Hey guys, this is the sequel for my story 'Time of Your Life' which focuses on the original characters of Callie and Arizona's kids Mark and Rory but will you get Calzona moments here and there of course. This chapter takes place in Rory's and Mark's point of view. I'm sorry my hiatus was longer than planned! I hope you guys enjoy! =D

Prologue. All At Once

"Sometimes the hardest thing and the right thing are the same.
Maybe you want her, maybe you need her."
- All At Once, The Fray

"What's with the frown, sad sack?" Matt asks as he takes his seat next to me at our usual lunch table.

"Sorry, what?" I ask, coming out of my daze; I had been staring off in to the distance towards Mark's lunch table.

"I asked what was with you. You've been frowning all darn day." He replies with a look of concerned.

"My brother hasn't spoken to me in over two weeks besides for in front of my parents and Jess hasn't been to school either so I haven't seen her." I reply before taking a bite out of my apple.

"Why isn't Mark talking to you?" He looks at me curiously, raising his eyebrow slightly.

"I can't tell you." I take another bite of my apple, hoping he's not going to press the issue.

"I know that you and Mark aren't exactly two peas in a pod but you are a lot closer than Ollie and I are."

"Matt if you're trying to get me to say why he's not talking to me it's not going to work. It's the fact that I said something in the first place that," I pause realizing my mistake. I hang my head and practically slam my apple down on my tray.

"What did you say?" Matt's curiosity still doesn't waver.

"I can't tell you." I give him a serious look. "It's the fact that I told someone else that made him so pissed at me that he won't speak to me unless he has to so our parents won't get suspicious."

"Okay, I'll let it go." Matt gives me a small smile which I am sure is his form of an apology. "So why hasn't Jess been here all week anyhow?" He asks as he holds out his open bag of chips to offer me some.

"No thanks. She's at home because her parents thought it would be a good idea for her to help Cam adjust around the house." I can't help but smile now slightly; it was definitely like Jess to help even though it interfered slightly with the rest of her life.

"Awe, isn't that sweet." Matt gives me a smirk.

"It is actually." I give him a sweet smile before grabbing a chip from his hand.

"Hey! Did I say you could have that?" He gives me a fake look of shock.

"No, but you offered me one of those so it's the same thing." I giggle before popping the chip in my mouth.

As I finish chewing and swallow I notice my brother get up and begin to walk out of the cafeteria. I realize that this has gone on for far too long and I need to say something. "Mark!" I call out across the cafeteria without even thinking much about what his reaction could be. "I'll see you in class." I say quickly to Matt before getting up from the table.

Mark's eye meet mine for a quick second as he continues to walk out of the cafeteria, but he refuses to even acknowledge me and just keeps walking. "Mark!" I call out to him again, slightly louder this time.

He opens the door to leave the cafeteria and quickens his pace. Thankfully my brother has chosen to exit the cafeteria through a door that exits to the outside of the school, to where some would call the quad, which was empty at this time of lunch.

"Mark, come on. You've got to talk to me some time, and why can't some time be now?" I ask curiously as I get closer to him; close enough to know that there's no way he can't hear me. Yet he still doesn't reply. "Mark, I know you can hear me!" I raise my voice even louder now because my frustration is starting to become apparent.

"What do you want me to say, Rory?" He snaps as he stops suddenly, turning around to look me in the eye. "What?"

Rory gives me a look of shock mixed with guilt as she just stares at me after I finally snapped.

"I-I" She tries to speak but stutters over her first word. "I'm sorry, okay. I didn't realize that it was such a big deal that I told Jess. She doesn't even know Emma so it's not like she'd ever know. But obviously that was extremely naïve of me. I understand that you love Emma but if you don't tell her soon you're never going to get the chance to because you guys will graduating before you know it and going of to university. I'm sorry that if me telling Jess about it makes it more real to you but you've got to tell her or just let it go, Mark."

I listen to my sister words and she hasn't hit the nail straight on the head but she's somewhat right; in a normal situation unlike my own they would make sense and I'd actually do what she suggests. But unfortunately life isn't that easy.

"Rory just leave me alone okay. This isn't your problem, it's mine. I shouldn't have even told you, so just leave me alone." I growl, giving her a look of slight revulsion in attempt to get her to go away.

