Jade doesn't necessarily plan on spending the night at Tori's, especially since it's a school night. But it just happens that way. They fall asleep together—though this time, Tori at least snuggles under a blanket so that when she wakes up at dawn as a naked human, she can wrap it around herself and get dressed before joining Jade for a little bit more sleep.

Tori's parents seem exhausted at the breakfast table that morning, but they don't seem all that surprised to see Jade there. Jade realizes with a hint of anxiety that they probably smelled her presence, maybe even heard her and Tori talking. Trina does not appear happy to see Jade at the table, but she does appear surprised, which relieves Jade a little; at least Trina probably didn't hear anything.

They're a little late to school, because Trina takes forever to shower, leaving her and Tori little time to get ready, which means it's kind of conspicuous when they walk into their first class late together. But no one really says much. Beck shoots Jade a curious look, but she ignores him. Jade is glad that she always keeps a change of clothes in her car, because she knows there's no way she could inconspicuously borrow any of Tori's clothes. Even if Tori does have a costume of her, like Andre claims.

After getting to school, though, Jade's focus and worry shifts to her performance, which is tonight. She and Cat will be practicing after school with Sinjin and Burf and then just staying until showtime that evening. When she's not paying attention in class, Jade is thinking about the show, her lines, hoping everything will fit together the way she thinks it will.

When school ends, Jade visits her locker and Tori approaches. "Hey," she grins.

"Hey," Jade replies. She tries to keep her expression relatively blank. Low key, she thinks.

"So, I was thinking it might be a good idea for me to go to the park tonight," Tori says conversationally, "I need at least one night to run around or I kind of go nuts," she laughs.

A wave of horrible realization hits Jade, "Oh fuck!" she shouts. It's enough to make nearby people start walking away quickly. She slams her locker shut, and they start running.

"What?" Tori asks, looking worried and hurt all at once.

Jade takes several deep breaths, surprised to find that she's near tears. "My performance. It's tonight."

"Tonight?" Tori asks, "It's happening already?"

"Yeah. Tonight, and only tonight. And it's the full fucking moon. I wasn't even thinking about it."

"Oh, no," Tori looks devastated. "I had no idea."

"I can't believe I forgot to tell you," Jade mutters.

"I wish I could…" Tori shakes her head. Jade understands. She knows Tori doesn't like to take wolfsbane much, and if she takes it tonight, on a night where she needs to run around…it might not be pretty.

"I get it," Jade says tersely, "I think Sinjin's recording it. I can show you another time."

"Okay," Tori answers sadly, "I'm really sorry," she says quietly.

"It's okay," Jade sighs, arms folded tightly, "I know you can't help it. Any other night, I'd be glad to go to the park with you, by the way."

"I know," Tori smiles. She hesitates, "I guess I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Yeah. See you tomorrow."

"Break a leg."

"Thanks."

Jade watches Tori leave, feeling like screaming the whole time.

.

Although she's still upset that Tori won't be there, Jade manages to get herself into the right mindset quickly. Their last rehearsal goes well. Cat seems excited, and Sinjin and Burf seem nervous, like they usually are when they work with her. Everything is as it should be.

They stay backstage as the little audience fills up. Cat bounces, and Jade paces. Both are relatively quiet, though, mentally preparing themselves.

It's when the lights go down to signify that the show is just about to begin that something so jarring happens, that Jade is thrown completely out of her element.

There's a shout from the audience as the last whispers die down, "Woo! Break a leg, Jade! And Cat!"

It's Tori's voice. But it can't be.

Cat giggles, "Tori doesn't know it's time to be quiet," she whispers. Jade feels frozen. Cat looks at her, concerned. "Jade?" she whispers, "It's time to take the stage."

"I…I know," Jade shakes it off. "I'm ready," she says, then strides out to take the stage for her opening monologue.

She's gone over the monologue so many times that she really doesn't have to think about it. She just performs, a distraught woman with nothing left, ready to resort to summoning the devil just to be happy for once. And during the performance it's relatively easy to let her eyes wander through the crowd.

