Whew, a second update in just a couple of days!

Disclaimer: I definitely don't own Big Time Rush.

Guest: I'm gonna hazard a guess that you're upset. Which, considering what happened in the last chapter, I don't blame you for, at all. I'm still pretty upset about it too. And I know it was awful to do it right before Valentine's Day, but I wanted to get the chapter up.

Thank you to all my loyal readers and reviewers! I love you all so much, and if you're still speaking to me after what happened last chapter, you all deserve lots of chocolate cake, gold medals, and pizza!

I'm going to say this now: What happened at the end of the last chapter was necessary. And what's going to happen in this chapter as well is necessary. I am a huge Jatie supporter, and at this point in time (and for the past year and a half, since Hot Water), they're my OTP. This is still a Jatie story, and it's not going to end for a little while. The purpose of last chapter and this chapter are to set things up for what's going to happen in the next chapter, and onwards. Part of the problem is that a certain Katie Knight decided to be stubborn and stray from the original plan, a few chapters back. So I had to rework certain things so that they would make sense, and with that came some drama and some angst and some serious-ness. Not my favorite thing to do when it involves Jatie, but it needed to happen. So, I'm going to shut up and sit back so that you guys can read the chapter and decide if you're still talking to me or not. I hope you are, and I hope you manage to enjoy it, at least to an extent :)

Oh, and yes, the title of this chapter is taken from the title of Taylor Swift's song, "Back to December".

Chapter Sixteen: Back to December

Katie's POV

The ride up to the Holly hotel was a quiet one, and it was a relief to finally arrive. We all piled out and made our way into the lobby with our luggage, so that we could check in.

We got our room keys and headed up to the second floor where we would be staying for the next five days.

Kyle and I had ended up with the room beside James' and Shane's. I glanced over at the Diamond boys, but neither of them looked over at me.

Kyle unlocked our room while James did the same for his and Shane's, and our doors seemed to open simultaneously. We walked in, James and Shane into their room, and Kyle and me into ours. Kyle closed the door behind me, and just a few feet away, I heard the Diamonds' door fall shut as well.

Kyle turned to me the second the door was locked and he raised an eyebrow. "What happened?"

I fell onto one of the queen size beds as the tears hit me once more.

"You did something, didn't you? What the hell did you do, Katie?!"

I just cried even harder. It was already becoming obvious how big of a mistake I had just made.

Kyle crossed the room and pulled me to my feet, holding me tightly. "Katie…What did you say to James?"

I wordlessly pulled out my phone and got into the text from Sarah, before passing it to him. He looked down at it, and shook his head. "So…what? You told him you couldn't see him anymore because you have a bitch coach?"

"Not – not exactly…"

"Well, what exactly did you say?"

"I said – I said – I didn't care for him as much as he obviously does for me. That I don't have feelings for him, that I'm only attracted to him physically. That I was just leading him on. That love isn't going to keep us together…That I don't date hockey players."

"Oh my God…Katie…fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck!" He let go of me completely and began to pace the room furiously, dark anger crossing his face. He didn't even look at me, and I knew he was every bit as pissed off with me as James, and most likely Shane, was. "I can't fucking believe you did that! You lied to him about your feelings! I know every bit as well as you do that you care about him more than almost anything! You were asking me for suggestions on how to keep a hold of him so that you could work past your commitment issues. And then you go and pull this stunt?! What the hell is wrong with you?!"

"I don't know!" I screamed back. "It just all hit me! I hurt him and he didn't really want anything to do with me, and then I got the text from Sarah, and it just…it just made sense to do that. I didn't want to, I feel beyond horrible – "

"Do you?" Kyle demanded, rounding on me. "Are you even capable of feeling horrible about something you've done to someone? You run from people. You treat them like crap. You just broke James' heart. And I'm seeing his younger brother, so tell me, who's side am I supposed to be on? Who's side do you think I'm going to be on?"

"I'm sorry," I sobbed, sinking down to the ground. "I'm so sorry!"

"Nah uh, sorry doesn't cut it, not with me, and most certainly not with James. And you shouldn't be apologizing to me, anyway. I'm not the one whose heart you just ripped right out!"

"I made a mistake – "

"And now you have to live with that mistake. Now you're going to have to figure out some way to fix it. And it better be soon. If I was James, I wouldn't take you back."

"We were never dating…"

"And you definitely won't be now!"

"Why are you getting so mad at me?!" I yelled. "I'm the one who fucked up, and like you said, you're not the one I screwed over!"

