Bury the Past

Disclaimer: Don't own Victorious

A/N: At the root of this story is a murder mystery. A murder for the reader to try and solve alongside our protagonist. This is an actor-connect, however you do not need to know much about Daniella Monet's "When Duty Calls" film to understand this. Everything you need to understand this story will be explained in the chapters. Trina is a cop, or more accurately a detective working as a go-between for the department and the sheriff support team for a retirement community.

Chapter 1 (Crumbling Worlds)

Trina walked through her living room, donning the brown sheriff's uniform and badge. Her hair was pulled into a bun, her shoulders were tense and firm, and she wore exhaustion as a mask. In the living room was a man with a brown goatee and eyes that seemed to be much older than he was. "When are you going to tell him?" The man asked calmly. "Martin. Haven't you gotten tired of being called 'Ellie' yet?"

"No." Ellie was her middle name. Sure, it was odd for someone changing their name to use their middle rather than an entirely new one, but she'd grown accustomed to it. "That life's done, Dad."

"I'm not your dad, you know." The man huffed and opened up his newspaper. "Really." He was her godfather. Gary, and his wife, Carol. They watched her grow from childhood, and helped her in many ways. Including playing her parents when Martin began asking questions about his fiancé's past. "You never know what might come out of the woodwork, Trina."

"I've moved on from that life. I'm done. With all of them." She started unbuttoning her uniform, frowning as she peered down the brown shirt and brown slacks. "I'm no longer Trina Vega. I'm now Mrs. Ellie Skopic, and we're a long way from Los Angeles."

"Yeah." Gary chuckled softly and shook his head. "Where I was a detective for twenty-five years." The man folded his paper and leaned back in the chair. "You know he asks about you from time to time. Your dad. Wondering where you are, or if you're okay." Gary leaned forward, pushing his hands over his knees. "I never know what to tell him."

Her heart sank for a brief moment, and a flutter of sorrow struck her heart. As she recalled David's usual harsh words to her, she tensed back up and straightened her posture. "He never wanted me around. He should be happy."

"Come on. Underneath it all, he's still your father, and he needs his daughter."

She didn't want to say she didn't care, but she did. She was estranged from her family and had a completely new life where she was finally happy. "There's no joy in the past." She didn't on changing her name, or even having Gary and Carol pretend to be her real parents, but that was the way things played out.

After she cut ties with her family, Tori would stalk her. Her little sister would accuse her of turning her back on family, calling her all sorts of names and harassing her by telling her everything that she and her friends talked about her were true. It got to the point Trina had to almost entirely change her identity so Tori wouldn't find her.

Then when she started dating Martin, he was gung ho about discovering everything there was about her. He would ask all sorts of questions she never wanted to answer, and so, she found it far simpler to just say Gary and Carol were her parents and leave it at that.

"I never intended for a lie to get out of hand, or for them to get big. I just figured I'd leave the past where it deserves to be, dead and buried."

"You should know it can catch up to you pretty quickly if you're not careful."

She let out a small breath of air and started making her way to her bedroom. She was far too exhausted to think or discuss the matter and didn't care to try. As far as anyone was concerned, her old life was done and her new life was well on its way to starting.

Throwing her uniform on the bed, Trina started to adjust her bra and looked at the mirror, frowning at the person looking back at her. Long brown hair had pulled away from her bun and was falling alongside her cheek, covering a part of her left eye.

She lowered her arms, letting her heart beat faster as the memory of her final day in LA played in her head. There was nothing special about the day Trina decided to leave. Tori and her friends were over as they always were, playing poker. David was in his study and Holly was busy baking a cake for Tori's graduation party.

"Where do you think you're going?"Tori asked as Trina walked to the front door, her suitcases in hand. She had two large rolling luggage carts and two large duffel bags attached to them. Inside were clothes, makeup, and a few other essential items. She knew she didn't need much, and had sold a lot of what she wasn't going to need.

"You care?" Trina pulled her hair back with a scoff and tilted her head. She was in a long red and black patterned dress. "I told you already, I'm leaving." Tori folded her cards and laughed.

"Really? You were serious about that? I thought you were just being a drama queen again, looking for attention." Hurt by the words, Trina tensed her muscles and squeezed the handles of her luggage tight. "Okay. You'll be back anyway, right? I mean, this is just for attention, isn't it?" Tori seemed genuinely worried, but at the same time, had a mocking tone.

"No Tori. I'm gone this time." No one in her family believed her. "All the 'jokes' from Dad about how I should leave far away, all the ignorance from mom, and the bullying from you and your family…I can't do it anymore. I'm done. I'm gone. You should be happy, if nothing else."

