Author's Note: Hello my dear readers. I'm back with the sequel to iActually like Mean Girls. I hope you will enjoy this story as much as the other one. This story runs concurrently with the Victorious episodes after Locked Up (except for 'Helen Back Again' as I established in 'iActually Like Mean Girls' that episode had already taken place) in an obvious AU fashion with Freddie (with all the established happenstance of the previous story) being there as if he had become a regular cast member of the television show. The story may contain any possible events of future episodes of iCarly after the 'iSeddie Arc' that could be relevant. Oh, and somehow Trina is still at Hollywood Arts when she should have graduated. I'm just trying to make heads or tails about how the timeline works in Victorious and iCarly, but I believe mine is more consistent. Enjoy!

Jade Likes Nice Guys
By OneHorseShay
Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue. For God sakes, don't sue.
Rating: TVPG/T Language, Adult Themes, Possible Violence
Pairing(s): Established Jade/Freddie, other Victorious pairings explored.

Summary: Sequel to iActually Like Mean Girls. Freddie has made his move to L.A. and Hollywood Arts to start his long hard road towards a new life, but now he has to make his new life work along with balancing his new relationship with Jade when neither can say 'I love you' in the good way to use Freddie's words.

Chapter 1

Hollywood Arts High School
Los Angeles, CA
Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Freddie Benson let out a breath with his right hand hanging on to the cross strap of his blue book bag as he stepped through the entrance of Hollywood Arts and into the first day of his senior year at his new school… in a new city … in a new state… in a new life.

'No pressure at all Freddie', crossed his mind.

He glanced across the main hallway and stairwell to see several dozen students milling around and catching up with one another. Some of them were already in some costumes or interesting headwear. Others were playing various instruments and entertaining any student passing by them.

However, his presence wasn't overlooked for long as a few took notice that he was standing just inside the school. They started whispering to one another and calling attention to the others that hadn't noticed him. He quickly became the apparent topic for the students loitering in the hallway. A number of female students immediately started approaching him wearing smiles and their excitement at seeing him on their faces.

His hand tightened around the strap of his workhorse of a book bag as some form of comfort with what he was about to face either being swamped like he was at WebiCon from the girls or be inundated with questions about why he quite iCarly or why he moved to Los Angeles or if it was true that he was dating Jadelyn "Jade" West. The book bag was still something familiar and he was particularly glad at this moment he hadn't gotten rid of it for a new Hollywood Arts book bag. He felt he needed at least something old to anchor himself as he started this new chapter in his life (even if it had a patch of the Hollywood Arts' HA logo sewn on the back), but that was not the only source of comfort as his left hand swung loose by his side and he felt the gentle touch of another hand slide into his and fingers slip between his fingers.

He glanced to his left to see a very irritate looking Jade West. She had turned a harsh glare at the approaching females and daring any of them to cross her. None of them took her up on her offer as they stopped in their tracks. The pale teenager held her gaze on them as she apparently was determined to establish from the outset that Freddie belonged to her and he was off the market. They started backing away, unwilling to challenge one of the school's Alpha females. She could destroy any of them socially last year and they didn't doubt she could still do the same even if it was a new school year.

The guys who may have been curious to speak with him were also wary of approaching the web-celebrity, so they were willing to give the couple a wide berth.

Freddie let out a breath and looked to his dark haired girlfriend. Jade West dropped her harsh glare in an instant and gave him a playful smile that he knew she usually hid under her mean girl persona. "Still protecting me?" he asked with a hint of innocent mischievousness.

She snorted out a soft laugh. "Yes."

He shook his head and let a relieved smile cross his face.

They were about to turn the corner to head for Jade's locker when one bubbly redhead cut through the dispersing crowd with a bright smile on her face and waved at the couple. "Hey!"

Tori and André were right behind her, maybe not as outwardly expressive in their happiness, but still glad to see them if their more muted happy expressions were any indication. The songsmith gave a nod of his head and spoke, "What's up?"

"Hey," Freddie replied with a happy expression at seeing some of the group while Jade acknowledged them with a nod of her head and a slight smile. He let out a breath as continued, but kept his focus on the numerous students still in the hallway, some of which were still focusing their attention on him, "Nothing much. We just got here and Jade had to save me from getting swamped."

Jade smiled wickedly.

Tori nodded then spoke up with a sympathetic tone, "It can be a little overwhelming."

He let out a soft laugh, "That sums it up and it's only been less than five minutes."

"It was a little weird for me too when I got here. It certainly isn't a normal high school. I'm still getting use to it at times."

