Hi, so I know it's been a while since I've published anything (probably a year or two) but this is a fandom I've recently entered that is rather lacking in stories on this site. The idea is one I've been working on for a while, and it have planned out and begun working on different chapters, I expect there to be around 10.

I am not American, so please forgive me if I get anything wrong, just leave a comment detailing my mistake and I will aim to correct it. I hope you enjoy this, and please leave a review as I would really appriciate the feedback.

I do not own Earth to Echo, nor the song Counting Stars by One Republic.

{Chapter 1}
As We Were Now

*.*.*

Lately I've been, I've been losing sleep
Dreaming about the things that we could be
But, baby I've been, I've been praying hard
Said no more counting dollars, we'll be counting stars
Yeah, we'll be counting stars

*.*.*

"We were all friends once, years ago, and we thought it would last. It did for a while, but between exams, homework, friends and families the time we spent together lessened and lessened before eventually just... stopping. But, unknown to us, that would change. As we were now... we were incomplete. Distorted."

*.*.*

The school halls were crowded, the students bustling to their next lesson only minutes ahead of the bell. Each was feeling that queer sort of apprehension that arrives on the first day back at school, a mix of nerves and reluctance to return, paired with a frantic panic at the thought of being late.

Tuck, however, was not one of them.

It seemed like lifetimes ago that he'd once had to scramble to class, stuck in a dog-eat-dog world. No longer though, now Tuck didn't have to worry about trivial things like that - he was the leader now, his friends would cover for him. They always did.

Amongst the flow of teenagers, Tuck could just about catch a glimpse of long, blonde hair. Emma. Once upon a time, three years ago, they had been friends. Friends united in a quest to save an extraterrestrial being. A quest that changed everything.

It had begun without her though, just him and his two best mates. It had been a while since he'd last seen Alex or Munch, and at least a few weeks since they'd texted. It was a shame really, they'd used to be so close.

The journey had changed Tucks life, the video they'd all filmed together had gone viral - millions of hits in days. The ET had made him famous, made him popular, made him liked. Sure he lost his best friends... But he gained so much more in return. They wouldn't have lasted anyway, Alex was volatile and Munch was cowardly, they clashed and weighed him down. Whatever.

The corridor was now clear of the student body and Tuck strolled towards home room at his own pace. Opening the door, he glanced towards his seat, as usual it was clear - saved just for him.

"Just where were you five minutes ago young man?" Tuck rolled his eyes, when would the teachers learn? Did he care what they thought? No. After all, he was the one with millions of subscribers. He was the one who people cared about, as his friends blatant loyalty had proved. Their casual grins were a code meant only for him, mission accomplished. Walking to his seat, Tuck glanced around at his fellow classmates, it appeared they hadn't changed since the year before. There were the populars, the geeks, the freaks and the nobodies. If you asked him, Tuck probably couldn't name many of them, but nobody would. Nobody cared enough to do so.

Casually throwing an arm on the desk behind, Tuck aimed a lazy smile at the camera hidden subtlety in the corner of the room, set up earlier that morning. A new segment on his channel would be pranks, there was no one in the class he actually liked that much and so he had no qualms whether they would be painful or humiliating. Today would be the perfect start, and lucky for him, Tuck had found an ideal target.

Miss Joy was anything but. Her greying hair was forced into curls, her eyes a steeling blue and her lips a too-dark red, she was one of those 'hip' teachers. Or at least one of the ones who thought they were. Although often rather non-descript, she was clearly aiming to lay down the law for the start of the year.

The cameras were ready, yet taking action now didn't feel quite right, his following wanted something fresh, something humiliating, something personal. Maybe it wouldn't be today then, but soon. Besides, who knew what the cameras would catch in the mean time? That would be perhaps more useful, it was the authenticity of his videos which first garnered an audience after all.

With the new school year would come new opportunities, despite the lack of anything at all interesting last year change would be coming. New people, new teachers, new experiences and new trouble. And Tuck would be waiting, filming it all.

*.*.*

Some people, however, were much less exited about the new start. Emma leaned forwards in her chair, eying the small device that was wedged above an internet safety poster, the placement appeared rather ironic to her. Though the poster warned of dangers of posting online, that was exactly what the mini camera Tucks goons had shoved there would do. Most wouldn't notice it, but after last years spectacle aimed at her lab partner, Emma had learned to be cautious. The imbeciles would give it away soon though, she mused, the constant smirks, laughs and waves aimed at it would eventually catch the eyes of the rest of the class.

Though as Nicole held her nails up to the light, promptly turning away from the direction of the lens at which she'd appeared to be glancing at, Emma realised that 'eventually' may not be for a while yet. The student body appeared largely oblivious to their surroundings, trapped in a haze of material obsession, almost to a laughable extent. Except of course that absolutely nothing about the situation was humorous.

How could she even judge them for it though? Emma herself had pretty much sold her soul to be where she was. Just a few minutes ago she was laughing with her fellow 'populars' about trivial matters that truth be told she had no interest in. Three years ago she was popular, sure, but now? After Tucks video was aired she was flung into a whole new social circle, one she'd never even dreamed existed beforehand.

On screen she was... Clever, she was funny, she was loyal, she was resourceful, she was brave and even a bit... Hot. That's what the boys had said at least. Now, however, Emma could barely recognise the character. The girl she was now was none of those things.

