Disclaimer: I do not own Wizards of Waverly Place or Camp Rock. Or Facebook.
Alex trudged up a path in the blazing and blinding sun in search of Caitlyn, like Mitchie had told her to do. But she'd yet to find her, she didn't know her way around the camp, and she was pretty sure she'd already passed the same tree five times. She was just thankful to have her sunglasses, because if not, she'd be squinting to try to see.
She wished she hadn't forgotten her phone in the cabin, though, so she could check the time or call Caitlyn to find where she was or even get a text from Mitchie saying the coast was clear and she could go back to the cabin. She'd never be able to find the cabin, but that was beside the point.
She sighed and kicked at the dirt path in frustration. This Brown guy had the worst timing in the world. She'd just gotten up the courage to ask Mitchie Sam's father's last name for only the second time since they'd known each other, and he interrupted before she could even finish the question.
And she bet Mitchie was pretty happy about that. For whatever reason her girlfriend had always been so secretive about his identity. What, did she think Alex would go look him up on Facebook if she ever found out his full name? Okay, truth be told, she probably would…
"Are you serious? Shane's coming back?" a voice said from inside a cabin Alex was passing.
Instantly, the young wizard's ears pricked up and her pulse quickened. Not wanting to miss any of this conversation, Alex quickly and quietly hopped onto the porch of the cabin and pressed her ear to the door.
"That's what I Brown told me a half hour ago when I talked to him," another voice said.
Alex moved around to the window so she could see what was going on as well as hear. She tried her best to stay out of sight, but still be able to see into the cabin. There were three girls in there. One was African-American, another looked to be some sort of Asian descent, and the last was a pretty blond. The blond seemed to be in charge of them by the way she held herself.
"Why are you just telling us now, Tess?" the African-American asked, directing the question at the blond girl.
Alex's stomach knotted. Tess. So this was Tess, one of the main sources of Mitchie's little fuck up back in her first year at Camp Rock.
"Because I went straight to the bathroom to freshen up my makeup when I heard the news," Tess said in an arrogant voice that made Alex's ears twitch unpleasantly. She couldn't stand the girl already.
"Do you even think Shane will notice?" the African-American said again. "I mean, when I recorded with them last year, I wore makeup and a dress the first day, and didn't get told anything about my appearance. The next day I went in sweats with no makeup at all, and it was the same thing."
Recorded with them? Huh? What did she mean by that?
"Yes, Peggy, but you aren't me," Tess said in a bitchy tone. If Alex was that Peggy girl, she would have smacked the blond right out of Tess's hair.
"What makes you think Shane will notice you?" the girl who looked to be of Asian descent asked. Alex recognized her voice as the one which had gotten her attention in the first place.
"Ella…I'm Tess Tyler, daughter of TJ Tyler," Tess said.
"That didn't impress Shane the first summer he was here," Peggy said, looking as if she wanted to roll her eyes.
"That's because Mitchie got in my way and ruined everything!" the spoiled blond stamped her foot on the wooden floor.
Alex gritted her teeth and balled her hands into fists. She didn't like the way Tess was talking about Mitchie. No one talked about her girl like that.
"But she's not here this year," Tess went on with a wicked grin.
"Actually, she is," Ella said.
"WHAT?" Tess nearly screamed.
"I saw her moving into her cabin," Ella said. "She had some girl with her."
Alex smirked. She was that girl.
"And there was a baby too!" Ella exclaimed. "He was so cute!"
To this, Alex had to smile with pride. Even though Sam was not biologically hers, she still could not help but feel happy when someone mentioned how cute he was. Because honestly, he was the cutest baby ever (in Alex's opinion, anyway).
"A baby?" Tess asked. "Whose was it?"
"I don't know." Ella shrugged. "Could have been that girl's. Or maybe Mitchie's."
The blond snorted. "Please. I highly doubt it's Mitchie's. Mitchie Torres is a total virgin."
Alex had to bite her tongue to hold back a laugh. Oh how wrong she was.
Tess's face suddenly changed, suspicious. "Unless…"
"Unless what?" Peggy asked.
"Do you remember that huge party two summers ago?" Tess asked. "When everyone got drunk?"
