Chapter 16: Recovery

The next morning, James was the first to wake up, and decided that he'd test himself by heading down to the pool area and seeing if he could remember who was there.

"Camille Roberts," he said to himself, sitting down on a deck chair and watching as the method actress queen gesticulated wildly at an innocent passer by "The Jennifers," he couldn't help but to stare at the three actresses as they walked by-

"What are you doing?" James looked up to see the raven haired girl from yesterday standing over him, giving him an odd look, and a wave of recognition washed over him,

"Hi, uh-" James scrunched up his eyes and snapped his fingers; if only he could remember! "Ah, it's on the tip of my tongue!l"

"Very funny James," she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm "you think you're such a ladies man, but I know you haven't gone on enough dates to forget the any of the girls you like," James looked up at her blankly as she put a hand on her hip; he liked her? Why did he like her? She was being awful! "Plus we both know you're a terrible actor," she remarked, regarding his blank expression with vague interest and sitting down on the deck chair beside him "OK, I'll bite, what's the problem?"

"The guys didn't tell you?" James asked, and she shook her head "There was an accident," he screwed up his eyes again, trying to remember "a car crash - me and Kendall ended up in hospital, he's been weird and I haven't Ben able to remember anything ever since," when James opened his eyes the girl withe red streaks in her hair was staring at him, her mouth slightly open.

"Oh my god," she breathed.

"Yeah," James replied "so uh, who are you?"

"Oh right! I'm Lucy Stone, I'm friends with you and the guys,"

"Did you used to date Kendall?" James asked, and Lucy's eyes darkened at the memory before lighting up,

"Yeah! I did! You remembered!" she exclaimed.

"It comes and goes," James shrugged in reply "like right now, I can't remember who that blonde girl over there is, even though I'm sure I met her yesterday,"

"Jo Taylor," said a male voice behind him, and he turned around to see the blonde boy from the hospital whose name James swore was Kendall "can we have a minute, Lucy?" he asked, and she nodded, bidding goodbye to James before getting up and heading into the lobby as Kendall sat down,

"Hey," James said, avoiding saying the other boys name in case he forgot and upset him.

"Hey," the other replied, staring down at his fingernails and beginning to pick at them.

"How many times have I told you that cuticle care is much more attractive than gross, bitten off nails?" the words were out of James' mouth before he'd even had a chance to register what he'd said, and Kendall's jaw dropped open,

"Did you just-? James, that's what you told me a month ago!" he exclaimed excitedly.

"I know!" James replied, just as excited. There was a moment of silence as Kendall blew out a breath, avoiding eye contact with James and having to talk about the inevitable. "Are you OK?" James asked, his hazel eyes bearing into green as the blonde reluctantly met his gaze,

"I'm OK," Kendall said simply "it helps to talk out loud, you know? But if I did it out here people would think I was weird,"

"You can talk to me," James said in a small voice, and Kendall gave a sigh,

"Ever since the accident, I've had doctors and my mom monitoring me, and Dr Johnston hovering around me, asking me to open up about it, but I just can't tell a complete stranger, you know? And I can't tell my mom or Katie, or the other guys, because that'll just scare them, I-" he paused, looking James directly in the eye "do you know what happened that night?" the younger boy shook his head, and Kendall took a deep breath.

"It was drunks," he began, his voice surprisingly steady "you and I were driving along the back roads, heading back to the Palm Woods when these idiots started swerving onto our side of the road. They got back in control of the car, and I thought that it was all over, but then they swerved again, you tried to warn me, but it was too late, and they hit us side on. I didn't even have time to brake before we hit a tree, and you- your airbag didn't go off. I sat there for ages with you, waiting for someone to see us and praying that you'd wake up, but you didn't, you just sat there slumped against the dash of the car. There was blood coming from your head and I - I just felt so guilty at that moment, because I was the one who told you to get in the car that Carlos and I fixed up, and my airbag was the one that went off, not yours! I guess I just took the guilt out on myself, and that mixed with the fact that you hadn't woken up, and then you lost your memory - it got too much." Kendall's voice broke at that point, and James' heart ached as he watched the boy who the others had all called a leader shrink in on himself, looking more vulnerable than ever.

