Something to be Grateful for.
Writer: Invader Johnny.
Disclaimer: We all know I don't own Victorious, Dan Schneider and Nick do.
Summary: Set in the Parenthood saga, Thanksgiving dinner is in a matter of hours and Jade finds out her son is cooking more than just the meal for everyone, some unexpected visitors are coming and it will not make her wife Tori happy, but can that change?
Author Notes; Well my dead readers, Happy Thanksgiving… One day late, but better late than never right? I hope all of you are keeping yourselves safe during this time, here's a story set in the Parenthood universe involving the holiday, I written so many chapters for Christmas, Halloween and other holidays for that saga but this is the first time I'm writing about Thanksgiving for that Jori universe, how nutty is that?
Anyway, do read and enjoy everyone, fair warning this is going to get dramatic!
Jade West got up from the bed she shared with her wife, yawning at the fact that she woke up before it was even 7 A.M, she clearly was still sleepy and didn't had the intention of getting out of bed, but of course her bladder had other plans.
"Last time I have a root beer drinking contest with Vega." She groaned. "What the hell was I thinking? And how is she still sleeping?"
Jade lazily glanced at her sleeping spouse who was dead to the world, resting cozily on her side of the bed, drooling on her pillow.
"That's attractive." Jade thought sarcastically. "Ugh, either Vega has a bladder of steel or she did her business at some point in the night without waking me up."
The Thespian got out of bed, fast pacing towards the bathroom and once she was done she was ready to rejoin her spouse in dreamland.
That is, had the universe not decided to mess up with her.
CLANG!
Jade was inches from her bed when she heard something hitting the floor, she groaned in annoyance. "Figures… Looks like I'm going to have to see what made that noise… Hope it's a burglar… I'll feel better after I hurt something."
She walked downstairs, just about ready to maul whoever had been unfortunate enough to interrupt her sleep, to her surprise she saw her teenage son in the kitchen.
"Tony?"
The teen looked up from he was doing, surprised to see one of his mothers awake this early. "Oh hey mom… Did I wake you?"
"You did." Jade yawned as she walking into the kitchen. ""Not to sound rude but what the hell are you doing up Tony? It's not even seven o'clock yet."
"Today is Thanksgiving Mom, don't you remember?" He said excitedly as he rummaged through the refrigerator. "And you know what this means right? It's my first time in forever cooking for everyone this time around! I have been waiting for this day for the entire month and I just couldn't wait to get started."
"I can see that." Jade replied dryly. "But you've don't need to go overboard, let me tell you a little story, a few years before we got married, Tori and I had our first Thanksgiving together, it was just the two of us, we were in New York at the time because she was filming a show, it was her first major role and as a surprise I went to visit her, long story short we were supposed to go back to L.A for Thanksgiving but some idiot that I hope got fired, erased the last episode they filmed by accident and they had to start from scratch which of course put a halt to our plans."
"You're kidding." Tony said. "I'm surprised you didn't kill that guy."
"I wanted to." She said with her arms crossed. "Believe me, I so wanted to stab the idiot with my favorite pair of scissors but I had forgotten them at our dorm, anyway Tori was so disappointed she couldn't go home and I wasn't about to leave her alone, so I thought, what could I do to make her feel better? Next thing I know I got hit with inspiration."
"I'm going to assume the not evil kind of inspiration?" Tony asked. "Right, Mom?"
"And you would be right." Jade nodded. "I ended up buying a chicken because I wasn't about to cook a huge ass turkey, I made a few calls and next thing your mama knows, your grandpa and aunt are in her hotel room, I had to pay for their plane tickets and hear your aunt Trina being a pain in the ass but it was kinda worth it to see the smile on your Mama's face."
"That was sweet of you Mom." Tony said. "But what was the point of the story?"
"I was getting to that!" Jade said in a mixture of annoyance and tiredness. "That day I gave your Mama the gift of family, the following year I was dry on inspiration as a result of my brilliant idea at the time, however I forgot to think ahead, meaning how the hell was I supposed to top that for the following year?"
