Disclaimer: I don't own Victorious or it's characters. I make no money from this.

:}

The Vega sisters arrived at Cats Venice beach apartment within five minutes, quickly found parking and went in to speak with her roommate. Really, all they needed was to be allowed to wait inside for the ditzy girl so they could confront her on everything she'd said to Jade.

Trina found she had to guide Tori, and talk her sister down. Apparently Tori was pissed beyond measure that Cat went so far off script. However, to Trina, it was still a win. They had deescalated Jade, possibly saved one or more students lives. Those were good things. Trina knocked on the door and waited for an answer.

"And who the Chiz are you?" Sam asked,. The ICarly alum was wearing oily coveralls, a bandana covering her hair, and had grease smeared on her face.

"We're friends of Cat. We need to talk with her about something, but she's talking with a mutual friend right now. Is it alright if we wait inside?" Tori asked, trying to hold back her anger.

"Whatever." Sam replied, and stepped back to let the sisters in. Then she went back to whatever she was doing.

"I Why the grease monkey look?" Trina asked. "Cat can't be liking that."

"I'm taking in extra money by fixing up peoples bikes." Sam said. "baby sitting just doesn't bring in the cash like it used to."

"I guess it's all the competition from teenagers looking for some easy cash." Tori observed.

"But we're trained, professional babysitters." Sam replied. "We're better then some cheerleader looking to make a little cash for her big date night."

"Doesn't seem like a good long term business plan." Trina said. "But the bike repair, that looks to make some cash. You might also try putting custom bikes together for people, or customizing bikes. Whatever in your skill range."

Trina and Sam started discussing options for her to make money. Tori had lost interest in that conversation. Inwardly she was fuming. She needed to figure out where to hide the body. Still, the conversation was giving the other girls something to do, and that did help calm Tori down, just a bit.

A couple of minutes later, Cat walked in through the back entrance. The ditzy girl was almost skipping as she entered. She wasn't surprised to see the Vega's, having heard them mention they'd be waiting here. Instead she went to the refrigerator and grabbed a bottle of water for herself.

"So, I think that went well." Cat said, sounding happy.

"This sounds boring, I'm out." Sam said, heading towards the bedroom.

"You told Jade that I slept with Beck." Tori said, almost screaming.

"And I'm back in." Sam said, turning on her heels and moving to take a seat.

"She brought that part up." Cat said. The redhead was calm, having already geared herself up for this fight. "I just mentioned that she shouldn't use revenge as her reason for friending you."

"Frineding?" Sam asked.

"Cat for screwing." Trina said.

"You just needed to get her on board with doing the assignment, directing her set of scenes, and not worrying about what people thought. Was that so hard? Of course not, because you did it, right before you veered into my love life." Tori said, her anger still held in check.

"Lots of people on roads in Phoenix." Cat replied.

"Don't ask." Trina said to Sam.

The blond was left with her mouth open, the question hanging on her lips. But she was able to let it drop as the need to know whats going on overcame that part. "I'm missing something here. Look, I know you guys have known her longer, but Jade's my friend too. And she's more like me than I'd like to believe." Sam said. "So if this concerns her, I think I should be a part of it."

"Okay, but sit down, cause your gonna need a lot of back story. It started when I was talking to Trina about Amanda Rothschild. Trina said she had a girl crush on the author." Cat looked around the room, making sure everyone was on board. They knew Cat, and were willing to see where this went, for now. "It got me thinking, had I ever had a crush on a girl?"

"And how does this affect Jade?" Sam asked.

"In a minute. Anyways, I realized I had, but it didn't count because I would have sworn Jade was a dude at that point at the time. Which reminds me. You can never tell Jade that, during our first sleepover, I looked down her pants while she slept." Cat looked around, then decided to answer the question on everyone's faces. "How else was I going to be sure she didn't have man parts?"

"And how does this involve me?" Tori asked.

"I thought you were listening in. Jade's got a girl crush on you. For most people, this wouldn't be a problem. But for Jade, and maybe Sam, it's hard to find someone you like enough to date." Cat glanced at her roommate, and was relieved when the blond nodded her agreement. "Jade wants you, and from what I can guess, you want her too."

"I" Tori was trying to find words.

"Proof?" Sam said.

"Tori's taken almost everything Jade was accused of personally, like she cheated on her instead of Beck." Trina filled in. Then Trina went over the events leading to that meeting in Cat's apartment. When they got to the mansion, Sam started getting miffed.

"Whats wrong?" Cat asked.

