Disclaimer: Victorious and it's characters belong to Schneiders Bakery and/or Nickelodeon studios. I don't own.

Warning: mention of abuse, and it kinda happens really suddenly.

A quick shout out to the guest who offered me an ASCII image of Donald Trump. Nice try, but his ego alone uses to many characters.

:}

Jade was nervous. It'd been three weeks since the day in the Vega's home where she'd introduced Jack to everyone, including letting them know her relationship with the boy. In that time, she'd found a therapist, stabilized a lot of the dangling ends o her life, and made some small progress in working towards trusting herself enough to move forward with this process. She'd even tackled her fears of this moment, but that was all just the lead-up to this day. Today was it, the big day. She had two families to deal with, plus it was time to spring a trap on Ryder that he wouldn't soon forget.

The rest of her life had also had it's bumps, like beck moving on. He was with Alyssa Vaughn, being very couple-y, but both knew it was a temporary relationship. Both of them just needed someone to be with until thy found the right someone to date, so they just were with each other. Jade had heard of marriages that lasted decades based on the same arrangement.

"Jade, are your parents here?" Doctor Mondale asked. He knew how early this interaction was, but had agreed to it when he realized he wasn't dealing with anything close to an average case. 'Besides, how bad could it go. From what I got so far, neither of the parents caused Jack...'

"My moms here, but my dad's running late. He may not show. It's like him to flake on things that are important to me." The goth admitted. It hurt. 'Tori had wanted to be here, but I told her I needed to do this alone. Or as alone as I can…' Her mouth twitched into a smile, only for it to go back to the frown it had been in for the last half hour.

"Okay, I'm here." Her father announced as he walked in with Gladys, his new wife, in tow.

Her mother spoke first. "Robert, nice of you to join us. I see you brought Gladys. Whats wrong, couldn't find a baby sitter?"

"Funny, very funny." Mister West said. "Okay, lets get this done. Jade, shall we?" He gestured.

Jade's step mother went in with them, in what was obviously an attempt to give her father a bit of an edge in the room. "This is for family only." The therapist said.

"She's Jade's step mother, so she's family." Robert West insisted. "So, Jade, what have you done to embarrass the family this time."

Her father usually didn't speak much to her, letting his silence and lack of approval show his disdain for everything about her. But when he did, it was to clarify his dislike for her actions. Today he was obviously freaking out, speaking so directly like that.

"It's okay, she can stay." Jade relented. 'Just get it over with.'

"One moment please, Jade, I feel I should do an introduction of my own first." The therapist said. "I'm Doctor Everett Mondale, and I have a couple of rules. We approach today with an open mind, and listen to what each of us has to say. I'll try to keep things calm, but emotions may flare. Please, listen to me and let me help you process your feelings without turning them into attacks. Thank you. Now, Jade, I believe you had something to tell your parents?"

She rolled her eyes, but started anyways. "Mom, dad, there's someone you probably already know, who'd like to formally get to know you." She was nervous. She knew they'd assume she was acting, not being real with them. But she had to let them know about him.

"Please, not Jack." Her father said, surprising everyone. As those in the know stared at him, he turned his attention to the one person who had no idea what he was talking about, his current wife. "When Jade was young, around the age I've been told many kids have imaginary friends," His voice dripped with disdain, "she had an imaginary twin brother named Jack. She would pretest to be Jack, hoping I'd be more supportive of a son. But it was just stupid kids stuff. I mean, she was already four, so she should have outgrown him by then."

"Wait, Jack didn't come into my life until I was six." She protested. "And he wasn't real until I was seven, when we got that bastard of a friend of yours arrested."

"Wait, what?" The father asked, suddenly not so sure he wanted to know what was going on.

"I have a form of Dissociative Identity Disorder." Jade decided to just go for it. "You know what, fuck you all, I'll let him explain. I, for one, want to know about the whole four year old shit." Her eyes closed, and then Jade was in the background, watching, a rarity, as her brother stepped in to take over.

"Wow, old man, you just couldn't keep a fucking secret." Jack started, his posture much more aggressive, angry, then Jade was used to. "Like how you may not have wanted that bastard to molest your child, rape her, but you were so afraid of losing that deal, the one he mumbled about, that you sold your child off for sex." He watched his father squirm, the normally laconic man suddenly sweating. "What? I have real clear memories of what he mumbled as he molested her. I know you let him in, telling yourself he just liked the sound of childrens laughter, so you could justify him raping your daughter."

