Guest: Being my own worst critic I was thinking that the pacing was getting slowing down or staying slow or anything like that and was about to ask what you all. So, thank you for bringing this to my attention. That being said, I'll do my best to pick up the pace.

~10~

"I am too weary to listen, too angry to hear" -Daniel Bell

Rhuben let out a heavy sigh as she closed the front door to her house. She tossed her keys onto the small table by the door before kicking off her shoes. She slowly breathed in and out of her nose as she started to pace, using her hands to push her hair back from her face.

"Shit," she whispered as she started to pace. "Shit, shit, shit."

To say "this isn't good" would be an understatement. She wasn't sure what she was going to expect when agreeing that she would be there with Logan when he got in contact with his dad, but now a part of her wished that she wasn't there at all. One half of her, his best friend, the side of him that knew everything about her, or rather everything that she told him and then there was the other side of her he only caught glimpses of. He only knew some of the things she's seen and done and knew that he wouldn't understand and he wouldn't look at her the same way again.

Not that he really was looking at her now, not like she wanted him to. She did want to get back together with him, but ever since he got back from tour, the topic hadn't really been brought up again. Then there was everything with Camille. She wasn't sure if he had even talked to her since returning let alone knowing where things stood between the two of them.

But, like there were two sides to her, there were also two sides to him. Juggling between two girls wasn't like him, or rather, wasn't like the 'old' Logan. This new Logan was definitely different. He had more confidence to himself and his old wardrobe made up of sweaters, sweater vests, and with perfectly combed hair had changed over time to t-shirts, muscle shirts, and gelled hair with backwards hats.

She couldn't deny that on one hand, she liked the change as she was always attracted to men who were confident about themselves and she was physically attracted to guys with muscles (which explained her crush on James). She tried to show that she accepted his growth with the sunglasses and leather jacket, but at the same time she knew she could always depend on the old, reliable Logan. This would just take a little while to get used to.

And who knew how everything with his dad would change him. Her life with her dad changed her after all, and not living with Ronan was allowing her to be more open and welcome to change and to really start believing that good things could happen and she could live a happy life. At least she could try and hold onto that thought for a while. Much like everything in her life, something could mess things up in a blink of an eye.

Now knowing that Logan's dad is a drug dealer or was a drug dealer…things definitely weren't going to be the same. Logan was the straight laced type in terms of ethics; it was all black and white to him. He showed that the minute he ended the Skype call on his dad. She knew the news shocked him, he was in a haze throughout the short conversation with him, but from what she could tell, his dad really was sorry for what he did and he accepted and understood the consequences behind it.

If only her own dad was that way.

"So, it went well?"

Rhuben jumped, a hand flying to her chest as she whirled around to face her little brother, Noah, who was sitting on the stairs, facing her. He had his chin resting in his hand, his fingers curling up to cup his cheek, resting his elbow on his knee. He gave her a brief smile before he adopted his normal stoic look.

"You're even more quiet than I remember," she muttered with a brief shake of her head. Noah's lips twitched and his eyebrows lowered slightly. "I need to tell you something."

"Figured that," Noah replied, flicking his head to the side to move his long hair out of his face. He then leaned back on his hands, using his top teeth to catch his bottom lip piercings, bringing his lip into his mouth. He then eyed her warily, tilting his head to the side. "I'm not cutting my hair."

Rhuben blinked, taken aback for a moment before a hint of a smile came to her face. "How many times have I said that to you?" she asked, moving to sit on the step next to him.

"Too many times," Noah replied before bumping her shoulder with his. "So, what happened? Haven't seen you in yonks"

Rhuben let out a heavy sigh before briefly closing her eyes. "Logan's dad was in jail because he got busted selling drugs," Rhuben replied. Noah's eyebrows shot up and he made a noise in the back of his throat. "Yyyeah."

Noah gave another shrug. "It'll be right," he said, sliding into his natural accent. "No worries."

"So you say," Rhuben replied with a sigh. "You didn't see him when he found out, No. It was like…he couldn't function or whatever." She turned so her back was resting up against the posts of wood holding up the banister and put her feet in Noah's lap.

"And now you're afraid of how he's going to react to…everything," Noah agreed, nodding his head repeatedly. He ran his fingers through his long hair and pushed his hair off of his forehead before looking over at his sister with his blue eyes. They held sympathy and compassion, but she could also see something else in his eyes.

"I'm not telling him," Rhuben said with a shake of her head and Noah rolled his eyes. "What?"

Noah opened and closed his mouth, shaking his head. Rhuben raised her eyebrows, giving him a pointed look. "Just thinking…keeping things from our friends haven't really helped," he replied and shrugged for a third time. "It's ultimately your decision; I'm just letting you know."

"I've got Buckley's of this turning out well if I tell him, No," Rhuben said, running her hands over her face. "You know Logan; if something is wrong, it's wrong." Logan had been one to take more risks lately and act a little more wildly, but he still had his head on straight. He was raised well, that's for sure. "Which is why I kinda blew up at him." Noah gave her a questioning look and she then got to her feet. "Come on; all of you need to hear this and I need to tell you something else, too."

