Author's Note: This was originally published on AO3 in December 2013, and was written for Trope Bingo, round 2.
One of those great questions for the ages, Jade Harley decides, will be why Sburb chose the United States. After the game, they managed to bring everyone into the recreated B1-based universe. Everyone woke up in the new universe with homes on the new planet. More specifically, except for her and Jake, everyone woke up with homes in the new version of the United States of America. (Another of those great questions for the ages will be how and why the United States appears in every alternate universe Jade's ever seen.)
It's mid-October, and she and Jake are traveling to John and Jane's house. Right now they're sitting in the Sydney airport's international terminal. Bec's crate is next to her. He's being surprisingly good! He's even tolerated being temporarily shrunken down enough that she can take him in the cabin with her. Good dog. This has been an annual thing since the recreation of the universe ten years ago: every year, all twenty-four of them meet up in Maple Valley, Washington. The trolls have their own, private gathering, sometime in June, and the kids meet in April, but everyone shows up for the October one.
Jake is sitting next to her. He's on the phone with Dirk; Jade is trying not to listen, both out of respect for their privacy and because she really doesn't want to hear her grandfather and Dave's Bro getting romantic. It was kind of a surprise, discovering that her pen pal was also her grandfather who was really her biological father; on the other hand, she was also apparently his grandmother and mother, so she really can't complain too much. Ectobiology is weird.
Jake turns to her. "Dirk wants to know if you want to talk to Dave," he says.
Jade, startled out of contemplation of ectobiological oddities, nods quickly. "That would be good." Jake says something to Dirk and then hands her the phone.
"Hey, babe," Dave says softly. She's fairly sure he's calling her that ironically.
"Hi, Dave!" Even if he's being ironic, she won't be. She's never really been good at understanding Dave's irony to begin with. "How are you doing?"
"Pretty good. Packin' for the trip." It hadn't quite clicked in her mind that Dave was from Houston, which was in Texas, and had the accent, until she'd actually spoken to him in person. It just didn't fit with his brilliant red text and incessant irony. "Y'all're meetin' up with Vriska in Los Angeles, right?"
"Yeah. I'm in the Sydney airport right now. I might have to go soon, our flight should be boarding in a few minutes."
"Time zones, huh. You're gonna have fuckin' awful jet lag. Yeah, we leave tomorrow. Although I suppose it's technically tomorrow already there."
She is going to have terrible jet lag. Night and day will be reversed. Her Space abilities help a bit, but Dave's the one who just doesn't worry about time (and consequently jet lag).
She's not at all looking forward to this. The time in Seattle, yes, she loves spending time with her friends other than Jake and Bec; the trip there, no. Thirteen hours on a plane is nobody's idea of a good time. Two and a half hours on a plane with Vriska Serket, now a resident of Los Angeles, is also nobody's idea of a good time.
Jake taps her arm. "Jade, I do believe that's our flight," he says, indicating the gate next to them. People are already lining up. She must have missed the announcement.
"I have to go, our flight's boarding," she says into the phone. "I'll see you in Seattle. I love you. Bye."
"Bye," Dave says. There's a brief pause. "Love you too." The grating noise of the dial tone suddenly ends the call.
The flight itself is fairly uneventful, even boring. Jade sleeps through a lot of it, although she doesn't think Jake does. Bec has the poor woman sitting next to Jade concerned, what with how he glows green, but Jade manages to pass that off as just a trick of the light. She's not sure the woman is entirely convinced, but she limits herself to a worried look at Jade when she pulls Bec's carrier out from under the seat in front of her.
It's when they land that things get interesting. Vriska is waiting for them at the gate for their flight to Seattle. As ever, she's bombastically gleeful. "Hi!" She smiles, showing an unsettling number of sharp teeth. "How was your flight?"
"Long," Jade and Jake say simultaneously. They glance at each other.
Vriska laughs. "Oh, that's right, you live all the way in Australia. Why is that? You could be here, closer to where everyone else is."
"That's not very nice, Vriska!" Jade says. "Anyway, I like Hellmurder Island." Vriska stills for a moment, like she's about to say something, but then the moment is broken.
"How have you been?" Jake asks, grinning enthusiastically.
"Pretty good," Vriska says with a smile.
Vriska has gotten better since the game, she really has, but she's still kind of irritating a lot of the time. Jade is intending to put Jake between them on the plane. Goodness knows why, but Jake actually gets along with her to some extent.
"How's your woofbeast?" Vriska asks, indicating Becquerel. He didn't interact with her as Bec Noir, but they've interacted enough in the new world that he recognizes her at least a bit. She's not a threat to him, Jake, or Jade.
"He's doing good. Excited to go see Seattle!" He's probably more excited to get out of the crate, but that doesn't sound as nice. "I think Roxy's bringing Mutini, so maybe they can play together." Actually, maybe that's not such a good idea. Bec is a very special dog but he's still a dog.
Vriska nods, staring into space, before something at the other end of the terminal catches her eye. "Hey, you wanna go exploring?"
Jade stares at Vriska. "I don't think that's a very good idea! We don't want to miss our flight." She looks around and realizes that Jake has vanished. "...did you see where Jake went?"
Vriska snickers. "No! But we should go look for him."
Jade is immediately suspicious, but Vriska does have a point. "Let me try calling him first."
She's greeted by his voicemail. Jade swears under her breath, glares at Vriska when she starts laughing, and leaves a message. "Jake, this is Jade. We're going to go look for you. If you get this, get back to our gate and call me." She turns to Vriska. "All right, let's go. Where do you think he could have gone?"
They try the bar across the terminal first, Jade holding Bec's carrier: no Jake.
