A/N: WHATS CRACKIN YALL! haha, I'm a very enthused writer today since I just wrote another chapter, and hopefully I'll write more before the day is over. I'm starting to hit my stride and really get things moving here, and I think this chapter will make most people happy. THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO READ AND REVIEWED! PLEASE KEEP DOING SO!
The ride to the studio was in a comfortable silence, something that was so rare in their family now. Jess just kept her earbuds in, listening to music, trying to keep herself cool and collected.
There's nothing wrong with me...I am strong...He won't break me down...This won't control me... Like in Buffy...I'm strong like an Amazon...
Ever since Jess had started her sessions with her therapist, one of the important things she had told her to do was try to keep her mind at a level of clarity. To keep calm in most situations, and to replay encouraging thoughts and phrases in her mind daily. At first, Jess was all about the eye rolling and thinking it was a ridiculous way of going about something so traumatic. But as she had thought about it more, the more she had taken to doing this.
Jess entered the studio and what she had seen had surprised her.
"Jess Harrison Quincy! Get your ass over here and give me a hug!" Sarah yelled from across the room. Tommy and Jude sent their niece a scolding glare which immediately made her settle down.
Jess smiled softly at her and hugged her. "Hey, I didn't know you were coming to Manhattan,"
"Yeah, I thought it'd be a surprise since the movie premiere is this week. Mom and Dad are coming out tomorrow but I wanted to come early," Sarah added as they walked into Jess's assigned studio arm in arm.
Jude watched the two from where she was burping Derek and she had a look of hope in her eyes. She knew her daughter was going to be ok, just as long as she kept doing what it was she was doing and staying around the people who can keep her in a positive attitude she'll be ok. Jude knew that every once in a while she's not going to be happy and going to have to spill what's on her mind and in her heart, but she knew that was normal. Tommy looked over at Jude and smiled, he could tell just by the way her eyes were shining in the light what she was thinking.
"So, what are you wearing for the premiere?" Sarah asked grabbing a bag of gummy bears out of her messenger bag.
"Oh, just a simple red dress that ties around the neck. Nothing too fancy. What about you?" Jess asked grabbing a green gummy bear.
"Eh, same, but blue. Don't get me wrong, I like to get all dolled up, but my mom is starting to suck the fun out of dress shopping," Sarah said with a laugh as she took a drink from her water bottle.
"Yeah..." Jess said sort of drifting off.
"What about you? Got a date for this thing?" Sarah asked.
"Nope, goin' solo. Dating is just...it's not something I'm really thinking about right now," Jess added grabbing a sobe out of the mini fridge.
"Yeah, I actually have a guy friend of mine coming with me to the premiere," Jess just nodded at the new information, she had tried to keep her mind away from those thoughts. Especially with how horrible it already was that she would be seeing Tanner there, which had only been the cherry on the plaguing and haunting memory sundae.
"Oh, I'm sorry Jess. Forget I said anything, it was-"
"It's alright Sare, its totally cool. Just because of my current, yeah, just don't worry about it," Jess said keeping her inner cool and repeating her words of personal encouragement to herself in her mind.
"Knock knock," said a voice from the doorway.
"Why are you here?" Sarah asked before Jess had a chance to get any sort of sound ready to leave her mouth.
"Well, Dave decided that he wanted us all to meet in Manhattan and then catch a flight together to Californian tonight for the premiere," he said.
"You better not be making this up Tanner. Aunt Jude! Uncle Tommy!" Sarah shouted leaving the studio room to go find her aunt and uncle, leaving Tanner alone with Jess.
Jess kept her eyes on the soundboard, fiddling with the buttons when Tanner grabbed one of the swivel chairs and sat down in it about a foot away from Jess.
"So, how are you?" Tanner asked keeping his eyes down, trying not to get into any eye contact.
"Well, I would say good. But I'd be lying, wouldn't I?" Jess said looking at Tanner, who only gave her a sympathetic glance. "I'm doing better."
"That's good, I've just been, you know, busy. Haven't really had any time to myself," Tanner said sliding his hand across the soundboard.
"I'm seeing a therapist now. Every Monday for an hour," Jess mentioned, finally letting the big headphones rest around her neck.
"That's pretty good. Does it help?"
"What are we doing here Hudson?" Jess asked, trying to cut the crap.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean this, us, this fake awkward exchange of dialogue we were having. What is this? You come back here and expect that we can just talk like nothing happened!" Jess exclaimed standing up from her chair.
"Whoa whoa whoa, Jess, calm down," Tanner said trying to get Jess to lower her voice.
