Heroes of the Past and Present

Disclaimer: Do not own Victorious, do not own the video game

A/N:

Chapter 9 (Letting it Out)

Trina danced around her living room, cheering with delight over the tickets that Sinjin had given her, her father was in his recliner with a folded newspaper in his lap. He was watching her with a laughing gaze over his face. "What's got you in such a good mood, Trina?"

"Sinjin won tickets to a Shakira concert! Not only that, but I get to meet my idol!" She jumped up in the air, kicking her legs back. David smiled and she quickly hugged his neck. "It's the 18th of May, can I go Dad? Can I?" She decided to use an old trick on him that worked when she was a little girl but not so much as a teenager. She pouted her lips and batted her eyelashes. David curled his finger over his mouth and chuckled.

"How can I say no to that? If it's what you want, and it is Shakira, go ahead." Her dad didn't really like Shakira as much as she did. He thought her music was okay, but often said the singer should do without the scanty outfits and would prefer his daughters not try to emulate her in any way. Ironically she did dance like her, sometimes just to mess with Sinjin. Nothing ever happened with him, she wasn't that kind of girl and he wasn't that kind of guy, but that didn't mean she couldn't do the dances. She enjoyed having the power to turn him on and to get him all flustered and embarrassed. "Oh, by the way, I think Tori's out looking for you with her friends."

"Not worried about them, Daddy. I'm still in Shakira mode. Do you think my so-called ancestor would like Shakira?" He raised an eyebrow and lifted his newspaper, laughing at the thought.

"I'm not too sure about that. Shakira isn't all that modest."

"Dad. It's Shakira, she doesn't have to be modest." He rolled his eyes and held onto his smile as he began to read the paper. "Anyway, you can't tell Tori. I don't know if her friends will try and take the tickets or something. I'm letting Sinjin hold onto them, though. So I don't think he'd let me hand them over to any of those people."

"Doesn't sound like something he'd do, does it."

"Nope. Also, I ran into Lindsay the other day." David's eyebrows shot up and he lowered the paper, looking up to her. "She wants to try and renew our friendship, but I don't know…she gave me her number."

"Why don't you?"

"It's hard to explain." The door started to open, without her realizing it. "Part of me is also afraid that if I reconnect with her, Tori and her friends will just tear us apart again. I don't want to put myself out to someone who is going to hurt me. Whether it's a friendship or a relationship." David clicked his tongue and shook his head.

"When you were a little girl, Lindsay was your closest friend. You two were even closer than you are now with Sinjin."

"Still…" She looked up and frowned when she saw Tori and Andre standing in front of the door. Her heart sank and David glanced over his shoulder at the two. Cat, Robbie, and Beck came in after them, surprised to see Trina. "Oh, looks like you guys found me, huh." It had been a couple days since the big explosion with them, and since then they'd been calling her and trying to talk to her. She had been avoiding them for quite some time, though. "I'm not interested in talking to you people."

"Please just hear them out," Tori pleaded, "They're being sincere. Really."

"Oh? Where's Jade?"

Beck chuckled nervously and scratched the back of his neck, "She uh, something happened back at her house." Trina raised an eyebrow and Tori glanced at him with a surprised expression. "I haven't been able to reach her…she's with her, uh, grandma. Her grandma needs her."

"Didn't her grandma pass away?"

"That's what I thought."

David cleared his throat and folded the paper, standing from the recliner. "Beck, Robbie, Andre…" The men acknowledged him with respect and he turned towards them. "Right now, I don't want to see you three. I think you need to go home for the day." Trina was shocked by this, and a baffled expression moved over Tori's face. "I took a look at a particular video footage, and I'm not happy with you three."

"You don't want us around your daughters now?" Andre asked cautiously. David closed his eyes and shook his head.

"No, it's not that. Just right now, I do not want to see you three." Trina moved her hand over her chest. Her body tensed and her eyes drifted to a laptop on the end table beside the couch. She hadn't noticed it before. She was surprised to see he had his security program open and had been going through the files.

"We'll go then..." The trio seemed to understand what footage he was talking about, much to her surprise. How did they know about the cameras? She didn't tell them and she surely didn't tell her dad about the footage. The men started to leave the house and Tori chose not to speak up against it, which further stunned her. He stopped them, asking them to hold up for one second and they did so. Not daring to move back in, though.