"Whatever it s, I'm sure it'll come good," Noah said.

Rhuben laughed a little bit, shaking her head back and forth. "How are you so optimistic about this?" she asked, crossing her arms over her chest.

"You and Riles always look for negative stuff," Noah replied, a far off look coming into his eyes. He turned away from her and looked down at a spot on the linoleum floor of the foyer. "Syd did his best to be optimistic about things, but Pat and I had to reassure him on a lot." He then looked back at her. "You guys never let us down, just like you said you wouldn't, but he's only a kid at the end of the day."

So many mistakes, and we dragged them through it all, Rhuben thought to herself as she took in what Noah was saying. She was Riley's right hand man, following in her choices, although giving her two cents every now and then. While they all had a close bond with each other, and specific relationships each other, it really was the two girls and the three boys separate. Patrick and Noah spent a great deal of time looking out for Sydney and making sure he was happy and included in on things.

"Is it about Ace?" Noah asked, getting to his feet. "What you wanted to talk about. Is it about him?"

Rhuben paused for a moment before turning to look at him. "You know about that?" she asked. Noah slid his hands into his jeans pockets, half his mouth twisting up into a smile.

"Are you that surprised?" he asked, quirking an eyebrow.

It really wasn't. Noah had always followed her around as a kid, wanting to do what she wanted to do; which was how he had gotten so into wakeboarding and drumming. The two of them were the shyer two out of their respective sets of twins and she liked to think that was just another factor that made the two of them close. She knew that as years went on that he was always a step behind her, silently observing things that went on, forming his own opinions to give her advice whenever she asked for it.

"Is dad home?" Rhuben asked, deciding to change the subject as she followed him up the stairs, their footsteps echoing through the foyer as they made their way up the stairs and onto the soft carpet of the vast hallway.

"Yeah, he's in the office," Noah replied, jerking his thumb. "He's been there all night; his phone has been ringing non-stop."

"I thought he was supposed to be taking the year off with us," Rhuben commented, following the voices of her siblings into their dad's room.

Patrick and Sydney were sitting on the floor in front of the large TV, eyes glued to the video game they were playing, thumbs wiggling over the GameCube controllers. Riley was sitting on Ronan's bed, occasionally lifting her head from the notebook she was writing in, to give comments every now and then. She stuck her pen behind her ear, closing the notebook when she noticed her brother and sister enter the room, shutting the door behind them.

"He is," Noah confirmed with a nod. "He's on the phone pretty much telling everyone to leave us alone." He walked over to Patrick and kicked his side. "Hey. Pause the game."

Patrick did as he was told before shooting out his arm, wrapping it around Noah's knee. He gave a hard tug and Noah fell over with a loud thud. Sydney set down his controller and rushed over to his brother, leaping on top of him, despite Noah's shout of protest before the three of them started wrestling.

"This is why Ronan sent us up here," Riley said, deadpan pointing a black nail polished covered finger at her brothers. Her eyebrows then knitted together when Rhuben moved to drop into the chair by Ronan's bed. "What's up? How'd the Skype call go?"

"Logan's dad got arrested for selling drugs," Rhuben replied, and her eyes flickered over to Patrick and Sydney as they immediately stopped what they were doing to look at her. "He didn't handle it well as you could imagine." Patrick snorted. "He flipped and started talking about how his dad ruined his life and how I wouldn't get it."

"Well," Sydney said, sitting back on his heels, a frown coming to his face. "In a way, you wouldn't. Dad, I mean, Robert wasn't put in jail for most of our lives." He wiped his palms on his jean covered legs. "If he was, we'd probably be with Ronan by now or just living with Julius or someone. We probably wouldn't still have our band as the media exposure would really just hinder our recovery, and stuff."

"Plus, no one of else that we know of has or had a parent in jail, at least not anyone that would come right out and say it. But on your side of things, I can see why you got upset. All in all, we're not the only ones with father issues. Kendall doesn't ever want to talk about his dad, James sometimes gets embarrassed knowing that his dad is dating someone half his mom's age, and Jo's dad is incredibly overprotective. There are some aspects where we could all understand each other in some way. This is all new information, so you have to cut Logan some slack for not thinking before talking. We aren't the best people at that, anyway."

Riley raised her eyebrows before nodding her head in Sydney's direction as the small boy gave a happy smile, his dimples popping up in his cheeks. "Well now you're making me feel like a jerk," Rhuben said, slumping in her seat, crossing her arms over her chest. "No, actually, you're making me feel like I'm Riles."

"Hey!" Riley protested, an offended look coming to her face as Patrick, Noah, and Sydney laughed. Noah reached out a hand and patted her knee and her smile returned slightly as she shook her head, rolling her eyes.

"I get it, Rhu-Rhu, really," Sydney said crawling on his hands and knees over to her. He then climbed up onto the chair and settled into her lap, allowing her to pull him to her chest. "It's ok you got mad."

