Disclaimer;

Victorious doesn't belong to me, which is why I write fanfiction for it to get my kicks.

Warnings;

This fanfiction contains the lesbian pairing of Jade and Tori. It's rated M, and it's rated thusly for a reason; so if you're not into girl-love and possible adult content, it's all good, but I'd advise you not to read this.

Author's Note;

This chapter isn't as long as I'd planned it to be, but what needed to be said was said, and that's how I feel it should be left. So, here's one more chapter out before 2013. I didn't expect to get this one done as quickly as I did, but I'm incredibly pleased with myself for finding the time to work on it, seeing as it was beyond hectic these past two weeks.

Thank you all for your time taken to read this, alerts, favorites, reviews, messages, and everything else. I hope this fanfiction keeps staying as fun for you all to read it as it is for me to write it.

I really don't have anything else to say except that I hope you all have a good start to a fresh new year. Some of us need it; I know I do. So please have yourself a good time and stay safe this New Year's. My resolution: to think less on the past, and look forward to what's to come.

I hope you enjoy part eight.

Can't Stop

Part Eight

School was becoming a thing that came and passed within what felt like an hour at most. The days seemed to grow shorter and the nights longer, and although it had been a slowly progressive thing, Tori was just then beginning to notice it.

She didn't know what kind of grades she was going to get, and for the first time in quite a while, she realized that she could actually be failing without knowing it. As well as she had been doing since she'd arrived at Hollywood Arts, she decided that she couldn't simply flunk out; and so that night after school, rather than wandering her way over to Jade's, she decided she was going to work on some paper she'd been assigned.

A history paper - great. Tori had deemed herself as 'adequate' in history, but having been through the wackiest and sometimes impossible tasks given to her by Sikowitz, anything any other teacher could throw at her seemed rather dull by comparison.

The paper itself only needed to be three pages in length, (which honestly wasn't too much more than a thousand words,) but at that point, with her mind in so many other places, three pages seemed more like three hundred.

Unable to focus, and now lacking the resolve that she'd had when she'd decided to work on this paper in the first place, she stood from the kitchen table, shutting her laptop as she did so, and moved toward the stairs. She wanted to shower, or lay down, or something - anything that didn't involve thinking on that paper, (and preferably, something that didn't involve thinking about anything else, either.) If she could clear her head for a little while, she told herself, she'd be able to sit down and get the paper done. It was due next week anyway, but for once, she decided she'd try to be proper and prompt with an assignment, rather than waiting until the last fifteen minutes before class and hoping some miracle fell upon her from out of nowhere, (which, more often than not, it somehow had.)

She realized the shower was occupied at the moment by the sound water hitting the floor and her sister wailing like some sort of sick animal. It was strange, Tori thought, that two sisters could be so different from each other, especially when every other sibling she could think of seemed as though they had much more in common. She and Trina seemed to be on two polar ends, and although they shared some common ground, there wasn't much of it, and what there was wasn't anything more significant than a shared favorite drink or song.

And although she loved her sister - because she was her sister, of course - she'd found herself trying her best to avoid her, particularly since the night Trina had come in and seen her sitting with Beck.

Immediately, Tori had known what it had looked like, and just as immediately, she'd realized what kind of position this could put her in with her friends.

And for the first time, as her sister turned the handle in the shower and shut off the water, something dawned on Tori that hadn't before: Trina could very well make everyone at school aware of something that wasn't true.

The thought seemed silly at first. No one would believe Trina; she was constantly pulling social stunts like that, claiming a couple had broken up or a new one had formed, (or that she herself had gotten with some guy or another.) Spreading rumors was one of the things she was known for, and frankly, few people took her seriously, as most of her lies were too far-fetched to be believed by even the most green and gullible of the school's gossips. However, the more she thought about it, the more she realized just how real it could be, (Tori being in a relationship with Beck.) People could see it happening, if they hadn't predicted it in the first place; from day one, Tori had kept an eye on Beck. At first, it had been obvious, like all the tweenage-fantasies-turned-cinema that excelled in the box office; he was the hot and sensitive guy, and she was the nice new girl. For a time, she would have had to admit that she thought the possibility was very real, (her being with Beck.)

