A/N: To get my idea of what this chapter is, you should listen to any Lady Gaga song for the first half and Bloc Party's Ion Square for the second when they begin dancing. (PM for songs if you need/want them :))

If not, you can pick your own music. But these were the two songs/artists I listened to as I wrote it.

So, This chapter, I think you all know what it's about pretty much. But maybe you don't... so you should read it... and definately review it... because I don't like it. And I don't think it makes sense...

Or maybe it's not meant to make sense...

Question the drugs :)

DISCLAIMER: Don't own NUTHIN!

PS. Thank you to geigergirl and xXSherryh who became the 100th and 101st people to favourite me as an Author... Rock and Roll ;)

Chapter 36 - Beats In Time

'I carry your heart here with me

I carry it in my heart

I carry your heart with me

I carry it in my heart'

Ion Square - Bloc Party

Miley had been to the Grammy's. She had been to the Oscars and she had been to more parties than she would like to remember. But this kind of party, the raw teenage adrenaline fueled party that this was, was incredibly strange and new to her. There were no gift bags, there was no champagne and cocktails. There was no DJ, or a band, just a kid with a laptop and a really good speaker set. There was no fancy decorations, just the toilet paper covering the walls that some idiot had thought it would be really funny to decorate them with. There was no cameras, no security and no one she had to make like her. She could just wander around and not be judged by anybody, because quite frankly, the guests at this party were doing a lot worse. They were unlike the kids who she often saw at parties who just wanted to see who was the best out of all of them, who was the most talented and who was more famous. All they wanted to do was drink, have fun and do as much stupid stuff as they could with the least amount of responsibility. Being in a place so out of control, so massively careless and thoughtless, made her feel uncomfortable. She'd not often been in a place where no one cared what each other did, not judging each other and just laughing and smiling.

"Is that kid peeing in the pot-plants?" she mumbled to Nick as he held her hand and led her through the party to stop her being taken in a tide of drunk, high teenagers who would probably freak the heck out at the sight of her.

He looked over to the outside on the deck where a kid in a beanie had his jeans and boxers around his ankles as he peed into the pot of begonias. Their eyes narrowed as they caught the sound of the gentleman telling his friends that he was trying to keep them warm in the winter, being too drunk to realise that the flowers were already dead and had wilted already. Nick smiled amused before turning quickly to Miley, who rose her eyebrow at him and gave him a smile that made his chest flutter shamelessly.

"Wow..." Miley said as she wandered through to the kitchen with Nick who had somehow lost Joe, the two Mandy's and Jenna on their treck through the house. Nick turned to her, passing her a red plastic cup that was so cliche it almost made him smile, and gave her a questioning gaze, "What are those people doing in that pool...?"

Nick turned and gulped at the sight he saw. It was something he had never seen in LA and that was saying something. Five naked people, three girls and two guys, all in swimming pool apparently engaged in things that he had only ever quickly looked away from when he'd caught Joe looking at them on TV in hotel rooms or occasionally seen in his most random dreams. He stared through the empty kitchen window for a moment, before turning back to her, finding her perched on the kitchen counter pouring herself a cup of just plain diet coke and fought away the redness building in his cheeks.

"There's something you don't see everyday." he smiled trying to break the discomfort.

Miley watched him slowly as he poured himself his own cup of diet coke and slowly drank from it saying nothing. She wanted to ask him questions, ask him why he looked so calm in a place like this and if he had been to a party like this before. She hadn't. She'd been with kids and had done some stupid things. But she had never been to a place like this where everything was so crammed in, so claustrophobic, that being in the most open place of the entire house was making her chest ache already. He looked so used to seeing people like this, so idiotic and carefree, and that unnerved her into thinking that at some point in the past he had done some of these stupid things too. Maybe one time when she hadn't known him, he had been the kid who had TP'ed the walls or who had peed in the pot plants. He had done things like this without her, experienced this without her, and that scared her just a little too much for her own liking. It made her feel like she was unequal.

"I didn't realise that you knew Mandy and Jenna..." Nick muttered catching her attention, "I mean... I knew that you knew who Mandy was... but I never realised that you knew her."

Miley smiled and him and gulped, "I met them when we were on tour last year. When we were in Jersey... a few days before we broke up."

