A/N: And I give you three new chapters.

You're gone.

You told me it couldn't be this easy, and then you fled. Feels like I already wrote this, over and over. You leave, and I stay, and that's how it goes.

How do we break this cycle, Tori? Do you want to break it? Do I? I don't know. All I know is… If this is the only way I get to have you… But it can't go on like this, can it? There will be an end to it. A resolution. I don't know if it'll save us or break us, but I know it's coming. We almost reached it last night. I know that's why you ran. I know you're scared of believing me, Tori. I know you're afraid of trusting me with your heart.

And I think you're right. I'm the last person who deserves your heart. But god, I want to be the person who does deserve it. I need to be that person. What if you need me to be that person, too?

I should let you go. But you should let me go, too. And you can't. If you could, I wouldn't be writing this.

What if there's something else? What if we're being told something that we can't hear over our hurt and guilt? What if there's a reason why we keep coming back, and even when we decide to get away, we stumble into each other?

I remember asking you if you thought we were meant to be. Right before our first time. I was upset about Beck and his words got to me, and I thought that all I wanted was to get my plan back on track. Back then, that question was a ploy. Or so I thought.

You never did reply to that question. I wonder what your answer would be now. I wonder if you'd want to hear what I think. And the truth is, Tori, I don't know. I'm afraid of thinking we are. Because if we are, then… I managed to break your heart, ruin my life, and piss off powers that be, all in two months. Jake did say I was an overachiever sometimes.

But what if we are meant to be? I wish you'd talk to me, Tori. I have so many questions, and I can't find answers without you.

I hate to cut this short, but Cat's at the door. I'll be back. I feel like I'm on the brink of something, and this helps me think. Talking to you, even if it's not really talking to you.

Love,

Jade.

"You look like shit," Cat announces as soon as Jade throws the door open, giving her an unimpressed glare.

"Thanks," she deadpans. "I'm aware. I do have mirrors, you know."

"Coulda fooled me," her friend pushes past her and makes a beeline to her couch, missing an exasperated eye-roll Jade sends her way as she closes the door. "You're clearly not using them."

Jade glances down at herself, wearing one of Tori's undershirts she's left behind, stretched across her chest, and at the smear of pizza sauce on her sweatpants. Well. "It's not like I was waiting for anyone important," she shrugs, plopping down next to Cat on the couch.

"Bitch." Cat's chuckles are amused.

"That is brand new information."

Cat only laughs louder, fishing a bottle of whiskey out of her bag and placing it on the coffee table, right where her boots have been before Jade unceremoniously pushed them off the clean surface. "Keep it up and stay sober while I get hammered."

"Damn," Jade raises a dubious eyebrow, eyeing the bottle. Up close, it looks mildly intimidating. It's been awhile since she drank hard liquor. "Jack? What gives, any special occasion I should know about?"

Cat sighs. The sound is loud and dramatic, and Jade's definitely sure she's not about to like whatever is about to come out of her mouth. Of course, she turns out to be right. "I know you're in a delicate place right now, Jadey-" – "Don't call me that." – "-so I'm gonna be as gentle as possible. You're the occasion, and this baby is here to ensure you're thoroughly celebrated."

Jade blinks. "That doesn't even make sense."

Her friend shrugs. "Then we're already on the right track."

She chews on her bottom lip, studying Cat, this time more closely. Noting the slight crease between her brows as she tries not to frown; her restless leg and fingers drumming on her thigh. Tries to remember the last time they really talked to each other. It can't be half a year ago, can it?

Except maybe it kind of is. "Cat." The leg stops bouncing, and she inches closes, putting a slow, careful hand to still her fingers. "What's wrong?"

"What?" Cat blinks at her. "Nothing is wrong. Why would you ask that?"

"You're all… fidgety. You usually get like this when something's bothering you."