Sure, Tori would be the star child she always was, but more so. "What do you hope to get from this?" Jade asked while twisting around in her chair and hanging her arm over the top. A smug smirk stretched across the girl's face and her eyes started to narrow. "You want your daddy to beg you to stay? Maybe your mommy can call you later and tell you how much she misses you."

"No. t Trina rolled her eyes and turned away, not caring for more abuse from them. The plans were already made. Gary and his wife were moving back to a small town in northern California, and Trina was to leave with them. David didn't know, nor did anybody else, and she preferred to keep it that way. "I wouldn't come back if they tried to talk me out of it, anyway. You've all pushed me away, so I'm cutting you off."

Tori frowned in an instant and rose up from the table, but before she could speak, Trina was out the door. It didn't take long for the girl to hunt her down on social media and begin to accuse her of betraying her family or being a drama queen.

It wasn't long after changing her name and entering the police academy she met Martin Skopic, a history teacher with a master's degree. They had a whirlwind romance for almost a year before deciding it was time to marry.

She chose not to tell him about the family she had cut off, opting to keep them a distant memory and to shut out years of pain and the hurt they had caused her. Even now, as she tried to find something positive about that life, she could think of very little.

In the reflection on the mirror, the bedroom door slid open and a thin framed man with short brown hair parted on the side stepped in. He had a friendly and caring expression and eyes that travelled immediately to her. "Ellie, I didn't know your dad was visiting."

"He wanted to see our new apartment." She turned around and smiled tenderly as her husband approached her. Trina threw her arms around his neck and kissed his lips gently. "How was your first day working as a sub, Martin?" Martin grinned back and raised his eyebrows.

"Relieving, actually, to get back into teaching." She was proud of him, thrilled that he was able to get back into the career he adored. Martin kissed her once more and hugged her waist. "So we've both gotten back where we should be. Sky's the limit?"

Her hands lowered into his and she swayed her arms, gazing into his eyes with a serene glow. "Yeah. For better and for worse." They'd gotten through the worse already, as they'd joke, dealing with both their careers falling through the cracks. It was a long time coming, but volunteering for the Sheriff Support Team finally led to her getting put on as a Deputy.

Martin wound up having to get a job as an auto mechanic for a bit until he got a call from a principal to be a substitute teacher. Hearing the principal's name at first felt like an omen to her 'Principal Beck'. She actually had gone to the school just to see the principal herself, but he was a middle aged bald man in a suit. Simply a coincidence.

Trina walked Martin towards their new queen sized bed, grinning from ear to ear. "Remember what I said about adding a new addition to the family?" His eyebrows lifted once more as she pushed her hand up along his arm.

She leaned her back onto the bed and Martin fell alongside her. His hand caressed her and he looked down her body as though examining it. "I love you, Ellie."

"I love you." She closed her eyes and rolled her head back, breathing in deep. "No matter what Martin, I love you." She hummed as he began to kiss her shoulders and neck.

This was the man she couldn't live without, the man she needed in her life. A sweet, kind and caring person who could treat her with love and respect. She knew Gary was right, that she should be honest about her past, but the person she had been was damaged. Too damaged for someone like this to love and appreciate.

It wasn't so much a new identity she strove for as it was a new life, and here she could make that life without anyone or anything holding her back. She had the support of Gary, Carol, her husband, and the people at the police department. No more did she have anyone taunting her, sassing her, tearing her apart and discouraging her over everything she did and said. The bullies in her world now were the criminals she hunted down, not her own family or friends of the family.

The lines were no longer blurred, and as the song goes, the rain was gone and she saw clearly now. Absolutely nothing could get in her way; and with her loving husband, she felt they could make it through any obstacle.

Miles away in Los Angeles, twenty-eight year old Tori Vega sat in her old family home with Jade West and Andre Harris. She was visiting their mom and the two asked to join her. Her parents divorced shortly after Trina left, which angered her to the point she ended up stalking her sister, blaming her for everything.

She knew it was wrong to do so, and all these years later, regretted it. "Where do you think she is now, anyway?" Jade picked up a cup from the coffee table and raised it to her lips.

They'd been talking about Trina for a while now, since it was the anniversary of the day she took off ten years ago. She felt like shit and needed her friends there. Of course, Robbie and Cat weren't around anymore. They married and took off after finishing college several years ago. She invited Beck over, but Jade said the man had a headache and was nursing it at his place.

"I don't know if I care to know anymore." Tori shook her head somberly and closed her eyes. Her heart was breaking the more she thought about Trina, so much that she couldn't let go of it.

