Hello!
This is my new fic which will have nine chapters – some will probably be really short. This might turn out to be one of the longest chapters of the fic. Because everything will be so short, I should be able to update once to twice a week.
Well, what to say? This is not like the other things I write, generally. So not just Bade fluff or whatever. Aaaand I kind of erased Jade's father for this. I just couldn't figure out how to use him for this and I have her mother instead and... yeah... (I also didn't give her a brother like I usually do – and whom she also canoncally has.) I hope everything else is good enough, that it's still fine. :)
Now I wish you fun with the first chapter!

It's just another day at Hollywood Arts.

Tori almost has had a nervous break-down before first class when they have asked her about how the production of her big music video is coming along. Andre isn't able to find good lyrics to his new song and has pressured himself so much about it, that he can barely form a coherent sentence whenever you even get close to the topic today. They caught Cat ordering something from SkyStore during second break, though she has promised one and a half years ago to never do that again, after she was so addicted to it. And Robbie is in a text fight with Rex, who stays home more and more, and just keeps rambling angrily about it all day long.

Beck enjoys the craziness of his friends sometimes, but he's still happy that Jade has promised him to vanish somewhere together for lunch. That's something he's always more than willing to do.

But first, it's another class, though they at least are spending that together.

He looks over to her locker as he walks to his own. They always go to that class together.

She isn't there yet, but he wants to get the stuff from his last class out of his bag first anyway.

He starts with just that, when Josephine steps up to him. They share several classes and talk every now and then. Now, she greets him smiling: "Hey, Beck."

"Hey," he answers.

"Can you help me with something?" Josephine carefully asks.

"Sure," he says because why not? He's always ready to help out if he can.

"You know that homework in our history class," Josephine starts and he makes a short noise to show that he knows. "There is this one question that I didn't fully get."

She pulls her paper out of the bag and steps right next to him, comes close, so they can look at the paper together. She shows him the question she doesn't understand and he explains it to her, but also tries to take a step back again because she is standing too close. The locker is right next to him though. And he can't really push her away, can he? He'll just quickly finish explaining and then she will be on her way anyway, won't she be?

Though now, she turns to him, still standing so close, putting her hand on his arm as she thanks him. He smiles back at her as he tells her she's welcome, and he already knows Jade wouldn't like this. She probably wouldn't even approve of him telling Josephine that he can indeed help her. Which he doesn't understand but he does get if this is going too far for her. He also never likes it if any guy thinks he can get too close to Jade – luckily, she easily pushes every guy except him away. He somehow isn't able to do that with the girls approaching him, he never knows where to draw the line.

He wants to leave the situation now, as he's done helping Josephine anyway, so he can easily step forward and walk over to Jade's locker, so the other girl won't be right next to him anymore, when Jade suddenly has arrived in the hallway and sees them.

"Get away from him," she immediately and very clearly says and Josephine does take two steps away now with a scared face.

"I'm sorry," she quickly says and Jade glares at her as she says in a threatening tone: "Don't touch him again. Or talk to him at all."

"You know, he can make his own decisions," Josephine softly says.

Beck is ready to stop Jade if she jumps on Josephine. Depending on her mood, she can escalate quite easily.

But she doesn't attack and instead just spits out: "Leave, or I will seriously hurt you."

Josephine has apparently no trouble believing that and hurries away. Jade glares around and Beck just now catches that a few people in the hallway have watched them and now quickly look away.

Only then, Jade looks back to Beck and says: "You suck."

And promptly, she walks further to her locker.

Beck takes a deep breath, before he follows her and defends himself: "Come on. There was nothing going on."

"You don't even believe that yourself," she darkly says.

"Okay, we possibly stood too close. But it wasn't my fault." It wasn't like he wanted her to be so close to him, like he encouraged her or anything.

Jade glares at him and says sarcastically: "And you totally couldn't have told her to leave you alone."

"She asked me for help with her history homework," Beck reasons. "Should I have said no?"

"Yes," Jade spits out and shuts her locker before she walks away, to their next class.

Beck hurries to walk beside her, reminding her: "We've been over this again and again." That he is a person to help out, that he won't stop talking to other girls just because they are together. That not every girl approaches him to flirt with him, but there are some who just want to make small talk or something – like Tori and Cat do.

"Yeah, and you don't get that all of them want you to themselves," Jade says though and she claims that so often, has done so for years, since they are a couple.

"Even if that was so," Beck answers like he has done so many times before. "There still never happened anything and it never will. You know you can trust me."

He does believe strongly that she trusts him. She knows he wouldn't cheat on her. She does believe that he flirts around, that he likes the attention of the other girls. And she still hates if another girl thinks she can get anywhere with him, despite him being together with Jade.

"You could still tell them that, so they get that you aren't available," Jade tells him as they sit down in their next class.

And everybody in this school knows he isn't available. But he doesn't want to fight right now and he knows that sometimes he should draw a line sooner. Maybe, he should've told Josephine himself to take a step away, instead of just accepting it. It had felt too close.

"I know. I'm sorry," he therefore says and leans over to her. "I love you."

She may make an "ugh", but she does return the kiss.

.

.

Robbie is at his locker the next morning, making sure he has everything in his bag for the day. Rex usually helps him with that, but as he has decided to stay home again...

