While Mal was gone, Carlos tried to keep his mind off of the utter mess his day had turned into by flicking through the book, looking at some of Evie's dress designs and building a small structure out of the pens that were lying haphazardly on the desk in front of him. He tried to keep his mind off of how long Mal had been but couldn't help but keep checking on the small alarm clock on her bedside table. Much to Carlos' dismay, she'd only been gone for ten minutes. He sighed and flopped down on her bed, picking up the old magic book again in another attempt to actually read it. Eventually, and he wasn't sure how long it actually took him, Carlos must have drifted off because when he woke up, he was greeted by Evie's face close to his, whispering, "Caaaarloooss?" in his ear.

Once he fully came round, Carlos jumped out of his skin and tumbled off the bed with a thud. Evie's chirpy laughter filled the room whilst Carlos sat on the floor, bewildered and beginning to panic again at the arrival of another person he could possibly tell the truth to.

"Where's Mal?" Evie asked as she took her bag off and hung it on her bedpost.

Carlos stood up quickly and rubbed the back of his neck, nervously.

"She uhh… I don't know exactly, she went out to look for… someone. About… 25 minutes ago."

Yeah, that worked. It wasn't the whole truth but it wasn't a lie either. Carlos was trying very hard to bend the truth ever so slightly so that it was still technically the truth but not enough that Evie would know everything that was going on. He was also trying not to show the slight annoyance in his voice as he said 25, realising that Mal was five minutes late.

"Oh. Do you know who?" Evie asked again cheerfully.

"Yes." Carlos said bluntly but truthfully.

"Well who was it then?"

"Jane." Before Evie could ask why or any more questions he decided to make a run for it, "okay well I gotta go, homework to do, videogames to play, all that. I'll see you later!" Carlos said in a raised voice. He did have homework he needed to do, that was the truth; Evie just didn't need to know that he wasn't planning on doing any of it, especially right at that moment.

He started to make a dash for the door but Evie stopped him in his tracks and stood in his path. She squinted her eyes at him questioningly before saying,

"You're being weird."

"Am I?" Carlos asked, not being able to deny what he knew was the truth.

"Yes. Yes you are. Why are you being weird?"

"Why are you being weird?"

"Why are you avoiding the question?"

"Why are you asking so many questions?"

"Because Carlos, I'm worried about you!" Evie said, exasperated.

"Well don't be. I really need to go though."

There was a moment of shared silence between the two before Evie sighed and moved out of Carlos' way. She knew that it wouldn't take long for him to crack and tell her what she wanted to know anyway, he would tell her when he was ready and it was no use arguing with him when she was far too busy with sorting the whole school's cotillion outfits out.

"Fine, go. But I will talk to you later." She said to him.

Carlos nodded and rushed out of the room, shutting the door behind him and taking a shaky, deep breath. He hated lying to Evie – not literally of course because he couldn't do that anymore – and keeping things from her but he wasn't ready to tell her everything yet. Even though he knew she would be supportive, he had spilled his guts to far too many people in a far too short space of time and couldn't deal with telling another person at the moment. He was about to go looking for Mal when he heard her out of breath voice calling him from down the hallway.

"Carlos! God I am not running anymore. Sorry I'm late, it was a bit-." Mal was cut off by Carlos shushing her aggressively.

"Evie's in there, shh!" He said at a loud whisper as he pointed at the closed door next to him.

Evie, from inside, heard the commotion of her friends on the outside and quietly moved over to the door to try and listen in. She placed her ear against the door and listened in as best she could.

"What took you so long?" Carlos whispered harshly.

"Sorry, it just took longer than I thought it would to find her." Mal said quietly.

"Well did you? Did you talk to her?"

"Yeah, I did. She said that she didn't really remember anything you said and you didn't really make a lot of sense so I think we're good. She couldn't tell anyone even if she wanted to."

Carlos sighed in relief at hearing this,

"Good. Thanks Mal, I owe you."

Mal smiled a little at Carlos and placed her hand reassuringly on his shoulder.

Evie heard the whole exchange and was becoming increasingly suspicious of her two best friends and what they could possibly be trying to hide from her. She opened the door abruptly but asked them cheerfully as to not alert them to her suspicions,

"What are you two whispering about out here? Not plotting anything evil are you?"

Mal and Carlos both jumped at the sound of the door opening and Evie's bright voice and turned to look at her. Carlos glanced at Mal with a worried expression, knowing that he couldn't lie to her even if it was just a rhetorical question. Mal jumped immediately jumped in to save him,

"Hey, E." She responded cheerfully, trying to play off whatever suspicions Evie may have about the two, "how's the dress alterations going?"

