Disclaimer: I'm not Dan Schneider. So nope, this show ain't mine. Story is, though.

Chapter 12

"So, you want to tell me what happened?"

"What do you mean?" Beck asks, looking around the janitor's closet he had just been pushed into.

"Yesterday. With Tori." Cat explains, closing the door behind them.

"Oh…" A little grin plays on his lips as he remembers. "Nothing."

"Don't lie to me, Becky."

"You wanna tell me what happened?"

She just gives him a 'what the hell are you talking about' kind of look.

"With Jade." He smirks. Two could play that game.

"Ugh… Becky, shut up." She sighs, sounding exasperated.

"Then just tell me, Cat. It's not that hard." He says.

"But that's where you're wrong, Becky. It is hard." She answers, looking at the floor.

"What's so hard about it?"

"It's hard to explain, it's hard to talk about, and it's just hard to think about." She admits, the rest of her usual exuberant demeanor slipping away.

His amused expression drops as well. "Cat… you know you can trust me. I can help you figure shit out, at least. I want to help," He says, surprising them both.

"Because you're curious." She says, still looking down.

"No. Because I care." He tries to convey as much sincerity as he can. Because it's true, he does care. Cat's his friend and he could tell whatever this situation was, it was eating her up inside but she kept it hidden behind her bubbly exterior. He sees through all that.

She lifts her head slowly and her wide brown eyes smolder his. "You do?" She sounds so surprised and it makes his chest ache.

"Yeah, I do." He nods, and decides then and there that he would help this girl. Even if he doesn't know the whole story, he would try to help her. He would be a better friend.

The bell for class rings but neither of them pay any attention to it.

Her mouth opens and closes and she makes these noises like she wants to say something, but she doesn't know exactly what.

"Thank you," She settles on and gives him a grateful smile. He's a little baffled as to why Cat is so surprised that he cares, that he actually gives a shit, but there were so many things about her that he'd probably never understand.

They stand in silence for a little while longer. "You wanna get out of here?" He finally asks.

"You mean, like, ditch?" She cocks her head to the side.

"Yeah." He affirms.

"Okay." She smiles brightly and opens up the door.

"Okay." He nods and they make their way to the front doors.

When they're on the road finally, she starts in on the third degree.

"So, what happened? I'm dying to know."

"With Tori?" He plays dumb.

"Duh!"

He laughs. All day he'd been sort of stupid, like smiling for no reason and embarrassing feminine crap like that. Whenever he saw her, they'd look at each other, smile shyly, and look away. There was no PDA because, honestly? He doesn't know where they stand. They kind of left it open-ended and he was a bit disappointed, he wasn't gonna lie. He was hoping she'd want to make it official right away or something.

"Well…" He takes his time to answer, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, building up suspense.

"Come on!" She urges.

"We kind of… kissed. A lot…" He says finally, as he nears the beach.

Her jaw drops and he finds a place to park.

"What!" She cries and hops out of the car so fast he hadn't even had time to turn the engine off, let alone get out.

"Yeah." He shrugs it off as they start walking along the shore.

"Don't do that," She scolds.

"Do what?"

"Play it off like it was no big deal. I know it's a big deal!" She says, and hits him on the arm.

"It was not."

"Don't deny! How was it?" She smirks as they pass a mom and her two little kids playing in the sand, them bouncing around just as much as Cat was.

He laughs. "It was…" He searches for the right adjective. "Mind-numbing." He settles on, remembering it in his head and deciding that that was the right word because there were just no words.

Cat squeals and it attracts the attention of some of the people they pass.

"That is so cute!" She smiles so widely, it almost splits her face in half.

"Cat, calm down." He chuckles.

"No! Becky, that is adorable." She beams at him again and he's a little taken aback.

He shrugs. They find a spot to sit and he plops down in the sand. She gracefully lowers herself next to him and begins to try and take her shoes off.

He smiles a little.

"So, when are you going out next?" She asks as she fumbles with the buckle on her sandal.

"Uh…" He pauses.

She looks back at him. "What do you mean, 'uh'? You did ask her out again, didn't you?" She asks and gives him a serious look.

"Well… no, not exactly. She asked what was going to happen next and I said we'd just see where it went." He sees her wide eyes. "What? Is that bad?"