Ella groaned. "Don't remind me. I was puking the entire morning after."
"But remember… Mitchie and Shane were both wasted." Tess tapped her chin. "And I don't recall seeing her leave the party at all."
"What are you saying?" Peggy eyed Tess, seeming to wonder where this was going.
"What if Mitchie stayed the night?' Tess asked with an amused, evil smile. "And she and Shane did it. And now they have a kid?"
"You're delusional." Peggy shook her head. "Mitchie would never."
"How do you know?" the blond snapped. "She lied about her identity all summer when she was here! None of us really knew her at all!"
"Tess may be right," Ella said. "I was kind of far away, but the baby did look a little like Shane. They had the same hair color, anyway."
"Oh, come on!" Peggy said. "I think the entire world would know if Shane Gray, the lead singer of the world-famous band Connect 3, had a kid!"
Alex's heart stopped. Connect 3's lead singer? What…The…Fuck?
"Unless he doesn't know," Tess said slyly. "And if that's the case… Just wait until the tabloids get a load of this!" She laughed cruelly. "This summer just got a lot more interesting."
Alex stumbled backwards blindly, off the porch. She nearly fell, but regained her footing and walked away.
Her head was swimming, nearly pounding from all the thoughts bouncing around at once.
Could they be right? Could the father of Mitchie's baby, Sam, the child Alex loved so dearly, really be the lead singer of that stupid pop band she despised so much?
She tried to think back to anything that would have given her clues as to finding this out sooner.
Vaguely, she could remember a story in the news about the lead singer of some crappy band spending a summer at a music camp to fix his image. Had that been Shane? And had that camp been Camp Rock? It sounded like a pretty good bet to her.
There was something else, too. As she walked absentmindedly down the trail, she tried to go deeper into her subconscious, trying to pull out some sort of memory. Then one hit her.
The day in the car on the way to the hospital, the day Sam was born. A Connect 3 song came on, and Mitchie had made Justin change it before the first line was even over. At the time, she'd shrugged it off, but now she was seeing it for what it really was… A cover-up.
But was it true? And if it was, why had Mitchie kept it from her for so long? Surely the fact that Sam's father was famous would have been something worth mentioning to her girlfriend, right? They were supposed to tell each other everything, after all.
Alex, completely lost in thought, had not been watching where she was going. It was not until she smacked into something very hard and fell onto her bottom in the dirt that she realized this, either.
"Fuck," Alex groaned, rubbing her head.
She looked up at what she'd run into to find that it was a bulletin board with a layer of plastic protecting it to keep out the rain. As she stood, dusting off her jeans, she noticed there were pictures from previous summers on it. Immediately, of course, she started looking for the summer Mitchie had been there last.
In the middle of the board, she spotted her girlfriend. Mitchie was so much younger in this picture, and Alex had to smile a little at how cute Mitchie looked with her old hairstyle (long, brown, with straight-across bangs). She stood in between Peggy and Ella, and all of them were dressed in gold, sequined tops. This was odd to Alex. She never would have pictured Mitchie wearing something like that.
Then, her eyes shifted upward… And she saw it. It was a picture of Shane and Mitchie.
They were standing on a stage, facing each other. Their hands were hovering in the middle of them, their fingers laced together. And both wore big, goofy smiles on their faces. Alex's heart panged with not only jealously, but also with betrayal.
She wasn't much into mainstream music, and she wasn't a fan of the boy band, but she recognized Shane at once. He was, in fact, Shane Gray, lead singer of Connect 3. And the resemblance he had to Sam was… uncanny. That was definitely where the little tyke got his hair.
Alex blinked when her vision became blurry, and she realized she was crying. She reached up and hastily wiped at her tears from behind her sunglasses. She'd never been this hurt before in her entire life.
How could Mitchie keep this from her? After all they'd been through? It didn't make any sense. Alex trusted Mitchie with her life, yet it seemed as though Mitchie didn't feel the same way about Alex.
Say what you want about the situation, but Alex knew this was wrong. It was…inexcusable. And possibly even unforgiveable.