"That's not what I'm worried about. I've been through weird and still have plenty of more stories to tell you, it's just…" he trailed off watching some students watching them and perhaps trying to overhear their conversation.

Tori gave him a sympathetic expression.

"Everyone is going to want to know 'Why?'" he finished in a somewhat tired voice.

André spoke up hoping to reassure the former Seattleite, "It's not going to be a problem. It's all going to blow over and the novelty of you here will wear off in no time."

Freddie gave a soft laugh. "Fade into obscurity? That would be kind of ironic at a performing arts high school."

The songsmith shrugged a shoulder as he replied half jokingly, "Well… you know what I mean."

"Yeah, thanks."

"No problem," André replied casually.

"But… I don't think it'll be that simple." Freddie glanced towards Jade then back to the other three. "It's been a couple of weeks and it's kind of died down on the internet, but…" Freddie stopped for a moment as he saw a few already texting on their phones and the paranoid side of him thought the subject could be about him. The rest followed his gaze to some of the other students standing away from them texting away on their phones.

Tori motioned towards him with a hand as she suggested, "How about you make a video for your Slap page? Maybe included a little bit in your profile video? You don't have to tell them everything, but maybe just enough to satisfy a little of their curiosity?"

Freddie shrugged. "Maybe, but I'm not sure exactly what I could tell them without the entire truth. None of it lends itself to being editable to save any of us from embarrassment, assuming anyone would believe me and not just call me a liar."

Tori and André shared a knowing glance about the truthfulness of that statement while Cat shook her head and frowned with her sadness reaching her eyes. Jade had told them what had happened that Saturday night the following day and initially they didn't want to believe what had happened even if they saw some of the events that led up to the confrontation. Those doubts were easily swept away when they saw Freddie trying to hide some of his soreness during Sunday's lunch and the news that he was going to move in with Jade and her mother. The latter news was a shock to say the least for them with Beck being silent so far about the news when it finally reached him.

A beeping sound came from Freddie's pocket and he quickly reached inside to dig out his phone. Freddie glanced at the pear shaped device to check his alarm he set as to remind him not to be late for his first class. "Oh," he commented absently at seeing the time. He looked to Jade and whispered, "I have to get to science, so I'll see you in Sikowitz's class." He gave her a soft squeeze of her hand still holding his hand then slipped away. "Later," he called out to the rest as the called out in return.

Jade watched for a moment with a crooked smile and blinked several times as she had expected a goodbye kiss before he headed down the hall. He pulled out spare map of the school from a pocket of his book bag marked with the rooms he hadn't become familiar with during the workshop.

She ignored the others as they gave departing remarks before separating to head for their first classes of the day, all except for Tori.

Tori whispered in a joking manner to Jade, "I guess he won't get tea poured on his head in Sikowitz's class on his first day?"

Jade slightly frowned and turned her attention to the brunette. She countered sarcastically, "You might if you rub on this boyfriend and make goo-goo eyes at him."

Tori smirked and gave it right back to her with pointed remark, "Freddie made goo-goo eyes at me first."

Jade instantly recalled a few weeks back when Freddie was telling the story of when Sam first suspected Steven of cheating on Carly with Tori. Freddie had no problem saying that he found Tori attractive (maybe partially because of Tori's resemblance to Shelby Marx) when Sam first pulled up a picture of Tori from theSlap. She at the time instinctively wanted to be jealous by the fact that Freddie had at one time turned his eye towards Tori of all people, but she refused to give into her baser instincts. Freddie looking at Tori happened before they even met and she had made it a point to herself and Beck during their discussion the afternoon he had returned from Yerba that there was nothing wrong with Freddie's behavior when he was single and she was not going to turn around and believe something was wrong with it now that they were together. She was determined to avoid feeling any undue jealousy as that was one of the many factors that she knew all too well had cost her Beck and she was not going to repeat her mistake.

Her instinctive reaction was further swept away (and feeling a momentary bit of shame from her initial internal reaction) when Freddie concluded his story with Carly hitting him with the orange for having the nerve to be attracted to a girl while he was single. Jade didn't care what Carly's reason for it: Carly being latently jealous, her not being the center of Freddie's attention or somehow being insensitive about the situation even if Carly herself at the time thought Steven was being faithful. She had wished Carly was there when he had told the story so she could have thrown an orange at the web-hostess or maybe one of her spare scissors.