"Because I happen to like James. He's a nice guy who doesn't deserve this. And you've jerked him around so much since his very first day at our high school…He gives you chance after chance and you just throw them away. Plus, believe it or not, I actually want you to be happy. And you're happy when you're around him. I actually thought that you guys going on this trip together would be a good thing, that you could maybe work through some stuff, that you two might actually get together officially. But then you go and pull this, and the other girls didn't help matters either. Makes me wonder if Sarah suggested they grill James or something…"

"I don't – I don't know…" I mumbled helplessly.

Kyle sighed. "Look, just lay low for tonight, okay? Let James cool down, and you can get yourself under control. Talk to him tomorrow. Tell him about the text, he needs to know that your coach is threatening to out Shane. Honestly, where did she get that information anyway?"

"I have no idea," I admitted. "Maybe she overheard James and me talking. Maybe she overheard you and Shane. Maybe she…Well, fuck."

"What?"

"She was patrolling the halls the night of the Halloween dance…"

"That explains so much." He rolled his eyes, layering on the sarcasm. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"James and I were talking…That's the night I found out for certain about Shane's sexuality. She could've so easily heard."

"Katie, we could probably get the school board involved…She can't be allowed to get away with this."

"She's my coach, and I need her."

"Wow. Are you serious?! She just keeps ruining your life and now she's bringing other people into it, and you're just going to let her get away with it because she's your coach?!"

"Yes. My dad has constantly reminded me that he doesn't pay her to be nice – he pays her to make sure I win. And she does that."

"And you actually want me to believe that you have morals?" Kyle shook his head. "Whatever. Keep her around. Just make sure she doesn't hurt anyone else, got it?"

"Got it."

"Good. So…let's see if there's anything good on TV…"

We settled in to flip through the channels. About fifteen minutes into an episode of Bones, Kyle looked over at me, a thoughtful expression on his face. "You don't like change, don't you? You're afraid of it."

I blinked over at him. "What're you talking about?"

"You're afraid of change. When your parents split up, everything changed. You lost Kendall, or so it seems, your dad stopped paying attention to you, and he hired a new coach for you. And now things have settled down, but James and Shane showed up, and they're threatening your world. You don't want to lose Sarah, because as psycho as she is, she's still your coach. She's a form of stability. You're afraid of James because he's completely usurping everything that you thought you knew. For the first time, you really care about someone, and not just as a friend. You're actually distracted. And the person who you care about, who's distracting you, happens to be a hockey player. You can't handle change."

"Well…yeah…"

He shook his head. "I should have seen it before. This doesn't excuse what you did, but it puts things into a little more perspective now."

I stared at him, but he just shrugged.

We ended up ordering room service for dinner, which we ate while watching Casablanca. About halfway through, Kyle glanced over at me again. "Do you mind if I go over to see Shane?"

I shook my head. "Go ahead. I think I just want to be alone tonight anyway."

"Okay." He got to his feet. "I'll see you later."

"Yeah, see you later."

He headed out the door, leaving me all alone with my thoughts.

Kyle's POV

I closed the hotel room door behind me, and instead turned to face the next one, the one Shane and James had disappeared through several hours earlier. I really doubted that James wanted to see me, but hopefully Shane wouldn't hold Katie's actions against me. I certainly wasn't siding with her on this one.

Don't get me wrong, I felt bad because I knew she felt awful about the way she had broken up, or rejected – whatever term you want to use – James, but she was the one who had made the decision. And I couldn't stand behind lying to him the way she had, even if she had done it partly in order to protect Shane. There were other ways to protect him, and those ways didn't include hurting someone she cared about.

I took a deep breath as I eyed the door. I couldn't let Katie's mistake affect Shane and me, but I also couldn't let her mistake make both her and James miserable either. I had to do something…I just wasn't sure what.

With another deep breath, I knocked on the door. A moment later, the door opened, and I found myself looking up about two inches at Shane. His somber expression changed completely as his face lit up.

"Who is it?" I heard James call.

"It's Kyle."

"Whatever."

Uh oh…that didn't sound like it boded well for me.

Shane turned back to me. "Come on in." He stepped back and I walked into the hotel room. It looked like a mirrored version of Katie's and my room, with the heads of the beds pressed against the back wall, along the wall that separated our room from theirs. It was where our beds were situated, and I almost smiled at the thought that there was only a thin wall separating us from each other.

"So, what's up?" Shane asked as he closed the door behind me.

I bit my lip. "I want to talk about Katie."

"Oh, and that's my cue to leave." James had been lounging on one of the beds – the one that mirrored Katie's, oddly enough – but the second I mentioned Katie's name, he was on his feet.

"James – " Shane began, but James held up his hand.

"Just save it, okay? Please? I'm going to look around."

