Jude felt herself snap awake without opening her eyes. Her first thought was the mysterious pounding was in complete discord with the ringing in her head. She tried to ignore it for the first few minutes but it just got louder and more conflicted. Something suddenly clicked as she felt the sunlight creep in through the haze in her head, and she realized the pounding was someone at the door to her flat

Groaning, Jude rolled out of bed. The air was colder against her skin than what she expected, and Jude realized she had slept in her underwear despite her overly cold flat. She must have been too out of it to find clean pajamas last night. Whatever Rory gave her this time was too much.

Jude scooped a t-shirt off the floor and stumbled out of the room. The banging continued as she threw the shirt on and pounded down her stairs. Ripping the door to the flat open, she was about to start screaming when her eyes locked with the man on her doorstep.

"Whoa. Dark Jude."

Jude narrowed her brow in confusion and unconsciously ran her hand through her shoulder-length black hair. "Speed?"

Spiederman's eyes shifted from her face to her body. "Half-naked Dark Jude," he snickered.

"Get in here," Jude said, grabbing a hold of his jacket and yanking him into the flat. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"I called and left you like five messages. Where the hell have you been?"

Jude looked over at the front table to see her cell phone and keys sitting there. Picking up the phone, she groaned loudly. She had thirty missed messages which meant her phone had been untouched for at least a couple days without her realizing it. She was doing that more often now that Bermanze was putting the pressure on her for that fifth album. She was so damn tired of hearing all their nagging voices. "Sorry. I've been busy," she lied.

"No problems," Speed said with a smile. He threw his duffel bag down on the ground and set down his guitar case. "Where can I crash?"

"Crash?" Jude said, wondering if she had missed part of the conversation. She was pretty sure she was no longer under the influence, but lately she was never sure.

"I'm in England for my tour. You know, amazing hit album number two? I told Jamie that he could totally cut some corners 'cause I would just stay with you while I'm in the country. NBR has a lot better uses for its funding than seedy hotel rooms."

"I don't have room," Jude said, motioning at her one person flat. It was literally a kitchen, living room, bedroom, and bathroom here. That was why she loved it so much. She didn't want a lot of space that she would have to fill up, especially when she seemed to spend most of her time in the studio. "I mean, I guess you could sleep on the couch but I don't think you'll want to do that the whole time you're in England."

"You have a bed, right?"

"Yeah," Jude said slowly, not sure where he was going with this. "Most people have a bed in their homes."

"Well I'll just stay there," Speed said, flopping down on the previously mentioned couch.

"And where will I sleep?" Jude asked. Speed wagged his eyebrows at her in response. "No. No, no, no, no."

"There's no other option. We could have fixed this if you had bothered to return any of my calls. It's too late to figure out hotel arrangements." Speed stretched out and put his hands behind his head. "You are stuck with me, Harrison, just like old times."

"Fabulous," Jude said, sitting down on the couch next to him. She knew that she sounded annoyed right now, but there was a little part of her that was delighted Speed wouldn't take no for an answer. Maybe he could help her get back on track with the album while he was here. They had been almost as good for each other musically as they had been bad for each other romantically.

A tiny voice in the back of her head also reminded her that it might be nice to have a friend around from before her life got so out of control. Maybe she would be forced to figure out what the hell she was doing.

Her thoughts were interrupted when Speed reached out to tug a lock of her now dark hair. "What's the story behind this, Jude?"

Jude ran her hands self-consciously through it. "I got bored and it felt like time for a change."

"Does it have anything to do with a guy? Because last time you did this was the great break-up with Jamie."

"No, I was just bored," Jude insisted.

Speed stared at her a moment before shaking his head. "Why are you lying to me?"

