A few years ago, I came up with this idea for AU Day of Tumblr's Scorpion 30 Day Challenge. This is a rather loose, modern adaption of The Sound of Music. You're not going to read about the team singing on a mountainside or fleeing an impending war. But I think you guys will be able to see how this is Sound Of Music inspired as you read through it.

By the third or fourth "ladies, gentleman?" Carlos had managed to get the attention of at least a half dozen patrons, and he seemed pleased with that. "We have a wonderful treat for you all tonight, folks. Enjoy your drinks, enjoy each other, and enjoy the music. I'm proud to present, the lovely Paige Dineen!"

She smiled at Carlos, walking out to the microphone on the stage, the music slowly filling the room. A few of the guys sitting at the counter turned and looked at her. One of them gave her a crooked smile before he spit dip into the water bottle in his hand. Paige looked away, placing a hand delicately on the microphone stand and closing her eyes.

"Oh no, did I get too close? Oh, did I almost see what's really on the inside? All your insecurities, all the dirty laundry, never made me blink one time…"

She opened her eyes before the chorus. The bar wasn't full, not this early, but there were still quite a few people there for this time on a Friday.

"Unconditional, unconditionally…"

She noticed a couple who had gotten up slow dancing near their table, and she briefly wondered if they had used fake I.D.s to get in.

"Hey! Who ordered the sliders?"

A waitress, an older, heavyset woman whose voice could cut through any crowd, hustled past, balancing more trays than she had hands. At the far end of the room, a drunk guy pushed a smaller man against the wall, growling something that was probably a threat. A security guard appeared out of nowhere, heading toward them.

"Come, just, as you are to me, don't need apologies…"

She closed her eyes again. The lights were drifting softly across the stage, the handiwork of Lucy. It wasn't complicated by any means, not like the spectacular effects that Adele or Carrie Underwood had, but she was just a singer in hole in the wall bars in a city that kept you on the hook while you chased after a once upon a time that would never end. This was a step up from where she was three years ago, doing public domain covers in Central Park by day and translating Spanish transcripts to English by night for four cents a word. She would give it that.

"So open up your heart and just let it begin…"

The man who had been so threatening in the back of the room was sitting down now, another beer almost vertical. A few spots away from him, a couple girls in NYU crop tops were downing the tray of sliders.

Paige's voice slowly faded out on the last note to a smattering of applause. "Thank you," she said into the microphone, taking a step back and brushing some hair behind her ear. "This next song, you're probably also familiar with it. It was originally performed by someone you may know of named Lady GaGa…"

"Nice job tonight."

Paige smiled. "Thanks, Carlos."

"I have some left over wings if you want to take something home. I'm going to peace out soon. Lucy wants me to spend the night."

"You really ought to just move in together," Paige said. "You're always at each other's places anyway."

"We live in the same apartment building, it's not like it's any time."

"You'd save on rent."

"I'm not sure we're ready for that yet," Carlos said. "We both like having space to ourselves. Living together would eliminate that."

"I suppose. Not that I'd know."

Carlos shrugged, putting the last glass into the dish drainer. "You gonna head over to Hamilton Heights tonight?"

"I may. I need to talk to Drew."

"The crowd seemed to really like you tonight."

Paige lifted her shoulders, sighing. "You think so, huh?"

"Yep. We haven't had an act in here since Lucy was waitressing. You want to do it next Friday?"

"Sure. I need the money."

"Oh, come on," he said, giving her a fond smile. "We aren't that bad, are we?"

"No, Carlos," she said, hoping she sounded reassuring. "No. You know I appreciate you talking Nemos into letting me sing here. I just…"

"You want more. You want people screaming your name and buying tee shirts with your face on it and pre – ordering your next album."

Paige nodded, picking at a hang nail she hadn't realized she had. "Sounds good to me."

"You'll get there. You have the voice, you know."