Despite the spotlight illuminating her, blocking her vision, it's light enough in the audience that she can see most people. And there's Tori, right in the front row, her leg jiggling, sitting on the edge of her seat, staring at Jade with rapt attention.

The curtain closes after Jade's monologue so that the sensual projected images she created have something to play over. Jade practically runs backstage to Cat. She has an idea and she's not about to second-guess it.

"Cat," she whispers harshly, "We need to change the ending."

"What?" Cat hisses, "What are you talking about?"

Jade explains. She doesn't have much time, but she tells Cat what must change. She thinks about how much trouble she's had with the piece these past few days. Though she knows that being happy right now, in the moment, doesn't mean that life is any less meaningless and tragic, she feels like she can't rightfully tell a tragedy when her heart wants a love story.

And besides. Tori will probably hate the first ending to this play.

Jade and Cat take the stage, the woman makes her deal with the devil. She endures nine months of pregnancy, and when it comes time to give birth, instead of being alone, the devil is there, talking her through it. They welcome the baby together. And instead of leaving the woman alone, loveless, the devil tells her, "I can love you, if you let me, and we can love this baby together."

"Are you even capable of love?" the woman asks.

"That's for you to decide. But our baby will love you, unconditionally."

The woman leans in and kisses the devil. Sinjin catches on after there are several seconds of silence in which the woman and the devil just stare at each other, and closes the curtain after the new ending resolves.

As soon as the curtain closes, she can hear an explosion of applause and Tori's loud, whooping cheers. Jade grins. Cat regards her curiously. "Your play is even gayer with the new ending, Jade."

"Yeah. I know," Jade tells her.

She's not ready to shout it from the rooftops yet. But she isn't going to hide anymore, either. And if everyone thinks it's a gay play, well then, the better off Jade will be.

.

As soon as Jade and Cat step out front, Tori launches herself at Jade and grabs her in a fierce hug. Jade hugs back. Like a lot of hugs, this one makes her feel vaguely claustrophobic, but also excited to the point that she feels twitchy.

"You were amazing," Tori murmurs earnestly against her shoulder, squeezing harder.

The nervous feeling seems to reach capacity and Jade begins to extract herself from the hug. "Thanks," she smiles a little.

Tori looks at her and beams, and then seems to remember that Cat is there, too, and she launches herself at Cat, "You were such a sinister devil, Cat!" she gushes, "I totally believed you were evil and stuff, but I knew you had a good heart. You're Cat. You always have a good heart!" she rambles.

"Thanks!" Cat responds happily, seeming completely unperturbed by Tori's hyper energy.

Jade loves the chance to show off her work, but she doesn't like to talk about it much. She usually feels it should speak for itself. So when other people begin to look like they want to approach her and Cat, Jade decides she wants to make herself scarce. "I'm going backstage," she tells Cat.

"Oh, okay," Cat answers, turning to greet Andre, who is approaching.

Jade lets herself out a side door and gets outside to the parking lot without encountering a lot of people. She has a deal with a few people congratulating her and telling her they enjoyed the performance, but she's brusque enough that no one tries to make her stop and chat.

Once outside, she pulls out her phone to text Tori and tell her to come outside, but when she looks up, Tori is bounding across the parking lot toward her.

"Were you trying to get away from me?" Tori asks, practically dancing from foot to foot.

"No," Jade answers, "I just hate talking to the audience after a show." She watches Tori for a moment, then says, "What did you think?"

"I thought you didn't want to talk about it."

"That's because it doesn't matter to me what most people think. What you think does matter."

"Okay," Tori starts pacing thoughtfully, "I liked it. Your work is always good, you always do tragedy and despair really well. And you did the unexpected with the deal with the devil. We all expect that not to work." She grins. "It was about finding love in unexpected places, huh?"

"I guess," Jade answers. She realizes that Tori is right. She had mostly changed the ending because it didn't feel right for it to be sad.

