Author's Note: Since Chapter 1 was just an introduction, I decided to post Chapter 2 right away to get the story moving. In this chapter you'll find out where I stuck MY Blue Castle-it's not in a picture like Lucy Maud had hers. And, there really is a heart condition like I (and Lucy Maud before me) wrote about, it's called Long QT Syndrome, and back at the time LM was writing, it wasn't curable. I didn't name it as Logan's condition, because now there is treatment for it-Logan needs to be untreatable and incurable for my story…but any symptoms or complications I discuss in this chapter, I just made up. So, again, the M rating is for later chapters-there will be slash. I don't own these characters, but boy, if I did! Anyway, to cover my own butt, anything you may recognize isn't mine. Happy reading!

When everyone returned to the apartment after their round of mini golf, they weren't too surprised that Logan and Kendall seemed quiet. They just figured Logan wasn't feeling well again, and since he and Kendall reflected each others moods, it made sense that Kendall was subdued as well. They had a relatively tame dinner while Carlos and Katie related in great detail every hole they had played, with James and Mama Knight adding in comments here and there. Logan and Kendall just pushed their food around with their forks, and finally Logan asked to be excused. When Kendall got up too, Logan asked him if he wouldn't mind letting Logan have their room to himself for a while, he wanted to read. Kendall wanted to argue that he'd be quiet, but he figured anything Logan wanted, he should have from here on out. So he just nodded and settled back onto his chair.

After helping clean up the dinner mess, Kendall forced himself to sit down and watch TV with Katie and the other boys, to give Logan some time. He had no idea what they were watching, and Carlos had to ask him three times if he wanted a corndog to snack on, since Carlos was going to heat some up in the microwave for himself. Kendall turned him down, and when the ten o'clock news came on he figured he'd given Logan enough alone time.

When he walked into their room, it was almost in total darkness. Logan had a book light clipped onto the gigantic book he was reading, his head resting against his headboard and the book propped up on his pillow in front of him, his legs stretched out on the bed. All the bedroom lights were off. Logan just kept reading when Kendall walked in, so he quietly walked into the bathroom attached to their room to brush his teeth and get ready for bed.

Kendall walked back into the bedroom, and got into his bed without turning on any lights. He got himself situated under the blankets and was going to interrupt Logan's reading just long enough to say goodnight, when he noticed that Logan's face was all shiny in the low light coming from the book lamp. Logan was silently crying, tears coursing down his face as he continued to read.

Kendall said into the dark void between their two beds, "What's wrong?" and then could've bit his own tongue off. He knew damn well what was wrong, and he should be coming up with ways to comfort his best friend and not be asking him stupid questions.

But a near-lifetime of answering questions for Kendall made it so Logan didn't mind answering, not one bit. It was second nature by now.

"I'm just reading up on the condition I have," he answered quietly. "Like Dr. Chowdray said, there's very little pain involved, it's actually not such a bad way to go…"

Kendall didn't like that kind of talk.

"Doesn't it say ANYTHING that can be done?" he asked, wanting desperately for Logan to give him anything, any shred of hope.

"Nope-not even a heart transplant would work, because the veins are affected too. I wouldn't even qualify for one, but if it was attempted my veins wouldn't work anyway. There's no treatment, no cure."

"Maybe if you go to one of those doctors Dr. Chowdray recommended, they could help?"

"Kendall, Griffin got me the very best. Dr. Chowdray is probably not only the best cardiologist in the country, but in the world. I googled those doctors he listed-they all trained under him. Chowdray is the guy THEY go to when they're out of answers. I'm on my own in this, there's not going to be anyone who can help." The whole time Logan had been talking, he never took his eyes off the book in front of him, and even though his voice was level, the tears never stopped running down his cheeks.

Kendall got himself out of bed and walked over to Logan's bedside. He climbed into bed next to Logan and wrapped an arm around him. He looked Logan right in the eye.

