Empire - The Next Step

rechoreographing to save the day

The dancer's had been informed that they were to entirely re-choreograph the regionals routine for one simple reason. Both Davis and Kenzie had decided to leave the studio and switch to Miss Angela's Encore studio meaning that the team had no alternates, but they also needed to make a new dance so their ideas couldn't be leaked. It was a stressful day for everyone, but Harper could tell that Noah was particularly stressed. She herself wasn't doing too well as she was becoming exceedingly more nervous about learning all the new choreo and perfecting it in time, but she had to be strong for Noah.

"Good job guys." Noah complimented his girlfriend and Richelle as they were practicing a section of the dance together. The girls smiled warmly at him to reassure him that everything was going well but it seemed that elsewhere in the room things were not going so smoothly. Jacquie was still very disappointed about how she left things with Davis and was having trouble focusing, Henry and Summer both looked distracted by something and Kingston and Ozzy were observing Finn for reasons Harper would never understand.

"Alright guys, just take five." Noah dismissed them all. He was clearly getting frustrated with everyone's lack of focus and thought that giving them some time to recoup and get back into it would be better.

"Wanna go to shakes and ladders?" Harper asked Richelle who seemed in an uncharacteristically good mood. She was positively glowing.

"I'm actually meeting Elliot there, he's so sweet he said he'd meet me in my break even if we can't go out for dinner tonight." Harper beamed at her best friend's happiness, Elliot and Richelle were a truly unexpected match made in heaven and she couldn't have been more happy for them. She nodded and gave Richelle a quick wave goodbye before looking over to Noah who was helping Jacquie with some of the choreography.

One thing Harper hated about herself, was that she could never quite get the feeling away that there was still something between Jacquie and Noah. It always sat in the back of her mind. They always seemed like such close friends and because of their history from the start of the year where he liked the both of them, she sometimes wondered if Noah still had feelings for her.

With a small sigh as she tore her eyes away from the pair, Harper made her way to the bistro down the hall to clear her mind but as she walked in, an extremely upset looking Richelle stormed past her. The girl debated rushing after her best friend, but her eyes narrowed when she saw Elliot sat alone in shakes and ladders. He had done something to hurt Richelle, and that wasn't going to go down well with Harper. She walked over to the opposite side of the table he was sitting at and glared down at the boy.

"Okay before you assume anything, I-" before the boy could even finish his sentence, Harper had cut him off.

"I'm not assuming anything Elliot, I know you did something to hurt Richelle because she doesn't normally run out of the café crying. What happened?" Harper seethed in a relatively calm, yet still angry, tone.

"Listen, it's just not going to work with me and Richelle." Elliot said and Harper decided that she shouldn't even bother wasting her time with him. "But Harper, just know that I never wanted to hurt her."

The girl glanced back at him but shook her head, eyes filled with disappointment, before rushing back to studio A to find her best friend. She saw Richelle talking to Piper and the smaller blonde let out a huff of frustration before brushing past Piper. Harper ran after her as Noah entered with a guilty looking Summer and Henry, but no matter how stressed everyone was about this dance, Richelle's feelings were more important.

"Richelle?" Harper called as she entered studio one, the last place that Richelle could possibly be. The blonde was sitting against the wall with tears streaming down her face and had never looked so emotionally damaged. "I'm so sorry about Elliot." Harper sympathised as she sat beside the girl. Richelle dropped her head down to Harper's shoulder and let out a sigh. Harper felt guilt course through her as she felt Richelle's tears drip onto her arm, she didn't deserve to be feeling so much pain.

"How could he do this to me? Am I so unloveable that even Elliot can't stand to be around me?" Harper day up abruptly and made Richelle look at her.

"Richelle listen to me, everyone on this team loves you, I love you, Noah does and even Jacquie in her own way. We all support you and honestly, Elliot doesn't know what he's missing without you. He must be insane." The girl let out a small chuckle as she wrapped her arms around Harper.

"Thanks Harps, I love you too." Harper smiled down at her best friend and pulled her up off the floor.

"Now, should I help you with the dance? I know you must be really hurting but Noah's so stressed out and I don't want to make it worse." Richelle nodded and the two of them spent the rest of the afternoon, until pretty much nightfall, learning the newest section of the ten person dance.

After rehearsing for a few hours, Richelle and Harper made their way back into studio A to perform the dance for Noah but the latter noticed that he was once again talking to Jacquie. She knew they were friends, but it still bothered her.

"Alright A troupe, let's do it." Michelle called out and everyone assumed their starting positions. As they worked through the routine, everything went really well and it was looking amazing but Harper just wasn't feeling it. She was still worried about Richelle and on top of that, she couldn't fight her jealousy about Noah and Jacquie. Everyone held their ending positions as the two studio heads and Noah applauded, they had clearly been pleasantly surprised.

"Guys, the dance actually looks really good." Both Michelle and Emily nodded in agreement but all Harper could focus on was Richelle. She looked so devastated, so broken.

"Michelle and I are really proud of you, so we wanna treat you to some shakes. Who's in?" Emily offered, but it seemed that nobody on the team was in the mood to join them. One by one they all went their separate ways with various different excuses. Some were happy reasons, like Henry was taking Summer on a date, but others, like Richelle, were leaving for much more dampened reasons.

Harper had decided that since she hadn't paid Noah much attention for the day and he probably needed to relax, she would see if he was in shakes and ladders. He was, but not alone. Himself and Jacquie were sitting together with beaming smiled radiating off their faces and laughter pouring from their lips. She hated to be jealous, but Harper liked being the one to make Noah smile and even though this could be as innocent as two friends having a shake, she had a gnawing feeling in her stomach that there was definitely something else there.

The entire team was divided. Richelle was too busy being heartbroken to focus on anything, Harper was harbouring some deeply detesting feelings about Jacquie and everyone was distracted with something. They were no where near ready for regionals.

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a/n: heyyy everyone i hope you enjoyed the chapter! sorry i have been really super slow at updating recently but i'm just trying to readjust to college and get back into the swing of things so please bare with me. sorry for creating more drama between noah and harper but the drama is what i live for and because kenzie isn't there, (sorry to kenzie stans, i love her too, but she was the least influential and it worked with my story) jacquie needed someone to have beef with. once again, thank you ever so much for reading! :)