"Don't tell me to calm down! I told you I wanted to be alone so just let me be!" Jess yelled stepping away from Tanner.
"You think it's easy for me to do that? I love you Jess, what happened made me feel sick to stomach. I nearly cracked my hands to the point of no use punching a brick wall as hard as I could trying to get the emotion I felt when I found out, out of me. Truth was it only made it worse. I only wanted to help you try to get through this. And don't yell and blame me for trying being civil to you!" Tanner remarked.
"You think you had it hard! That's the biggest load of bullshit I've ever heard! You weren't being shoved down into a shitty couch so hard where you could feel each spring dig into your back with each time Ethan held me down and ignored any noise I made. You didn't have a shirt shoved into your mouth, gagging you! And you want to know what hurt the most of it all? Is that I went there wanting that only to realize that I could never hurt you even if I tried. But by then it was too late. The tequila was gone, Ethan was out of control. And I got what I fucking deserved," Jess had tears streaming down her face as she pushed past Tanner and walked out of the studio and to the back alley of the recording studio.Tanner breathed in long and slow, ripped the door open and shoved it closed as he stamped his way to the alley.
"I know it was hard on you, ok? You don't need to shove it down my throat to prove it to me. First off, don't ever say you deserved what happened! You were hurt, you were drunk, and you wanted to make me feel as bad as you do, I get it! Alright?" Tanner was standing in the middle of the alleyway in front of a sitting Jess, "I get that I deserve to be just as hurt! I am stupid and pathetic and should have just taken that step with you that we both were ready to take. I was scared out of my mind ok? I didn't want to hurt you! But damn it Jess, it hurt so much that you had to go through all of this just because of me being a coward! I wanted to make it up to you, I wanted to help you! And it hurt ten times more that I couldn't,"
Jess looked at the ground and sighed. She wasn't sure what to say after that big statement. Jess looked up at Tanner, sighed again, and then got up off the ground. "I'm sorry that you couldn't help when you wanted to, but I wasn't ready to have your help. I didn't want any help because then it would mean that something was wrong. I wasn't ready to accept that yet. It wasn't until just, last week that I allowed myself to ask for help. Tanner, I was just starting to get things back to normal, to really deal with this and start to heal, and then you walked through the door. And I was sent into a tailspin. I know you kind of have to be here for the premiere, but you should have waited until I called until you showed up here,".
"And how long would that have been! Six months? A year! I can't wait that long for you to want me back in your life! I need to know if I still exist for you," Tanner added.
"You're giving me an ultimatum! That's just wonderful, Hudson. It really is. I get heart broken and raped, and you want to know if I still love you-"
"It's not like that. I want to know if we're really over, Jess. I want to know if I'm wasting my time here hoping that we can still make it work, tell me. Am I wasting energy on a lost cause?" Tanner asked.
"I don't know. Are you ready to take this seriously?"
"I always have. I was just scared because I've never made it this far. So are we-"
"No, we're not over, I just. Now is not the time for us. Not yet, I need time," Jess said looking down.
"Hey, I'm always here Quincy, just say the word and I'll be at your door waiting to be let in,"
"Like in Buffy!" Jess said, letting her little kid out.
"What?" Tanner said with a confused smile.
"Sorry, part of this whole lazy healing thing is watching old movies and tv shows. My mom has every season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Gilmore Girls, and in Buffy vampires have to-"
"No, I understood the reference, it was just so random that made it hard to process," Tanner added.
"Sorry, but, I gotta get back into the studio. Songs gotta be written, an album needs to be released," Jess said turning to walk inside. When her hand latched onto the door knob, Tanner softly grabbed her wrist.
"We should have lunch some time, just us, catch up on everything," Tanner suggested.
"Yeah," Jess smiled at him and then turned the door knob, "We should,".
Tommy was sitting in his office, going through papers and marking in numbers. It was only about three days until the premiere, and he was actually excited about it. Jude and Tommy both decided against having advanced screenings of the movie, that way nothing was spilled, no early press articles, nothing. Tommy looked up from the stack of papers and saw a picture of Jude and Jess and him before Derek was born. He smiled and looked up to see Jude standing in the doorway, with a small smile.
"Hey," Jude said walking over to the couch and lying down on it.
"Mmm, how are things out there?" Tommy asked walking over towards Jude and leaning his back against the couch.
"Well the Jenner explosion had erupted in the alleyway. I think things ended on a positive note since Jess walked in with a general good air around her. Tanner has yet to come inside, and I believe I'm do for my dosage of Quincy lips," Jude said as Tommy leaned down and gave her a soft slow kiss. "Mmm, I can see clearly now...the rain is gone..."
