Thanks for the reviews everyone, I'm already over 150 which ROCKS!

Thanks so much and here is Chapter 9 of My Finest Hour.

Lotsa love, degrassichick

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Chapter 9

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"Alex, it's nothing…" Jay said quickly as he and Alex sat on the couch at her house.

"Nothing!" Alex exclaimed to him, "You fought some guy at a party last night who had coincidentally been in a room with Green Peace, today she drug you out of study hall and now you're almost always defending her if Amy, Towerz, or I make fun of her! What the hell is going on Jay and don't say nothing!"

Jay shook his head and placed his hand on his head, "Alex…"

"Are you cheating on me with Nature Freak?" Alex asked.

Jay shook his head, "No, Alex! I'm not cheating on you or anything like that. Why are you so paranoid?"

"Paranoid? I'm not paranoid Jay, God!"

"Maybe we should just break up…" Jay said.

Alex stared at him in shock, "What?"

"It's not working Alex…it's nothing even against you it's just…"

"It's Emma Nelson." Alex finished.

Jay opened his mouth to object but Alex stopped him.

"Don't even say anything Jay." Alex said, "I know that's what it is and if you're about to defend her than that just makes it definitely true. Nelson is dead." Alex said, shooting up from the couch and stalking out of the door.

"Alex!" Jay hollered after her and jogged down the steps of Alex's house only to see Alex driving off in her car.

x-

Alex remembered where Emma lived back from when she was with Paige one time and they were driving around and Paige had pointed it out. Alex didn't care back then however, she never figured she'd go over to Emma's house…guess that plan didn't last.

She hit the doorbell and waited for Emma to answer.

Just then the door swung open and she heard Emma's voice.

"Hey Jay…" she said.

Oh my God…Alex thought angrily, now she knew something was going on.

Emma's eyes widened as soon as she saw Alex.

"Uh…hi Alex…" Emma stammered.

Alex simply shot her an angry glare.

"Jay and I broke up." She said roughly.

Emma gulped, "Oh…I'm sorry."

"Yeah, I bet you are." Alex said angrily.

"No, I really am…that sucks." Emma said.

"You little bitch you broke us up!" Alex exclaimed and lunged at her, the two fell onto the floor and wound up rolling around on the floor.

"I didn't do anything!" Emma exclaimed, trying to break out of Alex's grip, Alex simply pushed her back down.

"Yeah I bet you didn't. He always defends you," Alex takes a quick break from speaking to smack Emma's cheek, "he fought somebody who had been around you," cue a yank of hair, "he's never around at night anymore, he left study hall with you today, yeah I bet there is nothing going on!" Alex exclaimed.

Emma sighed, she couldn't tell Alex she was really just tutoring Jay, Jay would hate her.

"Will you please just get off of me!" Emma exclaimed, actually pushing Alex off of her and sitting up, straightening her wife beater before shooting up so that she was standing, she began to back away from Alex, "I promise to you, honest to God that there is nothing going on between Jay and I! I promise!"

Alex stood up as well and walked closer to Emma, making Emma back away even more as if it were a reflex, "You better hope nothing is going on between you and my boyfriend."

"I thought you guys broke up…" Emma said under her breath.

Alex pushed Emma so that she wound up slamming into a wall, "You don't talk back to me, smartass."

Emma gulped slightly and nodded, "Sorry." She said and then pushed Alex aside and straightened herself.

Just then Alex started to laugh.

Emma turned around and glanced at her suspiciously, "What's funny?"

"I just realized Jay would never fall for someone like you. You're some stuck-up prude, bitchy, nature loving freak…I was so stupid to actually think Jay could like someone like you. He actually has good taste in the girls he dates."

Emma pursed her lips together to prevent saying a comeback, but she couldn't restrain herself, "You said Jay has good taste in girls, right?"

Alex nodded, "Right."

"And yet…here you stand." Emma said with a sarcastic smirk playing at her lips.

Alex's hands balled into fists at that comeback but slowly unclenched as she grabbed the top of Emma's shirt and tugged her up close and personal to her face, "You better stand your grounds Nelson, I'm being nice to you right now." She said roughly before letting go of her shirt and pushing her onto the ground.

"No, you're actually being really rude. You're nice to Paige, how am I different?" Emma asked, jumping up.

"You see, Paige is my friend. But you…you're not my friend, you're just a bitch who thinks she can steal Jay."

"I'm not trying to steal Jay, Alex! I'm his tutor for God's sake!" she exclaimed, but as soon as the words dropped from her lips she wished she could grab them from where they were floating around in the air and stuff them back in her mouth.

Alex's mouth dropped open, "His tutor?"

Emma gulped, "No…I mean…"

Alex scoffed, "That's why he's never hanging around me? He has a tutor?"

Emma nodded slightly, "Yeah…I-I guess so."

Idiot, idiot, idiot!

IDIOT!

Hey we agree on something.

Yeah, what do you know!

