Yay! We're on to season 2! This episode is based on "Beggin' on Your Knees". Enjoy!
Also, I apologize for the long wait. I do have the next chapter already written, so it shouldn't be so long before the next chapter is posted (likely this weekend).
...
Beck was driving Cat and Jade home after their evening at Tori's. They had met up there with Andre and Robbie to confront Tori about Ryder's dubious character, and then ended up staying around to work on a song. Now they were quietly heading home. After all the singing, they were a quieter bunch and had lapsed into silence.
That is, until Cat piped up from the back seat. "Jade?"
"Yeah?" Jade answered languidly. She had leaned her seat back a little and had her eyes closed. It had been a long day and now it had been a long night. Added onto that, she still needed to finish practicing for her performance for the Full Moon Jam when she got home. She was trying to soak in a bit of rest now so she could be reenergized by the time she got back to her house.
"Why were you in a time-out?" Cat asked innocently.
Jade and Beck exchanged a look in the front seat before Jade decided to answer honestly.
"Beck didn't like me teasing Tori after I promised not to, so ... yeah."
"You tease Tori all the time," Cat noted observantly.
"But this time it was a bit different," Jade conceded.
"How?" Cat persisted.
Jade groaned in frustration, then scowled at Beck when she noticed he was trying not to laugh at her predicament.
"You could help out a little!" she hissed.
"By what? Explaining your behaviour?" he whispered back.
"I hear you talking!" Cat interrupted, sounding hurt that she could not be a part of the whisper "game".
"Beck got annoyed because it's not nice to make fun of people when they are feeling down, and it's not nice to take joy in them experiencing personal tragedy," Jade sing-songed a response that was a mash-up of both Beck and Lane's common exhortations to her. She could remember that ... sometimes.
"Okay," Cat said simply, her curiosity satisfied. "Oooh, look at the stars!"
"That's a plane going overhead. You can't see the real stars that easily here," Beck told her, turning onto her street.
Cat realized where they were and got upset. "I didn't want to go home right away!"
"Cat, it's near your curfew and we need to get to our homes too," Jade told her.
"I don't want to go home! I want to get ice cream!"
"You didn't tell us you wanted ice cream, and it's too late for it anyway. You need to go home," Beck replied calmly.
"Nooooo!"
Jade rubbed her temples and raised her seat back to it's normal position and tried to be patient as she explained again, "Cat, it's late, we've been helping Vega and Andre all night with that stupid song, and now I need to get back to practice myself. I'm tired, Beck's tired, and I'm absolutely certain that you are tired too, even if you don't realize it..."
"Am not! You're just being meanies and you don't want to stay with me because you just want to spend time together!" Cat accused as Beck parked in her driveway. Noticing they had stopped, her annoyance grew at her requests being ignored. "I said I didn't want to go home yet!"
Jade turned around and raised an eyebrow at Cat. "That is not what is going on. You need to calm down ..."
"No, no, NO!" Cat yelled, kicking the back of Beck's seat. He grunted in frustration - and possibly pain - and Jade went into action.
"Caterina Juliette Valentine, you stop that right now unless you want a time out tonight too!"
Cat hesitated, her lower lip trembling a little. "You ... you can't do that..." she protested hesitantly.
"You think I can't?" Jade demanded. Cat's face reflected her uncertainty.
"One ..."
Cat caught on to what was happening and frowned.
"Two..."
She frowned and kicked the back of Beck's seat again, which finally got him to speak up.
"Cat, stop that!"
"But I don't want a time out!"
"Then stop!" Beck sighed in frustration.
"Three..." Jade continued steadily. Cat's face lit up a little at her favourite number, but immediately went to a bit of a panicked look when Jade progressed to "Four..."
"Fine! I'll stop!" she yelled petulantly, without sounding very much like she was actually stopping. Still, Jade paused. Sometimes it took Cat a moment to switch gears, and she hoped this was what was happening now.
It was. Cat looked between her friends - who were clearly done with putting up with her demands for ice cream - and her house. A little smile danced on her lips.
"My mom got ice cream at the store yesterday. I'm gonna go eat some, all by myself."
Jade and Beck had to hold back their amusement at the counter tactic she was trying to use on them.
"Sounds good, Cat," Beck said indulgently, before adding a little more sternly, "And when you're in this car, no kicking the seats, understand?"
She pouted for a few seconds before nodding.
"Okay then. We'll see you tomorrow then," Beck said kindly.
Jade got out of the car and went around to Cat's door. When Cat reluctantly got out - even the idea of for-sure ice cream was not sweeter than spending more time with her friends, even when she had just been scolded by them - Jade gave her a hug and whispered in her ear, "Love you."
Cat hesitated before hugging back. "Even though I yelled?"
"Of course. I yell all the time. I can handle it from you sometimes too. Although try to tell us what you want earlier, and don't throw a temper tantrum when you can't always get what you want."
Cat smiled, reassured of the abundance of love cocooning her. "I love you, Jade." She waved at Beck, who had lowered his window. "And I love you too, Beck."
"Love you, Cat," he said. "We'll see you at the Full Moon Jam tomorrow night."
"Okay! I am going to find a pretty outfit."
"Sounds good. Now get inside before your curfew," Jade told her, gently pushing Cat toward her front door.
"Okay!" Cat said, slowly twirling up the path to the front door, taking five times as long as necessary.
Beck and Jade waited until she got inside, returning her enthusiastic waves, before wearily continuing to Jade's home.
"Are we good on everything that happened earlier?" Beck asked as he parked in her driveway.
"With Cat?"
"No, with you."
Jade smirked and shook her head in amusement. "Of course. You begged me not to jab at her, I promised I wouldn't, you warned me if I did you would make me regulate, I did it anyway, you reacted. I'm totally fine. I was annoyed, of course, but no one even seemed to pay attention. So yes, fine." She shrugged and searched Beck's eyes. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, just wish that you'd kept your promise in the first place."
Jade nodded. "I guess I can understand that. I'll try harder next time."
"I'd appreciate that."
"Now, want to make out for five minutes before I need to go practice?"
"Why bother asking?" Beck asked, leaning forward.
Just then, their phones both chimed ... with an incoming photo of a self-satisfied Cat with a homemade ice cream sundae with a little smug "Haha!" text accompanying it.
"Next time, she's so getting a timeout."
"Agreed!"
...
Hope you enjoyed!
