See, this is what happens whenever I pace out an ending! I realize I've got only THREE PARTS (two after this) to fit everything in and suddenly I'm posting 10 pages at a time!

*grumbles at under-estimating self*

Rating: NC-17
Pairing: MR/TW
Summary: AU. Trapped somewhere between angst and humour.
A/N: Never happened. Except the tiny bits that did, and those have been completely turned to my own purposes. Also, thanks to black_siren for finding Tom's plush doppelganger. Feedback is like hugging a bearista.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Part 11
Part 12


“What are you doing?” Michael asks, and the shift supervisor looks up from her armful of stuffed Starbucks marketing gimmicks.

“Hugging the bearistas,” she says, as though this is perfectly normal behavior for an adult.

“Okay,” says Michael, drawing out the word. “Why?” It’s not even light out, they haven’t opened yet, and Michael’s feeling decidedly impatient with humanity already. This isn’t helping.

“They need love,” she answers, and deposits the armful of bears back in the basket. She extricates one and holds it out. “Try it.”

“No one man can contain enough gay to do that,” answers Michael evenly, and she laughs before replacing the bear and going behind the counter to attend to the pastry display case. Michael resumes his own task -- arranging chairs around the tables -- with brutal efficiency. He’s oddly aware of himself today, of his existence and of the space he occupies. He notices things that are ordinary and yet strange: the shape of his wrist bones, the mottled colour of the tiles, the empty hissing sound of the store before the music is turned on.

Michael’s startled to find himself here, he realizes. Like the past five years have been some kind of extended strange dream and he should be waking up any second now. But waking up to what? To his old life full of producers and agents and contracts? It’s surprisingly distasteful -- but when Michael thinks about it, he’s aware that it’s been some time since that old life felt like it was his by right. Yet there’s this paralyzing sense of loss, and it makes no sense when, if anything, he should be rejoicing that he’s finally done what the head injury recovery therapist urged him to do: “Accept that you’re a different person now and move on.”

Five years of not accepting anything but the certain deadly knowledge that no one could find out what happened. Not his family, not his agent, not his best friends. Not any of the guys and girls he’s fucked and romanced since. Not any co-workers, not any customers or managers. And most of all, hugest of all -- not Tom. Because to have any chance at all with Tom, Michael can’t be anything but the kind of guy Tom deserves -- sleek and funny and sexy and not fucking *brain-damaged*.

But Tom knows. Tom can’t help but know. Tom’s the one who found Michael, who salvaged him. That’s how Tom first saw Michael: bleeding and incoherent, hurt and terrified. And if Tom saw that, then -- then what Michael’s really lost is any chance of being normal again. Tom sees how broken Michael is, and Michael really *really* can’t handle that thought.

“See? Told you!” The shift supervisor’s voice interrupts Michael’s spiral of panicky thoughts, and he blinks back into the present to find himself with both arms wrapped around a Starbucks bear, squeezing the hell out of it.

Startled, Michael loosens his embrace and holds the bear at arms length to study it. The bear’s wearing khakis, a t-shirt, a gray hoodie, and a baseball cap. It’s practically a bear version of Tom.

“I won’t tell anyone,” says his shift supervisor, elbowing him playfully. “Come on, there’s still lots to do.”

Michael watches his hands while they work. This has got to be a dream.

***

His cell phone plays the Imperial March from Star Wars, which Michael chose because he thought that’s what he would have liked before. When he tries to summon a current opinion -- here and now, Rosenbaum -- he only comes up with indifference.

The area code isn’t local, so Michael answers unthinkingly, knowing that it’s not Tom. “Hello?”

“Rosenbaum!” Ian’s voice is so high-pitched it’s practically squealing. Michael pulls the phone away from his ear reflexively and steps around a group of people waiting at a bus stop.

“Look, I know I haven’t --” begins Michael defensively.