Her mother looked shocked, but didn't know who to believe. "I never..." Robert started.

"Hi, I'm Jack, and I don't hate you the way Jade does." He said to Gladys, suddenly shifting his attention. "You do know your husband is trolling for young girls at Sugar, a place where sugar babies come looking for their daddies. Guess when you sell your own daughter for sex, nothings off limits, huh?" He started to move on, only to linger a moment longer. "Oh yea, has he had you get checked for any diseases yet? There's a strain of something going around that pickup place, or so I've heard."

Then Jack was standing, his smile melting from his face, looking at his mother. "And you, you said you cared. But I always knew, I was just a method for keeping dad. And I suppose, when it didn't work, you discovered I was too crazy to deal with? Glad my brothers still salvageable, cause I'd hate to be the one you were relying on to take care of you in your old age."

"JACK AUGUST WEST, THATS QUITE ENOUGH!" Martha West barked, her voice full of parental authority. Silence descended on the room. "O-okay, I suspected she had this condition, but I also looked it up, knew how fucking hard it was to treat. And lets be honest, it wasn't like I could afford to find out for sure. So I watched and waited for it to be bad enough for a diagnosis. Then Ryder became your friend, and things were on the upswing. You looked like you were able to survive on your own." She held her breath for just a moment, then opened her eyes with a stronger voice. "Well, I'm done with the fucking guilt. Yes, back then I let your dad make decisions, I'll admit some pretty bad ones. But from the day I knew, suspected, I kept trying to fix them."

Jack's mother was standing now, looking at her son in Jade's body, somehow meeting his eyes. "When I heard the monster was out, and he'd tried to come see you, I-I had to do something. Something to protect you. I was worried cause I didn't know if that man coming near you might cause you to fragment." Words, and guilt, poured from the older woman, with no end in sight. The whole room gave her their rapt attention. "I was freaking out cause he could have made you so much worse off. So, so I worked with the police to stop him. I worked with the police to make sure that monster would never be close to you again. I let him know, a rumor, to draw him in. I let him hear a rumor that you were at a play. I hoped he'd show up, thinking you'd be there, just so the police could see him violating the restraining order. A-and it worked, cause he showed up, right into our trap. He approached me, I was sitting with my back to him, in my wig, pretending to be you, just so they could arrest him."

Martha West's eyes were almost manic as she spoke, trying to get out the story before her son resumed attacking her. "But that bastard came prepared. Apparently, It looked that someone had already gotten to him, kicked the living crap outta him. I remember he was limping, beaten so badly it was hard for him to move." She smiled in that memory, but kept going, letting the past moment carry her forward. "Of course, thats probably why he brought a trump. Asshole brought a taiser, threatened me with it, saying it was a gun and he'd shoot me if the police tried to stop him." She stepped closer to her child, her voice growing stronger. "I took a taiser in the side to protect you. Is that enough? Tell me, is that fucking enough!" The older woman was crying, not able to hold it in any more.

Jack wrapped his arms around her, saying "It wasn't your fault, it was never your fault. Dad was the abusive one, the guy who tried to shame me outta his child, then resorted to other methods when that didn't work. See Jade, it wasn't her fault. She couldn't have believed you, cause that would have made dad as bad as the monster who hurt you." His words were meant for the part of him deep inside, the one who hadn't forgiven her mother yet.

Jack then looked at his father, meeting his eyes with so much hate. "You knew about me!" It was like another part of the puzzle fell into place, and the rage that came with it was focused. "You always knew, and I'll bet you hoped, prayed that I'd bury those memories so I'd never tell anyone what you did. It's too late for you to go to jail, but think about this, mom spent years trying to make things up to Jade, while you just moved on to try again. Now, your new wife knows your dirty little secrets, and it's cause you insisted on bringing her. Does it still feel like an advantage?"

"Can we please calm down?" The doctor asked, trying to gain some control over a session not ten minutes old. It had spiraled out of control so quickly.

"It's not like..." Mister West started, his calm cracking under the stress.

"YOU ALWAYS KNEW!" Jack screamed.

"Jade." The therapists voice was calm, seeming to have no hope of breaking through the pain and hurt that permeated the room. But unlike Jade, who would just break down and cry, the boy was looking at his father, calculating what to say next.