"How is Joe?" he suddenly hears next to him. Erica has walked up to Hannah, who's at her locker next to Robbie's and looks distraught, as Robbie now notices, glancing to her.

"I think she's still shaken," Hannah softly answers.

"I can't believe she got attacked. And not even mugged?" Erica says, unsure.

"Yeah," Hannah slowly says. "Someone apparently just wanted to do something bad to her."

And Robbie has to ask: "What happened?"

He gathers they have to talk about Hannah's best friend Josephine. Robbie likes her. They share a few classes. The conversation he has overheard, unsettles him. And normally, Rex would have asked the girls, but he isn't here and he does want to know what's up.

Hannah usually doesn't talk to him, has always been annoyed by Rex, but this must have really shaken her and she answers: "Josephine went on her usual run yesterday and apparently, someone just jumped her and crushed her hand. She wasn't able to see, who it was though, because it was dark and it went over so quickly."

"Spooky," Erica says, holding her own body. "After her parents told me when I asked why I couldn't reach her though we had to talk about a project, I even was afraid for my mom, who still had to go out. I nearly didn't sleep that night. There are a lot of idiots out there."

.

.

Robbie hears a few other girls, who have also heard by now, ask Hannah about Josephine right before he goes to lunch, so naturally, it's fresh on his mind when he sits down with his friends.

Andre first has to tell them that he's on the verge of finding the lyrics for his song though. When Tori asks him if he already has a line, he instantly tells her to be quiet and that he doesn't want to talk about it, which isweird as he has started the conversation.

But that allows Robbie to now asks his friends: "Have you heard about Josephine?"

"I have," Cat says, immediately pulling a sad face.

Beck and Andre meanwhile look at him questioningly, while Jade keeps picking at her food bored.

Tori asks, worried: "What about her? She isn't in school today, is she?"

Robbie tells: "She was assaulted yesterday when she went on her run."

"That's horrifying," Tori immediately says, looking at him in shock, as does Andre.

Cat now softly says: "They bruised her hand, almost breaking it. They just pushed her to the ground and stepped on it and then left her there."

Robbie hasn't heard that. He hasn't known how exactly Josephine has been hurt. But he knows: "She wasn't even able to see her attacker."

Tori shudders. It's Jade, who dryly says: "Well, she always runs in the dark."

"What?" Tori asks confused. Robbie also doesn't know how that statement came to be.

Jade explains, bored: "Naturally, she wasn't able to see her attacker. And honestly... Not that I think that a victim is at fault, but if you run at night every single day, you should be able to protect yourself."

Well... Josephine does go running every night. Everyone knows that. She is someone extremely athletic, does a lot of sports.

And that's where Robbie stops at: "She's good at sports though and should be able to defend herself. It probably just went too fast."

Tori's mind meanwhile stopped somewhere else: "She does go running every night, the exact same route. Everybody knows that, right? You don't think someone attacked her specifically?"

Andre answers: "There are a lot of idiots out there, but attacking someone and like... crushing their hand and apparently doing nothing else? That sounds like a specific attack."

.

.

They talk about other stuff again after that, but somehow, it's back on Tori's mind when she goes back into school. It's not like she hasn't heard about much worse attacks before – her father is a member of the police force after all.

But she has just seen Josephine yesterday, they are in the same year, in a lot of the same classes and that attack just sounds so random. She somehow has a bad feeling about it.

She's still in thought about that, getting herself a drink from one of the machines before the next class, when she catches Sonia and Romy talking close-by, almost whispering.

"Do you think the rumors are true?" Romy just now asks.

"About Jade having done it?" Sonia makes sure.

Tori sees Romy nodding and she has to interrupt: "What are you talking about?"

Sonia and Romy startle as they see her. Sonia's answer comes unsurely: "Oh, uhm... I don't know if we should tell you. You are friends with Jade."

"You can definitely tell me," Tori assures them.

Sonia and Romy share an uncertain glance, before Sonia says though: "Well... Have you heard about Josephine?"

The bad feeling inside of Tori from before worsens. She has somehow known this would be about Josephine, maybe because she has just thought about it anyway. But how should Jade be involved?

"Sure," she just say, waits for answers to come.

Sonia is the one to say it: "You know... There are people saying that Jade did it."

Tori looks around the hallway with all their classmates standing and wandering around. Who says so? But more importantly: "Why should she have?"

Romy explains: "Josephine has been pretty close to Beck yesterday. She hasn't really flirted or anything but... we all know how Jade reacts to that."

"But she has never done anything to anyone," Tori immediately defends her friend.

"Well, she has," Romy says though. "She has jumped different girls, when they have flirted with Beck. And maybe, she told herself that enough is enough."

Sonia adds: "Hannah says that Josephine told her, when they talked on the phone during first break, that someone stepped on her hand with a boot. Jade wore hers yesterday, didn't she? And it apparently is Josephine's left hand. I have seen them together myself yesterday and... she did touch Beck with exactly that hand."

Tori has a dreading feeling. "That's nonsense," she says anyway. "Jade wouldn't do something like that." Because she never would and just can't have done it.

.

.

Yet, at the end of the school day, not even 24 hours after the attack, everyone in school seems to have heard that rumor and some also seem to believe it.