Jade flicked the cigarette out into the yard as she exhaled a puff of smoke before heading back into the small apartment she shared with her boyfriend Beck from her school days. She couldn't believe it had been ten years since she'd graduated from Hollywood Arts.
Ten years since she'd seen her. She could still remember when the young brunette had first started at Hollywood Arts after preforming in place of her sister at the Grand show case during Jade's sophomore year at the performing school. When she walked in her boyfriend looked up "You were smoking again, weren't you?"
"Maybe."
He sighed, "That's not good for you." the dark haired man said for what must have been the one thousandth time.
"So?" She asked, I'm killing myself to live you arrogant bastard. She thought angrily.
"I'm trying to help."
"Yeah well, you're not."
"Fine." He said and stood up, "I'm going out, I'll be back in a few hours."
"Whatever."
After he left she sat down beside the window, one of her favorite sulking spots after a fight with Beck, and began to stare out the window. After Hollywood Art's she'd done some touring, some acting, but she'd lost the flare for it... The passion she'd put into her singing and acting was gone and had never really come back.
She was shaken out of her thoughts by her cellphone ringing and when she glanced at it she didn't know the number, but something told her it would be best to answer it. "Hello?" she asked.
"Jade."
Her heart stopped, she knew that voice... She hadn't heard it in almost ten and a half years but she knew that voice "Tori?"
"If you wanna call me that, sure." Came the perky voice of the brunette she'd hated during their high school years. "I'm here for you Jade, I'm here to make sure you're okay,to listen to your prayers and hopes."
"So... My own Personal Jesus?" she asked, referencing one of her favorite Johnny Cash songs.
"Sure, you can call me that."
"So, Tori.." she asked, "A-Are you... A-Are you happy?"
"I am, Are you?"
"I... No."
"Why not?"
"I thought Beck would make me happy, but..." He's not you.
"But?"
"I love someone else..."
"Then be with them."
"I can't, they left.. They're gone Tori." Her next words were garbled, as if the connection was wavering so Jade quickly added in "I miss you.."
The line went dead and the former singer had no idea if Tori had heard her or not. She sighed and put her phone on the small wooden table and sighed, "You're losing it Jade." she muttered.
But, she decided, that might not be the worst thing in the world.
Eight years went by without a phone call and Jade had long since put the event up as a figment of her imagination and denied it ever happened, not that anyone but Beck knew and they had split up just a few days after the phantom phone call as she called it, and she was currently sitting in the drug store awaiting the antibiotics her doctor had prescribed for her cough.
"Uh... West, Jade?'
"That's" She was cut off by a coughing fit, "That's me." the black haired woman said weakly.
She took the orange bottle and paid the co-pay she owed. The pills tasted bad, but they seemed to relieve the couch she'd had for the last few weeks. After leaving the drug store she pulled out one of her cigarettes out of it's pack and lit it.
She took a deep breath and sighed, exhaling smoke "You're killing yourself Jade." She muttered to herself and let out a soft giggle, something she didn't do often. She began coughing again, her hand reaching over to the wall as she began to cough more violently, and drops of blood fell to the cement.
"Damn it.." She muttered, "You're okay Jade... Just go home, you'll be okay if you can get home." But deep down she knew she was lying to herself. When she finally got home she slipped out of her black leather coat, her tastes hadn't changed much from school, and kicked out of her boots before collapsing on the couch of her small apartment just as the phone rang.
She slowly dug it out of her pocket, where she preferred to keep it, and looked at the number. Her heart stopped for a moment when she realized the number was the same, she had no idea how but she recognized it. She scrambled to answer it and pressed it to her ear, "Tori?"
"Hey Jade."
Her voice instantly calmed Jade down and a small smile formed on her lips, "I kept waiting for you to call.."
"I know.
"But you didn't call.."
"I know."
"You were supposed to call."
"You didn't need me."
"What do you mean?"
"You didn't need me to call." she said, "You put me behind you and moved on, you didn't need me but now you do."
"What? Everything's perfect... I don't need you." she lied.
"Oh?"
She was starting to get angry now, "You left... You left me."
"Left you?" she asked.
"Yes damn it!" she snapped, "I was in love with you."
"I was in love with you too."
That cause Gothic woman to do something she hadn't done in years: Cry. Tears began to slide down her cheeks, "Damn it Tori... I needed you, why did you leave?"
