"What is all this stuff?"

Jade's eyes flick up from the textbook, watching as Tori intently looks at the various weird knick knacks lined up on a shelf in Jade's room. Jade shrugs, concentrating on her homework again. "Just that. Stuff."

Tori lifts a curious eyebrow but nods nevertheless, already being used to Jade's curt answers. She lets her fingers lightly trail over the shelf, stopping when they come across a framed black and violet butterfly. "Is this real?"

Again, Jade looks up. "No, it's not. Looks pretty real though, doesn't it?"

"Yeah," Tori quietly says, still looking at the replica of a butterfly, mesmerized by how real the little animal looks. But when her eyes fall onto a jar filled with liquid and something floating around in it, her face crumples in disgust. "What on earth is that?"

The frequent interruptions gradually start to annoy Jade, but when she looks up to see what Tori is talking about and she sees the disgusted look on her face, a smirk makes its way onto her lips. "It's a lump of fat. From the back of a cab driver." Jade's amusement only grows when Tori's expression switches from disgusted to shocked and then back to disgusted again. With a shake of her head and a shudder, Tori averts her eyes, looking around Jade's room.

"Maybe that's the reason you can see me. You're into the creepy stuff."

"So, you label yourself as creepy?" Jade questions with a smirk without looking up from solving her current math problem.

"No, not really myself. Just the state I'm in right now. That's kind of creepy, whatever is wrong with me." She sits down on the bed and watches Jade punch in some numbers into her calculator.

"There's nothing wrong with you," Jade sighs and writes down the final answer, "Other than your excessive need to annoy me."

Out of Jade's mouth, that was almost a compliment and Tori smiles, simply ignoring the last part of Jade's statement. She stays quiet for the rest of the time while Jade finishes her homework. Tori's smile involuntarily widens when she sees how concentrated Jade looks, her brows knit together and her lip between her teeth. With a final relieved sigh, Jade closes her book and turns all of her attention to Tori.

"So what's the plan now?"

Tori's eyebrows crease. "What?"

"How do we get you back into your body?" Jade rolls her eyes at the brunette and shifts on the bed to get more comfortable. "So that I can finally get rid of you."

"Oh, right. Um…" She smiles nervously, her fingers starting to fiddle with the hem of her shirt, "I actually haven't really thought about it," Tori admits sheepishly. Her main goal had been getting Jade to help her. How exactly the pale girl could help her or what she should do never really crossed her mind. Another eye roll reaches Tori.

"Well that's just great. You're just the smartest, aren't you?"

Sarcasm is heavily dripping from Jade's voice as she looks at Tori with a fake smile. It's Tori's turn to roll her eyes. The room is quiet for a moment until Tori sighs, shrugging her shoulders. "Well… maybe we should first find out what happened to me. Like… what I am now."

Jade slowly nods and gets up from her bed without another word, fetching her laptop from her desk, then walking back to the bed to plop down next to Tori. "Let's see what the Internet got to say about that." The girls sit in silence while the computer boots up. Jade steals a glance at the brunette, who bites her lip as she watches the screen of the laptop. Jade's eyes travel from her face down her entire body and when they settle on her face again, Jade frowns and lifts a single finger. She aims for the other girl's shoulder and gingerly, her finger moves closer and closer, until it pokes right through Tori's shoulder without feeling anything. The brunette's eyes snap to Jade, who just raises her eyebrows and lets her hand fall back into her lap.

"What?" She asks when Tori's puzzled gaze doesn't fade. "I just wanted to see if I could touch you."

"Oh. Well…" she trails off, her brows furrowing when she realizes that she's blushing. Risking another glance at Jade, it seems that she hadn't noticed it, her pale blue eyes fixed on the computer screen and opening up the internet browser. Tori mostly stays silent while Jade types in various things, clicking links that come up, scanning the pages for any kind of information that would help them figure out what's the deal with Tori. She scowls every time and leaves the page again, muttering darkly about "those idiots who want attention by telling ghost stories". After an entire hour of browsing the web, the two girls were still where they started: knowing absolutely nothing.

"Well that didn't help at all," Jade sighs and slowly closes her laptop. Her brows furrow as she stares straight ahead. "And you really don't see a light?" She turns towards Tori just in time to see her roll her eyes.

"Why do you always ask me that? I don't see anything! Because I'm not dead. No matter how much you want me to be." Tori's eyes cast downward as she mumbles the last part and again, this strange feeling of compassion encloses Jade's heart.

"Don't be stupid. I don't want you to be dead," she says with an eye roll, "It's just… a reasonable explanation for me. As reasonable as it can get, with you being invisible and all, and all this spirit and ghost stuff, souls and God, whatever you-"

"You're talking nonsense," Tori smiles. Jade's eyes snap over to her, a shapely eyebrow raised and eventually, the pale girl shrugs her shoulders. "Well, I am crazy, so… I'm allowed to talk nonsense."

