Jason didn't make it halfway through the first piece before he made his first mistake.

He forgot a note.

The mistake jarred through his whole body. He knew it was wrong as soon as it left his violin and ruined the tempo. He tried to recover, but the annoyance of it all forced him to lift the violin's bow off its strings a few bars later. It was a key note, supposed to start the ascent of the song into its climax, yet he'd blatantly forgotten about it. Given, he was playing without sheet music, but it wasn't an excuse his mother would accept.

Jason closed his eyes and exhaled, allowing himself three breaths before he started again.

He didn't forget that note on his second attempt, but this time, he failed to keep the rhythm of a complicated pattern. Instead of it being smooth and seamless, the notes felt alone and bare as he struggled through them.

From there, his limited window of practice dissolved into nothing but mistake after mistake, each one pulling the knot in his stomach tighter and tighter like a noose around his neck.

Somewhere on his third attempt of the second piece, Jason pulled off his headset and tossed it on the table in front of him. Violin and bow still in hand, he pressed his knuckles into the sides of his head hard enough to wake himself up. Maybe he didn't deserve the violin anymore if he couldn't even perfect basic techniques like these. Maybe it'd be better for everyone involved if he just handed it over to his mother when she walked in, if he just--

"Hey, Frostsong, how you going over here?"

Jason lowered his hands and glanced back over his shoulder to find Olivia standing behind him, her notebook and Liaiser still in hand. In all honesty, he'd forgotten she was there after the first few minutes. He was suddenly glad he'd had the headset attuned so she hadn't been forced to listen to his playing.

I wish he'd play it for me.

Jason instead straightened his shoulders, his gaze on the table beside his headset. "It appears I'm out of practice."

"After hearing you yesterday, I don't think that's too likely," said Olivia. She paused for a moment. "It's okay to be nervous, y'no."

"I have nothing to be nervous about."

"Well, no," said Olivia. "But nerves have this annoying habit of showing up even when they aren't needed."

Jason's stomach squeezed. "I'm not nervous, Olivia."

"My mistake then," she said. She walked a little further around in front of him before she took a step back behind. "Huh. I only just noticed how long your hair is getting."

"I expect I'll be required to cut it soon."

"Required to cut it?" said Olivia. "By who?"

"My mother prefers a certain level of presentation," said Jason.

She puffed out a cheek in thought before she spoke. "Well, what about you?"

"What do you mean, 'what about me'?"

Olivia raised an eyebrow at him. "Do you like it shorter or longer?"

"I've... never considered it, if I'm honest."

"Do you have any objections to long hair?"

"No?"

Olivia bounded forward, placing her notebook and Liaiser on the table beside his headset. With her hands free, she tugged at her ponytail and darted behind him. When Jason turned to follow her, he felt her hand on the back of his shoulder, nudging him back forwards.

"You can borrow this for now," said Olivia. As Jason was about to ask what 'this' was, her fingers started gathering his hair at the base of his skull. It took her all of ten seconds, and four twists later, she walked around to his side to inspect her work. "I'll bring some more for you tomorrow. Lots of greens for you."

"Why would I have a need for more?" asked Jason.

Olivia gave him a cheeky smile as she looked him over. "If you're anything like me, you'll lose a whole lot of the little bastards."

"No, I mean, why would I need hair ties in the first place?"

Olivia shrugged, gathering her now loose hair over one shoulder and holding up a finger. "Well, you don't. But it's a good thing to keep it out of the way of your violin, isn't it?"

Jason reached up to touch his ponytail. "But it wasn't... that... long?"

Olivia sat herself up on the edge of the table, her arms locked either side of her legs. "Well, now it's not, obviously. But who knows? It's better to be safe than sorry. Nothing worse than getting your hair caught in things."

"But I'll be cutting it soon."

Again, Olivia just shrugged, swinging her legs under the table. "I mean, personally, I think longer hair suits you. You should give it a try for a bit." She grinned. "And if not, your hair is only tied up to make sure it doesn't get caught in your violin anyway, right?"

