I know it's been too long, but here is finally another chapter. I regret to say that updates will still likely not be regular, but hopefully they'll be much more frequent than they have been thus far. Thanks for all your support! I hope you enjoy the Carlos and Jane moment we've been long awaiting.

Confused didn't even begin to explain how Jane was feeling. She had gotten a call from Doug a few hours ago asking her to bring Dude back to Carlos' room as soon as she made it back. He'd sounded worried, but when she asked what happened, he just told her that it wasn't really his place to say, but everyone was okay. Now, she, Carlos, and Dude were headed down to the courtyard.

"How are you?" she asked Carlos as they walked.

He turned back to her with surprise. "Oh, I'm good," he said. "Pretty great, actually. How was the Dalmatian Plantation?"

Jane grinned. "It was great. A lot of dogs. Pepper just had her second litter, so there's a lot going on."

Carlos smiled. "Oh, okay, cool."

They walked in silence for a moment, before Jane worked up the courage to ask, "Did something happen earlier today?"

"Oh, uh." Carlos was suddenly less comfortable. "Not really. Kinda'." He trailed off for a couple seconds before he said, "We just talked about the Isle for the first time in, well, ever."

"Oh." Jane didn't know how to respond to that. "Do you miss it?"

Carlos gave a dry chuckle. "Like a hole in the head," he joked.

Jane balked. "Huh?"

Carlos sobered. "No, not really. I'm really happy to be in Auradon. Things are a lot… better here."

"Really?" Jane asked surprised. "You don't miss anything from where you grew up?"

Carlos shrugged. "I guess I miss how close Evie, Mal, Jay and I were."

"We're still close," he amended at Janes confusion. "Our lives just don't overlap as much so we don't know practically everything happening with everybody else all the time anymore," he explained. "It's become more of a guessing game," he mused, a wry look on his face.

Jane still didn't quite understand what he was getting at. The VKs were some of the closest friends she knew. They spent practically all of their spare time together. She just couldn't imagine them being closer than they already were.

"What's become more of a guessing game?" she asked.

Carlos gave another nonchalant shrug. "Where we are, what we're doing, our health statuses, our feelings. Kind of our whole dynamic. It used to be intuitive."

Jane didn't know how to take that. She had never experienced an intuitive relationship like Carlos was describing.

At her silence, Carlos went on. "We're different now. We're able to be more, here, and I like that. But I don't understand everyone as well as I used to."

"That's understandable, though," Jane said. "I mean, you might never understand everything going on with Evie's dress business, but she probably doesn't understand everything with you and your tech., either."

Carlos gave a weak smile. "Yeah."

Jane tilted her head contemplating a question. "What about your family? You don't miss them?"

Carlos laughed. "Mal, Evie, and Jay are my family."

"Oh."

"Yeah." They were finally outside now, so Carlos set Dude down on the grass and led Jane over to a picnic table. They sat down across from each other and Dude hopped up onto the bench beside Carlos.

Carlos broke the silence again, "I do have people back on the Isle I miss, though."

Jane looked up at him in hopeful surprise.

"Dizzy, for one, and Jeremy. He's Prince John's son. Knows his way around a circuit board like no one else," Carlos said wistfully staring just above their hands resting on the table.

Jane smiled. "He sounds really great. I hope I get to meet him someday," she said softly.

"Me too." Carlos looked back at Jane. "I should probably—probably," he trailed off.

"Sorry." Carlos winced. "This is kinda hard for me to talk about."

"Oh, that's okay!" Jane said quickly. "You don't have to. We can talk about something else!"

"No!" Carlos protested, stopping her. "No," he said more quietly. "I just, I need to tell you a couple things. I think some changes are going to start happening, so I should probably tell you before you find out from someone else," he said sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head.

"Oh, okay."

"The Isle isn't really a nice place to live. Like, Auradon is really nice." Jane nodded, understanding to some degree. Auradon was pretty nice.

"But my favorite thing about Auradon? I'm free. I'm not the weakest core member of our gang, I'm not my mother's slave, I'm just, me." Carlos said.

Jane teared up a little, but he continued.

"Life on the Isle isn't really good for anyone who lives there. There's not a lot of food, the gangs are always at war, and our parents-" He cut himself off. "Just because my mom's well, my mom doesn't mean that she's not, ya' know, Cruella de Vil." He rolled his shoulders, as if trying to shrug the sentiment off. "I probably have more reason to fear her than anyone here in Auradon," Carlos joked dryly. "I- I don't think I'm ready to talk about her yet."

"That's okay, Carlos," Jane said softly. "You don't have to."

Carlos smiled. "Thanks. I just, I think Mal and Ben are going to start doing something about the Isle soon, and I wanted to, um, tell you."

"Okay," Jane said, reaching for his hand across the table. "Thanks for telling me." Dude barked, nuzzling Carlos' other arm with his head until he started petting him. "Us," she amended with a laugh.

"Yeah."