A/N: Please don't hate me! (Hides from tomatoes) I know it took a long time for me to get this out, and I'll apologize until my lungs collapse. I'm not going to give any excuses, because it's here now and you've waited long enough. Parts of this chapter were easy to write, others not quite. Like I've said before, nothing turns out how I plan. I can't think of anything specific to say, but I hope everyone had a great New Year's and got really wasted! (only if you're legal) There's no way I'm going to be able to wait seven years to get pissed at some New Year's party (shhh...lol).

Moving on, please read and review if you haven't forgotten about me and you don't hate me too much. This is by far the longest chapter I've written so far and a lot of stuff at the end is rambling, but everyone needs a good ramble every once in a while, don't you think?The part with Jamie will come into play in a little bit, it's not just pointless filler space. Tommy might seem a little out of character, sorry about that if you think he is.

Oh, part of my ever-lasting disclaimer comes into play in this part. See if you can spot it, even though it's horribly obvious! I absolutely love the movie I stole it from, hehe! Another random thought: I finally decided on a title! Fitting, huh? Sorry for constantly changing it on you guys and if it caused anyone trouble finding it. This one's here to stay! (unless I can think of a better one, of course! jk!)

There are some swear words in this one, so I apologize if they offend you. It figures that I put this little note in after I used a little cuss word in my author's note up there, but I'm too lazy to change the order. You understand. It's three in the morning and I've been working on this since, oh, I dunno, maybe 9? There were breaks and stuff in between, but it still took a long time! Shutting up now. Don't cheer too loud, please.

Chapter 7

The doors burst open and the anxious teenagers shot to their cars, or their friend's car, or, for the unlucky few, the buses. Engines revved, windows rolled down, music blared, and tires screeched as everyone hurried to escape the prison that they had been trapped in for the past several hours. And it was only the first day.

By now the doors had closed, but they were opened again as three people walked outside into the still warm fall air. A tall guy with brown hair was in the middle and had his arms slung around the shoulders of the two shorter girls that were beside him. They jumped down the stairs, laughing the entire way until they were safely on even ground again. The laughter finally died as the three faced each other and the conversation came to an end, seeing as they all had to go somewhere else to do something else with somebody else.

There was a comfortable silence while the group caught their breath and thought about, well, whatever they were thinking about.

"I hate to admit it, but it actually feels kind of good to be back," Jamie announced as he turned around to look at the front of the school building that he'd be stuck in until next summer.

The blonde girl took a playful swing at Jamie, attempting to knock such blasphemous thoughts from his head. Fortunately for him, he managed to avoid the blow, which wasn't hard since she had pretty crappy aim to begin with.

"That just proves what I've known all along--you're a freak."

"Hey, I was just sharing my thoughts and being honest. No need for name-calling. And it really does feel nice to be back here. Seriously."

"Easy for you to say, Andrews. You ace every class you take. I, on the other hand, got a six percent in math...as a final grade. And you remember chemistry last year, right? I don't see why it matters so much, anyway. It's not like I'm going to be a doctor or anything," Jude mumbled.

"You never know..." Jamie teased, mimicking her mom.

The so far silent third party of the group spoke up. "Sorry guys, but I need to get going. It's the first day and my teachers have already dished out the homework. Good-bye to any possible chance of a social life this year."

Jude took pity on her friend and gave her a friendly hug. "Don't worry, Kat. Jamie and I will keep you informed. Well, I will at least since Jamie will actually do his homework and we all know I won't."

"Thanks. So I'll see you guys tomorrow?"

"Yep. English with Mr. Sanders, bright and early," Jamie chipped in, much too cheerfully in Jude's mind.

"Gee, I can't wait," Kat responded, her voice dripping with sarcasm and echoing Jude's thoughts.

Jude and Jamie gave their friend a final hug and waved as she drove off for home. Jude slipped her arm through Jamie's and rested her head on his shoulder as they wandered around the parking lot, looking for his car, which he finally got fixed. I'm glad Jamie convinced me to call Kat and tell her about him and me being together. She seemed okay with it, which really surprised me after what happened before, but I guess I'm not the only one who changed over summer. I was just so afraid that she'd be mad or that it'd be really awkward when we saw each other, but it wasn't. I guess I really owe Jamie on that one. Suddenly getting a mischievous idea, Jude sneakily stole something from the pocket of the guy she was walking with. He didn't seem to notice and they kept walking.

They finally reached the well-used station wagon and Jude disengaged herself from her best friend and boyfriend. Boyfriend. She tasted the word in her mouth, still getting used to it as one of the many titles for her oldest friend.

Jamie dug around in his pockets, looking around for his keys. It took him a while to notice his smirking girlfriend, but eventually he gave up his search and turned to her.

"Jude-"

"Looking for these?" she taunted as she swung the keys in front of his face.