"Ohh… I see where you're going with this."
"Yeah… Never do something you can't outdo next year." The former Goth groaned. "I learned that lesson the hard way but thank God it was Cat's turn to host Thanksgiving so I only had to give your Mama some much needed love."
"Some… Love?" The teen asked till his eyes widened with realization…. "Oh gross! Mom, really?"
"This is coming from you?" Jade asked with a smirk. "The same teen who asked me for advice on his first time with your girlfriend?"
Tony said nothing to that; he blushed furiously before changing the subject to something less traumatizing. "So umm, you're saying I shouldn't burn myself out on dinner? Save my creativity for other occasions?"
"Exactly." The Thespian nodded. "You got your whole life to go all out on your cooking son, right now just need worry about making sure you don't end up hating what you're cooking, be sure to be happy with that you'll be serving us later tonight and more importantly it's something you're proud off, I mean, the turkey's been defrosting in the fridge, so it should only take about six hours to cook, and since we're not eating until five, you got plenty of time to do that as well as experiment on other dishes."
"Yeah… About that…" Tony said with a sneaky grin. "We're not having just one Turkey, Mom."
"Not just one…?" Jade repeated suspiciously. "Tony… What did you do?"
Knock, knock, knock.
"You'll see." He said mysteriously as he opened the backdoor, where a certain blonde teen was holding another turkey, glaring daggers at her boyfriend.
"I hate you so much West." Emily said darkly. "Why the hell am I here at this ungodly hour when I I should be sleeping right now?"
"Because, I doubt you want to spend the whole day sleeping in an empty house." Tony replied. "Come on Em, I invited you for Thanksgiving so you didn't have to spend the holiday by yourself."
"I'm not by myself." Emily huffed. "My dads left me with my aunt and uncle while on their business trip to Florida so that at least I would spend the week with family and while in theory that was a good plan, my folks didn't realize that A; our relatives would spend Thanksgiving with a bunch people I don't know and B; that their tyrannical boss would force them to work overtime and wouldn't make it for Thanksgiving!"
Jade blinked, she was noticing a familiar route with her unexpected visitor, all the while, Tony grabbed the turkey from his girlfriend's hands, inviting her in, and Emily critically saw the food that was all over the kitchen table.
"What's all this?"
"Oh, I'm going to be cooking Thanksgiving dinner this year, so I'm getting all the ingredients out so as to prepared." Tony explained excitedly. "So a thanks for bringing the second Turkey, this day is going to be a lot of fun."
"You call cooking at the crack of dawn fun?" Emily asked in disbelief. "It's moments like these that I question my sanity when I asked you to be my boyfriend, West."
"Love you too baby." Tony shot back teasingly. "You can try and be a killjoy all you want Em but nothing is going to ruin my excitement for the day ahead!"
"Yeah ok, knock yourself out." Emily yawned. "I'm going to your room to get some sleep, see you after noon."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Jade interjected. "And who gave you permission to sleep on my son's bed?"
"The same guy who told me I could have some of the mysterious Vega family pot pie if I brought an extra turkey and helped him prepare the rest of the food after I got a decent amount of sleep, oh by the way Tony, this was on your front door."
Emily gave her boyfriend a letter, he took it while giving her a pointed look, she simply whispered. "Good luck" before giving him a kiss on the cheek and walked away.
Jade watched the blonde teen make her way towards her son's bedroom, both of them looked at the envelop in his hands; the former Goth suddenly had a very bad feeling, especially since it looked rather familiar, she just couldn't put her finger as to why that is.
Tony opened it and began to read what was inside and without telling his mom was it said, he clapped his hands. "Well, its cooking time!"
"Anthony West!" Jade said sharply. "What did that letter say? More importantly who was it from?"
"Uhh…. It a surprise?"
