A/N: So, has anyone ever heard of a 'rootkit?' I am pretty computer savvy and I hadn't heard of it, but that is apparently what my computer got and apparently it was a really awful virus aaaaand it really interfered with everything and I had to redownload my entire Operating System. And in the process, I lost everything I had ever typed ever. (Not really true, but I lost everything new I had typed on this computer compared to my backup Mac.)

That is why this is three thousand years too late and I hope you guys don't hate me too much. All my apologies – I've been so swamped with getting my stuff back for night class and all of my work documents and blah blah blah, unfortunately writing sort of took a back seat. I hope this is a good filler until I can write a nice long chapter for ya'll!

The next day was uneventful – thank god – but all the kids were sad to see Mr. Torres leave. They had spent a good portion of the day with him; they had all gathered in Connie and Mitchie's cabin to work on the birdhouse since it was now common knowledge that Jason and Mitchie were in cohorts together. It wasn't finished yet, but it looked good considering. Her dad had brought some chiseled wood for the roof, giving it the illusion of actual shingles on it, and now all that was left to do was to attach the roof and some of the extras that would be on the outside and paint it. Jason was officially the happiest camper at Camp Rock.

Mitchie and her mom still had a little tension between them, although her dad swears that he told her mom the whole story and that she seemed to really regret pushing Joey onto her. But Mitchie knew that her mom wouldn't regret that – Joey was pretty much her dream man for her daughter to be involved with. Affluent, important, attractive – she knew that Connie felt like she was doing the right thing by encouraging the two of them.

They were lucky enough to manage no more Joey, Kylie or Tess sightings for the whole day as well. After they bid Steve goodbye, with promises to see him soon at the Final Jam, the group finally split up. Nate was going to take Caitlyn down by the lake to practice some guitar and Jason wanted to spend some quality time with his birdhouse (Mitchie had a suspicion that he wasn't kidding, either). Mitchie excused herself from Shane, desperate to get some alone time in. She had been running short of that in the past week or so and with everything that had happened, she was practically bursting at the seams with song ideas and emotions. She spent the rest of the day writing fervently in her notebook and jotting down chord progressions. She was so involved with her writing that she didn't realize that she had completely missed dinner – both eating and setting up for it. Figuring that her mom would be angry either way, she quickly changed into her pajamas. Let sleeping daughters lie, she thought hopefully as she snuggled down into her bed. Tomorrow was another day and another week.

"Are you sure it wasn't daylights savings time this weekend and no one told us?" Mitchie moaned as she slumped into her spot on the bench at lunch the next day. "I feel like today has been going in slow motion. I'm so tired."

"You went to bed at like, 8 last night!" Caitlyn pointed out.

"I'm over-tired. I'm also over being tired. I'm ready to wake up now, thanks."

"Where do you think the boys are?"

"If they're napping, I'll kill them," Mitchie mumbled, propping her head in her hands. "Hey, what's Lola doing with Tess?" Mitchie nodded towards the opposite side of the dining hall where Lola and Tess seemed to be in the middle of a somewhat serious conversation. "Are they friends?"

"Not that I know of." Caitlyn watched the two of them. This wasn't actually the first time she had noticed Lola with Tess. They seemed to be near each other a lot lately, now that she thought of it. And always in the middle of some sort of deep and mysterious talk that no one could overhear.

Lola looked up and locked eyes with Caitlyn before hurriedly saying her goodbyes to Tess and making her way to their table.

"Hey guys!" Lola said brightly, setting her stuff down on the free bench.

"Too. Happy." Mitchie managed to get out before resting her head on her arms folded in front of her. She had never been happier that she opted for the less stylish - yet super comfy - dark purple velour sweatsuit for the day.

"You and Tess seem to be buddy-buddy lately," Cait commented. Lola's eyes opened wide and before she could get a word out, Cait continued. "Is she trying to lure you to the dark side?"

