A/N: No, I haven't fallen off the face of the earth. Yes, Collide is coming back soon. And yes, this is yet another UC from me. Tell me if you like.
Disclaimer: Degrassi is mine. MWUHAHA! Well, in some alternate dimension I'm sure that's the truth.
"And why is he here?" Manny murmurs, lips still turned up in a beatific smile. Emma wears a similar one as they look at the pair on the couch immersed in a particularly gruesome-looking video game.
"Well, Sean finally decided it was time to bury the hatchet when I missed my period for a few days. I guess Jay is going to be the godfather of our first child, whether I like it or not." Manny stares in distaste at his ratty work uniform, soiling the already pathetic sofa and pronouncing the five o'clock shadow on his jaw line.
"At least you have a few years to try and change his mind," she replies, taking in the disarray of the small apartment. Her nose wrinkles at the sight of a half-eaten slice of pizza that must be at least a month old.
"Be that as it may, it looks like our plans for a quiet Friday night at the mall have changed. You can call Damien and tell him that it's just the two of you." Manny's heart sinks into her stomach. Because lately, talking to Damien has been like conversing with a broken record and thoughts of Craig have been making her feel guilty and heartbroken. Emma's face is so resigned that she has to fight down the urge to clobber her in a bear hug.
"I can stay if you want. There are actually a few new movies that I've been wanting to rent – I bet if we work on them, the guys'll let us have the tv this evening. At least Sean will." The change is noticeable. After a whispered thanks Emma walks over to Sean and wraps her arms around his sitting frame, whispering something in his ear sweetly and leaving a small kiss on the tip of his ear. Apparently, Manny thinks, she and Jay will be spending the night with EmmaandSean. Being the fourth wheel on the happy relationship bandwagon might be almost as trying as being the third.
-0-0-0-
She expects him to ogle her or make some perverted comment. She had, after all, written off his unawareness of her presence earlier to his focus on video games – something that is even more all-consuming for males than the opposite sex. So when he simply nods in greeting and makes the occasional snotty retort to something Emma says she tries to ignore the fact that she feels strangely insulted. There's no good reason she'd want him
paying attention to her.
She can't shake off the fact that there's something broken behind his eyes that she's never sensed before. He seems to light up as soon as Sean notices him, and she smiles when she realizes that the roles in their relationship seem to have been switched. That's another thing – every time she smiles, he gives her this curious little stare. It's as if he's in on some secret with her that the other two don't know about. She's pretty sure he thinks she's grinning over Emma and Sean's seriously sappy interaction, but she doesn't know him well enough to know one way or the other, twinge in her stomach aside.
And her stomach has been doing a lot of strange things this evening, most of them connected with Jay. She smiles as she hears Emma's voice in her head, telling her that she can't expect any less than to get heartburn in the presence of Jay Hogart. And when she looks up from her plate she's met once more with that gaze of his.
-0-0-0-
"Do it."
"No." Surprisingly gentle gray-blue stays locked on dark chocolate.
"Please?" A lower lip protruding ever so slightly sends an odd chill up Jay's spine, but he attributes that uncomfortable attraction to the form fitting tee-shirt she's wearing.
"Not happening." Her theatrical side takes over. She cranes her neck out and looks at him with pathetic puppy dog eyes that are just too damn adorable to look away from.
"With a cherry on top?" His permanent smirk deepens.
"I hate maraschino cherries."
"Well excuse me. With all of the fast food and canned beans lying around, I didn't figure that you would be such a picky eater." Not for the first time Jay wonders when Sean and Emma will be back from their junk food raid of the small gas station convenience store; judging by the fact they mysteriously disappeared before reaching the door, he's guessing nowhere in the near future. And so help him, if he doesn't get a cold shower or a much more scathing retort from the woman sitting next to him he might just have to give in.
"In my many years as a shoplifter I developed a rather refined taste."
"Oh, come on. Just picture me as a four-year-old. If you let Sean see you reading to a bunch of little kids, you can show me. You know that you want to do it." And he does, kind of. He wants to see the laugh that would light up her face when he recited the storybook tale, complete with over exaggerated vocal inflections and hideous faces.
"And why would I want to humiliate myself in front of an attractive female, again?" A devilish smile bursts at the corners of her pursed lips, and there are those goddamn dimples he can never resist.
"Because it'll make me smile. And seeing me smile makes you feel all warm and gooey inside." He studies her for a moment thoughtfully.
