Seems as if my FF fanaticism is waning, but I'll continue to write this. (More because I feel it's just another story rather than fan fiction.)

Hmm... This one came at like 750am. Damn muse.

Now I must make a real A/N: All 9 of the previous chapters have been there to set a tone. (And last chapter was me drawing upon every damn book I read in 9th grade. That, for me, had significance.) A few things I want to make clear – blue. BLUE. I'll continue to use it until I'm "smurfy" my damn self, but it does have a meaning. Just... think about it. Jude – up, down, up, down, sideways, yesterday, tomorrow, sob. Jude's done crying but it doesn't make everything ok. Jude... she's an odd character. Tommy – I think I live in his head these days. The Rest – HA. All will be revealed.

And at some pt, we will see G Major again. A little something that'll be thrown into the mix.

And there is some MAJOR juxtaposition going down. X is Y and Y is Z but does X plus Y plus Z equal W? Mwaha... Please believe. It's all there for a reason.

I really don't think our protagonists will EVER be as deep and emotional as we all make them, but we still do it. HMM.

Now that that's done...

Again, thank you for all the comments and reviews and to the A.W.D. You inspire me to be better. Here's to 2006...

Chapter 10 / Can I Tell You a Story?

Tommy smiled down at the sleeping thing bound tightly in his micro-suede, burnt cobalt comforter. She lay on her stomach, sunbathing in the twilighting dawn, its final violet fantasies brought down for the night. He wasn't sure when she'd snuck past him or what brought her to his bed, but questions and wonderings were beyond him, now; he simply enjoyed waking up to her next to him.

He pulled at the corner of the blanket, sliding down the headboard he'd leaned upon. Any other time, he would have enveloped her in his strong arms and lay upon her like a Titanic door in his iceberg bedroom, but this morning was a time to marvel and dream. Sometimes, he'd count and try to figure out how long he'd known her, forever still clouding his mathematical reasoning. Other times, he solicited the help from some mystical-magical creature he kept in his bottom drawer to understand what he'd done to deserve her. More times than not, though, either in sleep or in dream, he would try to conjure up ways of making it all seem as enchanted as it did in his head.

In dreams, they were out of the city and on some remote island off the coast of New Brunswick doing nothing but what they loved – music, him writing a little, her trying to learn a new instrument to diversify her sound, waking up together. A cozy white house with beet red shudders, evergreens grew in thickets miles deep and the water around them would expand for days. Fog would remain until noon and the sun wouldn't set until eight; they'd sit amongst the firs and pines and contemplate whether the stars really did meaning something. She'd mentioned it all once before, a passing musing in the days of old, but it stuck to his ribs and fed him when he was drunk and the speed of his car left him malnourished.

He thought over the grace of her hands tucked so soundly under her, the simple lines of her body and how thin she looked, and the oversized t-shirt of his he'd let her borrow and loved to see her in. She wore him like a second skin, on and underneath, every story he told her emblazoning her own. She reminded him of his mother, before and after. Deep down, he still felt like the little boy playing with toy trucks and army men, watching the frenzied work of the woman he loved most. How she buzzed from this to that, futilely obsessing over every detail of a task. He was still the child who lay beside his sleeping protector, stroking her forehead and hoping she'd wake up okay, whispering in his tiny voice that he'd be good if she would just get better. Today, the voice wasn't so tiny and he was now the protector, but he still whispered promises and bargains to the slumbering sparrows on branches he couldn't reach.

"Morning..." Jude stretched out her arms between grumbles, turning her head to look at Tommy. He smiled shyly, filing away her sleepy eyes and smudged face into the photo book in the back of his mind.

"Morning, girl... Sleep alright?"

Jude's features glazed over with distance, a visual ticking and tocking of the mind playing itself for a few seconds.

"I need to call my family today." Tommy slightly raised his left eyebrow, wondering where that had come from. Jude closed her eyes, letting her face melt into his bed. "I don't know. I just have to tell them something, tell them I'm not at Brice anymore."

"Won't they flip?"

"Maybe, but whatever. I'll think of something. I've gotten good at it." She pushed herself up from the bed, sitting back on her heels. She looked around the room, grabbing her arms as she rubbed her hands up and down. "Do you always keep it so cold?"

He laughed softly, pulling her over to him. He draped his arm over her shoulder, continuing her warm up tactics.

"Yeah, I like it cold."

"You're a freak." She ran her hand over his torso before swinging her leg over his to get out of the bed. She paused for a moment, straddling his thighs and looking at the two of them in their positions. He looked down between them, her grinning as she shook her head at the absurdity. She slid from his lap, landing squarely on the plush carpet. She held out her hand to him, motioning towards the door. "Come on, Quincy. I'll make coffee."