However, all that time later, the feelings had changed – and they had changed drastically. Tori knew who she was into, and somehow, it had just so happened to have turned out being Beck's ex-girlfriend.

But who would know that? For all the people around her knew, she was still into Beck, and Beck was still into her - if he'd ever really felt that way about her before, she reminded herself. (Had he?) And if Trina was going to go around spreading lies like that, the first person to hear about it would be Cat. For some reason, Cat was the first one to receive news of these social occurrences, and she considered that the little redheaded girl could very well have some sort of (strange) friendship with Trina. And from Cat, the first person to hear such news would have been Jade, had they still been talking. With Cat, however, things spread like wildfire; the girl could just as effortlessly scream it out from atop the steps in the main corridor of the school for everybody to hear, and Tori wouldn't have expected any less from her.

And whether or not something like that happened, Jade would inevitably find out.

It shouldn't have worried her, she told herself, and it wouldn't have - if Jade hadn't known that Beck actually had been at her house, and if Jade hadn't always been the suspicious type, and if Jade wasn't as possessive as she was. The more she thought about it, the more she realized that this social train wreck of an idea really should have worried her, with Jade being the girl she was; and she decided then, as she heard footsteps coming toward the bathroom door (where she just realized she'd been lingering for almost two minutes now,) that she needed to put out any sparks before a fire could start.

But not with Trina - she'd never believe that Beck and Tori were anything but thoroughly and impossibly in love. Although she'd told her earlier that she couldn't see her that night, Tori decided she needed to have that talk they'd discussed earlier with Jade.

x-x-x

"Finished that paper already?" Jade asked with unmasked displeasure in her tone.

Tori tentatively made her way into the home and placed her fingers on her temples, sighing as Jade simply closed the door behind her. As she turned to look to the dark-haired girl, she found that Jade was staring back to her, her brows knitted and her arms folded over one another. Tori's breath hitched; the girl standing before her looked truly unhappy with her (to say the least), and in that moment of discomfort in being scrutinized by the girl she was beginning to become somewhat obsessed with, she realized that the issues between them shouldn't - couldn't - wait any longer.

"We need to talk," Tori said quietly.

"I know that," Jade said quickly, harshly. "I just thought you were going to blow me off tonight for that 'paper' of yours."

"I'm sorry," Tori said, and Jade rolled her eyes, giving a scoff that caused the brunette's chest to hurt.

"Forget it," Jade said, shaking her head. "Look, if you're going to talk, good. Just -" Her eyes shifted, looking around the room as if she was searching there for words. "-don't lie to me."

"I won't," the brown-eyed girl replied. "I promise."

For a moment, they stood there, looking to each other as though they were sizing one another up. But Jade nodded, her pale, blue eyes looking to the floor as she quietly murmured an "alright" before motioning for Tori to follow her to the couch. The other girl followed immediately, as if it had been more of a command than a request, and she sat next to Jade, whose eyes still did not want to meet the other's gaze.

"You know how you asked me what I was doing with Beck?" Tori began, and the dark-haired girl gave her an incredulous look, as though it was a completely unnecessary question. The brunette ignored this and continued, "Well, you were right. I was with him. . . and I don't know why I lied about it today." Jade gave her a look close to a scowl. "But we were just talking - when you took me home, I went in my house, and my mom had let him in, and -"

"Your mom's an idiot," Jade said, interrupting her, and although part of the brunette wanted to agree, Jade cut her off by asking, "What were you talking about?"

Tori froze beneath Jade's stare, which was boring into her own, as if trying to drag out the answer from her by force. For a moment, she couldn't think, and desperately, her mind reeled, trying to find something to say that wouldn't set the girl off like a match on kerosene. She realized that her fear was the thought that this conversation was going to be just as intense - as frightening - as the one they'd had in the janitor's closet a few hours ago.

But she'd told Jade that she wouldn't lie, and she'd told herself that she wasn't going to let things continue to be so tense between them.

So, with a quick breath and a swallow, she said, "We were talking about you."

And Jade's expression changed completely.

