Author's Note: Aww, Beck and Jade broke up. :(

I found the breakup scene to be pretty intense, especially since it was the most anger we've ever seen from Beck. It'll definitely be interesting to see how their relationship will play out from this point on. I think they'll have much more depth to their relationship when they eventually get back together.

Anyway, watching that emotional scene inspired me to write a little fic about the aftermath of their breakup. It's a bit angsty, obviously, but I still hope you enjoy it.

Disclaimer: Victorious © Dan Schneider

Beck heard nothing but the calming sound of the wind rushing past his car as he drove home in silence.

He'd left Tori's house a little after midnight, and right now the night was blurring all together in his mind. He remembered playing poker and winning the candy pile five out of the nine times they played. He remembered Trina resting her head on his shoulder practically the whole night, and the only reason he didn't say anything was because he was too tired to care.

Tired of arguing.

Mostly, though, he remembered how quiet everyone was for a good two and a half hours; they only spoke if it pertained to the game. Life kept going; they played as if nothing had happened. As if Beck's world hadn't just crashed right before their very eyes.

He was grateful for it, though. He knew his friends knew that he didn't want to talk about it so soon. He was relieved that they understood that, and he liked that they were pretending everything was normal and going through all the motions for him, because talking about it just would've made it all the more real to him, and he simply wasn't ready to face that ugly reality just yet.

As he pulled up to his driveway, slowing his car to a stop, he turned his head to catch a glimpse of his RV, and it was in that fleeting glance that his heart iced over and his reality came crashing down all over again.

Jade was standing there.

"Shit," Beck hissed under his breath as he smacked his palm hard against his steering wheel, so hard that the veins beneath his skin jolted and began to throb and tingle with a sudden rush of blood. He savored the last few remaining seconds of silence as he turned off the ignition and just stared out blankly in front of him for one second, two seconds, three seconds…

He closed his eyes, shattering the silence with his own breathing as he took a deep breath and held it for a moment, before he unbuckled his seat belt and, at last, opened the car door. He could feel Jade's glowering eyes on him the moment he stepped out of the car, and suddenly, his heart was pounding. He kept his calm, though, as he closed the door with a soft slam and finally turned his head to look at her.

And there she was, standing in front of his RV, her arms crossed, her pale skin radiant in comparison to her black dress and the equally black night sky. She looked so far away from him, even as he began walking towards her. He walked right up to her without a word, and she didn't move at all, and for a moment, then, he thought he was just imagining her, until she suddenly spoke.

"I want my stuff," she announced, and her voice sounded so strange to him, as if he were hearing it for the first time in years rather than just hours.

He wanted to ask her, "Really? You need your stuff right now? This couldn't wait a little while?" but instead he cleared his throat, diverting his gaze from her as he unlocked and opened the door to his RV.

"Fine," he said, and he couldn't help but wonder if his voice sounded weird to her, too, but this thought was quickly forgotten as she pushed her way past him and stormed right inside, as if everything was the same, as if she still had the right to do that. He was so caught off guard by this act of boldness that he literally just stood at the doorway for a moment, before he finally walked inside and closed the door.

Jade was already tearing through the inside of his RV, going through all the clothing thrown about the floor, on his bed and his couch. She grimaced at everything she picked up that was his, and of course Beck knew that she was only doing that to piss him off, but he wouldn't give her that gratification of showing any other trace of emotion tonight, and so he maintained his uncaring attitude as he continued to watch her furiously gather her things.

When she was done with the couch, she moved to the corner near his fish tank and leaned over it to try to get whatever was behind it.

"Your necklace isn't back there," Beck found himself saying, surprising himself that he even knew what she was looking for.

"Then where is it?" she snapped as she whipped herself around to glare at him, her breathing a little heavy as she stood there, waiting.

Wordlessly, he walked to his small night stand and crouched down, opening up the bottom drawer, where he pulled out a metal box. Again, he could feel Jade's intense eyes staring at him impatiently, as if waiting for him to make one wrong move so she could use it as an excuse to lash out at him.

That was what this was right now: the calm before the storm.

Beck opened the metal box, inside of which contained several precious expensive items, like a gold watch his grandfather gave him for his birthday and, of course, Jade's necklace, which was pooled in a silver chain in the corner. He took the necklace out by the small diamond-studded heart pendant, the sound of the metallic chain slinking against the metal box as he pulled it out.

