Okay, you all owe me. Like lots of reviews. Because I just stayed up 2 extra hours writing this for you. So, if you don't get a new chapter tonight, don't complain, okay? Good. This chapter is a bit weird. It's in other people's points of view, but Mitchie explains each before. And can I say I love Jason? Okay, I love Jason. And Justin. I love all of my characters.
If you didn't read 23, make sure you do. They were updated a few hours a part.
Chapter 24
I honestly can't tell you what happened when I passed out, I can only let the others tell you what they saw happening. So, for the first time in this tale, I'm going to let someone else tell you what happened. We'll start with Caitlyn.
Do you know what it's like to hear you best friend's boyfriend screaming your best friend's name as she passes out in his arms? No? It's a pretty horrifying experience. Especially when you're blaming yourself. If I hadn't watched HotTunes, she wouldn't have freaked out. That's not true. I would have freaked out eventually. When she ran out, I was the last one to move, to realize what was happening. I was the first to catch up to Shane, though. I've never ran so hard in my life. I reached them just as Mitchie fell limp in his arms.
"Shane, what happened?" I cried as he struggled to keep her up right. I reached forward to help.
"I don't know!" He yelled. "Mitchie, baby, wake up."
Donnie came running out of the bus when he heard me yell, Shane's yell not prompting him to move, just to look.
It was a blur as they rushed Mitchie onto the bus and laid her on the couch. Donnie said something about a panic attack, but I couldn't really understand what was happening at that moment. Donnie started tell us all to do stuff and ask questions. All I could do was stand there like a statue watching. I heard Nate say something to me, but didn't register what he said at first. I had been lost in my own world of guilt and worry.
"Caity." He said softly shaking me. "She's going to be okay. Donnie said she had a panic attack. She should wake up in a few minutes." He comforted. I fell into his arms crying hysterically. "It's not your fault. You didn't know."
It was Shane's words that shocked me. "It would have happened eventually, Caitlyn. Stop worrying." His eyes never left Mitchie though as he sat on the floor holding her hand. It was hard to not worry when I saw him just as worried.
Shane's experience is my favorite, personally, but I'm going to save him for last. Jason had a unique take on things.
Mitchie started rambling to herself and it didn't phase me. She warned us about her doing that. Or she warned me. Either way. Then she started pushing away from all of us. I tried to stop her, but she managed to get a way from Shane and I. Shane was able to catch her, but we heard him start screaming. Then Caitlyn screamed. So I screamed. Then I saw Mitchie passed out in Shane's arms. Donnie came out before anyone else could scream. I grabbed Stas' hand and dragged her back to the bus with me. She was super tense. I guess she was pretty freaked out. I was too. But I knew to stay out of Donnie's way. Nate, Shane and Stas started moving around but I could only look down at Mitchie and wonder what happened.
"She had a panic attack." Donnie told me. "Her emotions overloaded and she had a momentary lapse. She'll be fine."
"Are you sure?" I asked insistently. "She better be." I threatened slightly. Shane smacked me as he sat down next to Mitchie. I sat on the floor next to him, just watching like he was. Stas, Caitlyn, and Nate sat down as well. I wonder if this is what the dwarves felt like watching Snow White, hoping she'd wake up?
Awe, Jason. See? My guardian angel watching over me. Nate, however worried he was, was less sweet about it.
When we brought Mitchie inside Donnie started directing us to grab stuff like a pillow and wash clothe and stuff. I saw Caitlyn not moving, just staring in Mitchie's general direction. "Caitlyn, wash clothe?" I said to her, telling her again what Donnie told her to get. I saw Stas hand it over. "Cait?" I said again, but she was in her own world, I guess. "Caity." I shook her gently, not wanting to startle her too much. "She's going to be okay." I said softly. "Donnie said she had a panic attack. She should wake up in a few minutes." She started crying in my arms as I did my best to comfort her, "It's not your fault. You didn't know." I rubbed her back. Shane said something I didn't quite hear, and Caitlyn stopped crying. She pulled away from me and knelt next to Shane. I sat down behind the two. Stas sat down on the other end of Caitlyn. All we were doing was sitting and watching her and I was getting annoyed.
