AN: Hi, I hope there are still a handful of you that haven't given up on me. This semester was especially brutal as far as school work goes so I haven't been able to write. Also I seem to have lost most of my motivation for this story. I'm hoping to get back into it over break and get a few more chapters out before New Years.

Disclaimer: Lovely people of the internet, if you think I own anything that Disney actually does, you are sorely mistaken.

Previously: Ali's parents split up, she is moving out of the house to an apartment in LA, and she is bringing her sister to live with her over the summer.

Moving In

"My gosh Christine, you're only going to be here for the summer, I think you brought more stuff than I did," Ali yelled across the apartment as she put down the first of her boxes in the new apartment and turned to get more when she saw that there were three familiar musicians standing in her doorway.

"What are you guys doing here?" she asked as she gave them all hugs.

"Did you really thing you were going to let you move in on your own?" Shane asked.

"Well, I'm not totally alone."

As if on cue Christine came out of her room. She stopped in her tracks, took a breath and moved to stand beside her sister, smiling.

"There's my little sister," Nate smiled and pulled her into hug. When she was released Jason gave her a hug as well.

"It looked like we startled you a little," Shane noted.

Christine blushed, "Yeah, sorry about that. Caught me off guard."

Ali smiled, "It's one thing talking to Nate on the phone, but another to see the three in person? Even if you've met them before."

Christine nodded.

"I know that feeling."

There was a not-so-subtle fake cough from the doorway. Ali's eyes widened. "Oops."

"Yeah, oops," Will said, "No Will, you stay with her car, we'll be right back," he mocked.

"Sorry, that was our fault. Hi, I'm Nate," he offered Will a handshake.

"Will," the young man replied and shook his hand. Ali breathed a sigh of relief Maybe this won't be a problem after all. Shane introduced himself and Will and Jason shook hands. Ali watched the important men in her life. I've got nothing to worry about she told herself. This whole thing might actually be fun.

"Ok guys, let's see if we can make this place look like a home."

Everyone nodded and most of them headed for the car. Jason and Christine hung back.

"You brought Will?" Jason asked.

"Yeah, his dad is the only person I know with a truck big enough to move furniture, plus he wanted to help." She noticed her sister lurking behind her, "Hey, Jace, could you give us a minute?"

"Sure," he kissed her cheek and left to help the others.

Ali turned to her sister, "So you really are Nate's little sister. I didn't realize you had gotten so close."

"You know how easy he is to talk to. Besides, it's not my fault. You introduced us."

Ali held her hands up, "OK, ok, geez. I'm happy about it. It will be less awkward around here if you don't mind them stopping by."

"I think I might really love this summer."

Ali looked out the window of her new home and saw all of the guys at least attempting to work together.

"I know I will." She looked back at her sister in time to see her roll her eyes, "Ok fine. Let's get down there."

The first thing Ali saw were Shane and Will arguing about who would carry what side of the coffee table.

"If you walk backwards then all the weight is on me."

"What, pretty boy popstar can't handle a coffee table?"

"Of course I can, but why should I have to?"

"Fine, if you are going to be a diva about it, you walk backwards."

"No way, you just want me to trip and fall for your own sick amusement."

"Maybe a little," Will muttered just loud enough for Ali to hear as she came up beside him. She elbowed him lightly in the ribs and stepped in.

"Ok, boys, I have a solution. G-man, could you help me with this?"

Jason put down part of the bed frame that he was going to bring up and picked up the heavier end.

"Perfect. Thanks love. Let's go."

Will and Shane watched as the couple made their way up the stairs.

"You know, she's used to working with five year olds, problem solving is what she does," Nate pointed out.

"Oh yeah," the other two said in unison.

Nate shook his head, "Now maybe if it's not too much trouble you guys can help me with the couch."

Upstairs Ali and Jason got the table into place in record time.

"We didn't trip or anything." Ali marveled, staring at the table, her back to Jason.

"I think it's because we are weirdly synchronized," Jason explained, wrapping his arms around Ali's waist.

"You're probably right." Ali leaned her head back against his shoulder as he nuzzled her neck.

"Gah! Get a room," Chrissy shrieked when she spotted the couple.

"No thanks, I've got an entire apartment instead," Ali giggled.

"Yeah, where I'm supposed to live."

"You get used to it," Nate offered as he set down a small bookshelf.

"Ugh," She sighed and went back out the door.

"Come on, I should be helping," Ali twisted out of Jason's arms and took his hand instead, pulling him towards the door. "It is my place after all."

By that evening the group was sitting in the living room eating pizza.

"This sure came together quickly."

Ali nodded, "Yeah, but it'll look really different when Coco moves in at the end of the summer. We are trading some of my stuff for hers. Christine is going to take some of this back with her in the fall."