David looked back to her and she immediately wanted an explanation of some sort. She was confused and a bit concerned about what just happened. "Tori's friends told me about that stunt they pulled with you, and I don't like being lied to when it comes to my daughters. It was bothering me for a time, so I had to look the video up. Can't say I liked what I saw…I am sorry they put you through that, sweetheart. Furthermore, I'm sorry I didn't see through their puppet act, I feel like a fool. Feels like I failed at being a father, if I can be so easily tricked by three men. I should be better than that."

The three boys bowed their heads. Trina hugged her dad, hoping to comfort him. The admission greatly upset her, pulling at her heart and crippling her somewhat. She lowered her voice to a whisper and started to smile. "You're a great dad, don't put yourself down like that. I love you, Daddy." Her eyes began to water as she eyed the men, her body started to heat up and her chest heaved. "Why did you stop them?"

"You need to tell them something, I think…I don't want you letting something like this dwell on you." She pulled back, keeping her hands on her dad's shoulders. She gazed into his strong eyes and felt her heart clench.

"What do you mean? I am over it…"

"No you're not. I know my daughter better than that, you're still holding it against them I'm sure. While watching that video, I could see the terror in your eyes when Beck held onto you like that…it made me think of that boy…the one you dated some years back? I don't remember his name too well…"

"Michael?"

"Yeah. Him." Tori put her hands over her mouth and the boys exchanged confused looks. Trina did not want to talk about Michael, she didn't want them to know about the guy. However, her father was right, she needed to let go of that memory somehow. "Now I know you don't like him being brought up, and you don't need to talk about anything you don't want to, but I think you should at least get your feelings towards what those three off your chest and tell them how you felt about that. Don't keep it inside, all right?"

"I guess…" She lowered her arms and shook her head. She kept many things inside, and she preferred it that way. Her dad was only trying to get her to not do such things because it wasn't healthy, but it felt a hell of a lot better than bringing up old wounds that made matters worse. Though keeping things inside did make people bitter.

Trina walked towards the three men, Tori and Cat stepped out of the way. She closed her hands and straightened herself. They looked up to her, she could see them starting to shake. Anger swirled around inside of her, and her stomach began to tighten. "I think you're assholes." She kept her voice calm and quiet, though she wanted to scream and curse. In the corner of her eyes, she saw Tori rush to the computer to see the footage for herself. "I think if you can do what you did to your friend's sister, and think that sort of thing is okay…then you have a lot of problems."

She wanted to hit them, to slap them across the face, but she knew it wouldn't do any good. It might feel good, but it wouldn't be appropriate. "I've been through a lot of guys who have turned me down or treated me wrong. Ask Robbie, that one guy, Seth, didn't even have the balls to reject me to my face." Beck and Andre did not turn their heads, but their eyes did drift over to Robbie, who bowed his head. "And Robbie knows damn well I am not paying him back for destroying that guitar of his. If I didn't make it clear then, I'll make it clear now."

"I understand," Robbie replied, "I haven't asked for you to pay me back and I'm not going to."

"Good. Now Beck…" She closed her eyes and breathed in sharply, struggling with the memory of Michael. "The second guy I dated…" Her voice began to tremble and an intense pain stabbed at her chest. "He was abusive, used to restrain me all the time…Dad and Tori know all about him. When you were holding me the way you did, my mind went back to him." Beck's eyes grew wide and the other two men let their jaws fall to their feet. "That's why I cried out to Dad. Then you lied to him, and probably lied to Tori too. You made me look stupid, made me feel like shit. I don't care if I was going overboard before then, or how crazy I was acting, but your actions that night were not right. As you know, I hold a lot of resentment in me, and I don't trust a lot of people. Now I know you and the others want to try and 'make things right' or ask for me to forgive you, but…I'm just going to say, unless you can actually do a 180 and prove to me that you really do give a damn, it's not going to happen."

"Trina, we're…"

"I haven't even forgiven Michael for the things he did, and that was almost six years ago." Her nostrils flared out and her knees started to buckle. Deciding she'd had enough of this, she left them with those final words and started for the door. She didn't want to hear them out, she didn't think they deserved a chance to talk. Not at this point. When she made it to the stairs, she squinted her eyes and quickly looked over to them. "Oh and by the way."

