AN: Only one chapter left after this, okay?

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Graham was upset that Cressida couldn't be backstage with him.

"I need you there," he said, his voice urgent.

"I'll be there, just out front with Andrea," Cressida said, quite reasonably, she thought. "Besides, you'll have Saint Cecilia with you, you're good."

They were having this discussion in bed the night before the competition.

"She's dead and gone, I need you," he repeated, holding her close as they lay together.

"And you're not going to think about—about the other thing, right?" Cressida prompted. "Not tomorrow, anyway. We'll talk more about it next week. We can't schedule anything before then anyway."

"I'll try," he promised. This was going to be difficult for Graham, as he thought of Cressida constantly, and every time he saw her, he could tell she didn't feel well. He kissed her, gently, and she kissed him back, allowing this contact.

"I love you, Cress," he murmured, kissing her again and again.

"I love you, too. Now try to get some sleep."

She could tell by his breathing when he fell asleep. She turned in his arms so she could see his face in the semidarkness. Even in sleep, he looked stern and suspicious, stormy and upset. She hoped he wouldn't have any nightmares, tonight of all nights.

Sleep eluded her for quite a while that night. She briefly considered getting out of bed to watch TV or something, but he still held her, leg over hers, arms crossed on her back, so she decided not to bother. Instead, she put her arms around his neck and buried her face in his chest. She loved feeling overwhelmed by his body, of being surrounded by him.

She finally drifted off, and was still in deep sleep when the watery winter sunlight awakened Graham. He considered waking Cress, but could tell that she was exhausted and needed the sleep. He knew she'd been wide awake last night when he fell asleep. Who knew how she was feeling, physically, as well as emotionally?

He disentangled himself from her and pressed a kiss to her forehead before heading off to the shower. When he emerged, twenty minutes later, she hadn't twitched.

Graham got dressed as quietly as he could, looking at his suit, hanging on the back of the bathroom door. He'd never felt so tormented about a performance before. Did he want to win? Of course he did, right?

But he didn't want to leave Cress for an entire year, did he?

No, he did not. In fact, with the way things stood between them, he didn't even know if their relationship would survive a year apart. He knew that Cressida was still skittish about him and his ability to commit; who knew what twelve months away from each other would do?

He needed to think of it in terms of choices, he decided. More choices was always better, right? If he won the competition, he'd have more choices; conversely, if he lost, a choice would be taken away, therefore winning was better.

Good, that was decided, then.

But if the choice was taken out of his hands, that might not be a bad thing, either. No choice to be made, just being with Cress forever and ever, amen.

Cress sighed in her sleep and turned over, snuggling into the down comforter, looking so good he was tempted to get back in bed with her. But Graham knew that doing that would only make him want to do things, things that she wasn't ready to do yet.

He made himself a cup of coffee and sat looking at the music for the Rach 2 as he drank it. By now he had the entire thing memorized, of course, and could figure out what part of the piece it was on a measure by measure basis, but he liked to look through the music the day of.

Cress finally woke up, blinking eyes still blurry with sleep as she stretched luxuriously under the comforter. "Good morning," she said, smiling at him.

"Good morning, Sweetiecie," Graham answered.

"You ready for today?"

"As ready as I'll ever be."

"You want me to make you some breakfast?"

Graham shook his head. "I'm too nervous to eat. I'll eat tonight, after. No matter what happens, we should plan to go out tonight and grab something, okay? It gives me something to look forward to, to think about, beyond the competition."

Cressida nodded.

"When do you head over there?" she asked, sitting up in bed.

"I'm first to rehearse with the orchestra, so I need to be there by eleven. We'll find out the performance order after we get there, and it starts at five, so I won't really have time to come home in between or anything, okay?"

Cressida nodded, looking unspeakably lovely as she sat on the edge of the bed.

Graham sat quietly on the sofa, looking through the music, all morning, thinking himself into the right headspace to perform. Cressida left him alone, taking a shower and making herself tea and breakfast, just basically puttering around and trying not to distract him in any way.

He left at ten to give himself plenty of time to get there, grabbing his suit in its zip up garment bag, along with the sheet music, which he didn't need.

Cressida kissed him goodbye at the door, leaning into him for a long time. "You're going to do great," she predicted.

"Let's hope so," he responded.

He walked quickly to the subway, garment bag in hand, his breath leaving little puffs in front of his face. He found it amazing that people were just walking, riding, living, on such a momentous day as this was for him. Didn't they know how fraught the day was going to be?

Apparently not.

He got off the subway and emerged back at street level to walk the last few blocks to Hamilton, taking deep breaths of the frigid air and thinking about the Rachmaninov. His only goal was to convey what Rachmaninov intended when he wrote the piece; no more, no less.

The auditorium was already a hive of activity, the orchestra onstage, ready to receive him. They were all in street clothes, which helped him to relax a little bit. He quickly went to his dressing room and hung up his suit so he could get out onstage for his allotted rehearsal time.

He shook hands with Mr. Himmelman, the conductor, before sitting down at the piano. Graham had worked with him before, and was grateful he was to be the conductor; he had a deft touch with the baton that felt right to Graham.

"Okay, ready, Graham? I figure we can go once through, then go back and work on the areas we want, sound good to you?"

Graham nodded briefly, rubbing his hands down his denim clad thighs. This would be his first time playing it all the way through, in order, since the horrible night he'd faltered at Katherine's. He supposed he should be glad to get it out of the way before the actual performance.

