Chapter 1: The Calm

Disclaimer: I do not own Victorious.

...

Physical Education, Hollywood Arts

...

"Feeling a little bit tired, are ya Vega?"

The sarcastic overtone, the almost condescending nature of it; Tori couldn't help but like she didn't even need to turn to see who it was, yet she did regardless. And as such suspected, there sat Jade, sitting leisurely on the gym bleachers. Her lips twirled to form a wicked smile, one that as much reflected Jade's glee about not participating in P.E. as it did watching Tori tire herself out.

"Why aren't you running too?" Tori called out, trying to take in as much as possible between breaths.

"I don't," Jade casually remarked, like it wasn't a bit deal.

Tori just looked at the Goth with confusion. Was she implying that she was somehow exempt from work? Was it that she just chose not to participate? And should that have been the case, how was she hoping to graduate without passing P.E.? "I don't," Tori repeated, her words callous. "What exactly is that supposed to mean?"

"Exactly as it sounds," Jade continued on, the tone of her voice indicating slight irritation to Tori's prodding. What exactly is so tough for her to get about it? I mean, damn, sometimes I can't but think she's as clueless as Cat is… Dismissing Tori with her previous remark, Jade resumed watching as the students began to pitifully cross the imaginary finish line dictated by where their gym teacher stood.

One by one, they crossed the line with the consistency of a conveyor belt. To some degree, it was a rather boring display; the real entertainment came as each one finished. A student falling to the ground as they imitate having a heart attack, perhaps a student collapsing outright, though Jade took a particular fancy towards the students that desperately scavenged around for some source of water. She wished that Tori would have been in one of those camps, but to her surprise, Tori seemed to be more athletically fit than not just what Jade predicted, but also than the greater extent of the class.

Including either Andre or Beck.

"Come on Harris! Oliver, I know you can do better than that!" The gym teacher bellowed out as the two guys practically ran foot for foot, side by side, their faces looking like they were ready to fall over in exhaustion. "Come on! Only another 50 meters to go!"

Tori and Jade both found themselves pretty much the only two who were actually watching the boys complete their mile. The few who weren't exhausted like Tori were otherwise preoccupied and the remainder of the class were further divided into two camps; Those who had finished and were overcoming their suffering and those who were still suffering as they ran. "Looks like you're not as pathetic as one might first assume," Jade coldly remarked as Andre and Beck both passed the finish line in an overly dramatic fashion.

Mustering what strength they had left, it was perhaps a slight miracle that neither of them had collapsed on their way towards Tori and Jade. Rushing towards the bleachers were Jade sat, Andre took several large deep breaths, to much an extent mirroring how Tori behaved once she finished running. Unlike then, Andre hardly seemed in a position to speak, "Need…. Need… Water…"

"You wouldn't happen to have any, would you Tori?" Beck asked with as sincere a tone as he could, though secretly not for Andre's sake, but rather that he would stop his desperate pleading.

Tori rose an eyebrow, not bothering to speak but instead allowing Beck a moment to realize just what it was he was asking.

It took a moment, but it did appear that he finally got the hint, nodding with defeat. "Nevermind."

"Ugh… Need… Need… Food…." Andre moaned, somehow or another managing to actually fall off the bleachers, or more appropriately, roll off the bleachers. Even upon landing on the hardwood floor, he didn't seem to register any sort of pain. If anything, he seemed to be more enjoying the change, or at least him no longer moaning seemed to indicate.

"Harris!" The gym teacher called out, proceeding towards the group, "What're you doing lying down? That's hardly a way to recover after a run!" Andre mumbled something or another, though it sounded foreign to all in the area. The instructor simply looked at him for a moment before dismissing him, "Anyways. Vega!"

Tori gulped, worried that she had somehow or another done something wrong. "Yes?" She asked, almost trembling.

"7 minutes, 38 seconds. Not bad. Not bad at all. Oliver, Harris, I wish I could say the same for you two. Just under 10. 9 minutes, 43 seconds."