It wasn't a look of anger, and she didn't seem upset - she only looked surprised.

For the longest time, she'd told herself that Beck was over her; hell, he'd been over her since before he'd let her walk away from him, she'd decided, because he would have been at her doorstep later that night if he'd felt any different. Constantly, when her mind would slip off to another time (another place,) and it would go back to him, she would repeat the words in her mind as though they were both a reminder and a pledge. He doesn't want me.

If he didn't want her, he didn't think about her, and if he didn't think about her, then Jade felt as though she had no reason to try in pursuing anything else with him ever again. This illusion of obligation was no longer there so long as he wasn't thinking anything of her.

Obligation. There should never have been obligation there; he'd told her before, many times, that she never needed to give anything more to him, and that she already had given enough. And still, even as they had broken up months ago, she felt as though she owed him so much more than she could ever repay him - and the feeling of being in debt to someone that she was on the verge of wishing dead made her sick.

Tori watched as the girl sat silently, eyes shifting to the ceiling and closing before shaking her head and asking, "What about me?"

Without hesitation, Tori said quietly, "He knows. About you and me - he knows."

Jade's eyes shot up to Tori.

"You told him?"

"No - of course I didn't tell him," Tori replied, giving her a confused look. "I don't know how he knows, but he's known for a while -"

"How long have you known that he does?" Jade's voice was quick and sharp, and although the girl made no physical movement, Tori couldn't help but flinch at her words.

"A couple of weeks," Tori replied, her voice sounding strained. "He told me that I should be careful -"

Those last words had slipped. They'd slipped, and Jade had obviously heard them, by the way her eyes narrowed at her sudden pause, and there would be no taking back what was said. Tori shifted uncomfortably, her eyes looking off to the door as though she desperately wanted to be heading out of it at that very moment, but she suddenly felt the warm sensation of Jade's hand on her own.

Immediately, her stare was back on the dark-haired girl. Jade's eyes were closed, and she was trying as best as she could to keep her breathing even as she said, "I'm not going to be mad at you unless you lie to me again."

Tori knew that was a lie, even if Jade thought it to be the truth.

And Tori knew that either way she was somehow going to be screwed.

"He told me to be careful with you," the brunette continued quietly, turning her hand to take Jade's in her own, as though it would steady her in her words (and in her thoughts.) "I didn't know what he'd meant before, but the other night he told me he didn't want me to hurt you."

"Like he hurt me," Jade said without having realized she'd said it. (She'd been telling herself for days now that she was getting much too comfortable with the girl much too soon.)

"That's exactly what he said to me," Tori agreed.

And once more, Jade's mind was turning over itself, lost in thought once more. He had been thinking about her, and for a moment, she felt stupid for having thought he could just so easily let go. But it had been her way of keeping herself together when her mind was so close to coming apart; if she could tell herself that she was the only victim in the situation, she would have no need to feel any sort of guilt or regret about him. However, now that she was allowing the ideas to cross her mind, rather than repressing them completely, she told herself that she knew him better than to think that he could so simply let go - she knew him better than anybody else, and although she wasn't proud of that now, she had been at one time, and she had done her best to make sure that she was the only one who would ever know him better than he knew himself.

He couldn't forget about her, just like she couldn't forget about him, (although for the past few days, she'd been doing pretty good to get him off her mind.)

But the fact that he had given Tori his own bit of insight rubbed her the wrong way, and she felt some kind of heat rising to her skin as her mind jumped to a knew subject. Beck, the guy who she knew had done her wrong from that very night, was giving advice to the person he knew his ex-girlfriend was with - and shitty advice at that. Jade had decided that Tori was smarter than she'd originally thought her to be, and for Beck to think any less of the girl somehow stirred some uncomfortable throbbing in her chest; feelings of suspicion, of hurt and anger, and immediately, she recognized these feelings.

When her property was in question, Jade was always defensive - always possessive. She had felt these emotions many times before, but never could she remember them having been completely directed toward Beck - even when he was the one talking to another girl, or when he did something that she found to be utterly and irrevocably traitorous to her, (although until the fighting had started, she'd always easily let things go as soon as he'd been able to calm her.)