"We should split up," Vriska suggests.
"I don't think that's a good idea either," Jade says.
"Don't you trust me?"
Jade pauses. "Not really, no." Vriska looks a bit hurt. Jade rushes to patch the situation up. "It's not that I don't trust you, it's just that-"
"You don't trust me." Vriska does look hurt. Jade is trying to figure out how to recover the conversation when Vriska smiles again, just a bit too wide to be natural. "That's probably smart. I wouldn't trust me either."
Jade nods hesitantly. "Okay then." Something tells her that she can't salvage this one on her own, so she lets the matter drop.
They proceed to go through very nearly every shop, restaurant, and general retail establishment in the terminal: still no Jake. Finally, just as they're about to give up and report a lost person to airport security, Jade's cell phone goes off.
"Jade?" Jake says, his voice a bit tinny.
"Is it Jake?" Vriska hisses. Jade nods quickly, relief flooding through her, and holds up a finger in the universal 'wait' gesture.
"Jake! Where are you?"
"I'm at the gate. Our flight's getting ready to board. Jesus Christmas, Jade, where are you?"
Jade's relief is quickly turning to anger, followed by panic once she realizes what he's just said. "We're on the other side of the terminal." She pauses. They can probably make it, but…. "Fuck."
Vriska looks confused and concerned. "We'll talk when I get there," Jade says into the cell phone, and hangs up. "Come on, Jake says our flight's nearly boarding!"
They sprint through the terminal, Jade clutching Becquerel's carrier to her chest, to see Jake standing near the head of a line; as they approach, he reaches the front. Jade skids to a stop and nearly drops Bec; next to her, Vriska manages to slow down a bit more gracefully, catching herself on the final armrest of a row of chairs.
The woman taking their tickets doesn't even look at them twice. Honestly, it feels a bit anticlimactic. "Row eight, seats A, B, C."
As they make their way into the aircraft, Vriska glances at Jade like she wants to say something, but she suddenly needs to negotiate the aisle without tripping over anything; the moment is lost. Finally, they find their seats and sit down; Jake takes the aisle, but Jade is surprised to find Vriska taking the middle seat and giving her the aisle. She supposes she didn't say anything about her plans, but this wasn't what she intended!
Once they're in flight, Jade pulls out a book. Jake is probably going to spend the flight staring out the window, or sleeping, and she has no clue what Vriska's going to do. She's just getting started on her book, and Jake is asleep and leaning on the window, when Vriska starts talking. "So, about earlier…."
Jade looks up from her book. "What about it?"
"I can see why you don't trust me." Vriska smiles sardonically. "I didn't do much during the game to look like I was trustworthy."
Jade feels a bit guilty about that. They haven't talked much since the game, Jade's been busy with other things, so she can't really say whether Vriska's gotten better. "No. It's been a while, though. You've probably changed. I know I have!"
Vriska is silent for a long moment. "Still. I was… kind of a bitch."
Jade's not really sure what to say to that. She can't really say Vriska's wrong there. On the other hand, Jade herself certainly did some awful things during the game. She'd nearly doomed the whole universe! "A lot of other people did bad stuff, too! I ended up working for the Batterwitch for a while, and that was pretty horrible."
Vriska laughs quietly. "I suppose." After a while, Jade concludes she's not going to say anything else and returns to her book. They sit in silence for the rest of the flight to Seattle.
When their flight lands in Seattle, Jade can hardly get off the plane fast enough. After fighting her way off the plane and through Concourse A, she looks through the mass of people milling around baggage claim to see Dave leaning against the wall and staring at his cell phone.
"Dave!" she calls, switching Bec's carrier to one hand so she can wave the other one in the air. "Over here!"
He looks up sharply and turns towards her; then he puts his cell phone away and strides towards her. She runs towards him, dodging through the crowd of people, and when they meet she pulls him into a one-armed hug. He hugs her back, and she puts Bec's carrier down next to her so she can use both arms. "I missed you," she says softly into his hair.
"Missed you too," Dave tells her.
They separate briefly and kiss, and Jade's missed this more than she realized. When they pull apart, Jake and Dirk are a few feet away, as close to all over each other as is reasonably possible in public; it crosses Jade's mind that she doesn't know where Vriska is.
She turns around to see Vriska carrying three suitcases; she recognizes one as hers and another as Jake's, and the dark-blue-with-spiderwebs design on the third marks its ownership pretty clearly. "Now that you're done," Vriska says, her tone somewhere between teasing and straight-up mocking, "carry your own damn stuff." Jade grabs her suitcase, and after a brief moment of reflection takes Jake's as well.
"The car's out there," Dave says, indicating the expanse of the parking garage. "Jane let us borrow it, because apparently she's done with driving for a while."
Dirk and Jake separate and get moving, although they're still holding hands. Dave ends up driving, with Jade in the front seat and an awkward Vriska squeezed in next to Jake and Dirk in a back seat clearly intended for two people even if it can hold three.
When they get to the house, they can already hear the shrieking from outside; someone has yet again angered Karkat. As they're all shuffling out of the car, Vriska taps Jade on the shoulder.
"What is it, Vriska?"
Vriska looks awkward, like she's not sure she wants to say this but it needs to be done. "Thanks for talking to me earlier." There's a noticeable pause. "You humans only have one quadrant, right? And it covers both of the concupiscent ones, but not the conciliatory ones?"
Jade has to think for a moment about that to remember which quadrants are which. "Yeah. I'm in a relationship with Dave, though. Why?"
Vriska smiles, and it seems surprisingly natural. "Just wondering. See you around, Harley!" she calls, already heading towards the house. Jade's not sure what she's implying there, but she can probably live with it anyway.