Author's Note: Thank you so much for all of the reviews, follows, & favorites so far. You guys are the best.
So, this is supposed to be Chapter One, because that first one was just a prologue, but this website lists it as Chapter Two. So I guess I'll just go with that so it doesn't get confusing.
"Jade, I'm here!"
Cat Valentine's high-pitched voice rings through the apartment, prompting Jade to call her into the kitchen.
"Tat!" Shiloh squeals from her high chair, where she's munching on Cheerios and banana slices. "Taaaaaat!"
Jade is sitting at the kitchen table, desperately trying to finish her homework before her class starts in thirty minutes. "Shiloh, don't yell," she says as she moves her pencil furiously across the page.
"I love Tuesdays and Thursdays," Cat comments giddily as she takes a seat across from Jade. The bubbly redhead is referring to the two days a week that she watches Shiloh for three hours in the morning, while her best friend attends classes at USC from nine to noon. As she turns in her chair to face Shiloh, she tickles her and talks in her baby-directed voice. "How's the cutest baby girl in the world tod—"
"Cat," Jade interrupts in a frustrated tone, "please. I have to finish this assignment and I couldn't do it yesterday because Shiloh had a check-up."
"Sorry," she whispers, and proceeds to sit quietly while watching the sixteen-month-old eat her breakfast.
When Jade's finally done and ready for class, she (unnecessarily) thanks Cat, kisses her daughter's head, and rushes out the door.
"Okay, Baby Shi, guess what we're gonna do today?!"
Shiloh stares at her frequent babysitter with her wide, blue-green eyes as she shoves another banana slice into her mouth.
Cat is still grinning. "I'm going to help you learn your animal noises! I bet your momma and da—" Cat immediately cuts herself off, her cheeks flushing hot as she fears that Shiloh will finish her word. Lucky for her, the baby is barely paying attention. "…I bet your momma will love that," she completes, smiling nervously.
"Here," she offers, pulling Shiloh out of the high chair, "let's go sit on the couch. I brought a book for you." After the redhead bends over and grabs the colorful, noise-making toddler book out of her bag, she plops into the couch and gets the baby comfortably on her lap.
"Oink! Moo! How do you do?" Cat exclaims as she begins the first line of the book.
As she reads through the different animals and the sounds that they make, she plays the accompanying noise so that Shiloh can have it reinforced. "Okay, this one's super important! I think if you can do this one, you can help cheer up your momma!" Of course, Shiloh doesn't understand what she's saying, but continues listening to the story.
"We do this when we want to take a whiff; do like a bunny and show a little sniff!" Cat mimics the sniffling action, scrunching her nose for the little girl to copy.
"Ba-ba-ba," Shiloh babbles meaninglessly instead.
"C'mon, Shi! Sniff, sniff! You can do it!"
To Cat's great surprise, the sixteen-month-old crinkles her tiny nose and sniffles several times.
"Oh my god, yaaay!" Cat rejoices as she tickles the baby everywhere in an exciting fit.
…
"Hey," Jade greets tiredly as she swings open the door of her apartment. "Was everything okay?"
"Mama!" Shiloh shrieks, squirming out of Cat's arms to get to her mom. When she's walked as quickly as possible over to Jade, she reaches her hands out and gets immediately picked up.
"Were you good for Cat?" Jade asks rhetorically, kissing her daughter's cheek.
"Yep!" Cat answers proudly. "She was perfect, just like usual." Jade sinks into the couch next to her best friend, setting Shiloh on her lap. "She has something to show you, too!"
"Oh, god."
"No, no; it's good! I promise you'll like it! Shiloh, what does the bunny say?"
Jade watches in anticipation, positive that her airheaded best friend couldn't have taught her daughter to make the noise on command.
Sniffle. Sniffle.
Jade can't help but grin at the cutest thing she thinks she's ever seen Shiloh do. When she wrinkles her nose, her whole little face scrunches up in an undeniably adorable way. She immediately wishes that Beck were there to capture the moment on video, and has to think twice when she almost grabs her phone to send a clip of Shiloh's new trick to him.
Jade is laughing as she watches her daughter dance around, bouncing her knees up and down and moving her little arms back and forth. The music from her red PearPad is playing rather loudly in the apartment, providing a beat for the active baby girl. Jade doesn't even hesitate to grab her phone out of her bag, quickly flipping it onto video mode.
"Look here, Shi! Look at Momma," Jade coos as she begins recording the fourteen-month-old. Shiloh continues dancing obliviously to the music as her amused mom captures twenty seconds of the cuteness.
"Say hi to Dada!"
"Dada?" She repeats, immediately intrigued.
"Yeah, wave hi," Jade encourages.
"Dada," she mumbles through a precious smile as she waves her tiny hand at the pearphone.
