Jade was less than thrilled to go to school on Wednesday since her carefully guarded secret was now all over The Slap. Despite her implied threats, people had posted about it. She had to face the reality of walking into school with everyone knowing she was different, and not the different of her choosing. Hollywood Arts was a school for the different, the talented kids that might not fit in at other high schools. A little weirdness was to be expected. There were no stigma in being a drama geek in a school full of them. Outcasts were the norm at Hollywood Arts. It was the extreme cases, like Sinjin or Robbie, that drew attention and had a little trouble fitting in. Jade felt she was now one of them, marked by her advanced degrees, A slight gift for languages and an IQ of 182. Jade was outed as a freak among freaks.

The strange part was that being outed as different was hardly the worst part of it. She was brilliant but emotionally scarred. Jade often assumed things based only her past experiences with her sometimes dysfunctional family, as well as her assumptions on how others would react. That was why she was dreading the one on one talk with Beck that was sure to come. He knew she had lied to him, but let it go last night. She didn't know why. He was clearly upset by being kept out of what was now obviously a huge part of her life. Imagining where the questions would go, Jade was sure the conversation would end with her single and all her friends never wanting to speak to her again.

The morning was like moving through tar. She was dragging herself along getting ready for school, her mother having to encourage her on more than one occasion. Jade forced herself along because her mother reminded her that THIS is what she wanted in return for the everything she had done for her father. Jade was only allowed to attend Hollywood Arts because she acquired her doctorate and got a job to please her father. If she didn't go then all that effort, all that alienation would have been for nothing. The school would give her an edge in the entertainment feild, and she could not let this opportunity pass. Also as much as she wanted this, Jade held the fear that not going would let her mother down. Her mother was never intentionally a "Stage mother", but somehow had given the younger Jade the belief that she was her mothers only chance at redemption. The stress Jade was putting herself in was causing thoughts and memories to flood her mind. She survived that year in college with the goal of Hollywood Arts and the opportunities it would bring. She could not give that up, no matter how much she wanted to just slash her wrists today.

Jade controlled her self destructive impulses carefully. Marred skin and scars are a determent in the industry. Her mother had shown her how hard it was to succeed and how any imperfection could work against you. If it didn't add character (like creative Tattoos or concealable piercings), Jade knew she should avoid it. She had avoided cutting in favor of blunt trauma and other damage that didn't leave perminent scars. Maybe she hit a lot of walls before someone got her a heavy punching bag, but the pain helped her stay focused in the darkest days. She used the pain as a form of penance, to pay the empty feelings and buy the right to feel human if only for a while. Intellectual challenges also helped. Writing and the physics and mathematical equations that required her to put in effort before letting her subconscious solve them helped her focus. That was back when the science was a challenge and a joy, before it became a required endeavor. How did doing something she enjoyed lose it's fun by becoming a job? She didn't know.

Jade had spend a fair amount of time last night slamming her heavy bag while wearing minimal padding. For the last three and a half years she had been studying Krav Maga and was getting pretty good. Still, the workout did what she needed. Her fist hurt, her body ached, and she may need another heavy bag soon, but her emotional turmoil was more controlled. Now uncomfortable shoes and a lunch she despises would be enough to keep her emotions in check. She had not noticed how the half an hour spent on her own theories last night had gone by effortlessly and had also brought her some peace. She was too focused on how her problems now seemed to surround her, cutting her off from the world. She felt suffocated, and had needed the pain to buy her some air.

It all seemed to revolve around Beck. Always Beck. Beck had almost become what she needed, despite what she wanted from him. He was the perfect boyfriend. Claiming him was claiming normalcy, proclaiming to the world that Jade West was special in a lovable, normal kind of way. He was the prize that would make everything right. She had just not expected him to be Beck, the soft spoken actor who strives to be pure in his motives and his actions. She had not expected to love him. She had hoped he would pretend to love her, but had not expected him to actually care. Her sense of love was skewed, so he took her by surprise when he loved her for more than her looks and accomplishments. She could not understand that to Beck, being hot, cool, and popular all came naturally. She had no idea that Beck needed a complicated person, someone who challenged him, to feel appreciated. All their banter, that often went to the edge of breakup, was part of the roller coaster that Beck had grown to love. Jade didn't know how much Beck grew or understood after their multi-month breakup because while she knew Beck, she didn't understand his emotion or his point of view. Jade had held onto the fantasy long after the reality he had offered turned out to be something better. She felt the distance between them but didn't understand that it came from within.