Jude suddenly remembered why she had done her best to fall out of touch with her life back in Toronto. The people back there knew her too well. She knew that she would never be able to lie to them, and because of that, they would inevitably have opinions about what she was doing to her life. Jude stared down at her hands. She might as well tell him the truth. "I had to dye it black to cover up a mistake I made." Speed waited patiently for her to go on. "I was at a party and apparently had too much to drink. I woke up and my hair was some sickening purple color that's popular over here right now. It would have taken a series of appointments over a month's time to get it back to blonde, and I had a photo shoot the next day. There wasn't much of a choice especially if I didn't want Bermanze to come down on some of the choices I was making. The stylists did what they could, and my PR team spun a story about the new look of Jude Harrison that matches the new tone of her music."

"How is the music coming?"

Jude shrugged, avoiding the question. "Listen. I have to get dressed. There's work I need to do at the studio today. Make yourself at home as much as you want." She was surprised when Speed didn't call out for her to cut the bullshit as she ran up the stairs. Her rushed explanation was anything but convincing.

She paused to look at herself in her bedroom mirror and was pleased to see she was not a total mess. Grabbing an elastic, she pulled her hair out of her face and into a messy ponytail then grabbed a pair of jeans from her closet. She needed to get out of her flat as quickly as possible. Maybe with some distance, she could figure out what to tell Speed when he got around to asking more questions.

"I'll be back late," Jude said as she barreled down the stairs. She felt her heart tug at the sight of Speed passed out on the couch. He had had issues with jet lag since the day she met him. Leaning in, she gave him a small kiss on his forehead before grabbing her leather jack and helmet off the coat rack nearby. She knew he would forgive her for running out on him.

The sky rumbled a bit, and as Jude slid onto her motorcycle, she noticed some severe black clouds rolling in. If the rain would just stay away for one extra hour, then she might be able to get somewhere.

The words of that one stray thought played over and over in her head as she kickstarted the bike. She had only driven her motorcycle a few blocks when a familiar feeling came over her. One extra hour was really just a plea for more time to make changes. It was desperation at its finest. That one final appeal to be given the chance to change so that things can stay the same.

She felt a beat start in her head to go along with her thoughts and began to hum to herself as she pulled in and out of traffic. By the time she reached the studio, she had a few lines already formed.

Doing her best to avoid being noticed by anyone, she slipped into Studio G and was grateful to see someone had left a company guitar behind. Usually she had her own instruments set out but it seems like Max must have put them into cold storage the sixth or seventh time she bailed on him. This studio very obviously wasn't reserved for her any longer. Jude strummed a few chords on the guitar and started to merge the words with the rhythm she had created on the way over.

It didn't come as a surprise when it was two hours later and she had lost sight of the direction she was heading in. This was what had been happening for weeks every time she attempted to work. She found inspiration easily, but the second she tried to make something out of it, it disappeared or shifted into something unrecognizable. For some reason, she let herself believe each time that she could do it. She let herself think that she could push past all the hesitance inside of her and compose a song. All she got for that was bits and pieces of songs that would never be written. There was no cohesiveness to her writing. There was no direction.

Sighing, Jude set the guitar down and shut her eyes. She felt herself wondering what Tommy would tell her to do. The answer was probably something crazy like go out in the middle of the street and compose a song from all the cars honking at her to get out of the way or try to play her guitar left handed to add a raw quality to the music.

"Are you just going to sit there, Bee, or are you going to do something?"

Jude opened her eyes to see Carlee staring at her through the window. It was odd. Jude couldn't remember when her supposed friend had dyed her hair pink, but she could remember taking the piss out of it with total strangers. She had barely spoken to Carlee over the past few months even though they went to all the same parties and hung out with all the same people. It was weird. Back when Jude had first moved to London, the two of them had been two peas in a pod, going out on the town after every show they had. They got into all those crazy situations that Jude had so desperately wanted to experience. It had been fun even if it felt a little fake. Now she didn't know if they were even fake friends. Jude felt like she should smile for the sake of history but couldn't drum up the energy after the double exhaustion of trying to write a song and trying to figure out if they were even friends anymore. "Apparently I'm just going to sit here," Jude finally replied.

