So this is a new fic. The first two chapters might seem a bit text heavy but it's all important to the story. I promise there'll be a lot more dialogue in the future chapters. Okay.

I don't own Big Time Rush.

For the longest time Logan Mitchell didn't know he had a father. It had always been just him and his mother and that was all he'd ever needed, in the beginning at least. The weird thing about his relationship with his mom was that even after everything that happened he could never bring himself to be mad at her. He never blamed her for what she did, not then and not now. Whenever he thought about his mother the only memories that came to mind were the good ones, like playing in the snow during Christmastime or staying up late at night eating ice cream and watching cartoon movies. That was probably why he still loved her and missed her after all these years. All of the bad stuff in his mind was just a blur of memories that would only resurface ever so often. For instance, the reason why Logan couldn't stand being confined in small spaces for too long, or why he was afraid of the dark sometimes even at age fifteen, was due to the memory of himself being locked inside a closet for two hours as a child. And whenever Logan would find himself at home alone for too long, even though he knew it was irrational, he couldn't help but remember all those times his mom had "gone to the store" only to not return until hours later, and it would lead him to wonder if he was being abandoned again.

Of course all the trauma he'd endured in his childhood happened years ago, and he'd managed to get past most of it now. With his father's help he was given everything he needed to grow into a seemingly well-adjusted teenage boy.

He had a stable home with two parental figures, a bed and a roof over his head, an older brother who was his protector, and basically anything else he could have wanted. His life right now had taken a huge turn in comparison to the eight years he spent in the care of his mother who, in her defense, was fairly young when she had him. She was only nineteen years old with no experience in raising a child and she had no one to help her. Logan doesn't like to think of his mother as a bad person. He likes to think that in the beginning she really did want to keep him and that whatever it was that drove them apart was out of anyone's control.

He used to miss her a lot when he first moved in with his father, which was odd because she'd stopped being kind and caring towards him a long time ago. But he remembered crying late at night just at the thought of her. For weeks he was quiet and distant towards everyone in his new house, this new family he was all of a sudden a part of. You couldn't blame him for being confused when he'd gone his whole life not having a dad and then all of a sudden finding out he did have one, and not only that but a stepbrother and stepmother as well.

What Logan hated the most was that now he couldn't seem to remember much about his mother at all. Even the last time he'd seen her was still fuzzy in his mind. He remembered that morning when he'd tried waking her up and she wouldn't move. And he remembered sitting with her for five minutes before he realized he needed to go get help. But everything after that had just happened so fast. At the time Logan had no idea that that would be one of the last times he would see his mother and he'd never even gotten the chance to say goodbye.

The reason Logan never knew he had a father was because his mother had purposely kept it a secret. Because, based on an agreement she'd made with his parents, Clark Mitchell was never supposed to find out he had a child. Logan's mother had accepted ten thousand dollars worth of hush money from the Mitchells in order to keep quiet about the pregnancy, disappear and never speak to him again. It hadn't been much of a loss for her at the time since when she'd found out she was pregnant she and Clark had gone over a month without speaking to each other. Logan's mother only broke the agreement and told him the truth about Logan after she'd lost custody of him. It was to save him from being put into the care of a stranger and it was probably the only good thing she'd ever done for him.

By then Dr. Mitchell had married a woman, Brooke Diamond-Mitchell who'd already had a son from a previous marriage. Logan would never forget how nervous he was the day he met his father. At first glance Clark was sort of intimidating. He was tall and he was very professional about everything. But he was also very kind-hearted and all he wanted to do was make things right with his son, the boy he never even knew existed. The first few months of living in the Mitchell house he spoiled Logan to death, just to show him how a Mitchell boy was supposed to live. He made sure that Logan knew that whatever his mother had done to him was in the past and that he would never have to live like that again. Eventually Logan got comfortable in his new home but it did take a while.

The first few nights were the hardest. Whenever he would ask about his mom he was always told that the reason he couldn't stay with her anymore was because she was sick and she needed to get better. So Logan had always believed that his mom was gonna get better and then she was gonna come back for him. And even though he liked his new family, this was what he wanted more than anything.

But one summer night in the middle of August, it dawned on Logan that his mother wasn't coming back for him. Three years had already passed and he hadn't heard from her. She hadn't even called to make sure he was okay and that the Mitchells were treating him right. Of course they were, but she didn't know that. Logan's stepmother, Brooke held no qualms about the sudden new addition to their family. She treated him the same way she treated James, which wasn't always a good thing because she had a tendency to be a little overbearing, but really it was just her own way of showing him that she accepted him. And James didn't mind it so much either. In the beginning Logan thought he did because at first Brooke was always forcing them to do stuff together. Every time James wanted to go out and play with his friends he always had to take Logan with him. James was always a good sport about it but Logan thought it must have been irritating for him. So usually he just sat on a curb and watched or read a book while James and the other neighborhood kids played street hockey or whatever else.

