.:CHAPTER THIRTEEN – Who's Going Home With You Tonight?:.

Kacy Knight watched as Kendall, Logan, Carlos, James, and Katie played a video game, screaming at the TV screen and shoving each other, jumping up and down every now and then as the game progressed. The Jacksons just sat on the couch, on the floor, in chairs, watching them, but not seeming to register what was going on.

She was worried.

Hell, she was more than worried, she was afraid.

Ever since they had come back from Australia, she hadn't gone through the apartment without seeing one of the Jacksons there. That wasn't a surprise, as they were usually hanging around the Palm Woods anyway. But every time it was time for them to go home, they would try to keep from having to leave, stalling for time; a missing shoe, calling their father to ask if they could stay longer, or Sydney would start crying.

It didn't help much, and it kind of unnerved her, to see Riley and Rhuben practically glued to the hip to one of the guys. They never seemed to want to be away from them, even if they had the day off to do whatever they wanted, they immediately went to the studio with the guys. Even when Jo, Camille, or Stephanie would ask them to hang out, they would say no and say that they were busy, when in actuality they would just stay in apartment 2J.

She didn't mind that, they were like her own sons and daughters, all of Kendall's and Katie's friends were, but this was getting strange. She knew that it was really hard on Kendall, as with Riley being around all of the time; it was hard to spend time with Jo alone. But she also knew, as she made it a point to talk with her kids a lot, that he was struggling with what to do about the fact that he had feelings for both girls, didn't want to hurt either one, and was having trouble dealing with it. Add in the fact that he wasn't getting a lot of sleep, it was making him a shell of what he used to be.

It was one day when Patrick and Noah were doing homework with Lizzie and Katie at the apartment that she really started to worry. They were talking about a history test that Patrick, Noah, and Katie had taken. While Katie went to school at the Palm Woods, the Jacksons were homeschooled by Ronan, but there were times where he had meetings or emergencies to take care of at the record company, so they had to go to the Palm Woods for school.

"Patrick, don't worry, it's just one test," Katie was saying when Kacy had walked into the main area of the apartment to start lunch. "It's just one bad grade; it's not going to kill you." She reached out to pat his hand, but he pulled his arm away, putting it under the table.

"Yeah," he muttered sullenly. "That's what you think."

Kacy had moved her eyes over to Noah to see if he had any reaction, but he just kept his eyes on his notebook, silently looking back and forth from it to the textbook that was sitting next to him. Kacy didn't miss the exchange of glances between her daughter and her best girlfriend. They thought that something was going on too, but couldn't say it.

Everyone knew that something was going on, and that was partly because Logan was to blame. He had been jumpy and nervous ever since they left and now he was on the verge of psychotic. If the Jacksons didn't ever want to go home, he would jump in agreeing with them, coming up with a lame excuse as to why they should stay. And when someone else asked him why, he either couldn't come up with an answer, just look at Riley and Rhuben for help (which they didn't give), or just completely clammed up.

Since she had a suspicion, Kacy waited until the four friends had gone to the pool before going over to see what Patrick had gotten on his history test. She was surprised to see that he had failed it, since she knew that history was his best and favorite subject. Looking at Noah's and Katie's test scores, she could easily tell that he was upset because he probably got the lowest grade in the class.

She remembered that he had been staring down at the paper in his hand looking as if any second he was going to throw up. He was very bright, although he acted stupid just for laughs, and she knew that he could have aced the test without trying but this week he had been going through one of his sullen periods.

Worried, she had then called Robert over to talk to him, to see if he knew what was going on with his kids. Robert quickly agreed and had shown up, worried that his son had been doing something wrong. But when Kacy explained everything about them not wanting to go home and Patrick's failing grade, Robert immediately relaxed.

"Oh, is that all? Patrick has been bringing home failing grades every now and then for years, Riley and Rhuben aren't that much better. They just don't like school so they don't really try."

"And them being afraid to go home, what's that?" Kacy asked, raising a skeptical eyebrow. She shook her head. "I can't tell you how many times I've seen it where Riley or Rhuben would immediately latch onto one of the guys' arms if they got up to go somewhere. Or Sydney would start to burst out crying whenever we said that it was time for him to go home."