"No, we're just standing outside of my car in the middle of the parking lot after school because I'm looking for some Chapstick. Of course I was looking for my keys." He held out his hand, palm up, the universal gesture for "hand it over." When she didn't give them up after a bit, he lunged for the pieces of shiny metal that she still had in her possession. She jumped out of the way of the attack and sprinted around to the other side of the car, keys clasped securely behind her back. Jamie gathered himself and turned to face the thief.

"Come on, Jude, give me the keys."

"Please, Jamie, you promised! And I've been doing so well, thanks to your wonderful instructions."

Jamie tried to hold back a smile. "First of all, I never promised anything. And if you think you've been doing really well so far, I can't imagine how you thought you were doing when we first started. But the flattery might get you somewhere."

"Please, Jamie?" Jude whined. She stuck out her bottom lip and titled her head so her chin was down and she was looking up at him. The whole charade was so uncharacteristic of Jude that Jamie had to laugh and concede to her plea.

The couple got in the car and slammed the doors shut, Jude on the driver's side and Jamie the passenger's. She flicked through the keys until she found the correct one and moved her hand to shove it into the ignition. Jamie watched and shot his hand out, grabbing her arm and halting its progress.

"Forgetting something?"

Jude just stared at him. Jamie sighed.

"Seat belt."

Jude reached over her shoulder and grabbed the belt, pulling it across her body and securing it firmly. She went for the ignition with the key, but once again Jamie stopped her.

"Seat position?"

Jude reached down and pulled the bar up to scoot her seat forward since Jamie was several inches taller than her. Satisfied with the new position, she tried to start the car again but was soon halted.

"Mirrors?"

Rolling her eyes, Jude checked her rearview mirrors and adjusted them properly so that she could actually see out of them. Completely determined that the key was actually going to reach the ignition this time, Jude guided her hand and was within inches of reaching her goal when Jamie's hand came out of nowhere again to stop her. Giving a large, frustrated sigh, Jude turned and glared at Jamie. He just smiled back at her.

"Kiss?"

Jude laughed at this and leaned over the counsel towards her boyfriend. However, her lips bypassed his and continued until they were hovering near his ear.

"I'm guessing I have to do this one if I want to get to G Major on time then?" she whispered seductively in the voice that every girl knows how to use against guys.

Jamie simply nodded his head, not trusting himself to speak with a steady voice. Jude laughed again and brought her head around until she could see into his eyes before they closed. She leaned in and gave Jamie a slow, soft, sweet kiss that was meant to torture the recipient. Jamie's eyes were still closed as Jude slowly drew her head back. She watched him for a second, then scooted back to a comfortable position and started the car like nothing happened.

Jamie's eyes popped open and Jude grinned devilishly at him.

"What?" Jamie inquired, not sure if he really wanted the answer.

"I feel the need...the need for speed!" she shouted as she slammed her foot on the gas pedal and peeled out of the parking lot with a horrified Jamie beside her.

Jude pulled into G Major's parking lot and killed the engine. She looked over at Jamie, whose white knuckles were still gripping the dashboard, even after she had come to a complete stop and parked.

"Oh, come on, Andrews, I'm not that bad."

"Funny thing is, I seriously think you are."

Jude whacked him on the shoulder, still undecided whether she actually wanted it to hurt or not. "You've been giving me lessons for the past few weeks. I have to be better. And has no one ever told you that you're supposed to lie to your girlfriend about specific things, like when she asks if she looks fat in something you always say no, even if she does? 'Cause this is one of those specific situations."

Jamie just looked at Jude while he rubbed his shoulder, trying to decide whether or not she meant for it to hurt.

"Whatever, Jamie, I gotta get to work. I am a famous rockstar now, you know, and I have to do famous rockstar things." She removed the keys and tossed them into Jamie's lap. "I'll call you later, okay?"

"Yep."

Jude had opened the door and hopped out of the car before he could say anything more. Jamie sighed and opened his own car door. He got out and walked around the car to the driver's side, where he got in and settled himself in the spot that Jude had just vacated.

Jude had gone about ten steps before she stopped dead in her steps and began to backtrack to Jamie's car. He was struggling to get the key into the ignition when the door was opened and Jude grabbed him and pulled him out. Before he could figure out what was happening Jude had captured his lips with hers and started a serious make-out session, ironically enough in the parking lot of where she worked. After a few minutes Jude pulled away, turned on her heel, and strutted towards the doors of G Major. Jamie just stared at her retreating form, trying to control his thoughts and his hormones.

Feeling his eyes on her back, Jude twirled around to see Jamie's goofy grin.

"See what happens when you don't wear your seat belt, Andrews?"

"Jude. Jude? Jude!" Tommy shouted, exasperated that his protégé was asleep at work. Again.

