Many thanks to those of you who kindly reviewed and said you wanted to see more, much appreciated.

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Tori awoke to the smell of coffee and pancakes, and for one horrible moment thought she'd fallen asleep at work. She opened her eyes, relieved to find she wasn't face down on the hot-plate, and tried to put her senses into context.

Jade. Jade was here.

Tori had gone out yesterday to do her evening shift at the diner and by the time she came home the girl was fast asleep on the sofa under a blanket, so she'd left her and gone to bed. Now Jade was awake and at large in her apartment.

The clock told her it was time to get up anyway, so she cancelled the alarm and contemplated the thought of facing her. She probed her feelings and found them empty, drained. She should be angrier than this. She struggled to find something concrete to be mad about, something to use as a shield. She's eating my food, she thought, ignoring the obvious absurdity of inviting someone to stay and then starving them. How dare she.

She pulled on a gown and crept towards the kitchen. The lightbulb had been changed, she noticed, and so had two others that she'd been ignoring long enough to get accustomed to the gloom. Jade was annoyingly practical like that. Tori barely knew one end of a screwdriver from the other, and in any case usually ended up using a butter knife for life's little 'screwdriver' moments. Jade, she suspected, simply glared at things until they started working again.

She peered around the kitchen door, and the sight of a barefoot and tousled Jade, wearing just the long T-shirt that she used to sleep in and humming as she worked at the stove, triggered memories so strong that for a few dizzying seconds it felt as though the whole of the last six months had been some kind of fever dream. Only the color of the wallpaper reminded her, with a dull thump in her chest, that it wasn't – Jade didn't live here anymore, and her presence in the kitchen was like being shown the prize you didn't win, opening a damaged gift, a birthday cake made from ashes and broken glass.

"Hey," said Jade, noticing her. "I made breakfast. I hope you don't mind."

"No, not all," Tori said, sourly. "Help yourself."

"Here."

"What?"

"Sit down."

"These are for me?"

"Who else? Come on, they're going cold." She placed a plate of pancakes on the table as Tori grudgingly sat.

"How did you even know I'd be up this early?" Tori said.

"I do my research."

Tori noticed there was only one plate. "Aren't you having any?"

"No," said Jade, stealing her fury, "I'm good. I did use some of your coffee though. I'll go out and get some stuff this morning."

Tori stared at her pancakes as Jade bustled round her happily, fetching cutlery and syrup, and couldn't help but feel like a stranger in her own home.

"How long are you staying?" she said, abruptly.

For the first time Jade's cheerful demeanor faded. "I... don't know," she said. "I wasn't really expecting you to-"

"Well you must have been expecting something," Tori said, eyes still on the plate. "You brought your overnight stuff."

Jade started to protest until Tori looked up at her and raised an eyebrow. "I'm sorry," she said, quietly, toying with the fork in her hand. "I just thought there was a chance you might..." She put the fork down. "I was going to go to a hotel if you didn't want me."

Tori felt a little pang of guilt, not because of the hang-dog expression on Jade's face, but because she felt an ugly surge of pride welling up, an unfitting sense of triumph. She needs me, she thought. She's never needed me before.

And it was true. That was the way their relationship had always been. Tori needed things - affection, support, comfort, love - and Jade provided them. Tori broke things, Jade fixed them. Tori took her first driving lesson, Jade arranged to have the car towed to the body shop afterwards. That was just the way they were.

Which had made it even more devastating when she'd walked out on her that day, and Tori's triumph felt uglier still as she wondered whether she'd had anything to do with it, whether Jade had simply got tired of being taken for granted.

She pushed her plate away from her, and Jade's face fell even further. "You don't want them?" she said, forlornly.

"I do. I just... " Tori sighed. "Get yourself a plate."

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Tori hated working at the diner. The work itself wasn't unpleasant, and she got to meet people, but the other girls didn't like her. She'd tried to be friends, but once they found out she'd been to a performing arts school they'd never let it go.

"Hey, Little Miss Fairycakes." A tight-faced woman of around thirty passed behind her, nudging her sharply. "This ain't 'Frankie and Johnny'. Get some work done."

