A/N:

Changed the story description and re-wrote Chapters 1 and 3 slightly. Wasn't happy with how they turned out, plus fixed some grammar and formatting. No major plot changes but some things may read a little differently. Fell free to go back and catch up if you would like to. I'm always open to feedback if anybody notices any errors or story issues, or have some suggestions.

Apologies for the shorter chapter, have had some time restraints lately.

And thank you for reading.

The Past.

Jade West's Senior Year, 18 Years Old.

"We spoke a language, so to call it, which no one else in the huge heedless world could understand."

- CS Lewis, 'Till We Have Faces'

I. Deep Water

Monday. Thoughts had by Tori Vega in the halls of Hollywood Arts High School.

…

Tori rolled her head around her shoulders, stretching in front of her open locker. Her first period class had dragged on far longer than it had any right to, and the high plastic chairs of the science lab had done a number on her posture.

She exhaled deeply and grabbed her books for her next class.

A loud bang in the distance grabs her attention, and she turns to the source of the noise as she shuts her locker, hugging her books close to her chest.

She sees Jade in the distance slam her locker door and lean up against it in frustration, while André breaks into laughter next to her.

Tori smiles to herself as she watches Jade's antics from across the hall.

She had always liked spending time with Jade. Sure, Jade could still be disgruntled, hurtful, opinionated and just plain old mean when she wanted to. But that never seemed to deter Tori. She liked how Jade was her own person. It was admirable. So many of the other students tried their hardest to be something that they weren't. Jade was just Jade.

So ever since Beck dumped her, Herself and Cat had done their best to support Jade, and even if she would never admit it, she knew that Jade was thankful they did.

Some people probably didn't pick up that Jade had stopped hanging out outside of school hours. Not that Jade was ever one to flaunt her social activities to the world.

But trust Tori, she had noticed. She missed her. Something she thought would never happen if you asked her six months ago.

She missed her being around the group, it just wasn't the same when they would go for burgers or sushi and Jade wasn't with them. She didn't blame her for not wanting to be near Beck if she didn't have to be, but Tori was feeling her absence more and more.

She missed the little things. She missed how passionately Jade would regard things she enjoyed, how she would go over details of plays and scripts she was working on in intricate detail, not caring if anybody was listening. Tori was always listening.

Jade had been behaving differently around her since her break up. It probably wasn't obvious to everyone else, but Tori noticed. Her insults were less, well, insulting. Jade would actually listen to Tori talk instead of rolling her eyes or walking away.

Tori missed having her around when she wasn't there. She missed seeing her storm her way through the halls towards their group. She hated how Jade would keep to herself unless they pressed on her, as she loved to hear her talk. She missed how Jade would give her a small smile after an insult when no one else was looking. And the way that the morning sunlight in the asphalt cafe shines just right off her hair, and the way her green eyes sparkle when you look at them from the right angle, and-

"Get it together, Tori." She thinks to herself, leaning back up against her locker, eyes shut tight.

She might have a bit of a problem.

She had first realised about three weeks ago, during a dinner date with Ryder.

"So Robbie wasn't able to fix the microphone, even though he's like this wizard with machinery. Jade got really annoyed which was so funny, and Robbie said he would go grab a spare mic for her. But they didn't have any spares, or he couldn't find any, I can't remember. So Jade just decided she could do her part without it. It was amazing, she has such a powerful voice, she completely cut over the other two girls singing, and they were using a PA system! And of course Jade is a better singer than them anyway, so honestly it sounded a lot better. It would have been better if it was just her actually, because-"

"Tori." Ryder cuts in, an annoyed expression on his face.

"Yeah?" She replies.

"You've been talking for like 10 minutes straight. You haven't touched your food."

"Really?" She looks down at her plate of food, untouched and significantly colder. "I didn't even realise."

"I did." He mumbles.

She shuffles in her seat, giving him an awkward smile. "Sorry. I guess I can ramble on sometimes."

"You sure do talk about Jade a lot." Ryder says after a few moments.

"Do I?" She asks.

"Yeah, kinda makes me think you might like her more than you like me." He says with a smirk.

She can feel heat in her cheeks, but she's not sure why. It might be from the spicy Tuna.

"We're just friends, dummy." She smirks. "We spend a lot of time together, guess I just picked up on some stuff she does ." She says, taking a sip of water.

"You know, that's how it always starts." Ryder says.

She chokes on the water she was drinking. Ryder laughs as he reaches around to pat her back.

To Ryder, it was probably just a passing comment he made without a second thought. To Tori, it was a revelation about as subtle as a freight train. It may or may not have been the catalyst for her dumping of Ryder. Not that they were ever really going out. Even though he had liked to tell people they were.

