Short chapter here. But I'll post the next soon.

Disclaimer: If I owned Victorious, I'd have money enough to have my bedroom absolutely full of anime and manga. But that's not the case, so I don't.


Chapter 7 – Yearning and Painful hope

Vega Sanctuary. Present time

When I wake up, the room is dark. And completely empty. My breath is difficult and my heartbeat quick.A little too much to be healthy.

It's stupid, seeing as I've been having the same nightmare for the last week, every time I close my eyes, but I can't help it. It is a really bad nightmare, after all.

I rub my eyes and blinkfuriously, angry at myself. I feel weak, and I don't like that. I am not weak... but Tori not being here, Rivot taking her place, makes me feel like I am.

And seriously, seems like I'm not as though as I try to pretend.

The others notice, of course, they aren't idiots. They can see things where I can't, and my Guardians can feel what I feel. Something about safety measurements or whatever, to know if I'm in danger when they can't be near me.

I sigh and sit in the bed, our bed, that seems too cold and big without her by my side. Even though she'd been too cautious and a little cold lately, I still saw her bright smiles and her reassuring eyes every time this situation overcame me.

Now I'm alone. I don't have my safe point of return, that place where I could hide whenever I felt like it, that person that always had a way to help me breathe.

I fight the urge to picture her with me, because I'm not sure if I could keep living if I did. I don't know how would I react, but maybe it'd be bad and I don't want to risk it.

The clock says eight o'clock. Saturday. Holy should be up already, making a quick breakfast before heading out to work. Trina still sound asleep, David snoring and Cat... well, she's probably having a happy dream about unicorns. I swear she's the weirdest girl I've ever met.

I sigh again and get up, knowing that I won't go back to sleep. After a quick shower, I walk down the stairs and to the kitchen. Holy doesn't seem surprised to see that I'm up already.

"You slept well, Jade?" she asks, a small smile in her face that I know is completely fake.

"Kinda" I admit. "Until I started dreaming of that day..."

She sighs. "I understand. I wasn't expecting otherwise."

I sit down a few seconds before she puts our mugs and plates and sits too so we can start having breakfast.

We're quiet for a while before the silence becomes too much and I blurt out what has been haunting me this past week. "I'm sorry."

Holy blinks confused. "Why for?"

"It's just that... Tori and I... we were arguing when everything started. If we hadn't been, she would've had her defenses up and this wouldn't have happened..."

"Who told you that?"

"Beck" I admit. "He didn't want to, but finally I managed to get him to tell me that Tori used to have shields up all the time so as to protect me and herself. I thought that arguing must have lowered her barriers, letting Lucifer do whatever the fuck he did to her..."

"Stop right there" she sighs and looks at me with calm eyes and sad smile. "Jade, you don't have the slightest idea of how much you did for my daughter. You changed her to a point we could never have, no matter the time we could have tried to... She was so cold towards everything when she first came, that we thought she'd became human inside after at least twenty years."

"I don't see your point."

"You let us see the other side of her, what could she have been if we hadn't been Demons. If we had been just humans, a perfectly normal Latin family living in the USA."

"It's my fault that she's gone."

"No, it isn't. Lucifer has so much power, that God himself fears him" I blink, confused, and she smiles. "You see, humans have a lot of influence over Hell and Heaven. It depends on how they behave, on what they believe, where they put the immortal power they have but can't use. Christians, Jews and the sort believe in the kind of God Heaven proclaims to have, fatherly and kind. People who don't believe, and those who believe in the overly strict God who punishes humans when they don't behave, give Hell their power."

"So most humans give their powers to Heaven, right?"

"Right. But Lucifer alone has more power than God alone, so Heaven..."

"Heaven badmouths Hell so as to recieve more immortal human power. Ok, I get it, but I don't see how it's related to..."

"Lucifer had the power to do that to Tori even if she had her full power focused in her shields."

"Did she... did she know it?"

"She did. She told us, a little while after she started helping the guys to protect you, that as she had been a Demon for longer that us and a Fallen for so little time, she was still too attached to Hell's influences and as such she might've gone psycho – she wanted us to rat her to Heaven if she ever did. We are already immune, but she had a long way ahead. Sadly, she couldn't even make it halfway."

"Why didn't she tell me?"

"For the same reason she didn't want you to know about her past life."

"But..."

"When she understood what was love, she was completely lost. She broke down that night, thinking that she was too evil to be loved for you, or anyone else for that matter. You were dating Beck at the time, and that was even worse for her – you know she takes loyalty really seriously and she thought that, if power slave family was unloyal, then blood free family had to be the opposite. So she decided to do the only thing she thought she could do for you."

"Protect me."

"From the sidelines. I do believe she stopped being so friendly around you after that day."

I frown, clearly remembering the day she suddenly stopped being Miss Sunshine, changing her attitude for one of calm melancholy, and took a step back regarding me. If I remember well, it started the day after she left early for the first time and the whole gang went to visit her after school.

She stopped trying to get close to me, smiled less frequently each day that passed and had a somber look in her eyes. It was the weirdness of that change that made me start dropping the denial I had about my feelings for her, although the first couple of months it growed.

When I realized I liked her, I broke up with Beck. He was completely cool about it, asked me why, acted like if he was expecting my answer and told me he thought Tori liked me too.

I refused to believe it for months, and each day she looked more and more depressed. The day I finally confessed, she seemed so shocked that I actually thought she didn't like me back... but the kiss I gave her made something click and suddenly she changed depression for inner turmoil.