She lays back but Tori stays seated on the edge of the bed, her eyes running over Jade's face. "You're not crazy."

"No?" She chuckles, closing her eyes. "Well, that's good to hear. Especially from you."

Her words are sharp and Tori doesn't really know how to understand them. With knitted eyebrows she looks down at her hand, fingers splayed out on the dark comforter of Jade's bed. "I think there's a reason, Jade. There must be."

"Yeah. We established that. I'm creepy, that's the reason."

"No, that's not it," Tori argues, "I mean… there are far more creepier people than you. Why can't they see me? There's something else. I know that."

Jade suddenly sits up, a long sigh escaping her mouth and her eyes glowering at Tori. "With all the things you claim to know we should be able to get somewhere. You don't know anything, Tori. You're just as clueless as me. So just stop telling me you know stuff and just be glad that I'm helping you at all." She gets up, ignoring the way Tori flinches at her words. Just when Jade is about to open her door, she turns back around to find Tori looking at her lap. "We'll continue tomorrow. Right now, I just want a little time for myself."

x.X.x

"Hey Jade?"

Tori's soft voice floats through the air of Jade's bedroom, disturbing the quiet peace of the darkness. As a response Jade pushes out a muffled mix between a hum and a groan. Tori hesitates for a moment before asking "Are you still awake?"

This time, the groan out of Jade's mouth sounds so much clearer, as the pale girl rolls onto her back. "What kind of stupid question is that? I'm talking to you, of course I'm awake." Her sentence ends with an irritated sigh.

"Well, technically you weren't talking to me, you were groaning and that didn't really make it clear to me if you were awake or asleep. Besides, you could be a sleep talker and I wouldn't have known-"

A flying pillow interrupts her speech, the dark violet object flying right through her body, startling her. Her mouth agape, Tori looks at the pillow lying on the floor behind the armchair she's sitting on, then her eyes move to Jade. Only the dark silhouette of Jade's body, now sitting up on her bed, is visible to her eyes but even through the darkness Tori can picture the scowl on her features. "You're quite the rambler, aren't you?"

Tori frowns, her hands clasping together. "A rambler?"

Another irritated sigh from Jade. "You talk too much. You ramble. Makes you a rambler. Ever heard of it?" Tori stays silent and Jade reaches over to her nightstand to flick on her lamp. The warm light floods the room and now Jade can see Tori, sitting on her red armchair, her hands tightly clasped together in her lap and her teeth biting down on her lower lip. "What's up, Tori?" The tone of Jade's voice doesn't sound very welcoming and Tori really doesn't know if she should have started talking to Jade, when all she does is only annoy the black haired girl. But when she sees the curious look in Jade's eyes and not one trace of annoyance visible in Jade's face, Tori plucks up the courage to answer her. "Nothing actually," Tori tells her with a shrug, to which Jade merely raises an eyebrow, "I was just… bored I guess. Didn't want to wake you or anything."

"Bored, huh?" A brief moment of hesitation flickers over Jade's face before she scoots to the side a bit, patting the free spot next to her on the bed. "Get up here."

Tori slowly gets up from her seat, walking over to the bed but not daring to sit down on it, fiddling with her fingers and staring at the spot beside Jade as if it would light on fire if she just as much as touched it. "Come on," Jade says with an eye roll, "I won't bite."

"You wouldn't be able to," Tori jokes and smiles at Jade, lowering herself onto the bed. A smirk appears on Jade's face, but it fades when she shuffles her body downwards, lying down on her back and turning her head to face Tori.

"So. What can we do against your boredom? I want to go to sleep sometime and I'd rather do it without the lingering thought that my favorite ghost is bored out of her mind."

A smile tugs at the corner of Tori's mouth. "I'm your favorite?"

"Favorite ghost," Jade clarifies, "Don't flatter yourself. You're the only ghost I know, it's not that great of a compliment."

"Still. I'm your favorite," she states with a grin, "Meaning that you don't hate me as much as you always claim."

"I never said I hate you. You're just annoying. But generally, everyone annoys me. Even my friends, but that doesn't mean I hate them." Her pale fingers lace together, comfortably resting on top of her stomach as her eyes find the ceiling. Tori is the first one to speak, breaking the comfortable silence that fell over them. "I'm sorry."

Jade's eyebrows crease, her head turning to the side to find Tori staring at the ceiling. "For what?"

"For… annoying you." She sighs deeply before continuing. "I know you don't have to help me. But you do. And I appreciate that." Her head turns too, her eyes finding Jade's. "I know I… pushed you into this and didn't really leave you a choice so… I want to give you a chance to back out." Jade's eyebrows shoot up in surprise. "If you really, really don't want to… then it's okay. I won't be mad at you. One word and I'm out of your life."

