Author's Note: This is my first "Raven's Home" fanfic! I got this idea a few weeks ago. This will be mainly a Tess-centric fic, but will be like the show, kind of like my Girl Meets World Seasons fics, except I'll be putting when the title sequence would be and I'll be doing episodes in two chapters instead of one.
Nia's POV
Booker was trying to get his backpack out of his locker.
"Booker, come on," Levi said. "We need to get home."
"I know!" Booker said. "If this. Would. Just. Budge!" He said pulling on it.
"I told you not to put it in there," I told him.
"Come on, Nia," Tess said. "Let's just go home and leave the boys to their own devices."
"What? No!" Booker said. He pulled on his backpack and fell when it finally came out.
"See ya," Tess said as we walked away, laughing.
Tess' POV
We got to our building and walked up to our floor.
"Can you believe Booker did that?" I asked.
"Um, yeah," Nia said. "He's such a dork."
"I know, right?"
I unlocked my door and we stepped inside. The sight in front of me shocked me.
"What are you doin' here?" I asked.
[Title Sequence]
Nia's POV
A girl, maybe 16, was sitting on Tess' couch. Her hair was a little darker than Tess'.
"Hey Tess," the girl said, standing up.
"What are you doin' here?" Tess asked.
The girl didn't answer.
Booker's POV
Levi and I walked in our door.
"I can't believe they left us behind," I said.
"I can," Levi said. "I would have too if I knew you wouldn't hate me after."
"Come on, bro," I said, "I could never hate you."
"Thanks, Booker," Levi said.
Suddenly, I had a vision.
Nia and Tess were standing in front me.
"I hate you, Tess," Nia said.
The vision ended.
"You had a vision, didn't you?"
"Yeah," I said.
"What was it?" He asked.
"Nia said she hates Tess," I said.
"She'd never say that," Levi said.
"Well, that was my vision."
Nia's POV
"Tess," I spoke up, "who is this?"
She glared at the girl in front of us.
"My half-sister, Jessie," Tess answered.
"Wait," I said, confused. "You have a sister?"
"Yeah, and as you can see, we don't have the best relationship," Jessie said. "I'm Jessica, my friends and family," she looked at Tess, "call me Jess or Jessie." She extended her hand to me. Just when I was about to shake her hand, Tess shoved her away.
"Yo!" Tess said angrily. "Get away from her!"
"Tess!" I told her.
"What are you doing here, Jessie?!" She shoved her again.
Jessie got angry now.
"You wanna know," Jessie shoved Tess, causing her to fall onto the couch, "what I'm doin' here?"
Tess glared at her.
"Dad finally got custody of me!" Jessie yelled at her. "That's what I'm doin' here!"
"Oh," Tess said.
"Yeah, oh," Jessie said. "Why the heck do you always have to start a fight when you see me, Tess?! We're sisters!"
"Half-sisters!" Tess yelled back. "I don't claim you!"
"Well, you're stuck with me, then!" Jessie told her. "'Cause I'm living here now!"
"I don't get why he bothered," Tess said. "You're 16, you'll be moving out in two years. You'll probably end up like your mom anyway! I hate you!"
Jessie looked at her with tears in her eyes.
"Wow," is all Jessie said before running out of the apartment.
I looked at the person who was supposed to be my best friend.
"What was that?!" I asked her in disbelief.
"Listen, you don't know—"
"Yeah, I don't know," I started. " I don't know who I'm looking at right now because it's definitely not my best friend."
"Come on, Nia," she said.
"I'm serious, Tess!" I said. "How could you say that to your own sister?!"
"Half-sister."
"Still your sister," I said. "I'm like a sister to you, aren't I?"
"Yeah, you're my sister," she said.
Booker's POV
Levi and I walked into Tess' apartment. Nia and Tess seemed to be arguing.
"How would you feel if I said 'I hate you, Tess'?" Nia asked Tess.
"That was my vision," I told Levi.
"I wouldn't like it," Tess said. "It'd really hurt."