"What? Things not flowing today?"

"I'm having a rough day." The words were heavy on her tongue. She was getting tired of keeping up the façade. It would be really nice if she could admit to someone how huge her writer's block was. It would also be nice if, for once, someone wouldn't take all the lies she told at face value. Everything was surface-level for her these days, and it was driving her insane.

"Wow. The great Jude Harrison is actually human."

Jude tried to ignore the resentment in Carlee's voice. She had nothing to do with why Carlee's last album was barely selling any units and had no clue why it seemed like Carlee felt she was to blame.

"Listen. I'm just here to deliver a message," Carlee said. "Your best friend's been looking for you."

"What does Rory want?"

"Apparently the party of the year is happening tonight and he wants his little sidekick along."

"I'll call him," Jude said, hoping that Carlee picked up on the dismissal in her tone. She really did not need this right now.

"You know you're starting to get a reputation here, Bee. You need to watch yourself."

Jude widened her eyes. If she wasn't mistaken, that sounded like a threat. She had no clue when her life had gotten to this point. She had become the type of person who had enemies who wanted to see her fail. Things were different, and the only thing she knew was how worn-out she was from it all.

Grabbing her stuff, Jude prepared to sneak out of the studio. There was not a lot of people around right now which she was grateful for. She didn't want to face the inevitable questions about what was wrong with her and why she couldn't push past whatever it was blocking her.

Jude wasn't surprised when she only made it as far as the elevator before hearing her name. Of course, it was from the mouth of the very last person in the world she wanted to see. "Hi, Max," she said, turning around slowly to face her producer.

Max didn't even pretend to engage in niceties. "Get your ass back into that studio." When she didn't move, he grabbed her arm and started pulling her down the hallway.

"That hurts!" she yelled, trying to yank her arm back.

Max's grip tightened. "I don't care. You are teetering on the line of complete artistic self-destruction here, Harrison. Bermanze needs at least two viable tracks out of you by the end of the week. I assured them that was no problem so you are going to get it together and get in that studio. You are not leaving until I have one full track ready for official production tomorrow. This is not just your livelihood depending on this."

Jude almost tripped over her feet as Max shoved her into one of the studios. She heard a click and realized that he was serious. He had just locked her into the studio. Her fists banged on the door as hard as she could. "Max! Come on."

Max shook his head. "You can lie and pretend all you want, Jude. I know you have a problem. Hopefully you'll be able to work your way through it because right now, you don't have another option. I'll bring you some dinner in a bit. Get to writing."

Jude slammed her jacket and helmet to the floor. It was very demeaning to be treated like a child who was playing hookie from their responsibilities. It wasn't like she was holding back on purpose or anything. "Fine!" she screamed. "You want a track. I'll give you one." Jude cranked the amp up as high as she could go and started singing her way through most of the profanity-laced insults that she knew, directing them towards Max. She even found herself making up some on the spot.

The only problem was it got old rather fast since Max seemed to have really abandoned her to her work.

Jude let out a sigh and decided she might as well get started since Max was serious about this. She shut her eyes and tried to remember the direction she intended to go with the song she started composing earlier.

Max held true to his word, much to the joy of her growling stomach. He came back with food just when Jude thought she was going to collapse from hunger. On top of being a delivery boy, he also stayed for over an hour to help her with the song that just wouldn't gel. Jude complained multiple times that her writing was sounding pedestrian for some unknown reason, but Max didn't seem to care. His job was on the line so he couldn't really be bothered if the song she wrote was complete shit. He was past the point of artistic integrity. He just wanted something, anything, from her.

Five hours later, Jude was exhausted but she had a song. She called Max on his cell phone to let him know she had done what had been asked of her. It wasn't a surprise when he made her perform the song into the phone to prove she wasn't lying.

Maybe there was one person in her life who realized how heavily she was relying on lies these days.

