AN 1: Hey everybody...I'm back. It's been a while since I've been on here. Hopefully I haven't become too rusty in my prolonged absence. But if I have...well, I'm sorry about that, and hope that you'll take it easy on me. I've had this story idea floating around in my head for a very long time now, and have only just now had the time and motivation to start writing it. The last school semester was pretty rough, but now that it's summer, I'm ready to start writing again. I gotta say though, I will probably not be having extremely quick uploads, unlike in my previous Malex stories. I really want to take my time with this one, because this story means a lot to me, even after just starting it. Be patient with me, please.

To all of those who have read my Criminal Minds story, "Long Distance Call", I will hopefully be posting another chapter of that soon as well. If that's why you've subscribed to me...sorry, this isn't the story you were looking for, but I promise to bring you more Jemily goodness soon!

The title of this story was inspired by Snow Patrol's "Signal Fire". I would encourage people to check it out; however, I must say that the story itself was not fully inspired by this song. The song that needs to take a lot of the credit in the inspiration department is George Watsky's "Sloppy Seconds". If you don't check out "Signal Fire", you should try to check out "Sloppy Seconds". That being said, this is not a songfic. Mitchie Torres, Alex Russo, and any other characters that are mentioned or used from the Camp Rock/WOWP universes are the property of Disney. Anyways, onto the story!

Chapter 1: The Day I First Met Her

I met the love of my life when I was sixteen years old. That sounds incredibly sappy, doesn't it? I'm sure a lot of people would disagree with me, saying things along the lines of, "You're a kid. What the hell does a kid like you know about love?" But it's the truth; I met the love of my life when I was sixteen years old. I just didn't know it at the time.

Meeting her wasn't something that was a momentous occasion. Even to this day, I highly doubt that I could even tell you what day I met her, like some people say they could when you ask them about their significant others. That day, in my sixteen-year-old mind, was just like any other. Hindsight, as they say, is twenty-twenty. However, I could tell you that the first time we met was over the summer, during the time that summer was winding down, and everyone our age was getting ready to go back to school.

Our meeting was one of what one of my college professors would call sheer happenstance. The hopeless romantics I know would have called it fate, or destiny. I'm not sure what I would call it, but whether it was simply coincidence, or it really was destined to happen, I could tell you that I honestly don't care either way. It happened, and I'm eternally grateful that it did. That's all.

We met at the all-girls resident camp that I had come to consider my second home, which, incidentally was the one that she only attended because her parents – namely, her mother – forced her to attend each summer. At the age of sixteen, I had already been attending this camp for five years, and was currently going through the training the camp provides older campers in order to eventually become counselors. I was in my second summer of training, and as a part of this training I was required to observe cabins to gain a sense of how the counselors interacted with their campers. As fate, or luck, would have it, my first assignment that week was to observe her cabin.

It was right after lunch that the rest of my group and I were given our cabin assignments. My best friend Caitlyn and I trudged down to the basement of the main lodge, which was were the counselor-in-training camper room was located, after filling our water bottles in the lodge's dining room. Right as we entered the room, our counselor, Veronica, called out my name.

"Mitchie," she called, giving me a slightly severe look for walking into the room late, which caused me to internally roll my eyes. I wasn't technically late; Caitlyn and I had arrived a few minutes before the designated time we were supposed to meet at. "You'll be observing Olivia's group today. They are the art session, so you'll find them at Creation Station."

I gave Veronica a subtle salute behind her back, causing Caitlyn to smirk at me, and slung the backpack with all of my notes and other materials over my shoulder before clipping one of the walkie talkies that each counselor-in-training was provided for the week onto my backpack strap and heading out the door. It's not that I really had something against Veronica herself; just that I had some personal issues with anyone who tried to run things like a military drill instructor. I already had one of those at home, and neither wanted nor needed another hardass adult in my life, whether they were a poser or the genuine article. Taking a sip out of my Nalgene water bottle, I quickly walked up the sloping hill towards the arts and crafts cabin. Everything in this camp was spaced out fairly evenly from each other, but in the heat and humidity of New York summers, a short walk could seem to take much longer than one would otherwise expect. Before I had made it to the air conditioned cabin, my shirt clung to my back with sweat, and my exposed skin felt sticky. I quickened my pace and slipped inside the cool interior of the cabin quietly, trying not to disturb the campers I had been sent to observe.