"Is that well enough for us to pass?" Beck asked, not sounding all too concerned, but knowing that a faster time would be a tough thing to achieve. Especially if this was any indication.

The teacher nodded, to which Beck let out a sigh of relief. "The required time to beat is 12 minutes. So yes, it's good enough to pass. But not exactly a very impressive time." After a second or two of standing around there, he returned back to the transparent finish line, calling over several students' names in the process.

Throughout the entire encounter, Tori couldn't help find something odd about the whole thing. Switching her focus several times between the teacher and Jade, Tori finally said aloud, "So, did anyone notice that he didn't say anything as far as Jade not running was concerned?"

"Jade doesn't run," Beck said matter-of-factly.

The way he spoke, Beck made it sound like it was common knowledge. How was it then that Tori had no idea herself about this, or more importantly, how Jade had managed something like that in the first place. She turned towards Jade, noticing a smug grin on the Goth's face.

"Told ya so," Jade remarked, arrogance radiating off her words.

"Let's go Shapiro!" The group could hear the teacher call out, though unlike earlier where few people bothered to turn to watch Beck or Oliver, this time it seemed like a great majority of the class was watching.

And unlike with the other two, watching Robbie was actually enjoyable.

Enjoyable in a more pitiful sense. While many of the students had – shockingly – struggled to complete the mile, Robbie looked as though he wasn't going to be able to complete it at all. His pace amounted to little more than of a student's normal walk. And even at such a slow rate, the look on his face was one of death, one that echoed the apparent pain that came with each pathetic step taken.

Watching it play out, Tori couldn't help but feel sorry for Robbie. Beyond just the fact he was quite clearly moving slower than anyone else in the class, it seemed to amount to torture how he was physically reacting to it. But perhaps the nail in the coffin for her was the fact that many of their classmates had taken it upon themselves to begin a "Robbie" chant, which while appearing to be encouraging, Tori could almost immediately pick up on the sarcasm and mockery in their voices.

"Come on Robbie!"

"Let's go! Rex is waiting!"

The variety of remarks thrown about, whether they were loud enough for Robbie to have heard them or not, there was no doubt that they were taking their toll. Not just on Robbie, but now also on Tori. As disgusted as she was by how rude everyone was showing themselves to be, the fact was she was as much associated with Robbie as were Andre, Beck, or even Jade was. How it was that they didn't seem to be as conflicted as she was right now, that was something that Tori just could not understand.

But the worst thing of it all was the fact that for as much as she might have wanted to protest, she knew that it wouldn't achieve anything. This would go on for as long as Robbie slowly carried himself through the remainder of the track, that being just the distance that Andre and Beck when they were called out earlier. Yet, the fact that he seemed to have been moving even slower than before, it would seem to require a miracle for him to actually finish it.

Come on Robbie…

Time continued to dwindle down until the moment finally arrived. The moment when finally, in spite of moving at a snail's pace, Robbie Shapiro managed to cross the finish line that marked him running a complete mile. After only about 15 minutes or so, twice the time that Tori needed to finish, and 1 and a half times the amount of time that Andre and Beck needed, he finally finished.

And no more than three steps later did he collapse onto the hard ground.

"Robbie, are you alright," Tori asked as she found herself rushing towards him, wasting no time in trying to help him up to his feet. Utterly fixated on making sure that he was alright, Tori didn't seem to notice either the mob now hurling insults at her or the fact that someone else was actually making an effort to help her as well.

"Ignore them," Beck said, causing Tori's eyes to slightly widen with surprise. Given how the other students so aggressively threw out mocking insult upon insult, for some reason she couldn't help but think that Beck might have stayed away from involving himself at all. But here he was, forgoing any hit his reputation at school might take to ensure that his friend was alright.

Though she expected a friendly gesture like that from Andre, Tori felt a bit obligated to forgive Andre in this case. From what she could tell, he hadn't moved much from the spot that he had originally lay on the ground beside the bleachers. "Thanks Beck, really."

