"Can you believe Dex?" Sasha asked, her voice mired with irritation as she stuffed some clothes into her suitcase. "He was supposed to come here and help me pack but instead he's hanging out with the boys!"
"At least he's here, Sash," Jody replied somberly from her perch on top of the chest of drawers, swinging her legs as she peered around the increasingly bare room. "Some of us are constantly let down by our brothers." She looked back at Sasha who was regarding her in a strange manner.
"What is up with you, today? I mean, besides the obvious."
Jody bit her lip, debating whether to tell the truth or not. The truth was that not only was she upset that her closest female confidante was moving out but she was lowkey jealous that Sasha was getting everything that she'd been denied: a mum who wouldn't let her down, a decent man for a stepdad and two brothers who loved her. After all, what was the difference between her and Sasha? They were both stubborn, temperamental Year Tens (Sasha was fifteen, Jody wasn't) who had been disappointed by their respective mothers and unwanted by them at one point. If her mother and brother had made real attempts at cleaning up their acts, Jody would've been in Sasha's place right now (assuming her mother stayed alive and managed to make it work with Grant). Seeing it happen to someone close to her stung, especially now that such a scenario was impossible for her.
Eventually, Jody settled for the truth mixed in with a lie. "I'm just a little down since, you know. She's officially been gone for two weeks today. I keep wondering about the what-ifs."
Sasha's face softened. "You'll always have us, Jody," she stated, approaching the chest of drawers, "... is what I would say if I was a soppy old sod!" She smacked one of Jody's legs out of the way before opening a drawer and yanking rarely seen dresses and skirts out.
"Aren't you?" Jody questioned, wagging her eyebrows. Sasha stopped what she was doing, narrowing her eyes at her. "Candi might've told me about the beach."
"I am going to kill her," Sasha said dryly, continuing to pack. "Did Tyler actually end up bringing you back some rock that day?"
"No," Jody answered, rolling her eyes. "He forgot. Apparently, he was too busy hanging out with Ryan."
Their eyes met just then and they both sniggered. Ryan was still (emotionally) sore after the punch and glared at Jody literally every time they crossed paths. She found it funny - she was the one who was suffering the most because of the lengthy grounding sentence she'd received - although she was a little concerned that he hadn't tried to get back at her for it yet. That wasn't like him at all.
"Oh, well, we all know Tyler's going to get you that all-important rock in about, oh," Sasha teased, stroking her chin in mock thought, "five to ten years."
"Shut up!" Jody hissed, peering out of the doorway to see if anyone was listening. Floss and Taz's room was just across the hall!
Sasha sighed, putting her hands on her hips. "When are you going to tell him?" Jody didn't have to ask Sasha to clarify what exactly she was talking about - she understood her perfectly well. Knowing that their conversation had steered into the serious (read: dangerous) territory, she kicked the door shut.
"Never!" she exclaimed, crossing her arms and looking away.
"Why not? What have you got to lose?"
Jody almost exploded. She hated that question, the same one Candi-Rose had naively asked her a year ago. What have you got to lose? Only everything she'd built up with Tyler ever since she'd gone into care. Friendship, trust, affection. Everything.
"Oh, I don't know, my best friend of six years?!" she nearly yelled. She lowered her voice, remembering that Sasha's room was located in possibly the most snoop-worthy corridor of the whole house. "Besides, he doesn't feel that way about me. I'm just one of the guys to him." Sasha just stared at her like she was stupid. "What?!"
"You are so blind," Sasha stated, shaking her head in... disgust. "Tell me, is Tyler into guys?"
"Uhh... no." Chantal, Sophie, and all of the others Tyler had fancied over the years were all female. She'd certainly never seen him show any interest of that kind in the boys at school and she would know; she spent a worrying amount of time gazing at him.
"Well then why does he flirt with you? If you're such a guy, and everything."
Jody raised an eyebrow. "He doesn't."
"What about yesterday?" Sasha prompted, giving her a pointed look. Jody just furrowed her eyebrows in confusion. "You know, outside the office?"