Jade had all that running in the back of her mind, just out of conscious awareness, occasional peeking in to keep her fears alive. She made it to school with barely enough time to visit her locker before rushing to her first class. Her day was going along in an unusual sense of panic. Jade knew that she was off, and didn't just know all the answers to whatever was going on in class. Between classes she faced the expected looks and taunting from the under informed. "Jade, you belong with the techno nerds, leave Hollywood Arts for those who age going to be entertainers." was probably the nicest thing said on the subject. Jade wanted to ignore them. She wanted to strike back. There were too many for a focused response, and an unfocused response would just make her look weak. In the end, she endured and focused on getting through the day.

Lunch came, and Beck was waiting for her with those five words she dreaded. "Jade, we need to talk."

"I don't want to talk about it" Jade put up her walls and hoped to avoid the discussion. She put effort into eating her disgusting tasting lunch. 'At least it's healthy.'

"We need to talk about this. Why, why would you keep me out of such a large part of you life? Did you think I would judge you? Jade, I think it's great that you have so much talent. More than I ever dreamed. So why didn't you tell me?" Beck was deturmoned.

"Can we not do this here? I mean, can we do this later, in private?" Jade asked while glancing around their table at their friends. 'His friends' she thought. They were all looking at the power couple.

"Okay, well talk about this later. But you have to promise me we'll talk about this. We can't avoid it. Do you have any idea how big this is?" Beck caught himself getting worked up, and focused on doing this later. "Jade, please talk to me. Later if you like, but don't shut me out." Jade just ignored him and ate her lunch.

After lunch Jade concentrated on getting through the end of the school day. People were still stalking her with their eyes, but already the stigma of being different was being overshadowed by the realization of just how gifted Jade was. Sinjin was a freak, but even as extreme as he was, he had a place in Hollywood Arts. The joy of taking shots at the high and mighty Jade West was quickly fading and slowly it dwindled down to only those who were always hoping to take her down a few. Her lack of a visible response, the outward showing of her controlled emotions and constant plotting, had taken the fun out of tormenting her. As the crowds thinned, the threat of retaliation from the dangerous and unstable Queen of the school grew. By the end of the day, everyone was looking for the next scandal. They wanted a scandal worth spending time on. Jade as a brilliant scientist was just not enough scandal to last more than a day. Throughout the dying murmurs, Jade was totally unaware that they were getting used to the idea. She had no Idea that it would pass so soon, or that in time many of the students would come to admire her intelligence. It was high school, where the more grown up students led the way towards letting it go. Finally by unofficial and uncounted conscientious, the mean girls decided that the fun of Jades degree's was over and that the status quo was re-established. Someone else would do something noteworthy and they would refocus on the fresh and safer target.

Jade, completely lost in her own expectations, hardly noticed that the end of the day brought with it different looks from her classmates. She walked out of school just hoping to make it to her car without breaking down. Her car door was barely closed before she took off out of the parking lot towards an unknown destination. Tears streamed down her face as she drove. She couldn't face Beck. She needed him. He was her anchor, the thing that made her special in a school of the gifted. She needed a sanctuary to think, to find herself. 'I'll call Tori. She's seen me cry, so I don't lose anything. Only, I can't.' Jade thought 'She's part of the problem. I can't let her see me like this or she'll try and fix it. Oh god!' An image of Tori Vega's arms around her flashed in her mind, along with the realization that Tori would be the end of Beck and Jade. Tori had become her shelter from the fears around losing Beck, and so had become a resource Jade could not afford to lose. Tori had become a source of comfort.

Jade found herself at Caltech. She pulled into her parking space and practically ran to her office. Once the door was closed, she broke down and cried. After what felt like forever but was really half and hour, she hear a knock on her door. "GO AWAY!"

"Doctor West? Jade? Are you all right?" it was Lenard.

'First names means possibly friends. Refer to him as Dr. Hofstadter.' Jade chastised herself. "Go away, leave me alone." Her voice wasn't as loud. 'Men hate anger, it scares them and they don't know what to do. I control them with my anger. Tears confuse them but give them hope. I can't let them see me as week.'

