A/N – "Thoughts"

Chapter 18 – Playing Peacemaker

Jason slowly pulled up in front of Rebecca's house. Sitting in the car and slowly gripping and releasing the steering wheel, he looked over at the front door for a moment, thinking. "What the hell am I going to say to her?" Sighing softly, "Whatever I say, I gotta end this now and quickly." Opening the door, he reluctantly got out of the car and slowly walked towards the front door.

After knocking on the door, Jason impatiently and nervously rocked on the balls of his feet as he waited for someone to answer. "And to think, this is supposed to be the easy one," he thought sarcastically to himself.

Opening the door, Lizzie smirked a little as she found Jason staring off into space, deep in thought. She wasn't sure what had happened, just that Rebecca had come home in a rage. When she had asked what was wrong, she just swore at her and stormed up to her room. She wanted to go to her daughter, especially after everything that had happened, but was getting practically shut out. "Jason."

Jerking in surprise, Jason's head swiveled around, "Hi Aunt Liz. Umm, is Rebecca around?"

"Yea," Lizzie said, nodding slightly, "She's up in her room." Moving aside, she motioned for Jason to come inside. "Jason? Did something happen today at school?"

"Uh," Jason paused at the base of the stairs, "How much do I tell her?"

Lizzie sighed softly, seeing Jason's reluctance to tell her anything but she also doubted that her friends would've told her parents anything like this either. "Its ok Jase. Go on up."

"Thanks," Jason said relieved and then bounded up the stairs two at a time.

Outside her bedroom door, he raised his hand to knock but paused for a moment. Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, he pushed aside the urge to run and knocked on the door. Hearing a muffled go away from inside, Jason slowly opened the door.

"Bec. Its me." Sitting at her desk, she looked up from writing something and watched him warily as he entered her room. Jason knew she was angry and upset, and that was a dangerous combination. "Proceed with caution!" his mind screamed at him. "We…um…need to talk."

"Bout?"

"About," he paused unsure of what to say but then forced the words out, "About what happened." Jason took a deep breath and started to pace a little, "Even before that night, things have been falling apart." Starting to pace a little, "I've been thinking about this for a few days and after this afternoon, I'm positive about this."

Folding her arms across her chest, "Positive about what?"

"That absolutely nothing can happen between us," Jason told her, "We can't let one mistake wreck a life long friendship."

"Mistake!" Rebecca snapped at him as she jumped up and charged towards him. She knew from the beginning, that kissing him was a mistake. There was no real emotions behind it and it had just caused her world, that had already been spinning out of control, to go completely off its axis. Now, she was just grasping at the last thing that made sense. But instead of making things better, it made things worse. Emotion was over ruling logic, but the tide was slowly starting to drift back.

Jason instinctively took a step back and held his hands up defensively, "A mistake in that we shouldn't have kissed because I was dating Amanda."

"Was dating?" she asked herself as she stopped her advance and actually started listening to what he was saying. "What are you talking about?"

"I've decided that our friendship is more important, to me at least, to throw it all away just so I can date one of you. I just don't wanna be the cause of breaking up two best friends. You both mean the world to me, in different ways. Yea, I'm attracted to you but the truth is, I'm crazy about Amanda. But if it means the three of us not being friends, than I say its not worth it. The only way I can figure to fix this, is if we go back to the way things were. No kissing, no dating; just the three of us, friends."

Rebecca stood there, replaying everything Jason just said. "He's gonna breakup with Amanda?"

About an hour after his conversation with Rebecca, he was walking around the corner towards the Crafts. "This is gonna be a lot harder. How do I tell the girl of my dreams that I want to break up and go back to the way things were?" Sighing softly, "I gotta do this or everything is gonna fall apart. Its for the greater good." He then sarcastically snickered at himself, "Why can't the greater good be what's better for me?"

Coming to a stop and standing at the corner of the street, Jason looked down Amanda's street and then back the way he came. "What am I doing? I don't even know if this is gonna work!" Running a hand through his dark curly hair, "How the hell am I even going to do this." He was getting more nervous by the second; he knew he was going to end up hurting her, again, and it killed him.

He didn't realize that he was starting to pace, "I can't do this. There's no way I can walk in there and just finish things." He paused and looked at Amanda's house, "But if I don't, things are only going to get worse no matter what." Taking a deep breath, "I gotta do this," he said softly. Before losing his nerve again, he started walking towards the Craft's again and forced himself to knock on the front door.

After Rachel let him inside, and giving him a death glare, Jason slowly made his way into the kitchen where Amanda was sitting, absentmindedly looking down at a carton of chocolate ice cream as she continually stabbed it with her spoon.

"My head?" he asked sarcastically. Amanda looked up and over at him; Jason cringed at the look in her eyes. "We need to talk."

