A/N: Hello again everyone. I am back in the land of internet to provide you with this chapter!

To my Jude-hating reviewer: you made some reasonable points in your review to chapter 46. I still don't agree with your perspective, and I don't think Jude deserves the amount of venom that's in a lot of your reviews, but I do understand better now where it's coming from. Your distaste for Jude's attitude makes sense in a lot of ways, so I am no longer entirely baffled by the way you interpret the story. I still don't agree that Jude should be expected to give up her career in penance. Not being willing to burn down your entire life for the person you love does not mean you don't love them, and it doesn't make you not sorry. But I will easily concede that yes, definitely, if she had gone to Tommy from the beginning, said "I talked to Nora and these are my only two options: leave Bermondsey or do a duet," had included him in the decision rather than making it without telling him, then keeping it from him, then Tommy would've reacted much more reasonably. Maybe it would have even been enough to keep them moving forward on the road to reconciliation, rather than what actually happened which catalyzed their further falling apart. But hey, people and characters don't always make what is in retrospect the right decision. Jude has never been the pinnacle of mature and rational decision-making, and neither has Tommy. She also provided her own defenses ("I put off telling you because I was scared," as well as the fact that she didn't tell him right away because she thought maybe she could get out of it and avoid the situation altogether) that I think are reasonable, given the way Tommy had been treating her before he left.

Jude definitely hasn't made the most mature decisions in this story, but Jude as a character never has. She reacts emotionally more than logically, and she does that... pretty much literally always. She's not sweet and calm and patient, especially not when she's hurting. That's not the character portrayed in Instant Star, and the amount of growing up that she has done in these stories since then doesn't necessarily change her personality. A Jude who always reacts with calm and patience to Tommy's anger is a Jude that's profoundly out of character, in my opinion. (Plus, if she had made all the mature and rational decisions... where's the story?) I still don't think she's the unapologetic/whiny/entitled child you're constructing.

It also seems like you think I'm harsher on Tommy than I am. I really don't think I ever had "everyone taking her side" at any point, and I honestly never thought of any of what happens in this story as being all his fault, up to and including the drinking. It's a choice he makes, in a sense, but it's also an addiction, and a relapse of an addiction can't fairly be viewed as a moral failing, especially in the context of everything else he's facing. (The violence I'm less willing to excuse, but that's me.) Maybe this chapter and the next will restore a little of your faith that I haven't had everyone abandon Tommy. Or, who knows, maybe it won't. (A warning, though: please remember that another thing that is profoundly in-character for Tom Quincy is self-loathing. The views he presents of himself aren't necessarily my own.)


Being back in Toronto was all kinds of surreal. Tommy was staying with Kwest until he could find a place of his own, but Kwest was still living in Tommy's old apartment, having taken over the lease when Tommy moved to London, and being back in the apartment brought back a barrage of memories of a Jude he'd almost forgotten in all the intervening years. Kwest had changed a lot about the place, including nearly all of the furniture and decor, and even some of the paint and appliances, but too many things were still the same.

As the sun was just starting to set, Tommy looked out at the view of the city through the picture window and remembered the first time Jude had ever been here. She had been that headstrong, stubborn redhead, a few weeks out from her 16th birthday. It seemed impossibly young now, and impossibly long ago. He'd picked her up to bring her to the studio, but had forgotten something or other at home, so he'd brought her back here so he could grab it. She had grown visibly nervous as she followed him into the apartment, uncharacteristically quiet and standing very still and stiff. He'd watched her take in the room. When her eyes had landed on the window, they had widened, and she'd walked over and looked out at the view of the city. At the wonder on her face, he'd smiled involuntarily, felt an already familiar twinge of something he'd known he needed to repress while she was still so very young, while she was dating Shay, while the timing had been wrong for so many reasons. He couldn't have imagined the years to come.

"Hey," Kwest's voice came from behind him.

Tommy turned. "Hey." He tried to rearrange his features into something resembling a smile, or at least to hide the grief he felt, but judging by the sad look on Kwest's face, he failed.

"How you doing, T?" Kwest asked.

Tommy shrugged. "Fine. It's weird being back here, but I'm fine."

Kwest sat down on the couch and continued to look sadly at him. "Yeah? You sure you're okay?" He asked the question with a gentleness Tommy found irritating. Jamie and Zeppelin had been like this too, walking on eggshells. He hated that his friends thought he needed to be handled with kid gloves now, that he'd reached the point where even Kwest was tiptoeing around him.

Tommy sighed and sat in the armchair. "I don't know, man," he muttered.

"Have you talked to Jude at all?"

"No. But that's kind of the point of this, isn't it? We're over. I screwed it up."

"It wasn't your fault."

"Yes, it was." Tommy shook his head. "Can we just drop this?" he snapped. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Yeah, 'course," Kwest said, but didn't say anything else for a long moment.