They sat watching tv for a few more minutes.

"Thanks for all your help today guys, seriously. I really appreciate it."

There was a general grumble which translated to 'you're welcome', 'no problem', and 'of course'.

"You know, as payment we expect to be welcome here anytime," Nate hinted.

Ali rolled her eyes and laughed, "As if you wouldn't be here all the time anyway."

"How exactly is that going to work?" Will asked, "Sleepovers all the time?"

Ali shot him a glare. "Not that it's any of your business, but it's not going to be like that." She turned to the band, "But it's not formal at all. You don't need to call or anything, just come over whenever. That goes for you too Will. It's not my fault you don't live around here."

It was nearly midnight when the guys decided to head out. Christine gave hugs and headed for her room. Will and Ali hugged before he left for home. Nate and Shane said their goodbyes and headed for the car.

"Welcome home," Jason whispered to Ali as they stood at the door.

"Thank you." They shared a kiss and Ali went back inside.

To say that the first couple of weeks living with her sister were difficult would be an understatement. Trying to convince her sister that school work was more important that the beach was getting old. Finally she couldn't take it anymore.

"Ok Christine. I told Mom that I would help you with some school work this summer so next year won't be so tough. She said to make sure you read. So we are here at the bookstore. You are stuck here for the next 3 hours so you may as well find something you like."

#

"This is torture!" Christine exclaimed, "Besides you are just using me as an excuse to meet up with your boyfriend."

Ali laughed, "Yes I'm meeting up with Jason, but be thankful for that. If not I would spend the next three hours lurking over your shoulder and suggesting books that I know you don't want to read."

An hour later Ali and Jason were cuddling on their usual couch. They separated from a kiss and Jason was smiling.

"I don't get tired of that." He told her when they pulled apart.

"Good, me either," she smirked as he pulled her in for another kiss and she wrapped her fingers in his hair.

"I'm so glad I'm moved up here."

"So are we. Nate was saying that the other day. He likes you and Chrissy being closer to the house. He said that he loves you. Not like that, like a brother and sister."

Ali smiled at the fact that Jason felt the need to clarify that Nate was not in love with her romantically.

"I love him too," she saw the look on Jason's face and quickly added, "like a brother."

"He said that it will be easier to take care of you and your sister now that you are closer."

"That's sweet of him, but why would I need to be taken care of?" She enjoyed the attention from time to time, but she liked to consider herself a fairly independent person.

Jason was about to tell her that it was only in case she needed something when they were interrupted.

"Hope I'm not interrupting anything," Mia stated coming back to their little corner and placing a stack of magazines on the small table in front of them, "These are some of the old issues I can't sell anymore. You can look through and take what you want."

Ali looked down at the cover of the top issue. She smirked at the pictures that lined the bottom.

"Looks like you really get around," she laughed, pointing at the various pictures of him and three different girls, herself included.

"Well I'm the only one ever spotted with girls. Nate and Shane have no drama." Jason shrugged, "whether I'm the least popular or not, I'm the one with the story I guess." He skimmed through the magazine and looked over at Ali, "does that mean you haven't read this one?"

Ali shook her head, "I haven't been looking at the teen tabloids lately, so no. Why?"

Jason smiled, "Look at this." He flipped to a page and pointed to a poll, "They did it online. You won by a landslide. According to the fangirls around the world, you are the best girl for me."

Ali's eyes widened as she looked at the chart. "Wow, I got more votes than 'other' which, if you think about, would be the fans voting for themselves."

Jason watched excitedly as a smile covered her face. "Look, they printed some of the comments from the site. If you log on they have a whole ton of them I guess." He pointed to the corner of the page. Ali read the comments quickly before looking up at Jason.

"You want to check out the site?" she asked pulling her laptop from her bag, he nodded. As the computer booted up and she went to the indicated website she thought about the days she spent posting on message boards, defending Jason and whoever his girlfriend was at the time. She hadn't lived in a fantasy that they were going to meet and he would fall in love with her. That had just happened on its own. She had just been a fan that tried to keep the haters at bay. There was a share of positive feedback there as well, but nothing like what she was seeing now. Her boards, on occasion had messages of "I hope they are happy together" but this poll was something else. She found her favorite message quickly.

"I like this one," she pointed to it and Jason leaned in closer to read it.

I vote Ali, hands down. They look perfect together. I don't care what you jealous fangirls say. You can see the love in their eyes when they look at each other. She had inserted one of the paparazzi pictures from outside their rehearsal venue. Sure, he's been spotted with other girls, but he doesn't look at them like he does at her. You can tell, even in those prying, annoying, shouldn't exist, paparazzi photos. Anyway, love you Jason, I'm a big fan forever. Ali thanks for making him so happy. You belong together!

