Empire - The Next Step

a day full to the brim with drama

The day had arrived that A Troupe were set to record their qualifier video. Everyone was nervous. They were all doing a bit of last minute preparation and Daniel and West had asked if they could see Harper and Noah's partnering section. Things were a little tense because Noah had a huge fallout with Jacquie over some choreo he asked her to do and Harper was still frustrated that he brushed her off instead of helping her the day before.

"Okay guys, it's good. I feel like there needs to be a little more connection." West critiqued them and Harper couldn't agree more but she felt like she was on such a different wavelength to Noah, it was impossible.

"Yeah just keep working on it, try to keep the eye contact." Daniel added as the two of them walked away to look at other sections of the dance.

"Okay should we try it again?" Noah suggested and Harper was silent for moment, he clearly didn't realise she was upset about anything.

"If you've got time." She muttered underneath her breath he place a hand on her waist to lift her. She went to jump but Noah kept her grounded down on the floor. "Aren't we gonna do it?" Harper asked impatiently with a slight roll of her eyes as she waited for Noah to lift her.

"No, we need to talk about this tension or whatever's happening here. Why are you so mad at me?" Noah asked as Harper took a step away from him to create some distance between them. She sighed and crossed her arms over before looking up to him with an exasperated expression.

"I get that this must be really stressful for you, but I missed so much dance this week and all I asked was for you to help me with the choreo, but you completely brushed me off." She vented to Noah who, as it appeared, had only just realised how rude he had been the previous day.

"Harper I'm so sorry, I didn't realise that I was neglecting you and you totally didn't deserve that. I can't imagine how stressful it must have been for you to learn the dance in one day." Noah apologised as he took Harper's hand in his own. She still wasn't entirely sure what they should consider each other. Were the friends? Were they more than friends? She just didn't know, but she did appreciate his apology.

"Thanks Noah, but we should really get this done so it's perfect for later." Noah agreed with her despite looking like he needed to say something more. They definitely hadn't sorted out all of their issues, but the two of them were on good enough terms to partner well together.

After everyone had rehearsed for another hour or so, it was finally time to go to the venue. Everyone was ready in their costumes and all wished each other a brief goodbye before they went their separate ways to get to the opera house where they were shooting.

"Hey Michelle, ready to go?" The blonde asked her sister as she peered round the corner of the entrance to her office. Michelle nodded and the two of them headed off to the venue.

One the way there, a constant thought kept running through Harper's mind. What was going on with Richelle? They never lied to each other so it was really strange for her to be acting so weird. Something was definitely wrong, but Harper didn't want to upset her before the video so she made sure to ask Richelle after the video was filmed.

Everyone got nice and warm and stretched so they were all ready and raring to go for the video. It had been a tough year as Harper's first on A Troupe, but she wouldn't trade it for anything.

Emily called for them all to get in their starting positions and Harper instantly felt the nerves kick in. As the music began to play, all her nerves transformed into adrenaline and dancing with her team was the best feeling. It was luckily a one take wonder so they didn't have to record their video for a second time, and quite frankly they didn't have the time, so everyone celebrated together but Harper noticed something. Richelle wasn't with everyone.

The blonde rushed around looking for her best friend in a frantic manner. She didn't care about Michelle or Noah or anyone else in that moment, she knew Richelle was in trouble and she knew that she needed to help her. Harper rounded a corner where she saw Richelle sitting on a step massaging her hip with tears streaming down her face.

"Harper." The blonde whimpered as she winced in pain with every movement. Harper was in complete shock, she had never seen her best friend so vulnerable or in so much pain.

"Richelle what happened?" Harper asked as she sat beside Richelle with worry written across each on of her features. Richelle looked down guiltily, she knew it was a risk to dance but she could never imagine it would have ended this badly.

"I have snapping hip syndrome, the doctor said I had a fifty percent chance it wouldn't get any worse but something happened in that dance. I kicked and I felt this awful pain and I don't know what to do." The blonde cried as she leaned her head against Harper's shoulder.

"Okay don't worry, I'm gonna call your mom to come in and help me get you to the car and we'll go straight to the hospital." Harper didn't hesitate in calling Richelle's mother who instantly came inside to help them get to the car.

The whole journey to the hospital was silent, Harper was disappointed that Richelle lied about her injury but it really wasn't the time for that conversation. She received a text from Michelle who was worrying about where she was and replied that she had gotten a lift from Richelle's mother. It was Richelle's injury and that was not Harper's information to divulge even if she was Michelle's sister.

As Richelle was checked out by the doctor, he told them that she would be needing surgery for her hip right away and would need to spend several weeks after that recovering with physiotherapy and lots of rest. Harper received yet another text but this time it was from Noah. He was concerned about where herself and Richelle were but he also said that they had made it to regionals. Harper was ecstatic to be going to regionals for the first time ever, but she was also far too concerned for Richelle to even think about it.

She dreaded to think how Miss Kate would react because even if Michelle and Emily didn't know about Richelle's injury, it was under their watch that a dancer was badly injured. If one thing was certain, things at the next step were going to change drastically.

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a/n: well there's vol 2 all finished. that takes us to the end of season five and i hope you all enjoyed it. i really tried to highlight harper's relationship with other people like michelle and richelle not just noah so i hope that came across. also in the dance-a-thon chapter, harper, eldon and james are legit my brotp. they're too cute, "harpsichord" i can't. thank you so much for reading and i hope you continue to do so as we go into season six :)