Shane sighed as James walked across the room and left, closing the door behind him.

"He's pretty torn up about this, isn't it?" I asked Shane.

"Very. I mean, I don't blame him, but…I warned him. And he swore he wouldn't let her hurt him…But it's only been a few days and she's completely crushed him."

"She's pretty beaten up about this too," I pointed out.

"Well, that's sad, but she's not my brother. And she deserves to be."

"I know. Believe me, I do. She got herself into this mess, and she feels awful about it. But, she lied. She does have feelings for James, she does care about him, and she does want to be with him. But she's afraid of commitment, and she's afraid of change, and there's another player in this game."

Shane blinked at me questioningly.

"Sarah. Her coach. She knows you're gay, and she told Katie that if she didn't stop seeing James, she'd out you."

"Oh…Well, that's just awesome. Just fucking awesome." He sank down onto his bed, running his hands over his face.

"I know, but Katie's going to make sure that she doesn't hurt you. We'll all make sure," I added, sitting down beside him and putting my arm around him. "James and I won't let her hurt you, you know we won't. And if she outs you, then she's going to have to out me too. We'll come out of the closet together if nothing else."

He silently nodded.

"Good." I pecked his lips before pulling back. "But I also want to get those two together – officially together, I mean. They need each other. Or, at the very least, Katie needs James. She's so much happier when she's with him, Shane. She's more relaxed, more herself. You mostly see the bitchy, bratty side of her, but it sounds like James sees the Katie that she only shows to a few people. She really cares about him, and she really needs him, and she's going to go crazy if she loses him."

"She pushed him away, Kyle," Shane replied. "And I'm not sure I want to help her fix her mistake, not when there's the possibility that James is just going to get hurt again."

"I know. I don't want her to hurt him either. But she really does need him. He balances her out. They're complete opposites, but there's just something there. You know what I mean? It's kind of like us. We're opposite on a lot of stuff, but somehow it just seems to work."

Shane sighed. "I'll do this, but only because I know it's eating you up inside, and it's killing James. I'm not doing this for Katie. And after this, I don't want anything to do with her. And I feel like by doing this, I'm just throwing my brother to the wolves again. She's already hurt him once, Kyle. Who's to say that she won't do it again?"

"I don't know. There's a good chance that she will. But there's an equally good chance that she won't."

"Well, I don't have any ideas on how to get those two together. If you have a suggestion, throw it out there, but I got nothing."

I sighed. The same went for me.

"You going to head back to your room soon?" Shane asked me, turning his head to look at me.

"Not if you don't want me to."

"Good. Cuz I don't."

I smiled slightly and kissed him again.

He kissed me back, arm coming to wrap around my lower waist and pulling me closer. I placed my hand on his jaw, deepening the kiss, and he sighed against my lips, before pulling back.

"You know," he said, "it's times like these that make me extremely happy I'm nothing like my brother. And that you're nothing like Katie," he added as an afterthought, and I chuckled.

"Because you get to kiss me?"

"Well, that. But mostly just because I get to be with you."

I felt a wide smile spread across my face. "Let's make a promise now, that whatever happens with Katie and James, we won't let it affect us."

He nodded, holding me tightly. "They're not us. And we're not them."

"Right. And we never will be."

James' POV

I had no idea where I was going to go when I left my hotel room. All I knew was that I wasn't going to stay in there while Kyle and Shane talked about Katie.

My head was still spinning from what had happened earlier in the van: "Love isn't going to keep us together…How can you break up with someone when you never had a relationship with them…You care about me more than I care about you. All I'm doing is leading you on…I like you as a friend…You know I don't date hockey players…"

I clenched my fists as the echoes of her rejection rang through my mind, slamming into my inner skull. I could already feel a headache coming on.

I stalked through the hall and down the stairs to the ground floor. I was so lost in my own thoughts that I almost didn't hear someone call my name.

"James? James Diamond?"

I spun around and found myself looking towards a pretty girl with straight strawberry blonde hair. I blinked. She looked really familiar, but I was having trouble placing her.

She smiled at me. "Sorry, you don't recognize me, do you?"

"No, I do, it's just my head's a little…elsewhere right now."

"Oh. Well, I'm Lauren Winters. I'm in your geometry class."

"Oh…okay. Right, yeah, duh. I knew that, I totally knew that."

She laughed. "It's cool if you didn't. I sit behind you. I really only know who you are because my older brother used to play hockey for La Castillo high school, and he drags me to all the hockey games. Anyway, what're you doing up here?"

"You mean here, at Holly hotel?"

Lauren nodded.

"I'm here with some friends – my brother and the Knights and Carlos Garcia and Logan Mitchell; and Stephanie King and Camille Roberts and Jo Taylor."