Once Jade's finished recording, she sends the video to her husband, who responds promptly.
Text [from Beck]: looks like she's got her dad's moves! ;)
"Did she mention him at all?"
"Nope," Cat answers honestly, waiting for her best friend to speak again.
"I don't know why… I just keep waiting for his name to appear on my phone."
Cat makes a genuinely sympathetic face as she looks from Jade to her pearphone. "I'm sorry, Jade."
"No, don't be," Jade sighs. "I need to get over it."
Cat is quiet for a few seconds, and senses the need to brighten the moment. "Well…something else exciting did happen while you were gone…"
"Tell me."
"Remember how I auditioned for this year's winter musical?"
"Yeah," Jade replies as she absentmindedly plays with Shiloh's hair.
"The director just called me and… I got the lead!"
An instant twinge of jealousy hits Jade the second the words leave Cat's lips. It's always been her dream to play the lead in a major musical—particularly one for the USC Theater Department—and it kills her that she'll probably never get to do it. While the intensely demanding schedule wouldn't be too much for Jade to handle—rather, she'd love the pressure—she doesn't want to have to constantly leave her daughter with a nanny.
"Wow," Jade compliments, pulling herself back to the present, "congrats, Cat. That's amazing."
The redhead grins. "I know; I'm so excited! I promise I'll still have time to babysit Shi, cause rehearsals are just all afternoon until the week of the show."
"You really don't have to worry about that. I can always figure something else out," Jade answers, very unsure of her words.
"I know you could, Jadey. But I love babysitting her, and I'll always make time for it."
Jade gives her a small smile, subsequently checking her phone for the time. "You should probably get going. Don't you have class in like, twenty minutes?"
"Oh… yeah," Cat mutters disappointedly, rising from the couch and grabbing her backpack off the floor.
"Thanks again," Jade says.
"You're welcome," she replies in her usual airy tone. "Bye, Baby Shi! I'll see you girls later!" With that, she swings open the door of the apartment and heads off to her class.
Sniffle. Sniffle.
At the sound of her daughter's sniffing, Jade has to laugh as she looks down at Shiloh. "Are you a bunny now?"
Sniffle.
Jade grins. "You're an awfully cute bunny, that's for sure. Do you want to go play?"
"Ya!" The baby girl exclaims, showing off one of her words as she nods her head.
In response, Jade stands up with her daughter and walks over to her play area portion of the living room. When she puts Shiloh down, the toddler walks over to her favorite toy and points to it while babbling excitedly.
"Okay," Jade says, sitting down in front of her, "show me."
Shiloh eagerly looks at the wooden toy, a box-shaped thing with holes fitted for differently colored blocks. Jade watches proudly as the baby places the cylinder blocks in their places and then picks up the wooden toy hammer.
"Mama," she offers, holding out the hammer for her mom to push the blocks in.
"No, you do it," Jade encourages with a smile. "Show me how you do it."
Shiloh giggles—like she does every time they play with this toy—and begins knocking the blocks into the box with the hammer. "Good job, Shi," Jade cheers. "Do it again!"
Just as Jade's helping her reset the blocks, she hears a knock at the door and rises to answer it. When she opens the door, she sees a red-faced Tori trying to hold back more tears.
"Vega?"
"Jade…" Tori says softly, "are you busy?"
Jade is slightly taken aback; it isn't as if she and Tori haven't kept in contact—their group of friends is good about getting together every once in a while—but for her to show up crying at her apartment is pretty surprising, to say the least.
"Um…no, not really," Jade answers. "Do you…want to come in?"
Tori sniffles and nods her head. "Please."
Jade steps back from the door, allowing the girl to walk through the entrance, and then shuts it behind her. They walk over to the furniture, where Jade sits on the couch and Tori sinks into a chair. "So…why are you here?"
Tori takes a deep breath. "I know it's sort of weird that I'm coming to you for help, but I figured that we sort of have a history for helping each other out when needed…right?"
Jade can't deny the comment; it's completely true. She herself had gone to Tori to help her get back together with Beck and help her get an abortion when she thought she wanted one, neither of which were easy things to do. "I guess," she answers.
"Um," Tori sniffles again, "okay. Well, I… I sort of…"
"Just spit it out."
Tori swallows hard. "I'm sort of…um…pregnant."
Jade doesn't have time to really process the words that escape Tori's mouth, because Shiloh begins to cry from where she's sitting. Both of the girls turn their heads towards the baby girl, and Jade gets up to pick her daughter up. "Just…hold on," Jade mutters to Tori before turning to face Shiloh in her arms. "What's wrong?"
When she looks down at the area where Shiloh had been playing, she sees that she had spilled her sippy cup of milk onto the carpet.
