UPDATED Michelle-Note (5.14.08): I looked at this and noticed that the formatting was fubarred, so I'm resubmitted the chapters. This gives me a chance to read over them so that I can remember what I was writing about so I can return from my five year hiatus (or however long it was). Also I dropped the rating from M to T because I'm not terribly vulgar at all, just paranoid, and I'm fairly certain this isn't all that M-worthy, although it is filled with slashiness, underage drinking, and other horrible things.

Michelle-Note: At the request/begging of STELLER RAVEN (yes, I'm promoting him, pathetically) here is an Even Stevens/Lizzie McGuire crossover (damn my ability to portray emotion!). Ta da! I know not where it is going and I think it starts out kinda slow with the first chapter, but I have loads of random ideas that I will attempt to connect somehow, and I'm trying out the whole alternating narrators thing because I adore writing in first person. It takes place in the future, which is pretty obvious, and both movies are considered, if you care to know. Hopefully I got everyone where their ages should be in relation to everyone else's, or at least their ages are plausible.

Disclaimer: This never occurred to me but STELLAR RAVEN pointed it out the other night...what pray-tell, is the point of a disclaimer on a fanfiction site. The mere fact that this is a fan fiction site implies that the writers do not own the characters they are using.

Merging

Chapter 1: How All of This Began

Ren: Stevens' house, kitchen, Sacramento: 11:14am: 28 May

My mother poked her head into the kitchen, "I have a great idea, honey!"

"Relating to my party?"

"Of course." She grinned, "You should really invite your cousin David."

I had taken a break from my work on invitations a few minutes before, and I looked over at her suspiciously, "But I haven't seen him since we were like…five, and he lives really far away."

"It was just a suggestion, dear, and I thought it would be nice. He could stay here. You two always played together and were so cute when his family came to visit."

"Do you remember why they stopped visiting?" I asked her. I remembered why they stopped visiting, and it wasn't pleasant.

"Oh…well, yes, but that was a long time ago. It's been thirteen years. I'm sure that I've been forgiven, and it never had to do with you or him."

"Thirteen. Nice number, mom." I started to get back to sealing envelopes.

"I still think it would be nice if you two saw each other again before you both go off to college and completely lose contact."

"I'll think about it." I told her, and she went back to her business in the living room. I did have a few extra invitations that weren't designated for anyone in particular, and it wouldn't hurt to send one to David, who was known as my "unmentionable cousin".

If I remembered him correctly, he was an odd curly-haired boy, who was small for his age. He was the same age as me, and he was my mom's sister's only son. They would come and stay with us at least twice a year, but this one year, when we were both five, unforeseen events occurred and his mother severed all ties with my mother over some fried chicken. Indirectly over some fried chicken, it really went a lot deeper than that. Since then, I had not seen or heard from the boy, and it would be very odd for him to be invited to my party. We seldom even spoke of him or his family.

I was having a party on June 15th, at the beach. It was sort of a going away and congratulations to me for finally deciding which college to attend party. I'd settled on Princeton. It was Ivy League, and also very far away, so the going away party part made sense. It'd probably be the last time the bunch of us around here were together. I'd also been accepted to Cornell and Brown, two more Ivy League schools, as well as Duke, which was a big private university in North Carolina, and the University of California in Los Angeles. As for my major, that was still in the air.

"Oh, what the heck…" I mumbled to myself, and grabbed one of my extra invitations. It wasn't as if it were David and I that got into a huge fight, and if he did come it would be interesting to catch up, or it might just be awkward and weird. Either way, there was no real harm in sending an invitation, "Mom, what's David's address?" I shouted.

"If it hasn't changed then it's in the address book by the phone book. Maybe I should call her to check."

"If they moved then their number won't be the same."

"I know, but if I call and the number's changed then we'll know they moved, and then know that we need to take extra steps to track them down."

"You just wanted an excuse to call his mom, didn't you?"

There was a short pause, "No!"

"You want her recipe for fried chicken, don't you?" I accused.

She entered the room again, "Alright, you got me. I figured homemade fried chicken would be good at your party, so I was thinking of you at least."

