A/N: Thank you for the follows, reviews, and favorites. They make me happy. I wrote half the next chapter already, so it should be up tomorrow. I just split it here so the chapters are more independent of each other.

This milk may give Sikowitz visions, but it just gives me an excuse to act weird. My mind feels like feet do when they get out of shoes and socks and into the water. Free, ready to do something, and a little hyper. Maybe that's being with Jade though.

Speaking of Jade, "This is almost as bad as Cat with juice."

"Cat gets crazy when you give her juice?"

"Yeah. Not nearly as close to the entertaining kind of crazy as you though." We're almost back inside, so I know this moment is almost over.

"I'm glad to hear it, because I think my giddiness may have more to do with climbing a tree with you and sitting on your legs than the coconut." She smiles up at me and stares at me like I just told her I left the world's greatest collection of scissors to her: a mix of doubtful, hopeful, and thankful. Probably not that extreme though. The girl really likes her scissors. Her face stays frozen in that spot and expression as she opens the screen door. Then she ducks her head in and the moment is over.

I remember why we came inside and lead Jade on an invisible tether towards Cat and Robbie. They're off to the side making up kids songs on a guitar. "You guys sound like someone stuck two kittens together in a room full of kid's toys and gave them the ability to sing well."

Cat replies, "You really think so?"

"Yeah. And the songs are really coherent for making them up on the spot."

Robbie launches himself into the conversation, "So the kittens also have increased mental capacity?"

Cat explains my comment, "She's just saying we sound happy and good at singing silly!"

Robbie has a confused look on his face, and turns it towards me. I nod. Jade looks over at me as well, "I so did not get that."

Cat just giggles and says, "Jade sounds like one squirrel commenting on another running around a tree."

I brighten a little and ask, "And I'm the other squirrel?"

"Of course you are Tor-tor."

"Yay!" I say with a huge smile. "But really, you should see yourselves. You two have the whole squirrel dynamic going on too." Cat raises her eyebrows, looks at Robbie, and I pull Jade over towards Sikowitz. He looks like he's teaching a class.

"Excellent, Sinjin! Now who can give me an example of a hair TV trope?"

Jade responds, always on her feet, "Weird nerdy kids have curly hair."

"Good! Let's take a look at the psychological underpinnings in our own heads about why curly hair is indicative of weirdness." Everyone just stares awkwardly at Sikowitz and Sinjin. Beck includes Robbie in his awkward appraisal. I start to giggle.

Jade just sighs and answers again, "It's the opposite of slick, which we associate with well-dressed men and jocks. Also, Sinjin. And you. And Robbie. And why is class happening?" Woah. Hair is important.

I feel like I just had stoner thoughts.

"No reason! No reason at all you blunt little girl. Who's up for an improv game?" I wouldn't call Jade a little girl if I was him.

"Never call me a little girl, and not me." She walks off, rather indignantly.

I hear Beck murmur, "As long as it's not questions."

"Questions it is! When I point to you I will either shout buttercup or squeak like a mouse. Mice on this side, buttercups on the other." I decide I don't want to play (after all it is questions), and follow in Jade's general direction. When I look back, everyone's a little disappointed that they're not playing something else, like freeze or item improv, but shrugging it off. "BUTTERCUP!" I hurry along as his voice booms through the room.

I pass by a hallway and something grabs my arm. I almost scream, and I shout "I swear I didn't take your cheese!" I have no idea where that came from. Earlier I still had control and my thoughts about my thoughts could still govern my actions, but now I'm thinking I'm just along for the ride. Since I just imagined a cartoon alligator in a suit tapdancing through the street looking for cheese. At least it wasn't in my actual field of vision.

I spin around, and see Jade's head tilted down, her eyes looking up at me with a slightly judgmental smile on her face. "You wouldn't be talking to me right now if you were a no good cheese thief. You'd be tied to the couch answering questions about my missing gouda. Since we're not talking about cheese though, what's with the squirrel analogy?"

"Have you never seen squirrels racing around a tree together?"

"Yeah, but I've never seen another squirrel watching one doing it by itself."

"Exactly."

"What do you mean, 'exactly'?"

"The second squirrel always wants to join the first. And then they just turn crazy and circle the tree fifty times together at amazing speeds." I can't believe I understand Cat's weird comments this well. Or that she could understand mine. Maybe she just lives in a slightly different world where water is the same thing as coconut milk. "Any more questions while I'm not sure I'm completely in control of my ability to censor things?"