Jade reached for her, placing a tender hand over hers. "I know it hurts you Tori, but you have to find a way to move on. Find a way to live."

"I can't." Her guilt was like a bull that she couldn't grasp and beat, and it had been eating away at her for what felt like an eternity. "I blame myself Jade. I mean, if I hadn't pushed her away…if I didn't attack her after she left, maybe she would have come back."

"Can't focus on what-ifs," Andre replied, "The more you focus on what you can't change, the more you can't move forward into the future."

"I could have stopped her. I could have said something." She buried her face into her hands and moaned while sliding her fingers down her face. "Then Dad left. I was just angry. I felt like it was all Trina's fault he took off." She knew it wasn't though, there was no love she could see left between Holly and David. He kept to himself, she did her own thing, and the two daughters grew up neglected and left alone by both parents. "I mean couldn't she see the whole world was crumbling?"

"I think it already crumbled for her." Andre crossed his arms as the girls looked up at her. "Think about it. All her life she'd been victimized by someone. Whether it was us bullying her, her father neglecting her or-" He stopped, squinting his eyes and shaking his head. "That girl desperately needed what you had. I see that now, all these years later. She needed friends and a family to support her, but she didn't have that. There was so much negativity that she left you guys behind."

Tori breathed in deep and felt her tears running down her face. "I hope she's found some stability now. Wherever she's at." They all had their demons and share of troubles, and they each had their own secrets.

Secrets that, if ever got out, could cause a good deal of chaos in Tori's mind.

"There was something Trina had gone through when she was a kid, something terrible that should never have happened…" Tori raised her head and let her shoulders fall. Jade and Andre furrowed their brows. "Dad couldn't stop it. He was powerless to, and I think maybe a lot of his negligence was guilt. I don't know. She never had friends to help her through anything, never had support from family, and I think I just made things worse when she was a teenager."

"What happened to her?"

"Her life was full of tragedies and trauma." Tori rolled her head to the side, craning her neck. She ran her hand along the bend of her neck and she let out a long sigh. "You remember our dad's old friend, Gary Lawton?"

Andre nodded, asking if he was having an affair with Holly like they all thought. Tori shook her head. It was a lie she planted just to make a good story they could talk about, and she regretted it when Trina found out what she was saying. Trina shouted at her for making up such a thing, saying it was a ploy for attention and unfair to Gary.

"Gary and his wife, Carol, were our godparents. You know, the people Dad said wanted raising us if something ever happened to him and to mom." Jade and Andre nodded and Tori reached for her cup on the coffee table. "Well he pretty much raised Trina, which made Dad a bit jealous. Whatever Trina went through, he was the one there to try and help her."

"Well that's good."

"Yeah…I thought about maybe Trina left with him and his wife when they moved, but I never could confirm that." Regardless, they hadn't heard from Gary and Carol in the ten years that passed either.

Trina had a rough childhood, surviving falls and accidents. Most of which she'd gotten herself into with her love of exploration, but each incident she either had to pick herself up or go to Gary and Carol for emotional support.

She was often laughed at and given labels such as 'accident prone'. Trina managed to get better at avoiding these tough scrapes as she got older, because she got tougher and delved into things like martial arts.

There was an incident that occurred when Trina was twelve, when visiting her grandparents with her father. What happened would turn the world upside down for her, for David, and for the entire family. Leading to the perhaps inevitable divorce later on, or even Trina's leaving.

"I should have been more supportive," Tori explained. She took a drink and exhaled. "I…When I was ten, something happened that I didn't understand. Something changed. In Dad, in Trina, and I couldn't figure out what." She set her cup back down and tensed her brow. "I acted out, trying to get their attention. I felt like Dad didn't love us anymore-he couldn't even look at Trina, who was once his favorite."

"So you set off to make him proud of you or something?"

"Yeah. All through Hollywood Arts, everything I did was to get my parents to accept me." She leaned to the side, sweeping her hair from her eyes. "Of course I made friends." Andre and Jade smiled. "Friends I wanted the approval of no matter what. You guys didn't like Trina because she acted weird, so you picked on her. I let it happen, even sometimes leading the bullying just so I could have something to connect to you guys." Their frowns vanished and they glanced to the ground.

"You should never have had to feel that way," Andre remarked, "Ever."

"Yet I did."

Just then a noise from outside distracted them; it sounded like someone tapping on glass. "You guys hear that?" Jade rose from her chair and looked to the door. The sound was brief and faint, so Tori didn't think much of it.

"Probably just the tree hitting our window. It does that from time to time."

