"Livvy, shh, for goodness' sake! Mommy needs her sleep and you'll wake her if you don't be quiet this instant." Cat shushes Olivia. Jade drank quite a bit of wine at a bar just out of town and was now nursing her sore head. And I need to do this paperwork if I want to keep my job, she thinks. Cat puts Liv into her playpen and places a finger to her lips. "I'll be just a second, darling." She tiptoes out, hoping Liv will concentrate on her toys. She does, luckily.

"Jade?" Cat calls."Do you need anything?" She creeps into her bedroom and she's gone. She's not to be found anywhere. Cat burns with anger. "Jade, my patience is running out!" she says, of course, without effect, because she's not here, so she can't respond. She grabs her keys and Olivia, and she's out of the door before Livvy had a chance to cry.

"Cattt cattt..." she cries, screaming her throat hoarse, but Cat can't stop driving to comfort her. "Shh," she has to find her, so concentrated on finding Jade she'd missed the carefully wrote note on the dresser beside Jade's mirror.

Meanwhile, at Beck's, Jade knocks on the door, leaning on the door to keep her balance. When the door is opened she almost falls flat on her face. "Beck?" she squints at the old man - Beck's great uncle, who he's staying with at present. He tells her this, and she shouts for Beck, annoyed at being kept waiting. Barging past his uncle, Jade falls onto Beck. "Come home, I miss you...I love you, Beck, love love love you. Okay?"

"Okay. Now we're going to take you home, to Cat, remember?" Jade nods. "And baby Olivia," again, she nods. "Right." he says brightly, "off we go!" He starts the car and she sits still for twenty minutes. Then she leans over and kisses him. He pushes her away harshly. "No! Jade, I'm driving," she continues, so he pulls over. He can't help but kiss her back. She runs her hands through his hair and he smiles. But then a picture of their daughter flashes in her mind, awakening her from her drunken state. Now that she's thinking sober, she pushes him away. He edges forward towards her again. She sighs. "I love you."

"No," she whispers. "Don't get any closer." She faces him and crumbles. Once composed again, she continues. "I've given you so many chances. SO many!" Jade continues. "And you hurt us again and again. Now I can't do this anymore. Olivia, she's confused. Hell, I'm confused."

"I am so sorry. I made a mistake,"

"No. I think you really blew it this time, Beck. You know you did. This...you can't expect to walk back into this family again. I'm going away. For a little, for a break. You'll be okay. I still love you, but at this moment I can't think of a single damn reason, and-" Jade breaks down, running off. "I'm sorry." She wipes her nose on the back of her hand, grabs her bag and runs back to Cat's. She'd never felt more broken and bruised in her life. Not when her father disowned her, or so she thought, not when Tori said mean things to her, every one of them true, not when Cat cried because of what she'd done, but then she was pretty darn close.

Cat isn't there when she gets back. Livvy isn't. Jade picks up her phone and dials the number, punching in each digit slowly and carefully. It's picked up on the first ring. "Hello?"

"Hi, Cat," Jade says quietly. "Where are you?"

"Where am I?!" Cat bellows, her high voice shaking. "Looking for you!"

"Huh? In the note I left I told you I was going to Beck's to arrange visits...?" Cat curses herself.

"Note?"

"Yeah, I left it on my dresser." Jade goes upstairs. "Um, I guess it got knocked off," Jade says, crumping it a little and smoothing it to look like it had been dropped. "Oh, yeah. Here it is."

"Sorry," Cat says, "back in a few."

"See you."

"Yeah."

Later, Jade sat on her bed, tears freshly pouring down her face, mascara a waste of her time, apparently. It trailed down her cheeks like rain. Cat would be back soon, Jade scolded herself. Pull yourself together, girl. You can't upset Olivia like this. At almost three years old, she was very adept at chipping away at her mother's emotions, even deciding that she was sad before Jade knew herself.

She washed her red, itchy face and coated her lips with a shiny layer of lipstick, and brushed some blusher delicately on her cheeks to give herself a color other than snow white (god, where was that poison apple when you need it?) and practised her smiling for her little princess, hoping to put her to bed early tonight. She didn't know why she was crying so; there wasn't anything she could do, or, supposedly, would do.

Rubbing her stomach, she still cried, because of the hormones, or whatever, she told herself. But she was lying to herself. The real reason for her tears?

She was pregnant, and there wasn't a doubt in her mind that history would be rearing its ugly head, and repeating itself.

A/N: Finally got my hands on a laptop :)