Instead of the memory triggering her momentary anger, the raven haired teenager looked at it from another perspective. She wickedly grinned back as she replied, "That's because you look like Shelby Marx."

"I do not!" the brunette shouted out of reflex.

Jade raised her voice to the nineteen-forties actress pitch, "I do not look like Shelby Marx."

Tori frowned and shook her head as she eyed the pale teenager.

Jade grinned for a moment before leaving the actress standing there fuming and heading to her first period class.

Sikowitz's Advanced Acting Class
Hollywood Arts

After the first two periods of the day, Freddie met up with Jade just before he entered Sikowitz's class. The dark haired teenager entered due to his gentlemanly respect and maybe some last minute apprehension on his part.

A number of students had already filed inside the classroom and had taken familiar colorful seats. Some of them Freddie of course recognized, such as Cat and Robbie with Rex on his lap, along with Sinjin and Ava and a few from the workshop sitting on the other side of the class, but the rest were strangers and they immediately turned their attention to him.

Freddie looked around not sure where he should take a seat and caught a glance from Jade for a moment seeing that she apparently was debating where she was going to sit as well.

The problem was surprisingly solved with Beck waving them over to sit beside him and behind Cat and Robbie (and Rex).

Freddie gave a thankful nod to Beck as he took the seat on the outer edge of that side of chairs with Jade sitting between her former and current boyfriend.

Tori and André were the last ones to enter and grabbed their seats as they chattered to one another.

Sikowitz entered through the entrance beside the stage and dropped his bag at the back of the platform. He opened up his arms and announced, "Good morning on this wonderful first day of school! I like to welcome all to my advance acting class. I know that this will be a fantastic semester."

The eccentric teacher glanced around to actually see who was in his class. Only one face jumped out at him which he smiled towards. "This is a pleasant surprise Freddie. I thought they were pulling a joke on me when I got my student roster and saw your name on it."

"Well it is a surprise to me. I just have to see how the day turns out whether it's a pleasant one."

He pointed both his pointer fingers at the former Tech-Producer. "Touché."

"I'm glad to see I'm not entirely rusty with my fencing," Freddie softly laughed.

Sikowitz laughed for a moment then replied, "That's the spirit. Now let me go over what will be focusing on this semester then we'll just do some warm up acting exercises to get the creative juices flowing."

The acting teacher himself seemed board to tears as he went through the housekeeping part of the course to let them know what they were going to be doing until Christmas. However, they all suffered through it together quickly which allowed them to perform some improvisational scenes.

At one point, Freddie and Cat were exchanging dialogue on the mini-stage. Sikowitz had snuck between the seats of the class and leaned between Beck and Jade. He whispered to the dark haired actress, "He seems like a natural."

Jade smirked as she replied smugly, "He use to perform in front of a million people on an almost weekly basis; what did you expect?"

The drama teacher shook his head and put on a good natured smile. "I was hoping he could call on the experience at will. I didn't want to watch him struggle through the course."

Jade turned her head slightly to meet balding teacher eyes as she raised an eyebrow. He stood up and moved toward the front of the class before she could make any comment.

Sikowitz called out jovially, "That's fantastic you two, but I need to cover one last thing before you go."

Cat and Freddie acknowledged him with their respective smiles and headed for their seats. After the students took their seats, Sikowitz began, "This is odd bringing this up since this is a senior class, but we have to take a moment to talk about 'The Bird Scene'." Sikowitz turned his attention to Freddie. "I'm sorry to be putting you on the spot like this Freddie, but it's policy."

Freddie raised an eyebrow and asked cautiously the title sounded familiar, but he couldn't place it for a moment, "The Bird Scene?"

Jade closed her eyes for a moment and sighed out, "Really Sikowitz? You really think Freddie needs to do the bird scene?"

The drama teacher let out a sigh and patiently explained, "Jade, everyone must perform and pass the 'The Bird Scene' in order to perform in any production or join any club."

The dark brunette motioned over to her boyfriend as she replied, "He's preformed in front of a million people probably more times than any of us have performed here; do you really think he needs to learn that lesson? You'd think he'd already know it by now."

The former Tech-Producer finally placed the name then looked to Jade to ask, "Oh, that play about a bird where you're suppose to be your own judge about your performance?"

Sikowitz frowned as he looked to Jade and stated in a tone that showed his irritation, "Jade, you were not supposed to tell him."

Freddie quickly looked to the acting teacher and spoke up, "Hey, it just happened to come up in a conversation we had during the workshop. Neither of us had any idea at the time I was going to be staying in L.A."