"Are you asking me or telling me?" She retorted. "And a surprise for whom?"
"If I say it then it no longer will be a surprise."
"There is such a thing as a bad surprise Tony." The Thespian said while crossing her arms. "Now spill."
"Ok but you got to promise me you won't tell Mama."
"I know I'm not going to like this but fine I promise."
"I invited Grandma for Thanksgiving dinner." He said a little too quickly in an attempt to prevent his Mom from hearing what he knew was sure to be an explosive reply…. And he was right.
"YOU… WHAT?!"
"Shhh!" Tony said. "Keep your voice down mom! You promised!"
"What were you thinking?!" Jade snapped. "Do you realize what you just did?! This is going to be such a disaster! It's like putting Jason and Freddy Krueger in the same room!"
"I was thinking that this would be the perfect chance for them to reconcile, Mom!" Tony said. "I don't want Mama to be angry with Grandma for the rest of her life and then the day might come when she wants to fix things and it might be too little too late!"
"While that's a noble cause Tony…. I don't think that's going to happen." Jade said with a softer look in her eyes. "Believe me, your Mama has a big heart and is willing to give second chances but when it comes to your grandma, that's another story, she has hurt Tori a lot of times after she came out of the closet and there's a lot of resentment there."
"But grandma said she was sorry more times than I can count." He pointed out. "And she has shown to be more open minded that she was when Mama was my age."
"While that may be true, you got to see it from your Mama's point of view,." Jade said. "Your grandma, threw her out when she first came out to here, then tried to shove her religious views down her throat, send bible thumpers to our door, emotionally abused her by telling her what she was feeling was wrong and nearly sent her a path of self-destruction and while she eventually came around, Tori didn't trust her, she was so sick of giving her second chances that in the end she took the decision to cut her out of her life, mainly out of love towards you and you sisters."
"What do you mean, mom?"
"See Son, when your Mama and I got married, she made a promise to herself that she would always love all our children no matter what." The Thespian explained. "And when your grandma came around years after not seeing each other, it was far from the warm, cozy welcome she expected, Tori returned the favor and kicked her out like she did to her years earlier, your sisters had just been born and your Mama didn't want your grandma around for fear of having a toxic environment around, sure Holly may have said she changed but it's one thing to say it and another actually do it."
"I never knew that."
"It's not something that comes up in conversation." Jade said. "Long story short, your grandma tried more than once to reconnect not only with Tori but with Trina as well, as you noticed, that hasn't gone over so well and I can't blame your Mama for feeling this way."
"I get what you're saying mom." Tony replied. "But If Mama doesn't give Grandma the chance to prove she has changed then they will waste away what remaining years they could have together, don't you think they owe it to themselves to at least try."
"What makes you think they can?"
"I have faith that Mama will meet Grandma half-way." The teen said firmly. "They just need a little push in the right direction."
"This is the sort of scheme that reminds me of the crazy shenanigans Tori used to pull me into when we were High School." Jade said almost nostalgically. "You really are her son… Fine, go ahead but don't say I didn't warn you."
"Don't worry mom." Tony said with a smile. "I bet that by the end of the evening Mama and Grandma will be on better terms."
"I really hope you're right."
After finally going back to her bedroom, Tony got his phone out and send out a text.
"Got your letter grandma, you're in."
Well my readers, this is the end of chapter one, hopefully I'll write the rest sooner rather than later, I already have the whole ordeal planned out and originally this WAS planned to be a new chapter for my fic "Parenthood" but of course I missed the deadline plus as I began to flesh it out it became a much bigger storyline to the point I decided to post it as a separate story but still in the same timeline.
That being said, this may end up being two maybe three chapters long; the reason I'm posting this now rather than wait till next year is because I did not want to wait so long to tell this story as I may finally finish Parenthood the coming year, who knows?
Well, do tell me your thoughts on this my dear readers, as always, constructive criticism is always appreciated.
Invader Johnny Signing Off.