She watches as Cat sighs and runs a hand through her red velvet hair. "If you think something's happened with me, don't," she says evenly. "I just have more work than usual. But…" Cat visibly hesitates before continuing, and Jade catches her pensive gaze. "I - there is something bothering me, and I already told you what that is." When Jade gives her a confused frown, she sighs again. "You, Jade. You're what's bothering me. You've been… Something's going on with you. I can tell. And it's cool if you don't want to tell me, I'm not pushing you, but - sometimes, when things get tough, you just gotta get wasted with your best friend. You know?"

Jade purses her lips. Looks at the bottle on her table, full of amber liquid, and remembers all the times alcohol helped her get in messes she's still trying to get out of.

Then, she remembers last night and looks at Cat's expectant face, and sighs. "Okay. This is not what I had in mind when I agreed to hang out, though. And we are not finishing this whole thing by ourselves," she warns, watching with muted amusement as Cat's shoulders slump with exaggerated disappointment. "One drink. We'll have one and we'll watch a movie."

The bottle is empty, and so is Jade's head.

Wait. That's not true. She had - there were thoughts. Bad thoughts. They swarmed in her head, making it difficult to stay upright, and so she slid to the floor. What thoughts were they?

It's only eight pm, for God's sake.

"Ja-Ade-y," Cat hiccups from where she's sprawled out in the couch, a half-full glass dangerously tilting in her hand. Jade suddenly realizes she's thinking of the ways to get rid of a whiskey stain on the carpet. The thought - the fact that she can still have some thoughts - is soothing, and she clings to it, going over detergents and ancient granny methods that include clubbing soda and something… something… "Jade," Cat repeats, meanwhile, a word less slurred. But still slurred. "Vega. That bitch. She - I mean. Look at yourself."

Jade feels vaguely offended. "What?" She glances down again, but the room begins to spin, and so she snaps her head up, fixing her gaze on the wall. "I can't," she informs Cat. "I can't look at myself."

While she meant that purely in a physical sense, Cat completely misunderstands and jumps on it. The way she nods is fast and enthusiastic. Jade's a little afraid her head might fall off. "Exactly! Exactly. Fucking - exactly. You can't. No one can look at you, Jade. You're-" another hiccup, this time louder. Jade giggles. "You're… with-withering." Cat looks proud with herself for a second at having managed to remember and say the word. "She did that to you."

The words are suddenly sobering. "Cat." The room isn't spinning anymore. Jade kind of wants it to.

Cat waves her away, movement as sloppy as her words. "No, I know," she struggles to say. "You did things, too. Man, you fucked up. Like, so hard. But that's… I mean." Her eyes, narrow and uneven, squint to focus on Jade. "It's been like, half a year. And you - you're still doing this to yourself."

Jade feels the floor under her hands before pushing off of it and rising to her feet. It's cold. The temperature has dropped drastically now that it's night, and they didn't close the window. She does just that.

"I mean," Cat says from the couch, "everyone deserves to be cut some slack. Even you."

Jade wonders if Cat is really as drunk as she looks. She wonders the same thing about herself. "Thought tonight was about forgetting," she says dryly, picking up the empty bottle and wistfully staring at it.

"Nope. It's about dealing."

She snorts, tossing the bottle away and watching softly land on the chair. "This is not dealing."

"Eh," Cat shrugs. The rest of her whiskey is polished off in one messy gulp. She watches her wince and blow out a huge breath. "I'm not good with dealing."

"Neither am I." If she were, she wouldn't have slept with Tori. Over and over until Tori finally found the strength to push her away - and then, she didn't let her. "I slept with Tori."

Fuck.

Cat's face drunkenly balances between sympathetic and determined. "I know, Jade," she says. "I know, and your plan was awful, and then you fell in love, but you need to - deal."

"Wait." Jade's brain is hazy. "You knew?"

"Well, yeah." She blinks at the weird look Cat's giving her. "You told me. It's old news. It's been half a year."

This is her chance of sweeping it under the rug - her drunk confession. Cat didn't get it. She could carry on as if nothing happened, as if that's totally what she meant. But she's drunk, and alcohol helped her get in a lot of messes she's still trying to get out. Somehow, though, she thinks this one is better than others. "No. I slept with her." At Cat's owlish, confused blinking, she leans further into the couch, staring straight ahead. "Recently. Really - really recently." She clears her throat. "Last night recently."