Gee, thank you for your compassion, Nate. Moving on. Now while all this was going on, I had no idea. I was busy in my mind. Talking to Justin. Yes, I know. I'm insane, right? But I was. Or I thought I was.
"Shane?" I said sitting up. I was on my bed back home. It was the last place I saw Justin alive. He was beaten after walking Nicole home. That was when he told her the truth about his feelings for me. He died 6 hours later before he could ever tell me.
"Nope, princess. Just me." I heard Justin's voice say. I quickly turn to where he stood in my door way.
"Justin? But you're-" I gasped. I knew I wasn't imagining things again. I hoped.
"I know." He said looking down. "Guess I wasn't as much of a fighter as I thought, huh?"
"Why are we having this conversation? I've talked to you before about all of this…" I didn't understand. I'd hallucinated about Justin many times. He never said he was dead after the first one, he joked it off about not really being dead. But now he'd been admitting it.
"Because you weren't ready to let go then." He said simply sitting my bed to face me. "Back then you weren't ready to move on. You always felt guilty. You never let yourself live, unlike Sierra. How is she?" He asked.
"Better than I am," I said quietly. "It's easier for her. It wasn't her fault."
"It wasn't yours either. It's theirs. You need to realize that. You didn't beat me to within an inch of my life and leave me there."
I was crying. "You were jealous of them. Of him. She told me."
Justin shook his head. "What I told Nicole before I died has nothing to do with my death. It has nothing to do with them beating me. They didn't understand things about life and took it out on what they thought they knew. Did you know that Tyler's dad left them when he was 9? For another guy?" He asked. I shook my head no. "He didn't understand why his father would do that. He didn't understand that people make choices. He can't do anything about it. He couldn't take it out on his father, so he took it out on me. He took out all that anger toward his father and his partner on something similar to him. I don't blame him. Do I blame Rodger, Chris, Aaron? Yeah. I do. But I don't blame you. You shouldn't either. One of these days your going to go too far on one of your Dark Days and you won't be able to fix it."
I sighed. "Mitchie, you have a good life, now. I wish I was still a part of it, but I'm not. You have Shane, and the rest of them. Jason. I like him. He reminds me of my self only… a little stupider." Justin said.
"Yeah, he can be." I laughed. "Wait, how do you know about all of them but not how Sierra is?"
He smiled. "Because I'm in here." He pointed to my chest, my heart. "I know what's in there. As much as you love Sierra, she's been replaced. You still have all of our memories, but now you have new ones. Ones that she isn't part of. They are. I know how much you love Shane. That you want to spend the rest of your life with him. I know that Jason took my place. He's your best friend and confidant. I know that Nate is like the brother you never wanted. He's there for you and you have your moments, but there's things you wouldn't tell him. I know that Caitlyn is like your sister. You know her as well as you know yourself. You'd tell her anything out of trust, but you don't out of concern for her. I know that Anastasia is your friend, and that while you're becoming closer, you sometimes question yourself on how close you want to become. Whether or not you want to be as close to her as you are to Caitlyn or not. I know that you love me and you'll never truly forget me. But you need to move on. You were until today. You also need to confront Nicole. You need to tell her she needs to let it go. It wasn't her fault and it wasn't yours."
I cried and through my arms around him. "Justin." I cried on him a little before he reluctantly pulled away. I heard far away voices arguing as he began to fade. "Justin?" I asked reaching out to touch him. "Justin!" I cried out.
"Good-bye, Princess." He whispered.
Now would be a good time for Shane's experience, which will bring you to what I know.
I held Mitchie, having finally caught her. I was trying to calm her down when she gasped.
"Shane-" She said, catching my attention.
