POV: Jade

I was stood by my locker, meant to be picking out the books I needed for the day ahead but instead I was completely spaced out. I couldn't stop thinking over yesterday and my… date with Ve- Tori. I don't really know what came over me, I knew I wasn't acting like I usually do, the cold, distant Jade that everyone puts up with. No, instead I completely let my guard down and let the girl in, something I'd even found difficult to do with Beck. Hell, I'd even held her hand walking into the place and kissed her goodbye!

Maybe I'm going insane. That would be a suitable explanation. Tori Vega is driving absolutely insane and… God dammit, I liked it! I liked spending time with her, getting to know her, letting her get to know me. I liked her little giggle whenever I said something that wasn't even that funny and I really liked it when we came up with a fool proof plan to murder her annoyance of her sister in her sleep and where we'd bury the body… too bad she made me swear not to go through with it.

God, Jade, what's wrong with you! You're going soft because of the girl you're meant to hate! I may have to check myself into the mental ward at the hospital if this continues-

"Jade?"

I was brought out of my trance by a high pitched, timid voice and span around to come face to face with a head of red hair closely followed by my ex-boyfriend. I groaned. Beck and I hadn't been alone together since the break-up, there was always one or more of our little group hanging around at all times, as if they were afraid the world would implode if it was just the two of us for five seconds. I wasn't sure if it was a good or bad thing, though. I wanted things to be as normal as possible, which, come to think of it, isn't very normal at all, but everyone was going to have to get used to the fact that we weren't together anymore, Beck and I included. Of course, his following of little fan girls were very used to the idea; I could see them over his shoulder, gazing at him like they'd just seen God. I may not be dating the guy anymore, but that doesn't mean I can't find them to be irritating little fucks.

"Jade?" Cat repeated.

I shook my head; I'd zoned out again. This is what happens when I don't get my coffee first thing in the morning.

"What?" I grunted, grabbing a book at random then slamming my locker shut, beginning to walk away from the two, who decided to follow me anyway. I rounded on them.

"We just came say hi." Cat said, her smile dropping, while Beck saluted at me in greeting.

That girl just- urg! "I haven't had coffee." I excused. Sorry wasn't a word in my vocabulary, or, at least, it wasn't used very often, but Cat and her pout always won me over somehow and got me as close to apologising as I could muster.

"Oh!" Cat brighten up again. "We should go get some!"

"Are you sure that's a good idea, Cat?" Beck asked as we followed the shorter girl towards the Grub Truck. "Remember what happened last time you drank coffee?"

Cat stopped in front of the truck, cocking her head to one side and frowned in concentration. Soon, a smirk played across her lips and her eyes glinted mischievously at the memory.

"That was fun!" The red head said gleefully, clapping her hands together. "But, I don't think Sikowitz liked it. He said cats aren't allowed to drink coffee and that I should stick to milk, or something that doesn't make me even more of a hyper bundle of crazy."

I smirked as I grabbed my coffee cup from Festus, remembering how Cat had been racing around the classroom, unable to sit still for no longer than a minute and how it took Sikowitz and the class more than half the lesson to calm her down enough to get some work done. I'd love to convince her to get a coffee just for the to happen again, but just as I opened my mouth to do so, my attention was caught by a pair of familiar sisters walking from the car park towards to doors of Hollywood Arts. My eyebrow arched as I watched them, chatting happily to each other; evidently Tori had forgiven Trina for what she'd done yesterday and I didn't understand why. She'd followed us, spied on us and shouted about us in the middle of a restaurant in front of so many people; I certainly wouldn't have forgiven her so soon.

"I'll see you guys in class." I said distractedly to Beck and Cat, stalking away from them before either had the chance to ask what I was doing, hot on the tail of the Vega girls.

I watched as they walked up to Tori's locker and the younger girl entered the combination while Trina yakked on about something in her ear. I managed to sneak past them without being seen and slipped silently around the corner, watching them both as I waited. Why couldn't they hate each other like me and my sister? It would make it so much easier for me to grab the girl I wanted to talk to instead of hiding until they shut up. Finally, I saw Tori slam her locker shut and move towards the stairs while Trina pranced over in my direct. Brilliant. The second she rounded the corner I whipped my arm out and snatched her wrist, just as I'd do to her sister, and dragged her into the janitors closet before she'd even had time to process what was going on.

"What! Jade!" She squealed as I closed the door quietly behind us after making sure no one had seen us go in.

"Aren't you the clever one." I said sarcastically, rolling my eyes as I lent against the door so she couldn't escape, sipping at my coffee indifferently.

"What do you want?" Trina asked. It was obvious that she wanted to get away from me and fast. "I've got to go or I'll be late for my singing class!"

"I'll be doing them a favour then." I smirked as she scowled and gave a sharp gasp of offence.

