Hi, I've been a little slow with this, my apologies – I'm still a little torn between this and 'Green Eyes'. Anyway, let's press on a little further and take a look at Tori's reaction. Many thanks for the reviews.

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There is a boon given to those who wake from a night of heavy drinking, a short spell of blissful ignorance, a warm, snuggly period of oblivion during which the events of the night before are a distant mystery. It's a time of peace, a moment of tranquility, a brief return to the womb. But it's not without price. Because the downside is that the longer the lull before the storm, the harder the storm will hit. Tori's countdown to disaster had begun.

Ten…

"Tori?" Her mom knocked gently on the door. "Tori? Are you awake yet?"

"Mmmmmmnnn," she managed. She knew, instinctively, not to move. The hangover wasn't allowed to start until you moved.

Nine…

"Do you want anything from the store?"

"Mmmmmmnnn."

Eight…

"Trina's making waffles, if you want any."

"Mmmmmmnnn."

Seven…

"Oh, someone called for you last night, just after you went to bed."

"Mmmmmmnnn?"

Six…

"It was that girl from school, Jade. I think she just wanted to check you got in okay."

Fivefourthreetwoonebang.

Tori's head shot up from the pillow in horror, her brain catching up a second later and crashing painfully against the inside of her skull.

Oh, God.

She'd gone over to Jade's after the party.

Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no, no.

She'd marched all the way over in the snow, stood there like an idiot and told her how she felt.

She felt her skin tightening on her scalp as the pain in her head was overcome by an awful writhing in her stomach, and she curled up under the covers in a tight ball, arms clutched over her belly, trying to fight the churning that had nothing to do with excess and everything to do with cringing embarrassment.

How could she have been so stupid? What on earth had possessed her to do that? She played the evening back in her head. Midnight. Jade's text had come through and everyone had ignored it. And buoyed by alcohol and a fierce sense of injustice, she'd marched over there and told her she liked her, an act unrivalled in the history of human misjudgment, if Jade's blank-faced look of horror was anything to go by.

What was Jade going to do to her? She could easily crucify her now, if not physically, then emotionally. Her humiliation at school would be complete, the gang would never be the same once everyone knew. She'd have to go back to Sherwood.

But... Reality started to seep back in. Jade had called. She scrabbled for her phone and stared at its black screen. She remembered now, ignoring it in the taxi, turning it off in furious tears as she threw herself on the bed. She brought it to life, and there, sure enough were Jade's calls. Half a dozen, no message left. She cursed herself for not having answered, but she'd been too angry. And then Jade had called the house to see if she was okay. That didn't sound like she was mad. That sounded like… concern? Of course there was always the possibility that her story was a sham for her mom's benefit, that really she'd been hoping to get Tori to answer and somehow rip her ears off through the phone, but maybe not.

She tumbled down the stairs into the kitchen, ignoring the banging in her head, just as her mom was about to leave. "Mom?"

"Hi, honey. Did you want me to pick you up something?"

"No, it just... When Jade called last night, how did she sound?"

Holly Vega considered this. "Well, she was very polite," she said. "She didn't sound at all like the awful girl you're always complaining about."

"No, I mean, how did she sound? What kind of mood was she in?"

"I don't know," Holly said. "Concerned? Worried?"

"Really?"

"Wait, did you two fight again?" Holly said, suspiciously. "You know, Tori, I've told you about letting your temper run away with you. You get that from your father's side."

"Me?" Tori said, incredulously. "I don't have a temper! She's always the one who-"

"Ah, ah," Holly scolded. "Nobody likes a tattletale. You leave the poor girl alone."

"But-"

"I said, nobody likes a tattletale. Now," Holly picked up her bag, "did you want anything?"

"No," Tori said, miserably. She slumped on the counter. Her mom set great store by politeness. Even the arrival of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse wouldn't fluster her as long as they wiped their feet and called her ma'am.

With her mom gone, that left her to the tender mercies of Trina, who knew trouble when she saw it fall out of bed in a panic.

"So, what did you fight about?"

Tori groaned. "We didn't fight."

"Right."

"We didn't!" Tori said. "It's just... complicated."

"It must be," Trina said. "Because you went out to a party she wasn't even at, and then for some reason she's calling you at one in the morning, and now you're in a foul mood." Her expression softened. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Tori looked at her. She was always surprised by the way Trina could switch her personality on and off, be brusque and uncaring one minute, and then almost like a real sister the next. She thought about confessing everything to her, and then she thought about whether she really wanted the entire school and most of L.A. to hear about her indiscretion, and decided against it. "No," she sighed. "I'm going back upstairs."