"Yeah, it kind of does." Her eyes widen. There's a moment fraught with tension where he thinks she just might let him kiss her if he were to try, and then that deer-in-the-headlights look she's so terrible at concealing blooms on her face. In a moment it's gone and her grin is back, albeit slightly forced. He grins to try and reassure her.
"So, you'll do it?" The usual melodic tone of her voice is gone, replaced by the strangled sound he hears when Emma mentions Craig or Sean slips up and says something about the asshole that killed JT.
"Not a chance."
"Damn," she sighs, falling back onto the vinyl seat morosely. "Oh, well. I can't help it if you have superhuman abilities." Telling her that he's moments away from taking her right there in the backseat of his best friend's car would only make her voice sound even more choked and extinguish the amused glint in her eyes. Telling her that he doesn't buy her act for one minute might make her angry and defensive. So Jay pretends he feels nothing. It's a skill he's quite adept at, and he's mostly pleased but also a little disappointed when she doesn't pick up on his bluff.
-0-0-0-
"You like him," Emma sighs, shaking her head as if the end of the world were approaching. Manny gives an unladylike snort to cover the hysterical giggle/crying fit coiled in the back of her throat.
"Someone's especially cuckoo bananas today."
"It's not that hard to believe. I mean, he was friends with Spinner who you dated, and on the off chance that he has a heart under all that grease, it would probably be almost as big as Craig's," her best friend supplies. It is as if Emma is trying to convince herself that this is not such a tragedy, and Manny bristles at the girl's inability to listen every once in awhile. There is no way that she would even consider Jay like that. He's a verbal sparring partner, an occasional ally when Emma and Sean's make-out sessions run too long or a steady stream of corn spews from their mouths. Manny and Jay are the amused half-cynics who indulge the love birds, they are not the love birds themselves.
"Both of the relationships that you just sited ended. Besides, in the alternate reality where I am madly in love with Jay Hogart, I'm still dating Damian. Remember him? Tall, confident, composed; plans for the future beyond playing around with cars all day every day…" Blond hair swishes as her companion shakes her head back and forth. Her eyebrows are raised and the knowing sheen to her eyes makes Manny regret how many times she's been on the giving end of one of these talks.
"We both know that Damian was a rebound. I'm not saying that's a bad thing," she hastily adds at her best friend's incensed stare, "it just so happens that once you got past the attraction and mutual love of diplomacy there wasn't a whole lot going on. You haven't talked to him in what, two weeks?"
Manny sniffs indignantly. "We've both been swamped studying for finals. Even Toby's color-coded notes might not be enough to save my dangerously low calculus grade."
"When was the last time you talked to Jay?" Emma presses. The memory of his eyes lingering on her ass a moment too long and his hand touching hers when he handed her the keys to her mother's car is all too vivid in her mind.
"I had to pick up the family car from the shop yesterday. You know that."
"You were the one who suggested your parents take it to that particular garage in the first place."
"Well excuse me for trying to help finance your boyfriend's apartment," Manny huffs, growing more flustered by the minute. She is not an Emma Nelson who can compress her feelings for months on end only to blow up at unsuspecting victims; she isn't well versed in the art of denial. She is used to admitting what she wants and going for it. Maybe it is because she's unsure of how much he's changed in the last two years or maybe it's because she's all too sure that he's atoned for his sins as well as he can that makes her feel so intimidated by him. He reminds her of a past she keeps locked in the back of her mind, ready to summon at a moment's notice when past experience is needed but banished otherwise. She's grown attached to being sure of herself and her decisions. She has absolutely no desire to once again toss and turn into the morning wondering over painful questions without answers. The muscles in her arm clench instinctively at Emma's small smack to her shoulder. She realizes not for the first time today how wound up she is.
"You've been zoning out for hours," Emma observes, frowning worriedly.
"It's just been an exhausting day," she reasons; 'and an exhausting conversation,' she adds to herself.
-0-0-0-
Emma shares a look of disbelief with her boyfriend of seven months. Peals of laughter are coming from the diner's restroom entrance, where Jay had been hiding ever since Manny excused herself five minutes ago. "What are they doing?"
"Would it really make you feel better to know?" Sean wisely asks, taking another huge bite out of his veggie burger. He grimaces almost imperceptibly and Emma smiles, best friends forgotten for the moment.
"Thank you for sacrificing Big Macs for me." He leans in to kiss her lightly and she finds that she doesn't mind the smell on his breath one bit.
"I'm doing it for the health benefits," he says with a wink, and she punches his side playfully before returning her attention to the dying-down belly laughs drifting towards them from over twenty feet away.