Sikowitz sighed then decided to take a seat on the top step of the stage. He rested his elbows on his knees and rested his chin on top of his balled fists. "The point is that you need to believe in your own choice when performing. You're not supposed to worry about the approval of others."

Freddie replied casually, "And as I told Jade, it's still a bunch of nonsense."

Sikowitz lifted his head up and looked to Freddie with wide eyes as he replied, "Pardon."

The rest of the class looked to him with a hint of confusion.

Freddie shook his head and let out a sigh, "I guess I'll just go ahead and get this out of the way: iCarly wasn't good because we thought it was good, even if we thought it was good, it was good because everyone else thought it was good. There are plenty of people on the internet that think that they're great, but everyone else disagrees with them and they're not popular. How many actors and actresses have you met that think they're the greatest things on earth, but you know deep down they stink? The ultimate judge of our talents is not ourselves, but the audience. If the audience doesn't like it then there are no more performances, so your lesson is wrong. Besides, if it was true, how could you ever grade us on a performance? If you think we should get a D on something, but we think we should get an A, who is right? What grade are we going to get?"

The rest of the class looked at him with a mix of confusion and strange ramifications if Sikowitz point was taken to its logical conclusion.

Jade started laughing and wrapped an arm around Freddie's shoulders. "He didn't pass the test, he broke the test."

Sikowitz gaped like a fish for a moment until he finally mouthed, "We… I never thought about it that way. It's meant to be a confidence building exercise and ignore the critics."

"But I'm talking about the audience, not critics. I already know to ignore them; that's why we started iCarly. Long story short, we didn't like our teachers saying our choices about entrees in a talent show were wrong, so we started performing whatever we wanted on-line as a way to show them." Freddie shook his head as he didn't want all the other associated memories to flood his mind at the mention of iCarly. "Why don't you do it like every other kind of teacher? Teach us how to do it then encourage us on what we did well and tell us how to improve on our weaknesses in a supportive manner?"

Sikowitz tilted his head to the side and replied, "We could do that."

Asphalt Café
Hollywood Arts
Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Freddie was seated at the Hollywood Arts group's usually round blue table between Jade on his right and Tori on his left. Andra sat to Tori's right with Cat and to his right while Beck sat beside Robbie and directly across from Jade. They group idly chatted about their morning classes, some in which a few shared with one another.

Tori gave a soft smile as she distractedly commented and glanced over her schedule, "You kind of burst Sikowitz's bubble."

"I didn't mean to, but that's just the way I see it. Life has taught me that and if we are just talking about critics than we're in agreement anyway. So I passed the test without taking it."

Tori looked up from the paper and gave a slight role of her eyes with a soft smile. The rest nodded and gave a fleeting look towards one another. She looked at her schedule again then pointed to a spot on the paper. "We have Mister Allen's Directing Class together next period."

Freddie commented, "I'm still trying to wrap my head around such short class. Just four and a half weeks?"

Jade spoke up and answered in a casual tone, "Yeah, it's a fractional credit. It's really part of one whole class. The fourth class for the semester usually ties it all together. They split it up like that so it helps to balance the classes in having access to the Black Box, the music rooms, etcetera, because they have to offer so many classes for everyone to get a chance to fulfill their credits that some classes can't help but overlap in the same period. Split up the class and the teachers can teach the same class in a different order, so when one class needs something, the other class is covering something else that doesn't need that particular room or something."

Freddie nodded along to the explanation. "Makes sense."

Cat smiled as she sat her drink down after taking a quick sip. "I loved my costume design class just before school let out for the summer."

"Little Bow Peep?" Freddie commented with a soft laugh.

The redhead giggled that he had remembered after she had shown him a few of her pictures about some of the costumes she made.

"You looked adorable," he commented sweetly.

"Thanks," she replied with a giggle then turned back to her food.

Tori grinned, "I'm excited about this class. I'll get the chance to direct my first play."

Freddie nodded along as he sipped his drink. He sat the beverage down and turned his attention to the brunette. "I'm kind of excited too. I finally get some real creative input on a production."

Tori raised an eyebrow reflecting the rest of the table's confusion other than Jade. The brunette whispered out as her confusion laced her voice, "I don't understand. You did how many skits—"

Freddie shook his head as he picked up a French fry, but waited to pop it in his mouth to answer, "I didn't get a lot of creative input. Sam would always shoot down my ideas and Carly would just go along with it, but I think I influenced them more than I think in hindsight."