Alex gave the photo of Shane and Mitchie one last angry glare before turning on her heel and stalking off. As soon as she found the cabin in which she and Mitchie were supposed to inhabit, she and Mitchie were going to have a little talk, a talk which was way overdue.
Mitchie paced the cabin, waiting for Alex to return. She'd tried to text her, only to find that Alex had forgotten her phone. Sometimes Mitchie thought Alex would forget her head if it wasn't attached to her shoulders.
Butterflies fluttered in her stomach. She was anxiously awaiting Alex's arrival so she could once and for all tell Alex who Sam's father really was. She realized it was stupid to think they could come to Camp Rock without Alex finding out. And it was time to tell her.
As Mitchie was mentally going over how she wanted to reveal the news, the cabin door swung open, and Alex stormed in.
"There you are," Mitchie said upon seeing her girlfriend. Then, as Alex swiped off her sunglasses and threw them on the bed, she noticed that Alex had tears in her eyes, and she looked severely upset. "Alex, baby, are you okay?" She took a step forward, her hand reaching to cup Alex's cheek.
"Don't," Alex said harshly, swatting Mitchie's hand away.
"What?" Mitchie asked, feeling just as upset as Alex looked.
"How could you?" Alex asked. "How could you do this to me?" The question was a whisper, but with all the pain in Alex's voice, it shattered Mitchie's heart just as if she would have screamed.
"What are you talking about?" Mitchie asked, frightened.
"Shane… Gray," Alex answered. "Lead singer of Connect 3."
Mitchie's insides turned cold. Her throat became incredibly dry. She couldn't speak.
"I'll take your silence as a confession," Alex said bitterly.
"I was going to tell you," Mitchie croaked weakly.
"When?" Alex shook her head. "When he showed up at our door or something like that?"
Mitchie swallowed. "No, I was planning to tell you when you got back. I was going to tell you now."
"It's something you should have told me a long time ago," Alex said, now sounding angry.
"I wanted to," Mitchie tried.
"Wanting to isn't the same as telling me!" Alex raised her voice. "I had to find out from overhearing Tess and her wanna-be's talking about him." She shook her head. "And then I saw the picture of the two of you."
"Alex…" Mitchie reached for her, but again, Alex moved away.
"Did everyone know but me?" Alex asked, her voice small.
Mitchie shook her head quickly. "Just Caitlyn and my parents."
"You told Caitlyn, but not me?" Alex's heart dropped.
"She knew Shane," Mitchie attempted to explain through the forming tears. "She was here when it happened."
"But you never thought to tell me, your girlfriend, that the father of your child just happens to be rich and famous?"
"Alex, please, just give me a minute to explain…" Mitchie reached for her once again, but Alex took a step back, closer to the door. Mitchie could feel Alex slipping away from her, and she was desperate to hold on.
"You've had over a year. And you never told me," Alex said, pain evident in her voice. "I thought I meant more to you than that."
Mitchie felt like someone stabbed a knife through her heart. "You do."
"Apparently not."
She couldn't look at Mitchie anymore. She needed to get out of there, get away. She needed to move. So, she did what she used to do when she had a problem−before she met Mitchie. She ran.
Alex Russo turned and ran from the cabin as fast as her legs would carry her.
"Alex!" Mitchie yelled, beginning to chase after her fuming girlfriend. But then she stopped when she heard a small whine. Sam. She couldn't leave him. She turned around to see him standing in his crib, tears welling in his big brown eyes. He'd been woken by the yelling, but had been too scared to make a sound while it was all going on.
No sooner than her eyes had landed on him did he throw his little head back and start crying. Mitchie rushed over to her son, scooping him up and cradling him in her arms.
"Shh, it's okay, Baby," she cooed quietly to him, trying to calm him down. "Mama didn't mean it. She's mad at Mommy, not you."
Mitchie pressed Sam's face into her shoulder, rubbing the back of his head gently, partially smoothing his dark curls while speaking quietly to him. After about a minute, he'd stopped his balling and was merely sniffling. Mitchie let him lift his head from her shoulder, grimacing when she saw that her shirt was now covered in snot and tears, but was completely used to it. He looked at her with the eyes she was sure he'd inherited from her; they were red and still full of unshed tears.