Tommy shut his eyes with another sigh and quietly said, "I can't believe I screwed everything up again. I tried so hard to make it work and I just… fucked it up, all over again. And this time it's for good. I left, I failed her again."

"From what Jude said, it didn't sound like either of you had much choice. She's basically the one who arranged this job, that's not the same as you leaving her."

"No, it's worse." He opened his eyes and looked at Kwest, frowning. "She told me to leave."

"Yeah, exactly, that's what I'm saying. How does that make this your fault?"

"Because I've been treating her like shit, Kwest. It got so bad that the only thing she felt like she could do was ask me, practically beg me, to move to another fucking continent."

"She cheated on you, T, that's not nothing."

Tommy shook his head, looking back down at the floor in front of him. When he spoke his voice was soft. "When I first found out about the pregnancy, when we disagreed about whether to keep the baby, the first thing I did was scream in her face, and then I ran halfway across the world without telling her where I was going. She was 21, and pregnant, and scared of losing her career, and instead of trying to understand that, I left her. I was gone for two days, with no contact."

"You came back," Kwest said, still in that same gentle voice.

Tommy looked up at him. "And when I came back, Jude would have been completely justified in shouting at me, or leaving me, or… But she didn't. She didn't yell, she didn't tell me she couldn't trust me anymore, we didn't even fight about it, Kwest!" He was getting worked up now, his voice raising in volume. "Instead, she went out of her way to comfort me while she was the one laying in a fucking hospital bed, and then she decided she wanted to have a kid with me, man. She forgave me, like it was nothing." His voice cracked a little and he looked back down at the floor. "So yeah, she cheated on me, and it wasn't nothing. It sucked, and it hurt, but it was just one mistake, and I knew that. I knew. Me, of all people, I can't pretend I don't understand how something like that can happen. I should've been able to forgive her. If it were me, she'd have forgiven me months ago. She's always forgiven me, for every horrible thing I've ever done to her. But I just couldn't let it go, so I ruined the most important thing in my life." He put his head in his hands.

Kwest was silent for a long time before saying, "Maybe the story's not over. Maybe you both just need some time."

Tommy shook his head. "I can't afford to think that. Besides, I tried that already, remember? Taking a break? Nah, man. This was it this time. She deserves better, anyway. All I've ever been is bad for her."

"That's not true. You were good to her, T. You were good together, and you were a good dad. Don't forget that."

Tommy shook his head again. "That was before."

There was another long pause before Kwest said, "She didn't tell you to leave because she wanted you gone. When she called me, what she said was 'he's not okay.' She was concerned about you. She wasn't angry. This isn't your–"

"Stop!" Tommy cried, looking back at Kwest. "Stop! I don't want you to defend me! Shit!"

For the first time, Kwest looked irritated. "Fine. What do you want me to say?" he asked, his voice harder than before. "Do you want me to call you out for breaking a guy's nose? Do you want me to yell at you for drinking again? Do you want me to tell you that you need to get your shit together? Fine, Tommy, you need to get your shit together." His voice softened again. "But that's why you're here. Because you know that. I know this sucks, but I think if you can turn it around, channel it into recovery, then maybe it'll be worth it. So go ahead and take your share of the responsibility, by all means, but you can't blame yourself for all of it, and you can't blame yourself as an excuse to give up. You've always done this, you know? You like to think of yourself as a lost cause, but it's not true. You've been through some impossible shit this year. Sure, you've made some mistakes, and obviously so did Jude, but a lot of it wasn't in your control. Caroline, the cheating, the accident, even the drinking, there's a lot that isn't your fault. You cannot put all of this on yourself. Even though you made mistakes, falling into that self-hate spiral of yours isn't gonna do you any good. So I'm serious, man, you've gotta stop blaming yourself."

Irritation and gratefulness fought each other in Tommy's mind for a long moment as he looked at his friend. Eventually he rolled his eyes, but smiled a little. "You should've been a shrink, Kwest." He said it in a tone that was dry and sarcastic enough that Kwest laughed.

"Point taken." Kwest shook his head, then spoke sincerely again. "I'm just trying to help, man. Let you know that I believe in you and shit."

"Thanks, I guess?"

Kwest glanced at his watch. "Hey, I gotta go meet Sadie. You good?"

Tommy nodded. "I'm fine. Really."

Kwest stood up from the couch and started to leave the room, but turned around before he reached the door. "Hey," Kwest said softly. Tommy looked up at him and raised his eyebrows. "Maybe instead of spending all your time thinking about what you lost, try to think about what you might be able to get back? Not necessarily Jude," he added hastily, seeing Tommy about to protest. "I mean yourself, man. Yeah?" Tommy didn't say anything, and Kwest shrugged after a moment. "Just think about it."