He turned his head to her, dangling the necklace between his fingers so that the heart swung back and forth. She reached down and snatched it from him, crushing the chain between her fingers as she stuffed it into her coat pocket. She promptly turned away from him and continued to finish grabbing the rest of her things. Beck kept himself occupied by closing the metal box and returning it to the spot inside his bottom drawer. When he was done, he stood up and watched as Jade grabbed his backpack off the ground, dumped out all of its contents onto his unmade bed, and proceeded to start throwing all of her stuff into it.

"What do you think you're doing?" Beck asked her, too genuinely stunned to realize this little setback of not showing his emotions.

"What does it look like I'm doing?" Jade countered in that usual sarcastic tone of hers. "I'm packing up my stuff."

"Yeah, packing up your stuff in my bag," Beck said, and he almost moved towards her then, wanting to reach for his bag, but he didn't. He didn't want to touch her.

"Well," she said as she stuffed her last black article of clothing into the bag and started to zip it up, "I don't have anything to put all my stuff in, so…tough luck, dude."

An unexpected surge of boiling rage shot through Beck's body and, all at once, he felt his heart drop and his face scorch with heat as his hands shot out and grabbed the bag from her. A clear second passed with neither of them moving, as if frozen in time, before Jade finally looked at him, right in the eyes, and the moment she did, Beck felt his muscles loosen, and the bag started to slip from his grasp only slightly.

Her eyes were completely clear, as in, she wasn't wearing any makeup, and seeing her natural face almost made him forget about everything, everything, and want to just drop the bag and pull her towards him and kiss her long and passionately and push her down on the bed and make love to her and just go back to the way everything used to be, when things were exciting and fun and easy between them.

He swallowed absentmindedly as he stared into her intense blue eyes that somehow looked bigger now. He tried to remember a time during the past two and a half years they dated when he saw her without makeup, but he couldn't think of one. She looked like a new person: fragile, scared, vulnerable. It was strange, yet amazing, and it left him wanting to know why she wasn't wearing any makeup.

The only possibility he could think of was that, maybe, while he was at Tori's house, trying to forget about everything and pretend like everything was normal, she was crying her eyes out in a dark corner somewhere, and all of her makeup got messed up in the process. He could guess that she probably didn't want to come here with trails of dried up mascara bleeding down her cheeks, to let him see this broken sight of her, to let him see that she was just as devastated and confused and crushed and just a total wreck over this whole thing as much as he was.

She didn't want him to see her real emotions, either.

"Here," he suddenly said, his voice barely above a whisper, as he placed the backpack into her arms.

Her fingernails scraped against the material as she clutched it in her hands, holding it to her chest, staring at him. He was staring back, still fixated on her eyes, those enticing blue eyes of hers that were slowly freezing into hardness, becoming like glass, breakable and damaged.

"I just want to say that I hope you have a nice life," she said as she slid the backpack onto her back, clutching its straps in each of her hands. "I know I will."

Beck felt his heart clench again, another surge of heated fury scorching through him, coiling tightly around his heart.

"Good," he said, because he knew it was just becoming a game with her now, just like always. "I will, too."

"I'm sure you will, Beck," she said, spitting his name out like it was venom. "Mr. Tall, Dark and Handsome. I bet you'll have no problem at all hitting on the entire population of those trashy Northridge girls until you find one who's just slutty enough for you to take back here so you can have meaningless, disgusting pity sex with her."

"Oh my God, Jade," Beck practically laughed, unable to hold back any longer. "You know, here I was actually thinking we could learn to be civil with each other and maybe even become friends, but I guess that's impossible for someone as cold-hearted as you."

"Right," Jade snorted, "because I'm just such a cold-hearted bitch, aren't I?"

"I never said you were a bitch," Beck said, this time managing to control his temper better.

"Well, then. Go on, Beck. Say it," Jade challenged him, her tone dangerously calm now, although Beck knew that she was spiraling with slowly building rage, getting ready to explode again at any given moment.

"I'm done talking to you," Beck said. He was also calm now, but the calmness in his voice was different. It was tired, not physically, but instead emotionally exhausted, because he'd been playing this mind-fucking game with her for over two years now.