Jude, obviously still asleep, mumbled something incoherent and swatted at the invisible hand that was trying to wake her from her slumber. Her head was resting on the open notebook that she had been working in. The pen was still limply clasped in her left hand, waiting to transmit in poor penmanship the words from her head onto paper that would eventually be emitted in her beautiful voice for all of the world to hear, to contemplate, to judge, and to criticize.

The hand wasn't so imaginary anymore. Tommy reached out and began to gently shake Jude, trying to coax her to wake up while not pissing her off at the same time. He finally gave up after a couple of minutes and began digging around in a pile of CD's. Finding what he wanted, Tommy walked over to the CD player and inserted the shiny disc. Smiling to himself and knowing from experience that he was going to deeply regret it later, Tommy pushed play.

You just can't take the me out of me
Cuz that's what I need the world to see
You just can't take the me out of me
Oh there's no one else I'd rather be

As the upbeat music blared from the speakers, Jude jumped from her seat, eyes big and wild. The pen flew across the room, hit the glass to the recording studio, and fell to the floor. Her right hand slammed into the soundboard, causing her to wince in pain, but not as badly as she used to. The pain wasn't as bad as it used to be, partly because her hand had healed a little bit, partly because she was used to banging it by now, but mostly because she was too tired to care.

Later came only seconds later for Tommy. Seeing Jude's face as her hand crashed into yet another hard and solid object, Tommy regretted his decision. But he knew he would also pretend to regret the retribution Jude was about to give him while secretly cherishing it. It made it feel like old times when there were no worries between the two of them. What's happened? What have I done? What has the world done to us? He turned off the stereo and prepared himself to receive a tongue lashing from a former fiery red head. The fire still existed, but not the red hair. Tommy was still trying to get used to the dramatic change in her appearance, even though he'd had weeks to grow accustomed to it.

Tommy waited, but the air remained untouched by sound vibrations from Jude's voice box. All that could be heard was the breathing of the two people in the room, one steady, one working to recapture control.

He kept waiting, but still nothing came. This worried Tommy. Jude had been falling asleep a lot recently in the studio. The last few times Tommy had the brilliant idea to blast a song from the stereo to wake her up. Jude used to spring up like a mad woman from wherever she had fallen into her slumber and berate him for being a jerk and whatever else she felt like complaining about him. It was all in good humor, or at least Tommy hoped, and they would get over it quickly and get back to work.

The ex-BoyzAttacker couldn't stand the silence any longer, it was so uncharacteristic for either of them.

"Jude?" Tommy asked quietly, wondering if she had fallen asleep again.

"Yeah. Sorry, Tommy. I'll get back to work. It won't happen again," Jude responded wearily as she began searching for the pen that had gotten to be an F-14 for a few seconds. Finding her prey, Jude slumped back into her seat and picked up the notebook, going over the last things she had written down in her craggy, messy, and unreadable to everyone else left-handed handwriting.

He was speechless. Jude didn't notice, of course, but Tommy just stood there, immobile, for at least a minute before he was able to collect his thoughts. Where did Jude go? She hadn't yelled or thrown a tantrum or fit of any kind. She just sat there. Defeated. The fire was out. Where is it? Who or what put it out? Damnit, what happened! Someone needs to get it going again or we're in trouble. This album is in trouble. I'm in trouble. She's in trouble.

The last thought slammed into Tommy like an 18-wheeler. He forced his eyes to focus on the figure before him and study it, really study it. He noticed the neglected hair, the dark circles under her eyes, the poor state of her fingernails, the completely mismatched clothes, and the way the clothes were too loose on her body. Jude had always been skinny, but this was too skinny. Even Tommy could tell that. But what he noticed most were her eyes. They were blank. Drained. Empty. Dead. Tommy had never seen them like this before, and it scared the shit out of him.

Tommy squeezed his eyes shut as the pounding started in his head, which always signaled the beginning of some serious thinking. He sighed and started going over in his head the past weeks since Jude had returned and learned the shocking news about her mother. A lot had happened to Jude in just the last several months, more than any girl her age should have to handle, let alone with millions of other people reading about it in the tabloids, too. She became a famous rockstar, and that in itself is enough to make a person go insane with all of the pressure and gossip and so on. Add to that the fact that she was a beautiful and talented new celebrity with the entire world watching and waiting for her to make a mistake, drama was inevitable.

There was the huge Shay and Eden ordeal on her birthday, and then Tommy helped add to that mess that had become her emotional state in one night. He skipped that section of history fairly quickly, not wanting to dwell on everything that had happened. No one had thought it could get any worse than having your boyfriend tell you on your sixteenth birthday that he had been cheating on you with your nemesis, a Barbie and wannabe Britney Spears that couldn't even sing. Tommy smiled as he remembered Music Helps and Eden's pathetic attempt to sing Jude's song after she bailed for a still unknown reason.