Jude only had to wait five minutes for the security guard to come upstairs and unlock the studio door. Apparently Max had called to have her released once he realized there really was a complete song.

The ride back to her flat was fairly uneventful. There was no further musical inspiration which she was grateful for. She was already embarrassed about the horrible song she had written. She was not in the mood to lose even more of her self-respect by squandering inspiration twice in one day.

Her phone rang just as Jude entered the door. "Rory, you would not believe the day I had," she exclaimed, throwing her keys down.

"I don't care," Rory replied shortly. "Listen. There's a party at Runway tonight. Come or don't come. I don't care if you-"

"Why are you being such a prick?" Jude interrupted. She was not in the mood to dance around the subject with Rory right now. She had had a horrible day and didn't need to start her evening by coddling Rory's bruised emotions.

"Let me guess. You don't remember, do you?"

"Remember what?"

"What you and I did last night."

"I remember you took me to your friend's birthday party. I remember we had our usual fun. I remember you got me home somehow."

"Do you remember that you almost slept with me?" Rory let out a forced laugh. "Do you remember stopping me when things were about to get good and telling me that you couldn't? You seem to be able to sleep with all my friends, Jude, but you can't bring yourself to do the same when it comes to me."

Memories of the night before started flashing through Jude's head. She could remember stopping herself just like he said. It had occurred to her that no matter how desperately she wanted to stay numb to what she was doing to herself, even she had limits. "You called me some pretty rough names."

"You deserved it."

Another memory popped into her head, and Jude felt herself chuckle. "Did I really steal your stash out of your pocket and flush it down the toilet when you walked away?"

"You cost me over three thousand pounds and quite a few paying customers."

Jude heard a creak upstairs and suddenly remembered she wasn't alone in her flat. After the pressure of the day, she had completely forgotten about Speed being there. "I'll pay you back, Rory. I promise."

"I really don't care, Jude. I told you where the party was. Now you know and can go get drunk off your ass and screw some random stranger so that you don't have to remember how much your life sucks." When Jude didn't say a word in response, Rory laughed. "Hit the nail right on the head with that one, didn't I? Listen. Come to the party tonight. There are people who'll expect you to be there. Just do me a favor and keep the name Tom Quincy from coming out of your lips for one goddamn night. Do you think you can do that?"

Jude didn't have a chance to respond. He had already hung up. "Dick," she hissed, staring at the call ended message on her screen. She felt the anger bubble up inside her and chucked her phone against the mirror across from her. It cracked against the corner and fell to pieces on the ground.

Bending down to pick up the pieces, Jude tried to ignore the fact that this was the third phone she had destroyed in as many months. Instead she focused on figuring out how she could possibly go out tonight while avoiding the car crash that was her relationship with Rory these days. She needed the numbness that this life provided but that didn't mean she needed all the drama.

Jude stopped what she was doing as she saw the paper on the floor in front of her. She looked up at the cracked mirror. She had no clue how a takeout menu had gotten shoved up there but it wasn't surprising. These things had a life of their own. Walking to the kitchen, she was about to throw it out when her eyes caught on familiar handwriting. She stared at it for what seemed like forever, a little afraid to believe that the writing was actually there and fairly terrified that if she looked away, it might disappear.

Her hands were shaking as she set the takeout menu down on the counter. She couldn't stop herself. The words quietly slipped from her lips as her fingers ran along the ink. "Jude. I meant everything I said. I love you and I'll come back to you as soon as I can. Tommy."

It came on in a rush. All those feelings of numbness she had been fighting to both feel and avoid since the day Tommy abandoned her fell away in a split second, and she finally felt something real.

She felt her heart break harder and faster than ever before.

Her knees gave out and she sank to the floor. The tears she had been building up for weeks finally started falling. She was so tired of this stupid life she chose to live. She just wanted everything to stop. She wanted the struggle to stop. Life wasn't supposed to be like this.

Her life wasn't supposed to be like this.