Jade mumbled under her breath before taking a sip of her drink, "Explains why most of their stuff on the show sucks now."

Freddie passed a glance to his girlfriend as he chewed the fried potato and easily heard her remark, but remained silent due to any disagreements they may have were between them and private. Also, a part of him regretfully agreed with her statement after some morbid curiosity got the better of him and watched a few clips, but not entire episodes, of iCarly as the girls had apparently decided to start the show again without him.

The Seattleite finished his last French fry and took a quick sip from his drink. "I need to get going. I have to stop by my locker before class."

The brunette sitting to his left nodded in agreement. "I'll go ahead and go with you," commented as she finished one last morsel of her lunch then stood up.

Freddie looked to his girlfriend and smiled. Jade thought that Freddie was going to kiss her cheek, but she noticed that he gave Beck a passing reserved glance after looking to her then stood up from the table. She held her gaze on Freddie as he turned and walked with Tori back towards one of the schools entrances. Beck watched both of them in silence as he finished his lunch.

After Freddie made a quick stop at his undecorated locker, the pair headed Mister Allen's class. As they made their way towards their destination, they walked past a number of the decorated lockers. Tori stopped for a moment and turned to her walking companion. She smiled as she raised her finger. "Your locker is still grey. You need to decorate it."

Freddie cracked a smile. "The lockers were hard to miss during the summer, but how do I decorate it? Are there any guidelines?"

Tori shrugged her shoulders. "It's an expression of yourself or something that means something to you."

"I guess that's something I need to think about."

"Yeah, you have time. I didn't figure it out until after I passed the Bird Scene."

The brown haired teenager gave a soft laugh, "But I just got past the Bird Scene."

"That's right," Tori replied with an embarrassed smile. "I wish I would have thought about that sooner."

Andrew Allen's Directing Class
Hollywood Arts
Wednesday, September 7, 2011

The last period of the day was wrapping up as Freddie and Tori sat beside each other in normal school desks as Mister Allen had spent most of the class going through what was going to be covered in the course and what was expected of them for the next four and a half weeks after brief introductions all around. Thankfully, Mister Allen stopped the wave of questions towards Freddie from a number of students with his commanding presence as he was a tall man, with light brown hair with his part falling just onto his forehead with a thin beard in the five o'clock shadow manner. After he established who was in charge of the class, he moved onto his class overview.

He concluded his 'lecture' with one last bit of instruction with a smile, "You will be writing and directing a one-act play before the end of the class. We will be working with the stagecraft class, so you don't have to worry about having to do double duty in worrying about the 'nity-grity' side production as you should have already covered that in a previous class. Because the size of the class and time constraints of four and a half weeks, I'm going to allow you to pair off to co-direct the production, but your performances will reflect on the other. You share the rewards of a well directed play, but you also share the failures of such a production. So, you should think very hard on whether you want to trust someone to pair off or who your partner will be."

A number of students immediately discreetly or not so discreetly looked in Freddie's direction. Freddie glanced to Tori and whispered, "Do you want to go ahead and pair off? Or do you have someone else—"

Tori shook her head. "No, I think it'll be great to work on it together."

He let out a relief breath. He motioned his head towards Tori for those that his eyes had met. There was a look of disappointment in their eyes, but Freddie couldn't help the way they felt.

The final bell rang and the students' immediately jumped out of their seats out of habit. Mister Allen gave a friendly smile and waved his students off to exit the classroom.

As Tori and Freddie were leaving and making there way towards the main hallway, Freddie commented, "The closest experience I have is writing with Carly and Sam skits for the show and Carly was the directing force behind them."

Tori shrugged a shoulder. "This isn't much different and I think you may have had more influence than you think. They're like one act plays… we could stick to comedy?"

The brown eye teenager slightly smirked. "I think I'd be comfortable with that."

Tori held her chin for a moment and tapped over her lips with her right pointer finger as she thought for a moment. She let go of her chin and raised her hand as she suggested, "How about… a brother finds out his adopted sister is really a space alien?"

Freddie thought on the idea. It sounded absolutely ridiculous… he loved it. He snorted out with a laugh, "Sounds like fun."

Author's Note: I just saw the latest Jade with Tots video (I will be writing a Jade/Freddie version of that some point down the line in the story). I enjoyed it myself, but what I found to be the most ironic part and surprising about it is that if Beck would do that in the show, as in just talk to her and express his thoughts and feelings on something he disagrees with than treat her like a child, then I wouldn't have had one of my major basis for them breaking up in 'iActually Like Mean Girls'.