"Mitchie?" I questioned as she started to lean forward.
"I can't, I can't brea-" She fell against me, passed out.
"Mitchie!' I screamed, trying to hold her upright. In that moment I was aware of many things. The many running feet behind me, the bus maybe a few hundred feet from me. While everyone else was in their own worlds, I seemed to be experiencing an out of body experience in my own body. I was functioning unlike some and yet I was seeing everything. I could sense and feel everything going on around me.
"What happened?" Caitlyn cried as she helped me hold Mitchie up. Jason screamed. Nate and Anastasia didn't say much. Donnie came running out of the bus and helped me carrying Mitchie to the bus. Caitlyn seemed to move without realizing it while Jason dragged Stas with him. Nate was following quickly. Jacob was going crazy when we brought her inside,
We placed her on the couch and Donnie concluded that she'd had a panic attack. Jason threatened him slightly. I smacked him as I returned with the pillow he instructed me to get. Caitlyn had been told to get a wash clothe, but Anastasia brought it. Caitlyn was in her own world. I could tell she felt guilty. We all did. She just didn't realize it. We should have stopped watching the channel when we realized what was on. Instead, like an impending car crash in slow motion, you can't pull your eyes away. I told her to relax. She came to sit on the other side of me from my seat next to Jason on the floor. I held Mitchie's hand and waited for her to wake up. The others did, too, while Jake sat in my lap, with his paws up on the edge of the couch staring at Mitchie confused.
Nate however, grew impatient. "While she's knocked out, can we please discuss what just happened?"
"No." I said firmly.
"She's got serious mental issues, Shane. I'm not trying to be a jerk." Nate stood up, probably out of fear that I would swing back and hit him.
"I'm aware, Nate." I replied, grinding my teeth.
"I don't think you are. She's got an interesting history with her-"
"Would you stop thinking about business for two minutes?" Anastasia snapped at him "So what if she's screwed up. We all are."
"I didn't mean it like that." Nate replied heatedly.
"No, you were just mumbling about backlash sounding like the creepy guy from Spiceworld." Okay, so aside from the random reference, she was right.
"I was saying that backlash was the last thing she needs on top of her 'Dark Day'. And that it was disrespectful of them to report it today. I don't always think about how this effects the band." He replied and I did recall hearing him mumble about disrespect as well.
"Nate, you do a lot." I replied. "But I believe you that you weren't. Stas let it go." Then Anastasia stood up.
"No. I won't. She needs us to be there for her, not worrying whether or not this is going to make headlines." She yelled.
"I'm trying to be there for her. But we need to discuss-" Nate was yelling as well now, but Anastasia cut him off again.
"We don't need to discuss anything!"
"Yes, we do!" He yelled back. "We need to know what we're going to do with her -and I mean that in the matter of she's fragile right now- because we have a concert we cannot cancel tonight no matter how much we want to."
"See there you go-" Thank fully, Mitchie, woke up at that point, screaming 'Justin'.
I gasped screaming out, "Justin!" Trying to keep him from leaving. I shot up into a sitting position with Shane's hand clasped tightly in my grip. I was breathing hard and Shane was rubbing my back.
"You okay, baby?" He whispered, moving so he was now kneeling next to me.
"What happened?" I asked.
"You had a panic attack. Why were you screaming Justin?" I smiled, noticing the jealousy underneath the concern.
"You're going to think I'm insane." I laughed. I heard Nate say something but Anastasia hit him. Shane sent him a look over his shoulder as well.
"Just tell us, Mitch." Jason said moving my now sweaty hair out of my face.
"I… talked to Jason."
Before Nate could help himself, I think, he asked, "You were hallucinating?" He sounded worried about me though.
"I guess. I think I was dreaming. It wasn't like the other times. I was always conscious and delirious then. I sat up in my bed, at home, and called out Shane's name, because the last thing I remember is being in Shane's arms. Justin was there and we started talking. He made me realize it was okay to live my life and not feel guilty. I hadn't ever given dating much thought until Shane because I always felt guilty."
