Sorry I always take so long to update this; I have a lot on my Fanfiction to do list :P

"You told me you would never leave me!" Cat shouts, eyes watering with tears, her hands bunched in small fists.

Jade rocks on her feet, as if unsure whether to take a step backward or forward. "Times change."

"The only thing that's changed is you."

The redhead turns, crimson fanning out behind her and leaving Jade standing alone.

"That was perfect!" Their substitute teacher who was from the high school (did his class at his school have a teacher?) praised. "Well done, Jade and Cat." The man had brown hair and wore unusual clothes along with a pair of sandals. "Raise your hand if you thought they did a good job!" The class raised their hands. "Good, good." The teacher, whose name was something unusual (Psycho something, Cat knew) snatched his carton of eggnog from a shelf as he walked back to the front of the classroom.

Cat and Jade took their seats at the back. Jade smiles and dabs the forced tears off Cat's cheek.

"You did a good job."

"Thanks." Cat says with a radiant smile, wrapping her arms around her friend. "So did you."

"Stop that; we're in public."

It's been almost four days since the day the two girls stared up at the clouds and talked about animals. Jade locks the memory in an iron safe placed in her mind, the steel walls much too thick for someone her age. Cat simply allows the memory to replay before she goes to bed, a smile on her face. The bell rings and Jade walks Cat to her next class as usual, falling in step with the redheaded girl to her locker plastered with pick and red. As Cat reaches to the back to put up one of her books, her shirt exposes a line of skin above her waist and Jade begins to frown when she thinks she catches a glimpse of black and blue on the creamy skin.

She reaches out with midnight blue painted fingernails (Cat had said it was one of her favorite colors on Jade) and flipped up the hem of Cat's shirt. An ugly, crescent-shaped bruise, maybe the length of Jade's thumb is clearly marked. Cat quickly pulls away, yanking her shirt down. Jade raises her brows.

"I - it's nothing." Cat says quickly. It's obvious that Jade doesn't buy it and her murky green eyes sharpen to emerald. "I fell the other day."

"Then why didn't you tell me?" Cat ducks her head as Jade begins using the slow, deliberate tone that made many of the children in Hollywood Arts whimper and duck their heads (later on Jade would learn to perfect this tone to make anyone freeze up in place and add her green eyes with daggers to it). Cat mumbles, unable to get a reply out. Jade sighs. "Just tell me where it came from. I know you didn't fall."

"I came home yesterday and my dad told me he wanted to play a game." Cat starts, looking down at the ground. "I told him I had a lot of work to do and started going up to my room, but he grabbed my hand and yanked me back. I fell down and I landed on one of his bottles that he usually leaves around the house."

"What kind of bottle?"

"A glass one. Kinda like those glass Coca-Cola bottles you see in the commercials." Jade highly doubts that the bottle was filled with Coca-Cola.

"It didn't break, did it?" Cat hears the concern in her friend's voice, and it makes her look up. "Cat, did it break?"

"No."

"Good." The black-haired girl pauses, and flips Cat's shirt back up. Soft fingers run lightly over the bruise, the fragile redhead biting her lip and doing her best not to twitch against the pain. Jade just barely moves her thumb forward on the bruised skin and Cat yelps. Jade glares at the few students who are gutsy enough to look over, then switches back to Cat who is rearranging her shirt again. "You're coming home with me tonight." She tells Cat in a tone that leaves no room for argument. Jade's parents don't really care what she does anyway (she brought a dead raccoon into the house once and her mother just flipped a page in her book and told her to throw it away).

Cat nods and Jade closes her locker, for once not minding contact with pink that isn't Cat. Jade glances quickly around the hall before taking a step forward and tilting Cat's head up to give her a peck on the top of her head before walking her to her next class.

Short, I know. Writing about Cat's locker makes me realize I've never seen or heard about it on the show, have any of you? And an in-progress Sikowitz, huh? ;)

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