A/N: I hated writing this chapter. It didn't turn outeven closelike I wanted it to, but it'll have to do because I just want to move on. I really want to write the part in the story that's not due for several more chapters, so I'm becoming cranky because I can't yet. The next update may be much slower in coming because a) school is starting again b) I haven't done my homework for break yet and I have one day left c) serious writer's block on how I want to say stuff in the next chapter d) I'm one of the laziest people to ever live.

Happy New Year everyone!Thanks for the great feedback; please keep it coming!

Chapter 6

Speed, Kyle, and Wally tumbled off of the tour bus, glad to finally be home. The doors of G Major opened and out walked Georgia, Kwest, Jamie, Tommy, Darius, and various members of G Major's staff. The doors had just closed when they flew open again, revealing EJ, who opted to fly back instead of go on the bus. The group made it's way over to the bus and began to congratulate the guys.

Hands were clasped, bodies embraced, and backs slapped. Finally Kwest noticed someone obvious was missing from the group of returnees. Actually, Tommy noticed as soon as they reached the bus but didn't say anything in case someone grew suspicious of his eagerness to see Jude.

Kwest began looking around and peering over people's heads. Not seeing the familiar redhead, he brought her absence to the group's attention.

"Where's Jude?"

Before anyone had a chance to answer, an earsplitting (kind of an odd cliché, now that I'm thinking about it) scream pierced the air. Everyone recognized the beautiful voice, even though it was obviously in pain.

Jamie was the first to react. "Jude!" he yelled as he sprinted towards the door of the bus, Tommy right behind him. Grabbing the handle, Jamie began yanking on it, willing it to open. "It's stuck!"

Getting worried that Jude hadn't made any other sounds, Jamie pounded the door a couple of times before giving it one mighty tug and wrenching it open. Jamie sprinted up the steps and turned to the back of the bus. He stopped dead in his tracks.

Jude was standing in front of the bathroom door, surround by tiny pieces of a broken mirror. She was holding her right hand out in front of her and a dark red stain was beginning to form on the floor as the blood cascaded down her hand. Her eyes appeared blank, like she hadn't really registered what had happened.

"Oh my-" Jamie managed to say before he fainted, thankfully landing on the couch.

Tommy bounded up the steps as he saw Jamie collapse on the couch. He, too, turned and saw Jude standing there, a vision of beauty and horror. The blood continued to drip onto the floor and Tommy quickly assessed the situation.

Deciding that there wasn't enough room for him to be able to carry her, Tommy grabbed Jude's unharmed left hand and pulled her to the door. On the way, he snatched a towel that was hanging over the sink.

Jude seemed to snap back to life and winced as her right hand accidentally hit the counter. By now she was standing at the steps with Tommy behind her, holding her waist securely to keep her from falling down.

"Kwest!" Tommy shouted. Kwest almost instantly appeared at the bottom of the stairs, ready to do whatever Tommy asked.

Tommy turned his attention back to Jude. "Jude, do you think you can make it down the steps okay?"

She nodded numbly and began her descent. It was fine until she reached the last step, where she tripped and fell right into Kwest's arms.

Tommy breathed out a sigh of relief as he saw Kwest catch Jude, glad of his foresight. He jumped down the steps and went to help Kwest with Jude.

Georgia, EJ, Darius, and everyone else was still completely clueless as to what had happened. EJ let out asmall scream when she caught sight of Jude's gory hand as she fell from the bus. No one said anything; they were too shocked to do anything besides stare at the even unfolding in front of them.

By the time Tommy got back on solid ground, Kwest had set Jude upright but still held onto her shoulders until he was sure she regained her balance. Tommy rushed up and wrapped the towel he had grabbed earlier around Jude's bleeding hand.

Jude squeezed her eyes shut and bit her lip as the pain became overwhelming. She knew Tommy was just trying to help by wrapping her hand in the towel, and it was the sensible thing to do, but it simply pushed the shards that were still in her hand in further. Then he continued holding her hand and applying pressure to stop the bleeding. She couldn't take any more pain.