"That's so sweet. You think it would be ok if I replied to her?" Ali asked.

"I think she'd like that. Tell her I say 'thanks'."

"I can only imagine how much that would mean to her. I remember being on the boards and defending you. I was thrilled when I actually was thanked by another poster. I t was only a short 'finally a sane fan' but it was enough. I don't know what I would've done if I'd actually gotten a message from you."

"What was your screen name?" Jason asked, "It wouldn't happen to be PlzBMineFan' would it?"

Ali stared at him for a moment. How could he have known that?

"How?"

He pointed at himself, "JayBrd3000 at your service. You were one of my favorite people to follow on the boards."

Ali's eyes had widened as soon as he said the screen name, "That was you? You thanked me for being all level headed?" He nodded ad she thought for a moment. "Were you trying to start riots with your posts? As I remember JayBrd was a bit of a trouble maker."

"I thought it was fun to watch the fans, especially when I posted about Shane."

Ali laughed, "How did we not learn about this sooner? I can't believe that was you."

Jason interlaced her fingers with his. "I remember reading some of your posts and wondering what you were like in real life. I told the guys that if I could pick one fan to meet, it would be you."

"I'm kind of glad we didn't meet that way. It was more fun to get to know you that day at camp."

Jason kissed her temple, "I agree."

"Marco?" Chrissy called across the store.

"Polo," Ali responded. Two seconds later Christine was standing in front of them with a small pile of books.

"Ok, it's been three hours, or seven, or maybe even a week. I've got the books, can we go now?"

Ali sighed, "A promise is a promise. Sorry G-man, time for me to get out of here."

Jason looked at his watch, "I'm supposed to be at the studio in a little bit anyway. Oh, Nate said he wanted to barbeque tonight. Want to come over for dinner?"

"Sounds good. All the usual suspects going to be there"

"Yep, my mom is stopping by too."

"Great, I haven't seen her since the concert. We'll be there." She looked at her sister, "If you get your reading done.

"But –"

Ali raised an eyebrow that stopped the argument for the moment.

"Fine." A scowl graced the younger girl's face.

"Thank you." Ali smiled, "I'll see you tonight." She pecked Jason on the lips.

"Love you Songbird."

#

"AHHH!" Mitchie shrieked as Shane threw her in the pool. Caitlyn squealed as the splash sprayed her.

"Guys, if you keep starting trouble I'm going to go deaf," Ali laughed.

"Trying being at our concerts every night," Nate told her, "You get immune to it."

"Or maybe you are just going deaf," Ali joked.

"What?" Jason asked looking up from the bowl of chips he was filling. Everyone else just laughed.

Ali walked over to him, wrapping her arms around him, "Nothing Love. Just complaining about the noise."

"I see." He kissed her softly until they were interrupted.

"Now Jason, I don't want you corrupting this lovely young lady."

Ali turned to see Maria watching them and smiled brightly.

"Mom," Jason blushed.

"I promise, it's not entirely his fault," Ali pulled away from Jason and hugged Maria, "It's so good to see you!"

"I know, it's been a while. You should stop by the house sometime, for lunch or something."

"Should I be worried about that?" Jason asked, "You guys aren't going to gang up on me or anything are you?"

The both laughed lightly. Maria hugged her son. Ali ruffled his hair.

"No Darling, we won't."

"Well maybe, that depends on if you'll come and help me with the yard work." Maria warned.

The rest of the night passed in that same playful manner. Caitlyn ended up push Nate into the pool, Shane and Mitchie revealed a new duet when the group had settled around the fire pit. Maria even talked to Chrissy about her homework for a while. Ali looked around at her friends from her place at Jason's side.

"This is what it's about you know," she told him. "Friends, family. It's supposed to be like this."

"To bad this is the last BBQ for a while. Me and Mitchie leave for camp on Monday." Caitlyn mentioned from her other side.

"You guys are going to have a blast and you know it." Ali told her.

"Well, of course. But still, we're going to miss the rest of our family."

"We are coming out for the last few weeks," Nate reminded her.

"And I think I'm going to follow them up." Ali said.

"It wouldn't be camp without all of us together."

#

The summer continued and so did Ali's battles with her sister.

"Arghh!" Ali screamed out of nothing but frustration."Chrisy, please. I need you to do this."

"Why?" She screamed, "It doesn't affect you any! You don't care."

Ali huffed, that's what you think. She honestly wanted her sister to succeed, but she had no idea how to motivate her.

"You know that's not true." She heard her door slam, "And stop slamming my door."

Christine proceeded to open and slam the door several more times just for emphasis. Just then there was a knock at the door.

"Yeah?" Ali called towards the door. It wasn't the most polite way of finding out who was on the other side, but if it wasn't someone that knew her well enough to understand her mood, then she didn't want to talk to them anyway.