He took a deep breath and played the first broken chords, rolling the powerful intro with his dextrous hands, the piano building until the strings came in, unable to resist the call of the keyboard. He felt carried by the music, borne away to a different plane. Everything else in his life fell away from him, all that had happened with the Professor, Katherine, even Cressida and their current problems, all melted away as he played, muscles moving powerfully in his upper body as he merged with Rachmaninov for this brief period.

The first movement over, they paused briefly before embarking on the melodic slow movement, setting the thematic elements for the third movement yet to come. Graham played much of it with his eyes closed, leaning away from the keyboard, right leg extended to work the pedal. He moved his head as the melody moved through him, as powerful as any emotion he'd ever known.

He barely felt the pause between the second and third movement, though he did remove his hands from the keyboard and wipe them on his thighs again. He looked up at Mr. Himmelman before placing his hands, but the moment was interrupted by Professor Thurman.

Mr. Himmelman and Graham both looked toward the sound of her voice. "I think you need to do that again before moving on, it felt draggy, too slow in the second half, don't you think, Arthur?"
Mr. Himmelman nodded, explaining that they'd wanted to play through once before going back to work on specific areas. "I made a notation myself that it felt slow. We can work on it now, before the third movement, if you like?"

Professor Thurman, who was in charge of the competition, nodded. "I think that would be best."
So much for playing it all the way through before the competition.

They went back to where the tempo did seem to lag. Then Graham commented that the bass elements seemed a little loud, and they worked on that, everyone making the appropriate notations on their music.

Then they had time to go through the third movement once, and his rehearsal time was over, it was time for the next contestant to have their turn.

"Thank you, Mr. Himmelman," Graham said, shaking his hand before leaving the stage. He nodded thanks to the first violinist and headed for his dressing room. He debated going to a practice room to work on it some more, but fell asleep on the sofa instead, which was useful in its own way.

He wandered out to the hallway a couple hours later to see where they'd posted the performance order, and saw that he was last, which was both good and bad; good because if his performance was good, it would be fresh in the minds of the judges, but bad because if he made any errors, those would be fresh in their minds also.

He could hear the buzzing and whispering sounds that indicated that the house was open, and wondered if Cress was there yet. He desperately wanted to see her, but of course he wasn't allowed out front after the audience was let in.

There was a knock on the door. "Thirty minutes to curtain, Graham."

"Okay, thanks." He got his suit down and changed clothes. Before he tucked the Saint Cecilia medal inside his shirt, he kissed it, thinking of Cress.

The stage mic was on, so Graham could hear the other performers without leaving his dressing room; the first two contestants performed concertos by Scriabn and Liszt, respectively, and both sounded formidable. The applause from the audience was robust and heartfelt, he could tell.

Then came intermission, which gave Graham time to go to the bathroom and get sick, though there wasn't really anything to come up, since he hadn't eaten anything that day. He still knelt in front of the commode, just in case, feeling secure for having gone through the motions.

The third contestant played Mozart, and again, played it flawlessly to Graham's ear. He went to the wings at the beginning of the third movement so he'd be ready, and watched the woman, Ullrike Something, play, leaning forward over the keyboard, with lots of fancy lifting and placing of her hands.

Graham wasn't much for flourishes like this, preferring to keep his hands close to the keyboard with an economy of movement.

Ms. Something finished in a dazzling whirl of keystrokes to tumultuous applause and rose to bow to the audience before embracing both Mr Himmelman and the first violinist. She bowed again and again, even returning to the stage once after she'd exited because the applause went on and on.

"Good luck, Mr. Stevens," she said as she passed him, evening gown swishing.

And he was up, just like that.

He went out and shook hands with Mr. Himmelman and the first violinist, very proper, before sitting at the bench and adjusting it to meet the length of his legs. He nodded at Mr. Himmelman, indicating he was ready to begin, and thought fleetingly of Cress, wondering how he looked to her.

He looked at the keyboard, his mind a complete blank. This had been a mistake. He couldn't do it, couldn't.

He placed his hands with no idea of what he was going to play and heard the first, quiet chords as though they were being played by someone else. He felt the music rise up to meet him, felt it carrying him, and knew that this would be the best he'd ever played, if he could get passed the point in the third movement where he'd faltered.

He had no memory of his performance at all, not even of the brief intervals between the movements, though he knew he must've adjusted his bench at some point, for it was in a different position when he finished.

He felt himself coming back to earth when he heard the applause from the audience, a grand, crashing sound, almost a continuation of the music. He rose and bowed, feeling stricken, too full of upheaval to even think of looking for Cressida in the sea of faces.

He turned and shook hands with Mr. Himmelman and the first violinist and exited the stage. He, too, had to return to the stage and acknowledge the applause, because it went on and on and on, and this time, he did see Cress, eyes shining with tears, as she stood and clapped for him.

Now came the waiting, possibly for up to as long as an hour, while the judges conferred, though they were supposed to have been filling out scoring rubrics as each contestant performed, so it should merely be a matter of comparing sheets of paper?

Graham and the other contestants waited in the wings. Everyone was too tense to go back to their dressing rooms. They all congratulated each other, and there was much handshaking all around.

Graham had just finished draining his second bottle of water when he turned around and Cressida was there, looking like a princess in a pink A-line dress and matching heels.

"Oh, Graham, you were amazing!" She threw her arms around him. "You must've won, I'm sure of it!"

"No, don't say that, don't say that," he implored, hugging her back. "There's no way to know, everyone was incredible." He gestured to the other contestants, who were standing near him.

Then the judges were coming back, and Cressida had to hurry back to her seat.

They handed a piece of paper to Professor Thurman, who would make the announcement.

"To all gathered here, I'm proud to announce that the winner of this year's deClerq competition is Graham Stevens, of our own Hamilton Academy."

He'd done it. He'd won.