Title: You Make It Real

Summary: Sequel to Believe In Me. Mitchie left for London, opting to find herself before she got involved with Shane. Now, three years on, everything has changed. She's coming back to the USA, Connect 3 have disappeared off the music scene entirely and fate is intervening like crazy... will they still believe? Or is it just too real to handle?

Pairing/s: Smitchie, Naitlin and Jella. Hello to planning everything beforehand and deciding on these couples.

Authors Note: So I'm back! A little later than scheduled (I mean New Year was Thursday and I'm writing this on Tuesday, so yes, I'm late) but I had a terrible time planning everything out chapter by chapter and now that I've done it, I feel I'm in a much better position to actually post up a first chapter for you guys. Now I can focus on bringing you the updates and not on working out what's happening next. But thank you for your amazing reviews on the last chapter of Believe In Me (there were so many – my inbox was bursting, I swear) and for those of you that didn't like it, I hope you'll like this sequel better. Again, Smitchie-Shipper, you know how much you rock for putting up with my argh-ing about the planning and the ideas and how they link together, and I know you're looking forward to certain chapters in particular and I hope I do them justice because I'm itching to write that scene so much (you know which one I'm talking about). But yes! Here you guys go, I'm going to get caught up on replying to PMs people have sent to me in the past few days and I hope it goes down as well as BIM did!

Disclaimer: Wow, we're back to this again. Yeah, I don't own.

Music: Mr Rock 'n' Roll – Amy McDonald

"So-called Mr Rock 'n' Roll, he's dancing on his own again"

"That sounded real good, man!" Jason stated, ripping his headphones off and spinning around on the swivel stool in the recording booth. The grin on his face was contagious and soon it was spread across my face too, the keys under my fingers warm from the amount of use they'd had in this recording session. Which, for the record, was a lot.

Glancing over at Nate, I saw that Jason's contagious smiling disease had gotten the better of him too. Or maybe it was just the fact that finally – after saying we would so many times – we were in a recording studio for the first time in three years. Since we'd left the record label and their will to make us into manufactured, bubblegum rockstars (if there was such a thing) we'd been writing and waiting for the right opportunity. No mistakes this time around.

This was the right opportunity. This was perfect. Under a new band name (not Connect 3, which was not even our choice in the first place) and with new material that all three of us had labored over and worked so hard to get just right, not to mention with ourselves as our own management team, it was like... it was like starting out all over again. There was only one thing – or person – that could possibly make this whole existence more perfect than it already was. And she was all the way over the freakin' Atlantic Ocean.

Mitchie Torres was all the way in London, England.

Or... last I heard she was. Last time Nate informed me about where and how she was, she was celebrating her twenty-first birthday in London, taking a trip to Paris to commemorate the big two-one. The last time I saw her, she'd only just turned eighteen and I was almost twenty. Now she was twenty-one and I'm twenty-three. Talk about scary.

"That sounded really great guys," Andy the tech guy came over the speakers and gave us a thumbs up from behind the glass. "A couple more songs like that and we'll have a better comeback than Britney on our hands."

Nate laughed; a sound that I was very familiar with by now. While the past three years hadn't been the easiest three years of my life, we'd all seemed to be a lot more relaxed. I'd heard Nate laugh and chill out a lot more. Weirdly enough, I'd become more serious about life. Not... too serious, because come on, you're around for too short of a time to get too serious about the world. But I definitely wasn't freaking out about my hair not being straight enough anymore. And Jason? Well... Jason was still Jason. Insanely interested in birds and always the last to get jokes, Jason was older and a little bit quicker when it came to understanding things. Might have been the girlfriend he went and got himself when we first permanently located to LA. Ella. They were happy. Which made me happy for him, I guess.

As for Nate's love life? Pretty much like mine: non-existant. Well... okay, lie. He was still interested in Caitlin. Why else would he keep in contact with her for three years, even though the one reason he was in contact with her away had moved across the other side of the world? Alright, they can both insist that they're 'just friends' (not that I have spoken to Caitlin since a few weeks after Mitchie left, but I'm assuming she'd say the same thing) but I've been there. I know these things. But Nate's a chicken and won't ask her to hang out, even though he knows for a fact that she's attending college in LA. Which is where we are. I mean seriously, is he waiting for an invitation or something?

I guess it's all very well and good for me to slam him, but truthfully... I probably fail just as much. I tried to stay in contact with Mitchie, honest to God I did. But the first few emails were hard and I couldn't just talk to her as though she was just a friend to me. Because she isn't just a friend to me. I can't imagine ever just being her friend. Whoever said absence makes the heart grow fonder was one smart dude. Because I think I love her just as much as I did when she got in the car and drove out of my life. Which is sort of pathetic, if you think about it properly. Jeez, I might never see her again. I haven't heard from her in three years. She might've forgotten about me, or moved on, or found someone else to put her faith in. Waiting for something that might never come back around is pointless.