"Is there any other side when it comes to Tess Tyler?" Lola laughed off Cait's question albeit a bit nervously.

"Seriously, what was up with that?" It wasn't that Caitlyn didn't trust Lola, but she didn't trust Tess Tyler.

"Just wanted to talk about the Jam this past weekend, that's all."

"I'm still sorry we missed your performance Saturday, Lo."

Mitchie nodded into her arms, agreeing with the sentiment.

"Ain't no thing. I'm sorry you two didn't get to perform. Did you guys have anything awesome planned?"

"Well, everything we do is awesome," Cait corrected her. "But I didn't have anything too crazy going on. Trying to save up all the good stuff for Final Jam, you know? And hey Mitchie – what were you going to perform?"

"Just an old song; I hadn't put a lot of thought into it this week." She lifted her head and forced it to stay up despite the urge to put it back down. She had no idea how she was going to manage to get through dance class with Shane.

"Are you going to do it next week?"

"I don't know – what's next week again?"

"You have to be the only camper here that doesn't know all of the Jams by heart," Lola told her exasperatedly.

"Hey, I'm sorry for being the new girl!" Mitchie teased. "So what is it?"

"Bubblegum Jam," Caitlyn threw out in between bites of her turkey sandwich, the distaste for the event evident in her voice.

"Not a fan, I take it?" Mitchie tried to muster the energy to eat her roast beef but she couldn't do it. Her arms were like lead.

"If I wanted to hear people butcher Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, I'd go to a karaoke bar, thanks."

"What's this I hear about karaoke?" Nate asked as he slid into the bench next to Caitlyn, followed closely by Shane and Jason.

"Caitlyn's just voicing her disdain for the Bubblegum Jam," Lola told the table. Mitchie let her head flop into her hands again.

"Aren't you going to eat, Mitchie?" Jason asked around his mouthful of sandwich.

"Too. Sleepy."

Shane pushed the sandwich towards her anyway.

"Gotta eat, Mitch."

"I wanna go to sleep."

"I want a million dollars."

Every person at the table gave Shane the side eyes.

"You have a million dollars," Mitchie mumbled but forced herself to sit up, only to lean her head on Shane's shoulder as she went through the motions of eating her sandwich. Shane absentmindedly stroked her hair, satisfied that she was eating.

A few minutes later, in the midst of lunch, Shane's phone started to ring quite loudly, attracting the attention of the majority of the lunchroom.

"How do you even get service out here?" Caitlyn asked as she checked her phone. "I have like, negative three bars."

Shane let out a huge sigh when he saw who it was.

"It's Seth," he mouthed to Jason and Nate as he got up, answering it.

"What do you want?" Shane asked as he disentangled himself from the table and Mitchie, who hit his leg as he answered, scoffing at his greeting.

"Don't worry, Mitchie, Seth deserves that and more," Nate commented, gathering his stuff as well. "He's an ass."

Nate and Jason followed Shane out of the cafeteria, Jason trying to listen in next to Shane's ear, which only succeeded in him walking into the door as they left.

Mitchie and Cait made it through their next classes uneventfully, to Mitchie's delight. She finally started to feel normal by the end of guitar lessons and Brown had just given her some good news to top it off. She was selected to work with Shane on her vocals! The opportunity itself wasn't something that merited a lot of excitement – after all, she hung out with Shane all the time and she knew that he wouldn't have an issue if she wanted to work on her vocals with him. What her being selected meant that she had impressed Brown! All of a sudden all the praise he had given her in the previous weeks actually meant something now. He told her that her classes would begin tomorrow night with Shane and she was officially excited to get started on a Final Jam project, although she was pretty sure that everyone else already had theirs all sorted out.

"These are so amazing, Mitchie!"

Caitlyn and Mitchie were lounging around in Caitlyn's cabin, which was currently unoccupied by her roommates. Mitchie was still reeling from Brown's good news and Caitlyn was going through her notebook of songs, reading through the lyrics, trying to imagine how they'd sound.