Cat's silent for a long time, and Jade is beginning to think she fell asleep on her, but she's too chicken to look at her and check. Instead, she's staring at her hands, clasped together on her lap. Watches her thumbs circle each other, keeping the same pace. Soothing.

"Are you okay?"

Well. That's definitely not what she expected to hear. She's surprised enough to forget about her shame and look at Cat, who's studying her with suddenly sober eyes. "Are you?" She implores again.

"I don't know," comes Jade's quiet, honest reply. She wishes Cat brought more booze, because they are not at the point of passing out and they really should be. She knows she needs it, for one.

"Was it like…" Cat looks like she's trying to find the right word, brows drawn together in concentration. "...like a one-time thing?"

"Yeah." Jade barks out a short laugh. "And the one before that. And another. And - we've been doing this for more than a month now."

Cat's expression jumps from clear shock to raw sympathy, and Jade crumbles. She tells her everything. From bumping into Tori at a grocery store to watching her run away last night. From the way her heart stopped when she saw her after those god awful months to the way it shattered every time she saw her go. She tells Cat about how sorry she is. How much she wants Tori and how scared she is that it's not what Tori wants. How hollow she's been for more than half a year, and how close she came to happiness last night.

Cat's arms around her bring little solace, and she burrows in them further, seeking heat, after the words stop pouring out of her. It's so cold. Did she close the window? She did. How is it so cold?

She doesn't realize she's shivering until Cat throws a blanket over her, guiding her back in her embrace. "It's okay," she hears. "It's okay."

"But it's not." With warmth, came the ability to think clearly and coldly. "It's not okay. I'm a mess.

"You kind of are. But it's okay. We'll get through it." Cat's hand tightens on her shoulder. "And I - I'm sorry, Jade. Up until this moment, I didn't realize just how deep your feelings were. I'm sorry for pushing you to move on when you're clearly not ready. I didn't… I didn't think you loved her this much."

"Yeah," Jade says, and the words are bitter on her lips. "I don't think anyone does." Definitely not Tori.

Cat interprets her words in her own way. "You know," she says gently, scooting back a little so she can look at Jade, "if she keeps coming back, then something is still here."

"I know something is still here," Jade tells her. She shivers and brings the blanket closer to her body. "That's not the problem. The problem is-"

"She doesn't trust you," Cat finishes for her, softly, and her eyes are sad. "It's expected. Definitely not surprising."

Jade chokes on her sob. "I don't know what to do," she tells her, breathless. "I don't know what to do, Cat."

"You earn her trust back," her friend says, easily. Easy, as if it's nothing more than a walk in the park - earning the trust you've shattered. "I can't tell you how to do that. But, Jade," Cat's hands are soft and warm around hers. "She keeps coming back, doesn't she? If she didn't want you to at least try earning it back… I don't think she'd show up here after the first time. Or second… Or third."

Cat's words pound in her heart long after they go to sleep.

She can't, for the life of her, figure out how she ends up here. And yet, she can. It's perfectly clear.

She didn't go to sleep. After Cat passed out and she made sure she's passed out, she sneaked out and called a cab, and now she's here. In front of Tori's door. It's almost midnight. What is she doing?

'If she didn't want you to at least try earning it back-'

She just - she just had to see her. Telling Cat everything made her re-live all of their moments together; feel everything she's felt all over again, and she - she just had to see her. To talk to her. To tell her that she won't stop until she's proven to her and to everyone else that she can be trusted, and she wants to be trusted, and there's nothing she won't do to make her see-

A knock sounds unsure, at first. Almost silent. She doesn't know if Tori's even heard it. So she knocks again, louder. When there's no answer, she tries once more, the sound echoing in her head. Tori's probably not home. This has been a waste of time. She never should've come here. All these thoughts race through her head as she continues to knock, already knowing it's in vain. Steadily increasing her strength and volume.