"Now you listen to me," Kendall said, his voice full of conviction, "you are not going to go through a single night, not a single moment, alone. I will always be with you, right by your side like I always have been since the day we met. I promise you that." He gently removed Logan's glasses (part of Logan's nighttime routine-Kendall could tell Logan had not only changed into his PJs before getting into bed, he had had a shower and taken out his contacts) and placed them on the nightstand between their beds. He wiped away Logan's tears as best he could with the sleeve of his sleeping shirt, an old, comfortable long sleeve Tshirt he'd had since before they moved from Minnesota. He took the book out of Logan's hands and put the pillow behind the two of them and then clicked off the book light and placed the big heavy medical book down on the floor next to the bed. He wrapped his other arm around Logan too and pulled him close. Logan didn't even have the energy to thank Kendall, he just shut his eyes and gratefully fell into a much needed sleep.

Roughly a dozen years before, in a small town in Minnesota:

A small, shy boy is looking into a fish tank. It's a fairly large fish tank, the biggest the little boy has ever seen outside of a pet store or a Chinese restaurant. But there are only two little fish in the whole tank. He knows there's only the two of them, because he's been searching for a few minutes now, and in all that time he's only observed the two tropical fish, one that's mostly green and one that's mostly blue. They seem to be great friends, chasing each other and darting in and out of this really cool ceramic blue castle that sits in the middle of the tank's floor embedded in all the colorful gravel. The castle is about the size of a shoebox standing up on its skinny end and is painted with some sort of iridescent paint that shimmers under the light built into the top of the tank. The tank's only occupants don't seem to be swimming around aimlessly like most tropical fish he's seen before, they really seem like they're keeping together and playing with each other. The fish disappear into the castle together and the boy shifts his gaze to right above the castle, wondering if the fish will come darting out of one of the tower window holes, when he lets out a little yelp and takes a startled jump back away from the tank. Peering at him from the other side of the fish tank is another little boy, taller than him and with a mop of blond hair with bangs down to his eyebrows.

"Hey, kid, how are you? Are you in trouble too? Or are you just new?" the taller boy asks.

"Where…where did you come from?" the smaller boy shyly asks, rather than trying to answer that onslaught of queries.

"Who, me? I just went to the boys' room. I AM in trouble," he sighed. He walked around the tank to stand in front of the other boy. "I'm Kendall. Who are you?"

"Uh…"

Kendall scrunched up his face. "Don't you know your own name? That's gotta be the easiest part of any test-just writing your name up at the top."

"Well, I sort of have two names, like a first and a middle name?"

"Well, shoot, who doesn't? I'm Kendall Donald, what's your name?"

"Hortense Logan," the boy replied very quietly, as if he was saying something naughty, which Kendall was pretty sure he was. Kendall didn't know what a whore was, but the time he said it after hearing one of Carlos' uncles say it, his mom sent him to bed without dessert. Kendall wondered why parents named their kids the words they named them sometimes.

"So, what do people call you?" Kendall asked.

"At my old school they called me Hortense, but I want to be called Logan here."

Kendall didn't blame him. "Hey, you ARE new! What grade are you in?"

"Third," Logan told him.

"Me too! I wonder if you'll be in my class-do you have Ms. Henry?"

"I don't know yet-my parents are in talking with the principal now, they told me to wait out here with the fishes. Do you know why there's only two in that big ole tank?" Sometimes Logan's curiosity could overpower his shyness. He really wanted to know.

"That's because stupid Charlie was on the chore chart to feed the fish our first week back to school, and he figured if he dumped the whole box of fish food in on the first day, they'd have their food for the week and he wouldn't have to come in from the playground before the first bell every day to feed them. A janitor saw the tank was all cloudy with the food, but it was already too late for most of the poor fish that were in there. But when he was cleaning it out he found the green fish and the blue fish inside the castle, he figures they were so busy playing in there, and had enough clean water trapped inside with them, that they didn't get smothered or eat themselves to death like the other fish did."

"I wish I was small enough to swim in there, and see the inside of that castle," Logan said wistfully. Then he caught himself. When he'd say things like that at his old school, kids would make fun of him and call him stupid, even though he got the best grades in the class. He snuck a look at Kendall-sure enough, his face had lit up and he was probably going to pick on Logan something fierce now.

"That is the coolest idea! I never would have thought of that, but you're right, how fun would it be to swim around in there and find out what the inside of the castle looks like?"

