Ch 15:

Chloe tiptoed down the dark hallway, making sure not to make a sound. When she reached the right door, she took a deep breath, tucking the package under her arm. She looked down at Motley, who sat down obediently by her side, before quietly knocking on the door.

She waited for a moment with bated breath before knocking again. She was terrified about knocking too loudly and getting caught. Motley pawed at Chloe's knee, reminding the girl to take a deep breath to try and relax. The last thing she needed was a panic attack right now doing something so stupid.

Finally, she heard sluggish footsteps on the other side of the door before it creaked open. Carlos squinted out at her, his white hair messed up and a red imprint of his hand on one cheek where he slept on it. Chloe smothered an amused grin at the sight.

"Hey, what's up?" Carlos mumbled, his voice gruff from sleep.

Chloe held out the box wrapped haphazardly in ripped out pages from one of Evie's old magazines.

"Happy birthday."

Carlos blinked, the rest of the tiredness leaving his expression. He glanced down at his phone, showing a time of 12:02 AM, just after midnight on May 28th. It was their birthday.

"Happy birthday." Carlos returned the sentiment, grinning at his sister. "I was planning on stopping by your room around 6:30, but I guess this works, too."

Chloe shrugged. "Well,…I know we try not to think of Isle stuff, but…I didn't completely mind our birthday traditions." she admitted.

Carlos' expression softened. Then he grinned. "Hold on." He rushed into his room, pulled on a sweatshirt and tennis shoes, grabbed a wrapped present, and hurried out of the room quietly with Dude on his heels. "Come on."

"Where are we going?" she whispered, following him down the hallway.

"We're going to celebrate our birthday." Carlos whispered back, taking her hand that wasn't holding the present and dog leash. Chloe followed him all the way down to the kitchen, where he told her to sit at the table. He dug around in the fridge, reaching all the way to the back until he could pull out a cake.

"Tada!" he beamed, setting the cake on the table. It was the perfect size to feed two or three people. Chloe beamed in surprise.

"Wow! Where did you get this?" She asked.

"I made it, obviously." Carlos informed her importantly, causing her to look at him in disbelief. He grinned sheepishly. "Well, Evie and Jane helped me. But I did make it. It's a peanut butter cup cake. You'll see when I cut it." he told her, getting up and grabbing a couple candles, one for him and one for her, which he put in the middle of the cake. "Apparently, in Auradon you're supposed to blow out the candles and make a wish, but you can't tell anyone, or it won't come true."

Chloe raised an eyebrow. "Sounds like a silly superstition."

"I think it's more a tradition than anything else." Carlos shrugged.

"Okay, but how about we open presents first?" Chloe suggested, pushing her present to her brother across the table.

"Sure. But you open yours first. Ladies first and all that." Carlos smirked, pushing his present to her toward her.

"Since when am I a lady?" Chloe joked, smirking similarly. "Besides, I showed up at your door at midnight to give you this. So, open it." she ordered, shoving the gift into his hands.

Carlos laughed, taking the present. "Okay, okay. I'll go first." He relented, ripping open the gift and momentarily taking Chloe back in time.

Flashback

The laptop screen glowed on Chloe's face from where she stared at it, hardly blinking. She stared at the little part in the corner that gave the time and date. Finally, the time changed to midnight, changing the date to 5/28/13.

Rolling over on their old, lumpy mattress, Chloe reached over and poked her brother in the forehead over and over until he peaked his eyes open at her.

"Happy birthday." Chloe grinned. Carlos returned the grin.

"Happy thirteenth birthday." Carlos returned. He rolled over and pulled a nearly-flat gift from it's hiding spot under the mattress. Rolling back over, he passed it to her. It was wrapped in a potato sack. Chloe pulled the cloth wrapping away from the gift, revealing a journal. A wide smile stretched over her cheeks; it was the nicest journal she'd ever seen. The cover was worn, black leather, and the pages inside were lightly browned and warped with water damage.

"It's perfect!" Chloe beamed, hugging the journal to her chest. "I love it!"

Carlos sighed in relief. "Good. I tore a few pages out, because they had writing on them, but other then that it was the best one I could find at the wharf. And I saw your other journal was almost full."