“I thought we had a deal!” explodes Ian. “You little sneaking piece of shit, we had a deal!”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Michael bites into the phone, thoroughly confused.

“What am I talking about? I’m talking about getting this fucking smarmy e-mail this morning from fucking Greg Beeman of all people, raving about what a fucking huge talent you are and how come I never plugged you as a writer?”

“Who the fuck is Greg Beeman?” asks Michael, genuinely baffled.

“Who the --” Ian repeats bitterly. “Don’t play dumb with me, Rosey, I’ve been representing you too long to fall for that bullshit.”

“You haven’t represented me for five years!” Michael points out, getting angry simply from the tone of Ian’s voice.

“Oh, it’s gonna be like that, is it? Fine! Fucking *fine*!” shouts Ian, and hangs up.

Michael snaps his phone shut and stops in the middle of the sidewalk, staring at the blinking LED in dismay. He’s not sure how or why, but he’s pretty certain he’s somehow managed to piss Ian off on a colossal scale.

The Imperial March sounds again while Michael’s still standing there staring, and he answers automatically, noting the 604 area code -- Vancouver. “Yeah?” he says, stunned.

“Uh, hi, could I speak to Michael Rosenbaum please?” The caller is unfamiliar, but the cadence of speech is hasty, clipped, and American.

“Yeah,” says Michael, swiveling to accommodate other pedestrians passing him, and finally stepping off the sidewalk onto the grass. He rubs a hand through his hair and breathes out. “Yeah, you got him.”

“Michael? Oh, sweet, I was hoping you’d answer. My name is Greg Beeman, I’m a director on Smallville. Look, Michael, I understand you’re friends with Tom Welling?”

Friends? They were? “Yeah, I know Tom,” agrees Michael. What the hell is going on?

“Great,” enthuses Beeman, like this is some sort of breakthrough. “Yeah, Michael, he showed me your script.”

Oh.

*Oh*.

“It’s just --” Beeman pauses, like he can’t quite find the words. “Look, Michael, I love this stuff. You’re pretty goddamn funny, you know that?”

Tom showed the script to this guy? Tom read the script? “I -- uh. Thank you!”

“Hey, are you busy tonight? Could you come down and we could maybe grab dinner and talk about it?”

“Talk about it?” Michael repeats stupidly. About what? About Tom?

“It’s early days, Michael, but I have some friends at Fox and they’d eat this up, I’m telling you. If we can just get together and hammer out some details, I’d love to work with you on this pitch.”

A network pitch. A network pitch of Michael’s show. Suddenly Michael can barely breathe, and all thoughts of Tom evaporate. He turns around, looking for someone to high five and has to slap a tree trunk instead because, yeah, he’s alone in the middle of the fucking street. “Uh, yeah,” he says hastily. “Look, Greg, I have more. Like, I have the pilot draft, if you want to see --”

“Yeah, yeah, bring it all,” says Beeman, and there’s shouting in the background. “Michael, I gotta go, my lighting director is ready -- but do you know where the set is?”

Beeman dictates some directions, making the assumption that Michael has a car, and Michael doesn’t correct him. They’re meeting at 7 p.m. while the actors and crew are on dinner break. Beeman talks so quickly and things have changed so abruptly that Michael’s almost dizzy by the time he hangs up.

He’s back.

***

There’s no time to think for the rest of the afternoon. Michael has to go home and get a shirt and pants express dry-cleaned, then he has to bus over to the local car rental outlet and max out his already strained credit card to get himself a car for the next week. He has to get to Kinko’s and get his pilot script properly formatted and bound. He gets a haircut after flirting his ass off with the male receptionist at the nearest salon, and then he has to head back to pick up his dry-cleaning, go home and change and jump back in the car because fuck, he’s going to be late and to top it all off, it’s still rush hour and the freeways are clogged with commuters.

He pulls into a gas station once he finally reaches his exit. Michael gave up smoking a few years back but this is a special occasion. He drives the rest of the way to the set alternately hanging his lit cigarette and his head out of the window of his non-smoking rental car.