Nia's POV
"Why did you say she'd end up like her mom?" I asked. "What's wrong with her mom?"
"She's an addict," Tess said.
"Who are you talking about?" Booker asked.
"Tess has a sister that is living with them now," I said. I turned back to Tess. "Her mom's an addict?"
"Her mom left my dad after Jessie was born," Tess said, "and chased guys that could get her, you know, that bad stuff. She's had her since then."
"Why would you assume she'd end up like her?" I asked. "She seems fine to me."
"I don't know," Tess admitted. "It's complicated."
She looked next to her on the couch and saw a backpack.
"Look! Her bag," she said. "Let's look through it, just to make sure." She said.
"What? Tess, no," I said, but it was too late. She already was.
"I knew it!" She said. "Look at all these medications!"
She pulled out three pill bottles, two being prescriptions.
"Okay," I said. "One of those is Vitamin D, Tess. And the other two are prescriptions."
"That's how her mom started," she said, "with prescriptions."
Levi walked over and looked at the prescriptions.
"Wait, Hydroxychloroquine?" He asked. "That's a medication for Malaria."
"Hydro what?" Tess asked.
"Hydrochlorine," Booker said.
"No," Levi said. "Hydroxychloroquine. Plaquenil is another name for it."
"The other one is Prednisone," I said. "That's a steroid."
Levi's POV
Nia got on her phone and typed away.
"Tess," Nia said.
"Yeah?"
"I think she may have something called Lupus," she said.
"What's that?" Tess asked.
"It says here that it's an autoimmune disease," Nia said. "It could be life-threatening."
"Wait, my sister's dyin'?"
"That's not what I said, Tess," Nia said.
"I can't believe I treated her like that!" Tess said. "I gotta go find her."
She ran out of the apartment.
Nia's POV
Mom and Aunt Chelse walked into Tess' apartment through the still open door.
"What are y'all doin' in Tess' apartment without anyone home?"
"Tess just left," I said.
"Where'd she go?" Aunt Chelsea asked.
"To look for her…sister," I said.
Mom and Aunt Chelsea looked at each other and started laughing.
"Good one, Nia," mom said.
"It's true," Levi said.
"Yeah," Booker agreed.
Mom looked confused.
"Wait," she said. "Y'all are serious?"
We all nodded. Mom looked at Aunt Chelsea.
"Since when has Tess had a sister?" She asked her.
"Ah-uh," Aunt Chelsea said, shrugging her shoulders.
"We just found out about it," Nia said. "They had a fight right in front of me."
"How did we not hear that?" Mom asked Aunt Chelsea. "We're they yelling?"
"Yeah, a little," I said. "And they shoved each other. Then Tess said that she'll end up like her mom and that she hated her then Jessie ran out of the apartment."
"Who's Jessie?" Aunt Chelse asked.
"Tess' sister," Booker said.
"Oh," she said. "Okay."
"How old is she?" Mom asked.
"She's sixteen," I said.
"Tess went through her bag," Booker said.
"And we think she might have Lupus," Levi said.
"Oh, that's not good," mom said, sitting on the couch. "Not good at all."
"You don't know what that is, do you?" I asked her.
"Of course I know what it is," mom said using her unusually high voice. "Okay, no I don't, not exactly."
"All I know is Selena Gomez and Nick Cannon have it," Aunt Chelsea said.
"Well, it's an autoimmune disease," I said. "Which pretty much means the body attacks itself. I tried explaining what I could to Tess, but she understood me wrong and ran out to look for her."
Tess' POV
I went up to the roof. I looked around and spotted her. I sat by her near Chelsea's garden. She had her head in her knees. She's obviously been crying. I sighed.
"Listen, Jess," I started but she cut me off.
"No, you listen," she said looking at me. I stayed silent. "I was happy to finally be able to live with you and dad, and your mom. I thought this could be a chance for us to finally have a relationship. I thought you would have been more mature. You're fourteen, Tess. You're not a little kid anymore, you can't get away with treating me that way anymore."
"I know," I said. "I'm sorry." Our eyes met for a second, then she turned away. "Let's have a sisters day."
