A/N: I'm truly sorry it took this long to finish the story. If you actually want the reasons, feel free to read the Author's note at the end. If you'd rather hate me, do that.

Sorry if it reads a little different; it's a bit forced in the interest of finally giving closure to the patient readers out there. Without further ado, the final chapter:

[Tori's POV]

Usually I sleep in after staying up that late. Today, my body clock decided my 7pm date with Jade West warranted waking up every hour on the hour since 6am. I may be nervous, but unlike my stinking body clock, I do know I don't need 11 hours to prepare. And I really do want to keep those certain angles appealing to some people.

So the beauty sleep and the nerves duked it out, nerves finally winning at 10. I almost pat myself on the back for being a respectable teenager before I realize that's a respectable adult wake up time for the weekend. I have to work on being more of a delinquent. Doddling through my morning routine until I get hungry enough for breakfast, I'm finally out the door by noon.

I have issues with cracking eggs.

And picking out clothes.

To be fair, I mainly have issues with showering while half asleep.

What I actually need to do is simple enough; it's the thinking that worries me. I have a list.

-lunchmeat

-sandwich rolls

-cheese

-fruit

-lettuce

-tomato

-onion

-conversation topics

The lunchmeat, cheese, and onion were all taken care of by checking the fridge. Every other comestible is at a store a little under a mile away. The fruit will probably turn out to be strawberries. Ah, California, how you pamper me with non-seasonal fruits and flowers.

I roll my eyes at myself and smirk. If people could hear my internal monologue, they'd think I was a sex-crazed, pompous, childish, altogether insane yet oddly well adjusted freak. Comestible.

A giggle added itself to the slightly self effacing expression.

If only that sort of thing made conversation easier. I don't mean to plan the whole thing, I just want a few topics for the inevitable panic that will seize me as soon as Jade stares at me silently. Let's see… she likes scissors… pain… she goes to therapy! No, that's a terrible thing to bring up. 'Hi, how about baring your deepest secrets to me so you can never feel safe if this doesn't work out?' She likes Cat… and me. Suddenly, I'm not sure this is going to be so hard.

This has been a pretty boring day compared to the last few. I woke up once the sun was already high, so driving somewhere until I'm supposed to meet Tori was out. Somehow the Slap and silly online video games managed to fill most of my day. It's odd; nothing ever really changes on those sites, and they still pull me in for hours. Probably something about being able to know people without ever letting them know you. Some people put an incredible amount of their lives online. Of course I have that anonymous blog I write whenever I think people could actually benefit from the thoughts in my head, but that's still different. I don't put relationships, food choices, life philosophies, awkward stories and my face on the same page. I don't narrate my food choices to anyone, actually. I finally shut my laptop with a thud. I don't need to see your salad; I already understand what one looks like.

After slipping on shoes and double checking that my outfit poses no immediate danger for the extreme date possibilities (laser tag, trekking through a canyon, going to a semi-fancy restaurant), I settle in to watch some old documentary about the life of chickens. I only fiddle with my hands half as much as I expect—it's quite decent for being about chickens—before it's time to go get Tori. Thank whatever deity is in charge of cutting documentary watching short.

I find myself glad that girl chose night time as I hop into my car (and start to burn liquid dinosaurs in a little metal box so I can get where I want). There's something about night: everything on the road is shiny, dark, and just fuzzy enough to make you appreciate the crisp when light gets forced into the picture. Not to mention the difference in air. You can really breathe.

That's important when you're heading to your certain doom of lower social status and probing questions about your emotions.

I park outside and text her, but she gets to the car before it could possibly have reached her. I roll down one of the windows instead of opening the door and look her up and down. She's wearing mainly dark clothes and has a conspicuously large backpack. Her jeans are tight, as usual, but her shirt flutters around her stomach and arms in the wind. I'd made a very conscious decision a while back that I would never act ashamed of things I was entitled to, and I'm going on a date with this girl. A probably familiar predatory smile slides across my face as an equally predatory "Vega" slides out of my lips.

And she just stands there, smiling right back. I know I'm not entitled to her, but the date part entitles me to just a little more staring and teasing than normal. I'll stay where I am just as long as she does.

I'm almost scared my body's frozen until I instinctively brush some hair out of my eyes. It must just be shock, then. Tori Vega's going to start having more willpower than shock. "West," I reply before hopping in her window with a lot more grace than I expected, but still so not sufficient to be in a movie. I'm not permanently bruised, so I'll chalk that up to a victory thankyouverymuch. It's all part of trying for the interesting Cat suggested, aided strongly by the fact that I may just be insane.

It's all worth it because even Jade can't keep a straight face while I untangle my limbs and hair from several parts of the car I'm not supposed to be in. My hand brushes her thigh, too, and I try desperately to keep the mind reading demons from believing I am sex-crazed. It still makes it more worth it…

Jade gets directions one by one as the streets come up, but I'm pretty sure by the way she's settling into her seat so comfortably she's figured out where we're going. I'm tuned in to my own awkward free world and the streets, but Jade's voice cuts through it about as subtly as using gallons of rushing water to cut metal. "If you just needed a ride to school, you could have gotten one in the morning." This is good. She's so curious she's fishing for information rather than asking for it.

"Ever heard patience is a virtue?"

"Ever heard I'm not the most virtuous person around?"

I chuckle as the car pulls to a stop and rush around to open her door. "Even if someone has risked their life making that statement, they wouldn't say it anywhere near LA. So no. Which means…" I can't help but smiling most of the time, but I smile a little harder when I get to say this sort of thing to the mean girl I've pined after for months, "you have to follow me and be patient." I offer my hand to help her out of the car, but she just snaps her teeth at the air like the time she was telling me she rifled through my room. If she does much more of this, I'll end up a frozen little Tori sculpture that church groups visit to demonstrate the consequences of lust. As of now, I can manage to shrug and turn around and go towards the balcony stairs with a little extra booty sway.