But now that her anger was toward him, she found that it burned even more intensely than she'd ever felt before, and the energy was rising in her enough for Tori to feel an escalation in the temperature of her skin.

"He thinks he can fix things by - by helping you be with me?" she asked, her voice low. "I can't fucking believe that he thinks that could ever make things any better between us!"

The dark-haired girl was standing, and by the way she started for the door, Tori could tell she fully intended to go straight to the source of her rising rage. Immediately, the brown-eyed girl grasped for Jade's arm, taking it and pulling her back - and Jade's head whipped around to stare her down, to tell her to let her go.

Tori knew her anger made the girl irrational - she'd seen it so many times, and it was something that she felt she could become familiar with but never accustomed to. But Tori held her gaze, trying to find the words to convey that he hadn't meant any harm, only to help someone he'd loved; to help Tori herself even, if that would calm the storm that was brewing within the girl she was holding onto so tightly, (so desperately.)

Jade looked to her, and although her pulse was still pounding in her ears, she found that she couldn't move when Tori was pleading her to stay with the look of her eyes, the set of her lips, her hand so tightly gripping onto her arm.

Tori couldn't handle her, Jade told herself. Tori couldn't handle Jade's rage, but if she wanted to keep her from going to Beck and quite possibly waking his entire neighborhood with the fight that would inevitably ensue, then she was going to learn just how much she needed someone to hold her back in the first place.

She turned and pushed Tori onto the couch without holding back, leaning over the girl and allowing her lips to hover only inches from her left ear, her breath coming ragged as it always did when she felt she was going to explode.

And then, as the hand not supporting the weight of her body slipped down to find the right side of Tori's neck, she murmured in little more than a whisper, "Make me stay."

Although the violent change in Jade's energy had caught Tori aback, she turned so that her lips pressed themselves into Jade's throat, suckling there slowly and gently.

And for once, it was really as simple as that.

Jade lowered herself so that she was straddling Tori's hips, and with one hand on the back of the sofa and the other cupping the brunette's cheek, she allowed the girl to kiss her neck just below her ear, where she'd always found she was so sensitive, and where she'd always found she could elicit such pleasurable reactions when she did it herself to Tori.

The brown-eyed girl's cheeks were heated, colored a shade of red they always turned when she found herself growing hotter, but her movements were bold and deliberate. Either she was picking up on Jade's habits or she was growing more confident in herself, and she chose to believe the latter as she allowed her teeth to scrape over the skin that was normally concealed by Jade's long, thick hair.

Jade gave a sigh that encouraged her forward, and Tori allowed her hands to move themselves to the girl's hips, her fingers immediately moving the girl's shirt up so they could have a feel for her skin. The dark-haired girl was warm all over, and whether it was from this sudden circumstance or the anger that had been welling up beforehand, Tori was unsure, but her hands began to grip for her as though holding on to her, keeping her there.

Tori was so emboldened by the murmurs of concurrence that escaped the other girl's throat that she slipped her tongue from between her teeth and gently ran it up the length of Jade's throat, tasting her skin, relishing the flavor. As Jade's hips pressed further toward her, Tori came to the realization that the girl was giving her full consent, letting her do something that she probably would never have allowed her to under any other circumstance at any other time. So when she placed a soft kiss beneath Jade's ear, she whispered as calmly as she could manage, "You're so sexy, Jade."

The words felt foreign on her tongue, but having already let them be said, she felt like much less of a prude than she had been those few nights before. Maybe she'd been new to what was happening, and maybe her movements against the girl on top of her were experimental at best, but the fact that she felt comfortable in what she was doing was enough to tell her that something novel and amazing was growing within her - and that Jade had incited it within her, (through her touch, through the words and the looks that were meant only for the two of them,) Tori was sure.

Jade moved so that she could look down to Tori, who looked back to her unfalteringly. And for that brief moment that their eyes met, two colors of stark contrast, they conveyed something more to each other than simple want. But before any words could be uttered, Jade's lips were on Tori's, and once more, they each simply enjoyed the feel of savoring the other's touch against their body.

