It was an hour before the show was set to begin, the area behind the stage was in a state of flux as people went this way and that checking on a dozen things. The musicians were warming up in the orchestra pit and the actors were milling around, half in costume and half waiting so that the costumes would not suffer any ill-timed spills before the curtain opened.

Robyn was pacing nervously as the director, Mr. Balagan, spoke with her. "You took the medicine, Robyn?"

She nodded, turned and pace four steps in the other direction. "Yes, the doctor said it should keep me from blushing." Turn, pace, moving for the side of the stage to peek out at the rows of empty chairs. In another thirty minutes they would allow the people milling in the waiting area into the theater area and she would know if people were actually going to attend the opening.

One of the stagehands had already come to her with a bouquet of flowers, there was no card however so she was left wondering who it had been. She suspected it was her brother, he was a brat sometimes but he loved her and this was important to her and therefore he'd be here to lend support.

"You are going to be wonderful, Robyn. You are, by far, the strongest singer I have had the pleasure to work with." Mr. Belagan said as he reached out to wrap her in a hug, stilling her pacing for a moment.

This would have made her blush if not for the pill she'd taken, apparently it would work. That was good as a full body blush during the performance would be blinding to the audience considering how much of her flesh would be showing.

"Thank you, Mr. Belagan. I'll do my best."

"And that will bring the house down." He said, releasing her and hustling off to do all those small things that were on his list to make sure this production was the success he had pictured in his mind.

By the time he had gone five feet she was back to pacing....just one more hour and they'd know for sure.

Caroline and Humphrey certainly weren't the only Grangers in the theater. Somehow on her wanderings, Caroline had utterly failed to notice two familiar faces propping up the bar. Tali and Brynne were still laughing together over what they'd done to Tali's boyfriend just moments before skipping out through the door for the evening.

"I'm so gonna get it for siccing Lila on him for the evening," Tali cackled cheerfully. Nate had been a good sport about it, though - just the one curseword in their wake, and it had been aimed directly at his girlfriend.

"You wait, she'll have him so completely wrapped around her little finger by the time we get back that he'll try and think up ways to get babysitting duty for the next year," Brynne predicted. She wasn't laughing aloud - it wasn't her way - but there was a sparkle in her eyes that was usually missing in interactions with anyone but her sister. There was no way she could have avoided knowing about Robyn's opening night; Caroline had gotten her to arrange Humph's schedule so he'd be free.

"Just so long as he doesn't decide he wants to have kids, not a show," Tali grinned over the rim of her glass, downing what was left as the mingling crowd shifted around them. "Whaddya think, should we go and terrify the Old Man?"

Brynne's lips tightened into a startlingly mischievous smirk. "You know, I think we should," she agreed with a nod, rubbing a hand over her cropped hair as the two women turned to make their way toward the box where Caroline and Humphrey were already settled.

And still there was room in that box for a couple more. Just how many Grangers was Robyn going to come face to face with when the curtain rose"

"Ah, so that's what she's been up to." Shane sat back in his leatherbound chair, looking at the invitation that had been mixed in with the other mail that was stacked neatly in his in-box. There was a proud smile on his face as he thought about his sister. He always knew that she'd do something great.

It was the day of the premier. With a press of an intercom button, his schedule for the afternoon and evening had been cleared. It was a rare thing for Shane to miss a litigation or jury selection. So when his familiar voice sounded from the little box, "Samantha, clear my schedule from two in the afternoon until tomrorrow morning," the secretary looked stunned. She merely nodded in reply, as if Shane were in the same room.

"Hello?" Shane sounded amused, he could imagine Samantha's reaction.

"Oh, yes, I'll call the Stamfords and arrange for Bill to take over the jury selection. Is everything alright?" Samantha began to type, pulling up the electronic rolodex to prepare to make a few phone calls.

"Everything's fine," Shane chuckled. "Just make sure the Armani is cleaned and pressed. Also, wear that long, sleek black number. My sister doesn't have an opening night, every day."

The smile that lit up Samantha's young face was brilliant and she set to work, doing what she does best.

The afternoon and early evening flew by. Shane had personally seen to the dozen purple roses delivered to his sister's dressing room with a card signed in his own hand. "Knock 'em dead! Love you, Shane."

The Cadillac XTS was left in the hands of the valet as Shane escorted Samantha into the theater. He put on his best smile, and it was genuinely proud. They mingled with the throngs of people in the lobby, each with an elegant flute of the bubbly in hand. Shane kept his hand in the small of Samantha's back or in hers, when he wasn't shaking hands with past, present and future clients. At one point he spotted his cousins from across the room.

Then the lights flickered, signaling that the curtain was about to rise. Shane guided Samantha to and into the box that had been reserved for the Granger Clan. Waiting for Samantha to take her seat, he raised his glass and nodded a smile to his family before settling in to enjoy the show.