Oh. She had to refrain from giggling uncharacteristically (which was becoming an increasingly frequent occurrence where Tyler was concerned). Just the day before, Tyler had said something to make her blush as they waited to beg May-Li to unground her early but that had obviously been a joke. He never flirted with her for real. He must've spotted Floss spying on them or something and decided to give her a free episode of her favourite show - the (DG dubbed) 'Jyler' show.
"That was a joke," she explained. "He jokes around with everyone. That's just what he does!"
"Well, he doesn't joke with any of us. Not like that, anyway." Sasha wrinkled her nose before adding, "The jokes he tells me are so dead."
"That's not nice, Sasha," Jody admonished, biting her lip as she reminisced about Tyler trying to cheer her up shortly after the funeral by riding the old trike that was usually stored away in the shed. She'd watched from her window as he rode straight into the vegetable patch and fell flat on his face. It was hilarious. "I think he's funny."
"Well, obviously you think he's funny. You're in love with him, you have to!"
Jody's heart almost seized as a cold sweat rushed through her. "Wh- What?" she stammered, her friend's words floating around in her head. In love. No...! She cared for Tyler, fancied him, and maybe even loved him in a strictly platonic sense, but she definitely wasn't in love! "Love doesn't exist, Sasha!" she blurted out, her palms becoming sweaty. "Not that kind, anyway, and even if it does, it definitely doesn't work! If it did, most of us wouldn't be here!"
"You don't know that!" Sasha retorted, clearly affronted. "Look, I'm not trying to be mushy or anything, but my mum and Kev love each other."
"No offence, Sash, but those two have only been together for, what, three years? Who knows if they'll still be together by the time your sister's old enough to be dumped here!"
Almost straight away, Jody knew she'd said completely the wrong thing because Sasha just shook her head at her, not even appearing to be angry. If anything, she just looked disappointed. Without having to be told to leave, Jody leapt off the chest of drawers and rushed out of Sasha's room, heading straight for her own.
.:. QK .:.
Following a couple of hours of moping around in her bedroom and a half hour of listening to Tyler try to convince her to go out into the garden with him, Jody reluctantly caved in. She didn't particularly want to see him, not after what Sasha had claimed, but she couldn't be bothered to ignore him and then come up with a bogus explanation as to why. This was one of the many times she wished that she'd never realised that she had these stupid feelings in the first place. Life would've been so much easier if she hadn't.
"You win, Tyler!" she declared before opening the door to find a grinning Tyler standing right outside. She tried to look anywhere but his face but failed miserably, involuntarily smiling back at him. God, did she feel like a total airhead right now. Another day of this and she'd literally turn into one of Candi-Rose's hare-brained rom-com heroines.
"I knew I would," he replied, holding up his garden gloved hands. "Unfortunately, cause you're grounded and everything, the most exciting thing we can do is weed the vegetable patch."
"Yippee!" she rejoiced sarcastically, nonetheless motioning for him to lead the way.
When they got downstairs, however, Jody found herself face to face with the last person she wanted to see. She instantly turned to Tyler, wondering if he'd coaxed her out for this, but he merely shrugged at her, appearing to be as surprised as she felt. He never could lie to her, ever since they were small, so she let her suspicions slide and turned back to her unwanted visitor.
"Why are you here?" she questioned tiredly, too emotionally drained to truly get angry. Her mother's recent funeral, Sasha's imminent departure, and her unsettling talk with said girl had stripped her of her wits. "I told you to go off and live your life."
Luke held up his hands, a sincerely remorseful expression on his face. "I just came here to see how you're doing. I, err, phoned your social worker and he said it was fine."
Jody looked to Mike, who was standing next to Luke, for confirmation and received a reassuring nod. She sighed inwardly. She only had herself to blame for this; she never got round to telling her social worker that she didn't want anything to do with her family because she'd been so busy trying to erase them from her mind and had forgotten about informing her social worker altogether after her mother had died. Had Luke not shown up today, she might've never remembered.
"Yeah, well, I was fine up until I saw you," she countered, exchanging an annoyed look with Tyler. Okay, so she was lying, but she wasn't about to take Luke aside and tell him that she was not fine because she'd been straight up told that she was in love with her best friend. "I'll let my social worker know that I want nothing to do with you from now on."