"When did you start going to therapy?" Why did she ask me that?

"When I was 12. My parents thought I was starting to believe Trina about her being so much better than me at everything. That kept going till I was 14. Then I kept going because I came out and then I moved to a school where there was this really mean girl I liked a lot, and my parents had enough money all through it."

"So Trina's the reason no one knew you could sing before the showcase." She looks almost sad.

"I guess. I never thought about it that way. Any more potentially privacy invading questions?"

"Why do you like me?" The expression on her face is just like when I told her she was pretty. It's heartbreaking that all real compliments are met with this level of timidity.

"You should probably ask me when I'm not imagining alligators missing cheese so I'm more eloquent. But here goes: You're amazing at acting, your voice resonates with every bone and vein in my body, you seem emotionally experienced because of how tortured you act, you speak your mind and speak it well, your smiles are so rare that they seem like special gifts and I like special gifts more than regular gifts, you trust me in a really basic way with your worst moments and I need to be needed to feel important, you challenge me to be more assertive and confident by encroaching on my confidence hostilely, and your personality just works so well with mine to make me happy. The only thing I ever disliked about you was your dislike of me. I don't think that's a complete or decent explanation, but I can't think of any other."

The words pour out of her mouth in a babble. Everything seems so perfect until she tells me the only thing she didn't like about me was me disliking her. If she can't find any faults with me now, there's no telling whether she'll still like me when she does find one. And she will. Knowing someone has faults is the only difference between love and infatuation, and I find myself not wanting her to be stuck in infatuation. It's temporary, and I don't want temporary. I want constant that I can't see ending. That's why I stayed with Beck for so long. At least I know she's being candid. I nod dumbly, hoping she can't tell when I'm thinking about things and what I'm thinking about as well as Cat can. Still, there's a chance she could stay when she finds the faults. But I don't want to get my hopes up.

"We should get you somewhere people won't ask you personal questions."

"Are you suggesting we go up to my room?" She waggles her eyebrows a little, but fails to keep a suggestive face. It breaks into an entertained one.

"I'm suggesting we lay low for the rest of the party. It won't be much longer now."

"What are you talking about? We still have an hour before people have to go. And I'm not going to force them out until 30 minutes after."

"True, but the coconut can't last for that long, right? Let's just go play Rockband with everyone."

"They're playing Rockband?! I wanna be drummer!" I stifle my laughter. She does not look like a drummer. She's so…feminine. That's okay though. It leaves singing for me.

I can't believe she bangs her head when she hits the pad every now and then. I don't believe how put together her hair looks whenever it comes back up. Her parents must not have done a very good job of trying if they couldn't convince her she was special, even if Trina was a huge part of Tori's life. It shouldn't be that hard to get someone to believe the truth. Then again, there's that gap between knowing the truth and believing it. As we play through the songs, her smile becomes less giddy and more plain happy. I think the milk's worn off. Random people are dancing to our renditions of the songs and trickling out the door. Before I know it, everyone but the people who came in my car are gone. And it hits me that we were the ones who said we were staying the latest. I stop singing after the song's over and go to put the really sugary stuff away, just in case Cat gets tempted. Tori keeps drumming, this time with Cat singing and Andre playing the guitar. Once I finish, I come back to see Robbie waving his cell back and forth while it's lit up. When the song finishes, Andre thanks the "audience" and does a crowd dive onto Robbie and Rex. Rex gets positively squashed. I'm going to have to bring this up later.

"Not to ruin your party, but I think you losers are starting to get sleep deprived."

Cat yells "Not meeeee," Tori agrees, "Me neither," and Robbie says something, but I can't hear it. You'd think with his ventriloquism skills he'd be able to talk, even under someone. Andre finally says, "Maybe I am. What of it?"

"I'm leaving soon. Either sleep here, walk home, or get ready."

"Aye, aye, Jade!" He salutes and jumps over the couch, stumbling a little on the carpet.

Robbie stretches with his new freedom, "Thanks, Jade."

No one's supposed to assume I do things for them. "Whatever."

A/N: If I'm going to continue this much more, I'll need to incorporate some angst. Anyone have strong or interesting feelings on the subject?
I've had a song which reminds me of all the sad Doctor/Rose, Doctor/Donna, and Doctor/Martha moments stuck in my head all week, so I'm just about in the mood for some angst. Or finishing this fic off to go watch fanvideos on youtube.