When He Met Her. A Bade Fanfiction.
Summary: When he first met her, she was the opposite of what she is now. What caused her big appearance change?
Disclaimer: I don't own Victorious or Bridge to Terabithia, nor do I own the characters from either. This is a work of fanfiction, nothing more.
Note: This chapter goes much, much faster, just so you all know. And I'm still having trouble with those damned tenses!
•••
A month of school has passed, and, because half of their schedules match up, Beck and Jade become acquaintances. They each run with their own crowds, but during their classes, they find time to have quick conversations.
About two weeks into the school year, Jade introduces Beck to the red-haired girl, who is also in their acting class. Her name is Cat. He doesn't know what it's short for or if it's just a pet name - no pun intended - but then, she doesn't know what Beck is short for, either. She's eccentric, like Jade, but in her own respect. And she's easily offended. He learns this quickly.
The first week of October, they get their first book assignment in Language Arts/Reading. The book is Bridge to Terabithia, and they have until Halloween before they have to finish it. Miss Page gives them a schedule of checkpoints, so they'll know which chapter should be read by when, and the days on which there are chapter quizzes. She gives them the rest of the period to start reading.
•••
When class starts the next day, Beck is already halfway through the book.
Jade notices that his bookmark has travelled more pages than hers has and snatches Beck's book from his desk. "How far are you in this?" She asks. Before he can answer, she sees just how many pages he's passed. "Wow!"
He takes his book back.
They're silent for a minute.
"So have you noticed," Jade starts, "that Jess and Leslie are a lot like you and me?"
"I guess I never really thought of that," he pauses. She's used to him pausing by now, and she gives him time to gather his thoughts. "I could see it." But there were more differences than similarities. Jess and Leslie are best friends; Beck and Jade are just classroom buddies. But, there's their love for acting, and that sort of parallels Jess' and Leslie's love for running. Although, he's sort of figured that Jess and Leslie have feelings for each other. Did Jade see that, or was she speaking stricly platonic? "Yeah, it does make sense."
She nods, satisfied with his answer. "We should find a Terabithia," she says quietly, more too herself than to him.
"Hmm?"
"A Terabithia," she repeats, intentionally speaking up. "Like, a safe place or something? More like a hangout that anything."
He wrinkles his brow. "There aren't any cool forests around here, though."
"Well," she giggles, which causes him to blush a little bit. She doesn't notice. "It doesn't have to be a forest. It could be… someone's basement, or a park, or just a bench. Just somewhere that you, me, and Cat could all hang out."
Oh, so Cat's coming, too?
Class is going to start soon. When this time comes around, they usually make their replies short and sweet. "Sounds cool."
She nods. After a few seconds, she says, "I'll work on it."
"Work on what?"
She giggles again. He stares at her smile. "Finding a Terabithia."
•••
By the end of the day, Cat has been informed of the plan and says she knows of the perfect spot. "There's, like, this ditch where I used to go dry-sledding in the wintertime with my brother, and it's so cool! I haven't been there since I was four, because my brother got really hurt one time. It's kind of abandoned now, sort of like this one haunted house my family went to. They don't think it was haunted, but I th–"
Jade cuts her off, knowing that she's divulged the most important information, and the rest is just a pointless story. "Let's go, then!"
There's a gate near the ditch, but it's nothing to sneeze at. It looks like a house's gate, just lacking the "Beware of Dog" sign.
"Come on!" Cat says eagerly, and pushes the door to the fence aside. She runs with her arms outstretched, as if she was in a commercial.
Beck turns to Jade. He's comfortable enough with her to playfully flirt, and she's comfortable enough to let him. "Madame?" He says, offering his elbow for her to take so they can walk into the ditch together.
"Oui, monsieur." She hooks her elbow in his, and they walk toward Cat, who has reached the outskirts of the ditch.
Cat reaches her arms to a Ta-da position. "What do you think?"
The ditch is deeper than it is wide, but not by much. If it were to rain, it would fill up pretty quickly, but it was roomy and better than anything Beck or Jade had to offer.
Jade nods her approval and Cat claps. "Yay!"
"So I say we come here every day after school. We should make this our safe place," Beck says, using the words safe place just as Jade had in English class.
"Agreed." Jade says from his left. Cat repeats it.
The three of them sit down and just talk for a while, mostly about their Acting class, and the boring teacher they have for it.
All the while, Beck studies Jade and memorizes some of her mannerisms: the way she always pushes her hair out of her face right before she's ready to tell a story; how she checks for split ends when Cat goes off on a tangent when telling a story; how, whenever she cracks a joke that goes over Cat's head, Jade will wink at him, knowing he understood it.
As promised, they met the next day as well, and every day on through October. These daily visits became time for group work on homework, study sessions, and - on the rare occasion that no homework was assigned - card games.
They work on their final Bridge to Terabithia take-home quiz together one day at the end of the month and, with extra time before they have to leave for dinner, Cat starts randomly interrogating Beck.