"Jody, is there nothing I can do to make this right?" Luke implored, his words tugging at something in Jody's heart. She blinked rapidly, hating herself for her weak heart. "You're my little sister."
"Err, maybe we should take this inside?" Mike suggested, making Jody aware of the crowd forming in the lobby. However, she didn't fancy going into the quiet room - the conversation she wanted to end ASAP would only get longer if she did.
"Why did you forget that then?" she asked hoarsely, holding her arms out. She could've gotten over the months of silence if he'd reached out to her during Christmas, but he simply hadn't. "You didn't send me anything for Christmas, not even a text!"
"I wanted to," Luke responded, wringing his hands together. "I just couldn't. My girlfriend, she gets suspicious whenever she sees the contact number of another woman on my phone. I hadn't got round to telling her or any of my mates that I have a sister so if she saw your name in my contacts list, she would've-"
"Wait, so you deleted my number?!" she cried, unable to listen to him anymore. "And you must've deleted all of my old messages too!" Luke averted his gaze towards the floor, confirming his guilt. Jody scoffed. She'd never heard such a stupid explanation before in her entire life. Since when were girlfriends more important than sisters? Since when did Luke even have a girlfriend?! "I can't"- she looked apologetically at Tyler -"I can't listen to this crap anymore!"
A gasp went around the lobby, presumably at the use of a swear word, and May-Li had to physically force the unwelcome spectators into the lounge.
"Jody!" Tyler called, but she was already halfway up the stairs, intending to go back to her room and stay there until it was time for Sasha to go. "Oh, well done!" she heard him exclaim, the sarcasm dripping from his voice. "You really know how to kick her when she's already down!"
Seeing Luke peer up at her pleadingly, Jody almost wavered but then recalled her decision to leave the Jacksons behind. He was a Jackson. She was a Gray. There was nothing left to be said between the two of them.
.:. QK .:.
Lying on her bed under the covers, Jody sniffed as the events of the day weighed down on her and replayed over and over in her troubled mind. She didn't want to think about any of it, not about being in love, losing her closest female friend, being pushed aside by her brother for some girlfriend she'd never heard, but she couldn't help it. If she didn't pay a visit to the gym soon - as soon as she was ungrounded - she was going to go crazy.
A knock on the door roused her from her thoughts. She threw the covers off from over her head, peering over at the door.
"What?" she called. "Come in..."
The door opened and in walked Sasha, holding the book Jody had stolen from her during the Kingsley fiasco. Jody sat up, wiping at her eyes, not wanting Sasha to see that she'd maybe been crying. Today was about Sasha Bellman moving onto the next part of her life, not Jody Gray engaging in yet another episode of wallowing in her perpetual self-pity.
"Hey," Sasha greeted softly, seemingly out of her spirits. She sat down on the edge of the bed without asking first - come to think of it, she'd never asked her for permission before, not even once. "I came to give you this," she stated needlessly, handing Jody the book.
Gracefully accepting the book, Jody flipped to the front page and read the personal message written by the original owner out loud. It was nothing new - she'd read the message shortly before she'd nearly died - but something about the book and message felt different now, especially since the soon-to-leave-care current owner was giving it to her.
"I'm not really into fairytales anymore," she commented, drawing a small smile from Sasha, "but thanks."
"Tee gave it to me when she left and she told me to give it to someone else when I was found. Maybe it can become a tradition. Tee was found. I'm found. One day, you'll be found."
Jody nodded, wondering if she'd ever truly be found. The reality of living in care was that a care kid was forced to be found by the time they were eighteen, whether they were content with where they were going or not. "Sasha, I'm sorry for what I said about your mum and your stepdad. What would I know about relationships? They'll probably make the distance."
"Probably. But even if they don't, at least they followed their hearts. At least they gave it a shot. Kev's a decent guy - nothing like my dad or Murphy's. I know he'll be there for my sister no matter what happens with him and my mum."
