A/N: This one is quite short, set between chapters 5 and 6. In Chapter 6, Jude says "He talks to me, Sadie. He tells me things." This is a bit of that.


"So how is it, being back in Toronto?" Tommy asked as he popped off the cap on the beer bottle and handed it to her. "You've been here, what, a week now?"

Jude nodded as he sat down next to her with his own bottle. "Yeah, tomorrow makes a week. And it's… weird, you know? Being back. It's good, but it's strange."

"Just because you've been away for so long?" he asked.

"Maybe. But I think more because everything is so different. I drove past the house the other day, and there were these little tricycles sitting in the driveway, and I just thought, wow. I can't believe there's some other kid living in my bedroom, you know? And Sadie and Dad kept a lot of photos and a few things from when we were kids, but so much got thrown out or given away."

"They didn't sell it on eBay?" Tommy joked. "I bet there'd be a lot of people willing to pay a small fortune for Jude Harrison's Barbie doll collection."

Jude grimaced. "Uh, yeah, a lot of weirdos willing to pay. And anyway, I cut the heads off all my Barbies."

"Of course you did," Tommy laughed.

"But yeah, I don't know. I kind of feel like my childhood is gone. But Sadie pointed out that it was sort of my choice not to come back to help sort through stuff when she decided to sell the house, so I guess I don't really have a right to complain about what she got rid of."

"You're staying with Sadie, right?"

"Yeah." Jude nodded. "Actually, that part's sort of weird too. I think she must have missed me, because she's been, like, really nice to me."

"You expected classic Harrison sibling rivalry?" Tommy asked with a smile.

"No, it's not that, actually. I mean, by the time I moved to London Sadie and I had been getting along really well for a while. It's just… Okay so, she did my laundry the other day, and she actually made my bed for me. She makes me breakfast a lot of mornings, too, it's… I mean, it's really nice, but it's also sort of weird. I've been living on my own now for two years, it's just different having someone taking care of me again. It's a nice feeling, actually, but weird, you know?"

He looked at her for a long moment, then looked away, down at the bottle in his hand, picking at the label. He shook his head slightly. "I'm not sure I do." His voice was quiet. "I don't know if I've ever really felt that. Even when I was a kid, I… I don't know."

Jude was surprised at the openness of that statement. Tommy getting personal, talking about his past, had been nearly unprecedented even when they were together. Her heart squeezed. "How's your mom?" she asked, softly. He tensed, and she expected him to get angry, to turn to her and snap that it wasn't any of her business, so she quickly said, "Never mind, sorry. That's none of my business, I shouldn't have asked."

He looked over at her, his expression unreadable. "No, uh…" He took a deep breath and shook his head. "It's just, she, uh… she died, actually."

Her eyes widened. "Wait, seriously?" He nodded, and her heart twisted. "Oh, Tommy. When?"

"A few months after you left." He sighed.

"What happened?" she asked softly.

He rubbed a hand across his jaw, not looking at her. "Something called an abdominal aortic aneurism. Apparently it's hard to catch on time, especially in a nursing home. They didn't find out about it until it burst." He winced. "She died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital."

"I'm so sorry, Tommy."

He shrugged a little. "It's… I don't know. It's complicated. She was my mom, she was family, but she…" he shook his head and trailed off.

Jude remembered Tommy's mom screaming at him, hitting him in the chest and shouting that he was worthless. The thought of Tommy as a child, being yelled at like that, made her feel sick. "Yeah, I know," she said softly.

Tommy squeezed his eyes shut. "My brother… Tristan blames me. For putting her in that home. He, uh, told me not to come to the funeral. So I didn't."

"Oh, Tommy." Jude sighed again. "I'm so sorry." She reached out and took his hand, squeezing his fingers. "It's not your fault," she whispered. "Any of it."

He looked down at their hands for a moment, then over at her, meeting her eyes, and something in her chest tightened at the deep sadness she saw in his expression. She felt a sudden urge to reach out and kiss him, to take away the pain in his eyes. He looked for a moment as if he were about to say something, but instead he just squeezed her hand before letting go and looking away. He cleared his throat. "Can we, uh, can we talk about something else?" he asked. He gestured at her guitar, sitting in an arm chair across the room. "You wanted to work on lyrics, right?" he looked back at her and smiled.

She felt a little disoriented at the sudden end of the intense moment, but she nodded. "Oh, uh, sure, yeah." She set her beer on the coffee table and stood up from the couch to grab her guitar. When she had taken the instrument and her journal out of the case and returned to sit beside him, she said, "Hey, Tommy?" and he looked over at her. "Thank you," she said quietly. "For telling me."

His expression softened. There's my look, she thought, her heart clenching. Tommy nodded. "Yeah. Of course, girl."


A/N: idk why I apparently like killing Tommy's mom off. This is far from my favorite thing I've ever written, but it's kind of sweet, anyway. Your reviews, as always, are appreciated.