A/N: Hey everyone! I wrote this for the final round of badepromtpts. The prompt was "She didn't tell you, did she?" and my personal prompt was 'it was a protest.' Hope you all enjoy this piece! If you want updates on my stories follow me on twitter. My username is madkin18. R&R. Bade forever 3
"Daddy, you promised you would tell us tonight!" He looked at his two little girls and their big blue eyes. Their mother's eyes.
"I know, sweetie, but it's late. Maybe tomorrow night." He edged toward the doorway.
"You promised!" She protested sitting up in her princess bed.
"Come on, daddy. We're big girls now." They waited with baited breath for him to give his final answer.
"Alright girls. I'll tell you about how your Mom and I got together." And only that. They're still too young.
"It was a special day at our school called Hollywood Arts. We were freshmen and we were finally going to meet our acting teacher. He paired up Mommy and I and we performed a scene together. And he liked it so much he cast us in the play and Mommy and I started dating. Then a few years later we got married and had you guys. "
"Was Mommy really pretty then?"
Beck smiled slightly. "Very pretty. She had colored streaks in her hair for the longest time."
The girls gasped. "Can we do that Daddy?"
"Pwease, Daddy. Can we?"
"When you're older. Go to sleep. I love you." Beck turned off the light.
"Love you, Daddy," They mumbled together.
"Dad, can you tell us the story of how you and Mom met?" Beck looked over to his little Lucy.
"Yeah. You haven't told it in a few years." Liz jumped in.
Beck looked between them wondering if they had planned this after dinner. "Sure. On a very special day at Hollywood Arts we met. We were freshmen and we were excited to finally meet our first acting teacher and he paired us for a scene. We did so well he put us in the play and we started dating not soon after." Kind of.
"We're not five anymore. You can tells us what really happened, Dad."
"Is that so?" Beck chuckled. "Alright, alright. After the play we did we'd become friends."
"Hey, man." Beck nodded at his friend as he closed his locker.
"Hey, what's up?" Beck asked pointing to the keyboard in Andre's hand.
"Just setting up my locker."
"Won't that make it kind of hard to open?"
"Huh. I guess you're right. Damn." Andre looked down to the keyboard in his arms. "What do I do with it now?" Beck shrugged.
"Don't look now. Here comes the wicked witch of the west." Beck rolled his eyes. They were friends with Jade. And she wasn't that scary.
"Hey, boys." Jade winked at him as she walked by. They had been seeing each other for the last few months. But it wasn't serious. It was so unserious in fact that they hadn't bothered to tell their friends.
"Did she just wink at you?" Beck dragged his eyes from her retreating form.
"I didn't see it." He said through gritted teeth. He hated lying. And he was ready to see Jade with their friends knowing. She wasn't that bad to be with. She was actually pretty great.
"Why don't you want to tell them?" Beck ran a hand through his slightly greased hair.
Jade shrugged. "Why do you want to?"
"I hate lying." They'd been having this fight all week.
Jade rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah. No secrets. Whatever."
"Not whatever, Jade. They're our friends!" He exclaimed! Why couldn't she just tell them? Why did she have to fight it so much?
"Your point?" Jade made a snipping noise with the scissor that had just appeared in her hands.
"Friends don't keep secrets like this."
"We're not even dating!"
Beck paused, stunned. "We're not?"
Jade looked him over suspiciously. "No. Of course not."
"Oh." What had they been doing for the last three months?
Beck looked at his phone. He wasn't sure she'd call. He hit accept. "You're going on a date with another girl?!"
"Yeah, Andre set us up." He put her on speaker and put her down on the bathroom counter.
"You can't!"
He ran a hand through his hair as he applied his favorite product. "You said it yourself. We're not dating."
He could only hear her breathing, but then she said, "I know, but… you can't just date someone else!"
"Why not?" There was a silence for minutes. He thought maybe she hung up.
"What if you like her?"