Nick's face dropped, "Oh..."

"Yeah..." she nodded and her cheeks flushed pink, "Jenna text me a couple of times. After Kevin lost his cell phone last year..."

Nick's face seemed to slowly come to a realisation and she heard him gulp, pressing his back up against the sink, his eyes turned away from her uncomfortably. It was kinda weird how they hadn't got the courage to talk about that night when they had broke up, and all the things that had happened to make it occur. They used to talk about everything, and they kinda talked about everything now. It felt kinda strange that it had never been spoken about before. It seemed like one of the things that they needed to talk about. Why they didn't... she was unsure of.

"She told you?"

Miley looked up at him and smiled weakly for a second, the remembrance bringing an ache to her chest and gut for a second that she had to try and control for bringing tears to her eyes. Instead she let her eyes sparkle at him, trying to stay as calm and clear minded as possible. She wanted to say something funny, break the ice and keep the mood light-hearted, but the pain stopped her from talking. Instead, she nodded slowly with a gentle smile.

"Damn..." He breathed out and shook his head, "You never told me that..."

Miley smiled and drunk from her cup, eyes situated staring above his head at the clock. It was only nine o'clock.

"You never gave me the chance..." she shook her head and smiled, "It doesn't matter now."

Nick looked at her hopelessly and shook his head, putting down his cup and bracing his hands against the edge of the sink, knuckles turning white, "But I feel like it does, Miles..."

She shook her head and clutched her cup to her chest as she pushed herself off of the worktop and back onto the floor, finding her feet quickly, "Well it doesn't..." she moved to put her cup down, failing to remember that it was probably dangerous in a place like this, "I need the bathroom..."

Nick nodded, "I'll show you where it is..."

She smiled in thanks before letting him take her hand and guide her back through the house and through the ever increasing crowds of drunk and loud teenagers. Miley kept her head down and avoided eye contact as it seemed it was normal for Nick to be wondering around the people unnoticed. It almost seemed like they didn't care that he was there even though he was probably the most famous person they knew. She saw Joe however, smiling and laughing in a group of people with his Mandy, all of them hanging on his every word. She couldn't help but think that it was the same age-old story of Joe having more friends than Nick, being the more likeable one. It made her smile and feel sad simultaneously, because he wasn't that bad of a person.

"Here..." Nick said as he tugged her forward in front of him as they wandered into the furthest hallway of the house downstairs, showing her the door well hidden beneath the staircase, "I'll wait outside."

She nodded and watched as he opened the door for her. She gasped instantly at what she saw and looked away, her cheeks blushing furiously embarrassed, mixed with a dash of fear and discomfort.

"Holy crap!" Nick said as he stood their staring at the two young people who stood crammed into the tiny bathroom, completely naked. Their bodies were pressed against each other, quite obviously engaged in the one thing that Miley and Nick were openly unfamiliar with. They didn't even turn around as the young pair saw them, and simply continued in their tribulations, moving quickly together. Miley's mouth fell open in shock as she noticed the clothing pooled around their feet, and the rolled up twenty-dollar bill that was still clutched in the dark-haired girl's hand. Her eyes darted around the room as she noticed the bag of white powder and the remnants of some of it on their naked bodies. She heard the sounds and the cries. She felt the heat from their bodies and the own heat building up in her cheeks and on her skin. She fought her eyes and tried to look away.

"Let's go..." Nick said taking her hand and closing the door, "I'm sure you don't need to pee that bad..."

She shook her head, pink cheeks sparkling brightly, "No... yeah... lets go get a drink..."

It didn't take them long before they were standing in the kitchen again, finding three new inhabitants sitting on the worktops and leaning against the walls. They smiled when they saw her, the middle man who was chilling on the worktop holding a plate and a bag of powder instantly laughing and tapping his friend on the shoulder.

"Dude... I'm so high I can see Hannah Montana..." he laughed like an idiot. Miley cocked an eyebrow and folded her arms as Nick moved to pour them two new drinks, "But she's like... not Hannah Montana... she's that other chick that's on Hannah Montana..."

"Dude... dude..." Miley turned to the one closer to her who was staring at her like aliens had just landed where she stood, "I don't think that it's because you're high... I can see her too! She must really be here!"

