AN: Okay, so I had a really tough time with this chapter because I got sick & was bed ridden and totally lost motivation. So this is kind of just fluff, BUT I prevailed and at least finished it. Sorry if it's not up to par with the others. I should be back in good form from here on out, though. There will be some major changes & a lot of action happening next chapter, so get ready. :)

"Come in."

The door creaked open and Tori, Beck, André, Cat, and Robbie filed into the apartment. The only light came from the television on the other side of the living room. Scraps of black construction paper were scattered all about and a string of paper dolls was carefully draped across the coffee table. On the couch straight ahead of them peaking up over a blanket was Jade. She stared lifelessly at the TV, a pair of scissors clutched loosely in her hands.

"I hope we aren't interrupting...whatever this is," Tori greeted, taking in the scene before her. The five friends descended deeper into the home and formed a casual semi-circle in front of their friend. Jade neglected to respond, continuing to stare blankly at the screen, so Tori kept on, "We tried to call."

"And text," Robbie added.

"But we couldn't get a hold of you," Tori finished. At the party last night Jade had given them her address and invited them over for dinner, but they hadn't heard from her since. They had spent the day out on the town completing all the obligatory tourist activities and they figured they might as well stop by and check on Jade before going back to their hotel. It was on the way, anyhow.

Jade only frowned. "Sorry, my phone died a couple of hours ago," she explained dreamily, never looking up.

"Oh, well we can go if you want -" André said, gesturing toward the door, and the rest of the gang shifted as if they were preparing to head that way. Jade didn't seem like she was in the mood for company. "We just wanted to check in."

"No, you're not interrupting," she finally answered. "I was just watching a movie. The Scissoring 4. Or maybe it's 5. I lost track," Jade said. Somehow the fates had aligned and the horror channel had decided to marathon her favorite scary movie series the day she got dumped. She'd seen them all before, of course, but at least this way she could still feel like she was doing something productive while she marinated in sorrow.

"How long have you been sitting here?" Robbie inquired. He shared a look with the others as they tried to surmise what exactly was going on. Jade was never the most happy-go-lucky person in the world, but this was nowhere near normal. She was downright catatonic. They moved back toward Jade and found various places to situate themself around the room: Cat next to Jade on the couch, Tori and Beck on the arms of the recliner, André on top of the coffee table, and Robbie standing awkwardly in the middle them all.

"Since breakfast," she said. She had cried herself to sleep after leaving Tyler a series of angry voice mails, then woken up, eaten a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, and spent the rest of the day in front of the TV.

She'd only taken a little break when she'd had the sudden urge to cut something and made use of the construction paper left over from a project last semester.

"Breakfast? It's 7 pm," André pointed out, eyebrows raised.

"Guess I missed lunch," Jade murmured, unconcerned. Her fingers were absent-mindedly tracing the blade of the scissors, the cold touch of metal strangely comforting her. For a few minutes the room was silent except for the musical score of impending doom emanating from the TV speakers. In a climactic bang a character let out a blood curdling scream causing everyone other than Jade to jump.

"So... where's Tyler?" Cat asked, innocently attempting to take the focus away from the horrifying images flashing before them.

"We broke up," Jade answered, her voice cracking unexpectedly, although her eyes remained glued to the screen. Everyone froze under the weight of her sudden admission.

"Oh," they all seemed to say at once. No one knew quite how to react, unaware of the circumstances of the split and too terrified to ask. Jade began twirling the scissors more fervently around her digits, taken aback by the reality that speaking the words aloud had brought to her situation.

"You don't have to pretend to feel bad. I'm an emotionless gank, remember?" She stared hazily at the blades dancing across her skin.

Tori slipped down from her perch and moved toward her. "Jade, none of us think that about you," she insisted.

"Yeah, nobody thinks that," André reiterated. He reached to the couch and placed a hand on Jade's knee from over the blanket.

Cat carefully retrieved the scissors from Jade and placed them on the table. "We're your friends," she cooed, taking her now empty hand. "We care about you."

Jade smiled softly at Cat. "Well, thanks." She grabbed the remote and turned off the TV, and they all seemed somehow relieved by the gesture. But Jade couldn't pull herself out of the funk. She exhaled, "Listen, if you guys would rather go out than sit around with me, I totally understand. I'm probably not the most fun person to be around right now." She didn't want them to hang out with her out of pity. They only had a few nights left before they had to go back to LA.

Cat, Beck, Robbie, Tori, and André exchanged glances, reading each other's expressions and communicating with a silent, simultaneous group nod. "No," Tori declared, "we're staying." Before Jade could refute, they were shuffling around the room with new found purpose.

"Who's ready for some board games?" Cat asked, lifting up two bags overflowing with rectangular cardboard boxes. She brought them into the middle of the room and sat down on the floor.

"I'll make dinner," Beck offered, jumping up to his feet. He turned to Jade. "You still like spaghetti?"

"Are you ugly?" Jade asked. They were four rounds into Guess Who and so far she was the crowning champion.

Tori gave her a look. "Isn't that a little subjective?" she proposed. Most of the characters were pretty weird-looking - they were cartoons, after all - so she wasn't sure how she was supposed to differentiate whether this one in particular was attractive. Especially if she had to go by Jade's standards.

"It's a yes or no question, Tori," Jade huffed.

Tori shuddered a little but resigned. After examining her card for a moment, she concluded, "...Yes."

Jade pursed her lips. "Are you Eric?" she asked with a devilish grin.

Tori threw her hands up in protest. "How could you possibly know that?" she demanded. "You still have like 10 people left!" She gestured to Jade's board which had a sizable number of trays still up.