Trina crossed her arm and raised an eyebrow in question making her resemblance to Tori so suddenly striking that it actually caught me off guard for a second. I blinked, remembering who I was with, why I was here and that I wanted to get it over with as fast as I could, with or without Trina breathing by the end of it.

"Why were you following us?" I questioned.

She dropped her arms to her sides. "It was a coinciden-"

"Don't bullshit me, Vega." I cut her off "You were following us. Why?"

She sighed. "Fine. Tori wouldn't tell me who her date was and I wanted to know, so I followed her."

I shook my head in despair. "That I can believe. Now, have you told anyone?"

"No!" She said defensively. "I wouldn't-"

"Yeah, you would." I countered.

"Fine. But, I haven't told anyone, I swear."

"Good." I said, taking a step towards her which she immediately took a step back from, crashing into the trash can behind her as she did. I smirked, dumping my now empty coffee cup in to said trash can and reaching to my side to snatch up a pair of scissors, twirling them around my fingers. "And you won't be telling anyone, will you?"

It wasn't a request, it was a demand; Trina's eyes were focused fully on the sharp instrument in my hand as she gulped and nodded her head. Some part of me knew there was no need to threaten the older Vega about this, I knew she loved her sister and wouldn't do something as stupid as tell the whole school she'd been on a date with the big, bad Jade West, but I had to be sure. Trina didn't like me and I didn't like her, any kind of sabotage was good sabotage to either of us. I placed the scissor back where I'd found them and turned on my heel, ready to leave.

"You better not hurt her."

Her voice may have been small, but there was no mistaking the care behind Trina's words. I spun around to face her again and she stood her ground, looking me straight in the eye in a sudden burst of confidence.

"I mean it, Jade." Her voice was low and quiet with a slight threatening edge; that was the only thing that kept me listening to her. "She's my sister and I don't know if you're playing some stupid game or if you genuinely have some kind of feelings for Tori, but if she ends up hurt because of you I'll-"

"You'll what?" I inquired, my voice equally as low, making her flinch and whatever threat she was trying to formulate died in an instant. I shifted closer to her, being sure to keep my words a hiss. "I don't know what this thing between me and Tori is, but it's certainly not a game. Now, why don't you stop butting in and let us figure it out for ourselves and…" I drew back, my hand on the handle ready to leave, my words turning softer. "I'll try my best not to hurt her."

This seemed to satisfy, or scare, Trina and it was true. My goal through all of this was not to hurt Tori, but to try to work out whatever it was between us and see where it would lead. Sure, I may have wanted to hurt her physically in the past… maybe not too severely, but I've never really wanted to cause her emotional pain; I knew what that was like myself and I didn't want to be the cause of someone else's. God, I was going soft.

With a final nod, I pushed the handle down and strolled out of the janitor's closet followed quickly by a slightly frazzled Trina. I was already ten minutes late for class so I took my time to get there, not really bothered; I'd turned up late for class plenty of times before.

Xxx

"Drive-by acting challenge!" Sikowitz yelled as soon as we stepped into the classroom after lunch, causing most of the class to groan. "You're all survivors of some crazy virus and you're fighting off a large group of rotting zombies! GO!"

Soon the air was full of shouts and screams, arms and legs flailing everywhere as we fought off imaginary corpses and tried not to smack each other in the faces as we did so. Everyone was going mad! Kicking, punching and falling to the floor. Robbie was pretending Rex was a zombie and was busy trying to detach the puppet from his neck, Beck and Andre stood back to back using books as weapons, while Cat came flying past in a blur of red, screaming her head off as she swiped her arms out, battling against whatever she thought was chasing her.

Before I knew it, Vega was at my side, dragging her leg as if a 'zombie' had grabbed a hold of it and waving her arms frantically as if that would help. I aimed a kick at where the living dead would have been, freeing its captive from its evil clutches and, at that point, Tori turned to face me, her chocolate eyes sparkling, her rosy lips curling into a smile that, I swear, made my heart stop for a second and rendered me unable to stop the goofy grin that spread across my face in return. Oh God, Jade, what is wrong with you?

"AND STOP!" Our insane acting teacher roared from the front of the room, making me, Tori and half the other students jump out of their skin. Crap! We'd been staring, hadn't we? Luckily everyone else was too distracted by the acting challenge to notice.

I awkwardly shuffled to a seat across the room, away from Tori. Not that I didn't want to sit next to her, but we couldn't afford another moment like that. To my surprise, and annoyance, puppet boy decided to take the seat beside me, giving me a shifty look as he took the seat, Rex's head also turning my direction, making me feel uncomfortable, which wasn't something I felt very often, but Robbie Shapiro has never given me such a look before.

"What?" I hissed as Sikowitz started raving on about the importance of hand gestures and how they can affect a scene.

"N-nothing!" The ventriloquist stammered, but Rex butted in.

"We know why you broke up with Beck." The puppet said in a devious voice and, if it were possible, I knew he would've smirked at me.