"Then I like her?" Beck asked. He wasn't sure what her point was.
"What happens to us if you like her?"
"Oh." He hadn't really thought about it. He wanted to be with Jade and he thought he was until a few weeks ago. "Guess we'll figure it out."
"That's it?"
"Yeah. I haven't even gone out yet. Maybe I won't like her."
"Maybe."
Beck sighed. "Look I gotta go. I'll call you after."
"Don't bother. It's fine." And then there was nothing.
"Hiii! How was your date?" Cat asked. Brittany was nice and liked pink.
Beck shrugged. The girl had been nice enough. She seemed really into him…and his hair. "Fine."
"You gonna see her again?" Andre asked. He was rooting for her. She was a close friend of his. Amazing piano player.
"What are you morons talking about?"
"Hey." He'd tried calling her after the date, but she refused to answer. He knew she wasn't asleep. She had insomnia most nights.
"Beck was just telling us about his date." Cat said jumping up and down. She really liked Jade, even though she could be mean and wore a lot of black.
"With clone barbie?"
"She's a nice girl." Andre defended.
"And nice makes the world go round." Cat whimpered as the two started to fight.
"Guys, guys!" Beck waved his hand between them. "I don't think I'm gonna see her again." Andre hunched his shoulders in defeat, but Beck was sure he saw a victorious smile on Jade's face.
"Phooey."
"Beck! Beck!"
"Hey, Cat. What's up?"
"Look at this cool necklace Jade got me." Beck glanced at the black flower around her neck. He had helped her pick it out. They'd, really he'd, decided it was a nice compromise between the two friends.
"It's beautiful, Cat." Beck waited. "Is there anything else?"
"Uh…" Cat went through her day in her head. "Well my brother drove us to a circus last…."
"Anything not about your brother?"
"Oh. No." Cat looked at her brown hair sadly. "I want my hair to be a happy color."
"Cat, stay focused."
She looked up from her hair. "Whaty?"
"Did anything happen today?"
"No."
"Jade didn't tell you anything, did she?"
Cat thought back to her texts with her friend during first period. "She told me about how stupid her teachers are."
"Anything else?"
"No."
"Thanks, Cat. See you at lunch."
"Byeee." Beck took out his pear phone.
*Relationship status: With Jade West*
"From then on we were together. We fought and there was a big break up in our senior year, but we got through it." He ran his fingers through his hair. Old habit die hard.
"You were really lucky to find Mom so young."
"I know, honey. Time for bed, you guys." Beck shut the light off and closed the door. Maybe he would never have to tell them the whole story.
"Happy birthday, sweetie." Beck leaned down to give a kiss to Lucy's forehead.
"Thanks, Dad."
"I'm gonna go to bed. Don't stay up too late."
"We won't." Liz reassured him.
"Actually, Dad can I ask for one more birthday present?"
"Anything."
Lucy and Liz made eye contact. They were fifteen now. They were old enough. "Can you tell us about Mom?"
"You guys know the story. I used to tell it to you every year."
"Only the high school years. What about after that? When you got engaged and married?"
Beck paused. " Yeah, why not." Only the one part.
It was autumn, her favorite season. Not too wet or too icy or too cold or too hot. Just enough of everything. They had moved out to New York for a role she was offered in a play. She had told him to stay in LA, but he refused to do long distance. He wasn't in the middle of any projects, so why not follow her. They could only afford a crappy studio apartment and it lacked heat after eight o'clock. They had been fighting over something. He can't remember what, but it was big and he remembered thinking she could walk out the door and not come back. So he had stopped fighting back. She ranted for an hour straight before she realized she was the only one talking.
"What the hell, Beck?!'
"I love you."
"We're fighting!"
"And I want to fight with you."
"You want to break up?!"
"I want to be with your forever. I want to stand here with you and fight out our problems for the rest of our lives."
"Okay…"
"I never want you to walk away because…" He took a deep breath and got down on one knee. "You're it for me. I want this, us, forever. Will you marry me?"