But that didn't make me want to let her go. No matter how many times the guys tried to set me up with some pretty girl – who was probably great when you got to know her, but I couldn't bring myself to get that far – I couldn't stop comparing them all to Mitchie. I just couldn't.

"Boys!" A new voice entered the studio – the familiar English accent bouncing around the soundproof area we were still sitting in through the speakers – and I automatically smiled. One plus at being in California was my Uncle Brown, who taught a music class at the local college and, when he had the time, taught some of the kids at Camp Rock – the summer music camp that I'd set up two years ago.

Long story short: when Mitchie left, I realized that everything she'd said to me had been true. And I wanted to do something for someone else for a change. I wanted to just forget all about me and offer someone else comfort. And I'd found out that Camp Rock - the place where I'd begun and the place that held so many memories for me that were back when I was just Shane and having fun - was being closed down due to lack of funding. It would be gone, unless somebody bought it over. And I'd remembered what Mitchie had said about wanting to be a singer and how she thought she'd never get the opportunity and how she'd mentioned how millions of people would love to be in my shoes and then I'd happened across that picture of me and Abby – the little girl at the diner – and the rest was history. A music camp for kids that might otherwise not get the opportunity to pursue music. All funded by Shane Grey, though nobody apart from Nate, Jason, me, Uncle Brown and Dee, the woman who looked after it on a day-to-day basis. And the bank, but they don't count. Camp Rock was staying open.

Two years on, it's still popular as ever. This is the third summer that it's been open and some of the kids have come along to every one. Rebecca Evans – my little Mariah Carey in the making. Jacob Hartnett – I swear, if he isn't a rockstar in the future it'll be an injustice. Evelyn Meadows – hip-hop dancer extraordinare... They're all so talented and it makes me feel like I'm doing something. I'm doing something for people who need it. Mitchie would be proud, I think. Or I like to think anyway.

"Guess who made an appearance on page 26 of US Weekly?" Brown said, grinning at the three of us through the glass that separated us from the machines that had been recording us, minutes ago.

I stood up from my place at the piano, shrugging exaggeratedly. "Gee, I don't know. Who could it be?"

He glanced down at the page of the open magazine in his hands as I pulled open the door that took me out of the actual studio and made a face. "Hilary Duff. Apparently she's in a new movie. Think I should book my tickets in advance?"

"Hi to you too, Uncle B." I laughed, pulling my uncle in for a hug, as Jason and Nate emerged from the other room and shut the door behind them. "Another us-free US Weekly issue then?"

It wasn't uncommon anymore. We'd practically disappeared from the face of the Earth. Another fad that disappeared in a few years. There was sometimes the odd piece, when it was a slow news day, about where we were now and there was usually a low quality paparazzi snap of Jason and Ella on a date, Nate on the phone (coughCaitlincough) or me doing painfully normal things, like getting coffee or ordering pancakes in a diner. But we were no longer big news. Or, we wouldn't be. If our new stuff was as good as Andy the tech guy was claiming, then maybe that wouldn't be the case for too much longer. But we were no longer a teen band, that was for sure.

Brown nodded, flipping the magazine shut swiftly. "Looks very much like it, kid. That's sure to change soon though – I heard Andy saying you were going to make a better comeback than Britney? That's setting the bar high, Andy, my man."

"Nice to hear your confidence in us is so high, Brown," Nate said, picking up an apple from the huge mix of food we had, lurking around the studio. He threw it in the air and caught it, one- handedly, before looking over at me. "Want to give up for the day? We've done pretty well."

I shrugged. It didn't bother me. If we stayed here, we could nail 'Understatement', which we'd been trying to get perfect for ages. But if going home was the option, I could finish writing the song that had been bugging me for a few days. We needed one more song to go on the album, and this could be the one. Of course, I'd said that about my last few attempts to finish songs, but this really could be. Never know.

"Actually, I'm meeting Ella," Jason commented, scratching the side of his face as though he didn't really want to be the one to cause the end of the session, but at the same time really wanting to be able to go and mack on his girlfriend. "Last day before classes start and all..."

"Ah, this would be Ella Atherstone?" Brown said, glancing at me before he looked at Jason. How he knew her was beyond me, though he was Uncle Brown; sometimes I was sure he knew everything.

Jason nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah. She's in your class this summer, right? She's totally excited about it. Which is why we want to take this opportunity before you start loading her with homework."

Brown laughed, and winked at me before nodding at Jason. "You'd be wise to do that, mate. With the study load I have planned, you might not see her again until September."

