Disclaimer: The Show Victorious, its characters and other associated copyrights are property of someone else but not me.
Gone but not forgotten.
Chapter 10 – Face to Face Part 1
No Ones' Pov
Rose was sitting quietly in her bouncer in the middle of the living room as Jade did some last minute cleaning up for her expected guest.
Looking at the clock Jade could see it was 6:49.
"Mommy's meeting an old friend in a few minutes and she's a bit nervous." Said Jade to Rose who was more interested in the mobile that consisted of Stars that was slowly circling above her head.
But Jade kept talking to the infant. "She left school because of me, because I got back together with your daddy her heart broke. I'll tell you a broken heart can be a very painful thing to have. I've learned that all to well recently."
"Just between you and me, I like her and I hope she proves to me she is serious and willing to commit to you and me. Cause we're a package deal."
Tori's POV
In all the years owning this building I had never gone inside it. My people had kept it up nicely. The walls looked like they were freshly painted and the carpeting looked new.
Ever since I left my place there has been this growing feeling of nervousness growing inside me. The last time I was face to face with Jade and not in disguise I was a nervous wreck and on the verge of tears.
Jade lived on the 3rd floor so after I looked around the bottom level to see how the place looked I grabbed the bag I was carrying and headed upstairs to Jade's door.
As I finally got to the door my heart was racing. I could only hope that she felt something for me. I looked at the time on my phone, it was 7:00 exactly so I knocked on the door.
After a few moments the door opened and there stood Jade. She was just wearing a pair of jeans and a black AC/DC t shirt. Her hair was longer than the last time I had seen it but it was still raven black. For a moment she stood there that all to familiar smirk on her face.
Part of me just wanted to melt right then and there. She was beautiful.
"If you're here about the noise, sorry if the orgy got a little loud, we'll try and keep it down." She said with a half smile.
"Hello Jade" I said.
"Come in" said Jade as she stepped aside
I walked in the apartment and down a short hallway past the kitchen on the left and into the living room. It was moderately sized. A large tan couch sat in the center of the room facing a large tv. I could see a dining room table behind the couch and a computer desk in the corner.
I heard Jade shut the door behind me and come back into the living room. She looked at the bag I was carrying.
"I brought something for you and the baby." I said slightly nervously.
"You just cant stop buying me stuff can't you Vega?" Said Jade with a smirk as I put the bag on the table.
"I couldn't resist when I saw this" I said as I pulled out a large poster tube and handed it to the goth.
She looked at the tube for a moment and pulled out the poster and unfurled it.
Her eyes briefly bugged out. "Oh my god Vega, where did you get this?"
The poster was for the movie "The Scissoring" but the poster was from Japan when the movie was released there so the lettering was all in Japanese. The poster itself was in Mint condition.
"I got it in a movie memorabilia shop in Kobe, Japan"
"Thank you" Jade said quietly.
"I had this made for Rose, I hope you approve." I said handing Jade a small plastic bag.
She reached in and pulled out 2 pairs of infant Pajamas for about a 1 year old. One was Pink with little red scissors on it and the other was Black with white skulls on them."
No ones POV
Jade studied the pajamas intently for a moment then made a smile of approval. She then turned to her daughter who was in her bouncer.
"Tori brought you some scissor pjs"
Tori then looked to Rose then to Jade. "She's beautiful, may I hold her please."
Jade nodded and watched intently as Tori walked to the bouncer and gently extracted its occupant.
Tori picked up Rose and tenderly began to rock the infant in her arms.
"She's such an angel, and she has your eyes" said Tori almost dreamily.
Tori didn't know it but her initial reaction to Rose was very important to Jade. The Goth watched the pop start intently viewing every single move. More importantly she looked at her baby to see Rose's reaction.
Rose quietly cooed in Tori's arm and smiled, raising her left arm towards Tori's face.
"She likes you." Said Jade quietly.
"I'm so glad she does, I've been dying to meet her." Said Tori almost gushing.
"She's the most important thing in the world to me."
"Mind if I hold her a while, I just don't want to put her down?" Said Tori as she looked to Jade.
Jade smiled. "As long a Rose doesn't seem to mind."
As Tori continued to Rock Rose in her arms she looked to Jade.
"You know I had this whole speech prepared, what I was going to say and the second I saw you I forgot the whole thing. There is so much I want to say to you. Not to mention probably apologize for." Tori said somewhat nervously.
"Let's sit" Jade said motioning to the couch.
Tori and Jade sat on the couch, with Rose still in Tori's arms.
