A.N - I think I'm going to have to dedicate this one to Emily. One of my best friends and a faithful reader. This is for you Em, hoping you will come back online soon and ease me away from my boredom. You said goodbye with no more than a 'ding-a-ling'. I miss you.

Thank you to everyone who read and reviewed the last chapter, and for bearing with me. There's more plot now. Aren't you happy? :)

Eight

And so I bottled it up and kept the words to myself,
And let the anger collect for a better day.
When the words are aged,
The war is waged,
And you'll watch me blow.
-- Elliot Minor

Tommy Quincy was getting so tired of the clicking whirs of cameras and the bright flashes of privacy invasion. He knew that winning this Instant Star gig came with overbearing, pushy managers and paparazzi willing to do anything for a scoop. But it had only gotten unbearably annoying following his press conference about Jude. Which had only brought her down with him.

Tommy groaned, letting his head fall into his hands as he did so and resisting the urge to smack it against the expensive studio equipment. He was such a bad boyfriend.

"You okay?" The object of his thoughts walked into his line of vision, guitar in her hand and with a pen stuck haphazardly behind her ear.

"Not really," he admitted, cocking his head as he took her in. After a pause, he held open his arms and invited her towards him. "Come here."

Smiling, she happily wrapped her arms around his neck and curled into his lap before kissing the corner of his mouth. "So," she drawled out the word immaturely, making it last several syllables. "What's wrong?"

Tommy sighed as a brief, sarcastic laugh escaped him tiredly. "What isn't?"

Jude frowned in agreement, her fingers trailing the veins in his arms, deep in thought. In response, Tommy tightened his grip slightly before reaching up to play with the straightened lock of hair that had escaped the confines of Jude's bobble.

"Do you think I should dye it blonde?"

He didn't answer immediately. Instead, he twisted the scarlet lock around his finger, staring at the intense colour and trying to imagine it the colour that she wanted it.

"I think your hair would look great whatever the colour," he insisted, making sure to cover all ground first of all. "But blonde would bring out your eyes more."

She smiled at the comment and, when inspiration quickly struck, the pen was out from behind her ear and she scratched out the words spark and flame on her hand, the dark inky blue harsh against her pale skin.

Tommy's eyebrow rose slowly, pushing for an answer that was never given. His reply was a sly smile and a quick kiss before he found his arms empty.

"How about we write that song you told me about?" Jude asked.

Smirking, Tommy realised. And nodded his head.

"Give me a pen," he stole Jude's, winking at her outraged look, and sat at the piano, lifting the lid and smoothing his fingers over the ivory keys before beginning to experiment with chords. He felt Jude's presence behind him as she smoothed sheets of blank manuscript paper down onto the stand and scrawled in her messy, songwriter penmanship the three words he'd messaged to her last night.

Love to Burn.

They'd barely begun before the studio door was opened carefully by a man who cared about the expense, should he break it, and, in the next moment, Darius Mills stood surveying the scene he'd walked in on.

His two instant stars sat on the piano stool, hands' twisting over each other's in order to push their version of the tune forward whilst the other crossed out and re-wrote the manuscript. Tommy had a smudge of red on his cheek – lipstick, probably – and a small heart drawn onto his hand. Jude had a small 'T' drawn onto her cheek, close to the side of her mouth, in what was obviously her eyeliner. He rolled his eyes.

"Well," he began. "As long as you're doing something productive, I suppose I can't complain." He looked pointedly at Jude's exposed stomach, her boyfriend having pushed up her shirt during an earlier make-out session.

Blushing, Jude covered the exposed skin and nodded hurriedly. "Yep," she insisted. "New song, almost done."

Tommy remained silent, arms coming around his girlfriend as he glared at the man who had plans to effectively whore Jude out for music sales. His meeting yesterday with Sadie had informed him of Darius' plans to get Jude onto the cover of numerous magazines in revealing clothing – an effort to appeal to her male market. Well, it wasn't going to happen.

"Have either of you checked the paper this morning?" Darius ignored the hostility that was coming off of his male winner in waves and instead waved the thick, folded wad of paper in the air. "Album chart."

His two stars looked at each other warily and Darius smirked at the couple.

"I'll leave it here," he informed them. "It's up to you if you want to know who's number one."

When they were alone once more, Jude twisted in her boyfriend's grip, smiling up at him excitedly.

"We're in the charts, Tommy!" He chuckled at her enthusiasm. "How cool is that?"

"Yeah, but one of us is better than the other." He reminded her. "Do you want to know who?"

Her smile faltered as her eyes darted from the newspaper to her boyfriend, frantically and never for more then a second until her eyes locked with the dark brown ones of one Tommy Quincy.

"Nah," she giggled, kissing him. "I'm good."

Smiling, Tommy found his hands cradling Jude's hips as he kissed her properly. "Good. I don't want to know either."

Just as he was about to push the paper away from them and onto the floor where, hopefully, someone could walk all over it to make the writing illegible, the studio door opened again, and in walked Sadie Harrison. Tommy groaned, his forehead falling to rest against Jude's in annoyance.

"Oh, good," Sadie said, ignoring the public display of affection her little sister was wrapped up in. "You guys have the paper. Have you seen the front cover?"

"No," surprisingly, it was Jude who spoke up, and not Tommy as it had been before. "And we don't care either. Sadie, can't you just go? You know we get no privacy anywhere else."

"Jude, I think you're going to want to see this." She glanced over at the man her sister was with. "You too, Tommy."

Sceptically, Tommy held his hand out for the offending newspaper and instantly flipped to the front cover, not bothering to look at the chart.

QUINCY'S QUEST FOR LOVE

The headline screamed at him, coupled with photos from Hunter's visit to the studio. They showed the progression of that day, the fun, carefree mood prior to Hunter's arrival, his comforting her and his hand being snatched away. Coupled with it was an article enlightening the world to his childhood of neglect that he didn't care to read. He'd lived through it.

Jude snatched the paper out of his hand quickly. "What?" She asked, scared. "What have they said?" She took in the photos, the headline and the opening sentence before she set the paper down, knowing he didn't want anyone knowing about this. "Tommy," she whispered, clutching his hand in support. "Are you okay?"

"I will be." His voice was harsh, rugged and it surprised her. "Just …"

A short growl escaped him in his anger and he wadded up the paper into a ball before throwing at the expensive equipment that remained unharmed due to the mediocrity of the impact.

Sadie left the studio silently, leaving the angry man to her sister whom she was sure could calm him down.

"Tommy," Jude forced his head up to look at him. "It'll be alright, really. It's just another member of the paparazzi wanting to mess with you. To wind you up."

"How did he find out?" It seemed more like Tommy was talking to himself than his girlfriend. "I tried so hard for no one to find that out."

Jude said nothing, only ran her hand up and down his arm in a comforting gesture. "I'm sorry."

"Aargh!" This time, the shout was punctuated with his fingers curling and closing into a fist before it was pushed into a nearby sound system. Jude's eyes instantly widened, her mouth falling open to form a small 'o' of surprise.

"Tommy," she began. "You're going to get in trouble for that."

"I don't care." He insisted, pushing the scarlet locks away from her face as he cupped her cheek and gripped her hand. "I don't." There was a pause as the pair looked at each other. "Run away with me?"

Her azure eyes widened again. "Tommy, I –"

"Please." His eyes were wide, pleading. "We can do it. Just to … get away. Away from the press, away from the studio. Away from all of this." He kissed her softly. "Just you and me. What do you say?"

Jude nodded quickly and laughed as he hugged her happily. "And, hey," she said happily. "We can see what I'd look like with that blonde hair."