Author's Note: So I was watching an old movie called "Citizen Kane". In it a guy was going around basically trying to figure out what the last words of Citizen Kane meant – what made him tick. I liked that concept and wanted to try that here since Jay just seems like someone who even the people closest to him still need to dig through his layers to really find out what makes him tick. So this was my homage to that film. Obviously Jay won't be dead, but we will get a little insight into him.

Also, there will be a chapter taking place during Valentine's Day, but I want to write the next chapter of Devil's Due before I work on it. That means that the V-day chapter (or chapters, I might split it into two if it gets long enough) will be up in March.

Other than that, please enjoy…

Jay's Birthday

Liz listened to the ringing of the phone as she sat on the couch, letting the TV drone on in front of her unwatched. It was after dinner and the twins were up in their room finishing their homework. Sam was up his home office, going over his preparations for tomorrow's tourney practice. She had a rare moment to herself and decided that now was as good a time as any to get started on something that had been on her mind for the past week.

"Hey, Liz," Carlos said as he fin ally answered.

"Hey, Sweetie," she replied happily. "How are you? I didn't catch you at a bad time did I?"

"No, I'm good," he told her, but as Liz listened carefully, she could have sworn she heard Carlos whisper to someone.

"Are you sure?" she asked him one more time.

"Totally," Carlos said, his voice sounding a little too sure.

Uh-huh," Liz said on her end. "Listen, I need to ask you for a favor."

"Go ahead."

"Okay, so, I'm assuming that you know that Jay's birthday is coming up, and Sam and I wanted to do something nice for him. But we don't know what?"

"And you want…ideas?" Carlos asked confused.

"Well you two are practically brothers, I'm sure you've got some insights that might help."

Insights…into Jay, there's an easy task, Carlos thought. If anyone kept things close to himself, it was Jay. As much as Carlos knew about him, there was still a lot that he didn't. But luckily, for him and for the purposes of this conversation, this was a subject he knew a little bit about.

"Jay's not really big on birthdays," he told Liz.

"He hates his too?"

"No, no he does not," Carlos corrected her. "He's fine with it. I've just never known him to really celebrate it."

"Ever?" Liz asked, not liking what she was hearing one bit.

"I remember him mentioning that his Dad got him a cake one or twice, but that was it. Jay treated his birthday like any other day – he wouldn't even let me or the girls do anything for him. Not even Mal. You might even be better off asking her, she's been friends with him longer than any of us."

"Alright," Liz said slightly dejected. She was hoping that Carlos would be able to give her the insights that she wanted. But Jay was proving that he was quite the mystery, even after all this time with them.

Mal walked into the athletic building, feeling slightly out of place since she was on the boy's side. Her combat boots made a noticeable thump against the hallway floor as she walked toward Coach Jenkins' office. She felt her nose practically get assaulted as she walked by the door that led into the boy's locker room and sped up to get away from the smell of sweat and what she was convinced was practice gear that hadn't been washed since the school opened.

The door to Coach's office was open so she lightly knocked. Coach looked up and waved her in. She entered slowly, feeling a little nervous since she'd never been called to this office before. Fairy Godmother's office, sure, plenty of times – even before she went to live with her. But Coach's office was a first.

"Hi, Mal," she heard as she entered and turned to see Coach's wife Liz sitting on the couch in his office, reading a magazine. She felt herself become slightly less nervous at the sight of Coach's wife. It wasn't that she was wary of Coach Jenkins, after all, he was taking care of Jay and Carlos, it was just…whenever she was over at their house to see the boys she dealt more with Liz.

"Hey," Mal said slowly as she sat on one of the chairs in front of Coach's desk.

"Sorry for pulling you out of class so weirdly," Coach started as he leaned back in his chair, "but Liz, or rather, we needed to talk with you about Jay."

"Nothing's wrong is it?" Mal asked suddenly worried.

"No, definitely not," Liz said setting down her magazine. "It's just, well, you probably already know that his birthday is coming up and…"

"He told you he didn't want a party didn't he?" Mal assumed.

"No actually," Coach answered her.

"We haven't even spoken to him about it," Liz told her. "We want to, but Carlos told me pretty much the same thing you just said when I talked to him about it," she added.

Mal nodded.

"He doesn't like celebrating it."