"It's Nate," his muffled voice responded. Ali went over and opened the door.

"Hi, sorry, what's up?" Ali cast a glance in the direction of her room, wondering if her sister had heard Nate come in.

"I was on my way home from the label and thought I'd pop in. Did I hear shouting?" Ali was about to respond when her sister sort of answered for her.

"What, no sharp, big sister response for some door slamming?" Christine semi-shouted from the other room.

I guess she didn't hear the door Ali thought and rolled her eyes. "Do you want to try and fix this? She won't get her work done and she won't let me help her. She's driving me crazy. If it's not this it's something else." Ali shook her head, defeated.

Nate shrugged, "Sure, I don't have anywhere to be. Why don't you go hang out at the house," he suggested. Ali nodded and shouted across the apartment.

"Chrisy, I'm going out. Don't worry, you're not home alone. I'll see you later," she grabbed her bag, gave Nate a quick hug and headed for the door. "Thanks."

"What do you mean?" Christine asked, coming out of the room, stopping dead in her tracks at the sight of Nate.

"I'm going to be your tutor this afternoon. From what I hear you won't let anyone help and I want to give it a try. If we survived your finals then I think I can handle this.," Nate told her.

#

"You know, I think part of it is her dealing with your parents' situation," Maria told Ali as they sat at the kitchen table.

Jason was outside fighting with the bushes. Ali had been helping, but when she was pricked by a rose bush and started to bleed Jason insisted that she go inside and keep his mom company.

"I guess. We are just so different. It's not like we got along great before all of this happened. Now it's just kind of brutal. I think living together is helping a little. We are having more good days now." She traced the top of the glass of ice water that was sitting in front of her. "Plus Nate is really taking care of her. I think he was right about taking care of us. I didn't think we would need it, but I think my sister does."

"Well you need to be taken care of too," Maria told her, "you just handle things differently."

Ali nodded, "that's the truth."

They sat quietly for a moment. Maria looked at the girl in front of her curiously.

"Would it be weird for you to talk about Jason with me?" Maria asked.

Ali smiled when she heard his name, "That depends on what you want to talk about."

"He seems to be doing really well and he talks about you constantly. I just wanted to know how things were on your end."

"You don't want me getting scared off again?" Ali guessed.

"No, I want to make sure you are ok. I know that your parents splitting must have thrown you for a loop and I never talked with you directly about what that did."

"Jason told you all about it didn't he."

Maria nodded, "He wanted to help you as much as he could, that's all."

"I know, he always has the best intentions. Actually my parents are what brought me back to Jason. What I have with him is real, maybe more real than my parents' whole marriage. I didn't want to let that fall by the wayside."

Maria nodded as Ali spoke, showing that she was listening.

"And as far as I'm concerned he's been taking great care of me. I don't know what I would do without him."

"Well I don't think he plans on going anywhere, so you're in good hands."

"You would know, you raised him," Ali smiled, "You did a good job, I might add."

"Good job with what?" Jason asked as he came in the room.

"Raising you," Ali told him as she turned to face him. She gasped. "Baby, what did you do?"

Jason had light pink scratches all over his arms and leaves and twigs all in his hair and on his shoulders. Ali got up and started to pick the leaves out.

"Yard work was never my calling."

Ali had him sit in her chair and moved behind him to have better access to the garden that seemed to have relocated into his curls.

"I can see that. Did any of the trimmings end up in the trash or is it all in your hair?"

"I'm not sure. But those rose bushes are vicious." He held up a scratched arm to show her.

"Aww, poor thing."

"I'll get some Neosporin. Ali I trust you can take care of him for now." Maria winked and left the room.

"Yes I can," Ali said quietly. She ran her fingers through Jason's hair making sure she had gotten everything out. Jason groaned softly.

Ali giggled, "You always like when I play with your hair don't you." She repeated the action and Jason grabbed her hand.

"Mhm, it feels good." He placed a kiss on her wrist.

"Hey, I'm supposed to be taking care of you for once." Ali scolded, taking her and back and moving to stand in front of him.

"You take care of me all the time." He pulled her down on his lap.

"What are you talking about?"

Jason shrugged, "just being around. Most people can't handle spending lots of time with me, or they get irritated, or they judge me."

"Well, they don't know what they are missing." Ali told him, dusting some of the dirt from his shoulders.

"See, just saying things like that. It makes a big difference." He wrapped his arms around her waist and she curled up against his chest. He rested his chin on the top of her head, "You take care of me."

AN2: Would any of you be interested in reading alternate scenes from this fiction? I have a lot of unused footage so to speak, I was thinking of posting them as separate outtakes maybe after I finish this story. Let me know what you think. Even more important than that I would like to know what you thought of this chapter, of if you are even still interested in my little lovebirds :)