and in transit and had been torn down as soon as the band walked off the stage and left the rehearsal space. While Reeve sat at the edge of the lake somewhere in rural New Hampshire, Bertha was being re-assembled in Boston's main basketball arena.

Reeve had said goodbye to her mom and Walter at the church, telling Noah she would see him later and climbed into a car with Dani at the wheel and Randy as navigator and DJ. He had even made a mixed CD of his favorite classic rock songs and everyone sang along while they drove north, Reeve laughing in the backseat with Leslie and Bernadette while they tried to give Dani singing lessons as she drove.

Kelly and Anton, Gage, Ember, and Ezra met them at the cabin. It was the first time the ten of them would be spending time together as friends, not just co-workers or bandmates. The small vacation was intentional on Reeve's part. She was tired of rehearsing. They had spent the last eight weeks, almost every day, in that chilly warehouse in Western Mass, running through the show, working it until they got it right and then again until they couldn't get it wrong.

She knew her nerves wouldn't be able to handle rehearsing until the day of opening night. And she was all too aware of what it was like to travel with people you didn't know. She needed to get to know her team, every one of them before they spent almost every waking hour of the next eight months together.

They spent four days lying on the beach, driving jet-skis across the water, paddle-boarding in the mornings, and making s'mores at night, always ending the day sitting around the campfire. It seemed the most obvious idea that a group made up of professional vocalists and musicians should be killing it at campfire songs but it wasn't until the last night that Reeve thought to bring out her guitar.

Leslie had asked for cookie ingredients to be added to the food list. Randy had asked for steaks and every night somehow the ten of them pulled together a gourmet meal that would have rivaled the best chefs in New York. Leslie kept the kitchen filled with cookies and treats and Bernadette kept a puzzle going on the coffee table in the main family room area. By the last night, after what everyone agreed was their best meal yet, Reeve looked around and found that the group before her had become more than friends, more than a team. They had become family.

Noah made it up to the cabin for the last evening and Reeve had his hand to squeeze when she looked with loving eyes at the group of people she was given the privilege to work with.

Reeve heard shuffling footsteps approach from behind and smiled as Noah tiptoed across the wooden planks in slowly dampening socks. He nodded when he met her eyes, his face in a deep frown of half-consciousness.

"Kelly sent this out for you. She said we have twenty minutes."

Reeve took one of the two cups of coffee he held in his hands and blew steam into the air as she thought, with a twist in her stomach, of the cars behind them, already packed up and ready to go.

That was Kelly's one stipulation. If Reeve was going to take the team on vacation, returning the day of opening night, they were all to be packed and ready to leave by daybreak, all suitcases piled into trunks the night before anyone sat down for dinner. She had even taken the extra step to inspect every room and double-check every vehicle before she let Randy ring the dinner bell.

Reeve's bags were going home with Noah. He had promised to drop them at her house before the show. Everything she needed for the next six weeks had been packed up and placed on a tour bus the week before and was currently sitting in an underground garage beneath the same arena where over a hundred crewmen were preparing for the show.

The two of them sat on the edge of the dock in silence, letting the soft whistle of the birds fill the air with sound, the world around them slowly waking up. Reeve could even hear Kelly, talking to someone, already working before the sun was up. She could see Dani still half asleep, leaning heavily against the dining table, nursing a cup of coffee. The rest was sure soon to follow.

Reeve was thankful for Noah's half-conscious state as she had enough thoughts running wild in her brain. They were the same thoughts that had kept her up most the night.

Her left brain was running through the show, second by second, afraid of missing a single beat, starting all over again if it messed up somehow. Her right-brain was creating scenarios of every single thing that could go run.

Everyone would be there at the show tonight. Every single one of her band's friends and family members had been given tickets and access to the VIP booths at the top of the arena, her own as well. Tommy and Jay from 7 Ships were on a random break and bringing their significant others as well as some of their friends. Bobbi and the boys would be opening up for her, the first night of many.

Reeve wouldn't know it until she saw the bouquet waiting for her in her dressing room but Wes Keats was sending his love and best wishes as well as his regret over being unable to attend and support her in person. He included in the note his promise to be at the Charleston show and an offer to reprise their performance of his song 'Hard Love' for the fans if she wanted.

Kelly had even hinted that Lennon Kayhill and the entire Hey Farewell band had purchased a booth. Reeve worked extra hard on keeping that fact out of her mind as the thought of those two massive acts, along with everyone else already confirmed to be in attendance, all watching from the booths, high up in the arena, a panorama of eyes she knew watching her, weighed heavy on her shoulders. She was already looking forward to the nights when no one she knew would be in the crowd.

Noah nudged her shoulder and brought her thoughts back to the present.

"You okay?"

Reeve didn't bother nodding, although it was her natural inclination to do so whenever anyone asked her that. She knew it was no use with Noah. If he was asking, he already knew the answer.

