I'll probably be updating fairly quickly over the next few days because I already have a lot of chapters written, I just need to do editing and stuff like that. Here's chapter two!

I don't own Victorious.


[Friends don't leave friends behind.]

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He tied the blindfold over her eyes. "Alright Cat, remember what I said. No peeking."

"But I'm scared," she said.

He put his arm around her and took her hand. "It's okay just hold my hand. You trust me right?"

She nodded and let Beck lead her out of her house and carefully walk her to his car. The whole car ride over he wouldn't let her take off the blindfold but she complained the whole time.

"Would it calm you down if I turned the radio on?" he asked.

"Yes," she replied.

He turned the dial and let an old 80's pop song blare through the speakers, which gave Cat the means through which to preoccupy herself. She danced in the front seat happily and sang to herself and Beck smiled, glancing over every now and then.

When they arrived at their destination, Beck took Cat by the hand and helped her out of the car.

"Is this it? Can I take off my blindfold now?"

"Almost," he said and he led her down the driveway. A couple steps later and Beck said, "Okay," and untied the blindfold. They were in Tori Vega's house and the room was filled with people.

"Surprise!" they all yelled in unison. From the ceiling a large banner hung that read "Welcome Home Little Red". Cat squealed in delight.

"Oh my gosh! A surprise party!" She started jumping up and down.

It was the perfect Cat Valentine party, complete with all the essentials. There were red velvet cupcakes courtesy of the bakery down the street. And chips and candy and Cat's favorite french fries from Foster's Grill. And there was a giant bowl of Cat's favorite mango-strawberry punch. The room was decorated with sparkly purple and red balloons and streamers, which Cat loved because they were her favorite colors. And Andre set up an ipod playlist on the speakers of all of Cat's favorite songs.

Cat loved everything about her party. Beck watched her as she ran off to hug everyone she hadn't seen in so long and mingle and talk, basically reassimilating herself back into the Hollywood Arts crowd. It made him happy to see her happy again so he stood by the sidelines and let her have her moment. It was just a week after she had been released from the hospital, three months after being committed, and Beck was glad that she really seemed to be doing better, or at least well enough for them to let her live at home.

Beck was hanging out in the kitchen by the punch bowl when a beautiful, familiar dark-haired girl with pale skin and black fingernails sidled up to him.

"Well," she said.

"Why, hello Jade." he replied.

"You look happy with yourself."

Beck shrugged. "Not as happy as she is," he pointed out, gesturing towards Cat who was dancing amidst a crowd of people.

Jade sighed. "Well I suppose I should tell you, as much as it nauseates me how nice you are sometimes...it was pretty sweet of you to do this for her."

"Thanks, but it wasn't just me. Tori helped too," he admitted. Accidentally.

"Tori?"

Oops. "Well, yeah I mean by letting us use her house, and she decorated and stuff but that was all. It's no big deal."

Beck had grown accustomed to Jade and her jealous ways so he knew how to diffuse these situations.

He put his arm around her and kissed her temple and said, "C'mon, let's go get some fries before they're all gone."

After the party, Beck started to wonder if maybe Cat wouldn't need him anymore. She seemed to fit back in nicely with all of her old friends, and that was what he wanted all along right? For her to be happy, safe and comfortable again. As long as Cat was happy then he could be happy too. And maybe he could spend more time focusing on Jade and stop getting into so much trouble with her. He decided he would be more attentive to Jade and make sure they spent more time together, doing things like movie dates and going to dinners. Even though Jade pretended she hated the extra attention he knew she appreciated it.

If he was being honest, Beck really only had room for one girl in his life, and since Cat wasn't his main focus anymore he'd let that go back to being Jade (who it should have been). He'd hoped that Cat would understand and let things go back to being the way they were before, but sometimes he was afraid that she didn't. He worried that she thought he was doing it purposely to hurt her.

After school one day he saw her sitting on the steps of Hollywood Arts by herself with her hands in her lap and her head down. He almost didn't recognize her because of how depressing the scene was; sadness just seemed so unnatural radiating off of her. But he recognized the clothes she wore, the long gray sweatshirt that hung off her shoulder, the light pink ruffly skirt, her brown boots and most importantly the wavy dark red hair that framed her face.

"Beck we're still friends aren't we?" She asked him when he approached her.

"Of course we are." He started to sit down next to her. "Cat what's wrong?"

But Jade appeared out of nowhere, grabbed him by the arm and pulled him off into a different direction, towards the parking lot. "Come on Beck, or we're gonna be late," she said. They were supposed to go to a concert that night but they still needed time to go home and change.

He pulled his arm free. "Hold on a sec. Cat are you alright?"

But Cat immediately nodded and smiled, going back to happy, cheery Cat. "Yeah, I'm fine. Go ahead, I'll see you guys later."

Jade waved goodbye for both of them and took Beck by the arm again.

