Tori had only had one boyfriend in her life. She'd only kissed one guy, she'd only slept with one guy. All of her firsts had been with the same boy. And at seventeen, she felt pretty normal about that. She had been in love and now she wasn't, but she wasn't in any rush to experience those things with anyone else.

Unless that person was Beck, of course.

What she wasn't expecting to experience was the boy of all her firsts walking into her new school, her new life, hand-in-hand with her new friend.

"Danny?" She came to an abrupt stop in the middle of the hallway, a deer in headlights in front of the tank that was her ex-boyfriend and first love with someone new, and someone she knew, at that.

"Tori?" Came Danny's reply, equally as shocked and flustered.

"What are you doing here?"

"I - uh-" Danny attempted a reply, merely waving meekly at Cat, who looked increasingly concerned as the conversation progressed.

"Do you guys know each other?" Asked the redhead, her hand having noticeably slipped out of Danny's fingers.

"We, uh-"

"We knew each other at-"

"We used to date!"

"Yeah, she was my-"

"Girlfriend." Tori answered, awkwardly, pointing at Danny.

"Boyfriend." Danny replied in the same manner.

No one commented on their mistake.

"Oh, that's, um-" Cat began, visibly unnerved.

"Cat, what's up?" This was Jade, who'd walked over in her typically purposeful manner, with a less typical look of concern on her face. Completely ignoring both Danny and Tori, however - just as expected. Andre, trailing behind her, at least had the decency to throw them both a smile.

"Oh, Jade, this is Danny, the guy I've been telling you about." Cat said weakly, and Jade shot Danny a smile that didn't reach her eyes.

So much for being 'such a brilliant actress'. Tori rolled her eyes.

"What's wrong?" Jade asked, turning straight back to Cat.

"Oh, nothing, just- Tori and Danny used to, um, date." Cat replied, with palpably false positivity.

The pair in question both smiled tensely, desperately trying to escape the cloying awkwardness of the situation.

Jade scoffed humorously. "Cat's dating your ex?" She asked, turning to Tori, who simply shrugged meekly in response. "Well that's hillarious. I'm sure this has been a swell reunion for you both."

Tori gritted her teeth at Jade's shameless schadenfreude. Well, two could play at that game.

"Shouldn't you be looking for Beck or something? Or is he on set again?" She spat back.

Jade scowled at the low blow, her moods having been noticeably more negative since Beck had booked the part of Liam on Little Lake High, a show for which Tori had already placed alerts, despite the fact that it had barely started filming.

Tori's mission was successful, nevertheless - Jade didn't say another word.

"Well, this is nice." Cat spoke awkwardly into the silence.

"I'm Andre by the way." Andre said, stretching out a fist for Danny.

"Danny." Replied the boy, mistaking Andre's fistbump attempt for a handshake in what resulted in a painstakingly uncomfortable accidental game of rock, paper scissors.

"So, what brings you to Hollywood Arts, Danny?" Tori asked, barely looking up from the floor.

"I, er, I thought I'd come see where Cat spends all her time. She's always talking about this place." Danny replied, to the floor.

"Oh, cool." Tori added, and the group once again descended into silence.

"Um, I think we might head off. I wanted to show Danny the Black Box and, er-" Cat trailed off, making a half-hearted attempt at a goodbye wave, before taking Danny's hand and pulling him in the direction of the theatre.

Seeing Cat walk off, Jade was taken by the urge to follow her. Her best friend was upset, that was for sure, and she would need comforting, right? But one look after the redhead and she saw the arm of Daniel come to rest around her shoulders. After that, Jade didn't feel as though her intervention would be so imperative.

Instead, she turned back to the remainders of the group, Tori, whose expression in its not-upbeat demeanour was almost alien, and Andre, who was looking at his friend - crush, more like - with worry lines marring his forehead.

"You okay?" Andre asked, concerned.

Tori shrugged. "Yeah, just surprised is all. We broke up like a year ago it's fine. I'm fine."

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks." Jade grinned gleefully.

Tori glared at her. If Jade was going to make fun of her, she could at least do it in regular English rather than whatever stupid old fashioned line that was that she'd made up.

Andre simply rolled his eyes. "It's okay to feel a bit weird about it, you know. You guys dated, there were feelings there. Even if it's been a while, it must still be weird to see him with another girl."

