Final chapter!

Thanks to all the wonderful reviewers throughout the lifetime of this story. You guys are great! Also thanks for those who kept waiting and checking in for this ending. School has been a bit overwhelming lately, but I decided to sink a couple hours into writing this afternoon to recharge myself. It feels good. :)

Anyway, here is a little peek into the future of Beck and Jade. Yes, there will be a few plot holes and "others" comments that won't get explained yet. I have a lot that I have planned to write, so you'll be able to learn those bits of the story in more detail as I continue writing and sharig those writings with you.

Enjoy!

...

About Seven or Eight Years Later

It was game night at the Oliver house. The table was surrounded by many familiar faces, and a few new ones too. Beck and Jade were pleased to have moved out from Jade's old college apartment, which had been getting too small lately, as well as starting to get attract attention from paparazzi. The couple - who had thrived in the spotlight as teenagers - now wanted privacy for themselves and their family.

Beck and Jade had both started careers as actors, and in such a competitive industry they were doing fairly well without family connections in the business. The two of them always had a few other projects in the works as well. Jade's dreams of writing kept her busy when she was not on set, honing her craft with the ideal of eventually transitioning to writing professionally when her name got enough weight to draw attention. Between his jobs, Beck was working on finishing a degree, mostly through intensives and online classes, along with part-time work by being a master of ceremonies for his friend's event planning business. It was a small side gig, but it did keep people - in awe of meeting a "real live movie star!" - talking about him on social media. Jade rolled her eyes at all the heart-eyes emojis that infatuated women posted along with selfies from events where Beck was the MC, but he proudly displayed his wedding ring in as many pictures as possible. Beck and Jade's names were in the media together too much for people to conveniently "forget" that there was a very decided Mrs. Oliver in the picture. Besides, no rumour of them splitting up held up for long, as Jade's love of PDA had not shrunk since grade 11.

And of course, there was Cat. Circumstances had made it so that Cat was safest (and happiest) when living with someone else who could help her manage her list of conditions, which now included diabetes, and no one was able to do that better than Jade and Beck. They had practically been surrogate parents to Cat all through high school, and that continued now as necessary. On Cat's good days, they enjoyed being her best friends, but on her bad days, there was always someone there to make sure she was okay and to put up limits on what was safe and what was not. Although Cat had struggled in high school to decide on what career path would fit her best, she had eventually found work that not only fit her talents and capabilities, but also made her into a star of her own right. And right behind her, Jade and Beck were always ready to cheer her on and celebrate her accomplishments.

Jade, Beck, and Cat were not the only ones at game night who had grown up. Tori, Andre, and Robbie were all there too, each of them having also branched out and built families of their own in the ways that worked best for them. Surprisingly, all of the original six had found careers in the entertainment industry, and although not all of them were professional musicians, it was easy for composing to sneak into game night. Andre ended up at the piano, throwing out chord combinations for others to match lyrics to. A game of Settlers of Catan was now at a point where it looked like the settlers would have to settle with half-built roads as all game participants switched over to providing potential lyrics - many of them ridiculous (Robbie) or tragic (Jade).

Everyone was laughing and having fun, but it was becoming clear that one person was having a wilder time than anyone else. When Jade saw Cat going for more chocolate cake which had been left on a kitchen counter, she gently intercepted her friend who still maintained the same baseline energy that had exuded from her in high school.

"Cat, I think you might have hit your sugar limit for tonight," Jade said gently, knowing that this intervention would likely not be taken well, even if it was necessary.

"No, I haven't! No, I haven't! No, I haven't!" Cat protested quickly, her eyes wide as she bounced in place excitedly. Jade sighed.

"Yes, you have. Maybe eat something else? There's the veggie tray Tori brought, and I think Beck was getting some more chips out of the pantry a minute ago."

"I want more cake," Cat said stubbornly, giving Jade a look that the later knew very well from having had this conversation many times before. It meant trouble.

"Cat, I know you want it, but you can't have it. Your sugar levels are going to be too high, and that's not safe, remember? So you can have a different low-sugar snack or wait until tomorrow. I'll save some of the cake for you. I promise."

"That's not fair!" Cat protested loudly, easily drawing the attention of the rest of the group. Jade resisted rolling her eyes, because conveying impatience to Cat never helped in the long run.

"It might not seem fair, but it's what's safe, so that's what we're doing."