"I, um," said Jason. That warm feeling he'd had this morning was back once again, melting his insides. The knot in his stomach was still there, but it was slowly pulling loose. "I suppose so."

"Great!" said Olivia. "So, tell me about these pieces you're supposed to be playing."

"I wouldn't wish to bother you with them."

"Jase, I wanna be bothered with them. I love music. Hit me with it."

Jase.

"The main problem is that I do not currently have the sheet music for the pieces my mother has requested to hear," said Jason after a few seconds to gather his thoughts back. "They're rather complicated pieces, and I fear I haven't rehearsed them in a few months. The details are not as sharp as they should be in my mind."

"Which piece is giving you the most trouble?"

"The Fury of Starlight."

"Is that the one that goes like this?" She sang a short ten second part of the song--the most popular part, if only because it was so difficult to imitate with vocals that it was now a running joke to purposefully sing it off key--and to Jason's surprise, she hit every note perfectly. "That one?"

"Uh, yes. That one."

Her eyes practically bulged out of their sockets. "You're trying to play those without sheet music?"

"Given that I do not currently have it in my possession, yes."

"Starlight, Frostsong!" said Olivia, leaning forward. "And what, you just decided that you'd do your best to try and play them from memory?"

Jason lowered his gaze. "It was perhaps not the wisest decision. I should have been more prepared."

"It's all good," said Olivia. "I know that one pretty well, Ariel loves it. How about you play through it, and if you get stuck, I'll help you out?"

"I wouldn't want to--"

Olivia held a finger up to her lips. "No excuses, mister. Play that thing. We're on a time limit here, remember?"

Reluctantly, Jason disconnected his headset before lifting the violin once more.

Olivia started off humming along with him as he worked his way through the piece, her eyes somewhere off to the right as she listened to him play. By the time he passed the note he'd originally forgotten, Olivia's face was lit up with pure delight, her eyes locked on his violin. When he hit a complicated stagger of notes, he lost the tempo again, but this time, he recovered and pushed through to the end with only a few other minor hiccups.

When he lowered the violin, he wasn't satisfied with his performance.

"Wow," said Olivia, giving him a wide-eyed blink.

"I apologise," said Jason. "It was far from my best performance."

"What are you on about?" said Olivia. "You just played The Fury of Starlight without sheet music after playing it like once two minutes ago in the last few months and you want to try and tell me that wasn't good enough?"

"It wasn't."

Olivia exhaled. "Okay. Well, what's the next one?"

The the next ten minutes, they worked their way from one piece to the next. Olivia knew most of them and hummed along, helping him keep the rhythm alive when he faltered on a note and lost it. With her as his base, he pushed through to the end of each song, but with every mistake, he felt like he'd failed her. He was embarrassed that he needed her help to keep himself on track.

"That one was pretty good for a first run through," she said. When Jason didn't reply, instead turning his attention to the strings of his violin, she pursed her lips together. "Okay, how about you have a break from that for a minute? Play something else."

Jason pressed his lips together and forced himself to keep himself together. Lunch was nearly over. His practice session before his mother arrived was nearly done. "As you wish. The next piece is--"

"No, I mean play anything," said Olivia. "Freestyle for a minute. Give yourself a break from trying to get it perfect and just play whatever you feel like. Let it out."

"Like what?"

Olivia sucked on her bottom lip, her eyes off wandering across the roof. "I dunno. What about that piece you were playing yesterday? I didn't recognise that as a temple piece."

"I have to practice the others for my mother."

"You're getting frustrated with those, though," said Olivia. Her eyes came back to rest on him. "Aaand, correct me if I'm wrong, but you don't breathe when you're playing those. Don't get me wrong, you're really good at playing them, but you don't enjoy them. Not like you seemed to be enjoying the one from yesterday, anyway."