"TOMMY STOP!" Jude shrieked as she ripped her hand away. Oh, God, it hurts! Why is Tommy always hurting me?

Whether from the pain, blood loss, or a combination of both, Jude began to feel dizzy. Please don't let me faint...please...

Her wishes were to no avail as her legs gave way and her vision went black. Luckily for Jude, Kwest noticed when she started to sway and caught her before she hit the ground. Tommy was still too shocked at Jude's sudden outburst against him to do anything just yet. He was just trying to help. Why didJude scream at me like that? She's neverspoken to me like that before, never sounded so harsh.I can't believe how much I must have hurt her! Why do I always end up hurting her, even when it's the last thing I'm trying to do?

Noticing Tommy's distraction, Kwest started to get pissed. "Come on, man, wake up! Move! Do something! Jude's hurt!"

It was the last part of what Kwest saidthat brought Tommy back. "We need to get her to the emergency room or a hospital or something. She's lost a lot of blood. I'll take her in the Viper, it'll be the fastest," directed Tommy as he dug in his pocket for his keys.

"That's more like it," Kwest said as he picked an unconscious Jude up and threw her over his shoulder. Following Tommy, he made his way towards the infamous blue Viper.

On the trip to the Viper, Jude came to and felt like puking as she was bounced around upside down. What the hell...? Eventually she realized that Kwest was carrying her and she managed to croak out his name. "Kwest."

"Yeah, Jude?"

"Why am I on your shoulder?"

"You passed out and Tommy's gonna take you to the hospital."

"Oh, okay. But could you put me down before I hurl?"

"Are you sure, Jude? Are you positive that you feel ok to stand?"

"Well, I'm sure that I'm going to make a mess on your clothes if you don't put me down right now. As for how I'm feeling, I've been better. My hand hurts, not my feet."

She may be hurt, but that didn't do anything to her sarcasm, Tommy thought as he watched Kwest set Jude gently down on the ground.

Suddenly her eyes flashed as she remembered something. Jude turned and began heading back for the bus. Tommy and Kwest just looked at each other before they realized that she was going in the wrong direction.

Tommy tossed his keys to Kwest. "Go bring the car around while I get Jude," Tommy ordered as he chased after Jude.

"Jude! Jude, stop!" She turned around her head in acknowledgement but kept walking as Tommy caught up with her. "Where are you going? We need to get you the hospital to take care of your hand."

"What about Jamie?"

Tommy sighed. How can she be so worried about Jamie when her hand's gushing blood? He probably just fainted from the sight of the blood.Wuss."Jamie'll be fine. See, everyone else is already on it. Now you need to get to go with me so we can take care of your hand. It's starting to look pretty bad."

"Not until I make sure that Jamie's okay. He's always been pretty queasy around blood, especially mine. I remember this one time when we were about eleven and I crashed my bike and scraped up my knee pretty bad..." Realizing who she was talking to, Jude trailed off.

"He'll be fine, Jude. Now come on."

"No! I. Want. To. See. Jamie. First." They were about ten feet away from the bus.

Frustrated, Tommy grabbed Jude's good wrist and began pulling her back as he heard the Viper pull around.

"Let me go, Tommy, I'm fine! A couple of minutes won't matter." Jude struggled but it was no use. Georgia and a few other people noticed Tommy and Jude arguing, as well as the drenched towel that was still wrapped around Jude's hand.

"Forget it." Tommy got in front of Jude and scooped her over his shoulder, just like Kwest had a couple of minutes ago. The only difference was, this time Jude was awake and definitely not happy. She began pounding on Tommy's back with her good hand and continued even though she knew it was futile.

Tommy ignored her and called back to Georgia. "Call Lutheran Memorial and tell them we're on our way. And call Jude's parents and tell them what's going on. I'll call you soon."

"What am I supposed to tell them? What happened? All I know is that Jude's hand is a bloody mess and she doesn't want to go to the hospital. Plus, I have her boyfriend passed out on my bus."

"You know as much as I do, G. I'll get the story out of Jude and let you know. Just call them."

Tommy had reached the Viper where Kwest was waiting.

"Man, I barely drove her a hundred feet. I can't imagine what it's like on the actual road."