Her noises quiet down once she's in her mom's arms, but she's still crying. "Miiiill," she sobs.
"Okay, you're okay," Jade coos. "I'll get you some more; don't be dramatic." She turns back towards Tori as Shiloh lays her head on her shoulder. "I'll be right back. Don't move," she says, and heads into the kitchen.
Once she's refilled the sippy cup and cleaned up the mess, Jade returns to the couch—this time with Shiloh sitting in her lap, contently drinking her milk.
"Sorry, this is probably a bad time—"
"It's fine," Jade interrupts, and then takes a deep breath. "Are you sure?"
Tori nods her head. "I took seven pregnancy tests, and I'm really, really late."
"Okay…" Jade wants to criticize her; how could she and Andre have been so careless—especially after seeing through Beck and Jade how hard it is to raise a child this young? However, she knows she doesn't have any room to talk, and has to be a voice of reason. "Do you…want to keep it?"
More tears fall from Tori's eyes at the question. "I can't get an abortion. I really, really don't think I can do it. I've always been against it, and I don't think I could go through with it."
Jade sighs. "Look, I'm not gonna say I wish I'd gotten one, because I really don't. Sure, things suck sometimes and I've given up tons to keep her…but she's all I've got." Jade almost chokes on her own words, but she's not about to have a sisterly sob session with her frenemy, and does all she can to successfully hold her eyes from watering. "She's literally why I'm still here."
There's a silence for about a minute before Jade speaks again. "I mean, it could be worse… You and Andre have been dating for what, like, a little over a year now? He's a good guy; I'm sure he'll at least be okay with it, and it's not like you don't live in the same city… You guys could probably make it work."
As soon as Jade finishes her sentence, Tori bursts into a fit of tears and lets her face fall into her palms.
"Look," Jade mutters, getting impatient, "if you're not even going to talk, I don't know why—"
"I don't know if it's Andre's," she cries.
Jade's eyes involuntarily widen at Tori's interruption. "Wha—what? What do you mean you don't know if it's his? Did you cheat on him?"
"It wasn't cheating," Tori answers immediately. "We broke up for…a few days…about a month ago. I was drunk, and—"
"Who's is it?"
Tori sighs. "It's either Andre's…or…Ryder Daniels's."
Jade's eyebrows shoot up. "Ryder Daniels? As in, the guy you—"
"Yes," Tori finishes. "I know, it was stupid. It was more than stupid; it was life-ruining. And maybe I'm a whore or—"
"Hey," Jade interrupts sternly, motioning with her head to her impressionable daughter, who tries to repeat everything anyone says.
"Sorry," Tori says quickly. "Oh my god, I'd be the worst mom ever," she moans, beginning to cry again.
"Vega," Jade retorts, snapping her fingers, "pull yourself together. Listen, I know it's scary and whatever…but you need to tell him. It's only fair that Andre knows. You've gotta go to the doctor and find out whose it is as soon as possible."
Tori frowns. "I know… I was just wondering if maybe you'd…go with me? I really normally wouldn't ask because I know how busy you are with Shiloh, but I can't ask Cat and I just really don't want to go alone."
Jade knows that she still owes Tori for a multitude of things and, as much as she hates it, turning her down in her time of need would be a really low blow. "Yeah," she sighs. "I'll go… I'm no stranger to the OB-GYN wing… I'll have to bring Shi with me, though."
"Thank you so much. You have no idea how much I—"
"Actually, I do," Jade cuts in, causing Tori to take another deep breath.
"Right," she says. "Well…thanks. I guess I'll schedule an appointment and let you know."
As the girls get up for Tori to head towards the door, Jade sees that Shiloh, who's usually going down for her nap about now, has fallen asleep on her mom's chest. "I'll talk to you later," Jade says causally.
"Yeah. Thanks again, Jade," Tori repeats before closing the door.
…
"Shhh… Shiloh, shhh… Momma's here."
As Jade walks into her daughter's room, which is just a few feet away from the door of her own, she tries to hush the baby's cries. Shiloh continues to wail, though, until her mom pulls her out of her crib and starts to rock her. "Momma's here," she whispers again.
After she'd hit the ten-month mark, it had been uncharacteristic of Shiloh to ever wake up during the night; Beck and Jade could always get her to sleep through at least an eight-hour night. Since Beck's been gone, though, Jade finds herself up with Shiloh on a more frequent basis—sometimes up to three nights a week. She'd initially thought it a load of crap for his absence to actually affect their daughter to this level, but there's no denying the difference it's made for the sixteen-month-old.
As usual, Jade's able to calm the baby down within five minutes. She walks over with her to the rocking chair and, upon sitting down, begins singing Shiloh back to sleep.
"You are my sunshine…my only sunshine…"