Her heart swelled just looking at him, as it usually did in times like this−after he'd finished crying or when he was asleep. This is when he was the most vulnerable. This was her baby, and she loved him.
She hugged Sam to her as tightly as she could without hurting him and kissed the side of his head affectionately before letting go with one hand to reach over to the railing of the bed where his diaper bag hung, picking it up.
As much as she just wanted to stay in the cabin and hold her baby, let him comfort her and comfort him as well, Mitchie knew what she needed to do. Sam may have had her heart, but there was someone else in there too: Alex. And she needed to find her before she did anything seriously stupid.
"Let's go see what Nanny Caitlyn's doing," she told Sam with fake cheeriness as she opened the cabin door and stepped out into the blinding sun. As she walked, she balanced Sam on her left hip while reaching her right hand into the diaper bag and groping around blindly as it hung awkwardly from her right shoulder. "Aha!" she said as her hand closed around a small garment. She pulled out Sam's baby cap and placed it neatly on his head of dark brown curls, doing so so that his face and eyes would be shielded from the sun's harmful rays.
Sam grabbed the brim of his blue cap, pouting and taking it off. He threw it on the ground, making Mitchie stop.
She put her hand on her hip that didn't have Sam balancing on it and gave him a reproachful look. "I swear, you might as well be Alex's child." She bent down as carefully as she could and grabbed the hat, stuffing it in her bag. Normally she would have fought with him about it, but she just didn't have time.
Thinking about what Alex could possibly be doing at the moment, she quickened her pace, looking like a young woman on a mission. When she reached Caitlyn's cabin (Caitlyn had texted her with the number earlier), she gave a quick knock before rushing in, not bothering to give Caitlyn time to even answer the door.
Caitlyn, who had been working on a song on her computer, looked up when Mitchie entered, Sam in tow.
"Uh, hi?" Caitlyn said, moving her computer from her lap and standing from her bed.
"I need you to watch Sam for a little while," Mitchie said, dropping the diaper bag onto the floor by the door.
"Why?" Caitlyn asked, taking the baby when Mitchie held him out to her.
"Because I need to go find Alex!" Mitchie said, throwing her hands in the air.
"Where'd she go?" Caitlyn asked, balancing Sam on her hip like Mitchie had been doing.
"My guess would be to go kill Shane." Mitchie went over to the screen door, looking out to see if she could catch any sign of her girlfriend.
"Not that I mind, but why would she do that?" Caitlyn walked over to her friend.
"Because she found out he's the father!" Mitchie said, gesturing to Sam.
Caitlyn shook her head. "You should have told her before, Mitchie! I don't know what you were thinking bringing her here without telling her. She was bound to find out."
Sam whined, not liking the amount of excitement he'd encountered in the last ten minutes. It was too much for a one-year-old.
"I always just told her him name was Shane," Mitchie said, stroking the back of Sam's head affectionately to calm him. "But not that he was Shane Gray."
"Why would you do that?" Caitlyn exclaimed, evoking another whine from Sam.
"I don't know, okay?" Mitchie said as calmly as she could so she wouldn't scare her son, but not feeling calm at all. "But she overheard Tess, Peggy, and Ella talking about him, saw a picture of me and him from two years ago, and now she knows! I just have to go find her before she murders the father of my child."
Caitlyn sighed through her nose and looked at her faux-nephew. "Go," she said, looking back at Mitchie. "Go get her before she does something that she'll regret."
"Alex doesn't regret anything," Mitchie said with a slight smile, despite the situation. "But I'm going." She leaned over and kissed Sam atop the head lightly. "Be good, you," she said to him in a slight baby voice before looking up at Caitlyn. "Thank you! You're the best! Watch Sam!" She repeated the order, and without another word, she pushed the cabin door open, dashing outside.
Caitlyn caught it before it closed. "And don't you forget it!" She yelled at her retreating friend's back. "What are we gonna do with them, Samuel? Your mommies are crazy!" she said to the small boy in her arms, whom only smiled and poked her cheek, having no idea what was really going on.
Well, Alex found out.
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