Apparently today was not one of Cat's good days, because even being told a simple "no" was enough to have her eyes well up with frustrated tears. Jade's heart melted a little, but she knew better than to give in to Cat, no matter how cute she was.

"Jade's right," Beck said from behind Jade, coming over to the counter for a twist tie to keep the rest of the chips sealed until they were needed. "No more cake tonight, Cat. Your sugar levels were already higher than normal earlier today. Got to get them balanced again."

No one was surprised when Beck's confirmation of Jade's words did not magically change Cat's mood from grumpy to sunny. Indeed, she only seemed to double down on getting what she wanted, trying to push past Jade. Jade easily stopped her and said calmly, "That's enough. I told you 'no', and that's not changing. You heard your choices. Now, how about you go back to the game."

"NO! I want cake now!" Cat burst out loudly, on the border of yelling. Jade was not bothered by the volume - the Oliver family had created a rule that it was okay to be loud, as long you communicated without trying to hurt someone else's feelings - but she was running out of patience on Cat's insistence on not-listening. She did not want to embarrass Cat in front of their friends, so she leaned in to whisper to her.

"Cat, you are getting too worked up. This isn't me being mean. This is me telling you that you need to take care of yourself. I know you're upset at me and that's okay, but you are disturbing everyone else who is visiting for a fun evening. You need to calm down, so you can choose to find something to calm you down - maybe go relax in your room for a few minutes, listen to some music, go outside and water the flowers, whatever you want - or else you're going to have to have a time out because you can't keep behaving like this."

Cat glared - looking more pitiful than scary - but seemed to decide to go calm down as she marched off to her room. Jade thought that she had handled the situation well without unnecessarily drawing attention to Cat's mood, but at the top of the stairs Cat paused and yelled back at Jade, "I'll calm down all by myself! And you CAN'T PUT ME IN TIME OUT!"

Well, there went trying not to draw embarrassing attention to Cat. Jade heard a door slam a few seconds later. At least Cat was in her room now and could calm down on her own. She usually did after a few minutes by herself. Jade knew that fact very well, because despite Cat's assertions to the contrary, she had been in time out many times before when either Jade or Beck (or even Cat herself) realized that her emotions were overwhelming her ability to think clearly about a situation or started putting herself or others at risk during her hyperactive bursts.

Jade let out an exhausted sigh and shook her head a little as she sat down at the table while the others stared at her, some curiously trying to gauge her own mood and others with more amusement at the situation.

"She'll be fine," she muttered, running her hand over her face in frustration. "She's not even in time out right now." Beck put his arm around her and squeezed her in a supportive hug.

"She will," he confirmed, more for her than anyone else.

Tori giggled at the other end of the table and everyone looked at her with befuddled frowns.

"What's so funny, Vega?" Jade demanded. The "Vega" reference was no longer antagonistic, but Jade did tend to pull it out more when there were matters of disagreement. Jade did not see much that was strictly comedic about the altercation with Cat, but if Tori could provide some levity, it would be greatly appreciated.

"Sorry, sorry," Tori said, trying to regain a straight face. "I'm just remembering, that's all."

"Remembering what?"

"Well, when Beck told you to take a time out that time in high school."

"What time? You'll have to be more specific, because that pretty much a weekly occurrence," Jade laughed.

Her former high school friends seemed shocked by that admission.

"That much?" Tori asked in disbelief.

"You were a little controlling, weren't you, Beck?" Andre protested.

"He never controlled me," Jade said, rolling her eyes at such foolishness. Hadn't they known her back then?! "I know that you saw it happen at least twice. Beck threatened you all the first time..."

"That's right," Robbie said. His eyes twinkled. "Well, you can't get upset over us talking about it now, Beck! Jade's the one bringing it up."

Beck chuckled. "I did threaten you guys the first time, didn't I? I wanted to warn anyone off teasing Jade. I didn't want to embarrass her and talking about it in front of you guys was a slip-up."

"Aww, what a knight in shining armor," Jade cooed in her fake princess voice, before switching back to her regular tone. "Beyond the shock that first time, I didn't find it embarrassing. It was basically just his way of telling me to get it together, and I would. Besides, it was always with my consent, and I don't think sitting still for ten minutes ever hurt anyone."

"She never listened to me unless she wanted to. She still doesn't," Beck said with a chuckle, kissing the top of her head as she leaned against him.

"We still tell each other to go take a time out if we see each other needing a reminder to take a breather," Jade added. "We're a lot calmer than we were in our teens, but we aren't fizzled out yet."