She bugs out. "Yes!"

"Why?"

"If you didn't specify anything then she's not going to know how serious you are or if she was just an experiment to you." She says distastefully and makes a face, like she has a bad taste in her mouth.

He furrows his brow. "She seemed fine with it when she left. And today she seemed great, actually. From what I saw."

"She's pretending. Or it hasn't hit her yet. When it does… it's not going to be good." She stares off into space.

He gives her a perplexed look. "Uh, Cat?"

She snaps out of it and looks back at him. "Sorry, Becky." She mumbles and resumes wrestling her shoe off.

He sheds the plaid shirt he had over his black undershirt as the heat hits him.

"Do you think I should make it official?" He asks.

She lets out a breath. "If you really want to."

He's quiet for a moment.

She looks worried. "You do want to, right? Becky?"

He opens his mouth. He does! Right? Yeah... "We're not here to talk about me, Cat." He sighs.

She gives him a strange look for a second and then goes back to her shoe.

He laughs, witnessing her trouble. "How have you not gotten that one off yet?"

"I can't do it." She whines.

"Gimme your foot."

She turns and places it on his lap.

He chuckles as he begins to unbuckle it. "'The hell you do to this thing?"

She shrugs. "I dunno."

He smiles some more. It's comfortably quiet for a little, him trying to undo the Gordian Knot that was her buckle, she just staring out at the blue waves.

"I think it's great. You and Tori." She smiles. "Really, I do. It's super-duper cute and… you're good together." At this point he had stilled his movements on her foot and was just staring at the sandal, listening to her as she went on. "You're more… fun now. And I think that it has something to do with her. She mellows you out, I think." Her eyes twinkle.

He considers this for a moment. "Before anything happened between us I was the opposite of mellow. At least, when I was alone. I freaked out constantly over what to do with my 'feelings'. But now that I've told her… well more like I showed her, if you know what I mean…" He smirks. "But, I feel better since yesterday. I love being with her. And I guess I left it up to her, but now that I think about it, it's really kind of on me to make the next move… but what is the next move? Do I ask her on a date? Ask her to be my girlfriend? Would we keep it a secret? Do I just go up to her and kiss her senseless? I'm at a loss, here. I don't know what to do. What do I do? I need to do something." He stops to catch his breath. Talk about diarrhea of the mouth. He hadn't meant to ramble but Cat's kind of the only one he can think of to talk to about this, and plus she's here and really, most of that was just baggage he needed to get off his chest anyways.

"You don't have to always know the next move, Becky." Her voice breaks through his inner monologue, reminding him of her presence.

He doesn't say anything back.

After a while, she forcibly pried her shoe off her foot and laid back in the sand, using her cardigan as a pillow.

He lies down beside her and closes his dark eyes. He starts to think of random things. Yogurt, iced coffee, Tori's hair, lemonade from a can, his father's angry face, Tori's lips, what the others might be doing at school, the ocean waves, Tori's everything… It's only when he's caught in that state of almost asleep, but still pretty much aware of what's going on, that Cat speaks again.

"How did you get over Jade so quickly?" She sounds kind of distant, even though she's lying directly to his left side, a handful of inches between them.

He keeps his eyes closed and answers her truthfully.

"Things between us had fizzled out for a while. I didn't hate her, per se, but I kind of began to resent her a little at the end. Yet, I didn't break up with her. I never did, she was always the one who ended it. I don't really know why I let it go on like it did for so long. But… Jade's familiar. It was hard to quit her cold turkey, if you know what I mean. It's kind of hard to explain. It's like when I was around her, I couldn't take it. But when we were apart… I'm not going to say I missed her… but it kind of felt like she was supposed to be there, if that makes any sense. I mean sometimes I still have these moments where it's weird that I'm not around her 24/7. But I think it took us breaking up and me moving on for me to not completely hate her guts." Oxymoron, much? "Sorry, that didn't make any sense."

"I kinda get it. Like when I don't wear my favorite bracelet, it feels like it's missing. It's not the prettiest, but it's special. That's why it's my favorite." She says, in all seriousness.

He laughs. "Sure. I guess you could look at it that way."

