DISCLAIMER - I DON'T OWN ANYTHING TO DO WITH CAMP ROCK OR THE PEOPLE IN CAMP ROCK. DISNEY OWNS CAMP ROCK, AND I DON'T. PLAIN AND SIMPLE.

A/N - Thank you to All-American Dork06 and AlUvmusic for reviewing on the last chapter.

This chapter is kinda lengthy, and I tried to shorten a little bit, but it didn't really work. So..please just bear with me.


Chapter 7 : Memories Are All We Have Now

Nate told us earlier this morning that Connect 3 has about a week to themselves. That means no working, and hopefully no screaming fans stalking the guys' every move. Seriously..it's creepy when everywhere I look, there's some freaky girl staring at my dad, all the while they're glaring at me.

Dad said that since we were already in New York, he was going to take me to see his house. It was only about ten minutes from the hotel we were at, and Dad even suggested that we take my car.

He has a really nice house. It definitely isn't as big as Mom's, but..that's what makes it nice. It's a three bedroom, two bathroom house and I was already in love with it when I had only seen as much as the outside. It was brick, but when I stepped inside, it was so light and open.

I started looking around and I came across a room that must have been Dad's bedroom. On his dresser, there was a beautiful picture of Mom, two or three of me as a baby, and two or three of me, Mom, and Dad.

Dad stepped in the room and smiled. "So...you like it?"

"I love it. It's so -"

Dad's cellphone started ringing, cutting my sentence off.

He looked down at the caller ID, and groaned. "I'm sorry. I've got to take this."

"It's okay." I answered as he left the room.

It's not that big of a deal if you answer the phone while I'm talking. Mom does it sometimes, whenever she's home. It doesn't really bother me anymore.

I could see him in the hallway, pacing as he talked.

"Hello? Are you serious? Well, me and Shiloh are spending the day together. What's the problem? Can't we just do it another day, Nate?"

As Dad talked, I crossed to the dresser and ran my hand across the top of it, smelled his cologne, then lifted up a photo of him as a little boy. I looked back and Dad made a face about the phone call. I laughed as Dad continued bickering with Nate on the phone.

"Shiloh!"

I quickly moved away from his dresser, worried I'd been caught trespassing.

"Yes, Shane?"

"Would you mind running down to the studio with me?"

Is that week of, in Jason's words, "no working of any kind" over already?

"Sure. It'll be fun." I said, smiling.

The studio was across the street from the hotel we were at earlier, so we just walked.

"Come on, let's see what all the fuss is about..." Dad said as we approached the building.

A skylight filled the foyer of the converted town house with a splash of white light. Me and Dad climbed a circular stairwell to get to the studio.

"So, do you ever think about getting married?"

"No, I like things the way they are, thank you."

"But, seriously, doesn't being around this stuff all the time ever make you think about the 'M' word?"

Dad stopped abruptly and I crashed into him. He turned around and gave me a confused look. "The 'M' word?"

"My mom."

"Oh. That 'M' word. Well, no, actually it didn't. Not until you brought it up."

"Why not?"

"How did we get into this discussion?" Dad asked as he opened the door, leading to a huge loft.

As we stepped into the loft, I saw a photo-shoot in progress. A whole bunch of people was scurrying about. Light pop music was playing in the background. The only thing that I was able to do was look around and watch like a kid in a candy store.

"Okay, he's here. We're saved." I'm assuming that the person who said it was the photographer's assistant.

"Shane, we need you for the group shots. Without you in them, they just look -"

"Incomplete." Dad finished for him.

I sat down on one of the stools they had set up as I watched Dad, Nate, and Jason strike a lot of different poses.

After a while, I was getting kind of bored. I started lightly singing along to the song in the background, and Dad quickly smiled over at me.

"All right, I think we're good." The photographer announced.

Nate and Jason went over to look at the pictures, but Dad and the photographer were talking.

The photographer must have noticed me watching them, because while he was talking to Dad, he motioned at me.

"Come on." Dad smiled.

"Really?" I asked them both.

The photographer looked at me and then at Dad. "Why not?"

I stood up and the photographer started talking again.

"I think it'd be great if we got some father-daughter pictures. You guys want to?"

"Yeah, totally." Dad answered, but I hesitated. If I do this, then Mom will totally know where I've been and I'll be in so much trouble. But..if I don't do this, I may never get a chance like this again.