"They're teenagers, when do they ever want to go home?" Robert replied with a humored chuckle. "Especially Syd, he doesn't like to be left out of things. As for Riley and Rhuben, they probably just have a crush on one of the guys and want to be around them there. It's nothing to worry about."

After that the two of them had a nice talk, with Robert being the perfect gentleman. Even though he hadn't shown any signs of lying, Kacy couldn't help but feel that he had been. Being able to tell if someone was lying, was something she'd nurtured over the few years she'd had to watch Kendall and his friends get into mild trouble. It came in handy when dealing with the excuses that any of the boys or Katie cooked up as to why they didn't have something done.

Also, it didn't sound right that he wasn't worried in the slightest. He was too relaxed. How many 10 year old boys cried when they had to go home?

Another day, when it was time for them to go home, Sydney burst out into tears again. Kacy noticed that his siblings quickly tried to calm him down, looking embarrassed and anxious, and knew right then and there that she needed to talk with one of them. Sydney would have to be it, because she knew that he hated to lie.

"Sydney, can I talk to you for a minute?" she had asked.

Rhuben had kept her hand on Sydney's arm, as if holding him back. But when he tilted his head and looked up at her, as if asking for permission, she hesitated, sighed, and then nodded, gently pushing him forward.

Kacy took his hand and led him into the room that she and Katie shared, kneeling down to his height. Sydney looked up at her, innocently. Probably something that he learned to do to throw people off. Kacy thought to herself as she looked at him. She was surprised to see tears in his eyes. He quickly wiped his face with the back of his hands before looking at her again.

"What's the matter, Sydney?"

"Nothing," he whispered his voice barely audible. "I just don't want to go home. I like it here."

All Kacy wanted at that moment was to draw the boy to her, hug him and tell him everything was going to be alright. After waiting for him to say something else Kacy nodded. "Alright then. But you have to go home eventually. I'm sure your father would—"

Sydney's head shot up. "No Mama Knight, please. Can't I just sleep over?" He stopped, his eyes getting wide as if he had done something he shouldn't have. He winced, curling one arm against his chest.

"It's not Friday, Sydney" Kacy reminded him gently. He and Patrick and Noah usually stayed over at the apartment on Friday's while Riley and Rhuben took Katie over to their place to have sleepovers with Jo, Camille, and Stephanie. But even that had stopped happening. "Why do you want to sleepover so badly?"

Sydney looked back down at his shoes. "Never mind. Can I go now?"

Kacy looked at him. Both arms clutching his stomach, his forehead wrinkled as if he was thinking hard.

Or in pain, a voice in her head whispered.

She let him go home with his siblings. But Sydney had looked back at all of them when they were going through the door, much like Riley had when they had first gotten back from Australia.

The look on the small boy's face stayed with her, haunting her thoughts. And before she knew it, she was in her room, dialing the phone.

"Blazing Phoenix Records, Ronan McGuire speaking." Ronan answered after one ring.

"Ronan, it's Kacy, can you get Kelly and Gustavo together so we can have a meeting?" Kacy shut her eyes. "There's something that we really need to talk about."

A/N: I wanted to make this chapter somewhat about the adults, because I kind of been neglecting them, but it makes sense sine they aren't main characters in this story. You guys are going to absolutely love the next chapter, the story is almost over, only 6 chapters left, and the next ones are going to be long to be able to push in everything that I want to get done before the story ends. I'm going to be focusing on this and Life Goes On, so I can finish those before going onto something else.

But I do need your guys' help: I'm writing a new BTRXDE story that starts out as a T but will eventually be turned M due to violence and sex. But what I really need your help on is whether or not the Jacksons should be adopted by Ronan already when they come into the story. The way I'm thinking of the plot it can do fine either way, but I'm having trouble deciding.

Thanks in advance, I'll probably update again tomorrow. (If I do it once every day, this story will be done by Tuesday, November 1st.)

Cheers,

-Riles