"That's not it," Rhuben said, rubbing at her temples with her fingers. "He was making a huge deal about his dad actually selling drugs…it just made me stop telling him that I had done the same thing." She twisted her mouth to the side and let out a sigh through her nose. "I was going to tell him when I went to Runyon Canyon, and I was going to tell him today and then he said what he said…I just had a feeling that I knew why his dad was put in jail before I heard for sure."

She wasn't proud of what she had done. In fact, if she had anything to say about it, what she had done wasn't all that bad. Or at least that's what she told herself to make herself feel better for the time being. It was things she could get easy like inhaler and prescription medicine refills and she had only done it a handful of times.

It started out back when they had first started visiting Hollygrove and when they had met Ace. He was one of the oldest kids there, but was one of the shyest, always choosing to do things on his own. But, he was smart and had street smarts from what they could tell. She needed the money…they needed the money. They weren't getting anything from Robert and they weren't freely allowed to use their own money until they were 18, and they just wanted to save up money to get away from him.

"It was for a good cause," she'd repeat to herself over and over again. "It's to keep us safe."

All the while, she knew that if word got out, their career would be over. However, a part of her was fine with that, a part of her wanted to live a normal life. But, much like all her bad choices, she didn't feel like she had a choice and she knew that her actions would ruin someone else's career; especially Ronan's.

She knew that the only way all the bad stuff that happened to her and her family would stop if and only if she took the first step towards changing her life and she was dead set on making that happen ever since Ronan decided to give them a chance. He was the only one who truly believed in them and that good things could happen to them. It was only right to put in a little effort to try and make that happen; to give it a little push.

"He won't look at me the same again," Rhuben said, shaking her head from side to side. Faster. Faster. She stopped when she felt the familiar dizzy sensation. "He hasn't since he learned about the abuse thing. It's like he's wasting for things to fall apart so he can step in and help."

"Because he's your best friend," Patrick said, his words dripping with massive amounts of 'duh', "or at least that's what the two of you claim." He reached up towards his ear and removed the silver hoop earring from his right earlobe. "It was Logan that ultimately convinced us to get help from the police, remember? Besides, he hasn't looked at you the same since he really started to fancy you. So that's a weak argument." He then started to remove the earrings from his bottom lip. "Anyway, knowing him and how close you guys are, he knows to let you cool down for a while. He'll be around to try and talk things out soon." He then gave her a teasing smile. "Jerk-Face."

"Weasel." Rhuben gave him a grateful smile.

She knew that Patrick had a point, but the fact of the matter is, is that she could sense a waning in their friendship and she knew that this was something that couple potentially sever it completely. Whether or not she was in a relationship with him, it scared her to not have him around at all in some way, shape or form. It was just a comfort to know despite any arguments they were having or if things were going well, he was always there for her.

He was her security blanket in a way; the fact of the matter was she didn't think she'd ever have feelings for anyone or trust someone fully like him without him expecting anything in return. She didn't know what she'd do or who to turn to (outside her family) without him there. He was a comfort but at the same time he could be restricting and stifling. Do I really believe that, though? Rhuben thought to herself. Is there anybody I can really fully trust? Logan had never given her any reason to doubt him without there being a good reason for it.

"I don't want to talk about this anymore," she finally said after a moment of silence.

"What about—" Noah fell silent when Rhuben cut her eyes at him, angling her head in Riley's direction, and he gave a brief nod, letting out a heavy sigh through his nose. He then clicked his tongue and lookd around the room for a moment. "I'm just saying…if we want things to get better, we have to start talking about it. It's like what Dr. Angelo says in my sessions with him; we have to face the past before we can face the future."

"Yeah," Riley agreed with a nod and a weird laugh, "But, where do we start?" Noah gave a deep frown before a thoughtful look crossed her face. Sydney clicked his tongue and Patrick started to toss the ear and lip rings in his hand into the air repeatedly, catching them in his palm. "Mhm."

Rhuben thought back to her last session with Dr. Angelo and his words echoed in her head, "Every square on that Rubik's cube is an aspect of your life; friends, family, health, your job, what have you. It won't ever run smoothly until you take the necessary twists and turns to make a clear path. But, sometimes you need help to align the pieces; to have everything flow together."

As usual, he was right about everything, then again, that was his job; to get inside her head and to help her understand why she thought and acted the way she did to get to the root of all her problems to help her accept herself and to learn from her past to change. At the root of all her sessions were to allow herself to fully accept help and more importantly as for help when she needed it and the only way to do that was to go back to when she really started feeling like she needed to do things for herself.

All in all, she had to do two things she absolutely hated: apologizing and talking about her feelings. But, if there was any way her friendship or relationship with Logan to have a fighting chance, it was this. She had to stop making everything about herself.

A/N: So things pick up from here. You'll see Ace more and of course more Lolla moments as well. Again, this could be because I'm my own worst critic, but I find pairing centered fics that I write better when it's an important part of the plot, but a side plot at the same time. If that makes sense.

Cheers,

-Rhuben