In the video they crashed a party, looking for Tucks brother's keys. The girls there were older and drunk and so stupidly oblivious to what was going on around them, that she'd pitied them. Now she was one of them, it seemed like some sort of sick joke. Before class she'd been asked an innocent enough question:

"Hey, Emma! Nicki's throwing a party tonight, lots of drink, lots of guys, so... Ya in?"

No, she'd wanted to scream, no, she was absolutely not in. Instead Emma had smiled thinly and forced out that she would consider it, it was expected of her after all. If she went she knew what was expected of her. She'd drink, she'd dance, and she'd end up in some closet or bathtub out cold just as she and Alex had once found Marcus. And Emma didn't want that, she didn't want that at all! But if she didn't go... If she didn't go what would she do? What would she say to them? That no, she wasn't going because she wasn't like them, she was better than them?

No.

The fact she still hung around with them already disproved the last statement. If she were better, stronger, braver, she'd have stood up to them far before now. Maybe, despite her grumblings about him, her and Tuck were really no different at all.

*.*.*

But they weren't the only two whose lives had been changed by the appearance of the extraterrestrial. Reginald 'Munch' had once been a part of the quest, though admittedly a reluctant participant. However unlike his friends, few of his good points had been highlighted to the public.

Before he'd been an 'acquired taste', but now? Now Munch was a poison. If a person as much glanced his way kindly they'd be ostracised, and even then would choose sitting alone by the bins as opposed to sitting near him. At least before when he felt like an outsider, he'd been an outsider and his two friends. His two friends who had yet to respond to the texts he'd sent two weeks ago. Again.

He heard them, how Tuck was now a celebrity and how Alex was now a heart throb, how neither of them were ever made fun of, nor received numerous alien related jokes day in and day out. He'd watched the journey as shown by the camera, yet it all seemed so... Different. The people, the events. Himself.

Had he really been so oblivious, so naïve and so stupid? Was he a coward like everyone said? A geek? A loser? A freak?

Maybe. Once he'd made the mistake of reading the comments, drowning in the negativity, even the few kind statements didn't help to make him feel any better.

Munch found it funny how when you have someone to be a freak with it was fine, yet when he was alone... Well, there was certainly nothing at all funny about that.

He'd subscribed to Tucks channel, watched as he laughed about with his new friends and replaced their old memories with 'fresher' ones. Had it hurt him when Tuck had deleted lots of the videos they'd filmed together? Yes, yes it had. In 'Echo', the wretched production which had changed everything, Tuck called him a woman. In all honesty, Munch had never really known why. Was it some stereotypical way of calling him a coward? Or maybe a dig at his more emotive side? Or was it more? Now it was. Referring to him as a woman had become an attack on his character, day in day out, jokes were made. Concerning his weight, his sexuality, his bravery and his appearance in 'Echo'.

There were the overused ones ("ET go home, loser!"), the mean ones ("You saving seats for your friends? Such a girly thing to do, right lads?") and the more original ones, such as hiring someone to carry around a mannequin to be his prom date, promptly breaking up with him only a few dances in. Though inventive, Munch found they didn't hurt any less.

*.*.*

The final casting member would have had no problem with finding a prom date if he'd gone, at least on face value. Alex, the 'broken-but-loyal-teen-from-a-troubled-past-who-just-wants-to-belong' had discovered his time in front of the camera had found him quite the following. Not that he wanted any of it for that matter. He was loyal, they said, funny, cool, cute. Alex almost found it amusing how everyone seemed to think they knew him, how they seemed to think that he was this character they'd seen on a computer screen. They didn't know him, not really.

They asked why he sat alone, but what else was he going to do? Lie? Pretend to be who he wasn't? That wasn't him. No one in New York was his friend, no one in New York cared about him. His best friends were states away, they were different now, but they were still the only ones who had ever really been there for him.

Even if it was by spreading a rumour that he had polio.

He missed them, sure, but it didn't mean he really wanted to see them. To see how they'd changed, how they'd left him. To see a boy who sold his soul to his camera, a coward broken down by the world around him and the reincarnation of a spoiled brat. He'd left them behind, just as they did to him first.

Alex was once shy, he'd once been bashful around others, now though? Now he was a wreck. In the months following his departure from his home he'd become a recluse, blocking out all those around him. Even his 'family'. They'd been talking, though he wasn't supposed to know, and they were worried. They talked of depression, of anxiety, of loneliness. Because, of course, it is so crazy for a boy made to leave all his friends behind to be lonely. They said he was difficult, (could they handle him?), that the baby was getting older now, (was he really a good influence for their child?), and that maybe he needed a change of scenery (they were through with him).

It wasn't that they didn't want him, they reasoned, he clearly wasn't happy with them anymore. Tuck had once asked why they kept him around, they had their own kid, their own life, so why was he still part of the equation? Alex had told him to shut up, because that was one of his worst fears. They were good, good parents, good people, therefore soon they'd realise they didn't want a bad kid. Not a kid who rode out into the desert on his own, not a kid who broke the law, not a kid who had no clue what the hell he was doing anymore, not a kid who was so afraid of being left behind he'd closed himself off. Not a kid like him.

It wouldn't be right away he knew, they were moving again for a new job, and Alex was on his last chance, one final life with them... So why did he feel as though he'd already lost?

*.*.*

None of them were who they once were, they were grown up, changed, the person they used to be lost to time. Except, fate just happened to have other ideas...

(Updated: 14/05/19)