"Suit yourself."

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She lay on her bed. She felt calmer now, less agitated by the thought of disgrace. If Jade really had called to see if she was okay, then there was always the possibility that she was willing to keep it between them. But this new clarity only served to highlight the true horror of what she'd done. She'd always wanted to be friends with Jade, not just because she found her interesting and, in the moments when she let her guard down, fun to be around, but because ever since she'd started at Hollywood Arts she'd craved female friendship, someone to hang out with. Trina was okay, but she was her older sister and there were things she'd never dare tell her, and talking to Cat was like trying to find a needle of reality in a haystack of nonsense. What she wanted was a peer, someone like her, someone she could relate to. Someone she could slump on the sofa next to and share secrets with. The kind of friend you saw on TV, or in teen movies. Of course, at first glance Jade had seemed an unlikely candidate, but there was something there, and in the less hectic moments when Jade had forgotten about whatever feud was going on and treated her like a real, honest-to-goodness human being, Tori could see a friendship growing.

The problem with Jade was that you had to start from scratch every time. She'd think she was getting somewhere, and then the next day they were right back to square one, bickering again. But after a while she'd come to suspect that maybe that was Jade's idea of friendship, that she didn't know any other way to be, and for every time she said 'I don't want to, but I will' what she actually meant was 'I'd love to, thanks'. Because when it came down to it, Jade was willing to spend a heck of a lot of time with someone she supposedly couldn't stand, and with a little mellowing on her side and some toughening up on Tori's side, it seemed possible, just possible, that she'd found the friend she'd always wanted.

And now she'd blown it all sky high by telling her she loved her. Dang it.

No, 'Dang it' wasn't going to cover it. She put her pillow over head and said, very quietly, 'Fuck'. Then she said it again, a little louder.

She stopped herself. Did she love her? It had seemed so obvious at the party, but maybe she was just confusing her desperation with attraction. She tried to think back to the girls from Sherwood. Had she ever felt like this about any of them? She tried to imagine trudging a mile and a half through thick snow to tell Amanda Goodman she loved her. No dice. In fact if she was honest, she couldn't remember feeling like this about anyone, ever.

Crap. She needed to talk to Jade. She needed that very badly. She stared at her phone. It seemed annoyingly ironic that last night, when she didn't want to speak to her, Jade was all over it. Now that she did, there was silence. She tried to muster a little annoyance, a sense of injustice at Jade's refusal to call, but no amount of mental gymnastics could make it anything other than her responsibility to make the next move. Jade must know that she'd deliberately shut her off. Which only made it worse.

Was she hurt? Annoyed? Amused? Horrified?

She should call. No, wait, it was too early to call. Jade seemed like the kind of person who slept late, she decided, she wouldn't appreciate being woken up. Okay, leave it a while. But call.

Definitely call.

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She trailed listlessly towards the bathroom to take a shower. In the depths of misery, every task seemed like an ordeal, every bottle felt like it weighed a ton, every turn of the tap an exercise in futility. Her arms and legs had no strength, and in the end she simply sat down hugging her knees and let the water run over her, her hair strewn across her face. What was the point in being clean, in being presentable, what was the point in anything, when you'd ruined your life?

It dawned on her that she was being a little melodramatic. This kind of thing must happen all the time. What was the worst thing that could happen? What was the worst-case scenario? She felt her stomach lurch. The worst case scenario was walking into school tomorrow to find a grinning Jade surrounded by all their friends sniggering at her, or maybe a punch in the face. But on the assumption Jade was willing to not murder her, or at least not murder her reputation, then what? The worst case was that Jade would be cold with her, awkward, that every attempt to talk to her or get close to her would result in a knowing look or an icy 'don't touch me'. That Jade would find her repulsive.

So what was the best-case scenario? The best-case scenario was simply that the worst-case scenario didn't happen, that Jade wouldn't tell anyone, and that she wouldn't freeze Tori out. There was always the faint glimmer of hope that it might bring them closer together, that Jade might find she liked her more, or at least moderate her teasing knowing how Tori felt about her, but she wouldn't bet her life on it.

She closed her eyes. She didn't dare even think about the very best case scenario, that one that sent shivers down her spine - that Jade would take her quietly to one side, slip a hand into hers, and say 'I like you too'.

So what was the next move? She remembered seeing a bumper sticker, WWJD. What Would Jesus Do? Or in this case, What Would Jade Do? If Jade had come over, drunk, and made a confession, how would she handle it?

Well, she'd either stare Tori in the eye and say 'Yeah? What of it?' before walking off, or….