"How long have you been writing song?"

"For as long as I can remember, practically," Mitchie answered uninterestedly as she flipped through a recent edition of Rolling Stone. She wasn't even really reading it, but she kept flipping through it, wondering about Final Jam possibilities.

"Wow, they're great, though. Trust. Do you only write deep, emotional songs?"

Mitchie looked at her over the top of the magazine, trying to gauge her seriousness.

"You obviously haven't looked through the whole book."

"You mean there are some that are not Grammy nominee material?"

"Hah hah." Mitchie threw the magazine to the side and sat up. "Okay, I'll admit that I haven't written many of them, but the love songs I write…ugh. So cheesy! No matter what I do, they always come out sounding so…blah."

"I thought you weren't 'in love' with your old boyfriend?"

"I wasn't…the songs I wrote about him were usually pretty bitter, actually." She scrunched her face. "Should've been my first clue."

"So you're saying that you've written some recently…"

Mitchie's cheeks heated up instantly.

"You have!" Caitlyn squealed. "Where? Which song?" She started rifling through the notebook, which Mitchie promptly snatched up.

"They're not exactly something I'm proud of," she explained. "They sound like…I don't know. Like teenage poetry."

"Isn't that sort of what it is?"

"I'd prefer if they sounded like a mature songstress wrote them, thank you very much."

"Play one for me," Caitlyn begged. "Please?"

"You'll laugh," Mitchie stated plaintively.

"I won't, I promise!"

"You will," Mitchie retorted, even though she reached for her guitar. "Trust me. Even I can't make it through one without laughing."

"Well, that's okay then. We can laugh together!"

Caitlyn's excitement was contagious and Mitchie found herself smiling and shaking her head at her. She flipped through her notebook until she got to some of the last pages, where she had hid this song.

"Ugh, the lyrics are pathetic." She gave a side glance to Caitlyn. "You're not secretly recording me this time, are you?"

"Nope…do you want me to?"

"Gah, no! I don't want anyone except us to hear this song. Ever. It's so mushy and girly and…lame."

"Well now I can't wait to hear it! What's it called?"

Mitchie blushed deeper, if that was possible. "…Hrph meebin," she mumbled.

"What? I didn't catch that."

"…Hey Stephen," she repeated, clearer.

"Stephen? Who's…hey, isn't that Shane's middle-"

"Shut up."

"What? No, I…" Caitlyn bit her lip to keep herself from smiling too big. She clasped her hands and placed them in her lap and looked up at Mitchie innocently. "Please continue!"

Mitchie rolled her eyes at her friend but started to strum her guitar. This is how she knew she was in a great mood, since she couldn't see herself singing this song for anyone normally. She nodded along goofily, trying to make Cait laugh as she hummed the first bit.

"Hey, Stephen I know looks can be deceiving but I know I saw a light in you

As we walked, we were talking, I didn't say half the things I wanted to.

Of all the girls tossing rocks at your window, I'll be the one waiting there even when it's cold

Hey Stephen, boy you might have me believing I don't always have to be alone."

Caitlyn tapped along to the beat and nodded her own head, smiling at Mitchie. The song might not have been as thought provoking as some her other ones, but Caitlyn thought it said more about Mitchie than maybe she even realized.

"Cause I can't help it if you look like an angel,

Can't help it if I wanna kiss you in the rain,

So come feel this magic I've been feeling since I met you.

Can't help it if there's no one else – I can't help myself"

Mitchie sang and rolled her eyes at her feeble lyrics. She got up, slinging the guitar strap over her head and started putting on a little show for Caitlyn – moving around the cabin, getting into it, even if it was ridiculously corny.

"Hey Stephen, I've been holding back this feeling but I got something to say to you.

I've seen it all, or so I thought, but I've never seen nobody shine the way you do.