The urgent need to talk that had completely taken over Tori on her way over to Jade's had begun to almost wholly dissipate, and for the time being, all she could focus on was the feel of Jade's hands beginning to explore her as her lips completely devoured her. This time, however, the brunette allowed her own hands to do some wandering of their own, and they slipped themselves further down until they gripped the girl's ass, and Jade couldn't help but smile against the brunette's lips.

Jade broke the kiss long enough to retract slightly and remove her shirt, and with a soft smile on her face, Tori realized she hadn't been wearing a bra. Jade raised herself slightly so that her chest was more accessible to the girl, and immediately, Tori complied to Jade's silent desire, her hands running themselves up the small of her back and then gripping the sides of her breasts. Jade gave a sigh that sounded almost pleading, and so not to keep her waiting any longer, Tori placed her lips on the inside of the girl's right breast.

"God," Jade hissed, her hand gently pulling Tori's head closer. She'd always been sensitive - throughout her whole body, she'd been susceptible to even the slightest of sensations, as she was rarely touched by anyone but the person she was with. Naturally, however, certain places on her body were bound to be more responsive than others. And although she'd been with Tori for weeks now, things had been different; she had been the one doing most of the touching, not the other way around, and the feel of Tori's lips suckling their way to her perked center was enough to have her feeling as though she was going to become thoroughly insane.

However, just as Tori's lips closed around Jade's nipple, there was a sequence of knocks at the front door.

"Fuck!" Jade hissed quietly, her body freezing against Tori's.

"Maybe they'll think no one's home," Tori whispered quickly as Jade lowered herself back to eye-level with her.

They stayed still against one another, waiting for another series of knocks. Several moments passed in painful silence, and when the second round of raps came on the door, Jade swore again, sliding herself off Tori's lap and picking up her shirt from off the couch beside the girl.

"Go up to my room," Jade instructed hardly audibly. "I'll be up there in a minute."

"Is your mom home?" Tori asked as she made her way from the couch and toward the stairs, stepping softly as she could manage in her sneakers and with the speed with which she moved.

"No, no one's home -" Jade pulled her shirt the rest of the way onto her body before finishing, "Just go!"

Tori was already halfway up the flight of stairs.

x-x-x

"Cat," Jade said slowly, although there was a tone of surprise in her voice.

Jade stood there looking over the redhead, having crossed her arms over her chest to hide what her previous excitement had done to her there, (both in the rise and fall of her chest and other reasons.) Her expression was void of emotion, as though her shields were up, and as her mind raced, she decided that those defenses weren't going to simply be brought down by whatever sort of scheme the girl had planned for her. However, when she noticed Cat looking more frightened than she ever had at her house - where Cat had come almost routinely in the months prior to their 'falling-out' - she recognized a slight (and only a slight,) twinge of guilt running through her veins from having nearly completely snapped on her during school that day.

So, when Cat let out a squeaking sort of "hey," she restrained herself from saying all the thoughts brewing in her mind like some sort of hurricane. The dark-haired girl looked over the smaller one, eyes narrowed, scrutinizing; wanting her to say more, but knowing full well that she was going to wait until Jade had her own chance to say what they both thought should so obviously be said, (and between them both, the idea was completely different.) While Cat was almost positive that this whole mess was mostly her fault, she knew she couldn't blame only herself - because Jade had said and done some things that didn't quite sit with her well enough. But by the way the blue-eyed girl was looking at her now, a small fire kindling behind her clear, icy eyes, she could tell it was going to take much more than an apology and a little effort to get her to come around - to be her friend again.

And the silence lingered in the air between them for several long moments, for what Jade could only have guessed as a minute or two, causing Cat to squirm slightly and causing the other girl to grow more impatient.

"I'm kind of busy, Cat," Jade said as evenly as she could manage, arching a brow at the newcomer. Taking a breath and returning her eyes to the girl, she (bitterly) asked, "What do you want?"