"I should have known he wouldn't be cheating on me, especially with you. But I can't believe he has to have a tutor! Especially you, you're in grade eleven, we're in grade twelve…damn that's fucked up. Wait til Towerz and Amy here about this…"

Emma shook her head, "Alex, you can't tell them about this."

"Yes I can, they're my friends. Jay won't care."

"Yes he will! You've been with him for a long time Alex; shouldn't you know stuff like that by now! Jay didn't want anybody to know about him being tutored, so how good of a girlfriend are you if you tell all of his friends that?"

"How good of a friend to confide in are you if you tell my girlfriend that I'm being tutored?" another voice, a familiar male voice said from behind her.

Emma gulped and turned around, only to be face to face with Jay.

"Oh my God…Jay, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to I swear, it slipped out!" Emma exclaimed.

"I trusted you Nelson…I fucking trusted you." Jay said.

"I know, I know. And I am so sorry!"

"Too late for apologies…" Alex sang out from behind her.

"Shove it, Alex." Emma snapped.

Jay shook his head in disbelief, "I knew I couldn't trust you to keep it a secret…and I shared things with you I haven't even told Alex."

"Excuse me?" Alex asked.

"Don't worry about them Alex." Jay piped up.

"Well you couldn't tell things like not loving Alex to Alex now could you?" Emma asked, before letting out a groan and closing her eyes, cursing herself under her breath.

There you go again.

Smooth move, nimrod!

"Jay!" Alex exclaimed.

"Sorry!" Jay exclaimed before turning to Emma, "Forget about our tutor sessions. I'm done with you…I'll pay you for the week tomorrow, later Green Peace. Let's go Alex."

Alex nodded like an obedient dog and followed him.

Emma gulped as she saw he two walk out, Jay's arm draped over Alex's shoulder as they walked out of her house, Jay closed the door behind them with a resounding slam.

Emma walked towards the nearest wall and slowly crumpled; she hugged her knees against her chest and rested her head on her knees, and cried.

x-

She was still crying twenty minutes later when she heard a knock on the door.

She got up and wiped her eyes with the hem of her wife beater and walked towards the door, opening it slowly, as if cautious to who would be on her porch.

She opened it the rest of the way and saw Caitlin Ryan-which would be Jeremiah in a few weeks-standing on her porch.

Caitlin had just gotten back from California, after Ryan's Planet had officially flopped while trying to make a comeback; she decided to come back to Toronto.

Joey had actually flown to LA to see her and proposed, she had gladly accepted and in twenty-one days, they would be married.

"Hey Emma!" Caitlin exclaimed and threw her arms around the sixteen-year-old.

"Hey…good to see you're back." Emma replied, hugging her back, "I figured you'd go see Joey first."

"Oh I stopped by our house but he wasn't here, I figured he might be over here." Caitlin said.

Emma shook her head as they broke away, "He might be at the hospital though."

Caitlin nodded in understanding, "Yeah…I heard about Snake, I was going to head over to the hospital in a bit to see them but-" she cut herself off when she noticed Emma's tearstained cheeks, "-Emma, what's wrong?"

Emma shook her head and wiped one of her eyes, "It's nothing."

"It's something." Caitlin corrected her, "Honey, what happened?" she asked, stepping inside of the house.

"No…I'm fine. Just school related stuff." Emma said.

"It's a boy, isn't it?"

Emma nodded, and just like that, the whole entire story spilled out, starting with when Emma first met Jay to ending with the second he walked out of her front door only twenty-five minutes before.

"So you feel bad that you lost a really good friendship with Jay?" Caitlin asked.
Emma shrugged, "He was the only person I could actually talk to about my problems besides my diary, who doesn't talk back, and Manny who well…doesn't really always give advice and half the time she barely listens. But Jay…Jay listened and we talked about stuff like that and we shared our problems and all of that!"

"I think this was turning into more of a friendship Emma, if he was talking bad about his girlfriend to you, fighting people for you, sticking up for you, confiding in you, and kissing you and doing…uh…certain…things with you last year and then almost kissing you this year…I think there is something more going on."

Emma shook her head, "I was pretty much like his journal, he figured he could trust me. But then I spilled them out on accident. I was supposed to be his friend."

Caitlin sighed, "Accidents happen, Emma…Alex had you in a scary position."

"I know, but he trusted me!" Emma exclaimed, tears leaking down her cheeks.

Caitlin put her arm around Emma comfortingly, "It's not all your fault, Emma."

"Yes it is." Emma sobbed.

"No, it's not. Alex was going to really hurt you if you didn't tell her something."

"Well I could have at least lied!" Emma exclaimed.

"Like saying that the two of you were actually dating behind her back?" Caitlin asked.

Emma shrugged, "I just should have said something."

Caitlin sighed as Emma rested her head against her shoulder and continued to cry.

"And you want to know the truth, Caitlin?" Emma asked after five minutes of silence.

"What's the truth?" Caitlin asked.

Emma sighed, "I've really fallen hard for him."

x-

R&R and please, no flames!

Lotsa love, degrassichick

P.S. So sorry for the horribly written fight scene...