"Really?" she gave me a half interested, half flirtatious look as she cocked her hip and turned her head sideways, pursing her lips slightly. "I didn't think you hockey players got along with the ice skaters."

"We…we really don't. This whole trip was a mistake, I'm not even sure what I'm doing up here."

"You wanna talk about it? How long have you been up here?"

"For about four hours…"

She raised an eyebrow. "And you're already ready to give up on it?"

"Pretty much."

"Well, can I convince you to give it a chance? Maybe over dinner?"

I stared at her. Was she – was she asking me out?

She gave me a small smile, and I found myself nodding. "You know what? That sounds really great." I smiled at her, and she beamed at me.

"That's awesome. I'm here with my parents, but I know they'll let me go when I tell them I found someone from school here. Hang on." She pulled out her phone and gave her mom a quick call, before hanging up and turning back to me. "The hotel restaurant work? It's snowing like crazy out there, so I don't think we'd really want to go anywhere."

I walked over to the window and peered out. She was right, the snow was falling like mad outside.

"The hotel restaurant definitely works." I held my arm out to her and she took it, giggling.

"Why on earth don't you have a girlfriend?" she asked me as we walked towards the restaurant. "You're so nice and you're really hot. And you're obviously straight."

"Well, I kind of had a complicated situation with a girl, but it's completely over now."

"You sure?" She raised her eyebrows at me. "Because I'd hate to be the 'other' girl."

"I'm sure."

"Okay. Good." We reached the restaurant and sat down at a small table. The waiter brought us menus a couple minutes later and we ordered drinks.

"So, how long have you been here?" I asked Lauren curiously as I opened my menu.

"Since Monday," she replied. "And I've been bored out of my mind. I'm not really into skiing and snowboarding and all those things they have up here, so I've kind of just been camped out in front of the TV."

I laughed. "Maybe I can get you into snowboarding."

"You snowboard?"

I nodded. "A little. There aren't any mountains in Minnesota, where I'm from, but when I was younger we'd go to Aspen during winter break and my dad would teach my brother and me how to ski and snowboard."

"That's so cool," she gushed. "Are you any good?"

"I like to think so, but I haven't snowboarded in years. With my luck, I'd probably end up dragging you down the mountain."

"Now that sounds like fun," she chuckled. "How about skiing? You like that?"

"Not so much, it's not really my thing."

"Mmm…Hey, you know there's an ice rink here, right?"

I looked at her over my menu. "There is?"

She nodded. "There is. It seems like a pretty good one too."

I immediately thought of Katie. She could rent skates and practice her routines…But then I quickly shook that thought out of my head. I was doing my very best not to think about her, but apparently it wasn't going so well…

Lauren peered at me. "So…when did the complicated thing with the girl end?"

"At about twelve-thirty this afternoon."

She stared at me.

"It's not as bad as it sounds. We were never together. It was kind of a friends with benefits relationship that lasted from Friday night to, well, this afternoon. And she ended it."

"Why?"

"Because I care about her more than she cares about me."

"Okay, can I just say that whoever this girl is, she's a total bitch?" Her eyes glinted angrily.

"I know…"

"Why wouldn't she care about you?" she wanted to know.

"She doesn't date hockey players," I said bitterly.

"Oh…You were with one of the ice skaters, weren't you…? Duh, you said it ended this afternoon, of course you were. You're all up here together."

"Yeah. She doesn't like hockey."

"Those ice skaters think they're so pretty and popular, but they're all bitches," Lauren said fiercely. "I've been dealing with Katie Knight since ninth grade. She and my best friend were running against each other for homecoming queen last year, and Katie did a smear campaign, where she spread a whole bunch of lies about my friend. I can't stand that girl."

"Katie did that?" The words sounded so sad and timid and naïve to me.

She nodded.

I bit my lip, automatically trying to come up with an excuse for her behavior, but nothing came to mind. I saw flashes of the volleyball incident in PE, and then after, when we almost blew up the chem. lab. Then there was the teasing and the taunting when I refused to let her set Shane up with Kyle. But then scenes raced through my mind: Us dancing together at the Halloween dance; when we accompanied Shane and Kyle to the drive-in; her dashing out of the concession-stand-thing there when she admitted that her coach was turning her towards anorexia; when she took me to the high school's theater and listened to me recite a monologue from Shakespeare's play All's Well That Ends Well; our first kiss…

"I'm sorry," I finally said. "I'm really, really sorry for what she did."

"I am too. But hey, it's in the past."

"Yeah…"

"Was it Katie? The one who you were doing…whatever it was you were doing…with?"