It was a tempting offer. With only one word Jade could get rid of her, her problems would be solved – well, at least her 'ghost' problems – and she could go back to her life and forget about Tori Vega. But something's holding her back from saying anything. What kind of person would she be if she'd just leave Tori to her own fate without even trying to help her? It would make her Jade West, the girl who didn't care about anyone but herself. But it just doesn't feel right. Something about Tori pulls her in, makes her want to help. And that intrigues Jade, as much as she hates it. There has to be a reason why Jade feels almost obligated to help Tori, why the brunette turned up on her doorstep out of all people here in Los Angeles. With a slightly defeated sigh, Jade closes her eyes for a brief moment before reopening them and looking into the anxiously waiting face of Tori. "No, you… you don't have to leave. I'll help you."

A wide smile, almost splitting Tori's face in half, appears on her face. "Really? You really-"

"Hey!" Jade interrupts her loudly, "Stop talking before I change my mind."

Tori's lips press together, her hand making a motion as if she locks a lock on her mouth and throws away the 'key'. Jade rolls her eyes at that, but a light smile tugs at the corner of her mouth. Then her eyebrows crease and she turns to Tori with a curious expression. "I have a question." Tori raises her eyebrows and nods for Jade to continue. "I've always wondered that, when… I don't know, there are ghosts in movies and stuff… Some can move things and stuff, some others can't. They just can't touch anything." Tori's eyebrows crease in amusement as she listens to Jade, the confusion in her voice apparent. "But every time, the ghosts can sit. Or lie down and stuff. And I always wonder why they don't… fall through the chair or bed if they can't even lift anything."

Tori smiles amusedly, trying to hold back the laugh that's bubbling up in her throat. "And you want an answer from me now?"

"Well… You can sit, you can lie down. Can you lift objects?"

"Sometimes I can." Tori turns onto her side, propping up her elbow on Jade's pillow and resting her head in her hand. "I really need to concentrate though. It took a while until I learned to lift anything. But I got the hang of it eventually and now it's pretty easy for me."

Jade turns too, mimicking Tori's position. "So did you ever haunt through an old mansion or… went to a cemetery at night to scare someone?"

Tori laughs at Jade's excitement. "I wouldn't go to those places, not even as a ghost. I'm not into the scary stuff." Jade's face falls in disappointment. "But I did spook around a bit. Kinda took my revenge on an ex-boyfriend of mine."

"Oh?" Jade's interest picks up again as she raises her eyebrows at Tori. "What did you do?"

"I just went to his house at night and started out with turning out the light in his room-"

"Wow, well that's cliché."

"Shut up. He was so confused and went to turn the lights on again but every time he did that, I turned it off again. He was already getting pretty freaked out." Jade chuckles lightly. "Then I started to move things around. You know, just little things at first, like pushing his pencil from his desk." Tori laughs when she remembers how scared he had been. "He kept mumbling stuff like 'Oh my God, what's happening' and when I started to spin his desk chair around, he completely freaked and run out of his room. I wish he wasn't that easily to scare, I would have loved to keep going."

"That's great," Jade laughs, shaking her head, "I didn't think you had it in you."

Tori lifts a shoulder in a shrug and smiles. "Well, that's what you get for cheating on me."

Jade chuckles and turns back on her back, taking in her previous position with her hands laced on top of her stomach. After a moment of hesitation, Tori asks "Can I ask you something now?"

Jade shrugs. "Sure."

"Where's your mom?" The words are enough for the relaxed expression on Jade's face to disappear. "I mean," Tori continues, "I've only ever saw your dad and… I never saw a woman who could be your mom, you know? I was just wondering where she is."

"I don't want to talk about it," Jade says curtly, her eyes steadily fixed on the ceiling. Tori's eyebrows knit together. "I'm sorry, I… didn't think it… Nevermind."

"It's none of your business, Tori." Her voice is stiff and Tori knows she went too far. Although Jade's reaction just heightens her curiosity, she lets it go.

"I know. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked."

"Yeah," Jade murmurs, "You shouldn't have."

They stay quiet for a long time, neither one of them making any sound until Jade clears her throat and licks her lips, turning to look at Tori. "So, tell me: Any more ghostly adventures?"

A/N: Forgot to do this in the last chapter:

Dragoness114: No, I didn't. I'm just horrible with titles, so I already feared that there was something out there with the same topic and the same title. Oh well. But I might have to check the book out.

TotallyJorixoXo: 'Just like Heaven' is with Reese Witherspoon and Mark Ruffalo. You should check it out if you haven't seen it yet.