Thank God she was a good actress.

Ever since Friday night she couldn't stop thinking about it. It was like a switch had flicked in her mind, and this little inkling of a thought of a feeling she might have had for the past few months suddenly exploded into an all encompassing obsession which had left her musing all weekend.

Yeah, she definitely had a bit of a problem.

"Hey. It's Tori, right?" A voice broke her train of thought.

She looks over her shoulder to see a tall, black dyed hair boy standing across from her.

"I think he's in one of my classes. He might be a sophomore. Black combat boots, ripped jeans, leather jacket, he kind of dresses like Jade. She wears it better, though. And she might be cuter-"

"Get it together, Tori." She thinks

"Hi. Yeah, its, uh… Alex, right?" She says.

"Yeah, Alex. We have history together."

"That's right. Friday, third period." She laughs awkwardly.

He smiles and nods, as the two minute class warning bells ring.

"Um, what can I do for you, Alex from third period history?" She asks.

"Well, I kind of noticed you weren't on any of the run-sheets for the student showcase on Saturday."

"Yeah, I passed on them this time around. Still recovering from last summer." She smiles.

"I remember that." He nods his head. "But that's actually why I wanted to catch up with you."

He shuffles his bag over his shoulder and stands a little bit straighter.

"Oh, no." Tori thinks.

"I was just wondering if you wanted to like, hang out on Saturday. We could go to the showcase and check it out. I'm probably going to be here, anyway. It would be nice to spend it with someone cool."

Tori looks at his nervous expression.

"Are you asking me out?" She asks quietly.

"Yeah, I guess you could say that." He replies with an awkward chuckle.

Tori bites the inside of her cheek. "Aren't you a sophomore here?"

"Yeah, but we're the same age." He says quickly.

Tori sees Cat walk behind Alex, giving her two thumbs up and mouthing 'he's cute.' Tori mentally rolls her eyes.

"Look, Alex…" She starts, and she can see his shoulders deflate a little bit.

Why does she have to be kind? She wishes she could be as cold as Jade sometimes.

"I just got out of a relationship, kind of. Like, Friday night." She starts. "Don't get me wrong, you seem like a cool dude, but I just don't think I'm really to go on a date so quick."

"No, that's cool, I get it." He says, running his hands through his hair.

She knows she might regret her next words.

"But I'm going to be at the showcase all day. Maybe we can catch up at some point? I'm sure that we'll run into each-other." She offers.

He thinks for a moment before replying. "Yeah, that sounds all right." He smiles. "Looking forward to it."

A loud bang echoes through the hallway.

"Damn, what the hell was that?" He says, posture stiffened from the noise.

"It was just Jade." Tori says.

He turns and follows Tori's eyes to where Jade was standing across the hall, Just having finished reprimanding her group of friends and the rest of the student cohort with a loud, startling, slam of her locker door.

"Jade West, right?"

Tori nods.

"Right. I knew her, I just didn't know her name. We might have had a class together once, but she didn't really pay attention to anyone. Actually, I think I saw a video of you two dancing together on the slap on the weekend."

"Yeah, there's a few videos I think. We got a bit carried away with the drinks." Tori sigh.

"It's funny. I didn't picture you two being that close. The way she acts around school, and with the way you are, you know. It's like polar opposites."

Tori follows Jade's figure in the distance as she walks off with Robbie, presumably towards their next class. Before they round a corner she can see Robbie say something to Jade. Jade lets out a laugh. A real, rare, Jade West laugh.

Tori knows it's a real laugh. Jade has a tell. She always shuts her eyes when she finds something genuinely funny. She's quiet about it, she doesn't make a lot of noise, and she's quick to end it. You might not even notice it if you didn't know what you were looking for.

But to Tori, she lives for those moments lately. She tries to capture them in slow motion. She tries to etch them in her memory. She wants to make it happen herself, to be the reason for her laughter.

Tori smiles softly and looks down at her feet, rubbing the back of her neck with her hand.

"Yeah, we're good friends." She says quietly.

II. Picking Flowers

The Next Week. Tuesday Night. Tori Vega's House in the Hollywood Hills.

…

There is an unspoken truth that exists at Hollywood Arts, where it is assumed that every student has a hidden talent. Not talent akin to musical prowess or performance skills however, but something more humbled.

André Harris, for example, is somehow even better at cooking than he is at music.

"I can't believe you made this." Cat says, her mouth full. "It's like I'm tasting for the first time in my life."

"André, seriously. This was amazing." Tori says.

"It's nothing really." André says sheepishly. "It's just spaghetti. It's pretty simple."