The others, used to being shocked by Beck and Jade's unconventional relationship, seemed to take this information in stride. "To each their own" definitely applied to the Olivers.

"What particular time were you thinking of?" Jade asked Tori, wanting to figure out what about that particular memory had amused her so much.

"It was that night that we were writing a song for a performance I was doing. Some guy - I forget his name - had been playing games with me, and Andre and Beck came to tell me about it and I wanted revenge..."

"Oh! Ryder Daniels! He fooled you so well, even though everyone else saw it coming," Jade broke in with a chortle of her own amusement. Beck rolled his eyes.

"And that's why I told you to sit in time out back then! You are the worst of all Job's comforters."

Jade laughed and shrugged. "I suppose that has some truth to it." She smiled up at Beck. "Actually, I do remember you telling me to be nice before we went there, on the car ride over." She looked at Tori. "He figured I'd try something, because I didn't always like you back then."

Tori laughed. "What news!"

"Sarcasm doesn't fit you as well as me."

"That's okay. You can keep it," Tori said with faux-generosity.

Jade turned back to Beck, who was smiling at her, remembering how wild she was back then. "You were the only one who could have even suggested any form of discipline without being harmed."

Beck grinned. "We were made for each other."

"Remember that we're here before you guys get into too much detail," Andre protested, seeing the two starting to edge toward passion.

"So you are," Jade conceded with an evil little grin as she gave Beck an uncomfortably long kiss (for onlookers, not participants!), before settling back against his side without any more exhibitionism. "There. We'll be good," she said with exaggerated demureness.

"Anyway, what had me laughing about that memory was how out-of-character you were," Tori said.

"How was I funny?"

"You usually yelled about anything, but you just listened to Beck and pouted on the steps until we started singing."

"I think I was drinking coffee and planning revenge on Beck. It didn't matter to me that he'd warned me - I think I still minorly hated him at that moment, because he had ruined my unlawful fun of making jabs at you," Jade reminisced.

"You did have the best revenge lyrics!" Tori acknowledged. "Maybe the anger worked positively."

"I missed my grandfather's birthday party for composing that song," Andre remembered. "My family was so mad! Thankfully, he was still around the next year. But Tori's song was totally worth it."

"And yet it took you years to even take Tori on a date to even try to see if you guys had any spark," Beck laughed.

"I'll have you crawling like a centipede," Robbie warbled a line from the song with his best comedic inflection.

"I guess the singing and Cat yelling just reminded me of that. She was acting so much like you used to, and that memory just popped up," Tori concluded.

"Maybe Jade's becoming more like high school Cat," Beck said teasingly. "I have seen her fluffing up all of Cat's stuffed animals when she's away."

"Oh, you shut up," Jade grumbled, but she could not deny it.

There were some thumps on the stairs as Cat came back down. Jade appreciated the distraction from a conversation about her becoming soft. She was also relieved to see Cat appearing much calmer ... and headed for the carrot sticks.

"What are you all laughing about?" she asked curiously, finding a seat next to Jade, a simple sign that she was no longer upset at her friend. Jade gently pushed one of Cat's long curls out of her face, communicating that she was no longer upset either.

"Oh, nothing. Just some old memories that might not be so old after all," Jade said. She figured that avoiding any mention of "time out" might be best to avoid Cat thinking they had been gossiping about her while she was alming herself. "Hey, I think it's your turn in the game, Cat. Let's see if we can end at least one game night with a final score and inspiration for a new Harris hit."

"Harris hit - I like that," Andre hummed, turning back to the piano as Cat shook the dice as let them rattle onto the table.

Beck and Jade exchanged a long look, remembering.

"Thanks for being there through it all," Jade whispered.

"Thanks for letting me," Beck mouthed back.

And then, just like back at seventeen, they were kissing again.

Because maybe they had a bit more self-control in other aspects of their lives, but neither of them saw any need to make an issue out of the timing of their affection. It was always the right time to confirm their love for each other.

...

And that, my dear friends, is the end ... of this story. Hopefully I'll be able to start another one soon, one that would work on filling in some of the gaps between seventeen-year-old Jade and twenty-seven-year-old Jade. :D

Please review and let me know what was your favourite point in this story. I love learning about what gets readers to make it to the end of a story.

Thank you to all readers! I hope this story brought you a bit of joy or amusement over the last couple months. :)