December 24th [COMPLETED]

Part Three: The Incident

If George's dream of having a nice, normal touring experience hadn't been dashed to the rocks after the incident at the airport in Amsterdam, it certainly was by the time the tour left the city.

George had only three days to live out her dream. She did her best to shake the startling experience of being surrounded by thousands of people screaming her name with only a thin shield of bodyguards protecting her and the members and decided instead to focus on the future.

George could see it, in her mind's eye, what she wanted the tour to look like. It had been brought to life when Jae Min had first called with the job offer and George was determined to see her dream dragged from her imagination into reality.

She would just be one of the crew. She would slip in and out of the hotels unnoticed. She would move efficiently along with the rest of their traveling group, just one of the crowd, one of crew. She'd make friends with the sound engineers and the lighting guys, she'd use the opportunity to try out the Korean phrases Sydney had been teaching her. She would be invisible, normal, just one of the crew.

George had three days of living out her fantasy. She was thrilled at the chance to learn a new way to tour. This was her first stadium and her her first tour in a long time when she wasn't the one in charge of everything. She had a boss! She was going to be under some one else's direction for once. She was to be at the group's complete beck and call, ready and waiting with their producing tech should they need it.

Her first day in Amsterdam, George was woken up at seven in the morning by the boys' manager, telling her to follow him. George barely had enough time to change before she was standing in front of Jae Min's hotel room, being told to wait ten minutes and then enter.

When she did, Jae Min was just barely sitting up in bed and didn't even look her way when she entered. She tried her best to noiselessly set up his producing station while he took his time waking up and not think about the fact that this was a first for their friendship. She had seen him work until all hours of the night, dance until he could barely stand but never had she seen him barely awake, first thing in the morning. Suddenly, George was getting a clear view of what her schedule was going to look like.

There wasn't going to be one.

On their last day in Amsterdam, the day after the show, George was woken up at five in the morning to set up a station for one of the younger members in his hotel room. Again she waited ten minutes before entering, letting their manager go in first and start the wake up call. They had a press conference that afternoon but this member had something he wanted to work on before then. Once George had everything set up and ready to go, she didn't hesitate to leave the room and leave the member to his work. She made sure she was gone before he even realized she was there, in part because she herself was barely awake but also to establish that it was not her place to stick around and help with the music. That was not her job. That was not why they had hired her.

George's bed was calling her name from down the hall and George was asleep before her head hit the pillow again.

It was easier, and less awkward, packing everything back up when all the guys were down stairs in the hotel's ballroom doing press with a hoard of Amsterdam reporters and photographers. The fans had been there to welcome them their first night in Amsterdam but had left them in peace for the rest of their stay.

When Nicole, the band's English teacher and head of A&R, poked her head into CJ's room and asked George if she wanted to head out for a cup of coffee, George said yes without a second thought. She had found herself stuck in the hotel every day that week, always on call in case any of the members needed any help, only leaving for the show the night before.