Title: A New Jane
Rating: PG
Genre: Romance/Drama
Pairing: Adam/Joan
Summary: "You can't have us both." Joan has her limits, and Adam gets angry.
Disclaimer: Hey, if I owned Joan of Arcadia, do you really think Iris would even be on this show? I'm sure she's a really nice girl and all, but if I were running things, Iris wouldn't' be there, Adam and Joan would officially be going out, and I'd be dating Chris Marquette. But I don't, she is, they aren't, and I'm not.
"Hey, wait up, yo," Adam called as he jogged up to Joan in the hallway. Joan looked over at him quickly, then looked straight ahead, hoping that Luke or Grace would show up and act as a buffer.
"Hey, Adam. Where's Iris?" If Adam noticed the trace of bitterness as Joan invoked her name, he didn't say anything. But he wouldn't notice, Joan reminded herself bitterly.
"She's helping your mom out with cleaning up the supplies," Adam explained. "Walk you to Chemistry, Jane?"
Under different circumstances, Joan would have smiled inwardly at the nickname and accepted happily. Because he was Adam, and adorable, and she was Jane, and they just fit. Their unique.thing worked in a way she couldn't explain and didn't fully understand, but she had been okay with that, because they were Adam and Jane. But not anymore.
"Joan," she said quietly.
"What?" Adam asked, not understanding. How could he, when she couldn't understand this either? She didn't understand how this happened, and she didn't know if this was somehow her fault for not saying something sooner, not holding on to him tighter.
Swallowing, Joan turned to face Adam. "My name is Joan, Adam."
He smiled a little bit. "I know that. You know I call you Jane because...well, just because."
"No, you don't understand," Joan said, looking down at her shoes. "I'm not Jane anymore. Iris is the new Jane and I'm...just Joan again."
Adam wasn't smiling anymore. Instead, he looked crushed, bewildered, stunned. "What? But..."
"You can't have us both, Adam," Joan said, hating herself and Iris at that point. "It doesn't work like that." She sniffed and blinked rapidly, trying to hold back the tears that seemed to always come at inopportune moments these days. "And, hey, I'm not mad or anything. I mean, you guys have so much in common, and it's not like this...thing we had," Joan gestured between them, "ever even made sense or anything, so-it's okay." Joan couldn't remember the last time she'd uttered a bigger lie.
Adam didn't look bewildered anymore. Now he looked heartbroken, and more than a little mad. "The new...are you serious? Look, Iris is...Iris. You...you're always gonna be Jane. Don't you know that?"
Joan blinked again, and the tears were actually starting to fall now. "Really?"
"Yeah," Adam said, sounding as if she had just asked for confirmation that the sky really was blue. "She's Iris. You're Jane. That's the way it is. That's the way it's always gonna be." He reached out, and rubbed off the tear on her cheek firmly, like he was trying to convince her of the realness of this moment. "I'm not looking for another Jane."
"Okay," she whispered, and the tears fell faster, but she was smiling too. "Okay, so...um, you wanna walk me to class then?"
"Yeah," Adam said, smiling again now. "Let's go."
And as they walked together, arms brushing against each other occasionally, Joan beamed. Because, no matter what happened, she was still Jane, and she and Adam still fit together in a way that no, not even them, could fully understand.
And that was just fine with her.
