.:Chapter One – New Rules, New Contracts, New Co-worker:.

"Garcia takes the puck, he darts past Diamond, he bypasses Mitchell, he brings his stick back to-"

"Time out!"

The giant grin on Carlos's face was immediately wiped clean as Kendall Knight dropped his hockey stick and started to dig his hand into his jeans pocket. Carlos's shoulders slumped and he pouted, lightly kicking at the asphalt in front of him. Logan and James laughed at the pout on Carlos's face, considering the fact that Kendall had stopped him from getting the game-winning goal. Though it wasn't that hard, they only had a section of the PalmWoods parking lot to use to play, especially since Bitters had grown tired of the windows they had broken from the games they played before.

"Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh, alright," Kendall hung up the phone and slid it into his pocket before turning to his three best friends with a bright smile on his face. "So I don't know if you were able to hear him over the phone, but Gustavo needs us at Rocque Records right now."

"Ugh!" Carlos groaned, throwing his hockey stick to the ground. "And I was this close to winning it for us!"

"Fat chance!" James reached out a gloved hand and bumped fists with Kendall. "There was no way that you and Logan could have beaten us even if we had our hands tied behind our backs." He flashed a charming smile and Kendall smirked as he nodded in agreement.

"Seriously, you guys are freaking sore winners," Logan said. He and the boys pulled off their hockey gear and sat down on the curb as they changed back into their shoes from their rollerblades. "Anyway, did Gustavo say what he wanted us for?"

"What does he ever want us for?" Carlos snorted, lacing his shoes. "He just wants to yell at us."

"Nah." Kendall shook his head. "He said something about going over the rules for our band as well as figuring out what direction we want to go in when it comes to the new CD." He looked at his watch before wiping sweat off his forehead.

"Sweet," James said. He looked at his watch. "We should probably get going then."

"Oh! Wait!" Kendall leapt to his feet and walked over to a nearby tree. When he came back, he had a piglet in his arms. "We can't forget Yuma, we have to get her back up to the crib before Bitters sees her." He ran a hand over the piglet's back as she sat nestled in his arms.

"You can just walk right through the front door," Carlos pointed out. "The only way that Bitters is going to know that you have her, against his 'no pets policy' is if she was a plate of bacon." Yuma let out a loud squeal and dug her snout into Kendall's arm. Kendall glared at Carlos. "I was kidding!"

"Wait, there's Katie!" Logan pointed over to the PalmWoods Park, where Kendall's little sister was walking towards the PalmWoods, a backpack on her back. "We can just have her take Yuma back in and we can get to Rocque Records on time for once."

"Good idea." Kendall walked over to his sister and gave her a bright smile. "Hey, Baby Sister!" He greeted her.

"Hey, Big Brother," Katie replied, smiling back. She reached out and scratched Yuma behind the ears. "Hey, Yuma." She placed her hands on her backpack straps and lightly twisted back and forth. "What's up?"

"We need to go to Rocque Records to meet with Gustavo and Kelly," Kendall explained. He then gave her a sheepish smile. "But I need to get Yuma back up to the crib before Bitters sees her and takes her away. So…d'you mind?"

"Not at all." Katie pulled her backpack off and set it on the ground. She unzipped it and opened it wide. "Just put her in here and I'll get her up to the apartment, no problem." She then grinned evilly. "Besides, if she makes any noise, then I can make Bitters think he's going crazy."

Kendall laughed and placed Yuma in Katie's backpack before leaving over and giving Katie a kiss on the head. He then went back to James, Logan, and Carlos and the four of them jumped into the Big Time Rush mobile and drove the familiar drive to Rocque Records.