"But I've been-"

The woman had already sailed away into the kitchen. "Yes, Helen. Right away, Helen," she muttered. She screwed up her face and made angry little stabbing motions with her pen, but the gods of voodoo failed to make Helen explode in agony.

She began to wipe down the counter top for the fifteenth time that morning, when Jade appeared unexpectedly for the second time in as many days. "Hi," she said, brightly.

"Hi," said Tori, less enthusiastically. If Jade thought she was going to sit here drinking coffee all morning while Tori was working, she had another thing coming. "What are you doing here?"

"I've been shopping," Jade said, proudly. "Food and stuff." She dumped two large bags on the gleaming counter in front of her.

"Hey, I've just cleaned that!" She flapped at Jade with her cloth. "Off!"

Jade moved the bags to the stool beside her. "I thought I'd cook dinner tonight."

"You don't have to do that."

"I kinda do. Otherwise all this stuff's going to go to waste."

Tori peered over the counter into the bags. "That looks… expensive," she said, tentatively. They hadn't got round to discussing whether Jade was still financially solvent in her new 'situation'.

"I didn't raid the housekeeping, if that's what you're thinking," Jade said.

"I didn't mean-"

"It's all still there," Jade went on, "although you've really got to think of a better place to hide it."

"Jade!"

"What? I'm just looking out for you."

Tori simmered gently. I do my research. Jade had probably been through the entire apartment with a fine-toothed comb.

She was about to say something, but it turned out Jade had plans that didn't involve listening. "Well, gotta go," she said, scooping up a bag in each arm. "Things to do. See you at home."

She shouldered her way back out of the door leaving a speechless Tori in her wake.

Home?

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It smelt good. It smelt very good. It grabbed Tori by the nose and drew her from the doorway into the apartment, leading her on, whispering soft promises of sensory delight. It took her coat and her bag and dumped them unheeded on the sofa and brought her once more into the kitchen to find Jade West busy at the stove.

"Ten minutes," she said, without turning round. "Wine?"

Tori wasn't sure if this was an instruction or an offer, but she looked around to see an open bottle of expensive red on the side. "Thanks. You want one?"

"I got one."

"Oh." The bottle seemed alarmingly light. "I see you've-"

"Most of it's in the sauce," Jade headed off the accusation. "Don't panic. I've got another."

Tori poured herself a small, sensible glass of wine, considered it for a moment, then drank it and poured herself a larger, less sensible one. All the way home she'd been intending to bring up the issue of her privacy, or lack thereof, but somehow the warm fug of the kitchen and the flush of the alcohol made it seem oddly inappropriate. "Can I help?" she said, instead.

"Nope."

"Okay."

"You can set the table, though. There are some plates in the-"

"I know."

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An hour later, they sat on the sofa in companionable silence, feet up on the table, watching TV. Tori turned her head to look at the other girl, studying the profile of her face. When Jade didn't seem to notice, she steeled herself, and said, "Do you want to talk about it?"

Jade's eyes flickered towards her, and back to the screen. "Talk about what?"

"About you and Marcus."

Jade frowned. "You want to talk about me and Marcus?"

"Well, not about you, but…"

"But what?"

"About what happened."

She could see Jade tense. "No."

"I just thought it might help to talk about it. You know, to a friend."

"No, it wouldn't."

"Why not?"

"Because you're not my friend, are you?"

Tori's jaw dropped. "What?"

"I'm sorry," Jade said, quickly. "I didn't mean it like that. I meant, you're not just a friend, you're my…" She took a deep breath. "You were my girlfriend, and there are some things I don't feel... comfortable talking about."

Jade's eyes stayed locked on the screen, but her cheeks burned red, and Tori knew what that meant. Despite what Tori had expected when they'd started dating, Jade was rather prudish when it came to that side of things. She felt tears rising, hot and heavy on her lids, and hurried to blink them away before Jade could notice.

"Okay, well," she said, clearing her throat. "If you're sure."

"I'm sure."

She turned her attention back the TV, determined not to push it any further, and they watched in silence for a while.

Until finally she heard a tiny, whispered, "Thank you."

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