Beck shouted. "Andre!"
He turned around. "Hey, man. Nice to see you." It must have been a couple years since they'd been face to face. Texts and emails could only do so much.
"How long you in town?" Andre asked. He knew Beck and Jade were thinking of staying in New York permanently.
"A few days. Wanted to visit my new baby sister." Beck's parents had decided it was a good idea to start trying when he left and they'd finally gotten a daughter.
"Jade say yes, yet?"
"Not yet."
"Doesn't it bother you that she won't marry you?"
"She wouldn't date me either, but I think that turned out pretty well." Beck chuckled lightly. With Jade it was always a protest.
"You asked over a year ago."
Beck looked over his shoulder to see his girlfriend staring at the baby while his parent's backs were turned. "Trust me. I'm going to marry her one day."
"And I did. It took another two years before she would say yes, but she did and we got married a few months later."
"Hey, Dad?"
"Yeah, Liz?" She smiled slightly.
"Do you miss her?"
Beck's smile faded and the light in his eyes dimmed. "All the time."
"Can you tell me about it?" Beck started to protest. She wasn't old enough. "I know you told Lucy when she left for college, but I think I'm ready now."
Beck studied his little girl. She had managed to convince him of the colored streaks. And they fit her brown hair and blue eyes well. She looked so much like her mother, especially the eyes. "Okay." She was old enough.
"I don't want kids."
"Jade…"
"No. They're loud and sticky and annoying."
Beck smiled knowingly. "You'll make a great mom."
"That's not it."
"I know."
"I just don't want kids."
"Cause they're loud and sticky and annoying."
"Exactly."
When he was minutes away from sleep he felt her shift behind him. Then her voice muffled by his back said, "A great one, huh?"
"The best," he whispered against her hand before placing a soft kiss on her hand.
"Isn't it great?" Beck asked excitedly.
"Isn't what great?" Tori asked slowly. She'd come back from lunch with Cat and Jade only to find Beck waiting for her at her apartment.
"She didn't tell you, did she?" She had promised she would.
"Tell me what?" Tori asked confused. Maybe Beck needed some coco.
"Jade. She's pregnant."
Tori placed a hand on his shoulder. "Hey, how are the girls?"
"They don't know." Beck whispered as he watched his little girls play together.
"They're young. You'll tell them one day." Tori blinked away her tears.
"They won't remember her." His voice was hoarse.
"Her memory will live on in all of us."
"They're too young. They won't remember." He had promised her she'd be the best mom. How could he keep that now?
"It'll be okay." Tori squeezed his shoulder. What else could she do? He was right. They were too little. They would never remember their confident, strong, and sometimes scary mother. They were just too little.
Andre broke the silence, "She was a fighter." If anything could be said about Jade West Oliver it was that. Even after she'd been hit by the truck, she'd fought for days in the hospital. She wanted to come home. The doctors were stunned she'd held on so long.
"Always had an opinion," Tori offered. The girls were asleep and now they were all just too afraid to leave him alone.
"She knew what she wanted," Robbie added. He hadn't seen her much, but he knew Jade West.
Cat looked up from the black scissors in her hands. "She loved you more than she loved anything else." Beck's eyes flickered up to meet the tearful redhead's.
"I know."
She met his stare fearlessly. "Do you?"
Liz wiped away her tears. "I think I remember her." Beck snapped his head up. She couldn't. She was too little. "I remember a woman singing me to sleep."
"She had a beautiful voice." Jade had loved to sing to their girls.
"Did she always sing us to bed?" Beck nodded. She remembered her. She really did. "But you never did. You always told us a story."
"I could never bring myself to… Not after." Liz nodded and brushed her cheek.
Liz got up and walked over to her dad. "Thank you, Daddy." She kissed him on the cheek before leaving him to his memories. Memories of a girl with colored streaks and so much potential and later of a woman who was fiercely loyal and confident in herself.