.:CHAPTER EIGHTEEN – Back To Normal?:.

"Hurry up, Hockey-Head, or we're going to be late meeting our friends." Riley called from the front door of apartment 2J, Patrick by her side, as Kendall went around, grabbing stuff. "Where are we meeting them anyway?"

"The pool," Kendall replied simply as he grabbed a towel and then walked over to join her.

"Hm, the pool," Riley mused and then smirked up at her boyfriend. "Sounds romantic to me."

"That's what I was thinking," Kendall replied and Riley smiled as he leaned over and kissed her.

"Well," Patrick smiled as he walked through the kitchen to grab an apple. "Glad to know that I'm not feeling any tension around you two anymore." He turned it over and took a large bite, grinning happily at the couple.

"What are you talking about?" Riley shot her brother a confused look. "We haven't fought in a while."

"No, sexual tension," Patrick replied and continued to look over his apple as Kendall and Riley exchanged glances. "I mean, right before we left to go to Australia I felt this overwhelming amount of-"he suddenly stopped and his eyes grew wide as he looked over at Kendall and Riley, who looked back at him. His eyes grew wide, he pointed at them, and then he opened his mouth. "OH MY GOD!" He shouted. "You two-"

Riley moved quickly and tackled her brother onto the ground, slapping a hand over his mouth. Patrick struggled underneath her, making mumbling sounds behind her hand as her weight pressed down onto his back. Even though he was taller than her, she could easily knock him onto the ground. Kendall laughed as she blew her hair from her face.

"Are you going to yell if I move my hand?" she asked slowly. Patrick shook his head. "Are you sure?" He nodded. "Ok," she slowly moved his hand away.

Patrick looked at her and then looked over at Riley. "You two rooted?" he asked in a whisper. Still leaning over his back, Riley nodded. "Are you crazy?" He was speaking only to Riley. "What if you caught something?"

"I'm clean," Kendall held his hands up.

"Ok, what if you got pregnant?"

"We used a condom," Riley replied and then, to make light of the situation rolled her eyes. "Patrick, I'm 18, it was bound to happen eventually."

"I know that," Patrick rolled his eyes as well. "But I didn't think…" he let out a sigh and then looked defeated. "I'm not going to tell Ronan, because it's none of his business. But you know that the others are going to find out like 'that' right?" He snapped his fingers for emphasis, speaking of the rest of their siblings. It was hard for them to keep anything from each other. Especially Sydney, who had a specialty of 'accidentally' eavesdropping on people.

"I know," Riley replied calmly. "And I'll probably tell them myself."

Patrick wrinkled his nose. "You're not going to, like, do it all the time now, are you?"

"No," Kendall couldn't help but blush as he shook his head. He looked over at Riley. "We agreed that we'll wait a while before we do it again. Right now, we're taking things really, really slow." Riley nodded in agreement.

"Well," Patrick hesitated. "Ok, but I want you to know," he turned and looked at Kendall seriously. "If you hurt her, I will personally kill you." He let out a sigh of relief as Riley got off of his back and allowed her to pull him to his feet. "I'm going down to the pool now."

"Wait up," Riley said as she put her sunglasses over her eyes. Patrick gave a suspicious look between the two of them before leading the way down to the pool. He broke off of the older teenagers and went over to Katie, Lizzie, Noah, and Sydney, who were talking when he came up.

"Hey, where were you?" Lizzie asked, giving him a hug.

"I was talking to Kendall and Riley." Patrick replied as he pushed Sydney to the side and sat down on a pool chair.

"Funny," Noah gave an impish smile as he turned to his twin. "I was talking to James and Rhuben earlier."

"Them too?" Patrick raised his eyebrows. He then smirked when Noah smiled and nodded. Patrick let out a whistle and a laugh. "Really?" Noah nodded again. "Huh, I didn't see that coming, did you give the whole 'you hurt her, I hurt you thing?" Another silent nod, but Noah's smile was wider. "Good, good."