Logan was surprised, but happy. He decided to let a little more of his curiosity out of the bag. "So, why are you here, and not in class?" Bad idea, a cloud came over the other boy's face and he looked downright angry.

"That's because of stupid Charlie too," Kendall said, venom dripping from every word. "I bonked him on the nose and now I'm in trouble."

"'Bonked'?" Logan asked, tilting his head to the side.

"Yeah, I bonked him, like this," and Kendall made his hand into a little fist and bonked Logan on the nose with it.

For the first time in his life, Logan didn't flinch at physical contact with another kid. Besides, what Kendall did didn't even hurt! Logan just pushed his big round glasses back up to the top of the bridge of his nose and said, "That didn't seem too bad."

"I know, right! It wasn't! You see, what happened was, well, like, you HAVE to come to school to go to pee wee hockey practice, right?" Logan nodded. He had never played an organized sport in his life, but he knew all the ins and outs of school policies, even when they didn't apply to him. Kendall continued, "Plus, if you miss a week of practices, you get booted off the team for the rest of the season-no exceptions, even for, um, excruciating circus dances…"

Logan had to think that over for a second. "Oh, I think you mean 'extenuating circumstances'?"

"Yeah, those." Excruciating was a word Kendall had heard watching hockey on TV, usually used to describe groin pulls. "So, um, anyway, if I didn't come back to school today, I'd have been gone a week, and no practices for a week would mean no more team, you know?"

"Sure."

"So, ah, mydadwaskilledinawrecklastweek and no one really expected me to be back at school yet, I guess, and so today Ms. Henry started the class by collecting money from everyone, but I hadn't known about it, or what it was for, so when I asked if I could bring in money tomorrow, Charlie told me I don't have to give money for myself and he called me stupid. So I bonked him on the nose. Ms. Henry was just real embarrassed and I don't even think she would've sent me down here, but stupid Charlie made a big stink and went to the nurse crying, and the nurse came back to our classroom and told Ms. Henry how the school has a zero tolerance policy about hitting and it was her duty to send me to the principal. And here I am."

Logan was bright, but he wasn't quite sure he really understood how Kendall had wound up in trouble.

"The money she was collecting was for you?" Logan decided to start there.

Kendall sighed and nodded. "Yeah, I guess Ms. Henry wanted to get me something from the class to show sympathy (a new word Kendall had only learned about in the past week from all the cards coming to their house) and stuff. I didn't know anything about it, I was just worried I didn't have any money to give when she said she'd be collecting it today. Um, so, yeah, my dad...died."

Kendall dissolved into tears upon saying that last word. It's the first time he's said it out loud, to anyone, and he's understandably overwhelmed. Logan immediately went over to the chairs against the wall where he had left his backpack. He zipped open the little pocket on the front and produced a mini-pack of tissues, walked back around the fish tank, and handed one to Kendall.

"If you ever need another one, just help yourself, I always keep them right in here," Logan said, making a big deal of going back to the backpack to put the tissues away with his back to the waiting room and giving Kendall a moment to collect himself. "I also have extra pencils and notebooks-anything you need, it's all yours."

Kendall feels a weight he didn't know he was carrying lifted off his shoulders. Just when he wondered how he'd ever get on in life without his dad looking out for him, this new kid shows up with a bag full of practical items and a willingness to share. Kendall walks around and sits down on one of the chairs and starts filling Logan in about all the details of the school and the pee wee hockey league. Logan sits in the chair next to him and listens to everything Kendall's saying, he's excellent at absorbing information.

After a little while, Jennifer Knight arrived at the office, out of breath and worried about Kendall-she knew he shouldn't have gone back to school already, it was too soon after the tragic upheaval in his life-the whole drive over she berated herself for giving in to his pleas. But she couldn't take hockey away from him on top of him losing his father like that...When she pushed through the waiting room's door, she stopped in her tracks at the sight of her son. For the first time since his dad died, Kendall was actually smiling. The sight of that alone moved her to tears. Kendall looked up and swallowed the hello he was about to give her, he had seen her crying plenty in the past week and he was too young to notice these were actually happy tears she was now shedding. Kendall jumped up, walked over to a backpack on the chair next to another little boy Jennifer had never seen before, and took a pack of Kleenex out of the front pocket and handed her one.

