Andre Harris isn't proud of it, but his heart sort-of flutters when he comes home to find Jade West sitting on his front porch.

And over the cacophony of thoughts that this isn't okay, he left the world's most awkward card game to avoid their drama, why is she here, a tiny part of him connects the dots that she is single now.

He shoves that down and gets out of the car, slowly and quietly approaching the porch so his grandma won't hear and come out to see what's going on. She's scared of Jade - although he suspects not in the same way that he is, the way everyone is.

"Hey..." he says tentatively as he approaches the stoop.

She just looks up at him, her eyes glassy and sort-of puffy, but she's blinking furious, probably trying stop them from looking that way.

"So..." when it becomes clear she has no intention of talking, he continues, "What are you doing here?"

"Don't take it personally, Harris," she says, taking a swig from the Diet Coke bottle by her side, "I don't have anywhere else."

"So you just come here?" she ignores him and takes another sip. He can feel the rage of the past months, of constantly listening to them bickering, building up, "I'm Beck's friend, you don't even like me. Go home."

"I don't dislike you," she sort-of snarls, but he can tell her heart's not in it. She stands up, making her way towards her car, wavers on her feet and almost pitches right into him. He catches her, smells something strong and bitter, and begins to suspect that the Diet Coke bottle isn't full of Diet Coke.

"Have you been drinking?"

"Whatever, Harris, we're not friends," she wriggles, trying to get out of his arms, but he holds tight, not really sure if he should be cursing the universe or thanking it right now. Her hair is soft and in his face and he's never been this close and oh god, this is not the time.

"You can't drive."

She pulls back and looks at him, "But I can't stay here. Sooo," she reaches for her keys again. He grabs her arm.

"You can stay here. But you have to be quiet."

She nods and stumbles back on to the porch, waiting for him. He passes her to unlock the door and she touches his arm, he turns to look at her, "Thanks," she mutters, looking at the ground. He realizes her eyes are totally full of tears and the only thought he's got is that this is so not the time to deal with whatever he's feeling.

So, he opens the door and leads her inside. She really is making an effort to tip-toe, but combined with the alcohol and boots, it's not really doing anything. They somehow make it halfway up the stairs before -

"ANDRE. IS THAT YOU?"

Jade jumps a little and grabs his arm. Fiercely ignoring her and how his heart seems to have rocketed into his throat, he yells back, "YES GRANDMA."

"ANDRE! I HEAR TWO PAIRS OF FEET!"

"NO, GRANDMA, JUST ME..." he throws out the first thing he can think of, "YOU'RE DREAMING."

Even a year ago, she probably wouldn't have let it go, but her mind can't hold onto anything for longer than a minute these days and she doesn't reply. Andre breathes a sign of relief and moves to keep going, realizing that Jade is still clinging to his arm and doesn't seem to have any intention of letting go.

He swallows hard, "Uh, we really need to be quiet."

She blinks, shaking herself, and lets go. They make it up to his room without further interruption and he flicks on the lights and motions for her to sit on the bed. She roughly kicks off her boots at the door, takes off her jacket, and sits, legs curled up, near his pillow.

He has no idea what to do and a million thoughts are rushing through his head, even not accounting for the completely inappropriate ones he keeps pushing down.

"So..." he says, walking over and sitting on the foot of the bed, facing her, "Why were you drunk on my porch?"

She rolls her eyes, "I told you, don't take it personally. Trust me, I would have gone anywhere else. And I'm not drunk."

"You could barely make it up the stairs."

"Okay, maybe a little," she leans back and looks up at the ceiling, "Leave. Me. Alone."

"Oh, I can't do that. You were drunk on my porch. Why my porch? Don't you have your own porch to drink on?"

She rolls her eyes, and counts off on her fingers, "Couldn't go back to Vega's because, duh. I don't want to deal with murdering Robbie, and you expect me to try to talk to Cat?"

"And you couldn't go home because...?"

She scoffs, "Oh, yeah, that would go well," she pitches her voice up an octave, "Oh, Jade, you're home. Jade, why are you crying? Jade, I know I destroyed your family but you should talk to me!"

"So, you're here."

She nods, "I'm here. Aren't you lucky? "

"Won't your parents notice if you don't come home?

"I don't spend much time there," her voice cracks on the last word and he quickly pieces together where she was spending time instead.

He doesn't know how to respond (or if he's even supposed to? Is he a bad friend for not being with Beck right now?), and they sit in silence.

She swallows hard, "I'm not going to like bite you or whatever, you can sit closer."

He scootches up the bed and sits next to her, "So, do you want to ... talk?"

She rolls her eyes, as if it's obvious, "No."

He's a weird combination of pissed and relieved because again he has no clue why she's here, making his stomach twist and feel sort-of sick. But he also has no clue how to talk to her - they've always been friends (if you can call it that, he's not sure Jade would) by convenience - she was dating Beck, he was friends with Beck. He can't recall a single one-on-one conversation they've had outside of that time she helped him with that song (and damn, he does not need reminding of that right now).

"This is incredibly lame and if tell anyone I'll murder you. Brutally. But I don't want to be alone, so... yeah," she trails off, "I promise, if you tell anyone I was here, Harris, you will be murdered. Brutally."

He's not really sure what to do with that, "...Okay."

"Good," she moves closer and leans her head on his shoulder. And oh god. All he can think is that Jade has her head on his shoulder. And this is bad. Really bad. But damn, she smells nice.

They sit like that for a while, his mind racing, trying to figure out how to deal with a drunk, teary Jade and make it out alive. He eventually, thankfully, realizes his problem has been solved and she's asleep. He slowly moves out from under her, leaning her back towards the pillows. She's wearing this black, sleeveless thing and he doesn't look or purpose anything, but it slips down a bit as he shifts her and it again crosses his mind that she's not Beck's anymore, but then she still sort-of is, and he can't deal with it. And he can't even pound it out on the piano because he doesn't want to wake her up, but, but, but.

He gets to the closet, finds a blanket to cover her with, and a few more so he can sleep on the rug. His mind is racing way way too fast, just like last spring, and he has no idea how he manages to fall asleep, but suddenly the sun is streaming in and Jade's gone. The only evidence that this wasn't just some weird fever dream is that he's sleeping on the floor and his pillowcase smells like her.

He knows it's stupid and probably crossing all kinds of lines not to wash it just because it smells like her. But he has no clue where those lines even are anymore.

I'm hoping this will be a multi-chaptered, missing scenes type Jandre fic for The Worst Couple through the end of the series. I'm in grad school right now (...I know) and that's all kinds of hectic, but hopefully I can use this as a stress reliever now and again!