She's almost about to turn around and leave when the door is thrown open, and she barely manages to stop her fist from landing on a girl's nose. A girl who's not Tori, and who looks less than amused.

(A girl who has familiar raven hair and blue eyes and they are the same height and the same build and she's wearing Tori's shirt and Jade suddenly can't breathe.)

"Kate, what did I tell you?" Tori's voice booms from within the apartment, growing closer. "Did you ask who it is before opening the door?"

"Kinda wish I had," the girl - Kate - mutters, studying Jade with dangerous interest. "I have a feeling this is for you."

"Who is - oh."

She has difficulty tearing her eyes from Kate's barely-clothed form, and when she does, her gaze stumbled upon Tori's bare feet and soft grey sweatpants paired with a white undershirt. She looks like she was in bed before Jade came. Both of them look like they were in bed.

Her heart constricts in her chest, painfully, sharply, and she swallows. Takes a step back and rubs her eyes, blinking, as if it'll help her un-see it. As if it'll get rid of Kate who's standing next to a soft, open Tori.

(Kate who looks like-)

"Go back to bed," Tori murmurs to the girl who's still eyeing Jade with an unreadable expression. "I'll join you in a minute."

(It hurts to the point where she suffocates - hearing Tori say these words in this voice to someone that's not her.)

Kate only nods and quickly walks away, clearly having no interest in being involved in some drama that has nothing to do with her. Jade's grateful for that, at least. She's not sure she'd be able to handle a catty brawl.

"Jade." Tori steps out into the hallway, shutting the door behind her with a soft click and staring at her with something akin to disbelief.

"You should put your shoes on," Jade points out, dropping her gaze to Tori's feet on a concrete floor. "It's cold."

Tori doesn't reply to that. "What are you doing here?"

"I…" She had a speech planned, she did, but seeing Kate made all the words leave her head, and she's left here to gape at a frowning Tori. "I was - I, uh…"

Tori's frown deepens. "You're drunk," she states quietly. Jade huffs. She's not. Not anymore. She's mostly sober. And if she weren't before, then after Kate…

Which reminds her. "Tori," she breathes, glancing past her shoulder to where Kate has gone. She's nowhere to be seen anymore - Tori's bedroom is further down the hall. Tori's bedroom. She's only been here a handful of times - for some reason, they spent the majority of their time together at Jade's place. And now, this girl is here, and- "Tori, this is - she's - who is she?"

Why does she look like-

Tori's frown is a scowl now, angry and hurt and directed at Jade and no one else. "Does it matter?" She asks, sharply.

It does, Jade thinks, when she looks like me. Or does she look like Kate?

Tori, what are you doing?

"I - no, but she's… Tori, what… why-"

Tori, of course, decides to completely misinterpret her confusion, and her scowl deepens. "No," she says, and her voice is a growl, low and rumbling. "You don't get to do this. You have no right to…" she trails off with an agitated sigh, running a hand through her hair. Disheveled, Jade notes. Wavy and finger-brushed.

Was that her own doing, or was it Kate's?

"You shouldn't have come here," Tori tells her, tensely. Her whole body is coiled, and when Jade glances down, she sees her hands curled in fists at her sides.

She's right. But Jade is already here, and okay, maybe she's still a tiny bit drunk, and her filter always seems to disappear whenever there's alcohol in her blood. "Tori," she whispers, as if she's about to let her in on a big secret. "She looks like me."

For a second, Tori looks like she's about to punch through a wall. Jade's staring at her, as if seeing her for the first time. Her eyes map out her face, her downturned lips that are tightly pressed together, the arm muscles that ripple under soft skin each time Tori clenches her fists harder.

It takes Tori at least several seconds to reply, and when she does, her voice is scratchy and tired. "You're not the center of a universe." Her feet must've grown cold, because she shifts from one to another, and at once, all the tension leaves her body. "You should go, Jade," she tells her impassively. "I'll call you a cab. Please wait here."

Jade dutifully waits till Tori and her bare feet get off the cold floor, and then, she turns on her heels and walks home, head blissfully empty for the time being.