Jade shrugged. "I'm bored," she decided. The game was easy - she'd always had a knack for reading people - and Tori could barely be considered an opponent. She scooted over to where Robbie was working on a game of solitaire.

"What's new in LA, Shapiro?" she asked. She made sure not to give Robbie the impression she wanted to hear about his personal problems. She liked the kid well enough, but one could only tolerate so much of his ramblings.

Catching her drift, he asked "Did you hear they closed the Asphalt Café?"

"Really?" she questioned, surprised. She took the liberty of moving a 2 to it's ace. "That's stupid. I didn't hate that place." She always enjoyed sitting out at the picnic tables, eating burritos and breathing in the fresh air. It was a nice slice of freedom in an otherwise controlled environment.

"Yeah, my cousin is going to Hollywood Arts now and he said they're making everyone eat inside," he explained.

"It's like schools just try to come up with as many lame rules as possible to make it an even more miserable experience than it already is," she followed.

"Yeah, I'm so glad I'm not in school anymore," came Beck's voice from behind. He stood over Jade and Robbie with a triumphant smirk.

Jade rolled her eyes. "Not everyone had the fortune of being cast in a TV show right after graduation, Beck," she reminded. If she would have had the choice to go to school or get a job she loved and become mildly famous and rich she definitely would have picked the latter. She could only play the cards she had been dealt.

"Not everyone had the fortune of getting a scholarship to TISH, Jade," he threw back. He knew he was lucky for landing the role he did, but a part of him would always wonder how things would have turned out if he had taken the more stable, traditional route and gone to school instead. It would have been silly to turn down a job opportunity when his only other prospect was shelling out money for UCLA, but he still wondered - especially now that he wasn't working as much.

Unable to devise a proper comeback, Jade settled for shooting Beck an irritated glance, to which he grinned. "On that note, dinner is served," he announced.

Predictably, the boys were the first to rush to the kitchen. Robbie and André began serving themselves while the girls formed a line behind them. Beck was standing in the corner overseeing the rationing of his spaghetti.

"This looks delicious," Tori complimented. She picked up a plate and dished out a small serving of noodles and sauce.

André was carrying a heaping portion over to the kitchen table as he agreed, "Yeah, I never knew you could cook."

Beck shook his head. "Guys, chill, it's just pasta," he laughed bashfully. Spaghetti was nothing to brag about. He'd had plenty of practice making easy meals back in his RV days when he thought he was cool and grown-up. Now that he was actually grown-up, he stuck to take out and frozen dinners.

Cat finished serving herself and Jade moved up in the line. Before she got to the stove, Beck stepped in front of her. "Here, Jade," he said, "I made you a plate already."It was a risky gesture - she rarely cared to sacrifice her independence - but it was Beck's way of apologizing for her unfortunate romantic situation. He didn't know how to console her while she was going through a break-up because in the past he had always been the one she was breaking up with.

Jade accepted the plate tentatively, analyzing its contents. There was extra sauce on the noodles and a light sprinkling of parmesan cheese covering the top, just the way she liked it. She gave a small smile, meeting his eyes. "Thanks, Beck," she said quietly. He smiled back, relieved she had taken it well, and they joined the others at the table.

"You know what spaghetti always reminds me of?" André said after his first bite.

"... Italy?" Tori guessed. She slid her chair over to make room for Beck while Jade claimed the empty seat between Cat and André.

"I know! Spaghetti!" Cat laughed. Everyone cringed out of embarassment.

André shook his head. "The Diddly Bops," he revealed, taking another bite.

"Oh my god," Beck choked, "I totally forgot about that." Giggles and murmurs were heard around the table as reminisced over their short-lived careers as children's entertainers. Their sophomore year Sikowitz had asked them to perform at a kid's birthday party; unbeknownst to them, their song had been filmed and ended up becoming a viral sensation. It wouldn't have been so bad had they not been dressed up in giant food costumes, dancing around idiotically.

"I was the ice cream cone," Tori remembered, "André was the spaghetti..."

"Lost me a dang record deal," he added.

Cat clapped her hands together. "I was the healthy one! The broccoli!" she exclaimed.

Continuing the trend that was going around the table, Beck chimed in, "I was the hot dog."

"I was pizza." Robbie smiled fondly. When Jade failed to contribute, he prompted, "Jade, what were you again?"

Jade looked up with a scowl. "The damn Hamburger." She had never been thrilled with that particular turn of events.

Cat giggled extraneously, "That's right! You couldn't get your boobs in the costume!"

Beck smiled down at his food as André tried not to laugh. The bite of spaghetti Jade was in the process of swallowing formed a lump in her throat. "Neither could Trina," she whispered defiantly.

Tori's smile was wide as she concluded, "Guys, we totally could have been the next Wiggles."

Jade growled. "Thank God we nipped that in the bud," she muttered.

They all went back to their dinners, silently poking and prodding at the food before them. They each managed to consume a few mouthfuls before Robbie spoke up, "We were also almost reality TV stars." Once again the table buzzed with response

"Yeah, until Jade and Tori vandalized Festus' car," André remembered. Suddenly all accusatory eyes were on the two girls.

"Hey! That was not my idea!" Tori defended, glaring at Jade.

Jade gaped. "What? How was I supposed to know there would be more than one junkyard looking car in the parking lot?" she asked. For the first time all day, she felt like herself. It seemed the others picked up on it too, because everyone smiled.

Then, with a sigh, Cat lamented, "So many missed opportunities."

A montage of memories, miracles, heart breaks, and breakdowns flashed inside Beck's mind as he studied the faces around the table. After all this time, here they were. Laughing. Smiling. Together. He shook his head. "I think we turned out okay."