"Of course," Beck smiled, adjusting his positioning and grip on Robbie, leveraging more of the weight onto him to alleviate Tori. "Come on Robbie, let's take a seat. Shall we?"

"…. Coo'..." Robbie said in what almost seemed like a semi-conscious state. Tori immediately shot a glance from him towards Beck, as a sense of urgency suddenly seemed to present it. Although she wasn't sure herself, Tori couldn't help but imagine that Beck was feeling the same. Within a short matter of time, they had Robbie resting on the bleachers in a manner similar to how Andre had been. But unlike Andre, the last thing they wanted was Robbie possibly rolling onto the ground himself.

"That's pretty impressive Robbie," Tori perked her head up as she heard Jade's voice for what seemed like the first time in a while. Turning around, she couldn't help but begin to get upset at seeing Jade crowded among some of the more vocal – and rude – people in their class. "Maybe you should have let Rex run in your place. He'd probably have run faster than that. But then again, even if he could run, I doubt that could be even close to as enjoyable as that excuse for running you did was."

Tori's blood began to boil as she listened to Jade only further add insult to injury. And to make matters worse, it seemed that with every remark she made, no matter how insulting or not it was, it managed to utterly rile up the other students. What the hell Jade? A part of her wanted to get up and do something. Throw a punch at Jade? That'd do nothing but make Tori's life a complete and utter hell. Yell at her? That'd achieve about as little as a punch would.

All of a sudden, she realized that even in spite of weighing the consequences of confronting Jade, she had basically done exactly that. Here she stood, only a couple of feet before Jade.

"What can I do for you, Vega?" Jade asked, the dozen or so students who stood behind her no doubt empowering her to some degree.

Fortunately for Tori, the sound of the bells echoing through the gymnasium spared her for having to come up with some sort of excuse to getting in Jade's face. Stepping away, it dawned on her that even a simple lie – in that situation – may have had as much of an impact as insulting or striking her.

Taking a deep breath, Tori wasted no time in getting out of the gym as quickly as possible. It wasn't the fact that it was Jade herself, but rather that it was Jade in addition to well over a dozen or so students who were all encouraging her and no doubt would side with her if it came to a choice between them. Add in the fact that people were undoubtedly linking her to Robbie, that was nothing more than a recipe for disaster.

...

The Asphalt Café, Hollywood Arts

...

Whomever designed the schedules for students had a very sick sense of humor. While they had been kind enough to have put the entire gang in the same lunch period again, they had decided to put the majority of them in P.E. right before. Often enough it wasn't something that they thought much of, but on a day like today, they found themselves envious of Cat.

She didn't have to go through the painful ordeal that they did which was the indoor mile.

But she also hadn't seen the sequence of events that transpired there either. If she had, then perhaps she would understand why nobody was all that talkative. That was fine enough for Cat; it meant that she had more time to talk.

"So Tori, you remember that time that you came over to my house and you lost your shoe?"

Tori chuckled at Cat's question, "Which time? The one from last year after the basketball game? Or last summer when we went to the beach and you walked over a jellyfish and was convinced that it was a monster trying to burrow inside your body? Or the - "

"I'm sorry, but how do you lose so many pairs of shoes?" Jade interrupted. While she wouldn't say so, she was also quite curious as to how that conversation went regarding Cat and her encounter with the jellyfish. Just by Tori's description, it sounded like quite the tale.

"Pairs of shoes? No. Individual shoes," Tori corrected, holding up a lone finger for further emphasis. As she examined Jade's face for a response, she realized that either way, if it had been a single shoe or a pair, Jade was probably going to think that Tori was clumsy and forgetful. Hoping to save face, Tori quickly sought to put the conversation to rest, "I'll come by later and grab it, alright Cat?"

Cat looked at Tori for a moment, nodding emotionlessly, as if she were a robot. It wasn't until Tori rose her eyebrows several times that it seemed to dawn on Cat what Tori was implying. "Oh, I get it. Sure, that's fine Tori!"