It was hard for them to believe that they had been working with Gustavo for three years. They were nineteen now and back when they were sixteen, had two great CDs under their belt and were now getting ready to start production on their third one. If anyone had asked them when they first started Big Time Rush if they thought that they would get this far, they would have probably laughed in their face. Besides James who always knew that he was going to make it big some way or another. But now it was something that they couldn't imagine their lives being without. Los Angeles had become their home; all of the friends that they had made there had become parts of their family, and they wouldn't trade in any of the experiences that they had in Los Angeles for anything in the world.

Kendall had been completely against becoming a band in the first place, because it wasn't something that he wanted, but while out there, he quickly learned that he could live his dreams anyway he wanted. So while he put his dream of being a hockey player aside, he created a new dream of wanting to be as successful as he could with his best friends. Logan was in the same boat as he dropped his dream of being a doctor in the band. Carlos, at first, only seemed to be pushed by the idea of the LA girls as well as having fun, but was always open to the idea. And James never wanted anything else. Now that the four of them were living the dreams that they had been working for, for the past three years, they only saw that things were going to get better for them.

When they got to Rocque Records, Kelly was waiting outside for them, like she usually did, but this time, their best friends, the Jacksons-McGuires, aka the Jacksons, aka the DarkElements, whom they had been working with for the past two years, and Carlos's girlfriend, Stephanie King, was waiting with her.

"Hey guys," Logan greeted them all with a bright smile.

"Yo." Patrick nodded.

"What's up?" Noah and Sydney chorused.

"Hey babes," Rhuben greeted with a wave.

"Hey boys," Riley added.

"Hey." Stephanie smiled.

Her smile widened as Carlos walked over to her and gave her a kiss on the cheek and put his arm around her upper back. Out of all of his friends, he and Stephanie were the ones that had been together the longest, as they had been going out since the PalmWoods dance, when they were sixteen, and had been going strong since then. Kendall, Logan, and James always made the joke that they were going to end up married with a bunch of kids sooner than anyone would expect, though Carlos was sure that it was just because they wanted to be 'uncles' to each other's potential kids.

"Alright, everyone's here, follow me." Kelly looked at her watch before leading the group inside. "Gustavo is in his office and should be with us in a few moments, hopefully Griffin won't bust in and bother us, and Ronan said that he'd be a little late but will be here as soon as he can." She looked at her watch before turning to Kendall. "What about your Mom?"

"She said that she'd be here as soon as she could," Kendall explained, shoving his hands into his jeans pockets. "As soon as she was done with that interview, but she'll be here as soon as she can." He gave a modest shrug. "Being a Momager isn't easy for her, but she's doing her best."

"How's that going anyway?" Sydney asked, leaning over so he could see Kendall's face. "I mean, now everyone in your family, but Katie is in the music industry." He grinned. "Aren't you afraid that she's going to get bit by the fame bug too?"

"Not unless she can miraculously carry a note," James commented. "She can't sing to save her life." He studied Sydney. "It's still weird to hear your voice cracking like that, dude,"

"Don't remind me." Sydney blushed, crossing his arms over his chest.

Big Time Rush, the DarkElements, and Stephanie followed Kelly into a conference room and took the empty chairs that were sitting around the table. They could hear piano playing form down the hallway and guessed that Gustavo was hard at work. It was their third album and Gustavo was just as worried about it as the boys were. It wasn't just BTR's name that was on the line, it was his as well, being their music producer. He was the driving force behind all of their songs, writing most of them (before Big Time Rush came out with Elevate where they wrote most of the songs o the CD) but everything else was from Gustavo. With the surge in pop music, they had to stay at the top and he was doing his hardest to make sure that Big Time Rush's third album got off to a good start.

"Gustavo's not in a bad mood is he?" Logan winced at the sudden pounding on the keyboard. "It sounds like he's not getting very far on whatever song he's working on right now?"

"How'd that different from any other time he writes a song?" Rhuben asked, pulling her hair into a low ponytail over her left shoulder. She rolled her dark blue eyes. "Have you already forgotten how he acted when he stayed with you guys when his 'mansion flooded'?"