"I can't believe that Manny would actually fall for Jay's act. She's too smart for that," Emma grumbles, picking at her salad. Any boundaries about former flings/mistakes/crushes were broken a long time ago, but it isn't the unsettling memories she carries of Jay that make the thought of him and her best friend together so disturbing; she simply finds him to be a repulsive human being.
"Maybe he's not acting," he suggests, "maybe he really likes her." Her perfectly shaped eyebrows almost reach her hairline.
"You're the one that said Jay hasn't had a steady girlfriend since Alex. What could he possibly have in common with Manny?" Sean shrugs.
"What do we have in common?" As he's quick to remind her, it's not often that Sean is right and Emma is wrong about something, especially when it comes to the shady area of relationships. Seeing the near-glow on her best friend's face a minute later, she gets the sinking sensation in her stomach that this might just be one of those few times where she has to admit defeat.
-0-0-0-
"What in the hell are you doing here?" Sean's never spared the meaning behind his words, and he's glad when his old friend does him the same favor.
"I'm fresh out of rehab, wanted to finish my twelve step program," Craig says, fingering the worn seam on his denim jacket. "I was hoping I could find out where Manny is? I stopped by the Nelsons', but Spike said that Manny moved out months ago." He grows wary immediately, unsure of what he's supposed to be revealing. For the hundredth time today he wishes that Emma was here, though for a very different reason.
"Yeah, she moved out of Mr. and Mrs. Simpson's," he says slowly. Craig breaks out into an enormous smile.
"She must be getting more gigs, then. I can't believe she can afford to put herself up somewhere." Sean clears his throat and shoves his hands in his pockets, wishing he had a carburetor to install or a routine maintenance job to do. After debating a moment he decides to come right out with it.
"She's not on her own. She's with her parents, actually."
"Why would she go back there? All her parents have ever done is tear her down," Craig wonders allowed, and Sean has to restrain himself from an ill-timed reply. Craig already understands how deeply he's screwed up; it's not Sean's duty to inform him. Still shaking his head, Craig smiles and places his hand on Sean's shoulder. "Thanks, man. Maybe I'll run into you while I'm here?" Sean almost tells him not to count on it, but once again clamps his mouth shut.
"Yeah, maybe."
-0-0-0-
"Help," she says, her voice so tiny and fragile he's worried it's going to become inaudible in the next minute.
"Where are you?" There is a throbbing behind his eyes and his mouth feels like the Arizona desert but he ignores the makings of a spectacular hangover because in this moment she is more important.
"Home. I… my dad… Emma's not…" This doesn't help him much, so against his better judgment he pushes.
"What street?" he asks, pulling on a pair of pants he's already worn three times this week and a t-shirt with spidery wrinkles indenting the front. After a few more minutes of pulling teeth he is in his car, driving to see her and to get her away from whatever it is that can make her cry that hard.
He doesn't even need to make sure he has the right building. She is sitting on the bus stop, knees curled under her chin and rocking back and forth slowly. He makes his way over to her cautiously, not wanting to startle her out of her reverie too abruptly. Before he has the chance to clear his throat or give a small cough, her face is tilting up towards him and her expression tells him that she knew he was there all along. "He found out. I have no idea how, but he found out. He was so angry. God, I've never seen him that angry…" Jay is scared to ask how angry her father was because the wrong answer could send him marching up to an unfamiliar apartment with his hands curled into fists. "… he called me a slut before I moved out. But this… he called me a murderer. And the things he said to my mother when he realized that she knew about it, it was…"
He settles in next to her and mulls over what he knew about Manny Santos three years ago. He recalls a nasty pregnancy announcement in the caf courtesy of Ashley Kerwin and how Manny's failure to grow any larger in the following months sent Heather Sinclair into overdrive. As he pulls himself out of his trance and realizes that Manny is wearing the same look on her face that Spinner wore when he would think about Rick, the same look he would get if he wasn't careful to shove those memories down someplace too deep to reach. "You're not," he tells her simply. Silent tears drip down her face, painfully slowly. They gather at the corners of her mouth and the small cleft in her chin, and all the while her shoulders don't shake once and her face doesn't screw up and her breathing stays almost normal.