"I guess." Tori sighed. "But I don't still like him."

"Ugh, you guys are boring." Jade complained, walking off to her locker. She didn't need to hear about Tori's pathetic problems. Of course the most serious thing troubling her was a boy for once liking someone other than her.

With a few minutes left until the next period, she thought she might as well get through a couple more of the maths questions that were due in later that day. If she got to over halfway, she thought that Mrs Delaney might let her off. 11 out of 20 wasn't too bad, she decided, especially if they were all correct. And they would be. It was Jade, after all.

She had her locker cracked open, her hand halfway to the relevant book when she heard the noise. Hollywood Arts, the creative haven that it was, was rarely quiet. More often than not, there were Shakespeare recitals, marching bands, poetry discussions, or even brekdancing troupes finding space in the soundtrack of the school, but it was rare that, offstage, Jade would hear the sounds of crying.

There was a store cupboard by her locker, not Jade's favourite, of course - that would be the Janitor's closet by the vending machine - but a potential hiding place nonetheless. Jade was confident that it was here where she would find the culprit of the sniffling, and therefore she was thoroughly unsurprised to come across the trembling form of Robbie Shapiro, curled up into a ball at the far side of the closet.

At the sight of an intruder into his private mourning space, Robbie immediately scrambled to his feet.

"Jade - I, uh, what are yku doing here?" He asked, hastily wiping away the tears which streaked beneath his glasses.

Jade raised an eyebrow. "I could ask you the same thing, Shapiro. Why are you crying?"

"I'm not - I wasn't - I'll be late to class-" Robbie stumbled, attempting to push past Jade into the freedom of the Hollywood Arts corridor. A futile attempt to begin with, Jade unsurprisingly stopped him with a simple hand to the shoulder.

"Not so fast, Shapiro. What's going on? Tell me."

"Nothing, Jade!"

"Nothing's got you sobbing in a closet? Tell me."

At this, Robbie broke, tears welling up upon his waterlines once again.

"No, I-" He whimpered. "I don't want to cry here. I'm not going to cry in front of other people, not at high school."

Jade had to stop herself from rolling her eyes, thinking that the number of times she'd seen the boy cry must now be in double digits.

She tried not to think about the one and only time she'd cried at school. When she'd locked herself in a cubicle with a piece of plastic barely readable in her trembling hand, willing herself to sob silently so that her own cries wouldn't betray the secrecy that allowed her to just about control the situation. It was a moment of weakness, and she was determined to keep it to a one-time thing. Even Cat had never seen her cry.

And that's when the obvious came to her.

"If Cat's happy then surely that's a good thing, Rob?" She commented, feeling as though she'd cracked a case. "Anyway, there's no use getting upset over something that's not even going to last."

"What?"

"What?"

"I - that's not what I'm upset about, I swear, but what do you mean it won't last."

"Ugh, it's just a saying Robbie." Jade countered smoothly. "Anyway, if that's not it, then what is the big issue?"

"I - er-"

"There's point avoiding it Robbie, we both know I'm gonna get it out of you."

Robbie sighed. Jade was right - her skills of persuasion were, ahem, unique, but also effective. There was no point dragging this out.

"I can't find Rex." Robbie whimpered.

Jade almost had to physically restrain her eyebrows to stop them from raising.

"He's usually always with me but I can't find him and I don't know where he is and I don't know what to do without him-"

"Hey, hey, chill. We'll find him." Jade assured her spiralling kind-of-friend. "Is he in your locker, maybe?"

"No." Robbie replied, looking up at Jade as though she'd suggested that he look on the moon. "I wouldn't do that to him." He added, the tears beginning again.

Jade sighed. Helping a peculiar boy find his own version of an imaginary friend was not on her to do list for the day. "Well, where'd you see him last?"

"I went to see Sikowitz this morning. That's the last time I remember seeing him." Robbie sniffled.

"Well, we've got Sikowitz third period, right? You can look for him then." Jade suggested.

Robbie looked up as if to retort, before presumably realising that that wasn't actually a terrible idea. "Okay, thanks Jade." He said, wiping his nose on his sleeve.

