*BAWLS PATHETICALLY* It's OVERRRRR! Well, sorta. Still gotta do the alternate ending, but that's more like a sequel anyways. :P Thank you SO MUCH for everyone who reviewed, favorited, tagged for alerts, and just flat out read this story! You are all the most amazing readers I've ever had. :) This one's for YOU!

Enjoy!

...

Kendall knew what delirious meant the fifth or sixth time he woke, because he was pretty sure that's exactly what he was the other times he was conscious. There was nothing but white, fuzziness, and the soft purr of voices in his ear. And pain. A whole lot of pain.

When he finally woke for good, his eyes felt like they'd been crusted over and welded shut with a blow torch. It took an eternity just to try to pry them open, and by the time that happened he'd gathered enough information to assume two things. One, he was in the hospital—the incessant, constant beeping of the heart monitor and whirring of the ventilator told him that. The second was that he wasn't alone.

A hand wrapped around his fingers, soft and familiar, though he hadn't felt it in years. Kendall blinked into the darkness—the only light came from the setting sun through the window—and took stock of the long tube stuck in his throat. He could hear how his heart sped up in the monitor, the frantic beeping taking over the silence of the room.

He blinked, and Jo's face appeared above him. Her blonde hair was braided over one shoulder so it tickled his chest, her large brown eyes wide with a combination of worry and relief.

Her voice was muddled. He only caught a few words—"Okay" and "Scared"—neither of which made much sense. But she was here. How, he didn't know. It didn't matter. She was here.

Jo never left his sight the entire time the doctors took the tube out and gave him specific instructions to take tiny sips of water to ensure it would stay down. The pain had ebbed now to a dull thud, starting somewhere in his chest and abdomen and spreading from there. He also felt sick—his throat hurt and his head pounded, as if he had the flu. It wasn't a fun feeling.

"What happened?" he asked when he could talk again.

Jo brushed his hair back from his face, sighing heavily. "There was an earthquake. You got trapped underneath a piece of ceiling, and you almost didn't make it."

Kendall went to talk, but his voice caught in his throat. He couldn't remember any of it. It was nothing but a blur—which was cliché, much to Kendall's annoyance. But an earthquake? Here in Los Angeles? It seemed incomprehensible. And the fact that he'd "almost didn't make it." It was beyond bizarre thinking he could be dead right now.

Which reminded him… "What about…" He licked his dry lips. "Everybody else?"

Jo smiled reassuringly. "Your mom and Katie are fine, got off with scrapes and bruises and nothing else. James and Camille both got pneumonia. Carlos had a dislocated shoulder and Logan had a severe concussion, but he's fine now. As far as we know, nobody else at the Palm Woods was too badly hurt."

Kendall blinked. "How are you here? Aren't you supposed to be in New Zealand?"

She chuckled, which lit his heart on fire. "I came as soon as I heard," she said.

"How long have I been out?"

Jo sighed. "You've been in the hospital about five days. I don't know how long you were trapped under the ceiling. You developed an infection and… it was really bad. I was lucky—I got here after they stabilized you and were sure you were going to make a full recovery."

Kendall ran his fingers over Jo's and tried to wrap his brain around five days of lost time. He knew infections were bad—Logan raved about them all the time—and he knew how close he'd been to not ever coming back.

"Are you okay?" he asked her.

"Me?" Jo blew out a breath, one that puffed her blonde bangs off of her forehead. She'd gotten them cut so they swept across her eyes, making her look older and much more out of Kendall's league. "I'm a bit torn," she admitted. "Had to pull the emergency card to get out of filming for the next week so I could come to see you. But now that I'm here, I don't want to go back."

Kendall brought her fingers to his lips and kissed them, thinking of how much he had longed to do that in the months after Jo left for New Zealand. "I missed you too."

Jo smiled at him and leaned down to press her lips to his forehead. "Katie's here," she said. "She's been waiting forever to talk to you, so I better go before visiting hours are over."

"Will you stay?" he asked as she got up to leave, holding onto her hand.

"I'm here for the week," she promised. And at Kendall's slightly disappointed look she added, "Maybe more."

Katie came in next. She looked so much smaller than she actually was from where Kendall lay—but that might've been the bed. Her hair was combed back into a ponytail so he could see her face, and he hated seeing the purple bruises fading to yellow on her cheeks.

She didn't do anything but climb up onto his bed and lay her head on his shoulder. Kendall suppressed a hiss as she bumped against his ribs, letting her relax against him and lay in the comfort of her big brother, alive and well—sort of—as he held her close.

And as she lay with him, Kendall found himself humming hoarsely her favorite lullaby until she drifted off to sleep.

…

Three weeks later

"Hurry, hurry, hurry!"

Carlos bounced in his seat impatiently, apparently not even noticing the twinge of pain that came from his shoulder. Logan grabbed his good one—just in case—to pull him back down to Earth. "Carlos, chill."

"We'll get there when we get there," Gustavo snapped from the other side of the limo.

"It takes too long," Carlos whined.

"You're just too impatient," Logan informed him.

Carlos crossed his arms and pouted, and Logan rolled his eyes. He knew why Carlos was so anxious—James, Kendall, and Katie rode with Mrs. Knight, and Carlos hated being last to anything. Especially this.

"Come on, come on, come on," Carlos muttered under his breath, bouncing his foot. From his face now, you never would've guess he'd gone through two weeks of depression, terror of the car and small spaces. It was one of the reasons Gustavo insisted they ride in his limousine with him and Kelly. It was also because he knew Carlos loved limos, and it would help take his mind off of things.

It'd been almost a month since the earthquake. Things were still bad, but not as bad as they had been. The reporters had moved on. It took a while, but they were finally left alone to heal and move on themselves.

Carlos had been the worst, Logan knew. James' pneumonia disappeared before Camille's. Kendall had awoken and, though he still had trouble breathing, was healing at a remarkable rate. Logan had the least damage save for a massive headache the first week.

But Carlos froze every time he neared an elevator. He took the stairs every time now, no matter how high the building was. For the first two weeks he refused to get into any car of any size and even now, here in this limo, he was bouncing around anxiously, making sure he had enough room. He was claustrophobic. Majorly.

To Logan it made sense. Carlos was a giant ball of energy that didn't like to be contained. Logan was out of it most of the time they'd been trapped in the elevator, but the look in Carlos' eyes wasn't one he was going to forget. It was terror. Something he'd never seen on his friend's russet face. Pure, undisguised terror.

It made Logan sick to his stomach just thinking about it.

Carlos whooped then, bringing Logan out of his thoughts. The limo was pulling into the parking lot, careful of the cracks in the road, and Carlos shot towards the door, throwing it open before the limo had come to a full stop.

"Finally!" he shouted.

Logan came out more cautiously and stared up at the Palm Woods, amazing it looked so well already. There were construction workers and volunteers littering the sidewalk and parking lot, most of them residents at the Palm Woods. Logan looked over and spotted James hefting a large beam for another worker, flashing him a thumbs up when they locked gazes.

A sadness settled over him. So much was gone in so little time.

A comforting hand landed on Logan's shoulder and he looked up at his mother—who'd driven hundreds of miles to see him—as she smiled down at him.

"You okay?"

"Yeah," Logan sighed. He mustered up a smile. "I guess we've got a lot of work to do."

"I don't know, Logie," Carlos said, appearing by his side and swinging his good arm over his shoulder, "a lot can happen when we work together."

Logan's smile spread—a real one now. "Then I guess we'd better get started."