"Is that what you're doing?" Jody inquired, tipping her head to the side. "Are you following your heart?"
"Yeah," Sasha replied with a nod, her smile growing wider. "Leaving this place is going to be one of the hardest things I'll ever have to do - don't tell anyone I said that-"- she gave Jody a warning glare -"but I know that I want to be with my family."
"Following my heart's only ever led to trouble," Jody confessed. "I followed my heart when I went to live with Mum again and things didn't turn out the way I wanted them to. I followed my heart when Kingsley got out of prison and that ended in total disaster. I followed my heart when Mum dangled a new life with Grant in front of my face and..." she trailed off, realising she was making Sasha's big day all about herself. "Sorry, I'm prattling on."
"Nah, it's okay," Sasha dismissed with a wave of the hand, being surprisingly... nice. "I don't leave every day so I'll let it slide."
"Soppy old Sasha...!" Jody said quietly, too out of it to singsong but just about spirited enough to not let the opportunity to tease Sasha slip.
"Don't you call me soppy, Jody Gray!" Sasha exclaimed, mock outraged. She let out a sad laugh then, her features softening. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry too. I know just as much about love and relationships as you do. My dad only stuck around until Dex started nursery and was totally wrong for my mum - I can still remember them stupid rows -, Murphy's dad made a run for it before he was even born, and I barely knew Mum's other loser boyfriends. I haven't been in love myself - I like Josh but it's definitely not love - so I shouldn't have said what I did about you and Tyler."
"I think we're a little too young to be in love with anyone, to be honest," Jody pointed out, shivering a little. Falling in love, like other scary grown-up notions, could wait. There were way more important things for girls their age to worry about like hanging out with their friends, doing well in school and deciding what they wanted to do with their lives. Yep, that horribly complicated stuff could definitely wait.
"For once, I think you're actually right!"
Jody cracked a smile, feeling a lot lighter than she had before Sasha had walked in. In fact, she felt even better than she had at the beginning of the day, at least regarding Sasha's departure. She put the Peter Pan book down, looking at the one who'd officially passed it on to her.
"I'll miss you, Sash."
Sasha smiled back, her eyes suspiciously sparkly. "I'll miss you too."
A/N: Weird ending, I know, but I already wrote Jody saying an emotionally charged goodbye in the previous chapter and I really didn't want to do it again.
Just a few things regarding Sasha. I don't dislike her or anything but her storyline in S6E5 made no sense, at least not to me. See, someone like Floss who has no known family out there deciding to stay at the DG over the chance at a family is one thing but Sasha, a girl who has a whole family she loves, choosing to do so is bonkers. I kind of felt upset when I remembered Sasha's second episode where we saw how much she loved her brothers and then the other episode where she wanted to move back in with her mum to be a part of her sister's life. There was also no indication that she maybe didn't want to move in with her mum until S6E5 itself! It felt so random like it was shoehorned into the script at the last minute. So, yeah, in this fic, she moves out in that episode.
Another thing that really bothers me is Sasha's age. In S5 (I think), Mike tells Sasha to behave like a responsible adult so when I watched that series, I thought Sasha was about 16. However, in S7, she's only just attending a college open day which means she can't be any older than 16 in S7, right? But then that means that her thing with Josh in S5 was basically illegal; he had to be at least 16 to be a trainee plumber (amirite?) and he apparently dropped out of a degree in S7. I just don't get how they thought that showing a kiss between a 15 y/o (at most) girl and a 16+ y/o boy or man was appropriate, especially in a show like this. AFAIK, there are no Romeo and Juliet laws in the UK.
Moving on, it's a headcanon of mine that Murphy is Sasha and Dexter's half brother. There seems to be quite a gap between Dexter and Murphy (not that full sibs can't have big age gaps) and Sasha's comment to her mum about guys never sticking around seemed to back that up. If Sasha and Murphy had the same dad, he would've had to have been with their mum for about ten years and, if that were the case, surely Sasha would've mentioned him at least once? Even just to say that he walked out when Murphy was a baby or something?
Anyway, now that I've said that, I can thank purpleaxy for the follow and favourite.