Mal walked past Evie into her room and sat down on her bed, facing the door. She raised an eyebrow at Carlos and jolted her head slightly to indicate that he should come in. Evie, still at the door, continued to look intently at both of them as Carlos moved slowly and almost carefully into the room and took a seat back at the desk. She was now sure that something big was up but decided to act as normally as she could in the hopes they would come round on their own. She closed the door behind Carlos and regained her composure.

"They're going well; everyone at that ball is going to look just fabulous! Ooo that reminds me actually, I need to do your final, final fitting, I made some slight alterations that I think will look even better than before!" Evie chimed.

Mal rolled her eyes and groaned at the thought of yet another dress fitting and another cotillion related task.

"More alterations? I thought we were all done?" She asked her friend who had her hands clasped together at her chest and an excited gleam in her eyes; she could never say no to that face.

All Evie had to do was hold the face and maybe drop her expression a little and Mal, much like the rest of her friends, was putty in her hands.

"Fine. But can we do it after school tomorrow? I'm exhausted and I have to meet up with Ben at some point and then learn all this cotillion cr-." Mal started.

"Yes, I know I've heard this a million times, that's fine we'll do it tomorrow." Evie cut her off.

Carlos sat there in silence, shaking his leg throughout this whole exchange, getting continually more nervous that Evie was about to hit him with another barrage of questions that he wouldn't be able to avoid.

"Anyway, why did you go and see Jane all of a sudden? I thought you were avoiding her." Evie asked Mal as she pulled out her rail of half-finished and altered dresses.

Carlos' eyes widened and his leg shaking increased in his nervous state.

"Oh, yeah I was but I promised her if I had a moment I'd speak to her about streamers or something and I had a moment so I went and saw her, I didn't want her to have a full on meltdown which is the way it was heading." Mal covered.

Carlos envied how easy it was for her to lie now that he couldn't. Evie glanced at Carlos who immediately stopped shaking his leg and smiled at her unconvincingly. Mal also looked at Carlos with an unimpressed expression that told him to either act cool or leave and at that moment, only the latter of those options seemed like a possibility.

Carlos stood up abruptly,

"Well, I have to get going, Dude's probably missing me. I'll see you guys later." He said as he walked quickly towards the door and left.

He hadn't thought much about where he was going to go but he walked out of the room and didn't stop. He weighed up his options in his mind; tourney practice was over so Jay could be anywhere from the cafeteria to their room to doing something with the team which meant it was just a lucky draw where he went that he wouldn't run into him. Eventually Carlos decided that the library was probably his best bet; he could hide away in a corner and take a nap or maybe even do some of the homework he had used as an excuse earlier. He had only just reached the door when someone called him from somewhere behind. Carlos froze before slowly turning around to see a smiling Jane approaching him.

"Oh. Hi Jane. About earlier, sorry if I sounded a little crazy." Carlos said, trying to give the most believable smile of confidence he could.

"No, not at all, it's totally fine. Look I mean, I'd be a little crazy if I was in love with my best friend too." She probed to see if there would be a reaction, if she had actually heard him right before.

"Yeah…" Carlos laughed a little, awkwardly before what Jane said clicked in his mind and he snapped back into defence mode, "wait what? I thought that you didn't- Mal said that you couldn't-… oh my god." He threw his hands up to his face and covered his eyes, turning away from Jane again.

"Carlos?" She asked carefully, "are you okay? I know I told Mal I didn't remember anything but then when she left I got worried that you and Jay weren't friends anymore and I started really thinking about what you said and I remembered. But don't worry, I didn't tell her and I promise I won't tell anyone else. I think it's kind of… y'know, sweet, actually."

Carlos took a deep breath to steady himself and stood up straight, trying to get back some of his ever decreasing dignity, but he didn't turn back around. He had teared up slightly in the moment of pure embarrassment and didn't want to see the look of pity he knew Jane had on her face.

At the lack of response, Jane took a step towards Carlos and placed a tentative hand on his lower back. She could feel how deep his breathing was as his body moved slightly with each breath and although she couldn't see his face, she was fairly certain that he was trying not to cry. Instead of speaking she moved her thumb lightly to try and provide some reassurance and comfort. Comforting people wasn't really Jane's forte; she just tended to either ramble a lot or not know what to say at all so she stuck with just gently rubbing Carlos' back until he was ready to say something she could work with. He just sighed. Jane could maybe try to work with that,

"Carlos. It's fine, really, really fine. I told you, I won't tell anyone and you don't have to tell anyone either. Not if you don't want to and I mea-" She was cut off by Carlos' lips crashing into hers.