There was a very brief moment of silence as Cat scanned what was going on with the others at the table. Outside of her, Tori, and Jade's occasional remark, the rest of the gang had been pretty much silent. Beck seemed pretty fixated on his slice of pizza, slowly taking bites of it, though with each one it seemed like he was fighting himself in order to continue. Andre – for as much as he had begged and pleaded for food earlier – hadn't so much as touched the sushi that he had purchased for himself. It was quickly getting to the point that Tori was about to take it for herself, especially if Andre wasn't going to eat it.

And then there was Robbie. In spite of Beck and Tori both suggesting to Robbie that he go to the nurse's office and lie down for a bit, he insisted on joining them for lunch. Judging by how he looked now, that was a gross mistake. His face was completely devoid of color, his hair looked drenched still of sweat much like the clothes he was wearing. It had taken him several minutes to get from the gym to the Asphalt Café and the salad that Tori had bought for him remained completely untouched.

"Why are you guys all really quiet?" Cat asked, a little concerned by how they were acting. By the time she looked at Robbie, she appeared visibly concerned. The slightly-odd yet entertaining and joyful Robbie that she considered one of her closest friends wasn't there today. Today she was looking at what was nothing more than a husk. A shell of Robbie.

"Gym," Jade casually remarked, being far more interested in stabbing her salad than Cat's apparent concern for the others.

Cat turned towards Jade, confused by what she meant. "Gym? Why, what happened?"

Recognizing Jade's indifference, Tori chimed in, "That temporary gym teacher guy had us run the mile today inside. A couple of people had a harder time than others." Trying to be as discreet as possible, her eyes darted around the table a few times, hoping that it was subtle enough not to draw the others' attention but at the same time be clear enough for her to get the point.

Even without the hint, Cat knew enough of what Tori was talking about. Even though she appreciated the fact that Tori was trying to be all secret agent-like, all one had to do was look at Andre or Robbie to tell that they were physically drained. Beck looked a bit more like his usual self, but it was apparent too that he was similarly drained. "Man, I hate that all of you guys got the same gym class and I'm the only one who's not in it!"

"Trust me Cat, you're not missing much." Beck said in what seemed like a rare moment. Without saying anything more, Tori nodded in agreement.

Believe Beck. The last place you would have wanted to be today was gym. If you don't trust Beck's word, trust mine.

In another rare moment, Robbie seemed to stand up and start to walk away from the table, causing everyone to look at him, the collection of faces expressing emotions of concern and intrigue. "Robbie!" Tori called out, hopeful that he'd stop to at least give them some indication that he wasn't going to pass out or something. "Where are… Don't you think you should relax a bit?"

"I need something to eat. Something with meat," he said weakly. Ironically enough, it was a comforting thing to hear, him being able to speak rather than spew out words in a fatigued state. That however, did not diminish concerns shared by Tori and others.

Beck got up from his seat himself and gently put a hand on Robbie's shoulder, "I'll go grab you one. Take a seat bro," he insisted.

"Don't baby him. If Robbie wants his meat, let me get it," Jade scolded, grabbing hold of Beck's arm and pulling him back towards the table. Tori simply looked on shaking her head at Jade, how it seemed like she wanted him to hurt himself or something.

As Beck reluctantly took his seat, he subtly tightened his grip on Robbie's shoulder as well, hoping to reel him back towards his own seat. Robbie wasn't having it. "I'll be fine," he muttered with slight irritation as he walked towards the food truck.

Tori happened to catch a quick glance at Robbie as he walked away. Although she wasn't completely sure, she couldn't help but think she was seeing him limp, or at the very least have a little issue as far as his balance was concerned. Once he was out of earshot she spoke, "I really don't think he's alright."

"It's probably just fatigue. I mean, look at Andre," Jade said, pointing to the man who still had not touched his sushi. Even she couldn't help but flash a small smile at the sight of Tori grabbing the sushi and beginning to eat it.