Security gives him a suspicious once-over, but Michael looks Hollywood and he knows it. He’s even wearing his big-ass sunglasses like it’s California and not Canada. He explains that he has a meeting with Greg Beeman, the guard makes a call, and suddenly Michael’s getting ushered across a lot littered with trailers, lighting equipment, and harried-looking interns. The air smells like rain and wet sawdust and like home.

“They’re running behind,” says the intern assigned to Michael. “Do you wanna come and watch the last couple of takes?” Her grin says it all -- the kid still gets a huge kick out of simply being here, seeing a show come together.

“Ah,” stalls Michael. He hadn’t thought of this -- what if it’s Tom? Tom may have read the script and thought it was worth showing to his director, but that’s not the same thing as reconciliation. Tom’s absence from the store this morning speaks for itself. “What are they shooting?”

“It’s a scene with the Luthors,” says the intern, “on the mansion set. Have you ever seen John Glover work?”

“No,” says Michael, relieved. He knows how these things go -- by the fifth season of a show, if a lead isn’t actively shooting a scene, he won’t be caught dead near it. Tom’s safely in his trailer, guaranteed. Now Michael only has to hope that no one significant recognizes him as the guy Wentworth Miller was called in to replace.

They slip in past the doors with the sign - CLOSED SET - and emerge into the cable-strewn chaos of the area just off the set. There are the standard director-style chairs, simply emblazoned with the Smallville title logo. The intern waves Michael towards one but he shakes his head with a smile and continues to edge around the periphery of the set until he’s within view of the monitor. It looks like they’re doing coverage of the scene, mostly John Glover’s angle, but the two actors are in so tight that Wentworth has to stick around as a human prop instead of getting some intern to read his lines.

Glover is eerie on the monitor, the camera so very close that Michael feels like he’s larger than life even on the small screen. Television acting always seems overdone when viewed live because the nuances become so exaggerated. With Glover, it’s ten times more so.

The director -- Michael looks up with interest to see what Greg Beeman looks like -- calls cut and they move back for another take. The monitor flickers to Miller’s angle and Michael smirks because the guy is clearly seriously pissed off. “Beeman, what the hell?” he asks. “It’s already ten minutes over, let’s wrap the goddamn scene.”

“Somebody get this boy a donut!” shouts Beeman, and everyone laughs but Wentworth. They’re stopping to watch the last take on the monitors, so Michael impulsively seeks out the craft services table and puts a cruller on a plate for Wentworth. He ignores the halting orders from the intern, who’s trying to keep her charge under control, and walks right out to the set where Glover and Wentworth are waiting.

“No thanks,” says Wentworth dismissively, waving Michael and the donut away.

Michael arches an eyebrow and pushes the donut in Glover’s direction. No way Glover would remember him, so this is probably okay. Sure enough, Glover just smiles warmly and shakes his head before extending a hand in welcome. “Hi, I’m John,” he says.

Michael gives his first name and shakes Glover’s hand. “Just visiting,” he offers. “I’m a friend of Tom’s.” God, it’s so weird, because it feels like yesterday that he met Glover for the first time, and yet it’s as though it never happened.

“Okay, last take!” shouts Beeman. Michael beats a retreat, eating the cruller enroute. He hasn’t had a chance to eat since his shift that morning.

It’s actually three more takes and close to half past seven by the time Beeman lets everyone go for dinner. The intern finally gets a chance to unload Michael by introducing him to Beeman.

Greg is warm and talkative and he walks Michael off the set with his arm around Michael’s shoulders. He takes the script Michael’s carrying and flips through it while they get settled in the director’s trailer. “Did you take a course in screenwriting?” Beeman asks, clearly surprised by the formatting and binding.

“No,” admits Michael. “I just have a few friends in the business.”