The way you walk, the way you talk, the way you say my name: it's beautiful, wonderful, don't you ever change.

Hey Stephen, why are people always leaving? I think you and I should stay the same."

Caitlyn got up from her desk chair and sang along to what she now knew as the chorus, her smooth alto voice synching in perfectly, still clapping to the beat.

"They're dimming the street lights,

You're perfect for me,

why aren't you here toni-ight?

I'm waiting alone now,

So come on and come out and pull me near

And shine, shine, shine!"

Caitlyn was trying so hard not to laugh at her best friend's antics, which involved spinning around the room whilst trying to play the guitar and sing simultaneously. Mitchie stopped spinning and actually looked a little serious as she opened her mouth next, only a small smile playing on her mouth.

"Hey Stephen, I could give you fifty reasons why I should be the one you choose.

All those other girls, well, they're beautiful – but would they write a song for you?"

Caitlyn shook her head vehemently at this and Mitchie couldn't help the laugh that escaped her at that.

"I can't help it if you look like an angel,

Can't help it if I wanna kiss you in the rain,

So come feel this magic I've been feeling since I met you.

Can't help it if there's no one else – I can't help myself."

Caitlyn and Mitchie danced around the room barely getting the lyrics out as they embraced their playfulness to the extreme. As they finished (Mitchie was on the bed, somehow, and Caitlyn was spinning around in a swivel chair), they heard clapping from the door. Fearing the worst, Mitchie felt her stomach drop from her body.

Lola. It was Lola standing in the doorway, clapping with a huge smile on her face. Mitchie had never felt such relief as she felt in that moment.

"Oh, thank god, Lola! I thought you were, I don't know, someone terrible." Her words were rushed and garbled as she plopped back down on the bed, her heart still racing from the almost-embarrassment.

"Someone like Stephen?" Lola asked with a grin as she made her way inside, setting down her bag on her bed.

"Oh, no, no, there's no Stephen. Stephen is fictional."

"So no Stephen, but maybe a Shane, right? Isn't Stephen his middle name?"

"How does everyone know that right off the bat? Am I the only person at Camp Rock that had to literally search the recesses of her brain to remember his middle name? You two are pathetic," Mitchie ribbed playfully, hoping for Lola to drop the subject. No such luck.

"Hey, we're not the ones who just wrote a song about him, are we?"

"It's not about –"

"Girl, don't even try to tell me it's about anyone else except Shane Gray. I can't afford to be this pretty and that naïve."

Mitchie hung her head, accepting defeat. After all, it wasn't like she was telling Kylie or Tess she wrote songs about Shane. Lola had proven herself to be trustworthy.

"It's just one song, Lola. It doesn't even mean anything."

"It doesn't mean anything but it's catchy as hell!"

"That's what I thought, too!" Caitlyn piped up. "Mitchie thought this song wasn't that great, can you believe it?"

"You know what I can't believe?" Mitchie wanted to be anywhere but there. "That we are actually having this conversation. Isn't there something else we can be doing?"

"Well what we can be doing is eating dinner," Lola told them as she stripped off her tank top in front of them and put a new, silver striped one on. "I just came back to change before going."

"I will never understand why you change some part of your outfit before dinner every day, Lola," Caitlyn wondered aloud as the three made their way out of the cabin and towards dinner, the cabin abandoned.

"A girl's got to make a good entrance, doesn't she? It may not be a first impression, but it's an impression, right?"

The trio laughed to themselves as they made their way to dinner, having a brief moment where they felt good about life.

"So, scale of one to ten, how excited are you that I get to work with you on your vocals?"

It was Tuesday night and Mitchie had been waiting for her private session with Shane all day. She was surprised to see him in Brown's classroom before her; she was convinced that she was 10 minutes early, at least. A quick glance at her watch told her that she was indeed that early, but if Shane was there too, why wait?