Jude struggled to breathe as wave after wave of emotion ravaged her body. She couldn't figure out where things had gone wrong. Had it been when she made the stupid mistake of going to New Brunswick to see Tommy and his mother? Was it walking away from him and choosing the life of a rockstar? Maybe she had gone wrong all the way back when she won the Instant Star competition. She had no clue.

All she knew was she was tired of the crying and the regret and the guilt and the numbness.

Jude forced herself to get to her feet, even though all she wanted to do was sit here and never move. She stumbled slightly as she made her way upstairs, but she kept pushing on. This was all she felt like she had right now, the ability to push emotions to the side and try to keep moving one step at a time.

For a second, seeing Speed asleep in her bed made Jude forgot all the thoughts and emotions crashing around in her head, but then the moment faded. She didn't even bother to change her clothes or pull back the covers. She just slid onto the bed and laid her head on the pillow.

"Jude?" Speed's voice went from half-asleep to worried almost immediately. "Jude? What's wrong?"

"I don't know how my life got so messed up," she whispered, wiping a tear off her cheek.

Speed gave her a small smile. "Your life's not messed up, Harrison."

"Yes, it is." Jude tried to keep it at just that. She didn't want to unload on Speed when he was here as a guest and as a friend. He had no clue the hornet's nest he put himself right in the middle of by showing up on her doorstep.

Jude managed only to breathe a few times before the words fell from her lips. "I've let things get out of control. I've been so focused on being numb and trying not to feel the pain that I don't even know who I am anymore. I'm supposed to be writing my fifth album and I can't even get myself to write more than three lines of one damn song. Since my last album started selling so well, Bermanze expects me to be the new rising star, but they don't get it. The last album was so easy for me to write. I used everything I was feeling to make those songs. It was how I dealt with leaving Tommy behind and how much I missed him. It was coming to grips with how scary it is to finally be on my own and free. I was my own person for the first time in my life."

Speed nodded. "It was a good album."

"But now I'm just a complete wreck. Every single thing I'm feeling, I wouldn't wish on any other person in the whole world. Kind of makes it hard to write a song about it."

Speed reached out and grasped her hand that was laying on the pillow. "That doesn't sound so bad."

Jude felt herself start to cry again. She wished she was like Speed and could just make a joke whenever life got too serious, but she couldn't do it. She was the one who guilted and angsted her way through each day no matter what. "You don't understand. I made the choice to come to London, live the life of a rockstar, and because of that, I've forced myself to let go. I'm out every night until the sun comes up at random parties. I'm doing things that I spent the majority of my life disgusted by, but I make myself do them because if I don't, what was the point of ruining the life I had back in Toronto?"

Silence filled the space between them, and Jude braced herself for his reaction. She looked up to see Speed smiling down at her. "You can always come home. We're all still there and that will never change. Whenever you're ready."

Jude felt herself laugh despite the tears that were still cascading down her cheek. She moved in closer to give Speed a hug. She had been so scared when he showed up this afternoon, seeing as she had no clue how her new London life could possibly fit in with her old life in Canada.

She should have known there was no reason to worry.

The tears slowly stopped, and she could feel herself start to calm. For a moment, she felt like she could hang on for just a little while longer.

"Can I ask you something, Jude?"

Jude opened her eyes and smiled. "Yes?"

"When did you get the tattoo?"

Jude followed Speed's eyes down to where his hand held hers. She was surprised he had even noticed. The small tattoo of a star on her finger was barely noticeable in the daylight, let alone in the middle of the night. "I got it right after my birthday. It was a drunken mistake, but I kind of like it. It's a reminder of where I got started from."

"And it reminds you of him, "Speed said since he knew she wouldn't. Jude nodded.

They fell into silence again, and Jude felt herself slowly falling asleep. "Speed?"

"Yeah, Jude?"

"Thanks for being a pain in the ass."

"Anytime," Speed said, smiling as Jude snuggled in closer to him.