He stretched out a hand to touch her, only for Miley to swat him away and glare. Nick smiled as he watched on, knowing full well that she would be able to handle this on her own.

"Oh mannnn! Hannah Montana's in my kitchen at my little sisters party!" the main man in the middle laughed as he took a quick sniff of the stuff on the plate, using a pink curly straw to do so, "I'm so glad that I dropped out of college this week!"

"Lord have mercy..." Miley muttered as she watched them, half amused, half revolted.

"Hey! Hey... Hannah Montana..." whispered the guy who had just been stood their cackling softly to himself at the thought of her being there, as he wobbled over to her with a smile, "You want some of my good stuff...?"

She looked at him confused and shook her head at him, definitely disgusted, "Good stuff?"

He nodded and tugged the plate from his friend's hands, "Yeah... the good ol' white stuff... the all-American drug... Charlie... coke... blow..." she stared at him mortified but all he did was take the straw and sniff a line of his own, "I was meant to get double this but my ass of a dealer said that his prices had gone up... something to do with a recession or something..." he shrugged and rubbed his nose, "I don't really know what that means..."

Miley looked at him and shook her head, a laugh escaping her in disbelief, "Are you kidding?"

He looked at her like she'd asked him to explain quantum mechanics to her, just staring at her with his mouth agape. She looked at him suddenly serious and let her eyes grow wide.

"Oh my gosh... you're not kidding..."

He smiled unsurely and shrugged his shoulders, "It's good stuff... only a couple of my boys have had convulsions and OD'ed on it..." her mouth dropped open, "but they just got a little too excited and happy about it... it's okay if you keep yourself steady and slow."

"No thanks."

The apparent leader of the their little group laughed and shook his head at her, "Now you're kidding..." she turned to him confused, suddenly aware that Nick was at her heal watching on with their drinks in his hands, "Baby, you're famous... who you foolin'?"

He held out the plate and the straw. She just stared at him with tired, unimpressed eyes and shook her head, "Just because I'm famous, doesn't mean I'm also stupid..."

She knew instantly that she'd said the wrong thing, all three of them jumping to their feet to glare at her angrily, "Are you calling us stupid?"

Miley looked around at Nick who had already rid himself of the drinks and grabbed her around the elbow. She felt dizzy suddenly, and she began to wonder if her previous drink had been just Diet coke and not something a little stronger. She felt strange and a little bit too confident with herself. She felt like she could do anything.

"Umm... no." she shook her head, "You're probably not stupid... you're probably really intelligent if you went to college..." she shrugged her shoulders, "But obviously these drugs are making you stupid and ruining your futures..."

"Oooooookie-dokie..." Nick said, and she felt him pull her away back into the loud throbbing crowd of people filling the living room, dancing and pulsating to the music. She turned to him with a glare, waiting for answers. "That was about to get messy."

She scoffed and shrugged her shoulders, "I could have handled them."

"They were druggies."

"They were on coke. Most of the people I come in contact with on a daily basis are on coke."

He laughed and pulled her further into the crowd as he saw the guys standing by the door looking for them. He hid them in the fast-paced movement of the crowd, people pushing up against them as it became darker and darker as they moved further and further away from the normal lights. Soon they were pressed together in the crowd, illuminated only by the low lit ambience of the neon Christmas tree lights that hung in bunches around the walls painting their faces with a pink, orange, green and blue glow, the colours blending to make new ones on their cheeks.

"That's a very negative outlook to have."

She smiled and shrugged her shoulders, "Yeahhh... well it's a true one."

Nick laughed and shook his head, bringing her in close as someone tried to squeeze past them, "Those guys aren't your usual coke heads, Miles..." he kept his arm wrapped around her, "They're the mean kind who actually have to do things that people don't usually do to get their fix... you know? They hurt things... and people..."

She looked at him slightly alarmed and nodded quickly in understanding, "We're in a different world here."

He nodded, and felt as she wrapped her arm around him, moving slowly to the music as though suddenly catching some slow moving virus unknowingly. He gulped, feeling her hands low on his back, pressing them together. He repeated her words over and over again in his mind, struggling as her other arm wrapped around his neck to support herself as more people came close to them, pushing them into the dark corner of the room. Instantly, for different reasons, he had to agree with her. This was a different world... a different sensation. It was so awkwardly new, but so wonderfully right.

