Disclaimer: I own nothing - nothing Degrassi related, anyway.

A/N: It has been quite awhile since my last fanfic, so much excuses if my writing has totally deteriorated. Since I haven't seen any Jay/Alex fics, here's a one-shot for your reading pleasure.

Apparitions

I lean my head against the slightly moth-eaten passenger seat of Jay's stupid car, my cheap hoop earrings clashing against my neck. He's always getting that car of his fixed. Today's no exception.

I poke my head out the window and yell, "Hurry up with your damn car! We're going to be late again!"

Jay quickly flips me the bird as he stares quizzically at the engine of his car, which is emitting steam with a sizzling sound.

Ugh. I stick my head back into the car and cross my arms impatiently. Sometimes I wonder why we're still even fucking together. Ellie thinks it's a miracle that we're both even alive; she thinks that we ought to have mauled each other by now. Or something.

But it's more complicated than that. It's kind of hard to explain, too, especially if you totally suck at words, like I do.

I remember when we first met. Some fluffy bimbo like Emma Nelson would probably imagine it as love at first sight. My so-called friend Amy, who robbed me $30 last week, would envision us making mad love or something equally kinky.

I envision it the best...probably because it's in my memory.

He was lighting a cigarette, leaning against the hood of that fucking car of his.

Right in the middle of the road.

"Dude," I yelled, shooting him a dirty look as I walked by. "You're going to die like that, you know?"

He shrugged, throwing his cigarette onto the ground and stamping it out. "Ain't that a fuckin' shame."

And then he got into the car and drove away.

That was it. No sparks, no mushy glances. That was it.

And it was the beginning of Us.

But it feels like it's Us Against the World sometimes. I see how people look at us as if we're total delinquents or just trash. But who's to say? Maybe we are.

Why do you care, anyway, Alex?

Jay cares. I can see it in his eyes. I learned not to care a long time ago, ever since my family fell apart.

My dad died, leaving me with a fucked-up drug addict of a mother and an older brother who went to jail a few months before for God-knows-what. My sister ran away awhile before that. I think I saw her working the streets once, in a skirt that ended at her ass. It was disgusting. I left when I couldn't take living with my mother anymore. Not when the cramped little apartment smelled like weed. Not when Mother began to come home at 3 in the morning with a random guy she picked up. Not ever.

I live with Jay, now, in his sorry excuse for a home.

I pop my head out the window again. Jay catches my dark eyes with his piercing blue ones and holds up three fingers.

Three minutes.

I suddenly remember yesterday, when Ellie and I were at Sean's house, doing nothing except taking in the total emptiness of it all.

"Do you love him?" Ellie's question took me by the surprise.

"Sean?! He's your boyfriend, remember?"

She looked at me morosely, reminding me with one heavily eye-lined glance that Sean was in Wasaga Beach with his parents. "No, I mean Jay. Do you love him?"

"That's a stupid question, Ellie. I hate this kind of talk."

And the conversation ended there, when I couldn't take the awkwardness anymore. I got up for a coke and left Ellie staring at the butt-ugly wallpaper that was peeling off the walls.

I think I love him. Jay, I mean. I also think it's more than that. We like to depend on each other. We wouldn't be Jay or Alex without each other, as corny and stupid Emma Nelsonesque as it sounds. I think I need him. I think he needs me too.

We'll never admit it.

Kissing and cuddling...that's just not our thing. I have seen – and have been scarred by – Paige and Spinner calling each other Honeybee and holding hands in cutesy little restaurants. See? They don't know shit about love. Or how it feels to need someone so badly that you feel like you might fall off the edge of the Earth if that person you need isn't with you.

I've experienced that. It's a weird feeling; kind of exhilarating and scary at the same time. I think I like it.

Our love probably runs deeper than most. But people don't care. To them, we're just empty shells of the people we could have been, once upon a fucking time. To them, we're nothing worth having to do with. To them, we're sometimes nothing at all.

It's a cold world. Too cold, sometimes.

It makes me wonder how we're ever going to get by like we have in the past. It makes me wonder how long we can cling to each other before we realize we don't need each other after all. And I never want to feel this way. I hope I never do.

The door opens now, and Jay slides in, wiping his blackened hands on his jeans.

"Sorry about that," he says. "The car fucked up again."

No kidding. I smile slightly, blinking back the tears that have gathered in my eyes. I smile, partially because of my witty thought, but also because I'm glad he's with me. Because I'm not alone for now.

"Just drive." I tell him.

"Where were we going again?" He asks.

I shrug. Who cares?

My smile widens as I shift in my seat to face him. "Where do we ever go?"

He gives me a strange look as he begins to drive. I don't fucking know where we're going and I don't care.

I take a deep breath. "Jay..."

He glances at me to signify that he is listening.

"You love me, right?" I try to say it carelessly and casually, as though I don't actually care for the answer.

Another strange look. "Alex, uh..."

"You either do, or you don't. It's not that damn hard," I tell him, a trace of annoyance in my voice.

Jay chuckles then, his arm still slung on the back of my seat. "You getting all deep on me, Alex? You turning into fluff?"

I smirk too, only because it feels like the right thing to do at the moment.

"It was just a fucking question. I'm not Emma, you know."

I carefully let the subject drop and we drive along the streets of downtown Toronto aimlessly.

Glancing at him through the corner of my eye, I see him peering at me with those cold blue eyes of his.

He loves me. I can see it on his carefully-arranged nonchalant expression. I can feel it in my bones. And I've known it all along. But maybe I've never thought about it or something.

I'm not sure. My mind's been screwed this whole day.

But for some reason, I don't care. Everything feels so good suddenly. Maybe it's the realization that I have someone to love, someone to rely on...someone who will love me back, too. Maybe it's because I'm sitting here in Jay's old car, amidst moldy looking cars and homeless men pushing Wal-Mart carts, with miles of street in front of me and no destination whatsoever. Maybe it's a happier Alex, one who isn't always searching for someone to beat the shit out of.

Maybe it's a combination of all three.

But again, who cares? He loves me. I can sense it.

And that makes everything so much better.

The End

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