"You should do stand-up,"
"Now that's what I thought, but I don't think everyone would understand my comical inspiration," Jude commented grabbing hold of Tommy's hand.
"Derek with..."
"Jess and Sarah, they wanted to hang with him for a bit. Give me a break,"
"Doesn't sound bad,"
"I'm a little scared for this movie, babe. I mean, we're gonna be fully exposed," Jude said just reveling in the comfort of the couch.
"Now you realize this. Too late girl, the premiere is in 3 days," Tommy said softly.
"Everyone's gonna see how it all started, how everything played out...everything," Jude still kept hold of Tommy's hand.
"It's our story, the story that everyone wants to know even though it's been nearly twenty years since it started,"
"I just, it's weird ya know? I feel like in just a matter of days we'll be reliving all of what we went through. I mean, the instant attraction, you seeing me with Shay, the first kiss-"
"I get it, we'll be seeing everything," Tommy remarked.
"Wait a sec, do we even know what it's rated?"
"It's PG-13. They were thinking about rating it R, but they knew that there was no strong graphic anything, so they didn't. The most dramatic scene was what happened after the concert," Tommy leaned his head back and looked up at Jude's eyes.
"I'm so scared about that scene. People are going to finally know the real truth behind why we had to reschedule,"
"It's going to be fine. I heard that the scene was very well done, they didn't over do it and only showed what was necessary,"
"So, we're going tomorrow. The day after, our final interview. And then it's the big night,"
"Yep, our big night. It's going to be great, and if you feel uncomfortable or anything-"
"You'll be there holding my hand, right?" Jude asked.
"Always,"
"Then I'll be fine," Jude gave Tommy a kiss on the cheek. "Gotta get back to work,"
"I'll see you in a few,"
"Yep, luv ya,"
"Luv ya,"
"Do ya like that little Der Der?" Sarah exclaimed tickling Derek and giving him raspberry kisses on his cheek.
"Aww, you're just so adorable aren't you!" Jess watched her little brother laugh continuously.
"Alright, we're done. Time to take you back to your parents little guy," Sarah said grabbing Derek as she led the way to Tommy's office.
"Knock knock," Jess said pushing the door open, only to see her dad sleeping on his office couch. "Hmm, wonder what must've worn him out,"
"Oh please," Sarah rolled her eyes and gave Jess a look.
"What?" Jess asked obliviously.
"You know!" And Sarah wiggled her eyebrows, nodded, and mouthed 'oh yeah'.
"Eww! Dude! Seriously! That's my mom and dad, YOUR aunt and uncle you're talking about!"
Sarah just laughed at her own crude remark. Jude was just coming out of the hallway when she saw the two girls, her daughter rolling her eyes at Sarah, and Sarah just laughing hysterically. Jude walked up behind the two and tapped both their shoulders.
"Hey girls, what's so funny?" Jude asked eagerly wanting to be part of the laughter.
"Umm, nothing, Aunt Jude. Here's Derek, I'm just," Sarah started to turn beet red and had immediately stopped laughing, "I'm just going to accompany Jess in the studio!"
"Do I want to know?" Jude asked as Sarah skittered to the studio.
"Nope, you really don't," Jess replied with a smile as she followed Sarah.
Jude watched her daughter walk away with a smile on her face for once. It warmed up a part of Jude, reassuring her that her daughter will make it through this. Jude grinned at Derek as she lightly bounced him on her hip and walked the other way to the other studios to make sure everything was going the way it should.
Later that night, the Harrison-Quincy's, Tanner, Rebecca, Sarah, and the rest of the main cast boarded the airplane and had a safe comfortable flight to Hollywood, CA.
Derek slept through the whole plane ride, as did Jude. Jess and Sarah slept through half of the trip, spending the other half eating gummy worms and potato chips while gossiping. Tanner watched Jess out of the corner of his eye. He spotted the ring he had given her on her right hand instead of her left. He smiled to himself at the thought of her still thinking about him, not in a conceited way, more of in a grateful way. Rebecca noticed this and through a dorito at him.
"Hey! Watch it!" Tanner started to dust off the imaginary dorito debris from his shirt.
"Oh shut up and go talk to her," Rebecca stuffed another dorito in her mouth.
"Talk to who?" Tanner's attempt at playing dumb was futile.
"Ok, off camera, you suck at acting. Jess, dumb ass. Go talk to her," Rebecca said, trying to direct him with a nod of her head.
"No. I'll talk to her when the time is right. She's enjoying herself right now. I'll just let her be," Tanner added leaning back in his chair.