"I would say a 9. But I'd be careful, Mr. Gray. Soon you'll be asking me to work on your vocals," she teased as she set her bag down next to the piano he was sitting at.

"Hmmm, might be sooner than you think," Shane said cryptically. He cracked his knuckles as she sat next to him on the bench and looked at her expectantly. "So, show me what you got."

A blank face stared back at him.

"What I've got? For what?"

"Well…I don't know. Final Jam, I guess?"

Mitchie pulled a hesitant face.

"You don't have anything," he surmised.

"It's not that I don't have anything, it's just…I don't have anything solid." She let out a sigh. "I have like, all these parts of songs, but I can't seem to put them together. It's like I'm missing key pieces of the puzzle."

"Let's hear some of the pieces and maybe I can help you add to them, ok?"

She nodded and pulled out her songbook, eager to get someone else's perspective.

"That one's pretty perfect," Shane commented after Mitchie played the last key of yet another song.

"I guess it's not that bad, but I don't know…I sort of wanted my Final Jam song to be more accessible and personal, all at the same time. I only have a few songs that fit the bill with that one and none of them are really Jam-ready."

"What about…you know. That one."

Mitchie instantly knew which song Shane was thinking of, and shook her head, although the thought had already occurred to her.

"I thought about it, but I really can't see myself performing that in front of a lot of people and holding it together."

"Fair enough," Shane conceded and gave her shoulders a squeeze in what he hoped was a comforting gesture. He knew she was getting frustrated, but he had no idea how to help her.

"There is another one, but I don't think it's ready. It's another one of those 'piece-y' ones."

"Show me," he quietly urged. Mitchie hesitated before opening her song book, unsure if this was a good idea.

"What's wrong? Have I heard this song before?"

"Not…exactly."

"Then what is it?"

"It's um…inspired by you." Shane's incredulous look earned him an elbow to the side. "Hey, you're not the only one who is capable of listening when someone else speaks."

"Not when someone else speaks. When you speak. That's when I listen."

Mitchie tried to ignore the flush spreading across her cheeks and as she bit the inside of her lip.

"Well, I don't pretend to be inspired by just anyone, but this specific song is due to something you said to me once…"

Shane didn't like her tone of voice.

"Oh, no. What did I say?" Anxiety seeped into his bones. "Was I a jerk? I deserve anything you write about me, I know that now."

"You…you're not a jerk. And it's not a bad song," she reassured him. "But you did tell me once to find out who I was. And I'm not sure if I know yet, but I think I'm finding out. I owe a lot of that to you."

"To me?"

Mitchie felt her face heat up and instantly shielded herself with her hair.

"Well, you know, you, and Cait, and Jason and Nate. All of you are really great. I've never had friends like this."

"You're the great one, Mitch," Shane said softly, tucking her hair behind her ear. Their eyes met and something sparked between them. Just when Mitchie was seriously contemplating leaning in, Shane flashed a smile at her, breaking the moment. "And I'm sure this song is great, too!"

"Yeah. Um, yeah. Hopefully. Maybe. We'll see." She could've slapped herself for seeing something that wasn't there. She mentally chastised herself and then straightened up, sliding her songbook back onto the piano and doing her best to ignore the warm presence next to her.

She avoided his eyes and began to play the piano as she opened her mouth to sing. No more Shane, no more Camp, no nothing. Just her.

"I've always been the kind of girl

That hid my face

So afraid to tell the world

What I've got to say

But I have this dream

Right inside of me

I'm gonna let it show

It's time to let you know

This is real, this is me

I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be now

Gonna let the light shine on me

Now I've found who I am

There's no way to hold it in

No more hiding who I want to be

This is me…"

"I know, it's sort of rough, and I think I might have another verse to follow that chorus, but I'm having a hard time finding a bridge, and I think it might be too slow for Final Jam, but what do I know? So what do you-"

As she finally turned to face Shane and get his opinion, his soft lips cut off her rambling.

Shane Gray was kissing her.