A/N: Hey hey hey! I was so worried about receiving negativity since this is my first story but you have all put my worries to rest! So much positivity I think I've become a proton! I apologize for the extremely strange formatting in the last chapter it changes like that whenever I upload the story and I don't know why! If anyone has anyone idea how to fix this please don't be afraid to contact me! Thank you and enjoy the story!

Disclaimer: I disclaim any accusations of me owning Victorious because I don't own it. But if I did, the show would have ended properly and the next season would be the college edition.

Ch. 2 Conversations of Ducks and Bloody Doors

_Jade POV_

I ran until my feet ached and throbbed, then I ran some more until the blood pounding in my head tuned out the news about my father's upcoming death. I was laying down in what seemed to be grass now that I had taken a minute to check out where I had run to. I sat up abruptly and looked around to make sure I wasn't in some creepy abandoned park infested with pedophiles. The few people around me had not even acknowledged me and I wasn't at a park, it was the local duck pond and it was mostly empty, there was the occasional person walking about or feeding the ducks, but that was it. Stupid dad, stupid alcohol, and stupid death I ranted in my head. My chest hurt from all the running and it heaved up and down uncontrollably pumping out short breaths of air as I tried to cool down.

I fell back on the grass and stared at the sky," I can't believe this. What am I supposed to do now? You've been nothing but a living reminder of how much I'm hated and suddenly you want to fix things! Well guess what dad, everyone else might be falling for your pity story but I'm not believing that bullshit! You had over 10 years to try and fix our relationship but you didn't, and that's not my problem" I seethed. Towards the end of my rant I had stood up from my laying position and begun to pace back and forth angrily. I wasn't talking to anyone really; it was more of thinking out loud to sort my swarming thoughts so to say.

I didn't want to think about my dad or his failing liver I just wanted to not think of it at all. The running helped clear my mind but you can only run from your problems for so long, it's not like I was Forrest Gump. I snorted at that after imagining myself with a thick southern drawl like the southern shrimp fisherman's had been. The snort quickly bubbled over into a fit of laughter as I rolled around in the grass. It felt good, great even, making light of the situation seemed to be the only way to go about it. If I was all dark and broody about this then I wouldn't be able to get over this myself, let alone build up the courage to see my dad if I ever decided to go see him that is.

I sat up and picked the grass outta my hair and off of my clothes and watched the ducks swim in the shallow pond towards my left. The pond was about ten to twenty feet deep and its bottom was filled with smooth stones, the pond's edge was mossy and slippery so it had gravel overlaid on it so people wouldn't fall in, and the ducks could easily get in and out. The pond's inhabitants were not only ducks but turtles also swam about in the clear water and there were some small fish that darted about the bottom of the pond. Sometimes surfacing to get bits of bread the ducks had missed. It was a very serene area and I felt a lot better after watching the pond for a bit.

I hope I didn't worry Lane too much; I couldn't give two fucks about how worried Carl might be, although I knew he didn't give a shit either. Oh crap! I forgot about Beck during my hasty retreat. He wasn't gonna be happy when he got back and found out that I had left and ran off by myself again. Beck was a fellow orphan at the Stoneridge Adoption Agency, or as we liked to call it, the orphanage. Beck was thirteen when we had meet and I was seven, he told me that they picked him up off of the street after he was caught stealing from a grocery store. I remember losing my shit at that because he was a replica of the Disney street rat Aladdin and he had been caught stealing from a store, it was essentially the conversation that broke the ice between us and began our friendship. Nine years later and I was sixteen while Beck was twenty-two, he had long since left his childhood home at the orphanage and was living in an apartment complex in a pretty nice neighborhood. He worked with the grocery store he had stolen from as a bagger boy and he also had a second job which he liked a lot more.

