One More Chance With Time

12.

A/N:This chapter is going to be set about three days after the events of the last chapter.
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Hollywood Arts

Three Days Later

Tori Vega was glad that he life was gradually starting to return to normal after what had happened at the house three days prior. There had been interviews with the police, lots of hugs and words of comfort from family and friends and she hadn't been back to school until today. She still had trouble believing that it had been Jade...a future version of Jade that had been responsible for saving her life. It sounded like the sort of thing that occurred in science-fiction but she couldn't deny that it had actually happened to her.

But right now she wasn't concerned with any of that. She simply wanted to find Jade, the Jade West that she knew. But that was proving to be nearly impossible. She had left the house as quickly as she had appeared after she was sure that Tori was safe and Tori hadn't had a chance to try and track her down with all the questions and everything else that had happened in the aftermath of Ryder's attack. It was almost the end of the day at Hollywood arts and she still hadn't seen her all day. A few people had seen her arrive at school but that had been it.

And so Tori had spent all of her time between classes looking for her.

With no luck.

She watched as a small group of students walked by and sighed as she leaned against a locker as she considered how the current series of events must have affected Jade. First she had been surprised by her future-self, had been told that her relationship with Beck and men in general was a lie and had been forced to confront her own sexual identity within a very short amount of time and then had been told that someone she considered a friend who was crushing on her was about to be beaten and left for dead unless she could save her from a psycho student looking for revenge on her.

It must have been rough for her. Tori thought as she looked down at the floor with a guilty look in her eyes. Not to mention it had probably been really confusing to see her future-self kiss the girl who was crushing on her. Although she had been surprised by the kiss she couldn't help but feel guilty since she had enjoyed it. She hadn't considered how Jade must have felt after witnessing it.

Yeah. It had to have been a rough couple of days for her. Maybe even rougher for her then for Tori herself.

I just need to find her. Tori thought to herself as she resumed walking through the hallway. We need to try and talk about this and figure out where we go from here.

She continued walking through the halls as the halls began to fill with students as the final bell finally rang and groups of students filled the hallways heading for the exits of the school until there were only a few students left, most of them were talking near their lockers. Tori sighed heavily and walked a few feet before she stopped as she passed by a closet. For a brief second she thought she had heard something. A muffled sob was what it had sounded like.

She gently and hesitantly knocked on the door and the sobbing stopped abruptly. "Jade? Jade, it's Tori. Are you in there?" She asked gently. She was expecting to be screamed at and told to go away but to her surprise that wasn't the response she received. "What do you want, Vega?" Jade asked quietly as a moment later the muffled sobbing started up again and Tori slowly opened the door.

The sight that greeted her was something she wasn't expecting. Jade was sitting on the floor with a scissors in her hand. The floor was covered with green plastic pieces of a trash can that had been cut to pieces. Jade was looking down at the ground and trying to the best of her ability to stop sobbing. Tori carefully approached her and sat down next to her.

"So. Anything you want to talk about?" Tori asked simply and Jade turned and glared at her for a moment before looking down at the ground. "I don't even know where to start." She muttered as she continued staring at the ground as she thought back to the events of the past few days.

"If it makes you feel better, I'm not exactly sure where to start either." Tori admitted as she looked down at the ground. "It must have been difficult...to go through what your going through." Tori said softly as she looked over at Jade. "Besides the weird stuff that happened in the past few days it must have been hard for you to realize that...well..."

"That I'm not into guys?"

"Yeah." Tori said softly as she looked down. "It was hard for me at first, I was confused and I felt like I didn't know myself. But eventually I was able to adjust. In fact, It was my first day at Hollywood arts that I saw someone who I was really attracted to."

Jade looked up at her as Tori smiled slightly.

"She was scary at first, a bit mean but eventually we became friends. I keep hoping that she'll look at me, that she'll see me as more then just a friend." Tori said as she looked back down at the ground.

"I know that your talking about me. But why do you bother? Why do you want to be with me when I was so horrible to you the first time that we met? What do you see in me?"

Jade was unprepared for Tori's hands to gently cup her face and she was even more unprepared to see Tori staring at her with what seemed to be a genuine mixture of affection and a slight amount of fear.

"Because no matter how mean you are on the outside, I see that on the inside your a good person. You've had a tough time Jade and I can help you. But I need to ask you something. Something that I've been wondering for a very long time.

Tori's face was inches from Jade's.

"Do you like me? Do you feel the way that I feel about you?"

Jade answered by softly pressing her lips against Tori's and Tori's eyes widened in shock and then closed for a brief moment as she was overwhelmed with happiness.

Jade pulled back and smirked.

"That answer your questions?" She asked softly as she pressed her lips against Tori's again.