My intentions were quickly thwarted once I stepped inside the building, due to an unexpected can of paint that I tripped over after taking a few steps inside the room. I struggled to regain my balance and grabbed the back of a chair to keep myself from falling, resulting in more noise as the chair screeched across the linoleum floor. Five heads turned in my direction as I finally regained my balance and readjusted my backpack. "Sorry about that," I said quietly, internally cursing my clumsiness.

Olivia waved me over to an empty chair at the table they occupied. She was a girl of average height, with short, dark hair and piercing green eyes. A purple streak ran through her bangs. "Don't worry about it," she said easily as I sat down. "We're making things out of clay right now. Join us."

I looked at the girls at the table before I noticed who Olivia's co-counselor was. "Hey, Devon," I said, grinning and pulling my chair over so I could sit closer to the other girl. Devon had just finished the counselor-in-training program the year before, which was when she and I had bonded over playing soccer and playing guitar. Then I realized that there were only three campers at the table with us. "Are these all of your campers?" I asked, somewhat surprised. I had known that camp was not near full-capacity this week, but for only three girls to be in a cabin seemed very surprising to me.

Devon gave me a wry smile and continued to roll a piece of clay in between her palms. "Yeah," she shrugged casually. "I was surprised too, but I'm not complaining. It makes things so much easier. You know, there are only three names to remember, and they're all older, so it's easier to keep track of them that way as well." Olivia nodded in agreement from the other side of me.

One of the girls scoffed lightly, but the smile on her face told me that she wasn't truly offended by what her two counselors were saying. "Glad to make things easy for you," she said, also rolling a ball of clay in her hands. "Because after all, we wouldn't want to make things difficult, now would we?"

I smiled at her words slightly and adjusted the bandana I had wrapped around my wrist. "What are your names?" I asked, directing my question to the girl who spoke first.

"My name is Ashley," she said, her pale green eyes meeting my brown ones confidently. She gestured to the girl sitting on her right. "This is Amanda," she said as the girl with frizzy honey-brown hair and glasses glanced my way. I gave the girl a quick smile before focusing on the one sitting directly across from me with long, dark brown hair. "That's Alex," Ashley finished, using a toothpick to shape the clay ball in her hands into what vaguely resembled a snout.

"Nice to meet you," I said, leaning back in my chair and taking another sip of water. Devon was right; it did seem a lot easier to keep track of three girls versus the usual eight to ten. Alex glanced up towards my direction as I did so and gave me a smile. I tilted my chair so that the front two legs hovered slightly off of the ground and readjusted my makeshift armband once more. "How old are you guys?"

"They don't really tell you much, do they?" Ashley asked, now using her toothpick to put detail into her clay project. I already decided that I liked this girl. She was assertive without being overly in your face, and had just the right amount of snark in her words and actions that I knew we would be able to get along without a problem.

Alex spoke up, her hands busy with what appeared to be a clay tentacle. "Sorry about Ashley. She's just really snarky. Like she said, my name is Alex. I'm fourteen years old, and I'm about to start my freshman year at Waverly High School in New York City."

"Hey, I know that school," I said, allowing my chair to fall back down on all four legs. "I go to Booker T. Washington. You guys killed us in our last soccer game. It was actually pretty embarrassing, because we were expecting an easy win."

Alex gave me a smirk and started rolling another piece of clay, only this one shaped like a ball. "Maybe you shouldn't just expect an easy win then." She looked at the clay in her hands and decided that the ball wasn't up to par yet, and continued to roll it between her palms. "Our soccer team is actually pretty good; it's our football team that's absolute crap."