"I just -" Cat faltered, looking down at the ground, her thumbs twiddling with each other as her mind searched for a way to make her intentions clear to the girl before her. "I'm sorry for whatever I did that made you want to. . . ignore me. I didn't mean to make you mad or -"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Jade said, her face skewing into a snarl. She slowly moved down onto the step lower than her doorframe, level to where the smaller girl was standing as well, and with her words beginning to drip with venom, she continued, "I don't remember ignoring you. But I do remember you ignoring me."

There was another silence, and the two of them watched each other, each simply waiting for some sort of reaction from the other. But nothing came; and for some reason, when Jade's gaze met Cat's deep, brown eyes, her mind slipped to the girl who was probably undressing in her bedroom, waiting for her. And for the first time in looking at the girl who had inflicted upon her so much heartache - who had stomped on her emotions so, so harshly without even so much as realizing what she had done - she couldn't keep her mind on the redhead, or her pain, or her anger that had been so furiously buzzing in her head for weeks now.

Rather, she could only think of the other girl with deep brown eyes, whose attention Jade was sure she had captured - and whose affections she wouldn't soon let slip away.

So, without even the slightest trace of guilt, she said firmly to the girl standing on her doorstep, "I'm busy, Cat. I don't have time to talk right now." She turned away as she added a bit more harshly, "Come back later - and fucking call first."

Even as Cat protested and reached for her, going so far as to grab the other girl's wrist, Jade shook free of her grasp and walked back inside, closing the door behind her and leaving her ex-best friend standing in shock and dismay out in the falling temperatures of the oncoming night.

And for once, Jade felt nothing but the satisfying release of something between an adrenaline rush and an insane sort of euphoria, having won an important battle that had long been coming, with the war having gone on so furiously inside her head. Down to the very depths of her mind, she felt nothing but unbridled pleasure with herself and with what she had just done.

But as she made her way up the stairs toward her room, she froze mid-step.

At the top of the stairway sat Tori, looking as though she was more conflicted than she had been when she'd first arrived at Jade's house not twenty minutes prior.

x-x-x

Jade had managed to take the girl to her room, roughly locking the door behind her before leading her over to her bed and making an attempt to pick up where things had left off. Desperately, she wanted to continue - to let this little bout of victory continue on into the night and even the morning with the girl whose lips had been on her only moments before.

But Tori was unmoving and slightly cold against her, and while she made no effort to push the dark-haired girl away, the way her lips showed no sign of reacting and the way her hands made no move to wander immediately turned Jade off.

With a sigh, the blue-eyed girl removed herself, looking to Tori expectantly.

"Are you going to act self-righteous about this?" Jade asked, trying to back her words with whatever anger she could muster when all she felt was hurt and disappointment. "Are you going to tell me you wouldn't have done the same thing?"

"Jade -"

"No," Jade said, shaking her head. She stood, looming over the girl, her hands before her and moving with her words, as though physically showing her frustration at what she perceived as a look of disapproval on the brunette's face. "I'm not taking a preaching from you - you don't know anything about what happened, or why any of this is even -"

"Jade," Tori said, grasping the girl's wrists. Their gazes met, and for once, the brown-eyed girl seemed more than confident in what she was doing. Jade's lips pressed into a line, and as Tori continued, she only listened. "I'm not judging you for that."

The brief silence that followed allowed the words to sink in, and when Jade felt Tori's thumbs rubbing circles over the tops of her wrists - an action that had calmed and comforted her for as long as she cared to remember - she felt her anger dissolving.

"Then what are you judging me for?"

"I'm not judging you at all," Tori replied, pulling on Jade's wrist with one hand as she beckoned to the bed beside her with the other. When Jade finally took a seat, the girl continued, "I just. . ." She sighed, looking off toward the ceiling of the room. "You said if I told you everything, you'd tell me what I wanted to know."

And once more, there wasn't a sound between them. Jade looked to her and thought back on what she had just said to Cat, and how - outside of her own head - they could have sounded much harsher to someone else. But she had wanted them to sting. She'd wanted them to be a slap to the girl's face, to wake her up from whatever little false sense of reality she'd been enveloped in for so long. And yet, at the thought of the redhead crying, and the look of distress coming over Tori's face. . .