"You're rather pushy, has anyone ever told you?"

"They have indeed!" said Olivia, winking at him. "So, you gonna play that song for me, orrr?"

For a moment, Jason went to lift the violin before he caught himself. "I should continue to practice the other pieces while I still have time remaining to me."

Olivia pushed herself off the table as if he hadn't said anything and walked around the side of him. "It's been driving me absolutely nuts trying to remember that song, y'no. I think it went something like..."

She hummed the first few bars. They weren't quite the same variation he'd been playing, but then again, he was surprised she could get that close at all considering he'd been making it up as he went.

Jason followed her with his body as she strode around him, her steps turning long and graceful, like her body was falling into line with the melody.

She kept moving, claiming a space a few metres away from him with a tentative twirl, one arm raised above her body. Her eyes were closed, her hair flowing around her, brushing against her waist in a mesmerising kind of way that had his bow across his violin before he could stop it.

The first few notes he played were a harmony to her voice as he tried to find her in the song, yet it didn't feel right. The song that had come to him so easily yesterday, the song that had burned through him like fire and smoke was ashes on his violin. He couldn't feel it.

Abruptly, he changed the song, following some instinct that tugged at him. The song Olivia had hummed gave way easily into this new song, one that he didn't play often, one that only found him when he was alone and cold in his room, pouring his soul out onto the strings.

Olivia didn't open her eyes as she swayed on the spot, her fingers lifting up at her sides, following some invisible pattern like she was reading the notes from something tangible. Her heels lifted from the floor, one foot stepping before the other as her weight shifted forward, then back, rocking the rest of her in a gentle roll.

With his eyes on her, Jason found his song melting to match her fluid movements. It started slowly, a glacier afraid to budge under a rare glimpse of sunlight. Little by little, the sunlight touched it, moved it, changed it. Olivia twirled, her voice rising up with her arms to meet his violin in a perfect harmony.

His music made her spin and twirl and bring her arms through the hair and balance on one leg, only to fall and dip low, sweeping her fingers across the ground like she was running them through the first trickle of water in a glacial stream. Her voice was the undercurrent beside his melody, rising and falling with him, always there, always ready to support him.

This... this right now was what he'd wanted yesterday when he'd watched her dance with Stefan.

Together, they lost themselves in the sound and the movement, and Jason couldn't look away. He'd never had a reason to open his eyes as he played before, but in Olivia, he watched his song come to life. His bow danced across the violin as she did across the floor until, towards the climax, Jason, in an extended note, invited her to join him as an equal.

Olivia's voice was so strong. It hit him right in the gut like nothing else ever had. She sang his melody like she'd known it her whole life. They hit the peak together and raced back down the other side on a whirl of staccato notes that weren't the same but melded together regardless. Olivia was a flurry of purple and blue and amber as her arms went wide and she twirled in a beautiful storm of sunlight.

They reached the bottom where all that was left for them was a final few notes, steady and slow. Olivia's voice fell back into harmony as Jason stretched them out across the strings, guiding her movement, his music lifting her arm towards the ceiling in farewell as her body followed it up, right to the ball of her foot. The sunlight streaming in through the window behind her cast her long, graceful shadow over him, the silhouette of her reaching hand laid over his.

When Jason drew the final note, the image was forever burned into his mind by her fire as silence fell once more.

Olivia held alone for a moment longer, her heaving chest so at odds with the rest of her perfect balance before she dropped her arm back to her sides and sucked on her bottom lip. She glanced around, the elegance that had carried her through the music replaced by an awkward smile, like she wasn't quite sure what to do.

"I never know what to do when a song like finishes," she murmured, rubbing the right side of her face. "And don't think I didn't notice that wasn't the one from yesterday, either."

"I know. I'm sorry."

Olivia sat down on the ground where she stood, her gaze turning glassy, her voice dreamy. "Don't be sorry. I think... I liked that one better."