But the night of his eleventh birthday, Logan realized that another birthday had gone past and he still hadn't heard from his mom. It had been three years already; she had to have been better by then right? Logan actually started to worry that something must have happened to her. She'd never been very good at taking of herself, he noted, recalling all those times he'd found her passed out in her bedroom, or the last time he'd seen her when she was being taken away in an ambulance. So he started to cry thinking of all the awful things that could have happened to her and he even started to feel guilty for leaving her, for being so happy with his new family. But then as the night progressed Logan didn't know what to think anymore. He couldn't remember what the reasoning was for him being taken away from his mother. Had she given him up voluntarily or was it because she was forced to? What would he do if he found out this whole time she was alive and happy without him?

"Logan?" Logan sniffled and quickly wiped his eyes when he heard someone enter the doorway of his bedroom. He looked up and saw that it was James. "What are you doing up here?"

He shrugged and buried his face into his pillows, not wanting James to know that he'd been crying.

"There's still some cake left downstairs if you want any," James offered.

"No thanks," Logan mumbled. James could tell that he was upset. He usually got this way every year on his birthday, and even though he'd never told him James had a pretty good idea why. But he wouldn't come out and say so unless Logan did first.

"Well hey how about we go test out your new telescope then. Didn't Dr. C say Androma-…whatever was visible tonight or something?"

Logan murmured "no" in a voice that was barely audible and kept his head underneath the pillows.

"Come on. You know you want to…" James baited.

Maybe Logan really did want to. He had to admit the telescope his dad bought him was pretty cool. It was just like the ones real astronomers used in space and it must have cost his dad over a thousand dollars. But Logan had a tendency to be very stubborn when he felt like sulking.

James sighed. "Then just tell me what's wrong. Loges it's your birthday, you should be happy."

Logan was quiet for a good five minutes during which time James was very patient with him. At the time Logan was never able to appreciate how nice James was to him because he always thought it was just because he felt sorry for him. He always thought about how if it wasn't for their parents there really wouldn't be anything between them.

"It's my birthday…again" Logan started, then swallowed hard. "It's been three years and she still doesn't call. Do you think something happened to her?"

"If it did I'm sure you would know about it."

"Then why doesn't she call me? Or write me or ever come to visit?"

Whenever Logan brought up his mom James always got this guilty look on his face like he knew something that Logan didn't but couldn't tell him. Sometimes Logan wished that he would just come out and say what he was thinking.

"You shouldn't get upset about stuff like that Logan. It's been three years. If she wanted to be here she'd be here," James told him. But the moment he said it and saw the look on Logan's face he wished he hadn't.

"She's never coming back for me is she?" Logan deadpanned.

"I didn't mean it like that."

Logan sighed, retreating back to hiding place underneath the pillows, suddenly wanting to be left alone.

"Hey if it makes you feel better, I kinda hope she doesn't come back. I mean I've gotten pretty used to having you around. And I'm sure my mom has too. And I know your dad would be pretty bummed if you left…"

Logan sniffled."Yeah…right."

"No, I mean it. I've always kind of wanted a little brother."

Logan blinked at James, surprised that he had called them brothers, that James actually thought of him as a brother. "You mean stepbrother?"

James shrugged. "Same thing."

Logan smiled. He thought it was funny how James admitting to him that he always wanted a brother made him realize that in some way he had always wanted one too. It was like one of those things that you get that you didn't even know you wanted until it was sitting across from you and staring you in the face, and then all of a sudden it's the best thing in the world. Or maybe all along what Logan wanted was a family and now he finally had that. It didn't matter if James wasn't related by blood.

"Thanks James."

"So do you wanna try out your new telescope now or what?"

Logan grinned from ear to ear, and he was out the door before James even got a chance to move.

James helped a lot with Logan getting over his mom's absence and over the years the two of them grew to be really close. If Logan ever felt like he didn't have anyone else in the world, the one person he knew he would always be able to count on was James. Logan would never admit to this but secretly he relied on the older boy a lot. He liked to pretend that he could be independent, make his own friends and do things by himself but truthfully he needed James. Because James had always been the one good, consistently positive influence in his life. He never disappeared for long periods of time and Logan never felt like he was being annoying when he wanted to talk to him. Logan didn't know if it was because of Brooke always urging them to be closer together, but for whatever reason James had always made sure to look after Logan. Maybe it was because James had seen how he was when he first moved in with them, how he was so small because he was slightly malnourished and how shy he was because of the way he'd been raised. Logan always got the feeling that James knew things about him that he didn't or that he knew things about Logan that Logan knew but didn't know he knew. There was something that made James feel like he needed to protect him. So he did, so much that Logan became accustomed to it.

And Logan needed that. He needed to know that things weren't gonna change one day and suddenly he'd be all alone again. But being watched over so carefully did have its downsides because people tended to overprotect Logan. And he'll admit, it was partially his fault with the way he let them do it. But sometimes Logan wondered if he would spend the rest of his life being protected by people. Or being protected by everyone except the one person he wished would have protected him in the beginning.