"Jade, are you crying? Listen, I don't know much about you, but then again you don't know much about me either. We may be more alike than you think. Why don't you tell me whats going on and maybe I can help." Lenard was persistent. Jade had no intention of being seen as week in front of her peers, so she had no idea why she opened the door.

"How can you help? You have no Idea what I'm going through right now."

"You're right. I wasn't popular back in high school. I had my share of bullies making my life miserable. Now I date a reformed bully." Lenard smiled at the thought of Penny.

"God! Did you have to throw that in. I saw your groupie. You scored well. Congratulations. My life sucks..." Jade was angry, but it had stopped the tears. Still, she was for some reason not tearing his head off.

"I get that. It could be worse. My mother wrote a book about how needy I was, and I've never been good enough for her. My mother never lets me forget that my brother and sister are both far more successful than I am and are involved with far more accomplished people." Lenard opened up to Jade.

"Don't tell me she's the Bitch who wrote 'Needy Baby, Greedy Baby?' Does she know how much damage she caused with that book? Half the therapists in LA owe their practice to her, and not in a good way." Jade almost laughed, lost in her dislike of someone who made tiger moms look like cuddlers.

"It's a best selling book based on her research." Lenard could not believe he was defending his mothers work.

"No offense, but your mother sounds like an unemotional gank who has no idea what feelings are for. My father may hate me, he may be cold and judgmental, but even he will admit when I do something spectacular. Like your work on super solids. Without someone like you constantly pushing us forwards, Sheldon and I could say anything we wanted and pretend to be relevant. I cannot believe your mother hasn't been bragging about your work across both seaboards?" Jade was enjoying this talk.

"Non taken. You really like my work?" Lenard was flattered. They talked about it for what felt like a couple of minutes but was more like an hour until the conversation was halted by the sound of glass breaking. She never realized how infrequently she had been able to just talk about physics since she got her PhD, or how much she missed it.

"I got a text." Jade explained.

Beck: Where are you? We need to talk.

"My boyfriend." Jade held up the phone. "Look, Lenard. I'm enjoying the talk. Can we finish this some other time?" Jade smiled as she texted Beck.

Jade: I went to work to finish something. Can we talk later?

"Sure. And remember, all of us had our problems growing up. You may not realize it, but you probably had the least traumatic youth of us all. Of course, I could also be totally wrong." He chuckled "I'll give you my address in case you ever want to drop by. Just call first. Oh, Sheldon's my roommate, and he doesn't adapt well to change, so maybe we should warn him." Lenard felt he had made progress as he handed her his card.

Jade, however, had stiffened at the thought that her life was less traumatic. A memory almost surfaced, but jade forced it down. Her shields up once more but wanting to build on the conversation, Jade responded in her normal fashion. "Got it, just drop by whenever." her phone sounded her unique ring-tone again., twice quickly in succession.

Beck: We need to talk this through.

Sinjin: It's done. Everything is as you wanted as stated in your email from last night. I won't question where you got your information.

"I gotta handle this. And Lenard, thanks." Jade needed to be able to talk with people who understood physics, or her other scientific interests, more often. She closed the door and sent her replies.

Jade: (to Beck) I'll meet you at your place in an hour.

Jade: (to Sinjin) Thanks. My office hours are from as soon as I get there after school to six, sometimes seven. I'll show you around.

Jade: (To Tori) Meet me at becks in an hour. Be there and maybe I'll help Trina at Caltech.

Beck: Okay. See you then. Love you.

Tori: Okay, you gonna tell me why?

Jade (To Tori) NO.

Jade's emotions were all over the place. She had made a connection with one of her coworkers. Sinjin had completed his task so in the next week or so she would have her revenge on Doctor Kripke. Things were looking up. On the other hand, the conversation with Beck was looming and she felt the need to have Vega there just in case. Jade was too close to the edge, and could crack at the wrong time. Even if Beck could handle her advanced degrees and her job, he would never be able to handle her darkest secret. Just today, she was open and vulnerable. In anger came her power, but it also brought her weakness. She knew she should not have invited Tori, but for some reason she felt safer with the Latina there. She also felt like she owed Tori an explanation.

She needed to handle this.