"A completely different world..." he muttered as he wrapped his arms tighter around her and began moving softly to the music.

They weren't in anyway dancing, he soon realised, they were literally just moving their bodies to music in time with the beat of it. They swayed gently from side to side, their bodies close together, arms holding each other as they listened to the words of the music as hard as they could through the buzz of screaming people, animated conversation and background music that seemed to overpower it.

The tempo increased, their feet bouncing with it as their hands held on as tight as they could. He could feel her fingers digging into his arms, his back and his neck as they moved constantly from spot to spot, unable to stop moving as he held her as close as possible. He could hardly breathe, the world seemed so small as he held her. But it didn't seem to matter, because as always, she was the world for him. There was nothing more important. But the claustrophobia in the room highlighted that, reminding him for those seconds that ticked away as they moved against each other to the sound of the music, that she was all that he could really ever care about. She was enough, she was everything, and the world could close around him as much as it liked to try and segregate him from it and she would still be the only thing close enough to him, the only thing he needed right beside him. He was the only thing he could hold onto and need. She was it. She kept his heart beating.

Her breathing was hard and fast against his neck, her lips close to the opening of his shirt, and causing his neck to become clammy with the cold water vapour she released onto his steadily warming skin. Her face, had somehow, buried itself into his neck and their bodies had began to buzz with the need for each other that they hadn't even realised had been there. It was all of a sudden no longer a simultaneous need to move to the music, but an overwhelming shared need for each other. There was some relatability that they both felt in that room, one that reminded them that they were exactly the same while everyone else was different. They were both from the same mold and everyone else was made from something else that meant they couldn't understand what they felt in the world. They could understand each other, they had always been able to understand each other while everyone else seemed to be out of sync with how they felt and how they thought. The rest of the world seemed to be out of step with how they danced, their movements perfectly timed and wonderful. They created magic that neither of them could see, that neither of them could admit was there, but could be felt in the hollow spaces that their chests had become. They could feel the thud that returned to their once hurting chests as they held each other, brains stopping them from calling it something other than the vibrations of the music.

When had she become so desperate for the feel of his skin?

It was the only thing that she could struggle to ask herself and the only thing that he wished he knew the answer to. They failed to ask themselves why the thud in their chests could only be felt when their eyes and their hands found each other. They failed to realise that even though they couldn't feel it properly, their hearts beat perfectly together to make music that they could hardly hear in their echoing ears.

"Wow..." She breathed as she felt his hands run down her back, feeling every inch, every curve and quarry barely able to stop himself under the pressure of the presence of each other. She could feel herself loosing control as her hand hovered over the smooth fabric of his shirt and to the perfect skin of his neck. Her hands entwined themselves around the back of it. Her fingers buried themselves into his hair as she moved, moved so steadily to the sound of the music that was echoing in her ears like the beat of a drum... like the beat of her slowly fixing heart.

"Yeah..." he whispered into her ear, his lips grazing over her skin barely noticeable. She too, could feel all of him, his breath curling around her skin and engulfing her as it left his lips. His skin surrounded her until he was the only thing in her world, clouding her senses.

Her eyes, fluttered closed, only opening when they couldn't bear to stay closed anymore. They opened when she needed to see him, needed to be sure that he was really there. She had to be sure that he was really there, because she needed to know that they were awake, that she wasn't dreaming and that this boy was the real Nick. He was the new Nick that was so close to being the real Nick that she could barely breathe at the thought of his return. She was so close to believing that he was back, so stupidly close that it terrified her and made her ecstatic simultaneously. It made them both incredibly happy that somehow, their bodies and their minds being this close, made them realise that they were exactly the same people as they used to be and that this was what they had been waiting for. This movement, this feeling, this aching euphoria that flooded their senses that was nothing but the true feeling and presence of each other, had been worth all what they had been through.

There was no time to waste. There was no time to even spare. Because what if it happened all over again? What if they lost each other once more? They weren't strong enough to do it all over again. They weren't smart enough and strong enough to fight for each other again. They hadn't even been strong enough to fight for each other every moment for the past year. How could they do it again if their resolve to fight was weakening into something else? They had needed too much to fight against it until they were so close to not caring. They had ignored every basic fact that they knew in their hearts about each other and had made it hard to admit that they even existed.