Chloe nodded. "I only have two more pages in that one." She rolled over and grabbed her present out from under her side of the mattress and passed it to him. It wasn't wrapped like his, it was just a piece of paper folder up into a small square. Carlos unfolded it to reveal the drawing.

Chloe's drawing had improved a lot the past few years. He could easily recognize the balcony of their tree house and the view beyond it, though the leaves on the trees were greener than they were in real life. The night sky above was navy blue with stars and constellations. And sitting with their backs facing the picture, looking up at the sky, was Carlos with his sister sitting on one side and Beelzebub on the other.

End of Flashback

Chloe chewed her lip nervously as she watched Carlos open his present. It had become a sort of tradition when they were about six or seven years old, where they'd stay up until midnight to wish each other a happy birthday and exchange presents. Unlike some kids on the Isle, the twins never got a birthday party or presents from anyone. No one wished them happy birthday except each other. And they gave each other the same presents every year, since there wasn't much to choose from on the Isle. Sometimes Chloe was able to find some device or chemical for her brother, but more often then not she just drew him a new picture. And Carlos would give her a new journal to write and draw in.

Carlos ripped off the last of the paper before smiling down at his gift. It was a framed sketch Chloe had made, like every year before, but it was on nice, white paper and framed in a picture frame. It was colored and shaded and looked like the best drawing he'd seen from her yet.

It showed Carlos and Chloe sitting next to each other, as if posing for a family photo. Across both their laps was Beelzebub sitting on her pillow as if it were a throne. Dude was sitting next to Carlos in a matching jacket. Motley was curled up next to Chloe wearing her service dog vest, one paw resting on Chloe's knee.

"Whoa." Carlos muttered, his eyes taking in every detail. "This is…I might be biased but this is your best picture yet." he told her, making her blush. "Where did you have the time to sketch this?" he asked, looking up at her. Between school, homework, studying for finals, and training Motley, Chloe didn't have much more free time than him.

"Well, it was technically a homework assignment for my art class." Chloe admitted sheepishly. "We had to sketch a family portrait. If you took the picture out of the frame, you'd see the A+ written on the back of the picture, as well as a couple notes from my teacher. She thought it was 'adorably original'."

Carlos snorted. "Yeah, I bet she did." he agreed. Chloe's family portrait was likely completely different from the average Auradon family with two parents, one or two kids, and maybe a pet. But…he actually didn't mind that. "I'm definitely putting this on my bedside table when I get back to my dorm." he decided, sitting it up on the table so it faced both of them. Chloe smiled. "Now, open yours."

Chloe picked up the gift Carlos pushed into her hands. It was similar in size and shape to her picture, but it was lighter and almost flimsy. She already had a feeling she knew what it was, but it was still a surprise.

Chloe gasped and 'Aw'ed when she ripped off the wrapping paper to reveal a brand new journal with a picture of two sleeping Dalmatian puppies on the cover. "Oh my gosh! Carlos, I love it! It's perfect!" She leaned over and showed the journal to the two dogs laying on the floor. "Look, Motley, it's you." She pulled it back to look at the cover again. "Well, sort of." Motley tilted her head curiously.

Carlos laughed, shaking his head in amusement. "I'm glad you like it. I wasn't sure if I should get you a writing journal, or an actual sketch book. But you already have a sketch book for your class, and then I saw that journal and figured you'd like it. Plus,…I haven't seen you writing much lately."

Chloe paused, setting the journal on the tabletop as she realized Carlos was right. She used to write all kinds of stories, she had whole journals filled with short stories and fairytales she'd written. But she hadn't written much since coming to Auradon, though she thought that had more to do with a lack of time than anything else.

"Yeah, I think I've just been too busy." Chloe admitted while Carlos grabbed a couple plates, forks, and a knife for the cake. "But the school year's almost over, so maybe I'll have a bit more time to do some writing. Speaking of which," she went on as Carlos started to cut the cake into four slices, "do you know what happens to us during the summer? I mean, they only let students stay on campus during summer if they're in summer school. And I know you might like the idea of taking summer classes, but I doubt the idea would appeal to the rest of us." Chloe teased as Carlos put a slice on a plate for her.