It finally makes sense. Patience is a virtue because if you wait long enough and stay with the group, you get to be behind legs like Vega's.

Legs like Vega's climbing up the side of a building. Turns out it was a good idea to include trekking through a canyon in my outfit plans. By the time I get up, she's unloading food from the backpack as I slowly adapt to the deeper level of darkness up here. She explains what the food is like a teacher reading off a powerpoint. Totally lacking in personality. Then again, I was just thinking of what a pain it is for people to obsess about the food they eat in public forums, and Tori's not the type to lack originality for long. "So how'd you end up friends with Cat?" Case and point. It's not deeply probing emotions wise, and it's not as idiotic as asking what I want to be when I grow up. Of course I want to be an actress.

"Are you kidding me? In a place full of divas and self important jerks, a.k.a. the wonderful Hollywood we call home, one genuine and entertaining girl finds it in herself to stick around me." Smooth, West. See how the unintentional resonance makes Tori know you may as well be talking about her. I find a timidity in my voice that I didn't expect after pessimism like that, "I don't give that sort of thing up very quickly." I don't look up and meet her eyes for a touching moment of connection. That has romantic comedy written all over it. That's not what I want. I want to date; I want to hardly be able to follow the plot of my own life, let alone predict it; I want the soundtrack to have Muse and The Dixie Chicks and Lauren Hoffman and The Decemberists and awkward Broadway musical songs, not just one band singing about being in love. I want insane, because what boring really means is if you don't have good, you don't have anything. Tori's clearly still caught up in the moment, because when I look up, she looks a little frozen again. I have several options: Kiss the girl. Ask for a strange condiment. Do something completely unrelated.

"Do you have any sirache sauce?" That's the right choice, right? I mean… spicy is always good. And then Tori's pretty scatterbrained and insane herself, so this is probably a normal segue for her. She leans in and her lips whisper across mine. My eyes closed at some point, and all that exists in the world is black and Tori's lips. We keep adjusting, pressing, trying to get more contact without introducing clanking teeth into the meshing. She doesn't taste like anything; not really. Maybe she tastes warm and sweet, but warm's not a flavor and I'm pretty sure lips aren't naturally sweet. The adjusting slows. I don't think I had any part in that, but maybe Tori didn't either. Still, it's the only signal you ever get to end a kiss. The nerves on my lips obviously missed the memo that we got, because they're still dancing like they have company.

Sirache sauce? I don't think I brought anything but fancy mustard. It's got cranberries in it or something. It's oddly gray for how much flavor it has. Everything up here is black and white, but Jade's lips look really red. Red means… I learned this in psychology. Red means food and sex. And in this case, I think… I think red means go.

I lean towards her face. I don't know how aiming works in these things since eyes end up very closed most of the time, but it does. It works in a way that feels agonizingly slow. I was worried about noses colliding, but at this speed, it doesn't even seem like enough to move the dust around us. Eventually, I reach her lips. I've seen those lips do wonders with smiles and I've always wanted to understand that. I think I do now. The world is filled with softness, brushing, the smell I have come to recognize as Jade. It's warm except the wind blowing our hair together. But that doesn't matter. My consciousness has left my head and is now located in my lips. I worry again about awkward movement, but I don't think awkward exists here. Just smooth, soft, Jade lips that make tingles in the ebbs and life in the flow. And now the tingles are all I'm left with. I so lied. Patience is not a virtue. "Uhm… I have mustard."

And everything seems to be playing so slowly.

Jade stares at me with laughing eyes. Soon the chuckling spreads to the air moving in and out of her nose. Her mouth opens swiftly in a smile to finally let the noise out.

This.

This moment is now filed away in a little brain folder I happily label 'Patronus Moments.'

When the gentlest laughing fit I've ever witnessed ends, she holds out her hand and says, "I'll take what I can get."

The wind is finally eating into my string of exquisite moments with Jade, and I shiver a little. I don't so much mind, though. It feels like the freshness of the pre-winter night will make everything in it last forever.

Tori. Vega. How could I miss that? She makes my mind run crazy and my lips so warm and my world this bright. I know meeting one girl who's crazy enough to stick around and still has enough energy to be fun is too much to hope for. I've met two. One is my family, and the other is the girl that just handed me mustard. I don't know what it is about the second, but I won't stop thinking till I find out. She's understanding. She needs someone like me. She's beautiful. She's a great singer. She's willing to give her dignity up for a good laugh. She's shivering. Oh.

I sidle over to her and press our sides and legs together.

She's here. She brought me here.

Here where I'm not quite afraid to let her know I did something for someone else.

Here where you can see for miles around, and it continues to bug me that people who live in the city can't take a moment every now and then to appreciate architecture and lights. Not all beauty is in nature, you thick headed corporate slaves. Most of the little available turns out to be in people, as I have been taught many times, and am finally, slowly starting to believe.

A/N:

Thank you to everyone who took an interest in a story that seems a bit too far over the crackfic and fluff border for it to hold much attention. It's nice to know so many people actually wanted to read what I wrote.

I've officially decided stories need a stronger disclaimer than "no concrete update schedule."

Brief list of totally legitimate reasons: best friend attempting suicide, returning depression issues, spending part of the summer with abusive parents, getting kicked out a second time, identity crisis with fun transgendered outcomes, flu complete with virus induced asthma, no internet at my new apartment, newer laptop breaking. This actually came to you courtesy of university provided internet and a laptop older than my obsession with Terry Pratchett. Yay college and hoarding!