"Shiloh?" The photographer asked.

I have no idea how he knew my name, but apparently he did. Then again, when you have parents that are as famous as mine, it's hard to stay invisible for long.

"Okay.." I finally agreed.

I walked briskly towards Dad, and he wrapped me in a hug. They must have had some windows open because I felt a light breeze as Dad released the hug.

"Dad is too cool." I thought to myself as the photographer snapped what seemed like thousands of pictures of us.

Before long, the photographer called a wrap on the photo-shoot.

Me and Dad made our way down the hall, passing a row of offices.

"So..where were you and Mom gonna get married?" I brought it back up.

"Why the sudden curiosity about me and your mother's past love life?"

"Well, maybe because it's never been mentioned and you can't blame a girl for wondering..." My voice trailed off and Dad smirked as he stuck his head in an office.

"I'm going home, guys. See you later."

We headed back down the circular staircase, only to be greeted by the busy street.

"So, what was she like? Really?"

"Who?"

I rolled my eyes at him as we stepped onto the sidewalk.

"Dad, you can't avoid the subject forever." Wow. That was surprisingly easier than I thought it would be.

"Okay." I could almost hear the surprise in his voice. "Your mother was very beautiful, to tell you the truth. She was...actually..amazingly beautiful. All right?"

I simply smiled. "All right."

It had started to sprinkle, and I pulled the hood on my jacket up, over my hair. Dad snapped open an umbrella and held it over both us. "Are you cold?"

"I'm fine." I looked up at him again. "So, where did you guys meet?"

"We met at Camp Rock."

"Camp what?"

"Camp Rock. It's a music camp. I was forced to go back one year as a celebrity instructor, and your mother had the most amazing voice, but I didn't know that the voice belonged to her."

I threw him a confused look and he chuckled. "I'd heard a girl sing, and it was stuck in my head all summer." Dad looked like he was remembering back, so I let him have his moment. "We met face-to-face when your mother was working in the camp kitchen, actually. But..we really met each other at Final Jam. I had been searching all summer for the girl who sang the song I had heard, and when she started singing, I knew it was her. I interrupted her song with part of one of my own, and it just seemed to fit. We finished the song, and then just stared in each others eyes for a few minutes, both of us knowing we had found our missing piece."

Oh, my God. He only remembers Mom as being amazing. He has no idea that our BUTLER has practically been raising me since I could walk.

"No kidding?" I ended up saying.

Dad nodded and continued. "We kind of hit it off immediately after that."

"Was it love at first sight?" I smiled and now it was Dad's turn to roll his eyes.

"I knew all these questions were going to come up somehow." "Taxi!" He yelled as he raised his arm and hailed a cab.

It splashed to a stop and we hurried inside. We sat side-by-side as I continued with the questions.

"So, did you see each other every night after that?"

"You know, this part of your personality reminds me of your mother." He looked in my eyes, making sure he had my full attention. "Yes, we saw each other every night, every morning and every hour in-between. But..one night, when I was nineteen and Mitchie was eighteen, things sort of got out of hand. I remember Mitchie running up to me almost a month later, her eyes filled with tears, saying that she was so sorry that she had ruined my career."

"How was it ruined?"

Just when I started to understand, he threw me for a loop.

"See, the one night things got a little out of hand.."

His voice trailed off, and he looked over at me. After a few seconds, my eyes went wide as I understood.

"It was me." I whispered, and Dad nodded.

"Yep. So, one night..about a week after you were born, I popped the question, in the middle of the Atlantic, on the QE2."

"The what?"

"The Queen Elizabeth 2. It's an ocean liner that sails from London to New York. I was in London at the time with Connect 3, and Mitchie was in New York with her singing career, so it made sense for us to meet up on there."

"That's beyond cool."

Dad just nodded his head.

"So, what happened? You didn't love each other when you weren't in the middle of the Atlantic?"

"These things are complicated, Shiloh."

No, it's not. You're making it complicated.

"What you're saying is, it didn't work out."

"No, I guess it didn't. Except for having you."

I smiled and Dad put his arm around me, pulling me close to him. I sighed and leaned into his shoulder.

I wonder if Mom even knows that I'm gone.


Thanks for reading!

-ImAnUnderdog