There was a tension in the air with each of the two sensing the other was nervous, just as nervous as they were feeling.
Jade ran her hand through her hair and looked at Tori.
"I already know the answer but I want to hear it from you. Why did you leave Hollywood Arts?" Jade said, her voice calm and reassuring, or at least that is how Tori felt about it.
Tori smiled. "I had fallen in love with you. There was always something about you that just attracted me to you. You were beautiful, sexy, brave, unique, funny, talented, strong willed and a thousand other things. Every day I felt my attraction to you grow. Each day falling deeper under your spell. I wanted to tell you a hundred different times but I chickened out."
Jade smiled ever so slightly and nodded but otherwise remained silent.
"I had gotten a record offer after the platinum music awards, one which I was going to turn down. So I could finish high school and be near you in hopes I one day had the courage to tell you how I felt about you. The night of the full moon Jam when you kissed Beck on stage, I just died inside. I truly wanted to be happy for you and Beck. But each day seeing you happy together I felt worse than the one before. My chance and come and gone and now I was suffering."
Tori paused for a moment to rock Rose a few more times as she seemed to be drifting off into sleep. The presence of the infant in her arms seemed to calm her nerves.
"It was the hardest decision I had to make but I decided to leave and take the offer. We were such a tight nit group so just giving you or you and Beck up would have been hard so I gave all of you up and it broke my heart even further. Trina said I would never be able to give you up."
"No wonder why she seemed to hate me so much after that. I know she didn't like me but there was this look of hatred in her eyes every time she looked at me after that." Jade said.
"I hope she didn't do anything. I told her not to start anything with you."
"No, she left me alone; she just hated me from a afar." Jade said.
"Trina was right. One evening I drove by your apartment building and I saw how terrible the building looked. I was living the high life and you a person I deeply cared about was living in a dump. I decided to secretly buy the building and fix it up for you. It started from there, I just kept doing things for you. It made me feel good to think I was helping you."
"Like your little wedding gift. Cat got me an eighty five dollar blender; you get me a nine thousand dollar hotel room." Jade said with a smirk.
"I just wanted you to be happy, if it was with Beck then so be it. I was trying to be a good sport about it. I'm sorry it went bad for you."
"That was probably the last real good time Beck and I ever had. It slowly started to fall apart soon after that. At least you gave us a good send off." Jade said as she lay back on the couch.
"Once you got married I backed off. Figuring I had done enough and you two deserved some privacy and happiness. It wasn't until I ran into Cat 6 weeks ago did I realized what had happened. I wanted to help you so I put my people onto investigating Beck."
Jade got off the couch, "I am very glad you did, otherwise that asshole would have screwed me out of a lot of money. Do you want anything to drink?"
"I'll have a beer if you have one." Tori said.
Jade disappeared into the kitchen and Tori carefully put Rose back into her bouncer where she remained peacefully asleep.
A few moments later Jade emerged from the kitchen with 2 bottles of beer and handed one to Tori.
"I'm breast feeding so I have to drink these very sparingly but my doctor told me one in a great while won't harm. I figure today is a special occasion." Jade said as she popped open the bottle and took a swig.
"The menu for the Chinese place is on the table next to you if you want to decide what you want to order." Jade continued as she took another drink.
"Tori, normally what you did would be somewhat creepy but I know you. You like to help people, you always helped me, no matter how mean I was to you. So what you all did makes perfect sense. I'm not mad about it."
Tori felt a sense of relief upon hearing that. "I was worried what you would say if you found out. Though I think I wanted to get caught all along. I missed you Jade, more than anyone."
"I missed you too Vega." Said Jade quietly.
"I know this is awkward Jade, and probably the worst time in your life but I would really like to be part of your life. Part of her life too." Tori said as she pointed to the sleeping baby only a few feet away.
"I don't know if I have any chance in the world with you but my feelings for you haven't diminished one single bit. I guess the question is do you want me back in your life or not." Tori said becoming more tense and nervous again.
Jade narrowed her eyes and seemed to study Tori for a moment. "It appears that you never left my life but that brings me to one question Tori. A question that has been circling around my mind since I figured out that you love me."
"What's That?"
"If you were so in love with me, why didn't you fight for me? Why didn't you tell me? Instead you ran away. And to be honest it hurt me when you left."
So that's my question. Jade said as she took a drink of her beer.
"Why didn't you fight for me, for my love or at least try?"
This is an important part of the story so I decided to break it up into parts. I'll have the next part up as soon as I finish it.