A Beautiful Thing

6.1 LeakyCon 2012: Everything Ends

Slowly, Joey rose to his feet as the passengers on his flight began to disembark. Taking one last look around, he scooped up his backpack and grabbed his suitcase from the overhead bin before walking down the aisle and out of the plane. It felt nice to be back in Chicago, the city where he had spent a fair amount of time over the last year and he was excited to see so many of his friends again for what was sure to be an unforgettable experience.

As he walked through the sliding doors towards the baggage claim area, his eyes found the person he had been looking for.

"Strauss!" Joey exclaimed as he walked briskly towards his waiting friend. "What a pleasant surprise! I didn't think you'd make it, what with all of the infamous Chicago traffic," he emphasized jokingly, as the two old friends embraced.

"And how is my favorite hooligan, huh?" Nick said, relinquishing his grasp on Joey and clutching at both of his arms.

"Oh, not too bad," Joey said. "Had a lady in front to me who kept raising and lowering her seat back for the whole flight but other than that, things went pretty smoothly."

"Ah well, can't win 'em all, right?" Nick chuckled, throwing his arm over Joey's shoulder as the two walked towards the parking garage.

"Have you bumped into anybody else coming into town in the past few days?" Joey asked as the two made their way through the pedestrian tunnel.

"Not really, just got in yesterday myself so I've been mostly putting all my stuff together and getting ready just like everyone else. Most of the full rehearsal group is already here and they're at the hotel getting unpacked." Nick explained, running a hand through his short black hair.

"Yeah, that makes sense," Joey said as the two got to the escalator back to ground level. "So is the meeting Matt emailed us about still happening?"

"As far as I know, yeah," Nick replied, pulling out his car keys and pointing the fab in the direction of his vehicle.

"Great, so that'll give me..." Joey paused, checking his watch, "what? An hour to get situated and unpack before we meet up in the conference room?"

"Yeah, man. Should be plenty of time!" Nick grinned, smacking Joey lightly on the back as the two reached the car and Joey loaded his luggage into the trunk.

The car ride into the city was mostly spent discussing about the immensely hectic days ahead. The plan for a massive Starkid reunion at Leaky Con 2012 had been in the works for a while but only recently had plans really started to formulate. Now, instead of just doing a table-read of the Lang's third installment in their Harry Potter trilogy in front of a live audience, the group would perform a proper staged reading with costumes, songs, light choreography and scene changes. It was the consensus among the members of the group that this endeavor would require nothing less than the most intense few days of rehearsals that had ever been undertaken in their professional lives and with Darren planning to make an appearance and reprise his titular role, the pressure was most certainly on.

Yet, that wasn't the thing occupying the majority of Joey's mind that day as he watched the Chicago skyline grower bigger and bigger through the windshield. It was the person who woke every morning to the sights and sounds of the city that was now right there in front of him. The person whom he could never look at the same way since that night in November of last year. And he was going to have to face her again.

The decision to end things had been perfectly reasonable, of course. He lived in Los Angeles and she lived in Chicago. There really was no way for either of them to be properly committed or true to each other with such a physical distance keeping them apart. Still, the two thousand miles over the last year had done nothing to wane Joey's feelings for her and he knew that, given the circumstances of the upcoming reunion, this time would be even more difficult for him.