"Yeah, sure." Jade replied, wincing at the slime that now coated Robbie's jumper. "Now go to the bathroom, you look like a dweeb." She added.

Ah, much more like her old self.

Robbie didn't know whether to smile or shrink as the scary girl walked off with purpose, but, obediently, he did immediately turn in the direction of the boys' toilets.

It was probably best if he didn't look like a dweeb the next time he saw Rex.

As meals went, Jade had sat through some uncomfortable ones. When you don't like everyone you live with sans a mute baby, it can be difficult to find amiable dinner-mates.

That being said, she wasn't sure levels of awkwardness at school lunches had ever reached their current level. At present, Cat was feeding Danny M and M-spotted brownies, whilst he rubbed up against her like a Cat. With no buffer in between, Tori sat silently seething at the sight, fuming presumably at more than the fact that Danny all of a sudden seemed to enjoy brownies.

If only Beck was there. Just his presence often eased tensions. Or at least she would have someone with whom to laugh about this later on. Instead, however, he was sunning himself under studio lights as part of Little Lake High - a ridiculously stupid name if she was allowed her two cents - probably with a few girls draped over him.

No, she wasn't supposed to be thinking like that.

Although he probably was.

"Well this is fucking awkward." Jade announced, tired of the lack of movement at the table outside of the radiowaves of Tori's jealousy. It didn't help that she didn't even have any food to distract her, and Cat had been so preoccupied with flirting with Danny that she hadn't offered any of her brownies to the rest of the table.

Jade's stomach ached with emptiness.

"I'm going to-" She began, throwing her bag over her shoulder. "Actually, you don't need to know." She finished, mysteriously, although she was in fact just heading to the Black Box to study. But people didn't need to know what she was doing, even her 'friends'. It didn't hurt to move a little silently sometimes; it made her feel less claustrophobic.

She wasn't sure what was more miserable - the fact that she was spending her lunch break revising, or the fact that she didn't find it a particularly miserable pasttime. It wasn't as if she was missing anything, or as though anyone was missing her. She barely even noticed the 45 minutes pass.

The bell, naturally was all the reminder she needed. That she had run out of free time, and once again, she was on catch-up mode. Hauling herself off the floor, Jade pulled her belongings into a bag that really needed replacing - join the queue - and readied herself for the slow descent into boredom that was math.

However, it was at that moment that Robbie Shapiro decided to make her privy to his second (public) breakdown of the day, bursting through the doors of the Black Box and throwing himself in numerous directions, wailing like a crazed banshee - whatever one of those was.

"Something bothering you, Rob?" Jade asked sarcastically.

"Yes." Robbie replied with force. "Yes, something is bothering me. Rex is still missing. Do you know how significantly the chances of finding a missing person decrease after 24 hours?"

"Well I wouldn't actually call him a person but-"

"51% Jade! That means if I don't find Rex today then I am 51% less likely to find him tomorrow, and even less the day after that and the day after that and-"

Jade let Robbie talk himself in circles, practicing commendable self-restraint in stopping herself from reminding him that she had a higher grade in math than he did and therefore obviously understood how percentages worked.

"Will you help me, please?" Robbie said, suddenly grabbing at Jade's wrists, which she immediately pulled away from.

"Absolutely not. I have class."

"Jade I never beg-"

Yes he did. All the time.

"-but this is so important to me. I have to find Rex - I just have to. If I don't, I don't know what-"

Robbie's words were drowned out by the incoming flood of tears. He immediately threw his hands to his face, as if to stop Jade from seeing which was already incredibly obvious.

Jade sighed. She wasn't the most empathetic person, she could admit that, and there were few people who she cared for enough to worry about. Robbie Shapiro, particularly since the whole Robarazzi debacle, was not one of those people. Motherhood hadn't softened her up that much. Therefore, the up-down motion of Robbie's shoulders was not the guilt-tripping sight that it would have been for most people.

Neverthless, if Robbie was asking her for help then he really was desperate. Perhaps this kind of thing was what she needed to do, to be a better, more loveable person. Someone whom people wanted in their lives. Pushing thoughts of her proximity to parents-called-to-answer-for-student-truancy territory to the back of her mind, she threw her head back and decided that she would do a good deed.

"Fine. Fine, I'll look for your stupid puppet." She couldn't be too nice, what with her reputation to keep up and everything.

