Keely Staub has grown up. At least that's what she thinks has happened. No longer a naive eighteen year old being introduced to a music industry that's equal parts grandeur and grime, she might even be considered a veteran. At just twenty six, she's lived almost too much of a life in the intervening years since she first came to New York. A great love and a great band, not to mention more than a few unsavoury addictions picked up along the way in the time honoured traditions of the rock stars before her. And she gave it all up - except the rock star part, of course. That was a different Keely Staub, a more innocent and wild one all at the same time. She's determined that person and all the things that came with her will stay in the past, and has a very clear path laid in front of her. A measured, smart, hopefully one day respected, path. The problem is the past refuses to remain the past.

I beat it once, but that was only the battle. Now its the war, and I can't win. Cancer, I surrender. When life takes a turn for the worst and you find out you have terminal cancer, what do you do? In Melody's opinion, you don't. She was accepting dying, until Lucius. Then she questions what shes doing, and if it was the right choice.