I rolled my eyes, and laughed a little, "I'll call."

"Fine, and tell him to bring a copy of that recipe if he can come." She scurried quickly out of the room after that before I could comment.

My mother probably had ulterior motives behind her ulterior motives like a cook-off in a few weeks or something along those lines. She was manipulative, that was why she was in politics for so many years. I found the address book, then flipped to the G-section, and found Gordon. Carefully I dialed the number that had been written there, and then sat back at the table with the phone.

"Hello?" A woman answered after a few rings.

"Is this the Gordon residence?" I asked.

It was my aunt, "Yes, who is this?"

"This is Ren Stevens, Eileen's daughter."

Silence followed.

"I was wondering if I could speak to David." I continued because she didn't seem inclined to say anything else.

"Yes, I suppose so. I can't punish the child for the evils of the parent." She sighed. "But he isn't home right now. He just went out with some friends of his for lunch. I guess I can tell him to call you when he gets home."

"Thank you. That would be great."

"Bye Ren, tell your mother she can't have my recipe, and I still consider her a traitor." Her voice was filled with spite.

"Yes ma'am. Bye."

I hung up the phone, and wrote down his address on the envelope. Then proceeded to count how many invitations I had ready. I wanted to send them out today, so that everyone would have time to clear their schedules on said day, and call me to tell me they were coming before the 7th, so we could get exact numbers for supplies. I looked at my guest list and began checking off the names of those who I had an invitation for, just to make sure, one last time. I wrote David in at the bottom, put a check by his name, and it brought me to a grand total of twenty-four. That was a good number.

Gathering all of them up, I made sure they were sealed, and had stamps, yet again. I yelled toward the living room as I headed for the door leading to the garage, "Mom, I'm going out to mail these, and I talked to your sister, she said you couldn't have her recipe and that she still considers you a traitor."

"Why'd you mention it to her?!" She yelled back.

"I didn't. She brought it up all on her own, and I'm going now. David wasn't home, but he's supposed to call me, so I'll be back soon because I don't want you answering the phone."

"Alright, honey."

It wasn't as if the post office was far away or anything; it was only a few blocks down the street. I'd missed the mailman, who had come and gone earlier this morning. At that time I wasn't quite done checking and rechecking everything. Accuracy and perfection are a necessity.

Talking to David on the phone for a little bit would probably make the awkwardness a little less if he did come, if his mother hadn't turned him against me or anything. Talking to him was a good idea definitely, I thought as I got into the driver's seat of my Jeep. Jeeps are so utilitarian, and yet cute just like boys. I gave up on boys in the Sacramento area after breaking up with Jason at the end of my freshmen year. That was doomed from the beginning as were all of my relationships. He was far too old for me anyway. It didn't bother me or anything. I could focus more on school work without being hassled by boy problems. I would meet boys in college - smart boys.

Taking a mere five minutes to go to the post office and return home, I reentered my house to find Louis up and moving around. Donnie was still in bed, the lazy ass. He'd stayed out all night last night, again, with some girl. He was home from college for the summer. Next year would be grad school, getting his master's degree in something or another. I don't even know.

Sitting down on the sofa, I clicked on the TV and started flipping through the channels to pass the time before David called. I didn't have anything else to do until later when I was going to go to a movie with Ruby and Tawny.

"Hey, Ren." Louis said plopping himself down next to me with some sort of sandwich in his hand when I'd stumbled across the National Geographic channel and taken some interest in a documentary on the Amazon rainforest. Wow, I'm such a dork, but I don't care.

"Hi, Louis…"

"What's up?" He asked then took a huge bite of his sandwich, and watched me out of the corner of his eye.

I grimaced and looked away, disgusted by his eating habits, "What do you want?"

"What makes you fink I want somefing?" Crumbs sputtered out of his mouth.

"You're being too friendly." I groaned and then moved to the loveseat to get away from him.

He swallowed the huge bite, "Nothing. Nothing at all."

I winced again, nearly sure he would choke and die, "Then what did you do wrong?"

"Nothing!" He protested, and took another inhumanly large bite. He'd finish the thing in four bites most likely if he continued in such a manner.