Leo wasn't sure if he had anything that would really fit the theater scene. Tweed, he supposed, if he wanted to come across as a crochety old professor. He kept glancing over his shoulder and into his closet again just to make sure he wasn't being watched or secretly laughed at for his indecision. A thought flickered through his mind. Maybe he should argue some more than he had important work to do and as much as he loved his cousin he just couldn't put off his work. Somehow, he thought, things would still end up exactly as they were.

Salem had a knack for convincing him to do things he wasn't entirely comfortable with doing. Like meeting with Caroline. He hadn't seen her in nearly a decade and all of a sudden she had a phone call and they were having lunch. Damn women, always knew how to get under your skin. With a sigh, he tugged out some clothes that didn't look like he'd stolen then from the lost and found, and hastily dressed himself.

Salem knew for certain Leo had clothes suitable for a trip to the theater purely because she had put them in his closet. In theory, she should have simply allowed him to continue working on setting up his new lab, but when the invitation came for him to actually make an effort and engage with his family in a structured social environment, she'd decided he was going, whether he liked it or not. He hadn't even been able to tell her who Robyn was, but she was still making him go.

Leaning in the doorway, she was watching the absent-minded professor with a smirk, not entirely sure she trusted him not to run for the hills. "It's just a few hours with your family, doc," she reminded him for the umpteenth time, flicking an invisible bit of lint from the skirt of her blue dress. "It isn't going to kill you."

"It just might. What if someone is horribly ill and I catch it and die" My work will be lost in time forever," he replied with a dramatic sigh and a slump of his shoulders. "I almost think you want that to happen. You're sabotaging me and using your womanly wiles to do it. My enemies are very smart if that is the case and I admit my defeat. Let us go to my execu-I mean the theater."

"Oh, come on, this is your chance to show off your work," she argued laughingly, crooking a finger in no uncertain terms for him to join her as she straightened and turned to make her way toward the door. "I'll even take my leg off if you want me to." Which would be an unnerving thing for anyone to see, especially when going to see a show about man and monster. There was no clue anywhere on Salem to say what was real and what was not.

"No ....things will be awkward enough without you removing all of your limbs, thank you very much." He shook his head as he turned to follow her out with one last sigh. Leo was certainly in a long night. "What are we even going to see?"

She pulled the tickets from her clutch, studying them for a moment as the door clicked shut behind them. "Jekyll & Hyde," she told him, flashing the reluctant man a grin. "Should be right up your street, it's all about obsession and medical advances, right?" She laughed, hooking her arm through his whether he wanted it or not as they gained the street. The theater wasn't too far away from where Leo lived, so they were walking, leaving her bike where it sat on the road. "You don't have to enjoy the show, you just gotta be nice to your cousin who's in the show."

"I can be nice without going to the show," he complained as she all but dragged him down the street. "Really, I don't need to go and see it to be nice. I was nice to Caroline when I went to meet her and that didn't involve seeing any show or putting on these stiff clothes and getting dragged down the street."

"All right, so it gets you out of that damned lab for a night, too," Salem laughed, rolling her eyes. "It'll be good for you, stop complaining."

"Stop complaining" But, Salem! Complaining is all I do. If I were to say I had any talent at all, it would be the ability to complain about anything and everything until the world ran out of air for me to breathe. Asking me to stop complaining is like asking the sun to stop shining or asking water not to be so wet."

At the corner of the block where the theater was located, she decided she'd had enough. Coming to a halt, Salem turned, grasped Leo's lapels firmly in her hands, and planted on him one of the kisses he'd purported to wish she'd never hand out again, since they tended to leave him speechless and a little like putty in her hands.

When they stopped, a brief glimmer of hope flashed in his eyes. Maybe he'd won her over and they would be - oh. No. That's not what was happening. Not at all. It didn't take long before he sighed and felt the will to resist her be stripped away. "Well ....I mean. I uh, I suppose it wouldn't hurt just the one time. You know, for family and uh ....yes," he stammered after breaking from that kiss, clearing his throat in some attempt to salvage his dignity.

She smiled, very secure in her ability to change his mind even if he was determined to be an ass. "It's just for a couple of hours," she reminded him in a quiet voice, smoothing his lapels and taking his arm again, drawing him through the doors and into the theater. Who knew? Maybe with a couple more kisses like that, he might actually manage to make small talk with his family before escaping.

With a stupid grin and a dumb nod, Leo let her cart him off into the theater without another word of complaint. Likely he'd be damning her when it was all over, but for the time being she had won his cooperation.

They were late, of course. Led up to the boxes by a grinning usher, Salem pushed Leo into the darkened little seating space first, urging him to whisper his hellos as the opening number played on stage. She had no idea who she was looking at, or how many of the people in this box were actually Grangers, but then, it didn't really matter. Thanks to Robyn, Doctor Leonel Granger was socialising with his family for the first time in years.