This little one-shot was inspired by Beck's line in the new episode. I don't own Victorious, credit to Dan Schneider. If I DID own it, this episode would have been it's own movie.

I think I've learned something about myself... I just think I like dating a girl who, you know, fights back... a girl who's got strong opinions, and a big mouth. Cause it's not easy.

Easy is boring.

Nine months, nineteen days and four hours. That's how long Jade and I had been apart.

Not that I was counting.

I never wanted to break up with her in the first place. That may come as a shock, me being the one who didn't open the door to go after her, but I'd file that under anger in the heat of the moment. I wasn't thinking straight after such a long day of fighting. I remember being sick and tired of all the arguments that had only become more frequent in the days before we broke up.

It always made me feel a bit less.. whole, every single time we fought. I felt like we were ripping away at each other, stealing little parts without a second thought and then just throwing them all back when she got to ten.

I suppose she forgot to throw back my heart.

I remember lying in my bed that night, the sheets empty next to me where she usually curled up in my arms. I could feel the vacancy, the lack of her presence. It hit me like the unforgiving Canadian winters I used to live through each year. There was nothing. No comfort, no intimacy, no warmth emitting from the body sleeping next to me, or lying wide awake in anticipation. There were no fingers traced over bare skin, no limbs tangled together into one being, no heated meeting of lips that I had taken for granted for nearly three years.

That magical night after the concert I promised myself to never take anything she offered for granted again. And I knew I should promise her too.

"Hey," I whispered as softly as I could into her ear. "You still awake?"

I smiled at the groan I received in reply, feeling her twist her body around to face me in the dark. I leaned over to her, aiming to kiss her forehead but ending up finding her nose instead. The tinted windows offered only enough light to see her silhouette, but it was enough. The eyes can only see so much, and they do no justice to the true beauty of one's affection.

"Can I just go to sleep?" Jade griped with a hint of irritation in her voice. I smiled to unseeing eyes.

"Can I ask you one question first?" I inquired, using the arm already around her shoulders to pull her in closer to me. I heard her sigh and took that as an affirmative.

"Was there ever a time when you... didn't love me?"

It had been sitting in the back of my mind for months, starting the night we broke up. I knew what my answer would be: I never stopped loving her, not once in the entire period we weren't together. Her feelings on the matter were still unclear to me, but my mind was put at rest seconds later.

"Don't be an idiot Beck," she chuckled, taking a moment to tuck her head into my neck. I kissed the top and lingered there while she continued. "If I didn't, do you think you'd have gotten lucky tonight?"

I let out a single laugh under my breath, my free hand tracing down her arm to draw patterns on her palm.

"That's not exactly what I was looking for," I mumbled against her hair, breathing in the scent. She must have started using a new perfume since we'd last been together... god I'd missed her. She did seem less than pleased with my response however, as she took the hand I had been playing with and hit me on the arm, very hard mind you. I held back a wince and laughed instead, shifting on my bed until our faces were level and I could kiss her properly. When I didn't pull away after a few seconds her hands snaked around my body into my hair, each hand grabbing a fistful as she deepened our kiss.

That was one thing I loved about her. She was always so vehement, so fierce and fiery and feisty. She was exactly the kind of girl I needed in my life, the only kind I could truly be happy with. When we broke apart a few minutes later, both out of breath and flustered, I hugged her close and squeezed my eyes shut, revelling in the fact that she was mine again. Maybe I had screwed up before but it had taught me a little something about myself and other people.

Life is going to offer you things that are easy, and things that are hard. It may be tempting to take the easy route and breeze through life like there's a yellow brick road laid out all the way, but there's nothing fulfilling about it. Anything worth doing, any task worth accomplishing, any person worth being with is going to take some work. In the end though, you'll never regret the extra effort you put in.

Easy is boring. The girls who have tried to chase after me would have been too easy.

Jade is anything but easy to handle, and she's the only girl who has ever stolen my heart and gotten no request to give it back. Either way she can keep it.

I would have given it to her anyway.