Jason placed his violin down on the table beside Sae's ear cuff and sat down beside her, taking her right hand away from the side of her face with his. Her glassy-eyed stare focused on him for an instant, and a few seconds later, she blacked out.

Jason kept her upright with his other hand on the back of her neck. He found himself trailing his eyes over every piece of hair that covered her face, noting the small scar under her left eye, right on the cheekbone. He had the strangest urge to brush his finger over it and was immediately glad that both his hands were occupied.

"Was that the Shadowheart girl I heard singing?"

Jason glanced up to find his mother crossing the room, her attention locked on him and Olivia. Cold shot through him, but he tightened his fingers on Olivia's hand and met his mother's gaze. "It was. Why?"

"I'd heard she could sing. I didn't realise precisely how well." Aurelia nodded her head and stopped just short of him, right beside the table. "What's wrong with her?"

"She was dancing, and she blacked out."

Aurelia looked down her nose, her lips working at their corners in thought. Her eyes flicked to his newly acquired ponytail more than once as the seconds ticked by. "Does she require anything?"

"No. She'll wake up shortly."

"Does it happen often?"

Jason felt Olivia's fingers twitch in his hand. He glanced back towards her, but she hadn't yet woken. "You'll be able to ask her yourself in a few moments, mother."

Aurelia didn't answer that, instead striding over to her desk at the head of the room to begin organising various papers. Jason kept flicking his gaze between her and Olivia, expecting the usual lecture to begin at any moment. He knew it was coming. He'd rather it be now rather than later.

Not long after, Olivia's hand squeezed his for the briefest of moments as she came to. Her eyelids flickered open, a frown creasing her face in unusual places. She blinked away the confusion one piece at a time, her grip on his hand tight, like he was her tether back from wherever the seizures took her.

"Welcome back, Shadowheart."

"Thanks, Frostsong," Olivia murmured, her left hand going up to rub her head as Jason helped her sit up. Her shoulders drooped with fatigue. "That was probably the most worth it blackout I've had in awhile."

"I'm glad to hear it," said Jason with a quiet smile.

Olivia gave him a tired smile back before she turned her attention outwards, towards the sound of his mother rustling around at her desk. "When did she get here?"

"About the same time you blacked out."

"Lucky me," muttered Olivia. She released Jason's hand and stretched her arms out in front of her before louder, she said, "I might just go sit in the chair for a while and recover while you two have your meeting. Let me know if you need anything."

Jason helped her stand up, ensuring she was steady before he released her hand entirely. Olivia thanked him and sat down at the chair in front of where she'd placed her notebook on the table. She flicked it open to where she'd been, and Jason got his first good look at what she was doing... which... was... what, exactly?

He stared at the notebook for a few seconds longer than was generally polite trying to work out exactly what Olivia's goal had been with these notes. If he'd had to guess, it looked like busywork for the sake of it. If she hadn't had an actual task to complete, he'd have thought she'd just take a nap instead.

"Jason?" called his mother from her desk. "When you're ready, I'd like to begin the discussion about the new pieces. Bring your violin, don't mind the headset."

"Yes, mother," said Jason.

He took a step towards her, violin and bow in hand, before he remembered that he'd taken off Sae's ear cuff for the headset before. He turned back and reached out for it.

Sae's ear cuff was gone.

*+*+*+*

A/N - YOU'VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR THE FIRST TIME THEY'D DANCE/PLAY TOGETHER. HERE'S HOPING IT LIVES UP TO EXPECTATIONS. THIS SCENE HAS BEEN PIVOTAL FOR SO LONG AND ITS F I N A L L Y H E R E™

ALSO MR. SASSY ICEBURD WHERE DID YOU GO 

Art by Kiba~  not entirely detail-accurate since she drew it aaaaaaaaages ago when I first wrote a not-legit scene for this moment when it was KILLING me not to write BUT ITS STILL PERFECT AND I LOVE IT TO PIECES.