"I'll leave you alone." My sister sighs, hanging her head slightly for a moment. I turn around and begin to walk away, having achieving my goal. "But promise me you'll listen to what Mom told us when Grandpa died. Live valiantly so that you have no regrets, Mark, live valiantly."

Her words enter my conscious causing my stomach to turn into a ball full of knots. My sister has no idea how her words are causing my guilt to swell and crash in to me like a tidal wave; shaking me to my very core. It makes me feel as if every inch of me is about to explode. It's all because sometimes the right thing is also the hardest thing, and there's nothing you can do to change that. So I keep walking, because walking is the only thing I can do.

"Damn it!" I pull my gym locker door open with such force that it creates a severely loud bang as it slams into the door of a neighbouring locker.

I thought that running laps and taking some shots would clear my head and release my anger; but it just proceeded to make it worse. Instead of clearing my head of everything but soccer, it gave me time to think of everything but.

I glance to my right at the small mirror on the inside of my locker door; cracks grace the surface causing it to appear to be on the edge of breaking. Staring at my cracked reflection I notice the slight bruise still remaining on the edge of my jaw.

"Mark?" a familiar, surprised voice echoes through the locker room.

I glance to upper right corner of the mirror to find Jude's face. "Uh, hey." is the only words that are able to come out of my mouth.

"Are," he pauses and hesitantly begins to walk towards me. "Are you okay? Or,"

I don't let him finish his last sentence before I cut in, "I'm fine." I spit out, probably faster than I would usually in normal conversation; but it was obvious this wasn't going to be a normal conversation.

"Are you sure, because it's okay if you're not?" I can tell by Jude's tone that he's being sincere but is slightly uncertain what to say.

"I'm not sure." I say, my voice probably muffled due to me pulling off my jersey.

"Uh, well do you want to talk about it?"

"Since when did you become such a girl?" I chuckle trying to lighten the mood, and of course avoid this conversation.

"Since my cousin seemed to be having a bit of a rough time." He smirks as he attempts to get me back on topic.

"I got in a fight at soccer a few weeks ago and Emma was there." My voice is now quieter, barely above a whisper.

"And?" He looks at me; his facial expression proves he was more than slightly confused.

"And I think I scared her and she might be afraid of me now." My tone is now ringing with hesitance and slight embarrassment.

"And Emma is who again?" Jude raises his eyebrow slightly in an obvious attempt to get me to open up more.

"She's Chris Sheppard's younger sister. She's in your American History class, talks pretty rarely, has reddish brown hair, sits two" I stop in the middle of my sentence.

I was about to continue on with my description but I notice the confused look on Jude's face has been replaced by a wide grin.

"What's so funny?" I glare slightly causing Jude to chuckle.

"You like her don't you?" Jude's smirk doesn't diminish as he speaks.

"Your point?" I say as I mentally curse my inheritance of the Robbins rosy cheeks under embarrassment as I feel blood beginning to warm my face.

"My point is that you like her, and she obviously doesn't know it. Why haven't you told her? She seems like a nice girl who wouldn't be opposed to going out on a date with a nice boy who happens to pretty much be a huge soccer star. So, why don't you, huh?" His voice is almost coated completely in playful mockery.

"It's not that easy, Jude." My tone is now completely serious and my stomach begins to turn to knots as I throw on my red Manchester United long sleeve tee.

As my head pops up through the neck hole I find that Jude's facial expression has completely changed; the imprint of a classic Robbins smirk is gone and a look of slight concern and seriousness is now gracing his face.

"Well sometimes the right thing to do is hard but that doesn't mean it isn't right all the same." He pauses for a moment as if to let his words sink into my brain. "Just tell her. It might help, and it sure as hell can't hurt. Am I correct?"

Whatever idiot came with the idea of last period study hall being mandatory for graduating students was officially on the top of people I'd like to pie in the face list.

I have been sitting in the school library being lazily watched occasionally by the librarian for almost an hour and a half. My biology text book and notes are spread across the table making it look like I am deep into my studies but in reality my mind is nowhere near it.