"And you never will." Tommy noticed that Jude had stopped hitting his back. She just hung like a limp doll over his shoulder. "That was a once in a lifetime opportunity because there was an emergency. Now open thepassenger's door so Jude can get in."

Kwest opened the door as Tommy lowered Jude to a more upright and natural position on the ground. He finally perceived that Jude had passed out again. "Jude. Jude, wake up." Tommy lightly tapped her face in an attempt to get some response. Her head just flopped onto her other shoulder.

"Oh, shit, man!" Tommy exclaimed. "She must've lost more blood than we thought. I gotta get her help, now!"

Together Tommy and Kwest quickly secured Jude in the passenger's seat. "Thanks, Kwest," Tommy yelled as he peeled out of G Major's parking lot.

Kwest headed back to the bus where everyone was still standing, shocked, except for Georgia, who was busy dialing her phone. Speed could be heard from the bus where he was trying to wake Jamie up. Kwest sighed.

"Welcome home, Jude."

Jude woke up a few hours later to sterile white walls and bright lights, the kind that make everyone look washed out. She turned her head and noticed her mom sitting in a chair next to her bed, eyes closed, head in her hands.

"Mom."

Victoria's head popped up. "Oh, Jude, honey, how do you feel?"

The memories came flooding back to Jude. She picked up her right hand and gasped when she saw it completely covered in a white bandage.

"Actually, I feel fine, although my hand's obviously numb. Why am I in a bed? All I did was cut my hand on the mirror."

Victoria sighed. "You cut it worse than you think. Some of the pieces went pretty deep and had to be stitched up. There were a couple that sliced through some muscle tissue, so it will be a little while before you can fully use your fingers again. You're mainly in the bed because there were a lot of cuts and you lost a lot of blood. Plus they gave you some drugs for the pain and said you'd be asleep for a while. Other than that, you're fine. They want to keep you overnight for observation, but you can go home tomorrow morning."

"Oh," Jude responded simply while she processed everything her mom had just told her.

"Sweetie, what hap-"

Just then Sadie walked in holding two cups of coffee. "Jude, you're awake." She set the cups down and walked over to Jude's bed, giving her a hug. Sadie opened her mouth to speak but Jude beat her to it.

"I'm fine," Jude answered before her sister could even ask. "Seriously. Maybe a little high from the drugs, but I'm okay."

A silence filled the room before Jude spoke. "Where's dad?"

Victoria and Sadie shot each other a look. It wasn't lost on Jude.

"We, um, couldn't get a hold of him. I tried again about an hour ago but I still couldn't reach him," Victoria answered.

Sadie looked at her mom, a silent question in her eyes. Victoria barely shook her head to signal "no" but Jude caught it.

"Okay, what's going on? What aren't you guys telling me?"

Neither of them answered. Sadie glanced back at her mom.

"Um, Sadie, why don't you go tell Georgia and the others that Jude's awake and she's fine."

"Ok," Sadie complied as she left the room, but not before shooting Jude a look, a look that she didn't understand.

Once the door closed behind Sadie, Victoria turned to her youngest daughter. Jude remained silent.

Another sigh came from Victoria. "Okay, um, there's something I need to tell you. Something big. Really big."

"Okay..." an extremely confused Jude said.

"I'm not really sure how to put this. I guess there's no delicate way of doing it, so I'm just going to say it." Victoria stopped talking.

"Mom?" Jude prodded, unsure.

Mother and daughter's eyes locked. "I'm pregnant."

It felt like the wind had been knocked out of her. Jude didn't say anything, just stared at her mother. Then her eyes moved down to her mother's stomach, which didn't look much different than it always had. Then again, Jude had never really paid much attention to her mother's stomach, so it could be different and she wouldn't have noticed.

Victoria waited for Jude to say something. It took a minute, but Jude managed to express a rational thought.

"How far along are you?"

"About five or six weeks."

Jude nodded. Then a disturbing question hit her like a piano falling from the top of a 20-story building.

"And the father..." Jude trailed off and braced herself for her mother's answer.

"Your dad. Stuart."