"So..." I mumble. "That's what was happening to her. I... couldn't really understand it."

Holy smiles sadly. "Yeah. That's what happened. You managed to turn her into a human, something we would have never been capable of. I can't be sure of this, but I think she knew she couldn't take this life for granted."

"But the Code..."

"No Demon knows it completely. Tori knows most of it, seeing as she was in the higher assassin rank, but there are things even the Knights don't know. For what I can remember, the Code is restricted to the position you have, so Lucifer is the only one who knows everything written in that document."

"So... it's actually possible that Lucifer can reclaim a Fallen back?"

"Maybe. But the rest of us are safe, because the link we had to Hell isn't there anymore. We have the powers, but we can't... feel Hell anymore."

"Tori could?"

"It's a strong possibility. She never admitted it, though. I think she was afraid... maybe for the same reason she didn't want to tell us anything about her life before coming to Earth."

"Everything you knew was her name, didn't you? And that she had been expelled because she didn't kill me."

"Actually, we just knew her name. She refused to tell us why she had been kicked out for months. Beck was the only one who knew, but he promised her not to say anything she revealed to him. Although she let him tell your Guardians about it."

I sigh. "I see..."

We start eating again, even though it's more cold than warm and we don't feel like eating that much since Tori left.

"The thing is" Holy says after a while, swallowing a mouthful of scrambled eggs, "you gave us time with her. I... thought that I wouldn't ever see my daughter after her tenth birthday passed without feeling her fall. But she did, because of you, and she became human, because of you."

I look down, feeling absolutely uncomfortable with the topic at hand. Holy smiles sadly, and reaches for my hand to give it a short squeeze. I look at her again, and the grateful glint in her brown eyes makes me feel just a little bit better.

"You have no idea how much that means for us" she finishes.

I return the smile, without being able to help it, nor its sad tone. "Yeah. I can't know... but... Tori... she told me once that a couple of Fallen Demons lose their children at the time they are ready to be born. That there is no birth, just... the kid disappearing and going with class O."

She blinks. "Really? What else did she tell you?"

"Quite a lot. But..." I look down. "I'm not sure if..."

"No, it's okay" she quickly assures me. "It's enough for me to know that she could trust you."

I flinch, knowing full well that it hurts her even if she refuses to admit it. After all, she's her mother. And no one knew Tori better than me... and probably no one ever will.

We spend another few moments of silence.

"Do you think she'll ever come back?" I blurt out, finally asking the doubt that's been plaguing my mind since that day.

Holy briefly glances at me, sadness and defeat in her eyes, and then she quickly turns her gaze away. "Honestly?" I nod. "I... I don't think so."

I sigh and stare at my half-empty mug of coffee, having expected that answer but being unable to stop the pain that constricts my chest when a Demon confirms my suspicions. Well, sort of.

But if it is almost impossible for a fifteen-year-old Demon to be expelled from Hell, I don't want to think about the odds of an eighteen-year-old with their memories rewritten by Lucifer.

Hope may be the only thing we have left. But, sometimes, hope hurts a whole world more than having nothing.

–o–

Dark Domain. Same time

The silence is almost absolute in the council chamber, Lucifer's steps being the only thing that echoes in the gloom as he paces back and forth munching on his thumb, a somber look in his face. He's trying to figure something out, a way to finally kill that annoying human that's been escaping his grasp for quite a lot of years, but he can't manage to think of a good idea.

It's something unusual for his Knights, gathered in the room with him, for he has never had any trouble getting what he wants. Until that situation, God had never been a serious menace to his plans.

But now, just when he wants someone dead like he has never wanted something before, God manages to be the perfect pain in the ass. And is just for that reason that he took a Fallen back, even though he had sweared he would never admit back any Demon that had turned away from Hell.

Granted, the girl is infinitely powerful, having power enough to compete against him, but still. She had been helping Guardians to protect the girl he wants dead the most, and if he hadn't swallowed his pride then his chances of fulfilling his plans were less than nothing.

And now that he has managed to remove that hindrance, he has to find a way to take the few steps that he needs to win. Because, according to the reports, the Guardians are keeping the hybrid in the Vega Sanctuary and that is certainly a problem.

Lucifer growls and balls his fists in frustration. His Knights briefly glance at him before going back to their business, knowing that their Lord angry is something even God fears.

But nothing stops him for screaming in pure rage. "I WANT THAT FILTHY HYBRID DEAD!"

"Please, Your Majesty, breathe" the oldest Knight, a calm-looking Demon in his late eighties, begs him. "It will do nothing but wrong to you to be this exalted."

"I DO NOT CARE! I WANT HER DEAD BY NOW!"

"We do, too, but if Your Majesty stays calm..."

"DO NOT TELL ME... Wait a minute."

The Knights sigh in relief when Lucifer closes his eyes, a thoughtful look on his face. The room is completely silent for long minutes until the King turns to his newest Knight. "Go to my library and bring me the Code. I have some research to do."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

The Knight leaves the chamber followed by the stares of the other five. Then, the remaining Demons turn their looks to the Devil.

He stays as quiet and unexpressive as he has never been.

Then, a sadistic grin makes its appearance on his face. "I have an idea."


ScottyBgood surprised me with a correct point. But I won't say which was it, because that'd spoil a future chapter. And I don't want to anticipate that particular information.

Again, thanks for your support.

Kyle K.