Liz and Coach looked at each other, each one thinking the same thing when they thought back to what Fairy Godmother told them about Mal and her lack of energy over her own birthday.

"I don't mean any disrespect," Coach began, "but is it an Isle thing? Not liking your birthdays?"

"Not really," Mal told him. "I think it has to do with who you were raised by. Some kids like theirs because their parents made an effort at it – like Evie. Others can't really stand it because their parents sucked all the fun from it – like me and Carlos, who actually hates his birthday more than me because at least my mother occasionally said happy birthday. All Cruella did on Carlos' birthday was yell and rant in a day long tirade about the fourteen hours of labor he put her through."

Liz made a mental note to make sure and do something big for that boy.

"And Jay?" Liz asked. "Where does he fall?"

"He was more in the middle," Mal revealed after thinking about it for a second. "His dad would sometimes do something for him. Of course it usually ended badly."

"Badly?" Coach prodded.

"Most people don't know, but Jay has an aunt on the Isle, Jafar's sister. They'd all get together and well…on a good day, Jay would just leave while they argued. On a bad day, he'd have to pull them apart. I'd try and do something for him to at least try and make up for that, but he'd just shut me down and say to leave it alone," Mal explained, a touch of sadness creeping into her voice. "I figured all the drama just spoiled the idea of celebrating."

That poor boy, Liz thought as she listened to the purple-haired girl in front of her.

"Thank you, for coming to talk to us," Liz told Mal as the girl got up. Mal nodded and started heading for the door.

"If it were me trying to do something for Jay, I'd just ask him," Mal said just before she walked out of the office. "The one thing I do know about Jay is that he's really not a fan of surprises – just ask Audrey."

Without another word, Mal leaves the office, leaving just Coach and Liz. The two of them glanced at each other before Coach got up and sat next to his wife. He took her hand in his.

"Not the response you were hoping for?" he asked gently.

Liz shook her head.

"Has Jay ever talked to you about his life back on the Isle?" she inquired.

Coach took a deep breath and thought back to when he first met Jay.

"I remember when I was trying to convince him to join the team. He seemed…apprehensive, almost like the concept was foreign to him outside of whatever it was he, Carlos, and the girls did back on the island. To try and make it relatable, I compared a team to family. You know what he told me?"

Liz looked at him expectantly.

"He said that I did not want to be at his house during family dinners. But the part that concerned me was the way he looked almost afraid when he said it," Coach let his wife know. "And now after talking with Mal, it makes sense why."

Liz found herself sitting in a small restaurant just off campus. She'd spent the past day trying wrap her head around what she was going to do about Jay and his birthday. She wanted to do something big since he probably wasn't used to a big celebration back on the Isle. But what she was hearing from everyone was telling her the opposite. There was one last person who she felt she should talk to, someone that Jay had seen fit to let his guard down around and let in. Hopefully she could provide some insights into a final decision.

She looked up when she heard the small bell above the restaurant door indicate that someone had entered. She saw a girl looking around and Liz raised her hand to get her attention. The girl walked over and sat across from Liz.

"Hi, Audrey," Liz smiled at her eldest's girlfriend. "How are you sweetie?"

"Hi, Mrs. Jenkins," Audrey greeted back as she hung her purse on the back of her chair. "I'm good."

"Are you hungry?"

"No, Jay and I had lunch a little earlier. Thank you, though," Audrey told her.

I love this girl's manners, Liz thought.

"Audrey, let me get to the point, Jay is what I wanted to talk to you about," Liz started. She saw a look of apprehension flash across Audrey's face. "Something wrong, dear?"

"You're going to ask me to break up with him aren't you?" Audrey asked, her voice somewhere between fear and mortification.

"Break up with…? No, no, I'd never ask that. Why would you think I'd –"

"Because you wouldn't be the first mother who…hates me," Audrey answered. "Belle was nice to me, but I could tell, she wasn't a big fan of me dating Ben. And, I can definitely tell that she likes Mal more than she ever liked me."

Liz reached over and took Audrey's hand in hers.

"And Chad's mother, well…Chad has his less than stellar qualities, but Cinderella just thought I was bad influence and blamed me for anything bad he did when we were together," Audrey said sadly. Her eyes had begun watering as she relayed her information to Liz, though she was able to keep herself from fully crying.