"I'm expecting a call, so I'm uh…gonna go upstairs and leave you to your sandwich…" I told him, as I got up and headed for the stairs. I dropped the channel changer next to him.

"That was what I wanted, the TV." He laughed, "Call from who?"

"From the unmentionable cousin."

"Ooooh…David? I never met him."

"I'm inviting him to my party."

"What?!" Crumbs shot out of his mouth again, "You didn't even invite me!"

I rolled my eyes, "I did too."

"I didn't get an invitation!"

"Of course not, stupid, we live in the same house, and if I had for some reason sent you an invitation, you wouldn't have gotten it yet anyway because I mailed them a few minutes ago, but I didn't mail you one, so it doesn't matter."

"You spend too much time with Tawny…you're mean now…"

I ignored his pathetic attempt at a guilt trip. He was going to be a senior in high school next year, but he was so annoying, and obnoxious, and just immature. Maybe he was just like that toward me for some sick, twisted reason. Tawny seemed to not mind him, and saw something in him. I have no earthly idea what. Her reasons for being friends with him and even randomly dating him were probably more sick and twisted than anything I could comprehend. He'd get voted class clown, most certainly.

As I shut my bedroom door, the phone rang. I quickly smoothed out my shirt as if someone would see me, and took a deep breath. I let it ring a few more times so not to seem too eager, but I didn't let it ring so many times that it would seem like I didn't care. I smiled and answered, "Hello?"

"Ah…can I speak to Ren…please?"

"Speaking." I grinned at the sound of a nervous male voice in the other line. "Is this David?"

"Err…no."

"Oh! I'm sorry. I was expecting a call from my cousin David, who I haven't seen since I was five. Who is this?" I mumbled, embarrassed slightly. Everyone makes mistakes. I make few than most though, yet don't suffer from any horrible humiliation.

"No, no, no. I'm sorry. This is David, but I don't go by David."

"Oh…"

"I prefer being called Gordo."

Gordo? What the hell is a gordo?

"It's a nickname…from my last name…" He answered what I was thinking.

"Well, hi. It's been a while, yeah?"

"Thirteen years, so what's going on for me to get a phone call from you?"

I sat down on my bed, feeling slightly less tense about the whole situation. He seemed really calm and amiable now too. "I'm having this big beach party in June, and I thought it would be fun if you came. We used to go to the beach a lot when you would visit, and I'm going to Princeton, so-"

"Princeton! Wow! I'm going to Dartmouth!" He exclaimed. "I graduated first in my class."

"So did I!"

"This is cool. I only got valedictorian by four tenths of a point though. I was really surprised."

He was a kindred spirit, and I was pleased, "I got it by two points. Everyone around here seems to be an underachiever except a select few."

"Our top five here were really close. Ya know, they tried to move me up a grade when I was in eighth, but I turned it down."

"Oh, wow. You should really consider coming to my party. I bet we'd have loads to talk about. I sent the invitation today, so you should get it soon, and you could stay at my house, I'm sure my parents won't mind."

"Yeah. My parents would probably let me go. The phone bill is going to be terrible if we talk for long, you know, and then they might kill me, and I wouldn't be able to come at all." He said a little saddened.

"It's going to be an all-day beach party, and we have all sorts of things planned. Check out the invitation when you get it, and my cell number is in it." I said quickly.

"I'd come regardless. I'd like to see you. You were always my favorite cousin."

"Awesome. I'll talk to you later then. Call me after you get your invitation."

"Bye-oh wait! Would it be ok if I brought my two best friends if I come? If their parents will let them, of course. They're too girls, and I think you'd like them. It would be like our graduation trip."

"Yeah, that's fine, just tell me whether or not they're coming, and I'll talk to my parents about them staying here too."

"Ok. Bye."

"Bye." I hung up the phone, and took a deep breath, "This is so exciting!" I said to myself. I bet his friends were both smart too, and going to Ivy League schools. We could start a club, and it would be great. I hurried out of my room and went downstairs, "Mom! Guess what!"

I had forgotten to ask the boy about the chicken.