Beeman shakes his head as though to reject this explanation. “You must have read a hell of a lot of scripts. This is practically ready to shoot.”

“Thanks,” says Michael, and jumps as the trailer door bangs open behind him. He turns and sees Tom poking his head inside. They lock eyes for the briefest of moments before Tom turns his attention to Beeman.

“Greg, when are we starting to shoot the scene tonight? No one came to tell me.” Tom drums his fingers on the doorway where he’s clutching it before tossing a casual, “Hey,” in Michael’s direction, like an afterthought.

“Hey,” Michael answers, but more warmly.

“Uhhh,” Beeman’s groaning, rubbing the heels of his hands into his eyes. “Can you get to make-up to get freshened up in half an hour?”

“Yeah, no problem,” answers Tom with a half-smile.

“You’re a good kid, Tommy,” Beeman calls after Tom’s retreating back. He looks at Michael again. “I love that guy.”

“Me too,” Michael answers reflexively, feeling his heart racing while he tries to maintain outward calm.

“Okay, so -- here are some of the thoughts I had,” says Beeman, and then there’s no more room for worrying about Tom because they have less than an hour to talk this thing through.

***

Afterwards, Greg tells Michael to come down to the set -- the barn loft this time -- and watch while they get the master. “It’s like a well-oiled machine at this point,” Beeman says, Michael following in his wake helplessly. “No surprises on the set of Smallville.” He flashes a grin at Michael. “Guess that’s why I’m ready to take on a new project. I must miss the insanity.”

They are suddenly in a barn, surrounded by hay bales and cameras, and at the eye of the TV hurricane is Tom Welling, orangey with make-up and looking intently at the rolled-up shooting script in his fist. He’s mouthing lines to himself, either memorizing still or trying to find a different spin on the words.

“Hey, Greg,” says Tom, not looking up but obviously sensing their arrival, “can I bug you about a line reading?” Greg bustles over and Michael subsides into a chair, taking in all the details accrued by a five-year-old television set. Someone’s carved initials into the banister of the stair rail, and there are several publicity photographs pinned to Clark’s bulletin board like they’re memorabilia. Tom himself is sitting on the set couch like it’s his own personal couch and not a dusty prop.

“Hi, I just need you to sign this statement,” says someone at Michael’s elbow and a moment later he’s promising in writing not to disclose any details of the episode they’re shooting. The intern looks at his signature, smiles, and bustles away.

Kristin Kreuk comes in next, clutching a mug in one hand and a pair of pumps in the other. She’s wearing big fuzzy slippers on her feet which will presumably be replaced by the pumps once they start shooting. She waves abstractedly at Tom and flops down onto the couch beside him, tucking her slippers up under her and sighing. She’s small and beautiful and young, but somehow much more grown-up than the last time Michael saw her, when they were running lines together for the pilot. He remembers being told that Lana might be a love interest for Lex later on in the series if the pilot got picked up, and remembers thinking he’d feel like an utter pedophile if that happened. It’s not much better now, but at least Kristin doesn’t look like a ninth-grader anymore.

“Okay!” shouts Beeman abruptly, and everyone looks up from their tasks. “We’re going to block the scene while we finish setting up, so quiet on the set please. Where’s Glen?”

Glen, seemingly the director of photography, appears so he and Greg can plan the shoot. It’s the sort of thing they’d normally do over dinner, Michael thinks, but as Greg said, this show practically runs itself. The flow of film vocabulary from everyone around them makes Michael both giddy and homesick, and he’s so distracted by remembering everything he used to know about this part of acting that at first he doesn’t hear the comment that comes from someone to his right.

“Pardon?” he says, blinking to attention and turning to see who’s standing beside him.

Oh, fuck.

It’s Kristin.

“I said, long time, no see!” she repeats with a smile. “God, Michael, what are you doing here?” She throws open her arms for a hug and Michael puts his arms around her in response. “I wouldn’t have recognized you except Amy saw your name on the release form and came to ask me if you were the same Michael Rosenbaum who was almost on the show.”