Reeve took a deep breath, inhaling fresh mountain air, exhaling a fraction of her mounting anxieties, deepening her breathing that had grown shallow with stress.

"Nervous?"

Reeve shook her head because she wasn't. She had performed a thousand times. And even while her brain tried to scare her into stage fright, the performance was the one thing she was sure of. She had run through the show a million times, had gone over every detail a million more. It was a great show. It was the best show she had ever done. It had to be. It was going to be the last show she would ever do.

"No. Weirdly not."

"Then what is it?"

"Everything, I guess."

"Are you scared?"

Reeve smiled as a tear ran down her cheek. Noah had a knack for perfectly summing up, in the most simplistic terms, exacting what she was feeling. Reeve nodded.

Noah's only response was to lay his arm across her shoulders and bring her in for a hug. Reeve inhaled a deep breath, breathing in his scent, his quiet stillness, the very essence that made him Noah, and the only person she knew she would ever be with for the rest of her life.

Her heart constricted at the thought of days that awaited the two of them, the miles that lay between tonight and the next time they would see each other. She would miss him most of all, although she would never tell her mother that. Living among so many people, she would miss his quiet presence, the solace his company allowed.

She was glad he was going to be at the show. She had set aside a spot for him, right along the stage. She would be setting it aside at every show he could attend so she could sing to him from the stage.

And that night, as she stood in front of that crowd, filled with people she had never seen before, people she had gotten the wonderful chance to meet, people who had been to her shows since the beginning, she needed one face among the thousands, she needed the reason she was leaving it all behind.

Reeve wasn't crying because she was saying goodbye to Noah. A part of her naturally feared for the changes that would naturally come from them being apart so much for the first time in their entire relationship. Reeve became a different person on tour. Noah had only caught a glimpse of it on the acoustic tour but that had only lasted six weeks. They were facing the next eight months and a world tour. But Reeve knew, down to the very bottom of her soul, that at the end of the eight months, no matter what happened, Noah would be waiting for her and that was all that mattered.

So no, Reeve and Noah were not saying goodbye. They were saying a 'See you soon' at most as he would be driving down for the New York show at the end of next week.

But Reeve was saying goodbye. She was saying goodbye to her fans for the last time.

No one knew, not officially, except Kelly. Of course, Kelly knew. People had their suspicions. Even Jayden had been able to guess. Reeve knew Noah had figured it out, her mom and Dani as well. But that night, her opening night, at the edge of the stage, at the end of one of her last songs, a song she had written for that very moment, unsure when she had written the song whether or not it would come to be, Reeve would stand in front of her hometown, her Boston fans and announce that she was done. That this tour was her last and that she was honored to be able to represent her city one last time.

Kelly only knew because Reeve had needed help figuring out the wording, wanting to make sure she hit every point she needed to make. And because she needed Kelly to inform the security guards who were to be stationed around the b-stage to be carrying packets of tissues as Reeve had been crying during rehearsals without the speech. She was going to be a fountain of emotion with it.

"They would let you come back. If you wanted to. They'd be thrilled. You've touched so many lives with your music. This doesn't have to be the end."

Reeve knew Noah's words were an attempt to make her feel better. She could hear the guilt in his voice but she wasn't only doing it for him, for the normal life she wanted to start together. She was doing it for herself. This decision had been made for her along time ago when an SUV struck her side of the car when Jayden ran a red light. It had just taken her this long to come to terms with what the inevitable ending of the story was. She had been lucky that Noah had become a factor to help her accept what was the right choice.

"I know. And I'll always love them for that. But that's not what I want."

Reeve sat up and met Noah's eyes straight on so he would see that she meant what she was going to say.

"Not anymore."

A whistle turned their heads back to the house at the same time. Dani stood at the back door waving them in. Reeve and Noah stood and walked back, Reeve holding tight to his hand, leaving the dissipating mist behind, letting the sun warm the earth to life. It was time they headed back to reality.

Dressed and ready to go, Reeve and Noah were the last to climb into their respective cars. The band had already left, all of them heading for the arena. They had soundcheck scheduled as soon as they reached the city. Dani and Anton had already pulled out of the long driveway and swerved onto the gravel road that would lead them back down south. Kelly was sitting behind the driver's seat, waiting for Reeve.

And Reeve was hanging on to Noah, who wanted to let go as much as she did. They stood holding on for a long minute, both acutely aware that while something huge was just beginning, something special was coming to an end.

"I'll see you tonight."

Reeve nodded.

"You're gonna kill it tonight. And no matter what anyone else thinks, no matter how they take the news, remember. I will always be your biggest fan."

Reeve could already see him standing along the side of the stage, smiling up with her with unwavering support, mouthing along to his favorite songs that she had put in the setlist just for him.

They weren't ending. What they had between them was simply being given the chance to become something even better. Neither of them was aware of just how strong and unbreakable they would become by the end of the next eight months, ready to spend the rest of their lives together.