The second job Beck worked was with an older man in his late thirties or early forties, the man's name was Sikowitz and he was the proud and successful CEO of his pool cleaning company and service. Beck had visited me one day with news about getting a job with Sikowitz as one of the pool boys. He told me that he got a company car that was fully loaded in pool cleaning necessities and was to be managed by Beck himself. Beck was ecstatic about this opportunity and talked about it for days and days. It was a pretty sweet deal no lie, Beck made good green and he was very proud of that.

Now I always wondered why he had two jobs if the pool job made so much money for him and when I had asked him about it a year ago he told me, "Well I don't know if you would be up for this but I wanted to become your legal guardian once I was of age and was financially stable enough to take care of you. I get it if you're overwhelmed and need some time to think but just know I intend to take care of you whether or not you want me to adopt you."

He said all of this is his normal calm and laid back way but I was anything but calm on the inside. When he told me that, I was instantly filled with so many emotions and I just started to cry all over him. He joked and said that if I didn't want to be with him I didn't have to cry about it, I punched his shoulder at that and cried on him some more. It was a gross show of affection but it's a memory that is very fond to me. Beck had sorted out all that was needed for his adoption of me with Carl and Lane, because he was so young Lane arranged a deal with him telling him that he would be under "investigation" for a year so that he could adopt Jade when he was ready. But Lane couldn't stop any parents from trying to adopt me but that didn't mean that I couldn't try and sabotage all of their attempts.

What I did to stop them wasn't really evil or anything. It was mostly me disobeying them that got them to take me back, but this one time I was pretty proud at myself for what I did to get back to the orphanage. There was this one family who had adopted me, the Dubois family. The mom was a really really REALLY tough cookie to crack; I tried everything to get her to take me back! Gross pranks, going out late and not returning home for hours without any explanation, and I even brought Beck up to my room under the guise as my boyfriend so that she'd think I was having hormonal teenage sex with him! But no, nothing seemed to ward Helen off. So finally I devised a brilliant plan to finally crack this tough nut. For a couple of weeks I sent her anonymous letters with threats of violence if she didn't move out of the neighbor immediately, but of course Helen toughed it out. So to finish the job I got a hold of a bunch of fake blood, smeared it on her door and around the walls, and stabbed the final letter to her door with a hunting knife.

Needless to say, Helen was ready to pack up and leave. But there was one problem, Helen hadn't had me for a long enough time yet and she was still under investigation, so she couldn't leave with me. Fearing for her safety she reluctantly gave me up. Her last words to me were, "don't think for a minute that I didn't know that you had something to do with this! I swear it on my dead grand-mama, god rest her soul that I will get you for this!" And with those parting words Helen moved and I haven't seen her since. Even if I wanted her to give me up I still missed the old broad, she was a pretty cool person all in all.

I was pulled out of my reverie when a hand had settled itself atop of my head in a friendly manner, I didn't even need to look up to see who the hand belonged to, the bleach smelling fingers were clue enough.

"Think of the devil and he shall appear" I addressed to the hands owner, "what're you doing here? Did Lane send you after me, if he did I'm so-" Beck cut my off by pulling me in for a hug. "You don't have to apologize; it must've been rough having to hear that. Especially given you and your dad's relationship you know?" He paused for a minute and squeezed me tighter, "I can't imagine what you're feeling right now but you can talk to me and we can work through this together alright?" Just from those couple of sentences I started bawling like a little baby, I grabbed onto him and held him for dear life, I was hugging him so close to me that his shirt was getting sticky with my face liquids. "I don't know what to do Be-Beck! What if I see him and he tells me how much of a mis-mistake I am, what if-" my wailing was cut short when Beck grabbed me by my shoulders and hauled me to the pond's edge.