"Maybe you should see the nurse, don't ya think?" Tori suggested as she took a closer look at Andre's face, coming within inches as she carefully examined seemingly every part of it.

Turning his head just very slightly in Tori's general direction, Andre simply looked at her or a few moments, saying not a word until she backed up, which she did upon eventually making eye contact with him. "I appreciate the concern, but I'm fine. I'm just… not hungry is all." He seemed to choke on the last sentence, having a hard time himself believing what he just said. "Did I really just say that? I should go to the nurse…"

Tori and Cat broke out into laughter at Andre's mini-panic attack. Even now, Tori was imagining how things were going to play out once they were out of school. Andre would probably ask Tori for a ride and then somewhere along the way he'd throw out the suggestion for food. Then probably he'd make a large order which would exceed the actual amount of money he had on him, which Tori would have to cover. Wow, it's frightening how likely that might happen actually. Now with reluctance, Tori continued to eat away at Andre's food, hoping with each bite that his appetite wouldn't return until after they were both home.

"So, what're you guys doing later?" Tori asked to those at the table.

"Thinking about going to see the new Kenan Thompson movie, Orange Soda II." Beck responded. The look on Jade's face seemed to mirror a feeling of 'did you really have to tell them that?'

"Oh, I love Orange Soda!" Cat exclaimed.

"Who doesn't," Andre chimed in as well.

Beck looked down onto his place, disappointment actually setting in at the realization that he had no more pizza. Shit. Probably shouldn't, but I could really go for another slice… Finally opting against getting another slice, he lifted his head, "You guys can come with us if you'd like."

"Yay!" Cat cheered.

Tori didn't make an initial remark, much in part due to the sushi she had hastily stuffed into her mouth. Once she swallowed, she reacted in a manner similar to Cat, "Awesome! What time is the showing?"

Jade leaned her head to the side and frowned, "Oh I'm sorry. That was only to Cat and Andre. Not you."

Tori stared right at Jade, doing her best to make herself look as intimidating as possible, though it didn't seem to faze Jade.

Beck turned his head towards his girlfriend, disapprovingly shaking his head. "Jade…"

"Ugh…" Jade groaned. "Fine, you can come along, I guess."

"I feel so wanted," Tori sarcastically said, rolling her eyes. Maybe it's not just Robbie. Maybe it's just National Jade's a Bitch Day…

"But to answer your question though Tor, it's a later showing. Around 8."

"Nice," Cat coolly said. "We meeting there then or we going-"

Cat's words were cut off as a loud thud was heard, followed immediately by the medley of comments made by everyone around them, all speaking at once. Even the redhead found herself covering her mouth as she saw the event take place before her. Tori was a bit slower to realize what was going on, initially having her attention drawn towards everyone else, everyone who seemed to have been looking right at their table. Turning her head, she realized just what it was that had everyone shocked.

In Jade's lap there appeared to have been what looked like a burrito of some kind, practically torn apart as meat and sauce seemed to utterly coat Jade's clothing.

A terrified feeling went through Tori's head as she quickly came to suspect who and what might have happened. And as she looked away from Jade – but not before seeing the shocked expression on Jade's face – she saw what looked like Robbie, laying on the ground just a few steps away. Oh God, is he alright!?

Her fears were quickly put to rest as the boy began to get up, though a little slower than she might have suspected him to be able to. Perhaps he realized what he did, or at least suspected he did something. Either way, as he did fully get up and noticed just who it was that his food had spilt on, his face went completely white as if he had seen a ghost. Quietly, he began to step back, hoping that Jade wouldn't know it was him or notice him leave.

He managed to make it no more than a few steps before Jade's voice resonated through the entirety of The Asphalt Café, effectively paralyzing everyone in place.

"Robbie! I'm going to kill you!"

A/N: And there in starts the first chapter! Reviews are appreciated. Hope you guys enjoy!