But since then Cat was all that Beck could ever think about. He knew it was wrong but whenever he was with Jade, Cat was always on his mind because he was always worrying about her. He didn't want to neglect their friendship and make her upset, but at the same time he couldn't do that to Jade either. Jade was his girlfriend after all. But somehow he felt guilty for being with Jade, even though she was the one he was supposed to be with. It seemed like there was no way for him to make both of them happy.

A few days after their encounter, Beck hung around in his trailer alone at night with nothing to do but ponder his relationships. Jade had just left not too long ago; it was almost 9:30 and he was all by himself now. He was sort of bored, but it was too early for him to fall asleep so he just turned on the tv and started flipping through channels. But eventually he got bored with that too, so he picked up a playbook and started reading through one of the scripts.

That's when he heard a knock on his door.

"It's open," he called out, expecting it to be his dad. But instead a petite redhead opened the door and stepped inside.

"Hi Beck," she said.

He stood up. "Hey, what are you doing here?"

"I came to see you..." Cat looked around the room and paused, thinking to herself. "Well I came here because...I'm here because I'm hungry."

He raised his eyebrows. "You're hungry?"

"We were having stroganoff at my house tonight...and I hate stroganoff."

"Oh, umm alright." He scratched the back of his head, a bit puzzled as to what her motives were, but then he decided to just play along.

He went searching in his mini fridge and came up with an unopened carton of butterfinger ice cream. "Any good?" he asked.

"Sure! I love ice cream."

He figured as much. He got two spoons for both of them. "You don't mind sharing do you?"

"Of course not, Beck." He handed her a spoon. "Thanks."

They sat crosslegged on the floor across from each other and passed the carton back and forth.

"So what have you been up to?" she asked.

Beck shrugged. "Not much. I'm actually kind of glad you're here."

"Really?"

"Yeah I was ready to die of boredom a minute ago."

Cat got super excited. "That's great because I have so much stuff we can do." She starting emptying various items out of her huge bag, one of them being a small bubble machine. She plugged it up and turned it on, letting a ton of small bubbles float about. "Isn't that cool? Imagine if bubbles could last forever. Then the world would be filled with them."

He smiled.

"I also brought Cranium if you wanna play that. And playdough if you wanna make animals and stuff. Or we could just play cards." She held up a deck.

"I'm up for whatever you are Cat."

They decided on playing cards, at first starting out with GoFish and then playing Rummy, Speed and War. The majority of the games, Beck let her win just so he could watch her adorable victory dance, which involved pointing and moving her hips and was always accompanied by lots of high pitched laughter.

"You aren't very good at these games," she said after her fourth consecutive win.

He just shrugged. "I guess not."

By then it was getting pretty late. When Beck pointed that out to her Cat didn't say anything. She just got very quiet.

Beck started dealing for another game and then Cat said, "Beck I have a confession to make."

He placed the cards down carefully. "Okay."

"I didn't really come here because I was hungry."

"No?"

She shook her head.

"Okay then why'd you come?"

"...I'm not sure."

It was one of those rare moments when Cat was unusually quiet, unsure of herself and unsure of what to say. Normally she just spoke without thinking, letting every little random thought she had float to the surface. But for some reason now she seemed nervous, and it was odd because she was never nervous around him.

"Is there something you wanna talk about?" he asked in a softer voice.

She shrugged and he waited. "Whatever it is Cat, you can tell me."

Cat dropped the cards she was holding, but she still didn't speak. Instead she grabbed her box set of Cranium and then said, "Can we play this now?"

They played for maybe half an hour or more. Beck doesn't know exactly how long, but pretty soon he started to get very tired. He looked at the clock. It was almost 1 o' clock in the morning.

"Alright I can barely keep my eyes open now," he told her.

"It's not that late," she tried.

He yawned for emphasis.

"I don't want to go home tonight," she admitted to him.

"Why not?"

Cat took a deep breath and said, "Because my parents don't understand me at all...I don't even think they love me sometimes. I mean sometimes I feel like you're the only person who cares about me and likes me for me...you do care about me don't you?"

That had sort of caught him off guard. "Well yeah, but that's not true Cat. Of course your parents love you. Everyone loves you."

"But nobody really...Okay, they look at me and all they see is 'weird and funny and stupid'. And they like me because they can laugh at me. But nobody really understands me, nobody sees me...except you. You treat me differently than everyone else does. You treat me like a person."

Wow, he thought in his mind. He ran his fingers through his hair, not really knowing what to do or say. He didn't want her to feel that way and it made him feel bad that she did. It made him want to put his arms around her, to hug her and have that somehow reassure her that she didn't need to be upset because no matter what she'd at least always be loved by someone. But it seemed wrong for him to do that. He couldn't do that because it wouldn't be right.

"You are a person, and you deserve better than what you get from people," he told her. "But I'm not the only person who loves you."

"But you do love me?"

-pause-

"Yes, but i'm not the only one."

"But you do." Apparently that was all she needed to hear.

"Yes. But I can't be the only one."