"Thanks," Paige said with a smile. "But having the voice, as you say, that's not enough. Or else, if you and Raya are to be believed, I'd be touring the world." She didn't think she was that good. But damn, she and Raya had never been close, but the older woman had been her biggest fan when they waitressed together one block over.

"I'm telling you," Carlos said. "You're going to be amazingly successful." He walked over to the smaller fridge and pulled out a to go container. "Here. There's like ten wings."

Paige took it, smiling at him. "Thanks. I…I should get going if I'm going to get to Drew's before he turns in for the night."

"He doesn't mind you just…showing up…at his place?"

"I'm his favorite client," Paige said. He'd never told her that, but she had heard the others sing. "And he's told us he doesn't normally go to bed until after midnight. And if we knock and he doesn't answer, well, he's either, as he puts it, not home, sleeping, in the shower, having sex, or dead. Or a combination."

Carlos shook his head slowly. "Well, you…good luck with…with that."

"I'll see you on Monday." Paige gave him a little wave before heading out the door. It was only a five minute walk to the subway, and then twenty minutes, then another ten to Drew's apartment. She would be there before eleven.

"Paige."

Drew Baker didn't look as if she had woken him up – or disrupted a shower or a romp with a girl. He did look tired, but when did any of them ever look fully awake? Paige would have felt bad about showing up so late, except that she didn't. If she was successful, Drew was successful. That's what he always told her. And the idea of singing at the Lizbeth Bar every Friday for the foreseeable future wasn't being successful.

"Can I come in?"

"Absolutely. How was your show?"

"That's…that's kinda what I wanted to talk to you about."

"Okay. I actually wanted to talk to you too, so I'm glad you stopped by." Drew pointed toward the room on the left. It was the second bedroom, but in the year he had lived in Hamilton Heights, it had been his office. "Right in there."

Paige sat down, and Drew walked around the desk, settling in to his chair on the other side. "Something go wrong?"

"That depends on what you define as wrong. Microphone worked, Lucy's lighting panned out. I got enough tips to buy some new used shoes at the secondhand store. But Drew…" She shrugged. "I've been spending the past year just getting one – night gigs in bars and day time work in coffee shops. You know that's not what I want."

"It takes time to work your way up to being a big name," Drew said. "And unless you win the lottery and can afford advertisements and basically buy your way in, you need to develop a following first."

"I know." Paige knew that was her main issue. She had a couple dozen people following her Facebook page, but she was never going to be selling out shows off of that. "I just don't understand. I'm singing stuff Tayla wrote for me. I'm doing covers of hits. I've got three full octaves."

"Your problem," Drew said, picking up a pen and gesturing toward her with it, "is you don't connect with your audiences."

"I smile at them. I wave. I ask them if they're ready before I sing something with a good beat."

"You have to do more than that, though," Drew said. "You have to connect with them through the music. They have to believe that you feel what you're singing."

Paige sighed, folding her arms. "How do you suggest I do that?"

"I'll tell you." Drew laced his fingers and leaned forward on the desk. "You need to live your life."

She cocked her head. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, you sing all these songs about love and going through hell but coming out stronger, and enduring feelings, and…I know I don't know everything about your life, but I do know that you don't understand any of that. You can't, really, until you live it. And you haven't. And to be frank, you suck at faking it."

Paige considered what he was saying. She supposed it was true – she'd never had her heart broken. She'd never felt anything for someone that she could honestly describe as passion. But… "you don't think that having our son didn't give me life experience?"

"Sure," Drew said. "But there are only so many songs about getting pregnant off a one – night stand and being a single mother."

"But couldn't I translate that? I love Ralph. And it's not like I have a lot of money. It's not like I haven't struggled in my life." She hoped that Drew wouldn't take offense to her comment about loving the boy. She knew Drew didn't. But she had never much cared about that. They hadn't ever been together; Ralph was the product of too much drinking and she never expected him to be in the boy's life. He gave her a few hundred bucks a month to help with him, and when his baseball career flamed out and he became a manager he agreed to represent her, and she was satisfied with that.

"You could. But he's eight years old and you haven't figured out how to do that yet."