"Look in the pond Jade, tell me what do see?" I hiccupped and wiped at my face and looked into the pond as ordered. What kind of a question was that? Way to ruin a moment Beck," I see a sobbing mess of a Goth..." I muttered stubbornly, not wanting to do whatever this was. Beck smiled warmly at me his reflection in the pond mirroring him." Well I see a beautiful young lady, who's done so much to stay strong. I see a girl who is distant to people but for the best reasons. I see a girl who CARES about everybody even though she'll deny it at every chance she gets. But most of all, I see a girl who is loved by everyone around her, and if your dad is too dumb to see that than he doesn't deserve to have you in his life."

By now I was crying all over again and Beck pulled me into another hug. Lane had found our relationship inappropriate at first because of our age differences but he quickly seen that there was never or would ever, be anything romantic between us. We were soul mates but of a different kind, Beck will always be my best friend and nothing in the world could ever change that.

I ended our moment with a punch to Beck's shoulder and we got up and headed away from the park. "How did you find me anyways, I thought I had run a pretty far distance from the orphanage" I inquired," unless someone's put a tracking chip in me?" I joked. Beck rolled his eyes and pretended to check my ear for a computer chip, I played along until he stuck his wet finger in there and wet-willied me, "What the hell Beck!" I screeched, "That shit is disgusting you know I hate it when you do that!" He was dying of laughter and he wiped his slobbery finger on my shirt, I recoiled in disgust "Beck cut that shit out I swear to God one more time and they won't find a body." He stopped his laughing and cleared his throat, "so you ready to head back or…?"

I felt pretty good about the whole my dad is dying thing so I wouldn't mind heading back, I was pretty starved anyways, it wouldn't hurt to go see of lunch was still being served. I told Beck it was cool if we went back and he directed our walking to his work car he had parked a little ways down the street. I recognized the van because of the huge decorative coconut that sat atop of the van, I had always thought it was the secret to Sikowitz's pool cleaning success, but Beck had told me that the man just REALLY like coconuts.

We got in the car and Beck started it up, the engine's rumbling reverberated throughout the car and the various lights flickered on and off. "Shit, we gotta stop for gas, you're pumping because I let you get away with punching me earlier" he told me, what a sneaky little devil! I knew something was off when I had punched him and he didn't push me into the pond. " Ugh whatever its better than going to pay and having to deal with people" I uttered the word like it was taboo and feigned a shudder to really show how much I hated talking to people. Beck chuckled but didn't say anything else and then we were off.

We stopped at 'Lucky's Gas Market' to fill up the coconut mobile as Lucky, the owner of this gas franchise, was an endorser of Sikowitz and gave him good deals on gas. Beck headed out to pay for the liquid fuel then signaled from the store's windows that I could start pumping with a thumbs up. I scowled at him and stomped out of the car and flipped open the cars gas compartment and began the refueling.

_Beck POV_

'She's such a drama queen' I thought, I'm the one whose arm is gonna be bruised, geez she's got some hands on her. After paying the indifferent looking teen with a scruffy face for my gas I wandered the store for some snacks, I was particularly in the mood for some jerky, slim Jims if you wanna be specific. Checking the aisle with the various assortments of jerky I found the slim Jims on the lowest rack and I crouched down to get them, "found you…" I whispered. I got a few of them and turned around only to be startled by the proximity of a tan girl with long brunette hair. I squinted at her, she smiled, and I instantly recognized her. A smile broke out on my face as I took in my teenage friend standing in front of me. " Tori Vega. It's been too long!"

A/N: Sooo the 2nd chapter is up pretty quickly and that's primarily because I want to have as many done before I get the writer's version of a cock-block haha! I find it interesting that Jade sometimes smears blood on people's doors as a revenge tactic, and I thought of putting it in the story and just didn't know how, but the bloody door joke found its way here anyways. Don't get too excited yet my fellow jori shippers Tori is here but who knows maybe Beck won't introduce her to Jade, I guess only time will tell. What are your predictions for this story? When will Helen return? Why is there a coconut on top of Beck's work van? Why do people give ducks bread even when it's bad for them!? All of my ranting aside, thanks to everyone who has or will review/fav/follow this story, I hope I don't disappoint you!