Impermanent Perfection - jatp/luke

1.17

as she stepped out of the patterson's front door, jade took a deep breath as she shut the door. as she made her way home, her mind was reeling with thoughts, all of which were about her mom.

as much as she always focused on missing her dad, she did miss her mom a lot too, and this trip to lukes only heightened that. jade really wanted to see her.

as jade walked up the path to the front door of the house, she noticed luke standing on the porch.

"hey." she spoke, pausing slightly.

"hey." he says back, looking at her. the look in his eyes made jade's heart squeeze. he still looked sad, but it was like a light sparked in his eyes when he looked at her.

"i'm sorry for overstepping." she says quickly, walking to meet him on the porch.

"no i, i just had to leave." he says, pushing himself away from the post he was leaning on. "that was.."

"you don't have to say anything." she interrupts him quickly. she knew how hard it could be to talk about stuff like this and she didn't want to force him.

"yeah, i do." he takes a step closer to jade, shoving his hands in his pockets. "i didn't have many regrets in my life, except for running out on my parents, especially my mom. so, thank you." he says softly and jade nodded.

"you've help me so much, with all the stuff with my parents," she starts, unable to look away from his hazel eyes. "i just wanted to do the same thing for you."

"that was perfect." he smiles softly.

luke reached his hand for her's and jade didn't even think. she instinctively stuck her hand out to meet his, only for it to go right through. for a moment, jade felt like the world stopped.

she took in sharp breath in and turned away from him, leaning on the railing in front of her.

"this is an interesting little relationship you and i have." luke states, a small grin on his face. jade nodded slightly and looked to him, a small smile growing on her face when she met his eyes.

"oh! i almost forgot to tell you!" jade exclaims, turning back to face him. "julie told me that the video her dad made is trending on youtube." luke looks at her in confusion, not at all understanding the 21st century lingo. "that's a good thing." she tells him with a small laugh. "it means people love our music, we'll definitely be getting calls from managers now."

luke's face fell slightly, though jade expected him to be happy. he watched her for a moment, a conflicted look in his eyes.

"there's something i have to tell you." he says, taking a small step closer to her. jade instantly became nervous by the scared look that flashed in his eyes.

"oh.. okay." she says hesitantly.

"we figured out that we have unfinished business." he starts. "that's why we came back as ghosts."

"oh," jade says, somewhat shocked. she kind of expected it to be bigger news by how worried he looked. "what is it?"

"we have to play the show that we never got to play." luke says, a slightly sad smile on his face.

"at the orpheum, that makes sense." jade nods.

suddenly luke was knocked back by some kind of jolt, causing him to fall on to the post behind him. he let out a groan of pain and jade's eyes went wide.

"yeah, but we don't have a lot of time." he adds, and jade took a step closer to him, her heart beat speeding up.

"what was that? are you okay?" she asks quickly, and luke shook his head slightly.