"You know that this means you have to cook all the time now, right? We're never ordering take-out again." Jade says, moving her empty bowl into the sink.

Tori's kitchen had been swarmed upon by four hungry teenagers after the smell of garlic and herbs began to drift through the house. Their study night had quickly become unproductive, with Robbie starting a chain reaction of distractions after finding some funny videos on the slap. And then what better than food to distract someone from homework.

Three days out from the Fall Student Showcase, chaos had descended upon the group. Well, chaos had descended itself upon André. With Beck being away until Friday, André had the sole responsibility of organising and managing five showcase performances by himself, and he was not handling it well. Something Jade could relate to.

Luckily, cooking seemed to be a bit of a stress reliever for him. Unfortunately, he couldn't hide from his showcase rehearsal tasks forever.

"Gah!" He yelled, slamming his hands down on the keys of the grand piano.

"Something up?" Robbie asks sarcastically, mouth full of potato chips and his feet kicked up on the sofa.

"Something's gonna be up your-" André starts, frustration in his voice.

"André!" Tori interjects. "It's not his fault you agreed to play keys for five different people, you don't have to yell at him."

"Well, Im sorry. I was just trying to be a nice person! And then beck goes and runs away to Canada! Leaves me here with all this… Ah!" He yells, throwing a stack of music pages in the air and storming up the stairs.

"That's a shame." Jade mumbles to herself, lounging on the sofa opposite to robbie.

They had all made the trip to the Vega residence together, the five of them piling into the somehow ever decreasing in size interior of Robbies beat up 2002 wrangler. Jade, of course, riding shotgun. It had been a while since she was in Robbie's car, and it was nice to see nothing had changed about it. Same radio that didn't quite work, a tape deck with a mystery album stuck in it they could never get out. The same headrest of the front passenger seat that didn't quite stay in place. And the same bickering and banter that came from whoever was trapped in the back seats.

Upon their arrival. Jade had put Robbie to work on repairing her phone screen that he had so kindly cracked a few weeks ago. One benefit of having a friend that was so skilled in small machinery and tech, she never had to pay to repair anything.

She had also made him repair the paint on her car door that he had scratched with hia bike before they had left the school. Somehow, he had returned to the group, with his face comically covered in oil like a stereotypical mechanic. They didn't understand how he managed it, because he wouldn't have had to look at the engine at all.

They decided not to tell him, though. So he lay comfortably on Tori's sofa, oblivious to the dirty marks streaking his face.

"Jade, do you have everything ready for Saturday?" Robbie asks, not looking up from his phone.

"Mhm. Have all the equipment at home ready to go."

Jade and Robbie had both arrived at a compromise for their showcase fundraiser activity. They had agreed on a hybrid form of dodgeball. Jade, or a paying customer, would try and hit Robbie with a water balloon, a tomato, a softball or any other equipment they could find rolling around. Robbie had freedom to move around the small area they had set up. It had everything they could both want. Jade got to throw things at him, and Robbie, convinced that all the girls would enjoy it, got to be shirtless.

Jade had tried to convince him it was a bad idea. He wouldn't hear it.

"Little does he know, I have fantastic aim." Jade thinks.

Tori and Cat were just along for the ride that Saturday. Neither of them were involved in the student showcase, so they didn't have to worry about learning a script or a song part. Cat was taking the opportunity of all of them together to practise for their Theatre II project performance though, and Jade was just waiting for the redhead to return to the living room so they could get on with it.

"Jade, you ready?" Cat asks, returning from the kitchen where she had just placed some brownies in the oven.

"Let's get it over with." Jade says, groaning as she stands from the sofa.

Cat moves Tori from the floor where she was trying to get some history homework done to the centre of the living room. Jade strolls over and stands across from the brunette, eyeing her up and down with her usual nonchalant demeanour.

"Better bring your a-game, Vega. You know I have high standards." She says.

Tori gives her a small laugh and shuffles awkwardly on the spot.

"Weird. Usually she would make some sort of comeback" Jade thinks.

"Jade, where's your play book?" Cat asks.

"Why would I need it? I don't have any lines. I'm dying, I'm basically a prop." She says.

"That's not going to work." Cat muses to herself for a moment. "OK, I want you to sort of, just like, improvise some lines, then. Something someone dying would say." Cat offers.

Jade nods her head, and Tori opens her Venus and Adonis play book. "Where do you want to start from, Cat?"

"Go from line 1055." Cat says, flicking through the book.

Cat starts reading her lines, trying her hardest to not laugh as she attempts to read Shakespeare verbatim

"Over one shoulder doth she hang her head… doth. Doth. Doooth." She repeats in a variety of accents, laughing each time.