I wordlessly nodded.

"She's gorgeous," Lauren said after a three second beat. "But she scares most guys, with good reason. So, you're probably braver than the others."

"Or just stupider. She went after me when I first started at La Castillo high school, because I was a hockey player, so she couldn't like me on principle."

"So, what happened?"

"She pushed me a little too far so I pushed back, and then…I don't know. It just seems like there was a lot of explosions." I laughed a little bitterly. "We drive each other crazy. We can work as friends, but there's just too much…we're like a ticking bomb that could go off at any moment."

"That could be both good and bad," Lauren said softly.

"It really depends on the day," I agreed.

"Well, I'm sorry. You're obviously hurting, and you definitely care about her a lot."

"Thanks. And thanks for listening. I'm actually starting to see things more in perspective now." And I was, too. I was beginning to realize that, no matter how much sexual tension Katie and I had, it was never going to work. We were always on the verge of exploding, and that wasn't healthy. And I couldn't be with someone who didn't feel the same way about me. Besides, there was nice, sweet, pretty girl who actually did like me, and I was having dinner with her. I could have been a lot worse off.

"You're welcome, and it's not a problem."

I smiled at her, just as the waiter returned with our drinks. We gave him our entrée orders, and he headed off again.

"So, you guys have a hockey game in a few weeks," Lauren commented. "Are you excited or nervous?"

"Kind of both. But we've been training hard, so I think we'll be okay."

"That's good. Well, my brother's definitely going to make me go to the game with him, so I'll be there cheering for you."

"Thanks. That's really sweet."

"Well, I try." She tossed her hair and winked at me, and I chuckled. I actually really liked her. She wasn't Katie, but that was okay, because Katie and I obviously weren't going to happen.

The waiter came back a little while later with our food, and we dug in, chatting in-between bites of food. At last, we paid and got up.

"So, I should probably head back up to my room," Lauren told me as she faced me.

"Can I walk you up?"

"Please? I'm on the second floor."

"Cool. So am I."

She smiled at me, and we headed off up to her room. She was just a little ways down from where Shane and I were. I glanced at Katie's and Kyle's door, and wondered if Katie was in her room at that moment…

I walked Lauren to her door and she smiled up at me. "Thanks for dinner, James."

"No problem," I smiled back. "Hopefully we'll get to hang out a little more while we're both here."

"Yeah, definitely. I'm here until Saturday, so…"

"Okay. Yeah, we'll definitely have to get together before then," I nodded.

"Agreed. Well…I'll see you soon."

"Yeah, see you soon." She turned back to her door, but glanced back up at me. Our eyes locked, and I took a deep breath as my last words to Katie echoed through my mind, spurring me: "By the time you realize that maybe you should give me a chance, I might have moved on. No, you know what? There is no might. I'll be long gone…"

I pressed my lips to Lauren's. She let out a surprised gasp, but kissed me back, hand coming up to cup the back of my neck, and I trapped her between me and the wall, deepening it, while I waited for the fireworks and explosions to go off, but there was…nothing. None of the eye-popping, jaw-locking, mouth-dropping sparks that seemed to ignite every time Katie and I touched.

I pulled back from Lauren after a few more seconds, and she looked up at me, but before either of us could say anything, there was a small squeak from down the hall.

We both glanced around, and my stomach seemed to drop straight through the floor.

Katie was standing in her doorway, eyes wide, mouth wide open, and an absolutely heartbroken look on her face.

I know you guys are probably screaming at me and cussing me out and waving your fists at the computer screen, and I don't blame you. I'd be doing the same thing. But there is a reason for what just happened, and this is still Jatie.

I'm not going to lie, I hate bringing in characters out of nowhere, but for this chapter, it was necessary...so, everyone say a quick hi to Lauren Winters, the girl from James' geometry class. Oh, and it has been brought to my attention that I haven't really mentioned certain characters for the last couple of chapters, and that's true, I haven't. The reason is that they've either been Jatie-centered, or there just hasn't been room for them. Don't worry though, those characters will be coming back in. Right now, I'm just trying to push us through the Jatie angst (if you can even call it angst, which I'm not sure you can), so this chapter had kind of a one track mind, as will the next chapter.

Anyway, if you guys are still speaking to me (and I hope you are!) then please review and let me know what you think of James, Katie, and hell, even Lauren. And if you need to yell at me using all caps or need to cuss me out, then go for it, I'll understand. I just hope you guys don't abandon this story, and that you'll be around for the next chapter, because it won't be Jatie sadness forever. I love you guys, and I appreciate all the support you've all given me, so thank you, and thank you to those who reviewed the last chapter for being so understanding :)