But apparently it could get worse, and did. Jude caught her dad cheating, the one guy she thought she could trust in the world, her hero, her rock, her daddy. It devastated her, and she did what any girl would've done. She wrote a song about it and sang it, live, on television to millions of people. It had taken Tommy a while to figure that one out. He still couldn't believe how conceited he had been, thinking the song had been about him. But that only caused him to admit her true gift as a songwriter, being able to write a song that could fit to so many scenarios. That's why people loved her music; she put emotion into words and music and shared it with people who could relate to it.

Tommy dragged himself away from thinking about Jude's music, however much he enjoyed it. There were problems with her friends, constantly, but that seemed to have worked itself out for now. Jamie, Jude, and Kat were still best friends, even though Jude and Jamie were dating, and none of them hated each other. Kat had supposedly forgiven all and they were fine. At least, that's what Tommy had been able to figure out.

The Harrison family was a completely different matter all together. Sadie and Jude had managed to get over their major differences and actually be sisters, so they were closer than ever now. Tommy still wasn't sure how Jude felt about the bomb that her mom had dropped on her. Learning that your parents would be having another little brother or sister even though they divorced was definitely the cherry on top. Jude didn't talk about it much, but she seemed okay about it. Even though he and Jude were friends again, she didn't confide in him like she used to. She still did occasionally, but it usually wasn't about anything that serious. She'd never mentioned her dad.

A conversation he had with Sadie a little while ago came to Tommy's mind. She had mentioned that her mom was having the worse morning sickness ever, except that it was always in the middle of the night. Since Stuart wasn't around and Sadie was living on the other side of town in her dorm for college, Jude was the one to get up and take care of her mom. Jude herself hadn't said a word about it and she never complained about it, just accepted it. Also, Victoria had to get a new job because she couldn't handle her current one with her pregnancy. She now worked from the early afternoon until evening, which was when she felt the best. Then she was up all night being sick and she slept in the mornings. As a result, Jude was the one to cook dinner, do laundry, and clean the house. Thinking about it, Tommy realized that Jude had to deal with school, friends, a boyfriend, family, her home life, and work here at G Major. Then there were those dumb tabloids, always making stuff up when they felt that things got a little too boring in a famous person's life. They were annoying and could ruin anybody's day, especially when someone was already down.

There was all of that in Jude's life, and he hadn't even gotten into what was going on at G Major. Simply put, she hadn't produced a hit single for the label yet and they'd only done two songs since she had returned from her tour, which ended weeks ago. At first Tommy blamed most of it on the fact that she couldn't play guitar because of her injured hand. Since she couldn't play, she wrote lyrics, or at least he thought that's what she'd been doing for the past weeks. But after thinking about it, Tommy realized that she hardly had anything to show him these days. He always figured that as soon as the doctor okayed the use of her right hand again, things would be back to normal and she'd start turning out songs left and right. That was supposed to be in about two weeks if he remembered correctly. Tommy had never really understood all of the things that were wrong with her hand, just some stuff involving damaged muscle tissue that needed a long time to heal completely before being used again. All he knew was that she couldn't play her damn guitar.

Tommy mentally slammed his head into a hard brick wall at least fifty times. How could he have been so stupid, so selfish, so...oblivious. Jude had been going through all of this and he hadn't noticed it. Did he not care as much about her as he thought he did? Was he too preoccupied with his own life to even acknowledge it? Or had Jude just become better at hiding things? It doesn't matter, Tommy finally decided. This is how it is now, and I need to do something. But what? What the hell can I do to make things better for her? Most of the time I just end up making them worse.

It took a while, but Tommy had finally concluded what was wrong with Jude.

The fire is out of fuel.

Thinking back to what he had learned in middle school science before the whole BoyzAttack escapade, Tommy realized that Jude was a fire, obviously. Fire requires three things: heat, oxygen, and fuel. Jude was simply out of fuel and needed to be replenished. The only problem was, he wasn't quite sure how to do that. Tommy had no idea what Jude needed, for once. That wasn't completely true, though. He could think of one immediate thing.

Jude had begun to nod off again and Tommy gently tapped her shoulder to revive her. She turned and looked at Tommy, eyes still blank. But Tommy realized that they weren't exactly blank, just dormant. They were exhausted.

He spoke quietly, but kindly and firmly to the blonde staring at him. "Go home, Jude. Get some sleep. Don't come back until you're sure you have enough energy to actually work. 'Cause when you do come back, you're going to be working ten times as hard because your album is way behind. Don't worry about Georgia or Darius or anyone else, just go home and sleep. You need it."

Jude let out a visible sigh of relief and seemed to relax. She leaned her forehead against Tommy's, that simple gesture saying it all. Without a single word or protestation, Jude grabbed her stuff and left G Major, already dreaming of the bliss that was waiting for her in her bed at home.