"You will." Robbie said, ripping his hands away from his streaming eyes. "Oh thank you. Thank you, thank you-"

"Yeah, don't touch me." Jade replied, as Robbie tried to pull her in for a hug.

"Okay, sorry, I won't." Robbie said, taking a deep breath and righting himself. "Whew, okay, let's do this. Oh, also, Rex doesn't like being called a puppet, just so you know."

Jade shot him a glare that firmly instructed him not to push his luck. Robbie obediently went silent.

Rather aimlessly, the pair began to walk into the main Hollywood Arts corridor. Robbie seemingly didn't have a plan, and like hell was Jade going to waste her minimal energy trying to think of places to look.

Someone who was notably less lethargic was Tori Vega, who slammed her locker door with uncharacteristic anger before stalking off in the opposite direction to Jade and Robbie. Jade smirked, watching her go, making no attempt to dissimulate her enjoyment of Tori's recent ruffling.

"She's been in a state since Danny arrived with Cat. Not so mellow now, are we Tori?"

Robbie mulled this over for a moment. "She's just having a hard time. It's hard to see someone you have a lot of feeings for with someone else."

Jade found that she only had time to sort one of Robbie's problems today, so refrained from diving deeper into that statement.

"It's making Cat upset though. She could at least be kind enough to pretend that Cat's happiness isn't a problem for her."

Robbie simply shrugged in response, and Jade regrettably let the conversation drop, realising that it was perhaps harder than she'd presumed to get any negative thoughts about Tori from her friends.

"We could look in the band room?" Jade suggested, as the pair perused the many doors linking the Hollywood Arts corridor. Either way they had to get out of the corridor before someone called 911 or the guidance counsellor, a soft-spoken, lotion-carrying former choreographer named Lane. So, she would either get arrested on suspicion of being the next Eric Harris, which would delight David's wizened old aunt who'd warned her nephew of the 'path' that Jade was on, or she'd get shot in the eye with chamomile handcream. Strangely, she mused that she'd probably prefer the first.

"Good idea." Robbie replied, striding purposefully towards the room as Jade, refusing to follow anyone else's pace, trailed behind.

After half an hour spent with her hands doen slobbery tubas and checking the inside of bass drums, Jade decided that 'puppet in a band room' was a far more entertaining upgrade on 'needle in a haystack' and resolved to use it in the future.

Robbie, however, was not so inspired and, after a search in a box of triangles proved fruitless, lay on the floor, head in hands, and began to weep.

Jade wasn't quite sure what to do. She was used to crying these days, obviously, but it's not like she could rock Robbie, or offer him her boobs. Well, if it wasn't the most repugnant thing she'd ever thought of, that last option might have actually worked.

"Hey, Rob." Jade said, as softly as her tone would allow. "Maybe this could be a good thing? You've lived practically all your life with Rex, and you're seventeen now. Maybe some independence could do you some good, be the making of you, y'know?"

Robbie's head shot up, his tear-streaked face etched into a scowl. "It could be the making of me? Would you say the same if it was Toby who was lost?"

Jade frowned, unimpressed. "Well obviously not, given that he's a human child and Rex is a puppet."

"He doesn't like being called that!"

"Well whatever he is, he's not a baby, is he?"

"No, obviously not. Can babies talk?"

"Yes."

"No they can't."

"Yes they can. On average, babies say their first word before they've turned one."

"So yeah, most babies can't talk!"

"That's not what you said!"

"Yes it is! And it doesn't matter what I said - my point is that Rex can do more than babies!"

"So? My car can do more than babies - it doesn't mean it's more important."

"Rex is important!"

"To you!"

"Well Toby's important - to you!"

"Are you comparing my baby to your fucking puppet?" Jade spat, steam almost coming out of her nostrils.

"He doesn't like being called a puppet!" Robbie cried in response, and Jade had had enough.

"Well I'll apologise then when you find him. On your own, because I'm fucking done." She turned on her heel, and stormed off, presumably in the direction of the class that she was currently truanting.

Realising that it was history, which they shared, Robbie only hoped that she wouldn't reveal hid whereabouts to the teacher when she returned. With that additional worry in his mind, he turned around and began to re-check through the box of triangles.