"Ha ha." he laughed sarcastically. "And I'm not sure. That's something we'll have to ask Ben about." he admitted, taking a bite of his slice.

Chloe hesitated before her first bite. "You don't think he'd send us back to the Isle over the summer,…do you?"

Carlos shook his head, confident. "No, he won't. He has an idea how bad it was for some of us."

Chloe nodded, sighing in relief before taking a bite of the cake. It was the best cake she'd ever tasted! It was a moist, rich chocolate cake with layers of what tasted like fluffy, whipped peanut butter frosting, the same frosting covering the top of the cake, which was decorated with mini peanut butter cups. "This is incredible! Since when do you bake?" she asked incredulously.

"Well, this was attempt number three, so…never?" Carlos joked, though he looked pleased with himself. "So, how do you think you did on all your exams?"

Chloe swallowed her last bite while thinking about all the final exams she'd taken over the past few days. "I think I did pretty good overall. I probably did the worst in Chemistry." she admitted sheepishly. It was ironic that one of Carlos' best subjects was one of Chloe's worst. "And I'm not sure about History of Woodsmen and Pirates." she added.

"I think I did pretty well on my exams." Carlos agreed. "How's-how's Jane doing, planning Cotillion?" he asked casually.

Chloe hid a smirk behind another bite of cake. "Hmm…pretty good I think. Very good, actually. I'm more worried about Mal having to help. I don't think she realized how much work she'd have to do when she agreed to be Ben's date."

Carlos nodded, staring down at his plate. "Right, right. So, um,…does Jane have a date yet?"

Chloe smirked openly at the top of her brother's head. "I don't think so. Why? Do you?" she asked casually.

Carlos lifted his head and glared at her, seeing right through her act. "Chloe-"

"Oh, come on, Carlos. Just ask her." Chloe insisted. "She's really nice, of course she'll say yes." Chloe would have added that Jane liked Carlos, but that was a slippery slope. As her friend, Chloe felt like she couldn't really reveal that information to her brother. Just like she couldn't tell Jane about her brother's huge crush on her. Despite how frustrating the pair was being. "I mean, Doug managed to ask Evie. If he can do that, you can ask Jane."

"That's different." Carlos grumbled, poking at his cake. "They're already dating. And now they're practically coworkers."

Evie had turned all the dress orders she'd been getting into an actual business, which she'd named Evie's 4 Hearts. But she was horrible with organizing, so Doug was helping her on the financial and business side of it.

"Still, you remember what Doug was like when he first met Evie. If he can ask out someone as confident and mildly-intimidating as Evie, surely you can ask someone as sweet as Jane."

Carlos tilted his head at her. "Has someone asked you?"

Chloe blushed. "No, and no one will. Besides, I'm not going to Cotillion."

Carlos grimaced slightly, still poking at his cake. "Are you sure you don't want to? You know Evie will insist on it."

Chloe glared at her cake as if it personally offended her. "And what happened last time Evie insisted I go to a party?"

"That's fair." Carlos agreed. "But you don't have to decide right now. You've still got a couple months. You never know, you might get better at coping with your attacks. Or maybe Motley will be there to help you."

Chloe shook her head. "I doubt Motley will be far enough in her training to be able to go to Cotillion. She'll probably be allowed to go with me to classes, but something as big and crowded as Cotillion might be too much too soon."

Carlos nodded. "I suppose that's true. So, she'll be allowed to go to class with you soon?"

"I'll probably try it when we start next year. There's not much point starting it this year when the year's almost over. Plus that gives me the summer to give her some more training, and get in some new training and experiences with her."

Carlos nodded again. "That's true. Well, if there's anything I can do to help with her training, let me know."

Chloe smiled. "I might take you up on that."

AN: Sorry this chapter is so short, but at least it was nice and fluffy with some twin bonding, right?

The next chapter is going to give some insight as to how the VKs are going to spend their summer vacation, as well as some of Motley's training. After that we're going to jump into D2 in chapter 17. Any thoughts on what you all want to see from Chloe for D2?

Review and let me know what you all thought! And have a Happy Valentine's Day!