"So Jade lives in a mansion, and couldn't invite me over for a swim in her ginormous pool?" Sam was annoyed, but seemed to understand parental mismanagement and secrets far better than any of the Hollywood Arts gang did. A little later, when she heard about Jade's secretly being Robbie's half sister, she got even madder.

"You okay?" Cat asked.

"My dad took off when I was young, and it messed me up. I'm amazed how normal my sister is. So I understand how she felt she needed him in her life. But to put up with all the things she had to, just to keep his stupid secret, that's just low." Sam said. "She can live here. We'll find room. Get her out of that house. She doesn't need him."

"I don't think it's our choice." Trina said. "Look at how much she was willing to endure to live in that situation. I think she needs her fathers approval, and is willing to put up with a lot to get it."

"And again, how does this involve me?" Tori asked.

"Again, because you're as into her as she is into you." Trina replied.

"Not you too." Tori groaned.

"Really?" Sam asked. "You're sure their into each other?"

"I am now." Trina said. "Cat spelled out a good argument while trying to convince Jade, and I can vouch for Tori's feelings. So the question is, how do we get them together?"

"We don't. You did your part, you made them aware of their feelings. Now it's up to one of them to act." Sam said with a lot of confidence.

"You've been through this?" Trina asked.

"Cat, you remember Freddy? I worked with him for years, never getting along, then one day I realized I'd fallen for the dork. My friend figured it out, and tried to help, but that just made a mess of things. In the end, it was up to us to decide if we could date or not. And at the time, we did, and it was a disaster. We were too different." Sam paused for a moment, lost in her memories, then refocused and started again. "Now, I'm not who I was back then, and neither is he. There's always a chance for us in the future. However, and I mean this, Tori seems to have a lot more in common with Jade then Fredbags and I did at the time."

"So?" Tori asked. She'd been quiet for a while, taking in what the other girls were saying. She was a lot calmer now.

"You should probably spend the next few days thinking about what you want from Jade. Imagine what it would be like to be her girlfriend, the good and the bad, and then imagine what you'd feel if she started dating someone else, like that Cece scank Cat was bitching about. What a bitch, right?" Sam said.

"Cece's my friend." Tori said.

"Then you'd know what a bitch she was." Sam said, not missing a beat. "Anyways, this isn't about her, she was just a convenient grunch. This is about you thinking about if you're willing to take the first step and ask her out." Sam said. "Jade that is, unless you want to nail the Cece first. Cat said she was easy."

Trina was in the process of rolling her eyes, not willing to try and correct Sam about Cece, when a voice echoed in her ear. "She's right." She, Trina and Cat all jumped.

"Sinjin!" they all shouted, just out of unison.

"Who?" Sam asked.

"This boy in our class, gave us these communicators for us to stay in contact while I was talking to Jade." Cat explained.

"And who I though was out of range." Tori added.

"Nope, just accidentally turned off my mike. I thought you guys were ignoring me for a while there, but then I noticed the mike was off." He said. "And before you ask, you guys have a half mile range. I'm at a tower, and could talk with any one of you from across the city."

Trina and Cat removed their ear pieces immediately. Cat told Sam what Sinjin said, and Tori secretly kept hers in. She had her reasons, mostly to find out what the lanky boys opinion of Cat's theory was. Sam insisted on using one of the earpieces.

"Yo, techi boy, I have a question for ya." Sam said, getting used to the earpiece.

"The name's Sinjin, and who are you?" The boy asked.

"Not important, and I'm Sam, Cats roommate and the girl who's going to hunt you down if I don't get my answer. Okay?" Sam said.

"Okaaaay, whatcha need?" He replied. Sam may be as scary as Jade, but wasn't nearly as intimidating.

"You told Cat that you could reach any earpiece from anywhere in the city, right?" Sam asked.

"Yep." He relied, sounding proud.

"Then why didn't you rig the whole thing to relay, giving yourself greater range for all the people involved. Don't tell me it was for privacy, since you're basically on an open frequency, at least as far as the various connected earpieces are concerned. So why didn't you?" Sam asked.

"I-I didn't think of that." He replied.

"How did you think of it?" Tori asked.

"I don't know. It's chiz I remember from listening to Fredward babble on and on about his tech stuff. I guess I picked some stuff up." Sam said, managing to look embarrassed.

"Okay, moving on. Trina, as much as I'm enjoying the visit, time for us to go home. Sam, it was nice to see you again. Cat, I'll see you at school. Bye." With that, the Vega's left. Tori had with a lot to think about.