"W-What?"

"I just remembered….so I thought I'd say: I wouldn't date you three if you were the last men on earth." They winced and Beck was clearly shaken, considering he probably had never been so coldly rejected by a woman in his life. "You may think I'm nuts, I'm hyper, and you know what? I'm a lot of things. But Beck? You're a narcissistic asshole. Robbie, you talk to a puppet, a non-living puppet and use it to hit on girls, and Andre? I don't even know where to begin with you. You may think I have issues, but you sure don't seem to have the capacity to see your own problems, and that is why, a friendship with you probably wouldn't work. You see, I like people who can acknowledge their own issues and not claim they're better than other people. You're not better than I am because I'm a bit hyper and sometimes self-inflated, something Sinjin teases me about constantly. Only, it's playful banter. He teases me about my hyper personality and I tease him about his OCD and strange collections. We're not perfect, and we don't claim to be. You three? The whole lot of you? Yeah…you claim to be perfect and use that claim to tear down those who you think are beneath you. That's the kind of people that you are. I can see right through you. So if I seem like a bitch right now, fine. I am."

"We're not like that anymore, Trina, or at least we're-"

"Don't want to hear it. Words mean nothing to me. If you think you're changing, show me. Prove it." She wasted no time in ascending the steps back up to her room. Just before she vanished into the hallway, she turned to see Tori walk up to the men after watching the video, and slap them across the face.

She also heard Tori say she was going to show Jade. Trina didn't want Jade, of all people, seeing that video. Yet at this point, she didn't care. Beck might end up telling her anyway.

Trina rushed back to her room and flung herself onto her bed. The tears she'd been holding back flew from her and she instantly pulled the pillow to her. Her entire body was aching and her lungs were screaming as her heart frantically pumped the angry blood through her body. She needed to calm down, to relax.

After a few minutes, the door opened up and her father sat down beside her. She looked up to him as he delicately groomed his fingers through her hair. "Hey. I'm sorry for making you do something you didn't want to do," he spoke softly and passionately. The only man beside Sinjin that cared about her was her father, that's how she felt. She put her head to his leg.

"It's fine, Dad…I guess I did need to get it out of my system. What's Tori doing?"

"She decided to hold Beck, Robbie and Andre downstairs. Your sister's yelling at them now."

"I didn't mean to make her mad at them…" Not that she thought something like that would have made her mad. "Tori's really mad? I mean…those are he friends?" David chuckled softly and lifted his head.

"Tori is your sister, she loves you endlessly. Just like your ancestor and her sister Bethany, who would do anything for her. Tori told her friends already that they needed to stop their disrespect of you, and they seem remorseful, but they're going to need to show both of you girls they mean it."

"I don't know. I don't know if I can trust them, or even believe a word they say."

"I know, sweetheart." He leaned over and gently kissed the top of her head. "But believe your sister does love you and she means well. She's hurt over seeing that video, and Cat doesn't seem too thrilled with Robbie either. You did not see the look on her face when Tori showed her the video."

"I don't want Tori showing people that!"

"She won't show anyone other than those involved, she will respect your privacy at the very least."

"That's a laugh. Tori? Respecting my privacy? Respecting me?" She slowly sat up and wiped away her tears. "You can't honestly tell me that my sister still cares for me when she's let her friends walk over me like that. Lindsay, Quentin, Salome, Bryan, and even Sinjin…I would never have let them walk over Tori. I would never have even let them talk bad about Tori to her friends. They respected that too. Half of my last fights with Lindsay were over me not standing up for myself to them, just letting them walk over me."

"Well. In a way. You did that tonight." As much as it hurt, it felt great to get all of that off her chest. "I'm proud of you, Trina. I will always be proud of you." He hugged her close, comforting her. She started to smile and wrapped her arms around him, hugging her back. "I love you, sweetheart."

"I love you too, Daddy."

It was a heavy chapter, it seems. I think it finally hit the guys, the graity of the situation. Now they're all in one place, and Tori's about to call Jade over with some urgent matters regarding Beck. This should be interesting. So, what are your thoughts to how Trina handled the situation, and so on?