Lockdown

Disclaimer: Do I look like I own Victorious? I do not, leave me be.

A/N:

Chapter 23 (Closure)

Jade's eyes shot open and she sat up with a start, finding herself surrounded by four white walls and covered by hospital bed sheets. Beside her was another hospital bed with Cat laying down in it, her misty eyes gazing up at the ceiling. "Cat?" The girl looked over with a small smile and lifted up her hand.

"Hey Jade, good to see you're awake…" She was still anxious, but glad to be out of the damn school. She was fearful that Tori would still come after them, and couldn't get the images of all those dead out of her head. "Zander was just here, he went to the restroom and Sam's grabbing some lunch from the café."

"What happened? I don't remember leaving the school."

"You passed out, both of us did. Principal Eikner wound up seeing the security camera. I think an alarm must have gone off or something, but regardless of what happened, we're…alive…" It didn't feel like much to still be alive. Her heart was in tatters and her mind was spinning.

Her fingers grasped the sheet, tightening around it. "W-What are we going to do now? Every-Everyone's gone." Jade's voice cracked and tears fell from her eyes. She was angry at Tori, angry at herself that she hadn't been able to save her friend, but she had to acknowledge that she'd been too far gone to save.

"I guess live. I don't know. It's difficult." She could see the pain in Cat's eyes well enough to know she was suffering almost as badly, if not worse. At least the girls could be there for one another. "You should see what they're saying on the news right now."

"Okay…" The last thing she wanted to do was watch the news and to be reminded of the tragedy, but her curiosity was admittedly piqued. Cat used her bedside remote to turn up the volume on the television on the wall. Jade cringed at the serious looking blonde reporter standing outside of Hollywood Arts. The headline was School Rampage. Her heart sank a little at that realization, seeing as how what they'd predicted the media would do appeared to e exactly correct, and Tori was being classified as some crazy attacker-as usual.

"Another high school tragedy this year took place when a student locked the doors and went on a rampage," announced the reporter-clearly shocked by yet another high school horror. "There's word of why, and there has been no word of gun use."

"Of course they bring up guns," Jade muttered with a bitter tone. Cat rolled her eyes and nodded, irritated as well. "All the media's concerned with is hyping something up the way they want people to see it."

"The twelve deceased include the attacker, a teacher, a police office and several students. Beck Oliver, Andre Harris, Robbie Shapiro, Bill Lace, Tiffany Dixon, Shirley Lauder, Gregory Mason, Sinjin Van Cleef, Erwin Sikowitz, David Vega, Holly Vega, and the reported attacker-Victoria Vega-who was pronounced dead on scene. It is believed that Victoria was suffering psychiatric problems from the death of her elder sister a month ago. Two young women survived this unexplained rampage, Jade West and Catherine Valentine…"

"I can't watch anymore of this."

"Me either." Cat flipped off the television and leaned back in the bed, sighing heavily. "So they are playing it up like that-and painting Tori as an insane person." While it was true that Tori lost her mind and went insane, she didn't attack the school randomly because of insanity, though that did play a major part.

"I think I'm going to stay as far away from the news as I can." She put her hand to her stomach and started to groan as it clenched. "It's making me sick."

"They're saying Mr. Sikowitz and Mr. Vega were heroes. Though they've been focusing mainly on the others, probably because they're all teenagers and this is a 'school' tragedy."

"Some school attack." Jade looked away with a heavy scoff. "It was just the arena Tori chose when she went crazy!" There was nothing good to be said of how the media was handing things, but at least they'd already figured out how the country would react, which of course she hated having to have this on national news. "I wish Tori would have chosen a different place, and I know it sucks to say that, I just…I don't know…"

"We'll be okay though. You know, Beck did try and stop her. He didn't make it, obviously, but he tried. I guess we were wrong to think he was doing it all, but it just seemed like-"

"It's done, Cat. I'd really like not to think about it anymore…"

"Yeah."

The door opened and Zander walked in with Henry, Sam and Travis. Jade looked up with a slight smile as her father hurried to her side with Zander. Her father hugged her with strong, protective arms. "Dad…" She hugged him close, trembling as her mind wandered to the horror from the night before. "I thought I'd never see you again."

"I'm here for you. I'm sorry you had to go through that."

She sniffled and looked over to Sam, who was rubbing Cat's back and shaking her head, "I can't believe we passed them up." Sam was angry with herself, understandable, though Jade didn't want her to feel bad for herself. Anyone could have made the mistake when going through a panic. Cat hugged Sam and her brother, asking what made them come back to the school.

"When the police sirens started heading the way we just left, we figured it out," Travis replied. "We're just glad you're safe. Both of you." Cat looked up, then at the door.

"What about Dice and Nona? Are they coming by?"