Amy -- oh. Of course, the eager young intern who is probably also some kind of annoying expert in Smallville trivia. Amy, apparently buddy-buddy with one of the series’ stars, or at least trying to be. Michael sees the culprit and glares at her, but Amy the intern’s too busy wiggling with glee to notice his annoyance.

“I had a meeting with Greg,” Michael manages, beginning to feel like this whole day has been one giant shock. “About -- we’re writing a pilot for Fox.”

“How do you know Greg?” asks Kristin, clear hazel eyes blinking. “He came on board after the pilot.”

“I -- well.” Now everyone’s looking this way, and unsurprisingly, because how often does a television star squeal and hug a random stranger watching the taping? “Tom introduced me.”

“Tom?” Kristin repeats, and fuck. Yes, Tom’s now paying attention too. Michael throws him a helpless glance, hoping Tom isn’t still so angry that he won’t help out a fellow actor in distress. But Tom just looks dumbstruck as Michael feels.

“Yeah, Tom,” Michael nods, waving a hand beseechingly. Tom understands this gesture, at least, and comes over to join them.

“You know Michael?” Tom asks Kristin, and fuck if this isn’t starting to feel like a Shakespearean comedy or maybe an Abbott and Costello routine. “How do you know Michael?”

“From the pilot,” Kristin says, as though this is blatantly obvious.

“You mean you’re going to be on his show?” Tom asks, glancing from one to the other, like he really doesn’t get it and --

Oh.

Tom really *doesn’t* get it. Tom still doesn’t know who Michael was, who he used to be before that night that Tom saved him. Michael’d assumed that Tom had figured it out, that he knew Michael used to be an actor.

But that was before Michael discovered that he and Tom really *had* met before, in a way. Tom didn’t recognize Michael from TV, he recognized him from the rescue five years ago -- and from then until now, no one had ever told Tom that Michael Rosenbaum was a name he should know.

Kristin’s answering Tom. “No -- I mean, when Michael was cast as Lex. God, I totally forgot about that.” She beams. “You look so great!”

“Lex?” Tom repeats.

“Where the hell are my actors?” bellows Beeman.

Michael just might start laughing hysterically, if he can only gather enough breath to do it.

“Wait, you’re an *actor*?” Tom asks, grabbing Michael by the arm.

“I *was* an actor,” Michael says.

“Tom, Kristin, let’s go!” Beeman shouts.

“You were supposed to be *Lex*?” Tom says, shaking his head as though to clear it.

“How do you know Michael, then?” Kristin asks, looking from Michael to Tom and back again.

“I thought you knew,” Michael manages weakly, because Tom’s grip is tightening and his eyes are snapping with emotion.

“How the hell could I know *that*? How the hell could I know any of it unless you bothered to *tell* me, Michael?” Tom exclaims angrily. “Do you have any other secrets you’d like to share while we’re having confessions?”

“Okay, what’s going on?” asks Beeman, breaking into their huddle.

Tom doesn’t falter, his gaze still trained on Michael. “I trusted you, and you’ve been lying to me this whole time.”

“I swear to god, I thought you knew,” Michael repeats urgently, stepping in closer. “Tom, you have to believe me, I didn’t know you were the one who --”

Tom lets go of Michael’s arm and turns away. “Sorry, Greg, let’s go.”

“What the hell was that all about?” Greg asks, concerned.

“I have no idea,” says Kristin when Tom and Michael don’t answer. Tom, in fact, is already over on the set, pacing and glaring down at his script again.

Michael wets his lips and exhales shakily. “Look, Greg, I have to motor. But I’ll call you, okay?”

“Yeah,” says Greg, watching Tom with concern, obviously figuring out that Tom and Michael are more than just buddies, or that they were. “Yeah, later.”

Michael smokes half a pack on the way back home. Fuck the cleaning deposit.