Two years of secret anger. Two years of jealousy and insecurities disguised as over-protectiveness.

He was just tired now. Tired of playing.

But Jade West was never one to quit easily. He knew she preferred to go out with a thunderous roar, a whirlwind, a tornado, a destructive fire.

She stared at him for a while, and he continued to stare back at her, into those damn blue eyes that had once pierced through his heart, leaving a trail of melting ice that burned inside him, feeling captivating and amazing, and as their relationship had started to grow, he'd craved it more and more each day. He'd wanted to reach deep into her soul, reach into the farthest and deepest part of her heart, to get let into her world and be the only one to uncover her hidden truths.

"Say it," she spat, the scorn traced across her lips. "You know you want to. Just say it, Beck."

Her eyes looked maddening now; wild and downright evil.

He looked away from her then, because the look was becoming overwhelming, like she could attack and expose and kill him right then and there in a fist of blood-filled rage with absolutely no remorse. He knew she could, if she really wanted to. She could destroy him. After all, she knew all of his secrets, just as he knew all of hers. They had been two halves of one person, one seemingly perfectly imperfect couple.

Beck slowly closed his eyes, because the darkness and shadows felt more comfortable than the sudden pulsing in his throat and painful throbbing in his heart.

"Please leave now, Jade," he said, slowly, decisively, because the throbbing was starting to burn now; the tensions were mounting, and he knew that he'd rather leave these things unsaid instead of dealing with all of this right now.

Because that was just how Beck Oliver was: calm, cool, collected. That was all he'd come to know now. Acting like he didn't give a shit.

A light scrape beneath his chin suddenly forced him to snap his eyes open, and there were her eyes again, purely devious and calculating and plotting and vindictive and controlling and still, in spite of everything, fucking gorgeous.

Her fingernail ran along his chin, lightly scratching him, and he swallowed as he felt a chilling rush of goose bumps rise over his skin. She smirked devilishly, the same smirk that once held such temptations, sly and seductive, with hidden promises of raw and shameless passion.

The corners of her mouth twitched as she finally withdrew her finger from his chin.

"You're pathetic," she said, her tone malicious, her words relentless, filled with pure hatred. She was only trying to hurt him now. He knew she was just trying to win this little battle of words between them.

It was a game. Always a fucking game between them.

And he was sick of playing it.

She walked past him then, a rush of her dark, teal-streaked hair whipping past him so fast that he had to blink just to make sure he was really seeing it. She pushed open the door, and the cold air smacked them both like a hard slap.

"Jade," Beck called out to her, and she froze mid-step, turning her head to glance behind her shoulder. He stared at her, and it was as if time was slowing down again. He swallowed a lump that was secretly forming inside his throat, and then, as his goodbye words to her, he said: "You look pretty without any makeup on."

He didn't know what exactly possessed him to say that. He didn't know if it was his heart speaking up, or if it was, for the second time tonight, him saying what was truly on his mind at the moment. All he knew was that the silence that followed that statement made him feel like time really was standing still, but no, it wasn't, because he could see the cold breeze blowing through Jade's hair, beautifully framing her pale face, and he could still feel his heart thudding inside his chest in a broken rhythm.

She stared at him for only a second longer before she finally walked up to him, slamming the door closed again, her hair bouncing with her quick footsteps, her eyes burning with new found rage. She held up her hand, and then, Beck closed his eyes, wincing slightly, waiting for the hard slap to his face that was inevitably going to come.

But then, a second went by, and then another, and finally he cracked his eyelids open to see her just staring at him, her hard eyes now glazed over with fresh tears behind them, stubbornly refusing to escape down her cheeks. She swallowed, pursing her lips, and she began to shake her head and take a step backwards.

"I hope you're happy," she said, squeezing her eyes shut, the final glimpse of her face that he was able to see before she abruptly turned and walked out, the cold air smacking him once more as she opened the door and slammed it closed.

Even after she left, he continued standing there, motionless, his heart pounding away. The sound of his own breathing rang out in his ears as he drew in another deep breath, and as he exhaled, it came out a little shaky. He closed his eyes, holding back sudden tears of his own, because now, all he wanted to do was tell her that he hoped she was happy too, except, unlike her, he sincerely meant it, but he knew in the pit of his heart that she wasn't happy; he knew she was crying again right now.

So he let himself do the same.