All of the triumph she had felt only a few minutes earlier had dispersed along with all of her anger and frustration.

"I'll tell you," Jade murmured weakly - weaker than Tori had heard her speak in some time, if she'd ever sounded so genuinely upset. "But you can't talk about it to anyone else. I mean it."

"Alright," Tori spoke softly, her fingers having entwined themselves with Jade's. "Nobody else will know."

Out of habit, Jade couldn't help the feeling of suspicion that crossed through her mind, and her eyes narrowed as she looked over the other girl, thoroughly looking for any sign of mendacity in her expression or posture. Tori could easily sense this, and she squeezed her hand, giving her a look that easily conveyed the words she meant to say: I promise.

"Where do you want me to start, then?" Jade asked, looking away for a moment as if she was too ashamed to look her in the face - and for a moment, she genuinely was.

"Wherever you want," Tori replied, and when Jade gave her a look, the brunette went on to say, "Just. . . Tell me what happened, when you two were, you know. . . closer."

Wrong choice of words. Jade swore in her mind, thinking for a moment on all that had happened between she and the redhead, and how almost all of it had happened in the very room the two girls were sitting in, (as everyone in the family was always home at Cat's house.) And for a moment, the feel of Tori's hand gently grasping her own was causing her to feel claustrophobic as images of the other girl, left standing outside a closed door in more senses than the literal, caused her to feel an intense guilt that hadn't come over her for a time longer than she cared to even try to estimate - a guilt she had felt when she had been with Cat instead of Beck, or Beck instead of Cat.

And the thoughts were running so rampant through her head that all she could do was stare down at the two hands laced with one another, Tori's skin slightly darker than her own, her wrist and fingers only slightly thinner. Although it didn't clear her mind at all, it did help her to remember where she was, who she was with - it kept her head where it needed to be. Had Tori not been there in the first place, she probably would have been dwelling on the recurring thoughts and even those haunting dreams that would so often completely overrun her mind, day and night, in waking and in slumber.

Although she didn't realize it, and although she'd never even stopped to think on it, the obsession with her regrets was far from normal and even farther from healthy.

But as though this torrent of mixed emotions and memories wasn't flooding her mind's entirety, she began to speak.

"Cat and I - we were kind of a thing," she paused, taking a deep breath and looking to Tori so as to gauge her reaction, "back when Beck and I were, you know, together."

Tori's brows arched, but to Jade's astonishment, there was no look of disapproval or displeasure written across her expression. Her fingers stayed steady where they were in the dark-haired girl's grasp, and for a moment, Jade let her think on whatever could have been crossing her mind - although she was sure it was something of at least surprise.

"Alright," Tori said, nodding slowly as she looked down to their hands, while the other girl's stare still lingered on her (then somewhat blank) expression. "What. . . what kind of 'thing?' I mean, you know, if you don't -"

"We hooked up a few times," Jade said, cutting her off, although in her mind, she couldn't help but scoff at her own words. It had been more than what she could consider to be just a few times, but what number could differentiate 'a few' from 'many?' She wasn't going to tell the whole truth, but the truth was being told - and that in itself was already a step above flat out lying, (or so she told herself subconsciously.) "We weren't dating or anything - and Beck knew. It all just. . . it all sort of just happened."

Tori could have guessed Jade had been with another girl; by the way she had approached her so confidently, and in the way her lips moved so fluidly and effortlessly against her, and by the feel of her hands catching fire to places Tori hadn't even known could feel so hot. But her having been with Cat was something of a surprise.

In all honesty, Tori couldn't have seen Cat hooking up with anybody. In fact, she wasn't sure if the girl knew anything about any of that, as ditzy as the girl acted and as childlike as her personality seemed. However, when the brunette recalled having come to a conclusion earlier that day - about Cat being more than she put on, and about her quite possibly being a different person entirely, as far-fetched as the idea might have seemed.

And now that she thought about it - about Cat getting with a new guy every other week - she couldn't say that the notion of Cat getting around was all too hard to believe. And by the way she and Jade had acted not too long ago, (with Cat constantly by Jade's side, touching and hugging her when no one else but Beck was within her personal space, and Jade simply allowing these actions,) the concept of the redhead swinging both ways was certainly not out of the question.