Jennifer wasn't so far gone she couldn't admonish Kendall over his manners, "Kendall, you can't just take things without asking..."

But a little voice with a Texas twang spoke up and said, "It's all right, ma'am. We've already established what's mine is Kindle's, and what's Kindle's is mine. He's going to teach me to skate! My feet are still the same size as his old skates."

The waiting room door opened again, and Charlie came in with the school nurse and his dad. Mr. Thorsen wasted no time in apologizing to Jennifer for the ruckus, and said he wished they hadn't bothered her with this. Before she could reply, the door to the principal's office opened, and Logan's parents and the principal came into the waiting area.

"Oh, Mrs. Knight, Mr. Thorsen, I hope I haven't kept you waiting long," Mrs. Sullivan, the principal, said.

They both assured her they had just arrived. Mrs. Sullivan made a brief introduction of Logan's parents, and then asked them to seat themselves in the waiting area, and she'd bring them down with Logan to meet Ms. Henry in just a few moments. Kendall lit up at the news that Logan was going to be in his classroom.

Mrs. Sullivan was gesturing to Mrs. Knight and Mr. Thorsen to step into her office when Mr. Thorsen spoke up.

"I don't think we need to get behind closed doors for this, Mrs. Sullivan. I think we can clear up the matter quite quickly. Why not let Kendall tell us what happened?"

Mrs. Sullivan nodded and all the adults, plus Logan and Charlie, were looking at Kendall.

"Well, Ms. Henry started class off by saying she would collect everyone's money, and I didn't know about any collection, so I asked if I could bring money tomorrow, and Charlie said I couldn't bring money for myself, so I bonked him."

Mrs. Sullivan looked at Mr. Thorsen. "Kendall and Charlie sit at the same work table together..."

"I know," said Mr. Thorsen, "I remember the layout from Parents' Night, they sit right in the front row. I find it a little hard to believe Kendall would bonk Charlie right in front of Ms. Henry like that."

"But he did, Dad! He bonked me right on the nose!" Charlie whined. "I was just trying to help him out when he turned around and asked James and Carlos behind us what the money was for-I told him, 'You can't give money. It's for you, stupid, cuz your daddy's dead.'"

All the adults in the room got absolutely still. Finally Mr. Thorsen spoke, low and quiet.

"Charlie," he said. "You called Kendall stupid when he was just being brave and trying to understand something for himself-do you understand why that was wrong?"

Charlie mumbled down at his shoes, "Yes, sir."

Mr. Thorsen turned to Mrs. Sullivan. "Mrs. Sullivan, I want to commend Kendall on showing great restraint and only bonking Charlie on the nose. Had I been there to hear it myself...well, he'll be doing extra chores for a month, you can be sure of that." Mr Thorsen looked at Mrs. Knight, his eyes full of apology. "Whatever I have to do to go on the record and say Kendall had every right to bonk him and for you to drop this matter, I'll do it. Do you want me to sign anything?"

Mrs. Sullivan smiled kindly. "I'm sure that won't be necessary. Are you boys going to work at getting along better? If I have to have the two of you down to my office for anything like this again..." Mrs. Sullivan had learned long ago that unspoken threats often worked the best with kids who weren't truly interested in making trouble in the first place.

"Yes, Mrs. Sullivan," Kendall and Charlie both said.

"Very well, then. I think it best if we consider this matter closed." Everyone nodded. "Well, um, Dr. and Mrs. Mitchell," she said, turning her attention to the family over in the chairs, "shall I walk you down to Logan's classroom now?"

"Mrs. Sullivan? Since Logan's gonna be in Ms. Henry's class with me, may I bring them down?" Kendall asked. Jennifer's eyes were welling up again. This was the most animated Kendall had been since the night they got the phone call...

Mrs. Sullivan raised her eyebrows at the adult Mitchells. They nodded and Mrs. Sullivan thanked Kendall and sent them on their way.

When they got to the classroom, Kendall introduced everyone to Ms. Henry, and then asked if it'd be okay if Logan shared his work table with him. Charlie jumped at the chance to move out of the front row. And Kendall and Logan have been right by each other's sides ever since.