"Don't remind me," Kendall and James chorused, dark looks on their faces. It was evident that they weren't going to get over that abuse anytime soon.

Kelly rolled her eyes, although she was smiling at the conversation. Having been around the guys just as long as Gustavo had, there were many moments where she wanted to rip her hair out from all of the stress that they had given her and Gustavo over the past couple of years. She had been dragged in to so many schemes and plans and crazy mischief that she was surprised she didn't have a permanent twitch. But that didn't mean that she didn't enjoy spending so much time with the guys, they made things more interesting, and they were very talented with the work that they were doing and she knew that they were going to go far before the boy band craze fell out of popularity again.

"If you want to be completely technical, it was your guys' fault that you even let him have fun," Kelly pointed out. She sat up straight and flashed Gustavo a disarming smile when he walked through the doorway. "Hey Gustavo, the guys were just waiting for you!" She smiled brightly at the suspicious look that he sent her way, obvious having heard his name before he entered the room.

"Let's get started!" Gustavo boomed, clapping his hands together as he sat down at the head of the table. He opened his mouth and then stopped, glancing around the table. He pointed at Stephanie. "Who's she?" He demanded. "What's she doing here?"

"Don't worry, there's a good reason for it," Riley calmly said. "But we can't say anything until Ronan gets here."

"Ok, well, then I guess we'll just get started with Big Time Rush then," Gustavo said calmly, turning to the four teenage boys. They stared back at him in shock, surprised that he wasn't ranting and raving about being unprofessional, but now he was as patient as they had ever seen him before. Even when he was being brainwashed by Bhudda Bob to be as calm as possible, that didn't even last long. "So, the results of your last CD…" he turned to Kelly and took a folder that she was holding out to him. He opened it and spread out a bunch of papers that were inside. "It ranked very well with the demographic that you were looking for and people are now taking you more seriously than just another boy band in pop music."

"More importantly, how many copies did we sell?" James asked, leaning forward as he rested his arms on the table.

Gustavo flipped through a few of the papers. "According to these statistics, you all have sold over two million copies worldwide as of late, as well as getting a gold certification in Mexico and Venezuela." He paused and looked up from the papers as the guys let out a whopping cheer, punching the air with their fists. "Calm down, dogs! That's not nearly as good as Nsync's record, don't get too excited."

The Jacksons laughed to themselves as Big Time Rush slowly, visibly deflated. Stephanie moved her hands over her mouth to keep from laughing out loud. Leave it to Gustavo to try and shoot down the guys' celebration when he had something to say.

"There're still a lot of things that you guys need to work on, if you want to be the best boy band," Gustavo continued." He shuffled all of the papers together and put them up in a stack before snapping his fingers. Kelly shot him a glare as she took the folder and then handed him four large stacks of paper. "These are your contracts; we need to look over them." He passed them out to Kendall, Logan, Carlos, and James. "And this is what we need your mother four, since this is your third album and you're contracted to do three of them, we have some space in the contract for negotiation if you want it." He cracked his knuckles loudly. "But before we get to that, we need to talk about the direction of your new album and your new looks."

"Well, we were thinking…" Kendall spoke up, always being the one to say what all of the guys were thinking. "We liked the way that we went with our second album…and we were glad that we were able to relate more to our older fans, those that are our age."

"But we were thinking of going back to the sound that we had during our first album," Logan said, clearing his throat as he sat up straight. "Statistics showed that people resonated more with our music when it was just about having fun and living life positively. Parents of our younger fans were a bit turned off by some of the messages in the new songs on Elevate, and not that we didn't like it, and we enjoyed being able to write more of our own songs, we liked the message from the first album better."

Patrick tilted his head and gave Logan an odd look, resting his cheek in his upraised palm. "And you couldn't have just come out and said 'we liked the sound of our old album better'?" he asked in a slightly condescending tone. "Unless you just wanted to sound smart."

"You should try it," Sydney quipped.