Who was Tori to judge her for anything pertaining to spontaneity with relationships? Getting with guys, getting with girls - and she wasn't even sure that she'd even been with a guy, and she'd never have known about anything having to do with her sexuality had Jade not said what she just had. And who was she to judge when Tori was dating - dating? - a girl? A few months prior, she wouldn't have even thought it possible. Of course, the idea had crossed her mind many times, (or, rather, she'd dwelled on the thought of being with another girl for some time,) but with the girl who sat next to her, returning the grip that she was receiving, Tori became aware that things between herself and the Jade had just as well all sort of just happened.

And because of that, she couldn't judge Cat - or Jade - for any of this. She couldn't logically justify any feeling of resentment toward what had happened between them (whenever it all had happened,) and if Beck had been alright with it, then there had been no harm in it.

Try as she might to tell herself that, Tori couldn't bring herself to believe what she was thinking at all. Whether or not the situation Jade was explaining had anything to do with the breakup of a couple of three years (and the falling-out of two incredibly close friends,) Tori could guess that it had been at least a part of the reasoning of it all. While that in itself didn't disturb her, something certainly had - she'd seen just how broken Beck truly was, and she'd just witnessed what Jade had done so incredibly effortlessly to Cat.

And while Beck made Jade out to be the victim who had suffered the most, Tori couldn't help but feel that things were never going to be quite that simple, and that there would be more than one person hurt if something similar was to happen between the two of them, Jade and Tori.

The next words slipped from the brunette's mouth without much thought put into them.

"Why did you and Cat just stop?"

Jade looked to her, and for once when the redhead was in question, there was no malice behind the girl's eyes.

She wanted to lie to Tori - to tell her something beautiful, something reassuring that would keep her here beside her, possibly for the rest of the night, hopefully for as long as she could have her. And she had words she could say, all flattering to Tori, but all so cruel to Cat that she couldn't bring herself to say any of them. And goddamnit, she was sick of lying anyway.

So Jade said without more hesitation than a moment's thought, "Beck and I broke up, and all of a sudden, she wasn't interested. I wasn't her's - I wasn't her 'girlfriend' or whatever anymore. She just. . ." She put her free hand up in front of her, almost as though she was questioning something - her own words, or why she was saying them, or why whatever god was watching had put her in this situation in the first place. "She just sort of left me."

"And you needed her," Tori murmured gently, taking caution in the tact of her words and the care in her voice, as Jade was already looking as though she could break into pieces from the sting of her own words.

"Yeah," Jade spoke nearly inaudibly, her hand falling to her lap. "I did."

Tori gave the girl's fingers a gentle pressure, rubbing with her thumb again, and once more, the blue-eyed girl felt a sense of comfort come over her - and although it wasn't a joyful or even a relaxed comfort, it was the sort of comfort one feels when the rest of the world around them is falling apart. It was the solace she'd sought out for some time from whatever source she could get it from, and it was what she had found in the new brown-eyed girl who then sat beside her, doing something that she knew two others had failed to do when she truly, genuinely needed it - Tori was just there.

Jade choked on a whimper that threatened to escape her throat, and she turned her head away from the girl, closing her eyes and talking herself through her emotions in her mind.

"It's okay," Tori said softly. "You can cry if you -"

"I'm not going to cry," Jade said harshly, although the break in her voice betrayed her words entirely.

And it wasn't long after that she finally did give in to the tears welling up in her eyes and the shortness of breath that had begun to pain her chest. Tori simply wrapped her arms around her shoulders and allowed her to quietly sob everything that she had welled up within herself for so long, quietly murmuring to her, speaking whatever seemed sweetest or at least the most soothing.

Whatever the two of them were - friends, girlfriends, two girls together - didn't matter. They had no appearances to keep up in the privacy of Jade's room, and while Tori still felt an unsettling churning in her stomach at the memory of the sound of Cat's voice from the doorway below the staircase, she knew that it wasn't the time to question it or think any further into things.

It was the time to try to make up for what Jade had felt she had lost.