My mind is focused on the details of the picture my hand is skilfully forming on the page in front of me; every detail, every unique stroke and contour. This picture is the only thing that is keeping my mind from wandering to places I don't want it to go.

"Boo!" An extremely memorable voice enters my conscious causing me to jump slightly and drop my pencil.

"What are you doing here?" I ask closing my drawing pad before picking up my pencil and tossing both lightly on the table.

"Why? Can't I come and see my very beautiful girlfriend who I haven't seen for almost an entire week?" Jess giggles slightly before giving me a quick kiss on the cheek.

"I missed you." I whisper, trying not to draw attention to us. Jess had official become my girlfriend a little over a week ago and we hadn't come close to nearing the limits of what was acceptable by the school's faculty by any means, keeping the PDA to a bare minimal.

"So how was your day?" She replies as she takes a seat next to me on the bench.

"You don't even want to know." I want to avoid this conversation as much as possible because Jess has lightened my mood, making me happier than I have been all week.

"Still having Mark trouble?" She moves slightly closer so that her leg is against mine causing butterflies to flutter in my stomach; even after two weeks that still hadn't gone away at simple touches.

"I tried to force him to talk to me, it was near impossible to get him to speak. Even when he did speak he spoke less than ten sentences to me." My voice is starting to go gravelly and my eyes are beginning to get watery.

"Hey, it's okay." Jess gently brushes my hair out of my face, tucking it carefully behind my ears. "He'll come around. It just takes time. I know it's been two weeks but sometimes forgiving someone is hard and it takes time."

"I know, but it's hard." I can't help but sniffle. "It's all practically all I can think about. I can't study." I motion to the biology books on the table. "I can't do anything that reminds me of my brother. I just can't do anything."

"But you're drawing right? That's something." Jess gives me a smirk, before hesitantly reaching out for my drawing notebook. "May I?" She asks, taking my feelings into consideration.

I can feel the blush beginning to cross my cheeks out of embarrassment. "Sure." My voice is very quiet now out of nervousness because I don't know what Jess' reaction will be when she opens the notebook to where I was drawing minutes before.

"Oh my god," As she flips open the notebook the smile on her face disappears and is replaced by a look of complete shock and awe. "Rory, how, what?" Jess attempts at speaking but is left temporarily speechless.

The page displays a close up portrait of Jess. I had drawn a detailed picture of her beautiful face to keep me from making myself go crazy, to keep me grounded. It was as if I was the balloon and she was the string, keeping me safe from floating off into the empty, cruel wilderness.

"You were the only thing I could keep my mind focused on." I say bashfully, "You were the only thing that helped me feel better, even when you weren't here."

"I'm sorry about that. I wish I had been here. I'm so-" I don't let finish her sentence because she's wrong.

"There's no need to be sorry. I know you wanted to be here but you're brother came home from the hospital and that is a big thing. So I understand, if you had shown up to school instead of helping your brother I would have sent to you back home because it was where you were supposed to be. Cam's a strong guy but that doesn't mean your little brother doesn't need you." I give her a reassuring smile, as I feel the tears that were slowly welling up in my eyes begins to roll down my cheek.

"And you need me, so I" Jess says before I cut her off once again.

"And you're here now. That's what matters."

"And I'm not going anywhere." Jess lays the open notebook back on the table before wrapping her arm around me and wiping the tears tenderly from my cheeks. "I belong right here with you."

As Jess gently puts her forehead against mine I can't help but think that she's right. I've never felt so calm and excited all at once with someone like this before. I could honestly say right now that I'm glad I gave into the fear and took the plunge. Because as scary as it seems there's a great chance she may be right; maybe I do need her.

"No, Jude. You're not correct." I resist the urge to slam my locker door shut, but I shut it carefully in an attempt to not fully break the small mirror on the locker door.

"Then why? Why am I not correct?" The seriousness in his voice never diminishes.

"Because if you knew what I knew and caused what I caused," I can't even bring myself to finish my sentence.

My eyes meet with Jude's and nothing else is said. We stand there for a moment, with every second the knots in my stomach become tighter and tighter until I can't take it any more. Unable to deal with it any longer I turn on my heels and begin to walk out of the locker room, leaving my cousin's shocked face behind hoping I won't go through this same routine once again at home.