Liz handed the girl a napkin while she got up and moved a chair next to the young girl, wrapping one of her arms around her. Audrey leaned into the embrace, and let Liz comfort her, though she still refused to let herself cry. "Audrey, Sweetie, I'm not going to pretend that I didn't hear things about how you used to act because I did," Liz revealed. She felt Audrey shake just slightly. "But what I do know is that I never met that Audrey. The Audrey I know and adore is a sweet girl that brings out the best in my boy, and who I would never dream about asking her to break up with him."

"Thank you," Audrey said as she rose back up and wiped away a few stray tears. She cleared her throat and took a drink of the water that was already on the table. "Now that we've established that I can keep being Jay's girlfriend, what did you need to ask about him?"

"Well, I've been trying to figure out what to do for him for his birthday, but everyone I talk to keeps telling me that –"

"You're better off not doing something big?" Audrey finished for her. Liz nodded. "I'm not surprised, Jay is…well…he's not a fan of being singled out."

Liz looked at her confused.

"He's was MVP of the tourney team last year, not to mention captain of the R.O.A.R. team for a little bit. Both of those things kind of require him to be singled out," Liz pointed out to Audrey.

"Yeah, but he gave up being captain to Lonnie because it was better for the team. And sure, he got named MVP, but when the team went out to celebrate, he didn't make a big deal out of it, Coach and the team did that."

"So he's starting to put the team before himself?" Liz asked.

Audrey nodded. "Besides, he says he's never been big on being singled out since back on the Isle, he had to steal to survive. You can't be a thief and attract attention at the same time he says."

"He told you that?" Liz asked with a small gleeful smile. Again, Audrey nodded.

"What?" Audrey pressed when she saw Liz's expression.

"He really does like you," Liz said proudly.

Jay was in his bedroom, trying to wind down after tourney practice. Carlos was out with Jane, so he had the room to himself. He was just watching TV but the show was boring him. He was considering playing a video game, or maybe calling Audrey assuming she was done with cheerleading practice when his phone went off. He looked at the screen and saw that it was Liz and she wanted to video chat.

"Hey, Liz," he said as he saw her face come onto the screen.

"Hi, Jay," she greeted back. She saw the weary expression on his face and became concerned. "You alright, honey? Did I call at a bad time?"

Jay shook his head. "No, it's fine. And I'm good, just tired, Coach worked us harder than usual."

Liz smiled and gave him a small nod.

"Yeah, well, you've got the Lost Boys coming up, and from what Sam tells me, they might be the only team who could give you all competition."

"They wish," Jay scoffed.

"Always the confident one aren't you?" she remarks. Jay shrugged, a small smirk on his face. "Listen, the reason I called is because your birthday is coming up, and –"

"I'm not Mal or Evie, I don't want a party," Jay interrupted her.

"And after talking to your friends, I gathered that. But you should at least do something."

"Like?" he waited.

"I was thinking, Sam and myself, the twins, Carlos, and you, have a family dinner where you let us make a little bit of a big deal out of your birthday. After that, you go out with your friends, do whatever you want – nothing too crazy though," she proposed.

Jay thought about for a second. He'd already had to tell Mal to skip on a massive showing for him. And he had to convince Audrey to not throw some huge party – surprise or any other kind. He really thought he was going to have to probably try the same thing with Liz, so this was a welcomed surprise.

"I guess we can do that," he relented.

Liz smiled on her end. "Okay. I figure next weekend would be good since birthday falls a Thursday. I don't want to interfere with your school week."

"No, please interfere," he joked.

"Nice try," Liz said. "Now get some rest okay." Jay nodded. "Bye."

"Later," he said back, his screen switching back to its home screen.

He laid his head back down and brought his arm up and covered his eyes with it. As much as he figured that Liz was probably hoping to do something big for him, he was glad that she had decided to actually check with him. It was refreshing after all the times on the Isle when he'd get something done as a surprise, only to have it end with him just sitting on some of rocks near the shore of the Isle, watching the lights from Auradon, wishing he could just once see what the place was lie. To see if it really the shining place it was made out to be so he could escape the let downs of becoming another year older. If this went well, maybe he'd consider letting them do something big next year. But he'd rather just have a birthday that didn't end in a brawl that he had to break up and clean up after.

Thanks Liz, he thought.