"They'll be here." Sam moved back and wiped her eye. "They're stuck in traffic."

Jade took a deep breath and looked up to the blank television screen. School tragedy or not, she wasn't going to let this get the best of her. There were a few months left of school, she wasn't taking a break, she'd push through. "When can we go back to school?" The others in the room looked at her with concern while Cat flashed a smile.

"Are you sure you don't want to take some time to rest?" Henry asked.

"I don't want to feel sorry for myself. All I'm going to do if I don't do something is mope…so I'm sure…" She reached over to Zander, grasping his hand gently. "But if I can, I want to transfer to another school."

Cat shuddered and nodded in agreement. "Yeah, no Hollywood Arts. I'm done with that place too." There would be too many unpleasant memories anyway. Everywhere they could go in that school would just be too triggering for them. "It's probably better we stay as far away from that place as possible."

"I think that would be best," her father rubbed her shoulder and gave her a slight nod. "I'm proud of you Jade. I want you to know I love you."

"I love you too, Dad…"

It was a month before Jade was able to visit the memorial erected at Hollywood Arts. She really didn't want to go, but Cat insisted she see it, as well as her father for sake of closure. It was essentially a statue erected in the front lot of the school with a flag on top, and the names of Tori's victims. She hated it because the memorial was put up with the wrong thought in mind.

Zander and Cat stood on either side of her as she carefully brushed her fingertips along the stone letters. Her voice trembled as tears slid along her cheeks. "It was hard enough to go to the funeral service last month. Coming here is…it's not something I wanted."

She felt like her entire trauma had been plastered for the entire world to see, that she was naked before them all. She and Cat had done their best to stay away from the press, and her father-along with Sam's help-did what they could to keep reporters from harassing the girls with questions.

Finally it was dying down and the media attention was going away. There really wasn't anything to do when the two sole survivors were refusing to be seen. "Has anyone checked to see if Eikner still works here?"

"I think he retired," Cat answered. "Blamed himself or something, and last I heard, the superintendent was urging him to retire after what happened." Jade studied Mr. Sikowitz's name positioned above Beck's. She closed her eyes and slowly turned away from the memorial.

"It's probably for the best. Principal Eikner and the woman who temporarily replaced him are both responsible in some ways-but it wasn't their fault. I can forgive them, and I forgive Tori too…"

"It wasn't her fault what happened either. I mean-I don't know what I mean."

"Tori went insane because Beck killed the one person that she cared about." Could they really even blame Beck? "The thing Dad always says…placing blame never works to make things better because it's pointing fingers instead of trying to cope." If they wanted to keep going back to find out who was at fault for what occurred, they could go all the way back to Beck's father that brought Beck up the way he was, or even the grandfather that was foul mouthed and aggressive towards Mr. Oliver. "There's not limit to who can be faulted-there's only coping and trying to make changes to what we can do. Moving on…"

"Yeah." They were already making friends with Zander's band at the school. Though Jade was staying away from music as well and focusing her energy on her studies. From this point on, she was going to do everything in her power to stay on top of things. She trusted Zander, she didn't have to be afraid of anyone anymore. She would miss her friends here, but if she learned anything from this experience, it was that she could be strong, that she could survive even the harshest of storms.

Jade reached over, taking Zander's hand and meeting his loving eyes. Tori did give her one thing, even though it was in a terrible way that should never have happened. Freedom and security from an abusive, dangerous boyfriend, and chance to love someone again. Proof that everything, even terrible tragedies, have a drop of good somewhere.

She was happy now, or perhaps she was slowly becoming happier. Her dad was helping her through the trauma, Zander was building her trust back up and treating her in ways that Beck never had, and with Cat, the two were able to keep the other strong with encouragement.

"I hope they all rest in peace. Even Tori." Cat nodded with Jade. "Beck too." She looked up to the sky and heaved forth a heavy sigh. "Let's go. I don't want to be here anymore." With one final look at the memorial, the girls placed their bouquets of flowers down for their friends and said one silent prayer for them. They lingered another few seconds as the sun started to set on the school. Tomorrow, it would rise on the new school they were going to, and a new chapter of their lives would begin.

And with that, it ends. This was a great run, i hope you enjoyed it. Check out some of my other stuff if you will. I appreciate everyone's insight and commentry, it means a lot to me! I'm working on a bit of a family drama that centers around David, Holly, Tori and Trina-I think you should check it out "Family Man". It's much different than anything I've done kind of like Lockdown was much different. Speaking of Lockdown, I really should base more fiction on my old originals. Though Tiffany was really named Terry...I wanted to make Sarah have a cameo, but figured that would be too much. The irony is-in the original, Billy and Beck fit more each other's persona than anything, and Sarah was the one with a sibling, police officer dad, and a mom who was present but distant at the same time.