"What do you mean?" She asked, looking back at me.
"Let's spend the day together," I said. "I need to make it up to you, before it's too late."
"What do you— Never mind," she said. "Sure, we have a lot to catch up on." I smiled. She did too.
Nia's POV
"Tess texted me that her and Jessie are gonna spend the rest of the day together," I said.
"It's nice that she has a sister that she can reconnect with," Aunt Chelsea said.
"It would have been nice if they didn't have to reconnect," mom said.
"Mom's right," I said. "I mean, they should have been able to grow up together."
"Yeah, like you and Cory," Aunt Chelsea said.
"Yeah," mom said, with a fake annoyed voice.
"How are Uncle Cory and Aunt Meena doing?" Booker asked
"They're doing good, Meena's pregnant," she said.
"What?! Why didn't you tell us?" I asked.
"I just found out right before I went to Tess'."
"Why did they wait so long to have kids?" Levi asked.
"They wanted to focus on their careers," Mom said.
"Which was our plan," Aunt Chelsea said. "But plans change."
Tess' POV
Jessie and I were walking back to the apartment building after getting Pizza.
"This was literally the most fun I've had since…well, ever."
"What do you mean?" I asked. "You said you have friends."
"School friends," she said. "Not outside of school or anything."
"But you still have fun, though, right?" I asked. "You go out and do stuff?"
"Not since I was thirteen," she said.
"What happened when you were thirteen?"
"I came home from hanging out with my friends," she said. "And I found my mom unconscious. I thought she had overdosed. I called 911 and right before they got there, she woke up. It scared me half to death. I stopped going out, which stopped me from having real friends."
"I'm sorry," I said. "I didn't know you went through that."
"I'm sorry, that was really dark to bring up," she said. "It's just this was really nice, and I don't really get nice stuff. It's nice that you actually want to try."
"Of course I want to try, you're my sister," I said. "You wanna go over to the Baxters'?"
"Sure," she said.
Nia's POV
Tess and Jessie came into our apartment.
"Hey Tess, Hey Jessie," I said.
"Hey," they both said.
"Jessie, this is my mom, Raven," I motioned to my mom, "my twin brother, Booker," I motioned to my Booker, "our friend, Levi, who's like a little brother to us," I motioned to him, "and his mom, Chelsea."
"Nice to meet you all," she said.
"This is my older sister Jessie," Tess said.
"So, she's the one you said Tess went through the bag of?" Aunt Chelsea asked.
"Chelsea!" "Aunt Chelsea!" and "Mom!" We all yelled all at once.
Jessie turned to Tess.
"What is she talking about?" She asked her. Tess looked lost for words. "Tess."
"I went through your backpack, okay?" Tess admitted. "But just because I wanted to make sure you weren't like your mom. Then I found the prescriptions—"
"They're medications, Tess," Jessie said.
"I know," Tess said. "Levi and Nia explained that. Then when I realized that you're dying—"
"What? Tess I'm not—" Jessie started.
"Let me finish," Tess said. "When I realized you were dying, I know I had to find you, and make things right with you."
"Tess," Jessie said. "I'm not dying, not initially, at least."
"What?" Tess asked. "But Nia said—"
"I said it's life-threatening," I corrected her, "not that she's dying."
"Wait, so you know that I have Lupus?" Jessie asked. "How?"
"We looked up the medications," Levi said.
"Okay," she said. She turned to Tess. "I was going to tell you and dad about it tonight. But I think we should talk now."
Tess and Jessie sat down on the couch together. We all sat around them. Jessie looked at us.
"Okay then," she said. She looked back at Tess. "I have an autoimmune disease called Lupus. My body pretty much attacks itself. I get joint pain, fatigue, brain fog, and other things. It can affect organs."
"It could kill you, though?" Tess asked.
"Yes, it could, but that doesn't mean it will."
"Okay," Tess said. "I know I never say this to you, but I love you, Jessie."
"I love you too, Tess." They hugged and walked back to their apartment.