Patrick glared at his baby brother, who smirked back at him.

"Logan's right though," Carlos agreed. "We really did like the idea of our first album and thought that we could do even better chart wise and radio play, if we went back to a sound that people recognized more."

"Wow." Riley's eyes widened. She sat up straight and turned towards her siblings, an exaggerated look of innocence on her face. "Can you believe it? These blokes are making smart decisions for once in their lives."

The Jacksons all snickered as Big Time Rush rolled their eyes, used to their antics and put downs. But the two bands had been working together for the past two years and were best friends, so the guys were used to their put downs, jokes, and light teasing at that point.

"Are you sure that this is really want you want?" Kelly asked, exchanging a glance with Gustavo, her thumbs flying over her Palm Pilot, making a note to herself. "Not that we don't trust your decision, you have more say in what you're able to do today, but it still has to go through us, Griffin, and Fujisaki at the most."

"We're sure," James confirmed. "Going back to our old sound, but still putting a new spin on it." He then grinned, rapidly raising and lowering his eyebrows. "Nothing would make the ladies love me more than the new dance moves that I've thought of to go with my new haircut. It'll really help when I start to go solo."

"You're actually going to willingly cut your hair?" Stephanie asked, her eyebrows rising in shock. "That's a shock."

"Hey, if all of my adoring fans love me now, they're going to love me even more after I get it done," James said. "Right?" He winked over at Riley and Rhuben, who smiled and shook their heads.

"Should've seen that coming," Rhuben remarked.

"Ok then," Gustavo skimmed through another page. "Now that we've got that out of the way, we need to talk about collaborations. When you guys were still in your contract with these people," he lazily waved a hand towards the Jacksons. "You were contractionally obligated to produce one more song collaboration, so we may need to get that done sooner rather than later, so keep that in mind."

"But how can we do that if they're not in a contract with Rocque Records anymore?" Kendall asked, his eyebrows lowering in confusion. From the contracts and papers that his mother agonized over, trying to understand when she decided to become their Momager, he understood a little bit about how they worked. That, of course, was also because Katie was constantly thinking up contracts for different talent to be a talent manager herself, but that was only because she wanted the money out of all of it.

"As a favor," Gustavo said shortly. His shoulders hunched up towards his ears and he glared at the paper in front of his face. "And let's just leave it at that."

"More like you lost a bet," Ronan McGuire joked as he walked into the room. "Either way, Gustavo's not going to tell you the truth." He sat down in an empty seat next to Gustavo and dropped his briefcase onto the table. "Sorry I'm late; I was on the phone with Alan, back in Australia to see how things were going over there." He leaned back, crossing his legs. "What'd I miss?"

"Just the fact that the guys are going back to their old style and that we still need to do one more collaboration, Dad," Noah said, crossing his arms and resting them on the table, adopting James's stance.

"Good," Ronan shuffled through some of his own papers. "Then I think that we should talk about the new rules that you guys have." He turned to Gustavo and Kelly. "If that's alright with you guys," he added. Kelly nodded and Gustavo just grunted, waving a hand for him to go. "Ok, as you all know when you started working together, you first had the rule that there were to be no romantic entanglements between the bands, and then we got rid of that rule. Now, Gustavo, Kelly, Mrs. Knight and I agree that we're stepping back from that rule. What you all do in your private lives if none of our business just as long as you're being safe in all aspects of it. The only times that we'll ask any questions is if we're just curious how things are going or if we get the news that something of your guys' business may get put out into the media." He lowered the lid of his briefcase and looked at Riley and Rhuben before looking over at Kendall. "For you guys especially."

"Uh…" Kendall's eyes shifted back and forth. "Why me?"