I laughed and flicked an errant piece of clay back towards her direction. "I'll keep that in mind. But I can sympathize with you on the football thing – our team is completely awful. Not that it really affects me one way or the other. I can't stand football. Soccer is more my thing. And while we're on the subject, who was the idiot who came up with the idea to call American football "football"? You don't use your feet in it nearly as much as soccer, which would make a lot more sense to call football."

While I had been speaking, Alex had finished her clay creation. "That would make sense," she said, setting the clay creature down on the table in front of me. "But humans are notorious for doing things that don't make sense. Right?"

I stared at the thing in front of me. "What exactly is that?"

"A quadropus," she said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"A…quadropus."

"Yeah," she said, as Ashley picked it up and began to examine the little clay creation. "Like an octopus, but with only four arms."

"You wouldn't call that a severely challenged octopus?"

"Not at all."

I stared at the little clay quadropus, and decided that the small, purple creature was one of the cutest, and strangest, creations that I had ever seen. "You should give him a top hat," I finally said, smiling at the younger girl in front of me. "Everything looks better with a top hat."

Devon rolled a container of black clay towards me. "Then maybe you should make one." She winked at me to show me that she was messing with me, and went back to crafting what appeared to be beads in the shape of cats with various accessories. One had a small, but very realistic, monocle and what appeared to be a bowler hat, while another had a large orange bowtie.

I laughed, but rolled the container into the center of the table. "Sorry to disappoint you, but my skill when it comes to clay is non-existent. You'd be lucky if you got a nice blob from me. I can draw fairly well, and I can play guitar, but that's about it as far as my creativity goes."

Alex picked up the clay and pinched off a decent sized chunk of clay and began to roll it into another ball. "You can play guitar?" she asked, looking at me with eyes that were similar in coloration to my own.

"Yeah. My cousin in Minnesota taught me when I was twelve and visited there for the summer," I replied, watching her work.

"That's really cool," she said, turning her eyes back to the clay in front of her. "And you can draw too? You're lucky. I have a hard time drawing a straight line, or a circle."

I glanced at my watch quickly, surprised that so much time had passed already. A conversation that had only felt like minutes had quickly turned into a conversation that had lasted for over an hour. "Lines and circles are hard," I replied, pulling out a small spiral notebook from my backpack and jotting down a few notes to myself so I could write my observation report later.

"I'm sure you don't think so," she replied, placing the now complete top hat on the quadropus, whom I had secretly decided to call Howard.

"No, I think so. And I think it's even worse for me because I expect myself to draw really good lines and circles."

Alex smiled again and brushed some stray strands of hair out of her eyes. As I took a long drink from my water bottle, the walkie talkie that I had clipped onto the strap of my backpack crackled to life. "Attention all counselors-in-training," Veronica's voice stated from the small device. "Your presence is required back in your cabin."

I sighed and stood up, readjusting the bandana around my wrist once more and shoving my water bottle back into my backpack. "Guess I'll see you guys around," I said, shoving my hands into the pockets of my cargo shorts and heading back towards the door I had originally entered.

Looking back on that encounter, I don't know how I couldn't have realized sooner that I felt something for her, even after just meeting her. It seems completely ridiculous to me now that I could have ever thought that she was no more than a passing acquaintance. But then again, I never thought that it was possible for one person to mean so much to me, let alone her specifically. And as I was walking away from that first encounter with Alex Russo, I never once thought that our relationship would have evolved the way that it did. I certainly wasn't expecting to have to deal with all of the shit that I ended up putting up with. I had no idea. The only thing that I have a concrete idea of, even to this very day, is that I am – without a shadow of a doubt – a complete and total idiot.

AN 2: There you have it. The start of a new story for Alex and Mitchie. I hope you guys liked it. Leave a review with me if you'd like, but no flames please and thank you. I'm unsure when I'll have a huge amount of time to work on the next chapter, but make sure to subscribe if you'd like more. Thanks for reading! Darklighter out.