"So, Beck."
"So, Cat."
"Who do you like?" She blurts quickly, and earns a light slap on her arm from Jade. "Ow! It's just a question!"
Beck looks from Jade to Cat, but mostly to Jade. He has long since admitted to himself that he has a crush on her, but she is really good at hiding her feelings, because he has no idea how she feels about him. "Uh…" Around these two, he rarely found himself speechless anymore, but this question - to say the least - caught him off-guard.
"You're making him uncomfortable!" Saved by the Jade.
"No, I'm not," Cat said, sure of her words. "Am I, Beck?"
"Well, Cat, to be honest… Yeah, I'm a little bit uncomfortable with that question. I wish you hadn't asked it." He reaches behind his head to scratch his neck and avoids eye contact with Cat. This is when she usually loses it and gets offended.
"What's that supposed to mean?" She asked, her catch phrase a mix of fury and hurt. "I don't see why it's such a big deal!" Cat started to stand up. "All I asked was who you liked, Beck."
"Well, Cat," He started softly, standing to meet her, "who do you like."
She pressed her lips together. "I don't have to tell," she said, childishly shaking her head back and forth with each word.
Beck sighed and sat back down. Cat followed soon after, with an expression that said she'd forgotten why she was standing.
Every so often for weeks after that, Cat presses and presses for Beck to answer the question. At one point, she even slips, "But Jade told me who she likes!" That didn't make much sense to Beck. Cat never asked Jade who she liked in front of him; he was the only one who got bombarded with questions.
"Cat," Jade scolds, and quickly looks at Beck to see if he's caught the slip.
Yeah, he's caught it.
"Okay," Jade sighs, "don't be mad, but sometimes Cat and I just come here by ourselves. Alone. On the weekends or when you're out sick from school. And we just… gossip." She shrugs, though still embarrassed that she even has to explain this. Cat shouldn't have slipped it. "It's boring girl stuff anyways. She asks me questions, I ask her questions…"
"So you have anti-Beck meetings?"
"No, no, no," Jade says, then laughs a little at how defensive he got. "Wow, uh, no. We don't just talking about you. We talk about everyone; even that André kid you're friends with." He nods. He hadn't missed it when she said just talking about you. Maybe he wasn't their only topic, but he was, without a doubt, a topic of conversation. "But… Yeah, I mean, don't even worry about it." She waved it off, unconvincingly.
"Yeah," Cat says, trying to help, "we talk about you sometimes, but it's not, like, centered around you or anything. Although there was that one day when we centered the conversation around"–his ears perk up–"monkeys and how adorable they are." And back down they go. "Their paws are just so cute, don't you think? Or is that dogs that have paws… Why am I drawing a blank? Maybe it's because I hit my head this morning and…" Jade rolls her eyes, and she and Beck let Cat keep talking, but they drown her out.
The two of them just lay on the grass next to each other, staring up at the sky.
•••
It's the last week of seventh grade. Finals - or "finals" - are over for the middle schoolers, and on the last day of school, all of the classes are free-for-alls.
In Language Arts/Reading, Miss Page hands out jolly ranchers to everyone. Jade and Beck are sitting atop their desks, facing each other. Cat is talking to her partner from the first day of school on the other side of the room.
Jade leans forward so Beck can hear her over the crowd noise. "What are we going to do when school's over?" She was talking about The Ditch - their own, personal Terabithia. "How are we going to know when to meet?"
Beck leans in as well, and Jade's face is so close he could kiss her if he wanted to. He'd just have to lean in another inch and their lips would be locked. Her lips. He was staring again.
"Eaaarrthhh to Beeeckkk!" Jade said. She fluctuated her voice in such a way every time he zoned out to get his attention back. She knew where he was staring - most of the time her lips, but sometimes she catches him staring at her ass, too. Never once in the boobs, though. He's a little too afraid of getting caught to even dare. She knows he likes her - or, at least, that's the impression she's getting - but she likes to play the game of Chase. And she hasn't decided if she's ready to admit to anyone but Cat that she likes him, too.
"Sorry, The Ditch, right…" He crashes back to reality, and looks her in the eye. "I don't know, Jade, I think we can just play it by ear." He shrugs. "We could set a time for every day, but really?" He shakes his head, deciding it's not a good idea. They were teenagers, and their sleep schedules were unpredictable. "But, I was thinking: maybe we could just all text each other when we wanted to hang at The Ditch?"
Jade blinks. This should have come to her, but it didn't. That actually makes perfect sense. "I don't have your number, though." She realizes that it's true. All of their plans were made during school hours, and their Ditch meetings took place right after school, so there was no confusion. Each member of the trio had a cell phone, but they never really used them for each other.
At the end of the last day of school, Jade and Cat exchange phone numbers with Beck, and they walk over to The Ditch.
•••
I have a bribe! Five reviews before I update. Chapter three is my favorite chapter yet, so it's worth it! Remember, criticism is always welcome.