Note: the story takes place (or at least, this chapter), at the end of season 3, but in this "timeline" I'd prefer to do something different with the whole Jude/Tommy/Jamie thing... so here jamie is still murning for Patsy's death, and NOT IN LOVE with Jude, while Tommy doesn't have the intention to leave...

Discalimer: i don't own anything. just this timeline

Some years ago… it was almost midday when Jude Harrison, music superstar (or better: former music superstar, since her label was going to sold her),just turned 18, heard the familiar sound of her dad's doorbell. She mentally asked herself who could be at such an hour. Press? Friends? Or maybe who knows who… Well, she definitely didn't expect to see Tommy and Jamie, together at her door…

"Honey, who's there?" her dad asked from the kitchen.

"It's just… it's for me Dad, doesn't matter. Just give me a minute, ok? – she opened the door, with an annoyed and angry expression, reflected in her blue eyes – what the hell do you want From me? Hell, I don't want to speak with neither one of you… you already damaged me too much!" she shouted going to slap the front door right on their faces, but, although they knew she was right and she had all the reasons to hate them, they impeded her to do so, stopping with their own bodies the door.

"Please Jude, let us explain… - Jaime supplicated her with his so famous puppy eyes – I know, I was a real jerk during the last weeks… well, maybe for more than the last weeks, but we can't ruin our friendship this way, please… give me… give us… just some minutes of your time."

"Please Jude… we need you to know something…" Tommy continued. She looked in his eyes for a brief yet interminable instant, and she just answered them "Fine", opened them the door and showing them the sofa in the living room (although they already knew too well where it was). She, instead, stayed on her feet, right before them, with crossed arms and a very angry expression. Yes, she made them enter her home, but this didn't mean she had forgotten them for all they did to her… In different ways, they both broke her hearth: Tommy, lying to her, hiding his past and not explaining his behaviour, and Jamie, who stopped to talk to her after Patsy's death, considering her guilty for what the crash. "So?" she almost coldly asked them, without avoiding eye-contact… difficult, since it was what they were doing.

"Darius sold everything" Jamie simply told her, looking more at his feet than at her.

"I already know that. And so? Maybe it's time to me to change, to come back to what and who I was before all this craziness happened." And she included the both of them. Maybe they had been both a mistake, a huge one. And they made her feel… well, bad was the only word that came in her mind.

"But Darius was selling you, too, all your catalogue! It wasn't right, and you know it! It wasn't just your music, it was you. It was us. You, we put all ourselves in your music. It was our story!" Tommy left the sofa and went in front of her, yelling at her, looking directly in her eyes; he was so passionate, in his sentence, that she believed he was going to kiss her right in front of her dad (who was looking trough the kitchen door) and Jamie. Then she realized that they had used the past, and never the present.

"Wait, you told that my catalogue was on sale? Someone already bought it?" they both saw how she suddenly changed her mood. She now looked a lot sad, and desperate. After all, Tommy was right. It wasn't that her life was in the music. It was more than her music was her life. She put all herself in all her 2 albums, and now, knowing what was going to happen… But knowing Darius, it wasn't so strange. He was all money and no heart.

"Yes Jude, someone did." Her childhood friend answered calmly (how the hell was that he was so calm? She thought)

"We did" Tommy clarified with one of his best smile. She didn't know what to do. Hell, maybe she didn't understand what was going on. Maybe it was just an error.

"You two… you two…" she didn't know what to say. She was speechless, not a normal thing for her. Something that made them astonish for a while.

"We bought the building and all what was inside it…" Jamie started, still on her sofa

"…and we bought your entire catalogue."

"Well, we didn't buy only your one, but SME, Mason and Patsy's ones, too. We didn't want to see Darius exploit them. – Jamie explained – so, now we are partner. We started… we are going to start our own label. I'll run it, and Tommy will be producer and talent enhancer. Well, he will be the first one, for now, at least."

"You two… what…why did you do that?" she was so happy… she was going to cry, to run in their arms, to kiss the love of her life; and they, they were as happy as she was. They desperately wanted to huge her, and Tommy, well, he wanted to kiss her, too, with all the passion he could be able to find, without regrets or second thoughts, without to come back, with the total intention to stop this damn dance of their, forever, to stop to break her heart and his one as well, because each time he told her "no" or he left her or he disappeared, it wasn't just Jude's heart that fell in pieces, it was his one, too.

"First, because we couldn't see Darius use you all. Second, because it was a chance we couldn't miss, and third…" Jamie started looking in her eyes, too, as he used to do when they were kids and he wanted to help her in something.

"Third – Tommy continued – we love you."

"You what?" she asked screaming. It was a revelation she didn't expect. Well, at least from Jamie. She thought it was over between them, that he was…

"Don't take it the wrong way. What he meant, is that he is in love with you, while me, I just love you in the sense that you are like a sister, my best friend, and all this way. And – he took a big breath – and I know I have been a bit… a real jerk during the last few years, but… don't be too mad at me, please, but I never loved you in the way he loves you. I was just upset because I've been the centre of your universe for so many years, and then you suddenly found him, and I desperately wanted to be the centre of your universe again. I couldn't accept to see someone else take my place. Please, tell me you understand me and that you are not too mad."

"For what concerns me, you already know the reasons behind my behaviour. And… I know that I never told you before, but I love you. I'm desperately in love with you from the first time I saw you. And I want you with me, all of you, forever. Please Jude. It's not the company that needs you. It's us who need you. It's me. Without you, one day or an other, I'll do something very stupid, I know that. I'm sure of it. Please Jude. Come back in our lives."

"Oh boys… how can I be mad at you… or tell you not?"