If her mouth wasn't clamped together and she wasn't frozen in shock, Jane could have screamed at how suddenly the action of Carlos turning around, placing his hands on either side of her face and pressed his lips against hers had happened and how much it startled her. She didn't have much time to think about that though as the kiss ended as quickly as it had begun and Carlos looked as white as a sheet, almost as shocked as she was,

"I am so sorry. I'm so sorry." He mumbled before quickly walking past and away from Jane at an almost jog, leaving her, once again, looking at his back in shock and confusion.

Jane lightly placed her fingers over her lips and shook her head; she understood that Carlos was probably having a hard time but why did he have to do this to her? She very rarely got angry at people and least of all, Carlos but this was starting to get on her last nerve. She let out an aggravated sigh and walked off, quietly seething.

While Jane was having her semi-meltdown by the library, Carlos was having his own on his way back to Mal's room. He no longer cared if Evie was in there or if she knew or not, he had really messed up and he knew it. He just thought if he kissed Jane then maybe he could like her like he thought he did and this whole mess could be solved and his feelings for Jay could be put to rest. He didn't mean to actually kiss her but she was talking so much and being nice and he was upset and panicking and getting desperate to fix it all. But when he did kiss her, like he'd imagined he wanted to do for weeks, he felt nothing. Or at least nothing like how he felt when he so much as made eye contact with Jay or heard him say his name and that thought made him panic even more. He felt bad for what he'd done and even worse for just running off and leaving Jane like that but he didn't know how he could even start to explain himself to her and he was as shocked at himself as she must have been at him.

Carlos got to Mal's room and thought about just walking in as he did before but then thought better of it after what he walked in on last time. So he knocked. And he waited. For the whole three seconds it took Mal to come to the door and open it, he had begun to freak out again and this time when his eyes teared up, the tears threatened to spill over his lids and possibly never stop. Thank God it only took three seconds for Mal to open the door.

"Carlos, you're back. What's wrong?" She asked, noticing his glazed over eyes.

Carlos didn't respond and instead just walked straight past her to sit on the bed, eyes still glazed over and unresponsive.

"I kissed Jane." He mumbled under his breath.

"You what?" Mal asked, closing the door and stepping forward to try and hear him better.

"I kissed Jane." Carlos said only fractionally louder.

Mal craned her neck towards him, "Carlos, I can't hear you when you mumble like that; what's wrong?"

Carlos stood up aggressively quickly, causing Mal to straighten up in order to get out of his way,

"I kissed. Jane!" He shouted, starting to pace rapidly in front of Mal.

She stared at the panicking boy in shock and followed his movements with her eyes but didn't say anything. Instead, when she had gotten over the shock as best she could, she folded her arms across her chest and turned her shock into disapproval.

"And why did you do that? This is a mess enough as is it Carlos!" She asked in a raised voice.

"I know it's a mess! And I don't know why I kissed her!" Carlos stopped pacing, "It's what I wanted a couple of hours ago, I mean I thought it was what I wanted and I just thought that if I kissed her, I would like her for real and I could be normal and never have to breathe a word of this big messy… mess to anyone else ever again."

"And how is that working out?"

"Well obviously it's not, is it?! Now I feel ten times worse and guilty and confused and Jane probably hates me and I know Evie isn't exactly my number one fan either right now and I'm just messing everything up. Where is Evie anyway?" Carlos babbled out in a slightly higher pitch than usual.

"We may have had a little teeny tiny argument when I wouldn't tell her what was wrong with you and she went to find Doug."

"Great!" Carlos threw his hand in the air dramatically, "another thing I've messed up!" He slumped back on to the bed and Mal sat next to him.

"No, E will get over it; she'd do the same thing if she was in my position. Look this may be a little… up in the air right now but it will be fine, I promise. And hey, in like 20 more hours, the truth potion's effects will be gone and everything can go back to normal!"

"If the effects wearing off causes memory loss to everyone I've spoken to today then yeah, it can go back to normal but I don't think that's how it works."

Carlos looked over at Mal and burst into tears. Much to his disgust, he began to sob into his hands – he never cried and he didn't understand why he was letting himself cry now. Mal didn't know how to deal with crying people and especially not Carlos. She lent away from him briefly before snapping out of it and putting her arm around her broken friend, giving him an awkward side hug. Carlos lent into Mal a little and did surprisingly find comfort in Mal's rigid posture and half-hearted hug. She was trying her best.

"Talk to Jane. Maybe not right now, it's probably best to talk to her tomorrow. But talk to her." She said softly.

"Because that went so well before." Carlos replied sarcastically with a sniff.