Or she'd deny it. Jade could deny things with a vehemence that made Saint Peter look like an amateur. She'd once denied she'd stolen Tori's phone while she was actually sat there in front of her using it, as though reality was just a matter of opinion.

Denial. That was the answer. She couldn't deny she'd gone over there, she couldn't deny that she'd told her she liked her, she couldn't really deny that she'd ignored all her calls. But she could deny that she'd meant it. She'd been drunk, people say stupid stuff all the time when they're drunk. Half the people at the party had probably told each other that they loved them, sometime during the night. It wasn't like she'd slept with anyone. So that was it. She'd talk to Jade before school, laugh it off, take whatever was coming to her, and hope to get away with a roll of the eyes and a pithy put-down.

She picked up the phone and pulled up Jade's number. She took a deep breath as her finger hovered over the call button. Five seconds. She'd press it in five seconds. Five... four... three... two... No wait, five seconds was too short. What kind of a countdown was five seconds? Ten seconds, that was more like it. Right, here we go.

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The screen locked just as she reached zero. Damn it. Maybe a countdown wasn't the way to go, it was too stressful. Time, that was it. She looked at the clock. Nearly eleven. At eleven o'clock she'd call, simple as that. She'd glance up, notice it was eleven, and just do it, without even thinking about it.

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Eleven came and went. Eleven was too formal, she decided. No one calls exactly on the hour. Ten past, that was more casual.

Twenty past.

Half past. This was no good. "Trina!" she yelled down the stairs.

"What?"

"Could you help me?"

Trina stomped up the stair ungraciously. "What?"

"Could you just dial Jade's number for me?"

"Me? Why?"

"My hands are... dirty."

"You just took a shower."

"Please?"

Trina sighed, and took the phone, punching at it as though she thought Jade could feel it at the other end. "It's ringing."

"Give it to me!" She snatched it back and shoved her sister out of the door. "Go! Go!"

She slammed the door shut and waited breathlessly. But there was no answer. But she'd broken her impasse so she hung up and called again. Voicemail. She'd leave a voicemail. Perfect. She wouldn't even have to speak to Jade, just tell her how it was.

Hey, hi. It's Vega. I mean Tori. Look, I'm really sorry about last night, I was at the party and I'd had a couple of drinks - well, more than a couple really, I was kinda drunk - and I was was all mellow and fuzzy, and when you texted, I just felt really bad for you, you know, stuck over there on your own, sick and everything, and I think I got a little… confused. I mean you do, sometimes, don't you, about how you feel about things? Like when you're in a night club dancing and you tell people this is the best song ever, because you're just lost in the moment, and you think you want to dance to that one song for the rest of your life. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is, I said a whole bunch of things that made sense at the time, but now I realize were totally, I mean, totally, not true. So I know it was pretty embarrassing, and I don't want things to be weird at school, so I was kind of hoping that we could maybe catch up tomorrow and have a laugh about it, or go for a coffee, or maybe you could just hit me with something if it makes you feel better, and then we can forget all about it. Okay, bye.

There was a beep, and Tori realized that none of those words had actually made it out of her mouth. She dialed again.

But this time there was nothing, just a network message. Jade's phone was off.

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Jade felt like death, and not in a good way. Last night's antics had left her with a head full of phlegm so she'd loaded up on as many painkillers as she'd dared and now she lay in a haze, buried under the covers, hoping that she'd be fit for school in the morning. Not that she was looking forward to it, but she was going to let some stupid bug tell her what to do. Tori hadn't called, either, that was another reason she had to go to school. She groaned and burrowed deeper, pressing her face into the pillow, letting herself drift off into a fitful sleep. On the floor, under her bag, her phone buzzed, briefly, but she was too far gone to hear it, and a noisy snore soon drowned it out altogether. A few seconds later its screen flared briefly, and the battery died.

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Crap. That wasn't a good sign. Tori toyed with the idea of just going over there like she had last night, but in the cold light of day, without the glow of the alcohol, it seemed a far less attractive prospect. There had to be another way, one that didn't involve having to face her. She could email her, but there always the chance that Jade wouldn't check, or just see her name and delete it. What else? What did people do before they had phones?

A letter. Of course. She'd write a letter and take it over there, slip it in when nobody was looking. No one can resist opening a letter, can they? Especially not a mysterious, hand-delivered one. That was it, she'd write a letter. She went downstairs, retrieved a sheet of paper from the printer, and sat down at her desk, uncapping her pen with a flourish. So, where to begin?

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Dear Jade…

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So, will Jade be impressed by Tori's letter? Will she read it and agree to forget the whole thing? Or will the dog eat it in a shocking twist? Find out next week.