"It's OK," James said, putting a hand on Kendall's shoulder "I get that it all got hard, but you can't put this guilt on yourself! This wasn't your fault, OK? It wasn't yours, or mine, or Carlos', or Logan's, or anybody's. If you wanna blame anyone, blame those drunks who made us crash, but don't blame yourself, Kendall, you're just making it worse for yourself. It was all just a big accident that we can forget about now, and I need you to forget, I need you to get rid of all that anger and fear, because I need my best friends to help me get my memory back. Logan and Carlos told me your like our big brother, and right now, I need you more than ever." some kind of resolve snapped in Kendall, and James watched him look up, his gaze no longer scared and vulnerable, but protective and determined.

"I know you do James," he said gently "and all that's done with, I can't stand not being able to help you, and I'm not afraid anymore,"

"Thanks, Kendall," James gave a small smile "so, talk me through it; who are we?"

"I think," Kendall said, standing "it would be easier if I showed you," James nodded, and soon the two were up at the apartment, in Kendall's room, looking through scrapbooks that his mother had kept of the boys together.

"Mom always said that the minute I introduced you guys to her, she knew we'd be friends forever," the blonde said as he opened the first scrapbook "pretty cheesy, huh?"

"Not at all," James let a smile tug at the corners of his mouth as he saw the first photo, it was of himself, Kendall, Logan and Carlos on their first day of third grade "I remember this day," he mused, and Kendall looked over at him, surprised,

"Really?"

"Yeah!" James replied "It was our first day in third grade, the day we met Logan. He scraped his knee in the playground at recess, and everyone laughed at him because he cried, but you and Carlos threatened to beat them up, and we helped him get to the nurse and get-" the smile grew wider as he spotted Logan's knew "a dinosaur bandage,"

"Wow, James!" Kendall said "That was like," he quickly did the maths in his head "8 years ago!"

"Yeah, I guess it was!" James replied, shocked.

Before long, Carlos and Logan had joined in the reminiscing, and James was able to recall almost every event and face in all Mrs Knight's photographs.

"That was from the time Kendall got in a fight Billy Kennedy and broke his nose," James recalled effortlessly.

"You got your nose broken?" Logan asked incredulously.

"He was teasing you about your glasses," Kendall said in a small voice "so I beat him up,"

"Kendall!" the genius half scolded, half gasped, and Carlos and James shared a look before returning to the scrapbooks.

"Our first single!" James said enthusiastically, spotting a photo of the guys all holding a plaque with the name 'Big Time Rush' engraved below a large copy of their first song on CD. "I remember it was my dream to go to Hollywood and be famous, but Gustavo picked you, and you wouldn't go without us..." his voice trailed off "I never really thanked you for that,"

"Don't mention it," Kendall replied with a dimpled smirk.

By the time the boys had all fallen asleep at the strangest angles on Kendall's bed, it was as if there had never been an accident; James' memory was completely back to normal, Kendall was back to his usual self again, and Logan and Carlos finally smiled genuine smiles, smiles that told anyone who saw them that everything was OK again, back to the way it should be.

A/N: All over guys, I hope you liked the story! Not that I didn't like writing this story, but it just was such an effort to finish properly, and (trying not to sound annoying) I thought I did pretty well. This story was a train wreck at so many points, and I considered giving up on it so many times, but now. Thanks to your amazing reviews and support, I can say it's one of the few stories I've stuck with! So thank you so much, I know it's not a huge story like Big Time Change or anything, but it's still my baby, I had the idea for it ages ago, and it went through so many changes before it got to this point, so I thanking you for being the reason this story exists!

P.S hopefully Big Time Help is my next project, I might start working on that soonish, and Return to Solar Blue is still hanging in there, I had big plans for this story, once I get past this roadblock!

Thanks for everything guys, I love you more than James loves his comb and, as always, more stuff coming your way! xo