She would be lying if she said that at that moment as his hands covered every inch of her body, that she didn't need him. She would be a liar if she said his mouth pressed against her skin unmoving, just tasting and their eyes darting across each others features every few moments to savor the color of each others eyes didn't make her heart beat wilder in her chest than she could ever remember before. She would be lying if she said that she wasn't desperate to stay with him and make everything work for them. Quickly, so damn stupidly quickly, she was beginning to realise everything that she'd forgotten about him. She was realising that this boy was the one she had fallen in love with and that they one who had broken her heart was no more. He was just a figment of her imagination, something that plagued her dreams and made her cry. He was something that no longer existed anymore, just something living in her mind that could be forgotten about once happiness and remembrance removed it from the corners of her still growing memory.

Her lips, moved slowly against his neck, so unnoticeably that he could barely tell if she was kissing it or just talking against the column of his throat. He could feel words slipping from her lips and forming against his skin but he couldn't decifer them as much as she could understand what she was so pathetically saying... begging... hoping...

The tempo moved quicker, but their bodies seemed to slow down, their hands grabbing and holding each other like they would lose each other if they were separated. People pushed them together, until they felt like their chests were compressed together as one. They could barely move, but they found a way too. She felt his hands scrunching his fingers into the curls of her newly shorter hair. She felt how their bodies ground together until she could feel every part of him, every muscle, every huge sensation of stimulation that was new and slightly terrifying for her. She waited for his excuses to why he was so excited, so stupidly aroused by what they were doing, but she doubted that she could listen to it as much as she thought he would be unable to even form a coherent string of words in his current bumbling condition.

They were both hot, both sweaty. Their clothes were soaked to their skin with their own perspiration as well as each others. Their lips were able to taste the saltiness of the other's skin as they moved against it, buried deep into his softness and tasted one and other. Both of their curly hair was slowly increasing in volume beneath their fingers as their fingers ran through it, caressed it and remembered the feel of it just like they wanted to.

They were older now, they had new bodies, new shapes that they had to remember and as much as Nick had experienced of Miley's new shape in their recent moments together, she had barely investigated any of his. Her fingers were on their own little missions, each of them giving her the new information that she needed to know. Teamed with her lips and the general press of her body against his, her fingers were helping to create a brand new knowledge of his body, just as he was doing with her.

The song began to slow to it's steady stop, and she was sure that this should have made them slowly move away from each other for the first time in minutes. But it made them worse, their fingers searching every part of each other, nothing stopping them or scaring them from investivating all the places they would have otherwise kept their wandering fingers from going. His fingers grazed over the rise of her chest, feeling the full flesh beneath her dress. Her hands clutched at his backside, holding him close, pressing their bodies together at every inch. She wanted them to be as close as possible, and succeeded until only their clothing stopped them. And as the music stopped and their hands stilled, faces moving too look at each other's reactions of what they had just done, she could flush nothing from her mind than the fact that at that very second, she wished that their clothes weren't in the way, and were somewhere else that couldn't bother them... that they were somewhere else alone where they couldn't be bothered or noticed.

His brown eyes told her everything as their mouths hovered so alarmingly, teasingly close to each other. His hands buried in her curls, and she could see the fight in his brain for him to just move those few centimeters to her lips. She realised where her hands were and slowly moved them, wrapping her arms around his torso, bringing him closer. Her nose twitched to rub encouragingly across his, coaxing him into doing the only thing she could seem to want him to do.

No.

She needed him to do.

She needed his lips against hers and his hands on her skin.

And as she stood their with their bodies entwined into each other, a new song starting as the beat of the previous one still rattled in their chest, she knew that no matter what, tonight, she was going to get it.

A/N: Be gentle... it's not one of my best. I apologize in advance.

Chapter 37 - Miley feels the effects of the party

Chapter 38 - Miley talks with her father

Chapter 39 - The family's get together for the Holidays

Chapter 40 - Christmas Eve!

Chapter 41 - Togetherness :)

PS. All of you guys are too nice in your reviews. I am in no way as good as you think I am... But I still love you all for it anyway :)

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