"I had to... It wasn't our time Jade, but it's coming soon I promise."
"What the hell does that mean?"
"I can't tell you anything else Jade... I will call again when you need me, until then... Keep praying."
"Always my personal Jesus huh?"
"Always."
The line went dead and Jade sighed and put her head in her lap, trying to stop the tears running down her cheeks, "Goddamn it Tori... Why did you have to leave?"
She got no answer that night, and she suspected there would never be a concrete answer.
Six years passed without a phone call and as Jade sat there, looking at the results of the various scans and biopsies they had done it all reached one conclusion: She didn't have long. She'd been diagnosed with lung cancer six months after her last phone call with Tori (though the coughing had risen her suspicions) and they had kept telling her she had only months to live. She'd been fighting this for six years now, and she had no intentions to stop however the tests weren't positive and it showed the tumors had spread to her other lung and were growing in size.
A coughing fit overtook her and she wheezed as blood trickled down her lip, "Damn it." she wheezed and smacked her hand against her chest to hopefully stop coughing. She'd been feeling weaker lately, and she knew she was fighting a loosing battle but it didn't matter anymore... She'd be gone soon enough, away from this miserable existence. She pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit one, far beyond caring if they worsened her condition.
She inhaled the smoke and her nerves calmed almost instantly, then the phone rang. No one called her anymore: she'd long since lost track of her classmates and she preferred it that away. "Tori?" she asked breathlessly.
"Jade, you're ill.."
"Yeah I.. how'd you know?"
"I just do Jade, I'm sorry you have to go through this."
"I don't know how much longer I have Tori..."
"Jade West giving up?"
"Tori..."
"Jade West, you never give up on anything."
"I gave up on you."
"And see where that got you? Dying alone talking to me on the phone."
"It's not so bad.." She said, biting back a cough.
"I miss you.."
"Are you happy?"
"I'm... Safe."
"Good.. That's good."
"I love you.."
Before Jade could reply the connection died, "Damn it!" she said, resisting the urge to throw her phone against the wall. She set the phone down on the table and looked out the window. Jade West had given up, not she was just waiting for the end.
Four months passed, and Jade got weaker and weaker each day until she was hospitalized at Los Angeles General Hospital. She'd actually gotten visitors: Andre, Cat, Robbie, even Beck and Trina came to see her. But never the one she wanted... Never Tori. Tori couldn't see her, Tori didn't know where she was..
She missed the brunette's voice, and most of her day was spent staring at the telephone waiting for it to ring and be her 'own personal Jesus' as she liked to refer to her. She knew she had days, if not hours left, and her last wish was for that phone to ring and it be Tori.
Sure enough, that night, the phone rang and it was Tori.
"How're you feeling Jade?"
"Not good." She wheezed, "I don't have long Tori, I can... Feel it."
"I understand.."
"Can you... Sing to me?" she asked weakly.
"Sing?"
"Yeah... Just one time."
"Okay.." The voice on the other end of the phone took a deep breath and began to sing.
I will meet you in the Next Life, I promise you
Where we can be together, I promise you
I will wait till then in Heaven, I promise you
I promise, I promise
Jade smiled, "I promise too..." she whispered softly as the line went dead. "T-Tori?"she asked, "Tori...?!" Her vision started to dim and the last sound she heard was her monitor beeping. Jade West was gone.
Her funeral was held three days after her death and was attended by her friends from Hollywood Arts, except for Beck whom had seemingly disappeared. After the funeral they left flowers, Black Roses in honor of Jade, and Cat wandered off from the grave to another friend's grave: Tori's.
"Jade's with you now." She said sadly, "Take care of her Tori, Please?"
The grave didn't move, didn't respond, as rain started to pour from the sky, forcing Cat to rejoin the group as the left. Tori and Jade may not have been able to be together in this life, Jade had mentioned to Cat her feelings before they'd graduated, but the redhead hoped they would find each other and be happy in the next life.
Note: So there were a few inspirations for this: The Walking Dead season 3, the cover of Personal Jesus by Johnny Cash (and the one by Marilyn Manson), and the song Promises by Megadeth (which Tori sang at the end). I don't own any of those, or the characters in the fic, I just put it together. Please R&R. This will be my last fic until after the holidays most likely, so till then... see ya!