"Okay, well," Paige said, slapping knees with both hands. "I guess all I have to do is fall in love, get my heart broken, fall in love again, follow the person to the edge of the earth, and then I'll put more feeling into my singing and get a following and boom, I'm winning Grammys. Simple plan, Baker. I'll get right on that. Did you have a guy in mind, or should I just go walking the streets asking passerby if they'd like to date me?"

Drew rolled his eyes. "That's not what I mean. I just mean, you've lived in this city your whole life. You've never had a serious relationship. You're pretty much just a twenty – seven – year – old teenager who lives at home and has the same basic life day in and day out."

Paige wanted to be offended. But he did have a point. "So…what exactly do you suggest? I can't just pack up Ralph and move across the country." Her eyebrows shot up at the look on his face. "You're actually suggesting I pack up Ralph and move across the country?"

"You made some comments last month along the lines of the frustrations we're talking about now. And so I started looking at some potential employment opportunities in Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles."

"You…you what?"

"Look, you want me to help you be successful, right?"

"Yeah. But you can't ship me off…"

"I'm not shipping you anywhere. I'm just saying, I think it would be a good idea for you to get out of this city. Go somewhere else, get some experience on your own, away from everyone you've known since NBC Universal became E! and figure out who exactly you are on your own. Then, come back here and sing about it."

"How am I supposed to afford to do that? You know as well as I do that I'm not exactly swimming in savings."

Drew slid a piece of paper across the table. "There's a place in Los Angeles that would provide you with housing if you were employed by them."

Paige looked down at the paper. "Scorpion Computer Services?"

"It's run by a guy named O'Brien. I guess the United States thought he was a terrorist in Ireland when he was a kid, but it turns out he's just, really really smart or something. And he likes NASA. I don't know. I guess him and his team, they're all geniuses, so they suck at communicating with people, and they want someone who is a people person to help them maneuver through society without sinking their company."

"And they're looking for people in New York?"

"No," Drew said. "They're not an ad in the paper type of people. I just found out about them through a friend and when I contacted O'Brien, he said he would be "delighted" to have you. And he is willing to put you and Ralph up in a small apartment on a three month temporary assignment."

Paige felt a twinge of suspicion. "These seems too good to be true. What aren't you telling me?"

"Nothing. That's all there is to it. You're my best client, Paige, and I think this could be the key to your success."

Ha. I am his best client. "I need to think about it."

Drew nodded. "Sure. But this is an excellent time to do it, with summer time coming. That way the kid won't have to adjust to another new school."

He certainly had a point there. Ralph hated school, and she was lucky that he'd managed to stay at this one for a full semester. Paige bit her lip. "I still need to think about it. How long do I have?"

"Take as much time as you need."

"I'm sure this O'Brien wouldn't like you keeping him on the hook."

"I don't care. He was rude on the phone."

"And you want to send me off to work with him and live off of his generosity?"

"Oh, he was rude to me, sure," Drew said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "But you know I'm not a people person. You are. I'm sure you can handle him and his team."

"How many are there?" Paige asked, wondering exactly what she was potentially getting herself into.

"Four geniuses and one Homeland Agent who acts as their government handler."

"Homeland?" Paige was alarmed. This was not at all how she'd expected her night to go when she headed for Hamilton Heights.

"They do jobs for the government, or something," Drew said again. "All you'd be doing is being their liaison, their mediator."

"But I don't know anything about talking to geniuses," she said. "What makes this O'Brien think I'd be good at that job?"

"I don't know. He's the genius. But he's extremely interested in having you on board, and it would save you the time and stress of interviewing for other positions. This one is flat out being offered to you."

"And you really think I should take it."

"I do. But as I said, it is your decision, of course. I can't just ship you off."

Paige thought a moment, then sighed. "Can I get back to you on Monday? This isn't the type of decision that I can make on the spot."

"Sure. Text me?"

"Yeah." Paige rose, reaching across to shake his hand. "I'll let you know."