"Because you're dating Riley now, people are going to dig more into your relationship as possible, especially since you're supposed to be rivals in the industry and because you dated Jo and Lucy first. They may try to make up as many stories as they can to capitalize on your rivalry as they can, even possibly trying to tear you two apart to get as much dirt as possible," Ronan explained. "Though so far you've done a good job of keeping it out of the spotlight. Also, since Dak had been asking Rhu out for four years and they're now together they're just gonna bug em' more."

Rhuben twirled a finger in the air, already used to it. Since she had started to date Dak Zevon, even before then, the teen magazines capitalized on the fact that he was so open about how he felt about her to make as many articles as they could about them.

Ronan turned his gaze to her. "I know you're used to it, but I'm still warning you about it," he said in a slightly sharp tone. "So don't brush me off."

"Sorry," Rhuben said, her face softening as she nodded.

"Also, that goes with the rule of the curfew and whatnot when we're on tour or whatever. If you're over 18, it's none of our business what you do, unless, like I said, you volunteer the information or it's going to be put out in the media." Ronan shifted his papers around. "Hmm, what else? Now that most of you are out of school you have to spend more time in the studio to get your work done, but you still have to be responsible on your time off." He glanced over at Logan. "Those that decide to continue with their education, just talk to us so we can figure how to get that done. If you do continue with your education, then the rue of keeping grades up still applies. For those of you that won't, keeping up with your other responsibilities before you can perform stands."

"Oh come on," James groaned. "This is our third year doing this; don't you think that we can make our own decisions at this point?"

"We agree that until we think you're ready, or until you turn twenty at the most, it'd be better if you still had a system to make sure you were in peak shape to perform," Ronan said calmly. "That being said, my kids don't have a curfew, you guys have to talk to Mrs. Knight about yours, and then when you have performances, you all have a set curfew that can't be negotiated. No drinking or drugs until you're of legal age in America." He lifted his gaze to the two bands this time. "Is that fine with you all?"

He got nods in reply.

"Alright, the rule that we had about visitors." Ronan clasped his hands together in front of him. "We've decided to take that down. So your friends can all come to the studio whenever they want, but you still have to work hard when you need to work, instead of goofing off."

Carlos blinked. "What's everyone looking at me for?" He asked. When he continued to get stared at, he threw his hands up into the air. "You ruin a few pieces of equipment through a nerf gun fight and you get branded for life!"

There was once a small incident where Carlos had gotten so bored when they were trying to record some songs for their second album that he started to sore a cache of nerf guns at the studio. So one day that he was bored and didn't have much to do while he was waiting for James to get done with his vocal work, he went to the cabinet and took out one of the biggest guns. He waited behind a couch and shot Logan in the back of the head until Logan got so annoyed that he grabbed a gun of his own and started to shoot back. Before anyone knew it, the four guys were stuck in a all out war, somehow managing to break a set of speakers, a microphone, and a amp before Gustavo had managed to get them to stop.

Then they had to get some more jobs to pay them back for it.

"And that brings my attention to the recent developments with my kids," Ronan said. He turned and gave a proud smile to Riley, Rhuben, Patrick, Noah, and Sydney. "Now that their album Black and White has won the album of the year award at the ARIAs they need to be able to top that with a new CD. They have some old demos that they were working on, but haven't decided if those will go on the new CD as well as the new songs that they'll come up with over this next year. So while they're working on their new stuff, they also have to make sure that Steph is caught up with everything." He turned to Stephanie, who gave an excited smile. "Especially now that she's going on a different direction from her filmmaking."

"Wait, so does that mean that Steph is being signed to Blazing Phoenix?" Carlos asked, scratching the side of his neck. He looked excited at the idea, while Kendall, Logan, and James looked confused.