I felt my blood run cold; how the fuck did the dweeb and his dolly know anything? Vega's dumb sister wouldn't say a word to him, would she? Not if she valued her life. Shit! Okay, play it cool, Jade. Play it cool.

"We ran our course." I said nonchalantly, "We already explained this to you, so of course you know."

The puppet scoffed "But we know the real reason."

"Rex!" Robbie shushed, throwing a hand over Rex's mouth, which, apparently, he bit.

"Whatever you think you know, puppet, you're wrong." I snarled.

"Whatever, Wicked witch." Rex said, turning his attention back to our teacher. "We saw you and Trina in the janitor's closet earlier. We know what's going on between you two."

"TRINA!" Was he serious! Me and Trina? That kid has some serious mental problems and… oops… maybe that came out louder than it was supposed to. Now everyone's eyes were on me as they wondered why I'd blurted out the elder Vega's name in the middle of class. Well, this is… embarrassing.

I glanced around at them all quickly, my eyes lingering a fraction longer on Tori as she furrowed her eyebrows and gave me a concerned look. Great, now I had to come up with some plausible explanation that didn't make me look like a total idiot. I looked back at the puppet, who I'm sure was highly amused, and Robbie, who was blushing. Perfect.

"Shapiro, I don't want to hear about you and your little crush in the middle of class." I said, glaring at Rex to keep his mouth shut. "Can't you and your little puppet talk about stuff like that away from me, I might throw up."

There were sniggers all around as Robbie turned a disturbing shade of bright pink, spluttering something that sounded like "Haven't got a crush" and "Don't know what you're talking about." Satisfied, I settled back in my seat, my trademark smirk back in place.

"Okay class! Settle down! Laugh about Robbie's misfortune in your own time!" Sikowitz called, trying to get our class back on track.

Xxx

"Hey."

It was the end of school and I was just about to get into my car when Tori wander up to me. I hadn't really spoken to her today, I was unsure of what to say. I mean, what was I supposed to say and do? To most of the school we were bitter rivals who got along only on a rare occasion. Now we'd discovered these… feelings underneath all of that and had even been out together for the evening. For now, keeping up appearances seemed to be a good option, we needed to show everyone we can get along, show ourselves we can get along before… I don't even know, it's not like we were going to be a couple… was it?

"Hey." I replied, my fingertips skimming over the door handle I'd reached out for. There was a time I would've totally ignored her, but now…

"You know." She hitched her bag up on her shoulder from where it was falling and shifted her weight from one foot to the other, seeming a little awkward. "As much as I can believe Robbie having a thing for my sister… well, he does seem to have a thing for everyone else… what's the real reason you yelled out my sister's name in the middle of class?"

I almost rolled my eyes; of course Tori would want to know why I'd done that. Well, no point in lying to the girl. "I had a… word with Trina about what she saw yesterday." Tori opened her mouth to comment on this, but I held my hand up, wanting to continue. "I just wanted to make sure she hadn't told anyone and that she was the only one who knew."

Tori looked a little hurt by this and I wasn't sure what to say to make her feel better and keep it true. Damn, when did I start to care how Tori Vega felt? It must be a side effect from these feelings. I shook my head.

"Look, long story short, Shapiro saw us coming out of the janitors' closet and managed to get the wrong end of the stick."

She frowned. "What do you mean-"

"He thought I dumped Beck to screw around with Trina!" I said quickly, checking there was no one around to hear that.

Tori's eyebrows shot up in a comical look of shock "You and Tri-" She spluttered.

I put my hands up "That kid's got problems,"

"You're telling me." She muttered.

We shared a smile at this and, for a moment I wondered what this looked like to an outsider; me and Tori just chatting like normal teenagers would, rather than ripping each others heads off, which was normal for us. This thought was interrupted when Tori opened her mouth yet again just as a car came zooming round the corner, blaring its horn at us as it sped past and the driver yelled I could barely make out.

"Speaking of Trina." Tori said, watching the red car disappear at a dangerous speed. "There goes my ride home."

The half-Latina started rooting around in her pockets, searching for loose change while muttering something about "bus fare" and "three times in a row, mom won't be happy" under her breath. There must be something incredibly wrong with me because I placed a hand gently on her forearm and gave her a smile.

"D'you want a lift home?" The words fell out of my mouth as if out of instinct. Well, I couldn't leave her stranded, could I? ... Actually, I could, but I am trying to be nicer to her.

Through this internal battle of nice vs nasty, I barely heard Vega as she stuttered "A-are you sure?"

I nodded and she beamed at me, thanking me 'so very much' for the offer.

"Yeah, yeah." I said flatly, getting into the car and starting it up. "Now, hurry up before I change my mind."

A/N: Not so much Jori in this chapter, but don't worry, I'll make up for it in the next ;)
Still, I hope you liked it!