"Jade's not here right now." Jack Spat. "Just daddies little secret, now here for the world to see. Whats the matter, dad? I'm not man enough for you?" He let go of his mother and stood, shaking her arms off to take a step closer to his father. "Let me tell you a little secret, something even Jade doesn't know. The reason I never let her kill Ryder, other then the lengthy prison sentence that would bring, was he was as close to getting your fucking approval as we'd ever get. Manipulative, womanizing without fucking caring about her feelings, just caring about how good it would feel to make her do what you wanted. To me, he was just like you." His glare was pure hatered.

"Look here..." Mister West started again.

"But I fucked up, made a major mistake." Jack continued, not giving his father a chance. "Ryder, it seems, wants to be a better man. He's fucking learning."

"Language." Robert tried.

"Ryder may be a user, a jerk, and a grade A asshole, but he's learning, changing, wanting more out of his life then going from one con to the next, using his looks and charms to bag as many girls as he can." Jack explained. "It's why I've always blunted Jade's revenge. Always made damn sure she didn't do anything to ruin our relationship with the boy. Hell, right now, across town, he's running into a girl as manipulative as he is, walking into a con that'll tie his ass down and make him decide whats important to him. He can change, care about other people. It's why he's my friend. No, scratch that, it's why I'm his."

"Jack, if I'd known, back then, that the treatments I was putting you through would leave such deep mental scars, I'd have..." Robert West was backpedaling, trying to gain the advantage. He never, in his memory, had lost it so quickly, and a small part of him was proud his son was such a force.

"You'd have done them anyways, cause the last thing you needed was a freak of a daughter ruing your chances to marry her off to one of your rich friends." He finished. "You know, the other form of prostitution."

"I think thats enough." The therapist said, a new found force in his voice breaking the argument. "Jack, please, let him go. We know he had his reasons, regardless of what they were. And while we'll never agree with him, we have to let hm know how he hurt you and move on. Look at what we've gained. Jade, you have your mother back. Better then we could have hoped for."

"Don't expect me to pay for your fucked up dreams, or collage, or whatever." Mister west said as he started towards the door.

"Like you ever did." Jack scoffed. His father hesitated, for just a moment, then stormed out of the office.

Gladys stood up and shook Jacks hand. "Nice to meet you too. Look, I gotta go, but I'd love to know more about her, if there's ever a chance. I've only ever heard his side of things, and now I'm thinking maybe I missed out on a wonderful girl, someone I could have been a friend to."

"Gladys, I doubt she'd want to be your friend, but don't hold that against her." Jack said, still shaking from the confrontation. "She's just..."

"I get it." The stepmother replied. "See if you can have her call me, okay? And it was nice meeting you." She backed out of the office.

"Wait, when you get home, look for a business card with a lot of venereal diseases listed on the back. It was given to dear old dad by one of his conquests." Jack called out the door. Then, just like that, he collapsed, slamming into his seat on the couch.

"Misses West, we still have most of the session time, if you'd like to work with us to try and start fixing things." Doctor Mondale said, smiling. From many points of view, that had been a disaster, with Jack opening up on his father, and letting out all the old secrets. But as far as Doctor Mondale was concerned, it was a rousing success. The girl had her mother back, and after the damage jack had unleashed, it was far more then anticipated.

Jack let go, so Jade could be with her mother for the rest of the session. There were a lot of tears as Jade tried to react to everything she'd learned, everything Jack had hidden from her, and just how cold her father had been. "I was never anything but an accessory." She quietly wailed. Martha wrapped her arms around her daughter and offered what comfort she could, trying to help the girl process what just happened.

While Jade's father had been given up on her, years ago, her mother was a different story. The woman had gone to the limits to protect a child she didn't like to interact with, over a lot of guilt and not knowing how to help the girl. Now that she understood the two halves of her child, it allowed Martha to bridge the gap between her and her daughter, just a little.

:}

Okay, Jack let the cat out of the bag, and it had layers. I gotta give props to Martha, cause she was at the breaking point, and let her child know what she'd done for her (Him, man pronouns can be so judgmental.) Not sure I think much of Robert West, but hay, someone likes him.

So thoughts? I mean, things happened really fast here, almost too fast. But this is what happens when old hurts and anger loosen tongues. Still, that was a lot, and it flowed.

So thoughts?