I rolled my eyes. Yeah, right. Everyone who took Brown's class knew that they probably wouldn't have too much homework. Just some performances and a whole lot of fun. It was how he operated. It was why he was so popular, with both teenagers and little kids alike. "Well, looks like we're done here for just now then. Jason has his girlfriend to meet."

"I mean... I can rearr -" Jason began, being typical Jason. Wanting to please everyone. Even when I was totally joking and more than okay with him meeting Ella. If it had been me and I'd been meeting Mitchie...

Well. It's not. So why even think about it?

"No," I said, shaking my head. "I was joking. You guys have fun."

Jason grinned at me, opening his mouth to say something in reply, when Nate's cell phone alerting him to a new text message cut him off. Nate jumped, pulling the handset out of his pocket and glancing at the screen. I didn't need more than one guess to figure out who it was. Caitlin hadn't texted for a while, and I knew from the small smile that came across his face that she'd finally gotten in touch. He thought he was so hard to read, but I found it too easy. Maybe it was because I was all-too familiar with that look.

"So, we'll be back here tomorrow then, Nate?" I asked, not really expecting an answer. He was tapping a reply into his phone, not letting anything from the outside world break his concentration from the touch screen in front of him.

Rolling my eyes when I got no reply – and hearing Jason, Uncle Brown and Andy laugh at the same thing – I lifted my hand in a wave. Funny. The person with the least to do was the one to leave first. You'd think it'd be the other way around.

"Well, I'll see you guys later. Tell Ella I said hi." I nodded at Jason and he beamed back at me, before looking over at Nate and seeing him still immersed in his texting, I figured I'd talk to him later. He probably wouldn't miss me too much. "Thanks Andy. See you later Uncle B."

I'd taken two steps out of the room and was heading down the hallway, before an English accent calling my name made me spin back in the direction of the door.

"Shane! Are you okay, son? The music going well? Camp Rock working out?" This was Uncle Brown's way of finding out how I was dealing with life in general. He knew how crap I felt when Mitchie left and was pretty much ready to do what he could to avoid me feeling like that again. It was just a shame that that was impossible. Unfortunately, Mitchie had made such an impact on me – something that I don't even know if she knew – that I could never forget her. And I doubted anybody would believe in me like she did. I just hoped that she hadn't found another voice in the dark. As selfish as that might sound, I really hoped she hadn't.

I nodded, smiling as best as I could. "Yeah. To all of the above. The album sounds great so far, the kids are loving the start of their summer, as usual... I'm looking forward to Final Jam this year."

He nodded along with me, but as soon as I'd finished talking he started on another subject, giving me the impression he'd not really been listening. Not that I raised this issue with him, because he'd moved on to something different. "Listen, Shane. What was this girl's name again? The one you met three years ago?"

"Why?" I asked, my eyes narrowing. Not many people mentioned her anymore, especially not around me. They didn't even go there. So there had to be a good reason for him asking, otherwise he wouldn't.

"I just - " he started, his gaze locked in mine, which told me that this was important. But why was it important?

Before I could find out, Nate and Jason emerged from the studio deep in conversation, but stopping dead as soon as they saw that I was still standing there. Well, that was a not-so-subtle assurance that they were talking about me. And my uncle was now looking over his shoulder as though he needed to go. Great. So I wouldn't find out anything?

"Um... see you later, Shane. Brown." Nate passed with a nod, a weird look on his face, and Jason followed quickly. What the heck had they been talking about to get them acting that strangely?

"You were saying?" I turned back to my uncle, sticking my hands in the pockets of my jeans and raising an eyebrow at him.

His eyes darted across the hallway, before he shrugged. "Yeah, about that, mate. I'll talk to you about it later. No hurry. I'll call you!"

With those last words, he was backing away down the corridor and heading down the stairs, not meeting my eyes again. So. Weird.

Sighing, I paused in the hallway for a second and then followed in his footsteps, except more slowly. Everyone else might've had to rush to get somewhere, but not me. Shane Grey had nothing to do and nobody to see. Three years ago, that would not have been the case at all.

Three years ago.

Holy crap, three years felt like a lifetime.

I wondered how long it had felt like to her. Had it felt as long as it had for me? Had every day dragged by and had she thought about me too many times to count?

Or had it gone by in no time? Was I just another distant memory? Did she still believe in me?

Reaching the lobby, I pushed open the door that took me out into the warm, July, LA sun and breathed in the city air for a second. Nobody recognised me as they passed by. Nobody even batted an eyelid. Mr. Shane Grey. Mr. Rock Star. Yet nobody even seemed to care.

Three years. One thousand and ninety five days. Twenty six thousand, two hundred and eighty hours. One million, five hundred and seventy six thousand, eight hundred minutes.

And who knew how many more minutes, hours, days or years there were to come?