"Well as long as you don't kiss her again, it can't go worse than that!"

Carlos spluttered out some-what of a laugh.

"And if it doesn't work, I still have my mother's spell book, I'm sure I can work up a memory spell!" Mal half joked, half said seriously.

"No. Please no more magic. Magic got me in to this mess in the first place."

Mal put her hands up defensively, "okay, fine, no magic."

Carlos sniffed again and wiped his damp eyes on his sleeve.

"Thanks Mal. I really do owe you."

"Don't worry about it, I did kinda cause all this." Carlos just gave her a weak smile, "this is when you say 'no Mal, don't be silly, you didn't cause this!'"

They both laughed and Mal sighed in relief that he wasn't crying anymore.

"Right, I need to go meet Ben so feel free to hang here for a while or whatever. Come find me if you need anything, I think I'll be around; if not, talk to Evie, she'll understand and probably be way better at moral support than I am and I'm over the makeover threat now." Mal laughed.

Carlos smiled and nodded and made himself at home on her bed, kicking his shoes off and laying back against the head board. He would try and relax but he was so past relaxed at this point that that was unlikely.

Mal said goodbye and left, a little concerned that she was leaving Carlos behind but also slightly happy that she was getting away from the whole headache that was Carlos' love life which didn't exist a couple of hours ago… and also a bit bad for feeling that way about one of her best friends. She straightened out her dress and walked down the hall, determined to clear her head before she saw Ben, they were in desperate need of some alone time without all the stress of her problems.

She almost achieved her ideal clarity when she reached the foyer of the dorm building when it was completely shattered again by someone from above calling her name. She looked up to see Jay hanging over the balcony above her and sighed so deeply she was worried a lung was going to full out of her mouth. He ran down the stairs to meet her, as energetic as ever.

"Hey, have you seen Carlos? He was being kind of weird this morning and I haven't seen him since." He asked her.

Mal considered for a split second telling him where he was, if only to get the problem off of her back by forcing the two to talk but then thought better of it and instead said,

"Nope. Haven't seen him. Maybe try the library?" She replied hurriedly and tried to walk away.

Jay stopped her and asked,

"Why would he be in the library?" He scoffed.

Mal was getting irritated and she did not want to take that into her date so she may have let rip a little tiny bit.

"I don't know! It was just a suggestion! Look somewhere else, I don't care, I really have to go! Why can't you all sort out your own problems for once, GOD!"

She then did walk off and Jay knew not to stop her. He chuckled inwardly to himself a little and got back to his Carlos hunt. Maybe he would check the library. He didn't seem to be having any luck anywhere else.

Jay took a stroll over to the library and looked around but there was no sign of Carlos anywhere, just as he suspected. He wandered around a little until he got bored and hungry so decided to go and get something to eat, Carlos would turn up eventually. On his way though, he saw Jane across the courtyard, yelling something into her phone. He knew Carlos had a thing for her and thought that maybe she would know where he was.

"Hey, Jane!" He called.

Jane hung up the phone and tried to speed walk away before Jay could catch up to her but was unsuccessful as Jay blocked her path.

"Hi Jay. What's up?" She asked, nervously.

"Have you seen Carlos? He was acting w-"

"Weird yeah, believe me, I know." Jane cut him off.

Jay looked at the small girl in front of him questioningly and asked,

"Right… so have you seen him or not?"

"No. I haven't. Not since he kissed me and ran away." Jane tried to slip past him and do her own running away but Jay moved to block her.

"He did what? Way to go, Carlos! Why'd he run away though?"

"I don't think I was the one he wanted to be kissing." She tried to move past once more but was again blocked, Jay sticking with her.

"What do you mean?"

"You'll have to talk to him about that, I don't want to get in the middle of this, tell him to sort his own problems out!" Jane snapped and this time, Jay let her pass him by.

'What is up with all these girls biting my head off today?' Jay thought to himself. That was the second time someone said people should sort their own problems and he had no clue what problems they were all talking about; all he wanted was to find his friend, figure out what his problem was and then beat him at a videogame of his choosing – it was always more satisfying when Carlos picked the game Jay could destroy him at. Jay sighed and went back to his goal of getting some food. Food first, everything else later.

A/N - I thought I should take this opportunity to add in the disclaimer I've forgotten for the last two chapters and say that I don't own the Descendents (it'd be a lot gayer if I did). Also, to mention that I most likely won't stick to the storyline of the second film much if at all even though this is set in that time because firstly I feel like this would change things and also I would only be regurgitating the plot of the film if I did so yah, hi and hope you enjoy and sorry if it's a little messy in places, I tend to write at 3 in the morning and get distracted a lot :)