FicWad

For the next few days, Emily got a tour of Chicago and its surrounds. It was a completely different place from her hometown and most of the time she was amazed at all the new places she visited. Sarah couldn’t believe how excited Emily was over a frozen lake that they passed, nor at how no one could tear Emily’s eyes away from the enormous skyscrapers of Chicago. Emily was just in plain awe of all these different things she wasn’t used to. After one particular day where they had visited many attractions, Emily, Sarah, Greg and Liz were on their way home when Emily noticed a few posters by the side of the road. They pulled up and Sarah got out of the car to grab one. After a few minutes of carefully removing the poster, she was back in the car again and Emily and her were examining the poster. It was an advertisement for the upcoming Fall Out Boy shows. Upon seeing this poster, both girls came to fully realize that they were truly meeting the guys. This set off a wave of excitement through Sarah once again. As Emily listened to all of Sarah’s plans to make Pete fall in love with her, she couldn’t help but think that Sarah was well and truly going to freak out in front of Fall Out Boy and that she’d most probably faint too! Emily didn’t know how to calm Sarah down about the event and she also had no idea how to make her realize that they were normal people after all. All Emily could do was sit back, listen to Sarah and hope that she didn’t completely embarrass herself, or the both of them for that matter, in front of the guys.

Finally after all of the sightseeing and a few more days of work for Emily, the day came for the opening Fall Out Boy show. Emily was sticking some pictures of her family on the wall next to her bed when suddenly Sarah came rushing up to her.
“What do I wear?” Sarah asked wide eyed at Emily, “I mean, what looks good on me?”
Emily sighed and put her pictures down. She had known that this was going to happen, that she would have to go through an hour or so of watching Sarah try on all kinds of outfits. She didn’t understand why Sarah couldn’t just wear what she was wearing now. It looked perfectly fine. Unfortunately Emily said this to Sarah which started another panic. “I can’t wear this!” Sarah protested, “God, as if Pete would notice me in this.”
Emily managed to stifle a chuckle, would Pete really be noticing a girl that just happened to be backstage? Was there a chance that Sarah really could impress him? For her friend’s sake, Emily hoped the latter and decided to help her with it.
“Okay, let’s see what you have,” Emily said getting up and walking to Sarah’s wardrobe. She rummaged through it until she found some clothes that looked like they would suit Sarah perfectly. She handed them over to Sarah and she gladly put them on. Emily sat back down and watched Sarah looking at herself in the mirror. Finally Sarah turned around, “It’s perfect,” she said, “Now can you do my hair?”
Emily didn’t argue, she just grabbed the hairbrush.

After Sarah and Emily had got ready, they headed out to the car with Greg and began driving to The Metro. In the car, Sarah seemed to be getting way more nervous then excited and Emily was getting a little worried about her. She just wanted her to calm down a little! They reached the music venue and got out of the car. Sarah followed Emily and Greg backstage. “Do you think they’re here yet?” Sarah asked looking around for any sign of Fall Out Boy.
Greg turned around to his daughter, “They won’t be here for at least another hour sweetie. Now you have to calm down.”
“I’m calm!” Sarah exclaimed as Greg turned around again. Emily gave her a hug.
“Come on Sarah, why don’t you help us with work while you wait for them?” Emily asked her.
“I can’t concentrate Em. No way.”
Emily shook her head and continued to follow Greg down the corridor.
Finally they reached the stage and Emily and Greg set about doing the jobs they had to do. Sarah sat and watched them and every now and then, Emily would see her and notice she would be fidgeting. Emily really didn’t understand the nerves at all. Perhaps that was because she didn’t like any of the members of Fall Out Boy the way Sarah did. She didn’t have a crush on Pete nor have any sort of romantic feeling for any of them.
Emily got down from a ladder and grabbed a few lights. She tightened a few of the screws on some and was about to pass them onto Greg up the ladder when the sound tech came up to them. He didn’t look very happy.
“What’s wrong?” Emily asked him as his frown grew.
“Well we can’t start any sort of sound check without the guitar tech around. He’s quit on us. Who can take his place? No one.”
Emily put the lights on the ground and stood up, “I can take his place, what do you want me to do?”

Emily was shown six guitars on a rack. Three of them were Patrick Stump’s and three of them were Joe Trohman’s. She grabbed Patrick’s silver SG and swung the guitar strap over her shoulder. Then she turned back to the stage and plugged the guitar and effects in. Watching her in utter surprise were Sarah, Greg and the sound tech. None of them knew she’d been through this kind of a set up lots of times. None of them knew she played guitar in a band at home. Emily smiled at the stunned faces before her and played a few chords to show that she knew exactly what she was doing. The sound tech ran up to the mixing desk and began telling her all the checks he wanted to do. They went through this for each guitar until they were on the last. Emily was busy concentrating on what the sound tech had to say, he was telling her to play a Fall Out Boy song, any Fall Out Boy song, just to check if the levels were right for their type of music. Emily started playing the start of 7 Minutes In Heaven (Atavan Halen) and watched the sound tech closely as he urged her to keep going. Emily didn’t have a chance to glance at Sarah but if she had she would have seen the shocked expression on her face. Unbeknownst to Emily, Fall Out Boy had arrived and they were watching her from behind.