"Look, if you came her to break up with me for Rebecca, you can save it and just leave now. I'll leave you two alone."

"That's just it," Jason told her, "I don't want you to leave us alone. But…But you got part of it right." When Amanda looked at him confused, Jason tried to resist the urge to not do it. "I think…I think we should break up," he said as his voice cracked a little.

It was weird, Amanda had prepped herself for this scenario, but still, it actually happening, felt like someone sucker punched her.

"Ever since we got together, nothing as really gone right. Maybe the dream was never meant to be reality. I just believe that the three of us staying friends is more important than me picking one of you and the other getting left out in the cold." Jason could feel his heart breaking as he saw the hurt on Amanda's face. "Its for the best," he forced himself to say.

Amanda tried her best to keep herself together and not turn into blathering mess. Using her palm, she pretended to brush some hair back but was actually wiping at her eye. "I guess."

After a few minutes of very tense silence, Jason gently tapped the countertop, "I should go." Amanda just nodded and watched him leave. Biting her lip, she slowly got up out of the chair, leaving the ice cream carton where it was, and feeling defeated, walked to her bedroom.

Late the following morning, Amanda was laying on top of her unmade bed. With her eyes closed, she wasn't really asleep but had no real desire to get up; plus it being Saturday, there was no immediate reason to get up. As she laid there, she tried to not thinking of anything because everytime she did, her mind would immediately go to Jason.

Hearing a knock on her door, she groaned and rolled over onto her stomach. "Amanda," Kate's voice said as the door opened, "theirs someone here to see you."

"What, more good news?"

Kate sighed as she noted her daughter's lack of reaction. "I'll leave you two alone."

Wondering who her mother had let in, Amanda picked up her head. Her eyes locked with a pair of familiar hazel ones looking back. "Haven't you done enough?"

"I didn't come to pick another fight," Rebecca said. "I came to…apologize." She fidgeted as Amanda slowly sat up, "I never meant to hurt you. Its just these past few weeks…let's just say, I haven't been thinking clearly."

"I guess I didn't make things any better with me walking around jealous and a chip on my shoulder," Amanda admitted. "I was so focused on proving that you were coming between me and Jase, that not only did I forget you lost your dad, I went off the deep end when something did happen."

Rebecca sat down on the desk chair, "Look, I'm sorry for screwing things up between you and Jason. I was just so scared and I kinda latched onto the only thing that was making me feel better, unfortunately, it was Jason. Things just got out of hand."

"So what are we gonna do now?"

"We try to put everything back together. I care too much about you two that I don't want to throw away our friendship over this," Rebecca said softly, "I need you guys. Who else would put up with me?" she joked and they both smiled a little.

After a moment, "Jason talk to you?" Rebecca watched as a sad look cross over Amanda's face, "I'll take that as a yes."

"He came over yesterday afternoon," Amanda mumbled as she wiped her eye, trying very hard not to cry but failing.

Now Rebecca really felt horrible as she watched her best friend starting to cry. The only thing she could do was get up, sit down next to her on the bed, and hug her. As she did, Rebecca could only repeat, "I'm sorry," she whispered to her as she started crying too.

Pulling her head back a little, Amanda looked at her through teary eyes, "Why do you keep apologizing?" Amanda asked with a horse voice. "I screwed up, its my fault things are this bad. I turned into the selfish, jealous bitch. Its my fault I lost everything; my boyfriend and my best friend. You needed me and I didn't care. How can you come over here and apologize? You didn't stab me in the back, hell, if anything I stabbed you in the back." Amanda started feeling worse as she slowly started to realize how selfish and how much of a jerk she had been lately. This was far worse than just losing Jason, she had become everything she hated and it had come so naturally, she didn't even realize it. "I'm so sorry."

Rebecca smiled softly at her; while it was a bit too late, it was still nice to hear her say it and it did make the next thing easier, "You didn't lose everything and I still wanna be your best friend. I came cause Jason's visit made me realize that we were on the verge of losing everything and what could happen if we didn't try anything," Rebecca said as she wiped her eyes. "We've fought before but nothing like this; this may be one of our worst. But we need each other, I don't know what I'd do if I lost you too."

Grabbing Amanda's hand, "And you and Jase are not over. I need to talk to…no…we both need to talk to Jase. I'm telling you right now, we've been together for far too long and there's no way in hell, I'm gonna break in a whole new set of best friends," she said sarcastically and they both let out a tired laugh, "I refuse to let our friendship go without a fight and you shouldn't let him go without one either. We end this now. You with me?"

Amanda wiped the tear tracks on her cheeks and smiled a little as she nodded. "Yea, I'm in. So how do we do it?"

As they stood up, Rebecca shrugged, "I have no idea. I just know this is something we gotta do."