"Yes and no," Ronan said patiently. "I'm thinking of signing her as freelance talent, since she dances and does a bit of singing. The fact that she's a filmmaker too could potentially help my marketing department as well." He gave a light laugh before waving an arm towards his daughters. "As a suggestion from Riles and Rhubes, but on a trial basis right now as we're seeing how she will do out there on her own. Maybe like an intern or something." Ronan cleared his throat before continuing. "So now, she's slowly being pushed out there with the help of Riley and Rhuben, mostly, but from Patrick, Noah, and Sydney as well. All under my label. Meaning that while she is their backup dancer, we're also going to be promoting her work." He turned to Riley and Rhuben. "I also think that you guys should each co-write a song with her, that way she'll get the gist of how to write songs with different themes and to different melodies and such."

"Sounds cool!" Stephanie agreed with a bright smile. She exchanged glances with Carlos, who smiled brightly in reply. Now the two of them could spend even more time together than they already did. And now she was going to be able to understand how hard it was to be in the music industry. "I always wanted to try writing a song."

"Ok, so we got that settled," Gustavo said loudly, shifting the attention back to himself. "We need to talk about your guys' new styles for the new album and everything later. But I think that's all we need to go on right now."

"I just have one more thing to say," Ronan said back, shooting Gustavo a mocking glare. "Unless you want to find a way to be an attention hog like you usually are and pout when you don't get your way."

"I don't pout," Gustavo shot back. "You don't know what you're talking about, McGuire."

"So that thing where you act like a five year old is just you being yourself?" Ronan snorted. "That makes a lot of sense."

"I'm warning you-"

"Settle down, children," Kelly said, holding up her hands. She turned to Kendall. "I'm going to e-mail your mom about everything we went over today; we want to give you guys some time to think about the new direction your CD is going to go and if you want to start working on your own songs. So you have the rest of the day off."

"Yes!" Kendall, Logan, Carlos, and James cheered in unison, leaping to their feet. Carlos then leaned over and grabbed on to Stephanie's hand, pulling her to her feet as well. "You might want to take advantage of this," he warned. "There aren't many days that we get off."

"No problem." Stephanie laughed, allowing herself to be pulled to her feet. "But I can't wait for everything to get started," she said as she followed her friends out of the conference room towards the entrance to Rocque Records. She looked over at the Jacksons. "I mean, I already got their routines down, but I haven't actually done it live yet, and I'm really excited for that. But I'm even more excited for your guys' new stuff!"

"And for our new looks," James reminded her.

"Yeah, James, that's what we're all looking forward to," Patrick said, dead-pan. He then snapped his fingers as he turned to his siblings. "But it is a new year," he said slowly. His siblings started to smile. "And there's always one thing that we do when it's a new year."

"What's that?" Logan snorted. "Find a way to get Gustavo to scream at us more than two-hundred times in a month?"

"Interesting, but no." Patrick placed his hands on his hips. "It's going to be something that you might want Mama Knight's permission for..."

A/N: Sorry this chapter was so dialogue driven, but it had to be since it was talking about BTRs new style for 24Seven as well as their own personal styles as well as a little bit of DE's. I'm also going to bring in some more real life stuff with the guys in this and instead of making you guys wait in suspense, I'll tell you it now, so you can anticipate how it'll play out as the story goes on.

I'm writing this story kind of like the show, as we don't know if the 4th season is the last. That's why I think it would make sense for this (and for our timeline in general) that it sort of brings up the future. In real life James is hinting that he wants to go solo, Kendall is starting up with Heffron Drive, I believe that Carlos could be married soon, and…well, idk about Logan, so I thought that it would make sense if we brought it up in the characters as well. James wants to go solo, Kendall is thinking about his future of hockey or music, Carlos with his relationship with Stephanie, and…still IDK about Logan since his character doesn't seem to want to be a doctor anymore.

I hope that makes a lot of sense, because like I said before, this story is very loosely based around our season 4 timeline, it doesn't follow it exactly because it focuses more on the guys' problems than DE's although there are some points that are the same. Things will be really fleshed out as the season continues to air and we get to the stories that do follow the timeline since we've seen it for seasons 1-3 so far.

I hope you guys liked the chapter.

Cheers,

-Riles