People are starting to come out of the school, so Jade says, "Ready to go?"

"I got a ride with Andre."

"Text him. I'll take you home later."

"Later? What are we going to do now?"

"You'll see."

.

Tori is far too excited about riding in the car with Jade to be paying attention, it seems. She's playing with the open window, making her hand ride the air waves. Once, she even sticks her head out, and dissolves into laughter for a good minute at Jade's incredulous expression.

So when they pull up to Shadow Creek Park, it's somehow a surprise to her, and she turns to Jade with her mouth hanging open. "The park?" she asks, "You took me to the park?"

Jade shrugs, "It's what we wanted to do with our evening, right? Originally, I mean."

"Yeah, but…in case you haven't noticed, I took wolfsbane."

"Oh, I noticed," Jade rolls her eyes, "But still. It's a place you can run around. Have some fun."

"Jade," Tori launches herself across the center console and kisses her. Jade kisses her back fervently, until Tori starts trying to climb across and onto her.

"Whoa," Jade laughs, "There's not enough room. Come on. Let's work off some of your excess energy."

She gets out and opens her trunk, and sure enough, there's the Frisbee that Robbie had made to promote Tinkle-Aid that Beck had left in Jade's car and forgotten about. She pulls it out and waves it at Tori, who looks immediately excited.

Jade lets Tori run out into the park a bit and then throws the Frisbee. It seems to be a straight shot until it gets close to Tori and then starts veering away. Tori leaps to catch it and then starts running to bring it back to Jade, who takes it, baffled. Tori sprints away, looking over her shoulder to see when Jade might throw it again. Jade laughs, "You could toss it back!" she calls, throwing the Frisbee after Tori.

"But that hardly takes any energy!" Tori calls back, leaping again to catch Jade's wayward toss. She runs it back again. After several more of the same tosses, Tori pants, "This is pretty degrading, actually!"

"It wouldn't be if you would throw it back like a normal person!"

"That's not nearly as fun!"

They throw and catch the Frisbee until Tori appears to actually get tired, and when she brings back the Frisbee, Jade draws her close and hugs her for a moment, then they walk back to the car together.

In the backseat, Tori seems to doze for a moment, nestled against Jade's shoulder. Jade lets her, but after several minutes asks, "Can I tell you something?"

"Hmm? Sure," Tori blinks her eyes open and focuses on Jade.

"I changed the ending to my play."

"Oh yeah? Why?"

Jade shrugs, "The first ending was…sad. The devil was going to take the baby away and inform the woman that no other creature would love her as unconditionally as her firstborn. The woman would be as distraught as before."

"That's…awful. Clever, I guess, but so sad."

"Yeah," Jade says quietly.

"Why'd you change it?"

"Well. Because you were in the audience."

"You…changed it because of me?"

"It didn't feel right anymore." Jade sighs, "I'm not going to become all sunshine and rainbows because I'm happy with you. I still think life is largely short and tragic and pointless. But the play wasn't saying what I wanted it to anymore. Because, I don't know. Maybe I wanted to say something about new beginnings, and taking chances. Maybe I just wanted to write a gay play about two women trying to make it work."

Tori laughs, "That's the weirdest assessment of that play I think I can imagine."

Jade chuckles, "Heh. Yeah. But I knew you wouldn't like the first version, because you like stories with some optimism. So I gave you that."

"You changed it for me," Tori says again, grinning and nuzzling Jade's shoulder again.

"Yeah, well. Don't get used to it. This might be the only optimistic story I have in me."

"Good thing I don't want you to change." She lifts her head to look at Jade, "I would've liked the first version just fine. You're a great storyteller. Of course, I like the new version better, but you never have to worry about me disliking what you have to say in your work. I don't have to always agree to see the merit."

Jade smiles.

They cuddle and kiss in the backseat until almost midnight. Jade drops Tori off at her house, and heads back to her own house, the feeling of optimism lingering.