A/N: THANK YOU SO MUCH Emmy7399, Maddyliza1234, M, compdancer, and the two Guests, y'all made my day! This chapter is for y'all!

And to Maddyliza—I'm really glad you like Ella! I was hoping people would… I like her too :)

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Kickin' It or any of these characters except my OC, Ella.


Chapter Two

I started out my day with Cheerios, like usual, mostly because they were quick. Every now and then I would stop by McDonald's on the way to the dojo for their breakfast, but I tried not to do that a lot because that was bad for me. My parents never let me have McDonald's, or just about any fast food place when I lived with them, because fast food was for the weak.

So was coffee, though, which I had brewing as I poured milk into my bowl of cereal. But that was because I rarely got a full eight hours of sleep anymore. Once work was over, I wanted to do something with my friends, and then we stayed out too late, and if I didn't have plans and tried falling asleep at ten, like I did when I lived with my parents, I just couldn't do it. I was too wired.

I moved out a little over a year ago, just before I turned nineteen, and my Dad was terrified for me. He knew I wouldn't stick to my schedule without him around to pull me out of bed at seven in the morning and drag me to our home gym for my morning workout. My Dad always reminded me that order is one of the most important things in life. If I got up just an hour later today, I would want to do it tomorrow too. If I skipped my morning workout today, I would want to tomorrow too. Just a small change in plans could alter the way I viewed everything, and suddenly all order was lost, and my life was chaos. That was what my Dad explained to me when I was little, whenever I asked him to let me stay home from practice.

"Just for today!" I would beg him.

"If you do it today, you'll want to do it tomorrow. We can't break order. You know that, Jack," he would gently remind me, giving me a pat on the back.

I'd sigh, but I wouldn't bother saying anything else. I'd just get in his truck and I didn't complain any after that. He was right, after all. Everything depended on order.

But order wasn't something I thought about much anymore. I did whatever I had to do to get through my day and sometimes it was bad for me. My days weren't necessarily bad, though, just kind of dull. I missed having my friends around to make things exciting. When they were there, something was always going on to keep me busy.

If I was honest, I was counting on Jerry to come back sometime soon. For the time being, he was happy in Chicago with Erica, but he had only known her six months before he left to go live with her, and, well, that didn't seem promising to me. I didn't expect it to last. Jerry wasn't one to make great decisions anyway.

"He is so stupid," Ella had said about him once when he came up in conversation, about a week after he left. "He just doesn't think about stuff. He acts purely on emotion. It's dangerous. He's always been that way, though."

She was right about that. I had never known Jerry to think.

As wrong as it was, a part of me did hope something went wrong in Chicago so that he would come back and I would at least have someone else at the dojo.

Rudy still ran it, but when I got there he always took off. He'd gotten married to Ms. Applebaum, my old health teacher, two years ago, and now they had a six month old baby—Rudy Jr., of course, because what else would Rudy have named his son? Ever since he'd been born Rudy stayed with him because Bethany still taught at school. He decided I could handle the dojo myself, just like he once did, and I could, but that didn't mean I wanted to.

When I walked in the door, Rudy was already waiting on me, standing by the entrance with a stroller. Rudy Jr. was sleeping peacefully in it.

"Hey Jack!" Rudy greeted me in his quiet 'the baby is sleeping' voice. "You're a little late. I mean, but that's okay."

I rolled my eyes at him tiredly.

"You can handle it by yourself today, right?" He asked, just as he did every day.

"Yes. I handle it by myself every day," I retorted, letting my voice get a little too loud.

He held a finger up to his mouth in a 'shh' motion, then pointed down to the stroller. "Keep your voice down. I'll see you at, like, five, then," he said the last part in a jolly tone, like he didn't catch on to my annoyance.

"Okay!" I exclaimed, purposely speaking loudly.

He shh'd me angrily before leaving the dojo.

That was that.

I spent the the majority of the day teaching mostly kids, some teenagers, and a couple of adults with white belts basic karate. I only had two classes of the more advanced belts, but that still wasn't exciting enough for me.

I hadn't made friends with any of the students, not like Rudy had with us, and that upset me. I tried, but I didn't even really get along with any of them. But again, most of them were kids, and I had never been good with kids. They were annoying and I could never know what they were going to say or do. They made me incredibly uncomfortable.

When five o'clock finally came around, I texted Ella to see if she wanted to do anything. A few minutes later I got a text back that said:

pizza party for two at my house?