Sydney just smiled.

"What?" Katie demanded, slapping her hands onto her hips. "What's going on with them?"

"Nothing," Noah reassured her, shaking his head back and forth. "Don't worry about it."

"You know I'm going to find out."

"I don't doubt you."

Lizzie started to laugh, which caused the rest of them to burst out laughing as well. She smiled as she watched the three boys laugh and talk animatedly to Katie. Unfortunately her plan to make her friend think that she was dating the twin boys didn't really work. It had worked to make her jealous, but it didn't work to cause them to date. When she had found out that they were being abused, about three months ago after their father had been sent to jail, she realized that it made sense of a lot of the behavior that they had exhibited whenever she was around them. It made even more sense when they didn't want to hang out when they had come back from Australia. But after talking to the three of them about it, Patrick and Noah explained to her and Katie that they were afraid that they would become so angry that they would hit their friends, which was also the reason why they didn't want to date Katie, just because they were so scared of hurting her in some way.

At first Katie was shocked that they had worried about her so much that they had kept a potentially dangerous secret from her. Then she punched them both in the arm, saying that she could have easily taken their father if they had told her. All of them had laughed and that was that, they were friends again with no problems. But the Jacksons were even happier, especially now that Ronan had adopted them, but of course not everything had changed. They kept their new look with wearing a lot of black, but had decided to get rid of their horribly flippant attitudes.

"So is that every secret?" Logan asked as Riley and Kendall sat down with their friends. "I think that's everything."

"You know you didn't have to tell us every secret you know, Logie-Bear," Rhuben stated as she reached out and lovingly mused his hair from where she was sitting on James' lap. "Not that we're not entertained." She added quickly at Jo, Camille, and Stephanie's sharp looks.

"I'm sorry," Logan shook his head. "But after having to keep your guys' secret, which nearly killed my by the way," he added, glaring at the twin girls. "I'm glad that everything is back to normal."

"Normal?" WayneWayne snorted. "I wouldn't say that everything is back to normal."

"What makes you say that?" Stephanie asked.

"Well, Dak is dating the girl that is probably the most out of his league," Riley commented and looked over at Dak and Jo, who just smiled back at her, their intertwined hands on the table.

"Shut up, Riles." Jo commented, rolling her eyes.

"Yeah, and Patrick and Noah aren't fighting over Katie's attention," Carlos added and slapped his helmet twice. "That's not normal."

"Trust me, it's a good thing," Kendall remarked, causing the others to laugh.

"Yeah," James spoke up. "And WayneWayne doesn't have a girlfriend, that's not-" he paused and then grinned. "Actually, that's pretty normal." WayneWayne rolled his eyes as the others laughed at his expense.

"Haha guys," he smirked. "You're such a riot."

"Aren't we though?" Camille smiled and tucked her hair behind her ears. "So, girls, sleepover at my house tonight?"

"Can't," Rhuben shook her head. "We have late night studio work."

"Ooh," James wrapped his arms around her waist. "Can we come and watch?"

"I don't think you can," Rhuben replied after a second of pretending to think. "Because I think that Gustavo is going to have you guys killed by then for some reason or another. In fact," she looked at her watch. "I think he should be calling you guys in three…two…one…"

"WHERE ARE YOU DOGS?"

Dak and WayneWayne jumped as Big Time Rush looked fearful. "What did you guys do now?"

"I don't know," Carlos whimpered, leaning into Stephanie's side, who laughed and kissed her boyfriend on the cheek.

"if I were you, I'd get going now." Jo advised.

"DOGS!"

"Run!" Kendall declared and leapt out of his chair and sprinted out of the Palm Woods Pool, Logan, Carlos, and James running after him as fast as they could, shouting their goodbyes over their shoulders.

A/N: Yep, another short chapter, and the last chapter is a short one too. Thanks for reading this story you guys, I loved writing this a lot, I'm glad you all stuck with it. I'll update again soon with the final chapter.

Cheers,

-Riles