The tapping came again, louder and faster. "There it is again." Jade squinted and started to approach the window. Tori fell silent, exchanging a curious look with Andre as the tapping filled the air.

It was beginning to sound more like a lure than anything else, causing a nervous swelling in Tori's gut. She turned her head just as Jade started to place her hand onto the window. "Jade, get back from there."

In a matter of seconds, it was over. The window shattered with such force, splintering and cutting into Jade's hand, her head and face. Tori's eyes widened and Andre sprang from his chair.

Jade screamed in anguish, turning to run just as a shot rang out. The girl's body flinched and collapsed to the ground, her head striking the force like a basketball being dribbled.

A black gloved hand gripped the windowsill, and a man in a dark jumpsuit and ski mask flung himself into the room. Both his hands had brass knuckle bulges underneath the gloves.

Tori had little time to react in her horror, and started to run for Jade, praying the girl was okay. Andre ran for the man, ready to take a defensive swing. The man aimed his gun carefully and fired a single shot into Andre's forehead.

Seeing her friend hit the ground, Tori started to scream. Her screaming turned to wailing when she noticed the fresh blood pumping from Andre's forehead. "Andre! No!" She tried to grab for him, to shake him as if he was only asleep, but was quickly scooped up by the invader.

He said very little, and try as she might to find any recognizable features, Tori found nothing.

Her body hit the floor like a sack of flour and the man leapt on top of her, straddling her waist with his knees. His gun dropped to the side and he raised his right fist. Tori put her arms up defensively, pleading with him not to hurt her, but her please fell onto deaf ears as he swung his fist down upon her.

Each swing he made was like a brick, pummeling her and tearing apart her insides. For a moment she thought her head was swelling. Blood was pouring from all ends of her throbbing face, and her tears seemed to have evaporated.

"Please stop," she begged through sobs. "Oh god please."

The man raised another fist, but from what little Tori could see with her blurred and blood-filled vision, he twisted away and was looking at something in the room.

"Leave my daughter alone," Holly screamed. Half-conscious, Tori tried to scream for her mother to run. Her throat was too sore and her voice was gone. All she could do was move her eyes.

When he got off her, she could feel relief at the weight leaving her. "M-Mom," she said with a cracked and raspy voice.

"I've called the police," Holly said. Just then three shots rang out, each shot was like a jolt to her heart. When she turned her eyes, she saw Holly standing in place with a look of terror and shock painted on her face.

She had her hands in front of her waist and was slowly turning her head down. Blood was slowly spreading over the woman's patterned shirt and her jeans. Tori could only watch helplessly as her mother collapsed to the floor, crumpling like wadded paper.

The man turned his gun onto Tori, growling as his thumb pulled back on the hammer.

Sirens rang off in the distance and the man through his head up, grunting in annoyance. Seeming not to care about her any longer, he took off through the back door and climbed over the fence.

Tori groaned softly, listening to the incoherent mumbling of Jade nearby, and feeling blood pooling all around her. Feeling too much pain, she let her mind drift to more pleasant memories.

As her sister appeared in her thoughts, she soon began to see herself on a playground with the girl, swinging across the monkey bars. "Come on Tori, you can do it," Trina said from the other side. The six-year old girl was hanging from the bars with her legs bent over them, and reaching her hand outwards to the four year old. "Come on!"

Tori whimpered as she peered across the seemingly mile-wide gap between them. There was nothing but darkness below, and redness in the sky above them. The monkey bars looked to be spaced several feet apart.

"Come on," the older sister said with a laugh, "I'm waiting. Come on. You can do this. I'm here. Just reach out to me." Tori blinked several times, watching as her older sister flickered and faded.

Anything they could do could be done together, but Trina wasn't there. Not anymore. Now only air remained where she was, with a disembodied childish laughter. The vision had grown twisted, with the abyss below and the swelling of the crimson sky. The metal bars were rusted and greyed, and now Tori was alone on a platform which hovered miles into the air, connected to another platform only by broken monkey bars.

"H-Help," cried the young child. Her plea echoed into the sky, falling into the abyss. "I'm alone up here." She curled herself into a ball, trembling as the platform she was on slowly rusted and crumpled. "Help me."

So at the end there I think it should be mentioned if it's not obvious, the memory there is Tori slipping into a comatose state. As said this event triggers Trina going back to LA, which opens up a huge past that will certainly cause some trouble between her and Martin. This is to be interactive as well, so I'll ask if you've spotted any clues or have any thoughts. Right now, seeing the scene of the crime I'll ask, who do you think the key target is? Were they all targeted, or was it just one person? I hope you'll enjoy this as it goes on and follow it, as well as try and solve it. Enjoy this story!