A/N - this is what happens when you mix over-analysis, sleep deprivation and painkillers.


When Beck first sees her, he wonders why she wears combat boots. It's not like she's in the middle of a war zone or anything. Who does she have to engage in combat with?


She punches him in the gut at the end of their first scene together for Sikowitz's class. She receives a detention and it doesn't phase her. He starts to wonder if those combat boots are for her war against education.


She stomps on his toes and breaks two of them when he kisses her for the first time on their 5th date. He can't help but assume those combat boots are for protection from love instead of for her war on education.


She wears high heels for the first time to a big party they're invited to. She tells him she's never felt anything stranger. Finally she can't stand it and he takes her home an hour and a half after the party starts. He can't help but think his initial reaction was wrong - maybe she just wears them because they're all she's ever known to wear.


She tells him she loves him, and the moonlight shines upon their faces. It's perfect. He realizes she's not protecting herself from love.


They graduate. Caps are thrown in the air, a jam session is organized in celebration and she's recognized as the highest achiever of any student ever to attend Hollywood Arts. Later that night, in Sikowitz's backyard (he offered to hold the after party at his - Beck had a sneaking suspicion n it was so he could keep an eye on his students one last time), she tells him of her plans to go to University. He realizes she hasn't ever engaged in a war against education.


They move in together. While they're unpacking, she pulls out a little photo diary and shows him the documentation of the early life of little Jadelyn West. He realizes that she doesn't wear her combat boots because they're all she's ever known - the photos show that ballet slippers were traded in for the giant stompers a little after she turned 12.


He asks her to marry him a year or two later (he can never remember off the top of his head - life with her all blended in to be one giant mess of love and happiness and JadeJadeJade) and she accepts. She breaks down mid-planning and he catches her pressing a razor to her wrist because hello, scissors are too cliche for her liking. He travels a few days just to take her to the best psychiatrist in the country (only the best for his Jade) and it's there he finds out why she wears those combat boots. She tells the truth for once - every day of her life, she engages in a battle with herself. She is struggling (and a talented actress) and she's managed to hide the fact she is losing her own personal war.


She walks down the aisle wearing a black dress and smiles when she notices his white tux (they were never a normal couple anyway). He knows that underneath that dress are a pair of old, worn-out, black combat boots. And it doesn't bother him.


She wears them almost every day of her life (when pregnancy makes her feet swell they are literally cut off of her legs - and promptly replaced by the hospital after the commotion she stirs up) but she never loses a battle again. Not with herself, anyway.. Their little angel of a son getting up for school is another story entirely.


THE END ~


A/N - still not too sure what this is, but it's centred around Jade's love for combat boots and Beck's love for Jade. I don't know, but I've taken time out of my sleeping schedule (like I haven't been sleeping all day instead of attending school, psh) to post this so reviews would be lovely.

Also, I do not own Victorious. Or a pair of combat boots. I'm intending on fixing both of those problems.