She told him that even if he was it wouldn't really matter to her because maybe sometimes one person was all you needed. And then she asked him if she could maybe, possibly please crash in his room for the night, just this one time.

"Cat.."

"Please?"

Of course he ended up letting her. He let her borrow clothes to sleep in and Cat suggested they change at the same time, facing opposite directions because any other way would have been inappropriate.

It was still awkward though; Beck would have never looked at Cat or even considered looking at Cat because he was a nice guy, but even so there was the male part of his brain that had to wonder about certain things...he was a boy and she was a girl after all. But Beck was a perfect gentleman and he even gave up his bed for her.

"Are you all good?" he asked. She nodded, sitting on top of his bed wrapped in his blanket and wearing his clothes and comforted by all things Beck.

"Yes. And I promise I don't snore," she giggled.

"Goodnight Cat."

"Goodnight Beck."

He turned off the light and the trailer went completely black. Beck then settled into the sleeping bag/bed he had set up for himself on the floor. At that point he was so tired he didn't really care where he was sleeping. As soon as he closed his eyes and got comfortable though, the sound of rain pattering against the tin outside of the RV sounded in the background. It was light at first but it got progressively harder and louder.

"Beck?"

"Yeah."

He could see the outline of her sitting up in the dark, her pale face illuminated by the lack of light in the room.

"Do you ever get scared living out here by yourself, away from your family and stuff?" she asked him.

"Not really," he said.

"No, of course not. You're not afraid of anything."

There was a low rumble of thunder, followed by a light gasp from Cat.

He sat up. "Are you scared Cat?"

There was a flash of blue lightning and Cat admitted to him that she was maybe a little bit afraid of thunderstorms. Somehow that didn't surprise him.

"It's just a storm okay? It'll pass," he told her.

"But I won't be able to sleep until it does."

He sighed and turned the light back on. He sat propped up on the floor leaning with his back against the side of his bed and Cat took her pillow and blanket and sat down on the floor next to him. There was a crash of thunder and she scooted closer to him.

He let her rest her head on his shoulder. Everytime there was a flash of lightning or thunder, Beck felt Cat tense up against him and squeeze her eyes shut really fast. He gave her hand, with its sparkly yellow fingernail polish, a gentle squeeze. It was the one that she had cut up when she'd smashed the mirror that day. The scars had faded so much that they were barely there, but if you looked closely you could see them. And Beck trailed his thumb along the marks gently enough for him to be able to feel them, the places where her skin wasn't perfectly smooth. He wanted to ask her what had made her want to do that to herself in the first place. What provoked her to hurt herself like that? But he was afraid to ask because he was afraid of what she would say. It was easier to think of Cat as her normal, sweet, bubbly self than to picture her having a darker side.

"Does this feel weird to you?" she asked him. She was so close, he could smell her watermelon shampoo.

"I don't know."

On the outside it probably looked wrong and it probably was wrong but it didn't really feel that way. It felt natural having her so close to him, like she belonged there. And Beck was so tired at that point that what was right and what was wrong didn't even matter to him. The lightning flashes had slowed down and the rumbles of thunder were getting scarce. But Cat stayed glued to him, willing him not to let go of her hand. He pushed her hair out of her face and kissed her right above her eyebrow, the same place where he normally kissed Jade. If he closed his eyes he could almost pretend it was Jade, except that he couldn't smell the vanilla mint body wash that Jade always wore. Cat smelled like candy and Cat was smaller than Jade was, and softer and he could feel her smile against his lips when they kissed...

He took her chin and pulled her face up so that his mouth could meet hers and he kissed her. It was slow and light at first because he wanted to be gentle. He didn't want to hurt her or scare her away. But then Cat grabbed the sides of his face and kissed him back, harder. He leaned backwards, letting her hair fall over him and they kissed and moved and held onto each other until they were out of breath. When they broke apart Beck felt suffocated, like suddenly the room had no air. He pried her fingers off of his face and squeezed them, not ready to let go yet but Cat pulled her hand free and moved away from him.

"Cat, it's okay," he told her, out of breath. He needed her to be close to him again. To have her back in his arms. "It's okay, please just come here."

She seemed unwilling at first but he pleaded with her until she came back to him and settled back into his arms.

"I'm sorry," he said.

Cat quickly shook her head. "No, no you don't have to apologize. I've wanted to do that for so long, it just didn't feel like it was happening. I've never felt like that from kissing somebody before."

"So that's a good thing," he said, mostly trying to reassure himself.

"I don't think I've ever felt like that at all. Sometimes I don't...never mind."

Beck settled back down into the bed he'd made for himself on the floor and Cat laid down next to him.

They fell asleep separated, but at some point during the night his arm wrapped around her and she buried her head in his chest.

And the next morning they woke up inseparable.


Thoughts and reviews please? The next update should be coming very soon. Gosh I love Cat and Beck so much...I feel like they would be so cute together and Beck would be so good for her.

Anyways, please review :)