We All Have A Story To Tell, a victorious fanfic

Let me riddle you a ditty, it's just an itty bitty, little thing on my mind.
About a boy and a girl, trying to take on the world one kiss at a time.
Now the funny thing about, ain't a story without it, but the story is mine.
And I wish you could say, that it ended just fine.

Jade West sat in the library, biting a thumbnail and typing on her Mac, occasionally looking up at Beck Oliver in his (stupid, she thought) letter jacket and (perfect, she thought) jeans.

So, yeah, they hook up in secluded places about the school... And in his car... And hers... And once in his pool... And he asked her to keep it secret...

But he said he loved her!

That means something... Right?

Her head drooped onto his chest, their chests rising and falling in sync.

"How does... this... end?" Jade asked, unsure of what brought that up.

"Wha?" he slurred, half-asleep, tucking her under his arm, and snoring gently within seconds.

With a beleaguered sigh and a small, loving smile, she pulled on her tee-shirt, bra, and panties and pulled down her skirt, and got in the front seat and drove him home. She listened to a song on the radio, bobbing her head and singing quietly along - "We all want to know, how it ends."

We all want to know, how it ends.

Oh, happily ever after, wouldn't you know, wouldn't you know.
Oh, skip to the ending, who'd like to know, I'd like to know.
Author of the moment, can you tell me, do I end up, do I end up happy?

And its Prom Night, and Jade West sits at home, listening to her friend (best friend), Cat Valentine, sing a song that Jade just finished writing.

She sighs.

"What's wrong, hon?" Cat asks, plopping down next to Jade.

"Beckett Oliver."

"Woah!"

"We... hook up - "

"Holy shiznit," Cat says, impressed, blowing a rudely-shaped smoke ring.

"Ew," Jade coughed. "And he said he loved me, but he's taking stupid Head-Cheerleader, Student-Body-President Tori Vega to her moronic 'Prome'... I'm just so confused!"

"Well, I can help with that..." Cat says - no, purrs - and straddles Jade's hips, kissing the taller, slightly geeky punker and using the hand not supporting her weight to unzip Jade's skirt and slide one hand up to where only Beck had ever been.

And Jade, her indie-glasses fogging up, and just let her.

Because if you can't see your happy ending, why shouldn't you try to forget?

Inhale, breathe steady, exhale, like you're ready, if you're ready or not.
Just a boy and a girl trying to take on the world, and we want to get caught.
In the middle of a very happy ending, let's see what we've got, let's give it a shot.
Let's give it a shot.

Breathing deeply, trying to keep calm, Jade strode up to the tree in his yard and climbed up to his room.

"I love you, Beckett Oliver," she whispered, climbing into his bed. "I want to get caught. I want everyone to know."

"Not now, Jadey."

We basked in the haze - what he called 'after-glow' - and he traced lines on the ticklish back of my leg.

"Can I tell? Please. I want to be with you. I want everything I have to give you to be yours, and that includs me being your girlfriend. I want to walk down the halls holding your hand and kissing you against my lockers and being able to point down the halls and say 'That is my boyfriend'. I want - "

"I said I loved you. Isn't that enough?" he half-groan, half-slurrs, and she feels something snap.

"Well," she says angrily, "I gave it a shot."

And she throws the earrings he gave her - emerald, sapphire, and amethyst feathers in a 24Kgold setting - onto his bed and climbs out the window.

"And if you want me again, don't even consider it. Because this is how you know that I'm the better one out of the two of us."

We all want to know, how it ends.

The time is unimportant.

All you need to know is that it is three years later, and she is the youngest, richest author in America. Not the author of the moment, but an honest-to-God Shakespeare-reborn.

So why is she watching a tanned, shirtless man dancing around a pole?

"I told you, Beckett," she laughs over her Cowboy, "I'm the better one of us."

She stands, dumps her drink on the floor, and stuffs a five into the waist of his shorts. "Have fun, Trust Fund Baby."

She should feel vindicated, happy, exhilarated.

So why does she want to run back there and say, 'I'm sorry, I love you, don't be mad'?

Why does she want him to say he does, too?

We all have a story to tell.
Whether we whisper or yell.
We all have a story, of adolescence and all it's glory.
We all have a story to tell.

Here is my story, she types angrily that night, frantically trying to sort out her feelings.

PArents divorced, Daddy a banker, Mommy dies a few months later, Jadey grows up with nannies and step-mommies only a few years older than her. She seeks acceptance, finds it in Caterina Valentine, bad-arse lesbian who she sleeps with at a moment of weakness, and Beckett Oliver - but we'll get to him later. After they break up due to him disappointing her and using her millions of times, she goes on to become a famous rich writer.

His story, she types, with slightly sweeter fingertips and a small smile that she quickly shoves away.

Is one of falling from grace. He is born in to a rich family, with every privilege - looks, money, charm, talent. He gets everything he wants until he finds out that he got Tori Vega pregnant at Prome. He is shunned by his family and becomes a male stripper to pay for the mere survival he craves.

Their story, she smiles, wiping at her eyes.

She still oves him. And now she has to apologise.

"I'm sorry, Beck," she says, as he stands there in a beat up(probably second- or third- or eighteenth-hand, she thinks) leather jacket and smokes a long thin cigarette with the fingers that used to pluck out melodies on the guitar for her songs and that used to pluck notes from deep inside her that made her feel things she'd never felt before (or since).

"I'm the one who should apologise. I used you for sex. I said I loved you, and that was a lie."

"Oh..."

"It was. I think, if we give it time, I probably could."

"Good. Now, come on. My house is actually clean. And not the size of a ring-box."

And, yes, because this is BeckandJade, they do end up in bed together, but this time he doesn't say he loves her and she doesn't try all that hard to make him happy. No expectations, no regrets.

And in three months time, he says those three words, and she half-wants to ask for a polygraph, because how can she trust him?

And then, of course, she posts on her blog:

Dear reader, have you ever been in love?

Because she thinks she is.

And then, she knows.

We all have a story to tell.
We all have a story to tell.
We all have a story to tell.
We all have a story to tell.

We all have a story to tell, dear reader.

So don't try to skip to the end. Just sit back, turn the page, and enjoy the ride.

So here it is! Yet another story for you, ashyboo02, and its Bade again. Yeah, seems like I just keep writing near-smut for them, huh? (If you squint, you might want to make me change the rating to M - sorry, but I won't, because, really, who squints?) R&R!