"Have you ever felt a certain way you really shouldn't?" She blurts so suddenly, that he snaps his eyes open and turns his head to look at her. She's wringing her hands like she's nervous, and staring at the sky.

"Yeah… I guess." He says, a little suspicious.

"I mean about another person. Like, you know you aren't supposed to feel this certain way, but you just can't help it… and like… you know it's wrong but it just won't stop… but you know that they aren't really into you like that… and if they even pay any attention to you at all, it's probably just because they're curious and bored, but all the same, you won't complain, because at least you get to be around them." She pauses before swallowing and adding, "Until you want more."

He freezes. Was she talking about…?

He thinks back to the time the two of them had spent together. He was like, one of the first to pay her any attention. And he was curious about her… and she probably thought that it was so wrong to like him because she knew he had feelings for Tori. Did she misinterpret something he did?

He widens his eyes. That would explain why she and Jade had so much weird tension and beef between them! She probably told Jade she wanted him and Jade probably got upset about it!

Oh my god… she's totally into me!

She was talking about him! Cat liked him!

What was he going to do? He means, Cat is great, but… they were friends. And 'wanting more'? Did that mean she wanted to date him? He realizes he hasn't said anything yet. "Uh… Cat… we should talk about this…"

She looks over at him.

"I mean… you're great, so totally awesome. You're an amazing friend and you're super cute and adorable and I like spending time with you… but… we're just friends. I like Tori. I'm sorry…" He trails off, fearing he was making this worse. He really didn't want to upset her.

She had furrowed her brow while he was talking and eventually she began to laugh after he trailed off. Hard. They were not even her usual Cat giggles, these were full on… guffaws. "Oh my… you thought that… You?" She breaks into another fit of frame shaking laughter. "No, no, no…" She tried to catch her breath. "Oh my goodness, Becky! Thank you! I needed that!"

Um… what?

She sees the look on his face and explains as best she can after she's calmed down a bit and wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes that had leaked.

"No, Becky. I'm not in love with you." She grins.

What?

"But—"

She cuts him off.

"Trust me. I'm not."

"But… you…"

"I know you don't get it. And I can't really blame you for coming to that conclusion. But, I know I'm not into you like that. I mean, I totally would be! If not for… the circumstances…" She says and slowly sits up.

"Wait—"

"I'm not in love you because…" She inhales sharply, as if steeling her nerves.

He waits for her to continue.

"Beck, I like girls."

Mind. BLOW.

A/N: Every guy's dream, right? x] this chapter makes me laugh. I really like writing Beck and Cat's interactions. They're fun characters, and they compliment each other. I feel like I waited a long time to drop this plot point, but when I originally wrote out Cat telling Beck, it was planned for like chapter 5.. and it went way different. Beck was still pining for Tori and he hangs out with Cat and just as he realizes, hey, there could be life without Tori, BOOM! Cat just goes, "I'm gay." after a speech he zones out to. I kind of liked that version better but it would require like, the whole story to go differently.

And that's also kind of awesome. I love how my writing has a mind of it's own. I have ideas and then i put them to [virtual] paper, and then they turn into a completely different scenario and the story writes itself. :) It's great. Isn't it great?

Well... enough about me... Were you expecting that? The whole Cat-Jade debacle isn't even explained yet. But I hope Cat's confession puts some pieces together. Was it predictable? Idk. Lolz little Beckett was conceited for a minute there. But then again, who isn't?

Next chapter should maybe probably be mostly more Bat interactions, her explaining things to him. I hope it doesn't suck. ;|

Thank you for all the WONDERFUL reviews. Oh and we broke 100 reviews the other day, so EFF YEAH! High fives, everyone! Yeah! ...No? Alright then. (I'm so lame... I'm sorry. It's kind of sad.)

Now to end this ridiculous author's note:

*I know I've said this before, but I'll say it again. Every review, story alert, story favorite, author alert and/or author favorite I get in my inbox truly makes my day that much better. This is the first FF I've posted on here, and I feel extremely grateful that you guys responded in the way you did. I'm more inclined and comfortable posting more stories and one-shots on here now. So, thank you for that :) I sincerely love you all for the storylove. I do this for you!

-partialprincess

Any pairing suggestions for a oneshot?