"Cat." Tori laments.

"Sorry!" The redhead says quickly, slapping her mouth quickly. "OK. I'm ready. Go, Tori."

Tori clears her throat, and Jade watches her switch slightly into actress mode. Tori has a few tells. She changes her stance and straightens her neck.

"My tongue cannot express my grief for one, and yet behold two Adons dead!" Tori starts. She wasn't trying an accent, but was flawless in her pronunciation. She waved her left arm slightly with her words, her right hand clutching the playbook she was reading from.

"Pretty Good." Jade thinks.

"No. What are you guys doing?" André says, returning to the room. The three girls look over to him in a confused expression.

"This is supposed to be a dramatic, emotional scene. You can't do it standing three feet apart from each-other." He says. "Jade, you're supposed to be dying. Tori, you should be on your knees, holding your lovers body as tight as you can." André offers.

Jade shoots him a murderous look as a nervous expression spreads across Tori's face quickly.

"Great point, André." Cat says. "OK, both of you down on the floor." Cat says.

Jade rolls her eyes as André smirks at her.

She drops to a seating position as Tori moves behind her. She lays herself down on Tori's legs, probably before Tori was expecting her to the way that she reacted.

"Don't get too handsy, Vega. You don't want to start something you can't finish." Jade says quietly so only she can hear. A blush creeps over Tori's cheeks as she ignores the comment.

Jade smirks. It was always so easy to get under her skin.

Jade does her best to switch to actress mode. Not that she had a lot to work with. Most of the upcoming lines that she could remember reading was just Tori reacting with body language to what Cat was saying. She figured she would just cough every now and then and whisper nothings to Tori.

"Alas, poor world, what treasure hast thou lost. What face remains alive that's worth the viewing?" Tori says, resting her hand behind Jade's head. Her right hand clutches one of Jade's, and her eyes flick between Jade, and the playbook she had tossed beside her on the floor.

Jade groans slightly, doing her best to channel a dying man from two Millenia ago. Tori reacts to her movements with sharp breaths, her eyes deep with worry.

They go on like that for a few minutes, doing their best to keep the flow of the play. It can be hard to quote Shakespeare if you haven't memorised it perfectly, as Cat and Tori were currently displaying, stuttering and re-reading their lines when they would fumble. Jade would cough or shuffle in Tori;'s grip every now and then , but mostly she was kind of enjoying just laying there. It was nice not doing the hard work in a play for once.

"But he is dead, and never did he bless my youth with his, the more am I accurst." Tori says, throwing her head back before dropping it down over Jade's, her hair almost shielding their faces from the onlookers. Jade notices that her eyes are slightly glazed over with tears.

"Damn, Vega, It's only a rehearsal." She thinks.

"She looks upon his lips, and they are pale." Cat says, and Tori follows her instructions, brushing a thumb over Jade's lower lip and against her cheek.

"She takes him by the hand, and that is cold" Cat follows up, and Tori moves her hand off Jade's face down to her hand. It's not cold, as Cat says, though. Tori's hand is warm and comforting as she intertwines her fingers with Jade's.

A ding sounds in the background, breaking Jade out of her acting focus.

"Oh! The brownies are ready. Break there, you two, that's good for today." Cat sings, bounding towards the kitchen.

"Good stuff." Robbie says, and André gives them a little clap.

Jade turns her head and watches Cat and Robbie crowd around the oven. She catches André's look as he walks past them, his eyebrows raising a few times and a smile creeps onto his mouth.

His words about herself and Tori having great chemistry flash through her mind.

"I guess we were OK. For a rehearsal. I was great, anyway." She thinks.

She didn't even realise they were still on the floor together. Jade found herself caught in Tori's gaze for a moment. For one, she was still cradled on top of the Latina's legs, and was more waiting on her to release her grip from behind her neck so she could stand.

Weirdly, she kind of didn't mind it. It was kind of comfortable.

"That's a different look." Jade thinks to herself. Tori's eyes were softer than they were a few seconds ago during the scene. Her brown hair was still dropping around the two like a curtain, her hand still resting against Jade's cheek, even though Cat had called an end to their practise run about a minute ago now. She can hear the other three in the distance arguing about something, so she guesses they haven't realised that the two of them haven't moved yet.

"Uh, Vega. Do you wanna…" Jade almost whispers, feeling a strange need not to call Tori out in front of the group. Tori seems to shake herself out of a trance before awkwardly and clumsily helping Jade lift herself out of her lap.

They turn away from each other quickly and head towards the kitchen where the other three were gathered. Jade swears she can hear Tori whisper something to herself quietly.