Tori spent the entire drive home asking Sinjin his opinion. The lanky boy agreed with most of the points Cat had made, but felt that jade needed a more understanding hand to guide her to happiness. Someone like him. "She'd gut you like a fish and use your entrails to decorate your replacements locker." Tori observed.

"Then I totally agree." Sinjin said. "You should give yourself a chance to figure out if Jade's worth the hunt. If she is, and the price you'll pay for sating her, then go for it. I suspect that Jade could make you very happy. I just feel that maybe, her or Trina, one of them is going to be my woman."

"Yea," Tori said, "Keep dreaming. But look on the bright side, your family has cash. You'll wind up with someone."

Tori was left with a lot to think about. After that disastrous intervention, Tori was worried that Jade would take things the wrong way. Or the right way. Tori wasn't sure about anything, but knew somehow she had to act quickly to countermeasure the idea's Cat had planted in Jade's mind. Tori didn't want to think about why she acted the way she did, because that would just be admitting that, after the things she did and the actions she took, she'd left a lot of damage in her wake. Beck, Jade, they were both hurting from her attempts to help. Even Robbie, who was outed by Cat, was still indirectly her fault. So Tori focused on what she could do and ignored her growing sense of guilt.

By Friday things were starting to take on a different shape at school. Rumors abound of how Jade was treating the shruggers. She apparently scouted dozens of locations after dropping Cat off, because her groups were already shooting. They'd do some rehearsing, but any scene that didn't require much preparation was being shot, on location, now. Jade was working on one scene per day, and from what the shruggers were saying, she was pushing them to the emotional limit.

It seems, from what Beck was able to get out of one shrugger, Jade would interrogate them about their motivation for a scene, drawing out who they thought the character was, and then would shout encouragement at them between takes. Things like "You said you were angry, and she's trying to say she's sorry. How would the character react? Feel it. Live it. And Clare, If your really sorry, then feel sorry. Live the emotions. We need the conflicting emotions to pop on screen." The funny thing was, if two actors playing the same character had different motivations, she pushed them for better performances based on their motivations.

But it was Friday, and the shruggers were looking forward to getting that days scene done so they could hit the parties. Tori heard that Jade promised them she would "pull their drunken asses out of the parties if they didn't get some stuff done today." So they were rehearsing for Saturdays big shoot. Jade seemed to be filming the whole thing one scene at a time, and was keeping notes so she knew who was in what emotional state for each scene.

Beck, meanwhile, hadn't even chosen a single location. The group was confident they were learning their lines, ready for when they started shooting. The whole thing was being approached like a play, with everything being done in order and rehearsed until they were ready. It wasn't how movies were made, but it was what they were used to. All that would change next week when they started filming. Until they were ready for the filming, they were keeping it familiar.

But there was a lot more going on than just the filming of their projects. Jade was back, and in rare form. People were talking about an incident that illustrated the girls new drive. Story went that one of her shuggers was talking to his girlfriend, and Jade walked up to them and inserted herself in the conversation. It was Jade's way of making sure the girl knew where they'd be shooting on Saturday. "Your not only welcome to drop by, but encouraged to. I could use the help, and you could spend time with Curtis here between takes. Doesn't that sound fun? You will be there, right?" Jade was her usual intimidating self, recruiting her film crew through the friends and relations of her cast.

Not only was Jade back, but the school was seeing her, understanding her, to the point where some of them felt bad for how they'd treated her. Or maybe they were scared. There was a new stencil on her locker. It was in the same bright red as the previous taggings, but this time the paint was water soluble. And the message was clear, if not to why, then to what. It simply said "Sorry." Jade ignored it, while the rest of the school debated as to if this was the same person or someone new was getting involved. One person even speculated it was Beck, trying to win points from his ex now that they knew she never slept with Robbie.

The puppeteer was also living a strange shift in popularity. A lot of the guys who'd been trying to be his friends had only been trying because they thought he'd nailed Jade, even if he'd paid for it. Now, these same guys were picking on him. Of course, that didn't last long, since Jade made it very clear that she was out for blood, and anyone picking on her family or friends was automaticaly on her short list. Now that she was back, these guys didn't want to risk what had happened to Scotty Pierson.. However, for Robbie, with the loss of one social group came others. He was now a part of several groups, including a sort of return to the main people. He was hanging out with different groups, the nerds, the Slap people, guys who had sisters attending the school, and each group offered him shelter. Robbie was happy to be so accepted. Tori was glad to see the nerdy boy back in what was obviously more comfortable surroundings.

:}

Thank the gods for backup computers.

Not much to say beyond this. Review. Let me know what you think of Jades new drive, and her approach to filming. Or anything about this chapter.