Pizza. Another thing my parents never allowed me to eat. Without hesitating, I responded with a 'YES'. My Dad would have died.

At about that same time, Rudy walked in—strollerless this time. He came back when I left and stayed until around eight, doing all the paperwork he needed to do and making all the calls he needed to make to keep the dojo running.

"All right. You are dismissed," Rudy announced to me formally, jokingly, and gestured toward the door. "Unless you wanna stay and help me—"

"I have plans!" I cut him off, holding a hand up.

He laughed. "Aw okay. Are your plans with Ella, maybe?" He asked, raising his eyebrows and nudging me as if we were in fifth grade.

I smiled, pushing him away. "Yes, they are. Goodbye Rudy."

"Have fun. Not too much fun, but a little fun," Rudy called out as I walked away, and I waved behind me in response.

At Ella's, we sat on her yellow couch in her yellow house and drank Dr. Pepper out of her yellow cups. We ate pizza and watched Glee, a show I never liked or disliked, and a show Ella had just started watching and loved. Her Dad was at the hospital again, so we were alone.

I was alone in a big nice house with my girlfriend. Her bedroom was upstairs. I had been in it once before when she forgot to get her purse, and I waited in the doorway and just took a look around. Her walls were painted an annoying bright shade of yellow, which didn't surprise me. Her bedspread was white with yellow lemons on it and green leaves. Everything else was pure white. All the furniture—her two end tables, her dresser, her TV stand (with a big, ancient-looking TV on it), her desk (with a nice, brand new Mac on it). She grabbed her white bag from where it sat on her end table and slung it over her shoulder, then closed her Macbook that was laying on her bed.

"Sorry it's kinda messy," she said, smiling over at me.

I looked around the room again when she said that, thinking I must have missed the mess and noticed a white dress splayed out across the floor in the corner of her room. A yellow polka-dotted glass was sitting empty on her nightstand. She had a box of crackers on her bed, which she picked up and took downstairs when we left. And that was it.

Literally, that was it, that was the 'mess'. I didn't say anything then, but if she thought her room was messy then I wouldn't be inviting her to my apartment any time soon, or any time ever.

Her room was a lot like her, though.

So I thought about her and her bedroom while I pretended to be interested in whatever the hell was going on on Glee. I tried imagining being with her on that lemon-printed comforter. Kissing her, kissing her, and then… that was where my daydream stopped. I couldn't imagine sleeping with Ella. I don't know if it was because it was obvious that she was religious, from her cross necklace and her rosary bracelet and just the way she acted in general, or because of the intimidatingly large painting of the Virgin Mary on the wall overlooking us, but my imagination wasn't going there. Then again, it might have just been because I had only ever had sex once before. I didn't know. I had never felt quite the same way about sex as other people had. It never meant as much to me.

I looked to Ella, who was watching Finn and Rachel intently. The TV was the only light in the room and it illuminated her spotless silky skin. I reached over and lightly put my hand on her shoulder, then she scooted closer, so that we were pressed against each other.

I turned to her and kissed her, my lips practically enveloping hers, which were thin but soft. We moved together as one, so that I was almost on top of her. She clasped her hands around my neck, tracing my lips gently with her tongue. She was always gentle. In words and actions.

I was hoping we would get somewhere that night—though I knew we probably wouldn't—because I wanted to get that over with so it wouldn't have to be that Big Huge Thing towering over us anymore. But it didn't happen.

Instead, my phone rang, and I broke apart from her. I pulled it out of my pocket and rolled my eyes at Rudy's name on the screen.

"I guess I'll… take this. Sorry," I told Ella.

"It's fine," she promised me, smiling. She tugged on the bottom of her black t-shirt, which had come up slightly.

"Hello?" I answered Rudy, only sounding a little annoyed.

"I need you to come back," Rudy told me seriously.

"What? I can't. I told you I had plans."

"Yes, but I really need your help over here."

"Rudy. I'm busy."

"Yes, I know! With Ella! And I'm sorry, I don't meant to screw up your date, but this is urgent," he swore, and he did sound like he was nervous about something. "You know I wouldn't ask you if I didn't really need you to."

"What is it, then?" I asked impatiently.

"Jack, just come."


A/N: So how do y'all feel about the turns everyone's lives have taken since the end of season 4? Is it what you expected from them? And do you like Jack and Ella or no?

Please leave me a review if you're enjoying this so I'll know to continue! :)