"I think maybe I am. I don't know anymore. I – I try to tell myself that I made the right choice, and I think it was the right choice for me, but what about…? Craig was already picking out names," she says, and she finally breaks completely. Her shoulders hunch and she draws in on herself; whether she's trying to force the pain out of her body or hide herself from his view he isn't sure. In that moment, Jay realizes that the Manny Santos that he's been attracted to for months, the strong, self-assured optimist, is nowhere near as paper-thin as he would have liked to believe, and he understands that he's known this all along. It's what draws him to her. And it is what forces a lump into his throat and urges his hand to her back.
"He would never even talk about it with me," she wails, and the weight she has been focusing on her legs suddenly rests solely on him. He finds that he is more than capable of shouldering it.
"It's all gonna be okay," he tells her. It's such a cliché and something he doesn't even believe himself, but to his surprise she doesn't question him.
-0-0-0-
Manny has to blink a few times to make sure her eyes and her memory aren't playing tricks on her. Even though all she had to drink last night was a huge bottle of Gatorade, the feeling upon waking is similar to that she feels when being hit with the night after a drinking binge. All of her clothes are still on (thank goodness), and what's left of her makeup is caked across her face, dry and tight. A crick is already settling into her back, most likely thanks to the couch she's laying on. Apart from the thin layer of dust on the coffee table, the place is immaculate. She'd expected Jay's house to be messy, filthy if she's honest with herself; instead it looks like no one's lived here in months.
The voices responsible for waking her up grow louder. "What the hell is she doing here, Jay?"
"Not what you're thinking. She had some kind of problem with her parents, she couldn't reach Emma so she called me and I brought her here. Is that really so hard to believe?"
"With your track record, it kind of is."
"Okay, don't bring the Saviour of the World into this one. Let's just wake her up and get her home." Muttering follows this suggestion, and after a minute of indecision she swings her legs over the edge of the couch and makes her way to the kitchen.
"Somebody looking for me?" she says softly, peering into the small space and giving the two boys a weak smile. Sean looks caught between guilt and anger. Jay, on the other hand, is as unreadable as ever. "Sean… maybe you could take me to Emma's? We were supposed to get together today anyway."
"Yeah, that's fine. I just came by to ask Jay if the parts were in for the car I'm working on." Jay gives a stiff nod of his head and then returns his attention to Manny, looking at her so softly it's impossible to believe he'd seen her worse just last night.
"Okay. I'll meet you out front in a minute," she says. It takes him a minute to catch on, but once he recognizes her request for what it is he nods stiffly and walks to the other end of the house. She redirects her attention to Jay. "Thanks for last night." He shrugs awkwardly, forming that adorable quirk in his lips that he makes when he's uncomfortable.
"Well, you needed help. I guess Craig's probably going to be taking care of this kind of thing in the future," he replies. It takes her a moment to realize that he's not making some kind of cruel joke; his face is the definition of seriousness.
"Craig and I broke up months ago. You know that." His lips curl up into what isn't quite a smile and he meets her gaze.
"According to Sean, Craig is back in town. It seems rehab made him wise up to a few things. So," he concludes, "I guess congratulations are in order." For a moment he's transformed into the person she knew last year and she wants to throttle him, but she knows him too well now to mistake his flippancy for disinterest and cares about him too much to hurt him intentionally.
"Craig isn't a part of my life anymore. I've grown up a lot this past year, dealt with things that Craig doesn't understand… I've met you." She half expects him to put up some huge fight, or to make a declaration worthy of the aforementioned ex-boyfriend, but instead he simply digs his hands into his pockets more unsurely and gives her a hopeful look. She has no idea how anyone could consider leaving him.
"Listen, you don't have to say this stuff just because of last night. I don't expect you to." And it's even sweeter because she knows that he probably doesn't. With careful steps she closes the distance between them and presses her hands to his chest. She means to catch his cheek but he turns his face at the last moment and she catches the edge of his lip. A heat starts in her stomach and flushes her chest and face.
"Maybe," she whispers softly, "I want to say it anyway." And as the guard finally lifts from his eyes she feels like she's received a reward she knows she doesn't deserve. Sean is waiting a mere forty feet away, and Emma will stew over this new development for weeks before forgiving her, and there will probably be a painful and very necessary conversation with Craig, but none of these reasons seem good enough to make her walk out that door.
"That's a relief," he says just as quietly, and they share a silent laugh. The air is still thick with anticipation, and she knows he's thinking of how easy it would be to close the distance between them with a kiss. Three years ago she would have kissed him before he had the chance to reconsider; two weeks ago she might have waited for him to pursue her, just because it felt nice when someone else did all the work for a change. But this is now and he isn't Craig or Damien or anyone but himself, so she waits until he angles his head forward and then she meets him halfway.