"Why? You told me I was your first boyfriend?" Shane asked and I could once again see the hurt and jealousy swimming in his eyes under the concern,
I laughed. "You were. You are. Justin liked me. I didn't know that. I told him I'd had a crush on… one of them. He told Nicole that he liked me the day he was… She blames me because she thinks they thought he kept glaring at them because he wanted them, not because he was jealous. She thinks if he wasn't jealous it never would have happened. But that wasn't the only reason they thought what they did." This was hard for me to tell them, but at the same time, telling them was surprisingly easy.
"He reminded me that it was okay to move on. Friends change. He said he's in my heart, and he'll always be there. He started telling me all theses things he knew that were true. Things about all of you. My feelings about all of you. He told me it was time to move on." I explained.
"Are you okay, now? Do you want to call your mom or Sierra or something?" Shane asked. I nodded and stood up off the couch. He stood up too and followed me to the back. "Here." He handed me his phone. My was currently MIA it seemed. I stayed in the back on the phone for a while.
When it was time for the guys to get ready, Shane wouldn't let me leave his side again. I sat in his dressing room smiling at him while he slipped on his tight jeans. "My mother would freak if she knew half the stuff we've done on this tour." I giggled, curled up on a couch.
"You mean like the numerous times we've changed around each other?" He asked slipping his shirt on.
"Amongst other things." I said softly. He squatted in front of me and looked down at me.
"I love you." He said quietly. "I know I tell you that a lot, but I want to make sure you know how serious I am."
"I know." I whispered. "I love you, too." He kissed me before standing up again.
"Nate's going to have me do damage control tonight." I looked up at him confused. "He wants us to dedicate this concert to Justin. He wanted to last night when we heard Sierra. But we didn't know what exactly it was. HotTunes can't blame us for waiting until tonight. And they'll look like the asses. Not us." He explained.
I rolled my eyes, laughing slightly. "Good old, Nate."
Shane nodded, laughing, too. "Yeah, good old, Nate."
"Hey, how long do you think it would take for you and me to get on a plane back to New Jersey?" I asked as he looked down at me from his standing position. I sat up to look at him better. "Justin… wanted me to talk to Nicole, but I don't think I can do it alone, and I want to get it over and done with."
"We can get on the plane as soon as you want. I'll talk to Rich and see how quickly we can get the Lava jet here, okay?"
"I meant, like a commercial flight, but whatever works." I laughed at him.
"If you want to wait 'til morning to fly out, sure. You made it seem like you wanted to go right now." He said and I could hear the blush in his voice, though it wasn't showing.
"I do, but I can wait until morning." I relented.
"Okay, come on." He held out his hand and we left his room.
True to his word, they dedicated the concert to Justin. "Hey, guys." Shane said fixing his mic a bit. "Before we start tonight's show, we wanted to dedicate it. Mitchie's best friend was killed 5 years ago, and when she told us about it, we wanted to do something special. Unfortunately, she's still upset about it, so she decided to stay on tour instead of going home where it's a lot to handle. So, tonight's concert is in memory of Justin and for Mitchie, and everyone out in the audience right now who's lost someone and hasn't really come to grips with it. You can't replace a friend, a sibling, a parent. But you can remember them. And that's all you can do. So here's to Justin!"
"To Justin!" Nate and Jason said into their own mics. I was crying and Caitlyn and Anastasia wrapped their arms around me while Shane looked back at me and smiled. I smiled back as the tears fell for the last time over Justin.
Okay, Camp Rock should be soon. After the Nicole confrontation, which might get glossed over. As to how many chapters this is going to be, I still have another 'year' of the story I want to do. I can either stop at the end of Camp Rock and pick up the sequel there and make this a trilogy... Or I can end it at the point I have in mind and then pick up the sequel from there. Let me know what ya'll think.